Off The Editor’s Desk – 9-16-2020
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Domestic terrorism or foreign insurgents!
Three and a half months ago George Floyd died at the hands of the Minneapolis police, there has been consent violent protest throughout our country since. Some people that are running for public office call the protest, “Peaceful”.
But when you decide to block the right of way of a person walking down the sidewalk or stop traffic on a highway, or throw something, that in my opinion is no peaceful demonstration. Let alone the damage that has been done to local stores, burning and looting makes it look like some force within our society is bent on doing harm to our country.
The Chicago Tribune summed it up this way: “The damage to downtown Chicago from looting and rioting throughout the summer was severe, it took an economic and emotional toll on the city. Now we also know the looting did something worse. It escalated the violence. Summer looting contributed to the mass shootings on Chicago’s Far Southwest Side on August 30th. The shooters and their target, the now deceased Devon Welsh, were fighting over dividing up of looted merchandise.”
I can remember a couple of years back when the Black Lives movement shut down the Minnesota State Fair and did not allow entrance to the event, that was not a peaceful demonstration and neither was the BLM protest at the Mall of America when they blocked the exit doors which caused Paula and I to walk halfway around the parking ramp, outside in the middle of winter to find our car.
What might come of the protests now ongoing within the United States is unclear. But I can see nothing great will come of them and they have the power and support to make a big dent in our freedom and change the way we live.
But if our domestic threat is not enough to scare you, how about the one coming from China.
Over my lifetime we have faced foreign powers that would cause us harm starting with the Japanese and Germans of WWII, which I don’t remember much about. But for more than thirty years we lived in fear of Russia. I can remember that students were taught to hide under their desks because of the Atomic bomb that might be delivered to our county from Russia.
Now that threat has faded just to be replaced by one from China.
George Will writing in the St. Paul Pioneer Press of September 10th quotes a piece written by Christian Brose, a former staff director under John McCain. “The Chinese Communist Party aims to become the dominant power in Asia and in the world, and it believes that for China to win, America must lose.”
Will continues, “China is projected to have the world’s largest GDP by as early as 2030. The last time the United States faced a competitor, or even a group of competitors, with greater economic power than its own was in the nineteenth century, before our own rise to global predominance.”
So, are we going to go down because of internal struggle, or are we going to be over powered by a foreign enemy?
Remember, China is the country that sent us the Coronavirus, and I will always think that it was not an accident.
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton