A few days ago a European-American firefighter in Lansing, Michigan was murdered by a European-American.
The firefighter was volunteering at a muscular dystrophy fundraiser. The murderer was irritated at the traffic delays the fundraiser caused so with his vehicle he ran down the firefighter.
That hit me hard as my nephew is a paramedic and works with fire departments on the East Coast.
But this also reminded me of the demagoguery that has falsely accused those of us concerned about the use of force by police on minorities with inciting minorities to attack the police.
Those concerned about the police use of lethal force have been advocating changes in police procedures and criminal investigations and when warranted prosecutions of officers whose use of force violated procedures and crossed the line into a crime.
Both the President and the Attorney General have been consistent in their condemnation of all attacks on police and their support for the police.
Only the most vile type of demagoguery could distort that to claim that is incitement to attack our police.
Such demagoguery distracts from reality. When we are distracted from reality we are not supporting our first responders.
Our first responders are in most danger when responding to crimes and domestic violence from suspects of all ethnicities.
Our first responders are at risk from road rage as happened in Michigan.
When a person with mental illness cites a political reason for their attack on the police, we need to remain focused on the person's mental illness.
Most of the politically motivated attacks on our first responders have been by European-Americans who are on the right wing of the political spectrum. Politically motivated attacks by ethnic minorities are rare.
Firefighter, Black, and All Lives Matter.
This is an issue for firefighters and their families, African-Americans, and all Americans. (That was inspired by Hilary Clinton's recent speech in Wisconsin.)
My readers are free to use anything from my private blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post as background research and talking points.I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
As this is for me to work on my writing and blogging skills please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Why Does the NYT Ignore Serpico's Antisemitism?
I have long admired the courage of former NYC police officer and whistleblower Frank Serpico and appreciate whenever follow up stories appear about him.
He has settled in upstate New York.
Sadly I have discovered that he now writes a blog filled with the vile antisemitism most often seen in the writing of people suffering from a serious form of mental illness.
In other writing Serpico admits to heavy alcohol and marijuana use so the paranoia and out of touch reality of his antisemitic writings could be related to that.
Serpico is running for a seat on a local board not because of any local issues but because of a long standing dispute with a neighbor over trees on their shared property line,
The NYT article reported that local Democrats have long wanted Serpico to run for something.
In this and a previous article, the NYT did not do the very easy basic research that I did to discover the very troubling blog posts. That and other issues should be reported and should have disqualified Serpico from being considered as a candidate by local Democrats.
Serpico needs to acknowledge he has very serious problems and deal with them. Encouragement to run for office and NYT puff pieces enable his denial.
I hope others who are aware of this are now contacting the NYT. I hope in the next few days to see a letter to the editor with this information or an updated report with this omission.
My readers are free to use anything from my private blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post as background research and talking points.I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
As this is for me to work on my writing and blogging skills please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
He has settled in upstate New York.
Sadly I have discovered that he now writes a blog filled with the vile antisemitism most often seen in the writing of people suffering from a serious form of mental illness.
In other writing Serpico admits to heavy alcohol and marijuana use so the paranoia and out of touch reality of his antisemitic writings could be related to that.
Serpico is running for a seat on a local board not because of any local issues but because of a long standing dispute with a neighbor over trees on their shared property line,
The NYT article reported that local Democrats have long wanted Serpico to run for something.
In this and a previous article, the NYT did not do the very easy basic research that I did to discover the very troubling blog posts. That and other issues should be reported and should have disqualified Serpico from being considered as a candidate by local Democrats.
Serpico needs to acknowledge he has very serious problems and deal with them. Encouragement to run for office and NYT puff pieces enable his denial.
I hope others who are aware of this are now contacting the NYT. I hope in the next few days to see a letter to the editor with this information or an updated report with this omission.
My readers are free to use anything from my private blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post as background research and talking points.I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
As this is for me to work on my writing and blogging skills please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Did Christie Just Make a Campaign Killing Walker-Like Statement?
Republican presidential candidate and NJ governor Christie said jailed Kentucky clerk Kim Davis should just have been transferred to another job.
Christie statement suggests he oblivious to the fact that she's not a public employee but the elected clerk. She can't be transferred to another position.
But being an "honest straight talker" means never to having to check that your opinions are based in reality before opening your mouth.
Just as Walker's string of incredibly stupid statements has done nothing to halt his declining poll numbers and may be among the reasons his candidacy fails, I expect this will do nothing to stop the fall in Christie's already low poll numbers which are already scraping the bottom or increase donations to his campaign.
For some reason right now Trump can get away with making nonsense statements not based in reality. Christie and Walker are not Trump and cannot.
Christie statement suggests he oblivious to the fact that she's not a public employee but the elected clerk. She can't be transferred to another position.
But being an "honest straight talker" means never to having to check that your opinions are based in reality before opening your mouth.
Just as Walker's string of incredibly stupid statements has done nothing to halt his declining poll numbers and may be among the reasons his candidacy fails, I expect this will do nothing to stop the fall in Christie's already low poll numbers which are already scraping the bottom or increase donations to his campaign.
For some reason right now Trump can get away with making nonsense statements not based in reality. Christie and Walker are not Trump and cannot.
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