Shame And Terror On Capitol Hill

Yesterday I saw the same things you did. No matter where you were in the world, you know what happened.

At first all I could feel was rage. Then shock mixed in, and finally, shame.

Anxiety? I was screaming. I had to take a damn pill. I hate panic. I hate feeling like the world is about to end.

The first question I screamed at the TV was where the fuck are the police, where’s the tear gas, what about the troops and rubber bullets?

Because peaceful protests last summer mixed with a few looters and some imbecile with a Zippo were met with exactly that.

But white people storming the US Capitol Building after Trump prompted a crowd, stoked a crowd and provoked them were met with Capitol Police. Yeah, and that’s it.

Those assholes took selfies with the fuckers.

By then the crowds had grown, and the building was breached. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. In England it would be like a crowd storming Parliament or the Palace. Think about it. Try that, you’ll be lucky to live long enough to be put in bracelets.

Our elected leaders were forced to hide under chairs and use gas masks. As soon as it could be done, they were evacuated. That’s when people gained entry into the chambers. Donald Trump was begged to say something to stop it. Begged to do something about it. He stoked the fires more, telling the crowd he loved them. Fucking psycho.

Twitter froze his account. For twelve whole hours. Nobody throw freedom of speech at me. All the things I’ve said, believe that I understand. But that freedom doesn’t come without a price and at least some responsibility and Trump used it and held it up and waved to the whole world with it. He promised the crowd he was going with them but, being a pussy, he of course retreated to his chambers and just watched it unfold on TV while he had imaginary orgasms because those are, by now, his favorite kind. Those orgasms come only when he’s misused his power and turned nouns and verbs into weapons. He sits back, thinking he’s a king or dictator and in reality he’s stupid, evil and without a shred of honor. His delusional world has infected ours. Nothing has been off limits to him since he took office. From the nepotism to the swindling of Americans and the kidnapping and caging of Latin American children, nothing has been beyond his conscience. And for four, well five I’d rather say, years, many of us tried to warn our country, our friends and our families that something terrible was coming.

There’s nothing worse than sticking masses of children in cages. The US’s own little concentration camps. Some in tents during a hot summer. Some in warehouses in pens like an animal shelter. And don’t let anyone tell you differently; there were more than what you heard, and more whose parents could not be found, than you know. They were also dispersed in unknown numbers to various parts unknown. Some, of course, must be assumed dead, trafficked or forever missing.

And know this: I never met a Latino or otherwise Hispanic person I wanted to see hurt. They’re beautiful people who take the code of honor in their cultures seriously. You can’t lump them into categories like rapists and thieves like Trump has. Southern and Central America has some of the most beautiful places to visit and some of the most wonderful people you can meet. If some travel is dangerous, think about the United States. I constantly warn people not to visit Baltimore because people die there. 300+ homicides a year in a streak that can’t be broken. Visit Mesoamerica and see the awesome ruins, and the worst thing to worry about are snakes and mosquitoes. And the festivals and dances they put on are eye candy; colors of every shape and hue. What we do? They’re not invited to our shindigs, are they? They stand a big chance of being mugged, raped, murdered or, if they’re really lucky, unceremoniously detained and dropped off at the Mexican border where they’ll be spotted by predators right away. We are so fucked up and racist. And Trump made it all so much more heinous.

And I still burn over that. But with that, we had the chance to realize that Trump was capable of anything.

Some of us saw that. People from Latin America to Germany knew it. Russia knew it. Not Putin. The People. They watched as the United States began to break under the weight of an evil man and his goons. I prefer to believe they had no idea how terribly close we were to worldwide disaster.

Around the world, pundits, politicians and comedians alike gave their attention to the news and Trump’s latest fuckups for four years.

We all laughed at the SNL skits, Colbert’s whacked impression and internet cartoons and memes.

Except we ain’t laughing now. The first thing Trump did when COVID-19 hit us was to set the stage for human tragedy on a scale we could not see at the time. But the simplest minded among us knew that he had condemned people to die.

We warned people that worse was coming. We heard the rumble, saw the comments on twitter and Facebook. We knew if would be bad.

And then came the campaign and the election. What followed led directly to yesterday’s fucked up scene.

The truth is that when we were predicting bad things, people didn’t need us to say anything; they already knew. They always knew. And they did nothing to stop it. Impeached, and the Senate refused to convict him. That essentially handed the man a blank cheque to go forth and use to, without conscience, steal campaign funds, lie about even more outlandish shit and have superspreader events that killed without regard to a person’s political affiliation.

The ultimate psychotic episode came yesterday. While instigating the crowd he said something that didn’t make sense. That’s not new; it’s just that for the first time some people saw it as a sign that the man’s a fucking nut.

Five people died. One was an Air Force veteran. All vets should know better. A soldier’s oath is not unlike that of the president. “Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” When one of them becomes a domestic enemy, it is too shameful for me to control my outrage.

They desecrated hallowed ground. They looked right at the cameras. They had no fear, no shame. And that’s what is so scary.

Trump has been trying to destroy our democracy since way before he was elected. He was a red flag that walked and talked and that red flag was ignored.

After tear gas was released in the Rotunda and the crowd chased out by National Guard troops from Maryland and Virginia, there were remnants outside even after a 6 pm curfew. Defiant criminals, domestic terrorists.

It was Vice President Pence who activated the Guard. Trump refused, proving he wanted this to happen. Proving he is an enemy to the United States and a terrorist nut job unfit for the performance of his duties.

There’s talk of another impeachment if Pence doesn’t remove Trump from office.

Pence wants to. He screamed at Trump recently: “I have a duty to the People and the Constitution and I’m sick of your shit!” is an approximation of one retort.

After the smoke had cleared, Pence, Pelosi and McConnell insisted that the ratification would be done. The houses of Congress went back in. Although the day had been harrowing, there were Republicans who still insisted on voting against Biden, even though it didn’t mean jack shit and Biden will be president on the 20th of this month.

I’m not sharing links tonight. I want you to look at the footage. Then look at the senators and congressional representatives who voted to overturn the election. I want you to remember them. I want you to insist that they be held accountable because they were a willing part of what happened earlier and those votes they cast prove it. Not one name on that list surprised me. McConnell had warned his Senate Republicans not to oppose the peaceful transition. He gave a nice little speech before the night session began. He later said that those who had voted for the petition would regret it. I like that. I liked Mitt Romney’s comments. I fell asleep before it was over.

What I see is a cancer. It’s grown. It will not kill. It will be put into remission but to get there we have work to do. Those who work for We The People have to stop ignoring trouble, especially when the signs are as big as they have been with Trump. They must rededicate themselves to the democratic process and never again betray it. Because men like McConnell and Graham helped this happen. Four years. They saw what he did to crowds. Heard his lies. Saw his progressive march toward madness. Knew he had done treasonous things and yet they did nothing.

So yeah, track down the dogs that invaded the Capitol yesterday. Prosecute them. But don’t give me any crap that it was impossible to see coming.

Because that’s the biggest lie of all.

Fathers And Sons

Yesterday, the brilliant writer and reporter Christopher Dickey died in Paris. It put my memory in a pleasant place despite the world losing an intrepid reporter and eloquent writer who mentored younger journalists.

The loss of good people always hurts, and since the coronavirus hit the United States, we’ve lost too many people, and we’re going to lose a lot more. I don’t want to come across as insensitive to this. I find more heartbreak in this period of history than in any other I’ve lived through. It is far more heartbreaking than my childhood. More painful but, I guess, in a different way. I’m aware that this world isn’t centered on me; that I am not going to be remembered when I’m gone, and nobody will likely even know that I’m gone. But the people who have suffered and died during Donald Trump’s presidency, they are missed. As Mary L. Trump said in her interview with Rachel Maddow, one of the most horrifying things that the president has done, putting children in cages and kidnapping and allowing them to be tortured, motivated her to write her book, “Too Much, Not Enough”.

COVID-19 is killing people in absolutely sickening numbers, and Trump may deny responsibility, but it’s all on him. Mary L. Trump is a hero. I hope people will read her book and sober up. She gives us a portrait of a disgusting man who is both dangerous and who should never be underestimated.

*****

Death may not be the true end for people of certain cultures and religions, but that has never made the surviving families and friends feel any less broken of heart. Not if the dead were truly loved.

*****

When Christopher Dickey died, he didn’t leave behind a father. He left behind a wife, two siblings, a son and grandchildren. Working for Daily Beast , he was active up to his final minutes.

He worked for the Washington Post, then Newsweek until it merged with Daily Beast. He was 68 when he died, having lived a productive and memorable life.

But it doesn’t seem that he liked his father that much. Author James Dickey of Deliverance fame — he wrote the novel and appeared as the sheriff in the hit movie — was a notable poet. But he had a dark side, as all of us do, and he acted on that dark side often. He seems to have been dysfunctional as a father and husband, he kept a mistress, and he drank. He was evidently pretty hard on Chris. And Chris blamed his father for the death of his mother; she was neglected and began to drink.

Christopher did seek a reconciliation as his father was near death. He wrote a book called “Summer of Deliverance” in which he recalled spending time with his father on the film locations.

That is also on my reading list along with Mary L. Trump’s book and John Bolton’s book.

My only experience with James Dickey was pleasant. After watching Deliverance in 1984, I was talking about the film with a colleague. We couldn’t agree on one thing that the film deliberately confused the audience with. After the rape scene, Burt Reynolds as Lewis shoots the first mountain man with an arrow. The second mountain man, listed by IMDb as “toothless man” flees, with Drew (Ronny Cox) chasing him for a few yards.

After arguing about whether to report the incident, a consensus is reached to bury the “cracker” (another name for a mountain man). This is sound, they think, because the river they are canoeing on will be flooded by a dam. Any ground on the banks will be covered by a deep lake and the body will never be found. But afterward, back in the canoes, the four of them encounter Rapids leading into a gorge. Drew is told by Ed (Jon Voight) to put his lifejacket on, but Drew doesn’t, and pitches forward out of the front of his canoe. Both canoes collide and all four are swept into the rapids. A deep pool sits under sheer rock face, and there Ed discovers that Lewis has been seriously injured. He and Bobby (Ned Beatty) drag him to a rock shelf and recover the aluminum canoe; the other one broke up. Despite his pain, Lewis tells Ed that Drew was shot. Armed with bow and arrows, Ed climbs the rock face after dark. He knows the second mountain man is up there, waiting for them to move out from the rocks into the river.

In the morning, Ed shoots the second mountain man and is scared to find that this guy isn’t missing his two top front teeth. On closer inspection, he finds that the teeth are a partial, and when he gets the body down to the others, asks Bobby to identify the guy. But Bobby isn’t sure. He’s traumatized by being raped by the cracker that Lewis shot.

At no time is it ever said for certain whether Ed shoots the right guy or not. My colleague debated. It turned into an argument: did Ed shoot the right guy? Probably so, because he’s up top with a rifle, looking down at the river when Ed catches up to him. I wondered how I could find out. I decided to get a library card and read the book.

The book was excellent. The film is listed under the “Horror” genre, and since I’ve been through the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia and Florida, I was able to picture in my mind things that weren’t exactly in the film. I find the southern east coast to be thoroughly chilling, haunted, dangerous even on the interstate (don’t run out of gas), and despite natural beauty, fodder for nightmares. God willing, I’ll never have to go back.

The book was no help, however, in solving the mystery of the man on the rocky top of the gorge. I told my colleague about it. We argued the same thing over again. Finally I looked at the jacket, saw where James Dickey lived, called information for his number, and got it.

I dialed him up and his second wife answered. “Are you a reporter?” she asked.

“No ma’am just a fan with a question, ” I said. James Dickey answered the phone. I told him about our argument and he explained that whether Ed killed the right man or not didn’t matter; that part of the story was about survival. “They did what they had to do to survive”, he said simply. And added, to my everlasting frustration, that he himself didn’t know the answer, had never even considered it. He said he had a new book coming soon, asked if I would read it, I promised I would, and we said goodbye. I found his willingness to chat with me, his southern accent and his eagerness to discuss the subject very endearing. I’ll never forget it.

That was when I knew very little about him. That he was an alcoholic and at least verbally abusive makes me very sad. Our short phone conversation was in the summer of 1984. Dickey passed away in 1998. Now, father and son are together again. I hope they know peace and happiness in God’s care.

*****

Sadly, some fathers create monsters. Donald Trump’s father, according to Mary L. Trump, was a real shitball and so hard on his kids that one son went on to drink himself to death. Donald learned how to be vicious, vindictive and a liar, along with a racist and a cheater who could never excel at anything. If he didn’t steal it, he could not posses it. If he didn’t pay contractors, he at least gave them insults concerning their work. He cheated his own siblings out of their share of their father’s estate, and he cut funding for the medical bills for an autistic boy, a nephew, I believe. That’s your president. That’s the man who got evil people to put children in cages, deny them bathroom facilities and hygiene essentials, put them through tortures in the heat in tents, being bitten by insects and made sick by the heat. I never bought the stories that attempted to debunk the claims of torture like sleep deprivation and sexual abuse, starvation and lack of basic healthcare. We heard the story of a child who was left with a fever who later died. We wondered, if there was any humanity in us, how many more died in the ICE concentration camps.

We should have been outraged. Should have been. There were protests. At first. Before he died, Elijah Cummings was outraged and questioned some meatball about stories coming out that the mylar blankets the kids were given were covered in solid waste. I don’t remember any follow-up to that inquiry. A month ago the kids were ordered released because of COVID-19. But their parents are South of the border. Where will you release these kids? Across the border, where they’ll be trafficked by cartels? The land of justice…the land of the free and the home of the brave, the country that used to hate it when human rights abuses happened in other countries, has become a land of vermin and a cesspool of the worst humanity has to offer.

Mary L. Trump gives insight, as a clinical psychologist, into the lack of character, morals, ethics and decency her uncle is made up of. When he came forth from the womb, his fate was sealed already. He was a slime even as a child, bullying schoolmates. He hated people of color; refused to rent shitty apartments to them, even faced a court proceeding for it. That only made him more hateful.

I won’t say much more about Trump. Weve looked at two dysfunctional fathers and seen one son whom we now mourn, whose truthful reporting and intrepidity will be missed.

The other son went on to dismantle a government and kill so many people that his soul will surely be reunited with his father in a dark and tortuous place.

Cry For The Children

One year ago I posted this on Facebook. It’s raw, unedited for language, but it came straight from my heart and the Good Lord understands. He knows how we suffer. He knows how we will react. My apologies to Him for my lack of faith.

Here’s the post:

I’m up late because I can’t sleep. Again… I have no one to talk to, so I’m just gonna ramble if that’s ok with you.

I’m always haunted. Night time is when all the worst things happened when I was growing up. They would come to my room after the other kids were asleep. Sometimes at one in the morning if a brother or sister was sick. But after they were tucked in with Vick’s in the vaporizer and the NyQuil was kicking in, they would come. They replaced my doorknob with one that had no lock. And it didn’t matter if I was asleep or awake, dreading what was about to happen, feigning sleep. It didn’t matter if I felt or claimed to feel sick…it was gonna happen. Mom would take a bath first…I heard the tub filling, and I knew.

You think it’s fucked up, me writing like this. I don’t blame you. So read no further. I’ll never know, and if I did, I’d merely say you have to take care of and protect yourself.

Since I was very young… Iike 6, probably younger, the dark has terrified me. I don’t want to sleep. I fight it. All day long I dread it. But I can sleep better during the day, have fewer memorable nightmares, and if I get enough sleep, I’ll feel pretty good.
But I’m not the only one haunted in the dark. And I’m not the only traumatized person who’s lived to almost 60 while being dysfunctional, mentally ill and broken. There are millions like me, many in far worse shape. I beg you, if you’ve read this far, to think of them. If you pray, pray not for me, but them. If you have the strength to send positive vibes, don’t waste them on me. Use them for the ones who can still do something with their lives…. And of course, cry for them.

Having gotten that out of the way, let me get to the reason I’m up right now.
Don’t ask me this fucker’s name, but you’ll know who I mean. It’s that monster who broke up his marriage, his wife threatened to take his kids away and so, naturally, he killed her. Then he strangled his younger daughter in front of the four-year-old, who asked him, “Is that what’s going to happen to me?”

Those words have burned a hole in my heart. I’m hurting and I’m sick in my soul. I can a almost hear her. Soft, innocent voice full of shock and fear. How can anyone harm such a wonderful creation, such an innocent soul, who asked that question because she did not know how else to plead for her Iife and couldn’t understand what was happening or why?

But we ask, and there are never any answers. Never. Criminal profilers and psych graduates know nothing. The offenders get interviewed and say nothing even though they use words. Then there’s doctor-patient confidentiality, often abused because in a capital case the doctors have to testify often, but are stuck by the legal rights of the accused. If something the accused said to the shrink isn’t case related, it’s inadmissible. You know how many hard core animals walk free or get leniency because a dead child matters less to the judicial system than the rights of their murderers?

About ten years ago, a 16-year-old in my town was raped. The rapist was given what amounts to walking papers. Go ahead, look around. Check state case histories. Don’t settle for Google links to blogs or some statistics aggregate bullshit. Look deeper.

Those little girls. They haunt me tonight. They probably always will.
Michael Jackson probably was the beast people claimed he was a long time ago. And the rapper who went nuts during an interview with Gayle King? That ain’t no innocent man. If he was, he’d never have acted that way. The innocent do not behave thus.
And in all of this, I am forced to wonder: where was God while those girls were being murdered? Why did he look the other way? I don’t get it. I’ve seen miracles with my own eyes. Why couldn’t they have one?

Why are there thousands of Hispanic children at large in our country, and how did that happen without the American people rioting in every city in our country? And why are they being trafficked right in front of us? Why have some of them reported being sexually assaulted, and nobody’s investigating (claims of every case being investigated is bullshit), and why aren’t victims getting help?

And why is Betsy Devos involved? Why are these children being called “orphans”, and why are some being fed into facilities she’s associated with?
These kids ain’t like I was. They’ve had everything taken from them, every shred of innocence, privacy, dignity. They will never fear the night as I do.
No.
They will fear day and night both. They’ll fear everyone they meet.
And they’ll haunt me as the little girls who are dead haunt me. As the boy I used to be haunts me.

Betsy Devos claims the title of “Christian”. She’s nothing of the sort. Wealthy people violate the most basic criteria. Jesus said “A man cannot serve two masters: God and money.”

Google the net worth of televangelists, and you’ll get your eyes opened really fast. We’re talking millionaires, and every one of them as materialistic as the most jaded rapper, actor or rich politicians and doctors. They don’t just have a Porsche and Mercedes Benz, and matching second cars like Ferraris.

Televangelists, a few years back, went through some weird phase when they couldn’t live without their own private jets. One motherfucker said, from his pulpit, that he paid cash for one. Then he bought another one. With cash. He told his church members to their faces they’d been bilked and played. They cheered the bloody bastard.

Joel Osteen seems cheerful; always smiling and positive. But this piece of shit lives in a ten bedroom mansion with just his wife and kids. Does he offer shelter to the homeless? Fuck no, you kidding me? During a hurricane he lied and said his church was flooded. Refugees not welcome here in God’s house. When cameras recorded the lie, Osteen changed his lie to cover his first falsehood (some believe he had a member overrun the mop sink to add effect).

A female televangelist once ordered granite or marble tops for her toilet tanks. When the story got out, she turned positively outraged. They all live by the credo, “I earned every goddamn penny. It’s nobody’s business how I spend it.”

These people and more back Trump and even his actions with immigrants and especially their children. There is no greater dishonor, no graver sin, no crime as horrific, as harming children.

When Allied troops finally entered the slave and death camps of the Nazis near the end of World War Two, the world was sickened by the newspaper articles alone, never mind the filmed footage. By then, not many children were left in the camps. Most were murdered, lying in pits covered in lime and earth.

We used to have a double standard about children. Labor, forced and deadly, was fine. Then we passed child labor laws. Now, today, we don’t seem to give a damn.

We’re numb. Dead inside. We cluck in mock sympathy and fuck with words. They mean nothing.

Say what you want about politics. Climate change. Whatever. But unless and until we get back to caring for and protecting all children, we’re doomed.

And tonight, I’m haunted. I will fight sleep. Because I can’t face the nightmares sure to take me.