In the early morning hours of Independence Day 2020, I’ll be standing there, Old Glory in hand, wondering not which way is up, but how and when up became down.
If ever there was a nation in distress, it is the United States of America in 2020.
If ever there was a time when the U.S. flag should be displayed upside down as a signal of that distress, the time is now.
Over the next couple of days, my family and I will need to make two decisions.
Trump, his cronies and enablers want us to believe “Antifa” has been causing all the damage since George Floyd’s death. Yeah, that’s bullshit.
If there were Old North Churches in cities across the United States, their steeples would have shone brilliantly over the past fortnight, signaling “One if by land, two if by sea.” But not for British soldiers, as in Paul Revere’s time; this time around, the warnings would have been about an Antifa invasion.
As protests, riots and over-militarized law enforcement responses played out in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a White Minneapolis police officer, alerts flashed out via social media like sparks from a towering oak struck by lightning.
Antifa is bussing in agitators and counter protesters to stir up trouble and start riots, went the fiery bursts from people around the country, including the inept occupant of the Oval Office himself.
Rumor, innuendo and baiting have been ruling social media throughout the ongoing upheaval. People appear to feel they are in the right when decrying violence and property damage by “outside agitators.” They seem to be saying, collectively, “This isn’t anyone from our city. Blame the outside extremists!”
That concerned me, as I wrote last week. It does still.
The “outside agitator” narrative seems intended to distract people from the bigger picture, the cause and effect, the true meaning of what’s really going on. It’s not a new tactic. Google “history of outside agitator” and read some of the results from reliable sources, like this one from The New York Times.
Speaking of news media, they, too, have been rife with reports of “Antifa-led” agitation, counter protesting and violence. There are all kinds of problems with that, but here’s the most basic and obvious:
Donald Trump is a vile human being who needs to be called on his lies, but the path of censorship is seldom traveled without consequence.
I cheered when I first learned Twitter called Donald Trump on misleading Tweets about mail-in voting. About time, I thought.
The man cannot open his mouth or move his fingers without lying, it seems, and people believe the untruths he scatters around like so much shot out of a shell. Say it over and over and over enough times and people will believe it – that seems to be Trump’s strategy for just about everything.
It’s worked well for him so far. Look at how many people he got to vote for him in 2016, people who now are willing to defend him with their lives, literally, by going out in the midst of a plague with no thought of protecting themselves or others from infection. No social distancing. No masks. Nothing but guns and flags, U.S. and Confederate.
So, yeah, I was glad to see Trump’s favorite social media platform rein him in a bit. Finally.
But then, by the next morning, I was thinking about 1984.
The end of Sen. Sanders’ campaign is deeply saddening, but right now we can’t let down the people his movement is meant to help.
As such, I am deeply saddened that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president has come to an end. I’m also deeply saddened by the vitriol and absolutism coming from fellow Berners on social media.
To paraphrase Prince, “never” and “forever” are a mighty long time, people.
Continue reading “Bernie’s my guy…but I’ll never be a Trump enabler.”
It took a threat to something President Donald J. Trump actually values to elicit a response to the novel coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. Hint: it wasn’t the wellbeing of the citizenry.
Could this be the week supporters of President Donald J. Trump finally wake up and see his true colors?
As late as Monday, March 9, Trump was trying to push off the threat of coronavirus, suggesting, for the millionth time, that it’s a “hoax.”
“President Trump in an early morning tweet on Monday accused the ‘Fake News Media’ and Democrats of trying ‘to inflame’ the coronavirus outbreak as the virus spreads globally and across the U.S.,” The Hill reported Monday morning.
Yet, by the end of that day, Trump was behind the podium, announcing his administration’s “response” to the worldwide outbreak of novel coronavirus. It came at the end of the worst day Wall Street has seen in more than a decade.
Continue reading “Trump Blows Off Coronavirus… Until It Threatens Wall Street.”
Run-of-the-mill voters are believing revisionist and bait-and-switch storylines that Trump, his minions, enablers and supporters are spinning. This is what we’re up against.
The guy was buying into Trump Revisionism whole hog, not to mention accepting the kind of bait-and-switch game that’s another of 45’s favorite tactics. Continue reading “Trump Tactics: Revisionism and Bait-and-Switch”
