Food for Thought – Honi soit qui mal y pense
Whatever somebody may have done or is doing: There is only the court of law and a proper action before it in a working legal system to convict and punish them.
Nothing is an excuse for such an attack as has been made known today. Without knowing any details yet since I have learned to take in news at a measure I still feel that in view of past criticism I owe my readers this clear statement:
There is no excuse for violence.
Monday already the ruling was out and amid an uproar of news flashes there’s some comfort…the Washington Post explains
(screenshot taken from here at 05.07.2024, 05:59 h (CEST)):
Personally I think it’s not overly surprising when you think of how the majority of the present Supreme Court Justices came into office: They were named and instated during that former president’s time in the White House.
Let’s hope and pray – and keep going for democracy! – for a better and eventually true-to-their-best-roots society, especially in the US.
Because three dictatorships all across the world is too much even for this planet, namely Russia, China and a would-be president D. Trump in the United States.
Ancient Rome had seen similar situations: A huge empire that grew, benefited the few – and saw Caesars as well as dictators for centuries.
Let God – and NATO – forbid.
There is a way of putting this succinctly and shortly. In human passion these two taboos apply:
This amounts to: Consenting adults!
Anything that amounts to deeds done or winked at or profited by or used by breaking these two taboos… is not only a punishable offence.
It is cruel and dreadful and the consequences are among the most tragic imaginable. It’s among the worst possible types of torture possible to inflict on human beings – especially children!
It should be treated with the harshest reaction by law possible.
Another extremely sad case has been made known in the past couple of days. The perpetrator not only is a ‘public person’, he is – or was – a respected actor of traditional stages all across the country and beyond. He has admitted – in consultancy with his lawyers – to the crime. There is no question about his guilt.
No work of art, no profit and no award should be made available by or to someone by anyone going forward from the day the facts have been assured. None.
Making the vaccination mandatory was high time. Here in Austria it will become so in February 2022. I am grateful even if one might wonder if it is not a little late.
We have seen similar laws before, for example in connection with the plague, lockjaw (Tetanus), and last but not at all least polio. All of them are dreadful diseases.
COVID-19 is no different. The sickness makes breathing a pain, weakens the whole immune system, weakens the heart, and more. People die, every day. Since the pandemic started, millions of people have died all around the world.
‘Long-COVID’ is known already as a combination of conditions that persist often more than a year after getting through the sickness: Breathing impediment, a weak heart, weakened immune system and more. For all those who actually caught the disease it means: More pain.
It is an almost noble idea to try and get people who are doubtful or even in denial to be vaccinated without making laws to ultimately punish.
But there are limits to everything.
Children as well as grown-ups suffer from these lockdowns, close, open, close again. Wear masks, observe physical distance.
Of course there are those that are lucky: They know what working in the home office means. Who have devices all around them.
But a pandemic and people’s lives as well as businesses are no game, no monopoly!
Let’s remember for all those details we get every other second on all channels:
Viruses follow patterns. They have for millions of years on this planet.
This grave sickness is real and it is severe, not just a photo on Instagram.
To get vaccinated is a social and communal duty!
Mandatory Vaccines against the Plague, Poliomyelitis or Lockjaw (Tetanus) are basics. No one doubts for one minute how important they are. Dreadful diseases, each and every one of them.
The plague was a scourge – and still would be if people hadn’t been mass-vaccinated into the 1970s when I was still a child. It was considered a merit, not to say a virtue to be vaccinated against it. Since then the plague has been basically extinct globally.
But the Corona-virus vaccines are still a matter of discussion in political bodies – as regards making them mandatory?
How is it possible?
Haven’t we seen enough people dying – or seriously sick with dreadful symptoms, especially in the respiratory system?
Isn’t ‘Long-Covid’ – as a summary of symptoms persisting months up to a year after an infection and surviving it – ‘plague’ enough?
What has to happen in terms of costs, billions and billions all around the globe, dollars, euros, pounds, you name it… until proper laws are made, at last?
How many doctors and nurses have yet to be brought to their knees, figuratively speaking, in terms of severe fatigue, burnout, and eventually quitting their jobs?
Does no one have a heart for them?
It’s incredible – tragic, not to say cruel.
What are legislative bodies afraid of, really?
The official WHO (World Health Organisation) video on how it is faster and still safe in these times to approve new vaccines:
The last but one president of the US was a nightmare, a cruel and selfish excuse for a man, who does everything he can to regain power and a sort of reputation, even if the worst: A possible dictator who’s just good enough to influence people that are not well-educated enough to see the whole story – and understand the truth behind his ‘tantrums’.
One of the worst being the attack on the Capitol he initiated – directly or indirectly.
He also instated a couple of supreme court justices, let’s not forget that. Last, but not at all least, the impeachment process was not even properly started against him.
This means he could run a second time for another ‘go’ at the office – and if he succeeded he might fulfill what he seems to have tried once already: Become a modern ‘king’, in terms of a then void democracy and its rights and laws and freedoms – a ‘dictator’.
And in his case the freedom of the press would go first. No doubt about it.
It is a relieve every day to have someone like the present president Joe Biden there. In the place of a so-called ‘superpower’s’ most powerful seat.
Politics are no child’s game. Anyone making out they were, is a fool. To say the least.
In particular in the 20th and 21st century with a heavy historical burden, often left over for generations by all kinds of governments with very different, no to say multiple, secret agendas – left wing, right wing, right wing again.
So many actions and reactions just forced by industries in the background who provide money and thus the necessary media forces to ‘advertise’ one’s cause. Not least of all that sorry excuse for a man, Mr Trump, who wouldn’t be where he is in terms of actual infamy without those industries and conglomerates and banks.
‘Marketing’, ‘advertisements’: There is no way around them. In order to make an impact you have to use social media and the internet these days, just as TV appearances and talk-show discussions or have newspapers write about you.
A sad fact is too that traditional media such as TV or newspapers have to sell. So, to some extent, if someone does not offer much sensational ‘fodder’ for talk, it may become quiet around him – or her.
When all is said and done, anyone in their right minds should know how precious peace is, and equal chances for all – the best possible attempts we can make for a planet that will not ‘overheat’ after all – and that supporting all those who really are fighting for it is no less than an obligation.
Or, simply: A fine cause.
I think I can thank my lucky stars that I never was part myself of the so-called ‘social networks’, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Their really ‘unsocial’ character is proven daily. I watched a documentary on a prestigious TV channel the other day and the amount of dirt used to discredit journalists or political opponents makes me shudder.
I know for a fact too, that younger and inexperienced people may suffer serious damage and pain from such hunts. That is tragic.
As a blogger and part-time writer I safely can say: If there was any shitstorm raised from some corner of those nets against me – it would be a sign only that I had hit a weak spot of such a politician:
Trump in the US, Salvini in Italy and Bolsonaro in Brazil come to mind. Each of them just interested to manipulate those that are too simple-minded to be able to know the truth.
Facts can be checked, there is no interpretation possible of facts.
That kind of recognition by reactionary representatives of an actual silent minority of too rich and too selfish groups in society would actually make me proud.
In life as well as in art (storytelling, poetry, movie scripting, etc.) events that occur – real or fictional – usually are ordered into some kind of consecutive whole that is supposed to make sense.
This is also often called a ‘chain of events’.
But what if this chain has a missing link in there? What if we ‘connect the dots’ in the wrong order? What if we are simply not aware of all the events, the facts, and connect the visible ones into a chain, that eventually may be tied to another person’s ‘neck’…
In law, alas, this is known to be a tragic occurrence when people are being convicted for things they did not do. Innocent.
‘Miscarriage of justice’.
In countries where the death penalty still exists that’s particularly cruel: Hanged, or these days usually killed with some kind of poison in a syringe.
The human being, a whole small universe of thoughts, ideas and feelings, emotions and learning, experience, kindness and laughter – eradicated.
Gone.
In everyday life such ‘interpretations’, the ‘connecting of dots’ into some kind of whole, still too often also can go wrong.
Opinion veers to one side – or another. Unnecessary pain and suffering can be caused by insufficient reasoning, the ‘interpretation of facts’, if not done with care.
If any of my readers at any time in the course of their lives have been subjected to such ‘reasoning’ – that is really unreasonable – they know what I mean.
Therefore: Let’s judge with care and keep an open mind. We may be wrong…