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Archive for the ‘evil’ Category

EVIL EXISTS – The most common way to identify it is through the DENIAL that comes immediately after an act of EVIL!

Saturday, January 28th, 2023

This is a post set to music – the kind you don’t hear much anymore! Go back far enough and you will find evil taking lives in the most horrible ways. And today it is still happening. This hymn takes us back over 2,000 years and a reminder of what Jesus’ crucifixion was like. The same kind of people crucified Jesus as worked on Tyre Nichols. We can’t seem to get that picture of what humans are capable of doing.

We have been given another lesson and another look at the fact that evil exists, is very real and is incorporated into most institutional structures. To find its structural components one must look at the beginning of the corporation – the institutuion – the government – the structure of the group in which we are seeing the evil surface.

In these United States evil is sprouting all over the country. We always seem to have to question and question claiming to not understand why such horrors constantly surface. The latest is what happened to Tyre Nichols.

It is interesting that the news reports all look for parallels and come up mostly with the Rodney King horror with its evil spewing all over. Some go back to Emmett Till for the same reason. To really understand the evil in what happened to Tyre Nichols one has to go back to slavery and what this country was like at that time examining the structures which developed and are still in place maintaining what is needed to maintain “better than”.

This evil happened because we have a police force which was created and structured to capture, torture and do whatever was necessary to subdue and/or eliminate runaway slaves and discourage those who are thinking of running away and trying for another life someplace else. That predates the Rodney Kings and all the other parallels we try to make. We seem to be unable to look at the truth of what is and has been happening in this country for generations. We now have people like Ron DeSantis trying to pass laws to prevent the teaching of the history of slavery in this country and what has happened to minorities – those who are not descendants of those who brought all of this forward. If that history is not taught people who have some inclination to this kind of vile violence just might join in with others to make this the majority.

We know about the slaughter of blacks, but not through our history books. The Tulsa massacre has only recently surfaced. Most of us had never heard of such. Who was it that sang about the fruit hanging from the trees? We hear the song, we are moved by it, but we don’t related that to what is happening today. We also don’t care about the life and trials of the person who used her life and career to make that song and all it stands for important and so well known that it is still heard today.

This violence is not a one time happening nor is it limited to one generation. It has been a part of who we are as a country almost from the beginning and it is not slacking.

We are today missing the fact that African Americans being so tortured and killed or experience attempted murder in the most horrific ways are a part of a long line of people over many generations. We are seeing this happen to elderly African Americans with no one interested and very few looking to see what is happening as that torture is about the destruction of generational wealth of black families and it becomes more prevalent in these United States.

That happens by destroying the life, family, and so much more of the African Americans so targeted. Many have died in the process of being so stripped. Their deaths have been attributed to their age and not to what they have been put through so others can strip them of their life’s collection of wealth. Wealth they amassed at great cost to their lives to pass on to their children so their children could have the kind of life they didn’t have. Blacks who worked throughout their lives to make their children’s lives better and hopefully reduce the racism and other forms of bigotry they experience. Others, who seem to escape the grasp of the greedy, never fully recover from the attempt at such destruction and gradually live out the end of their lives in compromised health, with their wealth destroyed and their families set at odds against one another. We have seen this happen to many blacks with very few knowing about the attempts and even fewer interested in anything except a passing comment.

The Tyre Nichols type of killings, massacres and more have been unbelievably brutal and carried out in front of an audience. Today, in the Tyre Nichols case, the audience was not present, but the videos recorded by many including the government are played so millions don’t miss the carnage. We recoil and talk about how awful and horrendous and all those adjectives which in the long run mean nothing and shortly our attention moves on putting what happened in the background and so it recurs. In the past few years there have been many and nothing done to actually stop the horrendousness of such.

EVIL is alive and well and thriving just waiting for its next opportunity to break out and that will be soon.

The Solution to the U. S. Dilemma with the Republican Party!

Monday, August 15th, 2022

It is time for the United States voters to take a good, clear look at the Republican Party and what it is about,. It is also time for United States voters to take a good look at where they stand on bigotry. Racism and its related sins has been internalized and that internalization accepted as “normal” by most of us. We maintain it with denial. That denial should come into question today as our country is roiled by those who won’t deal with their racism and other forms of bigotry even though they are living in a country where the “majority in control” is becoming minority. Isn’t that what is going on here with our denials giving us cover? Aren’t those the emotions out of which all of the fear parading publicly is coming from? Isn’t the fear of no loner being “better than” what Donald Trump has tapped into to “rise” to the presidency and beyond?

Having been Republican for most of my life, I think I can speak from the “inside” a little bit. Having tried to hold up what was happening and having tried to help bring about change in the Republican Party for years – it became clear that the only thing that happened and resulted from my efforts was many within the Republican Party turning against me.

People like me – African Americans – who were Republicans – are older and knew the Party when it had a strong stand on civil rights; when the Democratic Party supported the KKK; and indeed when the Republican Party had leaders who were non-White. A cousin of mine was head of the Louisiana Republican Party way back when. (How about that history Senator John Kennedy? Gives you a queasy stomach?)

The same thing happening to the GOP is also happening to Haiti – and for much the same reasons. Haiti has become a government which has been infiltrated by people who want to see as much war, blood shed and horror as possible. These two institutions could be twins across the fence. Is this a common human dilemma or is something or rather, some groups, infiltrating those spaces on this earth which seem to be moving ethically and morally in the right way only to be met by those who need to make sure they are totally turned around to meet themselves as evil, unethical, horrible entities in retreat into the worst sides of human nature. Is this goodness reigning supreme only to be shocked into the dregs and ugliest sides of human nature.

The Republican Party started its descent into extreme bigotry years before, but it accelerated when Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party with many of his followers and descended upon the Republican Party. There was also that moment announcing this is the way the Republican Party was moving when their great presidential candidate, who won his election, made the announcement that he was running for president of the United States from a small town in Mississippi. Excellent messaging and the GOP has since gone downhill, into hell.

Hypocrisy, lies, horribleness was brought into the GOP in spades at that time. We will deal with Haiti’s descent in another article. But they are similar – accounting for their different structures.

Senator Strom Thurmond was a recognized racist who was puffed up and a “leader”. His entire life and leadership of a Political Party becoming racist and very anti-Black was not only a farce and a lie looking at the entire extent of his life, but showed how tone-deaf America can be when it comes to race. Is our toleration of the evils and ugliness of Donald Trump’s life attributable to the fact that he made sure to make “better than ” the keystone of everything he did. Has the racism he has used to become a leader in these United States the genesis of his power? Most of us can’t stand the thought of equality on any level so he made a good calculation making sure U. S. voters would not even want to talk about or use his adultery, abuse, etc. against him to take him out of contention. He had a strong knowledge of what it took for him to take the ascendancy and he did – racism, his career on television, etc. His television career helped him the same way Bill Cosby’s kept him out of jail for decades and left him able to continue his sexual assault and abuse of women.

While Strom Thurmond was spouting all of his rhetoric and racist policies and more he was helping to raise his half-black, half-white daughter. He saw her through college and beyond and they did have a relationship. Something that simulated a father-daughter relationship, not one full of the racism he spouted when in his role as high-up in the Republican Party helping to craft its image, policies, history.

This, for us, is the height of duplicity; lies; unethical behavior; playing both ends to the middle and all of those cliches which also apply today to Donald Trump and those around him. Although there are puffs of smoke around Trump which seem to imply that many of his supporters are there because they don’t want some secret or other made public, he is still a leader with followers who hold him up. They hold up this man whose good friend was Epstein; who has been publicly and credibly accused of abuse and rape of women; who is known to be a liar on many levels; who has done so much ugly, unethical, immoral stuff publicly that his moral character is in hell without even a question about that.

Who are those who follow Donald Trump? The answer to that would also be the answer to the question – who are those who follow the head of criminal mafia organizations. Their character? Their morality? Their evil? Their expectation and approval of the fact that their leader, their “Don”, will lie as a tool in his toolshed? So many ask how Trump’s followers could believe him, do his bidding, knowing his penchant for lying constantly, etc. Ask the same question of all the mafia’s in this country and abroad. The answers would be the same – it is his job. My question is – has he pulled together the mafia groups and are these the people who now make up the Republican Party. Has the Republican Party become peopled by members of the different criminal mafia groups along with the people who have been and will be blackmailed?

What is the answer to all of this?

It is time for the formation of another Political Party to replace the Republican Party as one of two Political Parties in these United States.

Andrew Yang founded and is working to bring about “The Forward Party.” This particular Political Party may or may not be an answer. One problem we think Yang has is in casting his Political Party as a “Third Party” with many comments by others as to whether or not the United States will tolerate three political parties. The question needs to be rephrased. Is this the Political Party – “The Forward Party” – that will replace Republicanism?

Other political parties now need to start forming because one of them will totally remove the Republicans from their space, send them hurtling into history and become one of two Political Parties in these United States.

What does Emmett Till, Uvalde, Buffalo all the way to the beginning of the massacres of children have in common?

Sunday, June 5th, 2022

by: Marceline Donaldson

I remember when Emmett Till was murdered. The horror of what happened to him didn’t strike me until I saw him in his open casket. Once you saw the reality of the brutal way he was murdered; once you saw his face which was unrecognizable; once you came close to the reality of the side of human nature which could do such a thing to another human there was no turning back.

I was very young at the time and good and evil were concepts I learned about in Church. They were not real for me although I mouthed the words, until I saw Emmett Till in his casket.

Image is the stuff on which this society is built. Emmett Till’s mother ignored maintaining her son’s image and opted to have him on display in an open casket. Much talk circulated about that decision – mostly negative about Emmett Till’s mother with the comments basically asking “hasn’t he suffered enoough” – “do we have to put his body through such a public display” “why can’t she grieve in private and keep those images away from the rest of us, it is enough to have to deal with what happened to him”.

Once the wake and funeral started there was little to no disagreement about her decision because the affect of seeing just what a few humans did to one child was overwhelming. To see Emmett Till’s open casket brought up such pain and agony in those who looked at him – for me it brought up the reality of who we really are as human beings and what evil we can wrought. Her decision brought about major change.

It is time for the world to see the evil, wrought by guns in the hands of people who are sometimes good and sometimes evil. It is time to see what human beings can do to their children. It is time for the world to see the physical evil done to the children of Uvalde Texas. It is time for the world to feel what anger, rage, jealousy, bigotry, hatred can do when it is supported by guns of war. Once you have seen that there is no turning back. You will see those images repeatedly for quite some time and the world needs to see with their eyes what guns in the hands of evil has done and will do again.

The pictures of the children and their teachers need to be made public for all to see. Their caskets need to be open when the time for viewing arrives so all of us will bear some of the guilt of their death. All of us need to share the pain that parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends have been carrying since that massacre happened. We all need to see what the guns used will do and has done to hundreds of children and their human body. We all need to be aware that there are humans amongst us who can do such and walk away. To talk about how awful that can be; to discuss what happened to hundreds of children will not have the deterrent affect that actually seeing the children dead – shot to death with guns that make them so unrecognizable tests have to be taken to identify your own child.

O God, do you also bear the pain of the children, their parents, their friends, those who barely know them but who have suffered much because they have and live within a human spirit capable of such horror. You show us daily the good and the bad of which we are capable. If we can stick spears into the side of Jesus. If we can give him vinegar to drink when he calls out in thirst. If we can torture and kill in the most horrible way the son of God, how much more can we do to each other. Eons of time pass and we show just how much terror we can inflict on one another. Eons of time pass and we show just how little love and caring we have for one another. We can see another human being living on the street in minus 20 degree weather and mumble ugly words denigrating that human as we pass by with no feelings about that person and the situation in which they find themselves. How long, O God, will we be in such a place living with such a spirit as inhabits us all.

When we have to debate whether or not the pictures of the recent massacre of children should be shown to the public; when we have to decide what would be too much for others to see; when we protect those who need to be given a look at who they could become, what are we doing? Protecting others from the rawness, the pain, the horribleness of those acts or are we protecting ourselves and setting others up for another time when some one with our human spirit gets wrapped in the evil of which we are all capable and acts out the destruction of life in a most egregious way.

Open the doors, open the windows, open the caskets, publish the pictures, let the world see who we could all be if set down in the right circumstances for such to develop.


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