Hard Day

Yesterday, December 29, 2024, was a rough one.

Jimmy Carter was the first president I voted for. I solidly believed in him. While he was a devout Christian, he actually walked the talk. He lived the teachings of his god as opposed to the political charlatans, grifters, and lackeys fucking over the world whilst spewing bible verses.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, a broker of peace in the Middle East in his time, and a tireless advocate for global health and human rights, has died, it was announced on Sunday. He was 100 years old.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son, in a statement.” (source)

Carter, like Biden, became president after his corrupt, despicable, power-mad predecessor fucked us over good. Both Carter and Biden had giant messes to clean up.

The Republican Party ratfucked us out of another four Carter years by, amongst other things, meeting with Iran to convince them to delay the release of American hostages in order to sabotage his re-election campaign. Republican fuckery gave us an easily manipulated (by them) B movie actor. Between 1981 and 1990 Reagan killed 100,777 Americans through his inaction on the AIDS epidemic. Sound familiar? 

In the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency, more than 450,000 Americans died from COVID-19, and life expectancy fell by 1.13 years, the biggest decrease since World War II. Many of the deaths were avoidable; COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. was 40 percent higher than the average of the other wealthy nations in the Group of Seven (G7).
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His incompetent and malevolent response to the COVID-19 pandemic capped a presidency suffused with health-harming policies and actions. (source)

And yet, he was re-elected. Those who don't pay some goddamned attention and fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.

While the President of the United States, George W. Bush, was planning war on Iraq in the autumn of 2002, former President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Peace Prize for undertaking peace negotiations, campaigning for human rights, and working for social welfare. According to the Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Carter ought to have been awarded the Prize as early as in 1978, when he successfully mediated a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. (source)Gee, ya think?!

Yesterday was also the anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890.

Ghost Dance Drum by George Beaver

“When I look back now from this high hill of my old age,” survivor Black Elk recalled in 1931, “I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there.” (source)

This country is built on eejit racism and lies and the Republican Party is the standard-bearer for hate. They inspire fear, resentment, and violence against all of us who won’t bow down to their ridiculously rigid edicts and prejudices.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced it would review 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who took part in the massacre as the military continues efforts to acknowledge the role that racism may have played in its past and that not all of its awardees meet modern standards of heroism. (source)

Gee, ya think?! It certainly took the military long enough to notice.