I'm tired and I need to rally. There's a show tonight that I bought tickets for weeks ago, that I no longer wish to attend. The thought of standing all night, inside a packed venue, surrounded by people drinking and smoking pot sounds pretty unenjoyable. Especially with this pimple on my neck. It's so big that people will be able to see it in the dark. Foolishly, I tried popping it. The head of it ruptured and shot off like a lit rocket, but the pustule remained largely intact under my skin. I continued to poke and prod and squeeze it but succeeded only in enlarging it. I'll tell people I had a pea surgically implanted into my neck. Then I'll tell them about the other one - my pee pea. This is where my mind is right now. I think I'll just paste the political post I'd written earlier to salvage any lingering shred of integrity:
Earlier I read news that Iran, in response to Trump’s latest executive order, has banned United States citizens from entering their country. Retaliatory xenophobia, or spiteful sanctions. You decide. Everything seems to be coming off the rails, faster and faster every day. The frenetic speed at which Trump is damaging this country (and the world) is astonishing and unprecedented. It’s been a week and he’s already gagged numerous federal agencies, defunded abortions on a global scale, gutted the State Department, forced sanctuary cities across the country to illegally jail and detain suspected illegals, threatened to dissolve trade agreements, revived a controversial and environmentally-unfriendly pipeline construction across native American land, set into motion law that bans individuals from many Islamic nations from entering the United States, started the repeal of universal healthcare, and promised to waste up to 20billion in taxpayer dollars by building a wall across the Mexican border. From the New York Times:
“No president in modern times, if ever, has started with such a flurry of initiatives on so many fronts in such short order.”
This is all truly frightening. In my lifetime I haven’t seen anything like it. The government seems to be imploding from within while we are helpless to watch. The president has issued several potential violations of the constitution via executive order. Is that an exaggeration? Maybe. Maybe. If they aren’t “technical” violations, they are the precursors to more egregious transgressions. What’s worse is that Congress has done nothing to stop him. And with a Republican majority, they won’t. Perhaps even more concerning is that government personnel and agents are carrying out his possibly unlawful and unconstitutional orders seemingly without hesitation. They aren’t stopping to question things. This should evoke chilling memories of World War II Germany. How must we look to the world right now? We appear to be embracing Islamophobia, misogyny, fear and hatred as new national values. Refugees are being prevented entry on the dubious grounds that they may be terrorists. This is modern McCarthyism, but on a massive scale.
One has to wonder what the Trump administration’s agenda is…because they haven’t actually told us. In fact, they’ve been openly hostile to the press when pressed for questions. Kellyanne Conway has repeatedly proven herself incapable of directly answering questions posed to her, and Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary, has provided the American public with laughably dismissible “alt-facts” (or as I like to call them, lies). So, we are left only to evaluate their actions, which have been troubling at best, dictatorial at worst. What might the intentions be of a group seemingly disinterested in honesty or transparency, of a group that appears avaricious, unscrupulous and, above all else, deceptive?
We are in the midsts of a snowballing crisis, one with lasting and seriously deleterious consequences and aftereffects. A ban on Muslims does not make us safer. It does not stop or curtail terrorism. Instead it stokes the flames of one of the world’s greatest threats to safety and freedom. America has just made the planet a more dangerous place. We need to ask ourselves, “what type of administration targets the targeted?” Governmental agencies have been forced into compliance under duress. Organizations and scientists have been told to keep their mouths shut, while Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s counselors, has delivered the same message to the press. Everyone should be outraged and deeply aggrieved by this — threats against the press are threats against free speech.
We need to step up. We are moving away from standing for what’s right and, instead, just standing by, watching as injustice becomes routine. If we don’t act like basic human rights are worth protecting, that they’re worth fighting for, then we don’t deserve to have them.
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