America Interrupted

The problems faced by American today will not be prayed away. There are no alternative facts to mask the daily damage being inflicted on our collective psyche. No election that will provide a magic elixir to undo the pain, anger and betrayal that comes when you are stripped of self identity and self worth. The time for cognitive dissonance and denial is past. America is broken. Our constitutional republic, and accompanying checks and balances has derailed.

From coast to coast America is comprised of Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Our Main Streets lined with young, old, Muslim, Christian, Jews, atheists and other, Irish, Italian, Asian, African, European and Native Americans. Our workplaces filled with scientists and clergy, gun enthusiasts and gun control advocates, men and women. We are the great melting pot. That diversity IS the American identity. We can’t change that anymore than a tiger can change its stripes. A list of all the great contributions immigrants and and refugees have made to this country would dwarf a list of their misdeeds a million times over.

We are strongest when we respect and allow for all views but that doesn’t mean our leaders and media members need to promote them all. To solve school violence, immigration, terrorism, or even the opioid epidemic requires not just a change in Washington, DC., but a wider acceptance throughout this nation. An understanding that we are a nation built on compromise, trust and acceptance. The loudest voice isn’t always the right one. The dreams of our founders was a future in which all citizenry was united under common bonds that provided equal assurance of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all. One nation, ruled by the people and in service of the people, to be the land of opportunity for all and a beacon of hope and freedom to the world’s underprivileged and oppressed.

Make no mistake, the American identity exists. To embrace the divisiveness that permeates our shores today is to reject that identity, as well as our nation’s past, present and future.

The American Story

Donald Trump has a gift. His natural talent is playing a character conceived of by men smarter then he. His ability to play a part; to shape perception to match a false reality, is extraordinary.

Take a look at The Apprentice where he played a successful businessman with little tolerance for incompetence. Compare that with the reality of the time. By the end of 2008 Don the Con had filed his 6th bankruptcy and was best described as a failed businessman. Mocked in tabloid media as a man so poor at business that he literally bankrupted multiple casinos and real estate conglomerates at the height of the economy and subsequently ordered to turnover his majority share of multiple conglomerates. They say the house never loses, unless its name is Trump. Yet there he sat in his makeshift boardroom the epitome of success.

Nothing that comes out of our so called President’s mouth or twitter feed should be trusted. Each tweet, each sound bite is nothing more than a means to an end. Even his more awful positions; the overt dog whistles and Nazi sympathizing sound bites are manufactured. The quid pro quo of the art of the deal.

As a native New Yorker myself let me tell you that Donald Trump could give two fucks about the “beauty” of Confederate statues. Look at his statements from the campaign trail if you don’t believe me. Check out the decor of his country clubs. I have no doubt the man is biased and ignorant in his views but a devout Christian white supremacist he is not.

The fact of the matter is Donald Trump holds no concrete views or beliefs. That he now plays a populist conservative on tv (and has since 2008) is no coincidence and suggests something far more sinister afoot than a simple racist President. It indicates that Trump himself is all part of someone else’s long game. A necessity to advance the next storyline and build suspense to the finale. Keep the water cooler talk going as the producers carefully select and edit the storylines to follow.

It’s past time American lose our obsession with scripted reality and get back to actual reality. That we wake up and stop reacting to the newest scandal being scripted by this White House. Let’s tune back into the American story instead. The one piloted by our founding fathers nearly 250 years ago.

It’s a story inspired by the dreams of our founding fathers and is pitched on hope, equality, opportunity, freedom. A story that provides a blueprint on how to build a better and more just future. A story rooted in resistance to intolerance and hate. As a nation we must understand that story is now in danger of cancellation. Only a coordinated campaign by “we, the people” will guarantee its renewal

The Terrible Twos

The great dynasties age in centuries not years. They span thousands of years and define an era of human history. If America is truly destined to lead the next great era in mankind’s evolution then history will view today’s struggles appropriately.

We were founded but 250 years ago and our actions today are indicative of the immature growing pains all toddlers experience; mere symptoms of the terrible twos. A collective temper tantrum driven by White Christian males who fear change.

Preschoolers experience a seismic shift in their relationship to the world. It’s an age where ones abilities to take in information outpaces one’s ability to properly process it. Rather than logic, behavior is driven by pure id and a need to prove one’s independence and self worth. Learning lessons the hard way is a part of daily life.

Research shows that these are the formative years that will dictate one’s moral fiber. ThIs is not meant to be hyperbolic. We are at a crossroad. We are a nation of informed consent. The constitutional crisis is not coming. It is here. Our nation’s moral fiber is at stakes.

“We, the people,” have a choice to make. We serve as the guardian who gets to imprint a moral code on the future course of young nation. Do we choose to be the parent who allows their child to get away with anything? Who withholds accountability and rewards tantrums with excess love, adoration, or rewards? Or do we instill the lessons of accountability and impose limits, reward the virtues of empathy and community?

The path we choose may very well determine the survival of our species. There are those among us who don’t want to change. Who don’t want to grow up or evolve. They fear strangers, throw tantrums, protest and resist change at all cost. They enjoy their lot in life, their standing in the caste. They bask in the shadow of white male privilege, take comfort in their status quo.

Others simply fear getting older or reject evolution. They recognize their outdated beliefs are being trampled. Their traditional values and understanding of one’s place under attack. They see the world around them and at heart must know they are the dinosaurs of the 21st century. Yet, it is with that knowledge they fight hardest against the inevitability of change. As if doing so will somehow prevent their extinction.

The majority of us, however, reject the impulses to fear the unknown. We recognize that change is a sign of progress. We strive to go #forward and dream of a brighter tomorrow. We pray for a world of greater tolerance, and pitch in to fight poverty and conserve our environment. With a yes we can spirit we set off to build bridges and seek to tear down walls.

The majority also take honor in the fact that diversity is a central part of the American identity. We recognize the dreams of our ancestors came at great cost and sacrifice. We acknowledge that our privilege was born from the sins of the modern era. The exploitation of cultures, land and people that came along with empire building, manifest destiny, tribalism, and colonialism.

For us to properly mature as a nation we must get over our separation anxiety and insecurities. The survival of our species will require unprecedented global interdependence and cooperation. The impacts of climate change, nuclear proliferation, antibiotic resistant pandemic and eventual planetary extinction will require it. To meet these challenges we need to toss aside our old grudges and ignorant stereotypes. We need to move to a figurative world without borders. This does not mean we abandon all common sense, but we flip our expectations. We expect a positive outcome and promote the benefits of cooperation. We teach our kids to trust but verify.

It’s time we as a nation move beyond the comforts provided by our founding fathers. Time for us to begin the big kid years and write our own legacy. Learn to socialize beyond our immediate family circle and expand our bubble. Promote the commonalities that exist between us instead. Welcome strangers into the kindergarten classroom and nurture the concepts of trust, inclusion and collaboration. Discipline and reject those that promote ignorance, name calling or disrespectful behavior.

Early intervention is the key to success. Let’s stop humoring the whines and screams of how much better it could be. Let’s instead pay attention to the desperate cries for structure and accountability. It’s not always easy to do but we must show the maturity and fortitude to do what’s best. To yank the binky away from our Dear Leader and bring some adult supervision back. This tantrum has gone on long enough.

We Reap What We Sow

It’s easy to toss labels and dismiss our so called President as a hate filled racist. To blame him for the obvious divide that exists in our country. To point to the recent spate of mass murders as evidence of Trump’s poisonous effect on our society. The truth isn’t that simple though. To truly heal as a nation America is going to have to realize that Trump isn’t the cause of America’s ills, he’s the result.

‪The embodiment of the 21st century American dream. A child of the 1% with no discernible talents, skills or virtues beyond that of self promotion. A self aggrandizing narcissist with an unhealthy obsession for celebrity and fame‬.

More than the violence portrayed in video games and entertainment over the past generation what America has truly placed value on is fame and celebrity, at any cost. Time and again greed and avarice has been rewarded with magazine covers and reality tv shows.

Talentless hacks have launched fashion, music, reality tv, and pop culture empires with no qualifications beyond a well timed sex tape, teen pregnancy, failed audition, sound bite or in some cases drunken debauchery. Amoral executives celebrated for the ungodly sums of money they have amassed as their workers struggle pay check to check anxious in the knowledge they are one unforeseen expense away from ruin.

Billionaires who boast about paying a lower tax rate than the chauffeurs who drive them around town. Who unironically cite their ability to artificially manipulate the free market as proof of their economic genius and capitalist ability. Corrupt politicians who lack all empathy and who care more for the unborn than the living. Who sell their influence to the highest lobbyist and unabashedly serves the party over we, the people.

More than the problem Donald Trump is a symptom of what plagues America. Our so called President stands for nothing and cares only for power, fame and money. He is driven by ratings and vengeance, and looks only for the next score to settle, a deal to win. All he knows is how to marginalize, belittle, conflate, de-legitimize and, when necessary, squash dissent and opposition. Doing so allows him to continue presenting alternative facts, only now without the alternatives. Lies then become truth, and perception reality

Sending Out An S.O.S.

I’m not sure if it’s willful blindness, cowardice or complicitness but Americans, and more importantly our Democratic and opposition leaders need to wake up to a simple fact.

The American system of checks and balances is dead. The constitutional crisis is here.

Newsflash The GOP control the White House, the Senate and the Supreme Court!

You have zero chance of getting answers from the caravan of corrupt criminals and enablers who are already in control and occupy the three most powerful arms of the US government. Perhaps we’ve been too busy paying attention to the distractor in Chief to realize that an entire caste system has been legislated into existence.

More troubling is the entire judiciary has been transformed to enforce the values of white Christian America long past the point demographics would have otherwise allowed. To interpret “we, the people” to include JP Morgan, Halliburton, Monsanto, Bain, Amway and the Koch Brothers; but not JP Hernandez, Halil el Burtun, Juan Santos, LeBain Johnson, Anyone Gay, or the Koch Sisters.

All this time we spend focused on Donald Trump. Countless hours spent reporting on his every outrageous move, sound bite, and tweet. Wake up and smell the coffee! The man himself is not the story. He’s a means to an end, a pawn, a hairy arm to distract you fools. To give you something to talk about. Why on earth do you think nobody in the GOP will hold him to account?!?!.

To date, the McConnell led Senate has confirmed 146 Article III judges nominated by a man who REMAINS an active target of a counterintelligence investigation. This includes 44 judges to the US Court of Appeals and 99 judges to the District Courts, and 2 to Associate Justices to the US Supreme Court.

The majority of these mostly white men will be the ones to determine the limits of Executive Privilege and the House Democrat investigative reach. Do you trust them to stop this bloodless coup?

Rather than face this truth Democrat leaders march on and inspire us to vote Blue in 2020. They choose to take us down the path of traditional checks and balances, blind to the fact an unconventional threat looms. They bellow that our participation in the political process is the last great hope to restore our democracy! To remove the openly corrupt leader from our nation’s highest office and restore common decency!

Meanwhile, Rome burns. This isn’t a political fight. There is no political opposition only a consolidated faction of self interested criminals who seek to control the future of the greatest nation on Earth. To think our participation in the suspect and possibly rigged electoral system which placed the inept and unpopular buffoon into office in the first place is the key to his removal, ridiculous.

Does anyone think the way to remove a corrupt authoritarian from office is to vote him out in a free and fair election that he controls? In the history of the world has a single free and fair election been lost by an incumbent authoritarian in control of that country’s executive branch, and with absolute and penultimate legislative and judicial support behind them as well?

Seeing that Deranged Donald also knows a criminal indictment awaits him upon his return to civilian life and me thinks the Democrats have a better chance of surviving a round of Russian roulette than they do of taking back the White House.

It’s time to get our heads out of our asses and steer this ship away from the iceberg. If our current captains can’t do it than perhaps we need to look beyond the control tower for some help

Tick tock

It’s easy to bury one’s head in the sand and ignore the blatant patterns and lessons of history. To dismiss comparisons with the past as hyperbolic ravings rather than examine the similarities to present day America will certainly allow you to sleep better at night. Just don’t be surprised to wake up one day to find you live in a ghost town. Lifelong friends rounded up in the dead of night when their names appeared in an immigrant database.

Look around, look around; we sit here today and bare witness;

as refugee kids are separated and locked in cages separate from other family, as open air facilities are transformed into housing facilities and like minorities are packed like sardines into them concentrated into confinement, as an entire political party and its leader refer to these minorities in dehumanizing ways and echo policy that to protect our borders and working class jobs we need to “send them back,” only those with “merit” may return after extreme vetting takes place.

as walls and artificial barriers are erected to control populations and designed not just to keep those beyond our borders from coming in but also to keep those within from leaving, as a culture war rages in our cities and suburbs and white supremacists and civil rights protestors are given equal standing in the court of public opinion, as needless massacres take place on a daily basis and ordinary citizens no longer grow anxious and unsafe going to shopping malls, places of worship, playgrounds, or schools, as sweltering record temperatures scorch our lawns and near daily natural disasters of historic proportions wreak havoc on our infrastructure, as a bullish economy is artificially supported by tax cuts, trade wars, and deficits that will bankrupt future generations and secure a permanent caste system in this country.

as deputized ICE agents terrorize communities to round up our tired, our poor, and those who look like they may have one day dared cross into our border on the chance they’d grow up to be free, as international tensions rise, arms races heat up and beacon of hope that once lit our nation’s shore is dimmed our reputation transformed from peacekeeper to pariah and laughingstock, as a bullish economy is artificially supported by tax cuts, trade wars, and deficits that will bankrupt future generations and secure a permanent caste system in this country to serve the war machine to come.

Hitler rose to power in 1933. The launch of the pogroms, the mobilization of SS and Gestapo forces, and the wide scale round ups of Jews and other minority groups into concentration camps that all didn’t begin for five more years. Kristillnacht, the night of broken glass, during which Jewish communities were terrorized by Gestapo agents took place in November 1938.

“In two days and nights, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned or otherwise damaged. Rioters ransacked and looted about 7,500 Jewish businesses, and vandalized Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries.” In total 91 innocents massacred, their blood left to glisten in the shards of glass that littered the street.

That hatred and vitriol was not birthed over night. It was methodical. It took years of carefully orchestrated sound bites, slogans and fear mongering rhetoric produced to stretch societal norms to where such things became commonplace. To set preconditions for the cognitive dissonance that allows for a society to coalesce and systemically ostracize a minority segment of its population. To brand, scapegoat and force them to concentrate and live in squalid conditions while one time neighbors carry on as normal. It requires a coordinated assault and manipulation of one’s senses to the point where people are no longer viewed as such. Empathy is erased from one’s psyche and replaced by the primal instinct to protect the clan, to survive.

In time concentration camps beget forced labor camps beget extermination camps. Lest you think those are the same things those didn’t come about until 1942. It’s called “The Final Solution” because it followed a series of unsuccessful prior initiatives launched by Hitler…

to control the borders, apply extreme vetting and otherwise encourage German Jews to emigrate from their childhood and return to the native lands from which their kind came;

to erect new defenses that would protect ordinary Germans from the Jewish vermin and thieves who scheme to steal working class jobs and otherwise drain German resources;

to ostracize, brand, round up and concentrate Jews into camps while the legislature figured out how to solve the “Jewish crisis” and plague upon Germany.

History knows this story. We, the people, must now recognize what has become of America before we pass the tipping point. We must no longer allow this caravan of corruption that sit in the control room of the greatest nation to ever grace the map to play another round of Russian roulette with our democracy. Odds that the fatal bullet will eventually strike the heart of this nation’s democracy grow with each day our Comrade in Chief sits in office

Iceberg Ahead!

As a nation we stand on the decks of the Titanic. Aware the ship has hit a giant iceberg. That it is taking in water at a pace that will lead to inevitable disaster. That time is not on our side and survival will require immediate action. Yet as I scan the throngs of people who share in my circumstance, in search of direction, a voice of hope, a leader. To my surprise I find none.

Instead our so called leaders, the very crew who steered us into this mess, reassure the masses that this is all a part of the normal growing pains you may expect with any maiden voyage. That the Titanic is not your typical ship so the lessons of the past do not apply to the present. It was designed by the brightest minds to be indestructible. There is nothing to see here. Look at the economy! It’s a standing room only crowd and the decor is to die for. Drown out the doomsayers and enjoy the band they instruct unironically. The cognitive dissonance is strong.

Our leaders need to learn from the lessons of America’s past. Need to understand the importance of taking proactive action. That this nation was founded and preserved due to the proactive nature of the American spirit. So many of our heroes, Washington, Hamilton, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Truman all grew to be revered for their foresight and courage. Heck even our Comrade in Chief’s hero, Andrew Jackson, understood how essential it is to take steps to mitigate an impending catastrophe, rather than wait to respond until it came to you.

Whether paralyzed by fear or blissfully ignorant of the danger I know not. What I know is that it’s not enough to sit silently as the smoke thickens and billows overhead. To keep dancing obliviously as new flames seemingly erupt in every direction. To simply stare in disbelief as the deck chairs begin to sway, confident that help will arrive shortly.

Until we confirm that the so called President of the United States and leader of the free world, was hired by and is working for the American people we cannot continue to advance his agenda. We cannot give deference to his nominees or judicial appointees. We cannot allow every Executive Order and unilateral decision to withdraw from international treaties to go unchallenged. Each baiting tweet to be left uncensured and as if official position of the United States citizenry.

“We, the people,” cannot sit back and watch as the 1% are ushered into the life boats right under our noses. We must demand action. To put our faith in the belief that the crew in charge won’t really allow the ship to sink ignores recent history. We must insist they act today to protect us all. Regardless of party, race, class or creed we are all passengers on this ship. At this point to do nothing is beyond appeasement; it’s assisted suicide. #Resist

Our Freedom Is What Makes Us Great

Conceit has destroyed many an advanced civilization before and I reckon it now poses a clear and present danger to democracy as we know it. Our Comrade in Chief and his cesspool of corruption make no secret of their intent to usher in a new world order. To bring down what they consider the outdated system of governance our founding fathers devised. A system of governance that was designed first and foremost to prevent tyranny. The first of its kind to create three separate but equal branches of government to represent and serve the people of this great nation. A system which has sustained us for nearly 250 years and served as a beacon of hope, freedom and liberty to the whole world. That very system now finds itself under attack by those it was designed to prevent and destroy.

The same people who claim our founders had the foresight to guarantee individuals the right to bear a high capacity assault rifle, now tell us that these very men were unable to foresee the threat of foreign terrorists invading our soil. Unable to foresee aliens living within our shores. They will now have us believe that the ideas of informed consent and an independent legislative and judiciary branch place our national security at risk. Of course nothing could be further from the truth.

Put aside the fact that our founders were illegal aliens themselves and plenty wise to the concept and effectiveness of terror. Focus instead on the inherent fallacy of this logic. Our so called President believes America must change the way we govern and engage the international community because terrorists wish to do us harm. That it is necessary to rip a child from its mother’s arms, close our borders, profile and invade privacy to guarantee our freedom and liberty. Why do terrorists wish harm in the first place? It is because of the very way in which we govern. That is the great threat to the terrorists way of life.

A successful America is what the terrorist fears most. An America where individual freedoms are guaranteed and people are able to speak freely, assemble in opposition and worship as they please. An America where a free and independent press allows no man to escape accountability and all citizens to make informed choices. An America where no man, party, religion or corporation is mightier than the Constitution, or above the law. Where an intricate system of checks and balances protects the basic inalienable rights of all men, women and child.

America, our ideals, our values, our system of governance is what terrorists seek to destroy. It is also why the illegal alien risks everything to come live within our shores. That this administration seeks to be complicit in the destruction of that system and to do so in the name of national security is shortsighted and dim witted at best. That they more likely wish to do so in the pursuit of absolute power and enrichment. Well that would be nothing short of treasonous. Either way we must not normalize the insane or inane. We must #Resist