It's JUST the Chinese...

On Thursday, president elect Trump accepted a phone call from the President of Taiwan. They discussed business and Trump later publicly spoke of the call. PROBLEM. Since 72 when Nixon recognized China it has been the practice of the U.S. Government NOT to acknowledge the elephant in the room that is the fact that there are TWO Chinese governments. Every American president since Nixon has recognized this fact. The People's Republic of China doesn't accept the sovereignty of Taiwan and regards them as an autonomous territory.
            P.E. Trump while he has never held an office presumably HAS picked up a newspaper or seen a newscast since 1972 and had some inkling that U.S. Sino relations are to say the least complex. Mr. Trump's predecessor has not been friendly to China trade wise and they welcome the change in American leadership despite Trump's angry campaign rhetoric labeling China a "currency manipulator." Before even taking the oath of office,  Mr. Trump has offended a country which has the world's largest military and boasts of having air craft carriers and Intercontinental ballistic missiles.

            Many American firms rely on Chinese manufacturing and oft use China as the economic model they would love to see in the U.S.  I.E. a country with no minimum wage,  Food and Drug administration, Environmental protection agency or workers rights of any kind. It is an Ayn Rand wet dream come true and the end result is shoddy and in many cases toxic products which occasionally have to be confiscated by AMERICAN regulatory agencies when intercepted.  China in recent years as taken pride in corporate espionage and cyber terrorism.
           President elect Trump is offending a nation who when they last fought us directly in Korea agreed to a cease fire only because it was the only way in which both sides could save face.  The Chinese have fought wars of attrition for longer than many countries have existed and if Korean war vets I've spoken to were telling me the truth, Chinese troops attack in human waves. Mr. Trump doesn't like receiving daily security briefings and apparently doesn't like keeping up on global events. Well Mr. Trump I've bad news for you sir, the American people didn't kidnap you at gunpoint and FORCE you to become our president. It was a choice YOU made and after an UGLY and divisive campaign in which you played every low card in the deck you received the honor of being our president. Guess what Mr. Trump what happens in the rest of the world is now YOUR problem now. THIS is the job you wanted.  This is why your predecessors age rapidly while in office.
          Mr. Trump needs to understand that foreign policy is the difference between war and peace and if  he doesn't understand that then he's in for a LONG four years.

"Strong Leader"

In 1953 generals and diplomats left a room with a deal in hand. It wouldn't end the war, but would end the shooting.  Both sides agreed that neither would cross the 38th parallel.  We had agreed to a cease fire effectively ending action in the Korean war. The North Koreans with the aid of the Chinese and war materials from the Soviet Union were responsible for the deaths of 33,686 Americans. That number doesn't include South Korean, Greek, British or Australian soldiers who died in that conflict.
          
        In 1975 a helicopter leaves the rooftop of the U.S. embassy in Saigon. South Korean Marines and the Australian army had left two years earlier along with most of the U.S.army The North Vietnamese with aid from the Soviet Union  had killed 47,424 American servicemen and women in some of the ugliest fighting this country had ever seen. The casualties we suffered in those wars were a result of the cold war which we fought against the Soviet Union. Generations of Americans lived in fear of Russian nuclear strikes and the late President Ronald Reagan went so far as to call the Soviets an "Evil Empire" bent on imposing it's will upon the world.
    
      In the year 2000 the Russian people in an election many poll watchers thought to be rigged elected former head of the KGB Vladamir Putin their President.  He had seen the Soviet union dissolve and made no secret of the fact that he wished to see every satellite which had gained independence returned to mother Russia.
      In response to dissent in the Ukraine his assassins poisoned Ukrainian president Vicktor Yushenko and later were responsible for the non fatal poisoning of Ukrainian presidential candidate Alexander Litvinenko. In 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine and assumed that because they weren't in uniform, that the world would believe that it was merely an uprising by the Ukrainians themselves who wished to be part of Russia again.
       Putin has spent the last 16 years hacking American government computers and spying on the governments of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but Donald Trump when running for president called this vile thug and assassin a "strong leader."
         Russia makes no secret about the fact that they desire to rebuild their empire and our newest president elect wants to not only abandon our allies in the North Atlantic Treaty organization, but also wants to "Normalize" relations with Russia. I harbor no animosity towards the Russian people. I know and have known Russians and regard them as a fine people. My issue is NOT with the Russian people, but with the  dictator who currently runs their country. Becoming chummy with a nation whom Reagan called the "Evil Empire" will be to our detriment.

You're Fcuked...

It's 11:00pm on a Tuesday in November and a sociopath who ran a campaign eerily similar to one a demented Austrian ran in 1932 to become chancellor of Germany has just come to an end with with the exact same conclusion. The health insurance my employer was forced to make affordable to me by law is about to vanish by an act of a congress which ignored infrastructure improvements for eight years.
       A man who feels the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should simply sit back and allow Russia to annex any country smaller than itself has just been elected president. What does this mean?

         If his campaign rhetoric is to be believed, IF you are a Republican who publicly spoke out against him, you're FUCKED. During the primaries he swore revenge against defeated opponents who refused to endorsed him. IF you're a Republican who didn't fall in line he has said he would exact revenge.

        IF you are black...you're FUCKED! Any grievance you have against ANY authority figure will result in your having to prove your innocence rather than someone else having to prove your guilt. The terrorist organization which IS the Ku Klux Klan OPENLY embraced the candidate in question and he quietly pretended not to know who they were. If you're not a professional athlete or entertainer prepare to have the words "Yas suh!" introduced into your vocabulary. You are now a thug and a stereotype despite your level of education. Deal with it.

       If you're Latino YOU'RE FUCKED even harder than anyone black.  The President elect started his campaign by stating that Mexico sent its murderers and rapists and drug mules here and that he "assumed" that some were good people. You're a Latino who is NOT Mexican? Guess what...you're Mexican NOW. if you have dark hair eyes and skin and speak Spanish congratulations you're NOW Mexican. Here's what that entails, YOU are now an illegal alien. No, you're NOT an "Undocumented Immigrant", you're an illegal alien and will be treated like you're here to steal jobs, break into homes and sell drugs.
     
      If you are woman. You will not receive maltreatment, but you will be marginalized. You attempts to assert yourself will be treated with patronizing tones from a boys club the likes of which you've never seen. Your intellect will be largely ignored. Welcome back to the 1950s.

The group to whom I offer the biggest condolences? IF you are an American Muslim OR a person of middle eastern dissent,  YOU'RE PRISON RAPED! If you are a law abiding citizen and an upstanding member of your community consider that your past. You are NOW a defacto terrorist or terror suspect. Your mosque is now being watched. Do NOT be surprised if someone attempts to burn it to the ground or inscribe hurtful epithets on your place of worship. From this point on whenever ANY act of evil occurs ANYWHERE on earth and the perpetrator is a Muslim you will be treated with a rancor which you've NEVER seen and from which your non Muslim friends will NOT be able to protect you without fear of persecution. Hopefully the President elect will not live up to his campaign pledge to require you to wear crescent moons on your clothing to make you easier to identify.

IF you belong to one of the groups I've mentioned and you DIDN'T vote in this election, you fucked yourself.

Milwaukee gets Trumped

On August 13th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin  a young man died in an officer involved shooting. The official police report stated that the deceased had been armed and refused to comply with repeated orders to  drop the weapon. What followed were riots beginning at the scene of the incident which lasted an additional two days.
           In the midst of all of this, presidential candidate Donald Trump decided to speak to the black community. On the surface a good idea until one considers the way in which Trump had gone about it. Trump went to West Bend, Wisconsin a suburb or Milwaukee and gave a speech in which he told African Americans that their every assertion about law enforcement was "incorrect" then told them that the problems within the black community were the result of "failed democratic policies". He then asked blacks to vote for him.
          I sat back watching and simply couldn't believe what I was hearing.  This display proved to me that Donald J. Trump had no political instincts whatsoever.  He stood in an auditorium in a suburb of Milwaukee whose black population was 1.2% and spoke "to" African Americans.  I thought this is exactly why being a businessman DOES NOT qualify one to be president. Businessmen on Trump's level are used to giving orders and having them followed. They're not used to working with committees or listening to dissenting opinions.
         If Trump wanted black votes, what he should have done was going into Milwaukee itself and arranging a closed door meeting between himself, local law enforcement, and black community leaders and activists with no journalist in attendance.  He could have simply sat there and acted as a mediator between hard working cops and members of a community with whom they have friction. He could have asked both sides what needed to be done to make sure that Milwaukee never had riots shake her. In other words, he could have talked TO black people rather than AT us. There may be some who are swayed by his spin doctors as they appear on television saying "Trump went to Milwaukee" but I for one am sad that he skipped out on an golden opportunity to at least appear as if he gave a damn about something other than his own ego.
         A closed door meeting with civic, leaders clergy and cops would have made it known that he was more concerned with problem solving than with a photo op and that he actually cares NOT about winning an election, but with actually making America greater.

Stupid Statements from Classrooms

There's an old cliché which says: "There are no stupid questions." I would have to vehemently disagree as I've heard questions and statements in classrooms that were so excruciatingly stupid that I wished I had some sort of telekinetic ability to either blow up the idiots who uttered them or at least sterilize them so that they couldn't pollute the gene pool. Some of these things I heard directly others were repeated by colleagues.

"What's the difference between an 'oxymoron' and a regular moron?

"Do we have to do work today? It's MONDAY!"

"Report cards come out next week and I got a zero? Can I get some make up work?"

"It don't matter If I work in here or not. You GOTTA PASS ME!"

"How come I got a F? I was HERE every day!"

"Why do we have to do class work? It's FRIDAY!"

"I know I aint did nothing today, but I gotta leave early for football practice."

"Why you giving us work today.  It's the last day before Thanksgiving!"

"You gave me a zero for copying? He copied off me!" (the person saying this had a 37 average)

"You lucky I don't kick your ass!" (kid half my size)

"Why we gotta work? They gettin' ready to let us go on Christmas break!"

"How come I got a 37 in your class?" (he turned in two assignments during a grading period)

"Man I don't need this class! I'm going to the NBA/NFL/My dad/uncle's construction company!"

"Me and my girlfriend gettin' ready to have another baby! I don't know why, but her mama act like she don't like me."

"You aint from the hood, you wouldn't understand." (I'm from the hood)

"I thought you couldn't get pregnant your fist time having sex!"

"I want a baby! They so cute!" (said by a 15 year old)

"Why we gotta work today? We gettin' ready to go on Spring break!"

"No,  it's only offensive if it ends in 'er' not if if ends in 'ga'. " (explaining the difference between "n:883r" and "n:88a")

"I don't give a (bleep) if I flunk this class it's just (fill in name of ANY CLASS)"

"She my daughter, but I try to be her best friend."

"Man. I just come here to meet girls and sell drugs."

"I don't come to school to mutha-(bleep)in' READ! I come here to PASS!"

"Mr./Miss _______ failed me  cause  (he/she don't like me/ is racist/don't like blacks/Mexicans)"

"I don't feel like doing my work, can I go to the liberry/gym/random location?"

"We wutn't smokin' weed!" (when you walked in and caught them and they were the only ones there)

"My son/daughter doesn't lie."

"My son/daughter said this woman is flunking her because she doesn't like Mexicans." (90% of the students in the class are Mexican and many are passing)

"Why don't you just give us the answers?"

"Can we leave early?"

"Can we go to all three lunches?"

"Hey Miss ______ what's your number?"

"You aint tell us we had a test!" (When you've given them a review sheet with the answers TO the test)

"Man I don't do no homework!"

"What pages the answers on?"

"Why don't you just give everybody 100?"

"You can't flunk me just cause I aint do no work!"

"Can you show me how to make meth?"

"Can you show me how to build a bomb? I won't tell nobody!" (yeah because I'm not telling you dumb ass)

"How come we can't go in the teacher's lounge? That aint fair."

"Give me a dollar."

"I'll just take this class in summer school." (kid doesn't know that you're the only one teaching the class in summer school) 

3 Days.

"Went back home to the refinery. Hiring man said 'Son if it were up to me...'. Went down to see my V.A. man. He said 'Son, don't you understand?"

:Bruce Springsteen "Born in the U.S.A."


I remember it like it was last week. I sat on the other side of this guy's desk in a freshly pressed suit. I was wearing the spit shined D.O.D issued oxfords that every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine had been issued but only Marines ever seemed to keep and maintain. My hair was still so short that  if you were standing behind me you could clearly see the coin slot scar at the crown of my head that I got when I was seven which has always caused me to be a bit selfconscious.
          He held my resume in his left hand as he extended his right to shake mine and thanked me for coming in for an interview.  He told me it was always an honor to meet someone who'd been in the service and that I out of respect for me he would be up front and tell me that I wasn't getting the job. He didn't think I'd be a "good fit", he went on to say that given how disciplined and focused I appeared to be, he doubted that I would be looking for work for very long.
           I have friends who are veterans who've told me similar stories.  Many soldiers, sailors and Marines leave their branch of service and seek employment only to be told they're "unqualified". Some re-enlist others elect to use their G.I. bill benefits and get an education only to be told they're "over qualified" when seeking work. At what point was the veteran qualified "enough"?  This problem is hardly new.  Many vets feel as if they're on the "fringes" of society as if they are alienated by society as a whole. In 1932, 10,000 veterans of world war one marched upon Washington because they'd been given certificates for "cash bonuses" which had yet to be honored. This lead to the G.I. Bill of rights.

     At the end of the second world war many called ex soldiers and sailors living on unemployment "drains on society" and many struggled to adjust to post military life.  Korean war vets fared slightly better, but Vietnam seemed to change the rules.  Veterans of the conflict in Southeast Asia were often ostracized and treated with hostility.   In 1972 David Morelle wrote the novel "First Blood" which chronicled Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and prisoner of war John Rambo who after the war couldn't keep a job parking cars and became a drifter who gets into a small war with a small town sheriff in Oregon who arrests him and roughs him up for "vagrancy."  In the novel Rambo takes on the sheriff's department and seriously injures the sheriff and several of his men. The conflict ends when Rambo's former commanding officer arrives to take him into custody and hand him over to we assume State Police.  The Rambo character is portrayed as a sensitive soul who became a killing machine who felt discarded by a nation he loved and saw his friends dying to protect.
    I'm mentioning the Morelle  novel because in my lifetime I've turned on my television to see a veteran of the first gulf war named  Sergeant Tim McVey blow up a Federal Building in Oklahoma city.  I saw a former Gulf War Vet Sergeant John Muhammad randomly kill innocent men and women in the District of Columbia.  L.A.P.D officer and Naval Reserve Lieutenant Christopher Donner went on a killing spree that crossed state lines before being killed by an incendiary device.  Former Sailor Aaron Alexis went on a killing spree at the U.S. Naval yard in Washington DC, and most recently in the Cities of Dallas and Baton Rouge Army reservist and Afghan war vet  Micah Johnson and Marine Corps Sergeant  and Iraq veteran Gavin Long went on rampages killing eight police officers between them.

      What is my point?  Let me say off the bat that I DO NOT CONDONE the actions taken by those I've mentioned, nor do I in any way justify them.  What I'm attempting to say is that veterans (especially war vets) need the government whom they were willing to give their lives to protect to have their backs.  They need access to doctors and mental health services. They need vocational training.  Many need access to mental health care professionals as they've seen things that most of us can't even imagine.  I'm just some schmuck who served in the military during peace time. I don't think I warrant the respect due to combat veterans but I definitely feel they deserve far more than they get.
      Let's face it this country has a seriously short attention span and a "what have you done for me lately" attitude. There seem to be three days on the American calendar when Veterans receive the respect of the American people: Memorial Day, the fourth of July and Veterans day.  Vets are often turned down for work by the same people who might have put up red white and blue streamers the day before and thanked them for their service a week earlier without much thought.

       I'm weary of listening to politicians from major parties telling me how they will fix the Veterans Administration system and hospitals. I hear this empty rhetoric from men and women with elephants and donkeys next to their names (some of whom ARE veterans themselves) but at the same time I see their colleagues in the House of Representatives and the Senate blocking bills that would give veterans hospitals more funding or give vets greater access to psychiatric help simply because the bill in question MAY have been put forth by someone from an opposing party and they deemed it more important to score political points. As that bickering goes on I find myself driving past men and women near freeway over passes who may or may not be homeless veterans.
  
     Navy Seal and American Hero Chief Petty Officer Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield were both shot and killed while attempting to counsel former Marine Eddie Routh at a gun range.  Which leaves us to ask, if Routh had greater access to mental health care would  Chris Kyle be alive today?  If this nation's love for veterans extended beyond three days a year, would any of the homicidal veterans I've mentioned have committed their atrocious acts?

You Can't Hide Forever...we WILL find you...(satire)

I've imagine the scenario more than once. It's always at night and he's running down darkened streets. We walk in a large group knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to evade us. No matter where he turned we were seconds behind him until finally he runs into either an alley or is standing before an abandoned store front and finds himself desperately pleading with us. "Guys. You...you can't be serious! It was 1981." One of us would angrily say "Why not Larry, or Bobby or Steven? Hell you could have even gone Matthew!"
He would then plead with us "Come on guys it's just a song." and before we set upon him one of us would defiantly  yell "It's your damn SIGNATURE song!"  We would then rain kicks and blows upon him and as we left, one of us would start to whistle the melody of the song with which we'd been tortured and maybe one of them would look back at him as he lay in the street and taunt "Hey Springfield...this is all just a bad dream. If anyone asks remember...Jesse is a friend" and then sing "and yes he is a good friend of mine...but lately somethin's changed..."
              I'm sure Rick Springfield has had this dream but usually wakes up from it in terror.  The greatest writer in the history of the English language once said: "What's in a name? It is neither hand, nor foot, nor any other part belonging to a man." Shakespeare said this in Romeo and Juliet, but at the time when he wrote it "Bill" (one of the shortened forms of the name William) wasn't an annoying note one got for services rendered at the end of a month, and it certainly wasn't a song in which the lovely Marilyn McCoo was asking him to her.  Had either been true he might have thought twice about the use of the brilliant phrase.

            Being the muse for a brilliant musician or even a mediocre one has to be quite the compliment, but if you just happen to share a name with someone about whom a song is written and that song becomes a huge hit,  it can be more annoying than those tiny lose hairs that always seem to be on your neck after you get a haircut. When Beethoven wrote "Fur Elise" (whose name was Therese by the way) you have to know she was flattered, but how many women named Elise have wanted to bludgeon the genius for having written it?

Doubt me? Find any woman who grew up in the 1970s named Caroline and serenade her with the Neil Diamond classic which bears her name. If she doesn't lunge at you with murderous intent consider yourself lucky. Neil Diamond probably has round the clock security simply to protect himself from women named Caroline.  The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson probably could wall paper his Malibu home with copies of the restraining orders he's had to get against women named "Barbara Ann" who want to take his hand and punch him in the face with it while asking "Why ya hittin' yourself? Why ya hittin' yourself?" They might want to see him "rockin' and a rollin' " and even "rockin' and a reelin' " down the hill his house sits on into the Pacific. Who knows one of them might have so much "Fun, Fun Fun" she'll drive off in a T-bird till LAPD takes it away. Yes those were horrible puns. I regret nothing.
 
        Ask any woman named Janie if she's "Got a gun". Stephen Tyler is smart enough NOT to do so. Women named "Nikki" don't like to be told how "Darling" they are. Women named "Layla" don't like to be told that you've got them on their knees. conversely women named "Donna" and "Peggy Sue" would most likely be sending hate mail to rock and roll legends Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holley and while Micheal Jackson was one of his generations greatest entertainers women named Billie Jean probably used to throw things at him in airports. Have women named "Lucille" or known as "Long Tall Sally" stopped wanting to assault Architect of Rock and Roll Little Richard? Hell your given name doesn't even have to be IN a some for someone to annoy you with it.  Don't believe me? Sing the song "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie to ANY woman named Tamara and replace the title of the song with her name.

        Lest you think everyone whose name is used in a song is annoyed by it, I've never met any woman named Angela who didn't love David Bowie's tribute to his wife "Angie" as she was leaving him as sang by his friend Mick Jagger.  Peter Chris' (formerly the drummer of KISS) wife "Beth" still hasn't dumped him despite having written one of the most ANNOYING ballads in the history of music about her circa 1970 something.  Most women named "Bernadette" love the Four Tops song which bears their name and there are women named "Michelle" who adore the Beatles song which bears their name.

        Before you call the FBI and tell 80s Australian actor/singer Rick Springfield that  kabal of guys named Jesse are hunting him down, I'm kidding! Most of us mean Rick no harm, except maybe guys named "Bruce" who hated being immortalized in his tongue in cheek song "Bruce" about once having a groupie confuse him for rock legend Bruce Springsteen. Hell I have to admit I actually like the REST of the guy's music.

       To musicians out there who feel inspired to write a song about someone, take a lesson from some of the greats. Carley Simon has YET to tell us the name of the guy who was "So Vain" that he probably thought the song was about him...well wasn't it?  Alanis Moiressette to this day hasn't divulged the name of the guy to whom she gave fellatio in a theatre. Dave Coulier from the 90s sitcom Full House claims it was him and truthfully if I'd dated Alanis Moiressette before that song was written I'd probably say it was about me. Wouldn't you? Jim Morrison died without telling us the name of the girl to whom he walked up and proclaimed "Hello I love You."  Who was the "Lady" Lionel Ritchie sang of? He must have loved her because he wrote a second song about her (with the same title) and let Kenny Rogers sing it. "The Girl from Ipanema" enjoyed relative anonymity as did the "Island Girl" of whom Elton John sang.
       At the end of the day, those of us who have been inadvertently immortalized by song writers consider ourselves somewhat fortunate.  Somewhere out there is a guy named Fong who would love to hear his name in a song. Don't worry Fong my man, some love struck girl is probably immortalizing you as you read this. Hope her song's a hit.

America. Black and Blue

Thursday July 7, 2016 I turned on CNN and saw my friend Christina's block in downtown Dallas on TV.  There was a Black Lives Matter protest which both CNN and Fox News agreed was "peaceful." The event had been peaceful UNTIL a sniper decided to open fire on the Dallas Police and Dallas Area Rapid Transit Police from a parking garage. I sat there trying not to cry and feeling as if I'd been kicked in the gut.
        

Let's back up. For as long as there have been black communities there have been police in them.  Richard Penniman who is better known as the self proclaimed "Architect of rock and Roll" Little Richard's father ran a bar in Macon Georgia and was shot and killed by one of the bar's patrons. The police detained the murderer but released him and explained that one black man killing another wasn't a crime worth wasting "tax payer money" to bring to court. Richard was infuriated but there was nothing that could or would be done.
       In 1955, Chicago teen Emmet Til was kidnapped at gun point from his cousin's home in rural Mississippi where he was tortured and killed for being "fresh" with a woman whose husband owned a local store. Two men were arrested and tried for the teen's murder but were found not guilty. The reason? Til was black and the two men who killed him were white.

      The Ku Klux Klan once used as a major selling point in recruiting that none of its members had ever been convicted of killing a black man. When John Lewis (now an elderly congressman) was one of the "Freedom Riders" who attempted to integrate interstate buses in the 60s was traveling across the South, J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation called local sheriff's departments and let them know when bus loads of "agitators" and "trouble makers" were to arrive.  The result was usually the sheriff letting local hotheads know when the buses would arrive and then when the sheriffs department would arrive.  Essentially the sheriff's departments were giving the local thugs a good 10 minutes to crack skulls and leave before they arrived. In the minds of many people of color the police were the guys who kept you in line and who protected those who brutalized and slaughtered you. Luckily the 60s brought about laws that enabled persons of color to integrate universities, vote, become civil servants (like police officers and elected officials) and to sit on juries.

          Let's put things into context here.  During the 1960s black cops were as rare as four leaf clovers. In many cities and states the idea of a black police officer male or female seemed laughable. Things have changed. Police randomly placing a random black man in jail because a crime was committed are over, but generations of this occurring have lead to a degree of distrust that has been passed along like a horrible disease.  Police brutality at one point WAS rampant in this country no matter what  your race. Blacks (in my opinion) probably felt more "victimized" because the criminal justice system more often than not gives them harsher sentences than whites accused of similar crimes.  The criminal justice system is harsher on defendants who can't afford good legal representation and as many of the impoverished are persons of color this creates the appearance of a bias. 

        Being a cop is like being president of the United States. There are those who love you and in whose eyes you can do no wrong, some who can be objective to you and what you do and those who vilify everything you do. Your actions have an impact and you have to make decisions upon which the lives of others hang in the balance.  It's not a job any geek of the street could do. The great thigns you do will often be ignored and your every error will be hung around your neck like an albatross.
    
       I can't claim to be an expert in the "black experience". My "black experience" was growing up with both parents in a working class neighborhood. I can't speak for someone who grew up in a much poorer neighborhood with a single parent. I can't speak for someone who grew up literally afraid to cross a street in the North or Midwest for fear of entering an Irish or Italian neighborhood because I have no idea what that's like. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said last week according to Time Magazine:  “If you are a normal, white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and you instinctively under-estimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.” If I said the exact same thing I'd be called a whiner or simply ignored or dismissed.  I do however know what it's like to be unfairly stereotyped and judged by the actions of others OR by the preconceptions of others and to that end I'll wager most cops do too.
      Cops and men of color have much in common. Entirely too many people are quick to assume the very worst about both us to be true. Many make snap judgements about both of us based on the actions of a handful of sociopaths who in no way represent all of us. Both groups have to deal with stereotypes and prejudice from people who have limited (if any interaction) with us.  Sadly both groups have detractors who wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if large numbers of us were brutally killed.

Oh and we have one other thing in common,  neither of us seems to want to listen to the other.  There are serious similarities between men of color and the cops and differences. What needs to happen is a dialogue in which we take a good look at the common ground we share and stop looking at our ugly history.  We should think about where this country is headed and make sure that one day when or if we hear about a man being shot by police, we don't ask his race but rather what events lead to the confrontation between he and local police.

Guns! Guns! Guns!

I was trying as best I could to get comfortable. When the troop handlers told us to pack our sleeping bags we thought them insane, but after the desert sun had set and the temperatures had dropped we were thankful that we'd followed what had seemed like a ridiculous order at the time.  Every newly minted Marine happily stuffed himself into the warmth of the thick down sleeping bag he'd been forced to pack under threat of court martial or at least a write up.
         Getting comfortable proved difficult because each of us had to have in his bag his new girlfriend better known as his M-16 A2.  It was a cold piece of steel and plastic for which each of us was held responsible and which would have set us back $1500 and a good month in the brig had we lost her. Some of us gave names to the ones we had in basic. I'd named mine Charlene, not as an homage to the movie Full Metal Jacket, but rather to the bottom heavy cheerleader with whom I had NO CHANCE in hell in high school.  The weapon I had in combat training was simply an inconvenience.  Even if you didn't fire it, you had to clean her at least three times a day because of the dust in the lovely area of southern California in which we found ourselves.
          If at the end of the week the armorers didn't think your weapon was clean enough your weekend liberty was cancelled until it was. The happiest part of the end of combat training was simply giving the Corps back its damned weapon.  I've disliked the M-16A2 ever since then and whenever I see some guy at a sporting goods store or gun show buying an AR-15 (the cheap floozy kid sister of the M-16A2 )  I try not to laugh and think: "You must really love cleaning rifles bud."
        Over the past several years I've turned on the news and seen multiple shootings committed by various idiots and whenever it does the same thing happens.  Whomever the president is says how tragic it is, a bunch of well meaning pundits express their grief then the political debate begins. The left points out how easy it is to have a gun, the right points out how the constitution gives each American the RIGHT to own as many as he can afford. They argue until a new news item takes the front page only to resume when the NEXT gun tragedy occurs.

        Sad facts? Simply having access to guns DOES NOT mean someone is more likely to commit a criminal act. Most gun owners aren't shooting up the streets on a daily basis; conversely, it is remarkably easy to legally procure a weapon in these United States. Contrary to the popular opinion of many liberals, the average person doesn't have access to fully automatic weapons, and simply being able to fire more rounds DOESN'T mean you're going on a killing spree.
         But if I may be blunt with my conservative counterparts, the 2nd amendment is the shortest and most VAGUELY written amendment IN the Bill of Rights.  You can CORRECTLY argue that the words "shall not be infringed" means precisely what it states, but be honest and admit that the founding fathers wanted us to have weapons in the event that we had to rise and for militias as they did NOT want a standing army AND they realized that many hunted for food in the 18th century.  Also please stop pretending that the same founding fathers who didn't want us to directly elect senators or the president would have been cool with us having fully automatic weapons, flame throwers and grenade launchers.  Does anyone actually believe that had they known what kinds of weapons we'd develop they wouldn't have made the 2nd amendment FAR more specific?
         The far right however does raise a very interesting point about killers not needing a gun in order to kill.  Human life is very fragile. You can kill another human being with anything you can physically handle and if you can't find anything to pick up, you can use your bare hands.

            America's problem ISN'T Guns and access them, nor is it Indians,  The British, The  Mexican army,  Rebels,  Chinese Immigrants, Irish immigrants, Italian Immigrants, The Kaiser,  Communists,  Negroes,  Illegal Immigrants or members of a particular religion. It's VIOLENCE. We Americans solve every other problem with violence. This country was taken from it's first inhabitants with violence.  Africans were forced to build the south (and part of the north) with violence and psychological torture. Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants were met with low wages and violence upon their arrival and more often than not the robber barons of the 19th and 20th century settled labor disputes with violence.
            Martin Luther King Jr. is considered a hero by many because he championed non violence as a means of getting unjust laws changed. The unjust laws were kept in place with acts of violence. We canonize King and vilify those who tell us to defend ourselves "By any means necessary."  Because at our core we've accepted violence as part of who we are as Americans.   Our movies involve explosions and our heroes are armed with high calibre weapons. We pay hard earned money to see grown men locked into steel cages and pummel one another.
            We Americans are a violent people and we simply don't want to accept that. Accepting that fact would require us to use more thought when resolving our problems. It would deprive us of the opportunity to solve problems with our fists and trigger fingers. It would deprive us of scapegoats and boogie men and require us as a nation to engage in some retrospective.  We need to accept that violence begets violence and as long as we are a culture of violence there will be mass shootings in our schools, theatres, clubs, office buildings, streets and shopping malls.  We need to clear our heads and dedicate some time to have that existential moment when we as a nation see ourselves for who we are and figure out what our next move will be. Perhaps we'll have that great epiphany while field striping and cleaning our AR-15s.