Political Rant #2: The Lies we tell...

Welcome to another of my rants on society as we have it today. It has reached the end of another presidency and we have a newer if not less wonderful individual in the place of our previous good guy. I didn’t love the past president and I even opposed him on several points such as the TPP and on the way he implemented the Affordable care act but I didn’t go nearly as far as the stuff I am going into today. Some people out there have an agenda (such as hate the current president and his party) and to do so they work hard to fool people with any tool they can muster. This is easier than you think and has worked to turn a multitude of people. These are the conspiracy theorists, some of them are fun such as the fake moon landing or things referencing aliens but these below were abysmal. People like Alex Jones and the Newsmax organization make it a point to spread as many of these lies as possible to forward their agendas. Does Alex Jones know he isn’t telling the truth? Of course he does, but his followers don’t know this and for that reason I am going over blatant lies that have been debunked from various conspiracists over the past administration. Please keep in note I am only going to cover a few to make my point but know that there will be many more in the future so I am hoping you look at this and realize these things are not to be trusted or at least taken with a healthy bit of skepticism.

 

Yup remember that time he took all the guns? No? You've just seen another blatant lie.

1. President Obama is taking our Guns:

This is something I have seen pushed again and again. The president is coming for your guns! They will talk about gun registries or potential bills worked out with other countries to have foreign armies come to the country and disarm the populous. If Americans love anything it is their guns and when they hear the words “gun control” they move immediately to confiscation. Conspiracy theorists tend to have stoked these fears and have done terrible damage in doing simple things like closing the gun show loophole or expanding background checks. Many have managed to get laws passed saying that their state will fight anyone who attempts to take their guns away. Please note we had 8 years of President Obama and 2 years of a democratically controlled congress. Don’t you think if his main intent was to take guns he would have done it by now? Well the president isn’t here anymore and you still have your guns silly peoples.

 

2. President Obama is going to make this a Muslim only Country;

This goes right along with the Attack on Christianity argument. Many of these theorists portray President Obama as a Gay Muslim Extremist Communist (this alone should tell you what they are full of) who plans on eliminating the bible as the basis of all things American (also a bit of a stretch) and replace it with the Koran which encourages people to abuse women and kill children as written out plainly in their book (blatant lie but they aren’t reading the Koran). Really this argument is for those “special” people that will believe most anything as even Alex Jones won’t touch this one. Many believed that President Obama would strike down Christianity and make this the new den for ISIS. Many will even tell you he personally planned 9/11 following up with “well what did he do when the planes his then?” (another stupid question from stupid people). Now in case you are saying “we’re right he is making this nation a Muslim nation” then go home as he is no longer president.

 

3. FEMA Camps and Martial Law:

These two go together these days and were made awfully popular after Bush the Second and Katrina. Every time I would read something it was about how they have to be careful because they would be disappeared off to a FEMA camp where they keep the real truth tellers. Things like operation Jade Helm got the attention of the Governor of Texas who was sure this was the beginning of President Obama taking full control of the country and his time to install his 1984 agenda. This is silly and I mean just silly. If these people really knew soooo much and the government was soooo ready to lock up anyone that opposed their view point then why are they still talking? Also we don’t need these supposed FEMA camps if we want to disappear anyone we have two tools already at our disposal thanks to the “War on Terror” they are called the “Patriot Act” and Guantanamo Bay, both of which are usually highly supported by these same individuals. So as we haven’t been placed under National Martial law I guess this one is also untrue.

 

4. The Race War:

This was another one for those “special” Obama haters. The theorists always seem to have some sort of Pentagon contact (he lives in their closet and comes out at nights when the moon is full) this contact gives information that the President is about to unleash the power of those pesky “Blacks” on the country. He plans on killing all the whites and then taking the rest as slaves in reparation. According to the Census of 2010 African Americans make up about 12% of the Population and whites make up about 63%. Now I am not a math guy but what kind of drugs or liquor most one be taking to believe this swill. I mean these would have to be Captain America style people to take down a population that outnumbers them many times over. On top of that many of the stories in the news talk about the opposite happening with many African Americans being in jail on false charges. I will bet you that someone here was thinking about this theory when they did that crap.

 

5. He will Never Leave:

Why is it that every president seems to get saddled with this. I remember this talk when Bush was in office. “He started the Iraq war on purpose so he can argue that he has to stay in charge till it’s over”. Then of course the sides switched and suddenly everything is fine and those fine with the other guy are suddenly convinced that that “Evil Black Man” will never leave office and that he will employ all of the above to hold on to power. The presidency is a nasty thing. Everyone projects their success and loss on you, you are hounded by the media and researched relentlessly by your opposition so you are under tremendous pressure. This is not President for Life status where you have supreme power. Take a look at photos of presidents at the beginning and end of their terms to confirm that this is not exactly a dream job. Of course even now they are talking about Donald Trump doing the same “He’ll get a taste for the power and then never leave”. This is crap, if he loses in 2020 he will be out of office and if he makes it to 2024 he will leave then I can pretty much guarantee it.

 

I bring this up because many people believe these lies and yet all of them are false. Will you see Alex Jones doing a special called “how I was wrong about the Obama Administration” of course you won’t and his followers will quickly forget these lies and move on to the current crop. We will hear a great number of this sort of thing about the current administration and you will see some of it here but unlike others I will label it as what it is, Opinion, Speculation or shoot I even have a comedy section called misinformation to make fun of these types of things.  In the end though I want you to look at this article today and then again when we change presidents for the next time. Be careful what you read and understand the difference between the truth and speculation.

The Political Rant #1 The Republican Caste System

Disclaimer: This is opinion and only opinion, though I have facts to back this up this is a Blog with left leanings. If you are a “Conservative” then I would suggest that you be warned before venturing further as you will not likely agree with a single shred of this information. If you insist on reading further then you have been warned.

Well this is the first of many Political Blogs I will again start regaling this site with in preparation for the next election cycle of 2017. I wanted to start off with a rather in depth bit of reasoning on the conservative experience. Conservatism has a lot of lofty promises and to be fair a lot of them appeal such as having personal responsibility and the ideas of hard work. In the end the promise Conservatives make to the “common” people is that they are millionaires due to hard work and opportunity and that they will make sure that you will not only have that opportunity to be wealthy but that those blocks in your way (regulation) will be removed to make it easier to use hard work to make it to wealth.

It is my belief that the Conservative leaders have a different goal in mind. In this blog I will put out an argument for how the Conservative movement is not about allowing the common people to gain wealth but to establish a Caste system where you are either born into wealth and stay wealthy or you are not and have to serve the ruling class. I know this may seem far-fetched but I ask you to try and stay with me on this until the end as I make my argument utilizing all the conservative plans put forth since President Reagan to accomplish this goal.

1. Creating a Belief System: In the end there is an underlying thought that you are doing financially only as well as you really desire to be. This belief that if you are not wealthy then it is your fault for being so is the key to allowing for society to hold to that illusion as a religion and therefore be able to take the abuses seen below without rebelling. If you have any issue with your lot in life then you merely need to blame yourself, weather you actually have any chance of success has nothing to do with this. 

2. Eliminate the Right to Assemble: The next goal is the elimination of all unions. The Conservative argument against a union is that they do not celebrate individuality and in turn drag along people unwilling to do the work while dragging down those that work hard and are deserving of true reward. Let’s get to the real purpose behind getting rid of the union which is to push wages and benefits down to a level that maximizes the profits of the factory owners and reduces the working class to the level of forced slave labor. Let’s look at pre-union America and the Coal mining and railroad communities where the workers were pretty much captives to their employers kept in virtual slavery. Without Unions the employer has total control over your wages and benefits and if you don’t like it you can simply fire the employee and replace the employee with another in the long list of people eager to work. 

3. Ending the Minimum Wage: One of the things that is pushed and pushed by the Conservative media is that our workers are too lazy and expect too much. They say that the current minimum wage is costing employers soo much that they have to resort to employing technology in order to reduce the work force. Even reality Star Mike Rowe had said that most people should be happy with $2.75 an hour like he had gotten paid as a child. Without a minimum wage then the employer again gains full advantage over their employee and though this alone will not work it can with the rest of these items together.

4. Ending Regulation: The next is in regulation which republicans are very much against. They say regulations such as providing employee benefits. Giving necessary safety standards and weekly hours worked in the work place are terrible strains that send our jobs overseas. Other standards such as not allowing for businesses to set prices and uniform wages make it impossible to navigate the free marketplace. With these abilities removed it doesn’t matter if the employee wages and conditions are abysmal, sure you can leave but you will have a red mark placed on you so that you can never gain employment again or if you do find employment then the conditions and pay are the same no matter where you go.

5. The elimination of public education: Right now the argument is that the current public schools are terrible and that with a paid voucher you can place your child in a good private school or Charter school for a better education or you can have the freedom to teach your child at home so that liberal values will not corrupt them. Many of these programs are meant to further and further bankrupt the public schools so that eventually only Private schools remain. It is easy to conceive of getting rid of private schools when you look at the current options and see how much better they are. After this point it merely moves to ending rules of required education and saying that some children simply are not pulling financial weight and should not be subsidized by government when they need to pay their own way. Newt himself had been encouraging poor children to go to work in order to pay for some of their education benefits such as school lunches. The price of schooling will eventually fall to the point where only the wealthy will be able to send their children to school and with strangling regulations barring child labor lifted children will be better able to help feed their families through factory work. When you are making a max of $1-2 per hour and need to eat will you really be able to afford a $40,000 per year tuition for basic education. This will make it so that the job prospects become much more limited, information is able to be controlled and only the wealthy (the deserving) are able to hold jobs with any relevant skill or ability.

6. Elimination of Public Services: Finally the last bit is the elimination of public services such as Libraries, Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Public Parks and any other thing owned by the government. People have nowhere to go, no ability to eat or take care of themselves other than trying to work for these by doing the slave labor that is left to be offered. I mean why would you need these services unless you are a lazy person right?

Of course if we have all of this what about the 2^nd Amendment? I mean the republican party has fought for your right to stand up to such oppression right? Well let’s think about the costs of a gun, I don’t just mean buying a gun I mean maintaining one or keeping it armed. Even if you already have it you’ll have to start selling it and your ammo off just to maintain your way of life under the newer conditions eventually anyone will be able to buy a gun but only the wealthy will be able to own one.

So in the end you have a populous of endless slave labor workers holding still to the religious belief that if they work hard enough then Jesus will grant them the right to be millionaires themselves, at least in the afterlife.

This is my case for why the Conservatism will eventually lead us to a Caste system. Where birth determines your station in life and the American dream has been thrown in the trash can. I do not ever trust such methods but we will see it come to fruition one day I am sure. 

Activism #1: Repeal or Replace? Saving Obamacare

Ok lets get down roll up our sleeves and get to work. We've had a long vacation taken a few good breaths but now the devil is staring us in the eyes and we need to get to work again. So to start lets talk about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) AKA Obamacare. I feel that this is a post that is just as important to republicans as it is to democrats as many not only benefit from this system but many need to know what will happen if a repeal is done without a replacement.

Lets first start with the origins of the law. Health care costs really started to go up during the Reagan Administration putting it into law that if you show up to an ER with significant health issues you would gain treatment. The actual ACA was born during the time of the Clinton administration when universal healthcare was thought to be inevitable. Hillary had her own version of health care (no it was not the ACA) that was more similar to a public option Bernie Sanders Style system. The republicans lead by Newt also decided to come up with their plan with the help of the Heritage Foundation. this plan would be rooted in Republican ethics such as hard work and personal responsibility. The idea was by making everyone participate you would have a large pool and then subsequently drive the costs down. This would also gain interest from the health insurance agencies as it would guarantee them lots of money and would further give ability to recoup the money lost through the ERs. When the public was seen to not be on board with universal healthcare yet, all parties dropped it and moved on to other issues. During the course of time enter Governor Romney of Massachusetts. He had a lot of issues on his hands and in the ACA found a way to address that need in a good conservative way. This plan was widely looked at as a success in the state and Romney himself managed to get a lot of positive accolades from the state for his work in this area (later to come back and haunt him). We finally get to the Obama Administration where universal healthcare is the center point of his work in the first year of his presidency behind his work on the economy. The original plan of Single Payer and creating a Government option appeared to be impossible. The Democrats were in power and they all decided to throw their weight around and the problem ended up being that they really didn't have anything they could agree on. During this time not only did the President have a rather difficult and rebellious group of people under him he also had a united Republican front dedicated to oppose any law or decision he would make (sounds familiar doesn't it?). The President at this time had made the pledge to be a uniter and he meant it at the time, the plan was to come up with universal healthcare that would not only be agreed on by all the Democrates in the House and Senate but also agreeable to most Republicans so it would be a solid deal immune to repeal no matter who is in the White House. After much arguing the ACA was dug up and altered a little bit to make it workable for the country at large and after he managed to reach Democratic consensus (finding that the republicans planned to vote no on anything put forward) Obamacare was born.

Sabotaging the System:
The first thing that Republicans did after the system was passed was what the Democrates will likely need to do when it comes to Republican planning and that is fighting it tooth and nail. They lost a major fight when the Supreme Court upheld the law but also managed to gain a major foothold in two areas. The first is that the states had been previously required to set up their own exchanges with federal dollars and the second was that the states had been required to expand Medicaid.
State Exchanges: Healthcare.gov shouldn't have been an issue in the first place as it was never intended to be the final solution. The law was supposed to function widely on the state level (remember it was originally a republican plan "states rights" was central in this). By getting rid of a state exchange the state lost a lot of leverage and health coverage possibilities went down. This is one of the reasons why choice is much higher on states that have set up their own exchanges as opposed to those that have not. Kentucky for instance has a far greater number of providers than Virginia.
Medicaid Expansion: Medicaid expansion was central to the law as it is based on healthcare subsidies. These subsidies get bigger and bigger as you have less income until it gets to a low point (poverty level) where it stops. This wasn't President Obama saying "screw those poor people" it was meant to be the point of drop off as these people were supposed to go on Medicaid and would therefore not need any subsidies. The good thing is that these people were immune from the penalty for being uninsured. By saying that States didn't have to Expand Medicaid many republican states created what was called the Medicaid GAP. This was a group of uninsured people that would normally have qualified for Medicaid under the law but due to not accepting the law have to remain uninsured and still continue to utilize the ER as their PCP.
Results: The fight against the ACA has worked to a greater extent. States that are Republican controlled have managed to work hard driving up costs, reducing the number of options and leaving a great number of people uninsured. In those states the ACA is deemed a failure and "broken" but when you compare it to states that have worked with the law such as California or Kentucky (I use this as it is a republican state) the ACA is largely effective and does most of what it says. The ACA is indeed broken in many states but it was the Republican Party at large that did the breaking.

ACA Shortfalls:
I don't plan on dwelling a lot on this but I feel it is important to talk about weaknesses in the system at large. The ACA is not as terrible a bill as people like Rush may have you believe but it is still not without a great deal of Shortfalls and here I will outline a few.
HealthCare.Gov: This is one that was overblown for a number of reasons. I mean one of the major talking points is that "Private industry is perfect and the government is terrible see here is an example" and considering the number of crashes for sites funded by large private corporations this is not a valid one, I do have a few things to say about this botched rollout. I feel that the President at the time was greatly unprepared on many levels for the level of resistance he was going to face in the wake of this law. It was thought that this website would only be temporary and many states would quickly have exchanges in place so that traffic would be minimal at best. Unfortunately many states opted out of this and the floods rolled in. The website wasn't able to handle the traffic and then subsequently crashed. This problem was fixed quickly but the damage had been done as it was a major blow to the systems rep. This was also a very confusing site and though you had Navigators to help you through the process (I had to Navigate Medicare Part D making this rather easy for me) many people were easily confused about the process even when it worked.
Penalties: I feel that the penalties, though a good idea if the law was functioning at peak capacity ended up a curse. With rising rates and dwindling options in Red States many had to look at the options and found that the penalties sometimes ended up being less than what they may have to pay in premiums or that the couldn't afford the premiums or the tax penalties. This did the opposite of what the law promised making Healthcare pretty much unaffordable.
Keeping your Doctor: In a way this was a half-truth when the president presented this. The theory was a good one: You would gain private insurance that was as good or better than what you had before and your primary care doctor would benefit from this. Many Primary Care Physicians(PCP) saw the more complicated insurance structures and decreased rates of compensation coming and many decided that either this would be a good time to retire or that this was a great time to go to Self-Pay only. So in some cases you could keep your doctor and in some they would jump ship. This had a very negative result and was a promise that should have been reworded.
Rising Costs: One of the major issues with this law was the deal the president made with companies that he would forgo Caps on Rising costs as well as Negotiations for medications process and they would then give money that would be used towards the subsidies. This resulted in continued rises in Healthcare costs. Many will say "Continued Rises?" and I will simply encourage those of you with real healthcare coverage (not junk insurance) and you will note that Insurance Premiums have been rising constantly each year. Mine for instance would go up from 15-25% each year from the years 2003-2012 and that was pre-ACA. Medication costs would also go up at a similar rate. This failure was more a failure to fix an existing issue than an issue caused by the law itself. If you see a repeal without a replace and expect insurance rates to go down for good insurance or for medication prices to fall you will be very much disappointed.
Part-Time Cuts: This is a point that is debated. The law reduced the hours needed for employees to apply health care for their employees from 40 to 30 which then lead to many employers reducing the hours of their employees...or not. This has been debated a lot over the years. There have been many that have cut their hours due to this and there have been many that have not.
Inability to apply fixes: Every law has to really get into practice before we know what needs to be fixed and what is working well. Unfortunately we have had zero ability to alter this law to make fixes. Many of the issues caused by the law could have been fixed relatively quickly but due to our Mexican standoff that we have had since 2010 no changes could be made as when asked about change the only response would be "its repeal or nothing". Hillary Clinton ran on this as one of her platforms which alienated many of her potential supporters who are Single payer supporters and left many republicans with a bad taste in their mouths.

Why a Repeal without a Replacement is bad:
There are many things that the ACA does not do well but there are many things the ACA does right and a full repeal of a law that has now been in effect for 3-4 years is not going to be a good thing. Lets look at what will happen on repeal that may irk people.

Pre-Existing Conditions:  It may surprise you but Health Insurance companies are out to make money. To do so they are placing a bet that you will not get sick and that they will simply collect your money much like auto insurance is betting you won't have a crash. Because of this Private insurance would look at your health and if you may have been hiding a pre-existing health condition they would have the right to drop you on the spot or refuse to insure you, with some exceptions. The ACA made it so that this was not possible and that health insurance companies participating in the exchanges could not deny you.  With an ACA repeal almost all of these people will be left without any insurance. If you don't agree with me then see if a relative of yours with a pre-existing condition like say...diabetes can get on a health plan not on the exchange (yes they exist). I've tried this once and was turned down repeatedly. Many companies will drop you after your first heart attack or diagnosis leaving you in the lurch.
Jobs: Believe it or not, healthcare is currently a booming agency. Many of the people are now seeking outpatient care where they had never done so before and many offices keep hiring more and more people. If you look at the jobs reports many of them are in this field and you can see a large connection to the ACA. If you repeal without a replacement the people will stop using outpatient clinics and many of these clinics and agencies will have to downsize leading to a flood of unemployed medical professionals (not as much doctors but those on the lower levels).
Adult Children on Insurance: Another highlight of the ACA is the extension of the time that a parent can keep their child on their insurance after reaching adulthood. This may not seem like much but it is extremely costly otherwise to have a child seek insurance through a private provider when they are likely in college or looking for employment.
Hospital Blowouts: When you have large numbers of the population now without insurance they have very few options for emergent care when means they go to the ER for their primary care. This had been a major issue before the ACA and one of the ones that had been an encouragement for the law to be in place. The hospitals will now have to see scores of people who cannot pay for their treatment leaving them with their own crippling debt and increasing ER wait times. If you want to see an example of this try and go to a place where there are a lot of uninsured poor people and attempt to go to their ER (example in my state is VCU) and enjoy the day long wait times. These debts have lead to threats of hospital closures in the past and this may be the case in the future.
Crippling Medical Debt: Debt isn't just a problem for hospitals but for working people as well. I know there are many who claim that they just put money in an account and they can do just fine without insurance and this works fine when it comes down to basic primary care. Lets say you break an arm and have to pay $25,000 for that treatment then they discover something bigger such as cancer. Do you think that the lower middle class person has $200,000-500,000 ready for such a thing? Nope they will go into debt and their credit scores will fall leading to sad stagnation.
No Replacement Coming Soon: After repeal there is not going to be any pressure to replace. When you have a party that says if a person isn't employed then they don't deserve things like food or shelter as it would simply teach them to be lazy many of these above issues wouldn't faze them much. You also have many different factions in the party. Many don't believe a replacement is needed at all and that the system was perfect beforehand (Rush Limbaugh preached this a few years ago himself), and then you have those that believe in a replacement but every one of them has a different idea what that would entail. This will result in bickering and little to no action.

The State of things:
The Media has already been reporting that the Republicans have a repeal bill passed and ready to be put in practice and this is simply not the case. They have simply made it so that they can pass a repeal and a replace bill with a simple majority vote (as they would not make it past the filibuster otherwise). Currently there are at least 10 Senators that are weary of a repeal without a replace so this could be a long fight (don't panic yet).

How do I help?
Well in this case you need to evaluate your own personal situation regarding the ACA and see how you would be effected by a repeal. You can then combine this with the information you already know and send a message to your congressman and Senator. You can find out the name of your representative on House.gov and your Senator on Senate.gov . When you find out who you are represented by then you have the opportunity to voice your concerns via email or postcard (never by letter as it takes forever for that to get through the screening process. You let them know that you are a voter in their district and tell them how the repeal of the ACA without a replacement will effect you personally. Believe it or not this is something that can work to sway them. A repeal without a replacement is not a harm only Democratic voters type thing as it effects us all. Stand up and Stand Proud.

Missinformation #1: Happy Holidays

Is Trump seeking a war on Holidays?

I mean we all know that Trump and many of his supporters are very much against Saying Happy Holidays when you are around the Holiday season instead saying Merry Christmas instead. This is at first thought to be a simple jab at the “politically correct” nature that the Democratic party has been chasing. This is in their mind a winning blow when it comes to the “War on Christmas” allowing us once again to have Christmas Plays and parties at school and to wish all a Merry Christmas without fear of “those” people violating your religious freedom during the “Christmas Season”.

I feel that this is a more sinister plot. I mean think about the number of Holidays that fall within the season. I mean at the foremost we have Hanukah which is a rather large celebration of the Jewish Faith. Of course we know that this Administration hates the Jewish People with a passion (except for Israel for some reason but I think that is so they have a place to send all the Jewish People living here). We already see the evil nature of this ploy at work in the obvious fashion.

Of course what about the other less obvious holidays that they are purposefully leaving out? We know that there is a hatred of the African American Community by skipping Kwanzaa. When a Trump supporter wishes you a Merry Christmas they are obviously saying “I want to reinstitute slavery in the united states”. Of course what of our Mexican Brethren who celebrate the Fiesta or Our Lady of Guadalupe or the Pagans who celebrate Yule and Saturnalia? This is the insidious nature of the Trump Campaign how he seeks to quietly eliminate all those of different cultures and different religions destroying their livelihoods and then moving them to “safety camps” formerly FEMA camps to you Obama Truthers.

This war isn’t just a war against all Non-Christians and all Non-Whites it is also a war against our own traditions and past times. The holiday season starts in November but we have to say “Merry Christmas” now. What about Thanksgiving? Is Trump attacking one of the very founding ideations that is the bedrock of our country. Trump has rarely shown he is thankful for any of the advantages he was born with and wants the American people to follow suit. Besides this is a holiday about putting down grudges and working with people of different ideations. I mean why should you be friends with someone that is different from you? This totally goes against the Trump ticket.

Finally we are starting off the war against New Years. I man that falls right in line behind Christmas after all (yet is cannot be mentioned lest you are attacking said Christians). I feel this is a clever ploy. You start sowing the seeds currently and then around the time of the next election time is at a standstill leaving Trump as our president throughout time as he now keeps time from moving.

So what do we have in the end:

A war against Culture

A war against Race

A war against Religion

A war against Peace

A war against Time itself

We must fight these wars as much as possible in order to assure that we won’t be living in a White’s only “Christian” nation where Donald Trump is our president for all time due to 2017 never ending. With that, I leave you with a simple phrase and well wish.

*Disclaimer: This article is not meant to be serious. It is political Satire meant for a left leaning audience. Please do not see the implied believes of this article as reflecting the user’s in any way shape or form. “Happy Holidays”  ;)

Being Good Winners

Hello to all and a good season’s greetings. I hope you are all doing well out there. I plan on really having this blog take off in the near future (around 1/20/17) full of advocacy, opinion and general fun. This time it is mostly going silent but I thought that for once I would address a topic that I am fully knowledgeable on, Mental Health. With the election coming there are a multitude of feelings from despair to elation. I wanted to put this out sooner but was myself a victim of this despair and hopelessness. I am here to help with the despair portion but will address the republicans in my audience first thing.

I know a lot of you who voted for Trump or are staunch “Conservatives” are quite happy and hopeful at this time and cannot wait to shout this to the heavens as much as possible. You may think that the opposition are just a bunch of whiny babies or that they just need to suck it up, I mean you made it through President Obama, now they need to get through Trump. I want you to dust off your empathy skills for a moment and remember the time when president Obama took office. I want you to remember the utter despair and panic you felt when he was elected and then again in January when he took office. This is exactly what everyone is going through now. Just like then saying “I had to put up with 8 years of your crap now you have to put up with 8 years of mine” didn’t feel good. This sort of thing didn’t feel good for you then and it doesn’t feel good to us now. If you are a cold hearted vengeance seeker then go right ahead but if you are truly trying to heal rifts the election has cased in your family please try and understand that this just isn’t going to work. Give them space and time to grieve their loss especially during the holiday season being smug and over joyous around family is just not something that goes over well.

The other thing that is causing rifts I have seen in that expectation for everyone to just get on the Trump wagon and support his efforts to “Make America Great Again”. Perhaps you are thinking that you are being benevolent and kind extending the olive branch and saying “let’s let bygones be bygones”. Of course when you are in turned slapped in the face, cursed out or just outright ignored it just plain hurts. You can’t see why anyone would hate this wonderful change that is going to come to America and don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be a part of it. Normally you may just write people off as just stupid or evil but these people are different. You work with them, eat dinner with them you are close normally in all other ways. You can’t just put on blinders and say that they are the enemy that needs to be put in their place. Again Empathy is required. Over the last 8 years many of your viewed President Obama as a devil, called him the antichrist a foreigner and many other things. You fought tooth and nail against him knowing in your heart of heart that he was destroying America. Now let’s look at your Democratic friends and relatives and see that they pretty much have the same opinion. They know in their heart of hearts that his goals are related to the destruction of all that they hold dear and plan to fight tooth and nail against it. Simply expecting them to jump on board the “Trump Train” is in simple condescending and will easily provoke anger. The best thing to do is to let the person vent their anger, validate that their feelings are real and be willing to silently listen if need be. Note that this election was to divisive for there to be any short term healing. If things turn out the way you hope for America then they will come around.

Empathy is a hard skill to learn but is very much a part of life we must learn in order to keep up with relatives and friends that have different political opinions. Remember what brings you together, for friends its hobbies and like interests for relatives it is possibly just respect and family. These are things to dwell on during this season of togetherness and cheer.

Coping with the Election

Well the election is over and we are all grieving and upset. I mean the guy that we were all upset with won and stomped on our hearts. It is natural to want to give in to despair to feel like there is no getting on with life from here forward. In my profession I have even come to find people that have attempted suicide over this issue. In this blog I want to go over ways to better cope with this election stress.

The Anger: The first response I have had is anger. Many are quick to blame each other for what had happened. The Bernie supporters are angry with the Hillary Supporters the Hillary Supporters are mad with the Trump supporters and they are both mad with the people who shrug their shoulders and say they are both identical in the end. Anger is a natural piece of the process but arguing amongst ourselves is not the solution. This only builds anger and resentment that shouldn’t be there. There are many things that we all agree on and one of them is that we don’t like Trump. A solution to the situation can be found but now is simply not the time. Right now we need to mend those torn fences that were red hot during the election year and remember those things that bind us together. 

The Need to Do Something: There is an innate need to accomplish something to advocate and address the guilt feelings that you may have at not doing enough. You look for causes to get involved in and protests to march in.

The Depression: The biggest issue in this is the loss of all hope. I myself can relate to this, I see the voter suppression to come and be up-held by a Trump Supreme court that we will be stuck with a one party system and that we will never have freedom again. This may sound silly but there are countless other things that people look at like the environment, Black Lives Matter or other items of interest that they are crying over and rightfully so. This is the depression that can take you over and darken your heart to all things around you.

What can Help:  Outlined are a few things that you can do to help yourself and the others around you.

Shut Off: The first thing that you need to do is shut off. 60% of Americans couldn’t care a lick about the United States, learn from them. Watch reality TV, get involved in the season. With the Holidays coming up there are plenty of fun announcements and activities to be involved in. Eat, Drink and be merry. You know Trump will not be in charge until January 20^th so as of now don’t feel worried. Though I know it is hard, shut off the news. Don’t bother reading the papers or listening to the pundits. If politics comes up at the table don’t be drawn in tell them we are not discussing it until January. Doing this allows you time to recharge.  The Media has stories out there trying to get everyone to panic and all if these are based only on rumor and conjecture. Let’s leave the guessing games to people that like to play games and live our lives for ourselves for once.

Limit Social Media: I know this is a given as with above but you have so many people that are friends and family that do not share your feelings of despair. Many of them are posting nasty mems and looking at you like you are simply a little baby who can’t take a loss. For the time being shut them off from your timeline. Facebook has a wonderful little thing that allows you to stay friends and keep the person’s postings hidden from your timeline at the same time. In my opinion you need to keep them at arm’s length and this is the best way to do it.

Get Involved: For many they have to do something to get over guilt feelings. I say get involved in Charity work. There are plenty of volunteer positions this time of year that could use an able bodied person. Maybe you have a neighbor who’s kids aren’t going to get to have Santa come over this year. Maybe there are family members or friends that could use a shoulder to cry on. Getting involved in activities that are not politically oriented can help you get away from the hustle and bustle of political strain and yet it will also allow you to help out your fellow man.

Get Together: Get together with like-minded people in order to vent and de-stress. You can cry on each other’s shoulder and get out some of those negative feelings. At times like these being in an echo chamber is a good thing. You don’t need the gloating pundits or republican friends and family separating their happy season.

Relax: Take up meditation and learn to clear your head of negative thoughts. Learn about proper breathing skills and participate in guided meditation. These techniques allow you to clear your head and reduce the racing thoughts that may be running through your mind. Light a Candle, look at a roaring fire and listen to the ocean. Start Exercising again, this relieves much more stress than one would think.  These are a few ways to get over things or at least to help you resolve the feelings of panic you may be feeling.

In the end this is a horrible event to us all but we can cope and move on with our lives to be better people. All willing we will come back for the next go round after 1/20. 

A Sign of things to come (Political Activism)

I have finally returned to social media J I have done a lot of soul searching after the election following racist threats from people and tasteless gloating as well as useless protesting and outrage. This stuff got to me pretty badly, so much so I had to leave it all for a month. No facebook, no blogging no, no nothing. During that time I thought about how I can help and how I can better focus that anger and frustration without taking it out on family and friends, hence starting tentatively now and more seriously in January I am reviving the political section of this blog. Believe it or not this blog was originally a political one and it had gotten the most attention doing so below I will outline the three things I will do in relation to this blog to help use my anger for the better.

The Blog will have three sections: Advocacy, The Rant and Misinformation. Advocacy is the most level headed and most useful in this blog spot. I will be outlining the importance of certain issues, how candidates stand and what elections are coming to help people get on board. The purpose here is to help people get involved in the process by informing them and helping them move along. The Rant is going to be just that, me ranting about an issue. This will be mostly opinion based and will be the thing that most anger is channeled through and will be interesting to read for those of you who like political rantings. The last is a slightly satiric take on the conspiracy theories. I felt that I could try and put my take on things from the opposite of the usually right leaning theories. This will be mostly made up and I do not likely agree with anything I write in this section so please don’t take this seriously.

In the end I am doing this to help and to keep most political posting off of my timeline. So Please if you are a “Conservative” and seeing this you can now ignore all posts from this part of the blog and if you do please note what this is and what it is about before going into long drawn out opinion based rants back. I feel in the end this can utilize my blog again to do some good and channel anger effectively.