Pretty Political

One of the most basic and primal needs of a human is acceptance. Even those that puff their chests and pronounce with force that they don’t care what anybody thinks of them are lying – mostly to themselves. It’s been bred into us, passed from generation to generation, those that complied gained acceptance and thrived, those that did not died off – taking their rebel DNA with them.

I thought of that fact when I sat listening like a sad fly on the wall to a group of 20-something women converse at a work event. The conversation of having children came up and each proclaimed they saw no point in procreating in this world. One even used the word spawn. I wasn’t struck by the fact that they were saying that considering the way the world has seemed to shift in the most heartbreaking fashion over the last three years. I was more in tune with watching their eyes and how they made those comments while subtly searching for approval in the eyes of their peers. They weren’t expressing their lack of need to create a spawn with sadness due to the world, economy, unrest – they were speaking in an almost prideful, boastful way. See, I am one of you, accept me. I have revolted against the patriarchy and in lieu of the stupid pursuit of a family in any traditional sense, I will work to only better myself. Eyes darting from side to side to catch the grins of peers. Accept me. I am cool. I have complied to what I’ve been told. Please accept me.

I have known a few female and male friends over the years that very purposefully have not wanted children and chose to opt out – usually they have said they were too busy, too career-oriented or felt too selfish to be able to care for another. That’s never been a big deal and I have admired people who have had the self-introspection to admit that and live their lives accordingly. But something so different is going on right now – something that feels far too planned out to be unintentional.

For money and power, the hateful rhetoric of politicians that has trickled down (or up) through cynical teachers, ideological parents, a morally bankrupt entertainment industry and a bought and paid for media has convinced children for years behind the scenes that this world is bad, racist, unjust, awful. That they not only need to often loathe themselves, but all others and most definitely all others that try to convince them the world isn’t all those things. THOSE people are the bad guys, don’t listen to them. If you do or speak up with them, you will get canceled and shunned. They can’t speak at our college, they are BAD. THEY can’t post on social media, they are spreading misinformation. You MUST believe us that they world is awful or you won’t be accepted!

Eyes dart side to side, seeking for acceptance – I understand. The world is a bad place. Anyone who disagrees with your opinion is subhuman. I will scream with pride about my abortion. I will accept the new words you made up as real, I will bend reality and logic for you. Just please, please accept me.

And, they applaud and encourage them; convince them they are being progressive and seeking justice as they slip further into anger, anxiety, depression because that is what that world view creates. In the world they created where believing in a God is mocked, believing in a family is regressive and supporting your country is nationalism everything is bleak. They train them to work, post selfies and live a solitary and narcissistic life to be accepted. And with eyes growing increasingly barren of the humanity and hope that used to exist within the eyes of a child, they comply, to be accepted. The more they see the world through those eyes the deeper the depression, anxiety and seething anger builds. But don’t worry, there’s a pill for those things that they will quickly sell you or the government will legalize weed to tax to give you on every corner.

They are numb now. They have removed from them any hope, convinced them that jaded and angry is what they need to be to gain acceptance amongst their peers, isolated them like every abuser does in a digital world of fake hate and then profit off of the misery they don’t even know they live in.

“Oh my NO, I don’t ever want kids“, she said with a smile. And, the group around her nod and agree. They have gotten the acceptance their humanness has made them crave and in that they have quietly, without knowing, doomed humanity.

I don’t pretend to know what the ultimate goal is here. Do corporations want to save on that annoying maternity leave and make sure their worker bees aren’t distracted by the love of a child? Do the environmentalists see us all as the carbon that needs eliminated to save the planet even if it means we cease to exist? Do politicians know that the only way to control people is through fear, anger and isolation and if they believe in God, love their country or have children they will not make them their Gods? Maybe it’s all those things wrapped up into one horrific, sad storm. I don’t know the true roots, but I know one thing for certain:

It’s an intentional consequence.

An entire generation of kids will keep choosing to remain happily childless to be accepted. Not all at first, but as it spreads and the craving for acceptance deepens, more and more will comply. And it will eventually lead to the end of us, long after my children bury me. My children that gave me strength when I couldn’t find it, hope when I thought it was lost, a reason for living when I had to sift through the shreds of my life. My children that loved me no matter what and made me know that it never mattered how bad things were, Mommy had to smile because they were watching. My kids that I’ve shared sunsets with, passed life lessons to, got silly together at amusement parks with. My children that gave meaning to my life.

They’ve robbed these 20-somethings of that – intentionally. The very things that could give them strong roots to gain them strong wings, they clipped for money and for power. And the thought that brought tears to my eyes as I listened to those girls talk was … and, we let them and they let them … for acceptance.

I just went to stock up on groceries for the week. I’m on vacation this week and wanted to cook at home the entire time. It’s a staycation, that’s a great name, right? It rhymes with the original word “vacation” that indicates that you are actually ceasing to work to go do something fun. That’s hilarious.

Do you know what it is code for? It’s code for my son is in Chicago on business and I really wanted to go visit him. But plane tickets that used to be around $200 for a quick flight to Chi-town are now $497. Hotels that I used to be able to get for $129 are now $329. When I factored in the Ubers, food and entertainment costs … I couldn’t afford to drop over a grand right before the holidays. PERIOD.

I make decent money. But I had to choose between seeing my son and affording to cook for everyone here on Thanksgiving and get Christmas gifts.

By all means, DEMOCRATS, tell me how as a middle-class mom, almost 50, who works her butt off, pays taxes, follows all the laws in life, traffic, business and personal … you tell me how I’m supposed to be more concerned with who gets to have a late-term abortion or “democracy” than how people can to afford to eat. Say it to me with a straight face. Say it to me when I’m sitting here on a Saturday writing this rather than enjoying a cup of coffee with my child in a Chicago hotel lobby. Then get very close to me and tell me with that straight face that I am some kind of “ultra, super duper, extremist, Mega MAGA maniacal maniac Hell-bent on destroying Democracy” because I am going to DEMOCRATICALLY vote on Tuesday to get your ideological asses out of power.

Contrary to the venomous snake in bad wigs, Joy Reid, no one had to TEACH me what inflation meant. Also contrary to all the talking head “economists” who give this “multi-facted and layered reasons for inflation to include flooding the market with money due to reckless spending having too many dollars chase too few goods … blah … blah … blahhh”! Of course, those reasons factor in, but I know what really caused it, it’s not rocket science!

Fuel. Energy. POWER.

Biden came into office on the stance that he was going to “phase out fossil fuels”. This isn’t a DEBATE. The man said it repeatedly and then backed it up with Executive Orders on day ONE. He spooked the industry. Who in their right minds would continue to drill and invest in an industry the government is telling they will go bye-bye in a few years? You can call them “greedy”. But they would have to be complete morons to continue to invest billions to know they were going to be “phased out”. If you owned a T-shirt company and the US government was telling you they were going to eliminate all production and distribution of T-shirts and force all people to wear dress shirts instead, would YOU keep pumping out more T-shirts? Um, NO!

The inevitable result was that supply goes down and consumption goes up, which leads to inflated costs. And because the reprehensible hacks in power finally lifted the excessive lockdowns that almost destroyed us at the exact same time they cut fuel production, it now costs more to drive to the work than what you make there.

Every, single last item we need is fuel-dependent. IT’S HOW IT GETS HERE! Truck, boat, plane … there isn’t a portal in the sky that goods drop out of. Those goods have to get here and they get here with vessels that run on FUEL! So, the manufacturers start adding “fuel surcharges” which get passed down to the consumers and voila! It leads to me loading $409 worth of groceries that used to cost me half to then proceed to fill up my car for another $80 that cost half that 20 months ago. I’m $500 down in one hour, to simply eat and drive for one week of normal, normal life. Not an excessive life … food and gas for my car. The things I need to live!

Again, please get very, very close to me and tell me how late-term abortions and democracy are supposed to be on MY ballot. Say it nice and slow.

We are headed into winter now. We’ve been blessed with a warm Fall. But as I loaded those groceries and put that gas in my car, I thought about all the people out there that also need to pay for their mortgage, electric, cable/internet, and HEATING bills. What will they do? What will they do because you pandered to tomato soup throwing lunatics that wanted to crush our energy sector with no affordable solution besides that absolutely ridiculous “go buy an electric car” crap? That’s your “base”, right? That’s why John Kerry blows his ginormous carbon footprint load to crisscross the globe to pander to YOUR base, right?

Tell me, when a senior citizen, quite soon, this winter in fact, can’t afford to eat AND heat their home … will you be there with tomato soup for them? Are you going to serve up that tomato soup warmed into their rumbling bellies and freezing cold hands? As they freeze to death will you be whispering in their ear that it’s a necessary task to combat the ravages of climate change? As their pulse slows from hypothermia are you going to tell them that you cast your vote to combat the “existential threat of climate change” or for late-term abortion rights or DEMOCRACY????

Will that thought warm them? Is freezing to death because you had to choose between paying your heating bill or buying your heart medication NOT an “existential” threat to you? It isn’t going to happen in 5, 10, 15 years if we don’t make a change. It’s going to happen NOW! Is little brainwashed Greta going to attend their funeral and scream and cry for them?

The thought of ordinary American citizens facing those choices this winter because of your outrageous policies turns my stomach. I look at our median incomes and who will get impacted by this and it includes MOST OF US. Most of us will face a “this or that” choice because of these lunatics. For me, right now it is see my child or have Thanksgiving at my house. But for so many Americans, it’s going to be to eat or to heat … in a FIRST WORLD COUNTRY. And, no matter what kind of lie they try to spew at you, it is 100% due to their policies and ideology.

So as my friends, the elderly, young kids starting out in their new homes, people that don’t have high paying career jobs try to figure out how to stay warm or stay fed this winter … you get very, very close to me and tell me very, very slowly that late-term abortion or “democracy” is what I’m supposed to be fighting for or why I should cast my vote.

It is so hard to stand on the sidelines and see the path to destruction being paved with absolutely no power to stop it. In my life and in business it was like witnessing a slow motion car accident from the street trying to yell and scream and stop all from the collision to come when the pandemic began and the insanity following ensued.

There were so many that did not or would not understand this simple fact — you don’t ever remove something from a space without something else moving in to occupy it. Remember that. Remember it as I will remember vividly those of you that refused to listen. We were ringing the alarm bells for you … you would not wake. Repeat it. You do not EVER remove something from a space without something else moving in to occupy it.

When we shut down small businesses for longer than the promised two weeks, we made it difficult for them to survive. But, that wasn’t enough to crush their spirit. We deemed the large corporations “essential” and drove all the business to them. The spirit of the small business chugged on and they fought and scrapped to stay afloat. Our government decided to pay people more to stay home. That scrapping small business was allowed to open, but with the heavy weight of no returning staff strapped around their necks. Our government than rallied those masses to fight for more pay, but the only ones able to pay it were … you guessed it … the “essential” large corporations. Doors started to shutter and small businesses began to crumble under the weight. But, some continued to fight on with bagged eyes and bloody knuckles. So, our government again allowed the excessive shutdowns to cause a “supply chain crisis” that was completely manufactured to drag on.

Let me quickly explain what creates a “supply chain crisis”. Our big businesses have been allowed to outsource products from China and abroad for cheaper, because they allow slave labor in China and South American countries. The government turned a blind eye as they assembled them in the US to be allowed to add a “Made In America” sticker on it, but it was a lie. When you force people and then pay them extra to stay home, you have no one to ship, drive, unload or assemble those products here. They come slower. When they come slower, small businesses take longer to distribute those products, that means it takes longer to bill for those products … that means the small business cannot maintain the cashflow to support payroll and people lose their jobs.

The “supply chain crisis” isn’t simply not getting products on time. It is the bullet to the head to a small business that is already on the ground, gasping for air, catering to the wounds created by the forced shutdowns. It’s the death blow. A slow painful death of a 1000 cuts and if they still refuse to fall, the government made sure to cover their mouth and hold their hand there as they cut energy production and drove the costs of everything that requires fuel up to the point where they can’t afford to breathe.

And, when they fall … the larger corporations have been waiting in the wings to sweep up the remnants of their businesses like ashes — their employees, their customers — all theirs now.

As some of you went on like sleepwalking zombies over masks, mandates, “staying safe” the small businesses, the backbones of our country were dying. As some of you yammered on about proper pronouns and which bathroom to use the corporations were collecting the bodies of the destruction you were creating. While some of you were tearing down statues and creating autonomous zones, burned and looted OUR country … our ENEMIES were watching.

And, like any sharks in the water they smelled blood and pounced.

I woke up this morning to Russia attacking the Ukraine. Ukraine is not a democracy, we need to get that completely straight. It shouldn’t become our issue to send our men and women to die to protect them. Sanctions will do nothing, especially if China chooses to back them. (And, they probably will) But, what this morning triggered was the death to our Superpower status. China will watch how this goes and invade Taiwan. With their combined resources and how much our career politicians in Washington have spent decades selling our country off to them, the United States as we knew it is over.

So, those of you that still run around in masks whining about a broken fingernail being an “existential crisis” and scurrying to your useless college class run by a Marxist professor that will continue to tell you how awful our country is and was … you won’t have to fret … you destroyed it. As you lock up truckers without bail in Canada and turn a blind eye to the civil liberties of protestors in America, spit on cops until the good retire, expel anyone with opposing views from the military, healthcare, the INTERNET … you crush the only people left that would have the strength to fight back!

As you slept, a superpower died. You handed it over to large corporations and our foreign enemies to puppeteer us as their serfs.

Are you proud of yourselves? Because as you drive down the street of your town, rolling passed small businesses and family-owned restaurants that you destroyed to fill up your car with $6/gallon gas … I hope … if even for a fleeting second you think of those words … you never remove anything from a space without something moving in to occupy it. America was “systematically” everything wrong to you … I hope our replacements treat you better. But … I’ll ruin the surprise … they won’t.

I talk. A lot. I mean a WHOLE lot. I firmly blame my mother for it. She would encourage me to tell her stories as a small, small child when my dad and sister were busy at school or work and respond, “Oh Laura, that’s so interesting. Tell me more.” I’d then babble on about God knows what … Barbies, the latest episode of Sesame Street, why the sky is blue … I’m honestly not sure what a 4-year-old has to say of interest. But, I was CONVINCED I must be because my mom said so!

So, as you can imagine as time passed how shocked I was that talking a lot was probably not always the best way to go. Teachers would comment on it on my report cards, I would annoy other people who CLEARLY did not find me as interesting as good old mum, and often I would reveal far too much because once my yap trap started going it became difficult to stop the flow.

Growing up is hard. Quite hard. But, necessary.

Communication is an interesting thing. We all often view it as a one way street. I talk, you listen. But, one of the most important lessons I learned over time is often it is best to sit back and listen. Really listen. Every cell in your body will want to interject (especially if you are as loquacious as I am), but it’s often a fool’s game to interject. People never lead with who they really are. Not in friendships, not in relationships and not in conversations. They come at you with their elevator speech, the best version of themselves, the story they tell others and even themselves.

The truth always lies somewhere downstream.

I loathe cancel culture, whatever that God-forsaken term even means now. But, I also despise censorship and hypocrisy. It may shock many to know that I don’t think Whoopi Goldberg should have been suspended for her self-centered, profoundly idiotic, egocentric comment about the Holocaust and race. Let the lunatic talk.

Another amazing piece advice my mother gave me was to, “let them be them”. I have had many haters over my life. Whether it be going through a divorce and an ex not exactly being a fan of mine or petty women spreading gossip; I’ve been a target like I assume many have of loose talk or actions. And, again, every cell in your body screams to run to correct a lie or protect yourself from untrue or unkind words.

During those times, my mother would say, “let them be them. The truth always comes out.” I hated that advice. It went against all the fighter in me. Until you learn, it takes more strength to be silent.

Let Whoopi, BE Whoopi.

Let her run her mouth and expose just how ridiculous her “VIEW” is. Respond by turning the show off and never even letting your television accidentally play it. They live off of controversy that drives ratings, that drives commercial sales, that pays for their bloated salaries to spew garbage. We have all the control. We are just tricked into believing we don’t.

Just as I defended Joe Rogan’s right to speak, I defend Whoopi’s. Freedom of Speech needs to become equally applied across the board. Once censorship begins and is allowed, it then comes down to whomever is in power controls the voice. They don’t deserve that power. WE DO. We also remove from people the ability to really see into the characters and thoughts of the people they think they admire. Let people like Whoopi keep yammering their absurdity on until they reveal their true character. Canceling them or censoring them just makes them learn the right things to say … but NOT the right way to think.

Growing up is hard. But, necessary.

And, growing up right now and forever should have entailed these lessons:

• Know when to talk and when to shut up.

• Let people talk enough to reveal who they are.

• If you don’t agree with someone, TURN THEM OFF.

• Let assholes like Whoopi, BE Whoopi and respond with a click of a remote.

It’s that simple.

Growing up is HARD. But, dear God … it’s so necessary right now.

We all know how the chant started, I won’t write it. It has the F-word in it and I promised my mother I wouldn’t say that word as much. I made her this promise prior to 2020 and it’s been hard — really hard to stop saying over the last year and a half. (Fine … impossible .. but, I have cut down)

“F Joe Biden”, started getting screamed at many college football games and large gatherings. I found it funny. It got even funnier when a hapless female reporter, either wittingly or unwittingly, (I really don’t care), tried to mistakenly report the chant as “Let’s Go, Brandon”. The expression on the race car driver’s face was so subtle and priceless. It’s very much the deadpan face I try to wear into any professional event. I don’t want to identify myself as someone who thinks what is coming out of their masked mouth is ridiculous, so I just try to nod and stare blankly. That driver knew EXACTLY what people were yelling, but he just let her go. From that day on, “F Joe Biden” hilariously morphed into “Let’s Go Brandon”! It’s a chant even my f-word hating mother can partake IN!

The left immediately started to try to laugh off the chant as it continued at event after event, t-shirt after hat, post after post. It grew louder. Then, they tried to diminish it by calling it crass or juvenile. I, of course, try not to laugh in their face because it’s coming from the same people that thought calling any Trump supporter every name in the book was okay or felt it was cool to prance around D.C. with giant vaginas as hats. I swear, it’s impossible to take “these people” seriously anymore. Which people? WHICH people am I talking about? The BRANDONS.

See, all of us right now are living through the abject misery the BRANDONS inflicted from excessive lockdowns and policy nightmares. You know, the inflation you said would never happen, BRANDON. The supply chain meltdown that will destroy small businesses and create more inflation, BRANDON. The suicide rate skyrocketing you dismissed, BRANDON. The spike in murder and crime rates, BRANDON. The increase of drug relapses, BRANDON. The increase in depression, BRANDON. The people getting sick over delayed check-up’s, BRANDON. The kids suffering unregainable losses of education and socializing that will cripple them for life, BRANDON! But, you did all this to SAVE us, right BRANDON?? Because you care just so, so much about us, BRANDON that you are willing to unemploy anyone that doesn’t comply with you, BRANDON?? That’s out of love, right BRANDON? I mean, nothing says I love you like do what I say or starve, BRANDON!!

See, “Let’s Go Brandon” isn’t just “F Joe Biden” and IF it bugs you … it’s because you know that. And, the more it gets under your skin, I pray the more they chant it and the louder it gets. And, with these policies, with the person you put in The White House and as the money-printing and power grab continues … they will keep chanting it. It will become deafening. As the idiocy of your vote gets more and more painful for ALL of us … you’re going to hear it louder and louder. Join that chant or be that chant. You can only choose one.

Do you hear it? Do you get it?

“LET’S GO BRANDON! LET’S GO BRANDON! LET’S GO BRANDON!”

Don’t ask for whom the Brandon tolls, it tolls for YOU!

Today is Monday, October 11th, 2021. The date formerly known as Columbus Day … I think. It might now be called National Indigenous Peoples Day. I can’t keep up. I don’t want to keep up.

Some may think the idea of cancelling Columbus Day is a new development brought on by the clearly collective decision in 2020 to cancel everything from celebrity hosts of The Bachelor to plastic potato heads. But, I vividly recall being dragged outside with my entire class by a professor my Freshman year in college to “commune with nature and learn why we should never celebrate Columbus.” That was 30 years ago.

I remember being confused and perplexed. I didn’t understand the concept of indoctrination at that point in my life. I had this gut instinct that my professor really shouldn’t have been injecting her own opinions into our class. But, no one at 18 speaks up. We are young and impressionable at that age and I recall doing what I was instructed and rubbing at the blades of grass.

“Now, run your fingers through the grass. Feel the pain, feel the pain coming through the Earth of the Native Americans that were forced off their land by your colonizing ancestors.”

I felt foolish, but I ran my fingers through the grass wondering what was going on. Were the lessons I learned in high school about Columbus all lies? What else were lies? Is she lying? This was an ENGLISH professor. She explained she was part Native American and she wanted us to expand the way we thought. But, all I left there feeling was a kind of hollow anxiety that maybe nothing I knew was real.

This has been going on for 30 years and continues today. Except, the lessons start younger and younger.

The more I learned about Columbus and history, the more I saw that everybody is the hero in their own books. We write them often the way we write the stories of our own lives … always casting ourselves as the good guys. That’s a perspective that it takes well into adulthood, if ever, to develop. But, we don’t wait for adulthood. We tell kids, children with no ability to process the duality of man, that everything is a lie and everything about settling this country and who did is it bad and tainted and it leads to this …

Anger, self-loathing, confusion … all spelled out in cancelling with red paint and tearing things down. We don’t want to learn from history anymore, we want it gone. We don’t want to celebrate anymore, we want it GONE. And, no one ever stops to ask … and then what?

None of us, no matter how hard we try, can ever cancel or erase the past. The past is filled with women and men that were flawed but some did great things, brave things and sometimes terrible, terrible things. But, we will never get to see those moments in their entirety as we continue down this path. And, as we decide to cancel everything and everyone in history that did not lead the perfect life or the perfect path, we will slowly erase it all. And, nothing will change. NOTHING.

And, that’s the part that old English professor didn’t include in her lecture to children about how awful Columbus was. She taught a captive class full of children to question and even despise the past they knew. That’s the byproduct of cancelling. So, we won’t stop until it’s all cancelled. Feel better now?

So, Happy Monday … if you get the day off today and you don’t agree with it … go to work!

I actually tolerate a lot. A LOT more than people think. People have messed with me, lied to and about me, hurt me throughout my whole life. I learned a long time ago that if you react to each one of those things — you will go insane. I’ve worn grooves in the “high road” because I value my peace. I want my peace, my space, my life, my decisions, my privacy. As long as I get those things, I am happy. Happy is great, happy is better than angry. I’m kind of like Dr. David Banner … peaceful, mostly because you don’t really want me angry … you won’t like me when I get angry.

But, I don’t want to be a pushover either. So, I created the three F’s in my mind, the non-negotiables, the things that will release the “Hulk” in me. Don’t touch those things … I’m good, I’m fine, I’m not green with anger.

Don’t mess with my friends, my family or my finances. That’s it. That’s all I ask. Seems reasonable, right?

Ohhhh … 2020 had something to say about that!

I read this morning a question asking, “Why are people so angry?” I almost split my jeans while reading it.

WHAT???? Why aren’t MORE people angry?

In the last couple years:

1. I have been called a racist, Nazi, Trumpet, cult, brainwashed, stupid, need to be re-programmed or sent to a camp. These are the mild names … for being a registered Republican?? This was considered okay and acceptable.
2. I watched social media ban a President but keep the Taliban!
3. I have had strangers on social media threaten my life and make it clear to me they know where I live for having my own opinion.
4. I watched my own friends have their small businesses shutdown while they allowed people to burn and loot cities.
5. I KNOW police officers that got attacked with frozen water bottles and worse and were not allowed to defend themselves and those doing it saw zero consequences.
6. I was told to wear a mask so often that it drove down my oxygen level to the point where it messed up my bloodwork and had me sent to the Cancer Center costing me $1,200 in co-pays. But, when I say that people roll their eyes and call me names.
7. I am watching employers FORCE their employees to get the vaccine or lose their ability to feed their families and people think that is just fine … they even praise the decision.
8. I watched Harris and Biden question the vaccine when Trump was in office and then do an about face after they thought they could take credit for it.
9. I watch kids walking in masks while their parents aren’t wearing them. Because that makes sense?
10. I watch children be forced to wear masks in school when they just actually rip them off afterwards and socialize with friends. Um … no? No one wants to explain the point there?
11. My child moved to Florida because the excessive lockdowns here were destroying him emotionally!
12. I watch people that kept saying the vaccine would end this and it hasn’t ended and they STILL don’t admit they were wrong!
13. I see atheist really ramping up to attack anyone remotely religious in such a creepy way that there is definitely something behind it. Can’t have a God and make government your God!
14. I watch families that saved to send their kids off to college have their kids returning hating everything about America and no longer even identifying with the family that PAID to send them there!
15. I’ve watched our borders be open during a pandemic, but I STILL can’t get into a freaking Apple Store without a mask even though it is no longer a state mandate.
16. I can’t stand drug cartels OR pharmaceutical companies and the only ones getting outrageously rich out of this whole thing are some of the most unethical, despicable people! That doesn’t even consider the bald bastard that launched himself into space in a giant penis! And, the reason this egomaniacal toolbag could afford it was because the lockdowns made small businesses bleed out and into his bank account!

I could go on and on, but I can feel my eyes changing colors and jeans getting tight. The last two years has messed with every last one of my untouchable “F’s”. My friends have been hurt, my family has been hurt, my finances have been hurt!

So, the question shouldn’t now or ever be, “why are you angry?” The real question is, “why aren’t YOU?”

There are some endgames that weren’t composed by players, but by problemists. At first glance of the board, it seems equal. But, in a few moves, White forces Black to capture the White Bishop. That sacrifice sets up the Black to not be able to fight White’s promotion. In one players mind, the game is equal. While in the one thinking several moves ahead, it is already won.

Nothing is quite as it seems when the board is set and the long game is being played. It is never about the next move. It is about three, four, five ahead. And, the best minds and now technology is employed to play these games out … with us.

Do not believe for one second that the hands of power turn on black and red checker pieces or simple moves like jumping and kinging. Chess not checkers is being played. And, as I watch the events of the last 20 or more years unfold, a plan emerges and it horrifies me.

Endgame.

It would be too many words to start from the beginning of this and quite frankly, I’m not 100% sure when it began, but we are here. Breaking down the events of 2020: the summer riots, burning and looting, criminals being bailed out, social media silencing of opposition, the press completely blocking stories that by poll would have swayed an election, followed by January 6th, rioters imprisoned without bail or due process, how the tapes of that day at the Capitol won’t be released and the investigation is run by partisan hacks that give new meaning to conflict of interest … I cringe. It’s all so scripted, planned. There is nothing about it that feels random because it isn’t. And, I believe the collective guts of the remaining populous with half a brain recognizes that. But, what are they sensing?

The Endgame.

Now, we sit and wait as people plan to protest in DC this Saturday. Holding prisoners without bail or due process is unconstitutional. People should have the right to peaceably assemble; but how can you when the precedent has been set that extremist can and will infiltrate any large gathering? We do NOT have this right anymore and you need to mourn it because it is gone. Do not be lured into believing otherwise. The Bishop will be sacrificed to win the game. The media has already begun to label those preparing to attend as fascists and I believe any means necessary will be used to prove this narrative. People lost their livelihoods for simply attending 1/6, not the riots, the rally. They will destroy you just for going. Know this.

I implore all to not be a pawn in any this any longer. Don’t even be the Bishop to be used as a sacrifice. Stop being moved around the board like pieces in a game that those in power have already calculated. If something happens, they will blame every last one of you and try to use it to erode more rights. We know this. They know we know this. The standoff begins. For what? Now what?

Endgame.

The board is being set to stoke the flames of anger, division and more fear. These are emotions that make the rational part of your brain shutdown. Follow the science, right? Just like in chess, if you move on impulse and not thought … you are done. But, here is the secret … the winning move if we can play it. This is not now or has ever been about political party. We aren’t white, black, Republican, Democrat, Jewish, Muslim, gay or straight. We are simply the populous and the ruling class. There are no other groups. They divide us up so that it looks like we have less players on the board.

We don’t. We have more. Far more. And, when and if we can finally put all other belief aside and see that board for what it is … we change the game.

Endgame.

If we don’t.

Checkmate.

Twenty years.

It is almost unfathomable that 20 years has passed since that beautiful September day that changed the world as we knew it. Anyone old enough to remember that day have fingerprint-unique experiences sewn together with threads of similarity — the television spitting out images of fire, horror, smoke, collapse and dust. Collectively watching as the ash made wide-eyed strangers all one color, wandering through the streets of New York with eyes of lost children. The first responders rushing towards what the others ran from and then another hit, and another, and it all came crumbling down.

We didn’t know what it was, who it was, when it would end. They hit the Pentagon. A plane went down in Shanksville. “What is next?” “Where is next?” “Where is my family?” “Where do I go?” “What do I do?” “We need to run!” “We need to fight!” But, who? There was nowhere that seemed safe, there was nowhere to run. We were frozen and helpless. By the next morning, the sun shined differently on all of us. Tears pushed back into anger. Patriotism became immediately visceral. Villains emerged, heroes rose and for a brief moment in time, ever so brief, we were one — riding through the streets with American flags waving, hugging strangers, donating to charities, looking at neighbors under that new sunlight like they were in no way different … they were Americans … and we loved them. Unity.

And … Todd Beamer gave us the soundtrack to how we all collectively felt … “Are you ready guys? Let’s roll!”

Twenty years.

My God how the last 20 years has changed us. September 11th gave birth to The Patriot Act, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that ended as poorly as they began. My mother would always tell me, “what starts in sin, ends in sin.” How right she was. The new law unleashed the spying on our own citizens, while trials of the attackers sat on permanent pause. They scan and pat down grandparents to this day while our own government opens our Southern border to the unvetted. The same police that ran into a building on fire to die for us, we allowed them to be vilified and spit on. We sent men and women to die for this country for decades to force them to leave breaking their “No Man Left Behind” honor at the gates. And, our own President stood up just days before the anniversary of the moment in time we came together and ripped us further to shreds.

“We have been patient. Our patience is wearing thin”. Joe Biden’s words to the people he is supposed to be leading.

It curdled my spine and sent a cool rush of anger through my body. How dare you? Simply, how dare you. You don’t speak to me or ANY of us that way. You work for US. US! I know it is a fact you all have forgotten. But, believe me … we haven’t. Never forget. We will never forget. Even when you have.

Divide and conquer, right? Black, white, vaccinated, unvaccinated, Republican, Democrat, masker, non-masker, Asian-American, Latina, Conservative, Liberal, Gay, Straight … chopped into pieces, put into piles of rubble like the Trade Center. And, instead of ash, we wonder like zombies around in a half-covered face with the same eyes of lost children as we had on September 11th, 2001. You know what? MY patience is wearing thinner.

Twenty years.

Perhaps we remember what we swore we would never forget. Perhaps we remember what it felt like to feel patriotism, acceptance, compassion and fury all at once again. And, perhaps we let the soundtrack of who we are play one more time … even if it’s too late … even if that field is rocketing towards us and the chances are slim … and, all reason tells you there is no way out … maybe we remember what Flight 93 taught us 20 years ago … if we go down … let’s go down swinging …

“Are you ready, guys? Let’s roll.”