Commentary

COMMENTARY: Witness by Witness, Truth of Jan. 6 Attack on Capitol Revealed

Then Trump tweeted: “Big protest in D.C, on January 6th. Be there. Will be wild.” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D/Fla) called it a “siren call.” The Asian American member of Congress shared how she was the only member of the committee “who was not blessed to be born American.” She was born in Vietnam, from where her family fled a communist government and was rescued by the U.S. Navy and given sanctuary in America. She noted how decades later she was serving as a congresswoman and under attack on Jan. 6. It was another moment of context from an Asian American perspective that let us know that every American is a stakeholder in these hearings.

Published

2 years ago

July 18, 2022

Oakland Post

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a talk show on www.amok.com

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator at www.amok.com

By Emil Guillermo

That James Webb Telescope is so amazing. NASA pointed it into the darkness of space, and suddenly saw the truth—-stars and galaxies we never knew existed.

At the speed of light, that’s a look back 13 billion years.

I wish all of America could see more clearly right here on Earth just about Jan. 6, 2021.

It doesn’t take a telescope.

You just need to keep watching the Jan. 6 Select Committee hearings.

If you think all that is nonsense for government nerds, consider the statement of Rep. Bennie Thompson, (D-Mississippi) the chair of the Jan. 6 Select Committee.

He knows how important it is especially for the African American community.

“I am from a part of the country where had it not been for the federal government and the Constitution, my parents and many more Americans like them would have continued to be treated as second-class citizens,” Thompson said. “The freedom to be able to vote without harassment, travel in relative safety, and dine and seat where you choose is because we have a government that looks over the wellbeing of its citizens.”

And that, Thompson said, did not happen on Jan. 6, 2022, on Trump’s watch.

“It was an attack on our country,” Thompson said. “An attack on our democracy, on our Constitution. A sitting president with a violent mob trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another. It still makes my blood boil to think of it.”

Yours should be boiling, too. If you were hesitant to call Jan. 6 a planned coup, just watch the July 12 hearing. There’s more corroborating testimony from people in Trump’s inner circle like White House Counsel Pat Cipollone who knew what happened from December of 2020 leading up to Jan. 6.

The story is not good for our democracy. Trump knew he lost the election but kept searching for ways to hold on to power. Things became “unhinged” at a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting when Trump personal advisors Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Michael Flynn (a.k.a. the “crazy ones”) suggested everything from foreign election interference to voting machine fraud to a massive rally with the most rabid Trump supporters.

Cipollone suggested conceding the loss. The argument was loud, but the normal Trump loyalists lost.

Then Trump tweeted: “Big protest in D.C, on January 6th. Be there. Will be wild.”

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D/Fla) called it a “siren call.” The Asian American member of Congress shared how she was the only member of the committee “who was not blessed to be born American.” She was born in Vietnam, from where her family fled a communist government and was rescued by the U.S. Navy and given sanctuary in America.

She noted how decades later she was serving as a congresswoman and under attack on Jan. 6.

It was another moment of context from an Asian American perspective that let us know that every American is a stakeholder in these hearings.

Murphy also read text messages that Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale wrote on Jan. 6.

“This is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country, a sitting president asking for a civil war,” Parscale texted to Katrina Pierson. “I feel guilty for helping him win.”

When Pierson tried to relieve him of blame, Parscale texted: “Yeah, but a woman is dead, and yeah, if I was Trump and I knew my rhetoric killed someone…”

When Pierson again pushed back, Parscale insisted it was the rhetoric that killed.

People of color know the acts of a killing mob, and this hearing featured the testimony of repentant rioters.

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former propagandist for the nationalist group, “The Oathkeepers,” warned that the country is “exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen because the potential was there from the start.” And it could get worse if Trump wins again.

Stephen Ayres, a Jan. 6 rioter who went to D.C. because he felt called by Trump, testified he feels lied to. He said Jan. 6 changed his life for the worse. He lost his job, and nearly his house. He warned Americans who still believe the ‘Big Lie’ to “take the (horse) blinders off.”

Doesn’t take a telescope to see how close a failed coup imperiled our democracy on Jan. 6.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator at www.amok.com

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Oakland Post: Week of June 12-18, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 12-18, 2024

Published

2 days ago

June 14, 2024

Oakland Post

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Bay Area

Grieving & Growing: A Healing Garden in West Oakland Is Helping Bereaved Loved Ones Glow Again

As a natural order of the human condition, we cannot escape death. Akin to life and living, death and dying are a part of our journey as spiritual beings having a human experience here on Earth. One thing we know for certain is that we will all lose someone we love or someone who loves us. And, yet still, as natural as death is, the pain and sorrow we endure when losing loved ones is beyond compare and often ridden with heaviness, regret, despair, confusion, guilt, and self-blame.

Published

2 days ago

June 13, 2024

Oakland Post

Courtesy of Chanae Pickett

By Chanae Pickett

As a natural order of the human condition, we cannot escape death.

Akin to life and living, death and dying are a part of our journey as spiritual beings having a human experience here on Earth. One thing we know for certain is that we will all lose someone we love or someone who loves us. And, yet still, as natural as death is, the pain and sorrow we endure when losing loved ones is beyond compare and often ridden with heaviness, regret, despair, confusion, guilt, and self-blame.

And when our loved ones are taken from us before their predestined time as a result of excessive use of police force, gun violence, homicide, suicide, among other unanticipated traumatic encounters, our shock, bereavement, and grief reactions become compounded, exacerbated and challenging to weather.

Is it possible to heal from the suffering that comes with grief and loss, which often feels endless, cyclical, and labyrinthine? Is there a way out? A way through grief?

While serving as a Psychiatric and Psychological Care Specialist in the United States Air Force, I evaluated, counseled, and intervened with patients at the Travis Air Force Base who were deemed a danger to themselves and others. These experiences profoundly shaped my understanding of mental health.

Despite my background as a Mental Health Technician, the sudden loss of my younger brother to suicide following our father’s unjustified killing by police while unarmed with his hands up in a church parking lot left me with feelings of professional failure and personal shame. These tragedies forced me to reevaluate my priorities, leading me to focus more on making a genuine difference in grief processing, community building, and communal healing.

Driven by my brother Immanuel aka Apollo’s artistic legacy, ancestral guidance, and our shared grief, my family and I founded the Long Live Love Foundation in West Oakland’s “Ghost Town” on June 13, 2020, to honor our dearly departed.

For, the love we hold for our ancestors lives long and for all time. Using my brother’s music and message of love as guiding principles, our missions are to offer a safe supportive communal healing space for those coping with loss and to empower survivors through indigenous, holistic and alternative restorative tribal ministry practices and vital resources.

One of our cornerstone projects is our Long Live Love Healing Garden. A sanctuary for healing, this serene space hosts wellness weekends, drum circles, yoga, and various events, offering solace and respite for those navigating grief and celebrating life.

This year I’ll be the Master of Ceremonies for our much-anticipated 5th Annual Apollo Carter Legacy Weekend on June 8th and 9th in which performers and artists from all walks of life unite for a celebratory weekend overflowing with music, poetry, spoken word, song, dance, and other performing arts. Our Open Mic Stage is a magnet for talented artists eager to express themselves, their hearts, and their spirits, beckoning them to dazzle the community with their unique gifts.

RonKat Spearman of Parliament Funkadelic will be blessing our stage on Sunday, June 9th, as well as other local bands. We’ll be spreading the joy further by gifting the community with fresh, organic fruits and vegetables courtesy of Oasis Community Farm. It’s a celebration of talent, community, and wholesome goodness! To buy a ticket, sign up to perform, donate, join us in our mission, and learn more about our work and how you can support our cause, visit us at longlivelovefoundation.com.

About the Author

Chanae Pickett is co-founder of the Long Live Love Foundation in West Oakland.

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Commentary

Opinion: Will Verdicts Help Black Voters See the Truth?

The news of Trump’s historic 34 guilty verdicts are about a week old. Has it sunk in that the man who insists on being the Republican nominee for president is the former president known officially as CFDT34? If the name sounds like a dangerous radioactive isotope, it is — to our democracy.

Published

4 days ago

June 11, 2024

Oakland Post

CFDT34 is my coinage of a new acronym that we all should adopt. It’s shorthand for “Convicted Felon Donald Trump,” with 34 being the number of criminal counts of guilt.

By Emil Guillermo

The news of Trump’s historic 34 guilty verdicts are about a week old.

Has it sunk in that the man who insists on being the Republican nominee for president is the former president known officially as CFDT34? If the name sounds like a dangerous radioactive isotope, it is — to our democracy.

CFDT34 is my coinage of a new acronym that we all should adopt. It’s shorthand for “Convicted Felon Donald Trump,” with 34 being the number of criminal counts of guilt.

We need to say CFDT34 aloud as a constant reminder. Too many Americans are in denial. Or just lying.

Especially, CFDT34 himself.

Trump insists it’s all a “fascist” witch hunt, but the verdicts were based on an avalanche of evidence. The defense failed to refute the statements of the National Enquirer’s David Pecker who admitted his role in the Trump campaign to catch, then kill, stories that threatened Trump’s candidacy.

The defense didn’t even attempt to explain Hope Hicks, an ally who delivered the damning testimony that Trump knew about the arrangement to pay off Daniels. Hicks was in tears telling the truth. The defense never countered.

And then there were the checks and invoices and ledger entries, that spelled out the whole scheme. The payments were lies, called “lawyer fees” but they really were reimbursements to attorney Michael Cohen who had used his own money to pay off Daniels.

Minor stuff? Not when done with the intent to violate election law. The payoff was intended to influence the election and it became an illegal campaign contribution as well.

And the hero is New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the African American man who led the prosecution. Bragg got justice for all voters denied the truth in 2016.

Contrast Bragg with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla). the key African Americans lying for CFDT34.

Scott and Donalds lack the courage to honor the rule of law. Rigged case, they say. Never should have been prosecuted. Where was the crime?

All of it baloney.

Prior to the historic verdicts, there was some historic polling.

Black voters were seen as abandoning Democrats, with Biden scoring just 70% of the vote. Four years ago, Biden was at 81%.

CNN called the pre-verdict polling the best results for the GOP among Black voters since Nixon.

The age breakdown is more telling. Black voters aged 50 and up were about 85% for Biden. Those who recalled civil rights battles were holding steady for Democrats.

Among Black voters under age 50, a new divide was revealed. A reported average of polls showed young Blacks were 27% for Trump, with Biden at 64%.

Nearly a third of young Blacks were for Trump prior to the verdicts. But what would young Blacks think now? Would they back a person like Trump, a man who comes with racist baggage like the Central Park 5 saga, and is now a convicted felon?

I haven’t seen new data yet. But with Biden and Harris stepping up their attention on the Black community, talking about economics and pocketbook issues, I’d expect a turnaround when young Blacks hear the lies and the overall hypocrisy among the GOP.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo, an award-winning journalist, and commentator has covered race and politics in Hawaii, California, and Washington, DC. He has worked in newspapers, TV and on radio was host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.”