Tag Archives: racial injustice

military news

Joint Chiefs chairman ‘regrets’ taking part in photo op

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U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been bitten by the military honor bug and his reaction to it might incur the wrath of the commander in chief.

To which I say … good for you, Gen. Milley.

The general says now he regrets taking part in that ridiculous photo op staged by Donald Trump in which he walked to St. John Episcopal Church to hold up a Bible. He was accompanied on that stroll by Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Milley, who was dressed in combat fatigues.

Milley said today his presence at the photo op interjected the military into a political scene, which is anathema to the military’s mission. The episode was centered on protests over racial injustice by local police departments. Trump thought he’d respond to it by prancing over to the church and holding up a Bible in a ridiculous display of phony religiosity.

As The Associated Press reported: He said his presence in uniform amid protests over racial injustice “created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

There you have it. The battle-tested veteran realizes that he erred in taking part in a stupid political stunt. What’s more, and this could get tricky, is that he well might draw incoming fire from Nimrod in Chief who dislikes any form of criticism from any quarter. When, then, will Donald Trump do? Is he going to “fire” the Joint Chiefs chairman for standing on principle?

Well, he’s done something like that before. Such as when he fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia “thing”; or when he fired Defense Secretary James Mattis for disagreeing with Trump on Middle East policy; or when he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for challenging Trump’s policy decisions on the basis of whether they were lawful; or when he fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to declare total loyalty to Trump.

Gen. Milley shouldn’t lose his job over his expression of regret. Then again, Donald Trump shouldn’t even be in a position to decide how to respond to the statements of an honorable soldier and patriot.

national news

Nation needs this kind of wisdom

The United States of America is in crisis. We have been through this before, in other contexts. However, we are lacking the kind of wisdom that comes from the top of our political leadership that we have heard during previous crises.

The Dallas Morning News today published an editorial calling for such wisdom as we grapple with issues relating to police brutality and racial injustice. The newspaper cited a speech given by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, at that moment a candidate for president, in the hours after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was felled by an assassin.

RFK said this:

“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black — considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization — black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

“Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

“For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

“My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ‘In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.’

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

“So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that’s true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love — a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

“We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we’ve had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

“But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

“Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

Sen. Kennedy spoke those words to a crowd of African-Americans gathered for a political rally in Indianapolis, Ind. While many cities in the land erupted in violence that evening, Indianapolis remained calm. Why? Because citizens were somehow assured that at least one political leader was listening to them and he cared about them.

A gunman would still RFK’s voice forever just two months later.

We are made poorer as a result. We need that kind of wisdom in this moment of grief.

national news

Bush 43 weighs in on Floyd tragedy

REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

I admire former President George W. Bush’s restraint.

He seeks to calm the roiling water with words that appeal to our better angels. The 43rd president did so with a message released this week in the wake of George Floyd’s hideous death at the hands of brutal cops in Minneapolis.

Here is what the former president said in a statement:

“Laura and I are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country. Yet we have resisted the urge to speak out, because this is not the time for us to lecture. It is time for us to listen. It is time for America to examine our tragic failures – and as we do, we will also see some of our redeeming strengths.

“It remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young African American men, are harassed and threatened in their own country. It is a strength when protesters, protected by responsible law enforcement, march for a better future. This tragedy — in a long series of similar tragedies — raises a long overdue question: How do we end systemic racism in our society? The only way to see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America — or how it becomes a better place.

“America’s greatest challenge has long been to unite people of very different backgrounds into a single nation of justice and opportunity. The doctrine and habits of racial superiority, which once nearly split our country, still threaten our Union. The answers to American problems are found by living up to American ideals — to the fundamental truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by God with certain rights. We have often underestimated how radical that quest really is, and how our cherished principles challenge systems of intended or assumed injustice. The heroes of America — from Frederick Douglass, to Harriet Tubman, to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr. — are heroes of unity. Their calling has never been for the fainthearted. They often revealed the nation’s disturbing bigotry and exploitation — stains on our character sometimes difficult for the American majority to examine. We can only see the reality of America’s need by seeing it through the eyes of the threatened, oppressed, and disenfranchised.

“That is exactly where we now stand. Many doubt the justice of our country, and with good reason. Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions. We know that lasting justice will only come by peaceful means. Looting is not liberation, and destruction is not progress. But we also know that lasting peace in our communities requires truly equal justice. The rule of law ultimately depends on the fairness and legitimacy of the legal system. And achieving justice for all is the duty of all.

“This will require a consistent, courageous, and creative effort. We serve our neighbors best when we try to understand their experience. We love our neighbors as ourselves when we treat them as equals, in both protection and compassion. There is a better way — the way of empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice. I am confident that together, Americans will choose the better way.”

All of this, to no one’s surprise, will be lost on the current president, who foments anger with his tough talk about “thousands and thousands of well-armed military” taking control of our city streets. Donald Trump likely will not even read this statement in its entirety.

He should.