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patrickalleneck · 7 years

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A Trumpistan Carol

A True Story Based on Truly Alternative Facts ———————-/———————— A gold-crusted LED flickers on. The sound of cheetos crunching between sub-satisfactorily hygenic teeth is quickly overtaken by the murmuring ruminations of a Fox News pundit.

“Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.”

“Ha! Now I’ve got him!”

Donald J. Trump slumps forward in his chair to cough out a cheeto that he began choking on somewhere between “Now” and “I’ve got him”.

“Fuck! Fucking cheetos. That hot-tittied maid laced them with concrete to make them impossible to swallow. These liberal whores are out to kill me!”

Trump fumbles sideways over himself to pick up a gilded phone.

“Yeah? Robert? Get me the head of the lady who brought in those fucking concrete cheetos. Yeah! The one with the hot tits! I want her head, and I want her dead!”

“Sir.”

“What is it Robert!?”

“Sir, are you certain you wish to kill her and decapitate her?”

“What? Not decaspimate! Just cut off her head!”

“Sir. Just to remind you, she is the granddaughter of Esperanza. Esperanza brought you up, sir. She practically raised you with her children. One of their children is Julia, the woman you wish to kill and have… her… head… displaced…”

“Huh? Julia, eh? Man, did she grow a set of tits! I always told you she would, didn’t I Robert?”

“Yes sir. You did. Ever since she was 5.”

“Well, ain’t I a modern day prophet, or what?”

“Sir, you paid for her breast enhancement surgery three months ago, after telling her you always imagined she would have great big tits, and when she told you she did not feel comfortable working for you anymore, so you told her she would never work anywhere else again and that you’d fire her grandma too unless she let you buy her tits. She very reluctantly succumbed to your command.”

“Serves her right. I guess I did. Well, they turned out great. Tell you what? Why don’t you send her back so she can give me head, then I’ll have her head later. And bring me her grandma’s head too. That’ll show them.”

“Sir. Are you completely sure you wish to have all of these commands fulfilled? Isn’t it quite enough to have intercourse with her and let it be at that?”

“What are you trying to say, Robert? That sex with me is a big enough punishment?”

“No, sir, it’s just that I thought it might not settle well with the rest of the family, who have long been, well, like family to you.”

“You know what, Robert? You’re right. You’re always right, right? I mean, nobody’s always right like me, but you’re pretty right, alright?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Ok, is Tommy around?”

“I believe so, yes, sir.”

“Ok, great, put that old dog Tommy on the phone right now.”

“Ok, thank you, sir.”

“Hey sir, Tommy here.”

“Hey Tommy. I have something I need you to do. Robert is getting all ethical-smethical on me. I want his head. And when you bring it, bring that maid with the hot tits. We’re going to celebrate a little tonight, you and me? Big stuff.”

“Yes, sir.”

Trump slams the phone down and slumps back over, with his hand falling back into his bag of cheetos.

He keeps eating.

“Fucking Obama. Fucking liberals and media making me look like a real jerk sometimes. What the fuck is wrong with them?”

He stands up and paces around the oval office. There are portraits of him all around. There are also many mirrors.

“Fuck! Where’s my goddamn cell phone. I’m going to tweet the shit out of this good news!”

Trump fumbles around his desk for his phone. He finds it under a TeenBop magazine.

“Stop. Right. There.” Steve Bannon’s tinny, scratchy, impotent voice reverberates throughout the room.

Trump drops the cell phone and cringes his nose.

A brownish cloud starts emanating from behind the desk.

In a puff and swirl of smoke, a massive, steaming pile of shit starts piling up from the floor up to about Trump’s shoulder height. A bubble boils up and bursts from the top of the pile, releasing a pack of flies. The flies move in unison towards a latch in the wall, using their collective force to pull it down.

A panel in the wall opens up, revealing a mold of some sort. The giant pile of shit oozes over to the mold and piles in. Trump is watching the entire spectacle with the same dumbfounded face you will find him wearing whenever he is asked anything serious.

The mold closes shuts, a siren buzzes, a flash pours out, temporarily blinding Trump, who winces and rubs his eyes to see the panel open again. A bald Steve Bannon walks out. He grabs a chunk of hair from Trump’s head and places it on his own.

Before sitting behind the desk, Bannon pulls his pants down and takes a massive shit. That massive shit moves over to the panel, the same sort of show ensues, only this time Steven Miller comes out. Bannon puts his feet on the desk. “Donald. We’ve been over this a thousand and a half times.”

“Bannon, you smell like shit. You too, Miller. But I love you guys. You guys are great. What’s up Banny?”

Bannon does not look amused. “Donald, if you want to accomplish the agenda we have been working so hard on, you have to reign in your Twitter use. You have to also stop being such a stupid fuck up.”

Trump frowns. “You know, if you weren’t such a piece of shit, I’d have your head for talking to me that way.”

Miller decided to chime in, “Isn’t it convenient that we’re both giant piles of shit? For us, that is.”

“I never liked you Miller. I only tolerate your shit because you’re basically the same shit as Bannon, and neither of you are me. So let’s just leave it at that. What the hell are we having a meeting for anyway? I have a plane to catch. Got a hot date with the Turkish whatever the hell Turkistan has - president, premiere… nobody even knows these things. Anyways, last time the Turkey people came to Mar a Lago they had a hot interpreter. Set of legs you wouldn’t believe. Fantastic. Amazing. Out of this world.”

“That’s exactly why we’re here. Well, to discuss what you’ll discuss with Erdogan. We also came to stop you from being a fucking Twitter troll.” Bannon was consistently unamused with everything in his life.

“Fuck you, Banjo. I do what I want.” Trump grabbed his crotch and stuck his tongue out at Bannnon.

“That’s fine, sir. But make sure you read this to Erdogan before going to play golf or chasing his interpreter’s legs. Just make the point clear, then you can go do whatever your deviant ego wants you to do.” Miller was similarly disenfranchised with anything that didn’t make him look like the absolute pile of shit that he is.

Bannon and Miller simultaneously started emitting shit fumes. They spoke in unison: “We will now retreat to our lair to plot further domination of the world. White power, motherfuckers. Oh yeah, and Trump - sign those executive orders we left on your desk. Deus Vult!”

Steve Miller melted into a giant pile of shit again, while Bannon pulled his pants down. The Miller shit pile proceeded to inject itself back into Bannon, which was the only effective trigger in cracking anything close to a smile across Bannon’s ashy face. After Miller reinserted, Bannon melted into a pile of shit, then the shit pile dissolved.

“Those guys are really big pieces of shit. My kinds of people!”

Trump picked up his phone and began writing a tweet.

‘Obumer is such a coward. He wire tapp my phone…’

Before he could finish typing his incoherent excuse for a thought, smoke began filling the room again.

“Dammit! What do you and Miller want this time, Bannon? I thought you guys were done making me think and stuff?” Trump turned his attention away from his phone expecting to see the shit pile developing.

To his shock, the shit pile was far from there.

Instead, Trump was face to face with the ghost of none other than Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a very oratory style, Martin let it out: “Donald J. Trump! I had a dream, and you made it my nightmare. I had a plan for equality, and you are helping to extinguish it for good! What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Wow! I never thought you’d have the opportunity to meet me! I mean, you did a lot of things, for my African Americans, and all that, but you didn’t ever crack a billion buddy. And, you died. Come on, man? Really? Sad! How are you doing, though? Bet you’re excited to meet me? Did you know I am president now?”

King’s facial features went flat. So did his voice. In very plain speech, he commented, “You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that I realize you have the mind of a spoiled 5 year old bouncing around in your cranium, I might have taken layers of offense to just about everything you said. But I don’t think you even understand what I just said, so we’ll just make this easy.”

“I like easy. Tell me more, my new famous black friend. Man, the people are going to love this!”

“I am Martin Luther King, Jr. I am your ghost of the past. You are a modern day Scrooge, and you are destroying civility and society because of your unchecked, rotten, greedy ego. I am going to show you the damage that was done in the past, that you are now not only repeating, but making worse.”

“Hey, hey, hey, take it easy. I’ve only been here a couple days. You sound like fake news to me, buddy.”

“So, I’m just going to ignore pretty much everything you say, which I’m sure you do to everyone, anyway, and just show you what I’m talking about. Come with me.”

King raised his arms up, shot them downward, and in a flash, him and Trump were on the frontlines of a civil rights march taking place in King’s era.

Tears filled King’s eyes as he re-witnessed police brutality; German shepherds biting protesters; batons cracking against the skull of peaceful marchers; and firehoses knocking women and the elderly off of their feet.

Weeping, King turned to give Trump a lecture on the traumatic legacy these acts left on generations of Americans who had to reconcile with the fact that this was actually a part of their recent history - a part that was currently not very different.

When he looked over, he saw Trump cheering alongside the police officers and trying to take a turn spraying the hose.

“I should have taken him to the part where I got shot and let him stand in my place…” King lamented, shaking his head in disbelief.

“What? I’ve been working hard these days. I deserve to have a turn playing soak the spooks.”

“You know, I have a million things I’d like to explain to you, but I’d rather we cut this nonsense about you realizing some sort of lesson out of this and I’ll toss you to the ghost of the present.”

In a burst of smoke, they were back in the Oval Office.

“Well, that works for me, because I love presents. You are quite a guy. I am going to be happy to share with my people that I have a new black guy on my team, and his name is Martin King, Junior.”

“Don’t use my name, mother fucker. I am not your guy. Any person who thinks they can take advantage of the phenomenon that has become your repugnant, racist populism by showing support for you, like that urban cowboy Uncle Tom David Clarke, can shove a rake up their asses. If they can’t figure out that they are disgracing their people’s legacy by making nice with your clear idiocy and your team’s abject bigotry and hatred of all things off-white and non-wealthy, then not even I feel sorry for them. They can all file themselves into the halls of shame, right alongside you. I’m out of here.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. then left the oval office, unceremoniously, through the garden door. “Who the hell is David Clarke? What the hell was that guy’s problem anyway? I wonder when I get my present?”

The door to the Oval Office opened up on it’s own, slamming against the wall.

Bernie Sanders walked right in and up to Donald Trump.

“I’m the ghost of the present. Yeah, I’m alive and all that, but here’s your present, you moron.”

Bernie bitch slapped Trump across the face, knocking his stupid toupee off of his head.

“Stop robbing poor people and killing the planet. Bitch.”

Bernie slapped Trump across the other side of his face.

Trump fell to the floor, sobbing like the bitch that Bernie accurately described him to be.

“That was not nice!”

Bernie left the room, slamming the door behind him.

Trump continued crying like a giant man baby, which is what he is.

The door opened again, causing Trump to sit up and hide behind his desk.

Bernie popped his head back in, “Get ready to meet the ghost of the future, you affluent fuck.”

He slammed the door behind him again.

“Whew. That hombre is nasty.”

Smoke began filling the Oval Office. It got so smoky, Trump couldn’t breathe.

“Is this the shit circus again or another ghost? I’m getting tired of this and ready for some golfing in the shadow of the Orange House - Mar a Lago.”

Plumes of smoke continued to engulf the room, to the point where visibility was completely masked.

“Donald J. Trump does NOT like it when he cannot see what’s going on? Do you hear me? I do NOT like it!”

At once, the smoke cleared, revealing that Trump had transported to the speaker’s podium in an extremely large stadium. He was surrounded by Trump regalia, and every single person in the audience had a MAGA hat on. They were all silent.

“Well, hey now, Donald J. Trump wasn’t planning on blessing his people with a rally, but who am I to turn down the opportunity?”

“Well, Donald, that’s a great question.” The voice of Barack Obama startled Trump to the point where he dribbled a little bit of shit out of his loose rectum.

Donald spun around, holding his anus, angry. The ghost of Barack Obama was standing there, cheerfully nodding his head from side to side.

“What brought you to my rally, you Kenyan Muslim Antichrist?” Donald grabbed the mic and brought it to the crowd’s attention. “Can you folks believe the nerve of this guy? I could literally shoot Obama in front of all of you, and I wouldn’t lose a single voter!”

The crowd did not react.

“Geez… tough crowd tonight. I thought you guys’ woulda loved that one. How about this: I am going to put this Barry guy into jail for a long time. He messed up, bigly, with my tapping my wires, and other things that I have read, because I like to read and my brain is so powerful it doesn’t really need reading, but I read anyway because I watched it on Fox News about Obama put the wires in my walls and microwaves himself. Let’s say it together: Lock him up! Come on, everyone! Like the good old days on the election trail! Come on folks! Show me the love!”

Trump started to notice the sheer size of the crowd.

“Jesus, how big is this place. Barry, get a load of all of those people. They all love me! They’re all here for me!”

“Donald, Donald, Donald. They are here because of you, but they are not here to love you.”

“What do you mean? Check out all of those hats they got on! I must have had a billion made in Pakistan for pennies each while I was asleep. I’m really good at business and stuff like that, even when I’m not awake, you know?”

“Well, Donald, if, uh, you didn’t get the picture from Mr. King, Jr., or from Bernie, then I guess I will be the one to put it to you bluntly.”

“Alternative fact alert!”

“Donald. I was the president.”

“Lie! I have always been the president.”

“Ok, I, uh,I can see, uh, where this is going. Let’s break it down. You see, Donald, those people out there, those fans, they did love you.”

“Whaddya mean ‘did’?! They do love me. Look at them! They’re here, ain’t they? This must be the biggest rally ever held!”

“You’re right, Donald. It is.”

“What?”

“You are right. It’s me, Barry Obama, saying you, Donald J. Trump, are correct about something.”

Donald grabbed the mic, “You hear that, folks? We got him! He admitted I’ve been right all along!”

“Let me give you a quick history lesson and a quick future history lesson. You see, every president, Donald, is very different from many of those people out there in the crowd.” “Well no shit! None of those losers is me!”

“And, you see, uh, well, most of those people… most people, really, don’t have to build the ghost rallies that we, as presidents, construct for ourselves.”

“I know all about construction. Nobody knows construction like me. The wall, people, the wall!”

“When I say ghost rallies, I mean the rallies we attend at night, when we are supposed to be all alone and away from the toils of the planet.”

“Whaddya mean? I’m alone most of the time, except for when shit Bannon or shit Miller want me, when the press is bothering me, when I’m making deals with the captains of whatever industry, or when I’m molesting a girl of really any age group.”

“You see, Donald, you are getting off the topic, and I really think that, uh, now is a good time to, uh, pay attention.”

“Ok, fine, Barry. Hurry up, I’ve got a load of small minds to stimulate out there!”

“I made decisions, as president, that cost people their lives. It might have been a bomb I dropped, a drone strike I authorized, an increase in private prison spending, a failure to produce a single-payer health care option, or simply the inability to disconnect the government from the invasive lobbying arm of the defense industry. Whatever the case may be, I, uh, made choices, and, uh, people, good, bad, and downright nasty, died because of them.”

“People, we have the smoking gun! You hearing this guy? He’s confessing to murder!”

“Donald, as president, your choices, your words, they can affect society in a way where people actually die. They die by your action or inaction. Their blood is inescapably on your hands. And you still have to go to sleep at night. When you sleep, you attend your ghost rallies. I attended mine diligently until the day I died, you see.”

“Wait a minute, you’re dead?”

“I am the ghost of your future, so yes, I’m dead. And the reason I’m at this rally, as well as all of those billions of people you see out there, is because of choices you made. You chose to remove people’s health care. You chose to plunge the minorities and disenfranchised classes (your main base of support) into the fire of economic inequality. Poverty and lack of healthcare caused a wave of plagues that wiped out huge chunks of society. Rolling back the EPA and regulations allowed tycoons to destroy the planet for a buck or two, exacerbating the problem of the plagues, causing displacement, famine, hurricanes, and other wild temperature patterns. Food shortages turned into global starvation epidemics. Things got, uh, pretty nasty. You chose to go to war. With everyone.”

“Barry, honestly, I didn’t ever really think you were that bad an hombre. What happened to you? Why are you dead?”

“Well, you tweeted about how the smoking gun about your wire tapping claims should be the one that’s pointing at my dead body, and, well, uh, one of your fans listened to you. Imagine that. They got my family, too.”

Obama pointed out his family, sitting in the front row.

“So all of these people are dead, because of me?”

“Like I said, you did hold the biggest rally ever. You killed more human beings than any other human being in history. And they’re all here, and none of them love you. In fact, the point of ghost rallies is for them to demonstrate how much they hate you.”

“What?”

“This is a dream, so ghosts can’t kill you. But we, uh, can sure as fuck fuck with your head. So I’ll get started.”

Obama grew to be 20 feet tall, then he stepped on Trump, flattening him into a tiny disc. He reached down, grabbed him by the mop, and pulled him back up into his proper, sloppy form.

“Ok, who’s next? Everyone line up for their turn!”

Every ghost in the crowd stood up and began to file into line.

“I hoped you packed your golf balls, Donald. It’s going to be a long night.”

The next person in line was Arnold Swarcheneggar.

“Arnold? What? What did I do to you?”

“Dah-nold! It’s me! Ah-nold! Did you really think that you, the compilation of every cheesy 80s action movie villain I ever had to slay, would get away with destroying the planet, without hearing a perfectly placed one-liner before I kill you?”

“Well, I don’t really ever think. And besides, Barry said you can’t really kill me, so do your worst, Robocop!”

Arnold tossed Trump a book. Trump picked it up.

It had a picture of Donald on the cover, with a Hitler mustache. The title of the book was Mein Drumpf.

Donald opened it up, only to see the same words sprawled across every page:

Open your eyes.

Donald flipped through the pages and saw that every page had the same words.

He looked up.

“What is this?”

Arnold smiled.

“I’ll be back.”

Just then, Donald was startled awake by his television set. Fox News was still on.

“In a massive disappointment, Donald Trump has pulled the plug on the GOP effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. To say this is a failure does not do justice to the immensity of this defeat. Donald Trump made a promise to the people who voted for them, and he failed in every sense.”

“No!”

The door to the Oval Office burst open with the kick of a muddy commando boot.

Arnold, smoking a fat cigar, came into the office through the open doorway, holding a giant gatling gun.

“Hey Dah-nold.”

They made eye contact. A tear formed in Donald’s eye. Arnold blew out a giant puff of smoke, into Donald’s face.

“You’re fired.”

The gatling gun ripped Trump to shreds, as well as the massive pile of shit that tried to escape through the back door.

Donald Trump then woke up on the floor of a hot cave. He was now a ghost.

Martin Luther King, Jr. helped him off his back.

“One man’s hell, is heaven for many others.”

Martin waved his hand forward and showed Donald the line of ghosts waiting to take their turns enacting revenge, from then until eternity, on the man who made their realities miserable, for as long as he was allowed to leave his stain on the planet.

“You have a dream to fulfill, and it is not at all like mine.”

The End

#donald trump #trump #murica #america

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patrickalleneck · 8 years

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HATE

We are supposed to hate vegans. We are supposed to hate carnivores. We are supposed to hate Muslims. We are supposed to hate Christians. We are supposed to hate Jews. We are supposed to hate atheists. We are supposed to hate gay people. We are supposed to hate transgender people. We are supposed to hate homophobic people. We are supposed to hate people who don’t agree with lax gun laws. We are supposed to hate gun nuts. We are supposed to hate feminine men. We are supposed to hate masculine women. We are supposed to hate feminists. We are supposed to hate chauvinists. We are supposed to hate noise. We are supposed to hate quiet. We are supposed to hate rap. We are supposed to hate rock. We are supposed to hate pro-choice people. We are supposed to hate pro-life people. We are supposed to hate protesters. We are supposed to hate anti-protesters. We are supposed to hate the police. We are supposed to hate the people who criticize the police. We are supposed to hate people who bully others. We are supposed to hate people who stand up to those who bully others. We are supposed to hate refugees. We are supposed to hate nationalists. We are supposed to hate immigrants. We are supposed to hate criminals. We are supposed to hate war-mongers. We are supposed to hate fear-mongers. We are supposed to hate people who oppose war. We are supposed to hate people who aren’t afraid. We are supposed to hate intellects. We are supposed to hate ignorants. We are supposed to hate the rich. We are supposed to hate the poor. We are supposed to hate industry. We are supposed to hate environmentalism. We are supposed to hate conservatives. We are supposed to hate liberals. We are supposed to hate black people. We are supposed to hate white people. We are supposed to hate opinions that aren’t our own. We are supposed to hate facts that don’t support our opinions. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us. We are supposed to hate them. They are supposed to hate us.

If hatred turned into understanding in any of these lines, the world would already be a less hateful place.

If hatred turned into understanding in all of these lines...

#hate #understanding #empathy #terror #fear #peace

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patrickalleneck · 8 years

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Wavie Rodgers

We pulled up to my brother-in-law’s house, all hopped up and ready to head to Hermann Park. My lady, little lady, and I had just picked up a ton of Chicken Kitchen, which was having a ten year anniversary celebration and giving away bowls of Chop Chop - buy uno, get uno free.

Earlier on that day - before walking into Chicken Kitchen with the little lady and the $20 I had in my pocket that I gave to her - my lady flipped a U-turn and asked me dead on if we should get 4 or 6 bowls. 4 was my swift and conservative retort, which was immediately met with a look of chagrin from my lady. Her furrowed brows asked me if I was sure if I wanted to claim that 4 bowls was enough for 3 adults, the 2 older kids, plus 1 of the princess’ play dates, and, of course, the little dude.

My best response was to flail my hand and say that it would be ffffiiinnee.

Her look of chagrin did a quick about face and turned into that look of ‘I know it’s not going to be enough, and you are going to be sitting there, looking at me, saying whoooops, as if I didn’t give you the look of chagrin in the first place because your answer should have been 6, or at least changed to 6, right after I gave you the look of chagrin, but instead you chose 4 and stuck with 4 and now we are not going to have enough food for everyone to eat, so you better get ready for the look of I’m-still-hungry-and-it’s-your-fault-and-you-know-it rage because we had to give the kids enough to eat first before serving ourselves, meaning we would only end up eating not enough to stave off the hangriness that is currently beginning to build up at this very moment.’

I looked away quickly, as that type of glowering maneuver is one of those that elicit post traumatic tremors whenever someone else so much as winces within your peripheral range.

It was too late. It struck a nervous chord in my belly, and it shuttered all the way down to my very soul. I knew that I was sure to face fearsome and well-grounded scrutiny for shorting us so carelessly on the food rations, especially since the procedure that day, after the previous night’s dawn-late last call, was to head over and enjoy the entire day in great weather hanging out and stuffing our faces at the park with some half price Chicken Kitchen until we auto-induced a comatose state, scratched out some z’s, and woke up feeling rejuvenated like a bear stepping out of hibernation after an extended winter season.

Of course, that would not be the case if we could not stuff enough energy points down our throats, meaning our batteries would be low, meaning we would be easily stressed, meaning it would be hard for us to get to nap, since our stomachs would be beckoning for more particles of food to digest, meaning we would be distracted from sleeping, meaning the kids would want to play with you even more, because you’re not off to sleep in la la land, but instead you are sitting up thinking if a hot dog cart is going to magically come by at any moment and offer some quick relief from the pain of subtle starvation, and since they caught you doing nothing and being awake, you will have no excuses not to play with the kids that they will believe, so you will have to get up and end up running around for several hours, low on energy, and high in stress.

Because.. you’ll know it’s coming…

It might hit you early on, or strike you at the very core of the day. The one thing that sits for certain is that it will tap you out when you least expect it.

I’m talking about the I’m-still-hungry-and-it’s-your-fault-and-you-know-it rage glare.

At that moment, I snapped back into it and brushed a spot of sweat off of my forehead with my forearm and caught my lady and the little lady walking out with their arms carrying the food.

Dammit… she followed my advice. She got 4. I hope it is enough.

She hopped into the car, smiling and radiating contentment, as she declared that she felt it was going to be enough food for everyone.

Early stage compliance. Even if I ended up being wrong about the amount, I knew I could always refer to the fact that she said she totally agreed with me at some point!

I was in. the. clear.

I gave her a right on and we went right along.

As we pulled up to the house, we saw the kids run out. It was the usual bunch, plus an extra little trooper. I asked the stranger what his name was.

“Jason.”

“That’s a cool name. I’m Patrick. Nice to meet you, Jason.”

“Thanks.”

He took off after the boys. Seemed like a nice kid. Apparently, the neighbors were having a garage sale right next door, and Juan “Wherever I go, I make friends” Daniel made fast friends with him and autonomously invited him over to play.

Looks like this is the end of what was a spontaneous and fun play date.

As for our picnic in the park, everything seemed ready and set to go. The babies were in the stroller, my lady had packed the food in the undercarriage, the kids had their shoes on, the dogs were in the room with their food, and we were all out in the garage, ready to take the multi-block walk on over to the park.

Then, my lady walked in the house with a kind of look I hadn’t ever seen before. This one was unique. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite make out what was being projected. It was like when you hear your favorite song, but for some reason you can’t remember the lyrics.

Then… her gaze locked itself into the direct center of my field of vision and shot straight to my brain, which began to decipher the meaning behind it: It was a look of ‘that little friend they made from next door, well, Juan asked him to join us to the park, which is great, but, you know what that means, right? That there isn’t going to be enough food, and that basically disqualifies you from any sort of redemption for choosing the right amount of food to bring to begin with, even if I did sort of agree with you after the purchase was made, so get ready to get that look. You know exactly which look.’ In layman’s terms, this look was just a warning shot for the glare to come. My hours were numbered.

I scrapped together a plan, finding that only by the grace of a flawed time schedule would I escape having to sacrifice our portions of the meal so that another child could get the sustenance he needed to run his motor on blast all day at the park, while maintaining a sense of dignity for finding a way for this kid not going to the park with us. I asked the kid, Jason, if he could take me over to talk to his grandparents.

He said sure, and walked me over. I have to admit, at this point, I was feeling a little bad for the kid, because he probably would have had a blast at the park with the others, and they with him, but we really did have to find out what the deal was in terms of being responsible for some kid we just met who was hanging out with his grandparents and decided to join us over to the park, on a long walk, to stay there for an indefinite amount of time. In terms of that being a conflict and my portion of food was redeemed, it was a bit of a long shot. Either way, the plan had to be established. If the time wouldn’t allow for it, this kid would have to stay with grammy and grampy and keep on keepin’ on, none the wiser that he missed out on some really good chicken, which would mean we would have enough food for everyone, and, more importantly, it was my hail mary response to the warning shot look I just got hit with back in the house.

Jason walked me down the sidewalk a foot or two, around the fence, then up the long driveway, where an old-fashioned yard sale was popping off. My mission was on my mind, so I was not distracted by any of the potentially really old and possibly historic articles that were all around me (although there may have been a special type of table lamp that snuck a few side-eyes from me).

I walked up to find an old dude, facing perpendicular to me, cleaning an old clock.

Behind him, facing me, were two even older dudes, and they all turned up some smiles when they saw me walk up with their little superstar Jason.

“Hello, I am looking for Jason’s grandfather.”

“Hey there, I’m James. Such a pleasure to meet you... umm..?”

“Patrick. My name is Patrick. And it is a pleasure to meet you too, James. Listen, Jason was next door playing with all of our kids, and I guess he said he��s all good to come with us to have a picnic in the park.”

The older dudes in the back chimed in with a chorus of hmm’s and ha’s of accordance.

“Well, that’s right,” James said, “He said you were all going to the park for a while. Sounds like fun!”

“Well, it sure is going to be. I just wanted to make sure we don’t have any conflicts of time. Is there any time Jason needs to be back by? Because we are all walking over there, and our plan is to really just hang out there for a long time. We might not be back until later on, maybe after sunset.”

The older dudes started waving their heads in a no no no manner and made a few grunts of disaccord.

“Well, now, I’m afraid that’s too late. We have to pick up and get out of here by 4. We have an hour drive ahead of us. There’s just no way he can go.”

The kid was next to me. I felt bad, like I had just walked him over to get punished for the crime of wanting to hang out with his new buddies. I tried to make a sincere effort to backtrack and negotiate his way back into the park plan.

“Well, that’s in a few hours. If you want, why don’t you guys just swing by and pick him up when you’re all done. You can call us up on the cell phone, we’ll find you guys, and we can bring Jason right to you.”

All three old dudes starting grunting and giving me the no go with their heads.

This is not the type of plan I like coordinating now that I’m 30. These dudes are so done with complicating things, they were just like no, nope, uh uh, and fuck that. Kid needs to be here at 4, and we aren’t doing much else other than what we originally had in mind.

The kid was cool. I think he understood more than me. I told him, “Jason, you’re a cool kid. Anytime you come by, come tap on our door and we’ll try to get the kids to play with you.”

He said ok, and went over to go hang out with his grandpa.

I walked away thinking about it.

Well, I should feel like a piece of shit because I am hungreedy right now and I really wanted to not only eat enough of that glorious food but I wanted to avoid that *shudder* look...

But it was a good thing I checked, because they didn’t want him to go if they had to pick him up, and we weren’t driving so it would have been a lot of extra work to walk all the way back to drop him back off or cut our day short.

I settled with the thought that it was a good thing wrapped in a thinnish layer of bad thing. I was just a semi-asshole for that. I could live with that. Especially since I was about to get some of that food going on in my tummy.

Then I got inside and I told my lady that the kid wasn’t going anymore. (I’m not going to lie, by that point I was dickishly celebrating my victory by dancing as I proclaimed the notification.)

She looked at me like I was a nutter and asked why not?

When I explained what happened, she felt bad for the kid, which made me lose grip of my goodbadthing shit wrap excuse and it fell onto the floor and made a shitmess everywhere.

Dammit, I feel bad that kid isn’t going.

“Fuck, should I go tell him I’ll drive him there and back?”

Before she could answer, Juan Daniel came down the stairs, asking where his friend was and if he was going to the park with us.

At that point, she didn’t even have to answer. The message went from her brain and transmitted through Juan’s interrogation about his buddy.

I got the answer loud and clear. I walked back over to their house and told them that I would happily drive him over for now, then have him back by 4 sharp.

The three old dudes chortled and clapped their hands and said no, no, no. They declared - in that way an elderly person does it, where you just know there is no convincing them any otherwise, as a matter of age-refined discipline and principle - that there was to be no way where any of them were going to inconvenience our family schedule in order to make the plan happen.

I insisted, though I knew it would be a waste of time.

At that point, one of the older dudes from the back got up and waved his hand at me. He was a tall, lanky man, with hair on his head, in some parts. His energy was radiant, however. He had enough charisma to keep an entire city lit through the night.

He asked me as he walked over, “What’s your name, son?”

“Patrick, sir.”

“P-Man! That’s my man, P-man!”

He gave me one of those side hand embraces that quickly leads into arms folding over and drawing the bodies in for a quick thump hug.

He said, “The name’s Wavie! That’s right! Wavie, Wavie, like a bowl of hot gravy!”

I must have had a befuddled look sitting on my head, because he instantly caught my confusion and pulled his wallet out.

“I’m not even lying. Take a look here.”

He pulled out a YMCA card, and, sure enough, there was is name in BIG, bold Georgia.

WAVIE RODGERS.

Up to this point, I was still lagging about three seconds behind when it came to interpreting what was going down. However, when those big bold letters hit my pupils, though, I caught right up.

“That is an awesome name!”

“I hated it when I was a kid. Hated it! Wavie, wavie, Mis-behavey is what the other kids used to call me. HATED IT. But now I’m smooth and happy as can be, because the ladies love them some Wavie Wavie, like a bowl of hot gravy.”

“Well, that’s above my pay grade to comment on that.”

We all had a good laugh.

“I asked my daddy why he named me Wavie when I was a boy. You see, when my daddy was a boy, maybe 12 years old, something happened and both of his parents, well, they just didn’t make it through the night. Something terrible. Anyhow, he went to live with Uncle Wavie. Imagine that. Uncle Wavie was a great man for taking on a responsibility like that and making a man out of him enough to grow old and have me. I always loved my name for that, but hated it for when I got teased. Now that I’m older, and the ladies are younger and happier, there ain’t no problems whatsoever.”

We all had another good laugh.

I told them, “Listen, I don’t live right next door, but my brother-in-law does. If you ever come to visit here, give me a call and let me know. I’ll be sure to make sure my little one is here so he can play with Jason that day. Can I have your number?”

Wavie ran right over and wrote down everyone’s contact information on the back of a business card. He gave me his son’s (Jason’s dad’s) number to, so that he could call as well.

Wavie ran over, gave me the card with the contact info, slapped me on the back, and said, “Let me see your face. Look at that. You remind me of my nephew. Big guy, though. Had your face, and a big old beard, and he went off to the war. He was a big guy. He was an amazing man, just like you. He was an amazing boy.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to him, but I could sense he was embedding a deep compliment within a deeply sentimental memory. It was a pure expression from a pure person.

I smiled and told him I appreciated that kind of compliment, and that it sounds like his nephew is an amazing person to be reminded of.

He smiled and told the P-Man to have a wonderful day.

I thanked all of the old dudes and headed back to the house.

I had solved the case. There would be enough food for everyone. It didn’t end all well, because Jason couldn’t come after all, but that was more force of nature than anything that ended up staining my conscience.

Furthermore, I no longer feared the look, for there was no longer reason to fret its imminence: Chicken Kitchen was to be in abundance!

Oddly enough, I actually ended up thanking the look that day. Without that old

I’m-still-hungry-and-it’s-your-fault-and-you-know-it rage glare

threatening the day’s trajectory, I might not have ever gone down some of the roads I travelled that day.

Without those subtle glances that tell me so much without ever actually saying much of anything, if at all, I might not have gone through that little journey, and I would have never accepted a compliment so kind as the one Wavie Rodgers slapped onto my back and into my long-term memory warehouse.

I’ll pull that thought out when times are tough. Or if someone needs an on-point and idiosyncratic pickup line to fall back on:

Wavie, Wavie, like a bowl of hot gravy!

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patrickalleneck · 8 years

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I keep hearing about a "mental health" issue in America, which is a talking point that pops up most after mass shootings. The demographic for mass shooting perpetrators in this country tends to lean towards a specific demographic, which seems to contribute to the rise of a consistent correlation between the cause of frequent mass shootings and the rise in "mental health problems," as opposed to a rise in domestic terrorism. However, since the mentalities of a domestic terrorist and a foreign terrorist don't seem to be very different from one another, is it possible to define what type of disorder the fundamentalist, terrorist mind suffers from? I guess what my main question is, is this: Can we consider Critical Thinking Deficit Disorder an actual spectrum disorder, with the most extreme ends being, on the "left," entwined somewhere in the extreme of the conservative leaning part of the spectrum of liberalism, and extends all the way to the most fundamental, militant, unstable, aggressive, and violent type of conservatism there may be? (I have to recognize openly that perhaps the most fundamental, militant, unstable, aggressive, and violent type of liberalism might exist as well, although the statistics seem to reveal that it is not often the case.) The causes of the disorder seem obvious: - Media driven by monetary interests who thrive off of this very type of demographic - environmental influences, such as: poverty or "affluenza," conservative political ideologies or scapegoating of "the other" presented throughout development, education level, physical appearance, etc. - emotional intelligence - any other disorders or previous traumas - perpetuation of a form of idealism that embraces blind faith and rejection of all things reasonable The symptoms are: - tendency to distrust scientists or facts - blatant rejection of obvious facts, such as video, audio, or literary evidence that they are undeniably incorrect - overly impulsive reactions that call for violent measures - inability to process the consequences of their words or actions - blatant hypocrisy - bullying behavior as a response to criticism (ad hominem attacks; a whole truckload of fallacies to combat legitimate responses) - repetition of obvious lies ad nauseum - submission to industries or ideals that Parrot their ideological standings in indirect (using the word "thug") and sometimes very direct (Trump) ways - tendency to subscribe to myths and conspiracy theories - unpredictable behavior - general apathy when it comes to considering the fallout from making belligerent or violent threats or actions - apathy towards the plight of one person or millions of people - intelligent manner of circumventing the obvious disingenuousness of their arguments - xenophobia - terrorismphobia - desire to make extreme sacrifices - such as indiscriminate mass murder - if they feel it contributed to the platitude of the "greater good," or, let's be honest here, the tenets of this growing movement in this nation known as 'Muricanism Societal Consequences There are real dangers to society when people who suffer from this disorder are exposed to media that capitalizes on their impulsive consumerism and exploits their primal impulses to react towards a society that is expectedly progressing and condemning their not so much archaic point of view, but rather, affliction that prevents them from easily breaking free from their disorder. Both messages resonate well with the pocketbooks of the monied interests. The results are now oftentimes unhinged sovereign citizens who hoard weaponry, believe they have a divine mission to protect the rights and freedoms of our nation (as they think it should be)and take extreme measures to disrupt the process of the progress their disorder causes them to feel disgusted by. By exploiting their disorder, monied interests are in turn exacerbating the amount of people who rest on the far right end of the Critical Thinking Deficit Disorder spectrum, which in turn increases the amount of risk and occurrence of mass shootings that kill hundreds, maybe now thousands, of innocent men, women, and children every year. For example, it is now without reprimand to be w presidential candidate and perpetuate hate and violence inducing speech towards parts of the population who are incapable of handling such inflammatory rhetoric without inciting a real urge to lash out and contribute to the fervor of the cause, as well as their own sense of desire for heroic recognition, by committing acts of vengeance. If we can recognize this is an issue, then we can clearly weed out some of the main sources of the problem. There are entities who benefit from the routine exploitation of people with this disorder because they gain support, and more importantly, consumerism or some form of compensation via the investment in perpetuating the ideal. If we can recognize those entities as having clear monetary incentives, at the cost of putting the victim's sanity and ability to critically think at risk, as well the lives of the victims of the victim at risk of such brainwashing, then we can start making some pretty concise and clear criticisms about how the systematic misinforming, dis-informing , and fear-baiting of citizens who have succumbed to this disorder on a mass scale is posing a very real threat to humanity, far greater than what we are facing from abroad....Not the least of concerns of which to mention is the constant denial of the concrete evidence behind anthropogenic climate change and how it compromises the stability and perpetuation of the entire biosphere, including the existence of humanity. To me, this 'Muricanism is something that needs to remedied before we really do start seeing the primarily disjointed, lone wolf version of white ISIS (as the daily show joked); before it could just as easily take wind and evolve into something like the guerrilla group that is now plaguing the Middle East. Thoughts?

#murica #america #psychology #sociology #extremism #fundamentalism

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patrickalleneck · 9 years

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Apologists for Apartheid

Apartheid noun

(in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population. any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc.*

Let’s face it world.

We are combating ignorance in nearly every country in order to prevent apologists for apartheid governments from weaving into and taking over the state systems.

Where do movements like apartheid begin?

It may be disguised as cynical, semi-facetious sounding commentary or comedy. It certainly has something to do with audacious remarks made by authority figures such as police chiefs, elected officials, and presidential candidates.

It isn’t just a few millionaires and billionaires who pay to maintain a system that allows for apartheid movements to grow. It is the will of the people who have been left behind in the wake of elitists’ fulfillment of the American Dream (or whatever your country of choice frames that concept as), who have have their opportunities for growth and learning stymied by the legislation of the politicians they willingly elect. It is those who are well off anyway, but grew up in the climate of hatred, fear, and intolerance that lead to a myopic outlook on the world in order to fulfill their delusional collective desire to make the world a “less problematic” place by getting rid of the other.

I use the term other to describe the whole range of “villains” that have been cast by the apologists for apartheid in this contemporary tragic tale. What are some of the characteristic features that are required to be selected as one of these players?

- you have to be non-faithful (Islam is, by many apartheid apologists, largely not considered a legit faith, so they fit in here)

- you have to be non-white (although the effects of this systematic fabrication of ignorance have bled out into minority mindsets so much that someone like Ben Carson is in the lead to get the part and shoot his own heritage in the foot)

- you have to be from another country, aka un-American (even if you were born in America, but your parents were not)

- you have to be unfortunate (people who learn how to play the system and exploit it for what it is can make it to the top. Those who start out at the top just need some guidelines and they can sail through)

- you have to disagree with the only part of government the casting department agreed with (anyone who does not is a communist, socialist, fascist, traitor, whatever that means…)

- you have to be vulnerable and voiceless

For some apologists of apartheid in seats of influence and power, who look through the world with an added lens of capitalistic opportunities, they see great financial incentive in drumming up the call for state sponsored divisiveness. Apartheid means cheap global labor and indentured servitude via factory work in human rights depleted sections of the world and domestic prison systems.

It leads to welcomed exploitation of the financial market when check cashing, bail bond, wild interest rates, and subprime loan predators can roam freely in the wilderness.

It leads to surges in the surveillance state when isolated incidents get framed as general threats.

It leads to privatization of everything when public management falls apart after decades of neglect and defunding.

It leads to trade deals manufacture behind closed doors.

It means civil unrest, which leads to conflict, which leads to war.

It means a whole lot of money and control for not a whole lot of people.

It means destruction of dissent.

It means terror.

We need to give the platform of power and influence to people who reflect Nelson Mandela, and avoid any and all who reflect the voices of those who oppressed him. The modern American GOP is the latter, and we need to remind everyone who falls under their umbrella of influence how disastrous apartheid is for everyone.

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

That “we” includes everyone who looks up from this planet, sees the same star shining and feels the same rays of energy that made our lives a possibility to begin with. That light will go on shining with or without us, but in order to truly enjoy it as much as we can for as long as we can, we need to start waking everyone up to that reality.

*dictionary.com

#apartheid terror peace globe terrorism GOP conservatives republicans

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patrickalleneck · 9 years

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Shades of Terror

Chances are that in your lifetime you have said something or supported certain actions that qualify you as a terrorist.

What is a terrorist?

a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.

a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

By that definition, I could potentially be labeled one because perhaps someone was terrorized or frightened by my initial claim that they may have said something that terrorized or frightened others, placing them snugly into the definition of a terrorist. As a matter of fact, that last sentence was enough to terrorize myself into thinking what impact that might have on my future since the NSA is likely and diligently doing their task.

Would that put me on the same level of terrorism as someone who willingly straps a bomb on their back and casually strolls into a densely crowded public area?

Would that put me on the same level of the 9-11 attackers?

Or the Friday the 13th attackers from Paris?

Would that put me on the same level as someone who willingly posts messages on social media or shouts them out in a public space, declaring,"One entire group of people is wrong about their beliefs and their beliefs lead to war, terror, and murder. Therefore, they must be warred upon, terrorized, and completely wiped out as a solution"? (Of course, the articulation of such sentiments is oftentimes fully capitalized, less punctuated, and more bombastic.)

Would that put me on the same level of terrorism as the news pundit who regurgitates talking points which fuel that type of fire of division and hatred to legions of loyal viewers?

What about the people who are paid to fabricate and disseminate those types of talking points to those news pundits?

What about the people who own the businesses that employ the pundits and talking point fabricators who spread that type of news, as well as the other businesses that benefit from the fabrication and dissemination of that type of news?

To clarify, the type of “news” I'm speaking about is what you will find across several notorious mediums in the modern day - the kinds that spread misinformation, disinformation, hatred, and fear; based upon little more than subjective interpretations of right and wrong, which are ultimately irrelevant due to the fact that they serve to feed bottom lines across the multitude of fiending industrial-complexes that have branched out of the loosely regulated economic sector that now freely plays in the domestic and global political arena. Their weapon of choice? Terror. Their motives? Money. "Then when you get the money, you get the power." The notoriously iconic Tony Montana from Scarface made this point in his quest to conquer the world from the bottom up, and as Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone were able to brilliantly portray, his reign of terror came to a disastrous finale.

Now, to answer the preceding set of questions: No. It does not put me on any of those levels of terrorism. Despite my initial inflammatory and self-implicating suggestion, I am asserting that there must be a way to subtract this word and its definition from the equation of reality. It is a word that describes a spectrum. All terror is not created equal. Man-made terror, as it is, should be abhorred for its many shades. Putting a blanket of terror over one group is a fallacy of generalization, and it only creates more terror.

I hope to be able to explain my perspective on terrorism's many shades, and why its many hues sometimes lead to darker hues.

Consider this:

If you placed terrorism on a spectrum, the starting, least-extreme end being a daycare-aged bully, and the final, most-extreme end being Genghis Khan (his terror group killed 40,000,000+ world citizens - I'm sure bin Laden, or Hitler, or many more terrorist figureheads would have been capable of equal or greater numbers if they had been given the opportunity), you would find the two are far from being the other yet still on the same spectrum. There would be a vast variety of people who 'haven't learned yet' or 'just don't learn' up to people who will happily kill and be killed for their cause. What is scary about that spectrum, however, is that every person on the most extreme side at some point started off on the least extreme side. All of those horrible people were once innocent children who just hadn't learned yet, and they were eventually terrorized, which had the harmful effect of shaping them into terrorists.

All of these once innocent children who became terrorist monsters were born into a group. That group either embraced or abandoned them. If they were embraced, they were likely terrorized with ideas about the nastiness and immorality of others who were not part of that group. Bedtime horror stories likely involved the bogeymen of those who disagree. Local traditions probably celebrated figures who supported these perspectives by brute force against the demonized enemy - those who disagreed.

If the child was abandoned, they likely sought comfort in the first group who offered them food and shelter, which too often in this world, unfortunately, come with a some food, an assault rifle, and an ideology that promises much yet realistically offers little.

When we observe this spectrum of terror and consider how it affects those on another spectrum - being terrorized - we have to consider the following conclusion:

All forms of terrorism are unjustifiable.

That is why you tell the toddler not to push the other onto the floor, or poke fun at the boys who wear pink and the girls who wear blue. That is why you ground the teenager who hit his little brother. We try to teach the youth the difference between right and wrong, and anything terrorizing or frightening others in ways that lead to trauma and instability is best avoided. We try to rehabilitate, punish, or sometimes execute the adults in society who cause terror via criminal actions the same way that we send combat boots and bombs to punish figures who cause terror via criminal actions.

Now keep in mind that this can be applied to any of the terrorists from any part of the world who have reached the very extremes of terrorism. There is no specific terrorist identity: no one religion, race, language, culture, or nationality. Terrorism knows none of these bounds - it is a human capability.

We are all humans.

While addressing terrorism in the 2015 State of the Union, President Obama (recipient of the Nobel Peace prize) stated,

"We will continue ... to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks, and we reserve the right to act unilaterally, as we have done relentlessly since I took office, to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to us and our allies."

The terrorists he is speaking about, who are vaguely identified but assumed to be on the extreme side of the spectrum, are likely saying the same thing about us in response, as well as the family members of the countless innocents who have been written off as collateral damage throughout these Middle Eastern conflicts.

When we allow ourselves to be blinded by the hateful rhetoric and behavior of others, we unwittingly volunteer ourselves to join the ranks of those who condone terrorism, only on the other team.

If history has taught us anything, it should be terrorism will not defeat terrorism. Like the Lerneaen Hydra from Greek mythology, terrorism is a serpentine beast that grows two heads in place of every severed head. Every terrorist act inspires more terrorist acts. There is no resolution in the exchange of blood, only a strengthening of resolve to defeat the others. The only way to defeat the Hydra was to severe the main head and cauterize the wound. But what exactly is the main head of terrorism? At which point do we strike, severe, and heat-seal in order to extinguish this nasty beast once and forever?

Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi were on the correct track when they advocated for peace by way of communication, community, and love. They used non-violent resistance as a weapon and put their lives on the line for the sake of humanity. They acted selflessly, not for personal gain, and certainly not to prove any group was greater or lesser than the other, but in an attempt to level the playing field. Nonetheless, hatred is still prevalent, even in the wake of such celebrated public figures, civil rights movements, technology, modernity, and globalization.

Sadly, if love is brought up as a solution to any conflict, it is commonly brushed off as a hippy dippy tree hugging flower-childish kind of remark and is buried under a flood of chauvinism and cynicism. Apparently it is all good if you're paying tribute to civil rights leaders by taking off for a long weekend, but invoking profound conversation about what they really meant, such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s application of the Eros, Philos, and Agape characteristics of love and how they become applicable to progress in humanity in his famous speech, On the Power of Peaceful Persuasion, is less appealing and effective as a Super Bowl commercial, and is best left for hippy dippy tree hugging flower children to cry about.

Hatred is the proposed target, but, factoring in human nature and the growing strength of indifference, that's about as tough as a target one could ever hope to hit:

There are more than 7 billion people in this world.

Any one of those 7 billion are capable of being a terrorist.

The majority of those 7 billion people are born into situations that strengthen the likeliness of the evolving into terrorist: poverty, exploitation, war, displacement, suffering, lack of education and other basic resources, dehumanization, and survival are not relics of an ancient society, but the harsh lashes of reality that lead to desperation and the rationalization and fermentation of immoral behaviors. Let’s not forget how fragile the human mind really is when it comes to facing trauma, and let’s face it, there are far more people born into strife and traumatic situations in this world than not.

Many others are born into much more amicable, or even just tolerable environments, yet are indirectly trained to ignore, demonize, or simply offer charity to those who fit the former group. Some of the people in that group even choose to terrorize the people in the unfortunate group because they listen to prime time news terrorists who terrorize them about these other potential terrorists on behalf of corporate terrorists who are hell-bent on making profits by any means necessary, including terrorism.

Unfortunately, the odds are not in our favor that terrorism will ever be extinguished. Not only do we have an ever-increasing disparity in income and equality on a global scale, but there is an increasingly powerful and consolidating corporate infrastructure that promotes the widening of that disparity, which has the harsh side-effect of creating increasingly powerful terrorist combatants who are willing to do what it takes to topple it. Looking back at the president's aforementioned SOTU statement, it looks as if things will just keep heating up indefinitely. Attacks like the one that took place in Paris yesterday are kindling to the fire of the military-industrial complex. No, that is not a conspiratory accusation that some false flag operation was perpetrated. I’m saying that war on terror is good for business when you are a defense contractor, so the tears dry fast regardless of what the cause may have been.

However, we can start taking steps, both small and large, with the hope that one day John Lennon's anthem of unity and peace is no longer an imagination, but a reality.

Where can we start?

Truth be told, I don't know and I don’t think I ever will.

But here are what I think could be some starting points:

Stop supporting terrorism in any shade on the spectrum. Respectfully identify terrorism when you hear or read it, and help others understand why it is counterproductive to everything. Point it out, even if it causes hatred apologists to come up from the troll-works to complain about political correctness and the pussification of America. Freedom of speech applies to both sides of that aisle, so you can openly and respectfully defend rationality while they openly and disrespectfully offend with irrationality, and that's fine. Let them have their moments of self-incrimination and hope that one day, by putting their ignorant comments on extinction, combined with consistently clear and thoughtful dialogue, they might catch a spark of reason and realize they like what it feels like to think differently. Nothing you say is going to change their minds unless they take the time to understand what you are saying, so make it more probable by keeping the peace.

Teach children how to be tolerant, empathetic, and critical freethinkers. By setting an example for them, you can set an example for this current human society, which will hopefully continue setting the example for future generations as to what it means to be a tolerant, empathetic, and rational human being living on the same planet in the same solar system in the same galaxy in the same cosmic cluster in the same damn universe as every other human being that has lived, lives, or will ever live. We need a global culture that promotes life, equality, and progress amongst everyone and everything. As a species, we must choose to survive and thrive, and that is not going to happen for humanity if we can't figure this out as one whole unit. Lofty idea, I know, but how else do we plan on surviving as a species?

Get involved with the global community by taking as much time as you can spare to learn about it, understand it, and think about solutions as to how to handle it. At the current moment, we are stymied by cultural moral relativism - traditions that create conflicts of ethics. For example, just because witch burning or female genital mutilation have been strong traditions for a long time in various parts of the world doesn't mean it is perfectly fine for them to remain strong traditions forever. That can be applied to all too many cultural features in the modern day, and there are a few close and dubious United States allies that should be held accountable to catch up with common sense and decency as soon as possible.

Lastly, be passionate about your beliefs, but be able to complement your passion with respect. Nothing is accomplished when you jump to disrespectful rhetoric or (implied) derogatory intonation, and it's a quick way to lose track of rationality and start bumping into fallacies. Lose your patience, and you lose the fight. It’s not always easy, and I have travelled down the road of derision and derogatory word play a bit more than I am happy to admit. The result is always the same: nothing comes of it, and I end up feeling like I wasted my time and made myself look like a fool for it.

If you disagree with my opinions of terrorism, I ask that you respectfully explain why. I would be happy to discuss and open to changing my beliefs if I am convinced that they are wrong to any extent. It will help us both change for the better.

If you agree, but have more or better solutions than I could muster up, please share them. We all stand to benefit from the sharing and understanding of ideas.

Terrorism comes in many shades. I would argue that I am currently more afraid of the responses to tragedies than the tragedies themselves, because that reflects the very impact that terrorists wanted to make - incite fear and hatred. As a result, the people who are saying “nuke them all” are essentially joining the ranks of terror on the same side of the spectrum. Some of these people are presidential candidates, sitting members of our Congress, and their constituents. I don’t think they quite understand the implications of calling for a nuclear holocaust as a solution, the same way the people who strap bombs to themselves and walk into a concert hall are disillusioned about the idea that:

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"

It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.

That sentiment strikes terror into my being when I think about the various actual reasons why people have been dying for their countries over the past decades of human history.

It’s time for everyone to grow up and leave terrorism where it belongs. It does not deserve to be a part of modern society, with its various shades of intensity. It needs to be a shadow of our past, there to remind us of how horrible we have been as humans and how capable we are of rising up above that.

Do I think it will ever happen?

Unfortunately, I am afraid to answer that question.

#terror #terrorism #hate #fear #enoughisenough

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