tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25488846431503979122024-03-13T19:15:19.894-05:00Queen of the Universe- No Credentials NeededSome things make sense in the world.
A lot more don't.
Putting it into words sometimes helps me make sense of the senseless.
Although more often, it just amplifies the stupid.lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.comBlogger481125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-63117196085056825462021-09-07T18:04:00.000-05:002021-09-07T18:04:43.725-05:00Bounties, Babies and Bullsh*t<p> Let's look at Texas' newest law on their books of ultimate morality- that flaming pile of turds that is SB8, or our brand shiny new abortion law.</p><p>It states that *all* abortions are illegal in Texas after the 6 week mark of pregnancy- no exceptions.</p><p>You may think, "Well, a month and a half in, a woman should be sure of if she wants to be a mother or not" but that's some first class moronic thinking. Six weeks pregnant is *two weeks* after a woman's period should have started. Unless you are a guy, you know that sometimes periods are late...sometimes up to two weeks late. Most pregnancy tests don't recommend taking them until "two weeks after your missed period" meaning women actually have a window of about 24 hours to decide what they are going to do, make arrangements, and go do it.</p><p>Bitch, I've seen guys waffle for *months* before buying a lawn mower over which brand and options they need. </p><p>And just to be sure that women take this law for serious, Texas has added a literal bounty to the mix. Figuring that expecting the State to enforce this law would lead to immediate and messy court cases, the State of Texas, Home of the Wild West, has now deputized every single citizen and *asked them* to turn in anyone providing services that end in an abortion or even planning to render services that end in abortion. </p><p>There are Texas men on Reddit right now, discussing how they can *on purpose* impregnate a woman just to collect that sweet sweet bounty cash.</p><p>To be clear, that bounty is not just for the doctors who do the abortion, but the person who gives that woman a ride to the clinic, the person who lends her money for the abortion (because contrary to conservative belief, abortion is NOT paid for with our tax dollars), even anyone she confides in who doesn't immediately lock her in a tower guarded by a dragon for the next 9 months. </p><p>What's that bounty?</p><p>$10,000.</p><p>People who claim to be "pro-life" think that's a pretty reasonable price to save a tiny baby.</p><p>Bullshit.</p><p>They don't give one good goddamn about tiny babies. </p><p>Know why I know that?</p><p>Because there is not one thing in this law that holds the *men* accountable. Not one thing. News flash: women don't magically get pregnant all by themselves. </p><p>Forget the heinous goddamn restrictions on a medical decision that belongs to the woman, her doctor, her god if she has one and her *long-term* partner if she has one.</p><p>Forget the fucking bounty. I thought we were supposed to be this great financial conservative genius of a state. Know how to prevent abortion?</p><p>Hold the *men* accountable. If you get a woman pregnant, *no matter what she decides to do*, you pay the amount it would take for her to be pregnant and give birth.</p><p>The *choice* is still hers, as it should be.</p><p>If the choice is to end the pregnancy for personal reasons, that's her decision, and the money goes to help her and other women with school, training, food, shelter, life through social programs normally paid for only by us taxpayers. If you didn't want to foot this bill, you should've thought about it and kept your pecker in your pants, mister.</p><p>If the choice is to give birth (and many times it's a financial decision whether or not to, because we live in a country that doesn't provide maternal leave or universal health care or all that mushy stuff), all expenses are paid for *and* the man gets to pay child support. If she wants you to be part of that child's life, that's up to her. </p><p>To give you an idea of how much this is going to cost you, here you go-</p><p>$3,000 prenatal care</p><p>$500 for maternity clothes</p><p>$17,000 for a hospital birth</p><p>$3,000 assorted baby sundries</p><p>$7,500 for lost wages on the part of the woman</p><p>$31,000 total. Let's be charitable and call it an even 30 grand. Up front and payable in full on that magical 6 week date. Then, of course, there's the 18 years of child support to look forward to.</p><p>What's that?</p><p>That's an outrageous price to pay for a few minutes pleasure? That sort of thing would ruin your life forever? </p><p>Huh.</p><p>And here you were, ready to knock up chicks for $10,000 a pop...and ruining their lives forever by leaving them on the hook for all the above expenses, plus the lifetime disparity in income they are guaranteed. </p><p>*Interesting*</p>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-86799709421394108952021-08-16T22:51:00.000-05:002021-08-16T22:51:37.426-05:00Sure, You Can Catch More Flies With Honey Than Vinegar, But Why Would I Want A Bowl Of Flies?<p>Hey, remember "Stay home for two weeks to flatten the curve"?</p><p>That was over FIVE. HUNDRED. DAYS. AGO.</p><p>And some of us did. Some of us stayed home, and if we went out, we wore a mask and stayed over 6 ft away from other people.</p><p>We didn't go out to eat, didn't grocery shop, didn't go to school or in some cases work, canceled plans...because it was a dangerous pandemic and it would be worth it to save lives.</p><p>But some of us didn't. Some of us hollered and squealed like stuck pigs and armed up and marched against the "infringement of our freedoms!" They carried big signs saying, "Your fear is not my problem" and told the rest of us if we wanted to be Big Government's Little Sheeple we could do all that mess, but they were proud American citizens and would have none of that falderol. </p><p>The falderol that could save lives. </p><p>We were told not to be mad at them because their flaunting every scientific study was just a difference of opinion and this is America, where we have to respect that.</p><p>Welp, over 30 million Americans have gotten sick with the "pretend so-called virus" and over 600,000 are dead of the "government bullshit hoax to make us all slaves."</p><p>Now, remember, some of us *never* quit wearing masks and distancing and doing curbside fucking everything during this 500+ day exercise in pandemic living. </p><p>And some others of us *never* "bought into" listening to science and health care workers so have just gone about their happy ways, going out and doing shit and just rolling the dead bodies out of the way because, you know, FREEDOM.</p><p>When a vaccine became available, it seemed like we were looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. But it was just a train full of un-masked non-distancing patriots screaming about being injected with 5G tracking devices that would turn us all into magnetic zombies. So, yeah. Only about half of America is fully vaccinated.</p><p>But, in spite of the toddler-tantrum-on-the-floor-of-Walmart response of a full third of America, by June (2021, not 2020 L. O. L.) it looked like we might have been rounding the turn on this pandemic in the US.</p><p>What do viruses love? Stupid people who are not vaccinated. Because that's how viruses spread...and mutate. A purposely unvaccinated population during a pandemic is not called a "brave patriotic army of rugged individualists". It's called "the control group". </p><p>So now we have the Delta variant and the number of people hospitalized with it is *higher* than at the highest point of the pandemic last winter. I know more people who have lost a relative or friend in the last *three weeks* than in the entire rest of the pandemic. </p><p>And this time it's coming for the children. </p><p>Wow. That's horrifying. Guess schools are not going to open in (looks at calendar) zero days. Oh, no. Schools are absolutely opening. At least they will be requiring staff and students to mask, right? Of course- the governors of Red states like mine were super-quick to (reads notes) MAKE MASK MANDATES ILLEGAL. </p><p>We currently have more people in the hospital now than we did at the height of the earlier parts of the pandemic. Children's hospitals have zero ICU beds. ICU. Babies and children and teenagers fighting to breathe because their dumbass parents refused to take steps to protect them. </p><p>Nothing will close. No mask mandates will be enforced. Because we are "tired of the pandemic". </p><p>Fucking hell.</p><p>So. Here's where we are at. </p><p>We are tits deep in the Delta variant of the Covid virus and a good third of Americans are still fighting for their "freedom" to I dunno...die? Watch their kids die? Get sick and be hospitalized? Get sick and live with *permanent* health issues from it? </p><p>And we are here 100% because of the above people <strike>being insufferable dangerous morons</strike> having different opinions than we do. 100%. This could have been *over* at least six months ago if we didn't have a third of America who literally don't care if other people die and won't do the smallest thing to protect other people. It's their fault. 100%.</p><p>I saw a long wordy rant (worse than this one) about how it was "just for a few weeks" and then "just a few things closing" and then "everything closing" etc. etc. etc. and the hilarious obtuseness of it was mind-boggling that the author can't see that IT WAS THEIR DAMN FAULT IT KEPT SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL. Theirs. They and their little stupid friends have killed over 600,000 Americans including their own parents, grandparents, siblings, children. </p><p>I'm done. </p><p>I'm done being polite to idiots who are A-OK spreading disease in the name of freedom. </p><p>I'm out of patience with people who urge us to "try to find common ground" and "we won't ever get them to see our side by being mean". <br /></p><p>Bitch, they won't ever see "our side", which by the way, isn't a difference of opinion between them and us. They. Are. Wrong. They. Are. Willfully. Ignorant. They. Are. Killing. People.</p><p>We are over 500 days into this, and those of us who have spent it doing the right things *and* worrying about their stupid asses are done.</p><p>They have the "right to their opinion" and their "feelings need to be considered and respected"?</p><p>*We* have the right to be pissed as hell at them. Don't let anyone tell you different. </p><p>I have spent over 500 days now trying to be sure people I love and care about don't die during a global pandemic. I'm not alone. We are exhausted. </p><p>We are exhausted and pissed and *that*, my friend, is valid AF. </p><p> </p>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-25289640168597940932021-07-11T19:08:00.000-05:002021-07-11T19:08:29.511-05:00Death of a Car Wash<p> I've been using the same car wash for about 20 years. </p><p>It's old and shabby and looks like the brushes may be made of needles and the soap may be acid, and I honestly can't even tell you the name of the place because those painted letters on the front of the building curled up and died at least ten years ago but ya'll, when you first drive up there are 2 guys who do the pre-entry scrubbing of bugs off the front bumper and backs of the side mirrors and inside the tire wells. There's a tip bucket hanging at the front of the line with a rock at the bottom to keep the bills from flying out. The vacuums only work part of the time, but it's close to work and the same guys have been working there the entire time I've been using it.</p><p>I wash my car once a week so they know me. Like. They know me.</p><p>They razz me because I can't reach the tip bucket and make T-rex arm motions when they come to take my $2.00 and they thank me for the tip.</p><p>They comment when I get a new car and say how much they like it.</p><p>They compliment me on every hair color change.</p><p>They give me shit when there's mud all on the car and I apologize for living in the country.</p><p>At Christmas I tip them $20 and every few months they tell me they upgraded my wash to Premium because I'm one of their favorite customers.</p><p>At the beginning of the pandemic, they told me to be careful and I told them the same.</p><p>When my Jack Ball came off of my antenna in the car wash, the Jack Ball that had traveled over 10,000 miles bravely grinning into the wind until its smile wore off,<i> they turned off the machines and walked the wash and found him</i>.</p><p>A few times a year, the car wash closes down because shit breaks and they wait for a part, so I didn't worry too much when it shut down a few weeks ago.</p><p>But it's not open yet and there are construction vehicles there tearing out the vacuum stalls. When the big door is open, you can see all the brushes on the floor like a gigantic pile of dead daddy long leggers swept into the corner of the porch. </p><p>It's become clear that my car wash is defunct.</p><p>Now, there's a new car wash about five minutes up the road from the old one. It's a super-fancy see thru tunnel and I hate it. </p><p>But I promised Bitsy (the car) (shut up) that I would wash her every week, since she used to live in Plano and now lives in the forest like a barbarian, so it's really the least I can do. </p><p>The new car wash has a mobile app and a monthly subscription and any of their locations will computer-recognize your license plate and just open the gates even if you wash your car every five minutes for a monthly fee of $36. I was spending $12 plus a $2 cash tip every week at the old car wash so...yay?</p><p>I downloaded the app and yesterday, I drove up to the gate of the new car wash. It magically opened and I drove in. There are no guys with brushes, no tip bucket with a rock in the bottom to keep the bills from flying out, just a sign with the written instructions that are in every car wash: Drive onto track. Put car into neutral. Sit back and relax.<br /></p><p>So, I did that. Drove onto the track and put the car into neutral. I was just starting to relax when I heard yelling next to the car and turned to see an angry man hollering, "DO YOU HAVE IT IN NEUTRAL???" I pointed at my gear shift clearly in neutral and he grunted and slapped blue tape over my back windshield wiper.</p><p>Why no, grumpy man. I'm in a hurry, so I thought I'd just run thru the car wash doing about 80.</p><p>Asshole.</p><p>There's a man who would *never* have retrieved a road-worn Jack Ball.</p><p>And there are still bugs on the front bumper and backs of the side mirrors.</p><p><br /></p>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-73370526685306572752021-05-20T17:40:00.000-05:002021-05-20T17:40:16.001-05:00Texas Leads the Way in Moral Cruelty Yet Again<p> Wow. Since October, huh? </p><p>Guess there wasn't anything to talk about between then and now.</p><p>Other than that election thing.</p><p>And that pandemic thing.</p><p>And that insurrection thing.</p><p>Just to catch us up a bit, I'm glad Biden won. He wasn't my first or even fifth choice (he was my last choice just above that batshit insane Marianne chick), but he's a million times better than our little fascist-wannabe-dictator, and I can say that truly now, after the little fascist-wannabe-dictator held his little fascist-wannabe-dictator insurrection. </p><p>I hope he dies soon (DJT, not Biden).</p><p>I hope every deluded asshole who stormed the capitol gets thrown in jail and gets a big ol' gun' takin' felony attached to them FOREVER.</p><p>I'm glad Biden took this pandemic seriously and we might even be getting out of it, in spite of the idiots who still think it's a made up thing and vaccinations are a libtard plot. </p><p>But right now, lemme talk about abortion, because today, our governor, who treasures life *so much* that he let over 100 Texans die during an ice storm and over 50 THOUSAND Texans die of Covid, who makes sure poor kids don't get food or health care and that schools are kept barely functioning, signed a bill to protect life.</p><p>Ain't that some shit.</p><p>In Texas, you can now, as a civilian, file a lawsuit against anyone you suspect of having had an abortion or anyone you suspect has performed one. And an illegal abortion is anything after 6 weeks gestation, so basically...all of 'em.</p><p>People always wonder that I'm "pro-abortion". Because I love babies and kids and OH MY GAWD THEY ARE KILLING BABIES HOW CAN YOU BE FOR THAT?</p><p>Know how many pregnancies get terminated by Mother Nature? One third. One third of all pregnancies get flushed out- most before the 6 week mark and for sure before the 12 week mark, just because shit's wrong with the fetus and it won't be a human for whatever reason. One. Third. </p><p>Despite all the grisly videos you can find about "the horrors of abortion", women have been terminating pregnancies since they figured out how it worked. More importantly, MEN have been *insisting* on terminating pregnancies since they figured out how it worked. People have been making these decisions for thousands of years and yanno what the holy books say about it?<br /><br />Nothing. Jack shit. In fact, the Bible says a fetus becomes a person when it takes its first breath. That ain't at 6 weeks gestation. </p><p>Also, no one NO ONE goes 8 months being pregnant and wakes up one day and says, "Yanno what? Nah. I'ma kill it" and drives to the abortion clinic. NO ONE.</p><p>Also, the *less than 2% of abortions* done that are "late term" are done because the baby is dead or the mother will die if it proceeds. Because that's not the worst nightmare a woman can have. Fun story. When I first moved to Texas, I worked with a woman who told me that her first pregnancy was a baby who died at 8.5 months gestation. And her doctor would not do a c section to remove the dead baby because it was "God's will she should carry to term if He wanted her to" so she walked around with her DEAD BABY INSIDE HER for a few weeks. That right there is a god I have zero use for.</p><p>Oh, sure. Some will be fucking magnanimous about it and say, "Except in the case of rape or incest" but will qualify that if the rapist is her husband it doesn't count or in states that allow you to marry your cousin at the age of 14 it doesn't count or anytime it makes a man look bad...it doesn't count. </p><p>What if her husband/boyfriend insists on unprotected sex but doesn't want a baby? What if they already have 3 kids and birth control failed and they cannot afford another one? What if...she just doesn't want a baby BECAUSE ABORTION IS LEGAL AND IT'S NONE OF OUR FUCKING BUSINESS?</p><p>Everyone can "Oh, but she can..." all day long with things she could do or should do that will bring this precious bundle of joy into the world but the bottom line is SHE'S NOT YOU. SHUT THE HELL UP. SHE'S DOING HER BEST. </p><p>Would I get an abortion? I don't know. I've been *lucky* enough to have never been in a position where I would feel so cornered, so over my head, so bleak of future, that it would come into play. I'm not a good person. I'm a damn lucky one. That's it.</p><p>I do know that this new law will cause many deaths. Because desperate women will turn to do-it-yourself ways to terminate a pregnancy that will kill them. Because men will be so angry that their wife/girlfriend/one night stand "got herself pregnant to trap me" and kill her. But hey. Totally worth it, right? Even if that leaves those women's *other* kids without a mom...because most women who get an abortion *already have other kids*. </p><p>So, go for it, assholes. Stick your goddamn noses into shit you have no idea about and make life a million times worse for a lot of people. Take something that 100% should be between a woman, her god (if she has one), and her doctor, and make it your own little power trip. Force her to have that precious baby so you can then turn around and deny baby *and* mom any help whatsoever and punish them all for their "bad life decisions". </p><p>As long as it's just women who are getting fucked over, it's cool.</p><p>Because if men were the ones getting pregnant, I guarandamntee they would sell abortion kits at Home Depot.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-64209144351271965442020-10-08T20:36:00.000-05:002020-10-08T20:36:35.377-05:00It's Almost Time to Vote. Are You Ready?<p><i style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: PublicoText, Georgia, TimesNewRoman, "Times New Roman", Times, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 18px;">“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that's what has to happen. I am urging them to do it,” Trump said toward the end of the debate against Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee."</i></p><p class="endmarkEnabled" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: PublicoText, Georgia, TimesNewRoman, "Times New Roman", Times, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 1.5rem 0px;">Well, isn't that special? I'm curious. Exactly *what* are they supposed to be watching for? Because people just go in, vote, and come out. Obviously, what he wants is for his <strike>batshit crazy cult members</strike> brave patriots to keep their Bald Eagle eyes peeled for...what? I'm afraid that it's going to be hella boring for the poor dears. So, I have a few things I may do, just so they can say they've done their <strike>master's bidding no matter how stupid or illegal it is</strike> patriotic duty:</p><p class="endmarkEnabled" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: PublicoText, Georgia, TimesNewRoman, "Times New Roman", Times, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 1.5rem 0px;">* Especially if they are armed, bring a tape measure to be sure they are the legal 100 ft from the entrance to the polling place. Ask them to hold the end while you pull the rest to the door. They need to feel useful. </p><p class="endmarkEnabled" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: PublicoText, Georgia, TimesNewRoman, "Times New Roman", Times, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 1.5rem 0px;">* Bring some fun items from home. Go in, vote, and come back to your car and...change your hat, put on a wig, add a shirt or change your facemask. Do it a minimum of five times. Tell the poll workers inside you're just playing with your friends outside. Obviously don't try to vote again because that's against the law...just like the voter intimidation going on outside.</p><p class="endmarkEnabled" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: PublicoText, Georgia, TimesNewRoman, "Times New Roman", Times, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 1.5rem 0px;">* If the <strike>stupid motherfuckers</strike> brave patriots don't appreciate your attempts to engage them in a friendly manner, throw some soup cans at them. If you are questioned, feign genuine sadness and say, "I just thought they looked so hungry out here" and then lob a few cans of Coke for good measure. To wash down the soup, of course. </p><p class="endmarkEnabled" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: PublicoText, Georgia, TimesNewRoman, "Times New Roman", Times, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 1.5rem 0px;">Ya'll. If the quote at the top of this page (on the heels of his verified 20,000+ lies he's told us) doesn't convince you that we need to kick <strike>this deranged asshole</strike> our current president to the curb, I just don't know what to think about you. </p><p class="endmarkEnabled" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: PublicoText, Georgia, TimesNewRoman, "Times New Roman", Times, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 1.5rem 0px;">Were you hit in the head with a can of soup?</p>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-30393595081108959942020-09-20T19:06:00.000-05:002020-09-20T19:06:46.805-05:00Dream. 9/20/20<p> We lost a national treasure when the light dimmed and quietly went out in the sharp, intelligent eyes of Justice Ginsburg. In an extraordinarily dangerous time, her passing made our path just a little darker and our loads just a little heavier. </p><p>She always told the truth and always championed those without a voice. Depending on where you were on a variety of hot-button issues, you either adored her or abhorred her, but there was never a lukewarm response to the Notorious RBG. </p><p>RBG passed away two days ago.</p><p>I did not sleep that night. I tried, but I just couldn't. Sadness, trepidation, the accelerated overall anger, worry and disgust of the last four years of a nation deep in the throes of a DJT presidency and global pandemic, all overwhelmed me and I just couldn't do it. I was exhausted with grief, but could not settle into blessed unconsciousness. </p><p>Last night I slept, and had an odd and random but starkly lucid and detailed dream. One of those dreams where you are sure you've been at it all night but it was probably only a few minutes. One of those dreams where you wake up and think, "Wait. It wasn't finished" and you get up, pee, and go back to sleep even though it's already time to get up...and the dream unpauses and continues. </p><p>I don't know if my dream had one thing to do with the death of RBG or anything other than a subconscious desire to turn back time. Normally, this is a bad idea, since a huge chunk in the center of my life was the stuff of nightmares. Only the first 14 years and these last 25 years have been worth a damn, other than the birth of my elder two children. I'll happily claim and keep those. And part of these last 25 years have been overshadowed by the deadly health issues my husband (finally got a good one and <i>that's</i> the one who gets smited? That's some Grade A bullshit right there.)</p><p>But the dream was insistent enough that I messaged my brother to see what happened to the house in the dream and powerful enough that it brought back a lot of memories and history and pesky enough that it's 5:45pm and it's still right in the front of my brain. </p><p>So, while other people much more eloquent and much closer to the Force of Nature that was Ruth Bader Ginsburg are writing beautiful eulogies to her, you get to hear about my dream.</p><p>Because for some reason, my anger has been a little less volatile today; my despair a little softer. I have no idea why. Regardless, here you go.</p><p>Important background. From the time I was two till the time I was twelve, we lived in a little rent house on a shady street in the blue collar town I was born in. It was an older house, probably built in the 30's or 40's, with a front porch and big trees in the front yard. There was a living room that flowed into a dining room that flowed into the kitchen. Two bedrooms and one bathroom were off to one side, entered from the dining room. Most of the dining room was taken up by my mom's spinet piano and a standing bird cage with a parakeet in it.</p><p>There was a one car garage and a tiny back yard with a big stockade fence along the back lot line. This fence was lined with hollyhocks that came up every year. The north side of the house was lousy with lily of the valley. The other side of the fence was the yard of a huge old tudor-style house whose lot took up fully half of the city block, with the eight other smaller homes and their tiny yards clinging to it like a litter of puppies.</p><p>Our town is the original home of companies like SC Johnson, JI Case, InSinkErAtor, and Western Publishing, as well as Hamilton Beach. Lots of factories and lots of wealthy factory owner families. </p><p>The Wustums had two daughters who both got married around the same time- each to another wealthy family's sons. Mom and dad Wustum told their daughters that they would build each of them a home as their wedding gift. One chose a gracious white columned Southern style home and the other a rambing tudor home. They were across the street from each other. This was back in the 20's, so by the time we were renting our tiny house, both couples were at or near retirement age. </p><p>All of us kids had been told (by older kids in the neighborhood) that Old Man Cushman in the tudor house was a mean old man who yelled at kids who dared go into his yard and made trouble for them with their parents. By then, the house was well-covered up in vines and the yard was a mature jungled wilderness. Off to one side, he had beehives. It was a dark and forbidding hulk.</p><p>When I was 4 years old, I discovered a hole in the fence in between the hollyhocks just big enough for me to squeeze through. I'd been watching Old Man Cushman tend his garden and he had a big fat aged Labrador Retriever who followed him around. </p><p>I liked dogs. </p><p>I did not have a dog.</p><p>I wanted to pet Old Man Cushman's dog.</p><p>Old Man Cushman was (I knew) very wealthy, but I never saw him in anything other than one of those one piece worksuits mechanics wear. His was tan. </p><p>He glowered at me from under bushy eyebrows and over grizzled whiskers and asked what I wanted.</p><p>"I want to pet your dog."</p><p>I petted the dog and then asked what he was doing. </p><p>That was the beginning of many afternoons at the Cushman's. </p><p>His yard was sectioned off in three main areas. There was an area for all of his many types of rose bushes, an area of lawn, of course, and my favorite...in the back under the trees and up to the fence, were about 20 different varieties of violets from all over the world. Hanging from the tree nearest the house was Spanish moss that he brought inside every winter. </p><p>I'd help (as much as a child helps) him in the garden, and then we'd go inside, where Mrs. Cushman (also very wealthy, remember) would be wearing her plain serviceable house dress and apron and would always have lemonade and some sort of fresh-baked cookies. </p><p><i>In retrospect (actually it just hit me this morning) I can't help but wonder what the fuck my mom was doing during the times her 4 year old daughter disappeared from a tiny back yard??? I do know eventually, she made an official visit to be sure I wasn't being a pest, but really, mom? </i></p><p>The house. Oh, the house. I loved the house. There was a formal living room and dining room, a butler's pantry that led through to the huge kitchen, a sweeping staircase that went upstairs to the master bedroom and connecting bathroom and three other bedrooms and a shared bathroom. Almost half of the second floor was a big open area that had been used as a play room, project room, movie room. In the attic were huge bundles of cedar shingles. When they'd built the house, Mr. Cushman had bought enough shingles to repair or replace the roof three times.</p><p>The Cushmans had traveled extensively and the house was filled with things from all over the world. If it was too rainy to garden, I'd help Mrs. Cushman dust all the accumulated bric a brac. </p><p>Considering his fierce reputation, no one trick or treated at the Cushman's, even though they were always ready with name brand candy and Mr. Cushman dressed up as a mad scientist and put a spiked collar on the old Labrador. I always did, much to the horror of the rest of the neighborhood kids. They'd warn me not to- say he was a terrible crazy man who would probably yank me inside and kill me. I just rolled my eyes, skipped up to the cobwebbed and scary music adorned porch and ring the doorbell, then skip on back with my pillowcase full of candy. </p><p>Eventually, my parents bought a house and we moved away. Mr. Cushman died and the Widow Cushman married the founder of SC Johnson and moved to his big house (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) out on Wind Point on Lake Michigan. Both Mrs. Cushman's sister and brother in law passed away and their big white house was turned into an elegant funeral home. </p><p>The big old tudor quickly passed from one family to another, with the price dropping each time. When my (first) husband and I were looking for houses, we went through the old Cushman Place. It was a wreck. The yard was a mess and there were no rosebushes left. The violets had been overrun by other weeds and been strangled out. The interior had not been kept up and neither had the roof; there were water stains on the ceilings and walls. </p><p>The realtor said, "I have to tell you that no one stays here long because they say it's haunted." I just smiled and said, "It's OK. I know him." Then I looked at my husband and said, "It'll be fine as long as you're nice to me." Needless to say, he did not allow me to buy the house.</p><p>It was finally sold as a commercial building and was used as a law office for a while and then a beauty salon...things that did not require anyone to be there after dark. </p><p>OK. All caught up. Now to my dream.</p><p>Ward and I had moved back to my hometown and had bought the old Cushman Place. It was still a wreck, but I was ready to bring it back to its old glory and grace. </p><p>We had friends visiting us and I was giving them a tour, telling them the history of the house and the people who had built it. </p><p>I can see it. Every detail, every leaded window and marble mantle. The mint green kitchen and forest green butler's pantry. Smell the cedar shakes in the attic even though they've long been replaced with standard shingles. Bring back the violets and hang out the Spanish Moss. Dust the mirrored and jeweled elephants from India and smell the fresh cookies out of the industrial-sized oven and eat them with my feet swinging off of the plastic-padded silver chair pushed up to the formica table. </p><p>That was over half a century ago. </p><p>And I can still feel the kindness and gentleness, the quiet manners of the Cushmans, who were the kind of people who couldn't stand pretention, or self-promotion, or the flaunting of excess in any form, and as I'm typing this I'm thinking maybe that's what that memory was for. </p><p>To remind and reassure me that people like that still exist. Justice Ginsburg was one. With her tiny frame and plainly-styled hair, she would wear things that were classic, and understated, and perfect, just like she was. She spoke the truth quietly and without drama, but in a way that meant business, with serious intelligence and passion. </p><p>The brash harpy who inhabits the Oval Office is not real. Nothing about him, his family, or his belief system has lasting value. He's a storm to be weathered, and then he'll be gone. Nothing more. </p><p>It's hard while we are in the middle of the insanity of America today to see it, but our nation is still full of compassion, and intelligence, and steady justice. </p><p>The storm will pass, and take with it the dregs of what too many thought was strength and power, but is really cowardly cruelty and empty pride. </p><p>It's going to get worse before it gets better, and we will always have to be on guard for the safety of those around us. We need to push back against the darkness, and darkness has a way of creating a great ugliness when it's challenged. </p><p>We need to keep pushing, not out of hatred for what is now with us, but with a never-ending determination to get to the other side.</p><p>*Photo of the old Cushman Place, now a beauty parlor. Thank you, Mr. Cushman. I love you.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQmBra3dzQCJTN_fNbO-XpRRcBeG2q6vBesRod192qBu-zGm8-yvJckq0Bdw5xJ9Le_t-F0pubaAehyphenhyphenEMJ0cahdLpKnGJPrXX5ztQxmLmBG3vX4ry6bcQoD6Ltv-KExkmBSsIcFs0ZkVD/s2048/cushman+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="946" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQmBra3dzQCJTN_fNbO-XpRRcBeG2q6vBesRod192qBu-zGm8-yvJckq0Bdw5xJ9Le_t-F0pubaAehyphenhyphenEMJ0cahdLpKnGJPrXX5ztQxmLmBG3vX4ry6bcQoD6Ltv-KExkmBSsIcFs0ZkVD/s320/cushman+house.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-42094214629738067212020-07-05T17:36:00.000-05:002020-07-05T17:36:53.728-05:00Hindsight is 20/20...Yeah, I know. Lots of people are saying what we *should* have done here in the US to keep Covid-19 under control. It's an easy, armchair quarterback sort of thing.<br />
<br />
But I'ma do it anyway.<br />
<br />
There are two things that we did wrong if we wanted buy-in from the Average American.<br />
<br />
<b>Number One:</b> Lie. Oh, we'd *like* to think that telling Joe Public the truth is the best way to proceed with something this serious, but I'm here to tell you, from deep in the right nostril of Trump Country, that that is a woefully hilarious idea. Because here's the thing.<br />
<br />
You cannot tell Joe and Karen Public USA to do Jack Shit "to help others". Cannot. Because deep in his/her heart of hearts, they really don't care. Why do you think SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED COLD DEAD HANDS rules here when it clearly should have been disarmed, patted on the head, and delivered to the nearest mental hospital after the VERY FIRST SCHOOL SHOOTING?<br />
<br />
They don't care what happens to other people. This is why all the comments that all boil down to, "I don't care if you want to wear a mask, but you can't tell me what to do. If you are in the high risk group, *you* should stay home. I'm not living my life in fear. You do you and I'll do me, boo. Your fear is not my problem." Sure, anyone with a heart the size of A VIRUS understands that's some straight-up selfish as hell bullshit right there, but this is America, and that's a celebration of freedom, doncha know.<br />
<br />
So the number one thing we needed to do is lie our asses off. "Everyone needs to wear a mask to protect THEMSELVES. <<< This, they understand. This is a cause they can get behind. If it had been framed like that, every 2nd Amendmenter would have a mask pouch on their holster. I guarandamntee it. "Protecting yourselves" is literally why we have more goddamn guns in this nation than people. "Wear a mask. Wear it everywhere- to the grocery store, Walmart, church, you never know where that terrorist virus is hiding!!!"<br />
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<b>Number Two:</b> And this is one that amazes me, considering we have a Very Stable Genius in the Oval Office. At the first whiff of a *possible* pandemic, DJT should have hit the brakes on every Chinese and Mexican factory that manufactures MAGA hats and switched them over to making MAGA MASKS. HOLY SHIT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH FUCKING MONEY HE COULD HAVE MADE OFF OF THIS THING??? Sure, still blame the Chinese, or the young people, or the libtards for the pandemic, but THOSE MAGA MASKS WOULD HAVE FLOWN OFF THE SHELVES, MAN.<br />
<br />
I thought he was some sort of financial guru with a "Very. Big. Ah-brain", for fuck's sake.<br />
<br />
That's it.<br />
<br />
Those two things done the first week of March would have had us open and running again on May 1. Trump supporters would be happily wearing their MAGA masks straight thru to election day, even if they didn't need to anymore because FUCK YOUR FEELINGS, LIBTARDS.<br />
<br />
But we didn't. Instead, we have "leadership" that just in the last few days said, "No, I'm not against masks. If people want to wear them that's fine. I have one I wore the other day. It was dark black" (as opposed to pastel black) "and I didn't look bad in it. I kind of looked like the Lone Ranger." Setting aside that the mask the Lone Ranger wears is OVER HIS EYES, that was the most pro-mask statement ever uttered in this whole thing.<br />
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And, we have a population that *despises* anything that smacks of "the greater good", running like scalded hogs at the idea of anything that "socialist". You flat cannot appeal to this mindset by saying, "You wear a mask to protect me and I'll wear a mask to protect you", because they don't give a shit about you. Really. They don't. Not because they are terrible people (altho, I've lost *a lot* of goodwill towards my fellow American since March), but because it's not in their upbringing or wiring to do so.<br />
<br />
In America, everyone takes care of themselves FULL STOP. Work hard, grab your bootstraps by the short hairs and haul yourself up that ladder. Don't ask for a helping hand, because if I help you, you will never be independent. It's actually harmful to you if I help you. OF COURSE THAT'S FUCKED UP. But that's America.<br />
<br />
And because of that, we will NEVER do anything "to help others" unless there's a reward for doing so, and "avoiding a deadly pandemic" is not good enough.<br /><br />What do they think we are? A nation of suckers?<br />
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<br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-86351670389838931022020-06-17T12:30:00.001-05:002020-06-17T12:30:41.889-05:00The Rest of the World Wonders if America Has Had Enough, Yet...<div class="_2cuy _3dgx" data-block="true" data-editor="ebldj" data-offset-key="akehu-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span data-offset-key="akehu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">Why is America struggling like a pissed-off snapping turtle on its back biting at its own feet with this pandemic? The rest of the world is watching in horror at what we are *doing to ourselves*, ya'll.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="1uscg-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">It's actually pretty easy to answer if you look at the way our society is set up *on purpose*.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="81ca-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">We have NO universal health care. Health care is still considered something you only deserve if you can afford it, and/or something intrinsically tied to your employment (which literally kills 80% of entrepreneurship in this nation, but that's another discussion). So, there is NOTHING in place to care for everyone at a national level. Nothing.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="fomid-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">We have damn few workers' rights, meaning that if our boss says, "Come to work in the middle of a pandemic and I *might* provide a little bit of PPE" you have to go to work, because we have no...
</span></span><span data-offset-key="el6c1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">...universal basic income. No safety net that will catch us if we are out of work for any reason. Other countries are spending WAY LESS per capita and taking care of small businesses AND workers who are staying home by paying them up to $2,000 a MONTH, not a one-time check for $1200 that some didn't even get plus some PPP bullshit loans that went to mostly huge companies. WE SPENT MORE AND GOT LESS FOR THAT SHIT, YA'LL.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="28p7c-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">So, what's the deal?
</span></span><span data-offset-key="6iu4d-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">The deal is, every other nation has the mindset that we all take care of each other and everyone is better off. They already have, built into their psyche, a belief in community and when they vote, they vote FOR this stuff, knowing that it will benefit everyone, EVEN THEM. It's not "government overreach controlling everything" like Turtleface McConnell said this morning about a police reform bill that he promises "will go nowhere in the Senate".
</span></span><span data-offset-key="bcb7v-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">The people decide what is important to their entire society to thrive- health care for everyone, strong social safety nets, public education thru college...and then they DIRECT THEIR GOVERNMENT to do these things...and if they don't, they get voted out and someone who will do it gets voted in. It's not "sheeple giving up all their rights" bullshit.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="asbcs-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">The bullshit is people in THIS country who are so damn selfish and STUPID about "individual liberties" that they REFUSE to save themselves and their loved ones during a damn PANDEMIC because "the government can't make me do anything I don't want to." Our ridiculous fantasy about "rugged individuality" has been killing us almost since day One of our nation.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="3n1fh-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">That's why.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="b3alr-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">Americans have such a twisted and perverted idea of "freedom" that we have been poorer, less healthy, and die sooner than people almost anywhere else for DECADES NOW.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="39p97-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">That's by design, ya'll. It's the only way American capitalism can survive, by keeping most of us working hand to mouth with no savings and no time off to THINK ABOUT WHAT IT IS DOING TO MOST OF US. We have been sold a bill of goods that we believed, and a pandemic has opened that shiny package up to reveal the rotting stench of the truth. The truth is, "hard work, elbow grease and bootstraps" don't mean shit. If it did, every American out there working 3 jobs to get by and still not have a cent in savings SHOULD be rich. The truth is, we will not survive this "little blip in our history" unless we make drastic changes to how we feel about each other and how this nation is run. Because lissen here, ya'll.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="b80hs-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The economy was NOT great "until this pandemic thing". MOST of us could not survive 3 months without income, including businesses big and small. THAT'S NOT GREAT. An economy that shatters after less than a month was NEVER strong. </b>
The same people who are telling us the pandemic is over and the economy is going to come roaring back by the end of the year are *not* looking out for the average American. They. Are. Lying. Too many people still believe them. More and more are not. More and more are realizing that they've been lied to about everything, and they are pissed. It's about damn time.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="2r1sm-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">The protests we are seeing now are not going away. Even in super-regressive areas like East Texas, the protests are not going away, and they are expanding to other actions, other ways to effect the changes we need if we are to survive.
Ironically, Covid-19 *may* be the only thing that saves us. As a nation, the *people* are exploding over *everything* that's fucked up here...and it's a LOT, on all levels. Once we realize that it's ALL RELATED, things can start happening in the right direction. It's all related. Racism, poverty, income inequality, access to education and health care, social safety nets, the enduring and never-ending exhaustion most of us feel every damn day.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="2r1sm-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">So.
</span></span><span data-offset-key="2r1sm-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">Will a pandemic and a public uprising turn this shit around?
</span></span><span data-offset-key="2r1sm-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">Or will we die upside down in the sun, mad as hell and chewing off our own feet?
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-16881902910725691612020-05-31T15:44:00.000-05:002020-05-31T15:44:24.142-05:00Our Nation is on Fire During a PandemicI'll just get this out of the way. Donald Trump is not the cause of Covid-19.<br />
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Covid-19 falls into the category of "shit just happens" and also "every so often, a germ comes along to remind humans that they are basically meat-sacks that walk upright and have car keys but are really no different than any other meat-sack organism on Earth".<br />
<br />
So, it was going to happen no matter who was POTUS. Because germs don't give a fuck what your politics are or what country you live in or what title is engraved on your desk plate. He could have 100% made what's happening in the US because of Covid-19 100% better than it is, but he's not a leader, or a scientist, or a thinker. He's basically much more meat-sacky than the rest of us meat-sacks. For instance, he needs to wear a damn mask. It's not hard and it does two things: It provides a *modicum* of protection against the virus, and, more importantly, it reminds us to not touch our faces and is a reminder to us and those around us to personal-distance.<br />
<br />
But, he's not wearing a mask. Neither are a lot of the Red State governors, making wearing a mask to protect against a pandemic "a political statement". So, this country is already divided between people who take a global pandemic seriously...and those who don't. They don't think we need to do anything differently and are all kinds of pissed-off about business closures and limitations and any sort of inconvenience at all. So, there's that.<br />
<br />
Now, we have the *latest* death of a black man literally under the knee of a white cop. On film. The entire world has now watched George Floyd die over and over again. That's caused protests all over the nation. Funny thing about that, though. These protests are peaceful until dark. Then, a different crowd shows up and the violence begins.<br />
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City after city is realizing that it's *not* the black population who are setting things on fire and breaking windows. It's white guys who are armed. They are not local to the places they are destroying and they are targeting the very places those neighborhoods need to survive: Grocery stores, pharmacies, small businesses, public buildings...<br />
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The White House and its minions want you to believe these are "Antifa", but that's bullshit. I live in the South. I live in Texas (the state that threatens to secede every few years). I live in an area where there are FIVE chapters of the KKK within 50 miles of me. I know that because they *publicly advertise* for members.<br />
<br />
These assholes, these White Supremacists, this is their moment. This is what they've been waiting for.<br />
<br />
Think about it.<br />
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I mean, they've always been here. But public sensibility made them hide under their white sheets and in their enclaves in the forest for decades.<br />
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Then, a black man was elected president of the United States.<br />
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For eight years, that chapped their asses like nothing else. Obama was a burr under their saddles that festered and burned.<br />
<br />
Then...President Trump. The man who made racist comments *on the day he announced his candidacy* and who has never stopped soft-pedaling his response to anything these assholes did or said. Nazis in Charlottesville? Very fine people. He announced that he would be the "law and order" president and unless you live under a rock, you know what that means.<br />
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Trump validated their feelers and gave them permission to come out into the open.<br />
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All the "Open (insert state name here)" protests? Where brave patriotic Americans gather with their favorite AR's dressed in camo and their Confederate Flag underpants? That's them. Behind all those rallies are White Supremacist groups itching for a "Revolution" where they can "take back" their country once and for all from...well. You know. They actually saw a global pandemic as an opportunity to initiate a civil war...and their president egged them on. He's either evil incarnate or dumb as a sack of wet mice. I honestly don't know which it is from day to day.<br /><br />Both Trump and the White Supremacists are labeling anyone wearing a mask as a "libtard snowflake" and now the president has re-tweeted a video saying "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat", literally targeting anyone wearing a mask to avoid getting sick. What a windfall for the White Supremacists and their desire to actually and for real stomp out the liberals.<br />
<br />
When George Floyd died, these groups hit the jackpot.<br />
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All they had to do (they thought) was to show up in *every* mid to large sized city where there were protests, wait till dark, and then...light 'er up, Bubba! Luckily, most cities are already onto this grand plan. Our president is desperately trying to tag this violence on Antifa, but there is NOT ONE GOOD REASON Antifa would set neighborhood businesses on fire. Antifa is literally "anti-fascist". Police departments where bad cops are protected? Yes. Homes of the cops who kill citizens? Of course.<br />
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But, Antifa would not destroy essential businesses in a black neighborhood. You'd have to hate black people to do that. Get it, now?<br />
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Communities of color are being hit the hardest by Covid-19. They tend to be essential workers and may or may not have access to PPE or the support of their employers to get and use any. They are the most likely to be laid off or fired because of the pandemic. They have less access to health care than a lot of other Americans.<br />
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The protests we are seeing from these communities and their allies are a result of...everything. Everything. Because nothing changes for them. Systemically, nothing changes. Every time there's a horrific, impossible to ignore death there's an immediate outpouring of concern and revulsion, but nothing really changes.<br />
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Please stop to think about this:<br /><br />Covid-19 has uncovered everything that is wrong with our nation from the fact that healthcare should never be tied to a job you can lose to the fact that if families and businesses cannot withstand a disruption of 60 or 90 days without going bankrupt WE DO NOT HAVE A STRONG ECONOMY.<br />
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*Heathcare should never be tied to a job you can lose*<br /><br />*If families and businesses cannot withstand a disruption of 60 or 90 days without going bankrupt, WE DO NOT HAVE A STRONG ECONOMY.<br /><br />Any time there is social disruption, two things happen.<br />
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There will be groups that rise up to destroy the fabric of society for their own personal gain and agenda, like the White Supremacists are doing now, with a president who is either knowingly or unwittingly encouraging them to do so. *Their goal is to gain or maintain control of the system to the detrement of others in the same system*.<br /><br />There will be groups that demand change to the institutions and culture that leaves *any* of us vulnerable. People that believe this nation will never be truly great until no one is homeless, no one is hungry, no one is afraid of interactions with police, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where people don't die of preventable things 100% because they don't have the money to fix them.<br />
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Until we are all free and equal, none of us are free and equal.<br />
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If my success depends on the subjugation of someone else, that is not success.<br />
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OK. What can each of us do?<br /><br />-If you are able, protest. Be safe. Be aware of those around you. Get the hell out of Dodge before dark when the fucking White Supremacists start their shit.<br />
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-If you know any White Spremacists, don't humor them and don't coddle them. They aren't "just products of their time or culture". They learned how to use a cell phone, they can stop being racist. They need to know that what they believe is NOT OK. Never was. Never will be. It's not a matter of "freedom of speech" or "everyone is entitled to their own opinion". If your opinion is that other people are lesser than you are, your opinion is wrong. Period.<br />
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-Pay attention to your local and state officials. Let them know that if their policies are inappropriate, they will be voted out of office. If your police department has an abysmal record of abuses, call them out. When enough people *who are not their targets* make it known that their actions are NOT OK, especially if your PD depends on donations to survive, they will change. Tell your elected officials that you support laws and policies that make it easier for everyone to live and be healthy, not harder and then<br /><br />-VOTE. Yeah, I know. Do it anyway, for those whose platforms you agree with.<br />
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-Speak up. I'm an older white woman. The danger to me from speaking up if I see something wrong is negligible to none. Don't walk by. Don't turn away. Whether it's a checker profiling someone at the checkout (asking for ID from a black person when none was required of the 3 white people before them) to police over-stepping their authority in their contact with a POC...watch. Be obviously watching the interaction. Don't be rude. But don't back down.<br />
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That last one should be your every day default attitude, since 99% of us can only shape and control our own immediate community.<br />
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"Holy cow, that would be exhausting to be so on edge and observant every day every time I'm out in public."<br /><br />How do you think our black and brown fellow humans feel?<br /><br />Our nation is on fire during a pandemic.<br />
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Which America will rise from the ashes and will you be proud of the role you played?<br />
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<br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-91259713386426431982020-05-17T22:56:00.001-05:002020-05-17T22:56:28.233-05:00Welp, America Had a Good Run...<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>I last posted here on March 20th, 58 days ago.</b></div>
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<b>The death toll in the US from Covid-19 was 259. Two hundred fifty nine.</b></div>
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<b>Right now? 58 days later?<br /><br />Death toll in the US from Covid-19 is 90,330. Ninety thousand three hundred thirty.<br /><br />Fucking hell. </b></div>
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I'm done with the You Tube videos "proving" that the virus is a hoax, or if it's not a hoax it's a liberal plot to install commie socialism in this country and make us all slaves by chipping us with a fake vaccine and turn on the 5G towers and make us all zombies.<br /><br />I'm done with complete mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers hollering that no one is dying; that it's all a Deep State Illuminati exercise to see how far they can get us to go. There are no bodies, no exhausted medical workers, this is all to see how acquiescent we will be. Today we are supposed to stay home and wear masks. Tomorrow maybe bunny ears. The next day? Load up on the rail cars to the showers, ya'll.</div>
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I'm done with whiny little crybabies refusing to wear masks and stay home because it's 'infringing on their freedoms' who have spent a decade calling those of us who want people to have health care and education "snowflakes".</div>
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I'm done with a "president" who stands up and says, "With or without a vaccine, America is BACK!" as Americans continue to die every single day. We're not "back", you insipid dolt, we are DYING. You can't "order" meat packing plants to stay open without making sure the workers are safe. Those cows and chickens won't gut themselves, Brainiac. You can't spitball bullshit "ideas" for dealing with a pandemic when you don't have a minute of medical training, especially on camera talking to a scared populous who is *depending on you for direction*. </div>
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And I'm totally done with hearing, "Well...America needs to get back to WORK. This stay at home thing will ruin the economy!" and have real adult humans speculating on an *acceptable* death rate.</div>
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I get it. I get that people are out of work and out of money and losing their businesses that they've spent a lifetime building. I get it and *I understand it*. </div>
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Because here's the thing.</div>
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That shit is completely by design. It's end stage capitalism BY DESIGN.</div>
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Back to the whole "liberal agenda" thing.<br /><br />Once upon a time, America went thru a Great Depression. The president who got us out of that mess was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After it was over, with the horrors of that time fresh in his mind, FDR penned a "Second Bill of Rights", directing that unless America instilled those particular things, we would be wide open for another Great Depression. Those things were-<br />-the Right to a safe workplace that pays a living wage<br />-the Right to have access to health care, even if you can't afford it<br />-the Right to shelter. Homelessness is a neverending cycle.<br />-the Right to be free from business monopolies and unfair competition; things that kill small business</div>
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-the Right to a free and quality education</div>
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-the Right to social security, so if you get sick or are out of work, you will be OK financially</div>
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These things are what he felt were NEEDED if we were going to survive another huge upheaval in our nation...like a worldwide pandemic, for instance.</div>
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If we had done those things, we would be in a *much* better place than we are now; financially, physically, mentally. Individuals would have been protected from employment disruption and small businesses would have been strong and thriving, and have government (taxpayer) support in times of need. </div>
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Liberals have been pushing for those things now for 76 years, and for 76 years Americans have been brainwashed by "conservatives" to believe those things are unaffordable, impractical, and downright unAmerican. </div>
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Now, here we are.</div>
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We don't have any of those things we needed to have to weather this storm.</div>
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And the conservative base is giving the hairy eyeball to anything that smacks of "the liberal agenda", even a small thing like wearing masks in public to slow the spread of the virus (remember...259 dead 58 days ago and over 90,000 today) is sneered at and rejected as "government overreach". Holy hell, ya'll. The virus doesn't give two shits about your exaggerated belief in knowledge of our Constitution. </div>
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It's not a "liberal plot to take advantage of the pandemic to make us all slaves".</div>
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Look around, for fuck's sake.<br /><br />Our government is owned by corporations and special interests- these are the 1% conservatives. The people who are not "doctor or lawyer rich", but people who each hold more wealth than the rest of your entire state's population combined. That's why the majority of the last big tax law bill's benefits went to them and their corporations and not the rest of us or small businesses. Thank the 1% conservatives for that.<br /><br />Our unions have been stripped of most of their powers and the EPA has been gutted, making workplaces more dangerous than ever. Thank the 1% conservatives for that.<br /><br />Our minimum wage has not gone up since 2009. That's 11 years, ya'll. Meanwhile the cost of *everything* has doubled or tripled. Americans work longer hours for less pay than anyone else in the first world nations. Thank the 1% conservatives for that.</div>
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Americans are not lazy.</div>
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Amerians would not just sit at home on their asses without the fear of starvation and homelessness making them go to work.</div>
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Americans would not "run to the doctor every day" if health care was free.</div>
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1% conservatives want you to think that.</div>
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Look. Around.</div>
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What's happening in this global pandemic?</div>
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What will happen when (not if) our economy crashes, because it will, whether we stay home trying not to die or if we brave death and go back to work. Our economy is toast.</div>
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Because we don't have what FDR TOLD US WE NEEDED to avoid what is happening now, the other side of this looks like this:</div>
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-massive unemployment and tens of millions without the means to feed or house themselves and their families</div>
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-every single small business gone, dead and gone from the tanking of the economy</div>
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In the ruins of this nation, those of us who are left, will be forced to work for the places still standing- Walmart, Target, Exxon, etc. </div>
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The end game of capitalism is for all the marbles to be in the hands of a very few, with the rest of us working for them for just enough to keep us from starving to death, but not enough to challenge them.</div>
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And we'll be able to thank the 1% conservatives for that.</div>
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I'd like to say it's not too late, that we could still change the ending. </div>
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But I'm looking at a nation that cried together, no matter their individual politics, after 9/11 killed 3,000 Americans. As of today, we have lost 90,000 Americans (forty six 9/11s) in under two months, and fully a third of us are literally taking up arms and threatening the rest of us for trying to staunch the flow of death and denying it's even happening.</div>
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If we make it through this and come out the other side into anything remotely resembling a hopeful future for 99% of us, it will have to be with an entirely different economic model; one we should have had three quarters of a century ago.</div>
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Our window of opportunity is closing fast. Do we have the stomach to stand up to ignorance and greed? The pandemic pushed the capitalism end game to a more abrupt and stark finish than was probably expected, but it also thrust us into a unique position of freedom.</div>
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Our economy is fucked, our employment is disappearing, and we're facing literal death unless we do something immense and immediate to help ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and our local businesses. What else could we possibly lose?</div>
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1% conservatives have spent several decades grooming their base into a squirrely, suspicious, armed mass who hold that they alone are the only patriots, and the rest of us are commie pinkos who Hate America. Will we *allow* them to endanger the rest of us? Because that's what it's come to.</div>
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Do we have the balls to do what FDR directed us to do 76 years ago?</div>
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lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-45914273081970129592020-03-20T20:07:00.003-05:002020-03-20T20:07:59.507-05:00Dangerous TimesOh, sure. There's that global pandemic going around. And that's something everyone needs to take very seriously. Stay the fuck at home if you can. Stay the fuck at home if it's inconvenient. If you have to go out, pretend you're on a Mad Max mission: Carry your hand sanitizer and use it before you leave your car and after you get back into it. Do what you need to do as far as shopping and shit (staying as far from other people as you can without actually lobbing your debit card at the cashier from the end of the conveyer belt), and get the fuck home. Then...stay the fuck home.<br />
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Let's not lose sight of something, though.<br />
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There are *way* too many people saying, "Now is not the time for politics. We need to all get behind the president so we can help our country through this pandemic!" which is a nice thing to say, but invariably, it's followed with, "The president is doing all he can to help the nation and has been doing everything possible" which is pure, unadulterated, grade A, unicorn-glitter-covered bullshit.<br />
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<b>Pure, unadulterated, grade A, unicorn-glitter-covered bullshit.</b><br />
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Fact: Our president inherited an actual Pandemic Response department at the CDC and he <b>fired</b> them, saying, "I'm a businessman. They are just sitting around and wasting money. If we need them, we can call them back."<br />
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Fact: Our President's own administration did a pandemic simulation that played out eerily like what we are now seeing in real life. He did <b>nothing</b>.<br />
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Fact: Our President knew in *December* that this was going on and was advised to start making plans to protect the American people. He did <b>nothing</b>.<br />
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Fact: When Covid-19 began disrupting China, and people in the medical community started ringing the alarm bells about it, he <b>dismissed</b> them as being liberals trying to make him look bad and that this was going to be the "new liberal witch hunt hoax".<br />
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Fact: When it started spreading, our President still <b>downplayed </b>the danger, claiming it was "just a cold" and the liberals were trying to make him look bad. He said America had "only 15 cases and by next week there will be zero."<br />
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Fact: He <b>refused</b> tests that WHO offered to the US, delaying any widespread testing here.<br />
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Fact: Even after it was clear Covid-19 was, indeed, here in the US and spreading quickly, he continued to <b>downplay</b> the danger, saying, "We have it completely under control".<br />
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These are facts. Everyone in the nation watched them play out and they are forever saved on footage and in tweets from the President himself.<br />
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But now, <b>now</b>, our President stands up before god and everyone, insisting that<b> he</b> was the first one to call it a pandemic, that <b>he</b> knew what was going on months ago, and that <b>he</b> knows more about disease processes than anyone and "even the doctors are amazed at how much I know".<br />
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As of today, right now, there are over <b>19,000</b> *known* cases of Covid-19 and almost<b> 250</b> deaths.* <i>Three days ago there were 2,500 cases and less than 50 deaths.</i> I say *known*, because we are <b>still</b> not testing in any sensible manner. I just this minute watched the President of the United States say he didn't think it was necessary to install any federal guidelines to stop the spread of this virus; he's leaving it up to the states to deal with and many states are leaving it up to local authorities to deal with.<br />
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That's horseshit. It's not going to do fuck-all to control this.<br />
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Back to the "We need to put aside politics and get behind the President" attitude and why it's so dangerous.<br />
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*Our President has proven over and over again that he cannot inspire anything but fear and hatred.<br />
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*Our President has proven over and over again that he is bullheadedly ignorant and trusts "his gut" over actual experts in...anything.<br />
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*Our President cannot get up in front of a microphone (or on Twitter) without blaming someone else for his own shortcomings, mis-steps and actual fuck ups, pointing fingers at the media, the liberals, Obama, etc...instead of taking responsibility like an adult human being.<br />
<br />*People around our President take up valuable air time praising our President's behavior so we all know that *<i>it's not his fault shit is hitting the fan when it's his shit and he turned on the fan</i>* We need them to tell us what's going on and what we need to do and we need them to spend <b>more</b> time contradicting the ridiculous things he says and <b>less</b> time kissing his ass. Call. Him. On. His. Shit. Because this is serious and people are dying because of his bullshit fantasy take on reality.<br />
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<i>That we have a President whose tender feelings are considered more important than the actual lives of American people is horrifying.</i><br />
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We should <b>not</b> 'get behind' such a man. None of us. Not one. He has shown us what he is made of, and it is nothing but hot air, ego, and self-preservation.<br />
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Today, a reporter asked him, "Americans are afraid. What do you say to the American people who are afraid?" and our <b>President</b> said, "I say that's a nasty question and you are a terrible reporter."<br />
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<i>What the actual fuck.</i><br /><br />This is not a leader. I don't care what your politics are, any actual leader would have said something uplifting and courageous and reassuring. Our<b> President</b> took a valid question that people *needed* to hear the answer to, regarded it as a personal attack, and lashed out at the man who asked it.<br /><br />The best thing our <b>President</b> could do at this point, and the only thing that would help the American people, would be to say, "I was wrong at the beginning of this. I did not understand how serious this was and I apologize. From this moment forward, I am letting the people who are the experts be the face and voice of this crisis that all Americans are facing", hand the podium over to them, and walk away. That is what he needs to do and that is the <b>only</b> thing that would make me respect him even a tiny bit.<br />
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I will do everything in my power to help people around me, people who work for me, people in my neighborhood, city, state and country no matter what their politics. If you need something, I will do my best to help you. That's a promise, and it's the only promise <b>any</b> of us should be making.<br />
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"Getting behind" this shameful excuse of a leader should be the last thing we should do.<br />
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Donald J. Trump has spent his entire life "looking out for Number One" and not caring one bit about the emotional and economic carnage he leaves behind.<br />
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We do not have time to indulge in the head-patting and ass-kissing this geriatric toddler needs to make sure he doesn't have a mental meltdown. We do not have time to accept his adult version of a literal temper tantrum anytime someone dares to question what he says. We do not have time.<br />
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Take care of your families. Check on your neighbors. Keep in touch with your co-workers.<br />
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But, do not let <b>anyone</b> get away with re-writing the timeline of these events.<br />
Do not let<b> anyone</b> try to make Donald J. Trump a hero in all of this.<br />
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That's the danger.<br /><br />Donald J. Trump literally ran on "I'm the only one who knows how to fix this" and his supporters have believed him for almost four years, and continue to believe him after four years of his entirely fucking up everything he touches, four years of him cozying up to dictators and alienating our allies, four years of him lining his pockets at our expense.<br />
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Our President did not cause this virus. But his ham-fisted handling of the first months of this has endangered millions of Americans and completely decimated our economy.<br />
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Make damn sure everyone remembers that in November.<br />
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*In the 3 hours since I started writing this, we have over 500 more cases in the US, and our death toll is at 259.<br />
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<b></b><b></b><br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-35149881424922073572019-06-28T16:38:00.000-05:002019-06-28T16:38:57.284-05:00Let Capitalism Take Care of ItWhoa. *Checks blog to be sure I'm in the right place* Nope. It's the right place.<br />
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Wait. So, the socialist is telling us to let capitalism take care of something? What sort of topsy-turvy world are we now living in?<br />
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I mean, first of all, have you looked around lately?<br /><br />Secondly, yes. There is a place capitalism would absolutely help us get to where we need to be and that place is health care in the US.<br />
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We're on that downward trajectory towards another presidential election and we all know what that means: There are 1,576 Democratic candidates who all say they can<br />
a) Beat DJT<br />b) Get actual shit done that actual citizens need to live actual comfortable lives that are not merely "quietly desperate lives filled with worry and fear but also with an iPhone and a decent car so that means we're OK".<br />c) Beat DJT<br />
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One of the top issues is health care.<br />
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Now, that's silly, because "On Day One" of the Trump presidency, he repealed Obamacare and instituted the most greatest health care that's ever been seen in the history of the universe. Everyone is healthy now, everything is free, and no one even dies anymore. If you start falling, a little fairy wearing a MAGA hat magically appears, catches you, and gives you a nice cup of covefe.<br /><br />Hahahahahahahaha. Just kidding. He didn't do shit.<br />
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Obama wanted to include a "public option" in the ACA (what most of us refer to as Obamacare. Like most of us will forever refer to the concentration camps on the border as TrumpCamps but that's another blog) which meant that if you were paying into Medicare out of your paychecks, you could sign up for Medicare even before the age of 65. Or, you could keep your work-sponsored or private insurance. That's the "option" part of Public Option. Your choice. Option.<br /><br />
The American people responded by hollering like stuck hogs and stampeding off over the horizon, screaming 'SOCIALISTS ARE COMING TO KILL US!'<br />
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So, here we are. Trump has managed to change just enough in Obamacare to screw it up and hurt people, but we have yet to see the promised "Republican beautiful health care plan that will cover everyone and be so affordable and we just won't believe it!" Let's all get our Surprised Faces out.<br />
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Therefore, health care is a big issue for the Dems who want to be POTUS.<br />
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And here's where I disagree with one of my favorite people, Bernie Sanders. Bernie has come out in front of god and everyone saying he wants to *abolish* the private health care system and force everyone onto Medicare for All, as have several others of the ginormous field of contenders.<br />
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Really?<br /><br />
Really really?<br />
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Oh. Em. Gee. You cannot do that. Cannot.<br />
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Not just that this will literally HAND the election to DJT on a silver platter (covered in hamberders) because he will be absolutely able to fan the flames of fear of lack of individual freedoms, but that this fanning will be justified. You cannot just suddenly eliminate our current system of health care and here's why.<br />
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First, see above about causing at least 1/3 of Americans (those who still support this president against all facts, odds, and sensibilities) to run screaming into the hills, shooting over their shoulders, and yelling that we ain't takin' their right to die as free men and wimmen away from them, dang it.<br />
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Second, the private insurance sector isn't just some amorphous thing with a few super-rich dudes sitting at the controls (channeling my inner Wizard of Oz here). Thousands and tens of thousands of actual middle class American citizens get up every day and to go work to feed their families at...private insurance companies. You can't just suddenly put them out of work.<br />
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Third, and most important because it (finally) ties in the title of this piece, if you do the Public Option- open up Medicare to those paying into it regardless of age and let their dependents also access it, and let everyone who is uninsured onto Medicaid without jumping thru hoops and ridiculous wait times, the capitalist system will literally sort it out for us, and here's how.<br />
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Say we have a public option. The guy who keeps his work-based insurance keeps paying into Medicare/Medicaid *and* his part of his premiums at work. His paycheck deductions have gone up maybe 3% so not a lot, but some. Over time, he sees his co-workers who are on Medicare<br />-get the same or better care as he does<br />-get to take home the money he's still spending on his premiums. And co-pays. And deductibles.<br />
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Unless he's a lunatic, he's going to be on Medicare before long. And that will be a long enough shake-down period that people now working in the private sector can transition to the public sector as their jobs transfer over.<br />
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See? No one has to "take" anything from anyone.<br />
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The beauty of the Free Market will work it out for us.<br />
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<br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-66631578513606208212019-01-12T22:09:00.000-06:002019-01-12T22:09:23.840-06:00Today's Public Service AnnouncementTo our federal employees who have been told to stay home without pay till Trumpty Dumpty gets his wall:<br />
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I'm so sorry. This is very unfair and you get to suffer for the maniacal selfishness of the ignoramus in the White House. If you need anything, I will try to help you. Thank you for your service to our nation.<br />
<br />
To our federal employees who have been told they have to show up and work without pay:<br />
<br />
Tell that Orange Shitgibbon to fuck right off.<br />
<br />
Seriously. The majority of America has your back completely if you decide to just stay home.<br />
<br />
There is no way any of us expect you to work without pay. He wants to "play hardball"? Pitch that flaming bag of shit right back into his lap, ya'll.<br />
<br />
Air traffic controllers? Oh, well. Thank you, President Trump for shutting down the airports.<br />
<br />
Border Patrol? Guess that "emergency on the border" isn't that big if you are expected to work for free. Vete a la chingata, pendejo.<br />
<br />
Members of the Secret Service who are expected to show up without pay? Yeah. Just don't. See how bombastic that chickenshit draft-dodger is when you're not there.<br />
<br />
I mean, I get it.<br />
<br />
Sometimes people work without pay. If there's a natural disaster, for instance. But this is not that.<br />
<br />
You are being asked to work without pay because the world's biggest whiny baby wants a wall that every single expert says will not work and is a bad idea.<br />
<br />
This is not about border security and "democrats wanting open borders".<br />
<br />
This is about SENSIBLE and EFFECTIVE border security...which a wall is not in either case.<br />
<br />
The last time someone in power made this big a dick move, Job had a pretty bad time of it.<br />
<br />
Let's be perfectly clear: Donald J. Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about you and your family. He never has and he never will. Don't feel bad. He doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but himself.<br />
<br />
Your fellow Americans do not want you to work without pay.<br /><br />
Thank you for your dedication and your service, but sometimes a bully needs to be called on his shit.<br />
<br />
You can end this infantile power play and be actual American heroes by just staying home.<br />
<br />
Thank you for your dedication and your service.<br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
<br />
The Majority of Americans<br />
<br />
<br />
lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-45653259710272850792019-01-02T13:56:00.000-06:002019-01-02T13:56:49.806-06:00Let's Do Talk About Entitlements, Shall We?So, our Conservative friends say we need this wall. It's vital to America's security and future and therefore we (the American taxpayers) have to pony up the dollars to pay for it.<br />
<br />
Here is not the place to hash over all that "Mexico will pay for it!" bullshit, because anyone with three meager brain cells to knock together *always* knew that Mr. Art of the Deal who's been bankrupt 5 times and stiffs everyone he comes into contact with could not make a sovereign foreign nation pay for the damn thing. Anyone who believed that for a split second is dumb as a sack of wet mice and that's no lie.<br />
<br />
Back to reality.<br />
<br />
So, we need a wall.<br />
<br />
We need a wall despite there already being 600+ miles of physical barriers all along the places that a physical barrier is possible in the world of having to work with physics and geography.<br />
<br />
We need a wall despite the number of border crossings from the South has dropped every year for the last decade-plus, and most of our "illegals" FLY HERE with green cards and just overstay their visas.<br />
<br />
We need to pony up billons of taxpayer dollars despite there being a fund specifically for border security and last year they used less than 10% of that fund.<br />
<br />
ALL THAT ASIDE...here's what I (a mere elderly socialist) do not, in my obviously fluffy-headed femaleness, do not understand:<br />
<br />
Why should I have to pay for this damn wall?<br />
<br />
I don't live on the border. The people who live on the border, many of them ranchers, put up fences all day long. It's part of being a rancher. You need fences. Why should the American taxpayer pay for YOUR FENCE along one side of YOUR property? You're the one who moved down along the border. You knew where your land was. Your land/your responsibility, bubba.<br />
<br />
Why should *I* have to pay for *your* CHOICE to live on the border? I mean, there's tons of empty land out there. Why didn't you ranch in Wyoming or Kansas?<br />
<br />
Ah. Wait for it. Here it comes. I can sense the conservative brains all locking on to this with the acuity of melting tar.<br />
<br />
But this is for national security! It's necessary for the future and safety of our citizens!<br />
<br />
Outstanding. I'm delighted you feel so strongly about the future and safety of our citizens.<br />
<br />
So, you're exuberantly for universal health care? Taxpayer-funded health care that would either take the place of or strongly augment private insurance like every other nation in the world provides its citizens would go a long ways to ensure the future and safety of all Americans.<br />
<br />
And, you'll stand shoulder to shoulder with me for publicly-funded higher education? Taxpayer-funded higher education for anyone who wants it and scholastically qualifies for it like many other nations in the world provide their citizens would go a long ways to ensure the future and safety of all Americans.<br />
<br />
Wait. What? You *don't* want those things because they smack of socialism and you don't want YOUR tax money funding someone else's health problems and/or education? People should take responsibility for their own lives and choices?<br />
<br />
Awesome.<br />
<br />
Build your own fucking wall. Why should you move to or remain on the border and expect the rest of us to pay for your choices?<br />
<br />
Entitled Snowflakes.<br />
<br />
<br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-40567498800627043922018-11-06T18:35:00.001-06:002018-11-06T18:35:39.934-06:00Which Way Will the Wind Blow?<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="41vt1-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="41vt1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="41vt1-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">In 2016, the young, new voters who'd only remembered Obama as POTUS were shell-shocked at what we got in spite of voting and in spite of Hillary winning the popular vote by over 3 million. They couldn't believe that such an unjust result could come out of what they'd been taught is "the best system on Earth!" Some vowed to never vote again.
Then they watched as things got worse. In all ways and all arenas of their lives. And they got angry.
</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="4s46o-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4s46o-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="b45cl-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">The young people I know are absolutely voting today or have already done so- young people who are pissed off by this shitshow in DC that is ruining their future every day in every way. They are a force motivated by a terrific sense of justice and desire to make this nation work for everyone in it, not just those who can afford to start at a level most of us never reach.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="2lra5-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2lra5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="c7bp-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">They rightfully believe that this nation can afford to give everyone healthcare, a good education, a *living* wage, and a strong social safety net, because only those things will result in healthy economic growth. Only true equality for all will benefit everyone from the top to the bottom. Only a tightly-regulated capitalism can be acceptable. To open the "free market to do its magic" as this administration is doing is only magic if you are already at the very top. The top 1% do great. The very bottom 10% die. They die. That's not a euphemism. They die of sickness and hunger and exposure. They. Die. Those in between are kept in a state of indentured servitude...till they die, never grasping the gold ring that they are told is "just around the corner- if you only want it badly enough and work hard enough". Unbridled capitalism is not compatible with a compassionate society. Period.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="4f8pl-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4f8pl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="vr75-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Will these young people outnumber the old farts who have swallowed Trump's litany of fear and hatred? Old white people who believe that "if Democrats win we will lose this great economy (that doesn't exist), have open borders (that no one wants), and have rampant crime (as opposed to Nazis in the street?)"</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="8rhhv-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8rhhv-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="aae3-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Because Trump's "miracles" are all smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors. A shell game for the simple-minded. The business I manage is *not* doing better- it's doing worse under Trump's economy than it did under Obama...even right after he took office and we were in the middle of a damn recession. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="2kkrm-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2kkrm-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="fitt1-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">My employees are *not* "keeping more of their paychecks", from the highest salaried doctor to the lowest kennel help. Not one penny more. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="ac4vs-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ac4vs-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="1p0j7-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">The "manufacturer spending through the roof!" that he crows about is manufacturers stockpiling raw materials before the tariffs kick in. It's not sustainable or healthy.
</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="1p0j7-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1p0j7-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="1p0j7-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Old white people who believe with all their hearts that we can't afford healthcare, even though opening up Social Security to everyone who is paying into it would be far cheaper than any private plan. They believe that a "caravan" of refugees *on foot*, 1,000 miles from the US border is a threat and want a wall built along a border *that is impossible because of a river and mountains and property rights*. They think things that are ridiculous but scary are good expenses, but programs that mean they, their family, their neighbors don't *die* of preventable things are not "sensible".
The old white people are motivated by fear and a misguided hatred of anything that smacks to them of "socialism". They are voting in force to "save America".
</span></span><span data-offset-key="a74um-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Which will win the soul of America?</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="a8f1s-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a8f1s-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="9p8j5-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Determination to become a more progressive, compassionate, and ultimately richer society?</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="5us7n-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5us7n-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="4bj1t-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Or fear, hatred, and a staunch determination to haul this nation backwards to a utopia for white people that never really existed outside TV shows and Norman Rockwell paintings?</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="45kps-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="45kps-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="56m90-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">That, my friends, is the nail-biter for tonight.
</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="8sqpv" data-offset-key="56m90-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="56m90-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="56m90-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">I believe in the passion of young people, but know the bullheadedness of old people.
We shall see.
</span></span></div>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-42604691331910026272018-09-29T15:53:00.000-05:002018-09-29T15:53:22.744-05:00I'm So Done With the Fucking Monsters<div data-block="true" data-editor="cber" data-offset-key="1mf18-0-0" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1mf18-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="1mf18-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Q: How can *women* tell daughters "It's just how boys/men are"?</span></b>
</span></span><span data-offset-key="4761s-0-0" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>A: It's not approval of the culture. It's a warning not to cross it or you'll get hurt worse or killed.</b></span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="cber" data-offset-key="ft9a1-0-0" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ft9a1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="3su1f-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">*They are protecting them, based on their own experiences. And their mothers' and grandmothers'...growing up and living in a world of fucking monsters.</span></b>
</span></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="cber" data-offset-key="3su1f-0-0" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "helvetica","arial",sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span data-offset-key="3su1f-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3su1f-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<b></b><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This whole Brett Kavanaugh thing is disgusting. Watching a grown-ass man during his *job interview* totally lose his cool, start ranting, blaming a political party *specifically* when the job he's interviewing for is supposed to be non-partisan, whine, turn all sorts of red, spew his "credentials", and ultimately cry was disgusting.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dr. Ford before him sat resolute, yet with tremors in her voice. She admitted she was scared to death. She didn't call him or his friend names or otherwise denigrate them. She was clear and concise and sincere. She spoke from her heart and unless you are a fucking monster, your heart broke listening to her.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kavanaugh did not even take ten seconds to acknowledge her pain before launching into how much he *deserves* this job and dammit, some chick he doesn't even remember is not going to take it from him. He blamed the Democratic party and the Clintons specifically for this "smear campaign" and actually threatened revenge for this embarrassing inconvenience. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then Lindsey Graham piled on in an unhinged and childish tantrum; red-faced and yelling in what is supposed to be a serious step in the search for a new Supreme Court Justice. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you think either of these men were in any way reasonable or justified in their horrid and totally unprofessional behavior, you are a fucking monster.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In case there is any question, I believe Dr. Ford. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In case there is any question, I think Brett Kavanaugh is a whiny, entitled, rich boy who has been called on his shit and he's melting down about it like a toddler whose ice cream just fell to the ground. This is not Supreme Court Material and anyone who thinks it is...is a fucking monster.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"But what if she's lying? Shouldn't he be able to defend himself? What precedent is this setting for the future? So a woman just has to accuse, and a guy just has to take it?"</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even if she's lying (she's not), his reaction and the reaction of the entire GOP Good Ol' Boys' Club was not only inappropriate, it was basically screaming "GUILTY AS HELL" and anyone who has ever raised kids knows this. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even if he's as thick as a brick mentally (and I guess he is), his response and the response of every GOP senator in there should have been, "We are profoundly sorry you were so traumatized. We believe you have mis-remembered the players here, but we will do everything we can to make sure the culture that allowed that sort of behavior becomes dusty history on our watch."</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But they didn't. They heard her testimony and they were fucking monsters.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On national TV.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In front of their daughters and grand-daughters, wives and mothers, co-workers and constituents.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In front of God and everybody.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And they felt they were justified to do so. That's not leadership or maturity. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, Donald "Pussy Grabber in Chief" Trump piped up, too; valiantly defending the honor of...Kavanaugh, and questioning the testimony of Dr. Ford. But we already know *he* is a fucking monster.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This little fiasco has neatly divided our nation even more than it already was.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Team A: Good Ol' Boys who are all abluster about how this has "ruined a great guy" and who are horrified that maybe they, too, will be called on their shit.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Team B: Men who think Kavanaugh is an asshole.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Team C: Women who are now "afraid" for their sons because "some girl" could ruin his lily-white reputation "for no good reason".</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Team D: Women who think Kavanaugh is an asshole.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Team E: Women who have been assaulted sometime in their life and the last few days have brought it all back to the surface; jagged and raw. We're the ones who are horrified at Teams A and C and have spent the last 24 hours or so with migraines, nausea, and nightmares. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Also, we think Kavanaugh is an asshole.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Why would anyone wait so long to tell anyone?"</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">-You were young and stupid and yes, you got drunk and alone with a boy when you knew better. Here's the thing you don't realize till you are older: No matter how drunk or hormonal you and/or he was, the very second you got scared and said, "Wait. Stop" HE SHOULD HAVE STOPPED. THE FACT THAT HE DIDN'T MAKES HIM A FUCKING MONSTER.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But what do you hear if you tell someone? "What were you wearing?" "Why were you drinking?" "Why did you go with him by yourself?" "He was drinking and got carried away" "Boys have raging hormones" "You led him on" </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*You hear that it's your fault. It was your fault he was a fucking monster and you got what you deserved.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">-He held some sort of power over you or was an authority figure- a boss or teacher or pastor or relative or even your husband. He may or may not have said, "If you tell anyone, I will kill you", "If you tell anyone I will fire you", "If you tell anyone, no one will believe you". If he threatened any of those things, and even if he didn't, HE WAS A FUCKING MONSTER.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But what do you hear if you tell someone? "Why didn't you just quit?" "Why didn't you report him?" "What were you wearing?" "You must've led him on" "You need to obey your husband" "It's impossible to be raped by your husband" "He's such a great guy; surely you're mistaken about what happened" "How can you say he did that? He's your (fill in the blank with any male relative)" </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*You hear that it's your fault. It was your fault he was a fucking monster and you got what you deserved.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">But here's the thing. By the time humans are about three years old, we know that to hurt another human is wrong. To willfully hurt another human who is begging you to stop is to be a fucking monster. That's true 100% of the time. </span></b>
<b></b><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps the most vexing to those of us in teams B, D, or E are the women who seem to *not* believe their daughters and who say "What were you wearing?" "Why were you drinking?" "Why did you go with him by yourself?" "He was drinking and got carried away" "Boys have raging hormones" "You led him on" and most importantly..."Boys will be boys and that's just how men are".</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Boys will be boys and that's just how men are.</span></i>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You know what that is at its core? That's a woman who has been assaulted at some point telling her daughter not to make waves; you can't fight this. It's not that she doesn't believe her. She believes her 100%. But either she told someone when it happened to her and she wasn't believed, or she's never told anyone and is just resigned to the barbarism of this aspect of our culture. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Leave it be. Don't make waves. Be more careful from now on. Be happy you are still alive. If you make waves, not only will it be awful all over again, but he may hurt you again. Worse. He may kill you this time."</span></i>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One out of three American women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the one hand, 85% of women know their attacker- the "strange man climbing through the window or attacking while the woman is jogging" is not the norm by a long shot.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand, only 10% of men brought up on rape charges are convicted, meaning 9 times out of 10, if you come forward and go through the additional agony and stress of legal action, your attacker walks free...and now he's pissed at you, bringing us to...</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">...75% of women who are murdered, are murdered by a sexual partner.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Why would anyone wait so long to tell someone?"</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I dunno, perhaps the *fact* that you probably know him, and may even have to continue to see him in your day to day life, added to the *fact* that there's a 9 out of 10 chance that he will *not* be convicted, topped off with the *fact* that if he gets really pissed off, he may very well kill you for embarrassing him and "ruining his life", may be enough effective cultural deterrents to maintain the misogynistic status quo.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill </span><span style="font-size: small;">them.” </span></span></h1>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">―
</span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Margaret Atwood </span></span></span></b></h1>
</span></span><span data-offset-key="3su1f-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><div>
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Aren't you just a bunch of liberal women over-reacting? This is the United States, not some shit-hole country. Women are doing *great* here!"<br /><br />Ummm...not really. For the first time, in 2018 the US was placed on the "10 Most Dangerous Countries for Women" list by the Thomassen Reuters Foundation. Here's the entire list-</span></span></div>
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #202022; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. India</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. Afghanistan</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. Syria</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">4. Somalia</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">5. Saudi Arabia</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">6. Pakistan</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #202022; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">7. Democratic Republic of Congo</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">8. Yemen</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">9. Nigeria</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">10. United States</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That's not exactly a list of nations I want to be part of. So what can we do?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We start with making sure our *sons* (no matter their age) and the men in our lives (no matter their age) understand what is acceptable behavior. That means standing up to them and not taking their shit anymore. That's a scary prospect for some of us in all situations and a scary prospect for all of us in some situations. As *women*, we *have* to have each other's back in this endeavor. We have to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then, we send a loud and clear message to our elected officials that the Good Ol' Boys' Club is closed. We are burning that treehouse straight to the ground. We can do that in November and again in 2020.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, there will be huge pushback from men who are fucking monsters and women who are afraid. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, it's going to get worse before it gets better; this shit always does. The powerful never give anything without a fight and I mean a literal fight. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But I can see the other side, now. And it's worth it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><h1 class="quoteText" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #181818; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
</span></h1>
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<b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Merriweather","Georgia",serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">―
</span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Arundhati Roy </span></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
For those who are all "Founding Fathers' Intent" and who reject anything that sounds suspiciously foreign (like the above author's name), here's one from Founding Father John Adams' wife...back when women and children were considered property and not human:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Merriweather","Georgia",serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>“...remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Merriweather","Georgia",serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> ―
</span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Abigail Adams </span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b></b><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">I believe Dr. Ford.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">I believe Brett Kavanaugh does not have the temperament to sit on the Supreme Court.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">I believe the days of the fucking monsters being in charge are almost over.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">I believe in us.</span></span></div>
<span class="authorOrTitle" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b></b><div style="text-align: left;">
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="color: green;"></span><br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-1190165018904513002018-09-08T18:24:00.000-05:002018-09-08T18:24:43.787-05:00He Started it...But I'm Ending ItThe mantis in the guinea pig barn is dead. That's a fact.<br />
<br />
All has been peaceful in the guinea pig barn.<br />
<br />
Day before yesterday, I needed something off of the screened porch, so I opened the door from the dining room and went out there. As I closed the door behind me, I noticed THE MANTIS ON THE DOORKNOB. I grabbed what I needed, and when the mantis flew up onto the door window, I ducked into the house.<br />
<br />
Yesterday morning, I again needed something from the porch.<br />
<br />
I looked carefully through the window, inspecting every surface in sight. No mantis.<br />
<br />
I opened the door slowly...no mantis on the knob. Before I went back into the house, I checked the entire surface of the door...nothing.<br />
<br />
With a sigh of relief, I went into the house, closing the door behind me, glanced up and saw THE MANTIS ON THE INSIDE OF THE DOOR.<br />
<br />
The little bastard had been on the porch-side of the door and when I opened the door, he'd SLID AROUND THE GAP WHERE THE HINGES ARE AND GAINED ENTRY TO MY HOME.<br />
<br />
Mantis: "Heh, heh, heh. Now what are you gonna do, puny human?"<br />
<br />
Me: *picks up fly swatter and terminates mantis*<br />
<br />
This is War. No Prisoners.<br /><br />PS- the wolf spiders in the bathroom have never done me this way. They're civilized bugs.<br /><br />Asshole Mantids.lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-57549780795347895842018-09-05T20:52:00.000-05:002018-09-05T20:52:58.511-05:00He Started It...Part TwoWhen we went into the barn this morning, we were greeted with a pitiful sight.<br />
<br />
Lying in the middle of the floor, upside down, little boxing gloves in the air, was the dead mantis. It looked...odd and dry, but it's, yanno...a bug.<br />
<br />
Gomez picked it up and tossed it outside.<br />
<br />
The end.<br />
<br />
At work, one of my co-workers posted a photo of many mantids on a hand on my Facebook and said, "His friends are gathering and coming to get you." Another co-worker saw the photo (the one who had fed my farm Monday morning, it so happened) looked aghast and said, "Oh, fuck no. Let me tell you what happened to me at Sheri's place!"<br />
<br />
I was not Rabid Mantid's first victim.<br />
<br />
She had been feeding the guinea pigs and had gotten to the same spot I'd been attacked, except she had seen no mantis. Suddenly, he appeared ON THE FRONT OF HER GLASSES, his tiny but fierce front feet waving menacingly. She flung her glasses off, rendering her pretty much blind, so she couldn't see if the mantis had gone with them. Cussing up a storm, she frantically pulled at her hair to be sure he wasn't lodged there.<br />
<br />
She didn't see him again, but finished up the chores with alacrity.<br />
<br />
So he was a repeat offender as far as aggressive behavior. I was happy he was dead.<br />
<br />
Tonight, I was feeding the guinea pigs and got to...that same spot in the barn. I looked down and THERE WAS THE MANTIS PERCHED ON THE TOP OF THE CAGE, WAVING HIS TINY BUT FIERCE FRONT FEET AT ME.<br /><br />What the hell?<br />
<br />
In a flash, it all became clear. He'd spent all night constructing the faux mantis corpse out of stray bits of bedding and hay to lull me into a false sense of security.<br />
<br />
Luckily, Gomez came into the barn just then, saw me frozen in terror, followed my horrified gaze, and was able to snatch the little asshole up while it was plotting my imminent demise.<br />
<br />
I'd like to say he killed it, but his default is to catch and release, so out the door he tossed it.<br />
<br />
If you don't hear from me again, you will know.<br />
<br />
The mantis prevailed.<br />
<br />
<br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-67717958882286070122018-09-04T23:12:00.000-05:002018-09-04T23:12:43.605-05:00He Started ItI'm normally a fan of mantids.<br />
<br />
I mean, they eat their weight in other bugs every day and I've seen one hold four cats at bay just using chutzpah. I admit, I was initially horrified to realize that they can fly, but in general...a fan.<br />
<br />
So, when I came on one in the guinea pig barn this morning, I was a little startled (because he blended right in with the grid-pattern of the cages) but overall I thought, "Cool."<br />
<br />
I gently guided him out of my way as I did chores in the room; watering, cleaning cages, feeding...during the cleaning phase, there was a moment when he was perched facing me, waving his tiny-but-fierce little mantis arms at me and I (still gently) swept him off of the board he was on and out of pouncing distance. He reappeared at the top of a cage while I was feeding.<br />
<br />
I carefully worked around him and then turned to the other side of the room. I was halfway down the line when I felt something hit the side of my head and before that could register, it started BITING ME. I smacked the side of my head and the little asshole mantis dropped down to my arm STILL BITING. I shook him off my arm and proceeded posthaste to the house to summon Gomez to <strike>offer him as a sacrifice </strike> have him valiantly save me from the evil little aggressive bastard.<br />
<br />
Of course, when we got back to the barn, the bug had moved. Gomez said, "Guess it's gone" and I said, "No. You stay here. It's watching us. I can feel it." A few minutes later, I spied the insect-demon and told Gomez, "Get it out of here."<br />
<br />
The barn is not well-lit and Gomez has just the one eye which messes with depth perception, so he missed it and it flew down to the floor. I said, "Just step on it!" and he tried, but they are fast little shits, so it skittered away.<br />
<br />
Gomez (thinking no doubt of his cup of coffee waiting for him on his desk) said briskly, "Well? You feel safe now?"<br />
<br />
NO. NO, I DO NOT. YOU JUST PISSED IT OFF EVEN MORE AND IT'S SOMEWHERE NEAR THE FEED BAGS WHERE I WILL BE STICKING MY HANDS SO YOU ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, MISTER.<br />
<br />
The mantis did not re-appear and I finished feeding in peace.<br />
<br />
Tonight, we didn't see it at first. Gomez posited that the pigs ate it. Yes. My herbivore pigs ate one of the most carnivorous creatures ever to come down the evolutionary pike. We spotted it at last, and again it evaded capture.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow morning, Gomez will be with me when I go feed. If he wants coffee, it'll be on the other side of an executed/evicted mantis.<br />
<br />
Because that's what husbands are for.<br />
<br />
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<br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-46719057142739110722018-07-09T17:00:00.000-05:002018-07-09T17:00:04.846-05:00And Miles to go Before We SleepExhausting.<br />
<br />
It's exhausting being a compassionate, thinking, left-of-liberal American right now.<br />
<br />
The 2016 election plunged us off of the Cliffs of Despair and every time we think we've hit the bottom; every time our current administration and its maniacal followers do something that we think is surely the worst they have to throw at us and the rest of the world...we just keep falling.<br />
<br />
It's bottomless and constant and exhausting.<br />
<br />
It's not about "Hillary losing". It was never about Hillary losing. It's about what "won". Not just "who" won. It's the decimation of the moral compass of the soul of our nation in the form of hatred and cruelty and ignorance that's absolutely dazzling...wrapped up in a package filled with excrement and vomit and labeled "patriotism with an extra-large side of Jesus" even though Jesus would be horrified at its contents.<br />
<br />
Being here, behind the Pine Curtain; a historically regressive enclave even inside the merging intersections of "Old South" and "Texas", it's palpable and stench-filled. This clawing, gnawing, snarling vortex that has been so threatened and aghast at anything progressive at all that's happened in our nation in the last...100 years.<br />
<br />
Civil Rights<br />Women's Rights<br />
Any type of "socialistic-leaning big-government program"<br />
<br />
They want to repeal all of it. All of it.<br />
And they're giddy with the scent of blood; they can see it within their grasp.<br />
<br />
Racists are emboldened and violence is on the rise.<br />
We can't even pretend to be a civilized nation anymore.<br />
Oh, sure, most of us have flush toilets and clean bath water every day or so, and there's a Walmart and McDonald's on every corner, but most of us are one paycheck away from disaster...and falling.<br />
<br />
Our children are getting shot in school on a weekly basis.<br />
Our people are dying of preventable things for lack of access to healthcare.<br />
We have the highest maternal mortality in the industrialized world.<br />
<br />
And our current administration's idea of "fixing it" is to make everything better for those who already own most of the marbles. Less regulation, less taxes on corporations, blow it all open for "the private sector" to "do its magic". Trickle Down has been disproven for almost 40 years but *now* it's going to work? The only things they are willing to give to "the rest of us" are things that will not affect them one bit-<br />
-a stupid wall to "keep out the illegals"<br />-repealing women's rights in the name of Jesus<br />
-slashing "socialistic government programs"...that their base either already relies on or will rely on but because it's "socialism" it's got to go!<br />
<br />
On a global scale, our nation is aligning itself with people our fathers and grandfathers DIED fighting. Dictators, Nazis (real actual ones), human rights' violators of all stripes, while shunning nations who have been our allies for generations.<br /><br />So, I'm exhausted and I'm disgusted and many days I'm ready to, if not desert this festering febrile clinically-insane nation as a whole...at least uproot from this rotting regressive pocket of it. Shake the red dust of East Texas off of our shoes and head to the Pacific Northwest where people aren't so...awful. When we visited the Olympic Rainforest four years ago, I knew instantly. I knew that someday we'd move there and be able to relax mentally.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong. Individual East Texans are wonderful, generous, caring people and I love quite a number of them after a quarter of a century here. But as a group? En masse? They keep re-electing Louie Gohmert. That's really all the clarification you need.<br />
<br />
Why do we stay?<br />
<br />
Our farm is here. Our log cabin that we build ourselves in the middle of the most perfect little East Texas Pineywoods forest you could imagine, with a hill and wetlands and two creeks and huge trees. That's a big thing. Home.<br />
<br />
My job is here. I love it and it's important to the community of East Texas as well as the livelihood for now upwards of 20 people. So that's a big thing. I'm positioning a number of staff members to take the reins when I retire in 4 years so it can continue to grow and thrive.<br />
<br />
Some days four years seems an eternity and I want to go *now*. Right now. Just...get the hell out of here before we suffocate in racism and incivility and MAGA hats and "Trump that Cunt" bumper stickers.<br />
<br />
But.<br />
<br />
We can't go yet. Because the next few years will be a long, drawn-out extension of what we're seeing happen now, we can't go yet. Even if we can. Even if we want to. We can't.<br />
<br />
Because here's the thing. I'm a little old white lady who is reasonably middle-class and who is mostly fearless. There are a lot of people here in East Texas who are none of the above and no matter how inconvenienced I am by the steamroller of regression, the worst it will do to me is piss me off.<br />
<br />
We need to stay because if we can help even one person who is marginalized, even one person who is affected negatively, even one person who will suffer at the hands of all this "making America great again", we have to do it.<br />
<br />
We need to stay because someone who is white, and in a "management position", and looks like every other little old white lady in East Texas has to say, "NO. That's wrong. I do not agree with that and here's why..." Because otherwise, with no one opposing them, they will think it's right.<br /><br /><br />But some days it's a mighty weight. Some days I should be doing something productive and I just can't. Yesterday was one of those days. So I get on Trulia and browse...browse my "someday" and drink in the coolness of the rainforest on my computer screen; remembering the sight and sound of it from four years ago.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
But I have promises to keep.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And miles to go before I sleep.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And miles to go before I sleep."</div>
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6.5 acres on the west side of Lake Cushman. Lakefront. Insert log cabin *here*</div>
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<br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-4772302091886349262018-04-06T21:35:00.000-05:002018-04-06T21:35:08.350-05:00If the Shoe FitsYanno, in all the movies where the hero has cancer and he battles it valiantly with his loving family at his side and he beats it?<br />
<br />
Not the one where he dies a heroic and beautiful meaningful death. Those suck.<br />
<br />
The other one. The one where the doctor smiles and says, "Your scan came back negative. Have a nice life" and everyone hugs everyone while they cry and cry and cry and the movie fades out and the music plays thru the credits and you just know that they resume normal life and live happily ever after. That one.<br />
<br />
I'd like to say that's how all cancer-beating stories end, but I'd be lying.<br />
<br />
Because we were that family and continue to be that family every year when they scan his head and say, "Mr. Dixon, there is nothing of note in your head" and we all laugh and laugh and go home.<br />
<br />
But.<br />
<br />
What they didn't tell us was the other shoe that may drop.<br />
<br />
That shoe that was me finding Ward's teeth around the house like some weird bizarro-world tooth fairy shit because they would just fall out of his mouth and he'd just...set it right here. Or there. Or over there. And the doctor said, "Oh, yeah. That radiation never stops working and it's now eating away his jaw. Let's do some major dental surgery and fit him with dentures so he doesn't break his own jaw chewing oatmeal."<br />
<br />
That was a few years ago.<br />
<br />
Or the shoe that was Ward fighting his way back from not knowing who I was or where we lived or how to read and who weighed a horrifying Auschwitz-like 130 pounds back in 2010 when he was in the hospital for 6 weeks and almost died. Fighting like hell mentally and physically so he made it back to about 90% of pre-surgery Ward. That shoe was a real bastard.<br />
<br />
Or the shoe that was Ward starting to get a little fuzzy and forgetful in 2013 so we went back to the neurologist at MD Anderson and they did a brain scan and did cognitive testing and said, "There are some deficits. We believe they were caused by the radiation (that never stops working) and the hours and hours of general anesthetic he's undergone. It's not Alzheimers but it may progress the same and it'll look the same from the outside."<br /><br />Well, he's "progressed" very little since then. It's been almost not noticeable and totally manageable since then.<br /><br />Then yet another shoe, in the form of the pneumonia he came down with over Thanksgiving weekend this past fall. He almost died (he needs to stop doing that) and was rendered unconscious and on a ventilator for 3 days in ICU to keep him alive. He was hooked up to *twelve* IV pumps.<br /><br />Well, that plumb flattened him out, physically and mentally.<br /><br />Physically, he fought back again. Mentally, it was harder. It was a goddamned struggle and continues to be one.<br />
<br />
The therapist locally did some very surface testing and said, "He needs to be under the care of a neurologist." So we went back to the one we had seen in 2013...since she had all his last results.<br />
<br />
They re-did the scan and re-did the three hours of cognitive testing.<br />
<br />
The doctor saw us today. There was no laughing. The additional 3 days of anesthetic and the physical insult of the pneumonia took a terrible toll. <br />
<br />
While *most* of his mental functions are normal to above-normal, his memory is severely impaired; both short term and long term. His test results, as far as memory, are those of someone with "moderately severe Alzheimers".<br />
<br />
The report from the PET scan says the changes in his brain, while problematic and definitely serious, aren't exactly typical of Alzheimers, and that they still think it was caused by all the shit he's been through, but he needs to be under the care of someone who does strictly dementia care- the neuro doctor at MD Anderson is used to looking at tumors and saying, "Yep. That's gotta go" and getting it gone. <br />
<br />
She had tears in her eyes as she said, "I'd like to say we can help him here, but we are not set up for that. He needs someone who specializes in dementia. I'm sorry" and she handed us the contact information for Baylor and UT departments of neuro-dementia studies.<br />
<br />
So...one more damn thing.<br />
<br />
It's not right. My Knight in Shining Armor has been thru cancer, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure, AND he's married to me. Hasn't he suffered enough???<br />
<br />
My family is sick to death of "the other shoe".<br /><br />No wonder we all go barefoot 99% of the time.<br />
<br />
<br /><br />lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-51167502664575318422018-02-18T10:24:00.001-06:002018-07-09T17:23:17.501-05:00Where Did These Kids Come From?<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">In the wake of the
latest school shooting...there will be another one next week because now, in
the US, that's how we roll...people (specifically conservative gun enthusiasts)
are saying the FBI is at fault for a young man being able to walk into a school
and shoot up students and teachers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">I know plenty of gun
nuts who regularly spew hatred of Muslims and gays and black people and
politicians and immigrants and liberals and even say...shoot at targets of
actual people *cough* Obama *cough* and have upwards of 20 guns and literal
tons of ammo, while believing that their puny arsenal can take on the US Army
and ANY MINUTE NOW, ISIS will drop from the trees in rural bum-fuck East Texas
and kick in their doors to rape their dogs and take their wimmen.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Guess that's enough to arrest someone now, right, gun nuts?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Because if you wanna talk "slippery slope", detaining and arresting
someone because they "might" do something, or because they
"said" they're "thinking" about doing something is a good
way to start that slippery slope.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Do kids who shoot up schools send out about a million warning signs? Damn
skippy they do. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Know who sees those first and every single subsequent signs?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">You do. You do. You do. You do.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Because they're never *ever* the kids of liberal gun-hating parents. Ever. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">They're *your* goddamn kids. Yours.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">And you know that they're twitchy and have anger issues and should not be
armed. You've known it since they started walking and talking. Lord knows
you've tried your best to beat it out of them; to make them fine upstanding
citizens. You've done all you know how. You tell them every single day not to
be such an asshole or they'll get *another* ass-whoopin'.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">You have guns. Lots of them. You probably even gave that kid his first gun- as
a sign that you believe he's grown up and responsible and expecting him to fill
those worthy shoes.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Your guns are not locked up. Who locks up guns? How are you supposed to drop
that gang-banger who leaps thru an open window at 1am to steal your big screen
TV and vintage collection of beef jerky?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">And now another one of *your* kids has killed again. Pretty much every day
school is in session in the US, there is an incident involving a gun. They
don't all end in death, but guns are there.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Arm the teachers! That'll fix it. Expect those teachers to point a gun at your
child and shoot him in the head if needed!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Some brave Texas schools have already done it and post signs around the
perimeter- "This school has armed teachers who will protect our children
using whatever force necessary". Wow. What a brave thing! So smart. How
high is that school's liability insurance, now? Are they taking that money away
from lunches, or art classes, or raising school taxes for everyone in the
district? I mean...you can't take away from the football program. There are
limits.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">But right now...this
minute...this time...</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">You're blaming the FBI
for "dropping the ball". You're blaming the police and the school for
"dropping the ball".</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Those entities of creeping government over-reach that you rail about every day-
that they'd "better not come sniffing around expecting to take *my guns*
by god or I'll go down shooting their sorry asses! Cold, dead hands, baby!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">You made these little monsters who are shooting up our schools.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">They've watched you and listen to you and just like kids everywhere, they
emulate and admire...you.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">"What's happened in the last 30 years that our society has come to this?
Kids every day shooting up their fellow students and teachers in school, for
fuck's sake? Must be the video games, the Ritalin, the liberal "everyone
gets an award" upbringing, the lack of GOD in schools...it's a damn
shame."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">What happened?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">30 years of shifting
the role of guns as hunting tools into guns as "home protection"
tools happened. That gun in the back window of every pickup in a rural high
school 30 years ago was used to shoot squirrels. The AR-15(s) in your home get
used for target practice...aiming at human-shaped targets.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">30 years of
stockpiling weapons and ammo because "the liberals are going to ban them
all!"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">30 years of a deep and
growing distrust of the American government like it's some amorphous entity
instead of a group of people *we* vote into office and can just as easily vote
out.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">30 years of the middle
class losing ground while the tippy top get richer and richer. It sucks and
it's not fair and it makes for a desperate exhausting and angry existence where
the only thing you have control over anymore is how many goddamn guns you have
and you feel you have done *one* thing in a manly manner- you've protected your
family...if you can keep the goddamn liberals away. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">30 years of dying of
preventable things because health care in this nation is so expensive...but
that's how life is, right? It's not fair. Don't talk to us about socialistic
commie universal health care. We die free!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">30 years of (for the
first time in America's history) the younger generation knowing they will make
less money and die younger than the previous one. That it's going to be hard or
impossible to go to college after high school so hard or impossible to make
enough to live on working one job. So 30 years of telling yourselves that
college ain't that important anyway- it's a liberal cesspool.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">Who made the school
shooters? You did.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
Don't get me wrong. Liberals fuck up just as badly as parents. K<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">ids of
"liberals" have mental illness, too. The only difference? Ready
access to firearms.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">They do kill
themselves at a horrifying rate- the capitalist patriarchy is a fucking meat
grinder and we're tits deep in it. They take pills. They hang themselves. They
wrap their cars around trees.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">But it's your kids who
reach a breaking point that you watch every single day as it builds and builds
and in between punishing them for being assholes, you think, "Sure he's
pissed off. I'm pissed off, too. He's young and hot-headed. He'll grow out of
it."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
A<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; margin: 0px;">nd one day your kid
grabs an AR-15 out of the closet and a few handguns out of the drawer, and they
take them to school... </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-10215711904866342272017-03-01T14:49:00.002-06:002017-03-01T14:49:25.733-06:00NOT Live-Tweeting Trump's NOT a State of the Union Speech<b>Since I was at work, I didn’t do a live-feed of Trump’s speech. So, here ya go.</b><br />
<br />
TRUMP: Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, the first lady of the United States ...<br />
<b>Let’s get this out of the way first thing. Trump did not write this speech, he had no input on this speech, and he was told by someone that he needed to stick with the speech and not wander all over the place like he usually does.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... and citizens of America, tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that still remains to be done.<br />
Recent threats ...<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.<br />
<b>You mean all the hate-crimes that are occurring because you specifically are not speaking against them? Those hate-crimes?</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Each American generation passes the torch of truth, liberty and justice, in an unbroken chain all the way down to the present. That torch is now in our hands. And we will use it to light up the world <br />
I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity and strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart. A new chapter ...<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... of American greatness is now beginning. A new national pride is sweeping across our nation. And a new surge of optimism is placing impossible dreams firmly within our grasp. What we are witnessing today is the renewal of the American spirit. Our allies will find that America is once again ready to lead.<br />
<b>Most Americans don’t trust you as far as they can throw you. You cannot talk trash for over a year and then come in with sweet words and promises and expect everyone to say, “HEY- look! He IS presidential!” Those of us who have suffered at the hands and minds of abusive assholes know one when we see one. Lipstick on a pig, man. Lipstick on a pig…</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
All the nations of the world — friend or foe — will find that America is strong, America is proud, and America is free. In nine years, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our founding, 250 years since the day we declared our independence. It will be one of the great milestones in the history of the world.<br />
<b>Will we make it? Who knows? You love to keep us in suspense so we “tune in next week”.</b><br />
But what will America look like as we reach our 250th year? What kind of country will we leave for our children? I will not allow the mistakes of recent decades past to define the course of our future.<br />
<b>So, the Obama decade where we crawled out of the mire the Bush decade plunged us into? Or that Bushy Plungy one? You’ll have to be more specific.</b><br />
For too long, we’ve watched our middle class shrink as we’ve exported our jobs and wealth to foreign countries. We’ve financed and built one global project after another, but ignored the fates of our children in the inner cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and so many other places throughout our land.<br />
<b>See: EVERY TRUMP ENTERPRISE OVERSEAS</b><br />
We’ve defended the borders of other nations while leaving our own borders wide open for anyone to cross, and for drugs to pour in at a now unprecedented rate. <b>Yeah, immigration is dropping, we HAVE fences AND walls and more border guards and deportations now than any time in our history…but let’s not let facts get in the way of your pretty words…</b> And we’ve spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas, while our infrastructure at home has so badly crumbled.<br />
Then, in 2016, the earth shifted beneath our feet. The rebellion started as a quiet protest, spoken by families of all colors and creeds, families who just wanted a fair shot for their children, and a fair hearing for their concerns.<br />
<b>Yes- the rise of the new Nationalism. Germany keeps warning us about that…</b><br />
But then the quiet voices became a loud chorus, as thousands of citizens now spoke out together, from cities small and large, all across our country.<br />
<b>Those were Hillary voters. Well over 3 million more than the ones who voted for you, you pompous, fact-challenged toddler.</b><br />
Finally, the chorus became an earthquake, and the people turned out by the tens of millions, and they were all united by one very simple, but crucial demand, that America must put its own citizens first, because only then can we truly make America great again.<br />
<b>That was the electoral college that decided that, proving that they are not doing what they were intended to do- make sure an ignoramus gets elected. Their bad.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Dying industries will come roaring back to life. Heroic veterans will get the care they so desperately need. Our military will be given the resources its brave warriors so richly deserve.<br />
<b>Yanno how when liberals talk about what can happen and the conservatives pat them on the head and say, “That’s nice but how will you PAY for it?”</b> <br />
Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways, gleaming across our very, very beautiful land. Our terrible drug epidemic will slow down and ultimately stop. And our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety and opportunity.<br />
<b>See: previous comment. The election is over, asshole. Time to show us how you’re going to pay for it. And maybe your own tax returns, while you’re at it.</b><br />
Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people.<br />
<b>Like that Muslim ban? That’s working out GREAT!</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Thank you. It’s been a little over a month since my inauguration, and I want to take this moment to update the nation on the progress I’ve made in keeping those promises. Since my election, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed, Intel, Walmart and many others have announced that they will invest billions and billions of dollars in the United States and will create tens of thousands of new American jobs.<br />
<b>You are so full of SHIT- Every one of those deals had been in the making for years before you paid a bunch of lackeys to cheer you riding an escalator.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
The stock market has gained almost $3 trillion in value since the election on Nov. 8, a record. We’ve saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by bringing down the price of fantastic — and it is a fantastic — new F-35 jet fighter, and we’ll be saving billions more on contracts all across our government.<br />
<b>Wait- I thought we were SPENDING money now on the military…</b><br />
We have placed a hiring freeze on nonmilitary and nonessential federal workers.<br />
<b>Because nothing creates jobs like a hiring freeze!</b><br />
We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials — and a lifetime ban ...<br />
<b>…by putting in place people who have no damn idea how government is SUPPOSED to run!</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Thank you. Thank you. And a lifetime ban on becoming lobbyists for a foreign government. We have undertaken a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations, creating a deregulation task force inside of every government agency ...<br />
<b>And a rule that the sitting POTUS cannot do business around the world? Where is THAT rule?</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... and we’re imposing a new rule which mandates that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.<br />
<b>What a childish and arbitrary piece of crap rule that is. We’re not talking about cleaning out your sock drawer for fuck’s sake.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
We’re going to stop the regulations that threaten the future and livelihood of our great coal miners. <br />
<b>…by poisoning their water so they all die and no one will miss those jobs!</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
We have cleared the way for the construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines ...<br />
<b>…because Trump has invested in those ventures that do NOTHING for America but will line Trump’s pockets and what’s good for TRUMP is good for America, right?</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... thereby creating tens of thousands of jobs. Less than 100 permanent jobs. Just sayin’… And I’ve issued a new directive that new American pipelines be made with American steel.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
We have withdrawn the United States from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership.<br />
<b>Thereby telling our allies that we don’t give a crap about anyone but us.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
And with the help of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we have formed a council with our neighbors in Canada to help ensure that women entrepreneurs have access to the networks, markets and capital they need to start a business and live out their financial dreams.<br />
<b>WTF you need a COUNCIL for that? To see if it’s a GOOD IDEA?</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
To protect our citizens, I have directed the Department of Justice to form a task force on reducing violent crime. I have further ordered the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, along with the Department of State and the director of national intelligence, to coordinate an aggressive strategy to dismantle the criminal cartels that have spread all across our nation. <br />
<b>So…you and every president in at LEAST my lifetime. Bravo, Mr. Original Idea.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
We will stop the drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth, and we will expand treatment for those who have become so badly addicted.<br />
<b>Shut up. You will not.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
At the same time, my administration has answered the pleas of the American people for immigration enforcement and border security. <br />
<b>Which people? ALL Americans? Like the majority who want reforms? Or just the ones who don’t like brown people?</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions and billions of dollars, and make our communities safer for everyone.<br />
<b>See: Obama’s actual record on deportation, reinforcing the border and surge of border agents.</b> <br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
We want all Americans to succeed, but that can’t happen in an environment of lawless chaos.<br />
<b>Oh, ya. That whole “Law and Order” administration. *wink wink* send the local forces more tanks!</b><br />
We must restore integrity and the rule of law at our borders.<br />
<b>“Restore”? I thought you said it was never there?</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border.<br />
<b>Fuck your wall. The only reason this is in the speech is it’s at about the halfway point and your most ardent minions were starting to doze off.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
As we speak tonight, we are removing gang members, drug dealers and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our very innocent citizens. Bad ones are going out as I speak, and as I promised throughout the campaign. To any in Congress who do not believe we should enforce our laws, I would ask you this one question: What would you say to the American family that loses their jobs, their income or their loved one because America refused to uphold its laws and defend its borders?<br />
<b>You mean all the stuff that was already being done? Quite the little opportunistic parasite, aren’t you?</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Our obligation is to serve, protect and defend the citizens of the United States. We are also taking strong measures to protect our nation from radical Islamic terrorism.<br />
<b>Why say “radical”? ALL terrorism is radical. That’s the whole point. Unless there’s some “inoffensive terrorism” we just haven’t noticed yet...</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. <b>That’s patently 100% wrong. MOST of our terrorists have been born here or white, or both. </b>We have seen the attacks at home, from Boston to San Bernardino to the Pentagon and, yes, even the World Trade Center. We have seen the attacks in France, in Belgium, in Germany and all over the world.<br />
It is not compassionate, but reckless to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur.<br />
<b>We have proper vetting. You just don’t understand what that means.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Those given the high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values. We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America, and we cannot allow our nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.<br />
<b>So you’re deporting all extremist fundamentalist Christians and all KKK members and neo-Nazi’s and people who clutch the Confederate Flag and holler “THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!”? Cool.</b> <br />
(APPLAUSE) That is why my administration has been working on improved vetting procedures, and we will shortly take new steps to keep our nation safe, and to keep those out who will do us harm.<br />
<b>By tanking our tourism industry with your ridiculous Muslim ban. Well done.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
As promised, I directed the Department of Defense to develop a plan to demolish and destroy ISIS, a network of lawless savages that have slaughtered Muslims and Christians, and men, women and children of all faiths and all beliefs. We will work with our allies, including our friends and allies in the Muslim world, to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet.<br />
<b>Super! Because NO ONE HAD THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE, you narcissistic moron.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I have also imposed new sanctions on entities and individuals who support Iran’s ballistic missile program, and reaffirmed our unbreakable alliance with the state of Israel.<br />
<b>Whew! Good thing you mentioned Israel, because your minions were nodding off again!</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Finally, I have kept my promise to appoint a justice to the United States Supreme Court, from my list of 20 judges, who will defend our Constitution.<br />
<b>Your “promise”? It’s your damn job, not some favor you’re doing us.</b> <br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I am greatly honored to have Maureen Scalia with us in the gallery tonight.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Thank you, Maureen. Her late, great husband, Antonin Scalia, will forever be a symbol of American justice.<br />
To fill his seat, we have chosen Judge Neil Gorsuch, a man of incredible skill and deep devotion to the law. He was confirmed unanimously by the Court of Appeals, and I am asking the Senate to swiftly approve his nomination.<br />
<b>And I hope they move just as swiftly as they did when Obama chose a justice…</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Tonight, as I outline the next steps we must take as a country, we must honestly acknowledge the circumstances we inherited. Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force. <b>This number includes people who are RETIRED.</b> Over 43 million people are now living in poverty. <b>Which is less than when Bush tanked our economy. </b>And over 43 million Americans are on food stamps. <b>Most of them poor whites, who voted overwhelmingly for you.</b><br />
More than one in five people in their prime working years are not working. We have the worst financial recovery in 65 years. In the last eight years, the past administration has put on more new debt than nearly all of the other presidents combined.<br />
<b>I just can’t. Can this guy or anyone around him use Google? Seriously?</b><br />
We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since Nafta was approved and we’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. <b>THAT’S WHERE YOU AND YOUR DAUGHTER MAKE YOUR CRAP, YOU BLOVIATING WALRUS.</b> Our trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly $800 billion. And overseas, we have inherited a series of tragic foreign policy disasters.<br />
Solving these and so many other pressing problems will require us to work past the differences of party. <b>Great. Your side first. Our side tried for 8 years and got shit on every day by your side.</b> It will require us to tap into the American spirit that has overcome every challenge throughout our long and storied history. But to accomplish our goals at home and abroad, we must restart the engine of the American economy, making it easier for companies to do business in the United States and much, much harder for companies to leave our country.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Right now, American companies are taxed at one of the highest rates anywhere in the world. <b>No, they’re not. MY GOD, GOOGLE.</b> My economic team is developing historic tax reform that will reduce the tax rate on our companies so they can compete and thrive anywhere and with anyone.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
It will be a big, big cut.<b> <<< As far as I can tell, this is the only sentence in the entire speech he wrote himself.</b> <this as="" br="" can="" entire="" far="" he="" himself.="" i="" in="" is="" only="" sentence="" speech="" tell="" the="" wrote="">
At the same time, we will provide massive tax relief for the middle class. We must create a level playing field for American companies and our workers — have to do it. <b><<< Ad lib. Because otherwise it's a perfectly good sentence.</b> </this><br />
<this as="" br="" can="" entire="" far="" he="" himself.="" i="" in="" is="" only="" sentence="" speech="" tell="" the="" wrote=""><and add="" and="" anything="" br="" don="" he="" here="" his="" limit="" mr.="" of="" president="" reaching="" read="" right="" t="" that-="" the="" ust="" was="" winged="" words="">(APPLAUSE)<br />
Currently, when we ship products out of America, many other countries make us pay very high tariffs and taxes, but when foreign companies ship their products into America, we charge them nothing or almost nothing.<br /><b>
Business concepts using purposely little words. Now we’re talkin’ Trumpese.</b>
I just met with officials and workers from a great American company, Harley-Davidson. In fact, they proudly displayed five of their magnificent motorcycles, made in the U.S.A., on the front lawn of the White House.<br /><b>
Assembled in America using foreign parts.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
And they wanted me to ride one, and I said, “No, thank you.”<br />
(LAUGHTER)<br />
At our meeting, I asked them, “How are you doing? How is business?” They said that it’s good. I asked them further, “How are you doing with other countries, mainly international sales?”<br />
They told me — without even complaining, because they have been so mistreated for so long that they’ve become used to it — that it’s very hard to do business with other countries, because they tax our goods at such a high rate. They said that in the case of another country, they taxed their motorcycles at 100 percent. <b>But people in those countries buy them even at a huge markup because they are Harleys and everyone wants one. You forgot that part.</b>
They weren’t even asking for a change. But I am. I believe ...<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I believe strongly in free trade, but it also has to be fair trade. It’s been a long time since we had fair trade.<br />
The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, warned that “the abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people.”<br />
Lincoln was right, and it’s time we heeded his advice and his words.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I am not going to let America and its great companies and workers be taken — advantage of us any longer. They have taken advantage of our country no longer. <b>AND DONNIE'S BACK! THERE'S THAT VERBIAGE WE'RE USED TO HEARING FROM HIM!</b></and></this><br />
<this as="" br="" can="" entire="" far="" he="" himself.="" i="" in="" is="" only="" sentence="" speech="" tell="" the="" wrote=""><and add="" and="" anything="" br="" don="" he="" here="" his="" limit="" mr.="" of="" president="" reaching="" read="" right="" t="" that-="" the="" ust="" was="" winged="" words=""><there br="" broke="" cage="" donnie="" finally="" he="" his="" of="" out="">
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I am going to bring back millions of jobs. Protecting our workers also means reforming our system of legal immigration.<br /><b>
So, it’s not just the “illegals” we’re going after. Gotcha.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers and puts great pressure on taxpayers. Nations around the world, like Canada, Australia and many others, have a merit-based immigration system.<br /><b>
They also have a liveable wage for ALL workers, which might have something to do with it. But let’s do concentrate on blaming our immigrants…</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
It’s a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially. Yet in America we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens rely upon.<br /><b>
…and you want to cut those programs. Because that will help our poor people. </b>
According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current immigration system costs American taxpayers many billions of dollars a year. Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, we will have so many more benefits. It will save countless dollars, raise workers’ wages and help struggling families, including immigrant families, enter the middle class. And they will do it quickly, and they will be very, very happy, indeed.<br /><b>
That’s already happening. Skilled immigrants have ALWAYS quickly assimilated into the middle class- those are the brown people our poor white people hate, remember? </b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation’s security and to restore respect for our laws.<br />
If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens, then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.<br /><b>
Exactly what outcome? Less brown people?</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Another Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, initiated the last truly great national infrastructure program: the building of the interstate highway system. The time has come for a new program of national rebuilding.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
America has spent approximately $6 trillion in the Middle East, all the while our infrastructure at home is crumbling. <b>Please note which party keeps voting against improvements. I’ll wait right here. Open a new browser on your phone (using your Tweeting finger…your tiny little Tweeting finger) and Google it.</b>
With the $6 trillion, we could have rebuilt our country twice, and maybe even three times, if we had people who had the ability to negotiate. <b>Like a serial bankruptcy court guest? One that stiffs contractors to the tune of 3,000 lawsuits? No, thanks.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
To launch our national rebuilding, I will be asking Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure of the United States, financed through both public and private capital, creating millions of new jobs.<br /><b>
Again. WHEW- BECAUSE NO ONE HAS WANTED THAT TO HAPPEN BEFORE!</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
This effort will be guided by two core principles: Buy American and hire American.<br /><b>
YOU FIRST, ASSHOLE.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Tonight, I am also calling on this Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare ...<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs and at the same time provide better health care.<br /><b>
Reform: to change something already in existence to make improvements. You can’t repeal AND reform, you idiot.</b> <br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Mandating every American to buy government-approved health insurance was never the right solution for our country. <b>So, you’re going to take health care out of the hands of the private market? Because that’s the only viable alternative.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
The way to make health insurance available to everyone is to lower the cost of health insurance, and that is what we are going to do.<br /><b>
Yay! Public option, here we come!</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Obamacare premiums nationwide have increased by double and triple digits. <b>Those are private company premiums. There’s no such thing as “Obamacare Insurance”. Blame the private insurance companies. </b>As an example, Arizona went up 116 percent last year alone. Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky just said Obamacare is failing in his state, the state of Kentucky, and it’s unsustainable and collapsing. <b>Did Matty-boy accept the Medicaid expansion? No? HUH.</b>
One third of the counties have only one insurer, and they’re losing them fast, they are losing them so fast. They’re leaving. And many Americans have no choice at all. There’s no choice left.<br /><b>
See: unregulated private insurers who are slicing and dicing our nation because they can. I’m repeating myself, right? </b>
Remember when you were told that you could keep your doctor and keep your plan? We now know that all of those promises have been totally broken. Obamacare is collapsing, and we must act decisively to protect all Americans.<br /><b>
(screams into pillow)</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Action is not a choice; it is a necessity. So I am calling on all Democrats and Republicans in Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding Obamacare disaster.<br /><b>
Like the Republicans worked with Democrats to write the bill in the first place? When they were begged to give their input for several YEARS before whining that no one asked them and it was “passed in the middle of the night”?</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Here are the principles that should guide Congress as we move to create a better health care system for all Americans.<br />
First, we should ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage and that we have a stable transition for Americans currently enrolled in the health care exchanges.<br /><b>
Access to coverage and being able to afford it are two different things. Will there be a cap on premiums?</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Secondly, we should help Americans purchase their own coverage, through the use of tax credits and expanded health savings accounts, but it must be the plan they want, not the plan forced on them by our government.<br /><b>
YES- HSA’s! Because the average American will quickly amass say, the $75,000 a pacemaker costs or upwards of a cool million for cancer care…</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Thirdly, we should give our state governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.<br /><b>
It was called the Medicaid expansion and every single GOP governor refused it. Every. Single. One.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Fourth, we should implement legal reforms that protect patients and doctors from unnecessary costs that drive up the price of insurance and work to bring down the artificially high price of drugs and bring them down immediately.<br /><b>
(whispers) *Public. Option.*</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
And finally, the time has come to give Americans the freedom to purchase health insurance across state lines ...<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... which will create a truly competitive national marketplace that will bring costs way down and provide far better care. So important. <b><<< another ad lib. Because otherwise we wouldn’t realize how important insurance is. It’s important. So important. <br />
ALL OF THE ABOVE WERE IN THE ORIGINAL BILL. ALL OF IT. ALONG WITH A PUBLIC OPTION TO OPT INTO MEDICARE IF YOU WERE PAYING INTO IT AND IF YOU WANTED TO, AND THE GOP AND INSURANCE COMPANIES HAD MASS ANEURISMS AND FAINTED.</b>
Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing and hope. Our citizens deserve this, and so much more, so why not join forces and finally get the job done and get it done right?<br /><b>
Fuck you. Just…fuck you. You are every abuser I have ever come in contact with, but less attractive and more creepy.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
On this and so many other things, Democrats and Republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country and for the good of the American people.<br /><b>
“I know I beat you every day and blow all our money at the track, but we need to stay together- for the sake of the children. Don’t you love our children?”</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
My administration wants to work with members of both parties to make child care accessible and affordable, to help ensure new parents that they have paid family leave ...<br /><b>
No, you don’t.</b>
... to invest in women’s health, and to promote clean air and clean water, and to rebuild our military and our infrastructure.<br /><b>
Shutting down Planned Parenthood and lifting regulations so mines can dump sludge into the water is a funny way of doing those things.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
True love for our people requires us to find common ground, to advance the common good, and to cooperate on behalf of every American child who deserves a much brighter future.<br />
<b></b><b>Do not put the blame for this mess on the people who are being victimized. Do NOT.</b>
An incredible young woman is with us this evening who should serve as an inspiration to us all. Today is Rare Disease Day, and joining us in the gallery is a rare disease survivor, Megan Crowley. Megan ...<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Megan was diagnosed with Pompe disease, a rare and serious illness, when she was 15 months old. She was not expected to live past 5. On receiving this news, Megan’s dad, John, fought with everything he had to save the life of his precious child. He founded a company to look for a cure and helped develop the drug that saved Megan’s life. Today she is 20 years old and a sophomore at Notre Dame.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Megan’s story is about the unbounded power of a father’s love for a daughter. But our slow and burdensome approval process at the Food and Drug Administration keeps too many advances, like the one that saved Megan’s life, from reaching those in need.<br />
If we slash the restraints, not just at the F.D.A. but across our government, then we will be blessed with far more miracles just like Megan.<br /><b>
Also, many illnesses, birth defects and deaths from dangerous untested drugs. But hey- MEGAN.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
In fact, our children will grow up in a nation of miracles. But to achieve this future, we must enrich the mind — and the souls — of every American child. Education is the civil rights issue of our time.<br /><b>
I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I am calling upon members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.<br /><b>
Great. “Separate but equal”. Where have we heard that before?</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Joining us tonight in the gallery is a remarkable woman, Denisha Merriweather. As a young girl, Denisha struggled in school and failed third grade twice. But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning — great learning center — with the help of a tax credit and a scholarship program. Today, she is the first in her family to graduate, not just from high school, but from college. Later this year, she will get her master’s degree in social work. We want all children to be able to break the cycle of poverty just like Denisha.<br /><b>
…or we could improve our public schools so everyone can be Denisha without failing 3rd grade twice and jumping thru tax credit and scholarship hoops first. Just a thought.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
But to break the cycle of poverty, we must also break the cycle of violence. The murder rate in 2015 experienced its largest single-year increase in nearly half a century. In Chicago, more than 4,000 people were shot last year alone, and the murder rate so far this year has been even higher. This is not acceptable in our society.<br /><b>
Yay! We get to the part about common-sense gun control!</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Every American child should be able to grow up in a safe community, to attend a great school and to have access to a high-paying job.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
But to create this future, we must work with — not against — not against — the men and women of law enforcement.<br /><b>
Oops. Nope. Just “give the cops more and bigger guns”. What was I thinking? This is the guy who signed an EO to allow mentally ill people to get guns…</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
We must build bridges of cooperation and trust, not drive the wedge of disunity and it’s — really, it’s what it is, division. It’s pure, unadulterated division. We have to unify. Police and sheriffs are members of our community. They’re friends and neighbors, they’re mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, and they leave behind loved ones every day who worry about whether or not they’ll come home safe and sound. We must support the incredible men and women of law enforcement.<br /><b>
I don’t know a single person who hates cops. That entire paragraph was divisive.</b> <br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
And we must support the victims of crime. I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American victims. The office is called Voice, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement.<br /><b>
Why just “immigration crime”? WTF?</b>
We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media and silenced by special interests. Joining us ...<br /><b>
No one is ignoring victims. No one.</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Joining us in the audience tonight are four very brave Americans whose government failed them. Their names are Jamiel Shaw, Susan Oliver, Jenna Oliver and Jessica Davis. Jamiel’s 17-year-old son was viciously murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member who had just been released from prison. Jamiel Shaw Jr. was an incredible young man with unlimited potential who was getting ready to go to college, where he would have excelled as a great college quarterback.<br />
But he never got the chance. His father, who is in the audience tonight, has become a very good friend of mine. Jamiel, thank you. Thank you.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Also with us are Susan Oliver and Jessica Davis. Their husbands — Deputy Sheriff Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis — were slain in the line of duty in California. They were pillars of their community. These brave men were viciously gunned down by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record and two prior deportations. Should have never been in our country.<br />
Sitting with Susan is her daughter, Jenna. Jenna, I want you to know that your father was a hero and that tonight you have the love of an entire country supporting you and praying for you.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
To Jamiel, Jenna, Susan and Jessica, I want you to know that we will never stop fighting for justice. Your loved ones will never, ever be forgotten. We will always honor their memory.<br /><b>
What the hell? Where’s the families of the people Dylan Roof killed? </b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Finally, to keep America safe, we must provide the men and women of the United States military with the tools they need to prevent war — if they must — they have to fight and they only have to win.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I am sending Congress a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the defense sequester...<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.<br /><b>
HOW ARE WE PAYING FOR THAT? We’re already the biggest military ever known to mankind, but other than that…HOW ARE WE PAYING FOR THAT?</b>
My budget will also increase funding for our veterans. Our veterans have delivered for this nation, and now we must deliver for them.<br /><b>
How about not making any more veterans, you sabre-rattling draft-dodging blowhard.</b><br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
The challenges we face as a nation are great. But our people are even greater. And none are greater or braver than those who fight for America in uniform.<br /><b>
How would you know?</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
We are blessed to be joined tonight by Carryn Owens, the widow of U.S. Navy special operator, Senior Chief William “Ryan” Owens. Ryan died as he lived, a warrior and a hero, battling against terrorism and securing our nation.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
I just spoke to our great General [Jim] Mattis just now who reconfirmed that, and I quote, “Ryan was a part of a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemy.”<br />
Ryan’s legacy is etched into eternity. Thank you.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
And Ryan is looking down right now. You know that. And he’s very happy, because I think he just broke a record.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
For as the Bible teaches us, there is no greater act of love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Ryan laid down his life for his friends, for his country and for our freedom. And we will never forget Ryan.<br /><b>
Ryan is dead because of you, Mr. President. He’s dead because YOU didn’t listen to your advisors. The raid was a disaster and got NOTHING we can use other than a mess of dead people, including children. To hold up that man’s widow like a bauble and proof of your “greatness” and then to tell her her “ratings” are great (due to the applause) is heinous. You, sir, are a monster. </b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
To those allies who wonder what kind of a friend America will be, look no further than the heroes who wear our uniform. Our foreign policy calls for a direct, robust and meaningful engagement with the world. It is American leadership based on vital security interests that we share with our allies all across the globe.<br />
We strongly support NATO, an alliance forged through the bonds of two world wars, that dethroned fascism ...<br /><b>
The same NATO you said was bad? That NATO?</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
... and a Cold War and defeated communism.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
But our partners must meet their financial obligations. And now, based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning to do just that. In fact, I can tell you the money is pouring in. Very nice.<br /><b>
Shaking down our allies for their lunch money. Perfect. “Very nice”.<br />
(APPLAUSE)</b>
We expect our partners, whether in NATO, in the Middle East or in the Pacific, to take a direct and meaningful role in both strategic and military operations, and pay their fair share of the cost — have to do that. <b><<< another ad lib. He's clearly at the breaking point.</b> <another a="" ad="" because="" br="" can="" good="" it="" lib.="" perfectly="" ruins="" sentence.="" tell="" you="">We will respect historic institutions, but we will respect the foreign rights of all nations. And they have to respect our rights as a nation, also.<br /><b>
Great! Palestine gets its own country!</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people, and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path. <b>Unless they have oil. Then we “take” the oil. Right?</b> My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America.<br />
(APPLAUSE)<br />
But we know that America is better off when there is less conflict, not more. We must learn from the mistakes of the past. We have seen the war and the destruction that have ravaged and raged throughout the world. All across the world. <b><<< He can't help it now. He had to add this because "throughout the world" was not bigly enough.</b><another ad="" because="" bigly="" br="" enough.="" lib.="" t="" the="" throughout="" wasn="" world="">
The only long-term solution for these humanitarian disasters, in many cases, is to create the conditions where displaced persons can safely return home and begin the long, long process of rebuilding.<br /><b>
Have you thought about not blowing the shit out of their countries anymore? Asking for a friend…</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
America is willing to find new friends, and to forge new partnerships, where shared interests align. We want harmony and stability, not war and conflict. We want peace, wherever peace can be found. America is friends today with former enemies. See: Russia and the blossoming bromance between Donnie and Vlad. Some of our closest allies, decades ago, fought on the opposite side of these terrible, terrible wars. This history should give us all faith in the possibilities for a better world.<br />
Hopefully, the 250th year for America will see a world that is more peaceful, more just, and more free.<br /><b>
Your brand of Nationalism will not do that. Sorry. Spoiler?</b>
On our 100th anniversary in 1876, citizens from across our nation came to Philadelphia to celebrate America’s centennial. At that celebration, the country’s builders and artists and inventors showed off their wonderful creations. Alexander Graham Bell displayed his telephone for the first time. Remington unveiled the first typewriter. An early attempt was made at electric light. Thomas Edison showed an automatic telegraph and an electric pen. Imagine the wonders our country could know in America’s 250th year.<br /><b>
I was curious because he didn’t mention our bi-centennial in 1976. Maybe because the POTUS was Carter and we weren’t all up in everyone else’s business worldwide in a pushy and bullying manner? </b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
Think of the marvels we could achieve if we simply set free the dreams of our people. Cures to the illnesses that have always plagued us are not too much to hope. American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream. Millions lifted from welfare to work is not too much to expect. And streets where mothers are safe from fear — schools where children learn in peace, and jobs where Americans prosper and grow — are not too much to ask.<br /><b>
“Oh, baby. If only you stay, we can do great things together! I know I lose my temper sometimes and sometimes I slap you around a little, but it’s only because I just LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Here- your favorite flowers…and $100. Go buy yourself something pretty!”</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
When we have all of this, we will have made America greater than ever before, for all Americans. This is our vision. This is our mission. But we can only get there together. We are one people, with one destiny.<br />
We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same great American flag. And we are all made by the same God.<br /><b>
Oh, brother. *gets out waders…</b>
(APPLAUSE)<br />
When we fulfill this vision, when we celebrate our 250 years of glorious freedom, we will look back on tonight as when this new chapter of American greatness began. <b>Or the moment our nation who has been horrified and shocked by your actions for the last month just gives the hell up and latches onto your pretty words because we’re too damn tired to keep up with the mental insults to our intelligence and hearts? Same diff, I guess…</b>The time for small thinking is over. The time for trivial fights is behind us. <b>So you’re closing your Twitter account and turning off SNL because JESUS YOU’RE EMBARRASSING.</b> We just need the courage to share the dreams that fill our hearts, the bravery to express the hopes that stir our souls, and the confidence to turn those hopes and those dreams into action.<br /><b>
Ooh. Nice. Adapted from the AA slogan. Very clever.</b>
From now on, America will be empowered by our aspirations, not burdened by our fears, inspired by the future, not bound by failures of the past, and guided by a vision, not blinded by our doubts.<br /><b>
This speechwriter moonlights at Hallmark. I guarantee it.</b>
I am asking all citizens to embrace this renewal of the American spirit. I am asking all members of Congress to join me in dreaming big and bold and daring things for our country. I am asking everyone watching tonight to seize this moment. Believe in yourselves. Believe in your future. And believe, once more, in America.<br />
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States.<br /><b>
Alrighty, then. He stuck mostly to the script, and didn’t go “off reservation” more than a few times. Do I believe the pretty words? Not for a split second. You can’t take a 70 year old guy who has done nothing but think of himself for seven decades and who has never had to work for a goddamn penny and expect him to turn all presidential and shit. Cannot. <br />
Does he have a good speechwriter? Yep. Can he hold “character” for the time it took to read this? Mostly. <br />
His agenda has not changed. His core beliefs and those of the people he has surrounded himself have not changed. If anything, sounding marginally sane and reasonable is more dangerous than “Crazy Random-Brain-Cells-Drunk-Sexting-Each-Other Trump”. <br />
Focus on his deeds, not his pretty words.<br />
*Resist*</b>
<br /><span style="color: red;"></span><span style="color: red;"></span>
</another></another></there></and></this>lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-5769334963380419332017-02-07T13:57:00.001-06:002017-02-07T13:57:58.934-06:00To My Moderate Conservative Friends and Family......Nope. This is not another rant about how odious the man you voted into office is. Not that I don't think he's still odious, because of course he is. And unqualified and a liar and everything else I've ever said about him multiplied by a million since the inauguration. <br />
<br />
But it's too fucking late, isn't it? You "won" and we "lost". This isn't about that, either, no matter how much your talking heads tell you it is- how much they vilify us- your friends and family who you KNOW are strong and loving and smart- you know us. You know what each of us has been thru personally and you know that we are driven and passionate about things that have affected our families and ourselves and our friends---even YOU. We have fought for you many times and will continue to do so.<br />
<br />
The Women's Marches should have been a hint for you- worldwide objection to the man you put in office. But you made fun of them and yawned.<br />
<br />
The ongoing, not-quitting, pushback to his Muslim ban, his executive orders that are poorly written and ill-thought out, his rejection of experience and preference for chaos...every day is a jarring, reeling descent into someplace America has never gone before.<br />
<br />
This isn't drama. Obama never did this. Hillary would not have done it. W didn't do it. Even Skeletor Reagan didn't do this.<br />
<br />
I know the entire election was one big contentious, exhausting, mind-numbing marathon and that on election day you went into that booth, held your nose, closed your eyes and pulled that lever for "Trump (R)", came out needing a shower and never wanted to think about it again. <br />
<br />
And I'm sorry. But you can't do that.<br />
<br />
If you love this nation even a fraction as much as those of us out marching and training an eagle eye on everything this administration does, you- you yourselves, you Moderate Conservative Americans MUST be even MORE vigilant than we are. And when he and/or his administration or your own representatives do something you disagree with, you MUST speak up and tell them so and make no bones about how unhappy you are.<br />
<br />
Because you see, every liberal in the nation can stand shoulder to shoulder and yell at the top of our lungs and it won't matter as much as if just a few of YOU say, "Wait a sec. This shit's not right!" because YOU are their voter base.<br />
<br />
So, in a nutshell, we, your fellow Americans, friends and family, need you to PAY ATTENTION. You're the ones who voted for a Swamp Draining and willingly tossed a guy up there with exactly zero experience in public office. Zero. It's your JOB to make damn sure he and his administration stay on the straight and narrow. YOUR job. Not ours. Yours. It's YOUR job to train the new guy that you hired. Not ours. You told us it was totally cool and he could do this job. TRAIN. HIM.<br />
<br />
Say, as a fer instance...the Muslim ban. I've heard some of you grudgingly admit that it wasn't thought out well and punished a bunch of people who didn't deserve it. SEND AN EMAIL TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO SAY SO. TAKES 30 SECONDS.<br />
<br />
Or the Wall. Remember that Wall the Mexico was gonna pay for? It's going to be paid for by "taxing imports" from Mexico. You know who will pay the increase in prices? Lemme give you a hint- NOT MEXICO. <br />
<br />
Or repealing the ACA. Those of you who thought it would be fine because they're repealing Obamacare and not YOUR ACA plan? Holy crap, man...and they have nothing to replace it with. And they won't. <br />
<br />
Just like we'll never see Trump's tax returns. Why the HELL are you giving him a pass on that??? Fun exercise- every time Trump does or says something, pretend it's Obama or Hillary saying it and see if you'd be OK with that. <br />
<br />
Or that lovely rollback of the law that makes it difficult for people who have been diagnosed with severe mental issues to get a gun. EVERY ONE of my "gun nut" friends says that was the stupidest thing they ever heard of. I said, "Then you, as gun nuts, need to say something" and they said, "I did! I gave 'em a piece of my mind in the gun forum!"<br />
<br />
Ummm...Bubba? That ain't gonna cut it. Yer gonna have to step out of your bubble, or bunker, or church, or wherever the hell you hole up at, and PAY FUCKING ATTENTION. And then when you see the new guy screw up? YOU need to call him out and set him straight. YOU. Not us. YOU.<br />
<br />
Because this is YOUR dog you just put up there, and he's shitting all over the Constitution you claim to love.<br />
<br />
Be adults. Don't double-down on insanity when (not if) you see something in the new administration that you disagree with. We don't want to see anyone suffer- even you. WHEN you see something not right and you speak up about it, we will think MORE of you, not less. I mean, we'll still say, "I fucking told you so" a few times, but we're just human, right? For the sake of your kids and grandkids- being bullheaded because you don't want to admit you were wrong is just not worth it. <br />
<br />
And the rest of us will still fight every regressive, awful thing he or his minions (all Swamp Monsters so far, in case you missed that part)put out there. We will watch every move they make. Because this shit is kind of important. <br />
<br />
And it should be to you, too.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2548884643150397912.post-52553524490130149292017-01-21T10:00:00.000-06:002017-01-21T10:00:10.112-06:00Day OneSo I'm here in Denton on the day after the inauguration. I'm going to the Women's Rally on the Square at noon, along with my beloved Sisterchicks here...and my son, who will be going with all HIS friends, male or female. And hopefully a few thousand others. Gomez volunteered to stay home to take care of the farm so I could come do this, something that gains him even extra points because I know damn well he would've liked to participate as well.<br />
<br />
I was a little bit nauseated yesterday, a malady that I'm pretty sure didn't evolve into full-on puking only because I refused to watch the "festivities" in DC. It was more interesting to hear it from other people's eyes. <br />
<br />
Conservatives said it was the best thing since angels declared the coming of Jesus to shepherds in the night and DC was filled to the brim with REAL Americans hollering their allegiance to their new savior. This isn't a stretch- a lot of these folks claim that Donald J. Trump- serial philanderer, ethics-free businessman and all around bigot, racist and misogynist...is God's way of "Taking Back America". I always knew their version of God was a vengeful, hateful prick, but COME ON. In and around all that pompous circumstance, we were told, again, that we need to "all come together" and "give him a chance". Sorry. I can't come together with racism, nationalism, isolationism, oligarchy, police states and dealing lethal financial and legal blows to people and things that can't fight back. I'm funny that way.<br />
<br />
Liberals said his inauguration speech(as the London Times said) "painted a grim picture of an America only he can rebuild". So he apparently took his base- who voted for him out of fear anyway, and reiterated that their fear is warranted, their hatred and suspicion of anyone not "exactly like themselves" is sensible and logical and that this nation is SO BAD, SO FAR GONE, that the only one- out of all of us Americans in high and low places and with education and compassion and intelligence and an abiding LOVE for OUR nation---only HE can fix it. Well, isn't that special? Anyone who has been in an abusive relationship can tell you that's how they keep you there. Your fear and dislike of the abuser is overshadowed by the fear of what will happen to you if you leave- how much WORSE it is "out there" and how other people will treat you WORSE because "only I know what you need and only I REALLY love you". And there were like 5 Bikers for Trump who showed up, looking like a pitiful wall of meat. I guess a wall of Vienna Sausages? And the parade was sparsely-attended. And they are using stock photos of OTHER inaugurations to make it look like DC was brim-full of patriots! <br />
<br />
Yes, Melania looked lovely. I have nothing against Melania Trump. Barron looked miserable and it was noted that no one- no one in the Trump family, reached out to take his hand or put a hand on his shoulder. I didn't see it, remember. But if that's true, it's very sad. I heard a bit of the announcing and it's apparent that the guy was an MMA announcer. How fucking classy. My son said that the official photo shoot at the Lincoln Memorial- all in black and white and surrounded by military holding flags, was quite reminiscent of official dictatorship photos...<br />
<br />
The protests. Here's my take. And the take from people who I know and who were there. It was worse than hoped for but better than being shown. Lots of stock footage of other protest violence in other places, like there usually are when it's expedient for the masses to hate people who are fighting for THEM. My answer to a conservative who sneered, "Yes- we hated Obama and protested and carried signs...but we never DESTROYED anything" was to say, "Hey- I can't help it liberals are better at EVERYTHING than ya'll are." She said, "Wait. That was almost funny..." Was it right for people to set a limo on fire? Nope. Wasn't right for the police to pepper spray (hose-like) an old lady AND a little kid, either. And don't say, "Well, they shouldn't have been there!" because fuck that. This is America, remember? <br />
<br />
I was hoping beyond hope that during the final handshakes, Joe Biden would kidney-punch Trump and just keep walking. <br />
<br />
OK. I am now duty-bound to go read the transcript. I cannot see that face or hear that voice without retching, and I will read it in his voice ANYWAY, but I have coffee and hopefully will not vomit. Be right back...<br />
<br />
(Interlude of "Muskrat Love" elevator music)<br />
<br />
What the hell. I'ma just copy/paste it here and let you know what I think about it as I read it. <br />
<br />
<i>"Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans and people of the world, thank you. <br />
We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all of our people. <br />
Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for many, many years to come. We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.<br />
<br />
<b>Well, that just reinforces the Right's claim that "Obama did nothing and tried his best to destroy America right there.</b><br />
<br />
Every four years we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power. <br />
And we are grateful to President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. <br />
They have been magnificent. <br />
Thank you.<br />
<br />
<b>I had an employee once. Briefly. Every time I would ask him to do something he would say, "Yes, Ma'am." But the tone of his voice told me he was really thinking "fuck you". That's how this "Thank you" to Obama sounds, especially after the opening statement. He's literally DISMISSING the former president of the United States.</b> <br />
<br />
Today's ceremony, however, has a very special meaning because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people. <br />
For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have bore the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed. <br />
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. <br />
That all changes starting right here and right now, because this moment is your moment. <br />
It belongs to you. <br />
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. <br />
This is your day. <br />
This is your celebration. <br />
And this, the United States of America, is your country. <br />
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. <br />
January 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. <br />
<br />
<b>What the literal fuck. Sure the pols in DC got rich. Yanno why? Because people like Donald J Trump PAY THEM to pass laws that only protect the RICH- the pols don't get tax breaks and decide to move business out of the country- the CORPORATE OWNER RAT BASTARD WEASELS DO.</b><br />
<br />
The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now. You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement, the likes of which the world has never seen before. <br />
At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction that a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves. <br />
These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public. <br />
<br />
<b>...and people like YOU, sir, are why we don't have that. Also, that little detail about how you lost the popular vote by 3 million and only half of registered voters bothered to get off their asses and vote. You won because the electoral college put you up there, and more of the electors went rogue AGAINST YOU than in any other time in history. Never forget that.</b><br />
<br />
But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists. <br />
Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation. <br />
An education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge. <br />
And the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. <br />
<br />
<b>BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU, YOU CLUELESS, SMUG BASTARD</b><br />
<br />
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. <br />
We are one nation, and their pain is our pain. <br />
Their dreams are our dreams, and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home and one glorious destiny. <br />
The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans. <br />
<br />
<b>Yes. Of course. Say what you need to to keep the children quiet and pliant while you molest the crap out of them. Say the pretty words and they will believe it even tho historically it's YOU who have caused the most pain and damage.</b> <br />
<br />
For many decades we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military. <br />
We've defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own. And we've spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. <br />
We've made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon. <br />
One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. <br />
The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. But that is the past, and now we are looking only to the future. <br />
<br />
<b>Yes. The military contractors like Cheney and the rich assholes like yourself who do "business" overseas have gotten very wealthy. You really think we believe you will do anything about that? You've promised to throw MORE money at the military. "American workers left behind"? YOU BUILD YOUR SHITTY CRAP OVERSEAS AND HAVE NOT MADE ONE MOVE TO BRING ANY OF THOSE JOBS HOME. YOU BANK OVERSEAS. WHAT THE FUCK?</b><br />
<br />
We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. <br />
From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our product, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. <br />
Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. I will fight for you with every breath in my body, and I will never ever let you down. <br />
America will start winning again, winning like never before. <br />
<br />
<b>Protectionism, isolationism, nationalism. That's how abusers get you. Make you believe that they are only thinking of YOUR well-being and ISOLATE you from other people and ideas. Isolation is the main tool of the abuser. The main tool.</b><br />
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We will bring back our jobs. <b>Great. You closing your factories in "Jina" and Mexico?</b><br />
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We will bring back our borders. <b>Where did they go? What a ridiculous thing to say.</b><br />
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We will bring back our wealth, and we will bring back our dreams. <b>So you're going to bank here again, too? OUTSTANDING</b><br />
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We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation. <b>...after getting rid of any minimum wage at all, right? So we can afford to do that if we are paying people $2.00 an hour.</b><br />
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We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor. <b>...by getting rid of social safety nets. I guess that's one way to do it.</b><br />
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We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American. <b>You first, asshole.</b><br />
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We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. <b>Ah, yes. Friends with benefits but no real commitment.</b> <br />
<br />
We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. <br />
We will shine for everyone to follow. <b>You realize not everyone wants to BE American, right? Because other places are also pretty great. What an ignorant, boorish thing to say. "We will be a GREAT example for the rest of this shithole of a planet!"</b><br />
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We will re-enforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth. <b>How? Your very attitude towards 'those brown people' and vow to (continue and escalate) bombing the shit out of them MAKE MORE TERRORISTS, YOU STUPID PRICK.</b><br />
<br />
At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. <br />
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. <b>Your version of "patriotism" is what BREEDS prejudice.</b><br />
<br />
The Bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity. We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable. There should be no fear. We are protected and we will always be protected. We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement. And most importantly, we will be protected by God. <b>OH, BROTHER. Has this guy even read the Constitution? WE ARE NOT A THEOCRACY. I'll bet this got the biggest cheer from the assembled masses, tho...ESPECIALLY his "prayer warriors"</b><br />
<br />
Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger. <b>Wait. He missed a chance to say BIGLY?</b> In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving. We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action, constantly complaining but never doing anything about it. <br />
The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action. <b>Ummm...the only way to get things done quickly are illegal as hell. Our nation has a set of rules to govern by that are on purpose convoluted and lengthy. It is frustrating but prevents a DICTATORSHIP from forming. I hope it holds up to this because this is the biggest wall of bullshit and razzle dazzle that has ever come up against it.</b><br />
<br />
Do not allow anyone to tell you that it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again. <b>You just told us how crappy and awful it is. YOU'RE the one who's been telling us it's totally fucked for over a year now. So yes. We WILL thrive and prosper again. As soon as we get your ass OUT of there.</b><br />
<br />
We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow. <b>What? We're 17 years into the new millennium and you sound like a cross between George Jetson and a snake oil salesmen.</b><br />
<br />
A new national pride will stir ourselves, lift our sights and heal our divisions. <b>Oooh oooh oooh- did he pass out brown shirts at this juncture?</b> It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots. <b>Unless you're a chick soldier. Then you're just a distraction and asking to be raped, like you've said in the past.</b><br />
<br />
We all enjoy the same glorious freedoms and we all salute the same great American flag. <b>...unless you're gay, or a minority, or female, or an atheist or a liberal, right? I mean...let's not get all CRAZY here. And the flag is a symbol, not what we worship or fight for. Our soliders are fighting for America, not the cloth symbol of it. Because that would be idolatry, and your God sort of frowns on that.</b> <br />
<br />
And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty creator. <b>And if they are born rich, they don't have to worry about shit, right? When their daddy gives them a "small gift" of a million dollars at their high school graduation...you forgot to mention those kids. You literally have no fucking idea of how 99% of the kids in this nation live, do you?</b><br />
<br />
So to all Americans in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean, hear these words: You will never be ignored again. Your voice, your hopes and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way. <br />
Together we will make America strong again, we will make America wealthy again, we will make America proud again, we will make America safe again. <br />
And, yes, together we will make America great again. <b>More pretty words to suck in the victims. Note it's all "again". Note that most of it is already great. We have the largest most badass military the world has ever seen. We have more billionaires and more income inequality than any country- you think he's for changing THAT ratio? Most Americans are DAMN proud and we love our nation fiercely- that's why we're protesting YOUR election. Safe? Great! You're for gun control! That'll go down well in Red America...</b><br />
<br />
Thank you. <br />
God bless you. <br />
And God bless America."</i><br />
<br />
I'm glad I didn't watch it. I would've broken the TV. <br />
<br />
So even without watching it, here's what I dreamt last night.<br />
<br />
I was here in Denton, but when we got here, the house next door had been moved. It was taking up our driveway, had eliminated our garage and there was a new fence making half of our yard their yard.<br />
<br />
I knocked on the door and asked them about it. They said they had just bought the house and had had it moved to where it now was. I said that there was some mistake and they needed to call the city and get a survey because they were clearly taking up a big chunk of OUR property- so much that we couldn't park in the driveway anymore and had no garage anymore at all.<br />
<br />
They laughed and said that they could do whatever they wanted to do because they were REAL Dentonites and that if we didn't like it we should just move somewhere else.<br />
<br />
Welcome to Trumpfuckistan.<br />
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I'd better get a shower. I have a rally to attend. I'm old and tired but goddammit, this shit WILL be watched, it WILL be protested, and it WILL be gotten thru to the other side. <br />
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lunamotherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14514608202415217448noreply@blogger.com0