Monthly Archives: September 2017

There is a NFL game tonight.
There are also NCAA football games.
Baseball is in playoff mode.
Anyone watching?

If you are, and you have NEVER stood up at home, the bar, a friend’s house, during the TV screenings in the mall, or in the airport, then you are a traitor.

You see, if it is right, it means that you have to do it when no one else is watching….

If you believe that holding your hand over your heart is only good enough for the stadium, then you are one of those people that believes in PDPs, or Public Displays of Patriotism, and while you hold everyone to this standard, while you are at home, walking in and out of the room with snacks, only to pay attention AFTER the anthem is over, you turn down the anthem to talk, you turn on other shows while the anthem is playing, you drink, talk or eat during the anthem, you are not watching television during the anthem, or you are occasionally engaging in sexual acts in front of the TV, or you are doing something else irreverent while the anthem is taking place–but in no way have you EVER stood with hand across heart, mouthed the words simultaneously with the speaker, and thanked America in the confines of your own space while it was being played and displayed–then you are not a true American.

If you believe that a Congressmen, who is a proven liar, should be able yell at the President of the United States during the middle of a live address to the nation, and not receive any punitive measures, then you are not a patriot. If you were one of the many who helped contribute the million dollars in donations to his reelection campaign just hours after his outburst, then you are a traitor to America.

If you believe it wrong for people to question the views, motives, messages, and statements of the President, while thinking it right for the President to assert that people who don’t share his views should be fired, then you do not know the American Bill of Rights and perhaps any of our Articles.

If you believe that people can protest as long as they want to, because it is their American and God given right to be ultra conservative in the face of the progressive agenda; if you believe that it is wrong for socialist hotbeds of intellectualism like UC Berkeley and other coastal universities to stop being ‘politically correct’ and stop coddling our youth and allow for conservatives with no ties to organizations, no articulated vision inclusive to all Americans, or the any relationship to campuses, are not educators or elected officials, to have the right to come and give hate speeches and sell their books, and make the university responsible for paying for their security; if you believe in the right of the KKK to exist, for FOX News not to be held liable for inciting intolerance under the guise of free speech and not the requirements of accurate reporting—and you get mad that ball players that are publicly showing their dismay with a law enforcement system which has collectively held the sworn oath (and receives pay with benefits) to protect us all has been found on hundreds of occasions to be in violation of that promise and they don’t want to stand for a program that has been issued over the last 8 years, then you are a hypocrite, and a traitor, and Un-American.

If you are okay with the fact that the NFL donates only 8-12% of proceeds for Breast Cancer Awareness contributions, or that the armed forces pay about $11 million dollars to advertise and promote the military by the use of the ads and the flag and anthem, and you think this is truly about patriotism, then the players are not the only ones on the field of vision with CTE…..

Now, hurry up and get back to the game, the anthem is just about to start….

While this won’t make America Great today, this would go a long way to make America Greater Tomorrow:

1. Congressional Term Limits, and no pensions for elected office
2. Every student should take mandatory courses every 3 years (3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th) in American History that includes slavery, Native Nations’ wars and relocation, and you cannot have a ‘Texas version’ style of instruction.
3. Remove credit for AP coursework, eliminate legacy status as a factor in college admissions in public universities.
4. Allow anyone under the age of 21 brought to America by undocumented status to be fast tracked towards American citizenship.
5. Corporations that have broken the law at a primary level or discriminated against minorities in the hiring, promotion, contracting should not be allowed to engage in any local, state, or federal contracts for 10-25 years.
6. Treat the Alt Right and the KKK and related groups like terrorist ogranizations
7. Any law enforcement officer that commits hate crimes–this includes state and federal officers, and elected officials at every level–gets mandatory jail sentences, and is prohibited from working for government service.
8. Law enforcement agencies with at least 11% of their officers engaged in abuse/law enforcement agencies with documented corruption get dissolved, and those agencies become agencies of the Federal government.
9. Corporations found to pollute are responsible for the cleanup, and corporate officials are sentenced to minimum 5 year prison sentences
10. Instead of building a wall between the US and Mexico, invest the money in creating a National Aqueduct.

15 million American people have been affected by the hurricanes in the last two weeks, with the whole island of 3.5 million in Puerto Rico is without power. It may be that way for months.

Your president has not a care in the world about any of that. He moved on from those tragedies faster than the hurricanes themselves.

Instead, Trump is tweeting about Stephen Curry not coming to the White House, baiting Kim Jong Un into nuclear war, railing on at Southern (white) republican rallies about NFL players (correction, black NFL players) not standing up during the National Anthem and demanding that they be fired.

Your President is angry because not all people don’t want to support his program–correction, he has zero program, zero detailed plans–he is angry because people don’t want him, love him, or respect him. He is trying to get civilian folk fired, and lying about the way of life because some of us think he is unfit.

Shame cannot express how I feel about us right now. The world is watching and no one at the highest levels in America is saying anything to challenge this man, to make the world understand that this is not us.

But this is US.

I’ll hear pundits say that folks didn’t truly know who they were voting for, and this is a complete shock to all things normal and civil. But pay attention, when leaders are quiet, when churches are quiet, when citizens are quiet, it doesn’t mean that they are shocked or even embarrassed; it means that they are going along with the program. They aren’t that scared to hold their tongues.

Remember when people thought that Obama was going to take their guns, give their lands to foreigners, bring down the economy, and was part of the New World Order; they thought he was going to be a tyrant–yet they could speak out against that guy? It doesn’t make any sense that people would’t speak out now.

If these people are going along with the program, then they support the program, period. They are the silent majority. They are your friends and family and bosses and pastors and elected officials. And they cannot even publicly disagree with a thing that Trump says or does. Some of you have posted about players not standing for the flag, and all things patriotic. But were is your patriotism now?

I have always been a supporter of politics and governance and an engaged citizenry. I was a Student Body President in elementary school; I was one in high school; I have worked for free on campaigns, run unsuccessfully for office, and if I could do it, I’d go back to school in a heartbeat and earn a PhD in Political History and teach at universities for pay, and in primary schools for free. I have never missed an election, and I watch more socio-political news that sports. I have tried as best as I could to be a part of what is best about community in American policy, and I am failing.

And so is everyone else around me, and it doesn’t matter what your politics are.

When the world ends in movies, it is usually because of some multinational corporation’s contagion that has been unleashed, or because some uncontrollable force has devastated us. In reality, when we end this civilization as we know it, it will be because we were too filled with our own lusts to stop ourselves.

I hear people around me saying, one day, we will find another planet to start over. We cannot run from ourselves; we would surely find a way to screw that place up as well.

But we don’t deserve another planet; we don’t even deserve this one.