A Proposal to the New Confederacy

I propose a compromise to America's Historian-in-Chief Donald Trump and his loyal supporters: Put statues of slaves - chained to the auction block, tied to the whipping post, dead in the field - at the base of your "beautiful" Confederate monuments and we won't tear them down. They can stand forever in accurate context for all the world to see. Your cherished history will be saved. You will be able to proudly take your children and grandchildren to these monuments and show them exactly what your Southern States so gallantly fought to preserve.

R.L. Johnson, 2017

Goodbye Truth

Alternative facts,

they fall like rain

into gutters of lies

that flood the drains,

causing rivers of hate

to erode the land,

cutting through valleys

and canyons grand,

sweeping the truth

into the sea,

to drift away

conveniently.

R.L.J. Notes on the Trump Administration 2017

The Mourning After Dallas

The tragedy that unfolded in Dallas last night is not a competing tragedy with the reoccurring deaths of mostly black men killed by mostly white police officers. It is a part of the same tragedy. It is a tragedy of two races distrusting, disrespecting, and profiling one another; with members of each judging the whole of the other based on the actions of a few. The original sin cannot be undone. Forgiven or unforgiven, it can only be moved past. Only when America mourns equally for the lives lost on both sides of this tragedy will it begin to stitch the wound that continues to rip open with each violent incident. And until we do the deliberate work of stitching, the natural process of healing cannot begin. We must all be doctors today. Our needle and suture must be empathy and respect... Empathy and respect for one another.

Of Guns and Gift Wrap

To Every American who gave or received a gun this Christmas:
I’m setting aside my opinion concerning the popularity of this gift-choice on this Christian day of peace to wish you a Merry Christmas with the sincere hope that this gun, this Christmas gift, is never fired in anger, in despair, or accidentally. May it be used skillfully for legal target-sport or hunting, and may any game it takes from the wild be taken for food and not trophy, and may that nourishment from nature be taken respectfully and humanely. Lastly and most importantly, should the exceptionally rare situation ever occur where the use of this gun becomes an option for personal defense, or to protect innocent life, may its wielder possess perfect judgement, and may their aim be true… for there is no pause button, or rewind button on this device.

Racism at the Highest Level

Rolling Stone recently named President Obama “One of the Most Successful Presidents in American History”, but imagine what could have happened if, like white pitchers throwing at Jackie Robinson’s head, a group of white lawmakers hadn’t since day-one been trying to take our President out of the game. Of course I’m talking about the Eric Cantor led group who vowed on January 20, 2009 to oppose every bill that President Obama supported regardless of the fallout solely to destroy his presidency. History will clearly show these men to be backwards immoral frauds who risked a nation in an attempt to take down one man of color for having had the audacity, like Jackie and others, to break down another one of their sacred racial barriers. Their back-slapping self-congratulating conversations will blow away in the wind, but their shame, just like Barack and Jackie’s success will be written in stone for the ages. Thank you Barack, for enduring and succeeding in a rigged white man's game for all of us who cheered, as well as for those who booed.

Speech is not Money (and vice versa)

“Speech is not money.” Most of us can at least agree on that much, so you'd think it would be enough to simply say, "Therefore money is not speech." But in our logic-starved world, that just isn’t enough anymore. I must convince you further that money is not speech or you might falsely believe, as our corporate sponsored Supreme Court declared again today, that it IS. In an attempt to clear up this confusion about what is and is not “speech” I’ll make an argument to support my view that money is NOT speech, followed by the only logical argument I can think of to support the opposing view (i.e. the Court’s view).

ARGUMENT FOR: Speech is the use of words, written or spoken, to convey a message. If a message is intended to cause an action or influence an opinion, a message must contain relevant information to that end. In addition, that information must make sense to the listener in order to elicit some sort of logical response. Now depending on the predisposition of the listener and the quality of the message, the response may vary from: A.) Total agreement and support, up to and including the smooth completion of a task or action, to B.) Complete disagreement and refusal to cooperate, up to and including a punch in the nose. Other influences that may affect the impact of the message, such as: Which way the wind is blowing? Are the listener’s shoes comfortable? Is there a duck in the room? etc. are not considered speech, even though they may in fact alter the response of the person being addressed. Can you think of anything else that might affect the impact of a message, or alter a listener’s response? …BINGO! You guessed it. A fistful of cash. Of course cash isn’t speech any more than a duck in the room, or a gun to the head is, but it sure gets results when words (i.e. speech) fails. Now here’s why it matters. In some countries guns and intimidation equal power over the masses and in other countries extreme wealth equals power… and in both cases that power is all too often used (after speech fails) to thwart the will of the people. Thank you for listening. I hope you will agree with me that money is NOT free speech.

ARGUMENT AGAINST: Don’t listen to that idiot up there. If you agree with me I'll give you $100.00... Okay, you drive a hard bargain... $200, but you owe me.

America the Ugly vs. "America the Beautiful”

Thank you Coca-Cola, for luring so many bigots out of the shadows with your recent Super Bowl commercial titled, “It’s Beautiful”. By registering their disgust that a handful of fellow Americans would have the audacity to sing “America the Beautiful” in any language other than English during “their football game,” these bigots showed a nation just how intolerant many of its citizens actually are. They revealed to all of us their ugly hatred of “other” people. They revealed their irrational fear of the very world they live in. Most of all, by registering their disgust that a song written by a lesbian woman about a diverse nation of emigrants was being sung in languages brought here from foreign lands like, umm, let’s see… “ENGLAND!” they revealed their extreme ignorance of our shared history. But best of all, by registering their disgust on twitter, they showed America and the world just who “they” are.

And while I’m thanking big corporations (something I rarely do) thank you Cheerios for doubling down against your own batch of bigots with a sequel to last year’s ad featuring that adorable biracial family. I don’t even eat cheerios, but I bought a few boxes last year just to support the ad. Well, I guess now I should go to the store again and put my money where my mouth is.

SHOPPING LIST:
Cheerios
Coke
milk
rum


If you missed the anti-Coke tweets, you can click here for a sample.
 

Gun Violence and Finger Pointing

Yesterday’s tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School saddens all of us, and today’s bickering and finger pointing between liberals and conservatives should anger all of us. This should NOT be political. A post that I read on my facebook feed today said that liberals blame guns and conservatives blame criminals for gun violence. Well I guess that sums it up for a lot of folks, but if each side draws a line in the sand separating those two simplistic viewpoints we will never solve the problem. Instead of blaming just the guns, or just the criminals, why don’t we work on keeping the two apart… As far apart as possible.

Lock up criminals, and lock up guns when they’re not under the direct control of their legal owners... and for God's sake let's get a handle on the mental illness problem in this country. Also, we need to change our mindset about guns, especially among young people. A gun is just a tool. There is nothing inherently cool about one, so let’s stop glorifying them in video games and movies. Hey kid! It’s a gun damn it, not a superpower! Treat it with respect.

A Few Words About Sacrifice

While watching Meet the Press today I heard Republican Governor Bob McDonald of Virginia say something very telling and I’m wondering if anyone else heard it. As he was praising the Paul Ryan budget he said (and I double checked the transcript): “It takes big ideas, and-- and things that are going to take some sacrifice for a lot of people in order to get our country back on track.” and I immediately noticed that he said “sacrifice for a lot of people” and not sacrifice for ALL Americans. After the segment ended I stopped and thought, is this the new paradigm for America? Are the days when we all sacrificed really over for good? Are we now and forevermore to be a two class society? Do we now have one class of people who are too rich to sacrifice, too rich to fail, too rich to jail, too rich to fight in the wars that they so eagerly support, too rich to be bothered with the problems of the masses, too rich to be burdened with higher taxes? And do we now have another class of people who are to be called upon forevermore to do the dirty work, to do the fighting and the dying, to take the fall, and make up the shortfall, and pay the higher taxes in order to keep our country on track? Is this the conservative vision of the Natural Order of Things? Is it the result of a generation of trickledown economics? Or is this a wakeup call to the 99% who with only a modicum of self preservation have the power to turn our country back into a nation where we all sacrifice in times of hardship, and where a rising economic tide does indeed raise all ships … including the boats and rafts of the middle class and poor. Yes, if only the 99% would serve themselves instead of their masters, we could have that country back, and we could tell Governor McDonald, and Paul Ryan, and their ilk that “you sirs will share in our sacrifice, and together we will ALL get our country back on track.”

  

Lowlife (a poem)

After catching up on the Sandusky trial and reading in the news today that Steven Powel will be out of jail in just 21 months, I had to write this:

To: Steven Powel
Cc: Jerry Sandusky

I’ve got to think a guy like this
Is the lowest of the low.
From where he sits I can’t imagine
Anything below.

So I asked God “Hey why do you
Let creeps like this keep livin’?
Aren’t there people even you
Would say aren’t worth forgivin’?”

And God told me “The paperwork
Has already been done.
Signed and notarized” he said
“The devil gets this one.”

And so I asked the devil “Hey,
What’s up? Are you reneging?”
And he said “No, this guy’s so low
That I’m still busy digging!”

And so you see now guys like this
Sandusky, Powell and others
Would have been dead long ago
If we’d all had our druthers.

But like I said up there on top
These guys are so damned low
That hell is not beneath them yet.
The devil told me so.