Principle of Nonviolence
Shooting at Trump Rally
As I write this, just after dinner, the news is full of a shooting that took place at Butler, Pennsylvania during a Trump rally at which I saw the Former President swipe at his ear and pounce to the ground, with the Secret Service hurrying to his aid.
When the Former President emerged, there was blood on the right side of his face, including the right ear.
At this time, one rally member was fatally shot, another was shot and “in serious condition.” (Wolf Blitzer’s characterization of the audience member’s injury.) The shooter was killed by the Secret Service. (This fact was just now read from an on-site report on-air at CNN by anchor Pamela Brown.) If there are other casualties, the reporting as of 18:53 CDT has not yet disclosed.
The
Wolf Blitzer, anchor at CNN, has just interviewed Gip Tom, a reporter who was 40 yards aways from the former President’s podium at the time of the shooting, who confirmed all of the above facts.
I take a back seat to no opponent of Donald J. Trump nor against the Heritage Society (Project 2025).
I want victory in November, and my phrase from the beginning has been, “Within the bounds of the law, by all means necessary.”
My advocacy is in the heritage of Henry David Thoreau, Lev Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Civil-Rights Leader, the late John Lewis: Justice through radical, visible means, what John Lewis called, “Creating Good Trouble”, always, always, always and uncompromisingly so: NONVIOLENCE! Principled NONVIOLENCE.
I condemn violence in any form.
It matters not who is the victim.
Each person, in my post-Christian Philosophy — Chuang-tzu, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius — each person has inherent value and dignity; each person is part of other persons; we are each part of the whole of humanity; and, as Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations puts it: We are part of the All, the Cosmos, and the All and the Cosmos runs through each of us.
That philosophy makes doing right, exercising compassion and empathy, accepting what Mother Nature deals to one personally with equanimity, showing absolute love and regard for one’s neighbor, always acting in the best interests and the welfare of the Other — your neighbor, acting in kindness and gentleness to each of Nature’s creatures, all of these point to a life with uncompromising goodness, honesty, integrity, and virtue.
It is doing right and fostering deep love of the Cosmos, the All, Mother Nature (in a post-Christian, secular spirit, I mean from a purely evolved universe, in the spirit of modern physics — Relativity (Special and General) and Quantum Physics (Niels Bohr))— and above all, love and kindness towards of Nature’s living things and all animal and human life.
My heart goes out to the family of the person killed; to the person who is in serious condition and that person’s family; and to Donald Trump, his family and supporters. I condemn unambiguously the shooter.
I want heartily to fight the far-right’s Nationalist, neo-fascist rhetoric and the igniting of violence that repeatedly comes from the right-wing.
I will do so, with a Biden/Harris victory on 5 November or as a lively, vigorous voice in the Opposition should Heritage 2025 be in a position to implement its dangerous program in a dismal GOP administration.
In any event, we cannot be defeated, because we will continue to fight for the right, for justice, as Mother Nature gives us the nature of reason to see the right.
We will let no circumstance silent our plea for justice, due process, and human love towards each person, for the dignity and rights especially of women and girls, for the rights of African-Americans oppressed since Our Nation’s Founding in 1619, for just and humane treatment of immigrants of whatever status, for NATO, for a strong Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand in the Far East, for Justice for both Israel and Palestine in the Middle East, for LGBTQ worldwide, for persons persecuted in such places as Moscow, North Korea, Iran and India, for access to quality healthcare for each person, for infrastructure, for sustainable conservation and development of environmentally compatible energy, for free access worldwide to seas and air for peaceful commerce, for relief of suffering of all persons and all animals, for safety against military aggression from Putin or Xi Jinping to freedom-loving persons.
There is much more, but these are core values.
Accept my love, and be strong!
All of this, but particularly this," . . .as Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations puts it: We are part of the All, the Cosmos, and the All and the Cosmos runs through each of us."
I started college in September 1969, participated in the October Moratorium march, and was a marshal at the *huge* November 15 March on Washington. Still have a visceral memory of watching hundreds of thousands of people pour down Pennsylvania Ave. NW. In those days we talked incessantly about tactics and strategies for opposing unjust wars. Some people claimed that the ends justify the means. This, I eventually figured out (with the help of others), had it backwards. In real life the means *become* the ends whether that's our intention or not. I've tried to keep that in mind.