Souls and Struggles: Jesse Ventura Speaks Out-and So Do I!

Souls and Struggles: Jesse Ventura Speaks Out-and So Do I!: Wow! Such controversy over the National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegience and the NFL! Who would have thought a football player

Jesse Ventura Speaks Out-and So Do I!

Wow! Such controversy over the National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegience and the NFL! Who would have thought a football player's knee could attract so much attention without an injury?

Trump tweets, Pence walks out, and I am left shaking my bewildered head! How is not standing for the National Anthem showing "disrespect" to our soldiers and veterans? The reason behind the protest has nothing to do with war, except the one police have been waging on Native Americans and African Americans. The military Oath of Enlistment talks about defending the Constitution and mentions domestic enemies.


In case there are people who do not realize it, the Oath says "I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962). https://www.army.mil/values/oath.html

It does not say "I will stand for the National Anthem". It does not "mandate" patriotism (as Jesse so wisely explains).
If we are more concerned about a NFL player taking a knee for the anthem, than we are about child poverty in America, or homelessness among veterans or the fact that twenty-two veterans every day commit suicide, then we have  misplaced our priorities.
No amount of singing or standing or holding hand over heart is going to negate the fact that indigenous people and people of color have been abused by out of control police and even National Guardsmen. And it certainly will not provide what our veterans desperately need-healing and a new life.
Ask yourself how important is Colin and his knee. Ask, if we respect our veterans, why tens of thousands of them are homeless and twenty-two every day choose to end their misery themselves. Those are the crucial things we need to be concerned about.
The rest is simply rage, gone horribly stupid!

Confronting Cruelty

Have you noticed lately in the U.S. that heartlessness seems to be on the rise?

How did we get here? I am not sure.
Maybe this is not such a new thing but until now, no one proudly announced they were into cruelty. In the last Presidential campaign, however, suddenly it was all right to say "I just want to punch that fucker", because even candidates were saying things such as this!
With Donald Trump's win, it appears that the floodgates of hatred have opened wide and I am sickened by it.
Now, let's be clear: I am under no illusion that Democrats are faultless. Plenty of them have taken money from the insurance industry, Big Pharma, fossil fuel profiteers, defense contractors, and Wall Street crooks. There's nothing new under the sun about that! Most have also voted to extend the National Defense Authorization Act (repeatedly), prolonging wars that have killed or displaced millions of people. The money spent on wars has been at the expense of our own most vulnerable citizens. In spite of that, social programs continue to be on the chopping block, with the defense budget increased!

I am wondering why I did not put this on my "From America With Love" blog. Well, actually I know why I am here, on "Souls and Struggles". It is because I am struggling a lot lately to understand how these politicians and their supporters can be so heartless as to enact legislation that will harm millions of our own people. It has made my very soul feel ill.
Whether it is Mr. Trump pushing for an end to Obamacare, Rand Paul calling for even more cuts than Trump, or the likes of the EPA's Scott Pruitt allowing poisonous chemicals to be sprayed on our food, the agenda appears to be to kill off the poor and infirm, even children already living in poverty. In the wealthiest nation on earth, one out of five children live at or below poverty level and under this President and Congress, that number will only increase if the rest of us do nothing.

But, what to do? How do we confront this level of animosity for the poor, the mentally ill, the elderly, immigrants, and refugees(from countries we have waged war in!)? I wish I knew the Big Answer and could just implement it. But, for those of us with no wealth and no connections to seats of power, the dilemma is how to compete with big campaign donors for a "slice of the pie".
If anyone figures that out, please let me know.

In the meantime, all I can do is what I've been doing for the past six years. I will call my Senators and Representatives to urge them to care for our people, and to let go of evil and cruelty. It is ironic that these politicians point at other countries and cultures, saying they are "evil" or their people are all "terrorists", when these lawmakers are conducting a campaign of cruelty against Americans whom they are supposed to represent!

So, my friends, as frustrated as I feel at times, and as downright depressed as I get, I will not be able to stay silent-and neither should you! Remember the Arab Spring? Remember seeing protesters in Cairo go from a few to over two million? This truly is what needs to happen here-two million people marching in the streets, demanding "the war on the poor" come to an end, not to mention the wars being waged on the poor in other countries!

I think that day is coming and it both thrills and frightens me. But to sit this one out, to allow children and the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless and our returning veterans to be abused by our own government-well, this just cannot stand!
I, for one, in order to be able to live in my own skin, to heal my own soul in any way, must say and do the right thing by calling these politicians out!
If your heart and soul are aching as badly as mine, I hope you will join me. We the People have a right to be heard and taken seriously, before a great amount of harm is done to our fellow citizens and the rest of the world, as well.

World Burning

Depression has crept back into my life. I don't know why I never see it coming. It is always there, to a degree. But the crippling episodes sneak up and lay me flat before I understand what is really happening.
It is not situational depression. I wish it were a matter of changing something at work, or at home, making a few adjustments and then I'm fine. No, that is not what this is, and it baffles everyone around me. 
So, why "World Burning" for a title?
Because it is.
Climate change is upon us and there is no stopping it now. Let Mr. Trump delay action on the Paris agreement. The time for bold action was at least twenty years ago. But we chose to ignore the warnings.

When I realized this to be true, about a year ago, I began to make preparations for disaster. Plan for the worst and hope for the best, right?
It didn't take long for me to realize that I lacked the amount of money, energy and sheer will needed and that in the final analysis, it was going to be for naught anyway.

So, I took the advice of a wise man who told me, "Be here now."
My dilemma is that "here and now" has not been a nice place to be, inside me.

The ability to face the end of civilization is not a natural thing for any of us. Hope is supposed to spring eternal-that's how I heard it.
But maybe hope needs to simply be modified. Perhaps that is what I have been failing to see.
Instead of hoping some miracle will save us, I need to just hope to carry on with dignity. I can hope to be here for my children, as long as possible. I can hope to remain a decent human being, to continue to be kind to those I meet, and to face each day with some measure of courage and grace.

"I see fire, inside the mountains; I see fire, burning the trees."
Yes, the world is burning. But whether or not I am consumed by it has to ultimately be up to me.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fngvQS_PmQ

"Angel"

I



She used to have the feeling of being attractive, even sexy. She could look into the mirror and not see all those lines and dark circles staring back at her. On this day, that seemed like a faraway, distant memory.



When she was very young, Lily was in love with her father, in typical Freudian style. She thought that when she was old enough to get married, he would be there, waiting for her. She had no concept back then that he would age, too. Likewise, she never dreamed he could die. After all, Prince Charming and his princess always rode off into the sunset, happily ever after. Right?



Lily met plenty of slick talking substitutes over the years. Each one told her whatever she wanted to hear. They said she was pretty-some even said "beautiful". They told her what a good person she was. How smart, and how sexy! Afterwards, lying in the dark unable to sleep, she would realize, once again, this was going to go nowhere. In the morning light, she would hate herself with new gusto.



Then, along came Jack. He was genuinely nice and very funny. When she talked, he listened as though he truly cared about her thoughts, her opinions, her life. Jack understood the struggles she had been through. Before too long, it occurred to her that he hadn't left. Here they were, after a few months, and he said he loved her, too. (She had said it first, as usual).



They married on a beautiful day in December. It was an intimate, informal wedding in a small church. Lily had never been happier in her whole life! At last, there really was someone who loved her for who she was.



Many years later, as Jack announced the affair to her, she stood frozen and numb. Their life had been full of up's and down's, but she always knew he loved her and no other woman. Suddenly, it had all come undone. She had not even suspected.



Lily never bounced back from that. Oh, they stayed together, trying to make the best of it. Jack even moved in with his mistress, but when he realized he loved only Lily, he came back-and she held the door open. Kicking herself, she held it for him again and again, while he tried to make up his mind who to choose.



On a chilly spring day, another argument ensued. It was stupid, thought Lily, to fight over some trivial matter. But, here he was screaming at her again! How long was she going to take this sort of thing? She yelled back and then he called her crazy again. Again, again, it was said again! Lily snapped. That was it. He wanted her out of the car and she eagerly obliged. Later, when he said he wanted her out of his life, for once, she didn't argue.



But now, Lily looked at her reflection in the mirror. Wiping steam from the glass, she looked at her face and her body, with a new sadness. The gray hairs, the wrinkles, the tired expression. "Who is ever going to want you now?" Lily whispered to the woman in the mirror. The flat chest that cancer ravaged stared back the hardest. The scars seemed to mock her now.



As evening fell, she sat down to listen to some favorite music, while she thought of a young man she met years before. He called her "angel" then, something no one had ever called her. No one.



Lily wished it could all work out. She mostly wished that Jack did not want her  and that this young, gentle, kind man did. She wished she could shake the feeling she was going to end up very alone, no matter what. She wished she did not feel a desperate need to keep her heart from being broken again. To lose again, to be rejected again, might be too much. It would be especially awful if this sweet young man turned out to be like the rest of them. To stay with the familiar would be easy. Yet, Lily knew that to go back was not the answer. "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got," she reminded herself.



So, on this day, Lily will go to work, and then come home to her kids. She'll finish up the dishes, throw in a load of laundry, take a long warm shower. She will think of a young man who called her angel. But she'll avoid the mirror.