Monday, July 31, 2017

Ghosts Of Wars Past


Over a decade ago I wrote this in a letter to the editor. Parts of it were even mentioned in a book.
"You can only age gracefully to a limited degree. I’m happy with who I am at 60, but I’m not happy about the lack of expectations people seem to have for me. My memory is still intact and I have a lifetime of experiences to draw on. I’ve done things a lot of people haven’t and I’ve learned from everything I’ve done – both from my successes and my failures.

I regard myself as valuable and I believe in contributing to my community. Writing allows me to do that. There are things happening now that need to be discussed and debated. These are critical times.

Our political parties have failed us. Political campaigns are advertising campaigns. We are treated as idiots by those who want our vote. We are subjected to an endless stream of slogans and sound bites. There is little or no substance in what we hear or see from our leaders."

Since then, things have gone from much better to much worse.  Since then, I've become a grandpa three times. Since then, Donald Trump was elected as president.
I may be whistling in the wind, but if I am, I am doing it with the lungs of a much younger me.
Each of us has to find our own way to participate in this Republic. Participation is our duty and our responsibility. It is the legacy left to us by the founders of our country.

I applied for an IT position with the FBI after 9/11 and was excluded from consideration because I admitted to smoking pot more than 5 times in my life - the last time being when I was in my 20s.
When that door closed, I began shouting out the window and in the streets. I haven't stopped.
The people who attended Trump's rallies were participating. I don't agree with them, but that was their choice to make. What they did is of less concern to me than what the people voting against Trump did.
People who voted for Jill Stein were blind. They threw away their votes. People who supported Bernie Sanders and then refused to vote for Hillary Clinton were worse. They indulged in a hissy fit that helped usher in Donald Trump.
I understand the bigots who voted for Trump. I don't understand anybody who calls themselves a Christian voting for Trump - I mean really? I don't understand women or minorities who voted for Trump - once again really?
If you can't see what a threat Trump poses to our Republic, you must be living in a cave. The man is a total degenerate, an idiot and a criminal who crossed the line into treason.
The only reason Trump has not been removed from office is because our Congress is not afraid of us. Our House and Senate members believe they can be reelected if they don't impeach Trump.
What's wrong with this picture? If people who are allegedly opposed to Trump were doing their jobs as citizens, our current crop of Congress people would have impeached him months ago.
Demonstrations are fine. Letters are fine. Personal appearances are better. Go visit you representative now and continue to do so until they commit to impeaching Trump. Be a pain in the ass. Be a responsible citizen in a Republic.
There are a lot of us who are in the final chapters of our lives. Are we going to let Donald Trump be our legacy? Donald Trump?

We still got time for one more go-round.



Holy Moly!

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Bye, Bye Miss American Pie


I just listened to a mini-rant by Bill Cunningham on ABC’s “thisweek” – talk about delusional.
When asked what kind of government the founding fathers had given us, Ben Franklin replied,  “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
I don’t know about Cunningham, but from where I sit we are teeter tottering on the brink of losing the Republic.
A criminal traitor is controlling the Executive Branch. The Legislative Branch is in jeopardy as well.
How did this happen? Well, we voted for all of it. Over a course of decades we have steadily elected criminals and charlatans to Congress.
Last year we elected the “king of human scum” to the White House.
Why did we do this? Well, because we are angry and acting stupidly. We have allowed ourselves to become ignorant. Shit, we reveled in ignorance.
We take responsibility for nothing and think casting a vote every year or so is what it takes to fulfill our responsibilities – clearly it isn’t.

Yesterday I read an article that blew me away. Check it out for yourself. It’s Bill Browder’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.


While this was happening, most of our news sources were reporting on the foul, degenerate utterances of Trump’s newly appointed White House Communication Director, Anthony Scaramucci.
Yeah, talking about people giving themselves blow jobs is more newsworthy and got more air time than hearing about how Putin has turned Russia into a criminal state and what that means for us and the world at large. In what universe is this happening?


We are losing the Republic folks. If we don’t wise up the wise guys will take over.
Don McClean is a prophet.


Holy Moly!

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Granfalloons, Don Juan And A Little Zen

People have been conspiring for so long. We are currently reaping the rewards of this in a bigly fashion. If you haven't read the Old Testament do so now or at least read 1 Samuel 8-15 or at least read Cat's Cradle.
Spoiler Alert - 1 Samuel 8-15 - Yeah that's when the people want a king and God tells Samuel they don't need one. So, Samuel tells this to his people and they demand a king anyway. So, Samuel tells this to God and God tells Samuel to give them what they want.

The Church of the Holy Moly translation of "... give them a King" is God telling Samuel that he ain't gonna argue with a bunch of morons.
So we've had kings and presidents and premiers and dictators and jabonies and "you name it" ever since. Now we have a Trump.
A Trump is what you get when people conspire to do things in any way other than the way God originally intended them to do - thank Kurt Vonnegut for giving us the word "granfalloon" to define this behavior.
Yes, a "Trump" is a break in the space time continuum - a hole. Yes, Trump is an "A Hole". A hole that is destroying our collective island of the tonal and exposing us all directly to the nagual - read Carlos Castaneda why don't cha?
Spoiler Alert - Carlos says reality - the nagual - is really chaos. So we each create a safe reality in our mind - the island of the tonal.
Our political parties are really just clubs for like minded/delusional people who believe they are divinely inspired and destined to rule the country.
Toward that end, politicians have been spewing bullshit meant to disorient you and cause you to vote for them. They just want you to follow them blindly. That's all.
This has resulted in a totally polarized Congress. A Congress filled with fools who have no idea what to do about anything and no ability to work cooperatively with anyone who is not a member of their own party.
Higher education hasn't exactly helped. Advancing academically is really about conforming. The degree to which you conform is the degree to which you get a degree. This is true about advancing most anywhere.
There's a lot not to look forward to.
We've already confirmed that the world is a scary place.
So where are we headed?
The alternative might just be to remain open and try your best to work it out with others when problems arise. Of course this only works when people are honest and working in good faith.
The outcome is pretty bleak when you are working with people who are lying, cheating and trying to exploit every opportunity for personal gain and/or self aggrandizement.
Holy Moly!

Friday, July 28, 2017

It Was A Real Life Frank Capra Movie

Frank Capra helped me grow up. Capra was an Italian immigrant. He volunteered in World War II.  His movies were inspiring. In "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" and "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town" and "It's A Wonderful Life" we see ordinary men stand up against all odds and fight the good fight and succeed.
Last night I got to see a real life drama unfold in the Senate. The leading man wasn't an ordinary man. He wasn't naive. No, this man was a bona fide war hero who survived and went on to become a Senator. A man who literally got up off what could have been his death bed last week and came to the Senate to deliver - to lead - to show by example.
John McCain was a text book study in leadership, bi-partisanship and patriotism last night. He exposed the hypocrisy of the Republican leadership and Trump and preserved our current level of healthcare coverage until a truly bi-partisan bill could be crafted. Yeah, this is the same guy who literally insured that Trump's connections with Russia would be investigated by hand delivering the Steele dossier to Comey.
Thankfully Senators Collins and Murkowski were right there with him. Without them this could not have happened. They've been there all along, but until McCain came along, their efforts would have been for naught.
McCain orchestrated a perfect nail biter - the ultimate cliffhanger. John had the whole country, possibly the whole world watching. The drama was building for days and the finale was delivered in the wee hours of the morning in the Senate. It was anything but dull.
The counterpoint to all this wasn't Mitch McConnell's post vote, pathetic attempt to blame this on the Democrats. It wasn't even Trump's lame Tweet.
The true counterpoint was delivered in a series of shameful Tweets by a chorus of people, who up until the moment of the actual vote, were steadily blaming the upcoming disaster on John McCain. They lambasted him mercilessly before the vote. After the vote they refused to give him any credit. Indeed, they criticized him for dragging this out.
The saddest thing about all this is that these are the very same people who have been wailing against McConnell and this legislation all along. Ultra partisanship is what's killing this country. It's why we have a traitor in the White House now.
Thank you John McCain.


Holy Moly!

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Incoming! Incoming!

Russia used high tech cluster bombs on us last year. Putin wanted to wreck our elections and he damn well succeeded. 
Fake news cluster bombs hit all of the social media outlets and were rapidly propagated by partisan zealots and bigots who wanted to take down Hillary Clinton and get Donald Trump elected.
Facebook was a particularly fertile battleground. Russia's fake news bomblets would hit and immediately be passed on by millions of ignorant, hateful people who were in a frenzy to share them with their family and friends.
Despite the criticism, not much was done about it.
In the meantime, their was a constant television barrage from other, more traditional sources.
The radio hatemongers were already in place and produced relentless waves of propaganda that would have put Tokyo Rose to shame.
Trump relied almost totally on his use of Twitter to get messages out to his followers.
Faced with doing hard hitting, expensive investigative reporting, the MSM took to allowing Trump to eat up all the oxygen.
The MSM reported everything Julian Assange released through WikiLeaks. It didn't matter that the information was illegally obtained. It didn't matter that Assange was a Putin proxy.
It didn't matter that Julian Assange collaborated with the American traitor, Edward Snowden, who has been granted asylum in Russia.
Russia also invested heavily in Trump and his enterprises way before the election. Trump is heavily involved in money laundering and racketeering with Russia.


Trump also surrounded himself with people who had their own ties to Russia.

Putin, being Putin, an ex-KGB agent, has an ace in the hole - a real Trump card. Putin is blackmailing Trump. He has tapes of Trump that would destroy Trump if they ever got out.

Oh yeah, Putin also hedged his bets. He further contaminated the election by helping other candidates who would syphon votes away from Hillary.
Wake up America, we've been cluster f**ked. Putin has control of the Executive Branch. We have a puppet president. The Republican leadership has also been contaminated.
Right now we are not fighting to stop Russia, we are fighting to drive Russia out. Russia owns Trump. We are in the fight of our lives and the guy spearheading our counterinsurgency is Robert Mueller.
If we lose this fight, the country goes down the drain.
Holy Moly!