I wonder if men like Trump and Grassley have ever experienced true poverty. If they have ever spent even a few minutes with truly poor people. Deeply impoverished people see things from a perspective that is terrifyingly unique. These fascists have weaponized food.
Sounding off
When we were great
You can’t deny it was palpable. It was in the air. We did incredibly stupid things – Vietnam and race riots, someone killed off the Kennedys and Dr. King, we did have Nixon – but we did some amazing things too.
We went to the moon! JFK challenged a bunch of math geeks and engineers and some guys with ”the right stuff” and we went to the goddamn moon.
It was like that then. Everything was a mess, but we still did some amazing stuff.
We were a dysfunctional family on our best day, but we we could do cool.
That sense, that thing in the air, has been missing.
Even the ”radicals” back then, if you talked one on one; the ones who opposed the system at every level. The guys who said the money could have been and maybe should have been spent to feed hungry people, or a million other causes, even those guys – I was one of those guys – had to admit these rocket men were pretty smart, amazing.
Again, and often, it was argued all that brain power could have been and maybe should have been better directed at more earthly causes. More human and humane causes.
But it was cool…
And the cool has died
Until the other day.
THIS is American greatness. Moving us forward with humility and humor.
The red Tesla circling the sun playing Bowie forever.
This is stuff that made us great.
Not lies and denials.
Not self-aggrandizing.
Not division and hate.
I watched that rocket take off and I felt something that was missing.
For a brief, fleeting moment I remembered what it used to feel like to be an American.
It was fucking great!
#writing #amwriting #huffpost #beingauthor
Maybe this is who we really are…
Maybe the truth is trump is who we are. Maybe Joe Kennedy and his flowery rhetoric is the lie, the lie we have all believed and believed in all our lives.
The lie was our hope. Our hope was the lie.
Maybe the ugliness of trump, his words, the lack of truth and integrity, his hatred of those not like him; maybe that is who we really are.
Maybe it isn’t America first, maybe it’s really me first.
Maybe Dr. King was the lie. Maybe we don’t give a shit about the content of a man’s character we care about his net worth.
Since last January 21st. I’ve had these thoughts. As I’ve watched trump and the fascists in Congress, now free to run unbridled, I’ve thought, many times, this is who we are. This is exactly who we are, free of the trappings of the illusion.
Joe Kennedy talked a good line. Pretty words. It made me want to pound my chest, but I know that isn’t who we are.
I heard a funny line from my cousin yesterday, “truth decay.” I’ve heard term “permanent decline.”
I’ve heard “permanent decline,” a lot…
Paul Ryan throwing around the word “cleansing” and no one bats an eye… does he even understand what that word has represented in the past century.
Fascists talking about “cleansing”
To be honest, it’s good for me to see these scumbags, all of them, exactly who and what they are.
Don’t think for a minute they’d not have us walking in chains were it not for a handful of protections held together by the illusion. Just give them time. Daily, behind the scenes, behind the dance of the clown, those protections are being torn down.
These fascists have always been here, campers, they are just out now, slithering in the sun and proudly running their game.
We lose…
#writing #amwriting #huffpost
You tell me what’s going on…
I think today we are seeing capitalism’s end game.
We are seeing raw, unbridled greed running wild.
It has now lost even the desire to pretend anything it does is for the common good.
Capitalism is Fascism’s cousin. The world we see today didn’t simply happen. It’s the end result of a long, ugly, well planned and executed process.
You don’t need to be really smart, or well educated to understand what is going on today. You need to be able to read at a ninth or tenth-grade reading level. That’s the reading level that most newspapers and journalists aim for. You don’t need to be particularly bright, you need to be able to seek information and read and comprehend that information.
Fake news, whataboutism, these are tools of the fascist from the 1930s. I don’t care what your party affiliation is, I don’t care who you believe in who you don’t believe because there’s not a whole hell of a lot out there to actually believe in, but if you read and study just a little bit you will see exactly what is happening.
Fake news, division, unbelievable lies, the discrediting of long standing institutions. The thought – “just believe me, just trust me”
This is Webster’s definition of Fascism:
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Read it, use your own mind.
In the words of the great Marvin Gaye,
You tell me what’s going on…
Kelly Ann and Samantha Bee
Watching TV the other night – why I still do this I’ll never fully understand – I was dozing listening to Samantha Bee rant.
I realized that she is to the far left what Kelly Ann is to the far right.
I watch Samantha and Kelly Ann with the same level of disconnected amusement and fear.
They both have jobs, messages to spread. [Read more…] about Kelly Ann and Samantha Bee