Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Can the US survive another four years of Trump?



Just Another SMALL note of Caution against DOGmatism

1. Another (DOGmatic) echo-chambering of those who for decades have been strategically and conveniently pandering to blacks and several other groups (usually during election seasons) with hardly any enduring thing to show for it.

2. Today hungers for deeper analytical thinking that encompasses and surpasses contextualized and de-contextualized "context/s" — just as the tragic dehumanizing of George Floyd encompasses and surpasses the racial.  In other words, certain contexts always need to be transvalued. 

3. The killing of George Floyd is a mega crime against an essential part of humanity and thus a crime against humanity. What equally amazes me: some other "humans" (police and non-police) watched passively for (for) L-O-N-G minutes. Many of the so-called protesters were more interested in taking selfies serially amid smiles. Protesting such as the one in question is neither a professional nor a recreational sport.

4. Arguably, no context without context/s, but abuse of context/s often symptomizes shallow or lazy "thinking" or even non-thinking. Yes, no justice/no peace — BUT what about NO PEACE/NO JUSTICE? Police officers are also HUMANS (daughters, sons, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, etc.) just like you and me. We are all parts of the human "essence." No essence, no (human) existence!?

5. Even in nature there are usually far more good apples than bad apples. 

6. Of the local leaders in HOT cities, THE mayor of Atlanta has so far exemplified what it means to be a leader and a parent in times of wild ("domestic") FIRES. 

7. Perhaps, in (individual) personhood lies partial "essence," a phenomenon coincidental with existence (which arguably does not precede "essence," as Sartre declares in a most popular but philosophically weak essay).

8. In the game of life, sooner or later (though unfortunately, more often the latter), those who play chess triumph over those who play checkers. Go chess!!!!!!!

Sent from my iPhone

On May 31, 2020, at 12:46 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelbergcornelius4@gmail.com> wrote:



Correction.

Should read, "and in his case, not to quench any fake or incorrect news coming from him/ out of him"

On Sun, 31 May 2020 at 06:43, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelbergcornelius4@gmail.com> wrote:

When something's not right, it's wrong –

and in this case, as we

we the people can see,

Trump has been sitting on his hands too long.

For every cool black & blue : The Makings of You

I am of the candid opinion that if it had been a Black Police Officer that had had his hand in his pocket for eight minutes and forty six seconds whilst  playing the part of Supreme judge & executioner without a trial, whilst he mercilessly quenched the life of a white suspect as his three fellow Black police officers looked on, tried to obstruct the cameras that were recording what they were doing live and direct, turning a heartless and deaf ear  to the pilgrim father's great- grandson's  agonising pleas for oxygen,  of " I can't breathe"  - then a furious Trump would have addressed the nation earlier, bristling with the kind of moral indignation that would make America great again, if America was not great before Trump became Potus.

Unfortunately, for his White House hopes, it's another missed opportunity  for Trump, once again too slow off the blocks and almost too late in the day and in the night, but thank God anyway that Trump who as usual has been dragging his feet  when it comes to White Police Terrorism on Black American citizens ,  has finally come out to speak to his great nation, about the atrocities being committed and supervised in broad daylight by his White Police Officers even if he seems to be more concerned about the reaction than the cold-blooded bloody murder that's causing some reaction.

So, exactly what did Tump say? After all he took the oath of office by swearing on Lincoln's Bible and this is not fake news the United States is supposed to be Christian territory , as the Black Churches and the Bible Belt people will be the first to remind him, but whatever happened with Vayikra 19 : 18 / Leviticus 19:18 which states,

" You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."

This sorrowful reminder is from the Facebook page of a beautyful someone I know personally, who loves the United States of America and is simultaneously a Swede and a New Yorker.

I have lost a lot of the confidence that I once had in Trump, and the promise I once thought that I saw in him: I'm sure that I'm not alone in this. It has been a slow but constant erosion of his image, of American values, and with regard to race issues, starting with some of the earlier opinions he has expressed – at Charlottesville for example where he appears to be sitting on both sides of the Jim Crow and Civil Rights fence, and speaking from both sides of his mouth, saying, "There are very fine people on both sides" . Is that what he believes when there is a tussle between Israel (The Jews) and the Nazis?

Critics say that Trump is being a moral coward here, is merely hedging his bets by not taking a moral stand against those elements that they refer to as his fascist, white nationalist, white Aryan supremacist base.

Mr. Trump, the whole world is looking at what's happening to America and Americans, in America, and the sight is not pretty.  If you earnestly want a second term, then you must realise that there are enough decent people in the United States, a moral majority, also of the type who elected Barack Obama for two consecutive terms. You should reflect on what Jesse "Hymie" Jackson said at the 1988 Democratic National Convention:

"When I look at this convention, I see the face of America, red, yellow, brown, black, white. We are all precious in God's sight – the real rainbow coalition"

 Trump is quick to react when it's on behalf of his own skin. For as little as a bruised ego or to save his own skin.  In my view, he is precipitously close to wanting to squash the US constitution's first amendment in his little tittle-tattle with twitter. It looks like just as a shithole country dictator he wants to quench dissent - and in his case to quench any fake or incorrect news coming from him. I should like to leave him to the tender mercies of our good friend Piers Morgan to take or to shake the mickey out of him - and some more satirical soundbites from the Onion to prick his conscience and grab him by the ears, so that he listens more attentively to what the people are saying.

 Trump's slow off the blocks but it's not too late to make repairs and reparations for what's currently going on. From this moment on, he has to tread carefully or else the current American situation will slide out of his hands ( not God's hands) as he looks on at race tensions, America polarised, new fires in California, the economy, unemployment, food stamps, the second wave of the corona pandemic claiming more lives, just in time for the American Presidential Elections, maybe some unexpected tensions in the South China Seas, the Persian Gulf, Brer Trump could have too much on his plate to be able to see straight and to  get out of the mess that's rapidly approaching him from all directions without even a smell of any Russian collusion.

 Here's what some people are saying. Some more bad news, here

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAC50OP-VPTPwP60aBZ9O3scevU1yge6c25aHpc-zoVPgdSCpBw%40mail.gmail.com.