Well hi.
It's January 2017, I hear.
Herein I usually say something about how often I'll post or what I want out of the new year.
Right now though, before I do any other sort of posting, I need to speak my piece.
On Inauguration Day, I just posted this: "The emperor has no clothes."
But there's more that I need to say.
I don't like going political, but I also really, really don't like censorship and lies. I couldn't help but post at least something on social media, even though I'd sworn it off for the day, because this is too much.
In my little circle of the world growing up, we hadn't yet stopped using "retarded" as an insult, and as kids, would throw it around quite a lot. Also as kids, though I am not proud of it, we'd throw around a gesture that meant the same thing. As kids. And even though we were kids, we knew what it meant, and that it wasn't a nice thing to do.
When I was learning to write, I remember people saying you could just...talk around a subject and still get an A on your paper. Degree in BS and such. You just act like you know what you're talking about, pepper in some vocabulary, maybe make a point or two and you're done. But even the teachers in our 'imperiled, ghetto' school district (where there were actually some really amazing educators) were able to call you on your bullshit so fast your head would spin.
"You're not talking about anything at all here."
"You can't just throw vocab words in and expect that to work"
"I can't find a single point in this."
We were also taught history. The Great Depression, internment camps. The Red Scare. Remember the Red Scare? You know, where people were out hunting commies? The Cold War when Russia was the big bad? Every TV and movie ever for YEARS with completely cartoonish Russian bad guys?
Remember when Bill Clinton almost got impeached for "not having sexual relations with that woman?" And the outrage because he was lying, even if it was "just" about his personal life?
Remember, people I grew up in church with, 2 Thessalonians 2: 3-5. About the man of lawlessness that is supposedly coming?
"who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God."
And maybe that last one seems outlandish, but at the very least, can't you take it as a warning that people like that are bad news? Does it not fit the bill more than you're comfortable with?
Do you remember the last time millions of people, including those from other countries, gathered to protest the inauguration of a president or organized because they were certain they were about to lose their rights? Did you see that with Bush or ...well, Bush, or even back to Reagan?
And...if you see or know any of this...then...how are you NOT afraid of this administration, this presidency. How are you not afraid of the censorship of government agencies? How are you not afraid of the lies that can be demonstrably proven as such? How are you, God loving Christian, "God so loved the world" "the greatest of these is love" and watch someone incite violence and mock the disabled. How could you have been so disgusted that the president had an affair back in the 90s and not be disgusted or outright alarmed now. How can you have scolded your children for calling people retarded or using that gesture we ALL KNOW meant that and say he was just waving his hands in a random pattern? How can you let the now president and his cabinet go with "alternate facts?"
How?
How can you post Facebook memes about how all of those people at the protests obviously didn't have jobs?
You know the march was on a SATURDAY, right?
It really, really upsets me.
I have a really hard time understanding how the people that taught me how to spot BS, chided me for lying and calling people names, taught me that love is always better than hate...are blindly following. How they don't get that this emperor has no clothes.
That whole "you don't want the pilot to crash the plane thing?"
Well, yeah. But he's not a pilot. He's a hijacker.
Part Two of this...
We ALL need to use our voices. We all need to stand up.
I've been strong before, but I don't feel like I am right now, to be honest. I feel like if anything, I've let bad things happen to me that I full well know better than to allow in my life.
But look. No one can step back and hide in the crowd now, I truly believe that.
So I'm not.
And you shouldn't either.
He's naked, guys. Full on naked.
Someone needs to say it.
