Month: September 2021

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.”