I'll Be the One in a Grave

The quote below is why I expect to not have a long life, given the current events of not only the U.S. but the world. In my opinion, which counts for absolutely nothing, a vote for Trump (who is coming to my area today) is a vote for my death. There will be, as always, those who think exactly the opposite. Not that it matters: I think World War III will come regardless of who holds the reins, though I think the Democrats might take me a small step closer to old age. A Green Party win would be even better, but that won't happen this year. But it will be politics and power that kill me and many others - the sick, the old, the unwell - not Mother Nature's advances upon my person.

Time will tell who is right, though I probably won't be around to see. But I will point out this: We all still have our guns in spite of President Obama. We have health care, if we want it (and I know and understand that you may not be able to pay for it). We can still go to the place of worship of our choosing. We can put our Christmas decorations up in our yard. We can fly the Confederate flag on our own property if we want. We haven't lost any of our Constitutional rights under a black Democratic president - not a single one, in spite of the fearmongering.

You may or may not have a job, but that is not a presidential problem or even a political party problem. That is a Congressional problem and a corporate problem created by a lack of empathy problem on the part of Congress, corporate owners, and stock holders. It is the direct result of the capitalistic system we worship over and above our god (we really do). However, I realize we cannot place the blame where it actually belongs, because that is to admit that we are slaves to the masters we think we don't have. Better to blame the black man in the White House, or the Latinos next door. Because we can't look inside and blame ourselves, because we don't know how to fix it.

We have to share our world with people we don't like - people who think differently, who look different, talk differently, worship differently, and we don't like it. So you or you or you will kill me, in the end, because I don't think like you do, or I am in your way. I get that and have mostly accepted it, though I can't say I like it. I had hoped for a long life, at least another 30 years or so. I've done nothing to deserve to die. But then again, neither have a lot of other people.

Humans are murderers. We kill one another without a thought. It's the animal brain (though I know many think we didn't evolve). But there it is. I have seen this coming since 9/11, this new World War - or maybe it will be an all-out Second American Civil War. Whatever. It is coming - maybe it is already here. All students of the world know this - even the people who don't really think about it know it subconsciously. We also know there is nothing we can do about it. As it says below, some of us are not capable of the violence that the general population can carry out. We end up being the recipients of it.

Go to the link at the bottom and read the whole article. It is worth the time.

"What can we do? Well, again, looking back, probably not much. The liberal intellectuals are always in the minority. See Clay Shirky’s Twitter Storm on this point. The people who see that open societies, being nice to other people, not being racist, not fighting wars, is a better way to live, they generally end up losing these fights. They don’t fight dirty. They are terrible at appealing to the populace. They are less violent, so end up in prisons, camps, and graves. We need to beware not to become divided (see: Labour party), we need to avoid getting lost in arguing through facts and logic, and counter the populist messages of passion and anger with our own similar messages. We need to understand and use social media. We need to harness a different fear. Fear of another World War nearly stopped World War 2, but didn’t. We need to avoid our own echo chambers. Trump and Putin supporters don’t read the Guardian, so writing there is just reassuring our friends. We need to find a way to bridge from our closed groups to other closed groups, try to cross the ever widening social divides."

From: History Tells Us What Will Happen Next with Brexit & Trump