Take That, Assad!

Oy!  Again with the missiles.  Again with the "look at me! Ain't I tough showing dictators how strong I am"

I'm sick of it. Syria isn't a real country anymore, folks.  It hasn't been for several years.  The forces of hereditary dictator Bashar al-Assad can't control large swaths of it. In the "rebel" areas, you can't tell the players without a scorecard... Isis, Al-Qaeda, Iran, and assorted other groups. 

There are a lot of questions to be asked here, the most important which is this: exactly who were we supposed to be helping with a missile strike that cost enough to send 7,628 young Americans to university?  Were we helping the rebels?  That would appear to make sense, right? since they oppose Assad and so do we.  It makes perfect sense until we realize that the groups that oppose Assad also hate the United States.

Were we protecting the innocent?  It hardly seems likely, since the United States, in the person of our Russian stooge in Chief, has blocked civilians fleeing the war in Syria from entering the United States.  Further, we seem think that it is alright to allow civilians to be blown to smithereens by the hundreds with conventional high explosives, yet it is different when chemicals are used.  I don't want to be unpleasant, but except for the manner of death, using chemicals is rather inefficient.

We won't even try with the foolish suggestion that we were protecting Americans, because that is just so much steaming nonsense.

So... just to be clear: we weren't helping Assad, and we weren't helping the rebels groups, and we weren't helping innocent civilians., and we weren't protecting American lies.
/
Hmm.  That only leaves Trump.  Was Trump trying to protect himself from himself ?  Was he trying to be heroic and make people forget that his administration is a shambles?  So people might forget that his son-in-law appears to be the shaper of policy in the White House?  Could it be that Comrade President Trumpsky wants everyone to forget that he and s many of his associates are under criminal investigation by the FBI?

I don't have any answers tonight, but I think that we start to get a pretty clear image from the questions alone.


Peace be with you.

A Colony in A Nation; a review

I will start this review by saying that I was never a particular fan of Chris Hayes.  Why bother?  I had Rachel Maddow to spin me up when it came to smart, cogent, progressive commentary.  That said, I never actively disliked Chris Hayes until his breathless reporting from Ferguson, during the unrest over the shooting death of Michael Brown.  Hayes, and so  many other news-faces, continually (and inaccurately) reporting on the "militarized police", irritated me beyond belief.

I tell you all of this because I want to encourage you all you to read this book.  I don't want you to read it because I am a fan of the author.  I'm not... but, I respect him for his writing on this subject.

Hayes posits simply that visible minorities in the United States don't enjoy all of the benefits of white citizens.  He says (with complete accuracy) that generations of "law & order" have turned our country into a place with an internal colonial system. 

Here is how it works:

In the Nation, people have rights, and among those rights are equal protection under the law; the right to due process, and to be safe in your person, property, papers and effects from unlawful search & seizure (see the 4th amendment to the Constitution).  In the Nation, the words "probable cause" are an important part of due process.  In the Nation, you are assumed to be a decent person unless you prove otherwise.  These things are assumed when your skin is white.

In the colony, where you are most likely to be brown or black, the assumption is that you are probably doing something wrong, or about to do something wrong, or just did something wrong... in the colony, your right to equal protection under the law fades away, and the less affluent you are, the faster your rights disintegrate.   In the Colony, "probable cause" becomes more ephemeral, it becomes a created conduit for suspicion that leads to the continued erosion of your rights.  In the colony there is less law enforcement, but lot more enforcement of order.

Hayes give lots of great examples of the truth of these things.  If you are of the white middle class, you may find some of this disturbing.  If you are black or Latino, you know these thing to be true, especially if you live in an urban area, or you live in a small town where, although you may be in the majority, the town's leadership (and the cops) are overwhelmingly white.  If you are white, and poor, you may realize that you are more colonial than you think, because although you may get a pass in some instances because of your skin color, your treatment under the law changes depending on how much money you control.  You may find that fact particularly galling if you are a Trump voter.

In the Nation, the cops are there to keep the peace and deter crime.  In the Colony, the cops are an army of occupation.  In the Nation the cops are there to help you.  In the Colony, the cops are there to keep you in line.  It the Nation, the cops use discretion when it comes to deciding how to handle small infractions.  In the Colony, your ass is going to jail.  In the Nation, you'll get a ticket, in the Colony you'll get arrested or shot.

Hayes paints some interesting pictures in this well-written piece.  He uses historical and statistical means to make all of his points.  I enjoyed reading this, even though he didn't tell me anything that I didn't know, having grown up in the Colony, right at the edge of the Nation.  He didn't say anything about policing that I didn't know to be true in a great many places.  I wish he had spent less time talking about Ferguson.

Read this.  It will go fast, but you won't be disappointed.  You might even have your eyes opened a bit.

Did You Miss Me?

Hello, friends!

I'm back, and I am so glad.  I have missed writing... and as much as I enjoy communicating with so many of you via Facebook, that particular platform is a poor vehicle for deeper expression.

It seems I still have things to say, so I will say them here.  Some of you who are reading this will, no doubt, be some of my old blogging buddies, and I suppose some new people will show up from time to time as well.  In either case, I am glad to see you!

As for what to expect... it will just be me, Gunfighter: The View From Here... some tales from my suburban life, some funny stories from work, probably lots of railing about politics, and other injustices that I see or perceive.

I know that blogging isn't as popular since the days when I started my first blog in 2006, but I am sure that this will be as good a thing for me now, as it was then.

See you soon!

GF