Welcome to 'Merica

Welcome to ‘Merica, ‘Meirca-stan, ‘Meri-raq, ‘Mer-abia. We all thought over these past few decades that the enemy was a foreigner from places called Russia, China, North Korea, Iran but lo and behold they ain’t the scary monsters from whom we must find cover, heck no, our enemies are guys and gals who believe the South won the Civil War, that Jesus was then first president of the USA, and that the only amendment Jesus wrote when he wrote the Constitution was the 2nd Amendment. Yeppers by golly and yee-haw the enemy has clearly identified itself, nope not ISIS, not those Commies, but they call themselves the Base voters of the Republican Party or Patriots/ or the KKK, or the Koch Brothers and sometimes even the Aryan Race. We have spent all this time and money over the past few decades building missiles, destroyers, carpet bombs and water boarding to destroy our enemy from afar, but with the Presidential Primary battle in place, the winner trying to be the most vociferous voice of madness urging the most extreme anti -democratic violence and venom the real enemies pretend to wrap themselves in an abridged Bible, a never read copy of the Constitution and hide undercover in the guise of FOX News, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and identify themselves as Trump, Rubio, Cruz and Carson.

Hold on to your history books, your encyclopedia’s your memories of a nation revered for its intelligence and forward thinking cause the boys of the GOP ain’t gonna stand for none of that shit. History is full of facts, facts cause a person to think for themselves, thinking for yourselves means you want to seek freedom, equality, fairness and justice. This is ‘Merica 2016 where facts are so yesterday, bias, bogus and bigotry are the main courses to learn in this newly Jesused society. Slavery was capitalism at its best, feminism leads to lesbianism, fascism is a form of flattery, hate is the 11th commandment right after the 10th which is thou shalt kill. This is the ‘Merica-stan, we will kill you if you don’t covert to Christianity, you know the goods kind like they had in Crusades, we will send you to labor camp if you are Gay and dare you to try and breed, we will build walls if you are not of the correct color, white and laugh as we make you build it for us and of course pay for it.

This is ‘Mer-abia. make sure you take pictures of the four seasons or the shoreline because your grandkids will no idea it doesn’t do anything but get hot, with dead fish floating all over the place. Make sure horde oxygen masks cause clean air will only be for the 1%. This is ‘Merica, and just so you understand its not that the South Will Rise Again, it already has.

Created

If I hear one more entertainer of news ask “how did we create this Donald Trump for President monster i will have to take my television set stand on a balcony throw it from the highest point scream "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore”, just like the character Howard Beale lamented in the movie ‘Network’. Of course we know how we created Donald Trump. The las decade if anything demanded quick, fast responses. If a heinous act of mayhem or murder happened the cable networks gladly suggested the motives even before most police could arrive on the scene. A tragedy happens and the cable news networks would give that Tragedy a name and its own theme song. Cable new networks hired ex-reality stars to act as journalists, comedians to become political pundents, and use opinions as facts. We know how the Donald Trump presidency was created. Glossy is everything. Gross and glossy to be exact. We made the Kardashian’s wealthy because they were sassy, they were stupid, they were anything but sophisticated, and it all started with a taboo porno flick of her ass. We believed that true love could be found from the Bachelor or Bachelorette. We were like moths attracted to a torch loved the shines of object, fooled by its sheer glow never asking what it might be made of.  Crass was cool, walking down the street on your phone demanding immediate response from a text, paying no mind to anything or anyone around you. Wen would sit in a Starbuck’s together but alone, once again selfishly charmed by the Internet and no at all interested in the person next to us. We know how Donald Trump’s run for presidency was created, all of us participate in behavior where the noisy attracts attention, the bright is ooh’ed and ahh’ed over, the quickness of response is considered fact, that is how his run for president was created.

What we must concentrate on now, IS what has Donald Trump’s campaign for president CREATED! The sad thing for America is if Donald goes away, and plays the biggest joke in American politics ever, or if Donald is serious about becoming president, and does what most politicians do, pretend their words or deeds or videos of their words and deeds are not real, and he adjusts his hateful and bigoted positions; we still have the people who have crawled from under the Racist, Homophobic, Misogynist, and Bigoted  rocks. Via the media which loves some good soundbytes to promote ratings, via the media who present the Republican debacles as WWE wrestling matches, via the continuous coverage of the most vile, vicious and venomous Americans who now have permission to hate out loud, whether Donald Trump stays or goes, we NEED to worry about what he has CREATED.

Listen closely to how, or why or which way Donald will make America great great, take out all the adjectives describing his fetes of magic, and you are left these words, ME, ME, ME and of course enemy, enemy, enemy. We created Donald Trump, and he has created a group of monsters who had always been shoved to the basement. They are now climbing the stairs to first floor, some of them out the front door, and THEY will not be stopped, whether it is President Trump or not!

Dumb-ocracy

Dumb-ocracy has become the new version of democracy. The more tall tales told about maybe’s and what if’s, about greater, grander and better have replaced common sense and fact. History has either been deleted, or re-told. The Civil War was never about slavery, just the ability for states to administer the kind of laws they prefer. Slavery was the first form of capitalism, the Founding Father’s were all Christian and never ever wanted a divide between church and state, and “Trickle Down Economics” made the poor work harder to become wealthy. Dumb-ocracy is the answer because it provides you with non details on how to make life better, just the promise that IT WILL get better. Dumb-ocracy permits you to hate with confidence, to single out the enemy, to place blame for your own mistakes on anyone but you.

The Supreme Court filled with activist Republican justices promote Dumb-ocracy by permitting states to decide who should vote, who of course should be denied the vote and that one citizen one vote is so yesterday’s democracy and out dated. Corporations have become people, people with a lot of money, and money of course is what counts when election time is near. Dumb-ocracy is all about which Americans deserve the rights and freedoms of this nation and then denying those same opportunities to a perceived enemy. Dumb-ocracy thrives on hypocrisy, keeping the ignorant stupid, and ill informed. Dumb-ocracy also thrives knowing that the very smart sometimes are too smart for their own good and thus become aloof pretending that this is all nonsense and reason will prevail. Dumb-ocracy promotes smart people to keep their heads in the sand.

Dumb-ocracy encourages a Donald Trump to be bigger,better, best because all Dumb-ocracy wants is for the public to hear sound bytes, it wants the public to pretend that watching the Republicans is similar to a WWE wrestling match where the good guys are all shiny and glowing and the bad guys are full of the foulest intentions. The audiences love to see just how bad the bad guy can get, too many good guys out there anyway. Dumb-ocracy has over taken Democracy beginning back in the days when Karl Rove understood the idea of divisive politics; creating a bad guy, insisting fear on a particular demographic, never telling us what we might do to solve the problem but what we HAVE to do to rid it! Dumb-ocracy is the life blood of Trump, Cruz and Rubio and with each sound byte, each lie and each lack of substantial statement gone un checked, Dumb-ocracy wins and wins and wins.

Hey Heidi

Hey Heidi Cruz, so it seems you, your father in-law and husband believed that Jesus took time for AL the evilness in the world to actually tell your family that Teddy boy is a prophet and a direct messenger from God himself. I just wonder Heidi while Jesus was telling you that Teddy boy would show the face of God, did that God ask you any questions about your work at Goldman Sachs, did he mention anything about bad loans, fraudulent mortgages, unbelievable salaries; or Heidi dear has you Jesus become more of venture capitalist discarding his old Jewish socialist ways?

And Heidi Cruz, I also have to wonder while Jesus was speaking to you did you ask him why he hasn’t bothered to check in on Jamal the black kid from Flint who will now have to face life with lead poisoning? Or Christina the girl living in Kentucky, who has been breathing polluted air from the coal mines, and whose parents must take time off from work to travel a lot of miles to see a doctor. And then Heidi I wonder why, while Jesus was all about politics, he never had time to give that homeless Vet a buck or two as he sits there still suffering PTSD. And I wonder why your Jesus, the one who loves him a President Cruz hasn’t found the time to speak to Opal the 85 year old senior, whose kids died before her and lives alone in one room debating on whether she will eat today or stay warm? And your Lord and Savior the one who is going to show his face through your husband Ted, had he mentioned to Teddy why the Senator believes cuts in social security, education, food stamps ARE the Jesus-y thing to do?

Now let me get this straight Heidi, this same Jesus who spoke to Raphael Cruz senior and then to you is he the same God who spoke to Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry in their sleep urging them to run for president? Is he the same God who makes a commission from Pat Robertson and the 700 club taking a percentage of the dollars from people who think they need to pay to talk with him? Is this God the same God who constantly hems and haws and just hasn’t decided if Sarah Palin should run for president, the guy who just gives Bristol Palin a bunch of chances to use protection when she has sex? Heidi, Heidi, Heidi the amazing thing about America is anyone has the chance to run for president, but NOT EVERYONE has the potential.  I am wondering Heidi Cruz are you sure it WAS Jesus who spoke to you and not that party boy, that fallen angel from Hell?

Fiction

The Man in the High Castle is an alternative history novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. Set in 1962, fifteen years after an alternative ending to World War II, In this novel the author begs the question “what if the German’s and the Japanese had won WWII, what kind of America would we have? The Man in the Trump Tower is a current work in progress authored by a narcissistic, careless but very carful man. It is a story about what might America look like when it elects its first Fascist president. How different will our national persona become the ignorant inherit the government reigns of America. In the book The Man in the High Tower we are able to reflect on how we escaped a very different future, one which held great persecution, bigotry and madness. The Man in the Trump Tower demonstrates how America will look if we don’t stop persecution, bigotry and madness.

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street and episode of the Twilight Zone, suggests space aliens could be living as family in the neighborhood who can appear human, suddenly dire situations happen and the search is on within this once docile neighborhood as to who should be trusted and who should be feared. In this current season of political warfare, we are witnessing the same kind of fearful conclusions that all unnecessary bad things are happening in the neighborhood of America because some of us are monsters. The neighborhood watch person in the newest adaptation of the Monsters Are Due on Pennsylvania Avenue is Ted Cruz. He has aroused the superstitious nature of his neighbors and has reminded them that difference is NOT good. As in the Twilight Zone episode when calamity happens neighborly love is never used to find solution, instead neighbor is pitted against neighbor. If America is NOT working it must be the Gays, wait, its the Mexicans, no it must be the loose women, perhaps it is the people of color, no it must be the non Evangelical Christian. In the Twilight Zone episode while chaos is reigning supreme on Maple Street we fade to space aliens sitting inside their spaceship, hooting and hollering saying look at these crazy people too afraid of one another to find a solution that will aid one another. In the current episode of Monsters Are Due on Pennsylvania Avenue we watch ted Cruz and his PACS wonder what kind of lies, fabrications, and fault can we provide for a very confused and angry Republican electorate?

The scary thing about reality is the part where fiction begins to take on a life as fact and we believe in all the wrong stuff!

The Game

So now the Game IS On…Your Republican/GOP/Tea Baggers have decided to play the game WHO IS.. Trump calls Cruz big liar, imagine the nerve Trump calling Cruz a bigger liar then he. Cruz tries to out Latin Rubio in a game of who speaks Spanish better, while both men try to out ban immigrants more then the other. Trump calls Bush’s brother out for NOT keeping us safe, Bush Jr complains that AFTER 911, we were safe, Trump calls that BS, W steps forward out of his art gallery and whines that without his leadership we would have been even less safe. Bush wants NO abortions and swears he will erase Roe V Wade, Rubio will go beyond that handing out chastity belts to women, Cruz, will issue the Scarlet Letter, and Trump says he might date his daughter. They all call each other someone worse than Hilary Clinton. The Game Is On and the losers will be America if we are so delirious with the stupid that we permit the uneducated, the angry, the bigoted, the racist, the homophobe, the misogynist, the xenophobe, the anti-semite to become the next president. So you call yourself a proud Republican and are not repulsed by any or all of these people who hate democracy, despise equality, and work for the dollars of the breed of people, the Corporations.

The Game IS On… suddenly that held to the heart next to the Bible, the US Constitution which a crowd of sons and daughters of the Confederate believe is the law of the land until it does not suit their purposes, is discarded in the belief that true democracy is based on gerrymandered districts, un supervised PAC’s restrictive Voter ID Laws, and not on the premise one-vote one person. So while Bush, and Trump, and Cruz and Rubio pretend that the Founding Fathers founded a Christian nation the Senators from very Red States which will remain very Red States because the Supreme Court believes that the 1% can and should buy anything they want, NOW want to deny President Obama yet ONE more opportunity be president in a country which at the time still had some semblance of democracy and voted him into office by a majority. So you call yourself a proud Republican  and are not disturbed that the GOP is becoming a dictatorship, a theocratic, fascist dictatorship. So you hate Bernie the Socialist, or Hilary the woman and you think somehow in the batch of bogus you can find one man left who has anything presidential about him.

The Game IS On… and here is the scary deal, no one wins if any of the Republican self absorbed men become president, and worst of all no one wins if the Congress full of rigged votes and high paid puppets remains the majority. You honestly have to ask yourself, is what you see and hear from the people representing the Republican party the kind of place you want your kids, the women in your life, your LGBT family and friends, those who are people of color, people who do not practice any religion or not the Christian religion…is the kind of nation you can look them in the eye and say I am proud to be an American. The Game IS on and there is either so much to win or lose!

Passing Away

When I became 13, in the Jewish tradition, I was suddenly a man. For my family this meant that I had an obligation to attend then funerals of some people who were called cousins, but many I had never met. My Grandma Braff was the Matriarch of the Romanian side of the family and she believed that it was a necessary obligation to attend  a funeral of a family member, but once at the funeral she also had certain ideas as to how we would respect and accept the death of that relative. By the time i was 13 Grandma Braff seemed old to me, it is amazing for me how suddenly I began to notice that the people in my life somehow or other became old. In her later years Grandma Braff stopped carrying about what the world expected and instead became a bit more concerned about setting thing straight. I remember, it was December, I became a Bar Mitzvah in October, when a cousin hannah had passed away. My Grandma Braff used the term passed away, as she believed the dead did indeed pass and for some of her relatives as far away as they could go was much better for the living. We had a cousin Hannah, in my family the generation of cousins my mothers age all seemed to be named Hannah. This was my first funeral as a so called man and my Grandma Braff wanted to show me the ropes. The coffin of cousin Hannah was an open casket, something I had not expected to see. My Grandma took me by the hand and said as the next man in the family I should understand a few details about the dead. Grandma Braff walked me over to the open casket and said look at her so you remember, you may not have known her but you should remember. I peeked with one eye as this dead person scared me. Then my Grandma got serious. She said because someone dies does make them a martyr, as a matter of fact you should feel a bit sad they are no longer among the living, but perhaps being dead for certain people is NOT that  awful either. Cousin Hannah was an instigator, a liar, a conniver and a thief. She was poison and tried to make other peoples live as miserable as her own. her family grieves for her but in reality they know how much better off they are because she can do no  ore harm. Grandma Braff looked at me and finished her lecture by adding, most people live, hopefully to bring hope and help into the lives of others, but now and again God plays a trick and and permits some people to do nothing but make life miserable. God respects those of us who discover the difference between his creations of hope and his manifestations of hate. I do not hate cousin Hannah, but she was full of hate. I am sorry she died but glad we no longer must pretend her life was worthwhile. My Grandma Braff then turned me around and said go over to her family say how sorry you are for Hannah’s death, but know it is the best thing for the rest of us.

Anton Scalia has passed away. I am a gay man who happens to have women in my life as well as people of color. I believe that the Constitution states clearly of an intentional divide between Church and State. I believe that all of us are equal and that the Constitution is the base for democracy but a livable  direction which intended to understand the needs, wants and obligations of the future. I will turn around and look at Justice Scalia’s family and send my condolences, which of course they will never hear, and then I will say this man was not a good guy, and perhaps with his death equality, freedom and justice for all Americans can thrive. I am not sure how to feel when someone dies who I know of, but I do know how to feel when that person while alive had no respect for my life. Anton Scalia is dead, sad but now perhaps liberty and the pursuit of happiness has more of a chance to survive!