Doctor Grandma

Shocking shooting at Fort Hood tonight. Here is what is known as of 8pm Thurs. night. A major in the Army and a psychiatrist treating people for Post traumatic stress syndrome, walked into a graduation ceremony at Fort Hood, TX and opened fire with 2 hand guns, killing 13 and wounding another 30 people. The shock wave of this event is riveting the news stations as I write this. He was American, Muslim, and his name was Nidal Malik Hasan. He was to be deployed to Iraq at the end of Nov. and had been stating openly that he did not want to go, that this was his worst fear! He also, ironically, graduated from Virginia Tech, the school that had its own mass shooting just s couple of yrs. ago. He had a master’s in mental health and a medical degree. Just an incredible story tonight.

What was he hearing in his counseling sessions from servicemen returning who were having mental problems? We know they are not receiving the mental health care they need, and their families need, to survive being deployed to some god forsaken rock country 3-4-5 times. The stress level on them and their families is unimaginable.

The army is grappling with a high number of suicides. What about that tonight? This man committed suicide but mass murder at the same time. He was killed by police, but he had to know he would not survive opening fire in a military establishment.

Someone else may have been shooting with him. There is no information coming out about that yet, that makes any sense. We have heard 2 were taken into custody, then released, and another 3rd man arrested. We don’t know what’s going on.

A press conference from the base has been delayed now for over an hour. They’re not letting any information out. It’s the military. The FBI is trying to get in on it, but it’s everybody’s guess who will get in, who will investigate, or what the hell is going on.

Meanwhile, the blatant hatred is coming out in Washington, with VERY high-level Republican leadership holding a rally, calling for “revolution” (their words) against the current government, reading the Declaration of Independence and calling it the Constitution, AND — THIS IS SO SHOCKING I CAN BARELY WRITE IT — Holding up a poster with some slogan against Socialist Medicine tied together with, literally, a horrific picture of bodies at the Nazi camp Dachau . . .

People are going nuts with hatred and greed, and loss of their power base. A medical doctor was ranting and raving at the podium. Some woman in Congress, Bachman, was calling for revolution. There was not a brown face in the entire 4000 people from what we see on camera. There is no doubt in my mind there is a backlash going on, born of ignorance and greed, and insidiously feeding on people’s patriotism in a way that is unconsciounable (sp?), terrifying and inexcusable. I don’t know what else to say tonight.

Dallas Police have been issuing tickets to drivers — not for breaking any traffic law, but for not speaking English. Now granted, they had to be pulled over for some other reason before the officer realized they could not speak English. But then the officers issued 2 tickets: 1 for the traffic violation and a 2nd one for not speaking English proficiently. The New York Times is denouncing it as the latest insult to injury provided to illegal immigrants.

The first point is, it is NOT against the law to drive without being able to speak English. They were mistaken. It must have caught on like wildfire, because over 200 tickets were issued until one woman finally decided to get a lawyer and challenge it. Of course, what do you do as an illegal immigrant? You have a right to a lawyer, but you’re not going to draw attention to your position of being here illegally by challenging the practice. The police say they got confused because of some statute that dropped down on their laptop menu, which applied to COMMERCIAL drivers only. But even that statute is not enforced. Somebody started it, and it caught on like hotcakes and was not challenged by other officers, administrative personnel reading their police reports, court room judges listening to their stories in court, OR those recv’g the tickets. These facts also highlight the fact that people are sheep. Nobody wants to challenge their peers, especially those in law enforcement or the military,  and we all just go along with standard practice. We blindly follow those who go before us.

What human rights do we believe in? Citizens’ rights vs. human rights. I think with the illegal immigrant issue, that’s what it comes down to.

Do we stop educating children of illegal immigrants, refuse them entry into school? CA voters had a referendum on this and said yes. However, it proved impossible to enforce.

Do we refuse them health care? Access to services? Think in terms of pregant mothers, whose children, when they are born in America, are Americans. Do we refuse the mothers health care, raising their chances of being born with defects and problems, requiring longer hospitalization time and more care afterwards? Just how far do we go with this?

These people are not criminals, they are not breaking the law except for one. They came in without waiting the years it would take to enter legally. We cannot realistically keep them all out. There are too many literal holes in our “fences” along the border. We can’t send them all home either. There are millions of them and they have fit right into our labor market like a glove on a hand. Businesses get off paying them cheap. They usually don’t take jobs that carry benefits and health insurance. If we forced all illegal immigrants to leave America tomorrow, our business world would collapse. They know it. They just don’t talk about it publically.

Many Hispanics in America are LEGAL. We annexed in about 1/3 of Mexico as a country, with the Treaty of Guadalupe at the end of the Mexican-American war. Most of CA, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and other states were Mexico. They speak Spanish because they were Mexicans living in their country, and then found themselves annexed into America.

There are many other Hispanic groups in America, from Central and South American, to Cubans, the most assisted group to immigrate into America in our history. They were provided money and jobs, when they left Castro’s Cuba and today, you have to speak Spanish to live in Miami.

American tourists in France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and many other countries drive cars and cannot read the road signs. It’s a little more difficult to figure out where you are, but it’s not illegal.

It is a complicated issue. What’s the answer? Well it certainly is not the answer to issue tickets for laws that do not exist. That, we call discrimination.