TO: Hillary, Bernie, Ted and Marco and John K! you MUST speak out CONSISTENTLY and LOUDLY about condemning any candidate who even appears to urge violence against people who are following their first amendment rights, against people who are peacefully leaving the rally and are attacked physically by blow to the head.
SPEAK before we see that it becomes ‘the new normal’ that utter violence can be validated by a candidate for nomination for the President of the United States– and things spiral out of control in every direction.
It is true, to be in line with a protester ranting and raving, can be challenging for the person on stage. BUT, we dont expect the candidate on stage to be the RANTER AND RAVER. We are looking for evenhandedness, not taking the law into one’s own hands, either Federal or local.
YOU AND I saw how the ’68 conventions shaped up. Remember?
How, amongst many events, some from the far right, pretending to be from the left, started bashing violently at the police, who came forward in formation to attempt to restore order. We saw the senseless injuries, the bloodied bodies and faces, of all- protesters, civilians and police officers– and the eventual literal fire storms unleashed across our nation.
SPEAK UP~! and keep speaking against any candidate who bellows on stage, then changes to sotto voce on air, then screeches again when given an ‘audience,’ one who seemingly feels entitled to rationalize that violent means ought be used against protest-speakers with their own truths.
THis is not a domestic couple situation behind closed doors that no one knows about, but ought in order to help. These are mere caucus rallies that it appears one particular candidate for nomination has NOT ADEQUATE security paid for, and allows instead, the ‘audience’ to be both potentially endangered –as well as to retaliate physically against others who are voicing speech.
Far too many violent confrontations, unnecessary and played out before cameras and in audio, have already taken place at current Trump rallies, with crowing DURING and AFTERWARD about the ‘rightfulness’ of such abuses of persons right to assemble, right to speech, about person’s rights to not be harmed for speaking. And far far too late come from one or two already blameful candidates, lame ‘oh let’s be civil’ while blaming blaming blaming the wrong element, and while being a prime example of BEING UNCIVIL themselves.
In the 1960s, YOU AND I saw the ‘far right’ literally pretend they were on the left, dressing like, talking like, in order to instigate riots amongst people who were peacefully protesting. Time and again. WE saw thousands of persons, innocent persons, bloodied for non-violent protest, gentle kindly souls who those on the far right unleashed violence upon: fire hoses, doberman dogs against children, teens, adults, grandparents– breaking arms and legs, dislocating joints, causing concussions, closed head injuries.
SPEAK and DO NOT STOP SPEAKING AGAINST anyone who calls for harms against those exercising first amendment rights, who indicts as CRIMINAL without JUDGE, without JURY, those who speak out against those whom they disagree with.
NO public political candidate ought be attempting to act as judge and jury against those whose speech and/or presence they do not like. Statesmanship is not too late: SPEAK against the purposeful calling up of a vortex of violence– against ANYONE.
Remember? We heard Lester Maddox’s words urging violence publicly, and saw him handing out ax handles in order to promote violence against African American –mere TEENS and CHILDREN who were helping to integrate the schools. We saw the persons who took up the ax handles. We saw the images of the women and men who screamed invective at the blacks walking to school. They were screeching so loud the patchy red roofs of their mouths and their back molars were showing… they were accusing the black teens of being animals, baboons, monkeys. Who really was the vicious animal? Who really was the pawing, screaming, bellowing, out of control animal?
SPEAK Hillary, Bernie, Ted and Marco and John K! you MUST speak out CONSISTENTLY and LOUDLY about condemning any candidate calling for violence against people who are following their first amendment rights. The candidate who laughs and has a ‘they got what is coming to them’ for speaking… for gathering… is the one to call out and down.
Do not buy the ploy that such a candidate suddenly says they received ‘death threats’ and tries to be ‘the victim’ after they themselves have built the fire to roasts themselves, having insulted and denigrated and demeaned and dehumanized enormous groups of persons in our nation.
We saw George Wallace and his attempting to act reasoned while chumming around with KKK. Then we heard his condemnations of human beings he had decided were less than himself. Condemning children and parents who were not his children, not his parents.
We saw the life’s work George came from– the men and women hanging by the neck from bridges and trees. We SAW and CANNOT FORGET the images of utterly aroused pals of the ones who bellowed for their own sick form of ‘justice; against blacks and those who supported blacks. Murdering by one’s own say so. Murdering by fiat, by invective, by lack of self control that one would never find in a steady, reasoned person.
We saw the images of the ‘audience’ at the lynchings, hanging around jawing and jiving for the camera, so happy to be aroused, to feel so alive in the hatred wallow they joined in together– conjured up by their screaming leaders who had whipped them to a frenzy with their racist, bigoted condemnations of others.
In terms of denigrators who attempt to bring their personal illicit and illegal form of ‘justice’, their credo cannot be allowed to stand, which is this: as it is for all dictators:”Free speech for me, but not for thee.”
Many of us are praying hard– Praying THAT NO ONE BE HARMED, as the yelling-screeching candidate apparently ok’s violent reprisal for Freedom of Speech, and violent punishment for persons who have had no trial, no jury, no judge. It is against EVERYTHING decent hearts and minds know. It is against the Law of the Land.
We are North Americans. We have seen what happens when shouting, punitive persons become heads of nations, or as many attempt to do without winning the top slot, sow and sow and sow seeds of retaliation, old hatreds in new clothing, in order NOT TO HELP THE PEOPLE, ALL THE PEOPLE who are so often in need–
but to shine one’s own petard, to thrill to others bowing and scraping and asking for favors from petite Il Duece, from fore-shortened Der Furher.
SPEAK Hillary, Bernie, Ted and Marco and John K! you MUST speak out CONSISTENTLY and LOUDLY about condemning any candidate calling for violence without due process, without seemingly adequate oversight. and without paying in full for EFFECTIVE and global rally security so that all are kept safe. Speak out about and against anyone urging, jeering with glee, encouraging other persons, by proxy, to do harm, physical harms to others.
We want a leader of heart and wisdom, insight and EFFECTIVE plans. We want a leader, not an Il duce who entrapped many in his thrall and rewarded them for unleashing violence in order to control those he hated — not a ‘mein fuhrer’ who must be bowed to, who has skin thinner than tissue paper, and who exacts violence against the many in favor of having cheering, addled crowds to preen him of his incessant lice.
We need a leader– one of that word’s meanings in etymology, means to ‘load,’ as into bring and carry, to be steady for the long haul, to lift up, to bear across, as to safely bring across a long road, as in to safely transport all across a divide.
To unite. Truly. Building new bridges, repairing old ones, not burning them.
Speak. Dont stop.
NOW is the time.
We need no more Than Shwe, no more Saddam, no more Bin Laden, no more Papa Doc, no more Mussolini, no more Tito, no more of those who have pitted one group against many other groups in order to hold personal rather than patriotic power.
UPDATE March 14 Monday 2016: Since this article was posted March 12, Saturday, 2016-– Hillary, Bernie, Marco, Cruz and John K HAVE spoken up suddenly, and vociferously against anyone promoting violence at caucus rallies. I listened to several of the D and R candidates speaking out very strongly, today. It was a good moment. And candidate in question continues to attempt to take victim position –and claims to never have said anything that would provoke others to harm people, and has never publicly spoken of his own desire to do harm to others. It would appear that some in MSM are awakening. But also, far too many who appear to be in the lacunae of ‘normalization of violence’ regarding their ‘oh that’s the way it is in these matters’ regarding psychological triggers and inducements that can be easily roused when sshouting/bellowing/screeching to a group of ‘followers’. They do not appear to register that flame and fire jumps.
Let us continue to do what we can to dig the fire trenches.
graphic via shutterstock.com