Kathy Griffin, Trump Family, and the Golden Rule

Trump chose to run for office, knowing that others would do (or try to do) exactly what he did (or tried to do) to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Trump chose to run for office and swore to hold that office knowing there was more dirt on him than probably anyone else on earth. Trump chose to subject his children (all of them, the ones who are complicit and the ones who might be innocent) to humiliation, fear, hatred, danger, deserved or not. Trump incited hatred, racism, and violence every step of the way. Trump chummed up to and weaponized our enemies--including a country that beheads and that waged the World Trade Center attack on this country--and turned his back on our allies, and he and his party have laid the groundwork for us to become the next Syria, meaning our grandchildren might one day see their parents beheaded by the enemies, or melted by nukes, or washed up on foreign shores after our attempt to help them escape failed. 

Trump's wife and children knew/know all of this about him. Instead of doing the right thing, they played along and helped him. They deserve no consideration. If anyone actually believes the golden child in the gilded cage was terrorized by seeing Kathy's picture, you must surely realize he also sees naked pictures of his mother, who he surely loves more than he loves his demented, absent father, and the news about his father raping children and bragging about grabbing pussies while married to his mom . . . And the appropriate reaction according to my intelligence, experience, gut reaction is to reject Trump's attempt to make us feel sorry for him because someone might have hurt his kid's feelings. It's ALL about Trump. Always.

I believe in the Golden Rule. The Trumps taught us, over and over and over again exactly how they prefer to be done unto - and it isn't pretty. Good parents (like mine, like the Clintons, like the Obamas) take a situation like this and say TO THEIR KID, "That was an ugly, hurtful thing to do. I hope you remember and never do it to someone else." Or, in this case, "I realize now how very wrong I have been to mistreat others my entire life so I am going to beg everyone to forgive me and start over as a decent person."

I Love You and Hope You Die

A friend used this title on her domestic abuse article. It worked well. I have remembered it and thought of other uses for it over the years. After watching the Republican Party try to dismantle every safety net we have, I think this title’s time has come again.

You say you love me and don’t want to fight with me yet you do everything in your power to protect your greed over my ability to live. You ignore a thousand kind, informative words to find one of mine that you can twist into a slur, and you criticize and obstruct everything I do to deliver my love to the world – which includes you. You can say you love me but it means little without actions to support the claim.

You say you have what you want and that should be enough for me, but you don’t offer what you have – even cry that you will not stand for anyone trying to “redistribute” life or love from you to me. You wish me well, but never ask if I am well and you turn your back on people who don’t look well.

You say you would never insult me while you lie about my life’s work and tell me I am a fool to seek the truth or repeat the facts. And you say you will pray for me when, in fact, you prey on me and steal the truth that is rightfully mine.

You ask me to trust you and then admit that you don’t seek or speak the truth. You say I should hear your words of love but you base your love on nothing and think you don’t have to live that love.

You say you treasure your right to lie, cheat, ignore history, spit in the face of education, defy facts, practice your faith, and ignore the needs of your world. And when I dedicate my life to fighting to protect your freedom to do everything that I find disgusting, you criticize me for wanting to offer the same rights to people you don’t like. Not only do you criticize me for doing what you are too lazy or selfish to do, you ask me to honor people who volunteered to kill innocent people in my name -   instead of standing by my side to bring to justice the administration that threatened your freedom and their lives. You dishonor my service to your community.

You say your faith comforts you and I must respect that. But you show no respect for my faith in things I can prove. In fact, you are angry with me for having proof. Nor do you consider my faith that no respectable god would appreciate your duplicity. You see, you say you love everyone but are tired of people who hold a hand out for help. Yet, your response to everything is to hold your hand out to your god rather than helping the people or the world that you insist he created. Your duplicity makes my head spin.

You say you value your freedom yet make a mockery of it by living as a victim of subliminal messages. You soak them up from the people you have given control of your mind, and you spit them back in language you don’t recognize. When you tell me you are dealing well with radishes on your plate, I know that means you don’t like radishes. And when you tell me you are afraid of radishes but refuse to give a reason, I know the reason is that someone else told you radishes are bad things and you are either too fearful to try them or too lazy to study them. Until you decide to take control of what goes into your mind, you can’t control what comes out. That’s one freedom you have to fight for on your own since I have no control over your mind.

You ask my opinion and then insult me for being able to express and defend it. What you really wanted was for me to agree that it is okay for you to be too lazy and self-absorbed to seek an informed opinion.You say you are pro life while you cast millions to their deaths by your refusal to look for truth or share what you have. You say you love unconditionally while you list ‘agreement with or silence about’ your ill formed opinions and lies as a condition for communication with you.

You say you love me while you tighten your fingers around the neck of my ability to live. You are not going to provide my health care, my food, my shelter, my education, or my happiness. You are going to watch me die rather than give up stuff that you believe your god created.

The next time you want to tell me how much you love me, please complete the sentence.

(One day, I hope to use this title for a positive article about assisted suicide.)

Originally published to the internet around 2010

Six children and four adults—ten members of one family--died from smoke inhalation in a house fire in Bardstown, Kentucky on Tuesday night. Before the overwhelmed, desolate, surviving family had finalized funeral arrangements; Westboro Baptist Church had already organized the protest for this funeral.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of the church led by Fred Phelps, cited one of their typical reasons for protesting funerals, “To show that their deaths are God's punishment for a "filthy" nation that has disobeyed "His will." The Southern Poverty Law Center declared them a hate group, the Anti-Defamation League monitors them, and they are enough to make any sane person admit that God does create garbage.

Those not familiar with this Topeka, Kansas traveling compost heap should check out their websites: GodHatesFags.com, and GodHatesAmerica.com, and other sites expressing condemnation of homosexuals, Roman Catholics, Swedish Muslims, Jews, and other groups. While not known to be directly connected to the Christian Identity movement, many of Phelps' sermons reflect the same warped principles.

In an unfortunately completely unrelated story, officials used explosives to free a barge that has been stranded at the McAlpine Dam nearby since January 16. If I ruled the world, the explosives would catch the Westboro group as they travel across the Ohio River in the back of their poster and hate filled pick-up truck to get to the Bardstown funeral.

Also, if I ruled the world, the WHAS announcer who reported this story would look at the word Bardstown, realize there is not a letter ‘g’ anywhere in the word, and would stop saying Bargetown. She would also know that the city she lives in and speaks for is named after King Louis, not King Lua, and ville rhymes with Bill, not bull, and that there is not now and never has been a letter ‘h’ in the word Hurstbourne, so that word should not be pronounced Hurshburn. And, that letter on the end of Broadbend is a D, not a T. They don’t even look alike. Get it straight. Please.

Sorry. I will return to my original religious rant.

Tax dollars support sickness masquerading as art at Sundance Film Festival Scared? That has to be the purpose of this latest sensationalized headline from the AFA (possibly in the running for most dangerous group in my opinion, since they are almost as misguided as the Westboro cult and much larger) targets PBS. They are asking their million cult members to email their Senators and Representatives to ask that they stop supporting the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS with tax money (after all, an educated country is not easy to control).

I urge everyone to counter the narrow-minded views of this group by contacting your elected officials in support of the arts. You may do so here.

Epitomes of Weakness: RW Christians

Joined in ignorant bliss
bound by family and home
you breed hatred and blindness
toward everyone but your own

spewing empty words of love
veiled in god’s name
while diffusing devastation
born in the bowels of shame

I curse your gutless clans
of hypocrites and beasts,
flag-waving bible-thumping liars
epitomes of weakness.

Fuck your big hearts
swollen beneath curdled brains.
Your actions speak your truth
your victims wear your name

Choke on the lies you spew
drown in the tears you produce.
May the blood of those you hurt
wash back over you

A Rattlesnake In the Basement

There’s an elephant in the kitchen
We pretend he isn’t there
He cries about the basement,
says a rattlesnake lives down there
Wanted, dead or alive, he cries
that snake really must go
The elephant in the kitchen
doesn’t have a soul

The rattlesnake in the basement
more rattle than he is bite,
whines about the kitchen
says the elephant isn’t right
Open your foolish eyes, he cries
that elephant has to go
the rattlesnake in the basement
doesn’t have a soul

There’s an army on the staircase
anxious to drop their bomb
to hell with right or wrong
they kill children, dad, and mom
We cleaned out the basement, they cried
snaked him out of his hole
The army on the staircase
doesn’t have a soul

While You Were Sleeping

Imagine the pubic outcry if groceries were to come pre-grouped. Anyone wanting to purchase bread, milk, meat, or vegetables would also have to buy a bunch of over-ripened bananas, five pounds of dark brown beef, a package of tripe or hog brains, a dozen dented cans without labels, and a jar of toddler turkey and dumplings. I can’t see American shoppers accepting this without a huge fight.

Nor can I picture the special-order fast food crowd agreeing to pay for a prune turnover with each burger and fries or liver and onions on each pizza order. I can hear the screams if the cashier at the movie rental counter automatically adds a porn flick and a copy of the McConnell family’s home video of static cling removal tips with each check out.

No, American consumers only accept pre-packaged crap from the cable company and the Republican Party. Minutes ago, in a straight party-line vote (Republicans for and Democrats against) a Defense Spending, Hurricane Relief, and Flu Preparedness Bill that included tripe, porn, and static cling comparable garbage having nothing to do with defense and everything to do with forcing unpopular crap on the American people passed while most American’s were sleeping.

Once again, the bully party has taken advantage of their political muscle, and their loyal, muscles-for-brains-we’re-too-busy-sleeping-to-care supporters. Through carefully crafted sound bites and erroneous language, they misrepresented the bill as a boost for the poor people they’ve suckered into fighting their war while losing benefits, played down the parts where they cut funds for first defenders here at home, clean water, education, food stamps, Medicaid, and all social programs across the board, and outright lied about the tripe they included (all language concerning Anwar drilling has been removed – ooops except those forty-one pages added back in during the middle of the night).

I don’t hear any screaming yet, and doubt I will in an hour or so when the permanently sleeping open their eyes and shuffle through another day, pretending they actually know what they’re doing. They won’t scream until I try to tell them that while they were sleeping, their good friends stuck grandpa’s blood pressure medicine and their morning coffee in the bottom of the grocery cart under the tripe and hog brains. Then, on script, they’ll cry for me to stop whining.

Was It Really About Morals?

The War President is flitting around the country trying to sell a pack of lies about social security this time. Does he not have any work to do? If any of you happen to catch him, maybe you can ask a few very important questions, since this plan is so vague that no one else seems to know the answers.

I know this is a trick question, and probably unfair since it is sure to confuse his face into a painful grimace, but I think we deserve to at least ask for the answer. How does adding personal accounts to Social Security solve the perceived problems in the system? I realize it might keep congress’ paws out of it (does the word lockbox cause flashbacks for anyone other than me?) but think it might be easier to teach the government and to “just say no” instead of setting up new departments and hiring thousands of people to oversee this personal account project. Anyway, if you could ask him that question, and to explain the actual numbers so we can see how this is going to work, it would be nice.

You might also ask him if he realizes the average disability check is around eight hundred dollars a month, which isn’t enough to cover the average rent and pharmacy bill for the average disabled person. I’m sure he doesn’t know that, or he would surely work to increase benefits, not decrease them. And while you’re on the topic of disability, will you ask how this personal account will play into the picture in his future plan? If someone becomes disabled before their personal account reaches that magical level of eternal self-sufficiency, what happens then? And will the disabled person be expected to drain their personal account before receiving any benefits? Will their benefits be based on previous work record, and adjusted according to personal savings? Will those who saved the most be penalized in this case?

Oh, here’s an easy one. Ask this one first since it only requires a two-word response. Since this new plan can’t possibly change the fact that he has used the surplus for other things, and soon the program will be paying more than it collects, which will he do – raise taxes or cut benefits?

How is the plan personal or private when the government is going to tell people what they have to do with it? For example, low-income seniors would be required to purchase an annuity that guaranteed poverty-level monthly benefits until death. Will we hire psychics to predict dates of death? And workers will “automatically be invested” in a fund that becomes more conservative as they approach retirement. Hmm… seems like freedom, choice, personal, private are all changing definitions these days.

What if an emergency came along, like an expensive life-saving surgery for someone who was out of work and had no insurance (can’t help but think of this when we have so many in this situation right now)? Wouldn’t it just plain suck if that person had to die while they had money in a personal retirement account that couldn’t be touched? Or wouldn’t it suck even more if they were allowed to use the money and then had to die in the streets later because they had nothing to fall back on?

What if the stock market crashes? What if our creditors call in their markers?

If he answers all of these questions, you might ask the big one. Wouldn’t it be easier and fairer to just take back that tax cut, since that amount alone would solve the problem?

War On Truth

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. Say the word and my soul shall be healed.

The brilliance of this Bush administration’s war on truth was in commandeering an unsuspecting army that had already surrendered critical thinking skills in return for the promise of paradise. A lifetime of reciting self-deprecating mantras like the one above, and blind faith in a deity who would expect it in return for the favors his father sent him to bestow, prepared the Christian soldiers for an unapproachable administration, sent by a higher power that considers itself above question.

The war on truth is creative, carried out behind the scenes, between the lines, under the covers, and up their sleeves. A few subliminal messages, offered in the form of innocuous religious phrases, served as weapons to kill intellects and souls, leaving empty shells to skew the body count. The shells, accustomed to chanting thoughtlessly, now repeat the administration’s mantras like automatons.

Embracing God fearing as an admirable trait, Christian soldiers welcomed the opportunity to stockpile admiration, and readily assumed foreigner fearing, non-believer fearing, liberal fearing, and tax fearing. Proud of their Christian soldiers status, they sacrificed logic and accepted anything the administration presented as Christian values, without demanding harmony with their traditional values.

In meshing religion and politics, this administration [Bush] uses the bible to remind their followers that they already embrace one documented set of contradictions that can be interpreted to support whichever side of the issue benefits them at the time, and it would somehow be sacrilegious not to accept the same level of contradiction from their earthly leaders. They call on their followers to pray, when action would be more appropriate, knowing that puts them in the vulnerable position of waiting for what they trust as an infallible decision from a higher power. Questioning higher power, worldly or heavenly, is a weakness.

By combining religion and politics, this administration has successfully silenced millions of unsuspecting victims. Now, these people march in fear of losing paradise if they question their spiritual or mortal leaders. Stripped of free will and the ability to process new information, they aren’t capable of seeing what is happening to them, so we must protect them. We must become true soldiers in the war on truth, arm ourselves with facts, and combat the insidious messages they unknowingly spread. We must ask questions of and for them, and fight to refill their shells with what this administration took from them.

This administration [Bush] has capitalized on innocence and ignorance.

War On Sex

Face it - the right wing has waged an all out war on sex. Nothing else matters. They’re obsessed, and so insanely jealous of anyone who is sexy, has sex, enjoys or talks about sex without shame or fear, that they make fools of themselves trying to eradicate sex. I wish they would come out and admit their war on sex because it might relieve them of the misery they’re spilling into the universe (which may account for some of the toxins in our air, but I’ll save that for another time).

Cleverly, they choose candidates, advisors, and spokespeople who appear to be asexual; people who are so sexually repulsive no one would entertain the possibility of their being involved in a sex scandal because it would require imagining them in that role and the thought is too much for a normal human to bear.

Imagine what your stomach would do if you had to picture Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Scott McClellan, Karl Rove, or any Bush in an intimate situation. There went my breakfast. Anyone wanting to lose a few pounds might take it even further, and picture combinations of the group, say Dick with Karl, Scott with George, Rush with Jenna. The extremely brave can visualize an orgy with a swing-your-partner- do-si-do where they all switch partners. Quick, pass the barf bag.

The Bushites have reached the point they openly admit they enjoy flip-flopping and duplicity. The want to reduce Rove’s crime from treason to perjury, and accuse the Democrats of playing politics. Sweet of them, now that they’ve soaked every political advantage they could out of the situation and think there’s nothing left to gain. And they will overlook the many lies Rove and Bush have crammed down their throats about the Plume outing, because it’s the sex, stupid, and face it; there was no sex involved.

Perjury only matters to them when a sexy man is involved. Lies don’t count unless you can actually dream about sex with the liar and not wake up screaming, and outing is only a sin or a crime if it involves sexual orientation. They’re more afraid of someone else having semen in the throat than they are of the lies they’re choking on, and prefer the hourly figurative screwing they receive from their asexual leaders over a literal toss in the sack with their asexual partners.

That’s fine for them, but do they really have to begrudge the rest of us a healthy relationship or a wet dream with sexy partners and leaders? Spoil sports. Many of us would need anti-depressants or, heaven forbid, illegal drugs if not for our imaginative relationships with Bill, Al, Obama, and Hillary. Leave our healthier options alone.

There’s good news for our asexual warmongering friends. We sex freaks are fully capable of doing more than one thing at a time. Don’t be fooled by the fact that Georgie boy can’t ride a bike while he plans a bombing, or eat a pretzel and watch TV without an accident. Think back to the Clinton days. Some people can engage in sex, give a speech, and keep peace all at the same time. Remember the Gore airline security proposal? Proof that sexy and intelligent can exist in the same body.

This war on sex is unnecessary, but I have faith sexy Americans can fight back if the asexuals continue to wage it. We can multi-task - fight the war on sex while we impeach, save social security, balance the budget, and fight for decent Supreme Court nominees.

There, But For The Grace of God...

I am an ungraced enigma. People waive their preferences for sons and daughters to pray God will not curse them with something like me.

To my face, they promise to pray their God will cure me of being me. Behind my back, they say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

In fairness, I understand the ancient grammar probably feels eloquent rolling off the tongue. I realize the overwhelming temptation for many to mimic without thought, hoping to cash in on the pious reward of transmitting any quote that uses God’s name. I recognize the importance our society places on popularity and the inability to resist jumping on crowded bandwagons.

It isn’t possible, however, for me to understand where a person finds the arrogance to assume God considers a healthy body or a full wallet a virtue, or graced. I might be their test. How will healthy and wealthy people treat me? Will they toss platitudes and prayers my way and tighten their fists around the social programs I need to keep me alive? Do they believe their god made a mistake with me and will be offended if they intervene? Will they close their eyes and pretend I don’t exist?

I was born knowing my purpose. I came into this life happy, understanding, willing to help everyone without assuming their defects are curses from a god. I love everyone, in sickness and health, good times and bad, rich or poor, and don’t have to marry or give birth to them to feel that way. I want to share what I have until a person demonstrates a desire to hurt me, and then, I hold that person responsible, not their god.

I am not unique. Millions of enigmas sit on stifled resources because the self-proclaimed graced don’t want to barter health care and living expenses for the love generosity, wisdom, and experience of the ungraced.

How a person exhibits faith measures character. I am confident that my god graced me with what I was supposed to share with the world. I feel doubly graced with the knowledge that having more than someone else gives me more responsibility, not condemning or gloating rights.

Here, by the grace of your god, am I, asking you to think.