January 6, 2021
So some people are calling anyone a hypocrite who decries what happened today at the Capitol and did not decry the protests during the summer.
It is possible to oppose violence while supporting a right to protest, and I support protests of continuing racism, because it is there and it’s not going away unless we make some major changes in how we think and act.
I choose to decry the protest today because it is based not on truth, but on a stream of baseless information and lies, and because the President incited the crowd to protest at the Capitol to perpetrate his lies. This was not only protest. It was as close to a Putsch as anyone could get, and I would say it was after seeing the photos of protesters occupying the House and Senate floors and sitting in Capitol offices that were not theirs.
There is NO comparison, folks. Plain and simple.
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January 7, 2021
I stayed up until the very end of the vote last night, and the closing prayer, which was inclusive in its language and called on us to see the divine in each other.
It was the only way I could gain closure on the day. Or, so I thought.
The vote was only a beginning, and the fallout from yesterday uncovered so much of what many of us knew was there. Question linger for me. Here are some.
How did these fringe groups become mainstream? (I know, enabled by the enabler-in chief and by politicians that saw their fervor as politically helpful to them).
Why do they think the incumbent is, practically, Jesus Christ incarnate? (His unfortunately expert messaging, his willingness to say out loud what they have been saying in their private spaces, and his appearances among his people were too much to pass up. Of course, in this case, the parables are morally bankrupt, and there is no sermon on any mount, because he did not believe in Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” - he only believed in breaking down rather than building up, so that he could be seen as the only one who could “fix it.” Messiahs don’t do that - of course, I haven’t seen one yet so I am not sure. But False Messiahs certainly do that).
Why are people saying it was “antifa” dressed in right-wing clothing that breached the Capitol yesterday, when many of the individuals who were there have been identified as right-wingers? (Well, the same thing happened after 9/11, when people said it was Israel that did it rather than the Al Qaeda perpetrators. Also, bullies who do something seriously evil/bad are often known to try to blame someone else. And, perhaps, because some people on the right are STILL not capable of believing that these folks on the extreme right are capable of violence, even though there are so many examples).
Why are white protestors and perpetrators, from Dylan Roof, shooter at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, SC, to yesterdays’ breachers of sacred national space, treated with kid gloves while people of color who simply protest are seen as dangerous? (Um, deeply ingrained racism that won’t go away, which we have to address).
Why did so many Republicans in the House of Representatives still insist on questioning the vote in two states after the horrendous events of yesterday, events that many of them had probably enabled? (Read Stuart Stevens’ book, IT WAS ALL A LIE: HOW THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BECAME TRUMP. The answers are there. This has been going on for a long time, so that some Republicans still hang on to the BIG LIE that only these deserve power and that they should do anything to keep it, even to perpetrate more BIG LIES about the election, even after the courts had rejected those claims).
What are we going to do now?
LISTEN.
SPEAK OUT.
CONNECT.
SUPPORT.
REMEMBER.
FOCUS ON TRUTH.
REACH OUT WITH COMPASSION.
BE STRONG IN A WAY THAT TRULY BRINGS UNITY.
LOVE.
PRAY.
HOPE.
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