How Trump Trumped the Tramp

The run-up to and the 2016 presidential election  shows one of my theories of human behavior at work, the one with people walking around with open toilet-lid heads so anybody flying overhead that happens to relieve themselves of  the same flavor of excrement  that's in their skulls can dump at will, score a bullseye every time. But truth sensors on the lid cause it to snap shut whenever it senses anything flying overhead with a load of logic,truth, decency or intelligent compassion on board.

For the majority of voters (and me) Clinton represented the SOSDE (same old sh** different election) syndrome. It's a template humans have been using for generations immemorial  that seek dominion over the rest of us that is since elections took the place of robbing, torturing, raping and killing entire villages (for the most part in this country).

 And this time a slight variation of it worked for Trump but not for Clinton. 

Trump trumped Clinton by going back to a much more fundamental version of the same SOSDE  template he had figured out  by deducing what's in the heads of his target audience and gave them that. In other words, in terms of roads taken, He took the lowest road, one appealing to the lowest intellectual  common denominator while Clinton at least in appearance, aimed a bit higher, staying on a higher,  rhetorically anyway, road.

So what is the template they used? It's the same one they've all used since this country  finished the job of killing or  corralling Native Americans on tiny unfertile barren lands in The west and lynching African Americans sometime mid-last century. 

The template is the modern way  in crafting, maintaining or getting back into any power base, be it political, religious or any institution, workplace or whatever.  I call it the Hitler plan in salute to the man who used it so well along with the previous methods of dominion:

Step 1: tell the constituents how wonderful they are Step 2:  then give them a target or targets to vilify, anything other than the real culprits,which is  themselves (including the candidate), for the cause of all their problems. For Trumpies, it's  anyone not just like them and for Trampies it was the Trumpies, LOL.

So  Both Trump and Clinton used the same template to different effects. Trump disguised it enough so that the people who have woken up to the fact that all the politicians aren't in Washington to help anyone but themselves, didn' t recognize that his template for getting elected was also load of crap, just a much more dumb & meaner flavor from all the others. 

Sorry, maybe  I can ditch the crap metaphor & perhaps better illuminate my thoughts about what happened Tuesday.

 So here I go: Using a packaged gift metaphor: both candidates  wrapped the same old sh** (I'm SOO sorry! For some baffling reason I just cannot get away from "crap" being the perfect metaphor when thinking about this or any political campaign & election) wrapped in different color packaging for customers who's tastes only differ regarding the wrapping colors (plain white for Trump followers &multi color for Clinton's) 

Trump Trumped the Tramp (I'm only using the word tramp because it's  semi-clever word play)  by decorating his excrement (message) to smell like the excrement floating around in the heads of his supporters, while Clinton adapted her crap to smell like the excrement floating around in the heads of her more educated and diverse drones. Trump knew he had to dumb it down and slip in a heavy dose of hatefulness and she knew she had to have a sharper smelling load devoid of bigotry and hatred except when aimed at a very convenient target of course: Trump himself. But what does human nature do with an attack? Duh! they dig in and deny and defend the undefendable. So Clinton made two mistakes, one mathematical (the ones with her flavor of  crap in their heads were outnumbered by the ones with Trump's flavor in theirs) and the other, attacking Trump relentlessly and thereby  making him a political martyr to his supporters.

But there is more to it than that: She's a career politician and Trump is a billionaire. To his supporters, then, somehow, he's not just another typical politician running for office. Instead  he's an outsider, a true crusader out to make a difference.

But to me, once in the political arena using the same old tired ploys to get elected, if it walks like a duck & quacks like a duck, well then it's a go** da**** DUCK!

His supporters are missing one crucial fact (actually my opinion) when Clinton is in an office, PEOPLE LIKE TRUMP ARE HER BOSS. So Trump IS NOT the "outsider" he masterfully led his supporters to believe he is. He's actually  the apex predator in the Power Pyramid and we are the foundation of the pyramid that the likes of Clinton and Trump stand upon.  His disguise to fool them into thinking he isn't the establishment  boss man was simply his trash&hate talking gibberish that I've heard all my life out of the mouths of his future constituents. So Trump is a better mathematician and crafted  a message to resonate with the biggest majority of voters in America while Clinton tried to woo the rest, enough of which because, they are, as the liberal (another power base with Clinton's crap flavor in their heads) keep pointing out, more educated, didn't swallow some more of the same old crap anymore, thus the lower turnout for her of Black people and Hispanics than she was hoping for. 

None of the campaigns anywhere in the world are about "Change" or "HOPE" or Trump's "MEXICANS ARE  RAPISTS." 

Whatever packaging they choose for their "message" it's still just a load of crap like always. Nobody who is truthful can get the $ backing of the billionaires to run a competitive campaign. That's because the candidates who tell the truth come out and tell us "you're the problem and only 'you' and I collectively can fix the problems."

Voters just don't want to hear such crap as "you're responsible" for this situation. They want to hear that it's somebody else's fault. Clinton and Trump know that, so they tell us how wonderful we are, al la Hitler in Nazi Germany and then point the finger to scapegoats. 

Trump picked the easy ones, immigration, Mexicans, Muslims. But the truth is that ALL RELIGIONS SUCK because all have been the cause and the reason or excuse  for most of the violence and wars throughout the world for several millenia.

Elections are always about one thing: obtaining or consolidating POWER and the attendant prestige." 

So they are all liars and full of crap. And after winning they flip-flop (like Trump all ready has) make excuses about why they do nothing or vote for something wrong or don't vote and the gullible majkprotyu, it seams who still think the "aMERICAN DREAM is real and something that the system, is designed for and wants them to obtain, (ROFLMAO).  

I had to hold my nose to vote because I know what they are about and I'm trying to enlighten you.

So their tired of  the SOS DE & have wised up SOME but, of course, not to the point that they accept any responsibility for their problems, so disguised as Trump disguised it, it still works. It's just like the theory of the Primordial SOUP from which Life purportedly sprang. 

President Trump has risen from the Electoral Soup of hatred, greed, denial, and selfishness in all of us. All it took was for Trump with the balls to speak the hateful, racist, ethnocentric, sexist shit that's in our heads, all fear based, that  they latch onto it because Hillary's bullsh** did not coincide with their preconceived fears and prejudices like Trump's bullsh** did.

Vote for me and I'll make America Great again!

It seems familiar. I know I've heard that somewhere before, hmmm let me think when...Oh yes I have it! THE LAST ELECTION. AND THE ONE BEFORE THAT, AND THE ONE BEFORE THAT.....

The remarkable thing is that some voters, propelled by their fears and prejudices (also fears) swallow it and vote for the candidate that employs that refrain.

 The implication that the candidate wants to us to swallow is, of course, that until we elect the candidate saying this in the current election, America will be remain a weak-kneed,  simpering shell of a nation instead of the only remaining superpower left on earth; the #1 consumption engine in the world;  one of the top polluters in the world contributing to global warming and the associated environmental meltdown; with the most expensive and inaccessible health care system in the world and outrageously expensive "public" higher education at more than $200 per credit hour where I live,  NONE of which, this candidate brings up regarding his plan to "make America great again."

 But as I sit here writing this I want to scream to the nation if only you will listen: THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES A NATION GREAT is how it takes care of and protects
citizens against real threats, not the ones made up by corporate America and it's minions (politicians) to scare us into following their agenda for profit and re-election.

So how does a truly great nation "take care" of its citizens? It's this simple: By providing laws, agencies and services that protect and safeguard and serve the greatest majority, running a real democracy which THRIVES on COMPROMISE between the two sides in the halls of government instead of avoiding it at all cost like they do in Washington these days.(For Chripes sakes, they remind me of the WWE up there!)

THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES A MODERN NATION great  is these things which this country for the most part now, in my estimation, LACKS:  affordable housing; decent paying jobs for everyone;  a welfare and health  system that is accessible to them, PLUS those who cannot work and take care of themselves; affordable, high quality education for our children, and the ability for everyone who works to put a reasonable amount away for our retirement.instead, we seen the steady rise in cost of aoll these things and more and the steady decline in quality, especially vital things like health care (by my observation, "the fight to find a cure for cancer" is just really an Industry like everything else) and the water we drink and the chemicals poisoning us in our homes and work places, (oh those crazy Californian's, they think everything is poison! don't then know that  that Corporate AMERICA has our backs and would NEVER sell us poisonous products!)

To achieve all these things, our jobs what we have left of them, need to preserved because for working people, our jobs are ours and our families survival and good paying ones are required in order to relieve us of enough stress to be able to think of other things like who to vote for in the next election.l.

Therefore none of us working people should vote for anything or anyone for any other reason but our families survival (our jobs). In other words, voting for the candidate that doesn't talk strongly about protecting our jobs (instead of abortion, gun control and a ground zero mosque, all the things they campaing on these days  that are not real threats to us) and how he/she plan to do that, and certainly not the one who promises to fight all attempts to in any way curb gun ownership ARE running on RED HERRING like "I'll make America Great Again."

PEOPLE  Gun rights got nothin' to do with your family's survival anymore.

In fact, why do I even need to inform  anyone that we are about 1 1/2 centuries past gun ownership
being a matter of survival for our families and therefore, the ability for candidates to gain high office using this as a platform, SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE, that is we are smart enough and adult enough to understand  that the candidate employing such false rhetoric  is SCRUPULOUSLY avoiding ANY REAL issues that actually affect us in our every day lives such as safeguarding our jobs, our health care, our retirement and our children's education.

 Postscript: yes I own guns and yet I am not afraid for their survival! AFTER ALL, they have their VERY OWN Constitutional RIGHT to protect them! And if that doesn't the trick, they still have me behind them using them on any SOB that tries to take them! So, YAY! I got only one thing to worry about at election time, the only thing that should count to a family person when voting: WHICH CANDIDATE WILL BEST HELP my family continue to prosper (protect my job and make it better for me).


So who should we vote for in this presidential race? This is who: The candidate that  most strongly opposes the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is the greatest threat to jobs in the USA since NAFTA, in fact has been described as "NAFTA on Steroids". Why? Because no nation with superior wages and benefits has any business entering a free trade agreement with a nation like China that pays subsistence wages (like we did with MEXICO  with NAFTA).

So who is the point man employed to push TPP through Congress and  the public? Barack Obama. And who has he endorsed for this election? Hillary Clinton!

And also wasn't Clinton's husband the point man on NAFTA in the 90s? yes. So what has she said about TPP? Well I'd say that with the credentials I just spelled out, IT DOESN'T MATTER, she is definitely not the one, no matter WHAT SHE SAYS on the campaign trail, who is going to protect our jobs (our survival).

But just to  conclude the subject, Clinton has said TPP "needs to be strengthened to protect US jobs.". So like I said, she's for it and I want to ask "so how is that done, madam, when the countries  we are entering the agreement with pay a fraction of our wages to their employees?"

 It isn't done just like it wasn't after her husband pushed NAFTA down our throats. So what's she up to? She selling lies from her corporate masters like her husband sold us with NAFTA.

So am I saying vote for Trump? Well,  Not exactly because Trump's opposition on TPP isn't inspiring either. All he's said is "it's bad for business." But what about me? What about it being "NAFTA ON STEROIDS" for the working class in the USA? Why hasn't Trump mentioned MY CLASS and it being bad for ME?

 Frankly, where Trump is concerned, the answer to the last question really doesn't matter for me and shouldn't matter to any working, voting person because
I all ready have a hard time voting for a candidate that thinks I'm so damn stupid that I'll fall for his"vote for me and make America great again" Bullshit!

Trump makes  NO mention about worrying how the TPP will affect the majority of voters in this country (working class people). Certainly I know all ready  that the TPP will hurt SOME American businesses but not all of them, certainly not the ones that make themselves count with their money to buy our politicians.

Instead, TPP will hurt  the small businesses ran by people in or near in my economic class. Cuz you can bet that the TPP, like the World Bank is the dream child of the 1%ers who run our governments through our politicians and want everything for themselves and us all to be their slaves. But in a free society they can't actually shackle us like they want to, so it's more complex a feat for them to accomplish.

 To do so, they have to get us to do the job ourselves by believing all the BS of the candidates they put up for election and vote for them and in my estimation, they've  DONE A PRETTY GOOD JOB OF it in this election, fielding candidates in both parties set and ready to enact their pet project for world domination, the TPP.

And how? breifly by honing this technique over the last few generations:  controlling the information and  excising out of it any truth about such things as teaching children what it truly takes to become a mature adult and substituting information about how to be a world class consumer while telling them  that "this is what you need to buy and how you need to act  to be an adult"

Of the candidate running for president, Only Bernie Sanders came out fully against TPP and has explained in detail why, it's a raw deal for the USA  all the way around. That Obama is the public point man for TPP now tells me he became our president for one reason only: he was bought and paid for and put there by the 1%ers for this task alone just as sure as Clinton was before him for NAFTA. But this is hindsight for me because I voted for both of those assholes twice each.

Republican War Machine Exposed

Note: I don't get my opinions in this post or anything I write here from anyone else other than the participants themselves. I could research, find the proof and post it here along with all my view, but I have found that doing so is even more of a waste of my time than is writing what I do write here.

 

Besides, everyone has seen it all on shoat news outlets just like I have and I can state the truth till doomsday and no one is going to admit I'm right, so doing the extra work to go back and find the dates and times and places for the events I get my views from is even more waste of my time.

 

 But, I want to state, again that my analysis and observations contained in my blogs are my own from what I have witnessed myself, albeit in print, on TV and radio from the mouths of the shoat people involved that I analyze and criticize. In principle I do not listen to other people's opinions because as I have said MANY times NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED, ALL have an agenda  to control others. So I watch and read media for one reason: to get the facts.

 

 Listening to opinion is asking or letting SOMEBODY ELSE TO DO MY THINKING FOR ME and I CAN THINK FOR MYSELF, THANK YOU. Furthermore, anyone can do the same as I and see the truth, all it takes is to first admit that you're afraid of something and then shed those fears and prejudices (same thing). Then when some shoat politician or fear monger of another stripe, such as a conspiracy monger, spouts thinly veiled hatred and meanness, then can you hear such things and not be influenced by them. In other words, to know the truth, to not be influenced by the opinions of others and to be able to form your own opinions YOU HAVE TO be fearless, introspective, (knowledgeable of your faults and willingness to admit them) and  HAVE ETHICS, Morality, and Integrity.

That's the basis from which I write here things which nobody reads or cares about, which tells me that the rest of you jackasses have no ethics, are afraid &prejudiced against many things  and therefore are controlled and manipulated on a daily basis by the hateful, controlling, untruthful opinions of others.

So now, on with the subject of this blog post:

 

Even shoat Barack Obama says the Israeli political policies and actions, as well as their hawkish positions in the various negotiations concerning the Middle East are beyond the pale. So he's distanced the White House from them while still maintaining that the White House and the USA totally supports, backs and will protect the Israeli State and its people like it always has. Of course he's therefore constantly accused by his political enemies as being "anti-Semitic"

 

The Republican shoats back the currently hawkish counter-productive Israeli political stance to the hilt and in fact often call for more sanctions & military action than even the Israeli hawks in power do. 

 

So are the Republican shoats more "pro-Israeli" than the White House? Um, NO! Listening to them, scream for military action as the solution for EVERTYHING., the only things they are "pro" about is war (Power and Profit). All their opinions and positions boil down to being all about  sucking  the teats of the fat, rich,war mongering pigs that fund their campaigns.

 

In fact it's not very difficult at all to disassemble any conservative Republican shoat's position into it's fundamental components: Money & Power to the total exclusion of any other considerations, including life. For them it's all about  making the all ready rich ruling class fat fatter no matter the cost to others, even our lives. And they don't even try to hide it because they don't have to bother with hiding something when they can get most people to IN BLIND FAITH believe all they say.

 

The same goes for the Democrat shaots as well, except one thing: Most Democrat shoats don't howl for military action as a first response while condemning and attempting to sabotage ANYONE's attempt at any peaceful settlement or negotiation because for Republican shoats, peace & prosperity of others = no mega profit for their momma sows.

 

Anyone can see this by listening to the shoats shoot their mouths off. But realizing what they are up to requires a few personal attributes apparently not commonly found in modern people: a total lack of fear, admitting and dispensing with fear of all other cultures, ethnic groups &sexual orientations, and thinking for oneself. if you're not afraid, then the fear& hate  mongering the shoats do for your vote and support cannot influence you. If you quit clinging to your party line, if you quit having "faith" in things that shouldn't have your faith, then you are capable of seeing the truth about what your shoat politicians are up to, which is controlling you through your fears and prejudices.

 

And finally I'd like to point out that you can call it what you want to, but I see a A LOT of blind faith in shoat political beliefs parties as strong or stronger than one's religious beliefs in fact,  when none should EVER be given to ANY non-spiritual entity . "Faith" indeed should only be found in whatever deity one believes in.You may give it, but no  person or worldly entity has ever earned your absolute  faith.  Faith in people, causes, shoat political opinions is absurd because all are imperfect, fallible, if not dishonest and therefore bound to either be deceptive or in error and therefore not worthy of your faith. Besides, having so much faith in wordly things IS JUST LAZY! It's lazy because you're showing you'd rather just "take it on faith" rather than bother to think about something, analyze it and possibly come up with your own unique opinion of it.

 

Briefly put, Smart, intelligent people CONSTANTLY QUESTION ALL AUTHORITY EXCEPT ONE: GOD. And I see HARDLY ANY questioning of authority these days except my own.

Finally, I fully realize that I misuse the term "shoat" for swine breast feeding politicians. I know that strictly speaking, shoats are weaned juvenile pigs whereas it is obvious that no modern politician is.

Carson, Politicians, Hitler

 Excerpt of an email to a friend just now:
"I think (Dr. Ben) Carson (Republican 2016 presidential) candidate is new. There is a gaggle of them and they are all #*&holes except him, he was talking eloquently, quietly, calmly and intelligently about the things wrong with the world that I talk about, the causes, people, our attitudes, in a way Obama never did, Obama being the best of the worst it turns out, still pompous but not as hateful sounding as the rest, especially the part where he always goes on about how great we are and how this is the best country, SOUNDING JUST LIKE HITLER. Carson didn't sound like that"

The thing is, Carson may seem different, reasonable, better on the surface, but under the skin they are all the same. They all have handlers that put them up to it, fund them, that they must kowtow to when they make it. You can't make a bid for the White House these days without hidden bosses, funneling millions in hidden contributions to you.
           Like Obama, natural gas and the Trans Pacific Partnership. He's been pushing the lies of both, that natural gas is "clean" energy it is clean when burned, but upwards of 40% is leaked out of antiquated leaky pipes and by fracking, making it  just as dirty as coal. And the TPP by independent  analysts has been called "NAFTA on Steroids" and that it finally gives big corporations complete control of the governments worldwide.

Post script: the first paragraph above  above was my reaction to the first time I heard Carson in an interview. In it,  and he said some balanced, reasonable (almost unheard of from a politician these days) things that I liked about individual responsibility and politicians getting elected by fear mongering. but then I read more about him and found out that he embraces most of the thinly veiled assault agenda that the conservatives have been waging for years  on the poor and middle class. the only difference between these conservatives and the democrats is the Democrats outright lie and say they are for us whereas if you listen closely with an intelligent ear  to the thinly veiled racist& sexist speech of the average Republican, he's not lying, he's telling you exactly how he is, but you're not smart enough, and you have too many fears and prejudice buttons for him to push for you to possibly   understand what he's actually saying.

Instructions on how to change the world, now playing on Netflix

Actually the title is "Ethos" and it's about how you can change  the world (at the end of the film)? It's palying on Nettflix right now and is narrated by Woody Harrelson. It came out in 2011. it is very enlightening look at who really controls the world and how BUT is not pushing a conspiracy theory.

BREAKING NEWS no one cares about: IMVU, AN ONLINE video chat program similar to Second Life is GOING UNDER

Introduction: IMVU is a private for profit company whose business revolves around its online video chat program and associated advertisement & business partnerships. Soon after the company was started  it seemed to lose track of the fact that all it's business partnerships and thus it's revenue streams are dependent upon it's community (a captive audience of consumers) that it took to routinely disabling on the order of many thousands at a time for a variety of "infractions" real & made up. Started in 2004, IMVU  prided itself in as it claimed, redefining the concept of  the "lean startup." According to that model, IMVu provided the skeleton of a chat program with cartoon-like avatars & more importantly allowed all  new members to become "developers" who then began literally building IMVu by creating 3D cyber content that other members would buy. It established a virtual currency for that purpose. It wasn't long before IMVu started publicizing the claim that with 4 million user-created products online and growing, it had the "largest online user-created catalog" of these cyber goods in the world. Later, IMVU  instituted a requirement that all new developers have to purchase their VIP membership to be & remain developers, probably when they belatedly realized that having the largest online inventory on the planet isn't necessarily good when  a significant proportion of the content, which  IMVU is obligated to maintain online, is stuff  nobody buys because it's inferior junk and/or not "trending" anymore. 

Present: SAY GOODBYE TO IMVU

Without access to it's business records of course, i feel there is still one very good public indicator that anyone can see that is a good gauge of IMVu's health and future. IMVU publishes the number of members signed on in real time in the top of the IMVU software . After climbing for 4 years after 20009 wwhn i joined and peaking at 120-130k,  now only averages 40k to 80k, tops, at any given time, day-in-day out year-in-year-out, which are numbers I remember in 2009 when I joined. That can't be good for the bottom line since a  large amount of their income seems to be derived from 3rd party advertising to it's members, which when in decline, reduces the amount the advertisers are willing to spend for the advertising. I think it indicates that In recent years hat not only has membership ceased to growth, but that  scads of current members have abandoned their accounts membership has stagnated & has dramatically declined & corporations, just like dictatorships are blind to the fact that the trouble they are currently in is a result of their policies and decisions in the past. Being blind to their mistakes, they are therefore incapable of "rescuing" themselves.

 For instance, the leader of Iraq sewed the seeds of his demise by purging all the Sunnis in his regime. The Sunnis were U.S. trained with the military expertise & leadership which, in his paranoid, tribal style of leadership he replaced with inexperienced Shiite cronies & then the Sunni's joined ISIS (While OBAMA watched, waiting for the collapse to justify another profitable war that his bosses want).

 True to form, IMVU unwittingly (as is always the case) has fabricated the same template for failure.

A Letter To My Beloved Daughter Caitlin about Your Uncle Fred

                  a letter to you, which is perhaps helpful in memory of 
                      your Uncle Fred, b. Nov. 22, 1962, d. May 12, 2013.
                                                                                       

       We've all had anger issues to deal with because we knew him as a kind, gentle, strong, loving problem solver and we asked in anguish: "how could you do this to your children who are so young and still need you so much?"

      At the service, the first thing his cousin Connie talked about was the twinkle (she too often has twinkle of the mischievous kind in her eyes) in his eye and his warm smile when anyone saw him. Yet, a former employer of Fred's and someone who held him in high esteem, Sue, said to me before Connie spoke "Sometimes I am so angry with Fred (for taking his life)."

      I thought, "yes, we all are at times."
      Thus we've struggled  with our emotions, from profound regret and sorrow to anger. But should we be angry at your uncle for his act?

     After much thought and soul searching, My feeling is that I think not.

     My reasoning is that in times of tragedy, we all go through alternating feelings of anger and anguish, which are normal components of the grieving process for humans no matter the cause of death. Albeit sometimes it is possible that people die and there is blame to lay on the deceased, but I don't think so in this case.

      Yet still in the midst of my grief, I got angry and challenged him, "How could you (hurt so many people with this (seemingly) supremely selfish act after conducting yourself so selflessly for others during your life?"

          Before answering that I would like to digress and say something long and deeply felt about your Uncle Freddy. 

     In life I often said this to him and others and then several more times after his death and at the service: "My brother is (was) the best man I've ever known in every way a man could possibly be a man. He was the best husband, father, brother, son, uncle, worker, friend I've every known. He was not only that but also my best friend."

     So how could such a man, known and widely respected for his unwavering strength and kindness,undo it all and hurt so many with such an act? How could he rob so much potential from two small boys (the potential difference of what they could have become under his continued fatherly guidance that was taken away).

     Was he somehow secretly just a mean,angry, jerk, trying to show somebody he ultimately was the one in control? There have been suicides for that reason. But usually people  take their own lives for another reason, the one I told you about: severe depression, a descent into complete hopelessness. When all hope dies, so does your reason for being, for breathing, yet, there you are, still alive, "but why?" you ask.

     So which happened to Fred? We will never know for sure, but we still forlornly search  for rational reasons for it in places that rationality cannot be found. We think about what we knew of him, desperately wanting to reasonably assert with finality that "in this tragedy, he a victim like us." Still,  we get angry with him again.

     Herein lies our answer to how we try to assimilate his action and how we should remember our beloved, brother, uncle, son, father, husband, new grandfather Fred. He was a beautiful, giving, loving, hard working, real man, one of the few among the best of us who've ever lived, who lived his life making ours better with his presence and he just couldn't bear the burden of all that anymore.                    
                   

             'It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved   

             (paraphrased).'

             Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from "In Memoriam A.H.H"
                       

     Fred's good friend and former business associate, Scott, helped me today with my recurring anger, giving me this insight of the full suitcase (another metaphor for the moment it happened is "the straw that broke the camel's back"). I have expanded it to incorporate my knowledge of Fred and sharing it in the hopes that it helps you understand, my beloved daughter, like it has me (if you need it). It is intended to give you insight into what happened to Fred and why we should never be angry at him for the damage caused by the tragedy of his taking of his life.

    Think of a life as a suitcase that you keep jamming clothing into. Eventually you have to take stuff out of it in order to put new stuff into it or it will burst. During his life, Fred didn't take stuff out of his suitcase. But why not? For instance, my suitcase (life) is not overstuffed.

      I think it is because the difference between Fred and I is that Fred was truly a nice, good person, always smiling, friendly, gracious, warm, always ready to help, always giving, never taking from others, never, in effect, unpacking anything from his suitcase. 
     There is a difference between simply having high moral standards and work ethic like I have and being a good person like Fred was. To be a truly  good person like your Uncle Fred one has to walk the high road ALL OF THE TIME, not just when it suits you. You must be one who is good in all ways, genuinely nice and thoughtful to and around others.

        "Only The Good Die Young"--Billy Joel

        "Chripes, I'll probably live to 115 then,"--Bobbi Skankanos
               

        Along with his deeply caring nature, Fred had another trait, perhaps a flaw. To me, Fred was legendary in his refusal to burden others with his problems no matter how small. Indeed that is the only thing the man would ever lie about. "I feel fine," he's say, or "no I can get it myself, thank you anyway." That is the hallmark of a great person. They'll drop everything just to help you with your tiny problem, but you play hell helping them with anything large or small because they won't let you, they'll even tell white lies to keep from laying their burden on you. 
      Fred lived his life taking all care of or always thinking of his family, me, grandma, his friends, you, clients all the while ignoring his own needs, hiding, burying his human frailties deep inside his increasingly overstuffed life's suitcase.

           Then, after 50 years of being selfless for others, The suitcase was full and neither he (because he'd been ignoring it all along, after all) nor anyone knew it until it was too late.

     Typical of Fred is that if I was with Fred and he asked me to help him lift or load something (rare, he was always doing the work of 2 men without comment or request for help), the scenario was that I'd say "okay" and still be out there yammering away about something while he loaded whatever it was by himself! And he always did so without any comment. Whereas I, in his shoes,  (not to him) likely would have said at least sarcastically, "thanks for all the help, girlfriend."

    That illustrates the difference between a truly good person and one like me who is more self centered, less mature with good moral values (him doing, me still talking) but more than occasional bad behavior. It bothers me when people say they will help and don't. It never did him, he just went ahead and did the task himself without comment or criticism.

    He did the same with his entire life and the stress of living it. He "handled" it (not really he just ignored it, more about that in the next paragraph) himself and always refused to talk about it or burden others with his problems which he insisted he could handle and, perhaps, never realized or acknowledge that one day he would not be able to.

      For example, a couple of weeks ago we came to my home late from work in his truck with something very heavy to unload at his house. Though he needed help unloading it, he would not ask and I knew he wouldn't ask so I did. He said "nah, I'll get it."  and I'm like "well are you leaving it in the back of the truck then?" and (not lying yet) he said, "I can unload it myself you don't need to go, thanks anyway."  Now, he has a bad shoulder and a numerous other sore spots and fatigues and God knows what else from doing stuff just as this. So I said, "well then I'm going to your house now and will meet you there to help unloaded it." 

    "No don't worry," he said, I'll just get a neighbor to help me, Tony (I just made this name up but he used one I can't remember) across the street."  Well, THEN I knew the darn fool was lying in order to not burden me with driving over and helping unload.  So catching him in the act, I feigned indignation, and said "OMG I caught you in a lie! I cannot believe you have the gall to blithely tell baldfaced lies to people merely to keep stop from helping you! It's 11 p.m! And don't think I don't know that even if it was 5 p.m. and Tony was in his front yard, that you still wouldn't ask for his help."

    And when it came to his personal health and stress, he was just the same. Typical responses from him about his blood pressure, or a searing headache or whatever was "I got too much to do to (most often for others) worry about that," or I don't have the time to worry about it" or "I don't have the money (or health insurance) to go to the doctor." But for a family man, blowing off your health issues (diabetes, high blood pressure) and the lack of affordable coverage under the USA's euphemistically-labelled a health care system  which is in reality a Health Business System creates more stress. He always  pretended like he didn't worry about it, but he did and such things as not having affordable health care and needing it stuffs the suitcase even more with the stress and fear of being rendered not able to care for and provide for your family. 

       In the end then, his suitcase was so full of stuff about to burst at the seams from years of self neglect and shouldering the burdens of everyone around him and internalizing theirs and his, on May 12, 2013, he may have stuffed one more thing in his suitcase, something perhaps as seemingly inconsequential and weightless to us as a single button and his suitcase exploded at the seams.
     

By Bobbi
   
also for Fred's family, Sara, Sean, Laura and the young ones who may only remember him through things we tell them: his sons, Lincoln, Ford and granddaughter Maiya
    

May 17, 2013

National issues in a Nutshell

   Post Script to blog post below:  LOL, now I've thought about it a bit more, I  realize that the thesis of my writing below buys into the lie that cuts in corporate taxes creates jobs. But this is just a popular myth propagated by our scurrilous politicians & their cohorts in the  "news" networks. My basic college education (in journalism, which is how I know how bad our news media is) tells  me that the idea is patently false that tax cuts on big business creates jobs. In fact, this is merely part of the the "rosey scenario" (described below) that politicians & the news media paint on behalf of their rich corporate bosses. Actually, the only thing that creates jobs in a capitalistic society is the balance between  supply and demand. Even my mother, who is a 1956 high school graduate, knows this. When demand outstrips supply, suppliers react by immediately raising the price of the goods or service and followed by increasing the supply if that's possible. At that point, efforts to increase the supply may include plans to expand infrastructure and/or hire more people, depending on the type of industry and the existing infrastructure. So logically, the only tax cut that will reliably spur job creation is tax cuts on consumers of goods and services. Then the consumers go to the marketplace, spend the tax return on a broad variety of goods and services, which in turn creates more general demand that may outstrip the supply of a broad range of services and goods, possibly leading to the creation of many more jobs over a broad range of industries to meet that demand. So the corporations do not need more tax cuts, consumers do.
 My original post:
     How come politicians, neither Republicans, nor Democrats ever talk about tax cuts for the rich and corporations IF they've created new jobs that year?
       Instead, both sides, at one time or another, talk about and hand out the tax cuts AS IF it's a conclusion that doing so creates U.S. jobs. However, a frequent guest on CNN today pointed out that 'if tax cuts in recent years for corporations creates jobs, then we'd be up to our wazoos in jobs by now'. What he didn't say, what neither the politicians nor the press ever point out in the same story about tax cuts and job creation, is that the jobs ARE created- but only overseas where labor is dirt cheap. Not only that, but the government hands out even more tax cuts to ship more jobs oversees.
           The reason they do that is because the majority of our politicians in both parties are owned by the large corporations & industries & told "cut our taxes" no matter what. So our politicians real job is painting rosey pictures of their back room deals with the industries & corporations (intent on breaking the back of American workers for profit) public consumption. They are aided in that by the "news" networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN,FOX, CNBC,MSNBC) which all acknowledge that their paychecks come from the very same corporate interests, but disingenuously & falsely claim that the accuracy & quality of their news reporting is not affected. So the bottom line is that when they (news networks, politicians, corporate mouthpieces all) talk about cutting taxes again for coporations & rich people, they always leave out the recent news that two thirds of the large U.S. corporations last year, which made healthy profits, did not pay any taxes at all!
     And to add insult to injury, they talk about more tax cuts on these corporations (that don't pay taxes now & haven't created significant jobs in this country over the last 10 years)  as being a definitive job creating mechanism, implying that it is for U.S. citizens (if you move to China and work for 1 yen a day or more if you are a soldier and even much more if a contractor in one of our wars).
           But we should listen closely to what they always leave out when painting this fantasy scenario: They leave out in what country and for whom the jobs are created, leaving us to assume it's for us (ahhhh, the fine science of political rosey picture painting)! So what is the chance that some day soon, our politicians pass tax cuts for the rich and powerful only IF they've already created jobs that year and not because "maybe" they will? They are law makers and can pass a law that gives out tax cuts to corporations that create jobs for Americans in America. But they never will as long as they can keep things the way they are handing over money to the rich while painting rosey scenarios about how they work for you and I and not Them.