2 New JZ Murdock Books - Anthology of Evil II

Anthology of Evil has a sequel! It has been released as two new volumes, titled, "Anthology of Evil II vol. I" and "Anthology of Evil II vol. II The Unwritten". 

Volume II by the way, was just nominated for a prestigious award (Nominated, which really means little other than a member / peer thought it worthy to be in the running for an award...still, pretty cool!).

You can hear more about these books and more when I speak with friend and fellow film director Kelly Hughes on his 2-Bit Horror podcast. There, we talk about my writing in general and a variety of fun things. I am also on live radio Chat and Spin, a UK show from Washington, England, recording the same day this blog hits the bandwidth. For more about me, you can visit my website with info about my audiobooks and film productions ("Gumdrop", a short horror, is my latest short horror film).

Brief aside December 11, 2020 update: Amazing news! My play, "Denude, a one act", was just selected by Jocunda Music, Film & Theatre Festival via FilmFreeway.com! Selected: Project has been selected to be included in festival.

It is about two guys in a foxhole during a war...or wars, opening in vietnam. 

Kind of a Twilight Zoneish play, that opens in a cross section of a foxhole so the audience can see the soldiers on stage in it, jungle surrounding them backstage and side. TRAPPIST, a 1972 Vietnam deployed soldier, and MENSES, a 1972 Vietnam deployed soldier

I found it in my writings from college, spiffed it up and sent it off and now it's in being performed a festival in Brooklyn, NY. Event date January 15, 2021

I should also mention my film, "Gumdrop", a short horror, has received another award from the Indo French International Film Festival for Best Short Horror...and is now a semi finalist in the Cult Movies International Film Festival in London.

Now, as for my new books... 

Anthology of Evil II (Kindle version) 

First 50 free ebook download (coupon TE53V) from Smashwords!

Anthology of Evil II The Unwritten (Kindle version)

First 50 free ebook download (coupon KM72X) from Smashwords!

You may notice that the book covers are reversed. That's because they are really one book broken out into two volumes. Why? Allow me to explain.

These books are a collection of my newer short horror and sci fi fiction which have been published in magazines and anthologies with other authors and some, have yet  to be published. Tell now. So you're seeing them now for the first time anywhere.

My first "Anthology of Evil" collection book cover

"Anthology of Evil" was my first published book, a collection of my first and older short stories. It opens with my first ever published short story. That was back in 1990 in an east coast quarterly horror magazine. "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear", is a story all too familiar to America today that takes place in a dystopian society where the country put all their trust in just one man. A man we discover, who is mentally unbalanced.

My second book, the epic, "Death of heaven"

My second book, "Death of heaven", is an epic tale of two friends who grew up together, then lost touch as they both assumed their roles in life. Broken and somewhat lost, they come together again, one to save the other, who then saves him. They are happy to have found one another again, but under such dark circumstances? Dark circumstances we come to discover, that affects the entire world, the whole of humanity and takes us into an intergalactic tale of fear and escape.

Back to "Anthology of Evil". That collection of stories end with a novella titled, "Andrew". That story grew into the foundation for my second book, "Death of heaven". While my first book was a collection of my short published and unpublished short fiction and it ended with a novella, I wanted to write my second book in that series in the same format.

However, when writing "The Unwritten", what was to have been the ending novella, I went way beyond the reasonable length of a novella. I did not realize that until I was actually formatting "Anthology of Evil II. 

At that point, I was left with a quandary. What should I do?

I went back and forth about it until finally, I settled on the present solution. I would put out two books, volumes 1 and 2 would comprise the second book in the "Anthology of Evil" series. Since I had never put out a series before and had never really considered it, in doing it this way I would end up with volumes 1 & 2 of the second book in the series. I found that a bit entertaining. So I settled on doing that. And that was all the thought I gave it.

It wasn't under I was publishing the books that the consideration of price came into my mind. So anyone saying I was trying to make money by putting these stories out in two books rather than one, that thought had never come into my mind. At that time I did think about it and I did consider going back to a one book format. But I thought I would just price it appropriately and go forward as I had planned.

Until I ran up against Amazon's pricing policy. They would not allow me to do what I wanted to. By then I just wanted to be done with the process (it was 2020 and a very, very long and problematic year, as we all know). I just wanted to see them published at this point and move on to other things. And that led me to another issue, having literally nothing to do with these two books.

It is an issue I'm still trying to work out with Amazon about my first two books. But that mess, for another time. Besides, I do not yet know the resolution though I have suggested a few to Amazon about this.

By the way, what am I doing that I wanted to be done with this and move on? I published my books this time under my film production company, LgN Productions, which I started back in 1993. I also write screenplays. 

It is a true-crime story about a 17-year-old guy who protected a murder witness from the Tacoma, Washington mafia, a biopic screenplay titled, "The Teenage Bodyguard". It is currently being shown to a studio by my producer, Robert Mitas. Robert has produced films with famed actor/producer, Michael Douglas, who along with his father Kirk, all through my childhood had been a film hero of mine for just about forever. 

But right now? I am writing another screenplay that is a Frank Capraesque kind of a feel-good film, which America and the world really could use right now. Frank produced films like "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946) with Jimmy Stewart, which didn't do well at the box office when released, but has been an American Christmas staple for many decades. 

My current screenplay is a "traveling angel" story that takes place in "any town USA". I haven't pitched it to Robert yet, but very soon. I think he'll be excited about it.

Back to my new books:

"Anthology of Evil II" has sixteen stories total in it:

"Red Rain" - A Philip K Dick kind of story about two scientists who have had it with how humanity treats humanity and so, they do something about it. Well, one of them does. 

"Expedition Of The Arcturus" - First published in the online hard sci fi magazine, PerihelionSF - In the style of one of my first favorite sci fi authors as a child, Isaac Asimov. It's a story about Earth's first generational spaceship. Told in reversed timeline. Meaning, it begins at the end and, it ends at the beginning. It was the hook that got me that sale from the editor Sam Bellotto.

"Breaking On Cave Island"  - First published in "Giant Tales World of Pirates (Giant Tales 3-Minute Stories) (Volume 3)" in 2014 by Professor Limn Books LLC  & H.M. Schuldt.  An HP Lovecraft kind of tale about a pirate named Captain Lord Ritchie. This is a prequel to a story of mine in Book 1 of the series titled, "Poor Lord Ritchie". In this tale he is younger, obviously, and a pirate captain trapped in a underworld tunnel on a deserted island. Anyone knowing this character knows he hates wizards. Here you can finally find out why. 

"Jaonny's Apple Tree" - This is a story about a young alien boy on his home planet. Reminiscent of a Ray Bradbury, who is one of my all-time favorite authors. It's a pleasant tale told in a bucolic setting. Where no doubt, all is not what it seems. 

"In The Shade" - Originally published as, "Falling Up!", in "Final Ships In the Neighborhood (Giant Tales Apocalypse 10-Minute Stories Book 2)" in 2014, edited by  Professor Limn Books & H.M. Schuldt - I'd have to say this is based on myself and HP Lovecraft, as well as Isaac Asimov. This is a side story based on the last part of my book, "Death of heaven". If you like this story at all, check out the book. This, is nothing compared to what all happens in the original.

"Simon's Beautiful Thought" - Simon is a tech guy with an AI assistant on his phone like so many of us have. A bit of Isaac Asimov in this tale. Yes, this has been done before. But I wrote it a year before the movie, "Her" (with Joaquin Phoenix) came out. The question in this story is, do AI's get jealous? Or, can one just be a good friend with only your best interests at "heart" (or, at CPU?).

"The Regent's Daughter" - A short, short story that won a tiny award for "best tension" from the group that published two stories of mine mentioned above in the "Giant Tales" series of books. It reminds me of a Robert E. Howard story (he wrote the Conan books, among other things), with perhaps a little more ironic humor n it. It tells of a medieval nobody who gets the unique opportunity to interact with a royal beauty in the town's main square by the castle. It goes well, I think. So does our protagonist. Well, it is a memorable tale anyway.

"Mr. Pakool's Spice" - First published in "Hunger Pangs: Dark Confessions", in 2012 by Mayday Collective. I'm saying this is based somewhat on a Calvin A. L. Miller II zombie book, "Het Madden". Because I've only read two zombie novels and that's one Mine is a story about a widower trying to get his two young children to safety through the back wintry woods of Oregon after the zombie apocalypse hits. There is a slight association at the end with another zombie story of mine: "Japeth, Ishvi and The Light" in the first "Anthology of Evil" book

"Men Of The City" - This is an allegorical story spawned by the famous writer and artist, Clive Barker. He held a contest once based on a painting of the same name as my short story. He did not choose this story. He chose two other author's stories and they were good and did use his painting as inspiration. I just decided on a lark to take it...literally. I really like this weird little tale.

"Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" - This is a poem, based on Maurice Ravel and a bit of Hemingway, but with a kind of Edgar Allen Poe edge to it. What if Ravel came up with his famous "Bolero" while in the trenches of WWI where both he and Hemingway were kept from the main action and made ambulance drivers. What if opposing trenches one night discovered a very unknown thing in this kind of warfare: Humanity?

"Marking Time" (original 1969 version) - With a bit of a Stephen King flair to it, this is a story I wrote many years ago and details what I was told as a child by another child, while we were in the Cascade mountains on a search and rescue training mission, looking for a small downed aircraft. I had reworked this story, updated it, set it in Afghanistan, and published it in my second book, "Death of heaven". That first, second version (or is it second, first version?) is a ghost story and a special operations war story. This one is more intimate and gives the reader an idea of what kids for decades have gone through in the Civil Air Patrol. To be sure it is an extreme example. I got a lot out of being a Flight Commander in the CAP, and it helped, once I was an adult and had entered the United States Air Force. 

"Crashing Indulgences" - Another kind of Stephen King story about how far off relationships can go. Yeah, not much to say about this one, other that there may be highlights of the macabre and extraordinary.

"EarVu" - With a touch of both Isaac Asimov & Clive Barker, this is about a group of cutting edge (bleeding edge, really) scientists when one day, one of them shows up for work, and no one else does. It's a bit of a detective story that all takes place in a top-secret, secure research facility. New technology has been developed that will change the world. If it can ever get out of the lab.

"Rapture" - With the flavor of a Philip K Dick story, this happens in the near future. A private detective, or a "fixer", that's never really clear, is hired by a rich woman to take her to the inner city where she does not belong, to acquire a new illegal drug. That's the upside to this tale.

"Xibalba Unleashed" - This follows the lines of HP Lovecraft if he had turned toward the Mayan ancients and their mythology. It is an origin story that starts off in the action, recedes to the recent past into a famous Mayan cave that is the entrance to the underworld and then returns, making much more sense than when it started. This was written for the British "A-Z Horror Anthology" where I had the letter "X" and twenty-five other authors had a letter their title had to start with. The anthology got up to the letter "L" and then the project fell through. I had a minor motorcycle accident in the middle of writing this. When I returned to finish it, I ran over the word length and rather than possibly ruin it, I wrote another story entirely and submitted it. 

"X The Unknown" - This is that other story I submitted to replace the story just above. With a detective edge to it familiar to Edgar Allan Poe, this is about an FBI Special Agent in Seattle following a lead on a serial killer. Maybe it is the killer, the UnSub, maybe not. 

"Anthology of Evil II The Unwritten" - This is volume two, the second half of book two in the series and has only one story in it. But that is all the story that is needed: "The Unwritten". I detail more on this story in the back of the book. For now, I'll just say what the back cover says: "Three Hells. Three Universes. "One Solution". The book opens with a man strapped to a table in an old cabin in the woods. He cannot remember anything at first and has no idea why this woman is so into torturing him. This shifts to a lab of two scientists in another universe and an experiment and a society that is constrained and complicated. After this shifts to a far darker universe than anyone has ever experienced, we dance between the three until, in the end, it all comes together with an unforeseeable ending. 

My style of writing in my fiction is my own. As one critic put it, she could not figure out who I was from my writings, you can read her own words at the link, but it was high praise indeed.

Another critic in speaking of my book, "Death of heaven", said: "The book starts well and has a Books of Blood vibe, which really works well. It's in these tales that the author's writing ability shines. He demonstrates a lovely turn of phrase and some of the writing is almost poetic in its beauty."

"Books of Blood" were written by Clive Barker and are some of my favorite horror stories. He now has a new show based on these on Hulu. I read my first book of blood of Clive's back in the 80s and wrote to him. He wrote back. I got to meet him a few times but that was the early 90s at book signings. 

So I take the comparison to heart. Are these stories that good? That's not up to me. But if you like any of these, do give "Death of heaven" a read. And then just maybe, you'll find out why the "h" in Heaven" is not capitalized. 

Slainte!

JZ Murdock

Bremerton, Washington USA November 2020

Joe Biden / Kamala Harris Headed to the White House

The long Donald Trump as President is over. A few more months of putting up with his antics and we are back to an actual US administration. It's been a crazy election with a crazy president. 

Perspective:

Stephen Colbert last night: Video

I would suggest using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump for now, but I guess we'll just have to suffer through his tearing apart the country out of spite.

Buckle up, America. Get ready for years of fixing all that Trump broke.

And then there's the pandemic and we'll start to see less Americans dying.

Cheers! Slainte! 

A Republican of Toxic America

So far America has experienced #ToxicTrump. But IF Trump steals the election, because to be sure, he will not WIN this election, you will all then learn what a truly toxic government is. 

So far we've only been seeing the beginning of it.

Under the malfeasant direction of Donald John Trump;.

A "man" who should never EVER have been invited to the White House, let alone spend even a single night IN it. 

IN The People's House. In OUR house. 

Not just Trump's base supporters' house. 

All OUR house. You damned fools. 

If he gets re-elected, then finally in the next four years even you people who elected him will begin to realize how good we had it. 

All while you hated what we had, wanting  ever more and forcing on us all... less, so much, much less than we had. And when the time comes finally that you too wake up and hate what has happened, it will already be far too late. Many of us will then smile in our shared misery. We will have earned that brief catharsis.

Finally you will realize just how very stupid you were in believing in Trump and his enablers. Those whose place it was to protect us, this country, the US Constitution. But greed and self interest and fear so easily subverted them. Too easily

But you have to be set up years ahead of time for that to happen. We kept warning them, and you. But you were poisoned by your self delusions and self perpetuated conspiracies, reveling in your fantasies, your dark projections and paranoias. Because it was too delicious to you. 

When one day that epiphany comes about how you deified a tyrant and not a savior, it will do NONE of us any good whatsoever. It will be too late. It may already be.

Believe it or not, we are now your own hope. 

So enjoy yourselves while you can. 

Because it is going to be temporary

Did you know that progressives, which I consider myself to be as I understand it and not necessarily as it is defined by that group today, is what FDR actually had as his policy that he ran under but called it liberalism, because at the time you couldn't win as a liberal, which was actually conservatism before FDR won election?

And so today conservative supporting Trump, or Republicans for that matter, aren't either. For more on this try "Still Right" on C-SPAN2. I don't agree with all they say but it's a good survey on a topic we all right now, need to know more about.

"Classic Liberalists" today are actually true American conservatives. 

Most people don't have a clue what they are today, they are just part of the tribe they enjoy considering themselves a part of.

Trump is a populist, not a conservative Republican at all and once he's gone, poof, the GOP collapses. It won't go away because it's been a zombie political party for ten years or so now. 

But a political party has got to be based on ideals not as Trump and his GOP now base theirs on whatever Trump wants.

What's the problem in all this? A lack of decent education in America, suppressed by a lack of funding, by those who do not believe in either government of any functional design or taxes to support our infrastructure. 

Look, all you need to know right now is...voting for Joe Biden takes America not back to the past, but back to reason and consistency, honesty over lies and pure political power over governing a nation. Is it a perfect solution? No, this isn't science, nor does the Trump crowed believe in science anymore. And if you do but you support Trump, well, just think about the confusion in that stance for a moment. 

Trump, Conservatives, GOP & Conduct Disorder with ODD

Something just occurred to me about the current bizarreness of the cohort of the conservative and Republican party.

I have a university degree in psychology, so I started searching on the comorbid psychopathology of conservatism and found this research on Dimensions of Oppositional Defiant Disorder as Predictors of Depression and Conduct Disorder in Preadolescent Girls.

Oddly enough, it fits.

Here's a video to give you an idea who Donald John Trump is, just by what we ALL know about. 

Have We Loved Him Enough?

What I realized was that this cohort of conservative Republicans were damaged, had been for years. In 2009 they knew it, in 2013 they knew it and they did NOTHING about it to FIX it. They put together a group to do an autopsy on what was wrong with them. 

Both times, they ignored and and pushed on until finally... 

Along comes Donald Trump. A predator, who saw a dysfunctional GOP and then moved on them knowing he could get away with abusing an already dysfunctional group, grabbed control of their dysfunction and emotions, AS WE'VE ALL SEEN, and so, here we are today. 

I mean, how does that NOT explain the situation we find our government in today? It fully does. Even to the point of them having daddy issues, an anti authority orientation (hating government) with an adoration and desire for being told what to do by a truly dumb autocrat.

So yes, these conservativse and Republicans are basically Trump loving dysfunctional teenage girls. with ODD, conduct disorder, and depression.

It's only a matter of time for the suicide. 

Donald John Trump: Evangelical Corporate Con Man

 I've been waring about this for so long I can't remember when it started. You can search my blogs here and you'll find whole blogs devoted to both of these things.

Corporate Thought, or Corporate Thinking. And, Evangelism. I've complained about these forms of human and environmental abuse for years, written blogs about them, and now we're all living them and don't even realize it.

The first has cost us in so many areas and it has invaded everything. The second, well...the same.

And with PRES. Trump (and i use that term lightly, and inaccurately..."Pres." I mean), both are involved, deeply.

Corporate thought is about profit and using it in areas you should never use it. It's invaded our schools, government and religious institutions. 

The later of which, let's face it was already capitalist. You do something on earth you find profit in HEAVEN. But it is Evangelist movement, a very American born institution of grift and profit that has settled everywhere and is now massively in the Republican party. 

Put the two together in Donald Trump and you have...The Trump Administration. It's also why he leans so deeply into Putin, Autocrats and crime. Profit, because that is deeply entrenched in both of those forms of thinking, and cons. 

And that's the third, a hybrid of the first time. Confidence schemes. The Con. Which Don the Con has now perpetrated the biggest con on US in US history. 

A con requires using your emotions and decency, your good nature, good manners, anything good about you, against you and for the benefit of the criminal using it to harm you. And enhance their lifestyle. Typically done by sociopaths and/pr narcissists. Thus, Donald John Trump. 

So yeah, keep voting for him. Keep thinking he just has your best interests at heart.

Like any con's good "Mark". 

#Vote. And for God's sake, and YOUR OWN, NOT for Donald Trump! And NOT for some thrid party useless candidate. NOW is NOT the time for a "protest vote"! Decent Joe Biden, really...is our only choice to rid ourselves of the Rat in the White House and his no longer GOP, his Conservative Populist Nationalist Racist Republican party.

The old GOP you may have voted for? It's now dead. Deal with it. They researched themselves in 2008 and again in 2012 and found themselves lacking. They suggested a massive reworking and they did...NOTHING. So now They, and we, have Donald Trump. He corrupts all he touches. 

The GOP, who gave us George H.W. Bush, who was a VP, head of the CIA once. Then his son, George W. Bush, who took us into an illegal and vastly regionally destabilizing war in Iraq that has affected the world until this day. From that descent long down the GOP slide of disgust to now Donald Trump who took over the GOP in a "hostile takeover" (Donald Trump, Jr.'s words) and strangled it to death so that now it's not just the zombie part it came to be known as in 2008, but the Donald Trump Puppet Zombie Party we all know and love to hate today.

As Grover Norquist said about the American Government and we now prefer to use against the GOP, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." And that ladies and gentlemen and all others...is what we now need to do to the once and no longer, GOP.

And Its Zombie Manufacturer, Donald John Trump. The US President with the three word serial killer name. 

Look. It's simple. Vote. For your future. For the future of America. 

Remove Donald Trump from Presidency - 25th Amendment NOW

UPDATE 10/8/20: Wow, that's corruption at the head of government. #25thAmendmentNow Donald Trump Calls for AG Barr to Indict Joe Biden With 26 Days Until Election. Nancy Pelois calls for (FINALLY) the 25th Amendment, something that discussed after Trump was elected when his top intelligence and judicial officials interacted with Trump's failed ability to be briefed and attempts at obstructing and altering Russian tactics/operations against America. 

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-calls-ag-barr-indict-joe-biden-26-days-until-election-1537518

UPDATE 10/4/20: 

My Twitter feed has updates now that Pres. Trump is in the hospital and no, he gets no slack. He nearly begged for this infection and easily 100,000 Americans are dead from his malfeasance in handling this COVID-19 pandemic. 

I guess my hiatus is over after the ludicrous performance of "Pres." Donald Trump last night, losing so badly to Vice President Joe Biden. There is no more time for rationalizing, "Oh Trump didn't mean THAT." Or explaining off, or being polite, or whatever that keeps Trump in office He has to go. NOW! With all due and extreme prejudice. 

Where are the Republican party? The new Putin & Trump Populist Party? Where are Congressional Republicans? Where are the Trump supporters claiming to be American? BE American! 

 I have only one thing to say.

25th Amendment NOW! Donald Trump needs to be removed from Office. There is no time for an election. An election has been made moot at this point by Trump's own actions and words.

"Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," Trump said at the debate, knowing full well what it means. No, it wasn't misspoken, as Trump tries to wrangle it the day after. 

Trump thinks Pretty boys, poor boys, proud or whatever are for some reason BOYS and to be sure they are immature and racists, bigots, domestic terrorists, are associated with police across the nation. 

To be sure, police officers have been fired for association with this hate group, white supremacist group of boys, so labeled by the FBI.

It is MOST definitely time for Donald Trump to be removed from office for reasons of incompetence and an inability to fulfill the duties of his office. 

New York Times, Thomas Friedman: "Trump sent a warning. Let's Take it seriously."

"I can't say this any more clearly. Our democracy is in terrible danger -- more danger than it has been since the Civil War, more danger than after Pearl Harbor, more danger than during the Cuban missile crisis and more danger than during Watergate. 

"[W]hen extremists go all the way and moderates just go away, the system can break. And it will break I saw it happen.

"I would like to think that such a thing could not happen in America. I'd like to think that...but I am very, very worried."

Will Democrats have to go to vote in November, armed to the teeth? How did this come to be? Donald Trump, MADE this happen! 

Weill Trump suddenly comes down with COVID-19 to reap the benefit in an election he is losing to seek compassion? It's not beyond him to pull something last minute in this election. Probably a few stunts. Probably very sleazy stunts. 

UPDATE 10/2/20: Donald Trump and wife Melania have tested positive after aide Hope HIcks did. And so, does the charade go on? 

Donald Trump is inviting both foreign and domestic enemies into his camp. This is not America!

25th Amendment - Section 4:

Constitution of the United States of America 1789 (rev. 1992)

"Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."

Enough of this man in the Oval Office abusing America, murdering Americans from purposely fumbling the COVID-19 pandemic, and so much more. Even Putin, who helped put him into the presidency, is tired of Trump now. Still supporting him only for purposes of fracturing this country.

It is time.

25th Amendment...NOW!

Hiatus

I'm taking a break, a hiatus. You know, I started reading the greatest writers of sci fi and horror when I was a kid. True sci fi is not just the subgenre of Star Wars. True sci fi reflects back to us who we are and who we can be. It gives us a glimpse into the future showing us our potential, the potential for good and bad, and our worst nightmares so if and when they happen? We c an be forewarned and forearmed.

What I've seen in today's America is not good. It is what I read in the dystopian sci fi of the past by people like Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Philip K Dick, and others. So when you see it all around you, when you feel it and your skin crawls, you recognize it. When others support it and gaslight you that you are the problem, that you are just hateful, stupid, or divisive, it hurts, and it's wrong.

And so I am taking a hiatus here because America is quickly becoming "Amerika" under Donald Trump. A sad manufactured reality for the benefit of a few and powerful. American kleptocrats with the help of Russian Oligarchs like Putin and his intelligence and organized crime machine.

This isn't conjecture, it's not theatre or fantasy It's hardcore fact supp[orted by our own intelligence community Donald Trump disrespects and tries to subjugate to his ill will. While even that of intel from our friends worldwide try to warn us, to help us, and Trump dumps on them, distances himself from them and more closely associated with those who we know to be autocratic and criminally inspired and oriented. 

"Pres." Trump is making US into a closer example of Putin's Russia day by day. 

The world is happier and better without autocrats, oligarchs, and kleptocrats. These are bad guys and yet their supporters have been groomed not to see it. Trump supporters now see reality through the lens Donald Trump touts and projects, and whines about on Twitter and from his illiberal bully pulpit of the Oval Office. 

We are being abused. And lied to. So yeah, I'm taking a break. I've had enough for a while. I'm sickened by the road Trump and his Trump Popularist Party (once the GOP) has put us on and even THEY are sick of it as more and more Republicans speak out against Trump and join supporting the opposition party and Joe Biden. Myself, I'd have preferred Bernie Sanders, but I'll vote for Biden. Because we have to at this point. 

There is a mistaken belief that I, or many of the non-Trump, non-Trump Populist Party (the "TPP" as the "GOP" or old "Republican Party" are now defunct), or conservatives, are hated by us. I hate no one. But I also do not like criminal or criminal aligned people or party's in our government, especially our White House. 

Once back to reality and decency, I will again appreciate whatever party remains to rightfully and democratically oppose the Democratic Party. For those pointing out faults in the DNC, anything can be made better, but in comparison to the RNC, well, there is no comparison as that party has killed itself off since the early 90s and the efforts of Newt Gingrich to win at any or all costs to any or all others than themselves.

When we are wrong, we should lose and that is considered anathema to the conservatives of this country now. And that is a crime and treason. 

I'll be working on finalizing two new books of my previously published and unpublished horror and sci fi short stories and one novella ("The Unwritten"):

"Anthology of Evil II", and...

"Anthology of Evil II, The Unwritten a novella"

Coming soon. 

I just need to take a breath from this madness. I have high hopes for us still though. It's obvious the majority of America does not want this president or support the once "Republican Party", the once "Grand Old Party", the now-dead "GOP", which is now the Trump Populist Party...built on Putin's suggestions and model of abusing the country you are supposed to be leading.

Speaking of horror, here's my new cover. From photos taken in Bremerton, Washington by Gordon Hayes, format by myself with help from artist Marvin Hayes:

Cheers! All the best America! 

Defund What? Who Is America Now?

Defund the police? Well, not really. BUT, it' makes the point and that's what was needed. A few things need to be defunded. Like the GOP. The NRA. But police?

Let me see if I can briefly break this down. 

Pres. Reagan first defunded social services and many of our mental health institutions to the point of breaking our nation, dumping all that and other services...and redistributing them elsewhere. Like on police, jails, and prisons. Overwhelming them to the point of dysfunction. 

Ensuing from that damage, death, social destruction lasting decades. 

To be fair, many of our mental institutions were broken since forever, in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. But in typical Republican conservative style austerity thinking, what Reagan did brought us to here, today. In having not just broken further, but entirely eliminating some very necessary resources. 

Rather than rebuilding them, rebuilding our mental health services, and too many other social services. All because they are what? Socialism? 

Give me a break. Yes, police need all the money they have and more. But also... their methodologies are old, tired, tried, tested, and bad. Many of their current, forced services desperately need to be broken down, replaced, redistributed to those departments in government who most need them. 

So they can actually be functional, and useful to American citizens. What this all means and needs IS a breaking down and rebuilding, reorienting, redistributing and reinventing in order to be functional. To actually and properly do the jobs they are mandated to do. 

To bring back services to those who can do them, who ARE well trained to do them. With new information from these past decades as we have learned so very much. Yet not simply reopen these services and yet again let ignorant lawmakers decide how they should function. But turn the power over to those who actually know what they are doing. 

As with healthcare where insurance companies, legislators try to manage, dictate a doctor's intimate knowledge of their client, with their medical services, when only the doctor can do that, with their client, whom we used to designate as "patient", we need to get back to being functional again. 

We have learned much these past decades about things the average American citizen, simply has not. And perhaps reasonably so. People are judging things now on very old information that has seeped into the mainstream. Or bad information they got from very stupid articles on the internet leading laypeople to think they know something. When surely they do not. 

America's' biggest problem? A lack of funding for necessary programs. And an end to Democrats trying to fix a system broken so very much by Republican actions. Some from very long ago. Why are we still trying to fix what isn't broken, but unnecessary? Or simply nonexistent?

All while most Republican legislators seem to have no idea what America really needs. We need to stop trying to fix what cannot be fixed. To rebuild what we truly need. Not by eliminating it! But by wisely and effectively rebuilding an infrastructure to protect, to SERVE all and not just some American citizens. 

Why can we not seem to fix our problems? 

Because we keep trying to fix what was purposely broken and long ago purposefully set on a destructive path. We need to see where this is the case, and then...dismantle it and rebuild it. We can do it!

Americans. How do we alter our path? Sometimes it can start with something very simple. Compassion, over anger. (see, How to change anyone's mind)

On another thread, we're really not all so different as studies have proven. We just seem to enjoy acting like children, and masturbating our minds to whatever strokes out fancy. 

500+ Person “America In One Room” Deliberative Polling Experiment Shows Dramatic Shifts Toward Centrist Policies Among Both Republican & Democratic Voters.

Representative Sampling of American Electorate Underwent Three Days of Briefings & Discussion on Immigration, Healthcare, Foreign Policy, Environment, & Economy; Just-Released Results Demonstrate Major Opinion Changes on Top 2020 Policies Like Medicare for All, Universal Basic Income, Immigration Restrictions, & More. Here's eve a video about it. 

Consider this as if nothing else, a thought experiment. From here forward whenever talking to others, especially Trump supporters, every single time you mention "Donald Trump", or worse, "Pres. Trump", whenever you mention that man's name, hang your head, sadly shake it "no", before lifting it with tears in your eyes.

Keep doing it until these delusional, once Republican. hopefully, still, American citizens, get the point and begin to see what they have blocked from both their eyes and minds so they will start to at least WANT to return to a social tract of reality, decency, and intelligence. 

Do NOT be afraid to use the word "social" so they can stop being so terrified of a single, simple word that only means them and us, together. 

Just as America was once not about a divided people under some confused beliefs in "God", rather a single America built of "E Pluribus Unum"...America..."Out of many, ONE"! Our real and ACTUAL American Motto. 

Because THAT is who we ARE, like it or NOT!

Enough of this idiocy. The criminal Republican profit over any or all or what it costs all others but them. The criminal Trump presidency, criminal Donald Trump, and his now criminal friends, a band growing day by day with him at the center. Enough of the GOP embracing fringe nut groups like QAnon. Enough already! ENOUGH!

America has had it! 

WE have ALL had ENOUGH!  

Our Great American Experiment Is Bleeding Out!

America is bleeding. America is waiting. Waiting to heal. Waiting to be fixed, to stop the abuses, the corruption by the alt-reality crowd. Stop the madness! 

Who is doing this? Conservatives, Republicans, Donald Trump as POTUS. It is social media companies and their platforms being used, abused, and plied to support the ridiculous, the outrageous. We need as a new high tech country, to grow the hell up, mature into our technologies. 

Why? All for POWER. Greed. Profit at any or all costs to any or all others. That means most of us in America. 

Look. It doesn't matter what you believe as a Republican, or Democrat, a conservative or a progressive. Though I would argue it's better to be progressive than regressive. 

What matters is REALITY. But we need to agree at least somewhat on just what that is.

We in America are the Great Experiment. A secular government experiment that allows for religious beliefs. Honestly, no matter their debasement of reality apparently, and too often questionable entities are 9such as religion fundamentally are) such as Scientology, evangelical Christianity, and capitalistic mega-churches. 

That means when we try out a theory, and an experiment fails, we note that, and then we move on, learning from it, and hopefully not repeat that experiment. Or so goes that theory. And yet we have a Republican party and conservative minority who seem to continuously repeat the same mistakes (trickle-down economics for instance), again, and again and again. 

America is a great experiment. IF we would just let it happen. For the country. Not just one foolish illiberal tribe.

We are not a locked-down system or government, or the judiciary. Though Conservatives have tried to do just that by stacking and packing our court system with their desired younger, long term backward thinking judges. It's like a social cancer we can't seem to battle down, wrest under democratic control for our Republic. 

Conservatives, Republicans, Christians and so much so Evangelical Christians, have subverted our nation, our government, and the spirit of our grand experiment. 

It has now failed. 

Donald John Trump will be a blood-red footnote in American and world history. His damages and harm will, like their conservative judiciary, live on for decades.

That all needs to change. We need to change. Now!

Here's the sad fact about the 2020 election. IF Donald Trump wins re-election? American democracy has failed. Get ready for a new America, and you're not going to like it. We already don't. You ain't seen nothing yet. 

We need to be better than we have been. Too many now are continuing their delusional beliefs, too often manufactured out of ancient mythologies and magical thinking. In this country from the Abrahamic religions, the Middle Eastern religions, the desert religions. And yet so many denigrate the Muslim believers. 

It's bizarre really, how this Middle Eastern tribalism has been transported here to the planet's future, to America. An America that Christians, all part of these Middle Eastern religious beliefs, don't seem to understand. 

It is obviously time to stop all this childish nonsense. All can see that. Even the delusional, they simply rationalize their beliefs as they do so often, into something far aside from our actual and shared inarguable reality. 

And so...vote! At a minimum, we all need to do that one thing. 

But not as I have been saying for months now, to vote early, to mail it early. 

TO BE SURE...Vote early. But take it and put it in an official ballot drop box. 

Do not trust this Trump administration and the corrupted, overtaken Trump Republican party. Or for now, OUR US Postal Service as it's been compromised by Donald Trump as president in a very Putinesque, Russian anti-American domestic attack that even Pres. Putin couldn't pull off.

But we are not lost. Not yet. We still ARE, America! 

America's Slumbering Giant Awakes... And Brother, She's Pissed!

Interesting to note, I'm seeing some positive things happening. Like Black Lives Matters and Defund the Police. Or, Refund the Police, to redistribute some funds and services to more effective agencies and a more enlightened mindset. 

August 11, 2020 update: We're back at when Obama got elected the first time and had to stop the Bush train running over a cliff. Now Biden has to stop a train running toward a similar but entirely different cliff with flames at the bottom. Nazi types along the cliff edge. 

Did it the first time, it'll get done again.

I do however think we should finally be tired of so much assault and battery and blame from the right, while that's who's pulling their Republican backsides out of plummeting downhill into flames, along with the rest of us and yet ...they continue to abuse while they ridiculously call it...patriotism.

Isn't it time we stop just being upset and finally do something to end this nonsense? Just a thought.

Kamala might be the beginning of that. One can only hope!

#Vote...Now back to our regularly scheduled program:

Those groups mentioned above have been pointing out we need to rethink, be wiser, seek to fix a still broken police and judicial system. Look around, it's not that radical and even police over past decades have pointed this out. They're overworked, overused, and many times ill-used. 

I've watched for decades who police aren't as well trained, well manned, or regularly retrained as they are in some other countries. So much of our infrastructure has to do with a lack of funding. We want 100%, the best quality, as long as we don't have to pay. While one conservative business-oriented political party doesn't even want taxes at all and take what there is and consistently redistribute that tax money to those who don't need it... because they are so wealthy. And that translates back to them as, power.

I have time and again given my educated, informed opinion on all this and it is now finally being supported by even die-hard, life long Republicans supporting what I've been saying. It's amazing, astounding, and we have a long broken Republican party that has morphed into a Donald Trump GOP. 

And it is so bizarre. But at least we're beginning to see reality seep in and decency seep out. By a few anyway, but more and more on a daily basis. We may be seeing the end of a very bad road America has been on since the Reagan administration. 

One Republican is a former Republican strategist, political consultant, and author, Stuart Stevens in his new book, "It Was All A Lie". You can see/hear him on Amanpour and Friends, talking about what is going on today. How they knew exactly what they were doing. And now, through the "Lincoln Project" these people and Stevens, are speaking out. Against what has come of their decades-long efforts. 

LISTEN to these people, because so much now is being driven by ignorance, the uninformed and the purposely disinformed.

There has been much knee-jerking by conservatives, by racists, and bigots about "Defund the Police" which simply isn't about having no police. Rather, effective social services and effective policing. Not simply old-style, anachronistic, and conservative type abusive punishing.

Instead, we have dysfunctional practices that do not benefit a functional social structure or productive and effective system and are simply giving Republican, and sometimes progressive types, power and the rest of us concern, and at times disbelief. Abuse never fixes anything. Wisdom, consideration, facts, knowledge, experts appropriately applied,  do. 

We simply cannot keep doing the same ineffective practices and expect things to get batter. 

Cannabis. Abuse is hidden very often and around for so long it's now hard to even see.

Paul Begala (political consultant and political commentator) pointed out recently that he has finally woken up on the cannabis topic somewhat late to the game and pointed out that studies have now shown that in 95% of our counties that have more than 1% of blacks, they are arrested 364% more for weed than whites. They don't USE it more, they are simply ARRESTED more. 

So it has been a pretty useful tool of systemic racism and to populate our prisons including for profit prisons. Joe Biden too has got to wake up to this, as Paul points out. And he very well may. But it surely isn't going to happen with a Republican president any time soon. 

So yeah, kind of a disparity and a very good reason for #BLM to work this into their agenda. As Meghan Daum (author, essayist, and journalist.) said last Friday, they need to roll this legalize cannabis, anti-war on drugs message into their overall action. 

I'm amazed this hasn't either been included in the BLM message. Or for that matter eliminated from our country's legal system! We all have GOT to wake up! 

This has been one of my primary issues with Biden. Others I have with him could be easily alleviated (eliminated?) in choosing Susan Rice as VP. But I hear him too, he wants someone he can feel a camaraderie with, unlike what happened with John McCain and his nightmare VP candidate, Sarah Palin. Vet completely, then choose! 

Under current circumstances (with our First Criminal Trump and cohorts), I'm really not too worried about Joe. Just as Obama had "evolved" on gay marriage. And sure, some of that should have to do with the electorate and supporting what they elected you for, but you also have to LEAD as a Leader!. I am hoping Biden and VP, in not being Trump or the GOP, also will evolve on this topic, as well as a few others.

With Democrats, we do have hope. 

With Republicans, we're simply damn well LOST. 

Seattle, for one, is thinking about, instead of continuing to abuse and constantly move their homeless portion of their city, using social services and placements, and other ways to actually do something positive. Instead of just shifting them around the city, pissing off homeowners and businesses...as well as the homeless. 

At times, traumatizing those homeless who are already vulnerable and in dire straits. These people are not living the high life, they are disadvantaged and as we've seen, this can happen to just about anyone. Also, finally enforcing previously failed efforts to get Seattle's high tech massive corporations to pitch in

What do you do with a kid who is acting badly or a mental patient or a prison inmate who is out of control? Yes, sure. You can drug them, or punish them. But frequently lowering the lever of stimuli is helpful. As it is with sexual performance issues, which has proven effective through techniques like "sensate focus", by removing erotic stimuli and then reorienting. You wouldn't however, punish someone to help. You'd...help.

Our government has been broken now for decades.

The Republican party (now Trump Christian Republican party), has been broken for decades. Adding divisive religious issues simply disrupts functionality even more, which should be a private thing, as it used to be. Not the least in part because that backfires so often. 

The Democratic party is not broken (as conservatives like to say, from their own broken platform). Yes, they do seem to be too often ineffective. But that's not broken (like the GOP is...and again now, the Trump GOP). When someone uses underhanded means and you refuse to stoop to that level, sure, you appear ineffective. Because crime pays. It's WHY we HAVE laws and law enforcement because crime is easier and if we don't control that, chaos ensues and not in any good way. 

That's where we are today with Donald Trump. A man now stressed to stay in power before he is arrested, just as Vladimir Putin is doing, to avoid prosecution. But Russia is not America. WE have a good chance. Still. But not for much longer if we don't pay attention and ACT.

America has been in a gigantic TIMEOUT between the abuses of the Trump administration (supported by Russia) and Trump's GOP. Specifically so much by the actions of (really, the INactions of) Sen. Mitch McConnell and his Republican Senate. Trump's mostly Republican Senate. 

At least the NRA is losing its iron grip on our Congress and may soon be dissolved because of the criminal actions of Wayne LaPIerre and his three friends and the rest of their 72 person board. Personally, I would love to see a new organization to replace the now lost NRA to do what they did for so many decades until the corruption of LaPierre. It was once about safety and sanity. Like the American Government. 

We desperately need a return to a sane and rational America. And one of a new compassion.

We may very well be starting to rise out of our decades-long mental and social illness greatly brought on by this extremist, conservative-led GOP. A political party who has become an extremist group of late. Who have allowed their opposition at all costs to the Democratic party, to necessitate the Democratic party themselves to lean back merely in order to balance things out. 

Extreme? Yes. Perhaps we could lighten up a bit? Yes?

To seem to have gone too far left...merely to keep the ship that is America afloat. While the far right-wing has constantly and disingenuously claimed them to be TOO FAR LEFT. When they simply are not. Projecting their extremism onto those who are merely trying to neutralize the extremism coming from the right's side of the aisle. 

It's a mess, to be sure. As one can see simply in describing it. 

It is a national mental illness greatly brought on by the conservative movement into social and mental illness. Win, at all costs, no matter who or how many are harmed. Harm them more and you have more control. It is, madness! It is selfish conceit and greed now personified in Donald Trump in the White House and Mitch McConnell in the US Senate. 

But, are we beginning to see that change? America, to wake up from it? 

We very well may be seeing the end of this massive abuse from this conservative Republican Trump administration. A global pandemic, and Republican's and Trump's failure, could be the best thing that has happened to America for some time. All the truly unnecessary deaths notwithstanding, but that being said, in order to get her back on a sane and productive path once again, it's good to note that something good MAY come out of all this misery and suffering. 

An end to decades-long abuses. And a return to the American dream. The real dream. One that we can all attain and not just a kleptocracy, and one supported in many ways by a Russian Oligarchy which they took their notes from. 

No sane person thinks having the greatest number of citizens in prisons is wise. 

No sane person thinks fixing the economy is done by throwing trillions of dollars to a bloated military-industrial complex. One that now includes corporations. Global multinational corporations, just as we were warned so long ago to not do post-WWII...and then, we did it. Some corporations with bigger annual profits than that of many small countries. Sometimes several countries together. 

Is America finally beginning to bet the mental healthcare it needs? Finally? Even while refusing to supply healthcare, mental healthcare, and social health care to herself?

It may well be. It seems so and one can only hope. For we deserve better. Much, much better. We are American citizens who are being beaten and shot in the streets (being shot with a rubber bullet, that requires many reconstructive surgeries, or NOT, is still being SHOT), and accosting US with poisonous gas, not even allowed to be used anymore in wars. Yes, police count, but they are also doing the abuse too much of the time and yes, they too need consideration. They are also caught in the crossfire far too often. 

We are American citizens and we cannot let them forget that. And they cannot forget that themselves, but we have to hold them accountable. Even Ammon Bundy supports Black Lives Matter! 

Does not politics make for strange bedfellows? Indeed it does! 

But first thing? We need to fix our conservatively infected government, our corrupted Office of the President, and all the damages they have done. Then, deal with Trump's extremist conservative Republican party. Perhaps dissolving them much as may hopefully be done to a very corrupt NRA who has done vast damages to America.

As well as all those foreign AND domestic enemies who are aiding in all this.

#Vote? Yes, to be sure! But also, ACT! 

Now is the time. Do not let up. Do not stop.

Clean For all...Water, Air, Politics, Life

Before COVID-19, we didn't have enough jobs in this country. As with green technologies which we also need, as with PROPER and SAFE air filtration which would create jobs, simply making the world a better and safer place.

Brief aside:

Brief aside: This all brings up a good point about the costs of change, in this case about breathable air. Years ago I started spreading the word about concerns of clean water and how that will one day be the replacement for the gas wars of petroleum corporations around the world. Well? 
We're already seeing major international corporations buying up water rights, bottling it, and selling it back to desperate people where petroleum companies have poisoned regional potable water. That's been going on for years. It's despicable but does that stop them? No. Why? Because they're "performing a public service." As despicable as that may be. We've been seeing this with the Republican party and this Trump administration. Break something, then fix it, and claim higher morals. 
When I first saw reports about Coca-Cola Company Inc. I spread that information and warned back then, years ago, that after the upcoming water wars and corporate battles for potable water, would be...the breathable air wars. Or simply, somehow, charging us all for...air. Clean air. Or at least, those who cannot fight back, who are desperate.

How? I really don't know. But if Trump is any example of US not knowing and yet, still seeing the ridiculous being done? They will find a way.
People laughed at me then, still are. 

But it wasn't funny then. It's not funny now.
For perhaps, just perhaps...we are there, now.

OK, to continue...

It's past the time we install HEPA Filters, or proper filtration systems in public places and on airplanes, and on public transportation. 

I was stunned decades ago when I heard airplanes merely recirculated our air but did not filter it. I thought that was stupid. I had assumed, as many did and still do, that air would be filtered as too many humans together in enclosed spaces, are problematic. I asked an airline pilot at a party once, who told me that it would cost too much and be too much extra weight in every airplane. It wasn't plausible. But was it possible? 

That's the same excuse I'd heard decades before that about planes having a secondary mode of landing for each and every passenger, rather than simply crashing. Which I get. An ejection seat and secondary mode of egress, a parachute, would weigh massive amounts for each plane...but that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to look for solutions. Redundancy is always a good thing. But reality at times, and capitalism most of the time, preclude even considering it.

Redundancy is always a good idea but typically profit sucking and so corporate thinking negates it. Remember, it's always profit over people, whenever you can get away with it, or no one asks any questions, or thinks about it. As the auto industry did to us. The tobacco industry did to us. And so many others. As with the Dupont corporation and the toxic Teflon debacle. 

I have always thought that every home residence should have two things they do not have and people seldom consider. Something that has changed on the power conditioning since the advent of computers and more delicate digital equipment and computers being built into just about everything now. 

Proper air filtration and proper power filtration and protection. We're getting there on both.

But now if we would start to think about public respiratory health and real and proper air filtration, we would also create new jobs, HEPA level filters/systems or their equivalent, are always pricey. But finally, we would begin to see the prices come down. Just like with everything else. Greater use lowers price.

It's something to not just think about but start doing. And as we're seeing, doing now...ASAP.

This is the same as with other areas in our lives. Even politics. Another toxic environment that has no need to be that way. But we have allowed it until it has become a disaster. And it is far past time to clean up that mess too.

Just stop for a moment, with all this lockdown coronavirus going on, we have more time to stop and smell the coffee, or the garbage dump. Consider if there aren't other areas in your ilfe, in our lives, where we need some action, some cleanup, some redundancy, some protection, come control not governed just by profit margins and corporate thinking policies.

HOW can you, how can we...make all our lives better? 

So often, it's really not rocket science, or brain surgery, even if the tools used need to be. 

Defund Police or Republicans?

Defund the police? Well, not really. BUT, it' makes the point and that's what was needed. Let me see if I can briefly break this down.

"The Power Of Good Trouble", said Congressman John Lewis.
"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind," said Mahatma Gandhi.

First, another relevant and informed perspective:

Atlanta Mayor Worries U.S. is Headed on “Course For Disaster

Maybe it's the Republican Party who needs defunding?

First off...

Let's say Trump loses the 2020 election. The next four years will be a nightmare of trying to fix all the damage Trump and the GOP have accomplished. This disaster formerly known as the conservative Republican President Donald Trump.

Giving them the delicious opportunity, while Trump whines in his Twitter background, to claim how defective the new President and Democrats are at running things. Running GOP broken things. Donald Trump broken things. For the first time in US history, the world pity's America.  It is easy to destroy, but hard to build and so leaves one open for ridicule and abuse. A Republican mainstay.

As Bernard-Henri Levy said:: "Be wary of Trump."

What did electing Donald Trump president do to America?
For the first time, a conspiracist holds the highest office in the country!
Among so many other travesties and ensuing disasters?

It legitimized a faux successful "businessman", a mentally ill individual.
It legitimized his and others' lies.
It legitimized conspiracies.
It legitimized mental ill-health.

Something set up by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

THAT is not a conspiracy, but a matter of record when Reagan shut down mental institutions. Cut funding for mental health issues. Dumped it all on police leaving so many mentally ill walking the streets, homeless, jailed, and imprisoned.

America has always been a little "buggy". American historian Richard J. Hofstadter labeled it, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Apparently, "Psychological projection is essential to the paranoid style of U.S. politics."

Just look at America today. QAnon? A conspiracy factory of people feeling a lack of control, needing to feel smarter than others. Even if they are not. Just like Donald Trump, their nearly religious leader for many of them.

Not to mention the multitude of political "time bombs" left for the new administration in many and varied ways. Even going beyond the political to literally damaging American families, the middle class and citizens directly, all because that is not the Republicans care or purview. Money is.

All while Dems painfully struggle to make things functional once again. In some cases, struggling against situations that are not even possible to fix. Mainly because as "Defund the Police" indicates, fixes aren't possible and restructuring is necessary. A reorientation to priorities and beliefs is required.

All while the GOP continues to harass and obfuscate, stall and do whatever they can, and did before, as with Obamacare when it began, to challenge and break and refuse to see things work at every turn and opportunity. As long as it is not Republicans running things. Rather than work hand in hand as it should be, and get things done.

Because it's not about the American people with the GOP, or with Donald Trump.

It's about power. About perception of the fragile reality of their reality-altered base.

Now...

Pres. Reagan first defunded social services and our mental health institutions to the point of breaking our nation, dumping that and other services...and REDISTRIBUTING them elsewhere. As with the police, jails, and prisons. Overwhelming them to the point of dysfunction. Damage. And deaths.

Speaking of Pres. Reagan...this: The Reagan Foundation has asked the Trump campaign to completely distance themselves from Ronald Reagan.

I know, right? Pretty much says it all.

To be fair, many of our mental institutions were already broken in the 60s, 70s and 80s. But that was reason to revamp, revision and rebuild. Instead, Reagan gave up and did more damage than anyone else back then.

In typical conservative Republican style austerity thinking, what Reagan did brought us to here, today in having not breaking further, but entirely eliminating some resources, rather than rebuilding them, rebuilding our mental health services and other too many other social services.

All because these "social services" are what? Socialist? Give me a break. That's just sheer ignorance, misunderstanding the meaning of...words. Words used to conflate, distract, obfuscate and reorient for political purposes. And Greed. A central conservative Republican tenet. They ARE the party of business, and more so, big business.

Yes, police need all the money they have and more.

But also... they need their methodologies completely reworked. Many of their current, forced services need to be broken down, replaced, redistributed to those departments in government who need to control them. So they can actually be functional, and useful to American citizens.

What this all means IS a breaking down and rebuilding, reorienting, redistributing in order to be functional, to actually do the jobs they are mandated to do. To bring back services to those who can do functionally them. With all the new information from these past decades, as we really have learned so very much.

Not simply to reopen those services, to let ignorant lawmakers decide how they should function. But to turn power over to those who actually know what they are doing. As with healthcare where insurance companies, legislators have so long tried to manage them. To dictate a doctor's intimate knowledge of a client and their needed medical services. When only the doctor can do that, along with the client, whom we used to designate as "patient".

But no, God no, that would cost money! Yes, service, functional, productive high quality services to save money in the long run, does cost money...now! We have to stop this short sighted, short term thinking so apparent in Republican efforts.

We have learned much these past decades about things the average American citizen, simply has not. And so many lawmakers are too average in their minds and efforts, beliefs and ideologies. Yes, even those from Harvard. Because too many, have taken a good education, and turned it against America. Ted Cruz comes to mind.

People are judging things now on very old information they have, information that has seeped into their minds from the mainstream. The grapevine. Or information they got from very ignorant or divisive, if not partisan articles from their political bubble, in the media or on the internet leading those laypeople to think they actually know something. When surely they do not.

With all the access to information we have today, what we see are people with a vast amount of information, and a very shallow degree of knowledge. Yes, you can talk to a completely stranger, or a person living on the street and they may know about a lot of things. But drill deeper and you find they know very little about each subject, or how it connects to other subjects.

Brief aside: some of those street people if you talk to them, are actually more aware and knowledgeable than many of our lawmakers. To be sure there are many who are uneducated, mentally disabled, if not just stupid. But believe it or not, you can find that in the US Congress today, too. Just listen to them talk on TV sometime. Or listen to "Pres." Donald Trump. Or listen to his niece and clinical psychologist, Mary Trump, or read her book about was a stupid inept disaster her uncle Donald Trump is!

Seriously, Donald Trump has no place in the White House. I have argued before, he never even should have been invited to the White House, let alone given our highest office in America. I mean, come on! Were voters high or something?

America's' biggest problem? Aside from Trump and his political party?

A lack of funding for necessary programs and a lack of understanding them. We need an end to Democrats trying to fix a system broken so much so by Republicans, trying to fix what isn't broken, but simply incorrect, or unnecessary. Or non-existent.

Mostly Republican legislators seem to have no idea what America really needs. It is why they stall actually doing anything so often.

We need to stop trying to fix what cannot be fixed. To rebuild what we truly need. Not by eliminating it but by wisely and effectively rebuilding an infrastructure to PROTECT and SERVE all. Not just some, American citizens. Not just the few rich and powerful.

We just cannot seem to fix our problems. Or maybe we just don't want to? Because we keep trying to fix what was purposely broken and long ago purposefully set on a destructive path. We are now watching ourselves self-destruct. And why? There is no good reason for it.

We need to see where the is the case, and then...dismantle it. And build it again as if for the first time.

But there is more to all this...how? Protest is one. Voting is another. But voting hasn't been working so well for America of late. So? Then what? Well? We're seeing it all around us today. the #MeToo movement kind of started the momentum. Then "BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) kicked things for good reason, into high gear. That began a world wide action as this kind of abuse was happening world wide.

The authoritarian pandemic has encircled the globe. Frighteningly, voters around the world have elected strongmen, authoritarians. But some countries pushed back. France for one. The UK got a smarter Donald Trump clone in Boris Johnson.

Russia in the meantime is having a great time abusing our our media and government. The UK government. The EU government. Working toward the destruction of western democracies. China is fighting for it's own form of global economic domination. Iran, along with Russia and China continue to attack our elections.

But maybe now, just perhaps, we've finally seeing the worm turn. Something, is happening. And like a cornered wounded animal. the authoritarians are fighting back, lashing out, knowing perhaps, that they are on the way out. And good riddance to them. They have hurt us ENOUGH!

But, it is not in our American nature to stand idly by and be beaten while we peacefully protest. It is against our sensibilities to stand and be beaten. Not without reacting to show our displeasure, our anger at injustice, to automatically defend ourselves.

Yet, we need to evoke "The Power of Good Trouble", as the sadly so recently late Congressman John Lewis had said.

Still, it is not in our American nature to stand idly by like Blacks in the South in the 1950s and 60s knowing what would happen if there were reactions other than peace to their abuse in protesting abuse.

It is not in our American nature to stand idly by like emancipation protesters in India who walked with Gandhi, while being beaten and shot, murdered in our own streets. Streets that we have paid for. Beaten and killed by our own police, who we have paid for. Knowing that if we struck back, entire protests would be slaughtered as they would have been and at least once were, by the British army. By "their" government. Which was never really "their" government.

Yet, time and again peaceful protests around the world have won. But through much pain and death. And are Americans willing and able for that? Going to war, dying with a weapon in your hand, having the opportunity to fight back is one thing. To stand idly by as you are beat into the ground, to survive with permanent damage or be murdered on the spot in order to horrify the country and the world at large, is quite another thing entirely.

I get that. We have a problem with authority. And yet, the conservative side of America who has always had a problem with authority suddenly under this Trump administration, seems strangely quiet about all that. Now they are angry at those rebuking authority. Once paranoid and angered by the potential of the government's "jack booted thugs" coming for them, now those are their guys?

Are we winning now? These protests? As this illiberal, authoritarian criminal president turns all against us and claims votes from our pain and righteous protesting?

ARE we winning? Or is this a stalemate? How can we break through the wall to overwhelm the other side? Sometimes a stalemate is a win. Sometimes it is a breathing moment, where you can turn the tide and in the end, win the day.

Are we winning the day? Surely, the 2020 election results will prove that one way or another.

The enemy now is our own delusional backward priorities as so well exemplified in too many of our laws. In the bigoted and ignorant attitudes of far too many American citizens. In our overtaken government, surely in these past four years. Overtaken by despicably illiberal Republican abuse for forty years now. And  surely now by this conservative mental defect of a Republican president, this Donald Trump administration.

FIGHT BACK, does not mean to fight back any more than "defund the police" actually means to defund the police. In that vein, we also need to defund this broken zombie, Republican party. A party that disdains the average American citizen, but is in a never ending honeymoon with the wealthy and powerful, with corporations, big business, industry, and the military industrial complex. The corporate/ military/ industrial complex.

Authoritarians like Trump grin as they use ever-bigger violence against protesters violence. After all, they have the entire government on their side and too many laws. Along with far too much power in the presidency. Power that even Republicans have complained about for years now that has gotten only worse.

As the world watches our pain and self-destruction in abject horror.

We all need to wake up.

Including those violent protesting who think they have already woken up but have fallen into a pattern of taking one step forward and being pushed three steps back.

We need to re-evoke "The Power of Good Trouble". And deal with it until we succeed.