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.