welcome to the spirit of january

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What, you thought stolen land came at no cost?  

Did you think the power to change or obliterate what some dismiss as ‘America’s painful past’  meant the consequences went away?  That because the holocaust, genocide and displacement of indigenous peoples, the kidnap and dehumanization of those reduced to chattel whose free labor set up an economy and who were objectified as racialized inferiors to serve a convoluted notion of racialized superiority - that the rebranding of stolen land masqueraded as a nation of laws, a democracy and ‘the land of opportunity’ could be enforced without cost?

See, the beginnings of America is one thing.  But, the process that it takes to pretend it all never happened by calling it something else while the behaviors that perpetrated the original crime continue is quite another.  When invasion and holocaust are covered up as entitled occupation, belief systems are invented and enforced to uphold the falsehood. 

When repeatedly practiced, such belief systems block or at least clog the natural ability to comprehend, feel, communicate and make choices. The inability, failure or refusal to deal with conflict results in more conflict on top of conflict.  Existing problems are worsened through reactionary behavior, faulty reasoning and ridiculous expectations. Emotionally, physically, ideologically and institutionally invented and enforced belief systems are not characteristic of a democracy but are instead characteristic of chronic oppression. A cult.

Stolen land and the holocaust of peoples indigenous to that land (or theft of anything and murder of anyone) is never without cost.  Romanticized cowboys home on the range, pilgrims landing on a rock, pioneers settling amber waves of grain or huddled masses yearning for a beacon on a hill can never cover up the continuing cost and continuing consequences of existence in a system of chronic oppression. The tells are there from the ancient remains of the murdered to current cheers for a team with a tomahawk chop. 

Some years ago, one of the 27 psychiatrists who co-authored The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump discussed in a television interview what is called a duty to warn, an official act taken by psychiatrists, therapists or counselors to inform those associated with someone whose behavior could result in a dangerous threat to themselves or others. The interview was the psychiatrist’s effort to present a duty to warn America about a dangerous situation that could result in great harm to the country through the office of the Presidency. 

As journalists continued to interview and ask psychologist Dr. Mary Trump about her uncle and his behavior, she repeatedly reminded them all to stop treating him like he’s normal.  Time and again she tried to explain the psychology of narcissism, the past behaviors and family dynamics she experienced as the same questions and comments were asked of her. She repeated, stop treating him like he’s normal.

Why wasn’t America able to heed the Duty to Warn and then take preventative action?  Why couldn’t America stop treating the abnormal as normal instead of continuing to engage with a bombastic vulgar maniac through standard American channels such as a ‘free press’ - would the rantings of Charles Manson be legitimized through news outlet microphones?  America did not have the ability to be “the grown up in the room” or provide more oxygen being sucked out of that same room, nor protect itself as a nation of laws for one very important reason.  The rationale of American identity is woven into the same condition described in the ‘dangerous case’ which is consistent with perversions of entitled occupation and its morbid habit of normalizing the abnormal.

While America is distraught about its current state of affairs, the reality is that a degenerate individual, a plague, a cult, a flat tire while problematic, is not the problem.  The problem lies with the failure or inability to do anything about it.  This ‘nation of laws’ is apparently falling short of its self promotion.

It’s just not efficient to approach America’s problem like it ever was a democracy at all. It’s like applying the skill of scoring a touchdown to the game of baseball. It does not make sense to apply the rules or expectations of a democracy to the problems rooted in chronic oppression.  It just won’t work.  The problems will only complicate, mutate and continue.  There can never really be justice on stolen land.

America would do well to admit that because of it’s chronic oppression, lives have become unmanageable.  And as the American rationale continues to generate more conflict, toxic reactions and other problems of its own making, it would do well to admit that it is powerless over its oppressive condition.  

In 2016 and several times after, Donald Trump recited a poem “The Snake” at a rally to associate the danger of allowing Mexican immigrants into the country.  The words coming out of his mouth looked more like he was the snake putting out a warning about himself.  It was a surreal foretelling. He was up front and could not have been more clear about putting all on notice who he was.  

Time after time, the question is asked about him having so much power in spite of being indicted and charged with so many crimes.  Why and how is he able to prosper at every indictment handed down? How is it that he is able to wield so much power in America while being in so much trouble in America? 

The duality of the American rationale to dress-up as a democracy and a nation of laws while at the same time function as a system of oppression is at the core of the answers to these questions.  One is the costume the other is the functioning reality. Bottom line is that the power to blow off any legal problems with America’s costume is cancelled by America’s real authority from the outset, systemic oppression by racist white male dominance.  Trump simply served as the conduit from what was already set in place to what lay dormant but ready to pounce.  His loud and brazen endorsement enabled his hold on the functioning element of American authority - the American white violent mob.

Some might feel that the insurrection of the January 6th raging mob was put down.  However, that incident was but one layer of the take over which I would say is in effect and has been since the beginning. The violence that resulted in death, destruction and trauma that day served as a show of force.  A show of force that struck and still strikes fear in the hearts among politicians whose constituents include those called ‘the base’ are paralyzed by a hanging threat of the wrath of a thug who has the nuclear button to activate the mob at will.  

Another critical element of domestic terrorism is revealed in the silence on the part of those elected representatives who don’t want to go along with degenerate extremism and have the power to legislatively put it down but don’t dare vote their position or say it out loud.  For all the death threats hurled at good people from the most local level to duly elected politicians, officers of the court, trying to do their job or citizens who dare to challenge the malfeasance brazenly committed by domestic terrorists, the so-called laws don’t seem to mean much.

"There can never really be justice on stolen land"

 - And if you already haven't, I highly suggest you listen to the phenomenal words of KRS One, THE SOUND OF DA POLICE

Confront oppression

All it takes is a change of mind