Justice. January 6th Sedition

 Law and Order is like patriotism --anyone who comes on strong about patriotism has got something to hide; it never fails. They always turn out to be a crook or an asshole or a traitor or something.                                                                            Bill Mauldin-- political cartoonist who earned the Purple Heart at Cassino during WWII.

 I'm not wanting to but I'm stewing again. Unbelievably, even with the filming of the insurrection, there are those who are trying to negate the effects of that dreadful day, much worse than the 9/11 attack because it was our own citizens. The films show: the murder of two police officers; the mob's desecration of the Capitol building; and the shattered windows and doors. These domestic terrorists even shit on the floors then smeared the poop on the walls of some of the Senators offices. Despite all the evidence of egregious crimes, some Republicans are still unwilling to charge the criminal offenders or the persons who incited these rioters.  Despite the evidence of the sedition many of the Republicans are unwilling to impeach the ex-president, the worst offender, of inciting a riot. Many of these Republicans were in fact complicit with the insurrection. I'm looking at you Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. No surprise that this would happen when after all Trump and his cronies lied over and over again, claiming that the election was stolen. Eighty six failed lawsuits by the Trump administration in their desperate attempt to overturn the, not even close, election of Joe Biden. 

drain the swamp? it was filled it with slime

On January 6th the elected officials and all the people in the Capitol building were hiding from the violent mob attackers. They had to be ushered to safety. In our nation's Capitol! These people, mostly Trump supporters, white supremacists and QAnon followers were breaking, smashing and entering the Capitol building. They were mobsters. 

Remember who these people are. These were the people in their MAGA hats, the ones carrying and wearing Nazi slogans, some of them with the Confederate flags, that mob. That's who were threatening the lives of all the elected officials. Let it continually sink in: these people were our citizens, not some foreign entity. Sadly this stems from the mob listening to and believing repetitive lies. Stop the Steal! [86 failed lawsuits proved otherwise]. Not a shred of evidence to overturn the election but they are true believers. So they sought to kill those messengers because they wouldn't falsify the legal election.  

Will no one hold this despicable man and his toadies accountable? He urged the mob to go to the Capitol and "be strong, I'll be right beside you". Of course he wasn't, he was watching the sedition, that he encouraged, on television. We have that on film also.

The equally despicable Republicans now want to "turn the page" on this criminal act and minimize the violence and near take over of the Capitol.  I, previously, wrote about the connection between domestic violence, abuse, and domestic terrorists. It's worth a review.

https://susansmagicfeather.blogspot.com/2021/01/do-domestic-terrorism-and-domestic.html  

I described how abuse has typically been handled in the past by those who witness it, or by the police who are called in after the fact in a sorry way.  Alas, this is still happening today.  All to often when a family or a woman is abused, even if the cops are called, many will not arrest the abuser, despite the trauma to the family. Later through coercion and/or threats, the victim[s] will try to minimize the destruction that happened to them out of fear and sometimes that fear is for their life. This is exactly what we have now. The justification for the attack and the minimization is rampant. Fox news has been laughable in their coverage of the insurrection.  "Maybe it was the radical left who infiltrated the mob [fantasy], it wasn't really the white supremacists [false, it was], perhaps it was just the people who were justifiably frustrated that the election was rigged [poor babies, enough to create an insurrection and violent overthrow of our government?]". The coercion is going on right now by the radical right. The weak, insecure Republicans are fearful of losing their elections to that violent angry mob so they lie and claim there is justification in all the lies. Does this ring any bells in history? of dictators? of abusers?

How I wish that there was someone, anyone, who could do some financial accounting and a reckoning of all the awfulness that we, in this country, have been put through for four long years. I want to know the exact dollar numbers of the graft, the grift and corruption in this last administration. I believe this scam is without parallel even, comparatively speaking in the very worst of the Tea Pot Dome scandal. At least that scandal did not include ripping off the entire country. All the billions that we wasted on the Trump family, who, let's face it, were there it to push their products. I shudder to think of the enormous amounts spent on Mar-a-Lago to say nothing of all the golfing trips and now the calls for protection for their entire family that of course we have to pay for. Let the bill come due! Let the Trumps pay us back for all their theft.

By contrast, just remember the huge outcry and fuss made of the very modest vacations  Obama and family took in their eight years of office? This makes me weep. Hypocritical Republicans! Now they are screaming about the debt incurred cause by their last administration. Don't give any people money, they say as a unit. It should go to... the billionaires.

Where, I ask you, is the justice? There appears to be no repercussions for all of these very real, very film-able crimes?  Does this mean that any president is allowed to do what the T administration got away with? A horrible precedent has been set by the most horrible ex President of our country. 

We want our good name back, we want to really be a democracy again. We want the truth to set us free and, most especially, we want justice.

susansmagicfeather 2021 Susan R. Grout 

 

Do Domestic Terrorism and Domestic Violence Have Anything in Common

 I was in tears. As I and the world watched the violence of that angry mob storming the Capitol building. They were attempting to undo our Democracy egged on by the president, to deprive us of our lawfully elected Joe Biden of his presidency. Yes, I was appalled, sickened but frankly not surprised.  The soon to be ex-president had been fanning the flames of violence throughout his entire four years in office. "Beat up the reporters!"  Rep. Norma Torres of California who was in the building getting ready to certify the election said, "It's horrible that this is America, the United States of America and this we have to go through this because Trump called his homegrown terrorists to come to the Capital and invalidate people's votes."

It's very important to see that this terrorism can begin at home, it is domestic violence. I'm betting that most of the violent protesters have either been victims of domestic violence or, more likely, the perpetrators of domestic violence.  It wasn't until this episode that some of the presidents most stalwart, impassioned apologists [Lindsay Graham saying, "enough is enough"] were now the victims and then feeling the terror of the domestic violence scene unfolding before them. There is terrible fear that accompanies domestic violence and with that gut punch these Republicans finally, finally came to their senses. They experienced first hand what it means to encourage and support a man who has no empathy and will do anything, tell any lie, to get what he wants. He encouraged violence and conspiracy theories and lie after lie to undo the votes of the people and it did come to this. 

I wrote this in 2017:

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism has found that right-wing extremists — including white supremacists, sovereign citizens and militia members — were responsible for 74% of the 372 extremist-related murders from 2007 to 2016. And of the 45 police officers killed by domestic extremists since 2001, 34 were killed by right-wing extremists.

So where are the much needed anti terrorism efforts to combat this ugly situation now? Clearly with a right wing, conspiracy believing, unprincipled man in the White House, exactly nowhere.

These numbers demonstrate the importance of promoting anti terrorism efforts in the U.S. The new office of anti terrorism must be broad enough to tackle the wide range of extremist beliefs that have taken root in our country. We also must address the proliferation of radicalizing materials that are readily available to anyone with an Internet connection. These screaming, blatantly false proclamations have embolden both white supremacists (Dylan Roof, for example) and all forms of right wing extremists alike.

The reason this is so very important is that the whole world witnessed on a grand scale the ugliness of the mob breaking into the Capitol building on 1/6/21. The leader bully, the president, encouraging other bullies to break the law and foul up our democracy.  From what I read, some of the cops were taking selfies with the thugs at this "rally".  This also might suggest that some of the more frightening and egregious bullies have drifted into the ranks of our police force. There does need to be some accounting and weeding out of the bullies and abusers.

I wrote this in early 2016:

Sad but true bullies [the abusers] revel in being on top, frightening people and creating confusion so they can seize the upper hand. [Think Vladimir Putin and Trump] They've learned that bullying has its own rewards: people become frightened and tend to do what the abuser says or wants. A really funny example of this is the dentist in "Little Shop of Horrors".  Steve Martin's over the top portrayal of a sadistic dentist, terrifying his lab assistant. He's a good example of an abusive bully and this certainly strikes a chord [a poor pun]. However, he perfectly skewers the stupidity of being a bully and he certainly gets his just desserts in the end. In real life abuse is anything but funny.

This is why yesterday my thoughts turned to all the women I worked with over the years who were victims of Domestic Violence.  What was proven true: until a person is witness to the extremists and subsequently threatened by them, they tend to make light of the situation that anyone who is a victim of abuse and lies [especially women and children] suffers. Now they know, domestic violence and domestic terrorism have the exact same roots.

Our country is going to need more than debriefing and soon. The further we get away from this horror the sooner the bullies of our world will descend on "oh, come on, it wasn't that bad..." In my thirty years as a therapist, I heard this comment over and over again from the abusers. Minimizing to absolve themselves is commonplace and perpetuates the crimes. 

Let's learn from this example of minimizing the lies of our president, ignoring what could happen when we elected four years ago  a person who has a history of cheating, bilking innocent people, deceiving people, outright grifter and a very immoral person. That man doesn't understand that truth is imperative. Character does count. 

 

Let's heal together, the New Year is still coming. It is January 20th, 2021.

susansmagicfeather  copyright but go ahead and share this if you'd like, 2021 Susan R. Grout