REALITY- On July 13 2013 George Zimmerman was found not guilty of the second degree murder of a 17 year old un-armed high school football player, Trayvon Martin, who was walking home alone and talking to a friend of his via a Bluetooth.
On the night of February 26 2012 George Zimmerman stalked Trayvon Martin until there was a confrontation between them. Zimmerman, a man with no official authority, noticed Trayvon Martin walking home. Zimmerman decided that Trayvon Martin looked enough like a threat to him because there had been burglaries in the neighborhood before that night. Zimmerman called Sanford police because he saw a lone black teenager walking down the street and in that he saw an opportunity.
Zimmerman reported to the operator what he considered a suspicious person in the Twin Lakes community. Zimmerman stated, "We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy." He described an unknown male "just walking around looking about" in the rain and said, "This guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something." Zimmerman reported that the person had his hand in his waistband and was walking around looking at homes. On the recording, Zimmerman is heard saying, "these assholes, they always get away."
About two minutes into the call, Zimmerman said, "he's running." The dispatcher asked, "He's running? Which way is he running?" The sound of a car door chime is heard, indicating Zimmerman opened his car door. Zimmerman followed Martin, eventually losing sight of him. The dispatcher asked Zimmerman if he was following him. When Zimmerman answered, "yeah," the dispatcher said, "We don't need you to do that." Zimmerman responded, "Okay." Zimmerman asked that police call him upon their arrival so he could provide his location. Zimmerman ended the call at 7:15 p.m. By 7:30pm, Trayvon Martin was dead.
Excerpts taken from Wikipedia.org
It took Sanford Florida police another 44 days of national outrage to charge and arrest George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin.
George Zimmerman had stalked this suspicious looking person who looked like they were "up to no good" and "on drugs or something." Sometime after Zimmerman ended his call to the police there was a fight. A fight that George Zimmerman started with his feet by following an innocent, although possibly suspicious looking, person, and a fight that George Zimmerman ended with his gun by firing one shot straight into the heart of Trayvon Martin, killing him.
If George Zimmerman had stayed in his car Trayvon Martin would still be alive today. If George Zimmerman hadn't had a gun on him that night, George Zimmerman would have stayed in the car. If George Zimmerman had had any reason to actually suspect Trayvon Martin of burglary or being "on drugs or something" there would have been some evidence found on Trayvon Martin. Maybe a bag with burglars tools, you know a crowbar, a ski mask, and maybe a suction cup with a diamond rigged onto it to cut holes in glass windows or something. Without any such evidence George Zimmerman has no case besides his word that he was attacked by Trayvon sometime after The Sanford Florida police had told him to stop following people.
If I'm walking home alone in the middle of the night and I'm 17 years old and I'm a black man in a predominantly white neighborhood and I'm un-armed, and I know that I am un-armed, and I see someone watching me from a car nearby and I know that I don't have to actually be "up to no good" for someone else to tell the police that I'm "up to no good" and I get that instinctual feeling that we all get when we're in a dangerous situation I would absolutely run away. Especially if I'm only guilty of "walking around in the rain."
So what happened next? Did Trayvon jump Zimmerman? If so, if Trayvon was further ahead of where Zimmerman had stopped, how does Zimmerman get ambushed by anyone unless he continued to pursue Trayvon Martin against the explicit instruction of the Sanford Police?
Again, if I am in a situation the likes of which Travon Martin had been in that night, and I have already run away from a suspicious looking person sitting in a car and now I can tell that this suspicious man is following me, there is no telling what I might do. While I myself have never owned or carried any kind of firearm I still take my personal safely very seriously and so if I found myself in Trayvon Martin's shoes on that night I would have fought for my life too. I would not tolerate being followed or stalked by anyone under any circumstances. I consider that to be a threat to my personal wellbeing whether the person stalking me intends to rob me, kill me, or buy me an ice cream, there is just no way to know the intent of the person following you at that point. When someone is following you and you choose to stand your ground there will be a problem between you. That much is obvious and commonplace, what is not commonplace is that the person following you pulls a gun and kills you.
Let's talk for a second about the fatal shot that killed Trayvon Martin. I don't believe, based on the evidence, that Zimmerman could have made such a precise shot while in the midst of a struggle for his life. Zimmerman's claim is that he killed Trayvon Martin because Martin had mounted him and was punching him about the head and face. Zimmerman also claims that Martin slammed the back of Zimmerman's head into some concrete. The physical evidence left on George Zimmerman is not consistent with his story. According to expert witness testimony the wounds suffered by George Zimmerman were indicative of Zimmerman being punched not more than twice in the face. The superficial wounds to the back of Zimmerman's head and to his face required no stitches or sutures or staples. Zimmerman didn't even get a black eye. George Zimmerman didn't suffer any concussion. According to George Zimmerman, it was somewhere in here that he managed to reach his gun from a holster on the back of his belt. Of course if you're lying on your back with someone on top of you it's impossible for you to reach a gun holstered on the back of your belt.
So once Zimmerman couldn't possibly have reached his pistol while being beaten about the head and face he landed a single picture-perfect shot into the heart of Trayvon Martin. Which is impossible if you're in a struggle like Zimmerman claims took place. In fact I would say that it would have been much more logical to use the butt end of the pistol in close-combat situation like that. Or perhaps a warning? Stop punching me I have a gun? Or maybe a slightly less fatal shot? This is not a movie. I'm not saying "aim for the leg," but it takes days to die from a gun shot wound to the abdomen and it's a much larger target in a crisis.
Why didn't George Zimmerman, if his story is true which it is not, why didn't Zimmerman attempt to wound his attacker? If George Zimmerman truly had no malice or intent to kill then why didn't he simply shoot his attacker rather than shooting and killing him? George Zimmerman fired a single shot aimed directly at the heart of Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman had to know that that action would cause death. That is murder.
Why didn't George Zimmerman fire his gun in the air, away from himself and anyone else, as a warning? The noise alone would surely been enough to either bring help or scare off any un-armed attacker. What if in trying to fire that warning shot the other guy gets the gun away from you? Again this is not a movie. A young man is dead because of George Zimmerman .
George Zimmerman, though he has been acquitted of criminal charges, will no doubt face civil charges in the murder of Trayvon Martin.
On that fateful night in February The Sanford police, having accepted George Zimmerman's cooked up story, never fully investigated the crime scene to determine what really happened that night and so, in reality, we will never know.
George Zimmerman knows.
George Zimmerman knows that he murdered Trayvon Martin.
REALITY- This week, The United States Supreme Court has been hearing cases having to do with the fate of marriage equality in America. One is a challenge to California's Proposition 8, an amendment to the California state constitution that was passed by voters in 2008 which restricts marriages to "one man - one woman couples". The other argument before the supreme court is over the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act or "DOMA" which denies couples in same-sex marriages the basic rights that other husbands and wives enjoy. Simple things like being able to see your spouse when they're unwell and receiving social security benefits.
The Supreme Court won't have a verdict on either case until late June, the tea leaves seem to point to a split decision where DOMA is rightfully struck down and Prop 8 would be referred back to The California court that had already ruled Prop 8 to be unconstitutional. That would allow California to correct it's mistake without having SCOTUS set legal precedent on the subject.
That is great progress. Twenty or thirty or fifty years late but progress none the less.
Why is it that some people have such trouble being seen as people by some other people?
The answer is simple and exceedingly complicated. People fear what they do not understand, this is well known and used to it's fullest potential. Rush Limbaugh would be out of business were it not for the fear of the unknown and different that he stokes like a flame that he and those like him would watch burn into eternity. The tiny flame of fear exists inside all of us. Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are paid handsomely to fan that flame of fear, make it grow until it burns the inside of your eyes, then they tell you of whom to be afraid. They tell you whom to hate. They tell you who it's alright for you to hurt.
Children learn whom to hate from their parents and their peers. The racist or homophobic attitude starts in childhood, when kids decide whom they can treat differently. At that young age the attitude of hate manifests itself in the form of bullies. Bullies are everywhere and while there is some national attention being brought to the practice of bulling locally no one really does anything to stop bullies. A bully is just the lowest form of a racist or homophobe. A bully picks on what he perceives to be weaker or vulnerable targets.
Vulnerable not only because of lack of size or musculature or popularity status but vulnerable because the bully need not fear any retribution or consequences as a result of his bulling because his target was different. Be it because the target is black, latino, white, Asian, of mixed heritage, alternative political beliefs, or because the target is or may be perceived to be a homosexual or gay person. Kids are cruel goes the old saying I say cruel children grow up to be cruel adults.
It is no great revelation to say that gun violence is out of control in this country. What may be here to fore unknown, or at least unspoken, is that gun owners who fail to understand and respect the terrible power of their personal firearms enough to the point where they would be in favor of background checks are likely the same racist bullies who still hate gay people and quietly encourage their children to bully others. Perpetuating the cycle of violence.
Let me be clear I am not in favor of the government taking everyone's guns away. I would never trust The U.S. Government to that degree. But even the most zealous, sane, non-violent, law abiding, gun owning citizen or American soldier would have to, at this point, be in favor of at least background checks before firearms can be purchased, if for no other reason than reducing the odds that they themselves would have need of their guns to protect themselves and their families from some one who got their gun despite the fact that they had been known to shoot people with it in the past.
The attitude of hate held by the gun-happy killer, the bully, and the racist - homophobe is the same. The attitude that says 'I can do whatever I want to you because I perceive you to be weak, or different, or because it has been demonstrated to me that you are a socially approved target. Acts of violence, degradation, or discrimination against you hold no consequences for me. I can act with impunity. I don't even have to feel bad about it.'
With the gun-happy killer these thoughts end in gunfire as the did in at Sandy Hook elementary school. My thoughts continue to be with those lost and their families. Unimaginable anguish to go from wrapping your child's Christmas presents imagining the little smiling face to burying your child instead.
The bully mostly ends thoughts like that with punches, pranks, or words of hate either screamed into a teary eye or whispered past it from three lunch tables away. Sometimes though the bully is so untouchable and unrelenting that his prey sees no way out besides taking their own lives. Making the bully a murderer too whether the law will call the bully that or not.
The racist - homophobe is liable to become either the gun-happy killer or the quiet bully that whispers behind their neighbor's backs. With the encouragement of a Rush Limbaugh or a Bill O'Reilly, who calls upon his viewers to act as something he calls "culture warriors", the racist - homophobe is that much more likely, in my opinion, to become the gun-happy killer.
Republicans even now argue for keeping the discrimination legislation that they worked hard to force onto gay people who want to get married. The Republican Party even now argues, with the voice of the N.R.A., that any old James Holmes, Gerald Lee Loughner, or Adam Lanza still aught to be able to buy guns in America.
Where does it all end?
It ends when the American people want it to and when we the people have the political momentum to make it happen. It ends now.
And As Always,
Ps. Being anti-marriage equality is just the new racism, the new sexism. People in power have always looked for ways to distract the people away from the obvious spectacle of their corrupt behavior. Forcing us to focus on our differences has always been effective. Though it's been said before, it's only when we as human beings ignore our slight variations and focus instead on what makes us all the same that we will come together as one people and we will all have peace.
http://youtu.be/cgps85scy1g
http://youtu.be/NyR_b98weiQ
REALITY- Eleven years have passed since that fateful Tuesday morning that changed the way Americans perceived the outside world. As none will ever forget, on that day, more than three thousand human lives ended when The U.S. security structure failed to protect our borders from four hijacked passenger aircraft. It is well known by now that 19 terrorists, most of them from Saudi Arabia, hijacked 4 commercial passenger jets bent on crashing those huge airplanes into various targets within the United States. It is sad to say that on that day the terrorists did succeed in 2 of their 3 surmised goals, One Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon, two Boeing 767's destroyed the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, and the fourth jet, a Boeing 757, was shot down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania said to have been on course for The White House.
A moment of silence please.
There are a myriad of ways to feel about the tragic events of September The Eleventh 2001. I hope that most would feel respect for the people whose lives were taken that day. Respect for the passengers on each of the four doomed flights having no idea that this day would be their last. Respect for those who woke up the morning of September The Eleventh feeling as though it was just another Tuesday in New York. Beautiful weather, busy streets, and a job to do. Respect for the men and women in uniform who may have expected to face an ordinary day on the force or in the fire station but knew deep down the risk they faced every time that they put on their uniforms. Those intrepid first responders put on their uniforms and were greeted that Tuesday morning by beautiful weather, busy streets, and a job to do. I write today out of respect for those who were lost and for those who persevere.
Eleven years later and the images of heroism are still compelling.
Eleven years later the images of non-reaction are also compelling. This is what Republican President George W. Bush was doing after he was told by one of his handlers that "The nation was under attack." I think we can at least assume that George W. Bush was smart enough to understand that his handlers did indeed mean that this nation here, The United States of America, the nation that Bush was sort of president of at that moment was in fact the nation that Bush had just learned was under attack. While W. may have indeed at that time understood that his nation was under attack, could have been an attack from The Planet Mars for all he knew at that moment, it is clear that George W. Bush had absolutely no idea how to react or what to do. In a stunning piece accidental comedy the above photo features a rare image of the actual thoughts of George W. Bush which can be seen listed on the purple display to his right.
Appointed President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld swore that they would bring the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden, to Justice. They failed.
What they did succeed in doing was starting two illegal wars, one of them at least in the exact wrong place, rolled back environmental regulations to the point where one oil company (BP - British Petroleum) would soon be responsible for the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, and as a farewell show they crashed The United States economy into a mountain creating the second largest financial crisis in American history. When things got tough this is how The Republican Party handled it. Poorly.
So poorly that when it came time to elect a new president in 2008 the Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain couldn't out run his predecessor or his opponent and his party lost control of The White House and The U.S. Congress.
Over the course of President Barack Obama's first term in office his administration has worked to end the second Iraq War, his policies have stopped the bleeding of the worst financial collapse in American history since The Great Depression. Despite unprecedented Republican obstructionism President Obama has managed to begin the stabilization of The American economy.
President Barack Obama also pursued policies towards and issued the order to kill Al Qaeda terrorist leader and mastermind of the September The Eleventh Terrorist Attacks Osama Bin Laden.
For once Vice President Joe Biden actually did say it best "Bin Laden is dead and G.M. is alive."
But that's enough history, this is about the future in specific the future of the citizens of The United States of America. The near future, November 6th 2012, the day that Americans will once again make time to make history. On that day the people of The United States will vote to decide the next President of The United States.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are the Republican candidates running for president and vice president respectively. Paul Ryan introduced a budget that would end Medicare and believes that a woman should be forced to bare the child of her rapist. Somehow this position, which has been adopted as part of The 2012 Republican Party Platform, is referred to as "pro-life" when in point of fact this position can best be described as "anti-woman". While Mitt Romney is a wildcard.
Willard 'Mitt' Romney has been on nearly all sides of all of the issues to date. I believe that the one thing that Romney has said along the campaign trail thus far that he has truly meant was that he believed that he should be president because it was his turn. Romney was born to wealth and has made more money throughout his professional life by closing other people's businesses down and putting every-day Americans out of work.
Mitt Romney refuses to follow the established history of presidential candidates by releasing his tax records. Most likely because W.M. Romney is afraid to be honest with the American people about how he got to where he is today. In fact 'Mitt' Romney is not even running for president under his real name. He gets a stage name? Like Shawn Michaels or Lady GaGa?
President Barack Obama has faced impossible challenges, greater odds than a more generous god would have allowed, and the unprecedented obstructionism of The Republican Party who's top representatives have said that their one goal over the last four years has been to make sure that Barack Obama was only a one term president.
The Republican Party's goals had nothing to do with helping you.
The goals of The Republican Party have nothing to do with helping the American people.
The goals of The Republican Party have nothing to do with moving this great nation forward into a future where the hungry are fed, the poor are kept warm, and the politicians and businessmen who have tried to hoard supplies, opportunities, and resources just for themselves and those closest to them at the expense and exclusion of decent hard-working Americans are held accountable for their destructive actions. A future where those criminals are treated as criminals deserve to be treated.
Despite what President Obama has endured over the last four years he has accomplished more than anyone thought that he could. He restored dignity and honor to the office of President of The United States. He ended a needless war in Iraq, hasn't started any other "pre-emptive" wars, and brought the terrorist Osama Bin Laden to justice when he predecessor "Didn't know where [Osama Bin Laden] is" and "Frankly Didn't spend that much time on him".
All of President Obama's administration's accomplishments came on the heels of the George W. Bush Administration arguably eight of the worst run years in American history. Imagine what President Barack Obama could do in a second term, a term that starts here and now not drudging through the mistakes of the past.
President Harry S. Truman said it best "If we don't make a mistake, what a paradise we could make of this world."
We must not make the mistake that is the Romney / Ryan fiasco.
We must choose to re-elect President Barack Obama to a second term so that we can all have a chance to move forward.
And as Always,
Ps. This blog is dedicated to the memory of all whose lives were lost or fractured forever on that fateful Tuesday morning, and to all those who have given their lives before and since in service of the cause of freedom for Americans and all others around the world.
REALITY- By now everyone should know the story of Trayvon Martin. An unarmed high school football player carrying candy and a cell phone was gunned down in the night by a man who had no official authority. Sadly this story would not be remarkable (as this kind of thing happens all too often) but for the fact that the local police failed to investigate the crime immediately. Instead they took the word of the guy with the smoking gun in his hand and no visable wounds what so ever. In short, the killer said that it wasn't his fault because when he shot and killed the unarmed teenager he said that it was in self defense. The local police didn't investigate in order to corroborate they simply accepted the killer's story at face value and let him go free.
This would have been the end of the story if it had not been for the efforts of Trayvon Martin's parents who had to take their case to the nation via television interviews. Having been turned away by the local police, the family of Trayvon Martin was forced to plead for justice on The Today Show.
Most people, when they lose a child under any circumstances, need to be comforted by friends and family while the details of caring for the deceased are seen to by others. A natural grieving process takes place, we're all familiar, or will one day become familiar with it from one perspective or another. Sybrina Fulton had to go on television before the man who murdered her son Trayvon was even arrested for the crime.
More than a month had passed since George Zimmerman had shot Trayvon Martin in the chest in what Zimmerman claimed to be self defense. Trayvon Martin was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone that tragic night. She reports that the last things that she hears are that Trayvon asked someone "What are you following me for?" she heard a man's voice reply "What are you doing here?" Martin's girlfriend then hears what she describes as "the sound of pushing". Trayvon Martin's phone went silent. Trayvon's girlfriend, who remains anonymous, believes that Trayvon was the one who was pushed by the other man.
No one really knows for certain what happened next, except that George Zimmerman fired his handgun while it was aimed at Trayvon Martin's chest. Zimmerman claims that the smaller unarmed teenager attacked him from behind. A 911 call that reported the incident at first as "someone screaming outside" captures the sound of someone in a high pitched cry for their life just before a gunshot silences them. Two experts have studied the tape of that 911 call and they report that the voice heard crying out for help was definitely not the voice of George Zimmerman. The experts say that they don't know for sure if the voice heard screaming for help is Trayvon Martin as there was no sample of Trayvon Martin's voice for them to compare it to.
George Zimmerman was finally arrested and will be tried for second degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon's mother, posted a special mother's day video.
Here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KaOw4cQEHs
Kelly Thomas was a mentally ill homeless person who was also unarmed and murdered. Kelly was beaten into a coma by 6 members of the Fullerton California Police department. 5 days later he was taken off of life support and Kelly Thomas died never having regained consciousness.
Kelly Thomas' murder, unlike Trayvon Martin's, was caught on video surveillance cameras. Although it still took almost three months for any arrests to take place as the police were claiming that Kelly had been "combative" with the six officers and that two of them had suffered broken bones at the hands of Kelly Thomas. Later the police changed their story to fit emerging facts and said that no one involved in the incident suffered any serious injuries. No one except Kelly that is. Currently two officers stand trial for second degree murder charges in the beating death of Kelly Thomas.
Here is a link to the full surveillance video from that tragic night on youtube.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6yaeD-E_MY
George Zimmerman and the six Fullerton County police officers who killed Kelly Thomas have at least two things in common.
1. They are all murderers.
2. They are all bullies.
Bullies, people who think that they can do whatever they want to whomever they want because they're bigger, stronger, more well trained and armed, or richer than you. No matter who you are you know what a bully is.
Which brings me to Mitt Romney. Who, it has been recently revealed, spent his high school days bullying closeted homosexuals for the sheer joy of hurting someone else. So it has been reported, one time Mitt Romney actually chased down a student and cut all his hair off of him. Because "Romney didn't like how the kid looked". Then there was another man that Mitt Romney suspected of being homosexual and so every time Romney heard that classmate say anything he would tell the student "That'a girl".
Mitt Romney ran his business in much the same fashion, bullying smaller companies into bankruptcy while he and his corporate friends reaped all the spoils, getting rich off of the destruction of other people's lives.
Mitt Romney is now the Republican Nominee for President of The United States of America. And he is still a bully.
Republicans love bullies, because republicans are bullies. Not every last republican, I doubt Ron Paul could be considered a bully. Unless you count the fact that he hasn't stopped pretending to run for president even though he has lost a few times already. Now that I think of it, the way Ron Paul is all racist and anti-abortion kind of makes him more like a bully in his way of thinking.
The thing that all of these bullies have in common is their mentality. The attitude of a bully is one that says 'I can hurt anyone I don't like and you better not stop me either because you should be glad that I'm not hurting you.'
That is a crazy way of thinking. It is the same line of thought that empowers every racist to claim superiority over someone else because they might be a little bit different from them. It is the same line of reasoning that leads to murders, rapes, and other such human abuses like torture, economic tyranny, and political domination.
Mitt Romney, as a bully himself, has the same attitude towards those that he considers beneath him that George Zimmerman had when he looked at Trayvon Martin and pulled the trigger. The same mentality that led six police officers to climb on top of a defenseless 120lb man and beat him and kick him until he stopped moving.
The mentality of a bully.
I don't think that I'm overstating this. Mitt Romney is a bully don't vote for him unless you want him to punch you in the stomach and take your lunch money.
And As Always,
