Well, the bad dream we all witnessed for the last four days is finally over. We need to work very hard to make sure that November 3 is the beginning of the end of the National Nightmare. But, I will say this. There is one person who is very happy with how things went.
If you looked very carefully last night at the end of trump’s rambling meaningless speech, you would have noticed a specter. You would have noticed that the specter was wildly applauding. It was giving many thumbs up to the president. It was patting all of the speech writers on the back.
It was obvious that the specter was hugely happy with the speech and all of its endless nightmare themes. That specter was Joseph Goebbels. He was absolutely thrilled with the speech and the last four nights from the RNC.
This RNC hit on all of the memes that Goebbels’ boss had in the 1920 and 1930 and 1940. It hit the same notes that his boss shouted about and rambled about in order to gain power. The memes included “you can’t trust anyone who isn’t white”. It included “immigrants are evil and must be eliminated from our nation”. It included “those others are to blame for all of your troubles”.
It was also very heavy on so-called “law and order”. As we watched the convention and listened to trump and pence speak at the convention and outside the convention, that same “law and order” meme surfaced time after time. That meme is that if there are protests against you, you must have the police break it up. If that fails, then send in the National Guard to break it up. If that fails, then you must send in the vigilantes to break it up with violence. Finally, send in the Gestapo to “take back our streets”.
In the meantime, the other arm of the propaganda machine was making the vigilante who killed two people at a protest in Kenosha a “hero”. People like Tucker Carlson were idolizing this thug teen-ager because “he did what the officials did not do”. Others went even further. Ann Coulter told us just what she thought of our country. She tweeted that this thug and murderer “should be her president”.
I guess if trump wins the election this year, we will see him dedicate some kind of statue marking this thug as a “martyr” for the cause. That is what dictators do. They idolize and hero worship murderers, as long as the kill the “right” people. That is exactly what this thug did.
But, we also saw just how the Kenosha Police handles situations like this. After shooting a black man in the back seven times, they all watched as this murderer walked by them waving and even high-fiving some of the officers. This thug was walking down the street with his riffle in plain sight right after a shooting, and not one police officer seemed to think it might be a good idea to question him.
As a 17 year year old, he does not have an “open carry” right. In Wisconsin, a 17 year old openly carrying a gun in public is breaking the law. Now, the right wing will say the police didn’t know he was only 17, but no one thought to ask a very young looking person his age or why he was carrying a gun. Nor, did they seem to think it important to “question” anyone carrying a gun about the recent shooting that they already knew about. No, they just let him walk away, even though he was walking with his hands up in an apparent surrender position.
Then, remarkably, the Chief of Police in Kenosha tried to blame the protesters for getting killed. He said: “They were breaking the law because there was a curfew in place. If they had obeyed the law and left the streets, this wouldn’t have happened”. Okay…… But, if that is an excuse, why wasn’t that kid carrying a gun in the open “after the curfew time” questioned or arrested for breaking that law as well?
There are far too many examples of how police treat people differently. This punk just killed two people and not one police officer said anything to him about his gun. When the white murderer of nine black people was arrested, he was driven to Burger King before jail because he was hungry.
On the other hand, when a black man is accused of “passing a fake $20 bill” he is slammed to the ground and a knee is placed on his neck until he dies. When a black man walks away from police, a black man unarmed and who did nothing according to witnesses, one officer grabs his shirt and shoots him seven times in the back.
When people talk about “police reform” the right wing has a fit. We all hear about how “great” the police are. We hear about how “the vast majority are good cops it is only a few bad apples”. We do not hear that the real problem isn’t necessarily the cops, it is the policing system we have allowed to take place in our country. A system that Goebbels would be proud to take credit for implementing.
Instead of holding police officers accountable for their actions, we give them “immunity”. Instead of looking at each case of police brutality on its own merits, we have the Supreme Court relax the “justifications” for deadly force. All a cop needs to say is “I was afraid for my life”.
Yet, the police seem to ignore another Supreme Court decision that makes it illegal for a police officers to use deadly force on a “fleeing” suspect unless there is a “clear danger of that suspect harming the police or others”. An unarmed man running away does not fit the description of that ruling.
The right wing also does not say that any cop who knows another cop committed a crime or violated any “policy or rule” of the department MUST come forward with their information. No, instead we are faced with that so-called “Code of Silence”. As a result, these so-called “bad apples” flourish in a system that allows them to continue their bad behavior.
When people talk about reforming the police, it is this “policing system” they are talking about. And, it is NOT training that is at the heart of this problem. It is the lack of accountability and that “Code of Silence” that other officers practice. We never heard a single word about reforming the policing system from the RNC.
Instead we heard praises for the cops shooting unarmed people in the back for no reason. We hear from trump’s most ardent supporters how they and the vigilantes who are actually causing most of the violence in the streets are “heroes” who should be worshiped or as Coulter said “be our president”.
This is exactly what dictatorships look like. It is exactly what Goebbels and the rest of the followers of his boss wanted and got in their country. People being nabbed off the streets without warning. People being demonized for their “look” or nationality or religion. People being beaten up and/or killed because they are “different” than us.
In the last four years, especially in this last year, we have seen exactly these tactics being used right here in our country. We have seen protesters being taken off the streets by unmarked officers for no reason. We have seen people being beaten up by vigilantes because they protest against something very wrong in our country. We now have seen people actually murdered by one of these vigilantes. We have seen trump demonize anyone who is not “white” enough for him.
Just like Goebbels and his boss, we have seen policies that put children in cages. We have seen families separated from the children. We have seen mass incarceration of “asylum seekers”. We have seen our country commit “crimes against humanity” in their treatment of immigrants and people of color.
This is the national nightmare we have suffered through for the last four years. This is the national nightmare and the policies of past dictators we have witnessed and experienced. As with other dictator wanna-be’s our dear leader has broken every single promise he made to our country in the last election.
We keep hearing about how wonderful he is and how much he has accomplished, but he has failed miserably. The wall that Mexico was going to pay for, not built. The repeal of the ACA and a “wonderful” health care plan for everyone, never happened. The great infrastructure he was going to build never materialized. The booming 4 percent growth economy he was going to “usher” in never happened, even before the pandemic.
No, this president has not kept a single promise to the American people. He has accomplished some things. He treated immigrants like they are all vicious criminals who need to be taken out. He has started trade wars that hurt American industry and especially farmers. He has caused more divisiveness than any president in our history. He has sat back and watched as hundreds of thousands of Americans got sick and died from a virus he could have helped control.
His “accomplishments” are nothing to brag about. Which is probably why we never heard a speaker brag about them. All we heard was more hatred. More divisiveness. More fear mongering. More rewriting of his own history in office.
Yes, if you looked very closely last night you would have seen the specter of Joseph Goebbels wildly clapping and smiling broadly. The RNC was really nothing more than a Nuremburg rally of the 1930s. Yes, the specter was very pleased and very happy. Americans are being divided. Americans are dying. What more could you ask from your dictator and his lackey and weak party?
And, the shirts keep marching along.
Lean Left World 