Democrats vs Republicans

First, pandemic. Please be safe and wear your masks, social distancing. As we open America, medical experts STILL ask people to just wear masks and continue to social distance. Masks are to protect mostly others, from you. So be a good citizen, suffer a little for what may save a life.

Jimmy Kimmel: Please, vote Donald Trump away... Video

George Floyd, love and condolences to his family and loved ones and those so affected by his death and the state of this issue overall. Black Lives Matter national and international protest, please be safe. Protest. But do what you can to stop criminals, bad actors, false flag cretins (Proud (girly) Boys, White supremacist bad actors, and so on.

Antifa and anarchists are for the most part peaceful socially conscious people. All groups have some bad actors. But these are not terrorists as Pres. Trump claims, or his right-wing bad actors like to target them as a whipping post.

Don't we have enough with a pandemic, without murdering our citizens? And all during a historic space launching of the successful NASA SpaceX Dragon to the ISS. Congrats to all involved!

Now...

America. Not socialists, not communists. However...Democrats vs Republicans

Social and human ideas of our parties:

Dems: Based on community and social responsibility

GOP: Based on individual rights and justice



Understand, America...is a country. Tough thing to understand for some, I know.

Definition of country: a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory.

OK. Nation: a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.

Except, America is a unique experiment. A mixed salad of cultures brought together by a common belief in freedom and potential, safety from abuse by others and by dictatorships or royal decrees. Equality.

America is a group. Of people, not just separated individuals.

And the GOP hates that and works against it. And so it continues to be a fundamentally flawed ideology and organization that in the end supports power and money. Preferably of individuals. Meaning, the few, the powerful, the elites. I've said for years that modern American conservatism is defective.

A couple of relevant articles also point this out:

Comprehending conservatism: A new framework for analysis

What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

They tend purposely to lose the forest for the trees, focusing on the minuscule and blowing them up, to distract, obfuscate, eventually making it propaganda.

They have convinced those most harmed by this to continue to believe in it, regardless. And they really hate this being pointed out to them. But, how else does one deprogram this?

It's brilliant really. To get your victims to fight for you, loudly, whenever they can and profess to lay down their life for you. Not for themselves.

Brilliant.

America's First & Necessary Post POTUS Execution

Is there an argument for the State execution of Pres. Donald Trump, once he is removed from office? I believe the consideration it is now rapidly being approached and very likely will soon be surpassed.

Why do I keep thinking of the French Revolution of 1789 – 99? And, "Why [does] President Trump resembles a pre-revolution French monarch."

Either way, treating our abusive leader appropriately, is really my point in all this.

The Donald, or The Don?

The argument against it is far less strong with each passing day. Not to mention Mr. Trump's own orientation on the death penalty being required for certain crimes. It's not a long stretch to consider if he were on the other side and himself were his enemy, he too would be calling for the execution of a traitorous POTUS. Especially if he could have pushed for that against an obviously far better president in Barack Obama.

Where there is this much smoke...there's fire.

First off, IF we allow this kind of abuse to go unpunished, we are essentially following the Donald Trump foreign policy for his beloved dictators and the abuse of national leaders' own citizens as in Syria or even as with Saudi Arabia against a journalist: "Oh well...."

We have GOT to send a strong message to not just Donald Trump AND his people who appear to be dropping like flies in a firestorm. And the vapid and zombie Republican party for this manufactured nightmare. But also to ANY other party (or foreign actor) in the future who may consider similar actions against the American electorate in their desire for power and position, or simply...chaos.

Putin loves western chaos, not Trump

That includes Vladimir Putin as a foreign actor against America and as well against his own country. Putin needs to be removed. I can't say that enough and I'm sick of saying it as I have since about the year 2000, a year after he took power.

Perhaps, had we better helped and made better decisions along with Mikhail Gorbachev in the bringing down of the Iron Curtain, we would never have seen a coup that replaced him with the alcoholic criminal Boris Yeltsin. Who then put Putin into power to protect him and his family from prosecution once he left office. It is a chain of authority from a decent path to a criminal path until today we have a State Criminal in Putin and a government he crafted in his own ex-KGB image.

Obviously, we need the appropriate and legal proof against Donald Trump to act upon it. The last thing America needs now is more illiberal or criminal actions in our government. We need to not follow in the footsteps of Russia.

Or China for that matter in their recently giving Pres. Xi a position for life. A stupid move. A very stupid move for any country to do. And a sign that something is very wrong. One that other nations need pay attention to and in their dire fortune if they ignore it. As they are doing. As we are all doing.

We must also take a stand against presidential plausible deniability. A tough thing to accomplish.

Which one should suspect Mr. Trump has already screwed up anyway and may prove not to even be a concern for us. Mostly because of his innate ineptness and that of his crew along this path he has taken these past decades.

The president is indeed held to a different consideration than the rest of us. And rightly so. Up to a point. Therefore he (or hopefully soon, she) needs and, especially this president Trump, needs to be held to a different judicial consideration.

We obviously have to be sure what we're doing. That is, to be transparent. As there will always be those who believe this is being done TO the POTUS  and somehow had not been done BY him and to himself and therefore, to America at large.

These are difficult times to be sure but we're up to the occassion!

That being said, IF Mr. Trump did these things, IF we cannot prove it in the normal ways, then it needs to be proven in an appropriate enough way to succeed in finding a ruling that should be found in considering just what he has done. Leaving things like plausible deniability by the wayside. We need to protect the citizens by rule of law. But we also must protect the nation by rule of reality.

Presidents DO need that capability at times in plausible deniability, in order to not be held accountable. There IS  a legit reason for its existence.

But FOR the American nation, the American people, and not against them as Mr. Trump has apparently done. All for wont of money and power, to satiate his defective ego and personality. That is no longer in question. Mr. Trump obviously has some serious defects. Defects that should have disallowed him ever to become POTUS. We have damaged the office of president, ourselves in allowing such a man to enter into it.

In actuality, our least hardworking POTUS in history

Otherwise, we will have allowed ourselves to continue to be dupes to what and who is basically a conman in a Donald Trump as president.

However, if all this happened as we're seeing it, but Trump is technically "clean" though obviously not, as a nation we have got to demand appropriate repercussions. We cannot let a conman slip through our fingers because he is the president.

Just as being POTUS should have certain protections, so too it should not have certain protections because of a situation just as we're seeing before us now. The loopholes have been found by the Republican party and Donald Trump. When that happens sometimes you have to step sideways and correct an abusive action, in the most powerful and democratic ways available to us.

IF for no other reason than not being seen worldwide as the fools we are now being seen as!

Otherwise, we will inevitably see this action again and again, over and over again, against us. These conservative Republican abuses will continue against America (potentially and quite plausibly with the aide of one foreign entity or another), UNTIL we do something aggressively against it in order to once and for all, stop it.

We have got to end all this nonsense now! End all the extremist conservative right wing abuse from the GOP, from the NRA (which reportedly now may no longer be with us anyway), from Russia, from criminal types like Putin, from THIS president...once and for all!

Saying that this is treason, is actual and real patriotism. Unlike the fake forms of nationalism we've been seeing from the far right and not so weirdly enough, also from Russia who has been backing them.

When Nixon was pardoned by Press. Ford, I was like many, angry at the time. But eventually, I came to see Ford's reasoning. in order to protect the office of the president.

That certainly is not the case any longer. Quite to the contrary, this is exactly and specifically not that case.

Through this process, we have also got to work toward putting an end to this bacterial infection of authoritarianism worldwide. We need to end the greater potential we see for war today and the abuses from our wealthy who are involved, our military-industrial and our corporate sectors who have all had a stranglehold on what IS after all, OUR government.

It's time to clean things up. To truly empty the swamp Trump was foolishly elected to empty and instead, filled to the brim and overflowing with his political appointees. In the cabinet, in his offices, in our judiciary. And not for partisan, organizational interests, but for his own personal financial gain and empowerment. Never satiate an egotist's personality, that never goes well for anyone involved.

And yet we've force-fed Mr. Trump at his request again and again.

Trump is not the last, but merely the first domino. We need to flick his blank piece, executing the beginning of the end for as many of our ongoing nightmares as we can effectuate. Now!

We are and should be in control. We just need to start acting like it! An America for all. Not just a few.

Cannabis As A Legal Intoxicant

I'd like to clear something up about Cannabis, pot, weed, ganja, or whatever you like to call it.

I may come across as a die hard activist about it, but actually I don't think anyone should do drugs if they can avoid them. Meds, obviously are another issue. The concept of using medical pot for recreation has always been a bastardization of it, something our government should hang their heads in shame over the need for that to have come about. That has nothing to do with the actual need for medical pot. I'm talking only recreational use.

I just don't think people should be abused as we have, through prohibition (and alcohol in my view is as bad as cocaine and just or nearly, as dangerous). Unlike most of those against all this, I learned to have my opinion through research and experience, not just having a jaded opinion as many who are against it.

There has also been more interest by the public in drugs after our government has lied to use for so many decades about them. There are now doctors, scientists and journalists talking about drugs and the real information about them. Therefore there is also more interest in hallucinogens.

People like Michael Pollan with his book, How to Change your Mind - What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence,.discusses this. At the writing of this here, I'm still waiting for the audiobook to hit retail.

I go in depth about this myself in my latest audiobook, On Psychology. It should be available any day now on Amazon, iTunes and Audible.com. See the addendum at the end of that article about the history and systems of psychology and study of synesthesia and schizophrenia. It's a fascinating article. Even if I do say so myself. And I explain in it what that is so and how I know that to be true.

I don't say this in my psychology article but I'll mention it here. I do mention drugs like LSD in the article and audiobook, however. Years ago I was in a job I couldn't quit, couldn't get away from and had it for several years. It was stressful and difficult to go back day after day until finally I had ran out my condition of employment. It allowed me to get my degree eventually in psychology from a university, so in the end, that was good. But it was a stressful few years.

I would use LSD over a weekend sometimes when I really needed to escape but couldn't. So that come that next Monday, I felt refreshed and recharged, like I had been on vacation for an entire week. I would also use it at times to kill off a bad habit, or one I wanted to change but kept failing to. I was drop (take) the acid (LSD) alone, concentrate on what I wanted through the experience and find that afterword, There is talk nowadays about microdosing LSD. Taking low doses on a daily basis. The word is out on that for now but they are beginning to research it.

And I Found that I had indeed changed that habit after a single acid trip. Now I'm not advocating this method for people, just saying that it worked for me. And I admit, I was unusual in my understanding of drugs and psychology, even before I got a degree in it. Yet, I didn't go crazy, didn't lose my job, didn't need medical attention, didn't harm anyone, not even myself, and it seemed to me to only be a benefit to me. And to be sure, in the 1950s it was actually used in therapeutic ways. But our government, out of fear and ignorance, as usual, had made it illegal because of the 1960s counterculture.

Weed in comparison to those other drugs is pretty harmless, in that it doesn't kill like the other drugs can that it's been inappropriately grouped with. Grouping pot with heroin and meth, is ridiculous and always has been. Cocaine and cannabis are not physically addictive. The issue there comes not in physical but emotional. They are not the same thing. But cocaine is vastly more dangerous that cannabis.

Yet there are dangers related to legalizing cannabis, now. And oddly enough, they have little to do with the substance itself.

The dangers come not in the substance but in big money as usual and through corporate mismanagement (also as usual), in trying to push a product on us more than is good for us. They will seek to sell us pot soda pop, pot everything, now. Anyway they can make a buck and addict us just as in tobacco.

Except, as stated above, weed isn't addictive in the same sense as heroin or alcohol.

But does that mean it should be illegal? No. We will go through a honeymoon period for a while and then slack off some as it becomes culturally normal and we acclimate to how to use and not abuse it. As we mature into it's national use as we did alcohol after prohibition, or as a human maturing into adulthood and make decisions of use or abuse.

Also, in over enhancing the weed itself to powerful medical levels, something that came from the underhanded way that decriminalizing it had to go, we have it more and more in a far more powerful than necessary form.

All because our government lied to us ever since the Nixon commission said it was safe and he  as president ignored that because of his own personal bias. Just as we're seeing now with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom even the man who appointed him as said, was a bad idea. This had led since Nixon to a war on (citizens, not) drugs (as it failed in waring on drugs), where we found ourselves eventually with a very powerful form of pot that never appeared in nature.

I would suggest to anyone wanting to use pot, to seek the weaker forms, to learn they don't need to consume as much now a days to get reasonably high, to imbibe with reason as you would (or should) alcohol.

The less often you use it, the less it can become normalized in your system. Use at little as possible to enhance life, to "take the edge off" and not make it a life in and of itself. In that form, it can be very useful as an adjunct to life and not an end all, be all. Rather than use it and do nothing, use it and do something, safely, and legally.

We simply need to act like responsible adults. The ability now to eat THC (or CBD) is healthier than smoking it. Using a bong or water pipe (even better as it doesn't burn the substance just as a vape does not), is healthier. Vaping the oil or other such substance is better too than smoking it due to the heated smoke, the particulates hitting the lung's alveoli.

Let's face it, drugs aren't for kids. But if my own pre adult kids (or as adults) were to use a drug, I'd far more prefer it be cannabis, than literally any of our other of the scarier prospects out there, including alcohol. Deaths to cannabis are nearly if not completely non existent. Death due to alcohol, domestic violence, drunk driving, weapons charges on booze, etc., are astounding. The more we can get people to replace alcohol use with cannabis, the better we'll all be.

And then, there is the tax situation. Robbing drug cartels of their mainstay, removing crime from cannabis use. This isn't rocket science and states with legal cannabis are proving this to extraordinary degree. Including my own state of Washington. Where we are also leading the way on serious drugs like heroin use in needle exchanges and safe injection and use locations.

This is America and I've always been stunned at how our government continues to try to make decisions for us, that we should be making ourselves...if America is such a great and free nation.

Let us see it. Let us decide. And stop abusing us for mere political gain.

So Don't Vote, Ignore Politics, I'm Sure It Will All Be Just Fine....

This...yes. I didn't write this, but this one was once me. Until I started to see my responsibilities as a citizen. In being a writer I had even more responsibility to speak out, to give others insight into what is going on and to offer them counters to the wrongful and the bad agenda based ideologies out there hammering down on America. 

Now that we have things like Russians (under Putin's orders) and Cambridge Analytica hacking us and altering our perceptions to their desires, we now really have to pay attention. That makes what I'm trying to say here, even more paramount and important. 

This is true for other countries to be sure. But so many of them, not having the benefits of being who we are in our positives of prestige, wealth and history, seem to fight even harder for their lives in their countries. Not infrequently as we're seeing in recent years, to the point of their government murdering them in their streets. Or as in Russia, their leader in Putin murdering people who disagree with him and his actions. 

The meme in question:

This was me, full on. Until the 90s when I merely started paying attention. I had gone through life, marriage, the military. I joined the OSI, the Air Force version of the FBI. I was headed into an interesting career fully supported by those in intelligence who met me. I was looking for the covert.

Now, please do not misunderstand what I'm about to say. Because I'm saying this, offering a bit of my history, for two good reasons.

First, I finally realized that I had shirked my duties as a citizen, as so many of us do. We live here, enjoy this life, this country and do so very little to deserve it. Being born here simply isn't enough. Immigrants know that, they have seen what like can and can't be and to live here, they feel, is a gift.

Even though I was in the military, was planning to go into a difficult if not dangerous career, was that even enough? Look, don't be intimated. Doing your duty as a citizen can mean only to vote. But to vote wisely, to take some amount of time anyway, to know what you're talking about, to make good decisions, to share those with our fellow citizens.

Speak out against what is wrong, incorrect, or ignorant as you see fit. But to do something. It's really not that much effort. But to neglect it, that's not earning or paying our way as citizens. And again, it's not really that much effort, so don't be intimated. Just do your part.

Secondly, I'm uniquely qualified most than the average citizen, to see much of what is going through the same information most of us can get. It's all about how you go about it, what and how you vet (verify) things and how you assimilate it with a history of what has gone before and where those things have led.

And so my first assignment was to be Berlin, Germany, where the agent I was to replace, had been killed getting into his car, due to an alleged, KGB bomb. The position had been opened for a year. No one else wanted it, for obvious reasons. I wanted to learn, to get my hands dirty, so I asked for it.

My point in mentioning all that is more than it sounds and I was more devoted to that career than most who would go into a career. I had a background in that kind of a job since grade school. I won't bore you here about it but between activities and studies, I was very, very well prepared for that kind of a lifestyle and career.

And the Commander of the OSI who interviewed me repeatedly, fully agreed, saying I had the highest score he'd ever seen on an OSI entrance exam. Which honestly, gave me concerns about support when in the field. I agreed that I was uniquely qualified before even going into training for the position, and others I planned beyond that which I had shared with him. As the OSI was only a stepping stone to where I was headed.

He aid he appreciated that and fully supported me in it. not because he was only focused as so many are anymore, on his department, or the military but for our country. The bigger picture. I'm just saying in all this, I'm uniquely situated from an outsider's point of view, and from what I hear from other citizens, to have a deeper understanding of many things that are going on in the world and in our country.

This, unlike our president Trump's proclivity, isn't about braggadocio, it's just an honest statement of fact. I had been practicing, studying and researching things uniquely situated for my selected future for years, and then....

My personal life took an unexpected change. A crisis of life, of conscience happened upon me. My career in espionage, that I had planned on since high school...gone, overnight. It took me two decades to completely reorient myself.

I got divorced. I lost nearly everything. I was adrift, until my older brother talked me into considering higher education.

I started at a two year college. Got an Associated Arts degree. I thought that was it. But then I ended up getting accept by and attending a university. I got another degree, a B.A. in Psychology, Awareness and Reasoning division, focusing in Phenomenology.

Having nearly enough credits to get a second degree, instead I opted for a minor in creative writing, focusing on fiction and then mostly screenwriting. I hadn't realized it until later, but I was being trained as a researcher. If only many more had only a few decent research or journalistic skills, our country would be more cohesives and intelligent, today.

Later I worked at the University of Washington for nearly a decade. Pretty much all the time uninterested in politics. Just living my life. Minding my own business. Putting all that previous understanding of government and world politics in my back pocket.

Constantly wondering why things seemed so messed up from a distance. But it wasn't about me, I figured. Other's could handle it. I didn't care. It wasn't, my thing. I think that may have been an over reaction to abandoning my planned career. It hurt. It took me an entire decade to let it go and become whomever it was I had become instead.

Then... Al Gore won the 2000 election and yet, Bush was the one inaugurated into office.

Stunned, I'd finally had it. I began to wake up. To look around. Not at the specifics of covert actions, of espionage, of world politics at the granular levels but at the larger scope of things. I had always been of the mindset that the government knew what I should do, they would task me, I would achieve the goal, accomplish the mission.

But now as a civilian for the rest of my life, I had to look at the bigger picture. Covert ops in intelligence need to understand the world, politics, but their orientation is different than ours. It has to be. They have to accomplish a mission, or acquire information and stay alive.

We have to see things from our perspective and that of leaders and our lives are not directly at risk. It was a paradigm shift for me. Having abandoned all the studies I had done on world covert ops and the Soviets, the KGB, now I had no use of that. But then, more recently, it all came back in a hollow echoe.

In reflecting over the 1990s at that point I realized just how ignorant I had been and how glad I was to have finally started paying attention all through the 90s.

I started hearing about this guy Putin. Ex KGB. I looked into him. I didn't like what I found. I told people. No one cared. He became Russian Premier in 1999. I was upset, and still no one would listen. Who cares, it's Russia, a weakened State, they had said.

I thought about post WWI Germany and how badly they were treated and abused. Maybe rightly so, but...it led to WWII. We won the cold war, why should we treat Russia like Germany. Because in doing so, won't we will reap the benefits of not being decent and useful? Of missing the opportunity to build them into a friend and a partner?

Again, no one would listen and besides, who am I?

I started slow. In the late 80s I tried to make it a thing simply to always watch the State of the Union address. It was an effort at first. Yet I felt more patriotic, adult, aware, at least politically. I started paying attention more to news pieces I might hear bits and pieces of. I started looking a few things up. Over time it became easier and more interesting. And disturbing. My old habits started latching onto bits of things that grew in information and concern.

Through my job in the late 90s and early 2000s, I found (I maneuvered myself) into a position of being involved with an adhoc cyber security organization. A quasi secret group of national and international cyber security experts and law enforcement going from local Seattle Police Department (our group set up their first cyber security response and monitoring team), to the FBI, to the President's Commission for Critical Infrastructures and that, was an eye  opener.  We educated ourselves and corporations as wella s laws enforcement at all levels and in our country and others.

After 2000 I started seeking out more news. We talked about Bin Laden and other groups. Through the group, I once had Bin Laden's cell phone number. Though he was no longer using it, it was still being monitored and we joked about borrowing a friend (or enemy's) cell phone and calling it, thus getting them automatically put on a "no fly" list. Not so funny, but kind of funny.

Then, 9/11. I started really paying attention. I spoke out online. Calling out and pointing out things as I discovered them. Terrorists seemed to in some cases, have legit claims of dissatisfaction and no one listening.

Years before beginning in 10th grade in 1970 I started to feel my Irish side (from my dad's family), and my interest in the Irish "Troubles", in the IRA, grew. I wanted to help them push the British out. But, I was just an ignorant, testosterone filled kid. Still my interest and studies continued.

I knew what I wanted to do, and I already had a background in martial arts and various military endeavors, guns, and so on. Like no other kid I had met, I had already flown planes before high school and taken pilot ground school. I had various other skills and certifications. I wanted to be able to at least do anything I need to for any possible situation I might one day find myself in.

Name it, I probably practiced it or had become competent at it before achieving a high school diploma. Which in part explains the veracity, the reality of my somewhat unbelievable character in a true crime screenplay I wrote, The Teenage Bodyguard (FB). The protagonist in that story is not unreal by any means. Just me.

It all started in my being a scared little kid, afraid of his stepfather, moving schools almost yearly, dealing with bully after bully, and being a kid who finally refused to be scared of the dark anymore. I faced my fears down, one after another. Someone said to me once, face your fears or run from them the rest of your life. I stopped running from them many decades ago.

Anyway, in college in the early 80s, I read about Cuba and their revolution, Che Guevara and his book, Guerrilla Warfare. Interesting book, read it sometime. His reasoning was enlightening. They fit the terrorist's issues. America had hurt others in corporate interests which we saw as national security issues. Maybe they were at one time, but not after a while. Not now that we have multinational corporations with more money than some nations.

At first that may have had legitimacy but we saw too often other's resources as ours. It was a different time, a different mindset. Nuclear weapons, the Soviets, "red" China, all made things different than the are now. We were fighting for our lives. And after the cold war? It did come back to bite us.

But terrorists and rebels can and do go easily off track. There is a fine line as they say between what is a "freedom fighter" or a terrorist. Between courage or cowardice. Between legitimate actions or terrorism or simply, being murderers.

I personally find terrorism disgusting. The IRA had it right at first. Bomb for attention, warn to save human life. But then they splintered among themselves and things went wrong. That being said, I really hate the indiscriminate nature of bombs.

I prefer someone look at a victim and kill them,  specifically, surgically and directly. The Mafia had it right, kill your enemy, leave innocents and family alone. Gangs are a bunch of animals. Drive by and spray a crowd, completely missing your enemy? That's what you get when you let children have access to guns. No responsibility.

This drone business leaves a bad taste in my mouth, not to mention and bad reputation for the US, world wide.

Killing innocents, regardless your agenda, abuse put on you, is never reasonable. And so I am staunchly anti terrorism.

My anger against bullies and terrorists became apparent. And now we have a bully in the oval office and much to my and our consternation and disgust.

After the first part of my life studying espionage, and heading into that as a career, then turning into a university life, I felt I had wasted those previous years of my life studying useless things. Who cared about the Soviet Union? Who cared about Russia? Who cared about the KGB? Who cared about various techniques of espionage, killing, altering the course of other nations?

I then started to notice some things in the years after 9/11. Over time it increased my curiosity and confusion, how there were parallels to old information I had with new information I was hearing and running across.

Then, the Arab Spring happened. I did what little I could online through finding and sharing information and sure enough, I saw Egyptians and others hit my blog to get daily updates of  hard to get and much needed and openly available to us, but hard to get information for many of those in the streets in Cairo and elsewhere.

Skip to Donald J Trump on the scene, berating Pres. Obama, a president light years beyond the previous Pres. Bush.

Obama was our last decent president and a decent man as #POTUS. More parallels. Then Trump actually and ridiculously ran for president. He couldn't win. To be sure. Everyone I talked to who should know, said he either wouldn't win, couldn't win, or certainly shouldn't win.

More parallels showed themselves. I began to realize that much of what I had studied for years since high school was suddenly useful...again. How odd that was to realize.

Then... Trump won. He was inaugurated as POTUS and much of America and the world watched with mouths agape. The #GOP swallowed him whole as candidate, regretfully. Now even more regretfully on a day by day basis.

With help from some questionable characters, like Putin in Russia through his various illegal entities dabbling in America and other countries elections. A man who situated himself yet again to be national leader of Russia in a travesty of a maneuvered and rigged election on March 18th, 2018.

I've gone on about this jackal of an ex KGB agent, before. Even his ex wife said about him that, "Unfortunately, he is a vampire." In Russia they do not have the same capability to remove a cancerous anal cyst like Putin as we do here. Russians can be forgiven for making Putin leader yet again. My condolences to Russians everywhere.

A state murdering its own citizens either at home or abroad, be they citizen or ex spy, is a disgusting practice that requires the execution of a leader who would do what Putin has done. And now in America we have our own form of cancerous cyst in Trump.

As for which of these men is worse, we'd have to look at which is more professional and functional and that would have to be the Russian leader. The American one is a travesty wrapped in an inmate's cotton gown and stuffed into a dirty clothes hamper. While the Russian one is a real bastard wrapped in a nightmare wrapped in Russian's paychecks stuffed into and falling out of his pockets.

Yet, the American's own Republican political party had spent decades setting the scene for someone like Trump to appear and become president. They did this to us. And only NOW are they realizing it and not even all of them as yet, actually realize it. Amazing. Yet, we'd been headed that direction, directed by the #Republcan party for decades. Now finally, they got what they hadn't realized they had wanted. Be careful what you wish for....

Then even more parallels through Trump's first year as president. And again, while Russians are stuck with their system and their own nightmare of a leader, we do have a chance still, before things are too late. But i wouldn't waste time screwing around thinking about it. We need to act boldly and directly.

And now, we are here.

So go on with your little life. Watch The Bachelor. Enjoy Survivor. Watch The Voice. Have fun! Ignore what is most important in your world. In all our word. Just don't complain about it later when it all starts to unravel and crumble. But then, isn't it already, now? Can't you see that?

Well? Whatever! Right? No. You are not alone....

Besides, I'm sure it will all be just fine. Right?

It's not like we're seeing any indication in America, or the world in general, that things aren't going as planned. Or that we are now headed into a direction (or already there), that we had worked so very hard for so many decades to not be in.

Right?

Again, the Meme that started this blog. Does it seem AnY different now?

Shouldn't We Be Appalled?

Shouldn't we? Well, um, yes, I do think we should. Just look around us lately. Watch the news. Look at just about any social media. I know I'm appalled, and in no particular order by:

• Support for authoritarianism. Especially stupid authoritarians.
• Greed in general and especially in politics.
• Big money. 
• Conservatism, especially extremists forms.
• Did I say, Extremism?
• Religion, especially dumb ones, especially in politics. 
• News as entertainment with little concern about the consequences. 
• Racism and harm as some kind of populist activity.
• Did I say, sexism? Racism? And classism, that is abuse by the rich of the poor.
• Over concern about one's sexuality. TMI already.
• A lack of more than superficial understanding of reality by far too many if not most.
• A need to feel important by randomly killing people who have nothing to do with you or your especially ridiculous faux ridiculous issues.
• Mistakenly believing some issues are more important than actual imminent issues and ideals over real human beings.
• Presidential support for white supremacists where even speaking out against it falls hollow.
• Entertainment as news replacing news as a necessity.
• "Privileged" believing they are being persecuted.
• "Privileged" believing they are being persecuted while persecuting others.
• Drone strikes where and when innocents are harmed or killed with rationalizations for their allowance as collateral damage.
• Ridiculous support for ridiculous issues such as racism, religion and conservatism or authoritarianism. I would rather be an extreme progressive than an extreme conservative because one leads to progress and one leads to stagnation.
• Lies becoming truths when spoken loudly enough or from a great enough position of power so that they are believed.
• Such a disregard for the truth that it becomes not only utterly inconsequential but an irritant.
• Constant wars.
• War too closely associated with monetary issues and mere imperialism. 
• Corporations and money controlling so much of our reality, our government, and religions.
• Religions controlling so much of our governments and our money.
• Art and the Humanities in education so frequently being considered unnecessary when they are extremely necessary to our remaining human and humane.
• Not understanding there are and should be limits to wealth.
• Thinking that freedom of speech means freedom to speak anything, no matter how destructive or meanly intended.
• Seeing the poor, the uneducated and the homeless (for whatever reasons) as a burden and an irritant.
• Seeing immigrants especially refugees as an irritant and as criminals merely for existing.
• Finally a president who is crude, ignorant, arrogant, an utter bore and just pretty much pathetic as presidential offerings do tend to be from the Republican party. 

And of late simply too many other things....

I'm feeling like it's utterly useless. There's just too many ignorant people about, too many twisting reality and knowing it merely to serve their own superficial and selfish purposes. There's too many lies and liars, too many bullies, and far too much abuse.

Here's what I think is happening.

We (Americans) set up a country with good intent. But once we really started to think about it, things went immediately awry, plummeting downhill. It brought on the Civil War for one.

A rational description of what's going on from Christy Coleman, the black CEO of The American Civil War Museum in Richmond, VA went like this:

"I realized that an important flashpoint had been reached. We go through these cycles whenever there's forward progression on social movement and social expansion of civil rights. There's always a very violent, quick and very hot pushback. This, is how the cycle works. This is what happens when we turn history into nostalgia."

That's refreshing to hear. Rather than feeling as we have that we've suddenly gone two steps back in our social progress, it's just a temporary pause for those backward types to catch up and just let us know, it hurts them to become more mature more than it hurts most of us. Still, they do have to catch up.

Whenever we try to implement a functional version of our American ideal we get push back, we get anger, hatred and at the bottom of it all, fear, if not outright terror from those whose lives would change, who might have to give up some of their privilege which they should never have had, or shouldn't have gained on the blood and backs of others they had control over.

This seems to come from the right, from conservatives, from extremists in religion, in Christianity mostly. Odd that. Not all, just for the most part the easily frightened, greedy or ultimately ignorant ones.

In modern times here, this nearly always seems to come from Republicans.

All we have to do to stop this is to stop trying to implement America as a real and living concept and go back to simply giving lip service to what we have professed is our ideals, what has drawn so many millions to our shores. Back when we wanted them. If ever we did. Kind of like how we treat religion. And yes, even the religious.

Sometimes, I wonder though.

I guess what we have to ask ourselves is, who do we want to be and do we want to do what it takes to implement it? Because if we do, well, it's gonna hurt. It's hurting already. Just in the right claiming we're hurting them and that being so very abusive and selfish, it hurts.

In the end we could have what we have always been labeled as being:

The greatest country in the history of the world.

The question is...is that really who we want to be?

Because according to Donald J Trump and supporters, they simply don't. But then, simple minds and all....

Welcome back, Mr. President - Guns, Guns, Guns

Pres. Obama has been Inaugurated. A second term for the Harvard Law Professor. On an appropriate day, Martin Luther King Day. Especially so, as he was killed by a gun (we'll get to that in a moment).

Let me absorb that a moment. We have now gone from the buffoon from Texas who has pretty much devastated this country, with prior help admittedly, to an actual intellectual. Sigh....

Congratulations to us for staving off the ridiculous right wing extremists, overly conservative conservatives, and the way too pro religion nutzos.

On the other hand, if you are one of those, well, my condolences. Read a book

Oh, come on! Just having a bit of fun with this....

Now, I am trying to stay away from politics. I'm a writer. I really just want to write. But I see so much stupidity lately in government (especially in the GOP), in our society, it's hard not to speak out sometimes, to get distracted.

So, because today is a special day and we thankfully have an intelligent man once again sworn into office as President, I am going to speak out. Regardless what you think about the President's orientation and policies, that is important, that he is an educated and intelligent individual and not a lame brain jackal. Okay, maybe that's a bit strong, how about, jackass? So, I'm going to say something today, then next week hopefully get back to mere writing issues.

Is life perfect now after one term in office? No, not quite. Have we expected too much of Barack Obama? Yes. And, no. He took on the job, so that's that. But we do need to be reasonable. We've handed the man an almost impossible task and after all, you never can please everyone. Had Bush still been in office, I doubt we'd be in this good a situation. I fear it would have been far worse, so compare now to that sad possibility.

Consider the President's position now on gun control, against that of groups like, the NRA. There's a group for you. Let's ban assault rifles? No? Why? Because we should what? Put assault rifles in schools to protect children from the very few crazies out there who MIGHT attack one of thousands of schools? Isn't THAT crazy?

Actually? Yes, it is.

But but before we consider the Second Amendment, I want to say one thing. We shouldn't be so worried about losing our Second Amendment rights, as we should be worried about losing all our other rights. Privacy rights, legal rights, rights against corporations who have wrangled their positions to have more rights than we do as citizens, which this country was founded upon. That might be the most important right we are losing, protection against big money, monopolies and the definition of what a monopoly now a days, is considered to be.

But Privacy? What little Bush started with taking away our privacy and rights to being arrested with due process and so on, Mr. Obama has apparently not gotten rid of either. I think it's time we address that rape of the constitution. I hope he does address it in his next four years, but I don't have high hopes. Even if he does that, will Congress allow it to happen? But that is another issue. Like, what the Hell is wrong with THOSE people?

Another author friend of mine just mentioned to me an article he read the other day on how the Second Amendment had a lot to do with slavery and the militias that hunted down runaways, etc. Interesting.

From the article The Second Amendment was Ratified to Protect Slavery, by Thom Hartmann:

"But [Patrick] Henry, [George] Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government.  So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as "persons" by a Supreme Court some have called dysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren."

Okay, if we ban assault weapons of extended magazines, that isn't the end. There are still other ways. For hundreds of years people knew you had to carry multiple weapons as extended magazines weren't available. Multiple guns, hand guns, shotguns, no guns? Bombs. Or something we haven't thought of yet that, and don't be surprised, some nutzo will eventually come up with a new way to kill.

So, you don't want to lose your right to own an assault rifle?

Some are saying, okay, if you want to shoot one, you should have to go to a licenced firing range where the weapons are protected and locked up when unused. Well, that actually won't stop the crazies. Actually, most gun laws only, as people say, crimp the style of legal, law abiding gun owners.

But here is something to consider. And consider along with this that I am a gun owner. I have been since I was in Jr. High and I had a 20 gauge shotgun (with shells) as well as a .303 British (a rifle type that was powerful enough to have been used many decades ago in Africa to kill elephants). Being so into guns as a kid (gun crazy as she put it) my mother made me join a young people's local, police sanctioned shooting club. She actually called the police department for a recommendation: "If you're going to be so nuts about guns, you'er going to learn about them properly."

That training, made me not be nuts about guns. I still liked them, but I learned they are tools, not toys. Killing tools. Which I learned to turn into a sport. I kill paper not, not critters. Or people. But if the Army ever showed up and handed me a gun and said let's go, we've been invaded, or something, I can definitely hit what I aim at.

I have belonged to firing ranges. I'm ex military. I was headed into a career that would have semi frequently ended me up on the wrong end of a gun as a career. Most likely in a dark alley in a foreign country, somewhere. I own what would be considered an assault weapon, several even. But it's always been my contention that although I enjoy owning and using them, legally, properly, safely, if they were taken from me due to laws, fine. But I won't allow someone to break in and take them, especially if I'm not home. They are protected.

If I ever found myself, after having my guns taken from me, in a situation where I need assault weapons, I'd find another way, should it come to that. See, there are always alternates  You just have to be smart, knowledgeable, educated about the things you need to know about. A gun, isn't always the right answer. If things are going wrong, use your mind, talk. And if you do need to start killing people, you don't have to have a gun. It's helpful certainly, but it's not always the way to go.

If you need to kill groups of people, a gun is actually somewhat ineffective. If a revolution starts, if we are invaded, if our country simply fails, or the "zombie apocalypse" hits, there are always other ways. Guns are just the easiest and laziest WMD. Yes, I'd prefer one in an apocalyptic situation. But I'll make due, either way. I am a survivor. Worst case, others will always have them and if they decide to cross my path, that is their own fault for losing their own life and weapons. You have to think ahead, look before you leap in those situations. Always have a plan B.

See. Things are never that bad, in any situation. Till you stop breathing.

Now, all that being said, if we don't have guns, and someone wants to kill groups of people, there are other ways to do it. I'd actually prefer someone open fire on me with a gun, rather than a bomb, or a chemical or biological weapon. Both of which can be produced in the home, by a semi intelligent individual, from information freely available off the internet, or from a library. And let me tell you, a less than average individual who is insanely dedicated to finding a way to kill groups of people, can act as if they were much more intelligent, than they normally are.

Okay, here's a suggestion about gun control. You want an assault weapon? Fine. Then you have to use it. The second amendment says what?

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." (as sent to and ratified by the states and Thomas Jefferson)

Okay then. That second section is dependent upon the first section. Right? So. Get your fat ass out to a militia, and I don't mean Joe Bob's militia, no getting high, or drunk. Guns, are serious business. I mean a designated, functional, real ass militia run by the military, designated by the military, for the people and essentially by the people, but the real, functional people (trained professionally) who know what they are doing. Which is, the military.

Militia, should have Military Advisers, just like third world countries get from us, Advisers with teeth though, authority. After all this isn't a third world country, it is OUR country. And if you're not up to snuff pal, if you don't have appropriate attitude (yes, attitude), or security at your house to store your assault weapons, then you lose them. Oh, you can still own them, you just can't house them, because you have been deemed ineffective in their being secured.

See, what is intrinsic in that amendment are several issues related to those words used, their meanings and the functionality of those words and meanings. A bunch of yahoos playing soldier (and drinking beers) is not a "well regulated" militia. See? Get it? Comprende?

Think about it.

It just dawned on me how many have no clue what this really meant back at the birth of the nation, or what that translates into now. Things change. $100,000 back then is like $6 million, now. Possibly like the meaning of the word, "Militia", as I indicated above in that article reference from my friend.

If they had these kinds of assault weapons back then, and if people were shooting them off at public houses and Inns killing people, this amendment would have been rewritten 'tout de suite' (you know, toot sweet), just so you could finish your beer before having to deal with whipping out your own assault rifle. See, you don't get to have rights to WMD's without appropriate justification and capability and that is stated right there within the amendment: "a well regulated militia".

Consider too that back then, a WMD was multiple men with weapons. It took, multiple weapons to be a weapon of mass destruction, not just one. Now, with assault weapons, it really only takes one weapon, one assault rifle, to be a WMD.

People think that means (whatever they want to think it means typically) "well regulated" is from, without. But it also, or more likely means from, within. And that means, training. So guess what? Grab your assault rifle and get ready for some getting yelled at and, actually hitting some targets and, making it over some terrain to practice what it is really like to be in a modern day militia.

One might consider that with our greater understanding of things and technology, this would mean a Military Reserve Unit.

But it doesn't have to.

Just enough training to make these weapons safer in the public arena and secured from all the nutzos who are using them inappropriately (or too appropriately, depending on how you view it). And, if you're nuts, your Sergeant, I guarantee, is going to see it out on the practice fields. At that point: "You can just leave your weapon(s) at the armory till we look further into this.... Pal."

Anyway....

Obviously I don't think the Pres. went far enough on his gun control suggestions. Okay, executive order. Or whatever.

And much of this is a moot point anyway. Because what we need isn't so much gun control, but a fundamental change in our entire society.

Why, if I had some serious killing weapons in my room as a child (no that isn't the issue), why didn't I ever use them to kill anyone?

Maybe because I had the same angst as people do now a days. I just didn't believe in using a gun to exercise my frustrations. Why? I think partly it has to do with having taken away too much control from children. That explains our children turning their frustrations inward to themselves ("cutting", etc.), rather than allowing them to spill out and be seen, through acting out in their obvious social behaviors. Now things are hidden. Till it's too late. They tend to react inwardly, till they can't take it anymore and the explode outward, into the public.

Yes, that is all theory and it is an argument I've given in prior blogs and is for another time, not really for here.

But ask yourself, what has changed in our society? We need to change how we think, at a very basic level. We need to think, to consider how we raise our children, how we show them to view their world, our entire world. Who we are.

You see WE, need to change. As a People.

But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Just, think about it.

And congratulations once again, to President Obama, and to us.

"YES, Mr. President, what can I do for you. SIR."

Okay, just let me get this straight, let me understand this clearly. From the New York Times:

After his speech, newly re-elected (so kind of Twice a President) Pres. Obama tried to call both Mr. Boehner and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, but was told they were asleep.
Let me repeat that, he was told they were asleep.

The President, Of the United States of America, newly re-elected President Barack Obama, first African American to be elected President, then to be re-elected President. THE PRESIDENT of the UNITED Damn STATES of AMERICA calls you on the phone, you PUNKS, even at Midnight, or 1AM, 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, 5AM, whatever damn time in the world that it is, it doesn't matter!

You do NOT TELL the President of the United States of America, your boss, that YOU ARE ASLEEP. And everyone, knows you were up watching the election. Why? Because that is their entire career on the line. Trust me, they probably had TROUBLE sleeping that night.

But YOU get on the PHONE!

And you say, "YES, Mr. President, what can I do for you. SIR."

This is what the problem is with our government. Not Pres. Obama. The Republican partisan government members. From them we're supposed to expect compromise. From them now I only expect more stonewalling and placing blame on the President. On OUR President, and that means you whoever you are that don't like him being President. Get over it. Like they told me in the service, if you hate a man, but he is an officer, you still salute him, because you are saluting the office, the rank, the United States.

Not one Republican did this, but two, which pretty much indicates it isn't the truth, but a lie, and a subterfuge to avoid talking to someone who just beat your candidate and you know what? THAT does not matter. You take the call.

People, THIS is your Republican party. These are your Republican Leaders.
Seriously. THIS is disgraceful.

And I've just lost respect for them, completely.

Boehner and McConnell...Republicans. Your Republican representatives.

I'm seriously disappointed in these men, who represent the GOP, and all Republicans in America. Again, this is your Republican Party, an American political party, representing not just Republicans but Americans. I'm embarrassed by them. And you should be also.

Barack Obama is still President! Thank you!

Yes, Romney has been sent back to the dark recesses of Richie Richland where he crawled out of. Or was more likely driven out by a minority and a woman serving him juice and biscuits.

Thank you America, for slowly and finally waking up and smelling the richness of the coffee over the richness of the faux belief that you too can be as rich as Mitt. Ever.

Also in the State of Washington, Marijuana has been legalized. Same sex marriage, has been legalized. Sadly, it looks like Charter Schools will be ratified. Sad for the poorer people and the school system, but there it is. Lots of rich people in Washington, lots of software tycoons. Ah well, you can't win them all. But two out of three? Not bad, especially, pot and gay marriage. Congrats, kids!

Perhaps now we have a chance on not going to war again in the next four years! Perhaps now we can start putting money into to saving lives and not killing more people (like our kids) in more wars. Perhaps the military industrial complex and the oil industry can lose money and we can put it to something actually useful.

Wouldn't it be nice to spend money on space research, and not war; life and not death? Because being in space is all and only about life. War, pretty much about death.

Cheers!