Lies, Opinions, and Hate Speech.

 The first Amendment in our bill of rights is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Short, sweet, and mostly missing the rhetoric quoted and paraphrased about the first amendment--our right to say anything, our right to write anything, etc.

As you can see, it is entirely directed at congress regarding making laws that declare establishing a state religion, or talking about any religion, or stopping the press from writing---about religion?--it gets vague but a press that can not write about human rights, politics, religion, or any other event that is going on at the time becomes a puppet press, a state news propaganda machine.  It also gives the people the right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

So, the people of my neighborhood can get together (assemble) and discuss the gunfire at night, every night, and decide to start a petition in which people are not allowed to shoot guns at night.  

Of course, this is where the other amendments get called in.

The second amendment is:  “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

So, the people have a right to keep and bear arms.  It says nothing about when they have a right to shoot them.  And don't get me started on the whole well-regulated militia---that is generally seen as the state's National guard units and the Governor of each state is their commander in chief.  

The supreme court originally said that the state's militia were the only ones with a right to bear arms.  It was 1925 when the Supreme Court decided that individuals had that right.  I'm thinking that citizens, whether or not they have committed a crime in the past, if they are not currently paying for a felony, also have a right to bear arms.  There are several groups whose rights to bear arms have been ignored.  They get shot if they even look like they might be bearing arms.

But this is about #1.

Most of us have always believed that we not only have a right to our opinion, but also a right to express our opinion.  

slander (noun) · slanders (plural noun)

1. the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.  Compare with libel.

   "he is suing the TV network for slander"

   • a false and malicious spoken statement.
     "I've had just about all I can stomach of your slanders"
     synonyms:

     defamation · defamation of character · character assassination · misrepresentation of character · calumny · libel · scandalmongering · malicious gossip · muckraking · smear campaigning · disparagement · denigration · derogation · aspersions · vilification · traducement · obloquy · backbiting · scurrility · lie · slur · smear · untruth · false accusation · false report · insult · slight · mudslinging · bad-mouthing · contumely
     antonyms:

     acclamation · praise

VERB

slander (verb) · slanders (third person present) · slandered (past tense) · slandered (past participle) · slandering (present participle)

1. make false and damaging statements about (someone).

   "they were accused of slandering the head of state"

   synonyms:

   defame · defame someone's character · blacken someone's name · give someone a bad name · tell lies about · speak ill/evil of · drag through the mud/mire · throw/sling/fling mud at · sully someone's reputation · libel · smear · run a smear campaign against · cast aspersions on · spread scandal about · besmirch · tarnish · taint · misrepresent · malign · traduce · vilify · calumniate · disparage · denigrate · decry · run down · slur · do a hatchet job on · derogate · asperse · vilipend

Above is a hint.

And the law will side with the person committing the slander unless the person suing them can prove it is untrue.

A proven untruth is a LIE.

So, freedom of speech does not cover lying about someone.

Lies are not free speech.  

We have all heard that screaming "fire" in a crowded theater is not free speech because it endangers lives, but did you know that lying about someone is also not protected free speech?

Which leads us to hate speech.  

Hate speech is almost always the repetition of stereotype, derogatory names and inflammatory claims about a group of people.  The goal is to make the speaker feel superior and to marginalize the group being spoken about.  

It's slander, not because no one in the group matches the stereotype, but because everyone in the group doesn't match the stereotype.  It is also aimed at the stirring up hate/violence, so the goal is to endanger the groups' members lives, either through direct violence or decreased opportunity.

Hate speech is not free speech.

If you have an opinion about a whole group of people, you might want to take some classes, antiracism classes, black history classes, women's studies, they have cultural studies at universities on about every group you can name.  

Or, if you are not the scholarly type---talk to some people from the group you have been hating.  Talk to some people from your group that don't hate the group you have been hating.  

Quit only talking to people that share your hate.

Time to grow up.

When Rage shakes the silent majority.

First off, who is the silent majority.  To a lot of lower middle class white folks, its them.   Obviously, they are not a majority unless you divide us into race and socioeconomic group.  Then it's still not an actual majority, its just a bigger minority than the other divisions

Let's not do that.  Let's not buy into those old standards.

The silent majority are all those people that usually are focused, not on politics or race relations or religious preferences because they are using all their energy to go to work, earn enough money to pay for shelter, food, clothing, and all the perks and advantages they can for their family--parents, children, significant other.  They are consumed with their own lives, because living, doing their best for their loved ones, is a lot.

Sometimes its apathy or addiction or depression that stops us from keeping up with the world around us.  More often it's just trying to survive that has consumed all our resources and we just have no fucks left to give.

But this last year, this pandemic, the protests, the multiple killings of unarmed black people, the tear gas and riot batons used against people carrying signs and waterbottles.  Well, we are home.  We are seeing it.  And while those watching Fox News are not seeing what the rest of us see, it has taken the place of cooking for church dinners  and ball games and driving to dance practice and piano lessons.  It it on our social media and on our TV and Radio station.  And it is shocking.  It is not life as usual.

With 4 years of Trump's lies being told repeatedly with no restrictions, those of us that want to believe him, believe him completely, and those of us that never believed him because what he said changed with the wind, we are all suffering the effects of sensory overload and mental trauma.

For some of us, the rage started the day the electoral college elected a man with 3 million less votes than his opponent.  A man that then proceeded to tell those people that really wanted to believe him, that those 3 million votes were illegal and fraudulent.  A man that said such things out loud, knowing they were not true and the news ran with it without any fact checking, without any attempts to stop his lies.  He made comments from day one about being president for 12 years and 20 years and visited with dictators alone so no one could hear his conversations.  He fired his appointees for not doing everything he said, whether legal or not.  He called female opponents by names that are usually reserved for use by 15 year old bullies, and implied rape was a victimless crime.  

He showed absolute hatred for Islamic people (except for Saudi Arabian Royalty--he really liked them) and for Hispanic people unless they were working for cheap in his hotels.  He ripped children from family at the borders, with no plan, no record keeping, and left them in fenced areas that looked more like dog kennels for shitty dog breeding farms.

And that silent majority that thought that if we voted for our representatives; those representatives and the constitution would keep the country running just like it always had.

Of course, it hadn't always worked that way.  President Buchanan was the monkey wrench that caused Lincoln to end up in a civil war.  The war of 1812 was a bit like falling asleep at the wheel after the revolution.  The Great Depression was a result of the very rich wanting everything open, no laws impinging on their money making. 

But, while people are expected to live into their 70's, children don't grasp those connections and patterns seen between those events; we don't really start seeing the patterns at all if we are part of the silent majority unless something wakes us up.  

We get focused on our individual lives.  We worry about being happy, being pretty or handsome, being successful, being married, being parents, or whatever thing that has taken up residences in our brains and our dreams, and those things are pretty time consuming. 

If we are responsible, we vote.  Or maybe we vote only when a candidate or issue really gets our attention.  Or if we have nothing better to do that day, and in places with gerrymandering and voter suppression, we know we can't do anything about it and just try not to even think about it.  

And we stay silent.

So who are these folks screaming like political animals right now?  Why did we have the biggest voter turn out for this presidential election that has ever occurred?

Trump.  Trumpism. White Nationalism and fascism and QANON and evangelical Christians that think God sent them a leader to take back this country.  

He saturated the news, all of it, papers, tv, radio, social media, and the constant noise was hard to sleep through even for the busy and silent.  

Then, a disease, still being ignored as no big deal by a large group making it harder to limit exposures, forced a lot of people to slow down.  We spent more time with social media and reading and watching news.  We spent less time running on the hamster wheel because much of the wheel was no longer open for business.  And depending on the state, on the political party, on  each of our race/ethnicity/personal self-image and whether or not we liked  reality TV, we ended up choosing sides.  

Now, both sides are raging.  One because we only woke up enough to listen to our favorite TV personality,  the other because that same personality was awakening in us fear from the stories that our parents and grandparents told us, about fascism, and racism and overthrown governments; old history class lessons were googled, and worst of all how much of an increase in  hate we were feeling from our country and countrymen.

Rage is hard to control.

Ask the bullied school shooter.

Ask the brown person that can never do enough to actually succeed because there was never an opportunity before catching the attention of the justice system.

I don't have answers, but I do think that we need to stop publicizing lies.  That is like pouring gasoline on the fire. And how much difference is there, really between publishing a lie and slander.  I think we need to stop letting news outlet get by with opinion pieces that are all aimed at the same side---people need to see and hear both sides or we start to think that an opinion is a fact.

Maybe we need to NOT bring the hamster wheel all the way back online.  All of us need to stay involved in our own governance. 

 And no group is the majority.  We are all equally important.  Hate, bullying, profiling, putting people in pigeonholes, needs to actively be combated not just denied---those things are our enemy.  Who knows how many people have been destroyed by those things when nurturing all of them would have may have given us the next Michelangelo, Einstein, Mandela, Che Guevara, or Maria Tallchief, or Selena Gomez.  

We have a representative government.  They must speak for all of us, serve all of us for we ARE the silent majority--all of us.

Trump, 2021

There are still people fighting to have Trump be president---for life?  

They make ridiculous claims about "He got more votes than anyone every has" while ignoring the almost 7 million more votes that Biden got.  Easy to explain, Trump said that himself repeatedly, also ignoring the more votes that Biden got.  Reality is, Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Trump got.  Trump never said that either.  He firmly believed in the electoral College when it worked to his advantage.

He tried to nullify it, when it didn't go his way.

He filed more than 50 election lawsuits---which he lost.  Then called around trying to get state Governors and Attorney generals to send his electoral representatives instead of the ones that represented the people in the state.  

When that didn't work, he tried to get senators and representatives and the Vice President to make him president anyway.

List of Senate and House members objecting to election: All 147 Republican lawmakers challenging the count of electoral votes - Vox

Senators who objected

Ted Cruz (TX)
Josh Hawley (MO)
Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)
Cynthia Lummis (WY)
John Kennedy (LA)
Roger Marshall (KS)
Rick Scott (FL)
Tommy Tuberville (AL)

House members who objected

Robert Aderholt (AL)
Rick Allen (GA)
Jodey Arrington (TX)
Brian Babin (TX)
Jim Baird (IN)
Jim Banks (IN)
Cliff Bentz (OR)
Jack Bergman (MI)
Stephanie Bice (OK)
Andy Biggs (AZ)
Dan Bishop (NC)
Lauren Boebert (CO)
Mike Bost (IL)
Mo Brooks (AL)
Ted Budd (NC)
Tim Burchett (TN)
Michael Burgess (TX)
Ken Calvert (CA)
Kat Cammack (FL)
Jerry Carl (AL)
Buddy Carter (GA)
John Carter (TX)
Madison Cawthorn (NC)
Steve Chabot (OH)
Ben Cline (VA)
Michael Cloud (TX)
Andrew Clyde (GA)
Tom Cole (OK)
Rick Crawford (AR)
Warren Davidson (OH)
Scott DesJarlais (TN)
Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)
Byron Donalds (FL)
Jeff Duncan (SC)
Neal Dunn (FL)
Ron Estes (KS)
Pat Fallon (TX)
Michelle Fischbach (MN)
Scott Fitzgerald (WI)
Chuck Fleischmann (TN)
Virginia Foxx (NC)
Scott Franklin (FL)
Russ Fulcher (ID)
Matt Gaetz (FL)
Mike Garcia (CA)
Bob Gibbs (OH)
Carlos Gimenez (FL)
Louie Gohmert (TX)
Bob Good (VA)
Lance Gooden (TX)
Paul Gosar (AZ)
Garret Graves (LA)
Sam Graves (MO)
Mark Green (TN)
Marjorie Greene (GA)
Morgan Griffith (VA)
Michael Guest (MS)
Jim Hagedorn (MN)
Andy Harris (MD)
Diana Harshbarger (TN)
Vicky Hartzler (MO)
Kevin Hern (OK)
Yvette Herrell (NM)
Jody Hice (GA)
Clay Higgins (LA)
Richard Hudson (NC)
Darrell Issa (CA)
Ronny Jackson (TX)
Chris Jacobs (NY)
Mike Johnson (LA)
Bill Johnson (OH)
Jim Jordan (OH)
John Joyce (PA)
Fred Keller (PA)
Trent Kelly (MS)
Mike Kelly (PA)
David Kustoff (TN)
Doug LaMalfa (CA)
Doug Lamborn (CO)
Jacob LaTurner (KS)
Debbie Lesko (AZ)
Billy Long (MO)
Barry Loudermilk (GA)
Frank Lucas (OK)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO)
Nicole Malliotakis (NY)
Tracey Mann (KS)
Brian Mast (FL)
Kevin McCarthy (CA)
Lisa McClain (MI)
Daniel Meuser (PA)
Mary Miller (IL)
Carol Miller (WV)
Alex Mooney (WV)
Barry Moore (AL)
Markwayne Mullin (OK)
Gregory Murphy (NC)
Troy Nehls (TX)
Ralph Norman (SC)
Devin Nunes (CA)
Jay Obernolte (CA)
Burgess Owens (UT)
Steven Palazzo (MS)
Gary Palmer (AL)
Greg Pence (IN)
Scott Perry (PA)
August Pfluger (TX)
Bill Posey (FL)
Guy Reschenthaler (PA)
Tom Rice (SC)
Mike Rogers (AL)
Hal Rogers (KY)
John Rose (TN)
Matt Rosendale (MT)
David Rouzer (NC)
John Rutherford (FL)
Steve Scalise (LA)
David Schweikert (AZ)
Pete Sessions (TX)
Jason Smith (MO)
Adrian Smith (NE)
Lloyd Smucker (PA)
Elise Stefanik (NY)
Greg Steube (FL)
Chris Stewart (UT)
Glenn Thompson (PA)
Tom Tiffany (WI)
William Timmons (SC)
Jefferson Van Drew (NJ)
Beth Van Duyne (TX)
Tim Walberg (MI)
Jackie Walorski (IN)
Randy Weber (TX)
Daniel Webster (FL)
Roger Williams (TX)
Joe Wilson (SC)
Rob Wittman (VA)
Ron Wright (TX)
Lee Zeldin (NY)

These are people that have sworn an oath to follow the constitution, but instead remained loyal to a personality.  That personality has never even tried to be president for anyone except those that are loyal to him.  His agenda has been aimed at white supremacy, xenophobia, and violence.

Over 4 years, he has pardoned war criminals, those that were in prison for committing crimes aimed at getting him elected, caged children after pulling them out of their parents/families arms(that one has created at least 400 orphans, as no one can now figure out who to send them to).  His loyal followers willingly sent money to Steve Bannon, who was then charged with a crime for using that money sent to finish the wall, for personal expenses.

And last, but far from least.  He and his family arranged a violent coup to occur at the time of the finalizing of the electoral college vote.  

Five people died.

His cult members brought assault weapons, zip ties, built a gallows, carried both confederate, nazi, and trump flags, and had an agenda--to keep Trump President while removing all who stood in the way.  While these lunatics went about their business, the Trump family watched it all on closed circuit tv while drinking and partying.  The family watched 5 deaths and countless people terrorized while drinking and laughing and having a great time.

The result of this?

Trump is still president, but only for another week or so.

The house is going to Impeach him, again.

The FBI has arrested as many of those insurrectionists as they can find.

Quite a few white house staffers and cabinet members are getting out of Dodge.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram have barred Trump from their social media sites--so they have all gone to Parler.  Apple has stopped providing the Parler App.  

And, there is big talk about the real insurrection at the inauguration by the Trump fan club.

It has been a very long 4 years.  The fact that so many of the citizens of this country were ok with a rich, white, reality tv star that partied with a known child sex trafficker and didn't pay his taxes, that snorted things up his nose to up his game to the point of needing diapers, that had 5 kids by three women, with two of those wives met while still married, that his great business sense resulted in at least 6 bankruptcies--all known before he was voted into the white house, is very disappointing.  The Russian election interference, the attempted Ukrainian interference, was scary.  His worship of hereditary dictators and fascists dictators was horrifying.  

And right now, today, after 4 years of crazy, a coup attempt, and endless hate-speech, his followers are still all in for trump.

Stay awake.  We need those with a conscience, those with critical thinking skills and those that recognize that the country is not at its best to keep watching and raising their voices when our ideals are not the goal.

Happy new year--let's make it a world of justice for all.

Connected

2020 has not been the most disconnected year of my life, that honor goes to the year 2000.  I lost my mother on Christmas day of 1999 to 11 years of a progressive illness.  I also lost my father; he went away mentally the same day she died and himself died in the fall of 2000.  Through that year, my kids and other family and work were were all at a distance, a mental distance.  I was not really there.  I was not really anywhere.  I did what I had to do each day so I could go to sleep and do what I had to do the next day.  It was the worst.

2020 is only my fifth worst year.  Without social media and internet, the disconnection would be much worse.

Maybe it is fifth because I had already lost most of the people I miss most.  Maybe those earlier worsts gave me better coping mechanisms.  Maybe it is because I'm older and less attached to everything.  But generally speaking, for most of us, the collective us, it is a really bad year: WWI and WWII bad, Spanish flu bad, the black death bad, the twin towers bad.   A year that we that live will remember unfondly till we die.

Finding something more to hang on to will be helpful; Something bigger than myself.  Something bigger than all of our selves.  Not a holiday, though, or a religion, or a belief, but a feeling.  That big feeling, like astronauts got when they looked back at earth; like Gautama got under the tree---transcendence.

I want very much to renew those connections that I have occasionally felt to the universe.  Those transcendental moments where everything is good and I know I belong on this planet.   Those moments, and they are short, they are always short---but the memory of them is huge and breathtaking.  

How to reach that more often.  How to reach a point where that is always just a breath away.  I don't know.  Maybe the answer is meditation or yoga, maybe it is more painting (for me, for you, whatever you do with your whole mind, woodworking, dancing, running, singing, redecorating, cooking--Your thing.  Maybe it's more nature walks, more sleep, more writing/journaling. 

Or, maybe it is letting go of those things that drive us; competition with others, trying to get more of what we want, trying to advance at work.  Maybe we all need to take what we learned this year and put it into the arsenal of coping skills we have for dealing with life.  

Patience, solitude, breathing deeply and slowly, mindfulness.  

Maybe those treats this year, the long soaks in the tub, the single glass of wine that is tasted and sipped slowly, the feel of really clean and soft sheets after a hot shower.  Stuff we have all the time, but are so rushed and driven we never appreciate their wonder and delight.  That is the stuff we need to keep.

And in keeping those, perhaps we get to identify more of those transcendent moments.  This year I planted flowers and instead of hurrying along so I could get on to the next thing---well I had no next thing.  Buying those plants was a big deal this year.  I went out when the nonessential businesses finally opened, wore my mask, and chose my summer flowers.  I took them out and planted them by myself.  It was my first year in this yard and it is nothing like my previous yard.  It's a yard that has seen multiple families struggle before doing better and moving away and a yard that has been the last home to several couples after the family has grown up and moved away.  It is a yard much like the house, neglected from lack of funds and lack of handiness.  

My goal is to bring it back to life.  But if I only let it continue to disintegrate, isn't that some law of physics. ( "The center can not hold"  I can feel that law on my own body these days.)

I planted, one plant at a time, carefully unpotted, hole prepared with better soil and size appropriate for the roots, then filled in, watered.  All the while the sun of April was on my back and shoulders, my hair warming, the sound of children in the schoolyard and the birds twittering nearby.  The light around me was soft and the air was free of either chill or heat.  A spent 4 hours on a 30 minute job.  It was a wonderful day--and while alone, I felt connected to everything.

Connected.  Part of the sun, part of the air, part of the soil---it's a loving and peaceful feeling.  

I hope to take that connectedness and make it part of everything I do everyday.  

How did we do with the Novel Corona Virus response?

How did the USA do in their response to the Novel Corona Virus Pandemic?

Let's try comparing some Apples to Apples.  Not easy, but I believe it is possible to a degree.

Globally, on 12/11/2020, there are 69,788,140 cases worldwide and there have been 1,585,727 deaths.  The population of the planet is 7,800,000,000 give or take a few undocumented births/deaths.  There has been a 0.89% rate of infection, and among those with confirmed disease, 2.3% have died.  These numbers are the best we have; there are countries in which appearances are more important than the health of their people and countries in which poverty and war are making any management of this pandemic impossible. 

(I've chosen a sample 8 of the countries-New Zealand, USA, UK, Sweden, India, Brazil, Canada and Japan, not at war and not run by dictators with an agenda of hiding their information)

New Zealand has done the Best at managing the disease.  It is a country with 4,822,233 people. They have had 2,092 cases and 25 deaths.  Their management was swift and tight.  They have a 0.0004% rate of infection in their population with a 2.3% of infected dying.  The country makes up 0.06% of the world population but only 0.003% of the world's Covid infections.  Good job, New Zealand!

Next best of the 8 is Japan.  Japan has a population of 126,476,461 people living on another smallish Island.  They represent 1.6% of the world population.    They have had 171,542 cases and 2,502 deaths.  That is a 0.14% rate of infection with 1.5% of those cases ending in death. That is only 0.25% (one quarter of one percent) of the world's cases.  Good Job, Japan!

India has had 9,818,364 cases so far with 142,417 deaths.  They have 17.7% of the world population with 1,380,004,385 people living there.  There is a 0.7% infection rate with a 1.45% death rate among those infected.  They have had 14% of the cases globally.  I am not familiar with the actions the country took, they may have limited international travel, or they may have started testing late in the game, but they seem to have had 3% fewer cases than their population expected.

Canada, land to our north, has had 442,069 cases with 13,109 death.  They have national health care so everyone can get tested and treated without delay or avoidance.  They have a 1.2% rate of infection (of the total population of the country) with a 2.97% death rate among those infected (higher than the global rate, but that may have to do with more testing and their faster response to the pandemic)  They represent 0.5% of the world population and 0.63% of the cases.  Maybe they didn't do that well after all.

Sweden, who actually started out pretty loose with their pandemic response has had 320,098 cases and 7,514 deaths.  The country makes up 0.13% of the world population with 10,099,265 people in their borders.  They have had a 3.17% rate of infection during this pandemic with 2.3% of those infected dying of the virus. Their infection were 0.46% of the world cases.  (so about 2.5x the rate of infection expected)

The UK has a population of 67,886,011 people.  They have had 1,787,783 case of Covid.  That is a 2.6% infection rate with 3.5% of those diagnosed as infected dying.  They represent 0.87% of the world population but 2.56% of the cases.  That is almost 3 times the expected number of the global numbers.  Populism and pulling out of the EU did not help on this.  

Now for Brazil, with 212,559,417 people it is 2.8% of the world population,  They have had 9.7% of the corona cases.  There has been a 3.19% rate of infection in the population with a 2.7% death rate among the infected.  That is over 3 times the expected rate of infection.  Having seen the poverty and infrastructure in the photos  from their cities, I'm not actually surprised.

 

I am surprised that the USA, has had 15,715,231 cases with 295,450 deaths while it calls itself the wealthiest nation in the world.  We make up 4.2% of the world population (331,002,651) but 22.5% of the world's cases.  We have a 4.7% rate of infection with a 1.9% death rate among those cases.  That is over 5 times the number of expected cases for our country.

While I am not betting the global rates are 100% (or even 75%) accurate, I am betting that our leadership, or lack thereof created our terrible response in comparison to other educated and wealthy countries---atrocious.

If the United States had responded as quickly and surely as New Zealand we would have had 13,240 cases and 158 deaths.  THAT is what a response could have done.  Our leadership failed and our people need better science education and critical thinking skills.

One:  giving the wealthy a heads-up (three months head start) so they could do some insider trading and score big before letting on to the public that there was a pandemic was pretty tacky and not the act of a moral and ethical political leader.  It actually seems more like the act of one of the dictators that I left out of the list because I didn't expect honest reporting.

Two:  Call the pandemic a hoax for three month, then keeping that up until the virus was spread far an wide while refusing to admit that people were dying of an illness was an act of childish disregard for the lives of those most at risk for death.

Three: turning a virus, a microbe discovered by scientist some time ago into a political cause and a human rights violation (you can't mask us or stop us from gathering or any of the things every country that kept their infection rate down and thus death rates down, did.  

 

And last but not least: throwing out the pandemic plan that taxpayer's money was spent on in the previous administration for developing ways to prevent, ebola, SARS, and odd strains of influenza (like the old spanish flu) from traveling through our population and decimating it, was an act of childish ego(exaggeration, it isn't an actual decimation, but by the end, few of us won't have lost a loved one).

We will have a vaccine available soon, with a 90% effectiveness rate.  But soon, for many of us will be a year from now.  And 90% is not 100%.  And we don't know about long term adverse reactions--and won't for 10 years.

Right now, we have masks (they aren't anywhere near 100% effective, but if used, correctly, WITH social distancing AND avoiding large indoor gathering (air recirculation becomes a viral load concentrator) they are better than nothing.  AND, what we have.

We have always had good handwashing and now better hand sanitizers, use them.  

So, find a good home alone hobby, and NO, the USA didn't do a good job at handling the pandemic and It wasn't God's will unless God likes New Zealand better than the rest of us.  

And saving the economy by ignoring the pandemic didn't fix the economy.  So we have a lot of sick people, a lot of unemployed people with their benefits running out, a lot of hungry people, and a lot of people about to be evicted. 

The billionaire class made out like bandits though. 

"People don't change"

 I've heard that my whole life, "People don't change", "they just get older and uglier", "they just get fatter", or worst, "they just learn to hide it better".

But, I've changed.  The person I was in my teens and twenties is so different than me now that I can't believe I was ever like I was back then.  

And, no, I haven't changed completely.  The seeds of who I am now existed all the way back in first grade. 

People in their thirties start noticing the changes.  They say things like,  "I guess I'm growing up" and less wonderful things like, "I guess I'm getting old".  Old should be older, but both are right.  

By forty, many of us were trying to grasp that, well, life might very well be half over.  No one was ID'ing us anymore in liquor store or clubs.  No one was commenting on how well you we were doing for our age unless we became POTUS.  People look askance at you when you say you are thinking about going back to school.  But you still feel pretty good.  Unless you have smoked or drank alot and sunbathed alot and have really bad genes, you probably don't have too many wrinkles.  If you aren't still in shape, you feel like you could get back into shape.  

By fifty, your definitely hitting middle age.  Clothing choices have changed with comfort and appropriateness to the situation outweigh the possibility of some great complements for the daring fashion statement.  No one tells you that your jewelry choices are too big or to bold unless you start wearing hello kitty necklaces or get your nose pierced for the next staff meeting.  And nobody asks about your kids, they ask if you have grandkids, even if your kid is only 8. A fancy sports car means midlife crisis not successful and fun.  Hitting the club every night means you're an alcoholic.  You think back to your teen years, and finally admit that you were no where near as together as you thought at the time.  (if you were really self-observant, you may have noticed this by your late thirties, but when you raised your own kids seems to have an impact on this bit of self-awareness).

By sixty, you are getting a little touchy about people treating you like you are getting old, over-the-hill, a fuddy-duddy, no longer capable of running with the young shakers and movers(if richer than god, you may not get this message, but they are thinking it).  You can fight it, try really hard to keep the gray out of the hair, the wrinkles at bay, the middle age spread from ruining the clothing lines.  You can learn the new lingo, and treat the people your age worse than the 30 year olds do.  Or, you can retire ASAP and do what you want.  

But when dealing with people older than you, at any age, never forget---they have been your age.  They have lived it.  Maybe they didn't examine it, preferring denial, but somewhere in there, they know something about what it is like to be you.

And, they know about change.  Self-change.

Some change is slow and hard to see;  may take years to grasp that the  anxious and self-conscious child you were is completely gone.

Some change is fast, a moment of insight, the knowledge that much as you want something, that is not realistic,that you can never alter yourself enough to succeed or that you can not actually change another person to fit your desires.  

And change is not the enemy.

There is nothing more pathetic than a person who is exactly the same person they were at 16.  They have not grown, not up, not more mature, not more self-aware.  Thank god that doesn't happen that often.

People change daily. 

Change is a sign of adaptability---that is the thing that makes us humans so good at surviving.

LIFE!

We have people griping about politicians trying to "give our money to people that aren't doing anything to earn it".  We have people griping about democrats trying to cancel student loans and make vaccines for the novel corona virus free to everyone.  We have people griping about homeless people making their towns look too ugly for tourists and griping about people trying to make them wear masks for a stinking "cold".

We have a lot of griping.

But what do we all have in common?

What do we have in common with our fellow countrymen (and women--for years, I thought that women were included in that, sort of like the editorial "we".)  

What do we all have in common with the people in other countries?

Life!  We are all alive.  We are all just trying to live our life; to survive as best we can.

And, we also share that with all the other mammals and birds and reptiles and amphibians and invertebrates and plants and fungus and bacteria and viruses.

Humans are not the only life.

We have been acting like we are the only life for several millennia, but acting is-well, it's acting.  Charlton Heston, Groucho Marx, Alanis Morrisette, George Burns and Morgan Freeman played God.  They were acting the part of God.  It didn't make them God.

And acting doesn't make us the only life.

Humans are just as dependent upon the other life on this planet as we are upon the sun.  

I remember a student in class arguing with the teacher about photosynthesis and plants and how important they are to human survival.  His stand was that they only ate meat and wonder bread.  His family was fine, so the teacher was wrong.  

Unfortunately, we have a lot of people with this attitude, or with the worse one, that God made all that other life for us to do with as we wished.  Some focus on good stewardship of the land, but seems to mean exploiting every plant, animal and mineral that can make our life easier.  

We spew insecticides, plastic waste, petroleum fumes, and manufacturing toxins into our air, land and water.  Destroying whole species while ignoring the plight of our poorer human lifeforms.  

And we gripe.

We gripe a lot.  

We ignore signs of intelligence and emotion in other lifeforms, thus making it easier to destroy them for profit.  It's like not naming our food but on a grander scale.

It's time for us to examine ourselves, not for signs of life, but for signs of humanity, of compassion, and humility.

We well-off Americans are not alone on the planet.  Everything is not ours to use.  

We can't survive without all of us, human, animal, plant.

But we can eliminate ourselves long before the sun goes out if we don't figure out what is actually important.  

LIFE!

Trump sort of conceded.

His Tweet said "He won because the Election was Rigged. NO VOTE WATCHERS OR OBSERVERS allowed, vote tabulated by a Radical Left privately owned company, Dominion, with a bad reputation and bum equipment that couldn't even qualify for Texas (which I won by a lot!).  The Fake & Silent Media, & more!

OK, so he admitted Biden won, but only by cheating.

First.  Dominion voting systems were used in 24 states, 5 won by Biden, a sixth won by Biden was said to be Dominion by Trump, but was not. He is literally gaslighting.  

Second.  Poll watchers require education and advanced permission.  They were both allowed and present.  The "VOTE WATCHERS AND OBSERVERS"  that weren't allowed were the people that showed up en masse to crowd into polls to intimidate voters. Trump requested they do this, but it is illegal.

Third.  (From the texas elections site online.)

In Texas, you’ll vote on one of these systems.

The State of Texas has selected and certified voting systems from three different vendors: Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Hart InterCivic, and Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold, Inc.). Regardless of the system you’re using, know this: When voting in the Lone Star State, you count. Texas makes sure. Following are the voting systems certified for use in Texas. (You can click on the name of each voting system to go to the manufacturer’s product description page.)

From Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. (formerly Premier Elections and Diebold, Inc.)

• AccuVote® TS or TSX (formerly Diebold TSX), a DRE voting system
• AccuVote®-OS, an optical scan voting system

From Election Systems & Software:

• iVotronic, a DRE voting system
• ES&S Model 100, an optical scan voting system
• ES&S AutoMARK, a machine that also assists disabled voters to mark a paper ballot

From Hart InterCivic:

• eSlate, a DRE voting system
• eScan, an optical scan voting system

Yep, one of the voting systems used in Texas is----Dominion.

Fourth.  Trump won in Texas by 5.75%, that is 647,282.  Texas has a lot of people.  He won, but nothing like Wyoming with a 43.66% victory (thanks to 12,000 more voters--when population is small, percents look bigger)

Texas used Dominion Voting Systems.

So after Thanksgiving, We are still hearing "fraud, rigged".  We are hearing "no way Biden got 80million votes."

Why couldn't he,  Trump got more this time than any previous election, and Biden got even more.  There are over 330 million people in this country.  70+80 is only 150 million people.  There are about 60 million people under 18. (So that accounts for 210 million.  There are about 22 million noncitizens in the country, so that makes 232 million.  So Biden could have had 170million votes and not been lying, cheating, or making stuff up.

It is hard to get your way your whole life and suddenly not get it.

Most of us dealt with that by age 3.

We don't need anymore spoiled little rich boys in our white house.  

He never even tried to represent the majority of us, just his fans and his donators.

He CAN never concede, it changes nothing.  But January 21st, we will be free of him.

May we never hear his name again.  (except in history classes about our worst President ever)

A toast to sanity.  Be Well.

Let's be a democracy!

 When it comes to voting for the leader of our country, let us be a true democracy.

It's time.

The founding fathers were plutocrats and didn't want ignorant peasants participating in the process.  Only the white, male and wealthy received an education.  Only the white and male and landowners could vote-- to exclude the uneducated white males from the equation. (great book--White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America)

It's why we have a representative democracy--the senate and house of representatives, and its why we have an Electoral College.  

One time, the Electoral College completely ignored the popular vote and put John Quincy Adams in the White House instead of the popular vote winner--Andrew Jackson.

John Quincy was not popular because he was not populist.  

https://www.bing.com/search?q=john+quincy+adams&form=ANNTH1&refig=df79efca158e43fd8e5e33d2f82e331d&sp=1&qs=EP&pq=john+q&sk=PRES1&sc=8-6&cvid=df79efca158e43fd8e5e33d2f82e331d

Andrew Jackson was the President after him, and he was a popular war hero and a man of the people with little to no formal education.  He was pro-slavery and gave us the "Trail of Tears".  He also gave us the Democratic Party. (remember, Lincoln was a Republican and Jackson started the Democrats--my oh my how things have changed)

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/andrew-jackson 

But enough about that.  

The Electoral College is now what determines the President.  Currently, when I vote for a president/vice president, I'm actually voting on my states electoral college representative.  That representative is expected to vote for the candidate that won the state.  My state has 7 electoral representatives.  It doesn't matter if the the winner of the state vote won by 1 vote, all 7 votes go to the same person.  So those that voted for a candidate that lost by one vote are silenced.  There is no apportioning and not districts, one state votes one way according to the number determined by the constitution. 

We have 7 because we have 2 Senators and 5 representatives.  The state determined that it was winner take all.  Nebraska has 2 senators and 3 representatives and has an 5 different possible votes-[Nebraska awards its electoral votes differently than most other states: Two electoral votes will be awarded to the statewide winner, and then one electoral vote will be awarded to the winner in each Congressional district in Nebraska (there are three).]

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/electoral-college

Colorado is currently seeking to have a state Popular Vote and because the constitution states this is a state function, they can do that.  I'm not sure how that works with the rest using electors.

When everyone gets to choose the President directly, that is being referred to as Popular Vote.  I prefer to call it a direct democracy.  I also think it would be very popular.  

Currently, every state gets 2 votes on top of their allotment based on population.  So Alaska, Montana,Wyoming,  North and South Dakota, DC, Vermont and Delaware should only get 1 vote while California, Texas and New York would get 53, 36 and 27.  The plus 2 increases the value of a vote in small states and decreases the value of the vote in large states.  Why should the vote of a person in one of the small states count three times while a person in california counts less than once.  

Why should a state with 45% Republicans, 15% independents and 40% Democrats be counted as all Republican?

Why did the strongest showing by a third party candidate, Ross Perot with 18.9% garner not one electoral vote?  Why has no third party candidate ever received an electoral vote?

I am One Person and I have One Vote.  My vote should count the same as every other person in the country.  

Every Citizen should be automatically registered to vote at 18.  And Yes, even those that went to Prison should be able to vote--even if they are still in prison.  Our system is so flawed that we allow those that have evaded criminal charges to vote but those that are paying or paid for their crimes are banned.

There should be nothing that should stop a person from being able to vote.  We need to make it automatically hooked to their Social Security number.

And, their needs to be an Amendment to the constitution that fixes all the pre-electricity, pre-internet, pre-public education, pre-abolition problems that led to the original method of voting for our President.  

The only time we have a national vote is when we vote for the President/Vice President.  That entire process needs to be addressed.  Primaries should not be held by parties but by ranked voting with all candidates in a single vote.  Let us Pick our Top Two.  That includes not just democrats and republicans in the same primary but also green party, democratic socialists, libertarians, and independents.  Our top two political parties are very over-empowered.

TOP TWO ranked voting with every person in every state's vote counting equally.

Then, after further campaigning, those top two candidates will be in a direct election with direct vote counting so that every vote is again equal.

Everyone in Wyoming is not a Republican.  Everyone in my state is not a Republican.  Everyone in California, New York and Texas is not a democrat.  

Everyone has an equal vote. 

Which brings us to Citizens United and Campaign Money.

Every Candidate should also have an equal chance.

My vote is not for sale.  So why are SuperPacs and big money donors trying to pay for the election of candidates.

Every primary candidate should be allowed so much money and airtime.  There should be no donated funds.  There should be total transparency about the funding and a single oversight entity that ensures the bookkeeping for all the candidates.

After the single primary election, the top two are provided with three debate opportunities, and funds to visit every state once plus free equal time on media.

That is it.  This endless fundraising is ridiculous and offensive.

Now Vote!

Everything the same.

Trump was supposedly elected because so many people wanted something new.  People wanted a successful businessman, not more politics.  People wanted change.  They wanted something different than the same old same old.

But did they really?

They wanted no more immigrants from our southern border. 

They wanted no more illegal immigrants coming up here with their gangs and drugs and sex workers, taking their jobs.

And, they were sick of phone calls from people with thick accents calling them, and physicians in the country that were obviously foreign and dark with accents that couldn't be christian, treating their diseases, and stinking black people working in their jobs and living in their neighborhoods.

So, did they really want a change?

Didn't they really want a return to a time when white people, even working class, drunk every Friday, church every Sunday, married to a woman that kept the house and watched the kids while the husband did his duty and made all the decisions, and periodically knocked some sense into anyone under him that got out of line, sound more like what they wanted?

Didn't they actually want 1955 without brown people?

About 3 percent of the US population is Buddhist, Muslim, or another religion like Sikkh, Zorastrian, where the  believers are labeled as "Caucasian" by race, but are brown by all appearances.  

Hispanics, currently pulled out as a group, are also, as a group, Caucasian unless the individual chooses another label.  Most Hispanics in the United States are not of JUST Spanish ancestry.  Hispanics make up about 18% of the U.S. population.

Asian Americans are about 6% of our country.  And while the college bound complain about having to compete with them, the urban complain about the gangs.  Still, they built a great railroad track, cook good food and give great massages and pedicures. Real 1955 Americans don't want to have to deal with them living in their neighborhood or dating their kids, either.

Actual Native North Americans make up about 1% of the population.  They are generally poor, prone to substance abuse, over-represented in the prisons, and while many 1955-lovers love them as sports mascots, none want them in the family---except as the ever-present great-great grandmother that was a Cherokee princess.  Some of those even have a roll number with benefits.  But they are so frequently blonde that no one treats them differently than the rest of those that yearn for 1955.  Bye DNA they are not more native than Elizabeth Warren--except for that roll number.  The Genocide was pretty much a success.

About 15% of our population has at least a drop of blood from Africa.  And, for 400 years, a drop was more than enough to make you black.  In 1955, those of African ancestry were invisible, and that might explain the use of prison to keep them out of sight now.  Unfortunately, the police just killing them for not being docile is getting some flack this millenia.  I'm surprised that the Make America Great Again crowd hasn't started shipping them back to Africa.  Of course, as a successful businessman, Trump didn't really compete at all with the Oprah Winfrey, rags to riches story.  If this was never about brown people, she might be doing a wonderful job as president without political ties.

But the change desired by those that voted in Trump was not a change at all.  It was a return to a time that was only good for a segment of society.

So that gives us about 33% of our population that needs to be invisible for a real return to 1955.

Other groups that don't fit:  

The 5% of the population that is LGBQT. (we are now at 38%)

Atheists and Agnostics--9% (we are now at 47%)

And the biggest group---those with relatives they love that are married to a person of another race or religion or have kids that are LGBQT or just figured out that having empathy for people makes 1955 a nasty time for too many people.

If the change you want is to return to the past, get some counseling.  You are both selfish and unrealistic.  I bet you love your cellphone and having 900 channels to watch.  Broaden you mind.  Learn about another culture---not just how to eat Chinese or Mexican food.  Read a holy book from another religion.  Talk to a person with brown skin that speaks with an accent about what they miss and why they came here.

And quit hating black people--they didn't come here on purpose, and we all share a lot of common ancestors--the ones you are most proud of are the ones they hate to think about.  But we share DNA.

You don't want change, you didn't vote for change, you voted to try to keep things the same.  

Try thinking outside that little box you live in.