All Lives Matter

I never liked to go to demonstrations, especially when they had a political connotation.  Perhaps my aversion was a result of the demonstrations we had to attend while living in Riga, Latvia, which at that time was part of the Soviet Union.  There are no such demonstrations in the United States, but we have our share of people’s demonstrations to support different causes. I encountered one, an anti-abortion rally, a few weeks ago, and wrote about it last week.  A week before, I was at the Embarcadero to witness the preparation for the celebration of this monumental event.  The security was very tight with the representatives of different branches of government enforcement agencies.  I decided to leave the crowd to go back to Market Street.  A few blocks away, I encountered a big group of policemen.  Some were on motorcycles, with their engines roaring, some were ready for “action”. Two more groups of the policemen waited, with their batons in their hands preparing for the invisible confrontation, on both sides of the street.  And then I saw the reason for this tension: a demonstration protesting the December 2^nd police killing of African-American convicted felon Mario Woods after he slashed someone with his knife.  In the “American Free Press” online, I found that “Over the past 35 years in America, an estimated 324,000 blacks have been killed at the hands of fellow blacks.”  There is a lot of effort spent on protecting human lives.

Some of the cases get more attention and criticism than others.  But where is the silver lining?  On January 24th, on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, there was a story titled “Potential Threats as Big as the Game” by Evan Sernoffsky.  According to the FBI, “If someone wants to commit an act, they are going to commit an act.  There’s only so much that we can do.”  Meanwhile, a lot of money has been spent and many people are involved to save our lives.  This could make perfect sense, until you get the bigger picture.  On the same date in the “Insight” part of San Francisco Chronicle, I read an article by Leland H. Faust “In Our Scary Times, We Can’t Lose Sight of the Real Threats”.  The article points out, “Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, fewer than 50 people have died in the United States at the hand of Jihadists.”  She continues, “There were some 164,000 homicides due to firearms between 2001 through 2014.  Drunk drivers killed more than 170,000 people, during that same period.  50,000 people drowned and more than 60,000 pedestrians were killed.”  She points out that “Beyond commonsense precautions that do save lives, here are a few smart measures we can take to restore our sense of proportion and preserve our core values:  Name the problem, Remember Je suis Charlie.  Respect First Amendment rights.  Practice resolve, Protect human rights.  Speak out against un-American ideas.  Recognize that all lives matter.”