What Hurts Most

Though I am disappointed with the outcome of the election, what is bothering me most is that such a large swath of people voted for a man who is a convicted felon, guilty of sexually abusing a woman, and said to have stoked the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

That he is respected despite all of this is beyond me.

He calls himself a patriot, again despite his support of the desecration of the Capitol and his intent to overthrow the results of the election. Patriots don’t do that, do they? He says he is for law and order, though he apparently approved of his supporters striking law enforcement officers who were trying to maintain law and order on that fateful day.

He called COVID-19 a hoax, causing too many people to refuse treatment because they believed him. He stole classified documents and apparently hid them in plain sight all over his house. He had private meetings with Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office, not allowing anyone, including the press, to be present. Do patriots do that?

Colin Kaepernick was lambasted for kneeling in protest against police brutality against Black people and was not only blasted for being unpatriotic but was effectively thrown out of the National Football League.

But a convicted felon who stoked an insurrection is worthy of serving a second term as president of the United States?

I don’t understand how people cannot care about what his administration wants to do – and has outlined what they plan on doing in Project 2025 – to change this government and this country. The very things that made America the most respected democracy are being thrown out, including some of our basic freedoms. There is awareness of how dangerous it is for women of childbearing age as the government seeks to have total control over our bodies. Although he is not the only one, last week I read where Nicholas Fuentes chanted, “Your body, my choice!” to women who were standing nearby. (https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/12/business/video/hateful-rhetoric-women-your-body-my-choice-brown-intv-digvid)

How can anybody be all right with that? And how come the incoming president won’t decry it and say it isn’t an acceptable thing to day?

Empires fail. I get that. And it feels like the American Empire has been on life support for a long time. One of the dangers of being this sick is that the masses do not know what’s ahead. The people leading the movement to take the government away from the “Libs” know that people do not read or listen or analyze and compare what people in public say. They know that far too many people rely on social media and any message – true or not – that they hear they take as the truth.

That alone is troubling, but when we add that people know what this man has done and is pledging to do once he is in office but are not bothered, I shudder. We, this country, are following a path that other failing democracies took; when they realized that their beloved leader did not have their best interests at heart and in fact killed many of those who supported him, it was too late. https://medium.com/bouncin-and-behavin-blogs/people-never-thought-hitler-would-go-that-far-until-he-did-496b2db613dd)

We are in for a difficult stretch. I don’t know if he will pardon the criminals (he calls them patriots) who violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. I have read that he wants to put the Biden family in jail, along with Christopher Wray and others (https://www.newsweek.com/trump-picked-fbi-director-will-prosecuted-imprisoned-steve-bannon-1702432) I don’t know what the incoming president has on Wray, but what I do know is that the president-elect has been convicted of serious crimes and will likely never have to pay for it.

Half the country is all right with that, and that hurts.

The America that we have known is about to become a memory.

A candid observation…

Looking Forward to the End of eight years of political turmoil

We are eight days from the General Election, and my biggest hope is that it go off without a glitch.

But I am worried because the former president does not admit to losing anything, and if he loses this election, as he did in 2020, I am sure he is going to use his power, his money and the money of his wealthy friends, and his lies to stoke his supporters into another frenzy resulting in violence and causing confusion and doubt as to the legitimacy of the election. There will be a few more days, weeks, or moths of emotional manipulation of the American people.

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I am angry and tired. I am confused about why the election is so close, given all of the issues of the former president, including being a convicted felon and a convicted sexual offender. I am angry at America’s system of government and, frankly, stupid and worthless rules, that allow a convicted felon to run for the highest office in the land. I am angry at Merrick Garland for what feels like his lackluster responses and reactions to the crimes of the former president, allowing way too much time to pass before the former president was finally called out for his behavior and his disrespect of this country, its institutions and its laws.

I am angry that indecency and vulgarity have been accepted as normal by the media; I am angry at so-called regulatory systems that have allowed Fox News and others to continue to operate though their “talent” spews lies and in doing so, has supported the dismantling of this country. I am bothered that people giggle rather than call the former president out on his lies, name-calling, and abusive language – be it on an outdoor platform or standing in a church. (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/9/2245657/-Trump-encourages-TPUSA-crowd-to-start-curse-word-chant-in-a-church)

I am outraged that the media, for the most part, has either not been aware of or has chosen to ignore the ominous path on which the former president is taking the country. Do they not care that this country might become a Fascist nation?

I am still going through my emotions and disappointments. There is so much to sort through.

But one thing (in addition to what I have just written) I am fairly sure about is that because of the antics, the lying, and the emotional manipulation of the emotions of American citizens for eight long years, many people in this country may be suffering from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and more. It feels like there are many people who at this time may need medication or therapy because this entire Trump experience has so battered their feelings and emotions.

I find it troubling that so many Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives have been silent in public, allowing the former president to do and say whatever he has wanted. Some Republicans are speaking out now, but for eight years, they have been largely silent. There has been no harbinger of truth to bring this runaway train of bigotry, hatred, deception, and greed to a halt, as did the words of US Attorney Joseph Welch, who stopped Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954 as the senator continued his contrived attack on communism, ruining the lives of countless innocent people, as he attacked yet another person during a hearing: “Sir, at long last, have you no decency?” (https://www.scdemocratonline.com/stories/put-an-end-to-this,25068)

Where have been the lovers of democracy? Why have so many people remained silent, compliant, and complicit as the former president and his friends have systematically and intentionally worked to undo the American republic? I have little respect for those who released books after they got out of office or the employ of the Federal government about the depravity of what they experienced during the Trump presidency.

Why didn’t they say something out loud early in this circus, not because they wanted to sell a book but because they wanted to save their country?

I have not written much in the past months because I have been watching, and, unfortunately, inhaling the toxicity that has been hovering over us all. The toxicity has been caused not only by the masters of the soft coup that has continued since January 6, but also apparently inspiring millions of people to support the former president.

They are afraid of “the bad people” that their hero talks about all of the time, especially “the immigrants.” The former president’s language has always fed the fear of so many white Americans, language that has also been used by those who lead their churches. The goal of the former president and his minions has not been to save America; it has been, rather to empty the current “swamp” and fill the hole with their own ideology. Americans, mostly but not all white, have fully accepted and internalized the message that “the bad people” must be herded up and sent away for America to be “great” again.

Writing this is helping me push through my feelings which have constipated my spirit, but this unpacking is just the beginning. As I write, I feel the density of my anger and disappointment, coupled with a sense of dread about the former president and his friends will do in the aftermath of the upcoming election.

They want to end democracy and have said so.(https://newrepublic.com/post/179247/jack-posobiec-democracy-cpac-2024) Russell Vought, co-author of Project 2025, said they want to end multiculturalism. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQjdwsZhE_Q)

We are in trouble. I hope we get through this, but I hope even more that we have learned that people must work to preserve and improve what or who they say they love because there are always wolves in waiting who want to tear down those very things.

A candid observation …

Until All of us are free…

One of the most gripping scenes in the movie “The Color Purple,– the original and the makeover – is when Celie faces her oppressor – her husband – angry and tired at the way she has been treated for much of her life, and, while holding a knife, says to him, “Until you do right by me, everything you even think about is going to fail.” (https://fb.watch/pAS7-C4Iza/)

A sentiment attributed to having first been expressed by Emma Lazarus in 1883 and repeated by others, including Maya Angelou and Fannie Lou Hamer: “Until all of us are free, none of us are free,” carries much of the weight and meaning of Celie’s statement

These powerful words are ignored by far too many people. People who oppress others, who lord power over others instead of treating them with love and respect, will eventually always be defeated. They will feel the defeat in themselves and/or will see the defeat in the world or atmosphere they tried to create.

Creating a toxic atmosphere is apparently not that difficult; we have seen cults form and grow under talented and bigoted leaders throughout history.

But they cannot last – because the human quest for dignity, freedom, equality, and equity is ultimately stronger than the faux strength projected and practiced by those who think more highly of themselves than they ought.

I keep listening to and reading people say that they want the former president to be re-elected because they like his policies. I don’t know all of the policies they’re talking about, but some sources break them down. (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/18/trump-presidency-administration-biggest-impact-policy-analysis-451479)

But the policies people like that seem to be resonating most strongly are those that denounce the idea that all people are created equal, endowed with “certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” People love that the former president vows to either deport or detain immigrants. (https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/11/politics/trump-stephen-miller-immigration-detention-deportation/index.html)

I am presuming that policies they love also include refusing federal funds that would be used to help feed poor children. (https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/summer-ebt-republicans-child-poverty-b2477996.html) (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/us/school-lunches-assistance-republicans.html)

The policies they like, again I’m presuming, include watching people drown at the border while at the same time refusing federal funds that would help give border policy the resources it needs. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/3-migrants-drown-near-shelby-park-eagle-pass-texas-soldiers-denied-entry-federal-border-agents/)

They are overjoyed that Roe v Wade was overturned, and like policies that make it a crime for a woman to have an abortion – even if that abortion comes as the result of a naturally-occurring miscarriage. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-increasing-risk-of-criminal-charges-for-women-who-experience-a-miscarriage), or because of being raped.

These culture-war policies that so many people like are abusive; America is in an abusive relationship with its own government. It is inconceivable to me how anyone who calls him or herself “Christian” can be okay with the rights of so many people being ignored and trampled upon.

I keep asking what happens to us – the people – if these people get more power. What will happen to old people if Medicare and Social Security end? What will happen to poor children who will not be able to eat without the funding allotted to states for them to have food over the summer? What will happen to immigrants if they are forced into internment camps? What will happen to the small amount of justice Black and Brown people, the poor, women, and other non-white, non-cis-gender individuals receive?

Those who are abused will take it for so long – and then they will rise up. Those who want this to be a Fascist country are not thinking about how a government like that will affect everyone – including them – and their lack of understanding and insight will be their loss. But people will only take abuse for so long before they rebel. The human spirit longs for and demands to be free. The ways of the past as concerns Black people are not something we will ever adhere to again. We will not be forced to look down when we pass by a white person. We will not be silent when we are being cheated of our economic earnings. We will not be silent when the justice system refuses to give us justice. We have “been there, done that,” and the people who want us to go back will learn that their desire is untenable and unrealistic.

On this Martin Luther King Day, we will hear over and over excerpts from his “I Have a Dream Speech.” The most rabid racists will quote the one line he said in that speech that fits into their white supremacist ideology – that he dreams of a day when his children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

They will lift those words as some sort of justification for their being against civil and human rights for all people, including Black people. They will nod their heads at his words as support of their belief that there is too much attention paid to racism – while they continue to exploit Black people based on the color of their skin. They will use those words to bypass the rancid racism that makes them say that some people are presidents of prestigious universities or justices/judges in America’s justice system, or some students are in colleges, only because of Affirmative Action and the color of their skin.

They will ignore the fact that many white people are in positions and are in colleges – because of the color of their skin.

In using those words, they will conveniently forget how they have tortured, beaten, and robbed Black people just because they could. They will forget how they destroyed Rosewood and got away with it, how they destroyed the Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. They will call you “woke” if you remind them of the coup that took place in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898 because white people decided that they would not allow Black people to “rule over them.” They will ignore the atrocities they have committed and continue to commit on and against Black people – just because they are Black and have been characterized by a narrative that can only be called “fake.”

Dr. Martin Luther King said a lot of things that most people do not know – and don’t want to know. Among the things he said was that white people “made God a partner in their exploitation of the Negro.” (Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, p. 79) Many who call on the name of Jesus in their claim to be Christian believe that Jesus was a white man. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/06/25/how-an-iconic-painting-jesus-white-man-was-distributed-around-world/) (https://voices.uchicago.edu/religionculture/2017/06/26/the-klan-white-christianity-and-the-past-and-present-a-response-to-kelly-j-baker-by-randall-j-stephens/)

White smugness that their adherence to white supremacy cements and justifies their hatred, violence, and injustice for African Americans fuels their arrogance and power; like abusive husbands who use the precepts of male superiority to justify the beating and sometimes murdering of their wives, believers in white supremacy lord their power over people whom they think of as being less than human, and therefore, less deserving of being treated with fairness and dignity.

But they forget that the abused and oppressed will one day rise up. They will fight for their dignity, even if it means they might die in the process. Humans were made to be free.

And the words I think of, when I think of the state in which this country sits, are those uttered by a tired but empowered Celie, who tells her abuser that the abuse is over: “Until you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna (sic) fail.

A candid observation.

America, We Hardly Knew YE

It’s hard to comprehend, understand, and accept what is going on in this country.

I keep going back to the movie, “The Sound of Music,” where in the last scenes, Christopher Plummer, who played Captain von Trapp, sings “Edelweiss” as his family makes its last appearance before they flee Austria. He has decided not to give in to pressure being put on him to join the navy of Nazi Germany.

I had no idea about what Edelweiss was; I only knew that he looked very sad and was singing it as a tribute, to his beloved country, which was being taken over by the Nazis. The flower was and is known to be strong and able to survive in the harshest of Alpine weather. Perhaps he was stating that his beloved Austria would likewise survive.

As he chokes up toward the end of the song, his entire family comes out and joins in, and prompts the audience to join in as well. The song ends, the family leaves the stage, and then begins its trek out of Austria. Everything that they have known has changed; the Edelweiss will remain the same, and that brings some degree of comfort, even in the midst of von Trapp’s profound sadness.

America seems to be getting to a state where many Americans will fall back on memories of a country that changed right before their eyes. It seems that we are being led into an exile of sorts; it seems that we, like the Israelites in the Hebrew scriptures, will sit on the banks of our own River of Babylon and weep as we remember this country when there was a semblance of civility and a commitment to democracy, even though the promises made in our founding documents were never realized.

As much as I think of “Edelweiss,” I think of Psalm 137, where the psalmist writes:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we sept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land” If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I don’t set Jerusalem above my highest joy,

Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” (Psalm 137:1-7, NRSV)

Those who despise democracy are working intentionally to tear this government down, and while they say that there exists a “deep state” (which is true) what they are proposing is not the end of the deep state but the creation of a new deep state, a state in which the freedoms that Americans have enjoyed will be stripped away. Already, we see the freedoms being attacked; we see state governments imposing rules and making laws that make it difficult if not impossible for teachers to teach what they want; we see politically irate parents bombarding school boards demanding that the history of some groups of people not be taught; we see people burning books like the Nazis did as they destroyed the German government as it had been. (https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/theyre-burning-books-in-tennessee/article_1f8c631e-850f-11ec-bc9f-dbd44d7e14d7.html) We hear the former president saying things like military generals who oppose him are treasonous and should be executed (https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/28/politics/milley-donald-trump-execution-comment/index.html) and we hear him say that if he is reelected, some news operations will not be allowed to be on the air.( https://thehill.com/homenews/4221310-trump-pledges-to-investigate-msnbc-parent-for-threatening-treason/#:~:text=Trump%20pledges%20to%20investigate%20MSNBC%20parent%20company%20for%20%27threatening%20treason%27,-by%20Rachel%20Scully&text=Former%20President%20Trump%20pledged%20to,%2C%20things%2C%20and%20events.”).

America was never all it claimed to be. It was built on a broken foundation, one that pushed capitalism by using and exploiting people brought to this country for that reason alone. The country was built on a broken obelisk, which meant from the beginning that as the country grew it would not be able to withstand the pressure and the weight that comes with growth. (Ancient Egyptians refused to continue to build the obelisk once they discovered it was cracked. It sits unfinished to this day. https://mymodernmet.com/unfinished-obelisk-aswan-egypt/)

America had chances to correct some of what was wrong and what would continually weaken it, but reneged. It forged ahead, giving in to greed and the raw desire for power, ignoring the creaking of a government that was not able to withstand the seedbeds of racism and sexism. While it touted its “democracy,” the whole world watched and knew that America was not all it claimed to be. Other democracies imitated America’s racist practices; the Nazis actually studied America’s race laws in the creation of their own.

What this country failed to embrace was the impossibility of a country built on a cracked foundation being able to withstand the winds of bigotry, enmity, and greed as time went on. When the former president was elected, I remember being shocked when one of my social media friends said “Democracy needs to end.” I was stunned.

But it is a fact that there are groups of people working to do just that – end democracy. Big business is running the country and the politicians are allowing it – and some appear to be actively participating in the process.

I keep seeing Christopher Plummer singing “Edelweiss,” and I keep referring to Psalm 137. It seems that we are on our way to the shores of a river in a country we once thought we knew – and I say “we” in a pejorative sense, because many Americans were never included in the benefits of being American. They were not even considered to be citizens…yet, they held onto hope that one day this country would be what it professed to be.

My thought is, though that none of us really knew the real America at all, and are about to be made to reckon with that. Maybe, in spite of all the warning signs and flashing lights that have been a part of our government for hundreds of years, we will learn the hard way that silence is complicity, and for that, we will be forced to sing an “American” song in a strange land.

A candid observation …

Pining for the Good Old Days That Never Were

I have been stuck since Nikki Haley, a Republican desiring to be president, uttered the most profoundly insulting words I have heard in a long time.

“Do you remember when you were growing up, do you remember how simple life was, how easy it felt? It was about faith, family, and country. We can have that again, but to do that, we must vote Joe Biden out,” she said. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/27/opinion/renee-graham-nikki-haley-2024-gop-trump/#:~:text=“Do%20you%20remember%20when%20you,must%20vote%20Joe%20Biden%20out.”)

I was stunned. The statement was so ignorant and insensitive that I just got stuck. What do you say to something like that? Her words took me back to the lyrics of the song, “The Way We Were” sung by Barbra Streisand in the movie of the same name:

Memories
Light the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories
Of the way we were

Scattered pictures
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we?
Could we?

Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply to choose to forget

So it’s the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were
The way we were

For whom was life so simple? Surely, if you were white and middle class or higher, it was a lot easier than it was for everyone else, including poor people – be they white and living in rural areas or Black and Brown, living in urban areas. For the white, middle, and upper classes, it was easy to remain in their silos and be able to tune out the difficult lives lived by so many people. Maybe they had lives where the mom dressed for a day’s work as a housewife in a shirtdress, accessorized with pearls and an apron like white television mothers were often portrayed.

But that wasn’t the life of the masses. The lives of people trying to make it did not allow a lapse into fantasy. Life was “no crystal stair” for those who had to work 2-3 jobs to make ends meet. Racism and sexism were issues that badly affected many people. Black soldiers were frequently killed when they returned from fighting in World Wars I and II, and veterans of the Vietnam War were treated like misfits because America was ashamed of losing a war that the country should never have entered.

Blacks, whites, and Jews were marching together and getting attacked and/or killed because they dared stand up to the racist American system. Leaders who were trying to make a difference – including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, President John Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy – were mercilessly assassinated. All over the world, there was an eruption of antisemitism, resulting in what has been labeled the “swastika epidemic.” (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-swastika-epidemic-global-antisemitism-and-human-rights-activism-the-cold-war-1960s)

In the days of Haley’s youth, it was not only Black people and Jews who were hated. Roman Catholics were also hated. (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/when-america-hated-catholics-213177/)

Medgar Evers was assassinated in the driveway of his own home. Black and White kids were beaten and killed because they participated in the movement to end segregation. Three Civil Rights workers, one Black and two Jewish, were murdered because they, too, were working to dismantle the racist system of this country. Emmett Till was murdered by white guys who were acquitted and bragged that they had in fact killed the teenager.

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An estimated 418,000 Americans died in World War II. An estimated of 2-3 million civilians on both sides are said to have been killed during 58 the Vietnam War. An estimated 200,000-250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died, and over 58,000 American soldiers either died or were/are listed as missing.

So, what “simple” and “easy life” was Nikki talking about? Was she completely shielded from what was going on? Was she so sheltered that she did not know what this country was going through? And did she get a message that if people were suffering, it was not because of racism or sexism or poverty or immoral policies being passed; it was because they deserved the way they lived because they were lazy?

I am still stunned by her words. I’m angry at Ron DeSantis saying that slavery was “beneficial” for Black people and that enslaved Africans actually benefitted from slavery because they were taught skills (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/22/desantis-slavery-curriculum/) and inferred that Africans wanted to come here and did so, willingly. That discussion is for another article.

But Nikki Haley’s words stung. The sheer ignorance and insensitivity were astounding. “Can it be that life was so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line…What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget”

Out of respect for all for whom life was not so simple, I wish that Nikki Haley would just sit down and be quiet. Her voice is tainted with ignorance and insensitivity because of her blind ambition; it seems that she will say anything to pander to the group of people who are pushing racial, gender, religious, and ethnic discord.

We don’t need you, Nikki. This country just does not need you.

A candid observation…