Youtube and Pandemic Video of the Day, France, Revolutionary War and Captain America?

 

There are a couple things and a couple places that historically enrage me.

You will find injustice and stupidity everywhere, but some places seem to have more than their fair share. Some places where the rule of law and government, is put in the hands of the most venal, and these miscarriages of not just justice, but of humanity continue to proliferate and occur.

The MOVE Bombing in Philadelphia comes to mind, the LA riots, sentencing mentally disabled children as adults in Florida and locking them up with Adults.

Ah Florida.

You bring to mind a quote from Henry the Vth.

And when I think of Henry the Vth, it is not the play I read that comes to mind, or the many film adaptations, it is a very specific film and performance. It is Branagh’s HENRY THE V. And there is this scene where he has just seen the bodies of the children that France killed in a sneak attack. He says, he seethes, “I was not angry till I came to France!”

Often I have heard news dealing with Florida, and it rises in me that self same rage, and I think… “I was not angry till I heard of Florida!”

And again I am sure there are great parts to Florida, great people in Florida, however it seems rightly or wrongly, they are overshadowed by the… mad.

Though it could be argued that… considering who some people voted for in the last presidential election, that all of America is mad.

***

Perhaps one of the greatest warriors America has ever produced, perhaps he was right.

Perhaps he was right when he switched sides.

I’m talking about Benedict Arnold.

History only remembers him as traitor.

They forget that he was the one everyone looked to, Washington, Jefferson, Banneker all of them. He was the Captain America of his day.  Winning battle after battle, until at some point he saw a dichotomy between a colony seeking its Freedom from England, while ever more earnest about creating its wealth through a system of petty tyrannies, fiefdoms, slavery and impoverishment.

Ah Arnold, they have roughly used you.

Perhaps he was right.

An 1880 Bio of Benedict Arnold, By A Sympathetic Relative

 

All that to say, that video… riled me.

********

Now a bit more on that Henry the Vth quote:

“I was not angry till I came to France!”

That line has always stuck with me. What was said, and how he said it, and the enormity of the villainy to prompt such words.

However I don’t want people to confuse me  being moved by that line, with any problems with France.

I like France, I went through it when I was younger, on a trip from Germany to London than back down through France to Spain.

While some American media has this totally undeserved derision toward France, the truth of the matter is… there would not be an America without France. The 100 year war between France and England, actually being just a small part of a 1000 year rivalry between those Super-Powers of that age, and the battle ground of America, what we called the Revolutionary War, was simply, for those Super Powers, their Vietnam.

Britain was fighting too many wars on too many fronts, battles with Spain, and France and on their own shores, and now a treasonous colony to deal with, that was being supported by their enemies. It was too much.

America likes to think we beat Britain, that is not the case. No, more than Vietnam beat America. In both cases battles on too many fronts, at home and abroad, required that the super power relinquish their expansionist wars, to concentrate on maintaining the nation proper.

So yeah, while Henry the Vth rightfully raged against France at the Battle of Agincourt, for myself, and for I think any American who has studied even basic history, and appreciates (for all its horrendous flaws) the dream of America, well you have to thank France for there even being a nation called America. Much as Vietnam has China to thank for them not being annexed by the United States.

So historically a fan of France, though these days they are dealing, like much of Europe and the World, with the rise of a new form of colonialism and fascism, under the guise of big business supplanting the rights of the individual.

 

Woah, man. That post went all over the place.  🙂

Somewhere in all that rambling there is probably a point. Me, I’ll leave it there. With this last refrain…

• Travel when you can.
• Defend each other and yourselves when you must.
• Find and spread joy where you may.

These are my only laws.

Oh, and deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.

In the words of Tennessee Williams and Blance Dubois. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.

Be well all.

And here endeth the rant. 🙂

 

-HT

 

Deal of the Day!

Justice for Mike Brown Leadership Coalition calls for boycott of Burger King!!

I don’t like platitudes, I don’t like slogans, I don’t like lip-service in place of real change.

I don’t like the simple answers to complex questions that the nightly news would feed us all.

I do not like the parts they would have us play, the lines they would have us draw, the sides they would have us choose.

“Black Lives Matter” what an inane slogan to march under.

It is the thought process of aging decrepit hippies, and misguided youths who have not died enough to live. Black Lives Matter? To who? Why? For what reason?

This is not about Black lives, it is about all lives.

That is the only sane slogan.

It is about the quality of the republic.

It is about justice.

There are vile human beings of the Black persuasion I would not cross the street to spit on. There are vile human beings of the White and Brown and Yellow persuasion who are likewise cancers and abominations on the healthy body of society.

The job is to protect society from those vile humans, and a huge part of that is insuring these vile people aren’t issued badges. And most of them aren’t, unfortunately a few of them are. And it only takes a few, to bring us here.

Not everyone is cut out for the responsibility of making life and death decisions, and when the recruiting methods are questionable, and there are no checks and balances, no culpability, no reprisals for bad behavior, you are just priming a powder-keg… to explode.

Civilization, the orderly world you take for granted and hope to wake and sleep to, depends on those tasked with holding the line between anarchy and order. And bad cops and the bad administration that supports them, make that already heavy responsibility an untenable one.

Bad cops ruin the only thing a good cop has of value, the line, and the holding of it.

The law either binds us all, Black and Brown and Yellow and White, or it binds none of us. Preserves none of us, and we can all fall afoul of monsters with badges masquerading as men. Criminals posing as cops.

NYPD Brutality pattern

These bad cops, and bad DAs, and bad judges, make the line untenable to hold, make even the good cops smeared with the offal of the bad, until we are no longer protecting and serving, but suddenly we’re nothing more than an unruly mob, with enemies everywhere we look.

It is a bad road that we have seen before, and god defend us from seeing it again.

The answer is not with marches, at least not just with marching. That’s a 20th century response, that organizations like the NAACP in their stupidity do not realize is inadequate for a 21st century world. You want change that protects civilians from monsters with badges, you have to make it cost. That means NAACP you may have to actually get off your fat assess and boycott some of those rich sponsors that line your pockets to look the other way.

It means you may have to sacrifice.

That we may all have to sacrifice.

And the one thing more powerful than the vote, is financial reprisals. Putting someone’s money… at risk.

Do you think Black people in Jim Crow America, got to ride in the front of the bus because of Rosa Parks? No. Black people got to ride in the front of the bus because, for over 365 days, people outraged and enraged and fed-up; decided to be inspired by Rosa Parks, and decided they would not spend money with the mass transit system.

They would sacrifice.

And suddenly, that loss of revenue, that sacrifice, these people walking for miles for over a year, rather than sit in the back of a bus… that willingness to speak in volumes in the only language that America truly understands… dollars… that sacrifice made bigots willing to concede that their bigotry (in that situation) was of less value than your dollars.

It made them realize a lesson that you have to (from time to time) teach bullies… that the cost of disrespect can be far more expensive than the cost of respect. That respect is more affordable.

And the same must occur in any region where police brutality is an unpunished pattern such as in New york City and Ferguson, Missouri; you must make in those regions the cost of disrespect more expensive than the cost of respect.

You get businesses to sign petitions calling for the removal of this bad cop, and this bad police captain, and this bad DA, and this bad judge, and if necessary the Mayor, the Governor, the Senator. You find the businesses in that region who respect your dollars, and the ones who do not.

In the case of Ferguson they are starting by calling for the Boycott of BURGER KING, a company headquartered in the state where Trayvon Martin was killed. A humble start to be sure, but from such beginnings (this nation itself is proof)… great things do rise.

A regional and nationwide boycott, in Ferguson, in New York, in Baltimore, in Cincinnati, in your homes, in your hearts, a boycott of businesses that do not side with the populations that enrich them, over the abusive thugs posing as cops and lawyers, who jointly undo everything that can make our nation better.

It is a battle that not only can you win, with education and commitment and sacrifice, it is a battle others before you have paid dearly to win great portions of. Today is just your turn.

Your day in the sun.

To either meanly lose or nobly win… your freedom.

You don’t like bad cops.

Neither do good cops.

You want to do something of value, stand the eff up like men and help us.

Help us all.

What are you prepared to do?

I would say start here:

http://mikebrowncoalition.org/

George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin and Justice Florida Style

George Zimmerman Acquitted in Trayvon Martin Killing

I think the above link does a good summary of the case and its outcome.

Sanford, Florida.

Florida is a state known for its howling miscarriages of justice when it comes to cases involving color.

I’m reminded of the case of Lionel Tate, the 12 year old, mentally disabled child, who killed another child, Tiffany Eunick. The mentally disabled child, a black child was charged as an adult and sent to prison. A savage rending of any concept of justice.

We have another such rending of justice here in the Martin Zimmerman case. In this case you have a self appointed vigilante, using the cover of neighborhood watch (I’m typically in favor of neighborhood watch, but not the gun packing variety) to instigate an incident that ended with the death of an unarmed 17 year old.

When we put it upon ourselves to police others we must first be able to police ourselves, and in the case of Martin and Zimmerman, you have a population and a state engulfed by 50s ideas of segregation, and fear, and a lynch-mob mentality that today sanctioned the murder of a black child for what amounts to nothing more than walking in a ‘white’ neighborhood. Similar to those cases of 12 year old boys lynched for looking at white women.

So what is to be done?

Well I’m in favor of boycotting not just the municipality of Sanford but Florida itself. Economic reprisals baby! Don’t spend a single dime or dollar [particularly if you are a person of color] with Sanford based businesses. Or for that matter Florida businesses.

Let’s see how well they like it if this Colored population, that does the bulk of the buying and living and dying in any municipality, stopped condoning the evils of that municipality with their money.

It is a resolution… to be tried. Boycott Sanford. Boycott Florida. Boycott Disney World.

Okay that could be a bit harsh to toss a whole state under the bus, but if that’s what it takes to get examined Florida’s judicial landscape of ‘not quite seperate but still unequal’, then that is what must be done.

Florida CDC Homeless Attack Face Cannibal Zombie BS Media Bath Salts?!! News?

Florida. Florida. Florida.

That state hasn’t been right since the Bushes moved in. 🙂 .

I’m going to give this ‘news’ story the in-depth analysis it deserves. “Bath Salts cause homeless man to go on zombie style face eating attack”? “CDC warn there is no Zombie uprising.”

Really?

This is what passes for news and journalism and the wisdom of our government in action?!

Playing up America’s paranoia and gullibility, to spin some stories about homeless f**kers hopped op on Bath Salts, turning into vicious face eating zombies. And the CDC plays into it by issuing their ‘denial’.

I don’t watch TV, or the 24 hour propaganda machine on spin cycle, which means I still have working brain cells left and can tell bullsh*t when I hear bullsh*t.

This is bullsh*t.

A cursory examination of the story, lends a far more probable angle.

Pharmaceutical companies, have been trying to privatize Bath Salts for years, for some silly notion that they can reduce its therapeutic effectiveness and make billions selling you a now ‘controlled’ and watered down version of what you can today get for free.

So how do you get people to give up a harmless therapeutic used for decades upon decades, and pay you billions? Well if you’re a billion dollar conglomerate, with the mass media in your back pocket, you whip out that new strain of LSD you’ve been working on, feed it to some mental defectives, and let them out the mental hospital (budget cuts you know) and let them do LSD tinged, mentally defective things, and your media rushes in to point fingers at the culprit in the corner, the proverbial smoking gun,… Bath Salts. 🙂 .

You now have a CDC and FDA approved public enemy number one. And the pharmaceutical company gets handed the rights to control, privatize, and going by their track record, make both useless and harmful … Bath Salts.

So pick your story of choice…

Bath Salts that your great, great grand parents were using, and has been used for generations since, suddenly turning people into zombies

OR

Recent studies showing the effectiveness of Bath Salts as a simple inexpensive alternative to medications the pharmaceutical companies wants you to pay exorbitantly for, and so they trump up a reason to have Bath Salts outlawed.

I don’t know about you, but given the history of American greed and American atrocities in pursuit of greed, I always choose the answer that has the potential to make someone rich. 🙂

It’s a Machiavellian type of America.

However, it is a state that elected Jeb Bush twice. Perhaps they are all zombies. 🙂

(I kid! I kid! I love Florida! Would you believe like?)

“I mean it’s not that difficult.
It’s not brain surgery.
We become the things we obsess about.
A society that obsesses over monsters and the victimization of the other,
becomes a nation of monsters and victimizers.
A society that dreams of heroes
that save maidens, and stands against dragons
becomes that heroism.
America is in need…
of Nobler dreams.”— HT