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BARRETT RAINEY Second Thoughts |
Rudy Giuliani. When a “practicing” Catholic mayor of New York City, he moved his wife out of the official mayor’s residence so he could move his girlfriend in. Rudy Giuliani. Once a Democrat who couldn’t get elected to anything; now a Republican. Rudy Giuliani. Who, since his term of office expired in 2002, has consistently been rejected in runs for various offices and political appointments by his own “adopted” political party. Rudy Giuliani. A man with nothing of essence to say who won’t shut up!
His most recent worthless “contribution” to public discourse is as outrageous and irresponsible as it is flat wrong. His attempt to blame President Obama and hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators in our nation’s streets for promoting distrust and hatred of our civic police forces is contemptible. His pouring of verbal gasoline on deep societal divisions demanding long denied justice for millions of Americans belies his years as an effective federal prosecutor and further amplify that he’s a crank busybody with nothing to say worth public attention,
This ignorant empty suit is not alone in his effrontery to Americans legitimately in the streets to express their anger and frustration. New York Rep. Peter King demanded apologies from the President on down for fomenting police hatred and mistrust. Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Coulter and other usual suspects from the hate crowd piled on with equally as insulting and contemptuous vitriol.
A deranged, lifelong lawbreaker assassinated his girlfriend and two NYC officers before killing himself. Case open. Case closed. No responsible office holder and no justice-seeking crowd in the street in any American city contributed, sponsored or urged the killings. That the killer tried to justify his actions before they occurred by using social media to trumpet the names of Michael Brown and other blacks recently killed by police only confirms his estrangement from reality and the rest of us.
Giuliani, King and the shooter aside, this country has a long-simmering racial divide deeper and further across than the Grand Canyon. The only fact worse than its existence is the refusal of all of us to take it seriously enough to honestly examine and end it. All of us. If any good can come of the spate of recent killings of unarmed black men and children it would be to keep the subject of racial discrimination on the front burner and to deal with it in all of its many ugly facets until we get it behind us.
That won’t happen. Much as it’s needed to make this nation whole, that won’t happen. Giuliani, King, a New York City mad man and millions of unnamed Americans who believe such despicable trash won’t let it. At every turn, where progress can be realized, they’ll pop up and pop off for national media consumption. They’ll continue the outrageousness and lies that attract national recording and repetition - a minority refusing to affirm legitimate efforts by a majority who will work for justice. A justice we promise “for all” in our national Pledge of Allegiance.
Not since anti-war marches of the ‘60's and ‘70's have so many Americans taken to the streets in a national show of frustration, anger, demanding equal treatment under the law. This is not a cop-versus-citizen or cop-versus-politician outpouring any more than those earlier marches were meant to blame the military for following orders of a civilian hierarchy.
There were those who tried to make it so. A loud crazy minority then - as there is now - attempting to twist legitimate national outrage and pain into some sort of anti-American movement. Then it was the marchers “hated the military.” Now it’s marchers “hate cops.” Not true then. Not true now. (more…)
