GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.

Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.

25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!

WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?

The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.

A HERO IS BORN.

I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.

WORD!

A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.

NOW, YOU KNOW.

When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.

JUST THE FACT.

In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle

DO YOU?.

“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.

HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.

Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.

OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.

WORDS ON MARBLE.

"Birth is agony. Life is hard. Death is cruel." - Japanese pithy.

REPENT OR PERISH - POPE.

Homosexuality is a sin. It is not ordained by God, therefore same sex marriage cannot be blessed by the church - Pope Francis.

CANCEL CULTURE IS CORROSIVE.


FOR SAKE OF COUNTRY.


MAGA LIVES ON: NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

TWITTER IS BORING WITHOUT HIS TWEETS. #RestorePresidentTrump'sTwitterHandle.


WORD.

"If you cannot speak the truth when it matters, then nothing else you says matters.” - Tucker Carlson.

#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.

"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.


RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.


WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN LIFE - STEVE JOBS

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. Memories precipitated by love is the only true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. The most expensive bed in the world is the sick bed. You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.” - SJ

EVIL CANNOT BE TRULY DESTROYED.

"The threat of evil is ever present. We can contain it as long as we stay vigilant, but it can never truly be destroyed. - Lorraine Warren (Annabelle, the movie)


ONLY THE POOR WISH THEY HAD STUFF?

“I’m not that interested in material things. As long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” - Nicolas Berggruem, the homeless billionaire.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

THE CONFEDERATE FLAG IS DOWN, GOOD RIDDANCE TO A CONTINUING NUISANCE?

Icheoku says but what took it so long and this long; 54 long years of uninterrupted free flustering in the winds on South Carolina's state capital building grounds in Columbia?  What a riddance to a continuing nuisance which has festered for too long and which would have still not been abated but for the uproar generated by the murder of nine innocent black parishioners. A good step in the right direction though; admitted this is not the end nor the beginning of the end of racism in America; but might eventually become the end of the beginning. As once said by the wartime British Prime Minster Winston Churchill, Icheoku hopes this is a step in finally, frontally, addressing the issue of racism and with utmost sincerity in America. The removal of the racist slave confederate flag today from South Carolina state capital grounds in Columbia is not going to end racism nor is it the beginning of the end of racism; but if peradventure, it furthers steps in that direction, then the removing of the flag will cease being a mere symbolic reaction to current public opinion but indeed an assured step towards racial equality in America. 

It is regrettable that it took the killing of nine parishioners inside their church to stir the souls in South Carolina into doing something about a long existing divisive racial symbol called the confederate flag. Icheoku says being good and doing good should be a naturally occurring act which manifests in spontaneity and not prodded or merely responsive to shifting sands of opinions. It should be a way of life and not just something that is predicated on events as they unfold. Query, so without those nine black people being executed inside their church, does it mean that those lawmakers in South Carolina  would have continued to ignore the cries that the confederate flag reminds black Americans of something very sinister and asinine called slavery? That the confederate flag continues till this day to represent racial inequality in America; with a white people claiming superiority over blacks, who are daily subjugated. That there is something about the symbolism of the flag which reminds some people of a dark history and that those on its receiving end did not feel good sighting the flag flying so menacingly on the grounds of their state capital in a way suggestive that the entire state is supportive of their horrendous history?

Ordinarily, Icheoku would have celebrated the removal of that insidious symbol of racism with more fanfare had it happened without the prompting of a sacrificed nine black lives including a member of the South Carolina senate, Pastor Clementa Pinckney. But heck no, as is always the case, some black lives must necessarily always be sacrificed before any inch would be conceded to them as full humans. Icheoku still somehow holds the government and people of South Carolina collectively responsible for the action of Dylaan Roof, who believed in the flag and what it represents, when he killed those nine. Icheoku is of the opinion that had so obtrusively displaying the flag, despite what it truly indeed represents, not been an official policy of the state, may be Dylaan Roof would not have misread its purport and seen blacks in the jaundiced eyes which made him take their lives. The acceptance and tolerance of that flag for this long helped encourage, foster  and feed the behavior which took those nine lives. A tacit approval which telegraphs that yes, white people are superior and black people are inferior; and it takes a higher entity to snuff the life out of a lower entity including in the animal world? 

It took 54 long years of all manners of discrimination, unlawful arrests and imprisonments, beatings, torture, killings and eventually the final killing of nine innocent worshippers inside their church for that flag to finally come down? Anyway, better late than never; admitted never late would have been better. But it is America and the white people are tone-deaf to black peoples centuries of complain of racial inequality and its attendant discriminatory segregation in America. So for listening to the cries this time around and following through by bringing their flag down, Icheoku says commendable. Hopefully, this will help start a new beginning of real racial integration and assimilation in America. At last it will appear that those nine killed did not die in vain, as by bringing down the flag as a result of their death, they died to give black Americans hope and reason to hope again. Salute to their memory and salute to the courage of the white people that spearheaded the campaign to bring down the flag and who eventually brought down this flag of bigotry. A history was indeed made with this action and now the flag can go to where it belongs - an archive or historical museum; where it can now rest without remaining a continuing nuisance and source of irritation on the grounds of the state capital. Like blackhawk down, the racist confederate flag is down, never to fly again.

No comments:

Post a Comment