The King is dead, Long live the king.

The King is dead, Long live the King.

Todays press report.

It was a horrible sequence of events, history will love the story. The King rose in the morning, like any other day, spent the usual on his hair with his hairdresser. She's wonderful, you know that, right? A beautiful young woman, she'll go far in the hairdresser world, I wouldn't mind if she would go farther with me, but, I'm smarter than Bill Clinton, possibly the dumbest president ever, and if that crony wife of his would have beat me in 2016, she's the dumbest. Obama, he was dumb too, there are alot of dumb presidents before me, I'm the smartest ever, by far, look at what I've done in, what, six, seven months? I made peace with six countries, i blew up that crook in Venezuelas boat with drugs on it. we knew where that boat came from and where it was going. Here, a scourge in our country, over 300 million people died already this year from those drugs. Very bad, very bad. but i think they learned their lesson, they.ll never get on a boat again, that's for sure. 

I'm going to England then Charlie and his family want me to go to his memorial. but right now, the King of England, there in Windsor Castle wants to give me an award, something gold, i hope, he knows me, i like gold but crypto currency is good too. Im thinking how God had saved me from that assassination attempt. Too bad He didn't save the guy behind me. Those idiots who are always bitching about me said, "If God was really going to intervene, why doesn't He save everybody by having the gun blow up in the assassin's face, or something like that? Blasphemers, all of them.

I went in and checked on the Queen. She's been all riled up over that sex scandal being in the news again. She is still asleep her aide said, so (me) the King goes down to the money control rookery to see how my cryptocurrency, bit coin companies are doing. People are such suckers when it comes to their money. If anyone knows MONEY, I know money, maybe I know more about MONEY than anyone. I'm an expert. Getting people to invest in these startups crypto get rich schemes and then I sell out at the top of their worth, leaving everybody else high and dry, has worked very well. 

This presidency is so much better than that first one as far as making money goes.

The ballroom is going well, should be more than ready for my third term inaugural address. 

Too bad about that Kirk fellow but, like he said, "Mr President, I'll look forward to dancing in your new ballroom." Too bad about that young fella, God saved me but not him. God saved the right one. He can't save everybody, He didn't save the guy behind me, no, God can't save everybody. People don't understand that Gods and Kings have alot of responsibilities. Don't get me wrong, God could, if He wanted too, you know, He's capable of it, but He doesn't want to, for whatever reasons, God has his reasons, like i have mine, me and God have a lot of reasons for why we do things together. I want peace, like I'm sure God wants peace but you know, Zelensky and Putin, they hate each other, they can't do it without me, I'll have to do it, make peace, Zelensky and Putin, they just can't do it, they hate each other, you know that, right?

There's more. First the ballroom, then the hotel in Gaza City. I want to be buried under it, God, what a memorial it will be. I'll have Netanyahu put a gold statue in the foyer. Is that the right word, foyer? At least, people should have forgotten about that Kirk by then. He was a real photo bomb.

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Is Trump just a wannabe dictator?

Is Trump just a wannabe dictator?

Before I answer that question, I want to address an example of obfuscation of the obfuscator.

I read an article on Substack. It supposedly addressed the real issue of trump corporate media and politicians making Trump out to be a president that is testing the waters with all his executive orders, as if he is an innovative and fearless explorer of political change. It doesn't seem to matter to the press or the other sycophants of Trump whether or not he is trampling on civil, personal, or political institutional rights that have been firmly established by tradition, fiat, or progressive civil behavior.

So far so good, I say.

But then, I was taken aback by the writers reference to Trump being a wannabe dictator and, in my contrarian mind, I digressed into asking myself, "why wannabe"?

This is where the adventure began. I wanted to comment but when I started to put in my comment, I was referred to a notice that I must be a paid subscriber in order to comment. I was merely a unpaid subscriber whereby I was getting dozens of substack articles of all stripes and, in all honesty, I rarely participate in these "new" social media apps but, it seemed to me, substack has some interesting writers and though they keep piling up in my email closet, I like reading them once in a while. So that's the back story.

I did want to comment so I relented and paid $70.00 for the next year just so I could comment. Once I paid, then I was guided through giving personhood ID, interested in?..? choices so they could send me relevant material based on my preference, and, I could start writing my own blog.

With that I found my way back to the comment block of the article I wanted to comment on.

I wrote, " I don't think calling Trump a wannabe dictator enhances the theme of your article because he is a fascist because he wants to capture the power of government in order to control the institutions established to 'balance' power by democracy. He also has successfully commandeered the political institutions of the government, no matter whether or not by 'democratic process', thus making him a real dictator. Not a wannabe, at all. Just about every president in my lifetime, except for maybe Carter, has toyed (tested) their executive powers in order to bring us to this point. (full circle). Unfortunately, generational amnesia has played a part in this …" And to be honest that's all I can remember, except I ended with, "Thanks though, for making me think about it."

I pushed the post button, seeing my comment spring to life, then within three seconds, disappear.

In conclusion, yes, Trump is not a wannabe dictator, he is a dictator. I hope there aren't a group of readers out there in progressive land who think that if we just don't signify his stature as dictator, he won't be one, in fact, the opposite is true. The more we ignore, the more he is. Believe me, there is more and more every day we need to ignore, if we're going to make believe he is even as human as you and I.

What we have to figure out is how do we get out from beneath the thumb of the lunatics who preserve, maintain, and have made this happen? Trump will eventually go, one way or another but who will build on what's next?

We, as progressives, are in a crisis. No matter how you see him, corporate wealth is what's run this country for a long time. Even when economies collapse, we pay, they instead may temporarily fall along with us, they rise back up like the phoenix, while we take decades scrambling for scraps, never quite getting back to where we were before. (Please see 2008 and even 1929). Pretty soon, maybe ten years from now, many of you and probably not me, will be looking back at today, read it and weep.

We've seen personal freedoms stunted, corporate freedoms enhanced.

It's worse than being relegated to irrelative to history. What becomes repetitious, also becomes addictive. It's more than just saying, "it will pass", its backsliding into a morass of future pain, especially for all those we have forsaken.

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Charlie Part 3

( This is Part Three of three-part essay)

Though I really hadn't formed opinions at that time and was aware of the standoff between Soviet Union and America over missiles in Cuba and knew a little about the bay of pigs and segregation, all of that, but, suddenly with that one remark, I had my eyes opened to a big difference of opinion. America was/ is a divided nation. The only thing I didn't know and wouldn't ever know is what was the reason that tech sergeant, who probably wasn't the only one, said that. Was it the Cuban missile crisis, the Catholicism, the bay of pigs, the racism? How many things can form a persons opinion about things as important as those things were?

Much later, well after Lee Harvey Oswald was himself assassinated (if that's the right word for it), making sure some things would ever be known, I read that the CIA (at Kennedy order, I assume) made many attempts on Fidel Castro's life and perhaps, retaliation could be added to the list.

By the time I was discharged ( honorably, by the way), I was no longer invested in the notion that the nation that at one time I would have died for (though to be honest, I didn't get close to combat, I was involved in pure Cold War-nuclear operations and planning, ironically ending my service just days after Israeli "victory" of the Six Day War),  nevertheless, I no longer was a patriot.

It would be just a little over a year after my discharge, the assassinations and Americas troubles began in earnest, at least, as far as i was concerned. MLK, RFK, Malcolm X, many Black Panthers, Kent State, Jackson State, the bombing (both here and abroad).

The division in the country, represented in me, continued. A president was reelected even after his attempts at organizing a secret intelligence operation out of the White House. Even after, his Secretary of State, who would throughout the rest of his life be lauded as a distinguished statesman, secretly bombed Cambodia, Laos relentlessly without any declaration of war.

We've seen these things before. And yet, today, to young people it must all seem new and maybe even unimaginable because in our sterile education system and relentless assault on real freedom of speech, Americas story or history has encompassed a complete lack of real narration and discussion about history itself. It's a difference between generations schooled in the art of social manipulation, a schooling without freedom of speech. That happened even before Trump begins to whitewash freedom even more.

So, when children are massacred in their classrooms, when a foreign or domestic entity establishes itself as the superior moral behavioral guide, when presidents and congresses and courts no longer believe in the very system of institutions upon which they were built and elected, when preachers, celebrity demagogues, and billionaires command, then assassins will come and sort out what should be left out, and like Charlie Kirk says, and I'll paraphrase, it's better to have a few deaths to see who's really serious about protecting our human rights.

In America, dying for your country is big talk, though much of it comes from people who never have taken the opportunity to fight or make sacrifices for their beliefs. I think we can call those people fakes, can't we?

Charlie Kirk died for his ideals and the assassin will probably die for his, whatever they are. What does it matter? Nowhere in there is an answer to anything. If a president can be killed and sixty years later, we still don't know why or even care because he was either a son of a bitch or the promised "savior" of his country, yet everything is the same. The fact he had kids and an intelligent wife, who would remarry and carry that moment in Dallas with her to her grave, just means, "life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone." (john mellancamp).

All I can say is, especially to those who sanctify and those who gleeful be, remember where you are right now and make a note for the future when it dawns on you one day to ask yourself, how did you help to bring the world to its knees?

Now what?

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Charlie Part 2

(This is Part 2 in a three part essay)

Assassins 

Assassins are an interesting lot. They are always vilified no matter who they target because whoever they target is usually significant to whatever the assassins motivation is. No doubt about it they are the apex predator in a stagnant but loud discourse on the nature of things. Usually political matters. Supporters and admirers of Charlie Kirk are, of course, pissed off at the lack of universal grief at his passing and, of course, will demand revenge, even after the assassin is caught and the death penalty is enforced because it isn't justice that anybody wants most of the time but vengeance, which, sadly, isn't ours, but Gods. Just like it's always been Gods prerogative, though many people nowadays say that nations here on earth are Gods instruments for meting out justice. The old saying from Vietnam american soldiers, "Kill everybody and let God sort it out the innocent and guilty." Unfortunately, the nations have taken that role bestowed on them by secularist demagogues, such as kings, queens and that ilk more seriously these days, with the Old Testament backing them up.  How to incorporate God into a nations law has been, along with the corporate business model, the main recipe for modern governance.

So, here's my assassination story. Back in nineteen sixty three I was in the military. A fresh, somewhat innocent, foot soldier for my country. Mr Kennedy was my Commander in Chief. I have to be honest, I was young enough to still have faith in the ideals of my nation inasmuch as I had some doubts about my religion, which was catholic, the same religion as my commander in chief, actually. Kennedy was a catholic and, for some reason, I didn't understand he was not popular among many in the country for that reason alone. Something about where his allegiance might go in the case America went to war with the Vatican, or something like that.

Anyway, the country was divided in a way that whatever Kennedy did, he would be evaluated based on his allegiance to the nation. He even wrote a book called

profiles in courage, demonstrating his bravery during World War Two.

History, of course, is not so streamlined though, where issues are only linear and don't become mixed up with a lot of other issues because Kennedy was considered a liberal caught up in the beginnings of a nuclear Cold War based on what would be the greatest struggle (to this day). Communism vs Democracy, Totalitarianism vs Freedom. Besides the struggle between nuclear powers there were important and divisive domestic issues of segregation, lack of equal rights throughout the various social divisions-the poor, black, workers, women.

In other words, not much different than today. America is built on these divisions and an inability to rectify or resolve them.

But I'm talking assassination today.

One day in November 1963, I was downstairs from the office where I worked, talking to a friend who was always listening to the radio while he worked. There was a "breaking news" flash, something we hear or see so often today. President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. He was rushed to a hospital and his condition had not been publicized. I immediately went back to my office where most of my superiors, being career high ranking officers and enlisted men, were unaware of what was happening. I got their attention, having to yell, the president was shot in Dallas. At first, they could not believe it but one tech sergeant, stereotypically the brashest of the men I worked under, from Texas, loudly says, " I'm glad somebody shot that son of a bitch."

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Charlie Part 1

(This Part 1 of three parts. Read em all if you want to get the picture) 

Charlie 

The man who chooses the second amendment over the lives of children dies by the hand of the man who somewhere between owning a gun and his own reasons for killing a man with it are the same man because the moral abstraction the 2nd amendment doesn't cover is beyond them..

That's why Charlie doesn't get it any more than any of the others who simply never have gotten down to being human. But if there is one truth about living, it's the dying. We're all gonna die, just like Country Joe says.

Those who bemoan the fact that Charlie's kids will never know him are the same as those who think nothing of the kids murdered at their desks or millions of people murdered and having their land taken or even the children of their enemies. Everyone not in their box is fair game. And Charlie was fair game in the game he put out there to play.

The interesting thing about Charlie, it wasn't the 2nd amendment that killed him but the first amendment, the freedom of speech he so readily wanted to deny to everybody else. That was his mission.

He denied Gaza. He denied Palestinian. He denied empathy for school children killed. He denied that moral equivalence necessary for humanity to exist separate from the savagery of his immoral benefactors in the White House. And, he denied the first amendment, the very thing that the second amendment was designed to protect, in fact, it's the only thing the second amendment is supposed to do, and the only thing it's done is be the clay pigeon of the federal government or right-wing racists and nationalists.

Guns and weapons, bombs and drones are the only thing between you (the public) and freedom. These assholes in the government and NRA will tell you they protect your freedoms but, in reality, if any of them will meet me in the streets of Washington DC without a gun, at high noon, I will laugh at them, turn and walk away, and where will that leave them. They are nothing without their guns, sticks and stones, pitchforks to back them up.

Everyone has the right to defend themselves. But equality has never been the jurisdiction of racists, nationalists etc who have always taken the law into their own hands or made sure the law was in their hands. When law is the only thing that needs backing up with violence, you're on the wrong track, man. Law is supposed to reflect the standards of the public, and can be, and should be, to the benefit of the public welfare, not be equated to the violence necessary to quell every fear and insane notion of fearful and ignorant extremists.

There is nothing in any religion or supposed democratic institution that says freedom needs to be whittled down until it basically is nonexistent so a few can live above the law or without the law. The reason the nation is overcrowded, chaotic, and unmanageable is because they (the wealthy and powerful) want to treat it like a business deal rather than a social environment in which people of all colors, religions, and cultures work and make a living for the families, friends, and communities.

This nation has been unnecessarily run on fear since the Industrial Revolution when businessmen decided to create one big banking, business model for the entire world.

Slavery, beltlines, manufacturing sweatshops and there you have it. One big business oriented and directed experiment. Since then, nearly all laws have rendered less freedom for those who believed in freedom, and more violence, wars, and oppression from those who control the resources, jobs, and direct the institutions supporting the business model of social behavior.

The concept of fear they enhance because they think that without them the world is filled with anarchy, chaos, and never ending warfare, is the complete opposite of reality. The world has some six billion people on it and it's just a few same nations which have fostered all the real anarchy, chaos, and mayhem, and they've been the same few countries since the twentieth century began.

We, the people, have endured despite them, not because of them. And we'll continue to endure, despite the probable fact the ignorant men like Charlie and Trump and all their violent cohorts.

After all, he believed in public executions. Nuff said.

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Our animal minds

 

I spent years on the railroad assembling

a great American working-class hero inside myself,

I spent enough years in college assimilating,

all the great ideas intellectuals use to keep from living on farms.

I spent enough years in the classroom teaching

the over enculturated spoiled american youth,

answering why george washington never smiled,

or if the republic is only god's house for a while,

(god being a natural born transient),

Yet only I knew that inside my mouth, 

filled with a plastic smile (rather than a wooden one),

Like washington was said to have,

my tongue completely tied up in lies, lies, lies

like many presidents yet to come,

until one day i simply walked away,

wrapped up in all my convictions, predilections, and illusions,

saying to anyone who'll listen-

god and country and the gold standard are only delusions,

the only real reasons we can't get beyond our animal minds,

or any real solutions.