—by Bill Watkins
Los Angeles, 5/11/2019
Native Americans had quite a message for us, so far unheeded or followed very much.
They lived at one with nature, took and used what they needed, in harmony and without loud intrusions like guns.
Europeans brought guns with their bibles, an arms race close quarters and over-populating seemed to bring in the Old World. A good life to a European person was different from the good life a Native person found in America. Book reading, elaborate clothing, and aforementioned guns—loud and nature-defying—were seen as marks of a better society than found when Columbus and other explorers began to conquer this land.
The British and Spanish cited lack of Christianity as a justification to kill, enslave and remove native people here, in a long war to replace their culture and presence with ours. Now, guns are commonplace, noise meeting little resistance, police forces an extension of those first European thoughts that the un-Christian should be dominated and controlled.
A militant start has yielded militancy, and I have seen first-hand the violence at the heart of modern American governing. Violence. Judgment of others. Justifications for noise and war. Scapegoating people to separate us, from “gangs” to “terrorists”—groups we create with political corruption, greed and un-checked imperialization and colonization.
Guns do not make a culture better, but louder. More violent.
Helicopters the same.
When will we stop, listen to the native Great Spirit? When will we hear God in peace? When will we stop taking so much money in leadership, while communities suffer and seek to protect themselves in what judgmental circles call those darned “gangs?”
We made the gangs with our neglect. Now go punish them with our guns? Now go invade privacy and disturb the peace with helicopters and sirens day and night?
The greatest enemy to peace in the city of Los Angeles is the greed at City Hall combined with a violent paramilitary force protecting the status quo of neglectful suits claiming to serve under-served neighborhoods. Those under-served communities suffer, while councilmen make $178,000/year, the mayor about $232,000 and the Chief of Police around 300K.
I’m writing to plead with the real criminals of Los Angeles to change our ways, take less, and finally start serving communities we turned into problems years ago by kicking peace out to make way for our war. Our war on nature. Our war on people without bibles. Our war on people who peacefully lived in a spot we coveted. We displace and displace, neglect and neglect, drive around in our suits and bloated salaries. Join me and end this criminal cycle!
