Monday, June 1st, 2020 - Our country seems at this moment to be falling apart...but the President arranges a Photo-Op

No posts for the last few days…our country is going thru a time like I have never seen in all my 80 years. And I’ve gone through so many transitions, even in just my own thoughts…The horrible unforgivable event that triggered the protests, the demonstrations, the National Guard being called out and here in LA. the entire LAPD force activated…I passionately support the dedicated demonstrators who are sincerely focused on the recent tragedy and the string of similar tragedies that proceeded it. It is time to stand together. I am as well, grateful for the good men in uniform who stand watch, their intended purpose to protect lives and property. I find their injuries and deaths heart-breaking as well. But the long history of disrespect and violence directed at black citizens…by police, by others in general…must end.

The heart-breaking thing to me is that the crowds have been intruded upon by folks who are not so ethically motivated - the break-ins, the looting, the damage and destruction - in some cases in the very neighborhoods where the injured community lives and has established those businesses…I hope somehow these acts can be sorted out, looked into, solved.

Meanwhile, is it possible that the country might actually be affected by these demonstrations, by the magnitude of citizens, going forward? Is it possible there might be an awakening within those who haven’t been paying attention up till now? Are those people in positions to actually do something, to effect changes?

There is a huge crowd demonstrating peacefully outside the White House, Washington DC at this moment. We are being told the President is about to speak in the Rose Garden. He has said nothing of value in the last six days, or IMHO in the last three years. He has said nothing and done nothing to inspire bringing the country together. He has continued his usual habit of speaking without dignity, hurling insults and blame via Tweets at those very people whose job it is, in a “hands on'“ way, to try to deal with all this.

This is the seventh day of demonstrations. They have begun for the most part as peaceful gatherimgs, but the intensity and violence increases as night falls. The violence, the lootings, have distracted from the purpose of the demonstrations. Maybe I am naive. Maybe I don’t understand the greater dynamic. I admit I am angered by the violence, I am angered by the destruction of those small private businesses that may never be able to re-group. In addition to the months of quarantine, the long dry period with no incomes for so many - now this happens. And the stress has built up for all the citizens of our country, of the world… as we find ourselves in the third month of quarentine,.

I recently shared the video of a passionate, lovely black woman speaking from Minneapolis that she had posted on Facebook. Her own business had been ripped apart, she is a single mother and she has no idea how she will pull it back together. Friends and neighbors are on the streets there in Minneapolis, helping her and several other business owners as they sweep up the broken glass, the broken structures, and wash away the grafiti.

The “President’ is speaking now, editing as he goes the words from the teleprompter. He called out
Antifa specifically [ anti-fascists] He is proclaiming 2nd Amendment rights. He is declaring that he is ending the lack of order NOW. He is threatening to deploy the United States Military, using an “old” federal law from the year 1807.. He is dispatching law enforcement and military officers to stop the looting, the dstruction of property. He again blamed “Antifa” and “others” who are causing this violence. Nothing about the far right militants. No mention of QAnon. Assumptions have been made, and promulgated.

In eight minutes the curfew is to be enforced. He is enacting the Insurrection Act from 1807, a federal law that allows him to deploy the military to quell a disturbance. He is now heading to a photo op at historic St. John’s Episcopal Church ajacent to the White House. He is not quelling a disturbance, he is controlling the crowd in order to allow himself to walk across the street and make a political statement from the church. He is creating for himself a safe Photo-Op.

Now he stands in front of the boarded up church, holding a Bible, as if it were one more product to sell, using it as a powerful vacuum to suck all his fundamentalist followers stronglyinto the fold. Talking about our “great country”. Now he walks back to the White House.

In the hours that follow this action, we have heard from the Rector of the church, we have heard from other representatives of the church, bemoaning its use as a prop, bemoaning the use of a Bible as a prop by Mr. Trump. As I watched the actions I could not but think myself, IMHO, this man is abhorent. IMHO this man has no business being in the White House.

It is not logical to me why any “far left”/ anti-fascist activists would destrupt demonstrations that support the things they fight for. Maybe I don’t fully understand the dynamics. I know that the Anti-fascists and the far right group QAnon have had violent confrontations in the past.

But in all the “President’s” words, there is no comfort, no bringing together, no acknowledgment of the pain that black lives have suffered over the decades, over the centuries. I wonder how often we will see that photograph in front of the sacred house of worship that was this evening used as a backdrop, so the “President” could wave a borrowed or newly purchased Bible in front of the cameras. As Joe Biden commented in response to the day’s activities, and I share his sentiments: “I wish he would open it once in a while.”