I walk down the street, I drive in my car, I go to work and I never, ever accuse a Black person of swimming in a pool, or of breaking into a house, or of raping a member of my family, or robbing a bank. It doesn’t seem that hard to me.

There are a bunch of reasons for this:

1) Swimming in a pool isn’t illegal.

2) There are no laws against being Black

3) No one (of any color) has raped a member of my family that I know of.  If they have or had, their color of their skin is not the important thing. The fact that they were assaulted is.

4) I’ve never seen a bank robbery in real life. Again, if I’m at a bank robbery, the color of the person with the gun is the least of my concerns.  Being dead, losing money — those things would be concerns.

The same goes for brown, yellow, or red skinned-people. The same goes for people of different sexual orientations, different genders, different states of mind, and physical abilities. I don’t get why this is hard for people!

This in no way is to suggest I’m a saint. I have stupid thoughts on occasion, but I keep them to myself! Just as there are guys who “can’t keep it in their pants”, it seems like there are more and more people who just can’t keep their idiocy in their own minds. In addition to thinking racist,sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, ableist things, they now feel free to say them. Furthermore, they now seem to be lining up to act on those thoughts. Really?! Is it that hard?!

People are allowed by law to walk down the same streets, swim in the same pool, shop in the same stores, go to the same schools, cook the same food, lead the same lives as you do! If they’re not doing anything wrong, leave them the hell alone! If they’re minding their own business, mind yours!

I try to tell people all the time that the person with the problem needs to learn to cope or learn another way to cope. If it bothers you that Black people exist, go somewhere where they don’t! If you don’t like people using the public pool that they have a right to be in, go to another pool! If you don’t like people shopping in “your” store, shop somewhere else. You’ve got the problem. If you don’t like gay people, don’t go to gay bars to harass them. If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one! (By the way, if you don’t like White people, don’t go where they go just to pick a fight. Go because you belong there. If you don’t like heterosexuals, for whatever reasons, don’t hang out with them. If you don’t like people of a certain religion, don’t do business with them, certainly don’t go to their Place of Worship and harass them.) Honestly, have some boundaries, people! Get lives of your own, instead of worrying about what other people are doing! Just stop.

That said, the whole generalizing thing is just a bad idea. If you worry about Muslim terrorists, but you’re on a bus with a friend of Timothy McVeigh, you’re worried about the wrong people! If you think Black folks with guns are scarier than White folks with one, you’re wasting your anxiety on frivolous things. If you’re worried about 200 members of MS-13, and you take it out on children, or asylum seekers, or even just Mexicans, you’re beating up the wrong people! And in your misdirected anger or fear, you’re wasting money, time, and, most of all, people’s lives (including your own!)

Solve actual problems, not made up ones! If you can’t do that, you are the one with the problem, as will as the one who is the problem. Figure it out people! Really, it’s not that hard!

(Did I get some of this wrong? Probably. It’s a rant. If it hurts you, tell me and I’ll apologize. Or correct me. I’m cool with that, at least for awhile. Then let me think about it.)

Resisting with Peace,

John

Peace,

As the Mueller investigation gets deeper and deeper, from what I read, this is what they will find:

There is a whole bunch of people who have most of the world’s wealth and they got it through illicit means. Not everyone who has wealth is evil, but those who are evil continue to chase money. Some of these people believe that they are the best people and that they bring dignity to countries by living within them (Fascists) Others in this group are just thugs who want legitimacy (criminals — money launderers, sex traffickers, arms dealers and others who hide in the shade and prey upon society.

This bunch of criminals knew where the money was kept, where the bodies were buried, what the dirty secrets were in government officials’ lives. They solidified power by getting into seats of power and changing the rules, so that they would make even more money and divide it up among fewer and fewer people.

They know where the tax shelters are offshore in places like the Caymen Islands, the Seychelles, maybe Switzerland. They created tax shelters for themselves in Congress. There is no end to their greed.

The NRA, the supposedly “most American” organization ever, was infiltrated by the Russians years ago. It’s leaders are leading the charge to break up America by turning Americans against each other. This is not why the NRA was started, and what we are seeing is the “regular folks’ NRA which hunts for sport vs. the new NRA leadership, which wants violence.

These same people make money off of privatized prisons and control the stock market (s). If they can ratchet up the stress on people by making them work more and more and paying them less and less under the guise of capitalism, which we’re told is the ultimate good, then people will start shooting each other. When people shoot each other, they go to a private prison, and the group in power makes even more money, which is spread out among fewer and fewer people.

Manafort lived in this world. So do the Koch brothers. So does the Saudi Royal Family. And, yes, so does Donald Trump, and Jared Kushner. Also, Rudolph Guilianni, parts of the FBI, Putin, and Netanyahu. Erik Prince and Betsy DeVos and their family for generations. Michael Cohen is sort of a bagman for the American contingent.

All of these people made a major push recently to achieve their dreams when Donald Trump got elected.

When all of this comes out, what we’re going to find is that:

1) We don’t like families being torn apart.

2) People do better when they eat, and sleep and rest and spend time with their families

3) People do better when they’re medical needs are met.

4) Better decisions are made when we use facts. Science works.

5) The ice caps are melting, and we’d better do something about it soon.

Once the money is found and put to good use on the things above, there will be less stress in the world, and we will find we like each other, that we’re so very much the same and there is more of “us” than there are of “them” around the globe.

After that, we have a lot of work to do, and we will, hopefully, do it.

Resisting in Peace,

John

Fourth of July has always been strange, but good. Unlike Memorial Day or Veterans Day, which celebrate war and the need to make veterans, the Fourth celebrates an idea. It represents freedom or the attempt at freedom, and a new outlook on the way things should be.

No, it wasn’t perfect, but it was a first try at overthrowing Empire. No slaves weren’t freed, but a few people thought suddenly that they should be, and ultimately they would be. Yes, all men were considered equal. But the idea of freedom, once seen and experienced, cannot be undone. The idea lays dormant until there’s a chance for it — and us — to sprout again.

As surely as Princess Leia had an “only hope”, people who have experienced freedom and independence will continue to survive with only that much, and yearn for the time when it comes.

We’re there again. We hope Robert Mueller will save us. We hope Susan Collins will save us. Time and time again, in the past 18 months, we have hoped that someone sane or decent would save us from the inhumanity of Trump’s crew of fearful loyalists. As the Roberts court ends, I am not so sure that we will be saved by anyone. I’m not convinced some part of our country doesn’t want Freedom to die… except for their freedom, their right to make money, and their right to own guns.

Independence must be matched with caring for others or it becomes self-indulgence. We, as a nation, have become better and more complex when caring for others is a rule. We become worse and simpler when we stop doing so. “Purity” calls for inbreeding — genetically and regarding ideas. It yields a drop in overall intelligence, and a decreasing of coping mechanisms which require creativity. Authoritarianism yields, then, more anger and less ability to cope with it. It makes us dumb, but we’re comfortable with a world that looks and thinks just like we do.

Independence, then, is uncomfortable. When Anglo men, and only Anglo men, are the only people that matter, we move backwards in history. I don’t agree with those who that they were only oppressors, but we were not at our best ever in 1776. I think that we were on top of the world under the Marshall Plan, got better when we listened to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and on the edge of open frontier in the days of the women’s movement. At that point, people who refuse to accept that they lost the Civil War want to bring us back to the last time they were comfortable: with pre-Civil War slavery.

They want things to be simple and ‘pure”. Simple is fine, except when it’s not. Thoreau chose to live simply. We are not all Thoreau.Solar panels are a form of living simply — but they required an Einstein to see that they were possible. Complexity is fine, except when it’s not. Eating food grown without preservatives is a form of living simply that ultimately makes more sense, I think. There is a time and a place for simple and a time and a place for complicated things. Having the option to figure out which is which is a part of American freedom, or it has been, in the past. In short, when people have choices, they are free — free to make mistakes, and free to be years ahead of anyone else. Freedom and choices, require diversity — a diversity of thoughts from a diversity of people with a variety of experiences. That is not the goal of this Congress, and it certainly not the goal of a President who demands loyalty above all else, and is willing to fire people who have a different opinion.

Purity, on the other hand, will never work. All the blonde-haired, blue-eyed people in the world can’t understand the problems facing people who aren’t them. That’s most of the world. In addition to that, most of the people wanting White People to rule, don’t want women ruling. Those guys can understand and fix even less. The more a system strives for purity, the less it can function. Mr. Trump’s statements like, “I alone can fix it” will only lead to more chaos. Other countries who give absolute power to one person’s ideas will ultimately fail as well, simply out of necessity. In fact, any group of two which gives absolute power to one will yield misery. It’s just bigger on the nationwide scale.

So, as we face Independence Day in 2018, we need to ask if we are more free than we have been in the past. Children in cages is pretty much the definition of not free. A majority of any one group in prison, or in power is not free. People who support these things do not encourage freedom. America will be free in an ultimate sense when those people are free to be themselves.

All of this brings us to the issue of “bravery”. Bravery is necessary when freedom is undermined or lost. Bravery is required any time we need to stand up to bullies. By bravery, I don’t mean bombs, bullets, or bayonets. Bravery is the ability to say “no” when people want us to be less diverse. Bravery is the ability to tolerate a diversity of opinions and hear them out. Bravery is not the ability to let people hurt others or yourself.

So, here’s the deal: people in power right now either want to make this country function well, or they want to own it. Each and every time they attempt to own it, we must be brave enough to say “no”. If those in power want America to function again, they must be brave enough to say “no” to those who want one man or one party rule. Right now, that’s the Republicans. Brave Republicans need to step up and say no to the hatred of others, no to single party rule, no to letting people die, no to putting people in cages for no reason.

Is that happening? In the Senate, perhaps. In the House, no. When all it takes is one Republican to block a judicial appointment — and we have no guarantees from any of them, we’re hoping for bravery from people who aren’t inclined to give it. That’s not going to work. If we want America to be the home of the brave, we must be brave. We must say no to those people who won’t be brave and stand up for the functioning and free America. We cannot give an inch.

And if we make it through this, those in power — whichever party they are from — must make us the land of the free and encourage us to be brave.

Resisting with Peace,

John