calimary
calimary's JournalThat's what troubles me.
Well, crap. A LOT of things trouble me today. Hard to count how many! I do wonder how much worse it's gonna get before something's done. That was, if I remember correctly, Ralph Nader's reasoning for getting into it in the 2000 election - even confronting so much concern that he was only going to provide a spoiler for Al Gore's chances against george w. bush. That it would just facilitate worse-comes-to-worst, which would presumably motivate people.
Seems as though the jury's still out on that one. Because we DID have worse-come-to-worst as a result. And what's changed, or improved, really? What's REALLY changed or improved? Yes, we have our first black President. But, it seems, all that did was unleash the wrath of the sick and seedy underbelly of the worst in us. It led to the teabaggers rearing their collective ugly head and all that's come since. The whole CONservative bleat - "I want MY America BAAAAAAAAAAACK..." We all know what America that is, too.
People say this is the last frantic roar of the CONs and those who yearn for the days when blacks could widely be viewed as less than whole people, when women were muzzled and knew "their place" (barefoot and pregnant and relegated to the pink-collar ghetto ONLY), when Latinos were viewed as lesser people with lesser status. Well, if this is the last frantic roar of a dying mindset, it's sure taking a DAMN LONG TIME to pass into the dusty dreary obsolete Troglodyte yesteryear where it belongs. It's the strongest-surviving, most virulent, and most vigorous and defiant endangered species I've ever encountered.
As a woman, I can no longer count how many times I've heard from other women (remarking specifically on the choice issue) some version of "I CANNOT believe we're still fighting this." Or "I thought this was settled DECADES ago!" Or "this is the 21st Century forcryingoutloud!!!" I wonder how damn long we're gonna be mired in this, just in general. Before there's REAL change.
No shit. I'm crying like a baby as I write this.
Maybe it's a combination of emotions - because I feel so horrible about the Trayvon Martin verdict. Thanks, Coyotl, for posting this. URGENTLY needed on a day like this. Something positive and uplifting for a change. Something that proves that sometimes the good guys win.
Yeah, but the problem with that is - WE ALL stand to lose that one.
Even those of us on the side of reality, science, logic, and facts. Those know-nothings threaten to drag us all down into extinction with them. WE will wind up paying for their willful (and distressingly PROUD) ignorance, closed-mindedness, and pigheadedness.
Good point.
I guess the closest we have is the equal sign. But we need something more, I think.
Valid point, dem in texas. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he got in trouble again.
He's been given the proverbial gold star for what he did. It was found not to be criminal at all. He faces no consequences for this act - the jury, and the law too, verified that he did nothing wrong. So what do you suppose his takeaway is, as a result? The system just told him clearly, "hey, pal, NO PROBLEMO! Nothing to see here. No harm, no foul. You're free to go." Do you suppose he sees ANY reason or justification or motivation for amending his ways or maybe even just doing it differently the next time? He got a "get out of jail free" card. He feels vindicated, I'm sure. His family does. His actions were reinforced and, in effect, rewarded. Since he got the official certification that he did nothing wrong, what's to stop him from doing the same damn thing again?
If he went into this with "I have no regrets and if I had it to do all over again, I'd do the same thing" (which he indeed did), then - well, put it this way: what would YOU take away from this, with a mindset like that?
Very true. He's never expressed remorse. He's maintained he did nothing wrong.
And he's been surrounded by reinforcement for that - look at how the police treated this case from the get-go. As nothing. As NO reason to hold him for questioning, NO reason to look at murder charges, manslaughter charges, assault-with-a-deadly-weapon charges, wrongful death charges, aggravated assault charges - NOTHING. He was only brought to "justice" (such as it's turned out to be, that is) after a huge coast-to-coast national outcry! Florida officials were dragged kicking and screaming to take him into custody and file charge against him. That was NOT the inclination from the get-go. Just think to yourself - what would have been their reaction had Trayvon Martin been the one with the gun, and Zimmerman were the one meeting that fate on the way back from the neighborhood store armed only with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea? How would the shooter have been treated in THAT case, if the shooter were black and the victim was white? And sadly, I think we all know the answer to that.
I'm watching MSNBC on this Sunday mid-morning on the West Coast and I just heard the male anchor tell his panel he thought there was a lot of white shame being felt today. As a white woman, I sure feel that way on this morning-after. I'm ashamed. I'm disgusted. I'm discouraged. I'm disheartened. I'm embarrassed. And I'm horrified.
What a disgrace. What a sorry state we're in, in this country. I can only hope that change comes from this, so that Trayvon didn't die in vain. It's flimsy as hell, that "hope." But at the moment it's all I've got.
I wonder if this is also one of the results of the damned sequester.
I'd read very recently that this is starting to be true - wherein there's less funding among other things - for prosecutors. There's not the funding for assistants and legal staff. Private defense attorneys paid for by clients and their supporters will have the luxury of plenty of funding. They'll have everything they need, the support, the tools, the research, the help with due diligence. And there won't be an equal share on of that on the other side.
I think you're correct here, roguevalley. His "sentence" as it were - is having to return to
the civilian population. Maybe if he stays in his little insular conservative community he won't have to deal with this much (at least if what I've heard about that community's general political mindset is true). But across the country, seems to me anyway, the mindset may not always be as insular. I'm in California. He's as guilty as sin, to me, and to everybody else around me - in MY community. Heck, even my distressingly conservative best friend, who lives in a southern state and believes strongly in gun freedoms, came out here to visit recently and hissed angrily under her breath - "he SHOT that child!" I'm sorry - I saw the case laid out, and it just seemed utterly open-and-shut. Total and absolute and undebatable MURDER. All the fancy defense talk or references to the law and the jury and everything else - does NOT change that FACT.
What this outcome says - is just so distressing, I can hardly articulate how I feel about this. This is heartbreaking, discouraging, stunning, staggering, dumbfounding.
The only sense of triumph I feel is from the reaction - all those fucking yahoos and Pox Noise believers and CONS with their stupid dire warnings about how this community was going to riot and disrupt, and they did nothing of the kind. They did NOTHING of the kind. They remained dignified and non-confrontational. Frankly, I'd expected that. And I'm very proud of them.
I get a renewed sense of appreciation of Melissa Harris-Perry's recollection of how her father signed off on cards to her - "the struggle continues." No freakin' shit.
This is my great dread now.
Any tin-plated vigilante with a messiah complex and a hard-on to be some twisted ten-cent Rambo knock-off now has cover, and clearance, to shoot somebody they decide they don't like. Profiling is okay now. Even amateur profiling. So is stalking. Even better and more delicious when it's coupled with a concealed weapon.
Good Grief - what have we come to? Sheesh - add this to the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and it's a VERY grim day.
And to think ... five years or so ago, I actually allowed myself to think that maybe America had finally turned a page, and had gotten beyond shit like this. Discouraging. REALLY discouraging.
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Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Current location: Oregon
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