OP-ED: Crime in Columbus GA Isn't "Just" Crime Any More

As of today and yesterday, news flashes over every viable headline in the nation is about to prove Donald Trump The Former right about one thing: The need for the National Guard and other federal authority over cities that can't get their crime element under control without outside assistance.

It wasn't like the White House didn't have its own criminal element sitting square in the Oval Office, but more like this town is the only criminal element that is affecting LOCAL citizens right now and the only one we need to be concerned about for the time being.

It appears Columbus is about to feel the brittle edge of needing federal troops and marshal law to come here, and some residents feel like a certain "culture" is to blame for it, as noted above. No need to talk about which culture they are blaming, the insinuation speaks for itself.

Here's the thing, though. It's not totally untrue.

Seventy (count 'em 70) murders in Columbus, Georgia last year (2021) -double what it was the year before, the 'powers' reported- and the only one that wasn't necessarily a 'person of color' was someone the Census Bureau wouldn't consider "White" for counting and labeling purposes. Even worse, all of the accused perpetrators were not white, either.

911! - 911! - Crickets

When the day comes that 911 is no longer a working number and so much is going on that they can't answer your call and won't return it either ... the flava of the world around you has taken a turn for the worst.

You can't put your finger on it, and those who specialize in playing the blame game don't really know who is to blame for it (the parents, the cops, the mayor, the chief of police, the sheriff, the pastor, the church, the schools, the teachers, the governor, the president, the city alderman and councilors, the rain ... blah blah), but you most certainly know that this is the point where even prayer and the Word of God doesn't take - because the weapons form ... and they prosper. 

Disobedience is as real as sin itself, and there are consequences to be paid for not listening when God is talking.

Mama used to say "You paying for your mess with a blank check your @$$ can't cash."

Jesus On the Mainline?

Gotta ask the question, without blaming yet ANOTHER party that some also seem to think is to blame; but you gotta wonder how in the world all of this mess happened in the middle of a city that is smack dab in the center of what the nation used to know as "The Bible Belt." [ #NOT ]

A church, or five or six, on every corner in Columbus, and all of them may as well convert out to nightclubs and shooting galleries. Be about the same thing right now.

Gone are the days of "If you see something say something." Now "If you see something" - duck and cover, ignore it, and hope it goes away sooner rather than later.

We're all feeling kind of "under siege" right now, and all the "Jesus"-ing in the world is not helping in a city, a state, a county and a nation that is crumbling  at and around our feet. Don't get it twisted, we are still the Bible-thumping travailers-in-prayer that we've always claimed to be ... but this isn't God's doing, it's ours; or rather theirs. 

Yet ... every mainstream culture with red zones ('hot spots') that contain MAJORLY the "culture" this FB commenter is talking about is not exempted, though we know enough of the history about violence in the Americas. We also know where they get the drugs, the guns, and the attitudes from--stuff that they can rightfully toss (along with all the monkey poo) right back over the fence from whence it came.

That "culture" that the FB commenter is speaking of is not exempt from their own mess and can't excuse it, but they aren't lying about its history and origins either.

Yes We Can't

We all understand color-specific racist jabs and sideswipes just as well as we understand people who swear that everything they do wrong is everybody's fault but their own, but we're off to a good start for doubling that historical murder number of 70 to 140 or more before this year is over. 

The folks out here on the streets who are doing it actually think they're going to win the war because they walk off with a won battle in their pockets from time to time. Waning police forces or not, they can't win the war because the Game Board is already set to make sure they lose - even if federal troops have to come in and kick all available  *****  until it's done.

No, you never heard me say "Defund the Police," I certainly don't believe in that mess; but you will hear me say that more resources need to be poured into prevention to catch this isht before it happens, not after. And take the brakes off the parents, for God's sake ... some old school tail-whippings worked for us, and no one died because of it. If the cops can beat them and shoot them to death and walk off with no abuse charges, the parents ought to at least be given a surviving chance of trying to curb it first. Abuse is one thing, an @-whipping when needed is another.

Done Deal

Yes, it's exhausting and the "culture" of which this FB commenter speaks has likely given up all hope themselves, especially if they feel that they must execute the 'COURT OF LAST RESORT' when no on one else is listening. My own sister, a retired educator, says (paraphrased) that "most times, when a family is broken and maladjusted because of historical unending blatant co-opted abuse from inside and out their 'culture', the Gang is the only place where they are accepted just as they are."

We ALL know that the "gangs" are using them, too, to the hilt and back. They get no real breaks dealing with gangs; but for a VERY QUICK minute in time - someone will shed a tear with them for all their real and perceived "losses" just so they can at least feel human and respected...until the gang is ready to put down one of their own, and that's how this nearly always ends.

BUT...

Somebody's playing Russian Roulette with our minds at the moment, and the last thing Columbus Georgia has to worry about is Putin and the Ukraine - especially when it can't get a handle or a grip on its own cultural or social/moral problems.

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