IRL

I find it fascinating how social media, over time, has driven America from a "me" generation to a "ME! ME! ME!" generation.

Look at this election, and look at your Facebook.

Just make sure to btw check on the people and things in front of you, too.

Ignorance is sometimes bliss

When we fail to speak,
We don't learn.

When we fail to learn,
We don't grow.

When we fail to grow,
We stagnate.

As we stagnate over time,
Temptations elsewhere call.

Make sure those temptations
Are not EVIL
Whether Mr President be a wolf in red.
Or whether Madam President be a snake in blue.

Loud TRUMPS Love

The Sheep seek a dramatic,
over-simplified,
Packaged and consumed
Straw Man
So that a Real Woman can
Lead us in 8 more years.

We The People
Cannot afford to Wait any longer
For our voices to be heard.
By "her" - by whoever.
Whatever person, place, or thing elects to FIX the problem,
Rather than exploit it for feminismOr for some other-colored banner.

Humanity sucks sometimes When it comes to thinking long term.
We're so consumed with ourselves
That we miss the bigger picture.
Facebook is the mirror
That provokes
Rather than commits.

I have HOPE that our country
Is distinct from that looking glass
In that we will work together to fix who we see in that mirror
Rather than the color of the frame.
This is a fix That we need To identify,
Not optimize for an election.

Shock and awe will always
TRUMP common sense.

Love of Country

We are a nation
That must start
To connect the dots
That God Had Always
Blesseth Upon Our Nation
With the blessings of
Our technology,
My performance,
And of course,
His Divine Providence.

For it is without GOD
That this nation will continue suffering
Regardless of the best, or of the brightest
Among all of Mankind’s Bells & Whistles.

GOD comes in many forms
It’s hard to really see.
But I Believe that He
Ultimately comes in the form
Of a divine projection unto your soul -
A projection of your dreams
A projection of your past
And ultimately a vision into your future
All based in the safe, secure, reliable,
And solidly grounded system of the present.

But it is the fog that stirs fear,
But never fear, right, for the bell tolls?
For whom? For whomever buys the nicest bell?
Or is it for whomever throws the grandest balls?
Because after all,
When we check ourselves,
We make better sure we don’t wreck ourselves.
No wonder OHIO has so many Presidents.
We have some common fucking sense, People.

Maid in China

When you discover
How the glass ceilings
And the sparkly gates
Surrounding us all
Are, at the end of the t’work-day,
MADE IN CHINA.
You discover the missing soul
TO AMERICA THE GREAT.

The WE generation

It is far more effective
For We The People
To come together
To repair and replace the aching limbs of our great nation.

No matter which branch of our nation
No matter the size of the twig that we hold

We all come together at the trunk
The trunk provides for all
From the earth through which our nation is rooted
To the bright green leaves that seek the morning sun.

The bounty of our collective energy
Is realized not only when we maintain our branches and leaves
But more importantly, when we elect to take care of our shared trunk.

For when our trunk dies,
Our nation falls to its knees.
It is then that our enemies knock on our stoop
To finish destroying us
And to pick up the pieces of our
Divided and broken home.

My Privilege and My Precious Vote

Quit bitching about my privilege if you’re not going to also consider my struggle.

I don't buy into this "PRIVILEGE" argument that I often hear discussed – mostly among the “holier-than-thou” libs out there. WHY are you electing to use my privilege against me? What is it about my identity – among both the privileges AND the struggles that it comprises – that is so suddenly objectionable through your lens, due to this newfound “privilege” buzzword? Why is it YOU who gets to define my privilege for me? Nobody (not even my loved ones) will ever have a 100% complete picture of my "privileges" and “struggles” to criticize.

Nonetheless, your unique life story indeed does entitle yourself privileges, just as it weighs you with oppression. However, I do not like it when others try to define for me what those privileges and oppressions are. But I DO appreciate genuinely their good-intentioned insight!

Individual experiences, "privileges," oppressions, etc. notwithstanding: We need "heart-soul agreement." We need CHANGE. And we need it NOW. For all of us – TOGETHER here. This great diverse nation should not be divided into demographic segments and political parties. Today’s Americans are more complex, unique,and fluid in their identities than ever before. To call us blacks, gays, liberals, progressives, whatever – it TAKES AWAY from my individuality and the great diversity we share as a nation. All for what – to get elected? If we are too truly have a conversation on how to make America great, we should be focusing on common goals – not talking points. Therefore, I invite OHIO to COME TOGETHER - to BUILD THIS COUNTRY UP AGAIN - regardless of your color or other preferences - OUR collective end product,

The United States of America!!!

This snake is neither privileged nor oppressed; it is DEAD.

Because divided we fall.

If we were to let that occur, that is the point at which we WILL have a COMMON struggle - in chains.

I LIKE TRUMP

I’m scared of hell about this fact

I think I’m starting to LIKE Donald Trump.  

Not only that, I’m becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of a President Trump.  

If you’ve read to this point and decided not to unfriend me from Facebook-land, then hear me out for a second.

I fell in love with Bernie Sanders in the late 2000’s, years prior to this present election cycle.  

The issues that emerged with Sanders on my eye were a broad form of economic populism based on a broad dissatisfaction at the long-term economic trends of the past 40 years.  The middle-class of the United States of America has long been extracted – whether or not its people or its leaders choose to admit this.  Unchecked global arbitrages among labor safeguards, environmental standards, safety standards have sustained a “race to the bottom” among multinational companies and the nations’ leaders throughout the world that empower them in order to keep rich and happy its fickle citizenry.  I was raised in Appalachia, where I witnessed through all 18 years of my childhood the steady decay of the factories, the businesses, and the communities that powered the Ohio Valley.  It was simply cheaper to produce steel in China, because its government ran the steel companies there, allowing them to absorb losses from selling under cost and to skirt Chinese safety/environmental oversight, specifically in order to displace American companies out of the steel market.

Instead of understanding this dissatisfaction and addressing it, our nation’s leaders (i.e. Hillary, Bush) insist on continuing a neoliberal agenda of global interconnectivity through unchecked free trade with hostile nations and entanglement of our resources into foreign conflicts. 

Meanwhile, in the absence of any viable economic/diplomatic solution to address this longstanding issue of chronic job losses among “blue-collar” communities, Trump has managed to turn this broad economic populism into a robust scorched-earth anti-immigrant campaign.

The distinction between Bernie and Trump is this: who do we blame?  Multi-national corporations or immigrants?  The choice is clear.  

Hillary (and her husband Bill) have both abstained from this problem; instead, she will use the race and demographics game to engineer her electoral victory.  It is doubtful that she will depart from the economic advisers (including her husband) and the foreign policy cohorts that have been the architect of this 40-year philosophy.  Her campaign strategy against Trump completely ignores these longstanding economic headwinds, and she has apparently decided instead to focus on lampooning Trump’s character.  Based on what I’ve seen in this primary so far, that seems a risky bet for this country.

What emerges from the Trump campaign is a story of safeguarding America.  We do need to safeguard America.  The question that will be critical in this election – when it comes to Trump vs Bernie – is to who to safeguard it against – corporate greed or immigrants.

Immigrants drive the modern US economy. Hope guides us towards tackling the impotence of our political system by addressing the outsize influence of corporate money in American politics. That is why Bernie Sanders is really the man who best epitomizes how to persist as the Greatest Nation on Earth throughout the 21st Century.