Archives

Election 2016; After Shocks

Nov18

The below simple painting was committed to canvas by me in Havana, Cuba as a reminder that somewhere other than where I was at, flowers grew, children played, and people lived in freedom. It’s not a masterpiece, but everyday I would look at it and smile knowing one day I would walk away and claim my rightful place because I was not trapped as I was an American. Actually, I was supposed to be in Nicosia, Cyprus but when the need was the greatest for someone to go to Havana, I rolled up my sleeves and jumped in the trenchflowers. Having been on the Pentagon compound when some fool tried to fly a jet through the building, something in me questioned how bad could it be?

It was worse than anything I could ever imagine, because the tender-hearted Cubans live daily under a totalitarian government with most never having known anything else, totally without personal freedoms or liberty, and are given the barest necessities of life. Truly, they are treated as second class citizens, but the thing is, they rarely complain and are thankful for the tender mercies that sometimes are bestowed on them.

The two events coming one after the other left me somewhat jaded and cynical, and put a bad taste in my mouth I believe is mine to have forever. These days I live on a sixty acre farm surrounded by cornfields, and although its a mundane existence there does come a sense of contentment living in such a rural environment.  I never worry about jets flying through my windows as we sleep, or terrorists hanging out in the cornfields, although, coyotes and deer use our yard for a runway to the woods, and I worry about ticks and Lyme Disease.

So here I am watching the aftermath of the Election and the chaos resulting from a win apparently no one expected, and I wonder what the hell is going on. Its just an election, WE have them every four years, and if you don’t like the outcome get off your duff and go vote the next time. The biggest surprise seems to be the middle of the United States from the upper Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico who did go vote, and it seems the East and West Coast were caught unaware because they forgot we were here. In a sense, they viewed us a second-class citizens, but given a voice we knew what to do with it. This system we live in is a democracy, and everyone gets a say, but it seems the biggest outcry is coming from those who did not vote and undocumented persons who cannot vote, although, as usual, dead people were voting in Chicago.

Is it me, or is there something wrong with this picture; people who didn’t even vote throwing temper tantrums like spoiled brats, and making absurd demands they will never get.

Who Are The Trump Voters? Surprise!

Nov11

couple_lette_valeskaTrump voters have been described as illiterate, ill-bred, poorly read, moronic, white trash, trailer trash ne’er-do-wells who hang out in the country drinking beer shooting big guns and burping. According to the Democratic contender, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”

That remark could have well cost her the election because the basket of deplorables, being the heathens they are, have widescreen televisions and heard the remark verbatim as spoken at a New York City fundraiser in a rather strange introduction of Barbara Streisand. What that idle remark really represented was her utter contempt and disdain for middle class America who she apparently believes to be inferior to her genetic composition, and middle class America understood the message in its entirety disproving her contention that they were idiots incapable of understanding an insult when they heard one.

The thing is in that basket of so-called deplorables are found teachers, lawyers, police officers, firemen, hospital personnel including doctors, truck drivers, farmers, retired federal employees, civil servants, postal workers, aviation workers and pilots, professional sports figures, civil engineers, and so many other professions that comprise the working class. We live in cities, suburbs, rural America, and the larger share is educated, speak several languages, have traveled extensively, are well read, enjoy a good glass of wine, attend the theatre and ballet. Actually, we do just about everything the elitists do only better because in our world there are no deplorables but only people from all walks of life, religions, races, educational levels and professions, and now we are all Republicans, if only in spirit.

Success is a sweet tasting morsel, and you will not see us on the News protesting, rioting,  walking around holding our heads, crying and moaning and unable to attend our jobs and classes, swearing to leave the country, or yelling to the rafters about politics and how we didn’t get what we wanted.  Life is good in the ‘Land of Deplorable’, and we got exactly what we wanted. Such is life, and to correct the messenger, we most certainly are Americans.

Voter Confusion Reigns Supreme

Aug14

‘Never Clinton’ and ‘Never Trump’, and half of the American voters say they are undecided as who to vote for. With only two candidates, the concept is to vote for one or the other, and with less than 90 days before the Election, let’s face it; if you don’t know who you are voting for by now, you should probably stay home.

It’s not that complicated.

If you are tired of businesses as usual and tired old politicians homesteading in the Capitol, want to keep your guns, would love to have more powers passed from the Federal Government to the State, want your Supreme Court justices to abide by the Constitution, want the economy stimulated with lower taxes, want EPA regulations streamlined to keep American companies and corporations in America, know there must be something better than Obama Care, want the NAFTA trade agreement renegotiated or eliminated because it decimated the factory and steel towns of the Midwest, do not believe in climate control or green energy initiatives but would rather harvest American fossil fuels and develop fracking, are in favor of the Keystone Pipeline, want to send your children to the school of your choice and keep the Federal Government out of your child’s lunch sack, and believe in borders that create a sovereign country while keeping terrorists at bay; vote for Donald Trump.

However:

If you are happy with the current Administration and want more of the same,  would rather have the Federal government dictate your health care options and educational choices for your children, want to keep your taxes sky high and employment opportunities low, are ready to surrender your guns, don’t care we are currently caught in the weakest recovery since 1949 or that home ownership is a low as 1965,  truly believe the most crucial problem the United States faces is global warming, can’t wait for another trade deal that will benefit Asia but not America (TPT), don’t want to open the Key Stone Pipeline and think you can heat your home with a solar panel or windmill, are overjoyed our Country passes out tax payer dollars to a country that calls Americans ‘infidel dogs’ and wants to blow Israel off the face of the earth, wants your Supreme Court Justices bought and paid for by special interest groups, don’t care the Democratic nominee compromised national security through the use of a unsecure Blackberry for classified information in addition to using the State Department for a hedge fund to ship money to the Clinton foundation, want refugees streaming in by the thousands with no viable means of support, and do not mind that your President is the most corrupt person to ever run for the Presidency, vote for Hillary Clinton.

And what happened to Bernie Sanders?

It seems he ran off with the donations the millennials sent him, and bought a new summerhouse. Imagine that, a dishonest career politician.q

Not My Grandfather’s Party

Jul26

flag-1377524_960_720

My grandfather was a dapper gentleman who wore a suit to work complete with pocket protector, and it mattered not he was a committeeman at the old Dodge Main Plant in Detroit, nothing but a suit would do. In a younger day, he moonlighted at Detroit Arthur Murray Dance Center teaching ballroom dancing to immigrants with two left feet, and he could take shorthand at a proficient rate because he said it kept him mentally alert. During the 13 year confinement of James R. Hoffa, President of International Brotherhood of Teamsters, my grandfather became his pen pal truly believing he had been imprisoned falsely, and was rewarded by a visit from Mr. Hoffa after his release.  Most of all, I remember my grandfather being a dyed in the wool Democrat who spoke of Governor George W. Romney (1963-1969) like he was a family friend, and actively campaigned for the Humphrey/Muskie campaign in 1968.

These days, I look around at the Democratic Party that my grandfather held so close to his heart, and I cannot help but wonder if the current Democratic Party and the Democratic Party my grandfather so loved are one and the same?  That party my grandfather loved was a party for laborers, immigrants, blue collar workers, factory workers toiling in subhuman conditions for minimum wage, citizens who had been irrevocably damaged by the McCarthy Blacklist, persons without a voice falsely accused of crimes which they had not committed, and persons living without civil liberties as provided in the Constitution. Persons much like himself; the little people without political clout or great economic means.

It’s hard to say what happened to that party, but it appears to have died with Harry S. Truman. The Democratic Party of today supports radical groups that have made it a mission to kill police officers while refusing to support the Veterans, but is more than happy to increase the national debt through useless program spending and green energy and global warming initiatives. It is a Party for the elite who obviate, inveigle, and manipulate the Constitution to fit their needs, and is rife with special interest groups that have nothing to do with the little people and those without a voice but has everything to do with personal agendas and fraud, abuse and mismanagement of the government’s role in society. I don’t know whose Party it is, but I know it’s not mine, and sure not my grandfather’s Party, at least, not the Party he loved.

trump-1266569__180Vote For The Party That Cares

Go Vote; It’s Your Right

Apr19

trump
FACT: Women’s suffrage in the United States, the right of women to vote, was established over several decades, first in various states and localities, and then nationally in 1920.

FACT: The GOP began as the women’s party, championing suffrage 40 years before it became law. Republicans also saw the first woman elected to Congress, the first female speaker of a state house, and the first female Supreme Court justice.

FACT: Donald Trump employs more women than men at the upper echelons of his real estate empire, and in many cases pays them more according to the Republican Presidential Candidate’s attorney.

trump-1266569_960_720

(you could do worse, much worse)