The world is full of kind Progressives. They are beautiful and the world needs many more. I am not one of them. I have completely had it with watching my party be abused every cycle by egomaniacs and sociopaths. I will be a bitch. And I will not apologize. I'm a true patriot who cannot sit back quietly as my country plummets into a dark chasm full of hate and intolerance. And I will not abide those who mean to take her there. Otherwise, I'm a lovely human being.
Today on A.M. Joy, Jehmu Greene said that the man who said he wants to 'rein women in' was Sam Ronan, who is running to lead the DNC. His entire narrative is a tiresome rehashing of the fauxgressive talking points during and after the primaries. He believes the left can be reformed if it determines that Sanders' entire mantra be embraced. The poor forgotten white man is still a central point. No, he never mentions the white man, he just says the failure of the left is having forgotten the working class. This, of course, was the same talking point Sanders used to draw the same misguided correlation.
The bullshit projected there and adopted by the media on the left is painful. I remember vividly last summer when Hillary Clinton was holding rallies in Pennsylvaniaabout her jobs plans and MSNBC broke into her speech to see if she was replying to the fact that Trump had started a fight with Khizr Khan on Twitter. When they determined that what she was talking about wasn't remotely tabloidesque, they cut away from her rally speech and went back to the punditry banter over all manner of nonsense wholly unimportant to the working class voters, and everyone else.
Clinton traveled the country giving Americans her vision for our future and how to move forward. The fact that every American didn't make it to a rally to hear that vision is not her failing, nor theirs. It is the failure of both the media who found ad buys more enticing than our democracy, and the fauxgressives who spent their time demanding both sides were rotten and only Saint Bernard could save the world. Don't fucking get me started ... there is little chance I will ever stop.
ANYWAY .... Back to my point.
The same people who project the image of the forgotten working class white man are the same people who remind us that 53% of white women voted for Trump. Pause and reflect. If a majority of white women aren't voting as Democrats, isn't it just slightly indicative of an issue speaking to women? And why might that be? I would say if a fauxgressive who is seeking to lead the party spends time thinking out loud that women need to be reined in, we have found a good place to start our reflection.
Of course real Progressives want to move women forward. Of course real Progressives believe in income equality. Of course real Progressives believe a woman should have the ONLY say in her reproductive and family planning choices. But if our party can be hijacked by a group proudly led by a man who writes rape fantasies and can dismiss them as being satirical while ignoring women during the entire campaign, maybe the party has a lot more work to do for the women who are being condemned for not hearing the message. It sounds to me like they probably have. The message they hear is the message our society projects - women need to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. Women have all of the rights they need. And of course, women have destroyed the Democratic party. Do you think that's a stretch? Name me one Democrat who was maligned over the last two years who also has a cock. Thanks.
I will conclude my tirade by reminding you that most women on the left are what I call 'universal mothers.' You don't have to be a mother to be a universal mother. I sincerely believe it is inherent. Universal mothers are those of us who see every issue as a personal issue because they hit all of our children. We demand that the myriad concerns of true Progressives (those which the fauxgressives demand have been too distracting and alienated the white men) are all personal to us. We are fighting for LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter, immigrants, Muslims, campus rape victims, education, disability rights, gun control, mental health coverage, climate change, health care reform, criminal justice reform, etc. These are the issues that America's children face. And America's children are all our children.
If someone wants to lead the Democratic party to a place where 53% of white women aren't voting against their own interests, it would be in the interest of the Democratic leadership to remind themselves, so they can project that reminder to American women, that ALL OF THESE ISSUES are a sincere and beloved facet of our party. If our leadership can spend time denouncing them, they can hardly spend their time reminding American women why these issues are so important.
Trust me, the white man will be just fine. I'm sure having had unchecked privilege throughout our entire history is very comforting and the idea of allowing others to move into the foreground is unsettling. The objective of a REAL Progressive movement would consider it their responsibility to better explain the genuine necessity of inclusion instead of finding ways to counter it. No single aspect of our platform should be hindered to make anyone else more comfortable. And this woman is here to tell you, any motherfucker who believes women need to be reined in needs to exit stage right. Immediately.
Back in the day, growing up in Northeast Ohio, my brother had the same pellet gun that Tamir Rice had. One day, when we were 12, he was playing with my cousins in the parking lot between our family home and family business. They were creating a cops and robbers scene so perfect that, even if Scorsese had filmed it, no one would have believed. It ended with my brother running into the garage and hitting the button for the garage door to come down. As he rounded back to the front of the garage and the door was almost to the ground, he rolled on his back and fired at my cousin. Before the door hit the cement there was a scream from the parking lot. He'd shot my cousin. In the nuts.
My family were well off. My father and grandfather held prominent positions in our small town and were well respected. Even though the neighbor called the police, no charges were filed and no one was held accountable. No one pointed fingers at my parents and blamed them for having raised a child who would play with a toy gun. This was simply a case of boys being boys. My cousin wasn't badly injured and he has his own children now (I feel certain that more than one person has to be asking that question).
While remaining in NE Ohio, fast forward 30 years: We are now an open-carry state where the law requires neither a license nor a registration for firearms. Ohio does, however, have a duty to inform law which requires gun owners to inform law enforcement that they are carrying a weapon immediately upon confrontation. That law, of course, would mean that the person in question would have to be actually carrying a weapon and they would have an opportunity to speak a single word before the officers decided to open fire on them.
We have all seen the video. We saw where a kid was playing with a toy gun and pretending it was real. We have been told that the officers thought he looked older than 12. That is meant to offer absolution to the officer who shot Tamir Rice because his being older would make him a threat. Why? They didn't even talk to him. Not only did they not take the time to determine if he was actually carrying a weapon or how old he was (where if he were the grown man they said he seemed, he may have been legally open carrying a gun), but there was never a determination that he had broken any laws. Ohio allows people to open carry their weapons. He was not in conflict with anyone. He was literally standing there doing NOTHING. And to some, apparently, that is quite enough:
This bullshit comment showed up on my Facebook page today in reaction to the shirt I designed for Black Lives Matter showing dozens of names of people of color murdered. I've heard it all before. This is the shit some white people tell themselves to remain in their little happy world where everything is right and their white supremacy is the standard. I realize that a lot of people don't understand that this is what their subconscious is doing, but I can't allow them that freedom, either. You don't get to rewrite histories or biographies to make yourself feel better. How many people are presently feeling good about themselves saying, "Yeah. Well they were killed because they were criminals or ran their mouth"? How can you not then allow a revelation that neither of those things warrant being murdered?
In America, if you commit a crime you are arrested, given a court hearing and a judge or jury determines your guilt. If found guilty, you are then sentenced. Few crimes warrant death. Asshole.
Running your mouth? Really? Anyone who knows me will tell you that all of my life I have 'run my mouth' giving no consideration to the power or position of its recipient. Fortunately, however, I was white while I was doing it.
She concludes her nonsensical list of reasons to murder people with Tamir Rice and his fake gun. She doesn't expand on her thought process (I generously attribute one to her, which is probably unnecessary) but it seems to tell me that children with fake guns should be murdered without question or due process. Thank goodness my brother had that white skin or who knows what might have happened to him. Cunt.
Apparently, unless a police officer screams the words, "I'm killing you for your blackness," while shooting, there will never be a way to make some people understand. I honestly don't want to share the planet with people who are this shallow, selfish and willfully ignorant. If you have thought things similar to the comment pictured above or nodded your head when someone else was saying these things, I compel you to take this test. If you get to the end of it and do not see the problem with your thinking, you are hopelessly devoid of humanity. But that means my words are of no consequence to you. So I offer you the most abject shame and hope you have little time left in this word with no influence over the next generation.
Honestly, we are settling for this society. Until every rational voice demands coherence out of those who embrace hate and ignorance while completely dismissing lives lost to people of color, we will remain right here. Until our 'leadership' believes that the majority of Americans see the truths behind these killings, they will not do anything. They don't have to. A very precious few of them do anything unless it helps them get reelected. Please stand up. Please shout for justice. Please don't wait for the next innocent child to end up dead for engaging in his childhood. PLEASE.
We have Scott Walker's idol, Ronald Reagan, to thank for the term "Welfare Queen." He offered a depiction of a woman who was taking advantage of the system to malign an entire subset of society. All of the poor who received aid were condemned to a hypothetical representative that would've been impossible for anyone to duplicate. The woman Reagan cited did exist, but she was not the typical welfare recipient. She was an actual con artist. Her entire scheme was to get over on anyone in any way she could. She took advantage of many people and many government agencies.
While campaigning for the presidency, Reagan failed to mention all of the other government agencies she managed to take advantage of. Why would he not mention the rest? Because he was a dick. Because he didn't need her for that. He only needed a means to vilify the poor and create a narrative that would have Americans thinking twice about their tax dollars going to help them. The funny thing, which happens to not be funny at all, is that, as with all Republican approaches to societal issues, the idea of fixing a broken system that could be taken advantage of was not the issue. He did not talk about how to make the system more productive in its means of caring for the nations poor. The issue was to condemn those who needed it. And, for the Regressive Party, this has never changed.
Earlier this year, Kansas passed a law saying that welfare recipients cannot spend their money on cruise ships. Well holy shit! That must happen all of the time, right? I mean, either that or Kansas has gone so far out of its way to cure all of its ills that it is only left to mend the problem of assistance dollars being spent in the Caribbean. The focus of this new bill was meant to limit the amount a recipient can spend in one day to $25. This, obviously, makes it quite hard to pay rent and utilities. But I will explain what it does that is not so obvious. When I was on welfare, I didn't have a car most of the time. I had to take a bus wherever I went. Once a month I took a cab to get my groceries. I could hardly bring them all home on the bus, and a cab ride was not free. For the bulk of the time I was receiving aid, my daughter was in diapers. They are not cheap and (sorry Bubba) my baby girl had a very sensitive bottom so we had to buy only a specific (expensive) brand or she would have a terrible rash. With this new proposal, we would have to take a cab to the grocery store several times a month to do our shopping as you simply cannot, even with coupons and a wonderful sale, get a months worth of diapers with $25 along with everything else one needs to feed their family. And I had a family of two. I don't even want to try to imagine how many trips it would take to get the necessities for a family of five or six.
Honestly! Who believes this shit?
This year Maine, Missouri and dear Scott Walker's state of Wisconsin have been working on laws demanding that food stamps cannot be used to buy junk food or expensive items, like steak and lobster. Of course, this is all rhetoric in an attempt to get on the news to remind their lowly base that they need to hate the poor and completely ignore what other items their 'representatives' have on the agenda. The legislators know full well that they would never be able to maintain this even if they manage to pass these bills. First they would have to define junk food. Then they would have to deal with the lawsuits from companies who wanted to contend that their food should not be classified as unhealthy with so many studies defining subjectivities. Then they would have to back off because they were only doing it to rile up morons, anyway.
Lets just pretend that they were able to limit what a family can spend their food allowances on, okay? So we, my daughter and I, were a normal American family. Regardless of how much money we contributed to stimulating the economy, we were a normal, yet small, family. Every year on Audrey's birthday she would get to pick whatever she wanted for dinner. So if my child wanted me to make her a steak that would be unacceptable? And if I wanted to make her a birthday cake, which would be deemed junk food, that should not be allowed? And every month when my period comes I am not allowed to have a candy bar? I dare any legislator to come to my house when I'm on my period and tell me I can't have chocolate. They will leave fearing for their life. I'm pretty sure that's not even an exaggeration. Are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness only available to those who can afford it? Shit!
Actual Welfare Queen and my Princess :)
This myth created by Reagan, and perpetuated by Scott Walker and the Republicans, of what it is like to live on welfare is ridiculous. You do not get enough money to go on a cruise. You do not get enough food stamps to buy expensive (or healthy) food items. No one is having a wonderful life from the benefits this assistance offers them. It creates so many limitations that it is very hard to get off of welfare, too. With maybe $600 coming in a month you would be hard pressed to save anything. But if you could find a way to do it, you are not allowed. If you have money set aside, you do not need assistance. But if you do not set money aside, there is no way to get off of assistance without something pretty miraculous happening. Its an ugly circle. Americans who are desperate to condemn others to inflate their own pathetic lives seem unwilling to realize that there really are not enough bootstraps to go around.
Walker was so desperate to condemn those on welfare to drug testing that last year he said he would take it all the way to "a fight with the federal government and in court." Right. So the testing has already proven to be a profound waste of tax payer dollars in other states and now he thinks it is a justifiable use of tax dollars to pay for a lawsuit? This is the same man whose new budget just offered $250 million to millionaires and billionaires. It is curious that those who so excitedly support Scott and his plans are so easily distracted by his games. Wait. No. It isn't, is it? They have been playing the same game since Reagan invented it and designed the rules: Create distractions where the lowest individuals can feel better about themselves by giving them someone to malign and blame for their lot in life so they don't notice that on the other side they are literally giving away the money that could be used to create jobs in these communities to help those in need to the richest among us and their corporations. It's brilliant. Because their base are so stupid.
In a capitalist society that is woefully unbalanced, some aspect of that society will have to be weakened by that imbalance. The poor are those to suffer. Always. The Supreme Court has determined, through its Citizens United ruling, that campaign funding can be limitless and secretive, allowing the wealthiest Americans and corporations to control the message to the voters, and thus those who are elected. The poor can't afford a lobby, let alone the capacity to purchase their very own Congress.
Today the right has managed to convince its followers that Jesus Christ, himself, would condemn those who need assistance in caring for their families. That contention has even been made in a Congressional hearing on food stamps while (mis)quoting a passage from Thessalonians. Well, if St. Ronnie wasn't enough to convince them, Jesus certainly should be. How desperate can one person be for a scapegoat to allow the Bible to be rewritten to justify not helping the poor?
While you are being asked to hate the poor and imagine them sitting around having a lavish lifestyle, ask yourself how likely that really is. Realize, first, that many receiving aid are actually working. But they don't make enough money on their minimum wage job (the wage your representatives would like to eliminate altogether) to come anywhere near the poverty line. Ask yourself about the people you know who have fallen on hard times and needed assistance. Why do you allow them a pass? You don't know every family in America receiving aid. And you don't know what brought them to this place. No one aspires to end up on welfare. And no one wants to imagine continuing to have to give their children the lives welfare affords them.
Why not take a good ten minutes out of your desperate need to hold contempt for everyone you have been told to hate and quietly reflect as a human being why the politicians you support are asking you to hate the group who cost America a third of the amount lost annually by tax breaks offered to those who are meant to be stimulating our economy? And realize, you cannot condemn this economy that you attribute as a failure of President Obama, but then state that the economy is doing so well as to warrant tax breaks to those who are stimulating it so successfully.
Also, quietly ask yourself about the necessity of drug testing those receiving aid beyond the obvious profound waste of those taxpayer dollars you are always so mindful about. The basic tenet of this incredible belief system is that the poor should not be receiving federal dollars if those dollars are being used to buy drugs instead of feed their families. So the obvious first question is, "So the children won't get fed?" Which begs the question, "Wait. What is our objective?" If the answer to the first question is, "Fuck the children." Then the only response is, "Hello, we are asking ourselves the wrong question!" Kindly at least pretend to give a shit about someone other than yourselves and understand that those who are in need of aid are not your enemy. They did not create the system that left Americans with shitty wages and ever decreasing benefits. These are the people who have fallen through the cracks that your elected officials have created and have no intention of repairing. You helped create it. By condemning those with no power to fix the problem you are only enabling those who have created and are perpetuating the problem. That means YOU are the problem. Scott Walker is only the latest to join the circus of clowns who want to entertain and distract you instead of lead us all to a positive future.
Instead of criticizing those who have no means of defending themselves, maybe go demonize the politicians who think so little of your intelligence and capacity for critical thought that they asked you to get riled up about this in the first place. You are supporting those whose agenda is to only benefit the corporations who pay for their elections. They don't care about those of you who actually elect them. Wake up! When these corporations end up with the policies they want (those that will deregulate the means by which they run their corporations, are taxed and are responsible to their employees), Americans will be much poorer. Immediately. That includes you. Obviously none of you are well off (or well educated). You will be screwed. And the safety nets you rallied so hard to get rid of will be gone. And you will need them. And won't that just suck?
I have seen this ridiculous meme countless times in the last month. I know that anyone who demands its history of pride and heritage has either been conditioned to believe that or is desperate to be seen as something other than racist trash. I also know, for certain, that the person who posted it is in desperate need of many history lessons. The kind of history lessons that won't be found in the new books Regressive Party politicians across the country are trying to rewrite to create this exceptionalism they try to force feed those who don't think for themselves. The kind of history lessons that don't come from memes, the most common means of far right dissemination of 'facts.' And the kind of history lessons that won't be found in a book written by Bill O'Reilly, a man who calls himself a historian but who the intelligent among us call a propagandist.
I always end any debate regarding that flag with the same question, "Would you expect to see the Nazi flag flying in Germany today?" It is the exact same thing. Nazi descendants live today. They don't leave a Nazi flag on the tombstones of their ancestors. No state or official buildings fly the Nazi flag. In fact, the flag is illegal in Germany as it is such a source of shame. Why demand that American society be less than that of the Germans?
As with all aspirations of the Confederacy, Nazis built their new society by kidnapping, forced labor and genocide. They both had the same agenda: Define, create and maintain a master race. Hitler was actually inspired by Americas treatment of its slaves and the Native Americans when he created his plans. Hitler believed innovation was a marked feature of a leading world power. He used the ideas of free labor to build German industries and believed that The Long Walk of the Navajo was a brilliant means of weeding out the Jews who would be useless to him as they could march to their prisons and if they were unhealthy, they would just die along the way. His intent to build his ideal society drew directly from the shames America tries to forget.
The Confederate Congress initially adopted a flag which ended up creating a lot of controversy because many believed it looked too similar to the American flag, so it was promptly replaced. The second and third flags adopted both had the symbol we now associate as the Confederate flag as part of the design where only the number of stars would increase based on states joining the Confederacy. The second flag adopted had an entirely white background and the 'X' was where todays American flag has its stars. The man who designed it, William T. Thompson, called it the "White Man's Flag" because it symbolized the "supremacy of the white man." He wrote for Savannah's Daily Morning News in 1863:
"As a people we are fighting [to] maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.
The third flag was barely seen because the war ended as it was being introduced. Debating over which flag was put to use is a wasted exercise in semantics, however, as the objective of its creation was pretty much encapsulated in the quote above. (and in the fucking war itself for Christ's sake)
Hitler proudly designed the Nazi flag himself. He decided to use the traditional colors of Germany because:
"As National Socialists, we see our program in our flag. In red, we see the social idea of the movement; in white, the nationalistic idea; in the swastika, the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work. (from Mein Kampf)
The swastika was meant to represent an Aryan objective to have a racial 'cleansing.' Beginning in the early 20th century German nationalists determined the Aryans of India (many hundreds of years BC) depicted a glorious tradition of superiority and, basically, rewrote their own version of history to support this premise based on Nordicism disturbingly embraced and defined by British psychologist, William McDougall, explaining a 'master race' in 1920:
"Among all the disputes and uncertainties of the ethnographers about the races of Europe, one fact stands out clearly—namely, that we can distinguish a race of northerly distribution and origin, characterised physically by fair colour of hair and skin and eyes, by tall stature and dolichocephaly (i.e. long shape of head), and mentally by great independence of character, individual initiative and tenacity of will.
The invasion was profoundly misinterpreted by Germans to define the glories of Aryan invasion where the intimidating symbol of the swastika would also serve as reminder of the dangers of spiritual and racial mixing due to close proximity of the races.
Both the Confederate flag and the Nazi flag are used today by white supremacist groups all over the world as a means of glorification and intimidation. It is not a coincidence that they have both been adopted by those with such mentalities. The flags are symbols which represent times and places where white supremacy was given a voice and an opportunity to thrive. Germany spends none of its time celebrating either that history or its soldiers. Remembrances of ours should also be left to (actual) history books.
No rational or thoughtful individual would take time with this argument and explain to me the pride they have in their ancestor who fought to enslave people and commit treason. Those who demand otherwise are free to fly that flag in their homes or in their lawns and silently tell the rest of society who they are, as any German would if they projected pride over the Holocaust. And the rest of society will shun them and diminish their voices, as we should. We are the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' As such, we have no business glorifying those who meant to enslave others and, in a cowardly fashion, tried to secede rather than give up an entitlement to continued atrocities.
The Fox cable channel with the word "news" in its title was so moved by the recent tragic waste of a young life that they had their little ass-kissing O'Reilly fanboy go all the way to San Francisco to speak to their Board of Supervisors. Jesse Watters asked them, "How many dead people does it take?" It seems to take quite a lot, Jesse. Either that, or your question wasn't specific enough and missed an all-important adjective. It certainly takes a lotof black people if we are meant to go by Fox coverage which still demands that the entire black community bears responsibility for the myriad killings by police officers. If you did forget the adjective 'white,' however, it seems one is enough.
I know its hard to make it out in the video, here is her picture. She was absolutely beautiful.
Here is another photo of a beautiful face we lost far too soon to indefensible and horrific gun violence.
Fox news, however, had a completely different perspective on that tragedy. The explanation for this loss was quite easy to find. There is a reasonable and understandable explanation for this murder, you see, the young man pictured above "looked a certain way."
Aside from the very important information as to the immigration status of the alleged killer in this story (who, curiously, does not seem to be alleged when mentioned on Fox or by the Regressive Party candidates), little is known about this case, so far. I think we can all be sure, however, that she had to have been wearing a hoodie, or she would still be with us today.
POST: No one need bother play semantics with my sarcasm as I am one who sincerely believes that, in fact, all lives DO matter. You can feel free to write me a book below. I will not waste my time with white trash, however, and will ignore it without reading. No Regressive is worth my time. You were the moron who followed a link to a site called "Mean Progressive," after all.
The Koch Brothers kicked off 2015 making an $889 million bet with Americans that they could buy their very own government in 2016. Now, merely six months later, it sounds as if Americans are sending back a resounding, "Nu'huh..."
I have marveled repeatedly at their capacity to build a backward political movement based solely on hate. I feared that enough people wouldn't realize what was going on in time to stop them. Every election cycle they have been able to add to their arsenal of assholes and it seemed almost impossible to get things turned around after they had such a triumph last fall adding both a leader for 47 traitors and a train wreck inside a pair of Wonder Bread bags to Congress along with about a dozen others who promised to do whatever the Koch Brothers asked.
It has really seemed to all be falling into place for them. I am sure there is a sense of security to go with their sense of accomplishment which may have hindered their capacity to see some of the flaws in their plan. Of course, the one that is the most fun for me is their belief that everyone can be bought. The Kochs created the platform and they promoted those who would be beholden to their money and do whatever they were told to ensure future elections. Poor people are so easy, huh? But they forgot something about those they were promoting. Not only are they ignorant, they are so ignorant that it doesn't occur to them that they are not really qualified to run for office. If you couple that ignorance with the arrogance that tells you a run for office would be a great idea, its not a big leap to decide that you should definitely be President of these United States. Brilliant! And now we have at least 14,860 of them competing for the Regressive Party primaries. Whoops.
Their next oversight was in the Citizens United case they demanded. In their haste to make absolute the financing of all candidates deemed necessary by the billionaire class, they forgot a single factor in the equation that could screw up the whole thing. You see, it was an imperative that the Regressive Party have the right to financially bury any candidate on the left. Americans are so stupid that the only thing we vote for, apparently, are the people with the most television ads and the swankiest t-shirts. But what if you counted on an electorate falling to your will because of your sole capacity to fund the most ignorant and most arrogant candidate and then an even more ignorant and more arrogant candidate decided that he was going to fund his own campaign?
What could be worse than that if you were a Koch Brother? Well, there is one thing that could be worse. What if this ignorant and arrogant candidate was aligning with the Regressive Party and stealing all of your talking points but lacked the political savvy to realize that those are only the dog whistles used in certain company? What if he didn't realize that he wasn't supposed to actually say those things in front of every international news station for his kick off speech? And what if he was so unfucking-believably arrogant as to never EVER take back a single thing he says and if only hires people for his staff who will completely agree with whatever he wants them to? Well, I imagine, that means you are fucked if you are a Koch Brother. Fortunately I am not. So Donald Trump is just entertainment for me. And it is glorious, I'm not gonna lie.
For those of us who pay attention to politics every year and not just the month prior to the general election, we realize that the hate speech and rhetoric is supposed to be reserved on the right just for selected rallies during the primaries. We know that you don't want the media to cover it and we know that once you make it to next summer you will have to speak to those beyond your base and bring in those who your top candidates and the basest of your base call RINOs (Republican in Name Only) because they are not radical enough. But look what your little accident just did? He just told them all what you really have to say. And he is being dropped by major corporations every day who want to disassociate themselves from his extreme views. Could there be anything worse than that for your RINOs to hear? Well, yes. They could hear reminders of this daily. While getting the daily polling figures to show that Trump is rising in the polls. Daily. Ouch! You always know you can count on the media not to report to those RINOs about what is going on in the world because they are too busy but entrust their party to nominate the best candidate so they can walk into the polling station, check the Rs and go home. But Trump is just too juicy. They had to report it. You can hardly blame them. I bet your RINOs will have to spend a little more time researching their party now. Shit. It sucks. I'm sure it does.
If Freud were around today I believe he would define four parts of the human psyche with an addition of a super id, which he might just call Trump to avoid any confusion. Trump is presently screaming all of the hateful shit he knows the right like to hear on their radio shows and the Fox cable station with the word 'news' in its title. He lacks the political sophistication to realize when and where the hate is appropriate, however. And he lacks the capacity to humble himself or ever just shut the fuck up so I don't think we will have to worry about his turning off the rhetoric any time soon. I wonder how many high level Regressive Party strategists do facepalms every hour.
Trump campaigning in the same cycle as Bernie Sanders is offering America a profound look at the juxtaposition of two sides which many like to ignore with a quick, "All politicians are the same," or "both parties really want the same thing." Sanders is speaking not only to those who are aware of what the Kochs have done politically, but also those who may not understand exactly what their effects have been but are still pissed about the overall economic catastrophe created by their ideals of austerity and disavowed commitments to America and her citizens.
Beautiful Bernie Sanders is the revelation no one could see coming. No one was supposed to take him seriously. He proudly identifies as a Socialist and that is a word Americans have been conditioned to recognize as a bad word. Again, in true Koch arrogance, they assume all Americans are as ignorant as the teabaggers. Even if someone had heard its negative connotations and is only just becoming politically aware, we all have dictionary apps, or at least Google. The majority of Americans do not learn from memes and could read the definition of Socialist, contrast that with the oligarchy we are obviously heading for and consider that theory a healthy alternative.
Americans are excitedly awakening to the messages of Bernie Sanders. And it's only beginning. It is July 2015. So many people are not even paying attention to what is going on in the political realm yet. Many are disgusted with the way things are going but are not involved enough to quite put it in words or understand how and why things are the way the are, at present. It is hard to believe that people exist who literally don't want to discuss why women make less than men or why any state in America would be flying an official Confederate flag or why anyone is considering a law to prevent a baker from having to make a cake for a gay wedding, but they exist. With one thoughtful conversation about the futures they want to offer their families, it could be the beginning of a true American revolution toward the left. One conversation at a time.
Because the people who aren't paying attention often do so because they don't have time, the best message we can send them to guarantee their participation is about the economy. About their economy, in particular. The candidates on the right are saying they want to eradicate the IRS. Have that conversation with a rational human being. Feel free to explain they have no proposals on how society will function without the myriad benefits afforded by our present tax structure (the one guaranteed by the Constitution they are so desperate to defend), and be sure to make sure they understand that the only reason this is important is because the billionaires who fund those campaigns (and who generally pay a much smaller tax rate than whomever you're speaking to) would just rather not participate in taxation. Sanders is sincere. He is believable and he speaks as if his audience is peopled with free-thinking human beings.
Forward this and let him see why you are so excited:
Every month his support will grow as he continues to explain the how's and why's about the deteriorating middle class and people see that he actually gives a shit about the environment. America's disaffected voters will continue to be reignited as they realize that Bernie doesn't fumble to find the answer he thinks will appeal to a targeted audience, as he quickly answers every question very matter-of-factly as if he sincerely believes in what he is offering the voters. What a revelation! And his answers just so happen to coincide with most Americans.
I am reminded of the report card the Regressive Party gives itself after every election cycle where they remind themselves that they need to start getting people involved in the party who are women and people of color. It seems like it comes up daily from one pundit or another and I still realize I am shaking my head when they say it every time. Those on the right are literally so far out of touch that they do not realize when they say, "We need to find a way to reach out beyond our base," that intelligent audiences can hear them saying, "We have to find the right words to convince women and minorities that we don't really hate them." Its as if they think we are so stupid as to fall for their rhetoric if phrased properly and fail to notice the laws they try to pass, the laws they refuse to pass, and the awful things they say to make sure their base doesn't feel forgotten.
Bernie Sanders isn't pandering to anyone. He hasn't had to evolve on any of his positions to appeal to anyone. In fact, I bet he has staff are frustrated because he won't take advice on the 'right thing to say' to the media. The glaring difference between our wild card and theirs, however, is truthiness (thanks Colbert - wink). Sanders isn't saying anything new. He isn't trying to build a following by denouncing the majority of the country. He isn't building a following by trying to convince us that we are superior to the 'others.' Bernie Sanders respects his constituents. He wants us to know what is really going on. And he wants us to know that he really knows what is going on. The most amazing part of the whole thing is, he actually has ideas about how to fix what is going on.
Sanders won't find many billionaires to back him. Unlike the CEOs and fat cats comfortably eased into this economy they've demanded, many of Sanders' supporters won't have a lot of money to offer his campaign. However, the beauty of an Internet that can create and perpetuate a political movement solely based on hate is that it can also do the opposite. Bernie has had the largest turnouts by far of any politician of this season. He has had no empty rooms nor has he had to pay actors $50/each to attend a kick off and wear shitty t-shirts. Bernie has not had anyone screaming absurd demands of their chosen presidential candidate to rewrite the Constitution to mirror the Bible, promote discrimination or begging for protection from the Muslim tyrant known in sane circles as President Obama. All of these distinctions will make it easier for a solid and well organized team to inform America about this new candidate they keep not quite hearing about. And they will need to hear about him as soon as possible because hundreds of millions of people takes a long time to contact.
I hope the Koch maids are working overtime scrubbing stained underwear because this shit is getting real.
Hey David and Charles, don't feel too bad. Off of the top of my head I can think of at least 50 legitimate American charities which don't bear your names who could sincerely make positive use of your $889 million. If you want a list I would be glad to fax it to your private secretary's personal assistant's admin. Just let me know.
Kiss kiss.
The Mean Progressive
UPDATE: I leave this post on my website because it is important for the Sanders supporters to realize how excited I was about his campaign. Before I vetted him. I am 100% supportive of Secretary Clinton and am ashamed and disgusted by the negative campaign Sanders has decided to run. I could write a fucking book.
I found a piece that encapsulates everything I would want to say if I could think straight when I try to write about how furious Sanders makes me. The writer suffers an even more profound verbosity than my own, but please take the time to read it. No thinking person who makes it to the end would support his toxic campaign. Kiss Kiss... This is where I am now after thoughtful reflection.
I am an Ohioan. We have been called a blue state recently in the news. I would love to live in a blue state, however, I do not. We might be leaning toward purple, but we are most certainly not blue. We have Boehner for Christ's sake. And Rob Portman *sigh*. And we have a Congressman from the district where I grew up named Bob Gibbs. He represents the Canton area. That is where you find the Football Hall of Fame. Many famous athletes and celebrities go there every summer for the inductions, but apparently that honor is not enough for Congressman Gibbs.
As seen in this Daily Show piece from last night, he and the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum believe that they speak for all Ohioans (and Americans?) when they demand that America doesn't acknowledge the original name Denali for the random mountain they decided to attribute to the former President. Honestly, McKinley had nothing to do with this mountain. Alaska hadn't even become a state by the time he died. But since 1975 when Ralph Regula was in Congress, those trying to have it acknowledged by its original name, Denali, have been denied.
We all need to appeal to Bob Gibbs and tell him that to sincerely represent Ohio he needs to focus on his disgraceful voting record of consistently trying to take away women's rights and Ohioans access to affordable healthcare, always caving to the NRA lobby to maintain that 100% rating, decimating our environment and repeatedly voting to stymie the progress of America by wasting time on bills meant to only distract voters and condemn the legacy of President Obama. Ohio often looks like a backward and ignorant state when we make national news, don't be our next embarrassment.
During this time when Americans are finally having an awakening about her history of legitimate oppression of so many and obliteration of entire cultures, it is offensive to think you would be battling those who mean to rename Mt McKinley back to its original name. Come on Bob! Your constituents have a lot of things to worry about, the name of a mountain is on no one's agenda. You were sent to DC to represent us, not humiliate us. Welcome to the 21st century, Imperialism is no longer accepted. Thanks.
Please sign this petitionand forward to everyone who would like to see this one simple act of Congress to actually accomplish something positive.
I don't have it in me to think or write right now but this is important so I thought I would repost for any who may have missed it.
Have you ever been unable to find the energy to get off of the couch for over a week and started to ask yourself, "I wonder if I stink and I just cant tell because its me?" Not only have I not done anything remotely physical, but I haven't had the energy to hold my hands over my head long enough to wash and condition my hair. So I just keep it in a ponytail and ignore my own hygiene and care altogether. My house is pretty much a wreck, too. The parts of the house I use, anyway. I gave up on going to bed a long time ago. I am on the couch. My pillow is on the couch. I have a blanket on the couch. Its too much energy to carry it all to bed every night and back in the morning.
I am too tired to take care of myself. My body doesn't have the energy. My mind doesn't have the energy. And I don't even think that bothers me any more. That is depression.
Every year I ride in a 50 mile bike tour that raises money for cancer research. I never train for it. I literally get my bike out of the shed, go to the gas station to fill the tires, and go line up for the event to ride for 50 miles. I finish my ride and come home exhausted with a body that hates me every year. Never, after finishing my ride and coming home, have I been this tired.
While raising my daughter, I always promised she would make it to Disney before she was 10. We were always poor and 10 seemed so far away. I refused to let her down, though. So the summer before she was to turn 10 I took a second full time job. Both of them required overtime. In one week I worked 96 hours. At the end of that week, I wasn't this tired.
When my dad was dying in hospice 3 hours away, I traveled to and from his bedside every weekend and spent more nights without sleep than I did manage to find sleep. I probably cried, exhausting all-encompassing cries, more in those last 3 weeks than I had in all of my life combined. By the time he passed I was not this tired.
There is a big difference between the kind of tired that comes from having run your body or mind too hard and from having run your soul too hard. I don't know the words to describe it. I'm not sure those words exist. My tired comes from having given up. The energy I have to write is the only energy that I have. My mind does not stop. My mind is tired and requires up to four naps a day, but my mind does not stop. So writing has become my outlet.
When I was an adolescent, I was diagnosed with severe depression twice. I didn't understand that depression was anything more than being sad. Mental health not only had a stigma back then, but it was often dismissed or discounted. My father had taken me for them to confirm that I was a bad kid and tell him how to fix me, not to justify my 'pity parties.' He pulled me out of them each time and determined they were quacks.
I am presently experiencing my third major depressive episode in my life. I don't know if they are precipitated by having had too much to deal with or having a chemical imbalance that makes it harder for me to deal with things that come my way, but each time I had more going on than I could find a way to endure. The first time that I was suicidal, my daughter was a toddler. I begged my parents to watch her so I could commit myself. My dad still had no use for such nonsense and told me "You created this, you fix it." Because he refused to believe in depression he thought I was looking for an escape from my life. And, as anyone would imagine, the best vacation I could think of was a mental health facility. Anyway, I did find a therapist and, with counseling and medicine, I was able to pull through it eventually. I believe now, however, and I believed then, that if I didn't have Audrey, I wouldn't have even tried.
I recently found this picture from when my daughter was little. It speaks volumes, I believe.
This episode has been much worse. My daughter is grown and off to college now. I don't have to take care of anyone. Care for myself has never even been something I have ever really thought about. Of course, that is why I find myself where I am now. I don't care. I never managed to find a value for myself beyond being a mother. Although I am still a mother, she doesn't need me to take care of her now. When my life began falling apart a year and a half ago, I had nothing to hold on to. I had nothing to fight for. I didn't need to be well. And I think my brain just kind of started giving up.
Initially around Thanksgiving of 2013 my life hit a wall that no one could have ever seen coming. I still can't talk or write about it because the tragedy is not just mine. But the pain and its mark will, undoubtedly, be with me for the rest of my life. At that time I only had my job to hold on to. I have always been loyal to my work and proud of my work ethic. Aside from Audrey, my job was the other thing I found external from myself to attribute my own value to. Even while things were collapsing personally, I managed to keep up my workload, but often had tears streaming down my face while I was doing it. Because of this I told my manager what I was dealing with so she understood because it must've looked very unprofessional. Having told her, I was sure, she would understand.
At this time I was 41 years old. I had been ignoring all evidence of an anxiety disorder for years. I really didn't even know that anxiety was a disorder, to be honest. I had accepted claims from those who knew me that said I was 'high strung' or 'neurotic' as truths. It was just the way I was. It didn't make me a bad person so I just figured it was my nature and never thought more about it. My body had been telling me for almost 20 years that it was more than just quirkiness but I had always found ways to ignore it. Hives. "Sure people get those." My back would go out and make me immobile but x-rays would find nothing wrong with me. "I must've pulled something and forgotten." My stomach would get incredibly sick every time I was upset. "What did I eat this time?"
So last year I guess my mind finally determined that it would give me a sign I could not ignore. My body literally betrayed me. In public. My boss, who knew that I was already on the edge and suffered from severe depression had been harassing me to a level which was so bad that by the time the legal department saw the evidence of both the harassment and Human Resources deciding to completely ignore and, thus, condone it, they offered me a settlement check to never tell anyone what she had done. But one day her harassment pushed me over the edge and my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it and hear it pounding in my ear. I was hot like I was immediately sick with a high fever. My entire body started shaking and I couldn't control or stop it. And my breathing was out of control where I could not catch my breath. I literally thought I was going to die from not being able to breathe. It was terrifying. I had no idea what was going on. Before that I day I thought a 'panic attack' was something else. "I'm having a panic attack" is a phrase people used when they were stressed out. I had no idea its actual reference was to a complete physical collapse.
I went for months after that day completely unable to leave my home. I was diagnosed with agoraphobia. It pissed me off. I finally looked it up and read that it is very common with people who have panic attacks, especially after their first, because your subconscious is trying to protect you from having a similar situation. I then accepted that this was a thing and that it made sense why it was happening. But I can also completely rationalize that it is irrational. So it still pisses me off.
Ironically, I honestly think that if my anxiety didn't keep my mind going at this seemingly fast pace (although compared to what my life usually offers when not combined with depression its not really fast at all), I would probably already be dead. The writing is the only evidence I have that something inside me is trying to counter my daily revelations that I would rather be dead. The fact that my life insurance doesn't pay out if I kill myself is the only thing that has kept me from thinking seriously about finding a way out.
I feel like my world is so dark that if I didn't have something to focus on I could actually fall asleep and just not wake up. I could stop eating and drinking. I already ignore the phone and repel visitors. My writing allows me to look outside of myself, like I always have. I can focus on something else and ignore whatever hurts. I'm sure that's not healthy. But spending time inside my mind isn't, either.
Of course, because I can't leave my house, I don't have a job. And because I don't have a job, I cannot afford insurance. So I am, at present, on a very long waiting list for psychiatric care. My writing is my distraction and my care at this time. To prevent a panic attack I don't even spend time thinking about what kind of anxiety I will have to deal with whenever I finally have a psychiatric appointment and it is time to leave my house and go to an unknown place to meet an unknown person and offer them my life story and my fears and entrust them with my mental care. That complete notion is so overwhelming that I cannot find the words to express it properly. That is probably the worst thing about mental health issues. You won't find them in an x-ray or in blood work. And I don't imagine I am the only intelligent person with a large vocabulary who cannot find the words to tell you just how terrifying and awful it is to be in this place.
That's where I am. That's what I call depression.
But for many in our society its easier to just call it lazy. Or crazy.
Last night Bill Maher was quick to support Woody Allen when they were discussing the Bill Cosby rape allegations. Maher said that he would offer 'quarter' to Allen and insinuated that his accuser (Mia Farrow) had a personal reason to make accusations and that it was different. I make few distinctions between rapists and child molesters. It is hard for me to believe that any thoughtful person could with what we do know about Allen, regardless of whether or not he was ever found guilty.
It always disgusts me to hear Woody Allen celebrated. Do we not have enough off-beat comedic talents that we can't spare just one? The fact that he has maintained his career and continues to draw the biggest celebrities to be in his movies is, frankly, disturbing. The charges of molestation against his own adopted daughter, Dylan, were never filed in 1992 by the prosecutor who cited that there was potential for instability during a trial due to the child accusers instability. Their having gone unfiled had nothing to do with credibility or evidence. I don't need those charges to be true to loathe him, however. I find his lacking morality cause enough to believe the child and find him repulsive.
When Allen started his affair with Soon-Yi, not only was he supposed to have been her father-figure, but he was in a relationship with her mother. Her mother discovered the affair by finding naked photos of her daughter taken by Allen. Obviously this discovery precipitated the end of their family. That is a lot of weight for any child, but especially an adoptee, to bear. And how long had the relationship been going on? His having had the affair and then advising her to keep their secret is not only a blatant disregard for the family of which they were both members, but overt evidence of grooming techniques attributed to pedophiles. He destroyed the security of Soon-Yi and all of her adopted brothers and sisters. Whatever role or bond that each of the family members was meant to have had was made irrelevant and completely destroyed. Imagine explaining to a child that their sister would now be having the relationship that their mother had had with the man who had been their father-figure, and actual father to one, Ronan. (but I'm still pulling for that Sinatra rumor to be true).
Of course, he reminds everyone that he was neither her legal father nor biological. Right. No, sure. That makes sense. Never mind the fact that you were the father-figure in her home from the age of 10; or that you knew her as a young, broken and vulnerable child acclimating to a new country, language, home and family. There is no rational way for that familial relationship to ever gravitate into a romantic one. It was your responsibility as a guardian to make her feel safe in her new life. Piece of shit.
If society can accept this behavior, adoption should be outlawed because every child's emotional development and stability are at risk. If these are the mindsets of those raising our adopted children, how are they supposed to grow up strong with self-respect; with a feeling of connectedness and security? As best I can tell, the only accessory that never goes out of style in Hollywood is the adopted child. But they line up to kiss his ass. Does no one look at their own family and question what type of monster Allen must be? I believe in the goodness of people. I believe everyone deserves a chance until they give you a reason to question their character. I believe Allen has more than gone out of his way to prove his own repulsive character. As long as Hollywood continues to revere him, they bare their own character, as well.
Not gonna lie ... I cannot think of a single physical torture anyone could lay on me that would make me vote for a Republican. However, just watching from the outside, I feel confident that I would not vote for a Democrat or Independent who behaved the way those on the right have behaved this week. What must those in the center be thinking? Honestly!
This was the headline on Mike Huckabee's blog today where he railed over SCOTUS' decision on marriage equality. So, ummm... if you were, say, President, and you decided to resist and reject the judiciary, wouldn't that make you a tyrant? Moron.
He said the court was out of control yesterday, too. When they upheld the Affordable Care Act (say those three words in your head - wonder why they needed to give it another name?) he just wanted to lose his mind. This Christian will not abide living in a country where everyone has access to affordable healthcare. God. Dammit!
Ted Cruz had a fit yesterday, too. He, along with the rest of the GOP hopefuls, cannot interpret what the court ruling said. They all believe that they are going to be able to get rid of Obamacare. Never mind what they said in the ruling. No. Really. You have to have something to rail about, right?
Teddy hasn't commented yet on today's ruling. But last week he did tell a congregation, oops sorry, I mean conference attendees, "I would encourage everyone here to be lifting up in prayer the court that they not engage in an act of lawless judicial activism." So I assume he will be upset. Dick.
Bobby Jindals reply to Obamacare being upheld is almost comical. Its comical in the way that I like to laugh at people who are really assholes and say nonsense, not like a funny joke or anything. He was really pissed off because the Supreme Court didn't take away healthcare from millions of people based on semantics. Jindal demanded that the Supreme Court does not have the final say in the land . because ... yeah.
Of course, Mister Christian was all aflutter over SCOTUS' support of marriage equality today. It is curious. Im not kidding. I cannot have a rational discussion with someone and come out of it understanding how in the FUCK your religious liberties are diminished by another persons happiness.
I don't want to bark too loudly. Maybe they don't realize what they sound like to rational people. I just hope enough of them are paying attention. Good Gravy!
From every interview of the Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, it is clear that she has no compassion or understanding about the pain perpetuated by flying the Confederate flag atop the state house.
From this debate, her interest in removing the flag would only be compelled by the CEOs of the major corporations which call South Carolina home.
These are the top 22 large corporations in America which have a a major presence in South Carolina with a copy of their Twitter handles. You can also go to their Facebook page. You can send them a message or you can write them a letter. If enough people compel them to act they will do so. Their only interest is in maintaining their good name. And, apparently, Nikki Haley's only interest is in making these corporations happy.
If you want to forward a letter to Nikki Haley there is one here you are welcome to use.
By Monday, if these corporations are threatened by enough customers of a boycott, they will become involved.
Please help in the effort.
Mean Progressive
Please also take a moment to sign this petition which is nearing 500,000 signatures if you have not already. The voices of Americans can be heard here.
I am a woman. And a Liberal. As such, I am outraged and disgusted by the entire Conservative field of Presidential hopefuls for 2016. For some reason, however, Jeb Bush is the most offensive to me. All of the other candidates on the right are overtly pandering to the radicals of their party by repeating hateful rhetoric for all who don't meet their restricted standards for 'patriots.' Jeb is waiting for them to whittle the field because they will all count one another out and leave him alone as the more centrist candidate. Of course, those of us who actually pay attention know there is nothing centrist about him (or Walker, Kasich or any of the others who will be peddled out later). He, like the rest, has shown actual disdain for women.
Last week Jeb Bush was publicly outed for having written a book and passing a law in the 90s to literally shame unwed mothers. He responded by telling America that he had evolved. An evolution of ideas and understandings is a beautiful thing; I dare say it means one is being Progressive. And it is something he managed to prove the Conservatives are still unable to do in his response. As he is seemingly unaware, having put the world 'evolved' into his sentence didn't actually mean that he has. The remaining part of the quote was, "In fact, since 1995 ... this book was a book about cultural indicators [and] the country has moved in the wrong direction. We have a 40-plus percent out-of-wedlock birth rate."
Right. Jeb not only failed to back track on his position, he managed to wax poetic about his own prophetic insistence on where our culture was headed. He fails to even consider that maybe his idea of a perfect family might be just a bit narrow. He believes that a family is incomplete and children cannot have "lives of purpose and meaning" in a single parent home. I feel pretty confident that my daughter, who is now grown and in her senior year of college, would disagree. I bet there are scores of millions of children who would disagree. Of course, my child was never arrested for public intoxication or trying to illegally obtain prescription drugs, either. So I guess there are some lessons Jeb could've taught my daughter that she missed out on. I'll just have to hope she turns out okay in the end.
A lot has been made about Jeb Bush or Secretary Clinton potentially being nominated as a part of a dynasty. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. We had Theodore Roosevelt and then Franklin D. If we could have then had Eleanor, the niece of Theodore and wife of Franklin, that would've been a beautiful revelation for the country. On myriad levels. I imagine we would be a much healthier nation if that could've happened. But, of course, it never did so having fantasies about where we could be now is irrelevant. The Bush legacy, however, is a terrifying prospect. Honestly.
I'm sorry, but if you enter a campaign with a running mate who cannot spell the word 'potato(e?)' history cannot be expected to remember you kindly. Are we meant to have already forgotten all about George H W Bush's failed presidency where he waited less than 18 months for his proposal to negate his campaign slogan of "No New Taxes"? Or his veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1990? And then, I suppose, we should also forget the fact that the first war in Iraq was his creation and offered a singular objective for Bush 43 to complete once the Supreme Court and Florida (ehem) handed him to us as our President.
The George W Bush presidency. Sigh. Do I have to? 9/11. Iraq war. Katrina. That funny 'lock box' came up empty. Deregulating banks. I can't do this. Remembering him gives me hives (not kidding). Here follow this link if you are made of stronger metal than I obviously am.
Jeb Bush seems to want us to forget about his family legacy. He tells us he is his own man. But he also told us that those advising him on foreign policy were many who had advised his father and his brother. And, possibly even more terrifying, in May, when asked who would be on his team of advisers he listed his brother George.Absolutely! Have a quiet moment with that vision.
Jeb's arrogance has been acknowledged repeatedly during the last six months with his unwillingness to answer questions and behaving as if he has already won the nomination. It must be pretty profound if he thinks he is going to tell America that he wants his brother to help him on foreign policy and believe that we will not begin crawling out of our own skin. Or, just maybe there is something to the recent scientific breakthrough of the 'stupid gene.'
No matter the reason, I feel confident that his own legacy as a governor and that of his family will keep him away from the general election. I doubt he will even make it through the primaries, either. Then we can have more time to bathe in the insanity of the nominees who have even less tact than Jeb and who you don't even have to search for sound bites to embarrass. Won't that be fun?
Terrorism is a very important issue in America. I know this because you tell me that. Often. I have been duly conditioned to fear the terrorists among us. I know that terrorists are those who mean to do harm to create fear, perpetuated for an economic, religious, political or ideological goal, which deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (non-military or civilians). This weekend, America had a terrorist attack with a shooting and ended with a bombing in Dallas. It feels funny to have to report this to you, as in truth, it is your job to report this to me, but as you have neglected to do so, I will ask that you please research this story and catch up on its details to report to the rest of America. We need to be mindful of the terrorists among us. Our media does a lot of work to remind us of terrorism. Sometimes it feels like it might be overdone a little, to tell the truth. But there are a lot of stories about terrorists that you neglect to tell us about.
I know that Americans spend much of their Monday mornings at work discussing the weekend with their co-workers. The morning shows have a lot to do with what people think are relevant stories. That is a lot of responsibility, isn't it? Or it is a lot of power? I guess it is important to differentiate that, huh? If you felt it was your responsibility to sincerely inform Americans about terrorism you should be pretty embarrassed about the big story you all missed this morning. If it is about power, then I don't suppose it is remotely important to you what any of your audience wants to hear about anyway. If we have to seek our information elsewhere, what is the point of watching you at all? Is it true? Are you really just a means of entertainment? If this is the case, you might as well start reporting lies and creating stories to give us like the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title.
I did see this weekend that the terrorist in Texas was white. I also heard that he had mental health issues. That happens a lot, doesn't it? We never questioned whether or not the Tsarnaev brothers had any mental health disorders, but I am sure there is a really good reason for that which has nothing to do with any deliberate attempt to perpetuate the very narrow definition of a terrorist that Americans are beginning to misunderstand.
The Today Show did not offer us any news about the terrorist attack in America this morning. We heard about shark attacks on eastern beaches. You reminded us about the escaped convicts from the prison in New York and the cost of their daily search. You also told us about the pending Republicans entering the campaign today, as well. I was hoping, however, to hear about the terrorist in Dallas.
Good Morning America told us about the terrorist attack that was offered to us this weekend as supposition with a stranded airplane in Canada. Those on the flight were offered "little information" about what was going on. It was very curious, and even more frightening: It was an airplane! Maybe we were about face another 9/11 attack? I don't know because you literally offered us no information at the conclusion of the story. The fear was instilled, though. We are still worried about any pending attacks. But we did not hear about the actual terrorist attack in Dallas.
CBS This Morning told us about Jeb Bush and Secretary Clinton opening their campaigns today. We heard about the shark attacks in North Carolina and the escaped convicts in New York. We even were offered insights into the woman in Washington state who had parents that were white but had lied about her ethnicity on her job application with the NAACP. There was no mention of the terrorist in Texas.
I believe that if this terrorist had been from a nationality other than American or a religion other than Christian, this terrorist attack would have opened all of the news shows this morning. I believe that all of the nations news outlets would have sold out the hotels in Dallas for the next month to make sure they had a staff on call for any new developments in the next several weeks about any known associations or recent contacts the terrorist might have made. As a member of your audience who has come to expect that kind of coverage on terrorism stories, I would still like to know the answers.
The embarrassment of our media is an ongoing tragedy in our country. Outlets and journalists sometimes have to go through the federal court system to report on things that are sincerely newsworthy. Some even need to go to court to prove that they should even be allowed to call themselves news. Maybe because other outlets have been told that they have a freedom of speech to couple with their freedom of the press which precludes them from having any actual responsibility in what they report, all media believe it is acceptable for them to do the same. I am here to tell you that it is not. You are insulting the Americans who seek out actual information and the truths behind those stories. If we were desperate for nonsense, we would watch the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' it its title. As such. I imagine you are all defining your irrelevance each day. Well done.
