Caron Nazario, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, is pepper-sprayed by Windsor, Va., police officer Joe Gutierrez, during a traffic stop in December. Gutierrez threatened Lieutenant Nazario before dousing him with pepper spray and pushing him to the ground, according to body camera footage of the episode.
We passed outrage years ago.
Honestly, it is time to create a federal standard test for the police class people.
We need to know before they become cops if they will behave ethically and follow the law when they put on a badge and strap on that sidearm.
Do they like people or do they hate people?
Do they have serious psychological disqualifications?
Do they like inflicting pain on others?
Are they control freaks?
We need to know.
We must not continue to empower these predators, those who fail the test, with life-taking, abuse-inflicting freedom to roam our streets.
We need to know.
Some federal authority must oversee, license, require continuing education and psychological testing for police officers throughout the U.S. That oversight must also include ICE, FBI, alcohol and drug enforcement, U.S. Marshalls, etc. – police officers at all levels of government - anyone authorized to wear a badge and carry a gun.
We must put a stop to police lawlessness and abuse today.
Daunte Wright’s Death & America’s Broken Policing System | The Daily Social Distancing Show
Photo credit: Tigerland, the movie about Ft. Polk.
Back in the 1970s, I never doubted the loyalty of the U.S. Army. I knew I could count on our troops because they shared a common desire: survive, go home, and live their lives. Everyone wanted the same thing. So, people worked together and supported each other. No one worried about whether fellow Americans, or our leaders, were working against our common welfare.
Today, things seem to have changed and that shared “common good” appears to be disappearing.
Who will pay the price of Mr. Trump’s insurrection, misinformation, “alternative facts”, and endless lying? What will the resurgence of white supremacy and white nationalism in our military cost you and me?
If not our military, who will defend our Constitution the next time the white terrorists are breaking down the doors, threatening to hang their political opponents?
Our world is indeed Upside Down. We need to right it.
The Problem is Still Civil Obedience
In 2012, Matt Damon helped pay tribute to the late historian and author Howard Zinn. This rendition of a speech Zinn gave in 1970 on civil disobedience is one of his most powerful performances to date. It is still true... The Problem is Still Civil Obedience.
Howard Zinn, Boston Common, 5 May 1971
“Back in the 60s and 70s Dr. Zinn was one of the few who understood... and he did his best to tell us... that what was happening to our black brothers and sisters would soon be happening to us, all of us, save the mega-super rich. Today we understand his message was a premonition about our times, too.”
Obviously, the Republican Party has “drunk the poison Kool-Aid” laced with treasonous Trumpism. In its death throes the party is foisting its “alternative facts” delusions on the rest of Americans.
Some of us refuse to drink the poison, including the NAACP. Thank God, or the space people, someone, anyone for maintaining their sanity in defense against Trump-induced insanity.
"Derrick Johnson accuses president of ‘operating under a white supremacist doctrine’ in suit filed using 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act"
"NAACP president Derrick Johnson in 2019. The NAACP is representing Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson in the suit but confirmed they expect more members to join."
“Civil rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has argued thats its suing of Donald Trump using the Ku Klux Klan Act – a historic law enacted to combat white supremacy – is in order to hold the former president accountable to Black voters that his Republican administration sought to invalidate.”
“The lawsuit alleges Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani sought to undermine the will of American voters by orchestrating a “series of events that unfolded [with] the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol” on 6 January in events that shocked the world.”
“We could not stand by and not pursue a course of action to hold those accountable for their treasonous acts,” Derrick Johnson, president, told the Guardian in an interview, noting the act was designed for “the very incident the world witnessed on 6 January”.
“Opponents have argued the twice-impeached Trump and his associates are still subject to civil and criminal penalties, including the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell,who blamed Trump for the insurrection in a speech on the Senate floor shortly after voting to acquit him at his impeachment trial.”
“Accusing 43 Republicans senators who acquitted Trump of putting “partisanship over the constitution”, Johnson notes that in the past some civil judgements have still bankrupted hate groups or forced them and enablers to shut down.”
“Passed in 1871, the KKK Act originally sought to prevent violence and intimidation that members of Congress were subjected to carrying out their constitutional duties throughout the south during the Reconstruction era.” -more-
Jimmy Buffett live 2010 - Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.avi - 1977
