07-19-16 Tough questions on Violence today and 50 years ago. The impact of racism

Ray Hanania's Podcast Column Commentary July 19, 2016, Violence today and 50 years ago. This column explores violence in America in a unique way comparing two unrelated events, the murder of police officers by two American veterans, and the reaction to the killings. Also, the racism of America reflected in the violence 50 years ago by Richard Speck and the murder of 8 student nurses. No one ran from the neighborhood after Speck raped, tortured and killed the 8 nurses. But two years later in 1968 in the same neighborhood, thousands of Whites fled when one Black family moved into the community in a massive White Flight to the suburbs. Many left in the middle of the night because they knew it was morally wrong.

For more information visit www.TheMediaOasis.com. Check out the online book "Midnight Flight" on The Media Oasis website.

Tough questions on killings today and 50 years ago

By Ray Hanania

July 21, 2016 

As a veteran who served active duty during the VietnamWar, and who wore a uniform proudly for more than 15 years including in theIllinois Air National Guard, I have a right to ask this question in the killings of eight Police officers this past month in Dallas and Baton Rouge?

What has the military done to respond to the trauma manyAmerican soldiers experienced first fighting in the just war to destroy al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and in the unjust wars that were fought in Iraq, and are being fought in Yemen and Syria?

Is this a price we are paying for those wars?

In East BatonRouge: the killer of three police officers, wounding three more, was identified as Gavin Long, an African-American of Kansas City Missouri. Long was a formerMarine who had served from 2005 to 2010, and he had been deployed to Iraq in2008, according to military records.

In Dallas Texas:the killer of five police officers, and wounding nine others, was Micah X.Johnson, 25, a reservist working in carpentry and masonry who deployed toAfghanistan once in 2013, and was a former member of an Army engineering company and served in the Individual Ready Reserves. ...