Could the mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
overall handled the the protests, unrest, and violence better? Of course, but
it serves little if no purpose to to Monday morning quarterback her every move,
if you’re not on the ground seeing it for yourself. The only exception would be
her statement earlier in the week, in which she implied that she would give
‘space’ to the protesters for destructive purposes. She walked back the
statement several times, including on today’s program, but that was clearly
liberalism taken one step too far inasmuch it’s good to give people the right
to protest and comprehending why they are angry but destroying property does no
one any good. Mayor Rawlings-Blake has seen her profile in the Democratic party
ascend as of late, but disappointingly (but like most all of us) she has been
better when she’s in control of her message, but not so good when she has to
answer questions under pressure. That aside, it’s now the imperative of the
mayor to bring the city back to healing and heading in the right direction.
For always giving answers that, in fact, answer nothing
ever, it was almost refreshing to hear the Speaker of the House John Boehner
(R-OH) agree with Chuck Todd that the violence that police have committed and
discrimination that they've shown toward the black community is at a crisis
level because it is.
But as it was aptly noted, no one can agree on what the
problem is, but the ‘problems’ are systemic. NPR's April Ryan mentioned that a
holistic approach is needed to solve the many problems, and that’s true but a
good start would be first respecting that black males’ lives matter and then
doing everything we can to help people find employment. We’re strong believers in the concept
that having a job instills a sense of dignity in oneself. Author Wes Moore explained that the
definition of what is a family has to change suggesting a network of caring
adults from parents to caretakers to teacher that take an interest in children
because the structure of the family has changed so much.
Mr. Boehner said that if the problems that exist in the
inner cities or simply a matter of money, these problems would have been solved
long ago. But then some one duly notes that the United States invests more
money into the Middle East for reconstruction and training than it does here at
home, and whole thing just makes you shake your head. Why it is that the one thing that everyone in the middle
class and below knows is that it’s simply more and more difficult to get by
because wages hardly increase.
It’s time that our elected officials start allocating more resources to
our own constituents instead of into places where most all Americans will never
go.
Everyone is hoping that seeing Baltimore on fire for a week
will signal the beginning of the end of indiscriminant police brutality and
inner city uprisings – for healing and change to start. However, we’re afraid that this is only
the beginning and that Baltimore is another larger lid-shaking bubble - one
that has followed Florida and Ferguson and New York and North Charleston - in
an ever more disruptively boiling pot.
This is Baltimore and a wake up.
Panel: Tom Brokaw; NBC News; April Ryan, NPR; Kim Strassel; The Wall Street Journal; Wes Moore,
Author
On a lighter note… Ms. Strassel said that is not unlikely
that one of the individuals declaring a candidacy for president this week could
remain relevant late into the primary process. Let’s hope her assessment is incorrect for all our
sakes. Declaring a presidential
run this week will be Mr. Ben Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon who makes
statements so ridiculous on a variety of topics, you’re simply not sure if
he’ll just say anything extreme right wingers want to hear or if he’s really
that stupid about everything… except neurosurgery. Then there’s Carly Fiorina, fmr. CEO of Hewlett Packard and
failed senatorial candidate. Ms.
Fiorina did such a good job as head of HP that they paid her $19 million to
leave, and since then the company has never really recovered. At this point, it’s been forced to
split into two separate companies to survive. Lastly, there is former Governor and FOX News talk show
host Mike Huckabee, whose first order of business if elected president of the
United States would be to repeal Sharia law all together.
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