We are but dust and shadow. (Part Two)

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. ~Franklin Delando Roosevelt, first inaugural address, March 4th, 1933

You know what I'm most tired of, regarding Trump's America? I'm sick of the constant fear of everything. I made a comment last week on a Fox News Twitter post where I dared to state that I'm a gun owner who does not feel the need to be armed when I go out to get burgers, and I had at least a few dozen people jump down my throat for it...granted a good number of them bots and Russian trolls (Seriously, ask yourself, conservatives, who does armed anarchy in the United States really benefit?) But, around half of them were just plain old stupid American gun nuts, emphasis on the nuts.

How did we ever get so many people who are so afraid of their fellow citizens and their neighbors (I don't believe these people when they say they're afraid of crime or terrorists) that they feel the need to go about armed, in their own country, when there is no identifiable threat present 99% of the time?

Perhaps, more to the point, why in the hell do a lot of these people invest an inordinate amount of trust in and provide full-throated support to a President and political party that are derelict in their duties to defend our nation?

Unless of course, none of these people believe in that nation anymore, but I digress.

I saw the other night that Ving Rhames had been held at gunpoint in his own home. Or, more technically, answered the door to find a 9mm pistol pointed at his face because some dumb-ass racist neighbor called the police on him for going in his own house, thinking he must be "breaking in."

I'm curious, what the hell kind of a raging racist dumb-ass thinks that black people (especially well-off black people who are on TV a lot) don't have houses?

Oh, right, the Klan-curious neighbor probably just didn't think a black guy lived across the street from him? No, seriously, what kind of raging moron doesn't at least make some effort to learn a little about, or occasionally speak to their neighbors...if only so they're not stressing about the normal comings and goings of the neighborhood?

As I've learned from having a co-worker and friend who is epileptic (Oh, and he was also Black) or an old white neighbor lady with serious heart problems, sometimes an ambulance, paramedics and occasionally even firefighters or police showing up to assist or take down medical information can be routine at your workplace or apartment complex. Is that something to be afraid of? No, but it's a good thing that previous life experience taught me to keep a cool head in a crisis.

It's also something that's served me well in dealing with the moral and political crisis that America has gotten itself into.

But if there's one thing I can't get over it's how fearful and stupid other Americans are, especially those who are...by dint of knowledge or training...supposed to know better. It seems to be a thing that people have gotten into worrying excessively about other people's kids whenever they appear to be unsupervised.

Whatever happened to "Mind your own business?" That was something that was a part of conservatism as I was taught it. I might make a moral judgment call here and there, but since I've never seen it as my job to police the universe I'm not going to call the cops about it and usually something has to be pretty bad, or a repetitive problem, before I'll even say something.

Of course, as the linked article surmises, this is likely just an extension of America's ongoing war against kids, women in general and mothers in particular, especially mothers of color and poor mothers.

And of course, none of these fearful busybodies gives a good goddamn about the possible safety of brown immigrant kids, or their parents, for that matter. It's tempting to ask "When did white conservatives become this racist, selfish and stupid?" But trust me, these fucking people have always been this fucking stupid. They're just going hog-wild because they think that our government and society will let them get away with it. This kind of vicious stupidity has always been there, under the radar and most often when I was coming up (just like all-too-often still) all this kind of performative moronism does is cost these people their jobs, get them beat up or land them in jail.

I've been saying since all this crap started that it was going to be hell for the Trump Supporters when this bullshit was over, except this bullshit isn't even close to over and they already spend an inordinate amount of time squealing like stuck pigs. Conservative white people voted for Trump to advance and/or preserve whiteness, but in the end, all Trump has really done is accelerate the retreat.

You know what might help? Do you know what might turn the current Republican political control and brooding sense of looming disaster into actual victory, rather than temporary gains that will be undone whenever somebody else grabs power by its nether regions?

Stop. Being. Afraid. Accept change, embrace diversity, work and network with like-minded people of color and people of other religions, and don't abuse and hate people simply for being brown-skinned. (Anybody that tells you that current US immigration policy is anything else is either a fool or a liar.) Learn to roll with things, accept that you're going to feel old or outnumbered every now and then. It's not an attack on you personally, it's just people being themselves and they're going to do that no matter what you do.

Stop watching Fox News and any other media outlet that tells you to be afraid all the time. Fearful people lose conflicts and wars. Collaborators get swept from power and hanged, and no amount of temporary political power is worth selling out your country to another. It's just that simple.

As a child of the later Cold War, I'm here to tell you it's downright stupid to hate and fear other Americans more than the Russians. Just because somebody is white or otherwise looks or acts pleasing to the eye doesn't mean they're your friend. In point of fact, as the case of Maria Butina demonstrates such is often the perfect gambit for an enemy looking to fuck you over.

Perhaps more to the point...and I'm looking at you, fellow white guys...if you want to preserve your own freedom, now is the time to stop being afraid. America is changing and becoming more and more diverse by the day. Nothing is going to change that. No amount of guns or harsh political edicts will make that go away. All that force or racist laws or anything of the sort will do is actually make people hate you. I don't give a damn if that feels uncomfortable to you. It's never bothered me, but then unlike you I was taught right and I'm not stupid. I've never called the cops on somebody that was just doing something normal like going in their own house or barbecuing.

All that all this fear and crazy right-wing performance-art bullshit is going to do is make the fall of white privilege that much harder when it comes. If you wanted to avoid that, you should've picked a smarter old white man. Sorry, but it has to be said.

The key to survival, and to success in a changing world, is to stop being afraid all the time. Try talking to people instead of regarding them as a threat. Instead of carrying a gun, carry yourself in a way that doesn't make you look like a fearful bitch. It's just that simple. I've never needed to carry a gun just to go to the damn grocery store.

As it just so happens, the last time somebody got in my face it WAS a black dude and I got right back in his face and yelled right back at him. It was over a work dispute, he'd messed up my area and I told him to clean it up. It got resolved just fine, if not entirely to my liking because our supervisor said I had to help him clean it up. We're Facebook friends now and we get along just fine. I'm old-school enough to believe the argument was probably necessary. No guns were needed to bring about this detente, we are men, and we acted as men and made our peace with each other when the matter was done.

You know what part of being a man is, according to what I was taught? Being brave and facing the world with courage. Respect is not an entitlement, it is earned. Respect is earned by every action, every day, by sustained and superior performance, and by considering the needs of all people equally and thinking of others before you think of yourself. There's no shortcuts, that's just how it is.

Fear is something to be conquered, not something to be indulged.

Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how but, what we can decide is how we meet that end, in order that we are remembered, as men. ~Proximo, from the film Gladiator.

Part One

Pulvis et Umbra Sumus (We are but dust and shadow, part one.)

Proximo: He [Commodus] knows too well how to manipulate the mob.

Maximus: Marcus Aurelius had a dream that was Rome, Proximo, this is not it. This is not it!

Proximo: Marcus Aurelius is dead, Maximus. We mortals are but shadows and dust. Shadows and dust, Maximus!
~From the film Gladiator.

So, I keep hearing about this "Shadow ban" crap. Basically, what the right-wingers are saying now is that through some combination of algorithms and something something gazpacho, Twitter (a site which is often favorable to right-wing morons) is somehow effectively "banning" conservative speech.

First of all, Twitter is a private company, they can run their platform however they like. Second, nobody is banning conservatives from speaking or censoring them. In fact, Facebook and Twitter alike seem to do everything they can get away with (and a good deal that they can't) to favor conservatives. What these fucking people are really saying is...they and their ideas have become unpopular but it's not because they have shitty ideas...it's somebody else's fault. You know, the Deep State, George Soros, the Bogeyman, or what the fuck ever. I guess when you're a conservative these days anything is possible, because nothing is true, and nothing is ever your fault.

So of course, it's not that conservatives have shitty ideas and seem to be increasingly incapable of shutting up when "Loose lips sink ships" might be a good policy to start following. No, these people are so stuck on their mythology of right-wing victim-hood that they're basically blaming everybody else for their problems. Not only that, but now since they can't get popular on their own, they want to socialize popularity, along with sex and any loss of corporate profits. Screw personal responsibility, or doing a better job. They want to do what they want to do...and they want YOU to pay for it.

I thought these people said socialism was bad?

These people are literally ripping defeat from the jaws of ultimate victory even as I type this. Today's American conservatives make the defeatist French Army leadership in June of 1940 look gung ho and ready to fight by comparison even as the truth has already gone around their Maginot Line of bullshit. I mean, fucking seriously. It's not just that their poll numbers are sliding off a cliff, and Trump's approval rating almost always hovers somewhere in the mid-30% range. It's that according to what I saw on a Fox News twitter thread yesterday (Where I committed the cardinal sin of being a gun owner who does not feel the need to carry a weapon everywhere) these fucking people have reached the point where they think they need a rifle and sidearm to take out the trash...but my GOD do they feel threatened by you if you don't!

How does the logic of any of that work? I've had guns since I was a kid and I've never thought I needed to take one of my weapons with me just to go to the store or run out to get burgers.

For me, though, it's not just the rampant illogic of it all that pisses me off. I can't help but think "Who in the hell finds any of this inspiring?"

I don't know who came up with their whole idea of "Owning the libs" but it sure seems like they're managing to do literally everything but that in spite of enthusiastic assistance from some of the liberals. In fact, the longer this Trump bullshit goes on, the less authoritative these fucking people can even sound.

American conservatism is dead, and Republicans have effectively killed it.

But no, it must be Twitter's fault. Right?

I mean, come on, it's not like Laura Loomer isn't a Muslim-hating, racist, self-important bitch or anything, nor that she lies a lot even for somebody who used to work for "Project Veritas" (Spoiler: She is and she does, I've commented on a few of her posts, usually trying to correct her on whatever bullshit she was spewing. Pissing into the wind, I know.) It's Twitter's fault, there's just no way a Republican could have bad character.

I find it impressive that I was able to even type that crap with a straight face.

Fucking seriously, what in the hell is even wrong with these people?

Look, I understand that these people think they are entitled to power and they want some kind of thousand-year kleptocracy or something but come on.

All things change, all things die, life goes on, social change is inevitable so long as humans keep being humans, things evolve. History is going to keep sliding right on by and making itself no matter what you do. We are but dust and shadow, as the philosopher Horace said, quoting Plato.

Our culture has already changed significantly even from what it was a decade ago, and that's OK.

It's too late to change it back. The way forward, were conservatives willing to try to find it, would be to abandon homophobia, racism and Trumpism (and Trump) and accept diversity. There's lots of people, not least Africans and many Latinos, who would be perfectly fine with being Republicans if Republicans would treat them decently.

Hell, I used to be a Republican.

Meanwhile, don't let the bullshit distract you from stuff like this, or from the Russia scandal or from the fact that Republicans seem to want to do nothing more than crap all over our environment and national park system or steal a bunch of money before they're either voted out or beat up, tarred and feathered or arrested, charged, impeached, tried and eventually shot by firing squads because that's the kind of thing that happens to quislings, traitors and those who are the collaborators for illegitimate authoritarian regimes. This is what happens, this is what they're afraid of. They are afraid of justice. But at the same time they have created a situation where the State must act against them to ensure its own survival.

We are but dust and shadow.

But then there's the flip side...what we do in life echoes in eternity.

Despite their professed belief in Platonic philosophy, these two ideas absolutely terrify Republicans. They fear death, but they seem to fear being discredited and being out of power even more.

And that's why we have to vote the bastards out, come November. We may be dust and shadow, but put enough of it in the air and dust can wear down mountains.

I'll be there, will you?

Part Two

Judgement Day. (Part Two)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ~Hebrews 11:1

I saw this picture over the weekend, and I've been enraged about it ever since. Apparently at least some of the kind of idiots that would normally fly Confederate flags have now traded up to Russian flags.

Look, this may be the only time I ever speak in favor of it for any damn reason, but at least the Confederate flag was created, flown by and represents American traitors and American treason. Whether one loves the memory of Robert E. Lee or hates it, he fought for America before he fought against it, he was descended from one of its revolutionary heroes, and he faced what he thought was a sincere moral question in choosing between loyalty to his government and loyalty to his home state. I happen to believe he made the wrong choice, is all. Now, You show me where any Russian has the kind of care for America that Robert E. Lee expressed by his actions and blood and guts, serving in the Mexican War and leading troops at Harper's Ferry against John Brown's insurgents before he ultimately betrayed it. Go ahead, I'll wait. Now look here. I hate the Confederate Flag and every damn thing it stands for or ever did and I will STILL take that shit over somebody flying a Russian flag off their pickup truck, all day. No, seriously, fuck that shit. I'm not joking. If somebody would have tried that shit 30 or 40 years ago when I was coming up...No, you go ahead and stop and think what would've happened to some Bubba that decided to fly the Soviet Hammer and Sickle off the back of their pickup truck, especially in a place like Virginia, that was far more conservative-happy then than it is now. Go ahead. Think about it. I'll wait.

Most likely, a person flying the Red Banner would've ended up dead. You know it as well as I do. So, what's the damn difference with the modern Russian tricolor?

I have a theory.

In the Twitter thread that accompanied the above photo, I learned that "Nationalists" have started flying Russian flags, because something something Gazpacho Vladimir Putin Masculinity Argle Bargle or something. Now, wait a god-damned minute here. Back the truck up and run the motherfucker over, again. Shouldn't somebody who claims to be an American nationalist be flying the Stars & Stripes?

My theory is that "Conservatives" have lost faith in America.

My theory further states that since declaring White Supremacy as their country is failing and not even recognized as an option by the other two thirds of us, since Racism is the hill they want to die on and that last so-called "value" that they will not set on fire...and that's killing their credibility and even their own perception of themselves, in real time, these fucking people have realized they're going to lose. They've realized that Trump sold them a bill of goods and isn't the man he led them to believe he was...and now, in all too many cases he's costing all the wrong people money.

But of course, like any computer with a few bad lines of code or a calculator with a short in the wiring...you can program in any variables you like but they'll still spit out -1 every single fucking time. #MAGA and "owning the libs" have become the new "Chicken in every pot" and "Taxation is Theft!!!" all at the same time even as Trump talks like Huey Long even as he elbows Ayn Rand out of the way to become the new Republican Jesus, complete with Paul Ryan's Atheistic Objectivist policies in Congress. I'm just sayin' the tension between these two things is going to snap, soon. One of these things is not like the other. You cannot have your cake, eat it, and sell it at a profit all at the same time. -1, Divide by zero. This call cannot be completed as dialed. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

You know who else has figured this out? Wealthy Hedge-Fund motherfuckers, that's who. They know it's all going to come crashing down. But instead of, you know, reversing course, using the power of the purse to reign this crap in or respecting science, taking care of people and the Earth...they'd rather upload their consciousness into a computer, try to coerce the loyalty of their "Security Forces" with combination locks on the food or shock collars and, I don't know, sit there stewing in electronic format until civilization collapses, their money becomes worthless, the power goes out and somebody eats the only guy who knows how to connect the backup solar panels or make that balky backup generator work. Long story short...you're going to die anyway. Why not just live life and enjoy it?

I'd rather die on my feet than sit there stewing in my own electrons waiting for the power to go out.

I mean, seriously, if I can't eat a good meal, get some booty, laugh with friends, play with some ferrets, spend a day at the range blowing holes in targets with assorted guns, swear in frustration at some video game I'm playing or sweat through a long night's work and have the satisfaction of living life...what's even the point of existing?

Without faith, without hope, without the desire to see what's over the next hill or what the next year will bring or simply to see how a large group of ferrets might entertain themselves with something as simple as a cardboard box...without feeding your mind and stretching the muscles of your imagination...what is even the point of being alive?

If all you want to do is exist to sit there as some collection of and accrue more and more money until the lights of civilization go out...or until the programming degrades...what's the difference between you and this laptop I'm sitting here typing on?

 What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? Just sayin.'

These fucking people have reached the point where they really, really seem to want to declare Donald Trump as their God.

But at the same time, anybody who can connect the dots already knows this thing isn't going to work out at all. So, all the sudden, most people besides dumb, gullible Evangelicals are hedging their bets, heading for the exits, trying to bullshit their way through and hoping that if they don't talk about that nagging sense of doom, it'll just go away on its own.

Republican Judgment Day isn't coming. It's here. It's every day between now and the election that we see that these people never had any intention of doing the right thing, and all too often they'd rather chase after stupid shit than even try. These fucking people know there's going to be hell to pay. They're screaming bloody murder about it already.

But to make that happen, you have to show up. You have to care. You have to know the truth, or at least that there is a truth and translate that knowing into action. You have to believe in America more than they believe in money and The Rapture escapism and show up and vote these motherfuckers out.

If you can't have more faith than these faithless sons of bitches you're in the wrong damn business.

We the People, We the Voters *Are* Judgment Day. Use that power. Vote.

That's the whole damn point of America, and an idea that a hell of a lot of people of all races religions and genders and different kinds of sexuality believed in enough to step up and fight and die for it down through the almost two-and-a-half centuries of our national life.

Why not you?

Part One

Judgment Day, (Part One)

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! ~Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1987, speech at the Bradenburg Gate in Berlin.

I've been going to write something for two days, and it just wasn't getting together in my head. Then I saw this, and a whole different project materialized in my head in the space of a few seconds.

Over the last few years I've watched with horror as Trumpism sprang into existence and gained energy and power. Why? Because I remember my own conservative, Christian upbringing and I knew that what Trump said was not what I was taught. Deep down, I knew this day would come that the Trump-worshipers would start tearing down even what they claimed to have held sacred. The second I heard them start tearing down the Bush family I knew that they would eventually have to tear down Reagan as well. But tearing someone else down cannot build a person up.

I'm serious. I'm a Reagan/Bush-era conservative, my views haven't really changed all that much except concerning a number of social issues like health care and LGBT rights. I've always supported diversity, education, freedom and human rights. I am against Trump for the same reason that I was against Soviet Communism.

I was against Trump saying "Build a wall" for the same reason I cheered Reagan demanding that a wall be torn down.

That is what having a line you will not cross and a working moral compass gets you these days, Trump's "Conservatives" whose understanding of conservatism could be described in three words "What he said" branding you as a socialist.

You know what? Put that shit on a shirt and I'll wear it.

So who's next?

Well, this article should provide a clue. If they've started tearing down Reagan...and none other than a boot-licker like Robert Jeffress has in fact been the one to do it...I submit that Jesus Christ is probably next. I mean, seriously, have any of these people read the Gospels lately? Not only do they go against what Trump himself has said forever, but the Ayn Rand-inspired modern Republican agenda openly and performatively goes against anything that Jesus Christ ever said about how people should treat each other and how societies should be run. Not just that, but they support a man who I watched live on TV say that he didn't need God's forgiveness.

To quote the article itself:

"In poll after poll, they have said that Trump has kept his promises to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, fight for religious liberty, adopt pro-life policies and deliver on other issues that are high priorities for them.

"At the same time, many have acknowledged the awkwardness of being both self-proclaimed followers of Jesus and the No. 1 champions of a president whose character has been defined not just by alleged infidelity but accusations of sexual harassment, advancing conspiracy theories popular with white supremacists, using language that swaths of Americans find racist, routinely spreading falsehoods and an array of casual cruelties and immoderate behaviors that amount to a roll call of the seven deadly sins.

You see it too, don't you? These people care more about conservative judges and their social place than they care about loving thy neighbor or the Sermon on the Mount. They care more about the Tweets of Trump than the teachings of Christ. They care more that they're ahead of the brown people in the line at the emergency room than they do about whether those people live or die.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Underworld, the shade of Ayn Rand cackles gleefully.

You think I'm kidding?

Here's this motherfucker, who is an economics department chair at some university or other, advocating farming out the societal concept of *Libraries* to Amazon.com in order to save the taxpayers money. No, seriously, this happened. This guy wrote an article about it and then was promptly tarred and feathered in his own Twitter feed for doing so. I don't know what the fuck it is with economists today that they can't read a balance sheet, but they sure as hell can support Randian ideology. Seriously, out of what little I pay in local taxes maybe 25 cents goes to maintaining the local library every now and again. I was a constant user of the local library as a kid. As a little kid in Highland, Michigan, I think by the time we moved to Tustin, California I think I'd checked out every book on the Revolutionary War and the Civil War that was in the kid's section at least one time. As I got older, literally every Saturday that my family wasn't doing something else, after Saturday morning cartoons got over with I'd grab my backpack and ride my bike to the local library and I'd usually come home with at least a couple books.

When we moved to Mission Viejo, I had to switch libraries but still was part of the same county-based system. I knew what inter-library loan was when I was in the sixth grade. It was fucking great because I was in the middle of reading a couple of novel series when we moved and one of them one library had and the other didn't.

Knowledge is power. Hell, reading fluff gamer fiction or science fiction still fires the imagination and expands your mind. Of course Libertarian motherfuckers who believe life is a zero-sum game don't want you to have any. Yes, it's a threat to them that a person who is poor, or a person who doesn't toe the line on their hard-right Libertarian ideology can look at a book about the Islamic Golden Age, or knows what the Constitution says or is able to learn a foreign language or participate in a multilingual Children's Story Hour. You damn well bet it's a threat.

As somebody who went to plenty of those story hours and who had teachers that read books to us aloud after lunch in both of the Christian schools I attended while using those Orange County district libraries, I'm here to tell you what the alternative, and These Fucking People's end goal is.

It's this fucking guy right here. It's this fucking guy right here having influence over how your government is run. It's this guy who shouts the N-word aggressively at the first prompting and who believes that terrorists believe that him touching them with his ass will make them gay. If you think this fucking guy won't sell out your access to information or your rights as a human being out to the highest bidder for a wad of cash or a bit of shitty flattery from some lobbyist you have another thing coming.

The sheer amount of obvious woo woo bullshit and potential psychological problems demonstrated by this motherfucker is literally mind-boggling. If I acted like that I'm pretty sure family and friends would break a land speed record getting me into the nearest mental hospital. God Damn, I am not joking, read the linked article. It's absolutely not the least bit mind-boggling how this guy fell for Sacha Baron Cohen's "Anti-Terrorist" schtick. And remember, Baron Cohen is the guy who gave us "Borat" which is seriously one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen in my life.

As I understand it, this dude lost his bid for re-election in the primary. Allah Akbar, Thank You Jesus and if there's any other deities involved, please consider my thanks tendered as well. As for the voters who kicked him to the curb? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU ELECTED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!?!?!?

Do better, America. Show up and vote these sons of bitches out.

While we can.

As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner, 'This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.' Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom. `Ronald Reagan

Speaking as a former Republican, I will forever consider it the greatest irony of my life that in my lifetime Republicans have gone from demanding that walls in Germany be torn down to demanding that walls be put up in America. As a longtime Christian and conservative, I will forever consider it heretical that Christians and conservatives have in my lifetime gone from believing in Christ and teaching the Truth (as I understood it to be for much of my time) to elevating a known flimflam artist and liar in place of not only their philosophical forefathers but arguably to replace Christ himself.

God Damn these motherfuckers, and I say that with the full weight of someone who understands the theological implications of those words.

These fucking people can't stand the truth, because they know they cannot withstand it.

Know that these cowardly sons of bitches fear something as simple as the fact that the truth can be read by almost all Americans.

But you have to have the desire to read it. You have to have the willpower to translate knowing into action.

It's that simple. No one else is going to save us from this shit. We have to do it ourselves, and we absolutely have the means to do so without doing more than taking maybe an hour out of our day on the first Tuesday in November. Judgment day is coming, Republicans.

Use it.

Part Two.

Domino Theory

I will never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are. ~George H.W. Bush, in reference to the shoot-down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the cruiser USS Vincennes.

Remember the Domino Theory? The idea that if one country fell to Communism, so would another, and another after that? This was the justification behind the Vietnam War, and a whole host of other shitty things the United States government, military and national security agencies did during the Cold War. To be fair...it was largely founded on U.S. observations of the takeover of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union, and of course this idea would be reinforced by what happened in Southeast Asia after US forces withdrew, when all the petty regimes we'd supported against Communism came crashing down within a month or so of each other in 1975.

I grew up hearing about this stuff. I was taught to fear and hate Communism, the Russians, and the Soviet Union, in roughly that order. As anybody who's read me knows, I went to Christian schools and I used to be a Republican.

Today, the world watched in horror and rage as the President of the United States stood beside the President of Russia, a Chekist, a man trained in espionage by the Soviet KGB, and took his side against the United States, against two-thirds of the American people, against our allies and against Democracy. When asked to lay the blame for interference in US elections on Russia, Trump chose instead to "hold both sides responsible." He chose to blame America for being attacked by the Russians.

Fuck you, Donald Trump, fuck you.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm fucking pissed.

Today, I watched prominent Evangelicals take the side of Putin and Trump, regardless of the fact that Vladimir Putin and his lackeys have persecuted Evangelical Christians in Russia and Ukraine. 

Who knew that if they'd wanted to win the Cold War, and pacify the American hard-right and American Fundamentalist Christianity, all the damned Russians would have to do was fake a change in political orientation...as the remnants of Soviet Communism, now stripped of social programs and anything that helps the little guy, but still operating from the same playbook and doing the same shit...have now effectively done?

It's well known what the Communists would do when they took over a country, which of course was round up all the existing political leadership (sometimes including indigenous Communists) intellectuals, known conservatives, military officers not on their payroll, political dissidents, religious leaders (and believers as well, in many cases) and most of them would simply be shot. 

Call me crazy, but I'm not sure how Republicans think their own lust for power will be served by being a puppet regime when the first thing the people so many of them have tacitly allied themselves with historically do is knock off the leadership of even the allied or puppet regime. It's kind of hard to be in power forever when you're dead.

For awhile now, but especially today, other dominoes have begun to fall, many of them in some very unexpected ways. Among other things, even conservatives and Republicans are not immune to the very same disgust that fuels my rage this afternoon.

I've already written about the increasingly leftward tilt of the Democratic electorate and the desire on the part of the Democratic base that their elected officials get off their butts and fight...and about the conservative panic over that fact. I have likewise written about how I think most of the fear of immigrants and people of color stems from the fact that those people often don't vote Republican. Never mind that Republicans haven't given any of those people a reason to vote Republican in at least a decade.

This afternoon, I've watched as other dominoes begin to fall:

The first one I saw was Tea Party shit-bird Joe Walsh, who's always been on the anti-Trump side of the Trump-Russia equation, but who has often supported Trump in other aspects. Like I said in replying to his posts today, welcome to the Dark Side, Joe. We have the cooler Force powers anyway.

I'm not a fan of this guy, really, but he's been consistently anti-Russia and I can live with that.

Seriously, though. This response to that particular Tweet surprised the shit out of me. Note that Montel isn't just a talk show guy, he also served in the United States Navy as an intelligence officer and has for that reason also taken a political stand against Donald Trump because of the Trump-Russia scandal.

Meanwhile, those who have consistently been against Trump on the Republican side are still at it, and some of them are...as I often do...reminding the Republicans that they've torched their own values in the service of Donald Trump, for at best only immediate political gain, I think.

Maybe it's just me, but I think something is about to break, here. Trump has been pushing the envelope while governing only on behalf of his base...which is maybe, at most 20% maybe even 25% of the population...while doing his damnedest to drive out anybody with a soul or with any preexisting values that aren't just "What Trump said."

Meanwhile the news broke this afternoon that Maria Butina, a Russian agent with extensive ties to the GOP, the NRA and at least one Russian oligarch, has been arrested. That seems to be a pretty obvious shot across Trump's bow by the very National Security agencies he stood up there and maligned in Helsinki while standing next to Vladimir Motherfucking Putin.

The intelligence community knows what's up, and they've got a Royal Flush while Trump has a pair of twos. My guess is they're probably far ahead of where anybody thinks they are in investigating all this crap, but if I had to guess, their strategy is "make the evidence insurmountable."

But we can't count on that, can we?

No. We can't. Chances are, that line of reasoning will at best leave us with another Republican in power, one with an equally shitty set of priorities, and a valid case to go to war against Russia...which is something non-Trumpist Republicans have wanted basically forever...and something that I think even the Trumpist ones would do if it'd take the pressure off or save their hides.

No, that's not it. 

In a democracy, particularly in the American ethics of democracy and life; the last line of defense is always you and me, the average person, the citizen-soldier, On 9/11 the first reliable defense of our country was not mounted by the government, or the intelligence community or the military...but by ordinary unarmed citizens whose plane had been hijacked. Knowing they would die too, they stormed the cockpit and caused the hijackers to crash in a Pennsylvania field. Their battle cry "Let's Roll!" was adopted by the whole damn country.

Don't think it might not come to that again, because it will, maybe this time, but if not this time then the next, or the next after that. Civilization comes at a cost, every single time. There have to be those who will take a stand against the fall of night.

Freedom isn't free, Democracy isn't a given, privilege can be taken away. America is not some magical place that is unlike the rest of the world and somehow immune to the problems and pressures that lead to major crack-ups or civil wars or social change in other countries. American exceptionalism is crap. It can happen here. The only reason it hasn't, fundamentally is the incompetence and lack of motivation on the part of America's first wannabe fascist autocrat.

We have a powerful and unique thing here, however, in that we were the first country to really decide that even a part of the public should get some say in how their government was run. For much of our history the whole world watched the American experiment. When we fought our civil war, it's not an exaggeration to say that other countries followed events assiduously and did plenty of armchair strategic planning on our behalf. There's a scene in the old musical "The King and I" where the King of Siam (Played by Yul Brenner) and his advisers are meeting with American diplomats, and tell them that what they really need to crush the Confederate Armies is squadrons of heavy cavalry equipped with war elephants. The story is apocrypal, of course, but the interest of people around the world in our events at the time is well known.

As is the fact that much of the rest of the world has adopted, or tried to adopt, democratic systems similar to our own. How our current crop of "Conservatives" decided not to regard this as a measure of our success and instead decided it was something to fear...I will never understand it. It's one thing to decide that one deserves to have power, it's completely another to cast aside the very means they...and for that matter we as a nation...have achieved it. There's not much of a pension plan in the Dictator business, which tends to end in firing squads, hangings or at best ignominious deaths in foreign countries more often than it doesn't, and far less of one in the Collaborator business...which historically ends with beatings, public humiliations, shootings and lifelong outcast status for the collaborators., 

Interest in the American Crisis of today is likewise global, my social media feeds are very often aflame with the condemnation of people from other nations, or filled with expressions of support from those people, for those of us who are opposed to Trump.

The pressure is mounting, the stakes are increasing, but the other side keeps screwing up.

Keep pushing, and the dominoes will fall one by one.

But you've got to keep pushing. You've got to show up and vote. It's just that simple, freedom isn't free. Civilization is not a given. We have to keep at it and do our part. We can't count on someone else to do the hard work of saving our civilization...WE have to be the ones to take a stand against the fall of night and say "No more."

Yet freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred. ~George H.W. Bush, speech to the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine.

Together we rise, or none of us do.

When the earliest settlers poured into a wild continent there was no one to ask them where they came from. The only question was: Were they sturdy enough to make the journey, were they strong enough to clear the land, were they enduring enough to make a home for freedom, and were they brave enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so? And so it has been through all the great and testing moments of American history. Our history this year we see in Vietnam. Men there are dying; men named Fernandez and Zajac and Zelinko and Mariano and McCormick. Neither the enemy who killed them nor the people whose independence they have fought to save ever asked them where they or their parents came from. They were all Americans. It was for free men and for America that they gave their all, they gave their lives and selves. By eliminating that same question as a test for immigration the Congress proves ourselves worthy of those men and worthy of our own traditions as a nation. ~Lyndon B. Johnson.

I saw a video yesterday on Facebook in which a Puerto Rican woman was harassed by some old white dude for wearing a Puerto Rico shirt, and posted my own response to it, which of course sparked a discussion in the comments. In the course of that discussion, and at the urging of a friend of mine...a Puerto Rican lady that I know from one of the ferret groups I'm in, I decided to expand that post, which follows:

Firstly, it has to be said that Puerto Rico is part of the United States and has been since it was conquered and taken from Spain in the Spanish-American War. Anybody who doesn't know this failed either an American History or Geography class. It's just plain basic knowledge. Secondly, Puerto Ricans have been citizens of the United States for 101 years. They were made citizens during the run-up to U.S. entry into World War I so that they could be drafted to fight in the...just recently declared...war. Yes, unlike a lot of other People of Color, Puerto Ricans were just straight up given American citizenship...but then they went out and fucking fought for it and right there earned the right for their descendants not to be bothered in the park for wearing a damn shirt, and don't you forget it.

Puerto Ricans fought for Spain when the Spanish helped us during the Revolutionary War. The first known Puerto Rican U.S. Army veteran fought in the Civil War. In every American war since World War I Puerto Ricans have served, fought and died with courage and distinction. In peace and in war Puerto Rican people have served in numbers well out of proportion to their percentage of the United States population as a whole. If you look at the list of "firsts" for Latino people in the United States Armed Forces...far more often than you won't...look behind the name and read the biography and that was a Puerto Rican person who did that. The header photo above is of United States Air Force 1st Lieutenant (later Colonel) Olga Custodio...the first Latina and first Puerto Rican to complete Undergraduate Pilot Training. She served as a T-38 Talon instructor pilot.

It's not just that, though, not just in the military that Puerto Ricans have proved themselves, they're well represented in the arts, Benecio Del Toro, Jimmy Smits and Ricky Martin all have Puerto Rican heritage. In business there's Angel Ramos, the founder of Telemundo, and Herb Scannell, former chairman of MTV and president of Nickelodeon. In politics, people like Carmen Yulin Cruz come to mind, I'll never forget the videos of her wading hip-deep in floodwaters trying to find people and help with disaster relief after the hurricane that devastated the island, people like revolutionary Oscar Lopez Rivera...who fought in Vietnam and worked as a community organizer in Chicago before becoming a Communist revolutionary fighting for an independent Puerto Rico...for which he would later serve 36 years in prison. At the same time, Puerto Ricans are also over-represented in several major city police forces, unsurprisingly in particular the NYPD.

Hell, if you want to get really technical about it, Puerto Ricans from New York City, called Nuyoricans, have left such a mark on the Big Apple and are so identified with the city that they're often considered their own ethnic group.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter. I don't care if they've been citizens for 101 years or if we're talking about new immigrants from another country who just got here and haven't had a chance to contribute yet. No person in America should have to deal with harassment just for wearing a shirt at the park. It's just that simple to me.

This is America, where every person is legally free to practice whatever culture or religion they belong to or speak whatever language they like without having anybody bother them. If you can't understand that...well I'd suggest you go to some other country sometime and see for yourself what it's like to be the only American...no matter what color you are...in the room. I've been in places where I've been the only white person in the room and it didn't bother me.

In point of fact, I'm going to have to agree with what Rick Wilson said about this issue and about the Trump Supporters who keep getting offended because somebody called them racists. Well, maybe it's just me, maybe it's just the way I was raised but if you don't want to be called a racist I think the smart thing to do is probably not to act like a fucking racist, nor say racist shit nor get offended when somebody calls you a fucking racist.

It's really that simple, instead of objecting to people objecting to your bad qualities...maybe it's actually on you to try to be a better person?

Just a thought.

I'll just leave these here, for your consideration as well. Please, keep in mind that Rick is a Republican and you know what? At one time his view was pretty close to the default Republican interpretation of the facts, and yes, there was a time when facts and reality and truth and hell, even what was on the news, would be considered relevant to Republicans...believe it or not long, long ago Republicans didn't just try to ignore any news they didn't like. There was a time...and I used to be a Republican so I'd know...that it was unimaginable that Donald Trump, then a Democrat, could ever get elected President, much less do so as a Republican.

Standards have, apparently, gone way down. I'm not sure how to fix this, but I get the vibe that we have to keep calling out, and shunning and shouting down the racists and various fascists at every single damned opportunity. We have to keep the pressure on, it's the only way to be sure. Don't demand "Civility." People can't be civil with other people who don't think they have a right to exist. Don't ignore the shit either, ignoring Nazis is how you get more fucking Nazis and that is a demonstrable historical fact.

You are what you tolerate. It really is that fucking simple.

Please, keep this in mind, and pay close attention to the post being replied to and what they're on about at the end.

Consider how they view people, and what the apparent real beef is with said people.

If you're a Republican...is this the hill you're ready to see your party die on because I'm here to tell you whether it happens in this November or 20 years from now or a century from now...is racism really where Republicans want to make their last stand? If your answer is no, well, I'd say you need to be conscious that a majority of your own people seem to think that yes, it should be.

You are what you tolerate.
You are what you accept.
A person is, rightly or wrongly, judged by who they associate with.
Respect is earned, by every action, every day,

I want you to consider, as Trump craps all over our allies and gets us into trade wars that we can't win, who helped us after the September 11th attacks? The only time Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty was invoked was when we were attacked. If you have money...what made you your money? Free trade, or tariffs? What of the diverse, pluralistic society that has nurtured every American now living and put food on their table and money in their pocket and given them things unimaginable to people even 20 years ago?

What made that possible?

Adaptability, diversity, flexibility, intelligence, innovation.

There was a time, back in the 1970's and 1980's and early 1990's when I was growing up, that diversity was considered a default setting. Even conservatives recognized the power of collaborative efforts and the validity of social contracts, and the measure of a man was not money nor was the measure of success considered the next quarterly profit statement.

By any measure, America, we're doing a crap job.

If we don't stand up...as a people...we risk losing the American experiment and becoming just another banana republic with a gilded dictator. Only this time, we'll be on the opposite end of the power equation.

Is racism worth that? Is it really worth your freedom or the sovereignty of your nation?

During the Revolutionary War it was often said that we could all hang together or we could all hang separately.

I look at it a little differently.

Together we rise, or none of us do. We all have to help each other. Nobody else is gonna do it for us or save us. WE have to be the change we want to see in the world. Think on that.

...

I'd like to dedicate this article to my friend Yary Gomez.

Thanks, you made this bit of work possible.

The Gates Of Hell

'I am the way into the city of woe. I am the way to a forsaken people. I am the way into eternal sorrow. Sacred justice moved my architect. I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love and ultimate intellect. Only those elements time cannot wear are beyond me, and beyond time I stand. Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.' ~Sign inscribed above the gates of Hell, Dante's Inferno.

So, Trump held a rally in Great Falls, Montana, the other day and the quote above is part of his speech. It is, quite honestly, the verbal equivalent of what happens when my dog eats too much ferret food.
I'm fucking serious, this kind of talk is either the end result of too much cocaine and late-stage syphilis or the son of a bitch has Dementia worse than I thought...and will likely finish out his time having been declared incompetent to stand trial for treason while also being unable to feed himself, so he'll end his days in an institution watching Fox News all day while some young Latina nurse feeds him chocolate pudding out of a plastic cup.

I mean, fucking seriously, if you have a brain in your head and any kind of guts and/or philosophical background or knowledge regarding conservatism...which I do...This is hell! I'm serious, reading let alone listening to speeches like that are actually painful. I'm serious, in my life...we've gone from George H.W. Bush's 'Thousand points of light" to this dim-bulb motherfucker? Trump giving a speech where he's not in full rally-mode is at best (with apologies to Mark Twain) Chloroform, enunciated. Trump in full rally mode is the political equivalent of my dog getting the shits, and just about as entertaining.

Then there's these motherfuckers. You mean to tell me that if you're a lawyer working for the Trump administration, some third-party dog has more rights and is more valued by the government than a bunch of kids that our government should have never taken into its custody in the first fucking place? I'm just sayin' this is the kind of stupid arrogance that makes enemies and turns otherwise decent, rational people into terrorists, and when Latin America turns into a hostile power bloc the likes of which Che Guevara or Fidel Castro could not have dreamed of, because of Trump's ham-handed stupidity we'll have not just him, but lawyers like these idiots to thank for it. The next administration better make amends for this garbage real fucking quick. If it can, because this crap is a blight on humanity and a fucking disgrace...and if you can't figure out why then so are you. If you think the rights of some rich person's ugly ass poodle are more important than the human rights of 101 children, FUCK YOU! The damned idiot lawyer? He's a fucking LAWYER, he can afford to hire somebody to fill in for him for a few hours while he DOES HIS FUCKING JOB!!!

Like my friend Aaron said, we are in hell.

Then there's this crap. Apparently, Jewish Rabbis and Orthodox (Christian) Priests are being harassed now by various and assorted morons and TSA Airport Security (but I repeat myself) who think some random old guy with a big old beard and different clothes somehow looks like Osama Bin Laden. I'm just sayin' I've known at least a couple dozen men in this life who had big beards like that Rabbi does. Hell if I had the time and a reason to grow one I might have a beard like that myself. I showed this to one of my friends at work who likewise said that after he retires in a few weeks he's going to grow his beard out like that. Dude is a very devout Pentecostal Christian. Yeah, go ahead and call that guy a terrorist, I dare you.

Of all the dudes I've known who have beards like that, only one was a Jew, two are Muslim (an African-American USAF veteran, and I knew him before he had a beard at all...and a Muslim international student) and the other is a Sikh. The rest of them? All Christians, aside from one of those guys also being Black...every last one of them is as white as that Rabbi looks and several of those guys have a lot of guns. One of the dudes I'm thinking of is a biker (and Army Aviation veteran, and my Mom's partner) and another is an old hippie of the 1960's gun-happy radical sort who's talked about being on real good terms with the Black Panthers back in the day when he lived in California. Yeah, go ahead, compare one of these guys to Osama and you'll quite likely find out exactly why the FBI says white dudes are a bigger threat than Al Qaeda. 

Who in the hell are these motherfuckers, anyway? Who in the shit has nothing better to do in their life than sit around and decide that they've got so little going for themselves that they're going to be prejudiced against people with beards now?

Let me tell you what the root of this problem is. In point of fact I'm going to use none other than Tea Party Joe Walsh and his recent experience as a specific example.

When people are OK with being lied to, that goes on long enough you get a society that's not based on truth. When the society is not based on truth, the brightest lights and the biggest wallets hold sway, dictators rise and freedom dies, because without the truth, the people have no basis to stand against power and no moral authority to provide bedrock for them to stand on. Also, I'm sorry, but if you're not starting with revealed Truth and the wisdom of our ancestors, you really don't get to call yourself a conservative. One of Trump's angry shit-monkeys maybe, but you're not really a conservative...at least not by the standards that I was taught.

I was taught truth is important. I was taught that every human being...every life, human or not for that matter...has dignity and worth and rights given freely by God, echoed in human civilization today by the State in many cases.

This? This ain't it.

When somebody like Joe Walsh is a voice for reason and sanity, it should go without saying that we have a problem.

But since if you "...go without saying" long enough, nobody says it anymore...I'm a say it.

We need to do better, America, before doing things this badly kills us all.

The great divorce.

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. ~C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Do you know how Delilah Dooks, one of my rescue ferrets, spent her Independence Day? You're looking at it in the above picture. It was a hot and downright nasty humid day, and whether she spent it on my bed in the airflow of my fan or in the ferret cages which each have several fans blowing on them, it's safe to say that Delilah the Ferret spent her day sleeping in weird positions well within a cool breeze, feet occasionally twitching as she chased mice in her dreams.

Why do I mention this?

Well...

Because seven Republican Senators all spent the Fourth of July in Moscow schmoozing with the Russians in preparation for Trump's "Summit" with Putin or something something gazpacho.

Look, I'm a former Republican, I'm a child of the late Cold War era. I've forgotten more about Christian doctrines and Conservative philosophy than most Trump Supporters ever knew in the first place or ever will. I watched Ronald Reagan speak the words "Mr. Gorbachev, OPEN THIS GATE! Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!" on live TV and cheered. I followed the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in print, on radio and TV for a high school Senior government-class extra credit project. I was not just a conservative but a pretty dedicated Republican, if a sometime swing voter who crossed the aisle to vote for Democrats now and again...including Bill Clinton in my first election and Bart Stupak (my House Rep. for a number of years) then and up until I moved out of his district. I voted for Dole in 1996 in part for his advocacy for the disabled and because he told the racists to get out at the Republican National Convention. I embraced the 'Compassionate Conservatism' of George W. Bush, even as I had reservations about two wars that turned out to be fully worthy of the issues I had with them. I supported the Republican Party right up until I couldn't and the conspiracy theories and the racism and John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-Presidential nominee forced me the fuck out.

And I'm fucking serious, if seven Republican Senators had gone to the Soviet Union to meet in closed session with Mikhail Gorbachev 30 years ago, those seven Republican Senators would have been best off staying in Moscow and never coming back.

Have you ever read the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis?

That book describes a place similar to the Underworld, where the souls of the damned live, and every so often a bus pulls up to the bus stop. There's usually people waiting, but many of them make excuses and leave before it arrives. Once those who remain have boarded the bus, it flies straight up and arrives at the edges of heaven, where the souls aboard manifest as weak shadows. They are given the choice to remain or return to their dismal underworld, and most will make such a choice.

Few of the shadows remain in heaven to gradually begin the process of entering into eternal life.

The premise of the story is that hell is something we choose. The phrase "Tis better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven" comes from that book.

We live in a time of momentous cultural, environmental and social changes, which continue unabated despite the efforts of conservatives to try to stop them. As I said in my previous article, Republicans are starting to remind me of a French Army garrison on the Maginot Line during WWII. They know the end is coming and at varying speeds are succumbing to defeatism. They know the end, the reckoning, that one thing they've been trying to put off forever...is at hand and likely, the election of Donald Trump at best bought them a few more months...and at worst may be hastening their end.

Without Trump it's "Please clap." With Trump, literally everybody who isn't a white conservative Republican dude is ending up hating them sooner or later, that's hardly a winning combo.

But they've always been able to bullshit their way out of similar messes before. It's not going to be like that this time. A personal encounter here, a poll number there, there are too many little things stacking up that hint to me that the marriage between Americanism and Republicanism is basically over. For the moment, the Republicans have the couch (with its cushions all stuffed with money) but that's not going to last. They're not going to be able to thread the needle this time. I think, for one thing, that the Southern Strategy and Fox News have done their work too well, ably assisted by the Internet and by the various sorting categories of Facebook and Twitter. A lot of people simply don't see the propaganda that keeps Republicans and Trump Supporters going.

The divorce is underway, or at least online profiles stating "Separated" as a relationship status have been posted for each.

Who gets Baby Trump in the divorce, is likely a foregone conclusion at this point.

Honestly, when I do see it, it doesn't inspire me. None of this crap makes me want to be a Republican again. The Republican Party has become the party of small-minded fearfulness and I can't get behind that. It's just not in my nature. I saw on Fox News last night (it was on in the break room at work, briefly) that the Fox News hostesses were all freaking out about gender-neutral terminology.

This is literally something half the world already does, and that a lot of American institutions don't do for actual reasons besides soothing the male ego...but as culture changes, some of those reasons are slipping away as well.

Who the hell finds all this fear and despair and panic-mode bullshit all the time to be inspiring? Is confirming one's biases really that damned important? I've said before that I think some of these people would rather hate than eat. Is this actually true?

Well, I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it.

If Republicans...particularly rural conservative white people...really have so much going for them thanks to Trump, why do they kill themselves in record numbers with drugs and guns? If hate makes them feel so powerful, why are so many acting like they're so convinced that it's over and all they want to do is make sure they get to scalp some liberals before they die?

Case in point, right here.

The Republican Party has made itself all about Trump. Literally, it's all about one guy that two thirds of Americans can't stand.

SO much winning. I'm sick of it already.

At some point, whether in November or in 2020, Republicans know they're going to get their ass handed to them. Even their efforts to pack the courts, to me smacks of nothing more than a rearguard action against cultural and social change...easily undone simply by the other side taking control of the other two branches of government. Even one would greatly reduce the damage.

But there's just one small thing. It's the difference between citizen and subject, it's the difference between free and slave. You have to show up.

YOU have to vote. It matters.

You have to be the one to sign off on the divorce paperwork. If you want a better country you have to be a better citizen. Things might be a bit rough for awhile, but if we work at it, we will prevail.

Nobody else can do that for you. If it didn't matter, the Republicans wouldn't be trying so hard to stop people from voting. If you want a better country you have to be a better citizen. You have to start now, and you have to show up. Do it today, every day, there is no other day.

There is no other day. All days are present now. This moment contains all moments. ~C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

This article is dedicated to the lady who wrote this last Tweet. Stay strong.

It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return. ~Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr., Supreme Court Justice.