TRUMPUS

In Central European folklore, KRAMPUS is a horned, anthropomorphic figure described as "half-goat, half-demon", who, during the Christmas season, punishes children who have misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards the well-behaved with gifts. Folklore also informs us that both Saint Nicholas creates a list of who has been naughty or nice and Krampus create lists…just to be sure WHO he wishes to become naughty at the sheer whim of his own nasty narcissistic numbness to the needs of those around him.

In American folklore, it seems KRAMPUS, commonly called TRUMPUS, filled with a combover sometimes tinged with very orange hair, with wisps of cheap peroxide, and bobby pins, always in a droopy suit and tie long enough to cover any genitals in the front, and some gloomy dark dreary suit made from the tiny hands of Chinese Children, has now begun his journey during a two week period beginning October 24 and ending November 6, known as THE MID-TERMS or when translated in a language KRAMPUS speaks…possible JAIL time!

Unlike Saint Nicholas, who tries his best to bring the gifts to the nice people, but ultimately fails, because of all the new technology, plus the fact that a wonderful as Capitalism, there will be wealthy and not wealthy, and some kids will be rewarded and others not; KRAMPUS, however, is VERY, VERY good at his delivery of gifts, VERY GOOD INDEED. So far KRAMPUS has delivered the following gifts, written on his TWEET LIST:

a

*Bombs to all of his perceived Democrat Party enemy lists including Politicians, News Agencies, Wealthy Donors, People in the Entertainment Profession, Past Presidents, and Many who have spoken against HIM

*The Murder of Black people shopping in a Kroger Super Market, because they left Church too early

*Jewish Congregants observing the Sabbath, praying and being Jewish

*Sending almost 5700 Troops, almost as man Troops has we have in Afghanistan to the Southern Border to threaten maybe 3000 which seems to be dwindling down to 1200 women children and moms and dads fleeing nations where murder, kidnapping, and threats are a daily occurrence

*Caging and separating infants from parents, toddlers from families and orphaning at least 70% of them for life.

*Dismantling the 14th Amendment, no longer permitting those children born in this nation from immigrant parents to remain, citizens,

TRUMPUS, in Amerika, unlike his eastern European cousin, is not a fable or folklore creature, but real. The only way, TRUMPUS  can be stopped IS by November 7, 2018, when the villagers, the ones with brains vote for the Democrat Party to erase, the NAUGHTY List from TRUMPUS and start a new list which demands HE begin the process to shackles and cuffs! 

A Village

IT TAKES A VILLAGE…and by God IT TOOK A VILLAGE! I have never been so sad for my neighborhood of Squirrel Hill and yet so proud of Squirrel Hill…watching them have the Accessory to a pre-meditated murder TRUMP have his contrived caravan have to change direction, because the humans in Squirrel Hill would NOT relent, nor move. 

Back in the day, when it was not only considered a crime against Jesus to be a homosexual, but actually a government crime, many Gay men would have a girlfriend or a fiancé, and there was a derogatory term used back in those days that to describe that relationship…” that is his beard”…all seemed normal a man and a woman…well, Trump the Accessory to the murder of 11 innocent Jewish individuals brought his “BEARDS” with him to Pittsburgh. There they were Jared and Ivanka and Steve Mnuchin, so, of course, that meant Trump loves his Jews. He also brought his Immigrant wife but left his immigrant wife’s anchor baby back in DC.  All three Jewish “BEARDS," have never once said publicly that IN FACT NO NAZI IS A GOOD NAZI, and none of his Jewish “BEARDS” have stopped Trump from his racist remarks against any minority. (I suppose as in Berlin and Rome if you are a wealthy Jew, you can somehow afford not burden yourself with anti-Semitism) And by the way, Trump did not wear a Kippah ( a Jewish head cover), certainly, because there was either not enough velcro to keep it plastered down, or wearing one might upset, even more, his White Nationalist Klan Cultists.

PR is a trick of the trade for the GOP, that and lying, stealing the vote, denying the vote, hacking the vote…and Mr. and Mrs. Kushner thought that the Accessory to a Pre-Meditated murder might look like a Mench in the eyes of the Jewish public.  But it took the VILLAGERS to make the monster turn away. Trump tried for his 15 minutes of fame but need up with absolutely nothing but 15 minutes of shame. I am an American, I am Jewish, I am from Pittsburgh, and I am so PROUD to know my roots grew from the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill!

age of innocence

“We dismiss the back roads To ride these streets unafraid

Resigned to scraping paint From our bones unashamed

No more the eye upon you No more the simple man

Desolation yes hesitation no Desolation yes hesitation no” (Age of Innocence)

The murders in Pittsburgh, of course, like the myriad of mass shootings of innocents all over this nation and the world in which we live, has shaken me to my core, which once I thought could and would stand strong, surviving the most evil of men and their machinations. But then, because it was Pittsburgh, my hometown, and because it was targeted toward the Jews, of which I am proud, one…I have felt a chaos climb up and down my spine as if an earthquake found its footing in my soul and shook each vertebra and rib, treating them like rubber bands (or as we say using a choice Pittsburgh term, gum bands). My hometown, as I remember no matter how difficult my own life might have been was innocent…and the age of that innocence has died, a bloody death.

“As you might have guessed all is never shown Desolation yes hesitation no

And in my prayers I dream alone A silent speech to deaf ear

If you want love you must be love But if you bleed love you will die loved

No more the lie upon you Cast into stone and autumn shade

Desolation yes hesitation no Desolation yes hesitation no” (Age of Innocence)

I have read enough history books, to understand that the waves of tyrants, the flooding lies of the despot, the marauding mayhem of authoritarians find footing in places one might have never guessed could exist. It like the mold, the mildew is hidden behind your newly financed bathroom, which when built was so finely toned to detail that no one would ever imagine, there would be room for rot to fester and flourish! Never in my home, I am too clean too pure, I am too innocent for life-threatening danger to find me, and begin to kill me.

“As you might have sensed we won't make it home Desolation yes hesitation no

Before the rites of spring - Come to mean all things

A little taste of what may come - A mere glimpse of what has gone

Cause for the moment we are free - We seek to bind our release

Too young to die too rich to care too fucked to swear that I was there

Desolation yes hesitation no Desolation yes hesitation no

As you might have guessed we won't make it home Desolation yes hesitation no”

(Age of Innocence-Smashing Pumpkins-lyrics, William Patrick Corgan)

The Age of Innocence, perhaps never existed. Pittsburgh was never Mayberry, and Mayberry was just the imagination of a few writers who dreamed about a simpler way of life. This most recent tragedy has a lump growing inside my throat, clogged with such emotion, that I wonder if it will ever dissipate. Of course, I am not a direct family member having to realize the sudden slaughter of my family, but I am an American who has witnessed too many thoughts and prayers, and to be honest…nothing else! I do not understand this age in which I find myself and MY own friends and family…and I mourn DEEPLY the END of INNOCENCE!

Rosenthal men

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down

I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out

I am brave, I am bruised

I am who I'm meant to be, this is me

Look out 'cause here I come

And I'm marching on to the beat I drum

I'm not scared to be seen

I make no apologies, this is me (This is Me- Keala Settle)

Ivanka and Jared Kushner, the picture is of David and Cecil Rosenthal,(courtesy of Pittsburgh Post Gazette), you don’t know them, but they were two people out of the eleven who were murdered while observing a Shabbat Service at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. I knew both young men, actually, I knew them when they were teenagers, while I worked at the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh. The thing is they are brothers, sons of Jewish parents. I know that both you Ivanka and Jared are Jewish parents and that your children observe the Sabbath also. I know THAT because you both have become famous, or maybe the correct word is infamous because Donald Trump is both your father and father-in-law. I am also Jewish, Ivanka and Jared, and have two children. You, of course, don’t know me, maybe because I don’t hang out in the same Russian social circles attending Putin family events, or go to Saudi Arabia, hanging with the Saudi Royal Murdering dudes, and of course, I don’t launder money, and I DO pay income taxes. But the thing IS Ivanka and Jared, like David and Cecil who were recent, (God knows how many more Americans) gunned down and killed, I am Jewish, and I have witnessed anti-Semitism rise during the reign of terror established by Donald Trump. And you what else Ivanka and Jared, shamefully I have not witnessed either one you do one damn thing to stop Donald Trump from still insisting that there are good Nazis and bad Nazi’s. And Ivanka and Jared, when Donald Trump declared himself a Nationalist, neither one of you had word one to say, explaining to the nitwit hacked into the Oval Office, that a Nationalist, hates Jews.

I am certain, Ivanka and Jared that neither one of you will read my blog, because both of you are busy robbing the poor, ignoring the Jewish community of America, and living a criminal life, pretending to be Patriots when all the while you both are enablers to a man, Donald Trump who has all the signs of a Fascist! (Remember the name, Adolph Hitler.) Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Kushner,  eleven people died in a Pittsburgh Synagogue. Most of the people who knew David and Cecil knew that this two young men loved going to shul and greeting each and every person, who entered the building. Perhaps they also met the MURDERER, who like Donald Trump, became fearful of the OTHER, you know the darker skin people who most certainly were going to remove all the white from this nation!  I have to wonder, Ivanka and Jared, do the both of you lack empathy, sympathy and a conscience…you know the good stuff missing from your Jewish children’s Grandfather! Shabbat Shalom!

Eleven and Home

When I think of home, I think of a place

where's there's love overflowing

I wish I was home, I wish I was back there

With the things I've been knowing

Wind that makes the tall grass bend into leaning

Suddenly the raindrops that fall they have a meaning

Sprinklin' the scene

Makes it all clean (Home-Charlie Smalls)

Squirrel Hill has always been one degree of separation. Most likely, your grandparents knew the parents of your best friends, and your best friend’s brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles one time or another went to the same elementary school, high school, synagogue or Jewish Community Center as you. You would walk “up the street” in Squirrel Hill, the place where the corners of Forbes and Murray met, and suddenly you could feel the heartbeat of your neighborhood, thumping loudly, watching the various streams of life lead you to the tree-lined, streets and avenues, the mansions, the row houses, the family owned and operated marketplaces. In the old days the streetcars, the 61 numbered series were available to visit the museums, the movie theaters, but back then you would arrive back HOME.  I had always wondered, even when it snowed often times during Halloween, or when the sorriest of 4th of July’s had you watching fireworks from inside your home, or the humidity of summer kept you sheets wet and watery at night, was everyone as lucky as those of us who lived in Squirrel Hill!

Suddenly my world's gone and change its fate

And I still know where I'm going

I have had my mind spun round in space

And watched it growing

And oh, if you're listening, God, please don't make it hard

To know if we should believe the things that we see

Tell us should we try and stay or should we run away (should we run away)

Or will it be better just to let things let them be, oh (Home-Charlie Smalls)

Squirrel Hill has always been one degree of separation. The lives, the joys, the celebrations all shared in the Jewish Chronicle. You knew the cool seniors graduating from Taylor Allderdice High School, even if you were just a lowly freshman. There was someone grandma or grandpa who needs a little help as they carried bags from the Giant Eagle. Squirrel Hill was my home growing up, and even at my age of 69, IS the place I am from. The eleven human beings, who aside from being Americans and who because they happened to be Jewish, all had some impact on my life, in Squirrel Hill. I have no correct words, but I am filled with so many emotions…When I think of HOME!

No, Nope

No, Nope, I will not listen to the bull shit pouring out of Trump’s speech written for him and read on a prompter. No, Nope, I cannot and will not listen to this man discuss anti-Semitism, while he still believes there are good Nazi’s and bad Nazi’s. No, Nope, I will not accept his PR attempt at pretending that he just doesn’t understand how so much hate can infect this nation, especially since he is patient Zero, and the contagious virus erupted from HIM.

If Trump cared, he would have canceled his trip to Indianapolis, and flown to Pittsburgh, even to stand on the grounds at the Pittsburgh Airport, and show his face and ask that we all have at least a moment of silence. No, Nope, I am also so tired of the Talking Heads on CNN and MSNBC reminding me that somehow these Jewish deaths must mean more to trump, because, his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandkids are Jewish. Where was his remorse in Charlottesville, his empathy for his own Jewish family? When is enough ENOUGH!

Please, TV Cable News folk…tell the truth…yep, hate has been around since man first realized how small of a creature we were…but during the Trump Crime years, hate has grown and grown…its not just the Jews, or the People of Color, or the LGBT, or women, or Immigrants…Trump understands that he cannot remain the Commander-In-Chief unless he incites FEAR and LOATHING, and of course is enabled to do so by the cowardly men and women of the GOP, their wealthy donors, and the religious cult who also fear their hypocrisy will also be found a fraud.

And oh yeah, when will it be time to talk about guns and murder, and crazy people, and the NRA and dark money… 

Squirrel Hill

It never is supposed to happen to you, but then it does. We are always the voyeur, ringing our fingers, wiping the sweat from our brow, but somehow safe, because, the people injured or murdered tug at our hearts, but our hearts are never pulled and shredded. Other towns, other cities, other people, we watch the first responders, we hear the tears, we see the reporters trying to find the facts, and filling us sometimes with fiction. Then we listen to the excuses, the calls for immediate action, and the response of not now, its too soon. Everyone is a Maven, and no one knows exactly what to do, and the mayhem churns and churns and churns and churns…

I grew up in Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill was MY neighborhood. I am Jewish. I still have family and friends in Squirrel Hill. I have celebrated Mitzvot and Tree of Life.  I am an American. I have contacted many friends and family just to ask the simple question, are you safe, secure. I am waiting to hear the names of the people, for whom the answer of safe and secure may never be answered. 

Where is the justice, when the answer to gun violence is “if someone inside the synagogue had a murder weapon, perhaps more would have survived?” Where is the truth when he who spews division, divide, and derogatory comments as easily as inhaling oxygen, looks in the camera and says “there is too much hate!” One more mass murder, one more day in the life of this nation, and one more moment when time stops for the victim and their families, but time will move on as if it was no big deal…that is until it happens again!

My hometown, my neighborhood, now part of a statistic that is created by human, and COULD be stopped by humans…but we are too frail too inept, too lazy to take on issues of life and death. It never is supposed to be so intimate of a horrific event…but then it is…and to whom it happens life will never be the same. How do we permit this to go on and on and on and on and on………. 

be clear

Let’s be clear AMERICA, AMERICANS, we can yell and scream at Trump for his inability to empathize, understand, admit, and even realize how his behavior affects the MAGA crowd. Trump could give a SHIT! He was hacked into office, knows it, and is afraid he will be found out to be the fraud that he DOES KNOW HE IS…but Trump never pays consequences for anything…EVER! 

Lets be clear, AMERICA, AMERICANS, the problem lies with his Republican enablers all the way from McConnell to Ryan to Adelson, to the Evangelical bull shit religious leaders to the Mercer family and to the Koch’s Trump has mesmerized the losers, the worthless pitiful bigots who lay blame for their awful life on anyone else but themselves. You wear a MAGA (made in China)hat, and you are an accessory to pre-meditated murder, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, and hate for democracy. TRUMP could care less about any criticism, he THRIVES on it, it is his lifeblood, because he understands its the same blood that flows in the veins of his MAGA cultists.

Where is the outrage from the GOP about this act of HOMELAND terrorism? There won’t be any, because the Mid-Terms are about to happen, and any truth told about the ENEMY OF THE STATE, TRUMP, will ruin the chances for the cowards and anarchists of the Republican Party to remain in the majority.

You wear a MAGA hat, you vote for the Republicans, you will soon have blood on your hands, not just for the death of innocent people, but the death of democracy! I am tired of being told we ALL most act more civil, when in fact TRUMP continues to create and incite violence and turmoil! 

wounds

There is a looming lesson, to be learned from a simple comment, made by Megyn Kelly, as she tried in vain to defend her response of people wearing “blackface” as part of a Halloween costume. I believe Ms. Kelly’s answer, simple as it sounded, and said in such a manner that, she almost was appalled anyone would find it insulting, is indeed part of the story of why Trump and his band of minions can and do get away with bigotry, bias and bogus, and assume in doing so, the world is a better place. Megyn Kelly, not so much in a defensive manner, but in defense of her remarks, just said, WELL WE USED TO IT, ALL THE TIME AND NO ONE SEEMED BOTHERED BY IT THEN.

I believe, and I have no respect nor love for Megyn Kelly, is she was stating, that the truth of the matter in this nation is that we HAVE always maintained a distaste for groups of people who, if we could, by keeping them in a lesser and lower environment, kept us more secure and superior. The malaise of slavery, since the inception of this nation, the Puritanical worry of witches, the fear that God, albeit supposedly powerful, still might be weaker than the strongest disparaging remarks about him, the insecurity of masculinity, not permitting emotion or empathy from rotting away the muscle or power, providing hate for those who seek freedom in self definition, and the sheer horror that whatever once was might never return, taking with it the perceived powers we held…all of that has peaked and presented itself as a paranoia, permitting people like Trump and his lemming-like empty followers to thrive.

To imagine that NOW our nation is most tempted toward another Civil War is a scary thought, but, let's be honest with ourselves, we really never repaired the wounds from the discrimination, deceit, and decay upon which this nation was founded. We murdered the indigenous people, we enslaved people of color, we read the Bible as if it was written by OUR particular God, denying women and equality, we segregated our communities not only by the color of the skin but by nation of origin, we scapegoated the QUEER, for fear it might be contagious, and simulate our own repressed needs, and we began to think of Capitalism as a form of religion, not a fair-minded economic philosophy.

We are shocked, surprised, angered and full of angst that all we repressed and never addressed has suddenly, like the shifting of tectonic plates has suddenly erupted and soon may explode like a volcanic explosion. Megyn Kelly most likely ALWAYS thought that “blackface” was cool, because no one taught her that there were people, real people affected by her ignorance, and self indulgence. And now we have in power a man who understands just how well to exploit and reawaken the poison in old wounds that have never ever REALLY been repaired.

what is next

Nowadays directors of horror movies have supplied us with the anticipated scare, which gets our hearts racing, but they crafted their skill to provide the audience with the post scare…you know, when the character bends down to wash his or her face in the bathroom sink and stands up, we expect to see the creature in the mirror…but now, it is different…the main character stands up looks in the mirror only seeing himself…THEN he opens the medicine cabinet closes it, looks in the mirror, again sees himself…but, of course, he or she needs to open the medicine cabinet again, and that is when the monster is either in the mirror or standing right behind the innocent soon to be victim…

Putin and other tyrants afraid of the democratic process of one person one vote has discovered a thousand different ways to dispose of his enemies and always come out of the bathroom with his hands clean…when accused of the mastermind behind the murdered on his enemy list, he pouts and denies, and of blames anyone but himself. People of America, at least those who do not wear Red Hates of Hate understand that the more vehemently Trump shouts and denies any association with any criminal act, the more he IS indeed a part of hatching that plan. He is such a narcissist that Trump CANNOT resist bragging about what he had just done. Whether the pipe bombs exploded or not, we have witnessed one of the most significant terrorists attempted attacks on this nation since 911. Where are the people (the Republicans and their white hooded ilk, who shouted “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi?” Where is the outrage that innocent Americans could have died, let alone TWO past Presidents? The GOP understands that they just CAN NOT win an election based on fair and just. So first they Gerrymander, then voter suppresses, then they Voter ID and then they blatantly only threw away the ballots of demographics who most likely won’t vote for the Republicans. We are living in a horror movie. Watch closely, folks…pipe bombs two weeks ahead of a Mid-Term election which could place the criminal activities of both Trump and the GOP leadership on trial could actually provide real transparency into the governing of this nation by foreign powers. Do you actually think that the GOP/Trump/Putin is going to stand for that! If you do then buy a made in China MAGA hat.

Like a director of a horror movie, who wants to keep you afraid, very scared, there are tricks that always appear right before your eyes, but then even while you are looking, something pops up, and you scream. McConnell and Ryan should demand Congress return immediately and face this terrorist attack…but if they solve it, and it concerns itself with the shady dealings of Trump, that might mean the demise of Grand Old Party. I worry a lot, and I am just wondering what else could happen BEFORE November 6, to stop whatever is left of that supposed BLUE TSUNAMI! 

mind blowing

“Inch by inch, step by step, slowly I turned…” “I am sorry madam, the phone call is coming from inside the house…” “its an old house, yes odd at times, but what do you expect, of course, you might hear the floorboards creak, the doors open and close by themselves, just place the blankets over your head and all will be well…” “I swear to ya, they seem real, they look real, but they came from pods…” Whatever your genre of horror or mystery flick or book, whatever our own worrisome quote from some creature feature, whatever corny comment or delicious dialogue, once the movie is finished, or the last chapter read, its over, finished, and you can move on to the next activity of your life. But then THAT was then, and this IS now…and the monster is in the house, the creatures are outside our homes, and the scariest most horrific mind-blowing, demon IS real, and has once again become legitimized by a democratic process, endorsed by a democratic legislature, and welcomed by villagers who have nothing to fear, but fear itself, and ONLY want to live by FEAR alone.

Even as assignation attempts were blowing across this nation as would a wildfire amidst a barren land of brush and weed, a crowd, some paid actors, many playing the victim, most just carnivorous creatures created by a cartoon charlatan, chanted “lock her up, lock her up, lock her up. The Republican candidate running for Senate in Wisconsin, smiled, winked, and giggled as the red hats (made in China) chanted a slogan one might hear in Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or North Korea, she did nothing to try and stop the harmony of hate, just stood there inhaling the scent of what might the next enemy of the state, hunted down and dead.

The hacked into office, Putin Puppet appeared, never once moving his lips as the spew and spit somehow formed words trying to pretend he too wanted the crowd to continue to jeer and jolt democracy to a shocking death. The word unity found its way out of his used lips, you could almost witness the heaving and shudder of his body even trying to form that word. But then the next day, even as the Talking Heads, coiffed and combed, perfumed and perky debated whose fault it was it after all for such vitriol, and vile failed pre-meditated murder, the GOP remained silent, or even better, played the games of, Nah, Nah, boo, boo, they did it to us so we can do it to them too!

Stormtroopers are being sent to the Boarder…murder is not good when it is botched, and the excuse was not the kind Trump liked…wanting our pre-existing conditions, and social security and food on the table for Vets, now makes us Socialists…seeking lawful answers for illegal actions is only done by the Democrats because they are bad people…and voting rights, well fuck them if you happen to be a person of color, indigenous people of this country called America, or college kids who want a better future. Some remain silent, they will perish, Trump and his Klansmen, Anarchists, Bigots, and Blackmailed puppets remain loud, and it seems they will undoubtedly win the day!  

enemies

When Vladimir, wants his enemies dead, he has a cadre of ex-KGB agents silently poison the food, push off the balcony, crash into oncoming traffic, Vladimir then feigns regret, and knows that his collective of captive citizens will look the other way, or realize the power of a Nationalistic, Authoritarian, Dictator, and those who even mutter a sigh of sadness will be the next victim. When Vladimir decides that opposition provides the opportunity for dialogue, and even democracy, he rids his kingdom as quickly as possible, moving on for his next conquest.

Hitler was more open about his distaste for the perceived citizen enemy. He permitted his murderers to dress in Brown Shirts or wear an insignia, which when witnessed by anyone, would and could cause hysteria, real fear that an open mouth would lead to sudden death. The opposition was always the bad guy, and the opposition became anyone, in Hitler’s paranoid mind, decided was terrible. No need for a Fascist to even pretend consensus was a noun or a verb, it was VERBOTEN! 

Today, our nation witnessed, without much pushback from anyone in the Russian led Republican Party a mass attempt of terrorist intimidation to the perceived political enemies, all of which have been listed on Trumps ENEMY LIST. Coincidence, that the names of those who received pipe bombs in the mail, were all Progressives/Liberals/Democrats and now the new word for the day Socialists…not one fucking reason at all. We all know, even the Russian led Republican Party that Trump is too mentally unstable to remain in the Oval Office, yet, our checks and balances will not stop him or remove him.

Aghast, agog, full of angst…it IS just going to get louder and larger as the Mid-Terms loom on the horizon!

Definitions Part 2

Part Two: Knowing that history, to many is a meaningless “old school” kind of thinking, and never using its full lessons from which to learn, but just a selection of applause lines, the current Trump Republican Party is at its keenest, with the assistance of its own Communications Division (FOX), and the easy access to groupspeak (the Russian hackers). Always using the language of doublespeak or to be precise HYPOCRISY, the Trump Crime Family has brilliantly turned the conversation a full 180 degrees, and in the whirlwind of that spin has confused an ordinary minion into voting against his or her own health, welfare, and the pursuit of happiness. Suddenly, affordable health care, pre-existing conditions, stable rent, and earnest living wage are now forms of socialism. Free speech, it seems is not a patriotic duty, questioning authority anti-American, and finding a consensus almost a ritual one might reserve for worshipping the Devil. The Big Blue Tsunami, the one the Democrats brag about, the one the Republicans have been scheming against, is more and more becoming a slight ripple in the political waters of America. We, who gives a shit about tomorrow, not just the moment, which will pass us by, need to be vigilant. Trump and his Crime Family are savvy propagandists. We the people are too often the patsies!

Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

“The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands - the ownership and control of their livelihoods - are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.” 

― Helen Keller, Rebel Lives: Helen Keller

“It still remains unrecognised, that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at the 

charge, as far as possible, of the parent.” 

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Authoritarian: favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom.

“Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

“Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not. This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and “weaponizing” the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it.” 

― Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future

Nationalism is a political, social, and economic system characterized by the promotion of the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining sovereignty (self-governance) over the homeland.

“Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” 

― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

“But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.” 

― Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander

I am afraid! But I will not be silent. I am not sure how to reach the American who sees nothing more than their own fear. But I know silence equals death, and we have witnessed the passive behavior of the peasant in our past!

Definitions Part 1

Part One: It seems that Americans have a very short attention span, and a memory loss regarding the lessons History (which is and was a factual state of affairs), and prefer to fictionalize and fantasize about our present, forgetting that any truth from the past matters and that and action today, WILL have consequences for tomorrow.

During the Second World War, the American public became aware of a new political ideology, known as Fascism. We discovered the face of a Fascist, Adolph Hitler, and slowly, and sometimes out of sheer avoidance realized that Fascism was something dangerous, something contagious; we believed at; first it was similar to having the sniffles, but not stepping in quickly enough to find a cure we then discovered it was more like a pandemic. Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” 

― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” 

― Henry Wallace

During the years of the Cold War, the American people began to realize that however virile and victorious democracy had demonstrated itself, a new form of governing was gnawing at the foundation of the world, like termites finding sanctuary in the sturdiest of timbers. There was a malaise identifying itself as Communism. It was a mistaken bug bite that when scratched turned into a series of bumps, which then exploded into a full body rash. Communism: a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned, and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

“[we are] going to continue to fight communism. Now I am going to tell you how we are not going to fight communism. We are not going to transform our fine FBI into a Gestapo secret police. That is what some people would like to do. We are not going to try to control what our people read and say and think. We are not going to turn the United States into a right-wing totalitarian country to deal with a left-wing totalitarian threat.” 

― Harry S. Truman

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”

― Edward R. Murrow

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” (response to Senator McCarthy and his rather be dead then Red crusade)

― Joseph N. Welch

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COUNTERINTUITIVE

COUNTERINTUITIVE: contrary to intuition or to reasonable expectation (but often nevertheless true). A caravan containing countless citizens from Central American countries who are seeking refuge, relief and the hopes of a respite from governments whose leaders could give a shit about the welfare of all, preferring the benefits of being the Bully and the Big Shot. Human rights and civil liberties have been squashed, corruption and criminal activities abound, and the elected officials are guilty of greed and gluttony (hmm..sound like Trump and his new country of Soviet America). The timing of his caravan falls right into an already confusing and angst-filled election period, one in which real American citizens are either being kicked off the voting records, having their pre-voting choices destroyed, or being placed through so many loopholes that only those with the greater of patience and dedication to democracy can exist.

Trump of course, full of HATE, FEAR, LOATHING and followed, or is the correct word ADORED by racists, bigots, very wealthy selfish 1% Americans and of course those who seem to think Jesus could give a shit about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is playing is inventing a new boggy man shouting from is Klan Rally’s that Gangsters, Rapists, Murderers are really the leaders of the caravan, of course, all paid in full by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. (If only the Dems, and the Jews, and the LGBTQ, and the women who want power over their lady parts, and people of color HAD that kind of power). So, it seems some of the GOP who are on the wrong side of democracy may have a chance to win their elections because according to Trump only they will be the Krypton necessary to protect our nation from becoming a corrupt country. (You notice he never EVER mentions the Russians who have already invaded this nation, and now the Saudi’s who are taking ownership of EVERYTHING Trump.

COUNTERINTUITIVE!  It might make a reasonable person sound crazy, you know conspiracy kind of crazy, but Mitch McConnell, the Mercer Family, the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson along with their best pals the Russian Mafia (aka) the Oligarchs, and bit of Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are savvy, slimy kind of anarchists so who knows if they put their money together and created a fake organization promoting the caravan to amazingly drive right before the Mid-Terms? These are the day of the Twilight Zone, and any Twilight aficionado knows that surprise endings are always the scariest!

dumbly stupid

I sometimes wonder, just how stupid, or is it dumb or is it just dumbly stupid Trump and his Crime Family consider most of America? We all don’t wear tin foil hats (I mean MAGA bonnets), and we all don’t watch FOX News (although at times some of the Talking Heads on CNN and MSNBC seem to have their own heads up their own asses). But honestly, anyone did I say, ANYONE, who has been keeping an eye on Trump and his Crime Family certainly understand some tell-tell signs of behavior. Trump loves to admit the bad stuff he has done, by projecting it on to others, OR just lying about it, then covering it up with denial, then following it with another lie, and finally admitting that what he said was taken out of context. Its simple, yet it seems the News Networks fall prey ALL the time to that silly Trumpster Trickster!

So John Bolton is in Moscow, but as if we are all one cell amoeba, he sends a Tweet along with Trump saying, that he is going to discuss election interference with the Russians, but not because they interfered in the 2016 or will do so in the 2018 Mid-Terms, but Bolton wants all of the Klansmen to think he and Trump are playing hard ass. HUH…DUH…Russians are being rounded up by the dozens for election hacking, Russians who knew anything about the hacking are dying of poisoning or being thrown off balconies…but Bolton and Trump want to keep on pretending that it is NOT the Russians to worry about, but the Chinese (who are still manufacturing Ivanka’s shoes, and of course the Iranians). You gotta wonder what kind of a deal Bolton is making with his puppet masters while spending time in warm, cozy confines of Putin’s palace.

And then, if you are paying attention, (and maybe remember those days when at noon on Monday’s at least in the city of Pittsburgh, the air raid sirens would blare, reminding us to duck and cover when the A-Bomb falls), that Trump, once again doing his con job of pretending to protect America, is going to pull out of the treaty blocking anymore short-range nuclear warheads from being built. EXACTLY, what Putin wants to threaten our allies in Europe, you know, those countries where all it takes is a short-range nuclear missile to murder millions of people! Trump pretends that the USA needs more weapons of mass destruction because when he blows up the world, he wants it to be the BIGGEST, BEST, BRIGHTEST, cataclysmic event to EVER happen.

Oh yeah, folks, I know that with Trump each day provides enough TSURIS (aggravation) to cause an apocalypse of ulcers, but Trump a while ago did say, what America needs is a good war, to unite us. So, nothing says a good war then Russia trying to reinvade Ukraine, or Estonia, Latvia or maybe even Finland. So, Bolton is in Russian right now, most likely making plans for that war Trump so desperately needs, but will never fight, only to find democracy dying in Europe. Think I am crazy? Then you haven’t been paying any attention to the shell game, and Don the Con is really good at that game. 

Birthday...thanks

October 21 is my birthday, so each and every party I ever had, was, of course, a Halloween theme. Crepe paper of orange and black draped the ceilings and spooky letters dripping from bones of skeleton’s spelled out Happy Birthday, Gerry and if my father were not on duty as a cop that day, he too would dress as the monster Frankenstein and greet my friends with a Happy Boo Day. Life was easy, then, or so I imagined, everything fit into a slot, just like television, it was black or white, straight or a mentally ill homosexual, a good wife, or a strange spinster/librarian, light in the loafers of a family man who might have had an alcohol problem from the stress of work or a babe on the side, because, your wife’s housework and cooking was tiring and left her a bit less attractive. We first thought life was finally going to be filled with good, after winning the Greatest War, defeating the fascist enemy and as we were promised this past war would be the last. I was young and was told promise existed, and there were few rules to follow, and some roles to play.

I am now 69. Holy shit! I am the age I can remember my aunts and uncles and some family friends of my parents, beginning to talk more about how often they woke up at night to pee, about the aches and pains in every joint of their body, and how yesterday seemed so far away, and long ago. I am 69, the age that I remember my parents looking older, appearing to become like their parents, and reminiscing way too often about the good old days. 69 was the last of the safe years according to my parents because God Only Knew what would happen at 70!

Yesterday, I was greeted via text, the phone, in person and of course on FaceBook with tremendous love and recognition, wishing me a happy birthday. I took nor take any of that for granted, and smile as I consider the variety of people from  my past and present, who somehow formed pieces of memories in my life and still add patches to a kind of quilt we all design an have designed for us each and every moment we take our next breath. So a general and specific thank you for caring enough, for finding the time, for extending the effort to care.

It is now October 22, 2018, as my husband Joe insists I have already begun my 70th year (Boo to that), and wonder, honestly, how the future will take shape. Nostalgia from the past is a tricky game of smoke and mirrors, now you feel, and now you don’t. Memories are similar, some are etched and unremovable, some recreate themselves in the form of I wish it had really been that way. I so much want to face the future with the same kind hopefulness I had as a kid, but now that I seem to be the age at which I best remember my parents, I worry, will still be able to find truth from each day, and will the past from which we recall, as I do from my own youth, be filled with anything but fear, fright, and fascism? The kid who is celebrating his or her birthday on October 21, now…exactly what promise lies ahead!    

dark, stormy night

It was a dark and stormy night…okay forget the stormy part, but it was dark, very, very dark. During the years when my son was searching for colleges, he and I spent a weekend at Ithaca College. In the day, the campus, located on the Finger Lakes of New York State, make for a quaint and quite appealing local…that is if you like to be far from any maddening crowd, and the isolation of the forest…lots and lots of forest. Adam and I spent the daylight hours doing our Campus Visit routine, and when night approached, we decided to catch a movie before returning to the motel which was located a few miles away. My penchant for scary movies is excellent, and my kids grew up learning about my passion for the supernatural themes movies, so Adam and I took in a feature of a film called “Fire in the Sky.” Getting straight to the theme, it is a movie, (based on a true story…aredon't they all based on true events)…regarding a man who was not only abducted by aliens (not the kind Trump uses as bait for his MAGA Klansmen) but the kind from non-Earth places. The movie was shot with all the right suggestive action scenes, and even if you wanted to pooh-pooh the entire thing, it was pretty tricky to actually deny any of this happened. Being brave souls, Adam and I laughed the whole premise of the movie as a great hoax and headed home. However, the beautiful daylight showcasing the mountains and the forests, the creeks, flora and, fauna, had turned to a dark and forbidding night. The kind of night, where you check the back seat twice before entering the car, make sure ALL of the locks on the door as well as the window locks are LOCKED, and all you hear in your head is one more mile until we are home…safe. Suddenly our bravery turned into skepticism, which turned into silence, which turned into a brief bit of WHAT IF…Neither Adam nor I spoke of the film (an old Romanian superstition, taught by my Grandma Braff, was that speak not of it, and IT will avoid you). Adam and I got back to the hotel, turned on every light in the room, shut the curtains extra tightly, and then remarked about, just how paranoid that movie made the two of us feel. Of course, it wasn’t real, but WAS IT NOT, REALLY REAL!

A friend of mine, a few days ago, a man highly regarded in the profession of mental health, asked a question on his post stating and I paraphrase: Is it me, am I paranoid but does anyone think, that Trump and his band of goons, may have planned the Immigration Caravan from Central America to Mexico and eventually America. How often has the Trump Crime Family been the real instigators into faux crisis, which then become more fodder for the MAGA Klansmen to become a mob and threaten the stability of not only this nation but the perceived enemies of the state? As I read my friends question which for me was more in the of rhetoric, then just a quizzical assumption. In the age of Trump, nothing is as it seems it should be and Opposite Land is prime property.

So, I will go on record asking yet more rhetorical questions, which in normal times would have me considered a Conspiracy Theorist. Trump stated a few weeks ago, the US needs a war. Trump has as of a few days ago, decided that he is pulling the US out of a deal with the Russians to ban more short range and long range nuclear warheads (how many nuclear bombs does it really take to murder billions of people). Recently the US has flown some war games over Ukraine. So here is my paranoia: Putin wants more nuclear weapons to intimidate Europe, Trump pretends he is a patriot and feels the US IS the nation who needs more nuclear bombs. Ukraine is the bane of Putin’s existence. A minor skirmish breaks out right before Mid-Terms. As good patriots, we should side with the Commander-In-Chief. We call a truce right before a real war breaks out, of course right after the Mid-Terms. Trumps thinks this will keep the GOP in power, and all the while Putin continues to enlarge is nuclear capacity threatening Europe, and it becomes a win-win for Putin, and once again, America and its allies lose.  My son Adam and I knew, in the safety of the movie theater, there was no such thing as an alien abduction…but then it became a dark and stormy night, and all bets were off!