I am not a pacifist. I do believe in the Bill of Rights but don't see where citizen-held assault weapons fall anywhere NEAR it. There are times when honesty prevails. Whether we want it to or not. Clear, stark, honesty. This is one of those times. It is a moment to reflect upon our penchant or need for sacrifice to initiate great change. We seem to require blood in order to take the giant social steps forward. The ones we then celebrate in hindsight. So be it. Here are the small faces. Here are the tears. Now, what do we do...honestly?
-Brandon Bowlin
Days before she died, Yvette Wilson posted a donate page to help with her costs of cervical cancer treatment. She needed $25k and received $13.5k.
This is a Rant. It was posted on my Facebook page. It is profane and angry. It is disjointed and splintered. It is in context and out of context. It is not thought through…but it's what I feel about the passing of a beautiful spirit I knew.
For Yvette....I'm not callin' for pity. I've held dying folk in my arms and I know we all gotta go. But should her last days on earth have been begging for change on line to help fight this shit? Should anyone's last conscious days be anything else other than calls to friends and family with voiced “I love you”s? Filling out forms to "qualify" for healthcare "awards?"...And these racist crackers show up screaming NO government healthcare? These putrid souls who marched us down into wars from where they STILL haven't asked where the money went, BLOCKED the idea that we should die with fucking dignity. FUCKING DIGNITY! Gaddammit...On Your back with tubes or puss or blood seeping from your vagina while somebody scrambles to get on Facebook sos you can BUY one last fucking weekend...
WHAT are we really? Who the hell are we? What kind of nation allows lines of people...THOUSANDS.. to sleep in winter stormed parking lots to receive BASIC care from once a year health clinics? What kinda of nation lets MONSTERS APPLAUD DEATH PENALTY REMARKS IN A DEBATE...CLAIM they are PRO LIFE and then shut down funding for planned parenthood where some of our women WOMEN get their ONLY health care...WHO THE FUCK DOESN'T HAVE A MOTHER!
We are better than that. We are better than the weakest of us 'just getting by'. We are better than leaving many in days of pain AND worry. We are better than giving up on our neighbors...on our past in our parents and grandparents...and on our future in children. WE ARE BETTER THAN LEAVING IT UP TO CHARITY. WE ARE BETTER THAN TO LEAVE OUR NEIGHBORS TO DIE IN NEED. WE ARE BETTER THAN TO HAND OFF OVERPRICED 'INSURANCE' TO SUITED DEMONS READY TO CUT THE MONEY AS SOON AS YOU FALL FROM THE SMALL PRINT. IF NOT, WHAT THEN, IN THE WORDS OF ALL THE DECLARATIONS AND HUMANE ANNOUNCEMENTS WE PROCLAIM TO BE UNIQUELY AMERICAN, STOPS US FROM FEEDING UPON EACH OTHER TO MAINTAIN AND SURVIVE.
That is cannibalism. That is what we are using for our healthcare system.
We are better than that.
What We Must Do Now.
The arrest of George Zimmerman.
brandonbowlin
thedarkroome.com
It is so very easy to ask for revenge. Revenge is quick, to the point, often loud and even more often irreversible. I am reminded of the story of the Amish Families of 5 little girls who went to school one morning and ended up systematically and brutally murdered by a monstrously deranged man who then killed himself. These Families almost immediately comforted the Parents and widow of the man...it is said that one man who held the killer's sobbing father said, "He has lost a child as well". True honor holds fast in the dark.
Anger is not the goal. Racism is not the goal. However, while Justice is the goal, may we pause for just a moment to embrace the salient fact that one radiant young man's spirit has brought an entire nation together on his behalf. It is a remarkable opportunity which we can use to raise this nation from the depths of manufactured divisions or to dig further down a route of dehumanization. Trayvon's future has been handed to us. And now we must choose to honor it.
--brandonbowlin
Sign of The Times
brandonbowlin
thedarkroome.com
This is from a Michigan highway.
And this is designed to hurt.
I can’t tell everyone to be calm about it. Nor can I say that a majority of the conservative right doesn’t feel this way. From current opinion’s like John Derbyshire, Michelle Malkin, and a host of others they certainly feel something skewed towards averting the justice that Trayvon’s parents have been calling out for. And many of their constituents actually write things along this line in more definitive terms.
However, what I can say is that, beyond a trial and its outcome…there is no winner. A life was lost. In a frightful horrible fashion. In one of the ways ALL Parents fear and have nightmares about (John Derbyshire not withstanding). There is no equivalent to a child, no matter what color, dying like this. And while justice may prevail…no one wins. No matter how many niggers one puts along side the road.
Last week there was a rampage in Tulsa where Blacks were targeted and killed. Police say it was two men…one who lost his son last year to a shooting by a Blackman. THAT is just as horrid as Trayvon’s death. I assume they know the color of the shooter because they caught him and hopefully justice was metered out to the fullest extent of the law. They believe they caught the right man today...and...I call for justice.
That’s what this is about…seeking justice. Not a lynch mob. Or town hangin’. Not a race-oriented regression into Black Toms and White Masters; where Herman Cain says that it’s okay to go to the back of the bus and Clarence Thomas reassures crackers that he’ll never speak out for anything (…but you can pay his wife to)! This is about trying to get to the truth, and along the way we seem to have stumbled across some old truths still lurking about.
No more Crackers just being called the base. They are un-American bigoted Crackers…whose politics has one key. One note. They are not multi-dimensional nor tiered in thought. Really how can they be when color is so much a part of this nation now? Hell, keeping color in its place is a full-time JOB!
Arizona is trying though. So is Alabama. Other states, through slimy shadows like Alec, are gonna face challenges from filth movers. Trashmen. These guys who claim civility and patriotism but move to revoke EVERYONE’S rights on ANY issue they don’t like. Even if it’s a detriment to their own way of life.
For years the right has dangerously stoked, pushed, and prodded the “Cracker Politik”. At first speaking in tonal terms by calling then candidate Obama a mischaracterization with all the vehemence of nigger. Then Republican Senator after Senator and Representative after Representative insulted and challenged the seat of President Obama’s authority culminating in a full-frontal Soft Klanning lexicon that made the Cracker feel good about taking off his hood and representing his true self openly.
And now ANYONE can be strip searched for a traffic stop…while Justices of the Supreme Court of The United States of America choose an insulting moniker of The Affordable Healthcare Act to send both a message of support to the crackers and one of condescension to the President of The United States of America.
Now, this act could’ve been dealt by some misguided child. Or a lone mental patient. It could have come from a group so low down in the dredges of society that to them, the light of a flaming Cross is at least…a light. Yet, even though it is a dangerous sign in many ways as everyone else in America has witnessed the nervous breakdown of the right to its cracker roots, this thing…this horrible thing…is….
…expected.
--brandonbowlin
Most of the time when I get campaign email I check it out and move on...this time I did something a little different...
There were a few cats who threatened to leave these shores if Bush were to get elected again. Gore Vidal was one....my uncle another. But, the Dems put up precisely who they should have put up...on paper. In real life John Kerry proved to look like a man who wanted to be President only a lil bit. And that's where it all started you know. The swift boat ads. They were mean spirited. They were lies. They were Anti-American.
They were also effective...only because, inexplicably, Kerry didn't punch anyone in the mouth. Not even for the guys that served with him! Let that sink in and see if you call ANY Iraq vet ANYTHING without a fight.
Plus, he was going against one of the all-time ignorant men. A duty skipping daddy's boy...THE senator's son. It didn't make sense that a swift-boat ad of a bunch of dirty old bastards lyin' about the facts for measly checks could just run...and run....and run. If the Kerry camp wouldn't trounce Bush and co. SOMEBODY in the press would. I mean somebody would ask the sane questions and blow the bullshit up right?
DEMOCRACY NOW! did. They brought on Greg Palast who wrote "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" a book that told the whole true and sordid story of Bush's Bull.
Yet still the stories ran and when re-elected in Nov., the republican party had gotten away with it. Lying and being ridiculously unfair while calling themselves the victims. They had gotten away with an outlandish smear and they liked it. It was the beginning of the new hateful season. One they continue to perpetuate today. There is no equivalency. Fox News et al name call and lie and distort facts...lay it all into the news cycle..and then claim it as real. MSNBC does not. Doesn't have to. Conservative records on, well, EVERYTHING has proven horrible. And once again the Dems have done little to nothing to point that out. That is about to change. Without guilt or trepidation. Even though most news outlets were cowed by conservative "power"...we see them differently....just a bunch of dirty old bastards.... lyin' about the facts.....for a filthy lil' check. Welcome to thedarkroome.
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