Monday, September 25, 2023
Authoritarian Talk - Hang the General
Friday, August 25, 2023
A Sad Day
Yesterday, the former president presented himself to a jail in Georgia to have his fingerprinting and his mug shot taken.
It's been all over the news.
This is his fourth indictment since he left office. While I strongly believe he tried to stay in office illegally and, at the least, incited a riot, I find it sad that this is now what the world sees of America.
The world sees that we are a bunch of haters who elected someone who is a grifter, a con man, and a not-nice person by any stretch of the imagination.
Hopefully, though, the world also sees that we are a nation of laws, and if one breaks those laws, then one is tried, and justice is served.
I take no joy in knowing that (a) this is the type of person so many people adore and want to follow, for reasons that continue to elude me and (b) that our government and our national reputation has been so wounded by this person and his ilk.
I have always believed in the power of the government to better the lives of its citizens. I have believed it can happen at the local level, and I believe it can happen at the state and federal levels. But the people in charge also must believe that.
The former guy believed, as best I could tell, that the government should only help him. I certainly didn't see much come out of his administration that helped me. Even the monetary loans during the pandemic were giveaways of federal funding to those who didn't need it, for the most part. Maybe they helped out somebody somewhere.
While seeing our country diminished makes me sad, I think it is important that the former guy be charged with conspiring to defraud the American people out of their choice for president. It is how we move forward from this and defend democracy and maintain the rule of law. I do not see this as a failure of the legal system, nor do I see these charges as political. I see them as necessary if the republic is to continue to function under the U.S. Constitution.
If these charges had not been brought, then the U.S. Constitution may as well be, as the former guy has suggested, tossed out the window. I would be less confident in the judicial system had charges never been brought, and even now I have concerns about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and what role it will ultimately play in all of this. Because you know eventually, that is where some, if not all, of these indictments will end up if the former guy is found guilty. Maybe even if he is found innocent, I don't know.
I look for calmer days sometime in my lifetime. Preferably they would be ones where I don't have to look at the mug shot of a former president.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Roy G Biv
Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.” (Emphasis mine)It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.” By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to embrace its security. -- Heather Cox Richardson
Which do you want to be? The book burner or the book saver? The person who admires rainbows or the one who denigrates them because of their own personal insecurities and hang-ups? Just who do the children need to be saved from?
I really have to wonder.
Monday, May 22, 2023
Why News Media Should Unite for the Greater Good
Monday, May 08, 2023
They Are Offended by This?
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Biden Announces
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
The Craven, the Crazies, and the Rest of Us
Over the weekend, an Oklahoma newspaper with no online presence printed this as its front page of its weekend edition:
You can hear Rachel Maddow discuss this at this link, if you want.
I have written local journalism for 39 years. My first article was published in 1984. I've written for nearly all of the local publications, including many that no longer exist, and for statewide magazines. I estimated once that I've published over 2 million words in multiple publications.
My editor at The Fincastle Herald always told me if I didn't have someone angry at me, I wasn't doing my job.
Suffice to say, I did my job. Over the years, I have been threatened by various and sundry people, including a sheriff in nearby county. He stopped me as I was entering the courtroom to listen to a board meeting. "How do I know that's water you have in there?" he demanded, nodding toward my ever-present water bottle.
I took a drink and held it out to him. "You're welcome to the rest of it. It's just water."
"I could haul you in right now for having liquor and who'd know different?" he said. He banged his hand against his pistol on his thigh for emphasis.
"Everybody knows I don't drink alcohol," I replied, and I walked past him to my seat. I could feel him glaring at the back of my head.
Later that same night, I nearly wrecked my car on the way home as I drove over Caldwell Mountain and the tire went flat. In the shine of a flashlight, I discovered my tire had been slashed with a knife.
Yes, someone in the next county over had tried to kill me. Caldwell Mountain is a dangerous drive, over twisting, winding roads. My car could have gone off the pavement and down the mountainside, not to be found for possibly years.
That happened about 25 years ago. So, while this is nothing new, the rhetoric now has been taken to a whole other level.
It was not unusual for me to receive phone calls from people complaining about stories I wrote. "I didn't say that" was the usual complaint. I carried a tape recorder and I'd play it back to them, if I had to.
They backed down then.
Sometimes, though, the complaint was not that I wrote what they said, but that I didn't write what they said.
Sometimes people simply sound so stupid to me that I paraphrase or leave it out completely if it's not relevant to the main part of the article. It is my job to tell a story that is truthful, but that doesn't mean I have to use ignorant, racist, homophobic, fascist, or antisemitic language. Paraphrasing is allowed.
But some people want their words - no matter how ignorant they sound - in print. They want their opinions, word for word, stated. That's how sure they are that they're right. That's how sure they are that their closed-minded world view is the one that should rule the day.
So it was that last week I found myself listening to someone rant about how I hadn't printed exactly what this person had said at a supervisors meeting.
The person threatened me. I hung up on this person, and I called the police and reported the phone call. I also blocked the number.
Twenty years ago, I would not have done that. I'd have ignored the call. But these are different times, and people feel mean and emboldened, and being a bully is now in fashion.
I was taken aback by the phone call because it was literally over nothing, as far as I was concerned.
These are the times we live in. People feel emboldened in their fascism and narrow-minded thoughts. They have no room in their brains for open-minded thinking. My way or the highway, as my parents used to tell me.
However, we are all adults, not children in need of being sent to our rooms. And if someone can't have an adult conversation with me that doesn't involve threats, screaming, or insults, then that is not someone I care to talk with.
And as for the report above, it just shows how low people can be. To call these people snakes would be an injustice to snakes. The people in the article/photo above are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. They're so low, there is no bottom for them.
I hope they all lose their jobs.
Tuesday, March 07, 2023
On My Mind
Friday, March 03, 2023
Register to Write?
Wednesday, February 08, 2023
Playing Catch-Up
Monday, January 09, 2023
It Takes Just a Little While
Friday, January 06, 2023
Don't Wanna Smile
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Another Day, Another Shooting
Yesterday I woke to the news that three football players at the University of Virginia had been shot, and two others injured, by gunfire.
The alleged murderer was known to the campus and the local police, apparently, and he was eventually captured, about 12 hours after the murder.
The last I read, motive was unclear. Maybe there wasn't a motive.
Sometimes people are simply crazy, or bloodthirsty, or violent.
It pains me to admit that I've become somewhat nonchalant about the news of shootings. They happen EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. It may not be a mass shooting, but somebody, somewhere, is shot. Yet, I still watch those around me when I go out. I look for people who are acting "off" or suspect. I duck at loud noises.
In 2020, over 45,000 - yes, thousand - people died from gun-related deaths in the United States. We've already had over 37,000 gun deaths this year, and the year isn't over.
One guy has some blow-up stuff on the bottom of his shoe at an airport, and we all take our shoes off to get on an airplane, but we have thousands die from guns every year, and we do nothing.
Somebody found a few problems with Tylenol a long, long time ago, and suddenly medicines were put in plastic shrink wrap and made tamper-proof. Thousands die from guns every year, and we do nothing.
A child dies from a defective crib, and there's a recall. Thousands die from guns every year, and we do nothing.
A car crash indicates the air bags don't work, and there's a recall. Thousands die from guns every year and we do nothing.
I know the response - guns don't kill people, people kill people, blah blah thoughts and prayers. But guns are made for killing.
That is their sole purpose. To kill, or at least to maim.
I am a gun owner, and I am in favor of stricter gun control laws.
Wednesday, November 02, 2022
Dispelling a Myth
Occasionally, I see weird stuff cross my Facebook feed, generally from people who seem incredibly obsessed with sexual items, gender identity, and children, to the point where I think they may have a mental illness of some sort.
One of the weirder ones that some local folks continually insist is happening in our schools it something called "furries."
Allegedly, this involves young people dressing up as animals, speaking only as that animal would, and using litter boxes.
Reuters looked into this in July and found absolutely no instances of this taking place in public schools, yet there is a segment of the population that insists this happens. The New York Times refuted it in January.
There is not a single legitimate news site that pops up that corroborates anything about this. While some might consider The New York Times to lean left, Reuters is, as best I can tell, one of the most middle-ground news media groups out there.
I certainly do not think it is happening in my local public schools, even though I see posts that insist it is. There are never facts involved, just hearsay (my friend said her friend said she saw it happen) and I honestly find the people posting these things can trip out mentally over practically anything - they are incredibly sensitive and easily riled up over any perceived slight that doesn't meet their idea of a perfect world, whatever that is.
I do not believe this is happening at all, except maybe in some cosplay somewhere (like pretending to be a superhero), and in the minds of folks who apparently need better things to do with their time.
But let's pretend, just for a moment, that this allegation is true. That all over the United States, we have a percentage of children who are dressing up as dogs or cats.
Nobody asks why this would be happening. Why would children suddenly want to be animals?
Might it be because we take better care of our pets than our children?
Perhaps they see momma kissing on the pup while she screams at the kids?
Or they see dad idly stroking the purring cat while he's looking at his smart phone, and then yells at the kids for distracting him?
If this is a constant in their world, wouldn't the children, at some point, conclude that the parents love the animals more than they love their children? Wouldn't they do whatever they felt they had to obtain their parents' attention and love?
And if this is the case, then don't we have a parenting problem, not a school problem? Don't we have here a perfect (though fictional) example of horrid parenting gone wrong?
But these posts never blame the parents, never consider what might cause this kind of action on the part of a child. The posts just announce their horror that the school system might be taking this seriously and adding litter boxes to the bathrooms.
As I said earlier, I think this involves a sick mental illness on the part of the protesting posters, who want desperately to believe this kind of thing is actually happening for whatever reason.
It is part of the weirdness we have going on right now - we have a subset of the population who literally are making up stuff to upset other people. These folks who believe these types of lies and fairy tales are living in an alternate reality, some kind of fantasy that I cannot pretend to understand. Nor do I want to.
Instead of simply passing on stuff as truth and being outraged about it, whatever happened to asking questions, such as why would this be happening? Or doing a little fact checking to see if it's real or just some strange thing someone's put out there to rile up nervous people?
What will it take to shake some of these folks out of their bubble, and back into the real world?
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Our Democracy Would Fall
"David Montgomery of the Washington Post has written a roundup of what 21 experts “in the presidency, political science, public administration, the military, intelligence, foreign affairs, economics and civil rights” say would happen should Trump be reelected in 2024.
They argue that upon taking office, Trump would install super loyalists to do his bidding and would ignore the Senate if it tried to stop him, as he largely did in his term. He has, after all, already outlined a plan to fire career civil servants and has explored a rigorous system for guaranteeing loyalists for those posts. Next, the experts suggest, he would deploy the military at home against his enemies while disengaging internationally and turning things over to Putin and other authoritarians. America’s global leadership would end, not least because no other nations would trust our intelligence services. Political violence would become the norm, giving Trump an excuse to declare martial law, and our democracy would fall." - From Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter, October 11, 2022
I believe this to be true. This is not because the former guy is a Republican. This is not what Republicans are. This is a new party under the guise of an old name. This is an authoritarian party. These are not my father's Republicans.
Friday, August 05, 2022
BANG!
The loud blast resounded around the warehouse-like grocery store moments after I walked in the store.
I froze.
"It was a balloon, it's alright," someone called. A manager raced by me, calling that he was double-checking that it was, indeed, not a gunshot. (I consider it somewhat heroic that he headed toward the sound.)
The store sells helium balloons, and one had burst. In that cavernous building, it sounded like a .22 caliber gun going off.
It was a loud echo chamber, the noise bouncing off the ceiling like a bird hitting a glass door.
It upset me more than I realized. Mostly, I was upset at my reaction. Some, like me, simply stood, but other people ducked behind vegetable crates.
I was in a section with nowhere to go, nothing to duck behind.
I was vulnerable.
So, I am happy today that I didn't get shot yesterday.
But I am terribly pissed off that this is where we are, that I came home angry, frightened, and upset because a helium balloon burst in the supermarket.
Terrified that I know now that when the gunman enters the store, I'll be among the first to go, because I froze in panic instead of running.
I try to tell myself that on some level I knew it was a balloon, that I had just walked by there, and my subconscious had noted someone using the helium tank.
But the reality is that I froze, and now I wonder if I need to practice not freezing at such sounds, practice hustling my fat ass out of the way, around a corner, falling to the ground knowing that with my bad back and my pudgy body I probably wouldn't get up again without help. I think about how embarrassing that would have been, had I overreacted . . . this time.
Because this time, it wasn't a gunshot.
I am happy about that.