DANIEL'S LION: LIVING IN 2 WORLDS
2020 Full of Promise, then Covid…

Pacing the small New York hotel room like a caged lion while under quarantine, Daniel considered how he found himself in such a predicament. Of course, it concerned the “Bain” of everyone’s life, Covid-19. Thinking of his beloved Deanna, he remembered their idyllic honeymoon in the Bahamas, after their small but poignant wedding in one of the oldest churches in America, located in her hometown of Newport, Rhode Island. Even though it was Valentine’s Day in frigid February, they chose to marry there because they liked its historical value as pre-colonial. As a divorced mother of two, Deanna chose to forgo the traditional white dress, instead opting for a soft flowing dove-grey calf-length dress, and a beautiful bouquet of miniature white roses. Her mid-length reddish-brown locks were drawn up in a tasteful Edwardian style bun.

Laughing to himself, Daniel mused over the fact he did not know if the color of Deanna’s luscious hair was natural, as he had never paid that much attention. Pushing the question aside, he returned to his reminiscences of their wedding; congratulating himself on how seamlessly the day had gone, despite the fact they arranged it in a little over 8 weeks, after he proposed on New Year’s Eve. Since neither were spring chickens, they decided not to wait but was surprised to learn that the only vacancy in their chosen church in 2020 was Friday February 14th. Ideally the couple would have preferred a Saturday but as the saying goes, “beggars can’t be choosers.” Regardless, even Daniel had to admit it was a beautiful wedding, with only close friends and family in attendance.

Initially Deanna surprised Daniel suggesting they invite Robert and Sophia but thinking about it, he realized that indirectly they were responsible for their engagement. Afterall, it was his interviews with them that had changed him. Smiling knowingly, Daniel thought of Sophia telling him of the necessity to change the way we think, which made him rethink the importance of his relationship with Deanna.

Reliving his wedding, Daniel pictured how Sophia had beamed as Deanna walked down the Aisle to him. Dressed in a demure violet ensemble, he was struck by how vibrant Sophia looked. Even though, he had coffee with the couple a month or so after their last interview and noted how much stronger she was, six months later Sophia was back to full strength, which was just as well because he leaned on her a lot in 2020.

Following Daniel and Deanna’s midday wedding, and reception at the Newport Marriot on the waterfront, the couple flew to the Bahamas that evening. When Robert learned of the bride and groom’s itinerary, he offered to drive them to the airport. At first, Daniel protested that they could easily get a taxi but as Robert insisted, he and Sophia waved the newlyweds off from the airport on their way to Freeport, Grand Bahamas.

Landing in the early hours of the morning, as Daniel and Deanna exited the airport a soft breeze stirred their hair in the pleasantly mild night. They had chosen the Bahamas because February normally averaged a balmy 74 degrees. Taking a taxi to the beachfront hotel, which they planned using as their base to explore, the couple checked in affirming that their prearranged rental car would be available in the morning. Spending the next ten days visiting national parks and other picturesque locations, they reluctantly flew home to Minnesota on February 24th.
At the end of January, Daniel and Deanna found their perfect home abutting Lake Augusta in Dakota county. A converted cabin, with all the modern amenities, not only was it close to the Twin city metropolitan area, its location afforded them the perfect balance between living in Nature and access to civilization, plus it was also close to Deanna’s grandchildren.

Even while planning their wedding Daniel was aware of the growing problem of this Novel Corona Virus, labeled Covid-19 for the year it was identified. As a reporter, he followed the daily briefs reporting the outbreak in Washington State and had checked on Robert and Sophia to ensure their safety. They told them they were not worried as it appeared to be centered in Kirkland, which was 30 miles north of Tacoma. Remembering that time, Daniel lamented on the confusing advice being given out. Back then no one was sure of anything. For instance, they did not realize that most people were asymptomatic but equally contagious. Then there was the fiasco over wearing masks, with even the trusted epidemiologist of the NIH, Dr. Anthony Fauci advising against them, before realizing that Covid-19 was being transmitted by asymptomatic carriers. However, as Deanna’s fiancé, Daniel knew this direction was at least partially driven by the dire shortage of N-95 masks for doctors and nurses, later confirmed by The Washington Post reporting a “startling” shortage of essential medical supplies or PPE (personal protective equipment, such as masks, gowns, gloves, etc.) Consequently, while the world and Daniel was consumed with the impeachment of President Trump throughout January, which no surprise ended on February 5th with his acquittal, when only one Republican had the gumption to do the right thing, this deadly and destructive virus was quietly spreading among unsuspecting Americans.

Amazingly, despite the W.H.O. declaring Covid-19 a public health emergency on January 31st, it was overshadowed by the headline that Brexit was official, with Britain withdrawing from the European Union. On this same day President Trump places a partial travel ban from China, accept for returning US citizens who were required to quarantine for 14 days. This action was later deemed too little too late because as The Washington Post reported, as many as 300,000 people arrived in the US from China throughout January. The fact that the Chinese government did not lock down Wuhan until January 23rd and the W.H.O. acknowledged that Covid-19 was transmissible from person to person, forced Daniel to conclude there was a lot of blame to spread around. The problem was Covid-19 was a novel virus, meaning no one had ever seen it before and based their response to other corona viruses like SARS and MERS and the common cold. Nevertheless, as the rate of infections grew outside of China, the world began paying attention. Initially, as the cases were traced to people returning from Wuhan, no one suspected that there may be another source the virus was coming from, until the explosion of cases in Italy. Then in early March, New York became the epicenter of infection and deaths.

A decade later in Daniel’s home, he observes:

“The horrific scenes of hospitals in Northern Italy should have been a warning but President Trump did not seem concerned, which turned out to be untrue, as we later found out, when Bob Woodward’s book revealed that he told the writer, and I quote that ‘…Its five times more deadly than the flu...’, when publicly he was calling it the “Wuhan flu” and that it wasn’t serious.

“Couldn’t that be because in January he was defending himself against impeachment?”, questions Michael.

“Yes but that did not excuse his making wearing a mask a sign that you did not support him. One of the biggest problems was President Trump, who to use his own words “played it down” to avoid a panic, rather than trusting the American people to take responsible precautions in a unified response. In fact after wearing a mask became politicized I called Sophia, as it seemed so self-destructive to me. She explained, ‘they are following the Shadow’s agenda.’ Remembering that the ‘Shadow’ was the Shadow of Deception, a nefarious energy made up from Humanity’s worse thoughts and feelings that Robert and Sophia told me was neutralized on September 22nd 2010, I asked what she meant? “Although the Shadow is gone, “his” individual co-conspirator is still around, hiding within the human heart. Then I remembered our discussion about the false self, consisting of the ego and counterfeit-spirit or what Eckhart Tolle calls the individual pain-body. However, I’ll come back to that later…”

Setting off alarm bells, as early as January 29th, Daniel read in The New York Times that Peter Navarro wrote a memo, warning the coronavirus could cause as many as “half a million deaths and trillions in economic damage.” Worse still, just a day later Secretary Azar warned of the “possibility” of it becoming a “pandemic.” Yet in press briefings the president continually refers to Covid-19 as the flu, later introducing variously the designation “Kung” and “China, continuously minimizing its seriousness. Of course, the public were unaware of any danger and essentially were at the mercy of their local government, as Covid-19 became a political issue between locking down or ignoring the advice of health experts. Essentially it became a battle between governors and state officials who supported Trump, and predominantly Democratic led cities and states. That said, there were some Republican led states who acted responsibly, trying to unite their states against the threat.

A few weeks after the World Health Organization (WHO) finally declared Covid-19 a Pandemic on March 11th as it had spread to 19 countries, Daniel wrote on what he saw as President Trump’s colossal mishandling of it. He noted that although Americans seemed to come together after most states enacted a lockdown in an attempt to curb the spread, many Americans decried the validity of the virus, calling it a hoax, supported by the mixed messages from the president. Unfortunately, as many Republican states refused to lockdown, or even mandate wearing a mask after the president’s infamous declaration, “I cannot see myself wearing a mask behind that beautiful resolute desk… as I greet… dictators”, the measures did not work.

Deanna as a recently retired A.N.C.O. (Associate Chief Nursing Officer) at the University of Minnesota Medical Center (UMMC) was informed of the Covid-19 situation from the beginning. As a result, even before they identified the virus, as a member of the faculty she knew that there was a number of severe pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan China, which was linked to a seafood and poultry market. Then when the CDC warned Americans not to visit the area on January 7th, she confided her concern to Daniel, saying “I think we are in for a difficult time.”

During their honeymoon, Daniel observed Deanna’s growing concern at the increasing number of daily texts from her former staff, keeping her abreast of events but chose not to ask about them. Concluding that there was nothing she could do in the Bahamas, and suspecting that although she was officially retired, knowing her dedication she would be in the fray as soon as they got back, he reasoned she would need the rejuvenation from their honeymoon. He discovered how right he was because within a week of their return, he was summoned to a meeting with his managing editor Ruth Hawthorne at the Minnesota Advocate on February 29th. The summons was because the first official death in the US had occurred in Washington state. Due to Daniel’s age he could not be sent on assignment and Ruth wanted him to focus on recording the various aspects surrounding Covid-19, and of course the upcoming election. His first article was to be on the first official US victim, a 54 year-old Chinese American who had returned from Wuhan.

When outbreaks began popping up in multiple states, Deanna called the Dean of the University of Minnesota Medical Center to ask how she could help, because she knew it was only a matter of time before Covid-19 would be everywhere. Her fears were proved sooner than anyone expected, with at least one case in every state by March 13th and someone dead by a month later. Minnesota had its first death on March 21st, the traditional first day of Spring and usually one of hope. After a senior nursing administrator’s parents contracted Covid-19, and she resigned her post to take care of them, the Dean called Deanna to ask if she could help by re-joining the faculty as a member of a nationwide panel of health experts, coordinating the efforts to fight the virus. Of course, she ran it by her new husband before accepting but Daniel knew it would kill her to not help, so, encouraged his wife to accept the position.

Throughout the lockdown in March and April, the couple were separated, because as a member of the panel, Deanna stayed on the University of Minnesota’s campus. Although Daniel worried about his wife, he knew that she was no fool and would take the proper precautions.

“I remember being locked down and using my Mom’s laptop, offered Rebecca, spurring the others to share their experiences.

Julie confides, “I never dreamed that I would miss school but after a couple of months, I longed to be back in the classroom.”

“Yes”, agreed the others in unison.

“The worst was not being able to see my grandma and grandpa. However, I did like the camaraderie of support for the doctors and nurses, and how Mom had us create signs for our windows,” reported Rebecca. To which the others again enthusiastically agreed.

“One of my favorite times was on the 6 o’clock news where they showed people banging pots and pans, as first responders applauded the doctors and nurses finishing their shifts.” Again, there was unanimous agreement.

Obviously remembering that time, Michael broaches “I’ve read that although most people complied with the shutdown and wearing masks, there were many who called the virus a hoax, even before President Trump did. I believe they were members of a group called QAnon?”

Sighing at the memory, Daniel replies “Yes. There are several theories, with one being that it started as a form as a game to solve mysterious posts from someone calling themselves Q that people began taking as literal reports of nefarious activities. However, discussing QAnon with Sophia in April, I had a different take on the causes…”

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UP IS DOWN – QUESTIONING REALITY

At home on lockdown, learning that normally rational people were caught up in a web of lies, Daniel decided to do some research into QAnon, especially as their rhetoric was extremely reminiscent of the 2016 election. Accepting that the Mueller report had determined Russia interfered with the election, he reexamined their tactics. From the outset, it was clear that Putin did not want Hilary Clinton elected because he had dealt with her as Secretary of State under President Obama, still, the extent to which Russia went to was extraordinary. Russia’s main effort centered around what the report called Troll farms, where hundreds of people spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week posting misleading information on Facebook and other media platforms.

Accessing a reputable source, a Reuters report on Wikipedia, Daniel discovered that “Russian-backed Twitter accounts played a role in propagating QAnon claims as early as November 2017.” Ultimately, investigators trace the beginning of QAnon to an anonymous post by a user known as “Q”, who related that on October 28th 2017 President Trump’s remark during a gathering of United States military leaders, of it being “the calm before the storm”, was code for an imminent event. Stating that it was code for thousands of alleged suspects being arrested, imprisoned, and executed for being child-eating pedophiles, he or she “validated” the post by identifying the username as having a “Q” clearance, a United States Department of Energy security clearance required to access Top Secret information on nuclear weapons and materials. Since QAnon advocates consider Donald Trump a messiah-like figure destined to expose the “criminals”, supporters hang on his every word and gesture. Consequently, after an Internet community quickly grew around interpreting and analyzing posts attributed to Q, the authorities became concerned, especially as several individuals were becoming minor celebrities within the community.

The QAnon belief that Democrats and celebrities like Tom Hanks were child-eating pedophiles, was beyond Daniel. Wondering how any sane person could even contemplate such a thing, he called Sophia. “Unfortunately, we are dealing with the “Shadow’s agenda” tapping into an evolutionary consequence of a universal law of Reincarnation. This law denotes that all hate and injustice must be resolved with individuals who demonstrate bigotry and racism against another race, sex, or religion, experiencing the prejudice and bigotry in subsequent lives that he or she demonstrated in their previous ones. Of course, in unevolved individuals this results in feeling victimized and embracing extreme views, which perfectly fit with the “Shadow’s” agenda, as he knew that the specter of Fascism and Racism was rising again to be resolved.

“Tragically, as the Tarot card 15 The Devil conveys, the scene of a sinister ‘unreal’ creature overseeing humans willingly enslaving themselves, is relating that the “Shadow’s” carefully placed leaders could easily manipulate the unevolved and cause them to destroy themselves. In 2020 this was proved when as Wikipedia reports: ‘Between March and June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, QAnon activity nearly tripled on Facebook and nearly doubled on Instagram and Twitter.’ Spreading across Europe, from the ‘Netherlands to the Balkan Peninsula’, QAnon was strongest in Germany, because of ‘Far-right activists’ promoting QAnon on all social media platforms, resulting in an ‘estimated’ 200,000 German followers. Reminiscent of the rise of Fascism, it seems that one particular ‘Reichsbürger’ group has co-opted QAnon to bolster its claim that today Germany, rather than being an independent ‘sovereign republic’, is instead ‘a corporation created by Allied nations after World War II.’ For this group, Germany’s only hope was for Donald Trump’s ‘army to restore the Reich.’ Shockingly, Canadians and Brits have also been drawn into the QAnon conspiracy, with as many as 25% giving credence to at least some of their conspiracies.”

Sophia lamented that Britain was caught up in the QAnon conspiracy, reasoning that it was probably why half of them supported leaving the E.U. or Brexit, adding that “unfortunately, they are caught in the energy of demagoguery.” About to ask her what she meant, Daniel’s laptop indicated that Deanna was trying to reach him, so thanking Sophia, he hung up.

Although initially on March 16th, President Trump advised avoiding social gatherings of over ten people as well as travelling, adding that it could extend well into summer, as he did not recommend a quarantine or a curfew, his QAnon followers were not overly concerned. Moreover, when just eight days later, he tweeted that the “cure” cannot be “worse than the problem itself” and called for the country to reopen on April 12th Easter Sunday, thousands saw it as a call to ignore the pandemic. Fortunately, as Congress passed a massive stimulus bill on March 26th to invigorate the economy, which included checks of $1200 to everyone, most people could stay home.

Things with QAnon became dangerous, when President Trump announced that he would not be wearing a mask, making not wearing a mask a way to show support for him. The president made things worse when he started blaming the virus on China, calling it the China or “Wuhan” flu. Even more troubling, the president began denying the scientific data, blaming the growing case number and death count on testing, and miscalculating the number of deaths. Consequently, despite the growing number of cases and deaths throughout March, with America exceeding 1,000 dead and closing in on 100,000 infections, Daniel observed that some people continued to deny that Covid-19 was even real. Amazed at the increasing number of normally rational people caught up in this insanity, Daniel called Sophia, asking how this could happen. “In truth, when we first learned of the virus, we wondered if it was being overblown ourselves. However, after a brief search on the outbreak in China, it was evident that this was no normal flu, as some were claiming. Amazingly, even one of our friends was caught up in this mentality, claiming that:

‘I've become more and more convinced with the lockdowns, mandated mask wearing, and constant bombardment of fear perpetuated by the mainstream media that COVID was a planned event and it is the most invasive and coordinated hoax that has ever dawned on our civilization. I’ve come to believe that the actors and betrayers of a free society, are attempting the biggest enslavement of humanity ever attempted, and it poses the biggest threat to all people on our planet whether they believe it or not. I have also come to believe that Trump, despite all his misgivings, is not a part of that plan and is actually an interference to this agenda, and unfortunately there is no way for me to get behind the Biden-Kamala ticket, because he has already made it clear that he will increase the lockdowns and enforce other measures despite the fact that the COVID has proven to be less harmful than the flu!!!’
“Obviously, our friend’s view was in line with the conspiracist group QAnon but what troubled me the most was the group’s alignment with white supremacy, which was an anathema for our friend and explains him also writing, ‘I am hoping and praying that I can get through and get over these feelings, because they cause so much pain and leave me feeling really drained and empty.’ He even acknowledged that he knew his ‘experiences are completely fueled by my counterfeit spirit.’ Sadly, Sophia related, “Due to Covid-19 we were unable to meet in person and so I have been forced to let him deal with it.”

A decade later in Daniel’s home, commenting on QAnon he observes:

“I asked Sophia how a ridiculous demon-like figure could possibly convey that humans are willingly enslaving themselves. She directed me to the chain around the man and woman’s necks. “If you examine the chains it is obvious that they are loose enough to lift over their heads.

The message here is that individuals have to free themselves. As for QAnon, to my mind, millions of Americans had been manipulated into fulfilling Vladimir Putin’s goal of dividing the country. My wonder is that it went on so long, especially as with the most superficial research, one could discover the connection to the Mueller report and the Russian interference with the 2016 election. Still back then we were dealing with a growing pandemic…”

In the first week of April, Daniel noted that the CDC finally announced they were recommending people wear regular cloth face-masks, not N-95 masks. As President Trump could not hold rallies during the lockdown, when he realized the majority of the nation was hanging on every word Dr. Fauci was saying at the Corona virus briefings, he used them as a means to promote his re-election through extolling his administration’s actions. However, as time went by he took over, undermining Dr. Fauci and the CDC, until the briefings were not only less than useless, they were downright dangerous. A famous example was his suggestion on April 24th that bleach could be injected to treat the virus. Nonetheless, flexing his muscles 10 days earlier on April 14th, the president announced America’s withdrawal from the W.H.O., and two days later started pushing for reopening the country, with a detailed phased plan from the CDC. Unfortunately, as the plan involved several benchmarks in the rate of infection, President Trump told Dr. Redfield to rewrite it, to which the CDC produced a six-page guide to states. Fortunately, the CDC later posted their original 60+ page recommendations on their website that many states followed, including New York, which by April 14th had surpassed 10,000 deaths and well over 100,000 cases. Predictably, some Republican states followed President Trump’s directions and began easing restrictions in their states, most notably Texas who started reopening on April 17th. Since the lockdown was never endorsed by President Trump, some Republican run states enacted little if any restrictions. The situation went from bad to worse, when the president began tweeting on April 17th to “Liberate” Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia and other states refusing to open their states before meeting the CDC guidelines of 5% infection. Expectedly, the tweets incited his armed supporters to storm the Michigan state Capitol in Lansing on May 30th to demand an end to the lockdown.

Around the time the president was pushing to reopen, Daniel heard increasing numbers of political commentators begin referring to Donald Trump as a demagogue, and that the president was living on planet Trump. Remembering Sophia’s comment that QAnon and people denying the virus are “caught in the energy of demagoguery”, he dug deeper. Fascinatingly, the reporter discovered that the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking was the first person to publicly call Donald Trump a demagogue on May 31st in 2016, when asked whether he could explain then candidate Trump’s political rise on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. Initially stating “I can’t”, he added that “He is a demagogue, who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.” Unfamiliar with the term, Daniel looked it up on Wikipedia and learned that “Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct…” Worse still according to historian Reinhard Luthin, a demagogue “…appealing to the passions rather than the reason of the public” will “arouse” racial, religious, and class prejudices. He is usually “a man whose lust for power without recourse to principle leads him to seek to become a master of the masses…” Apparently, demagogues “exploit a fundamental weakness in democracy: because ultimate power is held by the people, it is possible for the people to give that power to someone who appeals to the lowest common denominator of a large segment of the population.” To Daniel, the most worrying aspect of his discovery was that Demagogues “usually advocate immediate, forceful action to address a crisis while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. Once elected to high executive office, demagogues typically unravel constitutional limits on executive power and attempt to convert their democracy to a dictatorship.”

In reference to “Planet Trump”, Daniel was reminded of Sophia’s theory of Globes, which posited that there are 7 Globes of Earth, in which 7 Root-races and 7 sub-races of humans are required to evolve on. Asking her to refresh his memory she reiterated: “As I said, the hypothesis is essentially that Evolution is multidimensional occurring on seven Globes. Over vast amounts of time, the Life-Principle experiences consciousness development through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms on the first two Globes before reaching the human kingdom, with its seven sub-races within 7 Root-races on Globe C. We transitioned to our Earth, mystically called Globe D at the start of the Common Era, formerly referred to as A.D. for Anno Domini, Mediaeval Latin for “in the year of the Lord.” Completing all seven Globes from A to G constitutes what The Mysteries refer to as a Globe Round, which we traverse seven times. This is known as a Planetary Chain. In every Globe Round, Globe D is the mid-point in the round where humans transform into super-human before transferring to Globe E. Each subsequent Globe from E to G, the former humans evolve closer and closer to the spiritual realm. However, as we are only currently in the fourth Globe Round, Life still has a ways to go. The Bible tells us in Psalm 86:6, and again in John 10:34 that “Ye are gods”, meaning we are divine beings infused with a divine spark or our Spirit. All Life contains this spark and therefore the purpose of Life is to “liberate” it from matter. As this process is mental, it cannot happen until we develop higher consciousness, hence the interminable phases of Evolution.”

“Anyway I digress, so getting back to the Globes, following a Planetary Chain’s completion, a period of rest or Nirvana takes place. Again, remembering our Earth is estimated to be 4 and a half billion years old; we are speaking of vast amounts of time. For instance, according to the Secret Doctrine, as I said, we are in the fourth Globe Round on the fourth Globe or Globe D. This means that three rounds of seven Earths have already occurred where the Spirit has evolved through mineral, vegetable, animal, human, superhuman-etc. in its goal to develop consciousness.”

“One more thing, having determined the Globes are within each other, obviously the three previous Globe Rounds would have taken longer to complete, since they were larger. So with the caveat that the worlds are not literally within the magma of our planet, imagine a huge sphere with 49 circles within it representing the 7 Globes or ‘Earths’ in the 7 Globe Rounds. Clearly, passing through these 49 circles takes a phenomenal amount of time. True, as we moved inward from larger to smaller, the duration that each circle represents gets shorter, but it is still an eternity compared to the way we mark time. Consequently, as our universe is between 14 and 16 billion years old, depending on the expert, we cannot be referring to just the life of our present universe.” Although Daniel was vaguely aware of Sophia’s theory, which she was always quick to point out is ancient knowledge known to all, therefore, not hers alone, her summarization of it for him that day, really helped.

“I recognize how there can be more than one earth but I’m unclear on the role of Root-races and sub-races. Is Sophia talking about ethnicities?” Even though Steve was the one to ask for clarification, Daniel suspected that the others were just as unsure.

“Let me see if I can nutshell this complicated but vital teaching. As I understand it we need to look at the Root-races as covering major benchmarks in human development. In this way, we could equate the first sub-race of Root-race 1 to primitive humans, who first appeared in what paleontologists call the Lower Paleolithic, roughly 3 million years ago. These primitive humans, designated as Homo Habilus for their ability to make tools, spiritually speaking, were the first step from animal to human consciousness. The subsequent six sub-races would cover their consciousness development, from simple cave dwellers to herdsman and shepherds forming the first communal living. Root-race 2 would cover the development of modern humans or Homo Sapiens through the Pleistocene era or Ice Age from approximately 300,000 years ago to our modern Holocene era, which began around eleven and a half thousand years ago. During that time, the other major humanoid species Neanderthals became extinct, leaving the world to be populated by modern humans, or in spiritual evolution terms Root-race 3.

“It is during Root-race three’s seven sub-races that we see the development of the various races and ethnicities around the world as tribal communities, which each soul experiences. This is also when the concept of religion develops. I should state that each soul experiences these tribal communities as male and female, as well as hierarchical positions, such as chief, matriarch, and lowly member. As human consciousness moved into Root-race 4 we see the development of cities and civilizations for the soul to experience. During the previous three Root-races and their seven  sub-races, including Root-race 4, which is also known as the Atlantean Race, humans are operating from their subconscious. We don’t see the development of the self-conscious until around 3,000 B.C.E., which coincides with the development of Root-race 5. It is in the 4th sub-race of Root-race 5 that human consciousness transfers to Globe D. Then over the next 2,000 years humans complete the fifth, sixth and seventh Root-races, experiencing every ethnicity, gender, culture, religion, and circumstance possible to fully develop a cognizant understanding of our connection. So you see, despite the wars, conflict, and racial prejudices plaguing the world for thousands of years, at our core we are all the same.”

As April ended and May began, Daniel observed in his daily reports to Ruth that President Trump was not reversing his stance on wearing a mask, which was emulated by thousands of his followers. After multiple commentators and comedians ridiculed the president over his comments about “injecting bleach” into people to “kill” the virus, he stopped giving his daily briefings and the country was left with very little guidance. In the meantime, the cancer of misinformation and downright lies about Covid-19 were being broadcast 24 hours a day by alternative “news.” During this time, Daniel wondered at the country’s survival because thousands of people were claiming that their freedom was being stolen by a “lie.” Consequently, by May 19th the US surpassed 1.5 million cases and tragically 90,000 people had lost their lives. Nevertheless, another event six days later caused Daniel and millions of people to struggle with what they were seeing on television, the murder of George Floyd.

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Horror on TV

“As terrible as the pandemic was, May 25th unleashed a situation that very few Americans had even considered.” Pausing for effect, Daniel scanned his young audience’s faces as the eagerly awaited what the situation was, before plainly stating, “the ugliness of racism.”

Acknowledging Daniel’s statement, Michael nodded. Then recalling the time he added “what struck me the most was the vision of watching a man slowly being suffocated on TV. I’m so glad Mom let us watch that as I have never forgotten it, or what it led to.”

Amidst, a chorus of “Yes it was terrible”, with the girls declaring they had nightmares for months, Daniel remarked that it changed the world.

Due to millions of people being essentially locked in doors, watching television News during the day became the norm. As a result, millions were watching as their stations cut in on May 25th with the horrific scene playing out in Minneapolis. Most people could hardly believe their eyes, as three police officers pinned George Floyd to the ground. Although Daniel did not watch it live, as it was uploaded to the Internet, he was able to study it from an investigative reporter’s approach. Giving the police the benefit of the doubt, he studied officer Derek Michael Chauvin’s face as he pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, while the man continually pleaded that he could not breathe. The most shocking part was Chauvin’s expression as he kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, it was emotionless. Worse still, was his and the officer standing with his hand on his gun’s reaction to onlookers pleading with them to let him up, as the man was being suffocated, their pleas were met with blank stares.

A few weeks later, Robert e-mailed Daniel an article on-line in the New York Times on a desensitizing program employed in police training in Kentucky, created by retired Captain Curt Hall. Robert pointed out a bullet list, entitled Violence of Action that he wrote, “could be taken straight from the description of eyewitness accounts to officer Chauvin’s actions.” For Daniel, the most chilling aspect of the list was the last. “Be the loving father, spouse, and friend as well as the ruthless killer.” Clicking on the link, what the seasoned reporter read sent more chills down his spine than when he had been in Vietnam, or covered war zones. Although as Robert acknowledged the article specifically stated that the Kentucky State Police no longer used “slides”, advocating the police “always fight to the death” and be a “ruthless killer”, the fact that it had been in practice, encouraged the reporter in Daniel to dig deeper.

Although appalled, Daniel wasn’t that surprised that the prevalence of police being trained to kill was even worse than he feared. Contacting the researchers of The Minnesota Advocate, and asking them to research Police desensitization training, what they discovered explained why police violence had been on the rise. The most shocking evidence they found was from an on-line article by Adam Shanks and Emma Epperly of the Spokesman Review, a Spokane Washington Newspaper, concerning public outrage at Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich’s, proposal for a Police Training Seminar on Killology. Feeling that what he considered a heinous and dangerous practice needed to be exposed in Minneapolis, Daniel decided to write an op-ed for the weekend edition entitled, The Dangers of Police using Killology Training, and included excerpts from The Spokesman Review’ article:

Following the public murder of George Floyd on May 25th, the nation is asking how someone supposedly trained to protect and serve could act in such a cold-hearted way? One answer that has come to light involves a controversial method of training known as Killology.

The heinous practice of Killology is the “brainchild” of retired Lt. Col. Dave Grossman from a term he coined in his 1995 book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. It is highly likely that Derek Chauvin was exposed to this type of desensitization because he has been a police officer in Minneapolis since 2001. Although the Minneapolis banned this type of training where the cadet is trained to be ready-to-kill in April of 2019, Minneapolis Police Union President Lt. Bob Kroll believed its ban was illegal. Claiming that “It’s not about killing, it’s about surviving,” consequently he vowed to “make the training available to any interested officers.” As Police departments across the country have adopted this type of warrior style training, is it any wonder that many police officers act more like soldiers than law enforcement officers on America’s streets.

If you doubt how dangerous Killology is, comments from an interview with County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, defending his decision to hold the Killology seminar in Spokane might change your mind. Shanks and Epperly point out that “Participants are also regularly reminded that they are at “war.” Even more concerning, is their quoting a most telling and dangerous comment from the creator of Killology training himself, when he boasted to his audience, “killing can lead to great sex”, and that “killing is not that big of a deal…”

This reporter echoes a Facebook post that warned “This should be a wake-up call for the community, I think if the Sheriff and (Spokane Police) Chief (Craig) Meidl, who have claimed to support the reasons behind the protests actually did, they would denounce or cancel the training.”

Unfortunately, even though not all police departments employ Killology, an aspect of desensitizing police to violence has become prevalent, demonstrated by a seven bullet on-line summation by The Washington Post entitled Violence of Action:

1. Ruthlessness without anger.
2. Controlled aggression without anger.
3. Able to meet violence with greater violence.
4. A mindset void of emotion, where perception, analysis, and response merge into one process.
5. Perceptions and actions are not hindered by the potential of death.
6. Be the loving father, spouse, and friend as well as the ruthless killer.

Despite this being accompanied with the photo of a soldier holding a child, the list concerns the training practices of Kentucky State Police, not soldiers. Justifying this training, is retired captain of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department, and the Director of the Active Countermeasures Instructional Systems, a national defensive tactics training entity, Gary T. Klugiewicz. Employed by Police1 as the Director of Training for the Police One Training Network, he states: “New officers often come to us with little or no training in physical combat, often without ever being involved in a physical fight… They need what we call desensitization training…to be desensitized to the trauma of either having to hit another person or being struck by another person… The need is based on the concept of ‘sensory inhibition.’ People aren’t born with the ability to hit and be hit. Instead, they have a sensory inhibition from touching or being touched — especially when it comes to hitting or being hit. It is important that an officer learn to overcome this inhibition.”

Accepting that obviously police officers need to know how to defend themselves, the issue here is desensitizing them, as we saw displayed in the cold-blooded actions of Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd. We further see how dangerous this is, when Klugiewicz connects what he calls his “Stress Inoculation” to Lt Col. Dave Grossman’s book. In my opinion, this is all well and good for soldiers fighting for their lives in combat. Still, can anyone think it is a good idea to train beat-cops dealing with the public the same way. Perhaps it’s time to rethink this training and reform the way we police our nation.

 

After reading his young audience the op-ed, Daniel added, “Sophia told me that the desensitization training was even more harmful than Killology. At the shocked look and raising a hand in acknowledgement, he clarified, “I know, I was surprised too but she explained it was because, the desensitization displayed by Derek Chauvin was actually more harmful spiritually than Killology. This is because the supposedly lesser suppresses empathy and compassion, which is why George Floyd’s murder was so disturbing. In a nutshell, Sophia said that in doing this, the training officers are in effect promoting sociopathic tendencies, which in effect is the complete nullification of the conscience but even worse, the spirit, especially in light of the racism within some police departments. Even more troubling to Sophia was the fact that a student newspaper had uncovered that the cadets were exposed to rhetoric from Adolph Hitler, such as ‘The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.’ Reminding me that Hitler was the embodiment of the Shadow, and how powerful words can be, she warned that exposing cadets to such rhetoric feeds their counterfeit-spirit, or Eckhart Tolle’s ‘pain-body’, which reinforces the message…”

Following up on his op-ed on the atrocity of George Floyd’s public murder for the Minnesota Advocate, in his weekly column Daniel noted that despite declaring the coronavirus a national emergency, the day after the murder on May 26th, President Trump did not comment on the horror of it. Instead he was casting doubt on mail-in ballots in the upcoming election on Twitter, which caused Twitter to label his tweet “misleading” and include a “fact check” link for the first time, sparking a debate over free speech.

Determining that President Trump’s Tweet was spurred by concerns over the election, Daniel connected it to an intent to manipulate public confidence in mail-in voting. In light of the pandemic, all 50 States were looking to expand mail-in ballots for public health safety, which concerned the president. The reason it concerned him, was that Democratic voters were believed more likely to vote by mail, whereas Republicans were thought to prefer voting in person. Although several states regularly had mail-in ballots, the majority did not. Expanding voting by mail because of the pandemic, facilitated a greater number to participate. Even before his warning tweet, suspiciously for many, on May 7th President Trump appointed a major Republican donor Louis DeJoy as Post-master General. Almost immediately, Dejoy began changing policies, ostensibly to increase productivity and reduce costs. Not surprisingly, as these new policies involved removing mass sorting machines and cutting overtime, they slowed down the mail. Nonetheless, in the end it did not affect the election. However, later as President Trump’s claims about potential fraud grew more vociferous, Daniel remembered reading an article by CNBC reporter Yelena Dzhanova, how President Donald Trump tweeted on April 8th, 2020, “Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”

Predictably there was outrage over George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, with protests erupting the next day. However, Daniel was pleased that it did not stop in Minneapolis because it set off a worldwide condemnation of police brutality and racism.

Everyone was reminded how earlier that year on March 13th, Breonna Taylor, a 28 year-old ER technician was killed because the police was looking for a suspected drug dealer. As Daniel reported, her death occurred when Kentucky police officers forced their way into Miss Taylor’s home. Believing they were intruders; her boyfriend Kenneth Walker fired a warning shot through the door. Following the initial shot, the police officers fired their guns 32 times, with six bullets hitting Breonna, where being given no medical attention for more than 20 minutes, she died.

Exacerbating the situation of unrest in the country, Daniel observed was the earlier unconscionable murder of Armaud Arbery on February 23rd. Largely ignored at the time, it resurfaced with the charging of William Bryan as a co-defendant with Gregory and Travis McMichael. Initially, there were no charges laid against the three men but after a video released on May 5th by Gregory Michael, revealed that Armaud was chased and shot 3 times while jogging down the street, went viral, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reopened the case, with the subsequent charging all 3 men with murder. Since this murder was committed in Georgia before the lockdown, many Americans was not aware of the crime but when William Bryan’s film of the murder was rerun incessantly, in light of George Floyd’s murder people became incensed.

When Minnesota declared a state of emergency on May 28th, the president sent in heavy armed troops. He doubled down on June 1st, when he deployed armed troops against peaceful protesters outside the Whitehouse in Lafayette Square to clear the street, so that he could stage a photo-op holding a bible upside down at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

The violence perpetrated against peaceful protesters caused such a backlash of public outrage that when Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser designates a section of 16th Street NW as Black Lives Matter Plaza on June 5th, it received wide support. Then on June 12th Rayshard Brooks was shot by a police officer in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia it added more fuel to the fire. Already re-invigorated by President Trump’s actions on June 1st, millions of protesters across the United States took to the streets. According to a Times analysis it is believed that there have been more than 4,700 demonstrations, or an average of 140 per day, since the first protests began in Minneapolis on May 26th. Turnout has ranged from dozens to tens of thousands in about 2,500 small towns and large cities. Protests also took place in over 60 countries and on all seven continents, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which gathering in crowds was strongly advised against in some parts of the world, and deemed illegal in others.

Over the next couple of months, people continued to march in the thousands led by the Black Lives Matter movement, which according to Wikipedia began as a hashtag # in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American 17-teen year old Trayvon Martin, in February 2012. It became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. Today, Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi have brought a coalition of multiple groups under the umbrella of BLM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter#/media/File:North_America_Protests_8_JUN_2020.jpg

In 2020, Daniel noted the protesters were not just the usual predominantly young African Americans, as in past BLM demonstrations. These demonstrators were across the spectrum of ethnicity, status, and age, even at one point including Senator Mitt Romney. Of course, some people took advantage using the protests to loot and vandalize. Nonetheless, Wikipedia reports that from May 22nd to August 22nd, there were more than 10,600 mostly peaceful BLM protest events in the United States. Amazingly, Daniel’s column cited the New York Times reporting on July 3rd that four recent polls “suggest that about 15 million to 26 million people in the United States have participated in demonstrations over the death of George Floyd and others in recent weeks. These figures would make the recent protests the largest movement in the country’s history, according to interviews with scholars and crowd-counting experts.” To give an example, see the map above from Wikimedia commons by Caleb Anderson that puts the support into perspective.

Considering that America was in the middle of a global pandemic, Daniel thought the protests startling because the day after George Floyd’s murder, the number of dead hit 100,000. Health experts warned daily of the risk of spreading the disease, but the people were not listening. Accepting that most people do not die from Covid-19, nonetheless, it is remarkable how even older people marched in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

Oblivious to the people’s concerns and flouting the health experts, on June 20th President Trump could wait no longer and conducts his first 2020 campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Originally planned for the day before, the administration was forced to change it when public outcry made them aware that June 19th was a special day for African Americans, as it was celebrated as Juneteenth. Venerated by African Americans, on this day Union soldiers freed the final slaves in Texas, more than two years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Declaration became law on January 1st, 1863.

However, Daniel learned that the choice of venue was problematic because on May 31st in 1921, it was the site of a racially motivated massacre, with estimates of as many as 300 being killed by white armed and “deputized” citizens. Without going too deeply into the specifics of this tragic but avoidable event, in the early 1920s, descendants of slaves were prospering in a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma known as Greenwood. Banding together, they had built a thriving thoroughfare, which they designated as Black Wall Street. At the time, the Caucasian community resented that many African American families were living a more affluent life than they were. Daniel reported that many believe this resentment was the cause of white citizens destroying so many homes and businesses owned by African Americans. This tragic history, together with the Tulsa rally being inside led to a lower than expected attendance. Shockingly, just before the rally was due to begin, cameras capture President Trump’s election officials removing social-distancing markers from seats.

Around this time a debate over the role of slavery in the building of America resurfaced, revising the belief that slavery was the reason for the American Revolution. Launched in August of 2019, it commemorated the 400th anniversary of the arrival the first slaves in Virginia. Realizing that he was mostly ignorant of the history, Daniel decided to write an article, not only the 1619 Project but also the world-wide history of slavery itself. Pitching his idea to his editor Ruth Hawthorne, as he expected she was all for it, especially in light of the feelings on race. However, Ruth wanted him to include slavery’s role in racism. Calling the article, A Reckoning on Slavery and Racism, he set about investigating this hotly contested subject. Deciding to find slavery’s origins, he started with the oldest reference, the Old Testament:

Considering the worldwide cry to address racism following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Armaud Aubrey in 2020, adding to countless others who died after encountering the police, we are overdue for a reckoning, not only on police reform and racism but also slavery. New York Times journalist Nikole Sheri Hannah-Jones’ controversial 1619 Project claims the American Revolution was at least in part to support slavery. Supporters also believe that slavery was responsible for Capitalism, and links pro-slavery policies to right-wing politics. In general, the project’s proponents feel America still operates from the premise that some individuals are intrinsically entitled to greater power than others. Shockingly Hannah-Jones proposes the American experiment did not begin with the Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776 but rather in August 1619 with the first African slaves. Consequently, America’s success is inherently tied to enslavement.

In light of 1619 heralding the arrival of the first slaves in the New World, perhaps the question here should be, “When did it become acceptable to own another human being?” If we are to believe the Bible then slavery has been “acceptable” since the beginning of human civilization, because the Old Testament supposedly records Yahweh instructing Moses to kill all male Midianites, and enslave all females. Putting aside the questionable evidence that the Creator would condone, let alone order the massacre or enslavement of hundreds of men, women, and children, throughout history every civilization and nation has taken captives in battle as slaves. Until modern times royalty and the aristocracy saw their subjects as assets to be sold with land. Also, less than two centuries ago, adults could become enslaved for debt, requiring they work for their debtor until it was paid off.

Slavery has been, and in many parts of the world today still is, a worldwide phenomenon. As recently as 2018 we find slaves in no less than seventeen countries, with India, China, Pakistan, and North Korea leading the way with a collective 17 million 690 thousand slaves. One has to ask how any civilized nation could accept this.

Most indigenous tribes took captives of wars but as Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves portrays, captives who were not killed were cared for, and over time even allowed to become members of the tribe. Unfortunately, except on rare occasions, this was not the case for the enslaved Africans, which between 1525 and 1866 was 10 million 700 thousand human beings. Most often, they were regarded as chattel, displayed like cattle in slave markets, and treated as such on plantations. The tragedy is that it is estimated that as many as 12.5 million people were put on ships, meaning that nearly two million shipped to the New World did not survive.

So is Ms. Hannah-Jones right in proposing that the American Revolution was about sustaining the institution of slavery? Let’s examine the evidence. Traditionally, the reason the Colonialists wanted to break with Britain was over taxation, in that the Colonialists paid taxes without representation in Parliament. We could see this in Washington DC seeking statehood today, as its citizens like the Colonialists pay taxes without representation.

Remembering that the American Revolution was fought over taxes without representation, it is surprising to see Republicans, a self-professed party of individual rights, blocking the request for representation en mass, which is not only hypocritical, it is decidedly unconstitutional. Notwithstanding the constitutional rights of DC taxpayers to representation, taxes was only part of the reason the Colonialists wanted their freedom from Britain, another key factor was the “Motherland’s” interference, which culminated in four laws known as the “Intolerable Acts:”

1. The Massachusetts Government Act altering the Massachusetts charter and restricting town meetings.
2. The Administration of Justice Act ordering that all British soldiers on trial were to be arraigned in Britain, not in the colonies.
3. The Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the British were compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party.
4. The Quartering Act of 1774, allowing royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without permission of the owner.

On the face of it, we could conclude that supporting slavery was not one of the reasons for the American Revolution. Still, if we look at where the abolition of slavery was in Britain at the end of the eighteenth century, we could see an argument for some slave owning Colonialists wanting to sustain the institution. Although slavery was not officially banned across the British Empire until 1833, the Abolitionist movement had been gaining ground for decades in the eighteenth century. However, long before the Civil War slavery was already under threat in the US in several Northern states. Therefore, we can conclude that Colonialists fighting in the American Revolution did so for many reasons, one of them being to support their right to own slaves.

We find further insight into the Revolutionist’s attitude to their African slaves in the 3 fifths Compromise, mentioned in Clause 3, Section 2, Article 1 of the US Constitution. Like the Census, which determines resources and the number of Representatives each state has in the House, the clause was included to set the rules for counting the population. A key excerpt states that: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States… according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons.” Shockingly, these numbers also included “three fifths of all other Persons” which of course only applied to African slaves. Wikipedia reports, in 1833 this clause came to be seen as a compromise between Northern and Southern States, because the latter had the bulk of the slaves. This was summed up by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, who wrote that it was a “matter of compromise and concession, confessedly unequal in its operation, but a necessary sacrifice to that spirit of conciliation, which was indispensable to the union of states having a great diversity of interests, and physical condition, and political institutions.”

People denying that racism was built into the Constitution from the start argue that the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 “superseded” clause 3, and since its passing, the Constitution deemed former African slaves equal to white Americans. However, laws in place for more than two hundred years had already been cemented into America. These laws enacted under British slavers in 1661 concerned the treatment of slaves. Known as the Barbados Slave Code, its official title was the Act For The Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes, this law set the rules for the treatment of slaves. According to Wikipedia this appalling code, “denied slaves even basic rights guaranteed under English common law, such as the right to life. It allowed the slaves’ owners to do entirely as they wished to their slaves, including mutilation, and burning them alive, without fear of reprisal.” As bad as this was, the truly dangerous aspect of the “slave code”, was its description of the Africans, as “heathenish, brutish and a “dangerous kind of people.”

“Governing” slaves is what some believe is a fundamental reason for the development of the US police force. Referred to as “Slave Patrols”, they first come to light in 1704 under Colonial slave owners in the Carolina colony, and were designed to help wealthy landowners recover and punish runaway slaves, who they viewed as their property. Even more troubling is that many slave owners denied them even the most rudimentary education, demonstrated in South Carolina’s Negro Act of 1740, which decreed that it was illegal to teach a slave to read and write. Today, a growing number believe the slave patrols evolved into controlling minorities, which eventually became America’s Police force.

It took the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to even acknowledge the injustice. Still, when nothing changed for the Black minority, abusive policing and poor housing erupted in riots that reached an all-time high during the Summer of Love in 1967, with 159 “race riots” throughout the North. Responding to the crisis, President Johnson instigated an independent investigation the following year. Known as the Kerner Commission, February 29th 1969, its members issued a 426 page report concluding among other things that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Urgently recommending expanded aid to African American communities to prevent further racial violence, it warned that unless drastic and costly remedies were undertaken at once, there would be a “continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values.”

Supporting the long held belief that the slave patrols had infiltrated the police, it also confirmed that almost every urban riot was sparked by an abrasive encounter between police and members of the Black community, citing “white racism” as the underlying grievance of rioters, and calling for a commitment to the War on Poverty. With such a report, one would think that policing changed but alas that was not the case. Instead, a concerted effort was made to remove the impetus for radical change, replacing it with palliative piecemeal, pro-market reform, resulting in putting the onus on police to quell the riots.

Unfortunately, police reform has always come up against the powerful police unions, who are dedicated to protecting their members jobs at all cost. Consequently, if we take the Barbados Slave Code’s description of Africans, and the slave patrols taken over by the Ku Klux Klan before the “patrols” evolved into the Police Force, we can see why a “disproportionately high number” of people of African descent are “killed and beaten” when encountering the police.

Despite the terrible truths revealed above, all is not lost in changing the relationship between minorities and police, because a town in New Jersey has become a beacon of police reform. Ostensibly driven by economics in trying to reduce the budget in 2012, every officer in Camden was effectively fired and directed to submit an application to the newly formed county police. Each officer had to undergo psychological testing, as well as an intensive background check and review of their record. Supported by Scott Thomson, Chief at the time, he believed it was a useful way to completely overhaul policing in Camden, which according to Wikipedia he described as “apathetic, lethargic and corrupt.” His primary goal was to shift his officers mentality from being a “warrior”, to being a “guardian.” One of the ways he achieved this, was by changing the policy of judging officers on the number of arrests and or tickets they handed out. Instead the officers were judged on how they interacted with the community. Reasoning that the old way of policing was a problem, the Chief stated how “aggressive ticket writing” in “handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year, can be life altering.”

Chief Thomson instructed new recruits to introduce themselves to people of their beat, and patrol either on foot or bike. Soon people began to see the police in a new light, making them more comfortable being on the streets, which seriously hampered crime. Removing the question of when and how police should use force, Camden police implemented the New York University Law School’s Policing Project, which was gauged as the most progressive in history. This policy was so successful that complaints against excessive force were down by 95% but even more impressive, violent crime was also down by 42%.

With such a shining example of success, shouldn’t every police department adopt Camden’s example? As for the 1619 Project, because slaves were counted in apportioning funds and representation, clearly, their presence as well as their labor played a large part in the development of America. Isn’t it time for every one of good conscience to recognize the wrongs visited on their descendants, and endeavor to right those wrongs.

Then, perhaps we can address the terrible treatment of the original owners of the Americas, as not only did settlers steal their land, they also nearly obliterated the Indigenous history and culture.

Daniel Bruin

A decade later, Daniel shares that “When the article came out Sophia called me to say that she liked what I wrote. Nonetheless, she also had more information, telling me that slavery was a part of human evolution. ‘It was a way to move from mass murder in conflicts for the victors to save the non-combatants. Another consideration is that money for employment is a relatively new invention, for centuries people bartered for services and work. The simple truth is that every human being has experienced both sides of slavery in their long existence. It is our job to evolve past it, and in many ways we did. Overtime slavery evolved into serfdom in Europe, where people living on land owned by an aristocrat could be sold with the land but not as individuals. Today, as your article reported the fact that there are still millions of slaves adds to the negative energy, however, as it is mostly tied to illegal “sex trafficking”, which is a crime then like other crimes, society will eventually outgrow it, because when people stop paying for these sex-slaves then the traffickers will move on. Spiritually speaking, the problem comes in when a segment of society retards evolution by maintaining the old premises, which is what happened with the Slave trade in the Americas, not to mention the treatment of Native Americans, and hate crimes. It is why racism keeps coming up, and will do so until it is addressed and we right these wrongs. With the protests this summer, and the willingness to remove Confederate memorabilia, like flags, names, and statues, it is Robert’s and my hope that such a time is very near…”

As if on cue, Daniel noted how following a promising drop in Covid-19 infections in the first weeks of June, just five days after President Trump’s Oklahoma rally the virus reared its ugly head with a daily count of 40,000 cases. Only this time it rose in the Southern United States, specifically Texas, which by the end of June hit 159, 986 cases. Daniel could not help wondering if it had anything to do with Texas reopening in April?

Explaining, at least to Daniel’s mind, why John Bolton did not testify in President Trump’s impeachment was in least partly self-interest, on June 23rd he released his book The Room Where It Happened. According to excerpts from Amazon’s description:

“…John Bolton …shows a President addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends… ‘The differences between this presidency and previous ones I had served were stunning,’ writes Bolton, who worked for Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. He discovered a President who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal—about personal relationships, made-for-TV showmanship, and advancing his own interests… The turmoil, conflicts, and egos are all there—from …manipulative moves of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to the showdowns at the G7 summits… and the placating of an authoritarian China that ultimately exposed the world to its lethal lies… his story is full of wit and wry humor…”

Amazingly, just three days after the release of John Bolton’s book on June 26th, the New York Times reported of bounties being placed on American soldiers serving in Afghanistan by Russian military intelligence linked to Taliban militants. Even more shocking, the report stated that despite President Trump being briefed on the findings in late March of 2020, he did nothing about it, and later denied ever receiving the briefs. Daniel found this particularly interesting as in an interview after his book’s release, when asked about President Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin, John Bolton derisively stated, “Putin thought he could play him like a fiddle.”

One bright spot in the summer of 2020 for Daniel was the change in attitude towards systemic racism. Ten days after the shameful removal of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square for President Trump’s photo-op of power, on June 11th, the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee approved a new amendment to the 2021 Defense Authorization Bill, requiring military bases named after Confederate soldiers to change their names. Proposed by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, the amendment gave the Department of Defense three years to implement new names for installations bearing the names of Confederate soldiers, and also requires the Pentagon to remove Confederate names and symbols from other military properties. Despite the overwhelming nation-wide support, not to mention the military leaders openness to it, Donald Trump opposed it, tweeting “My Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.”

Regardless of the president’s obliviousness to the shifting attitude, as the protests spread throughout the world, increasing numbers of Caucasians questioned if they had perpetuated racism by ignoring that it was still present in their societies. A really hopeful sign that Daniel was delighted to report, was the state Legislature of Mississippi voting to “retire” the state flag because it incorporated the Confederate battle flag. Noteworthy was the fact the legislation was supported by its Republican governor Tate Reeves when he signed it into law on June 30th.

When Nancy Pelosi announced the removal of certain Confederate statues and paintings from the Capitol, a faction of protesters turned their rage on prominent statues of Confederates in places of honor throughout the country. Overall, the protesters were peaceful as they toppled slave-proponents and racists statues, nonetheless, President Trump continued to fight the tide. Although the country, nay the world was addressing the evils of slavery and racism, unfathomably for Daniel, the president leapt to their defense, when on July 22nd, the same day he dispatched troops to Portland Oregon, he issued a  protection order for all statues, decreeing that defacing or removing them could result in up to 10 years in prison. Daniel saw Donald Trump’s heavy handling of the protests, especially in Democratic-led States and cities as the president flexing his muscles.

“Phew”, exclaimed Julie, “couldn’t the president see the opportunity to bring the country together?”

“One would think so, wouldn’t you”, answered Daniel.” However, as we later learned Donald Trump was incapable of cooperation, especially with anyone he has publicly labeled the enemy, which of course included all Democrats. Interestingly, Sophia related that if Joe Biden had taken a position against wearing masks and keeping the names and statues, then President Trump would have been championing mask-wearing, and removing Confederate statues as the most patriotic thing to do. Unfortunately, as the former Vice president was neither delusional, nor a bigot he advocated following the health experts, and the removal of monuments championing slavery. As a result, while President Trump went ahead with mass rallies, where thousands of unmasked supporters were tightly packed together, Biden wisely did mostly virtual and some socially-distanced campaigns. With hindsight, many wish that Donald Trump had followed suit, as experts have determined that his rallies led to as many as 700 extra deaths from Covid-19. However, I’m jumping ahead again. Where were we?”

“July 22nd” offered Julie.

“Thank you. As I expected when Covid-19 did not “go away” as the president had predicted and in fact got worse, at the end of July President Trump began suggesting the election be postponed, reiterating that voting by mail was fraught with the opportunity to cheat. As it happened, apart from Joe Biden suggesting moving up the election, the media’s attention was drawn to the wild-fires erupting in the West coast.”

“Oh Yes! exclaimed Rebecca, my aunt and uncle were caught in that awful situation…”

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