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Thread: I feel guilty but.....

  1. #1
    Senior Member gimmethesimplelife's Avatar
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    I feel guilty but.....

    That I did the right thing regardless.

    Protests of the Minneapolis PD Murder came to Phoenix.....and I didn't go. Afraid of the pandemic. I have elder care to deal with as does SO. But I still feel guilty for not going - like I've given America consent to murder.

    What twisted times we live in. Rob

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    Hey, I haven’t raised a finger about the Chinese cracking down on Hong Kong, and I’m sleeping well at night.

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    You can only do what you can, when you can. If you can't be there in person, be there in spirit.
    To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." Mahatma Gandhi
    Be nice whenever possible. It's always possible. HH Dalai Lama
    In a world where you can be anything - be kind. Unknown

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    Senior Member Tradd's Avatar
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    Rob, what if you went and things turned violent?

  5. #5
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    I'm glad you're safely at home.

    Minneapolis has failed its citizens, IMO. At least one of the officers involved in Floyd's murder had numerous previous complaints. The percentage of head-bangers on any police force need to be quickly dealt with and summarily dismissed, for the good of all of us.

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    If you don't care for yourself, you can't care for others.

    No guilt!

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    Senior Member bae's Avatar
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    There are other ways to protest:

    - calls and letters to representatives
    - volunteer labor to civil rights organizations
    - donations to civil rights organizations
    - reaching out and educating friends and relatives
    - ...

  8. #8
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    For all my experience at contacting government, Senators and House Reps, governors and state Senators and state House Reps, county board members, etc.. every impression has always been they could not care less what constituents think. It could not mean less than nothing to them.

    So I do it, but it's mostly ritualistic. If I was rich or famous maybe it would be different.
    Trees don't grow on money

  9. #9
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore View Post
    For all my experience at contacting government, Senators and House Reps, governors and state Senators and state House Reps, county board members, etc.. every impression has always been they could not care less what constituents think. It could not mean less than nothing to them.

    So I do it, but it's mostly ritualistic. If I was rich or famous maybe it would be different.
    I don’t know what you expect when you contact your government officials. I am one person one vote one voice. I give them my opinion. They can pay attention to it or not, but of course they pay attention to what their constituents say because they want to get reelected. That doesn’t mean that they are going to act in the way you tell them to act, not at all.


    Our city alderman is very good and he shows up in our neighborhood regularly to Membership meetings in fact he doesn’t miss one. He’s always reporting on what he’s doing. he followed someone in that position who is a very strong older woman who was there for decades. Also good. Another past alderman from the other side of our neighborhood is now number two in the city just below the mayor. So our local politicians are very good.

    So I donated money to our alderman‘s reelection campaign and he’ll win because he won’t have any serious contenders, but unfortunately I am now in the democratic donor database and I get contacted from other candidates who I will not respond to

  10. #10
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    tbh Minneapolis (and St. Paul) did not need any more well-meaning protesters from other states than we already had. In fact, I was disappointed to see Al Sharpton make the trip; I really do not see what he adds to the conversation. There are plenty of African-Americans here who understand what's going on, what could fix it, and how to discuss it effectively. It's not like we needed the press coverage on Sharpton; it was already here.

    Our home is at least five miles from the mayhem seen in the news. There was some looting at the liquor store a few blocks from our house but that was the extent of our excitement other than watching streets we've traveled and stores we've shopped in, trashed.

    We are trying to make sense out of what we see as an outsized reaction to Floyd's death. Peaceful protest, certainly. Deaths like Floyd's happen far too often -- they almost seem scripted. I can understand how people of all colors have had enough and are seeking real change. I can see that tempers would flare. They should; this has to stop. That was the first night.

    By the second night, though, it seems like people who had time and motive arrived; people who didn't care as much about Floyd's death and the way black people are treated as they did about an opportunity to "bust $#!+ up" and get their anarchist groove on. The destruction was just senseless. They didn't hit only jewelry stores and pawn shops; they vandalized thrift stores and auto parts stores. They looted and burned a minority-owned store that sold wigs and did a fair amount of trade with people of color and transgender individuals. They broke into the local library FFS. All this in poorer areas, primarily residents who are people of color, where rebuilding will take years, if not decades, leaving residents with immediate problems in buying groceries and in getting prescriptions refilled and cell-phone service continued, and longer-term problems in getting individual shop owners to rebuild.

    I don't get involved in the policy forum here because every issue seems to end up with the same people on the same sides and nobody ever seems to change their mind. Maybe I'm just very naive about this, but this does not seem like boiled-over rage at another arrest of a black man that suddenly turned into death. This is by no means only a local issue -- this happens all over the U.S. -- but it seems orchestrated to me. Even dogs know not to crap where they sleep. The destruction that occurred here not only took everyone's eyes off former-officer Chauvin's bad judgement but it made life worse -- today, tomorrow, and, likely, for years to come -- for thousands of people who didn't need to lose a(nother) rung or two on the ladder of life.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

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