Tag: politics

Protest Dream

I dreamed I was with my wife and sister-in-law. We’d arrived at a huge meeting center and were there to protest against government actions and for social justice, freedom and equality. The opposition to these ideals, who believed that others shouldn’t get them because others getting these rights were ruining our country, were also showing up. Armed, they were intent on intimidating “our side.”

But we weren’t intimidated. We assembled to protest. When government leaders appeared, we raised our right hand and formed the letter “C.” We held it up over our heads in silence.

It was amazing for me, in the dream, back in the crowd, to look forward, down, across and back, and see tens of thousands of people standing silently in sunlight with their right hand raised in a “C.”

Why that letter and action? The dream didn’t explain that. We all just knew, that’s what we were to do.

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Us

Can there be us, if I can’t see what you see, and you don’t hear what I hear, and you fear what might be, while I strive for what could be, and you worry about what could be, while I worry about what might be, and we can’t understand what the other understands, and the present and the past are broken mirrors of success and failure?

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Experience

He was seventy-five, and she, the younger, was just seventy-three. They met on a cruise to Alaska, an adventure to eat food and see things like glaciers. They knew they didn’t agree on politics but there was e l e c t r i c i t y between them, not sparks or embers, but record one hundred mile long billion volt lightning strokes. So they said, what the hell, let’s try this and see.

Adventurous people they were, they went ‘camping’ together, renting a small cabin to share (there were separate beds), fishing and hiking in the day, campfires and singing at night.

Ten days in, they knew it would not work. He was an ardent Trump supporter and she was advocating RESIST. She gave him three choices: “Take me to an airport and I’ll fly home. Drive me home. Drive me to somewhere where I can rent a car and I’ll drive myself home.”

He replied, “Number three sounds good.”

So that’s what they did, swearing never to see one another again, and unfriending one another on Facebook.

It was a thirty-day life experience.

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Longings

I hate myself on days like this.

I confess, I have longings.

Some are very simple and basic. Many will claim them as impractical and idealistic, even absurd.

Like, I have longings to be young again, and to have a nice cup of coffee with a pastry or donuts without worries about its healthiness or origins, longings to walk around, preferably on a warm, pleasant beach, smiling and nodding in friendliness to other people, who simply nod and smile back in friendliness.

I have longings for success, comfort, happiness, fun, and security in all its forms.

I have longings for freedom, equality, liberty and justice.

I’ll bet those longings are shared with many others.

I bet many people on the right and left share these longings.

I bet many politicians and CEOs share these longings, along with teachers, minorities, refugees, shoppers, consumers, teenagers, the elderly, the rich and the poor.

The nut is in the details of how we get satisfy these longings.

When the United States was founded, it was another step as part of a long walk to satisfy these longings, and the founders walked on the backs of many others. We’re shocked, angry and dismayed by their declaration that all men are created equal even while they were stealing land others already lived upon, deciding women are less deserving, and so are people who were slaves, because slaves were slaves; they were property. That was a compromise. A good one? Hell, no, I hear some shout. We’re still arguing it. It was a different era, with different values, views and principles.

I have sisters and friends who wish the protests going on in the U.S. to be over because, well, the elections are over, and isn’t that what this is all about? They have longings for a happier, more relaxed life.

But the protests and elections are part of a process. Both are symptoms of desires and larger arguments about what is right and wrong, and whether freedom, liberty and equality is even possible for everyone. Aren’t we humans simply animals at the heart of the matter, and shouldn’t it be that the strongest shall rule and take what is theirs by right of strength and power, whether it’s physical or intellectual prowess, military force, or the power of our gods?

These are arguments about longings and principles, perceptions, hopes, dreams, emotions and frustrations, resentments, hostilities and dreams that go back to separations derived from where we live, what we speak, our differences and similarities, all the way back to the most basic and fundamental questions of why we’re here, how we came to be here, and what we want to become.

I hate myself on days like this because I have longings. I want to go write. I want to enjoy my comfortable routine of writing fiction, dreaming of breaking out, working toward the horizon that I’ve created for myself to keep myself going while staving off bitterness, weariness and depression.

Some will read this and remark to their screens to me through their screen, you are a self-indulgent idiot.

I can’t argue that I’m not. I know too well the limits of my talents, intelligence and abilities. I tell myself that if I try harder and persist, promising myself, “I can do better,” and that, if I do, I can overcome my shortcomings.

Which is what these longings are all about, really. You understand.

And I hate myself on days like this, because others have longings, and I think of myself as one person but part of a larger body trying to make a difference. So I set aside my personal longings to take up the longings of others, those longings that were there long before I was born as an American, and march for what we believe is right against an agenda that we believe is wrong.

History will not judge us. History is written by the winners. It’ll be the winners who judge us. If we lose, we’ll probably be forgotten. Hell, if we win, we’ll probably be forgotten as well.

That’s the nature of being part of a larger longing.

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Marching Saturday

Multiple, large marches are planned for Saturday, January 21st, 2017. These are women’s marches, to protect their rights against Trump’s encroachment. For some reason, they’re concerned about a man who likes grabbing them by their pussy while thinking nothing of he or anyone else doing anything like that.

I’ll be marching, too, to support women, as part of a local march in southern Oregon.

What can I say? I like women. Why, some of my best friends are women. I like them so much, I married one. I don’t want to see her, Mom, my sisters or any other woman grabbed by their pussy because some idiot thinks it’s okay. Grab him by the balls uninvited, and let us see how he reacts. Well, the first thing he’d do is react according to who’s grabbing them. If they’re not a ‘loser’ or aren’t ‘unattractive’, he’ll be all for it.

According to a recent poll, many Republican men think it’s better to be a woman than a man now, because women have more rights. Too bad we can’t have someone grab them by their pussy, or work the same hours for less pay, or get raped and told they must carry the child to term because of another’s religions, or get raped and beaten and told they were asking for it because they were drinking or how they were dressed. Bet they’d change their fucking minds in a New York minute, were they ever the victims. But their white maleness often saves them from being victims.

Now some may read this and think that I want Trump to fail. Ben Carson, the failed presidential candidate now up for HUD Secretary, is probably one of those people. Ben said last November that he wouldn’t accept a Trump cabinet position. ‘“The way I’m leaning is to work from the outside and not from the inside,” Carson said in an interview Tuesday with The Washington Post. “I want to have the freedom to work on many issues and not be pigeonholed into one particular area.”’ He said that he made that clear to Trump in several conversations. I guess it wasn’t very clear after all.

It’s amusing to me that Trump often states he ‘dislikes losers’, but someone like Ben Carson, who ran for office and failed to win, the very definition of a loser, is his buddy. Likewise, the young woman singing the national anthem for his inauguration did not finish first on ‘America’s Got Talent’, which, sadly, according to Trump, makes her a loser. That’s how it works, right?

But I don’t want Trump to ‘fail’ any more than I want the United States to ‘fail’. I want Trump’s racist, bigoted, sexist and hateful policies to fail. I want his efforts to drag our country and progress in the areas of social rights and justice back to the 1950s or earlier to fail. I want his efforts to make shitloads of money by being POTUS to fail. But I don’t want him to fail.

I want him to change. I want him to be enlightened. I want him to quit acting like a child throwing a tantrum on Twitter every time someone famous criticizes him. And yeah, views of what it means to be enlightened can be different. I’ll be willing to argue those facts, although it’s hard addressing facts with people who insist that facts don’t matter.

I don’t want Trump to fail but I’d rather that we didn’t put the oilman in charge of oil policy, especially one so in love with Russia, like Rex Tillerson. It’s odd to note that if U.S. oil production increases, oil prices will drop, unless, as it is likely, OPEC takes action to protect their income streams by reducing production. No matter; Trump and his incoming administration want to wean America off of oil imports, even though that trend has been going on for a number of years, which Rex Tillerson should know, right?

I don’t want Trump to fail but I question his understanding of modern manufacturing processes and economics. He must know, because he’s a successful businessman, a reputed billionaire. We can argue about those points, too. Trump has promised and then refused to divulge his ‘big, very beautiful’ tax returns so we don’t know if he’s actually a billionaire. We do know from public records that he’s made money by suing others, reneging on contracts and payments for work done, and declaring bankruptcies.

Trump believes he can save America by putting tariffs on anything imported into America and forcing companies to build factories in America. By this, then, America will become great again. He believes he can force Apple, for example, to build their iPhones in America instead of China. Perhaps he can (although experts think he can’t). See, that’s been addressed multiple times by multiple people but no matter; it’s new to Trump and his supporters. Trump hasn’t been leading by example in this matter by outsourcing his clothing manufacturing to other countries besides America. He says that it’s because that’s the way it is but that he didn’t want to; yet, as a billionaire, he lacked that clout and needs to be POTUS in order to have such clout?

Oddly, a Chinese woman ordered a gold-plated iPhone encrusted with diamonds and engraved with Trump’s face to give to him as a gift at the inauguration. Perhaps she’s being ironic.

Wonder if he’ll turn it down?

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I’m A PLAID

Have you told you that I’m a PLAID? I may have. You may have deduced it.

PLAID:

Progressive

Libertarian

Activist

Independent

Democrat

I’m a Progressive, believing that we should be moving forward in the arenas of justice, freedom and equality, along with protecting our planet. I’m also a progressive that leans toward socialism (perhaps making me a PLAIDS) because I don’t believe that making money off everything and the free market is the answer to every problem.

You can also say I’m a Feminist, but I consider that as part of the broader arc of being a Progressive. Equal rights are equal rights, equal opportunity is equal opportunity, and equal freedom is equal freedom.

I’m dismayed that technology has become so consumer oriented. I accept it with a large dose of regret, but I understand money makes money and fuels ideas. Being principled is challenging and requires courage. I often find myself lacking the courage to live up to my beliefs, and keep kicking myself in the ass to be more cognizant of what’s going on, to live up to my principles, and not be a sheeple.

Besides being Progressive, I’m a Libertarian. Government overreach does exist. Knee-jerk reactions are often embedded into laws that become destructive in practice. Once in law, removing it from the books is problematic, and it comes back and bites us in the ass.

As an Activist. I actively voice my politics through letters, donations, demonstrations and activities. I pursue knowledge and truth. Sometimes, too many times, it seems, I don’t like what I find. Then, weary, I withdraw from my activism to recharge, re-balance and start afresh. Change is a constant; as part of that, I must change. To do that, I need to be able to identify my boundaries and horizons. Otherwise, I can’t go forward.

And I’m an Independent. The I could also be for Idealist. I believe we should have principled leaders with vision who do not live in a protective bubble of privilege but serve us and endure the same problems and situations as as. But wealth and power has its perks, and most people succumb to enjoying the perks to the point that they’re taken for granted and ultimately abused, leading to greater abuses.

I end up as a Democrat, with a sigh, because our two party system dominates the system, writing and enforcing laws, customs and loopholes to protect their power and accomodate them. I wanted a black POTUS but did not believe Barack Obama was the best person to achieve that change. I watched and listened during his primary campaign as he pivoted from being a progressive to becoming a solid centrist. I understood that was politics to win the greater vote but also speculated that it could be more. I wondered where he would govern when he won. He described himself as a Reagan Moderate in later interviews and his actions and positions agree with that description. He is less of a leader and visionary than I wanted and more of a political manager.

Likewise, I believe we’re as long overdue for a female POTUS as we were for a black POTUS, but Hillary Clinton was not the person for that role. Neither was Jill Stein. I prefer Elizabeth Warren to both. She speaks to me more than Jill or Hillary.

There I am, in a complex crucible that barely begins to capture my politics and thinking.

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Today’s Theme Music

Well, hello. Here we are. At the end, the beginning, a break, a start, a finale.

This is New Year’s Eve day. Tonight we’ll count down to a new year.

I mean, most of the western world will count down. Others use different calendars and count down at another time of the year. And we’re only counting down to the end of the Julian calendar year, and not, say, the fiscal year, although some use the calendar year and the fiscal year as the same year. It’s not likely to be your natal year, though. So you won’t be celebrating that new year, nor a wedding anniversary, which is another new beginning that’s often celebrated.

But here we are, celebrating this day that doesn’t quite align with the seasons,businesses, or our lives, but here we are, the masters of our domain.

For this day, I selected a soft, questioning song. ‘The Freshman’ by the Verve Pipe from 1996. It encapsulates a lot of thinking about human nature IMO. Perhaps I’m generalizing by my circle of relationships but this is what I’ll testify that I saw. We began by thinking we knew so much. Then later, we question, what did we really know?

How did we miss the signs?

How could we end up so wrong?

We end up marveling about how we came to be the relationship that we are or were, conducting forensics on our behavior and running audit trails on what was said and who said it. We look for clarity in the murk about what was meant by tone and meaning in the context of gestures that happened before and after.

Some are content to never question. “It is what it is,” they answer with tautological finality. “Ours is not to question why; ours is but to do and die.”

“That’s just the way it goes.”

Perhaps they question but never admit that they question, or limit the circle of who knows about their questioning. Some consider that questioning is a sign of weakness.

They don’t want to be seen as weak.

I’ve always been the questioning sort. I guess that makes me weak. I’m envious of those who find a trajectory of ignorance and remain true to its path, never veering or questioning but riding that comet with the certainty that they have the golden truth, convinced that nothing else other than what they believe can be true or correct.

But I remain a freshman.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Bad news out of the political and economic jars dissipated my early morning dream-induced exuberance. Then Tucker attacked Meep and an epic cat fight erupted. Tucker refuses to be rehabilitated. His aggressiveness stresses us out and forces us to segregate him from the rest.

Bottom line: I’ve got the blues. Numerous ways to cope with the blues exist. I drink beer, wine, vodka, whiskey and scotch but I don’t do it in the morning. I’m not going to do it while in a funk. I did that when I was younger. I’ve learned not to. Mostly. I still trip now and again.

The best way to deal with the blues is some blues music, writing, coffee, and solitude. That’s my method. Your method may differ.

Today’s blues: ‘Ball and Chain’, belted out by the composer, Big Mama Thornton, with Buddy Guy on guitar. This is a recording from 1970. I love finding pieces like this on the net and witness such performances. I consider this one of the finest effects of our burgeoning technology.

Hope you enjoy it.

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Today’s Theme Music

When a man is running from his boss
Who hold a gun that fires “cost”
And people die from being cold
Or left alone because they’re old
And bombs are dropped on fighting cats
And children’s dreams are run with rats
If you complain you disappear
Just like the lesbians and queers
No one can love without the grace
Of some unseen and distant face
And you get beaten up by blacks
Who though they worked still got the sack
And when your soul tells you to hide
Your very right to die denied
And in the battle on the streets
You fight computers and receipts
And when a man is trying to change
But only causes further pain
You realize that all along
Something in us going wrong…

You stop dancing.

Many of us contemplate our lives and wonder, will it ever become better? W’re always trying to define what ‘it’ is – equal rights, fairer pay, less war, less poverty, less starvation and disease. As we watch the political firestorm intensify in the United States and other countries, we wonder, how did we arrive at this moment. It’s educational to look back on songs like the above. These battles have been going on for as long as humanity.
Progress is being made. It used to be that such problems and challenges were accepted as ‘that’s the way it is’ or not acknowledged as issues. It used to be that some humans could hold other humans as slaves and decree their fate. Women were held as inferior. So were people who weren’t like us, whether it was by religion, skin color, sexual orientation, or their ethnicity or cultural heritage. We are moving on to equal rights and better lives for all, but it’s a shift as slow as the Earth’s tectonic plates.
‘Helpless Dancer’ is a song by The Who. It was included on ‘Quadraphenia’, an album that was released in October, 1973. Speaking to my teenage angst and frustration and laden with drums, guitars and angry lyrics, it became one of my it albums, alongside ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Pink Floyd.
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Yes on No

The self-appointed and full of folly brains on beer group met last night. I joined them despite its name, as I was off my green smoothie fast and had endured several weeks without a beer. For that, I felt entitled to be rewarded. The only porter on tap is vanilla infused and reminds me of cream soda. Opting out of that, I enjoyed Caldera Brewing’s Ashland Amber Ale. Although several IPAs were on hand along with Boneyard’s Red Ale, CB’s triple A is a good fallback for any venue.

Ron was celebrating his sixty-ninth birthday, so he bought. The rest put twenty into the kitty to support local schools’ STEM efforts. Conversations naturally skidded toward politics. Several members were leaving early to catch the debates. We’re on the spectrum from Reagan Republican to extreme liberals, and include several stops between those end points. None support Trump; none are enamored with Hillary. Several were Bernie fans. No one else really seemed to garner energy in our group.

Discussion swung around to Oregon issues and dropped into Prop 97. Disagreement bounced up. The most liberal disliked the prop because it was written too loosely. Another objected to 97 and was voting against it because it’s a sales tax and the floor for being taxed was too low. Logic, hyperbole, facts and opinions flew. Nothing was resolved, and nobody changed their minds.

But it was exhilarating to sit with friends and not agree, to discuss points of an issue based on its merits without diving into personalities or spewing invective statements and hate. In the end, we finished our beers, headed for the doors and called, “Good seeing you, see you next week.”

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