AMERICA, THE LAND OF THE FREE, YOU JUST LOST IT

The Electoral College system has just elected the first Dictator of its country, Donald Trump. 

                 The following is what the people in this country have in store for them:

Lot's of Chaos. Lots of revenge against any politicians or military, or notable persons who criticized Trump. LeBron James, Steph Curry, Steve Kerr, watch your backs. IRS is going to be weaponized. So will the justice department. 

 No realistic economic plan. The 20 dollar tariff on all products imported into this country is nuts and will cost middle class folks about $4,000 a year, maybe more. You think gas and groceries are expensive now, wait until Trump f__ks up our economy. 

A strict ban on abortion will become the Law of the Land. States like Californa and New York will have to fight it out in the courts, but it will be more chaos. In most states, women will be in peril of losing their lives if for some reason they have a problem pregnancy. If I were a woman during the Trump presidency, I'd stop having babies. Too risky. 

Forget about gender equality for at least four years. What the Trump men will try to do is send women back to the days when men ruled them. 

Forget about racial equality. People of color, those of you who voted for Donald Trump, you will look back on your vote as one of the worst decisions you ever made. Trump and this ilk are White Supremacists. What? You didn't know that???

Immigrants, get ready for mass deportations. Dreamers? You are out of luck. 

Get ready for Trump's total support of anything Israel wants to do in in Gaza. He and Netanyahu, two dictators like peas in a pod. 

Political and economic power will be in the hands of 1% of the population. This is called an oligarchy. Think Elon Musk, guys like him.  

Get ready for Russia and its Dictator Putin to influence our foreign policy.

Get ready for Trump to take us out of NATO, the result being America to lose all credibility with its past European partners.  

Get ready for law suits after lawsuits, grinding our country to a standstill. 

Get ready for more MAGA Republicans on the Supreme Court. 

Get ready for an attack against unions. You union members who voted for Trump, you screwed yourselves. 

I can probably think of a lot more troubles ahead for our citizens, but I'm too shocked by the result of this election to go on. Lets try to do our best to survive these next four years with dignity and grace.

 Democratic Governors, it's up to you now to save your states from the dictatorship of Trump.

                                                               Go California!

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HOW TO SURVIVE TODAY AND TOMORROW

 Last night, news commentator, Lawrence O'Donnell, said we have a chose hope or despair as we go into election day with our Beloved Democracy on the line. He cited as an example Nelson Mandela as a person who never gave up hope. For 27 years Mandela, the father of modern day South Africa, lived in one cell in an Apartheid prison, most of the time in solitary confinement. According to O'Donnell, Nelson Mandela went to bed every night with hope in his heart. 

Let us all follow Nelson Mandela's example.

SPIRITUAL, EMOTIONAL & PRACTICAL WAYS TO LOOK AT HOPE

Hope springs eternal:  As we pray

Hope springs internal:  As we feel

Hope springs external:  As we act

THE GENERATION Z COALITION

As a high school teacher for 26 years, I never missed a graduation. The auditorium was filled to bursting with proud parents, siblings, relatives, family friends, neighbors. The mood was always in equal measures, raucous, solemn, and festive. The graduating classes in their caps and gowns would enter in single file from the back of the auditorium to their seating directlyin in front of the stage. The stage where he podium stood held the school officials, School Board members, and student speakers. Huge bouquets of flowers graced both sides of the stage. At the center of the stage were stairs students would use to return to their seating after receiving their diplomas. And every year as I sat in the audience with my fellow teachers, proud of my graduating English students, thrilled for their parents and sibs, it was always astonished and delighted by the student speakers enthusiasm and optimism for the future. I was always their generation that was finally going  to change the world for the better. So many decades have passed since my first graduation, and for the first time in my life, I actually believe that the 18-year-olds plus, those members of the Z generation will be the ones who walk their talk. 

Last night, in Wisconsin at one of her closing rallies, Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic candidate for President, spoke directly to The Zs, often called the Zoomers. She spoke of how much she loved their impatience to get things done, and promised she'd be the one to help them finally reach their goals: climate change; racial and gender equality, job growth, solving education debt, and the return right of women to make their own decisions about their bodies. In my eyes, Kamala Harris was the proud teacher talking to her students.  She told them in her presidency their hopes and dreams for America would be fulfilled. Watching the rally on TV, I felt I was back at graduation night, and for the first time believing what I was hearing. 

 It is believable because youth has finally caught up with the old white men and outstripped them of their voting edge. The youth vote is finally ready to assert itself. Gen Z is the last group of a winning coalition of voters who will elect Kamala Harris and send Donald Trump packing.  This coalition is composed of the three Gens that proceeded Gen Z: Gen Alphas, Gen Y often called the Millennials, and Gen Xers, who will not longer tolerate Donald Trump's misogyny or any government telling them what they can do or can't do with their own bodies. 

The time had finally arrived. Decades of graduation speeches full of hope have, at last, coalesced into one laser beam of change. This is no longer pic in the sky; it is the march to a different drummer; it is the mixed metaphor that will blast the reign of old white men out of power. It is the perfect union of women with the children they gave birth to, claiming their right to be equal citizens. It will be the greatest of ironies that with the help of the bodies they brought into the world that women will finally overcome the tyranny of men. 

                                    THREE MORE DAYS TO ELECTION, VOTE FOR KAMALA - 

                                                      IT IS A VOTE FOR CAMELOT. 

In 2012, I gave the graduation  address to the class of Saint Mary's College, my alma mater, and ended with this poem by Adrienne Rich. It deals with a lot of the subjects I've been writing about in my recent Blogs.   

Prospective Immigrants Please Note  by Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012)

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself makes no promises.
It is only a door.  

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