Stuff - Ramblings

[Maximus]

Well. It's official. I afraid of social media. You can not say anything correct if you want to touch on the cops, blacks, BLM, issue. Really. It is an issue. My thoughts, opinions etc are being kept off social media for the most part. People are being trashed, dragged over the coals and shamed for having their say, which really has been in our charter of rights from day one. freedoms of speech, freedom of thought.
Social media has many positive contributions to society, but those contributions also can be detrimental to/for society. A 'mom' posted that her white son was shot wrongly by police and she wants to know where the outrage is. Somehow she got dragged over the coals and called white priveilaged. Ummm. Wow.
One thing I know for sure, I would not want to be a police officer in today's world. The real hasn't begun to hit the fan.

On another note:
I follow 'Humans of New York'. LOVE this site. This post has left me with my curious button stuck on. It remind me of how much I don't know about what is going on in other countries. Real ing struggles for mankind. Not this of I have a right to bear guns. Me. Me. Me. That's all Disney in comparison to what really lies beneath the untold stories in the media.

Spoken from a young gentleman.
“I come from the small country of Gabon. It used to be the Switzerland of Africa. There are only 1.5 million people there. It has some of the largest oil reserves in the world. It is top ten in iron supplies, uranium supplies, manganese supplies—you name it. And it has the most beautiful rainforest. The country is so wealthy but the people are so poor. There is no clean water. People’s lives are defined by the search for bread. There is no education. And most teenagers have HIV. And when you get sick in Gabon, you die. I have goose bumps right now because my mother still lives there. The people are dying, yet the ruling family flies around in private jets. They give speeches at the UN and people clap. The president’s wife wears handbags that cost $25,000. The ruling family has been in power for 50 years and they get richer and richer every minute. And do you know why they’re in power? Do you know why they’re so rich? Because they hand over our natural resources to the French.

The War In Chechnya was going on during the time I was in law school. I remember watching a news report where a young boy walked up to a journalist and asked for help waking up his grandfather. The grandfather had just been killed by a bomb. I decided then that I’d be a human rights lawyer. I went to work at the United Nations. I pictured myself drafting stronger human rights laws. I thought I’d meet with heads of state and convince them to form better laws and better institutions. And those meetings did happen. I did my research and made my presentations. You should have seen me— I was so passionate and confident and sure of my reasoning. The leaders would nod their heads, and say ‘thank you very much,’ but then nothing would change. Unless there was an economic benefit, nobody cared about protecting children, or empowering women, or stopping genocide. And it wore me down. My colleagues were worn down too. After ten years I had to quit. Last week I opened this bar. It’s not human rights, but at least now I can drink for free.”

[Maximus]

Just one of the many responses to that post.

"Both my parents passed away when I was 12 years old in Bosnia, leaving both my sister and me in the middle of an ongoing civil war that was called "ethnic" cleansing by both parties involved. Our parents werevery dedicated UN Officers. They usually left us behind at home in Italy, but it was that one time that they had to take us with them for reasons I guess aren't relevant right now.

They were shot in front of me on a rainy day. There was mud all over the place, and I remember sitting there with them, crying until I could no longer hear myself, nor the surrounding noises anymore. It was something akin to the way snow makes everything quiet. Or so I remember. I remember the cars passing by, the journalists with the placards saying "journalist" passing by, some absent mindedly taking photos of that scene. After that point, I was looking at the sky and becoming catatonic. I remember wanting to scream, but there was no sound. As a UN and UNHCR officer for a long time now, as a translator and interpreter for them, I initially had the same aspirations, dreams and ambitions of changing the world; saving the world.

As time went on, I realized the world cannot be saved except one human being at a time, and that bureaucracy, corruption and foreign policy limitations would leave me crying for nights on end, always feeling I could have done more. There are amazing people within the UN and all of its subsidiaries, and while I stopped having naive ideals a long time ago, I could never imagine myself doing anything else. It's all in the trying. If it helps one child, if it helps one mother, it's worth dying for. It's worth the pain, it's worth the sweat ."

[Maximus]

We have so much, and I'll go out on a limb and say we have too much, that all of it has left us entitled, self righteous individuals, as a first world country, USA, included. We behave like spoiled brats.

I'm out. Got things to do today.

[Killerbunny]

Interesting. This revives a memory from a place I used to work at. They had a huge drive every year to rise money for the United Way. It was almost a competition between companies. One lunch they had a whole bunch of charities after your support. One of the was "Stop Violence Against Women". They wanted me to wear the ribbon and I refused. (I knew the charity and they were also fervently anti gun). I was asked why repeatedly and I said "because I am against violence, not just against women". Clearly this was the wrong thing to say. We supported our own charities at the time this included the mens shelter in Orillia where we lived. Later on a list was circulated openly around the company as a "reminder" that certain people were not supporting the United Way but there was still time. All our names were published in that circular. We got an apology but it was nasty. I personally knew that most of those people supported their own causes.
Everyone matters. I know Police Officers and wouldn't want their job. It seems the training needs to be improved somehow especially when dealing with the mentally ill because frequently they don't respond in the same way to commands.
A local school did a water walk to raise funds for a well in Africa because we can just turn on tap in Canada and everyone has clean water! Really? There is a community that has uranium contaminated water because the mine was allowed in the 60's to run it's waste into the watershed of that community.
JMO

[Ontario Chick]

QR_BBPOST There is a community that has uranium contaminated water because the mine was allowed in the 60's to run it's waste into the watershed of that community.
JMO

I have been to some of those communities and seen what happens to children who grow up without clean water and access to even basic education in their home town, it's a real tragedy that some children in this country grow up in conditions third world countries would find embarrassing.

[Maximus]

Anti-violence. That's a whole other rant. We are a civilization founded on violence, murder, rape and segregation. That's all I will say about that.

We definitely have our struggles and inequalities at home. I'm not ignoring those or even attempting to sweep under the carpet. I'm pretty aware of a lot of issues in North America, but still learn more and more as time goes on. What I'm grossly uneducated in is what goes on outside of North America.

It's hard to find a balance of where or what to focus on. I'm aware that black people are being focused on, but lets also consider the native situation. Yes. All lives matter. If we don't want segregation, don't preach it. If we don't want to see racial differences and colour differences, don't teach it. We are all born simple people, colour and race is taught. Every single being deserves equal rights, freedoms, dignity, safety, and so on. Yes, more caucasians got killed by cops last year, but the ratio of white to black population still shows that blacks are being profiled, heavily, and I hate this word, but here it is ... targeted.

My sister is a counsellor for battered and abused women and children. Yes men get abused. Absolutely. However, the reality is the ratio of abused men to women is not even remotely close to a split 50/50%. So the group that needs the most focus is?

How can we say one matters more than the other? The fact that we are willing to choose or dictate whose life matters more, essentially based on skin colour is, IMO, the whole root of the problem. We are still prejudice in our roots when we engage in this. When we see each person as a person and don't categorize by race/ethenticity we will truly know acceptance, forgiveness and peace.

Until then, it will be a rough ride.



Ahhh.. So complex.

[Killerbunny]

I knew one of the troops stationed out in Bosnia. He figures it would take 3 generations to try and get acceptance of the ethnic differences. Difficult problem when leaders want to keep their power. In N.Ireland they are still anti (insert religion here) no matter what they say but it's a start. That issues goes way back to the English knights and the Irish chieftains in the Beyond the pale.
OK off to bake and cuddle my latest broody!

[Ontario Chick]

QR_BBPOST I knew one of the troops stationed out in Bosnia. He figures it would take 3 generations to try and get acceptance of the ethnic differences.
OK off to bake and cuddle my latest broody!

I am pretty familiar with that corner of Europe, and the ethnic differences will never be accepted.
I am afraid that opinion shows some naivety, and perhaps ignorance of history, maybe that's where the enthusiasm to send army to fix other counties problems comes from?
Yes time to go play with chicks. :)

[Maximus]

It's just so damn logical

[Doug The Chickenman]

QR_BBPOST I knew one of the troops stationed out in Bosnia. He figures it would take 3 generations to try and get acceptance of the ethnic differences. Difficult problem when leaders want to keep their power. In N.Ireland they are still anti (insert religion here) no matter what they say but it's a start. That issues goes way back to the English knights and the Irish chieftains in the Beyond the pale.
OK off to bake and cuddle my latest broody!

Having been to Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan I have seen the hatred for the other religions, nationalities, tribes etc.
They train the young almost like brainwashing so that they are so indoctrinated in it it is not going away.
Tribal hatred is the worst as it is historic and everyone follows their history.