First, unidentified storm troopers acting under the
direction of the Department of Homeland Security, and with the approval of the
man in the White House, are roaming free in our cities, dragging American
citizens off the streets and throwing them into unmarked vehicles for
undisclosed crimes. Presumably, many of these “perpetrators” are guilty of
nothing more serious than exercising their First Amendment rights to free
speech and assembly.
Mostly recently, the governor of Oregon, the mayor of
Portland and that state’s congressional representatives have demanded that
these secret police leave the area immediately because their presence, supposedly
intended to calm the situation, has actually inflamed the protesters and made
it worse.
“Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics,
send unmarked authorities after protesters,” tweeted U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, a
Democrat representing Oregon. The Oregon attorney general filed a lawsuit
alleging that the federal government had violated Oregonians’ civil rights by
seizing and detaining people without probable cause and without warrants during
protests against police brutality. The U.S. Attorney for the Oregon District
has also asked for an investigation.
To make matters worse, Ken Cuccinelli, acting Deputy
Secretary of Homeland Security, told NPR the department was not pulling back on
its activity in Portland and, in fact, is planning to take its commando raids
to other cities across the U.S.
This kind of third-world, banana republic, militarized
police incursion tactic is highly disturbing in a democratic republic,
especially when you consider that a certain cult of citizens claim their rights
are being violated because they’re asked to wear masks in public, but don’t
seem similarly concerned about the violation of their neighbors’ civil rights.
By remaining silent, I wonder if they accept and endorse
this kind of behavior?
Even though it hasn’t happened yet in West Virginia, I
would think this type of Fascist-inspired police action would be of interest to
my elected representatives—Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito and
Representative David McKinley—but I haven’t heard anything from them, even
though I receive their weekly newsletters and follow them on Facebook.
By remaining silent, I wonder if they accept and endorse
this kind of behavior?
Second, according to reports, the president of the United
States has made the decision to ignore a murderous pandemic that has killed
more than 140,000 Americans because it interferes with his campaign for
re-election. Even worse than ignoring the coronavirus, the administration has
pulled the United States from the World Health Organization, cut funding for
the Centers for Disease Control, ordered hospitals to bypass the CDC and report
Covid-19 statistics directly to him, forbidden CDC officials from testifying
before Congress and is now trying to block billions of dollars in aid for states
to conduct testing and contact tracing.
Our only elected Democrat, Senator Manchin, took issue
with Trump’s plan to bypass the CDC on coronavirus reporting, writing, “In the
midst of a global pandemic, these changes pose serious challenges to the
nation’s response by increasing the data management burden for hospitals,
potentially delaying critical supply shipments, compromising access to key data
for many states, and reducing transparency for the public.”
Republicans McKinley and Capito have had nothing to say
so far. By remaining silent, I wonder if they accept and endorse this kind of
behavior?
And third, an adversary of the United States is—by all
reasonable accounts—offering a bounty to members of a terrorist organization to
murder American soldiers overseas while once again meddling in the upcoming
presidential election. Now we learn that this same enemy, Russia, is reportedly
hacking into American computers to steal research into a coronavirus vaccine.
According to The New York Times, “A hacking
group implicated in the 2016 break-ins into Democratic Party servers has been
trying to steal intelligence on vaccines from universities, companies and other
health care organizations. The group, associated with Russian intelligence…has
sought to exploit the chaos created by the coronavirus pandemic, officials
said. American intelligence officials said the Russians were aiming to steal
research to develop their own vaccine more quickly, not to sabotage other
countries’ efforts.”
The president is aware of all of these intrusions but
refuses to act because of his bromance with the murderous Russian president,
Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, we hear nothing from our elected
representatives about any of Russia’s misdeeds. By remaining silent, I wonder
if they accept and endorse this kind of behavior?
It’s worth noting that Donald Trump, while running away
from Russian intrusions, the Covid-19 pandemic and Gestapo-like police activity
on the streets of our own cities, has nevertheless found time to remove the
official portraits of former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from
the Grand Foyer of the White House—replacing them with two Republican presidents
who served more than a century ago—and to pose for a photo of himself selling
Mexican-style beans off the top of the Resolute Desk.
I don’t hear any outrage against that, either.
The point is, when people stand silent against
aggression, their silence becomes endorsement or at least acceptance. It’s only
when someone speaks that wrongs can be righted. I know a lot of people plan to
“speak” during the election on November 3, and I do, too. I kinda wish more
people would speak up between now and then.
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