After the George Floyd incident in Minnesota I stayed fairly quiet. This was within a week of the Ahmaud Arbery video being released. In both cases the media found reason to blame the victims. Floyd was said to have a violent history and drug use. Arbery was on video looking at a construction site. Neither cases are deserving of the death penalty. So after this and the death of Breonna Taylor a woman shot and killed in her home during a raid or as they call it a “no knock search warrant” for drugs that were never found in the residence. Another case was Christian Cooper in Central Park New York. He told a woman she’s supposed to have her dog on a leash. The woman in turn called the cops and said she was being threaten by a black man. He videoed the exchange but what this woman did was a death threat by proxy. This is why “Black Lives Matter” is in the news again.
When protesters say “Black Lives Matter” righwing pundits spin this as meaning only black lives matter and being racist. What it really means is the black lives also matter. Often we seen on the news white spree shooters carried away in handcuffs. We hear about school shooting victims as a major tragedy in middle America. Which it is, however the tragedies in the inner city for decades have been reported matter a factually. When I see George Floyd or Eric Garner I think how would the media react to a white collar criminally with a suit and tie maybe Bernie Madoff gasping, “I can’t breathe”. They would likely say the police have gone too far.
In all honesty I like cops. In my line of work I deal with them daily and we have a good relationship. They get drunk drivers off the road, talk jumpers off bridges and see some heinous shit. I respect good cops. The problem is when good cops enable bad cops by doing nothing and the culture that punishes those that call out their bad cop brothers. There needs to be an evolution from what we have. I don’t have any answers but I know what we have now isn’t working.
Do cop lives matter?
Simply put yes. Just as much as anyone else. On a side note, when I went skydiving I was told there was a chance I could die in a stern video before signing a waiver. That’s what cops do when they sign up. They are on the front line in the line of fire. I’ve heard there’s a mantra “Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six” which basically means its better to mistaking kill someone and be judged in court than be carried by six pall bearers for inaction. This is a dangerous mentality and the policeman’s union backs it up saying their top priority is that they go home to their family at the end of the day. Ideally I want cops to go home at the end of the day but I do not want them taking a chance killing someone because their brother and sisters in arms have their back.
The funny thing I see about the whole “cop lives matter” slogan is not one Republican said it when the Zadroga Bill and the 9-11 first responders bill was being pushed for the heroes of September eleventh that stayed behind risking their lives for others and develop cancer from exposure to chemical inhalation. In fact two Kentucky senators stood in the way while yearly reminding us “never forget” without seeing irony.
All Lives Matter?
This is my favorite though. Someone says “Black Lives Matter” then someone else says, “No All Lives Matter.” Okay let’s go with that premise. I like to believe all lives matter but I read history and I watch the news. Okay I used to watch the news. Under our current system people are dying from lack of health insurance because they ration their insulin. Did their lives matter? How bout the people in Yemen undergoing what the UN calls a genocide from Saudi Arabia do their lives matter? And when the next time a president either Red team or Blue decides to go to wars are the “All Lives Matter” people going to come to the anti war protest? All Lives Matter pardon the pun, has been just a cop out to avoid the issue being expressed.
I will close with this. Let’s make All Lives Matter. I mean everyone. Socialize healthcare so everyone can see a doctor without fear of more debt. End the war of drugs and treat the individuals. Don’t support genocides or wars based on false pretenses. Feed the homeless and get help to those that are suicidal. Also let’s make sure no one is killed because of a bad check or selling “loosies” by cops ever again because those lives mattered!
My earliest memories of politics on the news was the 1988 election. Joe Biden was running in the Democratic primary among Mike Dukakis, Jesse Jackson, Paul Simon, Dick Gephardt, Gary Hart, Pat Schroeder, Al Gore and Joe Biden. What I remember from that race was Paul Simon’s bowtie and him not being the guy with Chevy Chase on VH1. I remember Jesse Jackson’s popularity. There was talk and jokes about Gary Hart sleeping around. This I recall from Mad magazine at the time. Al Gore would drop out early due to lack of name recognition. Mike Dukakis would run a losing campaign to George Bush Sr. It was a slaughter Lee Atwater would orchestrate the demolition of Dukakis’ character ad after ad. Before all this my mother’s favorite Joe Biden was force to drop out.
Joe Biden had done a speech that later came out as plagiarized a speech by a British politician. Also it came back that he lied about much of his past including involvement in the civil rights movement. Also some discrepancies in his educational background. So before the primaries began Joe Biden stepped down from the race. Joe would continue his career in the senate for many years to come. In that time a scandal would come up for a potential supreme court justice. Clarence Thomas was a choice of George Bush for the Supreme Court. Thomas had sexual harassment charges against him. Biden proceeded over the hearing and many complain of his work here. There’s fair criticism to be make. I’m not going to go there. It was a different time.
Fast forward 2003 George Bush Jr. is pushing for a war with Iraq. I’m watching and thinking “why?” Isn’t Bin Laden in Afghanistan? won’t this divert attention from that goal. I never bought the weapons of mass destruction story. Its not the best reasoning to be honest but I watched as France and Germany agreed thank the war was a terrible idea. Being a history major I knew one thing. France and Germany historically don’t agree on anything. Joe Biden didn’t just vote for the Iraq War he enthusiastically supported the war. There were many more Democrats like Biden pushing for the invasion alongside their Republican peers in bipartisan unity. In 2004 we had an election between two candidates in favor of continuing the war and I stayed home the first time since I was legally able to vote. However I probably would’ve voted for Nader again.
So 2007 Joe Biden runs for president again. He runs against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and ten other opponents. I didn’t notice it at the time but the media didn’t handle Kucinich and Gravel equally to the other candidates that were more comfortable with the military industiral complex. Biden would drop out early in the race.
After it was decided who the nominee was Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden made Obama look safe for middle America in a when Fox “news” would regularly dog whistle racist tropes or infer he may be a terrorist. I voted for Obama. Biden was a compromise for me. Like “oh alright”. So they win the election and we have eight years of Obama and Biden. The wars continue, the patriot act quietly expands through the prism program, the NDAA is passed eroding more freedom. Also they don’t replace Scalia immediately giving the Republicans and extra Supreme court pick.
For the 2020 election Joe Biden gives another run at the presidency. On the plus he can claim Whitehouse experience. However on the negative this is not the same Joe we’ve known for decades. This is Muhamad Ali boxing in the eighties past his prime. When confronted on the campaign trail he would tell voters to vote for someone else. In a debate question about how his views on race have evolved he rambled incoherently about how parents should “play the record player so kids could hear words”. That was the red flag for me. This guy should not be the one to face Trump head to head. Out of twenty candidate fifteen I would’ve voted for. some reluctantly. Biden was one of the worst case scenarios with Mike Bloomberg.
The goal became obvious as the slogan “vote blue no matter who became more prevalent. Anyone but Trump was push until the day after the Nevada caucus. Bernie Sanders had officially had a good lead. The media took the gloves off and attacked Bernie with vitriol. Joy Reid asked passionately, “whats the DNC going to do about this?” She would also use a “body language expert” to attack him with pseudoscience. Chris Matthew spoke of a dystopian future that included executions in Central Park if Bernie won.
Joe Biden had all his chips in South Carolina and won it as expected by anyone paying attention. The media declared it “Joementum” as if it was a surprise comeback. Then the night before Super Tuesday all the corporate democrats dropped out and endorsed Joe. Biden would go on to, for all intents and purposes, get the nomination. During this time rape allegations would come out. I don’t know where I stand on the allegation but I am disgusted by the hypocrisy of those that have used such allegations in the past as a political weapon now are finding ways to discredit the victim in ways such as character assassination and gaslighting. In my heart I always felt I was a Democrat but the part left me.
I won’t vote for Joe Biden. His stand on the Iraq War disqualified him long ago. Today watching him speak (no its not a stutter) I know something is wrong. His stand on marijuana is trenched in “gateway drug” mythology from the Reagan era. His willingness to put social security on the table if austerity is pushed from the right makes him useless. Sure people will bring up the Supreme Court and to that I say get a better candidate. At least he’s not Trump, okay well get someone that can get my vote. This entitlement to votes attitude is how we continue to lose.
This isn’t personal for me. Joe Biden has not had an easy life. His biography is often tragic but that doesn’t give him a pass on policies that will affect the lives of millions of people. If the Democratic party continues on this track Donald Trump will be re-elected. When that happens the strategist that failed again will keep their jobs as will the pundits and opinion columnist that are professionally wrong. These millionaires will keep their Trump tax breaks while claiming to be apart of a resistance as they attack the most vulnerable for no bending the knee to the establishment.
So this is my first political post on my site and I promise you it won’t be my last. In college I was a history major and throughout my whole life I’ve paid close attention to politics. Everyone has a different belief system when it comes to this subject that has ruined many a Thanksgiving dinners. Presidents from the past have been elevated to saint status to partisan pushing propaganda. There’s a cult of Reagan but also a cult of Kennedy. The media wants us to divide and worship or respective deities. Ronald Reagan who told the Soviet Union in Germany to “tear down this Wall” and magically it was done according to myth. Of course we don’t talk about his military support of Iran, Iraq, and the Taliban. Great job Gipper. JFK almost brought us to the brink of World War 3 in a dick measuring contest with Nikita Krushev. He also increased our involvement in Vietnam that would lead to all out war after his death.
So I look at politics from a lenses of principle. I don’t want war for the purpose of regime change because that leads to blowback decades from now. Also we have in the past supported dictators over democratically elected leaders for corporate interests. I know this sounds like hippie talk so I’ll be real. As uncool as this is like corporations. If I need clean underwear at three am there’s always Walmart and if I’m drunk at home I can black out and have a flat screen TV delivered to my house in two days thanks to Amazon. I also love the big tech companies even though they have likely tricked me out of my privacy with their terms and conditions. So yea maybe I’m not really fighting the power. I’m content with it all.
So yea that’s the capitalist in me. I’m all for the free market but some aspects off society should not turn a profit. Prison is there to keep criminals out of civil society. Rapists, murderers, money launderers should be locked away. I have no problem with my tax dollars paying for this. I have a problem with these functions of society be traded on the stock exchange by companies finding creative ways to be cost effective and increasing profits through imprisonment based on drug prohibition for an example. I’ll get into that later but using this as a means for more low cost workers to increase marketing shares is in my opinion morally wrong.
Another so called industry that should be not be so is healthcare. I pay health insurance all year long yet for some reason I’m afraid to see a doctor when I’m sick let alone get a check up. Let me repeat, I have health insurance. Last year I got bronchitis and was billed a month later 150. First I know it’s not going to be free, second they still manage to make it a pain in the ass for me to pay my bill by sending me one like its twenty years ago. In the rest of the industrial world you pay your taxes and you go to a doctor and your done. Here if you know someone with a major health issue likely they had to post a GoFundMe to pay their bills. But thanks to this system we got Breaking Bad so there’s a bright side to it all.
Meanwhile the military has hired private contractors like KBR and Blackwater (now under another name) in regime change wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Whenever there’s a war there’s profit and many arms companies buy ads on news channels which is odd because I never went shopping at Raytheon dot com but they aren’t selling anything as much as they are buying influence over the pundits telling us what to think. This also applies to pharmaceutical advertising, which fun fact is only legal in the United States and New Zealand. So moral is I don’t trust news anchors or pundits on corporate media. They are bought and paid for and if you’re curious about who the customers are then watch the commercials. War should be a last resort not a means to increase profits.
So basically this is how I felt all my life. I’m by no means a party loyalist since the democratic party often supports unjust wars and drug prohibition. I’ve voted for Nader, almost Ron Paul (a day too late to register republican), Obama and most reluctantly voted for Clinton only to avoid a Trump presidency. I vowed never again to vote for the lesser of two evils. But I’ll get into that more in anther post.
The reason I started this post was so in the future when people think I’m bias in my opinion they’ll know for sure. I am. I’m not pretending to be neutral while narrowing a conversation and push a narrative. So as the primaries begin next month I will throw my opinion out there more often.