Community

This is my local LGBT Community Center, The Billy DeFrank Center. It is currently closed during the COVID19 pandemic, but volunteers are still conducting outreach and trying to keep community thru video and social media connections.

 

I was downtown helping a community clean up effort after some of the damage from a couple of the evening protests in my area.

 

I have been thankful that most of the protestors have been peaceful and not breaking things or looting, but I fully support the mission and message of these protest movements.

 

We live in the 21st century, not the post reconstruction South or even the 1960s. The fact, that immediate action and arrest of the Minneapolis police officers who killed, an unarmed and restrained black man was not taken, is the spark that ignited this, but it has been a growing trend for years now and only becoming undeniably visible in the last few years, with phone video and social media making it impossible to keep these kinds of police abuses and injustices secret or hidden.

 

The thug like tactics being used to stop and breakup peaceful protests around our country has only made this worse.

 

The President calling the protestors “Terrorists”, or the US “a Battlespace” surrounding their action in response to American citizens freely exercising our 1st amendment right of freedom of speak and freedom of assembly, are the actions of “tin plated dictators” of banana republics.

 

Having active duty “Special Forces” troops “expanding the area they control around the White House”, sounds more like the US military is at war with some insurgency than protecting our citizens who are standing peacefully in protest there.

 

I will continue to support all Americans who are standing up against this continued decent.

 

WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS and we, the peaceful but highly concerned and angry citizens of our country, need to make sure our message is not cast by Trump as “Terrorists”.

 

I spent much of my career working to help defend and protect the US, but I never did so, so that a President could use that same “military might” to suppress US citizens like they are some form of battlefield insurgents.

 

I’m not going to waste my limited time, addressing those who choose not to see this decent for what it is.

 

But I do hope, everyone else will recognize that they must be part of the effort to make it clear we live in America, and not in a banana republic and we will not tolerate these kinds of actions by our leadership.

 

In addition, I think everyone should remember that the pandemic is still quite active regardless of what Trump might claim, over 1000 Americans died yesterday, that is over 2 and half as many Americans as died on an average day from combat during WWII. These continued high death rates continue because of continued failure at a federal level. My county thru the brave efforts to fight this pandemic instead of sweeping it under the carpet, has reduced our case rate and death rate. We had only 5 deaths here in the last 2 weeks. Testing is now available for free to anyone in the county without the need for a doctor’s referral.

 

But in order to continue to bring this under control, we should all still be social distancing and masking to reduce its spread.

 

I hope all my friends are doing well, although I now know it has stuck several people I know. I wish them all a successful recovery.

 

Done