Man, I really dislike Presidential election years. They seem to bring out the worst qualities in people. Instead of uniting, they divide. Frankly, I think our country could do with a LOT less yapping politicians. I am up to here with the divisiveness and mud-slinging that seems to permeate our society these days. (I also think we could do without "reality" t.v. Which is a prime example of the term "oxymoron." But at least if you do not wish to see fake boobies and screeching matches you can just change the channel, there is no outrunning politicians these days ... but I digress and "reality" t.v. is a WHOLE other subject.) Having lived through the 60s, I never thought I would see us as divided as we are now. It is ugly. Xenophobia has reared up its nasty little serpentine head. It tries to disguise itself as "All American," yet it is anything but. While I disagree with our President on a LOT of things, calling his race in as a factor is not acceptable to me. It bothers me to hear people describing it as a racial thing. No, I do not disagree with him because he is (half) African American. I disagree with him because I do not like the way he has proceeded on some things. His race has nothing to do with it. Stop playing the race card at every chance. It sucks and we should have evolved beyond that. If you are going to label me a racist for disagreeing with the President, then you must also label me a racist because I disagree with Hillary Clinton, so then ... if disagreeing with President Obama makes me a racist, what does disagreeing with Hillary Clinton make me? 'Cause she is as white as rice. I also disagree on a lot of points with Trump, and Rubio, seriously, what is up with those booties, dude? Cruz, I will never look at bacon the same way after seeing that infamous video, although I must say, he does have an offbeat sense of humor and I do appreciate it. Wait, Rubio and Cruz have Cuban blood in them. Gee, does that make me anti-Cuban? But, but, I am Cuban-born! Okay, labelers of the world, classify THAT one. Does that make me, gasp, a traitor to MY people??? No, wait, I am American, they are American, WE are ALL American. Not that we act it. The truth is, I disagree with pretty well much any and all politicians running for President this time around. Although I do have a certain fondness for Huckabee, because he tells it like it is and does not give a rat's rear end about offending anyone. "The Army is there to kill people and break things!" I wanted to kiss him when he said that. He is old school, maybe too old school for this day and age. However, there is not one individual that I feel confident in saying, okay, THAT is the guy, or woman, I am voting for. Because each and every one (both Democrat and Republican) have made some truly cringe-worthy statements, that made me go "Oh, crap! Please, please SHUT UP!" So, there you go.
I agree with some points Cruz has made. Rubio, not so much, Trump, oish. Two steps forward, three steps back with him. I do like the fact he is self-funded and not a career-politician. Also one heck of a businessman and, yeah, he is bombastic and says some cringe-worthy things, but he holds his ground. As to Hillary, I am not going down that road. Too much. Okay, just a little. Yes, I would love to see a woman President. Some day. Just not her. Although I did like Clinton and thought the Lewinsky affair was a waste of money. Honestly, a bazillion dollars down the drain because he put the moves on her and she went for it. I don't buy her "little ol' innocent me" bit for a minute. She was of sound mind and certainly knew he was MARRIED. Did that make it right for him to act as he did? No. But she was equally at fault for deciding to dally with a MARRIED man. Hello??? He was a horn dog and she was a skank. But, noooo, we had to air our dirty laundry in front of the entire world and look like idiots in the process. And Ken Starr looked like he could have used that which Lewinsky theoretically did with Mr. Clinton. Maybe that would have removed the stick that seemed to be perpetually up his rear end. But I digress. We were talking about Hillary. Her flippant attitude regarding those infamous emails and Benghazi annoyed the beegeezers out of me. Don't appreciate flippant attitudes about national security, ma'am, with all due respect. I do not understand, nor is it any or my business to understand, what went on in that marriage. However, were it to have been my husband, he would have been singing soprano the rest of his days. Sorry. Homey don't play that. But that is just me. Maybe that is why I am not married. My last relationship did once call me a "little scary." He is now living in Alaska. But, again, I digress.
I do not appreciate hate-mongering and encouraging divisiveness. We need to lose the "us vs. them" attitude. Because the more xenophobic, wait, maybe that has too many syllables for some people, xenophobia means the intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries. Okay now that we have that cleared up. The more xenophobic we appear, the more we encourage those loons that are dominating the headlines these days. Because that is what they use to attract, entice, recruit, they promote the "us vs. them" attitude. They hide behind "religion." But their hatred-spewing rhetoric has zip to do with religion and everything to do with with destruction, annihilation. That is one of the few things I agree on with Mrs.Clinton. Trump's blustering about building a wall and saying no Muslims should be allowed into the country (oy, oy, oy!), encourages the hatred. People rally and cheer him on, not realizing, you know, go back a few generations and hello, their forefathers and mothers were foreigners too.
Ah, now comes the kicker. But those forefathers did not run around killing innocents and setting bombs. They did not shout "Death to America!" True. But that does not make every immigrant a potential terrorist. We must not lose that which makes us the one country in the world that everyone wants to come to. There is a poem inscribed in the Statue of Liberty with the lines "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." No, I do not believe we should allow everyone in, willy-nilly. And, trust me, there are plenty of evil ones already here, living the All American life, blending in perfectly. Case in point, the San Bernardino terrorists. Even with heightened security measures, which I profoundly hope are soon put into practice, evil ones will continue to infiltrate and arrive. Our military will be attacked both here and abroad, sometimes from within our ranks, which I believe is the vilest form of treason. But we cannot, must not, just arbitrarily decide, okay, ALL immigrants are potential terrorists, so no more immigrants are going to be allowed in. Timothy McVeigh was an All American boy and he perpetrated one of the worst attacks on our country. Murdered innocents. We sure as hell did not see that coming. The image of that fireman carrying the broken body of that sweet child is forever etched in my brain.
Our society is broken. Our military does not get the respect it should. Or the backup it needs. Nor do our veterans. It boggles my mind that we have millions to give to Iran, a known enemy, but our veterans lack basic care and services. There should NOT be a need for the Wounded Warrior Project. There should NOT be one single homeless vet. Hell, there should not be any homeless. Period. We are the richest nation in the world, why do we have Americans living in the streets? Why does our military need to up-armor their vehicles? Closer to home, why are there so many drive-bys? Why aren't there marches when a 7-year old is killed playing in front of his house? What, children's lives do not matter as much as thugs who get gunned down by cops? Why are people allowed to march yelling "Pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon?" Can you imagine if people took to the streets instead yelling "Arrest the thugs, squash them like slugs?" The press would have a field day! Our police officers do not get the respect they deserve. True, some have gone off the rails, and their behavior is not to be condoned or covered up. But still when there is a shooting, who do people call? Not Black Lives Matter, nope, they dial 911 quick as a lick and expect the police officers to respond and put themselves in harm's way ... for them. The very people who will turn out and march against them. Where, oh, where are the marches when little ones get killed? Why don't the communities come together and turn on the very thugs that are destroying our neighborhoods from the inside? I agree black lives matter, but so do white, yellow, red, mixed, ALL lives matter. STOP making this about race and START making it about humanity. About taking responsibility for our actions. Stop using excuses for criminal behavior. If you knew it was wrong, then you knew what you were doing. And you MUST be held responsible. No excuses.
Why, why, why doesn't our President admit that it IS terrorism, that it IS radical Muslim militants committing terrorist acts, why are we so afraid of "offending" others? Gotta tell you, if it was Cubans that were running around killing, maiming, putting off bombs and people called them "radical militant Cuban terrorists" I would so NOT have a problem with that or be offended. Because, guess what, that is what they would be. And the radical nut cases who are running around beheading, torturing, committing despicable acts hide behind the "religious" label. Guess what? I am damn well sure Allah is not sitting in Heaven going "Yes, that's right my children! Surely that is the way to get into Heaven!" Because guess what? Allah IS God. The Great I Am. (That is a line from a wonderful movie I saw years ago, cannot remember the name, but it was a Biblical movie.) You remember Him, the Father, the Creator? Hello, does anybody GET THAT? We are ALL His children. He loves us ALL and, my gosh, I am sure he looks down with great sadness at the mess we have made of the world he gave us. We kill, maim, pollute, destroy. Sometimes I think He must want to bang His head against a wall going "No, no, noooo! This is NOT what I made you for!" Yet, He gave us free will and darn if we don't exercise that every single day. Some to create beauty and do good. Some to destroy and do evil.
I have been shopping at a little market for years now. It is owned by a family from Pakistan. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, holidays, weekends, come rain or come shine. And I must confess, shortly after Benghazi, I found myself hesitating about going there. I had a "them vs. us" moment. A lot of times when I drive up, I overhear them speaking Farsi. And I thought "What if they are talking about me? What if the money I pay them goes to fund some terrorist faction?" and I was ashamed of myself. Because I was buying into the xenophobia sweeping our country. My parents taught me better. In talking about this momentary lapse with a friend, they said "Well, you know, they COULD be terrorists! You never know." And I thought, no. I will not live my life this way. If they are, which I doubt, then on their heads let it be. I am in my Father's hands. I am exactly where I need to be. Maybe it sounds hokey, but it is truly what I believe. I thought about how when I was ill a while back my neighbors took care of me like I was family. They really do not know me from Adam, they did not know my family, they only know me from living across from them. But still they took care of me with as much love and care as they would show a family member. My neighbors are a living, breathing, walking example of the "Do unto others" way of living. They walk the walk.
Oh, how I wish I could sit down with President Obama and have a conversation with him. I voted for him the first time, I truly believed here was a man who could unite us, who did not see color, who just saw Americans. Instead, I have seen our country become the most divided I have ever seen it. People talking about race wars and about blacks vs. whites. Good grief! In today's vernacular, WTF??? You know what I love most about visiting one of my favorite people ever (and a Most Marvelous Fairy GodMother)? The fact that when we sit down at one of her family dinners, you see every color of the flipping rainbow, from palest ivory to richest darkest brown and no one, NO ONE, sees anything odd about that. There is no white/black, Cuban/Jamaican/American issue. We are just family. And THAT is what we should be aiming for in our country today. Enough with the hate-spewing. Enough with the hyphen-happy description of ourselves. We are AMERICANS. We are FAMILY. And it's high damn time we start acting like it.
Well, I have vented and raged, tilted at windmills once more. I pray for us. I pray for our country, for our world, I pray that somehow, some way, we can overcome this hideous cloud of gloom and doom we are living under and see the sun that is hiding behind it. Because it is there. We are just too mule-headed to see it. He is there, the greatest Light of all. Waiting. For us all. Until next time, be blessed, be safe and keep the faith.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
by Emma Lazarus, 1883.
