Permit me some whining. I'm usually a good Boy Scout about these things…..
Ok, so a local office of the North Carolina GOP was vandalized. A Molotov cocktail was thrown through a window. And some Democrats set up a GoFundMe account to help them rebuild. Go to the link and especially read the comments. The goal of the appeal was met and they have closed it to further donations. Here is my take. Warning: a “whine alert.”
I am unequivocally against this sort of vandalism. We have all watched the political campaign reach a fever pitch, and the Trump campaign has used incendiary language without apparent remorse. When the vandalism happened, this small gesture was intended to help every one tamp down their emotions, and provide a ray of hope that America does not have to be like this.
It’s not like the firebombing was a spur-of-the-moment decision. They also spray-painted a hateful message (“GOP get out of town”). So, from here I bet more than one person was involved. Knowing human nature, we’ll find out the perpetrator when somebody talks at the local barroom.
Reward
My thinking is, the money would have been better directed as a reward fund to any person providing information that would help the police find the perpetrators. Somebody is destined to blab about it. The person who tips off the investigators is the one who deserves the dough.
GoFundMe
We’re all trying to cash in these days. Ken Bone got his fifteen minutes of fame after being one of the few questioners who asked a policy-related question at the last debate. What did he do? try to “monetize” his newfound fame. Normally I find that annoying and shameless……
Try this one
If you have money to spend right now, send it to the down-ballot D candidate of your choice, it’s a better investment in American’s future. It's not a coincidence that the D candidates are using inclusive language; they have done so from the beginning. This “Stronger Together” stuff has been the fabric of the Democratic Party since the days of FDR. We can use these words without apology, as the recent speech by The First Lady shows. If we really want to extinguish this Trump-ism and Yahoo-ism, the next step is to GOTV and vote the Rs out.
But if you must:
If the above hasn’t appealed to you, why not take a look at my own GoFundMe site? Here’s where the whining comes in. If you read DailyKOS regularly, you will know that I blogged about the political impasse in the Terai region of Nepal last year, and that I spent eleven weeks in that same region trying to improve health care. I do it on a shoestring..... For 2017 I am taking it to the next step, working with ten medical colleges in the poorest region of the country to improve emergency care. Why isn’t my Nepal project as worthy as funding the North Carolina GOP? I know it’s a niche idea, and an exotic one at that…. but — you are invited to send your money to a project that will improve health care for fifteen million people in a Low Income Country…..