Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Rape + Patriarchy = Rapriarchy

In the hands of mankind, the world is an imperfect place.  We know that.  From hunger, poverty, and oppression, to wars, genocide, animal extinction, and climate crisis - we have proven for millennia that we are unappreciative of our host, brutal towards one another, and ultimately capricious in terms of bringing about our own destruction.

Maybe it's always been this mentality of "whoever dies with the most toys wins" that brings us to repeatedly and creatively breathe constant life into man's inhumanity to man.  Or in so very many cases, man's inhumanity to woman.

Patriarchy is the by product of male fragility.  It just is.  (Look no further than Malala being shot in the face by men for daring to *gasp* go to school.)  And while many believe it has always been this way, the truth is it has only existed for roughly 10,000+ years.  Once upon a time, survival meant that everyone contributed as much as possible, as often as possible, for the greater good of the community.  It was only when paternity began being important that male control over females - so as to unquestionably insure who fathered their progeny - became a norm.  That male dominance and the "ownership" of daughters, wives, etc began to become ingrained.

Female voices faded as female choices disappeared.

Fathers directed the lives of daughters, chose their suitors and husbands.  Dowries were instituted to pay for taking on a father's daughter in marriage.  Husbands directed their wives' movements, behaviors, dress, choices.  Women were to be well behaved, silent, pliable.

And as with so much of humanity's behaviors, it was a system that became accepted as normal through use as it was handed down from one generation to the next.  Again, it was not always like this. but it simply became custom. 

As much as we in this country like to believe ourselves so progressive in terms of women's rights - and make no mistake, compared to many other places, we are - we still hold to certain customs of the patriarchy.  It is the father who "gives away" his daughter to the man standing at the end of the aisle.  Women still do not make equal pay for equal work.  Bodily autonomy and medical decision making is under constant threat.  And it was not that long ago that women could not own businesses or credit cards in their own names, Ivy league colleges would not admit them, women could be fired for pregnancy, and marital rape was an allowable, legal thing until 1993.

Even now, in terms of rape in this country, instead of instantly vilifying the perpetrator, the woman is subjected to questions of what was she wearing?, was she drinking?, was she flirting?, where was she walking?,  was she alone? and a whole raft of other queries designed to put the blame on her, not on the man who grabbed her, held her down, and violently violated her.  To absolve the man because of course he cannot control himself in the presence of breasts.

Our Republican legislators and GOP pundits have racked up quite a list of their own beliefs about rape in recent years:

On rape in the military: "The sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect?" Liz Trotta - YES, a woman said this about female military personnel.

"If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” - Todd Akin

"I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.”  - Paul Ryan on rape.

"Well, bad weather is like rape: if it's inevitable, you might as well relax and enjoy it." - Clayton Williams

"Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy."  NRA flunkie and beet juice spokesmodel, Dana Loesch, casually comparing a transvaginal ultrasound to rape.

“Rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” - Rick Santorum

“In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits, where a woman can get cleaned out.” - Jodie Laubenberg

“If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.” - Lawrence Lockman

Over and over and over, men making excuses for rape, making it seem no-so-bad, being apologists for the perpetrators, and women who are so entrenched in patriarchy that they believe women deserve it.

Keep all of these things in mind as you read this next part and find yourself thinking how awful it is over there, and how that would never happen here.

These two women, a mother and a daughter, endured the terror of a group of SEVEN men entering their home in a village in India and attempting to gang rape the daughter.  They resisted.  For their attempts to protect themselves, preserve their autonomy, they were assaulted anyway, their heads were shaved, and they were paraded through the village by the men.

"We were beaten with sticks very badly. I have injuries all over my body and my daughter also has some injuries," said the mother.

Yes, this is criminal.  As reported by the BBC, The attempted rape is a sexual crime, but the subsequent assault, tonsuring the women's heads and parading them through the village is an assertion of male power in a community, deeply entrenched in patriarchy.

But that the group of rapists was led by an elected government official?  Only serves to highlight the pervasiveness of, and lawlessness emboldened by, patriarchy.   

In April a young girl was attacked with acid for fighting off an attempted gang rape.  A month before that another Indian women was assaulted, stripped and paraded naked through the village market.  And in December of 2018, a 22 year old rape victim was on her way to file a complaint with the police when kerosene was poured over her and she was set on fire.

Because they are not seen as fully formed human beings who deserve dignity, respect, rights, autonomy.  They are viewed as chattel, things, commodities to be bartered, battered, used without resistance, without complaint.

Now bring your gaze back to our own shores.  Still think it cannot happen here?  Men are constantly making healthcare laws that govern women.  THIS PHOTO IS THE WOMEN'S HEALTHCARE CAUCUS.  WHERE ARE THE WOMEN????

Just last month, an additional and completely unnecessary pelvic exam was added as a requirement BY MEN for any women seeking an abortion in Misery Missouri.  There is no medical reason.  NONE.  And before you ask, "Well, don't they do one before an abortion?"  Yes, they do.  ONE.  Right before the procedure.  This is an addition before the three day waiting period can even begin.  It is, as Rachel Maddow reported, “state-sanctioned sexual assault.”

If we are raped and become pregnant, these men want to force us to carry to term because, according to Rick Santorum, it is a gift from God. "The right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you."

No.  The right approach is to keep your fucking nose out of a woman's decision making.  No god shoved an unwanted penis inside a woman and made her pregnant.  That is biology, not immaculate conception.

This male fragility, so obvious and pathetic, is dangerous.  An entire subculture exists - the INCELS (involuntary celibates) - who believe we are property, that we should be honored to have sex with them, that we owe them sex, it is our duty.  And make no mistake, they are dangerous.  Constantly angry because they believe they are owed sex, but cannot get it, many have taken lives - the Isla Vista gunman who stabbed three and shot 11; the Tallahassee yoga studio murderer who shot six women, killing two; the Umpqua Community College shooter who shot 17, killing 9.  Their manifestos, ramblings, notes all highlight how they are not getting the sex they deserve, that others (especially women) must pay for that transgression against them.

(Fun fact - the term incel was actually coined by a female undergrad back in the 90s to describe her own struggles connecting with people romantically as she was exploring her sexual and romantic orientations and coming into her queer identity.  These pathetic excuses for "men" co-opted it for themselves from a website she had set up.)

I am constantly amazed and disheartened at how many fathers of daughters perpetuate - through religion or their own upbringing - the cycle of entrenched patriarchy in their children.  Engendering in their daughters feelings of low self worth, no ownership of themselves, no agency, that they are to blame for the male gaze and subsequent groping, molesting, raping.  Girls wearing promise rings bestowed by their fathers, indicating they belong to dad until he hands them off to a husband.  Being denied higher education because their job is to submit to their husbands and have babies.  Threatening dates who come to take their daughters out.  Men who vocally defend the Louis CKs, Harvey Weinsteins, Donald Trumps, et al, to their daughters, who openly deride the #MeToo movement of women finally coming forward and putting voice to their rapes and names to their rapists.

The misogyny is on full display daily in our society, feeding into the perpetuation of the patriarchy.  Discrimination, exclusion, disenfranchisement, belittling, inequality in opportunity and pay, violence, objectification.

And yes, the predictable responses when one of us is raped and the slap on the wrist handed out as punishment for a crime not really considered a crime by far too many men. (See Brock Turner and the judge who did not care.)

Man's inhumanity to women must end.  This notion of patriarchal ownership is past its expiration date.  Yes, there are many good, decent, kind, strong men who support us in our quest for equality, safety, self determination, but it is ultimately not up to us to rely on more men to give us what we deserve. We must take it.  Firmly, unequivocally, forever.

Ladies, we are the heroes we - and this weary world - have been waiting for.

Shot In The Dark Ages

In the 1330s, a Dutch scholar named Petrarch brought to life the concept of the Dark Ages, looking back on the period and describing it in his writing as "darkness and dense gloom."  He christened it such as he bemoaned a lack of literature, noted it as a period of intellectual depression, religious certitude, barbarism as factions conquered, warred, destroyed, and dominated.

Studying Petrarch, Alasdair MacIntyre, modern day philosopher said this as he compared that time to now “This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.”

I daresay Petrarch would agree and we need look no further than the intellectual depression that permeates our government at every level.  National, state, local - dimwits and religious crackpots with no sense of history, no thirst for knowledge, and no idea how to govern are driven only by their certitude.

And certitude when bathed in religious conviction and ignorance is dangerous.

Welcome again to Alabama where women are chattel, religious fairy tales are scripted into bills, and common sense has no place at the table.

It was barely a month ago when Alabama signed into law the country's most restrictive abortion constraints.  Not only does it adhere to a 6 week "heartbeat" ban (which, point of fact here - is not a heartbeat - there is no heart at six weeks - but some cells begin to fire electrical signals), it contains zero exemptions for rape and incest, and would allow doctors that perform abortions to be punished with life in prison.

Screw bodily autonomy, medical decision making based on science and facts - these Bible huggers simply want to force their beliefs on others, damn the consequences.  Data does not matter to them.  They have no interest in, or capacity to, learn the actual science behind stages of conception, dangers.

Which is why the story making headlines this morning, while head shaking in its idiocy, is not surprising considering its geography.

This is Marshae Jones.

Marshae is a resident of Talabama who is currently charged with manslaughter in the death of her 5 month old fetus.  Did she repeatedly slam her stomach into a wall to induce a miscarriage?  Shove a wire coat hanger up inside herself?  Douche with Drano in an attempt to abort?  No, no, no, silly.  She was shot in the abdomen by another person.

Wait. Whut? Someone shot her ... she's in jail ... I don't understand ... It's ok.  I'll let you sit for a moment while that dizzy feeling dissipates.

On December 3, 2018, this woman, Ebony Jemison, was confronted by Marshae - a dispute regarding the baby's father.

Ebony decided the way to win the fight was to shoot Marshae in the stomach and take off.  Marshae survived, but the 5 month old fetus did not. 

Now, one would think police would arrest, attorneys would prosecute, and a jury would sentence Ebony to prison for this act, right?  Well, initially she was charged with manslaughter.  But this is Alabama, so stay tuned for the next episode of We Wear Our Asses As Hats!

Police dropped the charges against her, and a collection of boneheads, buffoons, and bell ends grand jury held Marshae totally responsible for the shooting and subsequent loss of her pregnancy.  She was taken into custody yesterday.

Their logic?

“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,’’ Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said at the time of the shooting. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby.”

I see.

No, no, really I don't fucking see.

So was Ebony's life in danger?  No, Marshae did not have a gun.  Did she fear if she ran Marshae would catch up to her and beat her senseless - you know, how we pregnant women are able and wont to do.  No, her pulling the gun and shooting Marshae had nothing to do with her behavior and murderous choices.  It was all Marshae's fault.

Reid continued, "Let’s not lose sight that the unborn baby is the victim here. She had no choice in being brought unnecessarily into a fight where she was relying on her mother for protection."  The fetus was"dependent on its mother to try to keep it from harm, and she shouldn’t seek out unnecessary physical altercations.”

Whoa - someone get the bucket of Astroglide ready and dump it down the hill so we may examine this slippery slope.

These wank stains are saying that the woman is solely to blame should anything befall the fetus in utero because she should have considered every possible outcome. 

That if I am pregnant and get into my car to go to my check up and someone hits me, ending my pregnancy as a result of the impact, it is my fault. (Upwards of 3,000 fetal deaths a year this way - U. S. National Library of Medicine)

What if I go out to dinner and get food poisoning and the fetus dies? (Pregnant women account for 27% of all listerial infections - National Institutes of Health)

How about if I am married to a prick and I ask him to pick up his stank ass underwear from the floor and he beats me to a pulp resulting in the loss of my pregnancy? (Domestic violence incidents are responsible for increased fetal deaths - 16/1000 - National Institutes of Health)

How about I go to the movies to get out of the heat and some human time bomb walks in and starts shooting, I am struck, and lose my baby? (Chances of being in a mass shooting are 1-in-11,125 in your lifetime - National Safety Council)

My doctor says to stay active so I go for a walk each night after dinner, trip on an uneven sidewalk, fall, and lose my pregnancy. (3% of all 20+ week gestation fetal deaths - National Institutes of Health)

I can go on and on with every form of regular, daily, seemingly innocuous activity a pregnant woman undertakes with no intent of harm to her fetus, but I hope you get the idea.

Are these neanderthals truly of the belief that pregnant women should be cocooned, confined, monitored in their every action and interaction?  That should anything violent befall a fetus, the onus is not on the perpetrator but the carrier? 

This is insane.  But then, that is what Talabama's license plates should read these days.  Alabama - WE ARE F**KING INSANE.

I don't care what Marshae said.  I don't care if Ebony did not like her choice of words.  I don't give a flying fuck if Marshae was right up in Ebony's face.  I do not care if a punch was thrown.  Sure, I can wish on her some better decision making and maturity - for the record, ladies, seriously, if your man is a cheating shitbag, your problem is with the douche canoe, not the one giving it harbor.

BUT. EBONY. PULLED. A. GUN. AND. SHOT. MARSHAE.

Where are the charges for that bit of shenanigans?  Does it seriously not count because Marshae didn't die?  Are we truly now only being viewed as hosts to a potential life and that life has more considerations and rights than us?

Rhetorical question.  Of course we are.  We are a means to an end.  An incubator held hostage by an increasingly aggressive religious patriarchy where our bodies belong to the state.

That this is happening is only believable because of the where and the time we are living through.  And it must change.  Common sense has been fully aborted, and dangers to the life of the mother mean nothing.  Barbarians are indeed governing us.

Petrarch would marvel at how far we have not come.  And just how Dark, Dark Ages can be. 

Last night, I watched the first Democratic Debate and was temporarily heartened by the coherence, decency, and dedication to women's rights I heard.  And today, because of that glimmer of light, I cling to the words of Petrarch, written as a wish for those who came after:  My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age.

We must find that better age before things darken forever.

What Would You Risk?

The image, shared in shock by many, made its way across the Twittersphere last night. It was the one on which I went to bed.  A father - Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez - and his 23 month old daughter, Valeria, her arm around his neck, both dead, face down in the shallow water's edge of the Rio Grande.   They had been trying to find a better, safer life.

It immediately brought to mind this photo from 2015 of tiny Alan Kurdi, washed up on a beach in Turkey.  Alan, born in Syria, was three, and his entire life had been one of constant moving as his parents tried desperately to keep he and his brother, Galip, safe from the civil war and ISIL.  He and his family were making a desperate bid to flee to the island of Kos, and then onto Canada where his aunt had applied for refugee sponsorship of them, when their overcrowded inflatable boat capsized.  Alan, Galip and their mother drowned.  But it was Alan's tiny dead body that shook the world, made the "migrant crisis" REAL.

Oscar, his wife Tania, and Valeria were trying to flee El Salvador, its crushing poverty and violence.  This past Sunday, Oscar had made his way across with Valeria and set her down on the bank.  As he went back to help his wife, tiny Valeria, frightened, tried to get back to him and went into the water.  Tania saw him turn, grab Valeria, and then watched in horror as they were swept away by the currents.

Look at the photo.  Honor their lives.  He had tucked her inside his shirt, presumably to better hold onto her.  Her arm around his neck in her last moments on this planet, clinging to her father.  Back in El Salvador, his mother, Rosa Ramirez, who had spoken to Tania by phone, was interviewed by the AP. “When the girl jumped in is when he tried to reach her, but when he tried to grab the girl, he went in further ... and he couldn’t get out.  He put her in his shirt, and I imagine he told himself, ‘I’ve come this far’ and decided to go with her.”

Since I shared the story and photo last night, I have received ten heinous messages from the those who inhabit the lowest levels of the human sewer in this world.  They all mock what happened.  I have been told to "fuck my bleeding heart".  They feel no sympathy whatsoever, "Them fucking wetbacks should stay OUT!"  And the one echoed most, "Great parenting there, libtard."  

I argue that it was, in fact, incredible parenting.  The kind of parenting to which most of us are able to give lip service knowing we will never feel the rubber hit the road and test us in this fashion.

I lay there last night thinking about Valeria and Alan.  And their parents.  And asking myself again, as I did in 2015, as I have so often the past week - What would you risk for your children?

What would YOU risk for yours?

I know when I first held each of them after giving birth, I whispered in their tiny ears that I would love them, protect them, die for them.   Words born of something so deep, the feeling startled me.  Even after loving them for nine months as they moved inside me; after spending so much time anticipating their arrival; feeling bone deep that I was fulfilling something I had wanted since I was small - even so, the reality of finally holding them, seeing them, marveling at them, was something apart from anything I have ever experienced.

I knew in an instant I would do anything for them.   Parents - birth or adoptive - share this phenomenon - the moment they immediately feel the world become about this other human, that it is no longer about them.

I lay in the dark thinking about the times that has been tested through the years.  As their tears at the hands of others have brought me to stand my ground in the face of Cheeto stained bully parents on soccer sidelines; as fear for her safety helped me move mountains without thinking to save my daughter from a dangerously abusive relationship; as miles and logistics meant nothing when weighed against helping my daughter move again and again and again in pursuit of her dreams; as my son walked the darkest moments of his life through transitioning, and I have walked with him without question.

But in the grand scheme of what a parent can obviously face, these have been, to me, easy.  My love is not a lightswitch, and these challenges have been readily faced.

Alan's parents, Valeria's parents were no different than me.  Their love, affection, and loyalty born of the same deep, organic forces that have always moved me for my children.  Their language did not make it different.  Their skin color did not color how they loved.  What was different between us is that they faced forces, choices, horrors, and realities my nightmares cannot even entertain.

Poverty of a kind that I have never known.  Food insecurity a constant.  Violence that made sleep not just difficult, but a gamble.  The grim reality of child rape, kidnapping, murder - always chasing them.  Put yourself in their zapatas.  I do not use the translation to be glib - I use it because shoes are shoes are shoes.

Just as love is love is love.  Sacrifice, too.  No matter what you think of people from other places, who speak other languages, worship other gods, have different skin colors than you - know this - you do not have sole dominion over the feelings of love for your children.  That is universal.  Your citizenship, your pale skin do not impart some magical, only-accessible-by-you affections.

I wrote yesterday how decent parents are always asking themselves "what's the worst that can happen?" when weighing anything to do with their children - a toy, an outing, their first time driving the car alone, their 50th time driving the car alone - we look at all the angles before we make the choice, roll the dice.  Now think about how bad and dangerous everyday life would have to be for you to ask the "what is the worst that can happen?" question and still believe that the worst where you are is worth the risks involved in trying to secure future safety, security, opportunity for your child/ren.

That is why Alan's parents got in that shoddy boat.  That is why Valeria's parents made the trek from El Salvador and entered the river with her.  Because risking it all for the chance to watch Alan, Galip, and Valeria grow up, laugh, smile, LIVE, paled in comparison to the certain sure horrors of where they were.

I would take a bullet for my children.  I would be hit by a train to insure they got out of the way.  I would trade my life for theirs without a thought.  And yes, I would enter a river with them. 

But then, because of an accident of birth, I was lucky enough to be born within these borders, not without, so there are rivers of uncertainty that I likely will never have to cross.

But I would.  If the waters ever start to rise; if the dangers are knocking at the door; if their lives are ever in peril - I would hold them close, have them wrap their arms around my neck, and enter the waters with a prayer we make it to the other shore.

What would you risk?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Awwwwwwwwsome

Because we all need something, anything, to lift our spirits in these dark days.  Rudy and I first saw this last night and I lost track of how many times we said "Awwwwww..."

Feed your soul and feel your heart melt onto your shoes.

Chicken Sh*thead

 

File this one under Some People Are Too Stupid To Breathe...

 

Parenting through the years has changed with the times.  It has had to out of necessity.  It's not that bad things didn't happen to kids when I was in grade school - I clearly remember when a neighbor boy's body was found in the forest with his head bashed in.  He had been abducted.  But on the whole, parents could trust that their kids were ok to be out playing, running to the store for them, staying out till it got dark.

Our parents had no compunction about letting us ride our bikes along busy roads.  We played in the woods.  We roamed from house to house all day long.  Our sliding boards were white hot sheets of metal equally good at burning our thighs as they were at baking cookies out of mud.  Hell, they even bought Jarts for us and let us play with them unsupervised. 

For those too young to remember, or the uninitiated, Jarts (short for Javelin Darts) were a popular lawn game consisting of brightly colored plastic rings, and weighted medieval spikes with colored plastic wings for better accuracy.  We would heave them into the air in an attempt to get them in or close to the ring some distance away - think horseshoes, but with deadly weapons. 

Unfortunately, we also heaved them straight UP into the air and played a new game we wildly creative children created of trying to avoid them.  From 1978 to 1983, over 6,100 emergency room visits happened because of Jarts.  Many severe head injuries, and two children died.  This led to a complete ban by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1988.

But Jarts aside, parents, on the whole have always put their children's safety first.  The death of a child being too much for most to even entertain the thought of.  From the moment most parents hold our child, our entire lives are about insuring their safety, and intentionally putting them in harm's way is unfathomable.  We are constantly asking ourselves "what's the worst that could happen?" in a serious way.

Then there are parents like Lexus Stagg, 26, of Houston.

She has been charged with criminally negligent homicide for running over her 3 year old after surveillance cameras caught her playing "chicken" - I am not making this up - with her three children - them running towards her while she drove her Lincoln Navigator towards them. 

While she initially tried to cover her ignorant ass by saying she thought she had gone over a speedbump, the video clearly shows her moving towards them, backing up, and speeding forward again and again.  Two of them managed to stay out of the way, but go figure - the THREE YEAR OLD, not quite grasping the concept of the game, was run over not once, but twice by the 5,300 pounds of the vehicle.

“She was in her car and her children were playing in front of her in the parking lot. She put her car into reverse, and drove at least 100 feet,” said Sean Teare, head prosecutor of vehicular crimes for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. “The three kids followed her, followed the car, at which point, the defendant put her car into drive and drove toward her children as they were running toward her. The two older children were able to get out of the way, and tragically, the younger child was not and was run over by two of her tires.”

Sit with that a minute.  Think of your worst parenting moment, something you wish you could take back.  Maybe you lost your temper, said something you did not mean.  Maybe you joined the ranks of parents who turn their backs for just a moment in a store and turn back around to find their child missing, thus entering into the nightmare of every parent until you found them hiding in a clothing rack or the toy section.

Nothing.  I repeat NOTHING you decent parents are coming up with even exists in the same universe with a complete idiot who would play chicken with a huge vehicle and their children's lives.  I mean, what the actual fuck?

And please, before you defend this woman, this was not a one off in terms of negligence.  CPS removed two children from her in 2013 because of her errant behavior.  She went om to have three more children, now killing one in the most idiotic way I have heard in some time.  And do not start with the "she has suffered enough" stuff.  Until she is run over by 5,600 pounds of vehicle - TWICE - she will not have suffered enough.

Lexus is now facing 10 years in prison and I hope she gets every second of that handed to her.  Seriously throw her sentence at her, preferably at the end of a Jart.  I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Lying awake in the dark last night, the words of the Simon and Garfunkle song began playing on a loop in my head.  The song became the backing track to a succession of mental images of the children who have died in US custody, and those who still suffer in the Trumpcamps.

 

 

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains

I know I am not alone in the thoughts I have been having as I put head to very comfortable pillow, snuggled under a fluffy comforter.  I think about these children lying on cold concrete floors.  A glorified sheet of Reynold's Wrap as their blanket.  I think about the teen mother in a wheelchair with the preemie baby who is failing to thrive.  The 10 year old trying to take care of his 3 year old sibling inside an overcrowded cage.  I think of them all caked with filth, the stench of weeks of unsanitary conditions, unwashed clothes.  I think of the trauma being inflicted by the Trump administration.

Those seeds have been planted deeply and firmly in my brain.

Then I think about the apologists. 

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening

VP Pence on this past weekend's news programs, who when pressed about the conditions and Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian defending children not needing soap or toothbrushes said, "I can't speak to what that lawyer was saying." Uh, Mike, she is the legal representative for the administration in that court.  She is speaking directly from what her marching orders from your band of brigands has instructed.

Reprobates like Trump himself who dismisses the evidence by casually blaming President Obama.  NO. STOP LYING.  Zero tolerance was not an Obama administration directive.  Blatant disregard for Flores and the rules surrounding treatment, time limits.  He talks, babbles actually, without speaking to any of it.

Republican't legislators who hear the stories coming forth from the doctors and lawyers who have been there, yet not listening, not digesting what this actually means in terms of human suffering.  Take Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas, who took obfuscating to new heights during an interview yesterday with Chris Hayes. 

HE. SAID. THIS.

Along with feverishly licking Trump's balls in defense, “I know that the hatred for this president is so intense, people are liable to say anything," he then added to the GOPer narrative of brown people being synonymous with dirty.  "Those children arrive with the lice and they are…"

But the crowning glory was the declaration that these children "could leave at any time" because "there's no lock on the door."  Yes, asshole, of course, those toddlers can just flip off the armed guards and say "See ya."  Your intellect is dizzying.  His logic as to why they don't leave? "Because they’re well taken care of "

Um, yeah, half frozen burritos, clothes soaked with pee, sleep deprivation - they are LOVING IT.

And if these places are so easy to just come and go from, why the covered windows?  Why the armed guards?  Why the razor wire?  Oh, wait, silly me, those aren't about keeping the children in, they are about keeping the accountability (cameras, news video) out.

"Fools," said I, "You do not know
Silence, like a cancer, grows

Not to be outdone, "classiest first lady ever" Melania Trump kicked off Tone Deaf Lackey Month with her announcement yesterday of new Be Best ambassadors to help "improve the lives of children."  Her statement in the face of every report of our government's treatment of CHILDREN is galling:

"I am thrilled that we have identified and partnered with so many organizations both inside and outside of government to help promote and expand the three pillars of BE BEST. As we move into the next phase of my initiative, I look forward to the work ahead.  There is no greater opportunity than that of helping children reach their fullest potential as they grow up."

For the record, not a single word from FLOTUS about the children being tortured, not a single BE BEST initiative to help them.  But then given the entire jackassian farce of this "campaign" of hers?  Never has her favorite jacket been more apt.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made

And the MAGAts continue to bow and pray to the orange neon god they've made, convinced he is "the chosen one".  Convinced he will continue to hurt the people they hate.  Convinced he is their savior.  And as long as libtard tears like silent raindrops continue to fall, they are happy.  They simply do not care who is hurting, how they are hurting, if they are dying - as long as it's not them.

In case you ever wondered how concentration camps and death camps came to be...

Hello darkness, my old friend...

We Did This

The Trump "zero tolerance" law at the border is having devastating effects on those imprisoned in his concentration camps.  We know this.  As I wrote again this morning, doctors and lawyers who have had access are coming forward with horrific reports of the abuses, torturous conditions, dangerous illnesses, and trauma they are encountering.

Especially with the children.

I used this photo this morning.

The caption I added was not hyperbole.  It was not there to inflame or misrepresent his situation.  And the news being added today only serves to add further gasoline proof to the already burning fire of evidence of just what we are doing.

His name is Constantin Mutu.  When he was four months old, his parents, fleeing Romania, paid a smuggler to take them through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States.

A-SY-LUM - say it slow for the MAGAts in the back of the class.  A------SY------LUM.  A completely legal process wherein desperate people present themselves to the US authorities explaining their reasons for fleeing their homeland and coming here.  Reasons we US citizens could not begin to fathom as we stuff our maws with Big Macs, travel to and fro with ease, and cheer our kids on from the soccer sidelines on weekends.

Separated from his other family members, Constantin and his father presented themselves to US immigration authorities.

"The police wiped the floor with me," Vasile Mutu told The NYTimes through a translator, adding that the officers dragged him out of the room while leaving Constantin behind. "I started crying because I didn't know what to do. … I couldn't speak English. I told them, 'I don't understand. Why?'"

He did not see his son again for five months.  Vasile was deported back to Romania.  Constantin, an infant whose only security in this world was the family members to whom he was attached, was shipped off to a foster family in Michigan.

LOOK AT THIS FACE.

Kidnapped and spirited away from his family at four months old.  Any of you idiots who think all a child at that age needs is a warm bottle, a random grown up to hold them when they cry, and a clean diaper, can fuck all the way off.  He was stripped of everything he knew.  Every connection he had made, the attachments so crucial to a developing human  being.

For five months he was in Michigan.  And while I am not in any way saying he was mistreated by those foster parents, he never should have been sent to any to begin with.

When he was finally reunited with his family, it was devastating for all involved.  According to the NY Times report, He screamed and cried the entire drive back from the Romanian airport, devastated at the loss of his foster mother.

Again, everything his developing brain had struggled to adapt to, TRUST, was stripped from him.  Business Insider wrote, Removing a caregiver from a young child's life can cause depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which can be especially harmful to young children's developing brains. 

His parents spent weeks simply trying to get him to eat or sleep as he cried nonstop.  His mother constantly contacting the foster parent for help.

They say that tears are words too painful for a broken heart to speak.  His tears saying everything his tiny broken heart, fearful, confused mind could not convey.

He is now 18 months old.  He should babbling, walking, getting into everything, driving his parents crazy in the best possible way.

Constantin does not walk or speak.

We did this.  Trump and his lust for power and force.  His MAGAts who cheer every time he talks about the border, "The Wall", immigrants as animals.  Our legislators who act powerless or worse, uncaring, in the face of all the evidence.  And yes, the greater we.  ALL OF US.  This is being done in our name. 

How many more children must be irrevocably broken or die before we storm the gates of this administration?  We are not outnumbered. 

But we are lost.  WE. DID. THIS.  And we cannot undo the damage.  As the saying goes, "You cannot mend a broken jug with regret."

I am so sorry, Constantin.  And to your parents - we deserve every ounce of your hate, every bit of karma that is going to come back on us in the end.

Children of the Scorn

UPDATE:  As of this afternoon (June 24), NBC is reporting that 300 of these children are being moved from the Clint facility to another.  We must keep the spotlight firmly on them.  They cannot be simply moved like game pieces in a perverse shell game, out of sight-out of mind, to another place where this treatment will continue unabated.

As report after report continues to come out regarding the heinous treatment of the children in US custody at our border, like so many, I am filled with equal measures of despair, horror, and rage.

I have children, and it does not take mental origami to imagine the state my heart would be in had any of them ever been taken from me and subjected to these torturous conditions.  Hell, they are all adults now, spread out across the country and I still worry if they are warm enough, have enough food, are sick.

I see these young faces and only see children - confused, ill, desperate, scared, hungry, and forsaken.

That there are so many in this country that see something else is what fills me with rage.

Trump apologists - that MAGAty collection of bottom feeders - see brown things. 

Meet Madeline Carroll of Arizona, surely a candidate for Grandmother Of The Year.  In Hell.  When asked about the conditions and the children being separated form the parents, she offers this wisdom, "I think people need to stop constantly bringing up the poor children, the poor children. The parents are the problems. They're the ones coming in illegally.  Quit trying to make us feel teary-eyed for the children. Yes, I love children a great deal, but to me, it's up to the parents to do things rightfully and legally."

How many times must if be said to these mouthbreathers that SEEKING ASYLUM IS LEGAL.  So many of these families present themselves at a designated port of entry.  They follow the laws.  And their children are swept away from them.  And even if they bring their children in illegally - IT IS A MISDEMEANOR. And not a crime punishable by death.

Oh, and Mrs. Hypertension McFuckface, the fact that you know this is happening to these children - that they are cold, hungry, and scared?  And you don't want to hear about them?  THAT should be a crime. 

Carl Bier is another sewer of a human being.  "Here's how I feel about it: When I was a kid, 16 years old, I got fined for swimming in a lake 'cause I didn't follow the rules. These people that we have coming across the border illegally are breaking the rules. I have no feelings for them at all."

Oh what to unpack first, Carl?  Fleeing rape, the threat of death, poverty you cannot even imagine as you sit in your diner cramming your maw full of waffles - they are not flouting a swimmin' hole rule.  They are trying to save their children.  CHILDREN, Carl.  CHILDREN who did not ask to be born into their circumstances.  CHILDREN who have done what their parents told them to do.  CHILDREN who are frightened and cling to the one thing they know for sure in their horrific lives - their parents.  Choke on your waffles, Carl.  I have no feelings for YOU.

Carl and Madeline represent the "thinking" of the Trump base.  They have a million excuses at the ready to offer up to insulate them and their hero from the reality that they are nothing more than violence loving, bigotry espousing, hate filled sacks of flesh gleefully feeding at the trough of other people's suffering.

Their scorn and indifference at the plight of these people, especially the children, is chilling.  Even if your go-to-your-grave belief is that "their parents shouldn't have brought them here", THEY ARE HERE NOW and THIS IS HOW WE ARE TREATING THEM. 

How, in the name of any god, are you ok with this representation of the country of which you profess to be so very proud and patriotic?

"The conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities," a physician, Dolly Lucio Sevier, wrote in a medical declaration after visiting holding facilities concentration camps in Clint and McAllen, Texas.  The youngest she saw was 2 1/2 months old.

That hurts my heart beyond belief.  There is a parent somewhere who had their infant torn from them.  An infant being denied the crucial bonding a baby needs to connect synapses, develop empathy, attach, grow into a decent human being.  As written by the UC Davis Medical Center: A normal, full-term baby is also programmed to initiate and enter into a bonding relationship. Crying and making other noises, smiling, searching for the breast, and seeking eye contact give cues for a caring adult to respond.  The importance of bonding with the primary caregiver cannot be overestimated. Failure to do so profoundly affects future development and the ability to form healthy relationships as an adult.

Lucio Sevier noted, "extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food."   And that all of the children showed signs of trauma.  The conditions were completely unsanitary and "tantamount to intentionally causing the spread of disease." 

Lawyers and doctors who have tried to interview these children have reported the stench being overwhelming as these children have been denied clean clothing, soap, bathroom breaks, opportunity to bathe or even wash their hands FOR WEEKS ON END.

Sevier told ABC News, "It just felt, you know, lawless. I mean, imagine your own children there. I can't imagine my child being there and not being broken." 

But then that's the beauty of what passes for a MAGAt's mind.  They don't care because their minds, their hearts are so filled with hate, fear, and malice towards "the other" that there is no room for libtardian concepts like sympathy, empathy, compassion.

Another camp in El Paso is holding 900 immigrants when the capacity is only 125 - those "unsanitary conditions" and dangerous overcrowding being reported by a Homeland Security inspector.

The fact that we all now know what is taking place in our name, yet it continues unabated?  We are heading for a serious fall.  Yes, many of us are rallying around trying to collect donations of needed supplies.  Won't work.  They are routinely being turned away at these facilities.  We hope that maybe if pictures could be taken, footage filmed and displayed it would turn the tide.  Won't happen.  Cameras are not allowed inside so as to better protect the horrors from coming to full light.

These are human rights violations.  Period.  There is no discussion or debate to be had about that.  How these people, these children, came to these camps is not the issue, and is certainly not a defense for their treatment.  Yet defend away they do - VP Pence defended it on the weekend news programs, MAGAts eschew facts and spew bullshit to defend it.  And Trump is practically pissing his Depends with glee when asked about it.

Perhaps all these defenders of torture should give it all a whirl for a couple months?  Put Carl and Madeline in a camp with 24 hour lights, a concrete floor for their decrepit, corpulent asses to lay on, a mylar blanket for protection from the brutal cold - a cold that gets worse if complained about, uncooked rice to eat, bathroom access so infrequent that their skin begins to be burned by the acid in their own pee soaked clothing, oh, and guards that prod them for fun when they begin to fall asleep.  Don't forget the illnesses that sweep through, and the uncertainty that anyone even knows they are there.

Allow them to stew in their own putrid juices for a month or two.  Let them begin to beg the guards for help and be laughed at.  Add in some sexual abuse.  Maybe then it would begin to dawn on them that no human being, regardless of how they got there, should be treated with such disregard, such malice, such contempt.

Then again, I am sure they believe their magical cloak of whiteness will continue to protect them from anything like this ever happening to them.

At this point, we deserve to have the United Nations, backed by every decent person in every decent land rise up against the United States and take action.  We have lost our way and it is what we deserve. 

Because one thing is certain, being tortured under the stars and stripes of this land is not what these children deserve.

Pulling The Trigger

The word "trigger" gets casually thrown around, used as a joke, and often as an attempted insult these days.  Typically in conjunction with some invective carrying the suffix "tard" or in a sentence with "snowflake".  These are go-tos most commonly used by GOPers, conservatives, MAGAts, and all those who take pleasure in shit stirring.

The word, however, is a psychological one with weight, meaning, and seriousness.  The best definition I have seen comes from a paper written by the University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre:

A trigger is something that sets off a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of her/his original trauma.

A memory tape.  That is so perfect.

Human beings are amazing in our ability to remember.  While we cannot consciously recall every single thing that happens to us throughout our lives - the ones that involve true joy, uplift, excitement, fear, pain, loss, or trauma are given shelf space that is readily available for replay.  They sear themselves to our psyches in such a way that we can see them clearly, feel them as they happened, sense our hearts quicken in response to the memory.

In so many cases that is a wonderful magic trick of which we are capable.  A whiff of a certain cologne transports you back to a first boyfriend.  A picture autoplays on your mind's big screen the first time you skydived, held your baby, attended a concert, said I do.  A smell brings a smile as your mind connects the dots to your grandma's house (for me - mothballs).  A song can lift your heart with memory or crush it just the same.

But this magic trick, like so many things in life, is a double edge sword capable of cutting you to the quick with a single stimuli.

For so many people, the past few years have been traumatic as rape and all the collateral damage that goes with the assault, have come tumbling back regularly and repeatedly thanks to the cabal of cretins surrounding Trump, and including Trump.

This is a soiled Hefty bag stuffed in a skinsuit whose proclivities, activities, and criminal actions have not only been told in the form of accusations, but in his own chronicled behavior, and in his own words for decades.  And each time he or someone in his cadre of felonious frat boys is brought into the national spotlight due to domestic violence, assault, molestation, or rape - the trigger gets pulled on countless survivors.

The "grab 'em by the pussy" tape was horrific.  To hear him bragging of his own lecherous behavior - criminal behavior - was bad enough.  But to then have it roundly defended by his supporters, by the legislative yes men who live to stay in power around him?  This was HIM, gleefully bragging about molesting women.  What was there to defend?  Yet there they were, pathetically coming up with ways to blow it off, minimize it with "locker room talk".

Yes, that was triggering.  It triggered pain in those who have been assaulted and written off.  It triggered anger in anyone with a moral compass.

The entire Brett Kavanaugh farce was horrendously triggering.  Christine Blasey Ford came forward, with absolutely zero to gain and everything to lose, with credible assault allegations against him from 1982.  And what happened was sickening.  SHE was pilloried.  SHE was not believed.  SHE was castigated for saying anything.  SHE was threatened.  And SHE was recipient of the predictable and devastating blow off of "Why didn't she come forward then?"

HE became a Supreme Court Justice.

I lost count of the number of nights my sleep was disrupted as my own memory tape of my rape was repeatedly triggered and run on a loop.  My words poured out here and into the ether as I railed against this heinous stripe of society in which victims are blamed for their assaults, and in which they are readily called liars when their trauma and fears prevent them from coming forward and speaking out in the aftermath.

It took me decades.  DECADES.  THIRTY FOUR YEARS.

As I wrote back in October of 2016 in response to the whole "Why didn't you say something back then?" bullshit filling the airwaves in the wake of Trump Pussygate,  What did I do?  I went home.  I went to my room.  I cried.  I wrote in my diary.  I bathed.  HARD.  But I said nothing.  We were being watched by my grandmother while my parents were out of town.  So I wrote.

I did not tell a friend.  I did not call my sister who was in college out of state.  I spun in that place of self hate, denial, and self recrimination.  That it was MY FAULT.  

And I swallowed the rage, the disgust, the fear, the self recriminations for decades.

We all moved on from the Kavanaugh hearings which were all for naught - the fix was in long before, as his personal debt was mysteriously paid off, as he was handpicked to threaten Roe V Wade, as the coaltion of Congressional apologists ushered him into a Supreme Court robe.

But the anger has not gone away.  The nightmares may quiet themselves for a while, but like death and taxes, they are inevitable and just waiting for someone to again pull the trigger and push PLAY.

That happened yesterday when long time columnist E. Jean Carroll's story of being attacked by Trump was made public.  It includes her standing, defiant, on the cover of New York magazine, in the unwashed clothes she was wearing when he assaulted her in a dressing room years ago.

Her story is corroborated by two friends who she went to after the attack in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in which he "shoves her against a wall inside a dressing room, pulls down her tights, and, “forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me.”"

Those friends responded thusly “‘He raped you,’ she kept repeating when I called her. ‘He raped you. Go to the police! I’ll go with you. We’ll go together.’” The other, who is also a journalist, was sympathetically cautious: “‘Tell no one. Forget it! He has 200 lawyers. He’ll bury you.’” 

In the end, as do so many of us, she chose the latter, she chose, as I wrote in 2016, to not make it worse.

To all the rape apologists who poured forth yesterday, THAT DID NOT MAKE IT UNHAPPEN.  Victim silence does not exonerate a rapist.  It does not mean it was ok, or not bad.  It does not magically erase the trauma.  All it does is install a trigger as we scramble for some form of self preservation.

As I read her story yesterday, and then read the predictable defense strategies, slurs, names being thrown at her, I felt the rage building again.  I felt the fear and tried to tamp it down.  But I knew what was coming.

I had barely fallen asleep when the first wave hit and I startled awake.  My husband held me tight and I tried to slow my breathing, eventually falling off again.  It was 246am when I bolted awake again.  How it did not wake him up, I am not sure.  But this time I refused to allow myself to drift off again.  I lay awake the rest of the night, reading on my phone, trying to calm down, waiting for light to begin filtering through the curtains.

This is what you callous, disbelieving shit stains need to understand about a trigger.  Pulling it releases emotional carnage.  It is real.  For me these are not just "bad dreams".  This is a fear of sleeping because someone is waiting in there for me. That someone is my rapist.  And that memory tape begins to play, not as a movie I am watching, but as an assault I am reliving over and over.  I can smell him.  I can feel the seatbelt latch digging in my shoulder.  Real tears fill my sleeping eyes.  And when I waken it is because of an action in that horrible place, my real self physically acting out that memory tape where I am trying desperately to wrench myself away.

This day will be long.  Because I have been awake since 246am, and because of the foggy hangover this inevitably causes.  But instead of staring into space, giving into the feelings of pain and fear, I am sitting here, consumed again by rage.  Rage at the perpetrators who will never know the devastation their actions leave behind.  Rage at the insensitive clods who think we should "just get over it."  Newflash:  I would love to be able to "just get over it."

Rage because once again a woman has come forward against this abomination of a "president" sitting in the Oval Office and she is being thrown onto the pile of 21 other women who have come forward with their own stories of rape and assault by him and been casually dismissed (only after being threatened, doxxed, traced, tracked).  And finally, rage because he is again spinning , deflecting, lying - this time in an official press release from the White House in which he LIES: “I’ve never met this person in my life.”

LIE.  This photo of Trump and Carroll is literally in the article.

The gaslighting will continue.  His sycophants will continue to defend him.  The triggering will continue.  But the truth will not be silenced any longer.  As I wrote after Pussygate in 2016:

I guess, if there is one thing I can laud Trump for, it is this.  You have awoken us from our quiet nightmares, Donald.  And in solidarity with one another, we are now talking.  For years I have told myself that my silence was because I am STRONG.  No, my silence has been me mired in fear, and shame, and avoidance.  And typing it now won't change my past. It won't make what happened to us disappear.  It won't mean we will never again stare into the distance reliving what was done to us. But it does mean that we are throwing off the shackles of shame, thanks to you. 

We may not have wanted to make it worse for ourselves when we endured our violations, but we have no compunction now about making it exponentially worse for YOU.

To all my fellow survivors, you are not alone.  Your voice is your strength.  Own your story, and take some of its power away from owning you.  And to all those who support us, who believe us, who hold us in the dark - thank you.

Don't Look Away

Given the state of news and outrage fatigue we are all experiencing - *pause* - "WE" being those of us smart enough to care about the lies, the facts, and the chaos that are this administration's lifeblood (MAGAts continue to lap it up like cats at their first cream bowl) - it it almost forgivable that what happened last night will be missed by many.  Considering we all put head to pillow knowing that comforts of any kind for children being held in the Trump concentration camps were argued against by his Justice Department in the Ninth Circuit Court yesterday.  Watch as this pathetic excuse for a lawyer, Sarah Fabian, warbles her way through trying to justify this to the court.

Part 1:
This is Sarah Fabian from the DOJ.
Sarah here is arguing in front of the us court of appeals from the 9th that immigrant children in CBP custody do not need toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap and beds. Because all these things have nothing to do with safety and sanitation. pic.twitter.com/KJpsefacL3

— ALT-immigration 🛂 (@ALT_uscis) June 21, 2019

Yes, that nugget about toothbrushes, soap, frozen food, and filth was a lot to absorb considering so many of us reached a saturation point with this cruelty long ago.

But no matter how tired you are of the incessant bullshittery; how blinded by anger you are at the abuses being reported; how incredulous you are and hopeless you feel towards Congress and their fear of beginning impeachment proceedings - I beg of you - now is not the time to look away.

Trump and his warmongering cronies - men like John Bolton who faps himself to sleep dreaming of mushrooms clouds and Faces of Death porn; Tom Cotton who wants so desperately to be perceived as tough when in reality he is his last name; and Lindsey Graham, who despised Donald Trump until a quiet moment on the golf course altered his course forever - have been steadily breadcrumbing their way to war with Iran. 

It started last year with the Bonespur McSpraytan's withdrawal from another agreement put in place under President Obama - the multilateral deal on Tehran's nuclear program.  Since then the drumbeats have only gotten louder.  Their words, their rhetoric, his Tweets.  In April US officials openly called the Revolutionary Guard of Iran "terrorists" resulting in Iran calling our troops in the Middle East "terrorists."  Last month, Bolton announced we were sending an aircraft carrier and bombing task force to the ME. A day later Trump announced new punishing sanctions against Iran for daring to state they may go past the agreement's limits on their uranium enrichment program.  Suddenly their were three very suspect "sabotage attacks" on tankers, with another happening earlier this month - no international consensus is reached on blame.  Then Saudi Arabia, the USA's favorite pal when it comes to dismembering journalists, jumps in with an accusation against Iran for a pipeline attack.  Mid May a rocket lands near the US embassy in Iraq.  With no proof, Trump tweets out "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"  Five days ago it is reported that Iran tried to shoot down a US drone doing surveillance.  Three days ago the government announced we will deploy an additional 1,000 troops to the ME (they already announced 1,500 in May).  And yesterday, Iran shot down a US drone they say was in their airspace.  Trump bleats it was over international waters and that they "made a very big mistake" and the US "will not stand for it".  Iran publicly states they will go to the UN with exact GPS data of the drone's location to prove Trump is lying.  (Given we are now well past 10,000 proven lies by him while in office, anything he utters needs taken not with a grain, but an entire salt lick.)

And yesterday, while we were all rightfully enraged about toothbrushes and filthy, neglected children, the orders were given to the troops in the ME to attack Iran.

Over a drone.  (And yes, I know it was a $130 million surveillance drone, not a plastic, $100 drone off Amazon.  IT STILL WAS A DRONE.)

What happened last night as we all took to our beds to try to find some respite from the unrelenting nature of our days, Trump abruptly called it off at the last minute.

At the last minute.  As in planes were already in the air.

We cannot blow this off, we cannot look away.  This incompetent bully, buoyed by the bloodlust and bigotry of those around him are leading us to another war.  The echos of Iraq cannot be understated here.  An administration in desperate need of a wag the dog distraction.  A president yearning for validation that he is some sort of strongman.  Flimsy justification (potential lies upon lies) for its target.  And the worst part - the complete disregard for the very real United States citizens of our military who will die because of it all.

Have we learned nothing?

The justifications for invading Iraq have all been proven to be concocted.  As much of a murderous despot as was Saddam Hussein, he did not orchestrate or attack us on 9/11.  The run up to getting him came years and years earlier.  And again, the similarities to the breadcrumbs being laid down by this administration cannot be ignored.  This is a completely sourced account of the years and lies that groomed the public into believing there was eventual justification for war and the head of Saddam.

We now sit on another dangerous precipice, dragged there by incompetence, heinous disregard for life, and a narcissist's itchy trigger finger.  Trump is not a smart man - he knows how nothing works, especially nuclear weapons.  It is still stunning that in early briefings he asked repeatedly why if we have them don't we use them?  His lust for violence obvious from the beginning.  That it is now being reported he called off the strike with 600 seconds to spare - only after being told MANY PEOPLE WOULD DIE (DUH), shows exactly how inept and ignorant is this child with an arsenal at his disposal.

We have weapons.  A lot of them.  We have troops.  A lot of them.  And we have killed civilians.  A lot of them.  Just as we have lost troops.  A lot of them.  There are bad actors and thugs and dictators in the world.  A lot of them.  And yes, there is a time and place for aggression.  But that time, that place must be rooted in sanity, facts, a true need to defend - not in slobbering mania, concocted scenarios, and an irrational need to flex.

Again, I know we are assaulted hourly with new outrages performed by this heinous cabal installed by Trump.  I know it gets exhausting and that we all feel hopeless, helpless.  But what is happening must be confronted.  At this point we don't just owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the world.

Please don't look away.