A way to look at the world right now…
You’ve made a cup of tea, you’ve placed it on a tray with a plate of your favourite biscuits… Obviously, chocolate Hobnobs are going to be there, after all, they ARE the king of biscuits…
Anyway, you’re carrying the tray over to your favourite chair in your favourite part of the house… Your loving family pet looks up at you, knowing that once that tea and those biscuits are finished, you’ll be cuddling up on that comfy chair, life is good.
You drop the tray resulting shower of hot tea and cascade of biscuits, the pet dies of shock.
That pretty much sums up life on Earth at this moment in time… It’s turned to shit.
We’ve got a killer virus trying (as killer virus’s do) kill us… We’ve got world leaders either ignoring the problem or doing everything they can to use it to their political gain, meanwhile, people are actually fucking dying.
Along with the death we’re looking at a global recession… People (if they’re lucky enough NOT to fucking die) are looking at the real possibility of losing jobs, livelihoods and homes.
And then… To add a juicy cherry on the top of this shit pie we’ve all been tucking into, along comes our old friend racism and his best friend in all the world, police brutality! Yay!
Not all police are racist. In fact, I honestly believe that the vast majority of police officers are good, hard-working people, risking their lives day in, day out to keep everyone safe… However… There seems to be an issue with “certain” police officers in “certain” places… Bad apples…. A few bad apples who are quite frankly making everyone mistrust all the apples.
Regardless of colour, regardless of any crime he may or may not have committed… A man lay on the ground and clearly told a police officer that he couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t fucking breathe. He was handcuffed, controlled… He was no threat and he clearly informed the arresting officers that he COULD NOT BREATHE.
One officer held him down (if you can call placing your knee onto someone’s neck holding) while other officers stood by and watched. Not one of those officers did anything to help, not one officer stepped forward and said “maybe you should get off his neck”
PROTECT AND SERVE.
Protect and fucking serve.
A man died. People are understandably outraged… This has happened before and people protested before… Remember when high profile American sportsmen “took a knee” to peacefully protest? Remember how the president of the United States went mad and labelled them “Sons of bitches”… The very same president who a few weeks ago labelled assault weapon brandishing protestors at government buildings as “very fine people”… Oh yeah, this is the same president who has previously asked the police to not be so gentle in the past… A president who called COVID a hoax, A president who revels in hate, A president who has now happily sent the armed forces out onto his own streets and seems to have no issue with killing his OWN people.
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts”
He actually said that… In a mad twitter frenzy, the president of the United States actually said “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”… He backtracked later and said that he meant it as in “when folks start looting, some of them may start shooting”… But anyone who read his first tweet knows EXACTLY what he meant… Donald Trump will happily see blood spilt on the streets.
I’m torn when it comes to these protests… I understand the protest… I understand the BLACK LIVES MATTER message (admittedly I previously I argued ALL lives matter)… But looting and rioting? This is where I struggle… There is an argument that Peaceful protest doesn’t work… And yes, taking a knee the last time this shit happened sort of proved that… But looting? Destroying property and stealing from people? It’s not right… It’s counterproductive… You want the police to stop brutalising you? Stop doing stuff to give them a reason to brutalise you… There has to be another way… And also, let’s also take into account that the looters have all played very nicely into Donald Trump’s hands… I’ll explain.
Trump went on national TV and delivered his “Law and order” speech…A divisive speech… But a very clever speech…
In a few short months America will take the polls to vote for who they believe should be President of the United States… Trump has already laid down the groundwork to discredit the result of this election, he’s already telling people that postal voting will lead to fraud… He’s already getting his followers ready to call the result a FAKE result… Then we have the law and order speech… Such a clever speech… He opens with a comment about CREATION… That gets the bible belt creationist on his side… He goes on to randomly mention the 2nd amendment… That gets the gun nuts on his side (seriously, do you really need an assault rifle to defend a home?) … He talks about unleashing the national guard to restore order… He ends by walking off to a church for a photo opportunity… A photo opportunity that will hammer home the fact he needs the bible belt to vote for him…A photo opportunity that was preceded by armed police firing tear gas into crowds of peaceful protestors… Shooting rubber bullets and tear gas and at one point physically attacking an Australian news crew live on air… He doesn’t care… He’s never cared… All he cares about is himself… Empowering himself… The man is a walking ego… A man who feeds on hatred… A man who fuels hatred… Fuck it, the man IS hatred.
UNITED States? Give me a fucking break.
Meanwhile, we have a dead man. Regardless of if he did or did not commit the crime he was accused of, a man is dead. He’s not the first. He won’t be the last.
There’s a virus… An actual virus that is KILLING people… Every person on this planet be they black, white, gay, straight is at risk… And still, we as a species can’t stand together…
I don’t enjoy writing like this. I know I can be negative (we all can, can’t we?) I know in previous blogs I’ve moaned about trivial things like selfies and Instagram influencers… There is an air of negativity about when I write… I get that… But… It’s never ALL negative… I’m not ALL negative… I like to write about good things… Cool things… Fun things… Trivial things.
I dream of the days when I can be trivial again… The days when COVID is a memory… When people can smile again… When I can go back to moaning about girls taking Instagram photos outside Starbucks again…
I’m currently sitting on the porch of a beautiful little house… The sun is shining, the birds are singing… An hour or so ago a peacock walked past me… A short time after that a snake fell out of a tree near to me… I’m in paradise but I’m tapping away at a keyboard, ranting about events thousands of miles away in a country I’ll probably never visit… Maybe I should leave politics to the experts… Stick to Instagram shaming and talking about drink-related adventures…
The good old days… The fun old days.
Until next time.