Saturday, May 30, 2020

Trump’s racist tweet will forever haunt him


"These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!"
- President Trump, responding to pubic disorder after George
Floyd shooting
A sizable portion of Trump’s base is racist and xenophobic. He’s been playing them his entire life on the public stage. His ascension to the presidency would have been impossible without them. Always politically ambitious, Trump gained a following thirty-one years ago with his front page pitch to have the Central Park Jogger suspects executed. He never retracted that vicious charge when the suspects were exonerated. Never has, never will.
He studied for the presidency at the feet of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan who dispensed subtle dog whistles to the base they needed to succeed. Nixon crafted the ‘Southern Strategy in 1968 to funnel white anger over civil rights gains to capture the South…and the White House. Reagan expanded on that playbook, launching his successful 1980 campaign in Neshoba County, MS, site of the 1964 triple Freedom Summer killings, preaching ‘states rights’ to the white Southern majority who absorbed his implicit message of solidarity. Both preached ‘law and order’ without a hint of support or sympathy to the folks left out of that message.
Trump dutifully walked back his dog whistle tweet, saying he didn’t mean it to support shooting down violent protesters; didn’t even know the racist history of his call to lethal violence. But his initial statement recalls his July, 2017, campaign rally before NY police, calling on them to 'not be so nice' to suspects in their charge. Did Derek Chauvin absorb that Trump lesson?
Trump dishonors the presidency and the American people every day in many ways. His response to the George Floyd killing may be his worst.

Lightfoot on wrong foot in criticizing Chief Brown


Although Mayor Lightfoot is understandably disheartened by the violent Memorial Day weekend which saw 49 Chicagoans shot, 10 of whom died. But publicly criticizing new Police Chief David Brown, just six weeks on the job, adds no value to the discussion on reducing the slaughter on Chicago’s streets. Shootings and murders have been rising steadily all year, up 21.9% and 13.6% respectively thru May 24, over two thirds of which not overseen by Brown. A spike over just 3 days is insignificant in the long run. It's the annualized weekly average than never stays down.
What the mayor should acknowledge is that every week, year after year, about 40 folks are shot, ten of whom die. That does not occur because of bad policing. Gangbangers, dope dealers and simply people with a grudge commit their murder and mayhem when police are not around, fleeing the scene before the blue clean-up crew arrives. When you have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of guns in the hands of an equal number of folks utterly shut out of American prosperity, it’s a wonder the casualties are not higher.
The state and federal government must step in to end the madness of virtually unlimited gun distribution and staggering underemployment, a lethal mixture breeding senseless violence. Pandemic most certainly worsens shootings and homicides from both even fewer jobs and diminished criminal justice resources.
Mayor Lightfoot should use a light approach with proven police administrator Brown. He’s battling the most thankless and impossible societal problem imaginable, caused by our sick national governance utterly neglectful of our vast urban wastelands.

Friday, May 29, 2020

One Biden VP contender out


It would not surprise if Sen. Amy Klobuchar was either Joe Biden's leading Veep candidate or already selected. But in light of the Minneapolis and nationwide protests over the George Floyd killing, and her dubious prosecutorial record on racial justice in Minnesota, it's quite likely...SHE GONE'.

Monday, May 25, 2020

Much to mourn on Memorial Day


On Memorial Day it’s appropriate to honor and mourn the 1,350,000 Americans killed in all US wars, roughly divided between combat and non-combat causes. But it’s also appropriate to recognize that arguably all but those killed in WWII were victims of senseless, unnecessary wars, either started by America are foolishly joined in by America for reasons having nothing to do with national security. That makes their loss more senseless and tragic than otherwise considered. It would also be appropriate mourn the loss of the many millions we needlessly killed in those unnecessary wars. We should use Memorial Day to join in efforts to end senseless US wars in eight or more countries in the Middle East and Africa killing innumerable thousands each year…all for nothing except the power, wealth and glory lusted for by the US war party. We should use Memorial Day to end all sanctions that needlessly worsen pandemic in countries we hate.
Instead of squandering trillions on these wars, we should use those trillions to bring aid and comfort to the hundreds of millions whose lives have been devastated by pandemic and war; the former out to the blue, the latter out of the ‘wild blue yonder’.