celebrating July 4th on the Eve of America’s Fall

It feels like one of the greatest ironies of all time that this country will celebrate its independence from English monarchical rule as its leaders continue their intent to replace this democracy with autocracy.

It is hard to accept what is going on. It feels like anarchy, as the president and his hand-picked cabinet and government officials blatantly disregard and ignore the “rule of law” in their pursuit of total control. The checks and balances system, put in place by the Founding Fathers, is either non-existent or non-operative, and too many Americans seem either oblivious or purposely ignorant of the implications of what is happening and how it will affect them and many generations to come.

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Where are the Americans, the people who actually do love this country and who are willing to put allegiance to it in front of a desire to be loyal to the man who is leading the effort to destroy it?

It is the height of hypocrisy to listen to the MAGA/GOP members talk about their love of country and that this is a country of laws, as they simultaneously ignore or have stated that they intend to ignore rulings of the courts that threaten their agenda. (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/jd-vance-trump-executive-power-supreme-court-00203537) (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/28/trump-tiktok-bailout-00200800).

In Project Esther, the document prepared by the Heritage Foundation, the writers continue to talk about law and order and how what they plan to do to fight antisemitism is nothing less than clear evidence that they love this country. “This is a nation of laws,” the document says, and while it defines antisemitism as that which is evident by people who protest in this country against the actions of the Israeli government and the resultant massacre of innocent Gazans, they are strangely quiet about the antisemitism that has been practiced historically in this country. The document makes no mention of the attacks on Jews that have included the bombing of their synagogues and the constant denigration of Jews by Americans who simultaneously reveal a love and respect for Adolf Hitler.

Long before the October 2024 attack on Jews in Israel by Hamas, American antisemitism was felt deeply by Jews in this country. (https://www.npr.org/2024/02/13/1230928104/large-majorities-americans-antisemitism-serious-problem-ajc), but Project Esther uses as the reason for its creation only to the October 7 attack.

Law and order do not exist in this country; “due process” has never existed for African Americans in this country but the lack of due process is now being felt by immigrants in this country as masked “ICE” agents have been given the freedom to kidnap people of color for no reason – off public streets, out of their homes, and off their jobs to deport them.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/BwXdna3iA7o?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

) (https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/07/la-immigration-raids-lawsuit/) What we are seeing feels like accounts of how Africans -some enslaved and some free- were kidnapped at gunpoint by civilians deputized to capture them. The “crime” of the yet enslaved Africans was fleeing plantations in their quest for freedom, but others committed no crime but were hunted and arrested as well. (https://www.tpusa.com/live/princeton-professor-compares-ice-agents-to-slave-catchers) (https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/2019/10/01/ice-immigration-agents-slave-catchers/3824310002/).

Immigrants, naturalized and undocumented, are living in fear, many staying home from work and school because they don’t want to be kidnapped, and yet the people in the highest levels of government are doing nothing. It feels like we are seeing the 21^st-century version of the heinous practices allowed by the Fugitive Slave Laws of the 19^thcentury.

Our freedoms are being challenged, including freedom of speech, assembly, the press, religion, and the right to petition the government. Those who say they love America are either quiet or are boisterously working to destroy the government, MAGA called “the deep state.” These people are angry and feel like they have been unheard and disrespected. With their president in the White House, they are seeking power with a vengeance, and it does not appear that they care who will suffer and perhaps die because of the policies that are being put into place.

As the House wrangles with a final version of the Trump “Big Beautiful Bill,” those lawmakers who admit that the bill is bad and will cause many people a lot of pain are caving. The country whose birth came about as a result of it defeating an autocratic government, led by a king, is working with all deliberate speed to make sure the man they elected will stay in power and continue the transformation of this country from democracy to an aristocracy, powered by oligarchs whose only goal is to make money off the backs of the people whose hard work produced the funds that propelled them to wealth.

The Fourth of July was never one where I consciously thought about how America became independent; when we gathered as a family on this holiday, we would often make mention that even though Black people had never enjoyed full American citizenship, we never gave up the fight. With the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws in the mid 60s, we felt we were a little closer.

But whatever ground we made is being chopped up, and not just for African Americans but for a whole group of people who wealthy white men believe do not deserve full American citizenship.

So, forgive me if I am confused about what the fireworks that are about to be launched over the next couple of days really mean. American bigotry, hatred, and ignorance are exhausting, but that portion of Americanism is here to stay and will continue to wrest the concepts of “liberty and justice” away from people as it always has. We are celebrating freedom and liberty on the eve of America’s fall.

A candid observation.

God help us all.

The Difficulty of Facing the Truth

I read a statement given by a white pastor after the murder of George Floyd. He said, “We understand the curse that was slavery but we miss the blessing of slavery, that it actually built up the framework for the world that white people live in and lived in.”(Italics mine)

That phrase, “We miss the blessing of slavery” made my face grow hot. How dare anyone say that at any time, but especially after the brutal murder of George Floyd. How could anyone be so insensitive?

But after I calmed down, I realized that, regardless of how that statement hit, it was the truth. The enslavement of Black people made this country, and the misery and deficiency of Black people simultaneously was a blessing for white people, creating for them a sense of entitlement and sufficiency.

The truth hurts. We are living in a painful and scary time. People are losing their jobs and health care; people in power are running roughshod over and through this country like bulls in a china shop, and too many people are cowering in fear, saying nothing. Some people are refusing to see what they are seeing, and too many people are still saying that “it’s not so bad.”

But it is, and it promises to get worse. The truth is this “democracy” is under attack. The coup that the current president began in 2016 and pushed during his presidency and the presidency of President Biden, is in full swing. We are seeing happen what Nikita Khrushchev said years ago: “We will overtake America without firing a single shot.” The goal of what is going on is to replace one “deep state” with another, the new one unconcerned about the lives of the masses. We are speeding downhill and there is nobody to help us or save us. Journalists who speak up are being fired, and people are being put in place who will teach the perspective of the oppressors. It has only been two months, and already, much of what constituted the infrastructure of this country has been either destroyed or badly damaged.

That is the truth, whether or not people want to believe it. People who thought they would be “safe” under this president are finding out that they have been hoodwinked and they are scared and mad – just like those who had the sense to believe that the goal to destroy this country was real.

The truth is hard to see, hard to swallow, and accept. We prefer to stay under the warm blankets of deceit. When we are in that place, we can and do pull the blankets over our eyes when something is going on that is too difficult to see and scary to accept. But times come when the blankets of protection are taken from us, and what we are left with is the raw truth staring us in the face.

What we do with the truth matters. The truth is that we live in a system that wants the masses to cower to the wealthy. If we see it and pretend it doesn’t really exist, we commit our souls to a slow disintegration. We lose. Denying the truth gives it power. It laughs at us as it continues to stomp on all that we have believed. When we cannot or will not see the truth, it takes control, until one day, it wins. We think and act like the oppressors want us to.

But when we see the truth and confront it, we begin to dilute its power. The deception inherent in what passes off as truth is weak. Deception does not like to be confronted and challenged but when it is, it begins to disintegrate. Many people in this country have refused to see racism and white supremacy for what they are and what they do and have done. Some people have believed that if they did all they could to “act white,” or “look white,” they would, in fact, be accepted as white, but they learn that life in a racist world does not work like that.

But throughout history, when those who are being manipulated to think the way the oppressors want them to think decide that they will not do that, the landscape changes. That we dare confront raw power is in itself unnerving. Confronting and challenging the truth takes away fear and intimidation. We are able to make bold statements publicly and stand on them, like the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said to leaders in South Africa as he confronted apartheid, “God is not a Christian!” Confronting the truth gives us the will and the way to seek release from its grip. It is not much different than acknowledging that we don’t feel well and, after a while, deciding to see what’s wrong. We risk hurting to become well. Illness hides and rests in our capacity to deny its presence, but when we decide to get up and be aggressive about finding out what is wrong, illness, no matter how severe, stands much less likely to take us out or cause extreme pain and suffering while we are alive.

As we see people being punished for facing evil in the face, may we pray for the courage to first, see what is happening and then have enough faith in God and belief in the need for justice for all people, to stand up, face it, and push it to lose its potency. We are not powerless, but our courage will manifest when we stop denying that what is happening is happening and in response, do as stated in Galatians, “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

A candid observation …

Waiting for God and Justice

I heard a very disturbing story on the podcast “Code Switch,” told by Chenjerai Kumanyika, where he related a time when he and a friend, walking home from their school in Baltimore, decided to race each other. “Out of nowhere, a cop car showed up. They did the thing. They put us up against the car, they grabbed us (we were in 6^th or 7^th grade) and they spread us out and patted us down, looking to see if we had stolen something.” (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/code-switch/id1112190608?i=1000683056935)

Kumanyika recalls thinking, “How can they do this?” He and his friend were surrounded by multiple police officers with guns and handcuffs, and it was scary, to say the least. The police officers finished the search of their bodies, asking them if they knew anything about some items (not specified) that had been stolen, and they said no. Apparently satisfied, they let the boys go, but the damage was done; they abandoned their desire to race each other and walked the rest of the way home. He recalled that a few seconds after he got home, the police knocked on his front door, explaining that they’d noticed that Chenjerai had just run into the house. His stepfather had answered the door, and when the police gave their reason for their unwanted visit said, “Of course, he ran into this house. He lives here.”

Kumanyika is the host of another podcast, “Empire City,” a show about the history of the New York Police Department.

I listened to this story several times and shuddered because I know it is not an uncommon experience for Black males – young and old. The fact that two kids could not engage in a footrace with each other, something kids naturally do, drove home the reality that Black people, regardless of age, profession, or economic class, are not safe in this country. “Law enforcement” looks for reasons to stop and harass Black males, and the system does very little to address it or stop it from happening.

This country has a history of “law enforcement” targeting and detaining – people of color, especially Black males. The incoming administration’s vow to get rid of immigrants will make these types of occurrences more common; those who are or who have already been deputized to round up undocumented residents have been empowered to wield their power even more than they have in the past.

Just as police officers use the line “I was in fear for my life,” or give as an excuse for stopping someone, “he looked like …” someone who committed a crime, these deputized persons now will use as a reason for stopping people, “he/she looked like an undocumented immigrant.”

What does an undocumented immigrant “look like?”

In New Jersey last week, federal immigration agents raided a business. Without having a warrant, they entered the business through the back door and detained what they said were undocumented people. At least one of those detained was an American citizen and a military veteran. He reportedly tried to show his ID and veteran’s card to the agents, but they would not look at the documents. (https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/ice-raid-newark-new-jersey-business/)

“People were fingerprinted. Pictures of their IDs and faces were taken there,” Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey said, “I was appalled, upset, angry that this would happen here in this state, in this country, {and} that this would be allowed,” he said,

But his protestations, and those that will come from others as raids increase, are not going to stop the unjust treatment of people who others think may be undocumented. The quest is not seeking justice; the quest is to carry out a political promise to get rid of people this country does not want. (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/immigration-raid-newark-new-jersey-mayor-angry-rcna189100)

Before the election, I talked with a few immigrants who drove for Uber, which I use when I travel. Most of them with whom I talked were in favor of getting rid of undocumented persons. They had come into the country the right way, they said, and they believed everyone should do the same.

When I asked if they thought they would ever be targeted by law enforcement, all of them said they did not, and some lifted up their belief that the incoming president would make sure that did not happen – noting that they had voted for him. “He won’t let anything like that happen to us,” I was told. But again, law enforcement officers, or people deputized to do the work of “catching the bad people” have historically grabbed and detained people, forcing innocent people into the system or robbing them of their freedom. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1554.html)

Their reaction communicated to me a naivety and sense of idealism that is not real. Many law enforcement officers seem driven by a willingness to display their power, which seems absolute, not a belief in justice and fairness. They know they can do what they want to do for the most part and get away with it. That has been the case in this country ever since people were deputized to catch enslaved persons who had escaped; they were not kind or fair. The people who are being deputized now to “catch” the undocumented people here will probably act in much the same way.

The most troubling factor in all that is going on is that faith in a “good” God can waiver. The downtrodden, ignored, unserved, and underserved look to God for hope. In the current situation, the “other side” seems to have claimed God as being behind and in favor of their policies and practices. The avenues for help and vindication feel scarce; Black people and other marginalized groups cannot depend on police, federal or state legislatures, or the courts to protect and support them. Large groups of marginalized people are simply not safe in this country.

The most important work people must do in light of the current situation is to figure out how to hold onto hope when all logical avenues of help are owned, populated, and controlled by forces and systems that favor the wealthy and powerful.

The vast majority of persons in this country are in a scary place; immigrants, documented and non-documented, face a particularly precarious time, and minority groups seeking protection can expect less of it going forward. The people in power will use that power and authority to ignore, suppress, and oppress whomever they want and there will be little recourse for those who are targeted. The prayer is that “we the people’ will call on a God many are not sure hears or cares about them and live, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, with “infinite hope” and not descend into a place of “finite disappointment.” There is a God who loves justice. That thought and belief, even in the face of gross injustice, will keep us pushing against the forces that want those whom they consider to be “others” to crash and burn.

A candid observation …

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 …