Saturday 20 July 2024

My back yard

When Barak Obama was elected there was a magazine (I forget which one) which posted a large photo of him on the front cover, a giant bulls-eye with a hair-line, gunsight cross covering his chest. 

I found it quite shocking when I first saw it, because it showed that an assassination of the first black Democrat President of the USA by the right-wing was almost to be expected, and the magazine seemed to fall just short of encouraging it. Well, it never happened.

I was quite shocked by the attempt on Donald Trump too. His supporters were furious with the media present at the time, because they blamed the hatred and vitriol aimed at him by half of the news reporters as being the all encouragement needed by the young man who put a hole in his ear. They do have a point, and now even the ex-President himself is saying that the negative heat should be taken out of campaigning in general. It's a bit rich coming from the man who specialises in dividing the nation though.

Here comes a shameful admission. When I heard that the boy with the high powered rifle had missed from a mere 150 clear yards, it occurred to me that he must have been a very bad shot. Later I found out that he had tried to join a local shooting club but they refused him precisely because he was such a bad shot, and I let out an involuntary rueful laugh. Just the one. It would have been better if they had a notion that he might be mentally unbalanced enough to do what he did. Trump gives credit to Almighty God for telling him to move his head at the last second. The bullet still killed someone though.

So now it is even worse, with Biden's state of mind made even hazier with a bout of Covid and Almighty God telling him not to stand down. I fear for the world.

25 comments:

  1. If Biden steps aside now, Trump will almost surely win. The Republicans are licking their lips at the prospect of fighting to keep any new nominee off certain state ballots, and with our corrupt, bought and paid for Supreme Court that's now filled with Trump appointees, they could very well do it. If the new nominee is kept off ANY state ballots there won't be a chance in hell of the new candidate winning. They're doing their damndest to turn this country into an authoritarian dictatorship with no regard for the rule of law or even common decency.

    We're in big trouble.

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  2. Trouble with Biden is that he is too honourable in a way, sticking with his word to serve...but a bout of COVID could be his way out and no face lost

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    1. I am not sure that his motives are entirely honourable. I think he is just stuck in a mind set.

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  3. I wouldn't vote for either of them.

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    1. Well if Biden got in there would be a change of leadership one way or the other eventually.

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  4. It is a very troubling time for the US. Biden seems intent on running and he is the better choice. Read "Project 2025" (by DT) and you will see how damaging things could become. Not voting is not an option.

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    1. I just read the key points of it. Trump says he does not agree with a lot of it, but he changes his mind constantly.

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    2. Also, he is not the author. It comes from a right-wing think tank.

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  5. I confess that as soon as I heard of the shooting my first thought was that it was a shame the shooter missed.

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    1. Well, I think that the situation would have been a lot worse if the assassination attempt had been successful, and I do not condone killing someone just because you disagree with them anyway. If you believe in democracy you have to go along with the popular vote.

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    2. It's not so much that I disagree with him as that I fear for America and the rest of the world if he's re-elected. You're right though, no doubt there would have been other innocent people killed or injured in the mayhem if he had been assassinated.

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  6. I wonder: the USA is such a huge country - and they only find two old men to elect for president? I do not say that old means not being capable - but to be president is a very tough job - for quite a long time.

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    1. I agree. How can those two be the only candidates worth putting up for the job. Anyway, Biden is now out. He would have been shortly anyway, even if re-elected.

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    2. It does boggle the mind, doesn't it? It now seems that Kamala is poised to be the Democratic contender. May she prevail!

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  7. The young man was even a worse shot than you'd think. He fatally wounded a teleprompter. Trump's ear was cut by a piece of flying glass. Crooks was interesting in that his motivation does not seem to be political at all. He was a disturbed young man. He had been googling high profile targets in the weeks leading up to this. Not all of them were political. He wanted to shoot someone important. He even googled Biden. Trump was appearing at a closer venue than Biden.

    Project 2025. This is a dangerous project. It mentions trump by name 312 times. The goal of the project is to remove impartial government and replace it with a right wing religious leadership. Not so different from the taliban. The thing that you should also take note of is that it is 920 pages long, so they've got a great many objectives. JD Vance is actually very closely tied to Kevin Roberts who is the project leader. Vance was the project's pick for the vice presidency. Roberts is also one of trump's picks for his future cabinet. Most chillingly, this is being called, by the project, the second American Revolution. It states that it will be bloodless unless the left resists.

    What this is saying, point blank, is that you will go with the program or blood will be shed. I cannot imagine anything more undemocratic than the silencing of all dissent. I am called a liberal. I don't think that I am an extremist, but if you disagree with white Christian Nationalists, you are labeled a liberal.

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    1. That is very interesting - and scary, especially when people call hopes and desires 'projects'.

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    2. I do not see it as
      'hopes and desires'. I see it as a plan of action. It is one that they are already attempting to set into motion.

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    3. I am sorry to say this is incorrect. The teleprompter story has been debunked. My apologies.

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    4. Oh. I have been telling people about it. Never trust rumours, I suppose.

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    5. It wasn't word of mouth. It was reported. Someone took the video and slowed it down and was able to determine that it was not true. Sorry for that.

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  8. I have yet to hear Trump mention the man who was killed. Did I miss it? Did he blame Almighty God for that too?

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    1. Almighty God seems to make decisions based on the importance of the personage.

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  9. There was an emotional moment where tRUMP reverently approached the firefighter's helmet and coat. Supposedly, these things had been given to him by the family of the dead man. This is not true, since his name was misspelled on the back of the coat. It was a strange moment watching him. But the media ate it up, one news agency touting it as a change for trump, a rare show of emotion. I myself did not see that emotion. I saw an attention getter trying to get attention.

    He did not contact the families of the dead man or the families of the wounded. Biden did. The widow of the firefighter refused to take his call. Biden did the decent thing when no one was watching.

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