Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Friday, July 8, 2016

Louisiana, Minnesota, and Now Dallas






Louisiana, Minnesota, and now Dallas.

Will those tragedies change anything?

My experience after seeing so many bloody deaths is NO!




They listened to his heart. 
Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it. 
No more to build on there. And they, since they 
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.  -- Robert Frost






Please go read Capt. Fogg's essay, "Can We Break The Cycle of Fear?" at The Swash Zone.

27 comments:

Dave Miller said...

Shaw... It's a mess... I was stunned to read that police used a bomb to kill the suspected shooter in Dallas.

Do all PD's have bombs they can use? Is this the next step in the militarization of "civilian" police forces?

We don't allow the military to operate on American soil yet we arm our police to the point of there being no difference.

I believe this is one of the consequences of an increasingly armed society. A society not armed with simple guns... a society armed often times better than local law enforcement...

Les Carpenter said...

America - Twenty First Century.

Brace yourselves for more to come.

Our society is becoming the adult version of The Lord of the Flies .

If this s**t continues it soon will be all over for our republic.

But this is America. It must be time for a beer. Hops make more sense than humans.

Fredd said...

Our society is gone like the rest of America is

Shaw Kenawe said...

Fredd,

You're wrong. You're giving into the rot being spread around the internet by the unhappy, frightened, negative people.

Fredd said...

Wishing won't make it so. We are in a pitfall and we can't get up.

Fredd said...


This has been a tragic few weeks for America.. For whatever the reason that led to this it is s fact that we are in lots of trouble right here in River City. And I know you don't want to hear it but Obsma isn't doing much to help at all.
As for Hillary, she's dragging us down with her.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Fredd,

Neither President Obama nor Hillary Clinton caused the police officers to shoot the two African-Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota, nor did they cause the sniper to kill the police officers in Dallas. You're nothing more than a right wing agitator who would blame the Democrats and Obama for anything in order to stir up more resentment and hatred. Isn't there enough of that for your sick agenda? If anyone drags this country down, it's people like you.

Shaw Kenawe said...


Fredd said...
Wishing won't make it so. We are in a pitfall and we can't get up.

You sound like Eeyore, only not as charming as he is.

Flying Junior said...

RN & Dave,

It does not bother me that the Dallas Police Department killed this assassin.

What course of action would either of you have recommended, particularly in view of the statements that he made to the police negotiators?

Fredd said...

"Neither President Obama nor Hillary Clinton caused the police officers to shoot the two African-Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota, nor did they cause the sniper to kill the police officers in Dallas. You're nothing more than a right wing agitator who would blame the Democrats and Obama for anything in order to stir up more resentment and hatred. Isn't there enough of that for your sick agenda? If anyone drags this country down, it's people like you"


What? Why are you so hostal? I'm not blaming Obama or HillRy, I said that they don't seem to be helping the matter n much.
WhY are you jumping all over me?
Are you that fragile ? Are you are some kind of a conspiracy nut to be calling me names like you are?
I never faulted the Obama administration, but like the reasonable man that I am, I'm not going to give him any credit for resolving the racial tension that exists either. Let's call it like it is. The black community is correct for being upset, but this was way over the line. I don't care if you like what I'm saying or not. I'm telling you how I feel, so don't come at me on your high horse and accuse me of being hatred and having a "sick agenda"!
Or a Right wing adigitor"

Anonymous said...



Shaw, "Fredd" is an escapee from one of those rabid radical right wing blogs or it's someone copying and pasting his comment from those blogs.

Fredd said...

That is pure BS, I copied and pasted nothing. You people have become obsessed with that conspiracy garbage and that's all you seem to know.
Can't a person be on the fence and call the facts as they appear without be called names and hailing you make all kinds of accusations without any basis for it?
It no wonder that you admire Hillary so much, You seem to mirror her so much.

Les Carpenter said...

Flying Junior, the racial tensions in America, caused by distrust born of bias and prejudice is a ticking time bomb. While I have now problem with the Dallas Police killing the assassin I have little belief or much hope that these kind of events (LA, MN, and Dallas) won't continue to happen.

I have no answers, and it seems no one else does either. Hint: more gun control would merely be a bigger bandaidm

Les Carpenter said...

A bigger bandaid does not resolve the underlying cancer.

Les Carpenter said...

Just check out FT's post today as an example of my point.

Dave Miller said...

FJ... As for a recommended action, I wish I knew. But the thought that government took an action with no other result than to kill a someone is troubling. And they reportedly used a claymore mine.

We have Posse Comitatis laws in the US that forbid the military from operating on our soil. Yet we've armed the police so that they are essentially a defacto military.

Maybe the police wait the guy out. Institute a siege. I don't know.

It's all troubling.

Shaw Kenawe said...


Rational Nation USA said...
Just check out FT's post today as an example of my point.

Dear Gawd!

As usual, that blog is rife with white folks pretending to know the problems that black folks face.

What is thoroughly detestable about FT's blog today is that he depicts black people in the most horrendous possible photos he could find on the 'net, suggesting that all black people are criminals and thugs. That is exactly the face of racism -- and his blog leads all the rest. They know absolutely nothing about the challenges of being black in America. The only thing they know is their prejudices, fears, and hatreds. IMO, they're what is rotten in America. That blog post today is stirring up more hatred.

Where are the photos of the educated middle-class African-Americans? (Like the Dallas police chief, Brown?) Of course those photos will be missing from their nasty blogs because those types of images don't fit their miserable prejudices.

Instead of healing, they're inciting more racial division, and, of course, blaming it all on President Obama.

ORIGINAL Anonymous Reader of TeaPublican Blogs said...

Shaw,I've looked a few times at FT's blog and everyone knows that he writes posts, then comments with different names to his own posts and his own comments and many times telling himself how great a blogger and how wise he is. Sad. Really.

Shaw Kenawe said...


Dave, that's not the first time a state government has used a bomb against its own citizens.

By WILLIAM K. STEVENS, Special to the New York Times
Published: May 14, 1985

PHILADELPHIA, May 13, 1985 A state police helicopter this evening dropped a bomb on a house occupied by an armed group after a 24-hour siege involving gun battles.

A 90-minute shootout this morning came after a week of growing tension between the city and the group, known as Move. Residents in the western Philadelphia neighborhood had complained about the group for years. The only known survivors from within the house were a woman and a child.

The fire spread to 50 to 60 other houses in the neighborhood, said the Fire Commissioner, William Richmond. He declared the fire under control about 11:40 P.M.

Aimed to Hit Bunker

The Police Commissioner, Gregore Sambor, said tonight that it was was his decision to drop the charge, a square package of explosives designed to destroy a bunker atop the house and drop it through to the second floor. He said the charge succeeded in eliminating the threat from the roof, but touched off the fire.

Steve Harmon, a resident of the area, said: ''Drop a bomb on a residential area? I never in my life heard of that. It's like Vietnam.''


Anonymous said...



I looked at that FT blog and even if he meant to single out only the bad guys, the whole post does come off as a piece to paint all black people as thugs and craeeps..because he doesn't include the many millions of peace loving African americans who obey the law and are good citizens. To look at those photos is to see how images can and do slander an entire ethnicity... it's Willy Horton deja vu on display'...and its the conservatives are at it again. I didn't look.... but does anyone know if he talked about law-breaking lower class whites when the militants took over the sancatuary in Oregon...and threatened to kill the feds. Does anyone know or does he just pile on African Americans as the only threat to the US?

Bluebull said...

I also read FT's blog. It made me incredibly sad as I know the man personally and I would never picture the man I know to say such vile, disgusting and frankly ignorant things. He frequently goes over the top and starts sounding like the rest of the right wing bloviating windbags like Rush and Hannity but this blog post was far and away the most sickening display of irrational and ignorant fear-based hatred and loathing I've seen to day from my friend. Yes, it's a very sad day for me. Also, how any of the yapping, mindless right can blame President Obama for racism is just astoundingly stupid. I cannot wait to vote in a Democratic Senate, President Hillary and -- hopefully - the House back in sane hands so we can have a Supreme Court that actually respects the Constitution and fairness instead of the perverse Corporate Overlords the Right worships. Reading the nonsense from the right has actually pushed me into actively working for Hillary as opposed to just voting for her as a last resort. My daughter is working a voters registration drive on our Reservation this weekend. The shocking racism aimed at Native Americans coming from the Trump campaign and his base of angry elderly white people has shocked the entire diaspora of Native Americans and forced MANY to get involved in American politics for the first time. Of the 302 my daughter signed up yesterday and this morning, not a one was registered as a Republican. Two were Ind and the other 300 are new Democrats. Racism is not a smart move in our very mixed nation!

Dave Miller said...

Anon and others...

Re: Free and his blog...

All anyone needs to do is take a look at a majority of the comments. Does "word salad" come to mind? For someone as supposedly as educated as Freethinke to attract a group so unable to write in complete sentences and communicate basic English is incredible.

And that is before we get to ideas that blame GOP supporting groups like the KKK on liberals.

Let's just be clear... Donald Trump derives a significant amount of his support from low income, undereducated white males... the type of people on display everyday at many of the more extreme blogs. They use offensive language, call people names, fail to cite evidence and are part of the reason why we cannot get to the root issues of the problems in places like Dallas, Baton Rouge and Charleston.

Ducky's here said...

It's true, Dave, that Drumpt and the Teabags are a clear and present danger to escalate this madness.

But Hillary has to come front and center and present a concrete program and leadership.
There are options like sentencing reform, ending stop & frisk and better police training.
I have some hope that she's been a little chastened by the errors of her husband's administration.

What happens next is going to be determined by the leadership that emerges.
I have hope that Clinton realizes the environment has to be defused by concrete reform.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Actually, Dave, Dallas was doing a good job of reaching out to minority communities, the police chief is an African-American, that's why what happened there is so disheartening and tragic. The police were trying to address the problems that create misunderstandings between the black and white communities. (One of the officers who lost his life was a Massachusetts native.)

The blog we all know as the worst of the worst regularly allows one of its more viciously racist commenters to slander and smear African-Americans, and the blog owner lets it stand, by doing so, she tacitly condones that sort of divisiveness and hatred and is, IMO, a racist herself. Then she has the nerve to say that Mr. Obama is a racist and has divided this country? She allows that rot day in and day out but isn't aware of what it represents? And those folks habitually call liberals "mentally ill?"

I didn't have the stomach to read any of the comments on FT's blog. All I did was see the what one of my commenters called the "Willy Horton" type of slanderous photos, and that was enough. For a man who prides himself on his intellect and good breeding, that was about as deep in the cesspool of identity politics as it gets.

Mr. FT in the past called President Obama's father a "savage African." Mr. Obama's father was a highly educated man with a Ph.D. Even if one dislikes his politics and his religion, who, other than a racist, would call a man like that a "savage?" It amazed me. He's also referred to President Obama as a "dirty son-of-a-bitch. Really the sort of hackery one would see on "Storm Front" and other such white supremacist sites. There's no difference, as far as I'm concerned, no matter how much "some of my best friends are black people" talk they offer up to "prove" their "I'm not a racist" creds. When you display those caricatures of black men looking like menacing killers, you're making a statement about what you think of the entire race.

Les Carpenter said...

FreeThinke, or more accurately named FreeStinke, has chosen to delete comments that accurately describe the reality of African Americans going back 2 plus centuries. For this reason a certain website will put together a post linking to examples FreeStinke's racist, xenophobic, white supremacist, anti American posts.

FreeThinke, er FreeStinke, is a cancerous pox on American social justice.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Shaw Kenawe said...

Bluebull, glad to see you back.

What was on FT's blog is not unusual. Those particular radical rabid right wing bloggers are not shy about letting the world know what they think of African-Americans ("thugs,") and that's mild compared with what filthy epithets they sling at President Obama; Muslims (whom they regularly refer to as "vermin," (just like the Nazis referred to the Jews); and, of course, "libtards." Mr. FT blames "The intellectual Jews" for every ill one can conceive of that has befallen our republic. They haven't gotten to Native Americans yet, AFAIK, but should any of them show any loyalty to a Democrat, they'll crucify them. They dislike the idea of "diversity" and scoff at any minority that challenges their white Christian hegemony (which is slowly but surely disappearing before their eyes, and that, I think, is the cause of their vicious attacks on anyone who isn't them.

I understand how that would frighten them and how -- at a certain age -- these changes cause discomfort and fear. But I heard the same sort of thing from my elders when I was a young woman, and today I hear my generation giving into despair and confusion over the same sort of fear of a changing world. We're going forward as all civilizations go forward and nothing they do will stop that. They need to concentrate on what is good about these changes instead of the bad that every civilization has had to deal with.

Every "old" person that I have ever known in my life has ALWAYS whined that their "good ole days" were so much better and that today's young people are the worst! That bitter complaint goes all the way back to Socrates!

Shaw Kenawe said...


A bunch of white folks talking about what's wrong with black folks and the black community, that's what that blog is about. Our dear departed friend Sheria Reid would tell those self-satisfied racists a thing or two about black folks lives in a racist white society. She lived it; she knew it.

Those people over at FT blog know NOTHING.