Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Let Us Breathe

As most sentient beings in the United States know, there were three additional Minneapolis police officers on the scene when Derek Chauvin put his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao have been fired from their jobs and arrested. They are now charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. These men stood by and watched Chauvin kill another human being in what must be the most ugly and blatant opposition to the phrase "protect and serve" imaginable. 
Meanwhile, from the relative safety of his recently inspected bunker, the "president" continues to blast out inflammatory tweet after inflammatory tweet. Sure, he was censored once, when he decided to quote former Miami police chief Walter E. Headley, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter added a disclaimer, reminding users that the post went against their rule of not glorifying violence. Additionally, a few of the "president's" recent outbursts about voting by mail have been fact checked by the folks at Twitter. 
So here's what I am attempting to tie together here: No one is telling the "president" to get off America's neck. Okay, to be fair, Twitter seems to be doing their passive version of the job by pointing out to anyone watching, "Hey! He's got his knee of America's neck!" Maybe without the exclamation marks. Certainly no one standing next to the big orange clown is doing much to stop him. Ivanka was too busy carrying her daddy's bible across a park that had been freshly tear-gassed and rid of rubber bullet-ridden protesters to speak up. Her husband is far too busy mismanaging the Middle East and ventilators to be of much use. Mike Veepence wasn't allowed to take the walk much less get a seat in the bunker, so he can't do much to monitor the "president's" hate speech. And even though Fox News seems to be losing patience with their favorite impeached Cheeto, no one is actually calling on him to just stop. 
Stop making things up. Stop retweeting lies. Stop amplifying voices of hate and fear. Stop dividing. At this point, I would not even suggest that he do anything so brazen as to try and unite the country he so anxiously wants to make "great" again. Just get off our necks. Let us breathe. We can get around to arresting the lot of you come November. Let us breathe. 

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