Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts

Thursday, January 14, 2021

The End Is Near


Like the rest of the world, I've been glued to the news feeds for the past few months, but unlike many, I have not been able to articulate what I feel about the current US state of affairs. The reactions from the US media and political leaders have been largely predictable, analyses largely superficial. So I am more interested in how the rest of the world is reacting, especially ordinary people - not pundits or philosophers. One comment from Croatia strikes me as typical. Many others are either too nasty or too gleeful, but this one, though not reflecting my opinion, reflects some of my confusion and, I am sure, the confusion of many other people around the world. Here is my approximate translation of the piece:

for N1 :  THE END IS NEAR

"There was a guy throwing money around, installing gold toilets, dying his hair with orange juice and grabbing women by the pussy, who also believed that the noise from wind turbines caused cancer and suggested that tornados and hurricanes could be stopped with nuclear bombs, and that Covid-19 could be cured with Clorox. And that guy was the U.S. president. 

On one occasion he gathered Baltic leaders and blamed them for the Balkan crisis. On another, his wife visited a camp for immigrant children, dressed in a jacket with a sign "I really don't care." And on yet another occasion his election-campaign chief organized a press conference in the luxury Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia but which took place outside a Four Seasons Total Landscaping center in a Philly suburb, in a parking lot between the local crematorium and a sex-toy shop.

So when he lost the election, the president urged his voters and followers to march on Washington and prevent the announcement of the voters' choice for the country's new leader.

There was another guy in the US state of Georgia who heeded the president's call to come to Washington, but he did not have a flag of his home state, so he ordered one from the Amazon. He logged into his account, typed in "Flag of Georgia" and placed an order. The next day he received an Amazon box containing a large, beautiful flag of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, which he hung on a pole, mounted on his car and drove nearly a thousand miles from his southern state through both Carolinas and entire Virginia to the nation's capital. He was cheered by truck drivers along the way while he turned up the volume on Willie Nelson's "Georgia On My Mind". Surreptitiously, he wiped away a tear or two of his patriotic pride, as he listened to "just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind."

"Which flag is it, my friend?" shouted the truck drivers through their open windows, and he lifted his chin importantly and said: "Georgia, my friend."  "Georgia?" they wondered, slightly ashamed of not recognizing the southern state's flag but he would just croon along with Willie Nelson, "I said Georgia, heh, maybe it’s because I’m from Augusta, Georgia.“ His compatriots responded with wows and thumbs up.


That guy was among the first to attack the US Capitol. His photos appeared in all the news and were scattered all over the internet. Reddit was on to him, the whole planet saw him charging the Congress with a flag offered by the Amazon when you search for "Flag of Georgia." Little did he know that the first Georgia on Amazon's mind was a Caucasian state, on the shores of the Black Sea. And so the man waved a white flag emblazoned with five red crosses as he climbed the Capitol steps. Tovarish Stalin, Soviet Georgia's greatest son, would have been thrilled to see it.

Then there was an average American housewife with average American intelligence, from an average U.S. city, who looked as if she had walked straight out of The Simpsons animated series.  She was determined to prevent satanist-pedophile-vaxxer-communist conspiracy against Donald Trump and America. She was in all the papers all over the internet, and Twitter filled its pages with her memes and gifs.  The entire globe saw her charging the Congress and, in her patriotic fervor, attack journalists of the mainstream media and foreign reporters. Noticing their Cyrillic and Arab letters - she accosted Russian and Al Jazeera reporters telling them to go back to the communist China where they came from.

There was also a guy from Arkansas who broke into the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He also was in all the news, the internet and social media and the whole world saw him break into madam speaker's office, sit in her armchair, lift his booted feet on her desk, take a hundred selfies and then - in case he had not yet been identified - pose for TV outlets in the street with items belonging to Ms. Pelosi in his hands. He bragged he did not steal anything because he had left 25 cents on her desk.

Then there was an expert fighter from Maryland, who watched in disbelief as the moron from Arkansas practically wrote his own arrest warrant. He left work at the local branch of Navistar Direct Marketing to join the siege of the US Congress and, having learned to be cautious from the experience of living under the dictatorship of the Deep State, he took steps to ensure he was not recognized.  He wrapped himself in the U.S. flag, pulled a hood over his head and a MAGA hat over it, and entered the Congress in the way General Lee entered Veracruz.  

He appeared in all the newspapers and internet portals; Facebook and Twitter and the entire globe saw him marching through congressional halls.  Upon return home that evening, he found Deep State agents waiting for him as well as a notice of termination of employment form Navistar.  When he asked how they identified him so quickly, the agents showed him Facebook photos of him strutting through the Capitol with a Navistar Direct Marketing ID hanging around his neck. 

Finally, there was also a failed actor-singer from Arizona, who after mindless wondering through the wasteland of his life, re-invented himself as shaman and joined the people's liberation army of QAnon. He came to the Congress naked to the waist, with a fur hat and bison horns on his head. He urged people over a loudspeaker to topple the dictatorship of Masonic-Hollywood-satanistic-pedophile elites that kidnap little kids and take them to the infamous Washington pizzeria with a secret entrance into a large global network of underground tunnels, in which Soros, Gates and Rockefeller sexually abuse children and drink their blood to stay young.

The guy also appeared in all the newspapers, internet, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The whole world could see and hear QAnon's shaman with bison horns as he explained to the international press corps that he can hear high-frequency sounds, not audible to the ear of a mere mortal, and that he had a passport for all the galaxies of the universe.

In short, those answering the call of the president who confuses the Balkans with the Baltics were people like the guy who does not know the flag of his native Georgia, a woman who does not distinguish Arabs from Asians, a thief who takes selfies while committing crime, and a guy who is hiding from Deep State by wearing a badge with his personal information on it. They were led by a shaman who can hear frequencies of a bat and is leading an international movement against a network of satanist pedophiles from the basement of a Washington pizzeria (which does not have a basement). The imbecilic group that could have come straight out of The Simpsons psychiatric clinic entered one of the most protected buildings in the world, in the most protected capital of the world and the most protected country in the world as if they were walking into a suburban Walmart.   

This is not the first time we have seen such scenes on TV. A few years ago, for example, there was a broadcast of Ronald Emmerich's movie White House Down in which terrorists attack the White House. James Vanderbilt's team had to re-write the scrip at least 20 times to make the story of invading the stronghold of the American democracy believable. But while the fictionalized attack was masterminded by sophisticated operatives and was carried out by elite special forces, in real life the Congress was demolished by a cast of characters from Dumb and Dumber. 

These characters announced their march on Washington at least a month before. US Capitol Police, Homeland Security, FBI and CIA, agents that stage coups in foreign countries - all were activated. Video footage was showing convoys of vehicles pouring toward the US capital, and Facebook published the exact route to the Congress and the time of the planned attack, January 6. And still the invasion of the Capitol shocked the security experts.  They watched in daze as the  man who took Nancy Pelosi's lectern to sell it on eBay cheerfully waved to them. 


Some of the best photographs from the riot were sold to Getty Images Inc. and published all over the internet with the logo "Via Getty." Afterwards, Google was literally flooded with questions "Who Is Via Getty?" and the police and secret service were promptly informed of Trump's new guerrilla operative named Via Getty, who is self-advertising on the social media.

What you have seen is jackass civilization in the era of imbeciles. The 20th century had its romantic revolutions, dark lieutenants, secret agents, spies, mercenaries, inglourious basterds and ailing poets - dreamers who believed in equality and a just new world. The revolutions of our time will be led by shamans with bison horns, who buy liberty flags on the Amazon; conspiracy theorists who believe that the recent earthquakes in Croatia were caused by satanist-pedophile elites mining their underground tunnels for ritual drinking of children's blood; and those who believe that pandemic was created on purpose so people can be vaccinated with microchips, and controlled by dark powers.  These revolutionaries will be confronted by conscientious citizens chasing over the Internet new Che Guevaras such as Via Getty.

The global revolution of our century is led by the prophets whom you may remember standing on banana crates with a sign: "The end is near - prepare!" 

Hasta la victoria siempre!

Thursday, December 4, 2014

US Police: Not A Friendly Force

U.S. President Barack Obama is asking Congress to approve $263 million to reform police practices, ensure against militarized culture within law enforcement, and restore trust in policing. The funds should also pay for some 50,000 lapel-worn cameras for police officers. 

 In his announcement Monday, the president referred to "differences between the police and communities of color" and to negative "experiences" some young people - clearly he meant black males - have had with law enforcement.

I am white of European descent and regrettably no longer qualify as young.  But I would like the president to know that my experience with the U.S. law enforcement has been dreadful too.  I shudder at the thought that it could be worse if I were a person "of color."

U.S. Park Police
My first encounter with law enforcement in this country occurred soon after I moved to D.C. from Connecticut. One afternoon I drove to Virginia on I-66 and noticed that other drivers were giving me strange looks. It took a while to realize that I was a single person driving during the HOV-3 hours, which meant I needed two more people in the car. This is something they did not teach me in Connecticut where I got my drivers' license. 

 As soon as I understood what was wrong I got off the highway as did several cars before me.  A hulking policeman awaiting at the exit ramp waved his arms in the air and yelled at the top pf his lungs for all of us sinners to line up just so and await our fate. I was scared witless and wondered how could this small mistake provoke such ire on his part. What if we had done something really bad? We were going to be slapped with exorbitant fines and arrive late to our destinations - wasn't that enough punishment?

Since then, I have obtained a D.C. license and learned the area traffic rules the hard way, i.e. paying huge sums of money for even the minutest errors in judgement.  I have learned that before getting a ticket I routinely have to suffer indignities such as having to sit in the car for interminable lengths of time and suffer the harsh flash lights from the police car reflecting from my rear view mirrors into my eyes, often not knowing why I am stopped.  Only one female officer once explained to me that I cannot get out of my car to stretch because I could have a gun and pose a danger to her.  I said, "if I had a gun and wanted to use it, I could do that from the car as well as from outside." 


I have not learned, and probably never will, to distinguish all the different branches of law enforcement operating in D.C.  To me, any uniformed and armed person who has a right to stop me in the street is a cop, does not matter what branch.

One of the worst experiences I had with cops in D.C. took place a few years ago in the early hours of Christmas. My son was on a visit from the university and together with some of his former school mates we attended the midnight mass at St. Anselm's Abbey church, next to St. Anselm's Abbey School which the boys had attended. It was a reunion with other former class mates and their high-school teachers. I made my son change his jacket to look more presentable for the holiday. After the mass, the boys dropped me off at home and my son continued on to drive his friends home.  About 3:00 AM one of those boys called to say: "Mrs. Hoke, I'm afraid I have some bad news. " My heart stopped.  I thought my son had been in an accident and could have been dying or already dead.  So hearing that he was arrested and detained at a park police station sounded like good news - until I learned that he was arrested for driving without a license -- the  license that had been left in the jacket I had made him take off before going to church.


I had driven without a license many times after leaving home with a wrong purse in hand and never dreamed I could be arrested.  So I was incredulous to learn that this was the reason for my son's arrest.  I was ready to do battle with the entire police unit that kept him detained.  I retrieved my son after paying a surprisingly small fine of $20, considering how high these penalties usually are.  But I was livid when they finally dragged him before me, handcuffed!!!!  And I learned that he was kept in a detention cell until I came;
this neat college boy, face still sprinkled with adolescent acne.  He was lucky I was there soon enough. 

D.C. Police love blocking busy streets to make bad traffic worse
I have a huge list of other complaints against D.C. law enforcement, but a shooting death of Miriam Carey, the woman killed by the police outside the Capitol building last year, finally brought home the frightening reality that it could have been me. 

A few years ago in their infinite wisdom D.C. authorities organized a huge fair in the middle of Constitution Avenue, 
near the National Gallery of Art.  The avenue is one of the busiest in Washington, it is one of the main routes out of the city and it is the street I live on. A flow of unsuspecting traffic ran into a blockade of tents, beer stands and other obstacles forcing drivers to seek alternative routes.  The only one available was 4th street going south toward Independence Avenue. It became so clogged that the traffic barely moved, and at one point I found myself trapped in the middle of a small intersection between two red lights.  As soon as the car ahead of me moved, I followed to clear the intersection. The moment I did, a police siren went off as if I had triggered a hidden alarm. Naturally, the police officer who came after me was as aggressive as they come; he slapped me with a $250 fine and held me in that quagmire of traffic as long as he could, adding to the chaos created by the ill-conceived fair. He would not listen to reason and acknowledge that my choices were to move or to block the crossing traffic, that I had to cross a red light whether I moved back or forth.

When I was finally allowed to leave, miserable and angry, he howled after me again.  I failed to stop instantly because I could not imagine that the howling was for me, so another police car joined in the chase.  For a while there I was chased by two howling police cars like a criminal in a scene from a cheap movie thriller. It turned out that the first officer chased after me because 
in the excitement of "catching" me in flagrantehe forgot to return my driver's license and registration card.  So the story of poor Miriam, a confused or perhaps mentally ill woman, running out of her car and leaving her child behind, reminded me of my own experience.  Like Miriam,  I wanted to get away from a terrorizing police force.  What would have happened if I had stepped out of my car and started running? I'll never know. 

But what we all do know is that a guy jumped over the White House fence and ran all the way into the president's official residence without a single shot being fired.  He is alive and Miriam is not.  
Police officers very often get killed too and they have a right to defend themselves.  But is killing a person, even a criminal, the only possible defense? I hope that Mr. Obama's call for a new set of best police practices will lead to curbing the use of deadly weapons by the police. But  this particular discussion will take time and is outside the scope of this blog. 

Here and now, I want to continue ranting against the D.C. law enforcement to get at least some of the long-accumulated list of grudges off my chest. 
I have come to the point where if I see a police car behind me I turn into a side street and wait for it to pass so I can continue in peace.  The trick does not always work because I live on Capitol Hill, which is besieged by police, an army of officers with not much to do except block exits from residential areas, create unexpected road barriers, issue parking tickets and generally make the residents' lives miserable.

When living in Europe and Africa, I considered the police to be my friends, people who were there to help and protect, people you hailed and asked for directions when you got lost.  I never had to pay a traffic or parking penalty, and never had an unpleasant encounter with law enforcement.

So at least initially, I believed that the D.C. law enforcement had a friendly side too. Those vague hopes were slowly but surely erased after my car was repeatedly vandalized and police officers just shrugged their shoulders about it and barely bothered to write a report.  The worst disappointment came when a "contractor" stole credit cards from me and my neighbors and used them repeatedly until the credit card companies got the wind of it.  The neighbors and I made our reports to the local police and urged them to act swiftly while the thief was still in the neighborhood and could be found. The detective in charge said that personality theft was too common and that he did not have have enough personnel to take care of our case.  Not enough with all the policemen cruising idly around Capitol Hill?

Recently, I got a card in the mail asking for my opinion about the city services.  I responded expressing my dissatisfaction with the police.  A few days later an e-mail signed by the D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier arrived asking me to indicate a convenient time when an officer could contact me and discuss my complaints.  I responded full of hope that the winds of change were coming, but the conversation never took place. I was told that the police woman assigned to speak with me was busy at the appointed time.  She never called back to reschedule.  
Cathy Lanier, D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief

So what are the lessons learned?  For me the following:

1. Law enforcement officers operating in D.C. are not your friends, so don't count on their protection.

2. The police want your money and so they go after law-abiding and hard-working citizens who can and will pay the insanely high traffic and parking fines. Catching thieves does not pay.

3. Stay away from the police cars as much as possible, even if it means taking a longer route to your destination.

4. Be prepared to deal with bullies - like those you met at school, the cops in D.C. intimidate the weak and hurt the vulnerable.

As you see, I don't trust my local law enforcement services, but they don't trust me either. The only difference is that I admit to my sentiment while they may not even be aware of theirs.


To hear more about Mr. Obama's police reform plan please click on the link below:
http://www.voanews.com/media/video/2542082.html

POST SCRIPT:
In response to this blog, I received a message from Cathy Lanier rebuking me for "inaccurate" reporting, which she suggested helps incite hostility and nationwide street protests against the police. The inaccuracy, she explained was in my failure to identify the police forces I had dealings with.  To set the record straight - I have made some corrections in the text and stressed that I have no idea what branch a specific policeman was. When I am stopped by an aggressive armed man I am too upset to worry about his denomination and it makes no difference in the final outcome for me.  I have great respect for Ms. Lanier and her tough job. I know I could never do it.  But I think she completely missed my point: her police  force as well as the other law enforcement branches operating in D.C. focus too much on penalizing drivers - ordinary citizens who make occasional, unintentional mistakes - and then complain they have not enough personnel to deal with serious crime.  Also, in my opinion, the officers' aggressive stance and excessive penalties are what creates hostility towards them - not news reports and blogs.