WHAT LITTLE TYRANTS CAN GET AWAY WITH

By Ruth A. Sheets

The genocide being conducted by Israel in Gaza is beyond appalling, but it seems our leadership is doing little to nothing to stop it.  Israel is our ally perpetrating these murderous actions.  Though we are much larger and the major provider of war material for Israel, somehow, we can’t/won’t stop their barbarism. 

I recently read a comment that mentioned similarities between what is being done to Gaza by Israel and the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.  It is important to me that others have come to see this connection too.  I noticed it nearly from the beginning when the people were shuffled around Gaza for no logical reason other than so Israel could bomb the areas the people were being forced to leave, being enclosed in smaller and smaller areas.  The Israeli "guards" became like the Ghetto and concentration camp guards, killing at will, laughing at the horrors.  There seems little difference between what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza and what the Nazis did to Jewish and other people during the Holocaust.  It is on a smaller scale as there are fewer Gazans, but the basic excuses for the horrific behavior are the same:  those people are just animals; they are a threat to us; they are vermin and need to be destroyed.  Essentially, Gaza is a large ghetto and the prisons where Palestinians are being held are concentration camps where violence, torture, starvation, and more are the sadistic tools of guards who have lost any semblance of decency they might once have had.  Sound familiar?

Netanyahu has made pathetic excuses for what Israel is doing in Gaza, and Trump wants to build a resort there when the Palestinians are gone. It is clear Netanyahu ordered the genocide, supposedly to destroy Hamas.  The Israeli soldiers have gone along with it, Now, readying for a gigantic invasion using military reserves and weapons supplied by the US. 

As an American, I am ashamed that again we are participating in genocide. It seems when a nation commits genocide once (against indigenous Americans), it is easier the next time.

It also seems "never again" means only Jewish people not facing another holocaust, not that Israel couldn’t perpetrate one on its neighbors. Netanyahu is also OK permitting illegal settlers in the West Bank to steal land, homes, and possessions from the Palestinian people.  Murder of Palestinians is a pretty regular event there too. 

Palestinians as everyone should know have been in the land that is now Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank as long as the Jewish people have been there, so, it should be time Israel and Palestine find ways to work together instead of committing atrocities. 

Out of a feeling of guilt or just to make money, over the years, The US has given Israel free rein to do as much harm to Palestinians and others as it chooses.  I just read of an incident I had forgotten about.  Israel attacked an American ship during Israel’s “6-Day-War” in June 1967, killing at least 34 sailors and injuring many more.  The US declared itself neutral in Israel’s “war,” and the ship was well-marked as American, flying our flag clearly and moving slowly through the international waters of the Mediterranean.  The American survivors were informed they would be imprisoned if they told the truth of Israel’s unprovoked assault, so it took more than 20 years for information about the attack to get out. 

The USS Liberty should not have been attacked from the air and on the sea and it is not clear why Israel chose to do it and why the US under President Johnson didn’t respond.  We were supposedly their ally and we gave them a pass, just as we are doing right now.  

For the sake of the whole Middle East, the killing and famine in Gaza must stop, blaming Hamas for acts of Israeli violence must also end. Getting food and medicines to the people of Gaza is critical, and in sufficient quantities to actually make a difference, not the tiny trickle Netanyahu and his cronies have permitted so far, while Israeli soldiers shot down people who came to collect food for their starving families.

What Israel is doing and has been doing for years is EVIL! There is no other word that comes close to describing it, except Holocaust. The insanity must stop and the Israeli people be fully informed as to what their own government is doing in Gaza and the West Bank.  It must be called genocide done in the name of the Israeli people. 

I am still wondering when people will publicly ask how it was that Israel/Netanyahu was so completely caught off-guard on October 7^th when they had been warned that Hamas was planning a major attack, a year ahead.  How fortunate for Hamas that Israel’s intelligence was “off-line” that particular day.  One might think that Netanyahu had known the time of the attack and wanted something big to happen so he could go all-out against Gaza and the Palestinians in general, now, 64,000 dead and counting.  Like many, I have noted what has happened in the past couple of years.  It is pretty obvious something was up when Israel got no warning while there is surveillance everywhere in Gaza.  I am thinking the reason “no one knows what really happened” is that Israeli citizens might not be OK with the idea of sacrificing their loved ones for the Gaza takeover plans of Netanyahu. 

The United States needs to withdraw from support of Israel, knowing Israel will do whatever they wish to whomever they wish if they think it will send their message.”  We do not need that in our lives, so there must be a lot more pressure from the American people to stop the genocide and our donations of weapons to Israel.  If more of us realized we are being used by a would-be dictator of a little country, to boost the influence of our own would-be dictator, more people might step up to demand Congress stop the insanity.  It could happen.

 

TRUMP AND THE TODDLER POOL, EVIL AWAKENED

By Ruth A. Sheets

 

What Trump and his toddler pool have been doing for the past 7+ months is immoral, but it is also mostly illegal.  We can't forget that.  We have laws which make it possible for us to live together in this nation in peace.  Trump and crew break laws at every turn hoping it will get them something they want, either power or money or both. 

Trump does not want peace nor do the billionaire oligarchs (Trumplandia in the White House).  This collection of anti-democracy folks includes the nominees approved by Senate Republicans for high office in our government plus Republican legislators throughout the country.  I think their ultimate goal is world domination by oligarchy, with them on top!  They want action as long as they get to order it, getting others to do their dirty work.  They claim to be victims, but have no idea what victims experience because none of them is a victim of anything but their own greed, ignorance, dismissal of the truth, narcissism, contempt for everyone not them. 

The most significant emotions they possess are fear and anger, with a heaping helping of hatred.  They are afraid of not getting away with their coup and they toss that fear out on everyone else, spreading it like a plague, to make all of us comply.  They are furious that anyone dares question their actions because they think they are and should be masters of the universe even though they are not even masters of themselves, you know, like adult toddlers. 

It is critical that we are going to have to stand tall against them and get low when necessary because these mostly white men and their female surrogates know no depth to which they will not go.   They don’t realize they are not worthy of respect beyond that due any human being.

In my way of thinking, this is EVIL!  There is no concern for anyone who will be impacted by their senseless rulings, pronouncements, search for old laws they can reimpose on this nation, imposition of military rule, and more.  The Trump pool knows their fearful leader, the guy they pretend to bow and scrape to is mentally and physically failing, but they are positioning themselves to be the guy who takes over.  The American people do not like any of them, but it won’t matter because Vought, Musk, Thiel, Bessent, or one of the other too-rich fools will try to jump in, hoping the ground has been properly laid for them to take over when the time comes.  In the meantime, they are trying to get Trump to do as much damage as possible so it will be easier for them to breeze in and strike the final blow. 

The EVIL ones are friends of Putin of Russia, Orban of Hungary, and any other dictator in the world they can find and convince to join them in the takeover.  Those guys are all super rich and can appreciate the superrich of this current swarm of a-holes, all cut from the same greedy narcissistic cloth.

Their current efforts involve targeting everyone who is not them.  They are distracting us by having masked thugs kidnap people, supposed immigrants off our streets, claiming they are criminals despite the fact that most of them contribute more to the nation than the oligarchs who are primarily “takers.”  They have also targeted trans persons and their parents, Black Americans, Democrats of any background, and of course women, something that really feels especially wrong on this 105th anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment.  They are working hard to create a throw-back woman, “trad wife” who will stay at home, make their house perfect for their hubby and the many kids they are supposed to have, white kids of course.  Those rich white men who will never be pregnant want to be sure that every woman who gets pregnant, particularly if they are raped, must carry that fetus to term.  Every piece of this effort is EVIL, but it keeps the MAGAs thinking they are not in the Trumpers’ sights, when they are right there with the rest of us, waiting for the right moment to be targeted!

I have read one way to deal with this EVIL is to mock them in a wide variety of ways:  their specific actions, their character, their greed, their inability to handle the truth even when it is right in front of them.    We need cartoonists, influencers, late-night hosts, editorials, Substack and other platforms, journalists, and pretty much everyone else to, without defaming anyone, mock the crap out of them, showing them and everyone else how unworthy of holding any position of authority they are and that their ideas for the rest of us are childish and unacceptable!  We must name this as EVIL and point out as often and in as many ways as possible just how they are dividing us for their own benefit. We don’t have to take it!

REWRITING AMERICAN HISTORY WITH REPUBLICAN CONSENT

By Ruth A. Sheets

Trump proves daily that he is an ignorant would-be tyrant, and he is well on the way to achieving that goal.  He knows nothing of history, yet wants to dictate what it should include.

Russell Vought of “Project 2025” fame, knows nothing of history either.  He’s just  a whiny white boy who is too rich for anyone's good and who has been sponsored and coddled by a bunch of racist, misogynistic cowards at the Heritage Foundation who are too scared of anyone who is not rich white and male.  OK, they are terrified of them too; they could turn on him and his kind in an instant.  It has happened throughout history.  So, Vought, Miller, Bessent, and a collected crowd of scared white men and the women who love them want to get their Baby Donnie to  make history less scary, less filled with ways white men have oppressed and abused people, less information about outstanding women, and people of color, and white men who don't buy the scared white male BS.  The Trumpers are not a large group, but want everyone to think they are all-powerful, so we will be cowed into submission. 

Trump’s next target is the Smithsonian Institution, often fondly referred to as “our nation’s attic.”  Trump and his buddies who know nothing of history, science, art, and this nation, want to have oversight for all exhibitions, displays, etc.  What!  They would be lost in the jargon of science, history, art, and the rest.  Those whiny rich boys would bring nothing positive to the museums or anywhere else they plan to try to control, just lies, inaccuracies, and their personal fears, resentments, and ignorance, none of which anyone in this country needs or wants on display in an honored institution. 

Smithsonian Secretary Bunch and the rest of the amazing people you work with, don't give in!  Ask the American people to help to support your work more now that Trump and his fascist crew are trying so hard to rewrite American history, and thus a part of the history of the world. 

When I worked for the Smithsonian, I loved working with the designers of exhibitions and giving tours of their fine work.  I can't imagine what a tour of Trump's history would sound like, a lot of lies, disinformation, and would not be worth the effort.  I am trying to imagine Trump as a tour guide of his brand of history and realize he wouldn't get past the first display because he wouldn't have a clue what was there.  He and his buddies like to whine about whites being discriminated against when that is so rare as to be nearly invisible, but Trump wants that insignificance to be more than visible, actually prominent, even if they have to make it up. 

The Smithsonian crew are going to have to be very creative to get around the ignoramuses of Trumplandia.  The residents of Trumplandia, toddler men and a few women know so little it is embarrassing.  Their ignorance is the reason only fools and the incompetent, serve as secretaries and department heads in our current government.  For Trump, ignorance is bliss.

However, Republicans in Congress, mostly white men, like the Trump takeover of our national entities like the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian, and say "sure, Mr. Sir, whatever you want, we care nothing for this nation, our oath of office,  and the people who elected us, just the money we can collect in gifts (bribes) and we are getting a lot right now, so, it’s all good,  whatever you want, we’re behind you, can you feel our presence back there?" 

THE EPA HAS DECIDED CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT REAL. WHAT!

By Ruth A. Sheets

Yo!  Lee Zeldin,  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, wake up!  Your future also depends on the decisions you make now.  At this moment, you are not on a good track in the decision-making department.  Check this out and maybe you’ll decide to do better.

Let's face it, no matter what those like you, who are ignorant of a subject, put into positions you know nothing about think, science is real and so is global warming/climate change.  I do wonder why so many Trump/Republican appointees have decided lying about reality is a good thing; it isn't, it is just ignorance made manifest!  

I communicate with you as a concerned citizen to implore you to uphold your Agency's Endangerment Findings and maintain vital climate standards.  That's the intelligent thing to do, but it is not clear where in the current EPA leadership intelligence lies if it is present there at all.  What do you think?

The Endangerment Finding is an assessment of the challenges faced by the people and environment caused by human activity:  fossil fuel burning, power plant emissions, harmful chemicals, and more.  Revoking the Endangerment Finding would ignore overwhelming science and endanger public health. In addition, this set of proposals you are championing undoes the vehicle emissions standards. Transportation is the largest source of climate pollution and these standards are critical to limiting dangerous heat-trapping emissions.  Is there someone intelligent there to understand this?  I am not sure.  Either way, do you care!

From the beginning in the early 1970s, the EPA’s duty has been to base decisions on science and to protect the public from dangerous pollution, just as Nixon and his scientists expected.  What you are proposing now advances polluter interests, not the EPA’s mission.  Why would you permit this? 

Have you considered that this means the polluters are also lacking in  basic thinking skills (I guess greed does that to you). They will be physically impacted by the extra pollution, just like we, the  expendable peons, even if they/you can't see it.  Greenhouse and other gases are invisible, but they allow for heating of our world.  The visible pollution is also dangerous because it can cause cancer and other lovely medical conditions and you rich folks get those too.

I am hoping there is a spark of intelligence left at EPA that will cause you to uphold the Endangerment Finding and keep strong climate protections in place.  Stop listening to the demands of the folks who will want you all to take the blame when storms, floods, wildfires get worse and start killing even more people, not to mention the wildlife. 

Do the right thing for a change.  Get the word out that the rules will stay in place for now until you "study" the situation, then keep “studying” over and over until people in the white house forget.  Do you have the courage to do that or are you just a lacky whose intelligence was left behind when coming to work for an administration for whom intelligence is a liability? 

DEI, NOT A BLOW AGAINST WHITE MEN

By Ruth A. Sheets

It seems Donald Trump and his handlers are obsessed with DEI.  They toss the letters out as though cursing in anger.  Trump would have no idea what the letters he is blurting out mean if asked by a member of the White House press corps, which is why none of them ever ask him when he tosses the swear word at them.

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is the term used to identify efforts to make businesses, workplaces, education, and other entities more inclusive of the variety of people living in this country.  It used to be called “Affirmative Action” until the Supreme Court said educational entities could no longer accept students through Affirmative Action, even though it was not clear the justices even understood it beyond their thinking that it meant letting Black students in.  Their wrong understanding was that white students would be kept out and replaced by Black students of lesser ability.  That was not Affirmative Action, but it didn’t matter because the word of the Supreme Court is law, right?

 

Colleges and Universities were looking for a positive way to make their student bodies, faculties, and programs more inclusive, but it seems the majority white Supreme Court conservative justices (including Thomas the white wannabee) just couldn’t have that, a white man who might not get in where he wanted to attend because an inferior woman or Black man got in instead.  So Affirmative Action was labeled by right-wingers as baaaad!

 

Women and people of color were not going to be stopped, so a new title for such inclusive education and institutions was needed.  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) was the name settled on.  This title has served to recruit and keep thousands of students so student bodies could be more diverse not only by race and gender, but also by experience, talents/skills, and region. 

 

The new right-wing trope from white men is that they are being excluded by those less-educated, less qualified inferiors.  It is true that white males will no longer automatically be accepted over everyone else, but competition is good if without prejudice. Whether the cry of male exclusion is untrue doesn’t matter because it sounds good to groups like the MAGAs.  They take as gospel whatever is tossed out to them either by their Toddler-Trump or that shows up on Fox Not Nearly News, mostly white men, with a few white women hired to be the female faces of male aggression and claimed superiority.  Viewers came to believe that what the right-wing media presented must be true, no evidence required. 

 

I was commenting on a Substack thread this morning and one of the participants tried to say that DEI discriminates against white men.  I had to reread that one several times to get the gist of his words.  I challenged him saying that he as a white man has privilege just for being white and male.  He claims he does not have any such privilege because his life has been hard.  He couldn’t get the idea that it is likely that had he been a woman or person of color, his life would most likely have been even more difficult. 

 

I am amazed at the inability of some white men to get it that they are consider the default human in many parts of the world, including here.  They seem to want to wallow in the injustices done to themselves and their white male buddies.  They believe they have never discriminated against anyone and that every single job or opportunity that came to them was due to their own personal abilities, skills, and superior thinking and education.  That may be true, but it may equally be due to their male whiteness.  They will never know because white privilege means people will always see them first. 

 

One important thing to remember is that this is not really the fault of white men in general.  Those living now didn’t set up the system, devise ways to be sure that everyone not white and male would be kept in place below men.  Today’s white males didn’t skew laws to favor white men and nor did they institute slavery and the other systems that kept white men on top.  However, it is white men with some support that keep those practices in place.

 

That being said, today’s white men of privilege can learn to understand their privilege and can move toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion if they choose. 

• They can take time to look at their situation and that of other white men they know and see how the system has worked for them. 
• - They can listen to women and people of color and note the critique that could change the ways white men relate to the people around them. 
• - They can ask questions of themselves:  do I objectify women by their looks; do I assume everyone else is less qualified or coming after what I have; do I vote for white men even if I have doubts because I can’t envision a woman or person of color in that job/position; do I treat a white male boss differently from any other boss?  These are just a few of the questions white men can ask themselves.  They are questions all of us can ask ourselves too because white men did not get their privileged position on their own.  Women provided the early education that promoted that stance.  People of color just as white men and women, have hierarchies of who they see as superior and inferior.

 

DEI is just a tool to help us appreciate the diversity of humanity on this planet and to realize that each individual and group has something important to offer the whole and that no group is better than the rest in everything.  DEI gives a framework for business, education, the workplace, communities and nations to start to notice others and the gifts they bring to the table.  It helps us to develop those gifts for the benefit of all. 

 

trump and his white male cadre of sycophants do not want self-examination.  They want things the way they were at some mythical time in the past when straight white men ruled in every sphere of life.  That time will not come again, so it is up to all of us, including white males to embrace DEI (whatever it ends up being called), and demand its use everywhere for the benefit of all.  Then challenge when Trump or anyone else tosses out the term DEI as a slur or curse.  Such contempt proves they have no clue.

A WEEK OF THOUGHTS ABOUT DEMOCRACY’S STRUGGLES

By Ruth A. Sheets

July 14, 2025

In response to a poll on Robert Reich’s Substack thread I chose Victor Orban as the dictator Donald Trump is trying hardest to emulate.  Victor Orban came into power in Hungary under false pretenses just as Trump did.  He was popular because of nothing in particular he had done, but made massive promises the people bought and swallowed whole.  Now he rules an entire country that at one time actually stood up to the Soviet Union.  A difference is that Hungary had a history of dictatorship over many years and the United States does not, which might bring us a bit of hope. 

 

Some people have noted that Trump's welcome is starting to wear off, and for a significant number, it has already worn thin.  The Republican Party or Trumplandia as I like to think of the GOP, beyond giving Trump, their leader, everything he wants is useless if anyone thinks they will stand for or with our democracy.  For years, they have done nothing to help anyone but rich mostly white men who need no help.  In 8 years, W. Bush for example did one positive thing I could recall, create and develop an HIV/AIDS program for people suffering in Africa, which I suspect is disbanded with Trump’s illegal executive order shutting down any programs that actually help people in other nations, OK, in this nation too. 

 

I think there was one positive action in Trump’s first term, well it started out that way.  He pushed the final phases of the COVID vaccine.  Unfortunately, he promoted drugs that were not helpful for people suffering with COVID, hinted people should take bleach internally because if it works to kill germs outside the body . . . .  Even though he was a victim of COVID, he didn’t understand the efforts the medical staff at the hospital went through to save him, while he pretended he wasn’t really very sick; he lied.

 

This term, Trump is trying to hold court over a Trump-created selfish nation that has little to offer anyone.  Who wants to come here to college when if their skin is not pure as the driven they will not be welcome?  Who wants to travel here to visit when they could be arrested and thrown into a concentration camp by masked goons just for existing?  Who will want to trade with a country that puts enormous taxes on all their products so people in the US won't be able to afford them?

 

Trump and his cadre of sycophants don’t really care about any of this because the folks they are doing this destruction for are super rich and expect to jump in to pick up the pieces, taking over the nation for their benefit while they work to take over the rest of the world too so they and their super rich friends can rape the planet even more horribly than they have already done.  They think they will survive global warming because of their wealth, but like most people who do not think past the moment, they don’t consider the extreme wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and other disasters inevitable with global warming.  They only want science involved when it lets them become more wealthy.   

 

This may end up a paradise for the very rich, but not for anyone else.  Therefore, a step we must take if we do not want this dystopia is for anyone who has a platform and a mouth that can speak should be telling folks that right now, they are being pushed around by a toddler pool of white men and a few sycophantic white women who care nothing for them, only the money they can wring out of the people to enrich themselves even further, in short, endless wanting, like whiny toddlers.  We need in a variety of ways, to inform people of how we are being used, and that Trump is one of the biggest users around and loves that honor.  We have to learn and help each other to learn how to defy rather than to comply  with what is going on.  We need to help folks drop their racism, even though it may be a cherished family tradition.  It is keeping them from seeing what is really going on so they can say “no.”  The same is with stopping misogyny, xenophobia, and homo/transphobia.  Those are all hatreds fanned by people who want to control others, to control us for their own purposes.  No one should want to be owned and that is what the rich folks want to do to us.

 

I heard Trump's pathetic speech in Texas when he was trying to pretend he cared about the people lost to the flood, but it came off as disinterest, then a rant against someone who asked about the late response from FEMA and the government because Homeland Security Secretary Noem couldn't be bothered.  Trump’s over the top reaction was par for Trump's course because that is the way he always responds to people who challenge him.  He wants to be the bully in charge who accepts no questions of his motives or decisions, not much of a leader, but with the ?Supreme Court six cons supporting him as well as his entire political party, it is going to be hard to dislodge him from his position of power.  We can do it, though if we have the will and the unity it will require.  OK, it is going to require strength, courage, knowledge, persistence, and more too, but together we have that. 

RUMINATIONS ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

By Ruth A. Sheets

July 5, 2025

 On this July 4th I sit here thinking how depressing it is that over and over again throughout our history, a bunch of white men have worked to change this nation, not really caring or even thinking about the impact on the rest of the people.  In 1776, it was breaking away from Britain.  During the westward movement, it was to steal land from indigenous peoples to acquire more wealth and prestige for the investors and to take as much gold as possible.  In 1861 it was white men wanting to protect the 200+ year economy of enslavement from which they gained a lot and the enslaved, little to nothing.  Then, there were the labor and anti-labor movements, the wars, the Great Depression, all orchestrated by white men often at others' expense to gain more wealth and power.  And, here we go again.  White men are now an even smaller minority, yet we continue to pretend they are better, smarter, more innovative, more everything than anyone else.  The anti-DEIers claim without actually saying the words that the only reason any woman or person of color holds an important position was that a "better-qualified" white man was passed over in favor of THAT less competent person.  Lying is now the medium of exchange for this current group of white men who believe they are better than anyone else, and they don't have to have evidence of their superiority, just their mouths moving.  On this Independence Day, we who are not rich white men trying to control everyone else need to declare our independence of their rule, lies, abuse, incivility, desperation to hurt anyone they can.  We can make a better nation and world, but we are going to have to set those particular whiny white men, down a few pegs.  Teaching young white boys they are not better than the rest of the kids will be a challenge, but it is essential to help them grow into responsible adults who can work and play with others without trying to dominate them. 

 

All of this is not to say that white men have done nothing.  After all, we are an independent nation for nearly 250 years.  We have a labor movement that is still alive more than a century later.  We have tech that allows us to do a lot, often due to white male inventors and developers.  However, it is clear that white men have always had a cadre of women, young people, and people of color to help with and often advance the invention and development, sometimes the actual inventor. 

 

On this July 4th, we need to remember that it was We the People the Constitution was designed to support, only a few years after our war for independence.  The Constitution may have been a document written by and for white men, but that is not the language used, which means the rest of us have become included over time.  The "originalists" whine that they have to read the Constitution as it was written and rule that way, but they are lying to the American people and to themselves.  There is no such thing as originalism in reality because the founders did not envision that.  For them, our Constitution was to be a living document that was fleshed out over time through use and adaptation.  And, the white boys now                     in power are certainly trying hard to warp our document to make it support the evils they are doing to our nation and the world, while claiming some kind of originalism.  We the People need to stop this sacrilege.   

 

As I ruminated, I responded to a comment by Susanna on Heather Cox Richardson’s thread, July 3, 2025 about people needing a purpose or cause for our lives. 

Susanna, yes, we all do need a purpose.  It is just so sad that many people's purpose is to control, conquer, or do harm in general to others, sometimes marked or targeted for them, sometimes not.  I am sorry the internet which was set up to be a good connecter has turned out for many to be a divider, a source for developing the hate, distrust, and other negativities that can lead to what this nation is experiencing and perpetrating right now.  Get a bunch of rich white mostly men and their wannabees together in one place to ruminate and what they come up with is often not something good for humanity, just as the Heritage Foundation and similar richly funded organizations have proven.  It  would be great if we could redirect some of this inhumanity toward actually helping people by raising wages and salaries, building quality affordable housing for people, encouraging more cooperation, cutting the hate speech, particularly the lying, even from our "leaders."  I am not sure how we do this, but maybe instead of competition to see who can be the richest man in the world, ignore that BS and make a huge deal of the number of homes a corporation has built and donated, the number of non-white citizens a person or corporation has sponsored, companies that offer discounts for people who are struggling to make ends meet, opening, staffing, and supporting free clinics in struggling neighborhoods, donations to global organizations to stop HIV and other diseases, all with no strings attached.  We could have giant billboards praising those individuals and corporations with proof that they have done what they claim and maybe have billboards too that name and describe the Representatives and Senators that voted to defund resources the people need like Planned Parenthood, PBS/NPR, Medicaid, SNAP, etc., using phrases, try for a change, voting instead  for someone who actually cares that you have what you need.  OK, I am still a bit of an idealist, but I do think we didn't believe the evil would settle here again, so ignored most of the bad behavior of conservatives/Republicans for the past half century, occasionally trying to fight it, but still thinking Republicans had the interests of at least most of the people at heart and still believed in our democracy.  We were wrong!

 

So, now we move into the 250^th year of our nation with no certainty that we will continue as a democracy, even until next July 4^th.  We must never lose hope, though because the forces of evil count onus doing that as has happened elsewhere.  Thomas Paine reminds us that like 249 years ago, “These are the times that try men’s (our) souls . . . Those who stand it now deserve the thanks of men and women.”  So we must be the ones who stand it now and work with and for reason, persistence, and truth.