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Freedom of Speech and Censorship

drone
Tyrant of Words
Greece 10awards
Joined 3rd Sep 2011
Forum Posts: 2277

may be im simple
but i dont understand
why do we hide
in the lands
of twisted speach
why do we hide
from the words
that will give us
alittle freedom
that will make us
stand
head held high
when we see the light
within the eyes
of our child
so why do we hide
from the old
the young
the crippled
and the ones
yet to come
why do we agree
to be called words
not of our name
words
of twisted meanings
that do nothing
but decay
the very nature
of the light
that used to shine
within their eyes
that used to make you
proud
to be alive

Yet We Hide

Ahavati
Tams
Tyrant of Words
United States 124awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 17112

Wow @ this list. It's a start, but it's not nearly enough.

The cities, states and countries finally putting an end to police neck restraints

Police departments around the world are moving to ban neck restraints in the aftermath of George Floyd's death and the widespread protests that followed.

Neck restraints, or neck holds, refer to the practice of officers using their arm or leg to restrain someone's neck. The technique has been a subject of controversy for years, particularly following the death of Eric Garner in 2014 after a police officer was accused of choking him.
[ . . . ]
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/10/world/police-policies-neck-restraints-trnd/index.html

Ahavati
Tams
Tyrant of Words
United States 124awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 17112

Vote.

June 9, 2020 (Tuesday)

The day started with Trump tweeting that the 75-year-old Buffalo, New York, man shoved to the ground by police and left bleeding and unconscious “could be an ANTIFA provocateur” who might have been part of a “set up.”

Trump drew his suspicions from a story on One America News Network, a small cable television network whose constant support for the president has drawn his attention away from the Fox News Channel, whose support is less fervent. The Buffalo man (whose name I am not using in the vain hope that he may retain some anonymity) was a retired computer programmer and longtime Catholic peace activist who is affiliated with human-rights organizations.

The story came to OANN from a right-wing fringe site famous for conspiracy theories. It was narrated on OANN by correspondent Kristian Rouz, a Russian native who has also worked for Sputnik, a news outlet controlled by the Kremlin.

When the injured man’s friends dismissed the accusations as ludicrous, OANN followed up its original story with one that showed the victim as a left-wing extremist and said he was “far from the kindly old man that many in the media are describing.” For his part, the victim’s lawyer noted that the police had made no such accusations against his client, and wrote: “We are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him.”

With the victim still in the hospital, the president’s embrace of the theory that he was a provocateur embarrassed even Republican leaders, who uniformly tried to avoid comment on the issue for reporters. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said “I didn’t see it… I don’t read Twitter, I only write on it.” Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said he hadn’t seen the tweet. “You know a lot of this stuff just goes over my head.”

Instead of dealing with the president’s tweet, Senators today created history by unanimously approving the first Black service chief in history. General Charles Brown, Jr., known as “CQ,” will be the next chief of staff of the Air Force.

Brown was the top Air Force general in the Middle East and a three-star deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, overseeing US. Military operations there. For the past two years, he has commanded the Pacific Air Forces, and now will oversee the service as it adjusts to the rise of China and artificial intelligence. Brown last week released a moving video in which he talked about what it had meant for him to rise through the ranks as a Black man, what he had suffered and how he had prevailed. He spoke to viewers about what he hoped for America.

Trump nominated Brown in March and today celebrated the confirmation even before it happened. “My decision to appoint [General Brown] as the USA’s first-ever African-American military service chief has now been approved by the Senate,” he tweeted. “A historic day for America! Excited to work even more closely with Gen. Brown, who is a Patriot and a Great Leader!”

The other big news today was chaos in Georgia’s voting. Five states held primaries today, and voting appeared to be unremarkable in Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

But things went badly wrong in Georgia. Mail-in ballots never arrived, sending voters to polls where machines were missing or malfunctioning. People waited in line for hours. The problems were worst in heavily minority counties.

Georgia’s voting system has been unworkable for years, either from incompetence or design, and a new system put in place before this election is clearly inadequate. Democrat Stacey Abrams, who lost the race for Georgia’s governor to Republican Brian Kemp, who was at the time Georgia’s secretary of state and thus responsible for overseeing his own election, called the 2018 election “rotten and rigged.” Of today’s election, she said Georgians “deserve better.” Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger blamed local officials for the problems, but Democrats say he owns this debacle, and must fix it before November.

He must fix it before November, but has little incentive to, because for the first time in decades, Georgia appears to be in play in this year’s presidential contest.

~ Dr. Heather Cox Richardson
Political Historian

Thank goodness the day ended with change.

Ahavati
Tams
Tyrant of Words
United States 124awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 17112

Okay, just wow.  Great read on police reform.

This city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next

Before its police reforms, Camden was routinely named one of the most violent cities in the US.

Now, seven years after the old department was booted (though around 100 officers were rehired), the city's crime has dropped by close to half. Officers host outdoor parties for residents and knock on doors to introduce themselves. It's a radically different Camden than it was even a decade ago. Here's how they did it.



https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR36vOshtaFVWeNJCioBj0lyjv0-78i6djqDQmIeAKhhvwai-IVI0hLXr04

poet Anonymous

Ahavati said:Yipe!

Poets Criticize Poetry Foundation’s Statement on Black Lives Matter

In an open letter, more than 1,800 people criticized the foundation’s remarks and called on it to dedicate more proceeds from its $250 million endowment to antiracism efforts.

I read this before you posted it. I was floored. If any site is a commentary on Human conditions, this is the one.

[ . . .]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/books/poetry-foundation-black-lives-matter.amp.html

Ahavati
Tams
Tyrant of Words
United States 124awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 17112

Ahavati said:Vote.

[ . . . ]

~ Dr. Heather Cox Richardson
Political Historian

Thank goodness the day ended with change.


Anyone interested in following her:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbKOlm6H9njgmN-Yil90Rg?fbclid=IwAR3Wh5_wwGp7XUmnh9_p1TR11EfpAF-dc6YIXy-7E_KkmCJ2yVxPk_8cZWc

poet Anonymous

Ahavati said:

Anyone interested in following her:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbKOlm6H9njgmN-Yil90Rg?fbclid=IwAR3Wh5_wwGp7XUmnh9_p1TR11EfpAF-dc6YIXy-7E_KkmCJ2yVxPk_8cZWc


She is a prolific writer, that's apparent.

Ahavati
Tams
Tyrant of Words
United States 124awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 17112

Trump Is a Racist. If You Still Support Him, So Are You.

Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

Before you go clutching your pearls and extolling the virtues of “civility,” let me say this: put a sock in it.

This is not a new revelation, nor is it something that we can continue to ignore as though it were coming from a drunk uncle at the family barbeque. Bigotry is dangerous and, in the hands of our nation’s commander-in-chief, it can mean an inability to recognize individual humanity and a failure to act with moral authority in times of crisis. Every person talking about his clothes as he cheerfully bares his ass  is part of the problem.

Sunday, he claimed that newly elected progressive Democrats “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and “the worst, more corrupt and inept anywhere in the world.” And he told freshmen Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—outspoken Democratic women of color who have challenged the administration’s inhumane immigration policies— to leave the country.

Three of the four were born here in the United States. All are American citizens, and duly elected members of Congress.

Trump’s repugnant rebuke of American values did not come out of thin air.  It unfolded days after “The Squad” traveled with a delegation of congressional democrats to tour detention facilities in border states. What they found was deplorable. Reports of rampant abuse and neglect filled the airwaves, leading Trump to again dismiss accurate coverage as “fake news.” Rather than focus on improving basic conditions and getting to work on bi-partisan, comprehensive reforms, the president basically said if immigrants didn’t like how they were being treated, they should stay in their own country.

This morning, he turned his ire on some of his most vocal critics in Congress—all of whom have previously called for his impeachment.

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” Trump tweeted about the four congresswomen today. “Then come back and show us how it is done.”

“These places need your help badly,” he went on, “you can’t leave fast enough.”

While Republicans predictably remained tight-lipped and oblivious, Democrats reacted swiftly.

“Mr. President, the country I ‘come from,’ and the country we all swear to, is the United States,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez responded. “You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder.”

“When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a tweet. “Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power.”

This isn’t simply disgusting and divisive rhetoric. Whether it is the abhorrent, inhumane treatment of immigrants detained in government-sponsored concentration camps or the slow, piecemeal aid sent to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, for some, his policies have been deadly.

Certainly, this is not  the first time Trump has shamelessly revealed himself in public. His “Make America Great Again” campaign was always about catering to our lowest common denominator-- a hateful sector of the electorate that believes themselves culturally superior by skin color and religion.

For years, even before mounting a formal bid for the presidency, Trump regaled television news audiences with racist conspiracy theories about former president Barack Obama. He pledged to send investigators out to prove the nation’s 44thpresident was not born in the United States. He later derided immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries, calling those foreign nations “shit hole countries.” He once said immigrants from Haiti all “have AIDS” and that Nigerian immigrants would never “go back to their huts.”

In Trump’s mind, a judge’s Mexican heritage made him incapable of ruling fairly in a civil fraud case against one of his companies and he believes “laziness is a trait in blacks.” Trump, whose real estate company was sued for housing discrimination in the 1970s, went on to place a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five innocent black teenagers. Even after the Central Park 5 was exonerated, he refused to take it back. After Heather Heyer was murdered in Charlotteville, Virginia amid a white supremacist protest, he lamented that there were “some very fine people” on “both sides.”

Trump is not a fine person.  His words Sunday were not racially “charged,” “fueled,” or “tinged.” They were unapologetically racist.

And, if you support him, so are you.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-is-a-racist-if-you-still-support-him-so-are-you/ar-AAEjTmq?fbclid=IwAR3iRg64nF7Keh8bheU4PmEGhBNyVp-3XghIWUljRDQAfmYrxFQHHZCkH-Y&ocid=sf

poet Anonymous

^ Freedom of Speech at its finest when backed up with facts and kept on message - instead of unravelling into unsubstantiated, rambling nonsense for the sake of distraction and attention. ^

drone
Tyrant of Words
Greece 10awards
Joined 3rd Sep 2011
Forum Posts: 2277

Ahavati said:Okay, just wow.  Great read on police reform.

This city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next




https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR36vOshtaFVWeNJCioBj0lyjv0-78i6djqDQmIeAKhhvwai-IVI0hLXr04



Nice to hear peace officers
still exist

drone
Tyrant of Words
Greece 10awards
Joined 3rd Sep 2011
Forum Posts: 2277

Without Greed
and Corruption
Racism
cannot exist
our history
tells us so
If there was
No
Greed
and Corruption
Slavery
would have never
Existed

And yet
even to this day
We still have slaves
Because We Allow
Greed
and Corruption
to Exist
If our justice system
is not Upgraded
Modernized
THEN nOTHING WILL CHANGE
take a look at the history
LAWS were changed
a few years later
the same laws
were quietly
undone
watered down
when things were seen to be done
until things
died down
and we the people
went home
THIS HAS HAPPEND
BEFORE
and sadly it is
going to happen again
if the root of our problems
are not dealt with









Ahavati
Tams
Tyrant of Words
United States 124awards
Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 17112


This is just. . .this.

A WHITE WOMAN, RACISM AND A POODLE

I have not told this story before. I worry how it will be received. I don’t know the right language to express it other than my own thoughts and feelings. This post is not for people of color because they already know it. This is for white people living in suburbs and small towns who think this is a big city problem and “It’s not my town.”
[. . . ]

https://franklywrite.com/2020/06/01/a-white-woman-racism-and-a-poodle/?fbclid=IwAR1xPn08PfHvwTuUJnEY8oV9T77oSgCo_quHStbXaIZ4HSWLGbj91Obg_L8

EdibleWords
Tyrant of Words
9awards
Joined 7th Jan 2018
Forum Posts: 3004

Not Gramma’s Black Life...

Forget about
the over fifties

they’ll die soon
anyway

besides we need
room to march

and to burn Gram’s
little store
Written by EdibleWords
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poet Anonymous

Ahavati said:This is just. . .this.

A WHITE WOMAN, RACISM AND A POODLE

I have not told this story before. I worry how it will be received. I don’t know the right language to express it other than my own thoughts and feelings. This post is not for people of color because they already know it. This is for white people living in suburbs and small towns who think this is a big city problem and “It’s not my town.”
[. . . ]

https://franklywrite.com/2020/06/01/a-white-woman-racism-and-a-poodle/?fbclid=IwAR1xPn08PfHvwTuUJnEY8oV9T77oSgCo_quHStbXaIZ4HSWLGbj91Obg_L8


o.m.f.g.

Nope.

NEVER have I EVER been pulled over for driving under the speed limit.

EdibleWords
Tyrant of Words
9awards
Joined 7th Jan 2018
Forum Posts: 3004

Human is the New Black

We all came from Africa
We all have the same mothers
We all need policing

We all need civility
Written by EdibleWords
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