They don't remember.

 It blows my mind and breaks my heart to realize that there are grown adults of around 20 years young, who don't remember what America was before the last decade, wherein 45/47 and his 37% have ruined it.  They don't remember civil political discourse or civility, period.  They don't remember a time before xenophobia, hate, scapegoating and divisiveness ruled the day.  They don't remember a time when the rule of law carried the day.  They don't remember a time when we were widely respected in the world, and an inspiration to many.  And although we have had many shameful chapters in our history, they don't remember a time when we were so much more than our worst aspects and potentials.  They don't remember a time when there were things to be truly proud of and patriotic about protecting and nurturing.

They only know this crazy, hateful, cruel and lawless, corrupt and sociopathic POTUS and his xenophobic, racist, horrific followers.  They know a government that lies constantly, shoots peaceful protesters in the street, and kidnaps people with no due process and puts them in concentration camps.  They know a government that is Reaganomics on steroids, Robinhood in reverse, a fascist oligarchy.  We already had no social safety net, no investment in our people, when I was their age, and it changed the trajectory of my life from what it would have been and could have been, had we had (like most other westernized countries) federal, universal, single-payer health care, maternity and paternity leave, child care, etc.  And instead of trending in the right direction, no matter how long and how hard some of us fought to make it do so, it has only gotten worse and worse, until we had a crazed, racist, antisemitic South African wackadoo on a stage with a chainsaw, as the 37% cheered.  That was the exact moment when I, watching in abject horror, knew that America was gone.

20-year-olds do not remember the America I believed in, the ideals I passionately fought my entire life to try to make us live up to.  Instead, all the worst aspects and potentials of America have come to fruition.  And it is poisonous fruit.

It is heartbreaking enough to watch your country be swallowed whole by all of the above-outlined horrific potentials, but then to realize that there are not even just children (which is heartbreaking) but adults now--fully grown adults--who don't remember.  They don't remember when, though it has always faced strong headwinds, there was an alive and kicking America to be proud of and passionate about.

And all the No Kings marches, and all the No Kings men (and women), couldn't put America together again.

 Let me make clear what has taken place and is taking place, since many people are not seeing it:

1.  Trump has taken over Venezuela.

2.  It has nothing to do with caring about democracy, as he has simultaneously announced to the press that the exiled, duly elected, opposition leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will not be supported by the US as the rightful leader.  He further pontificated that she is "not respected".  What that translates to is:  "I know she won't give me all of Venezuela's oil."

3.  This whole this is about OIL, and power.  47 wants both.  A side benefit is that it distracts from all the talk about his health, the Epstein files, etc.  He would have gone for it without any side benefits, though, as HE WANTS THE OIL.

47 has just taken over a sovereign country because he wants to enrich himself and his oligarchic cronies of the oil tycoon variety.

Believe the man when he says stuff.  Colombia is not safe.  Greenland is not safe.  And, yes, wait for it:  Canada is NOT SAFE.  Canada has a lot of oil, people.

If he gets away with Venezuela, he will know that he has effectively, as one knowledgeable person phrased it yesterday on the news, "dissolved congress".  It has been obvious to me for this entire term that congress is TOTALLY (and treasonously, by the way) complicit.  Congress has the power of the purse, yet 47 ended PEPFAR and US AID and so much else.  Congress stayed SILENT, though 47 had NO power to do what he did unless THEY CEDED THEIR POWER TO HIM.  We no longer have checks and balances, as we no longer have congress.  Congress is nothing but a mirage now.  They are just there to look pretty, and they aren't even doing that, in my subjective opinion.  They are ugly, in their treasonous complicitness.

If 47 cared about liberating Venezuela, he would be supporting the opposition, but instead he has said that their leader is "not respected" (which is a statement based on nothing), and has also said "we will be running things".

"Running things" translates to TAKING OVER VENEZUELA.

Like I said, other countries are next.  There is no stopping this sociopathic, textbook malignant narcissist, who fancies himself Hitler 2.0.  Hitler without the stache.

I have been warning of this since 2015.  I really wish a certain dear friend of mine's Facebook page was still up (the friend passed away and the page is now vaporized, along with many years of content), as I wrote a LOT on it, predicting everything 47 has done, right down to rounding people up and putting them in concentration camps (I was told I was being overly dramatic and ridiculous).  But I wrote about that/predicted all of it on my page, too, you just have to go back and look.  So I don't know why I seem to cling to the vain hope that, at some point, PEOPLE WILL START TO UNDERSTAND.

Yet, I have a next-door neighbor who is firmly in the MAGA cult, and it is a cult.  IT'S A CULT.  But I digress.  About 37% of the American population is in the cult.  They continue to believe that 47 is "making America great again".  Then you have another large chunk of Americans who proudly will tell you every chance they get that "I don't watch the news."  I had that happen yesterday at the health food store:

The cashier asked "How are you?"  I had to pause for a moment, and then I said that I am a mixed bag, because personally I'm well, but "the news is very upsetting."  Her retort was "That's why I don't watch the news."  Well, bully for you (and, might I add, DUMB BUTT), that DOESN'T MAKE IT GO AWAY, or make it not affect you.

So many Americans seem to me to be like little kids who stick their fingers in their ears and sing "La la la la la, I can't hear you!", and are insufferably proud of themselves for that.  Meanwhile, I'm screaming on the inside:  WAKE THE RHYMES-WITH-DUCK UP, PEOPLE:  our country is gone!

47 hasn't just taken over Venezuela.  He has, before doing that, taken over America.  And all the No Kings Marches, and all the No Kings men (and women), couldn't put America together again.

😢

#MyCountryIsGone 
#DoesAnyoneCare?
#OrAreYouAllTheCashierAtTheHealthFoodStore?

703

My country has fallen to fascism, and I'm also coping with things in my own life, ranging from ID theft, to staring down the barrel of a live possum in my bedroom and a forked-tongued snake rearing up, which was threatening to strike my kitten last week in my house.  The world just keeps on worlding.  Yet have I forgotten the hostages for one nanosecond, through all of that and more, since October 7, 2023?  Even when I'm posting about fascism here at home, and masked ICE agents kidnapping people off American streets and whisking them out of the country to a horrendous concentration camp, or 47 building a concentration camp here in my own state and putting people there with no due process?  No.  Not for one nanosecond.

Because there hasn't yet been one nanosecond since October 7, 2023.  October 7, 2023 has been one long moment.  One held breath.  One endless dark tunnel.  One terrible nightmare of abandonment, disillusionment, betrayal, gaslighting and the relentless, inescapable clarity of seeing the rabid monster of antisemitism ferociously foaming at the mouth all around me and my entire people.

Lost in all of it, as far as the world and the aforementioned rabid monster of antisemitism are concerned, are the hostages.  They are now emaciated and looking like Auschwitz concentration camp survivors.  Yet the world doesn't care, because the rabid monster of antisemitism infuses their every cell and the gaslighting is so complete.  Posters of babies taken hostage (and, we now know, later brutally slain along with their mother) defaced and ripped down, as if ripping down a poster can erase the truth.  As if defacing the photo of an innocent baby can erase the truth.  No, truth can't be erased, even when you draw swastikas on photos of babies, and rip them down.  Truth can never be murdered in dark tunnels, only the humanity of those who turn away from it can be.

#BringThemHomeNow

Link below is to:  Sarah Kendis' 9/5/2025 blog, "700 Days of Truth Held Hostage"

History tells us that monsters and monstrous regimes are not sustainable.

The treasonous traitor in chief willfully would NOT call in the national guard to DC on Jan. 6, 2021, when it was desperately needed and being desperately called for by elected officials to quell the violent insurrection he incited, thereby also becoming an active participant in it, as its treason played out.  Yet now, in 2025, he is calling in the national guard to DC, for no reason other than to continue and solidify his fascist takeover. 😠

I have one thing to say to the monster and all those mini-monsters who follow and treasonously, complicitly enable him:  FASCIST REGIMES ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE FOREVER.  You're having your cruel, xenophobic, lawless, oligarchic, treasonous, violent moment but, if history is any guide, pretty soon you'll be flying your Qatari jet to take asylum in Russia.  If you're lucky.  And all those who enable you now will say later that they were "just following orders".  And the people who most vociferously supported you will pretend they never did.  And you will permanently reside in the reviled trash heap of history.

😠

The Coup has Couped

Putin's asset in the White House continues his relentless dismantling of the United States government.

I never thought I'd outlive my beloved country, but I have.  The name is the same but we've been taken over.  And the only "invasion" has not been from all those that 47 has relentlessly engaged in "othering", in dehumanizing, to his base for the last decade.  No, the invasion, as the cliche about horror movies goes, is "coming from inside the house!".  That is why so many Americans do not realize at all that we have undergone a fascist coup.  Congress, on the other hand, must realize it and just consistently turns a complicit and therefore treasonous blind eye, which is how we have gotten to this point.

This point of scooping people up of the street and disappearing them to concentration camps, vaporizing the already obscenely tiny social safety net in this country, all to cement the oligarchy, putting our constitution and rule of law in the shredder, and dismantling the federal government.

Everything may, for now, feel the same to you on a daily basis here in "America", but make no mistake:  you are now in a fascist country.  The coup has couped.  No one has stopped 47 at all the many points he could have been stopped at along this ten-year ride to get here.  And now here we are.  In MAGAmerica.

"State Department is firing more than 1,300 staff on Friday, internal memo says"

I've come up with a name for the new country we are now in, the xenophobia and othering capital of the world: MAGAmerica

MAGA people are sick.  The MAGAt in Chief is selling Alligator Alcatraz "merch".  How sick does one have to be to want to sport a beer koozie or tee shirt that says Alligator Alcatraz?  You are literally sporting your support for a concentration camp, for dehumanization and cruelty.  It is like the sick, antisemitic tee shirts that some of the Jan. 6th seditious insurrectionists sported, saying things regarding the Holocaust that I won't even repeat/give oxygen to on my page.  Sick, dehumanizing, othering.  That's MAGA and MAGAmerica, the name that came to me this weekend for this new, heartless, cruel, terrifying country we find ourselves citizens of.  MAGAmerica killed--murdered--my country, America.

There is nothing to be proud of about Alligator Alcatraz.  NOTHING.  It's a crime against humanity, and totally against American laws aplenty.  Have we learned nothing from slavery, Japanese American internment camps, McCarthyism, and the treatment of Native Americans?  That is all part of our own history here in this country.  Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust?  About othering?  About xenophobia and scapegoating?  About the banality of evil?  EVIDENTLY NOT, if we are kidnapping people, including 4-year-old American citizens with cancer, not affording people any due process, shipping hundreds to a concentration camp in El Salvador, and also creating our own concentration camp meets reality TV show, Alligator Alcatraz, in which to put kidnapped humans and intentionally torture them by surrounding them with the intense heat, fatal-disease-carrying mosquitoes, pythons, alligators and hurricanes of the Everglades, with nothing but a tent between all of the above and the people?

Oh, look honey, we are entering MAGAmerica, see the welcome sign?  Look, there it is:

"Welcome (only no one is, other than white, Evangelical Christians) to MAGAmerica!  We are the xenophobia and othering capital of the world!  Where your tee shirt can say "Alligator Alcatraz", to show your pride in one of our most sensational concentration camps!  Where you can carry a machine gun and not pay taxes, because society is for suckers!  It's every man, woman and child for themselves here, wu hu HUUUUUUUUUUUUU, the south is going to rise again!  47 was sent by God to make everything perfect for "us" by getting rid of any and all "thems", eliminating taxes, and allowing guns galore!  And if this welcome sign is too wordy for you, don't worry, you don't have to learn to read, that's for the "elites", and we have abolished the Department of Education, 'cause who needs it?  Alligator Alcatraz, wu hu HUUUUUUUU!"

Like I said, MAGAts are sick, sick, cruel people.  And they've remade this country in their terrible image.

Velshi piece on MSNBC: "American dystopia: The cruel spectacle of Trump’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’"

No Kings in America

Let's roll.  Creative non-violent resistance has been proven historically to be a profoundly powerful, effective instrument of social change.  Here are my signs for today's No Kings Protest:

#NoKings

As Bernie Sanders often says: It is better to show up, than to give up.

You're going to throw a Senator to the ground in MY country for trying to ask a question to a sociopathic puppy killer up on stage talking about "liberating LA" "from the socialists" "and the "bad leaders"? You're going to unleash a sociopathic, ketamine-fueled oligarch with a chainsaw to parade around on stage while his team of data-breaching little traitors downloads and uploads all our personal data to RUSSIA, and while they simultaneously dismantle our federal government? You are going to tear up the streets of my hometown with tanks today, so the "dear leader" can have an obscene military "parade"? You are unleashing marines to the streets of LA and having them arrest civilians? Yeah, I'll be at the protest, no matter WHAT. 😠

#DammitJim 
#NoKings 
#CreativeNonViolentResistance

Memorial Day

With my eyes closed, I travel back to my Ocean, back through time, I'm a small child.  Yet I'm not, I'm aware that it is now, and I've had all the experiences, all the losses, all the wisdom gained, all the heartbreaks, all the disillusionment, all the clarity, that I have now.  I travel back, with an ache in my heart, and I run down 21st Street to the Boardwalk.  It's amazing to be able to run again, in this dream, down 21st Street, and then feeling and hearing the sandy wooden boards of the boardwalk beneath my bare feet.  And then through the sand on the beach to my Ocean.  I used to call out to the Ocean, once I reached its edge, but this time I don't, my grief is too heavy.  I just stand there.  But the ocean calls to me, as it always did.

Thank God you are still here, I think silently, but it can hear me, I know.  Everything is gone now, on this Memorial Day.  But you are still here, Ocean.  And with my eyes closed I can travel to you, here in Ocean City.  And you are the same, thank God.  But behind me, everything is gone.  Phillip's Crab House is gone, which I can't bear, and which makes me glad that I'm not really, physically, there, because it would be impossible to bear not having their distinct crab spice mixing with and infusing your salt air.  The Surfrider Motel is gone.  My parents are gone.  And, Ocean, now my country is gone, too.

And the Ocean softly replies with breaking waves, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.  And, as has always struck me and strikes me again:  the Ocean doesn't care.  It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.  Come in, come in, come in.  Or not, or not, or not. It's always struck me that the Ocean doesn't care, really.  Yet we have this very close relationship, and always have, and it does care, in its non-caring way.  The Ocean is the only thing on this earth that is comforting by not caring.  Because it says, it's okay, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.  It's okay.  I was here before the Surfider was.  I was here before Phillip's was.  I was here before your parents were born.  I was here before you were born.  I was here long before your country was called your country.  I was here before, before, before.  I'm here now, I'll be here for a long, long, long time.  So, do you see, my child, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay?  It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.    

But, Ocean, how can you say that?  Everything is gone.  Everyone is gone.  And nothing is the same but you. And I start to cry then, as I say that to my Ocean.  I weep, as I continue listening to the Ocean's non-caring yet caring comforting communication, which is the same as it ever was.  Come in, come, come, come in.  Come in, my child.  I walk in until it carries me, and my salty tears mix with the salty sea foam.  The Ocean washes my tears away from my face and accepts them as part of itself.  I'm part of my Ocean, right in this particular, wonderful, awesome spot, where I have become one with it since I was a small child.

Please, let me stay here, Ocean, I can't go back.  I can't go back with no parents, no Phillip's, no Surfrider, and no country.  Let me swim out farther, carry me out.  But my Ocean sends me back, go back, go back.  I am still here and I will be here for you, my grief-stricken, grown-up little one, so come back, come back, come back, whenever you need me.  Leave me your tears and I'll hold them, this Memorial Day and always.

Never Again is Now

At sunset today, 4/23/2025, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel) begins. The best way I know to honor the 6 million Jewish people (and approximately 11 million human beings in total) murdered in the Holocaust is to live the lessons and warnings that the survivors told us, and those still with us continue to tell us: Never again.

Right now, there are still 59 hostages held in dark tunnels by a genocidal terrorist group that has a written creed of wiping out Jews. Said group invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, massacred over 1,200 human beings--men, women, children, and babies in their cribs and parents' arms. They raped people. They massacred multiple generations of entire families, and decimated entire kibbutzim communities. They shot pets dead as a punctuation mark to show that they could. They massacred young people at a peace-centered music festival. The took 251 innocent people hostage, including men, women, children, Holocaust survivors, and BABIES. And all this they justified in their minds and hearts by "othering" Jewish people, just as the Nazis did.

Never again is a warning that means: never think it can't happen again. Never think it can't happen here. Never LET it happen again. Never LET it happen here. Human beings are capable of great acts of selfless love and altruism, of heroism and moving mountains for each other. But human beings are also capable of staggering cruelty and barbarism, and all it takes is othering. Dehumanizing the "other". This is how our own current POTUS rose to power the first time, talking of bans and walls. And the second time, talking about invasions and about immigrants "eating the dogs", which was a lie, but it is what he does: he others, he capitalizes on fear and hate as fuel. Hate is his fuel.

So the only way I can honor the 6 million of my own people and the 11 million human beings in total who were systematically exterminated by the Nazis while most people in Germany looked the other way since those "others" were dehumanized in their minds and hearts is to SPEAK UP when I see it in my own time.

There are 59 of my people right now who are still being tortured and held captive in dark tunnels by a barbaric, ruthless terrorist organization that has othered and kidnapped them. They've now been there for 564 days, since that terrible, tragic day I described above, October 7, 2023. LET MY PEOPLE GO! And in my own country, the POTUS has kidnapped and disappeared hundreds of people to a concentration camp in a foreign country, and is refusing to follow Supreme Court orders, first to turn planes around in the sky, and now to bring at least one specific person back. The hundreds of people he has kidnapped to date have had NO DUE PROCESS, so anything the POTUS and his followers say to try to justify why he did this is completely irrelevant--none of his "othering" is relevant: those kidnapped and sent to a concentration camp in a foreign country have not had due process! BRING THEM BACK!

The best way to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust is to learn the lessons of it, to learn what othering and dehumanizing leads to, and to listen to, and heed, the warnings--the tireless, consistent warnings of the survivors: don't think it can't happen again. Don't think it can't happen here. Silence helps the oppressor, never the oppressed. Silence is complicit. Speak up.

#NeverAgainIsNow

#BringThemHomeNow

#LetMyPeopleGo

Break the Glass

Whew, boy howdy. I saw the fascist's Easter message posted on a friend's Facebook page and I was hoping it was satire, but no, it was all too real.  How can anyone read or listen to anything the man says and not recognize that he's, one, insane, and, two, a clear and present danger to this country?  How can congress just turn a blind eye to the countless ways he has eggregiously violated our constitution in this term alone?  They are not only silent and not doing anything to stop him, they are actively enabling him by doing things like trying to impeach federal judges who attempt to uphold our constitution and rule of law by ruling against this lawless dictator.

Everyone in the majority party (repugs) in Congress who are not acting to stop this man are themselves now treasonous traitors to the United States of America.

It's up to us, you guys, us rag-tag, crazy quilt of humanity known as the American people, us and our courts are all we have left because our wise, awesome, and powerful constitution is mute and powerless words on parchment paper unless WE ensure it is upheld.  Congress is sworn to do so but, as I've already covered, the majority party is a bunch of TREASONOUS TRAITORS and yes, I'm back to all caps again, which I know I've been engaging in far, far, FAR more than usual since the fascist got back into power but in case of emergency BREAK THE GLASS:  use all caps, dammit.  Take to the streets, call Congress, call Congress again, and again, take to the streets again, and again.  Show up at town halls, show up at your representatives' offices, protest at Tesla dealerships and wherever DOGE shows up, fly an American flag upside down (again:  in case of emergency, break the glass--if there was ever a time to fly the American flag upside down, THIS IS IT).

This insane, sociopathic, malignant narcissistic, treasonous traitor, cruel fascist dictator and Russian asset cannot remain in office, he should be impeached, convicted and removed.  Short of that, at LEAST he needs to be reigned in by the courts so that he, for example, stops disappearing people with ZERO DUE PROCESS to concentration camps in a foreign country.  Will the repug Congress ever wake up and smell the overthrow of our constitution, rule of law, separation of powers, democracy and entire government?

Asking for my country.

California should secede from the USA and become its own sovereign country IMMEDIATELY.

Okay, so I'm over my brief febrile thought re "Why doesn't California become part of Canada?!", as it was subsequently pointed out to me that Canada would never go for that, since California has a bigger population than the ENTIRE COUNTRY OF CANADA, so if they accepted California as a province, it (California) would immediately have more power/influence on decision-making than the whole rest of the country combined.  So I'm over that brief but beautiful impossible dream.  But now I'm really, really, really not only back to California becoming its OWN country, but I'm back with a bullet, so to speak, because I strongly, strongly, strongly and passionately believe that the #CalExit initiative will take waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, and we don't have that kind of time.  It won't even be on the CA ballot until 2028 (and meanwhile America is going full fascist as we speak), and even then, the ballot initiative is just about forming a commission to study the idea.  While I get that NORMALLY one shouldn't just RUSH willy-nilly to secede from one's country, and that rather it should be carefully and thoughtfully planned, let me shout incredibly loudly that:  THIS IS NOT A NORMAL TIME, AND WE DO NOT HAVE TIME, AND CALIFORNIA NEEDS TO DIVORCE THE THE USA NOW!

Traitortot, Putin, Muskrat and their merry band of fascist oligarchs, fascist oligarch-wannabees, and fascist oligarch-complicit bleeps, are in the process of dismantling our government in a COUP.  We do not have until 2028!  California needs to secede now and, before anyone says, "but the constitution says states cannot secede", I say, one, that's highly debatable and, more relevant at this moment is number TWO:  the treasonous traitor in the White House has already overthrown the constitution of the United States of America, I don't know if you all have noticed.  In fact, I do know that many Americans have NOT noticed.  Yet.  But everyone will understand soon enough.  Anyway, so if the constitution and rule of law no longer apply, and a treasonous traitor puppet of Putin is in the White House, WHY oh WHY WHY WHY on this earth would California (or any other US state that feels like it) not simply DECLARE:  "We're seceding, as in NOW, we're gone, goodbye, na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!"?

Answer Key:  there is NO reason not to do that NOW, and every reason TO do it now.  AND, furthermore, I think that the Orange Foolius would welcome it, as CALIFORNIA WEILDS HUGE ELECTORAL POWER AND CALIFORNIA IS DEEP BLUE.  Granted, the Orange Foolius doesn't really even have to concern himself with that anymore, what with he is DEFINITELY not going to allow any future presidential elections, but even without CA participating in non-existent future elections, why would the Orange One want CA in the mix at all, because Californians are NOT going to put up with the whole treasonous traitor, fascist oligarchy, dismantling the US for parts and then giving the keys to Putin THING.  If civil war breaks out, guess which side most Californians would fight on?  It wouldn't be on the side of Clockwork Orange, I can tell you that.  So I think he would just say okay, go.  You want to go?  Go.  He'd be thrilled.  He hates California.

Seriously--I've never been more serious about anything in my entire life--California needs to declare, simply DECLARE:  we're out.  I know we had (past tense) a union and all, but that was before the US Executive Branch went full fascist and before the Supreme Court said the Executive Branch doesn't have to follow the rule of law when doing an "official act"!  47 can just say EVERYTHING he does is an "official act".

California, breathtakingly beautiful (physically and culturally) state of my birth, somehow hear my plea:  SAVE YOURSELF, save your citizens, save your awesome environment, save your progressive, beautiful values and culture and, last but not least, save ME because I think I'd have birthright citizenship!  Get OUT of this crazy country and become your own California Republic.  NOW.  Not forming a commission to study it in 2028, there is not time for that.  Long before 2028 the US will be part of Russia.  As soon as Traitortot gets Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, then he is going to hand the ENTIRE KIT AND CABOODLE, including the US of A proper, over to PUTIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

California: secede now! It really won't be hard, the secession itself: just say "we hereby secede from the United States of America". DONE! The hard part will be forging a new country, but we're (and I say "we're" because I'm moving there the nanosecond you secede) going to have to do that AFTER we secede. Right now, it's like fleeing an abusive relationship: first, GET OUT.

DO IT, I beg of you!

Clarity

 To all those silent since October 7, 2023:

If you think I will ever forget, you are wrong.

I may walk past you on the street 10 years from now and the first thing I will think is "You were SILENT."

I may walk past the doors of a place/community that at one point I loved and was central to my core and my life, 10 years from now, and think "You were SILENT and/or worse."

You may approach me in a crowd 10 years from now and wonder, "What's her problem?"

But you need never, ever wonder, 10 years from now, if you are SILENT now, and/or worse, and have been since October 7, 2023.

Because if you approach me 10 years from now--or now--and I am silent or worse, it's because you were silent or worse after October 7th.

And I'm clear on who you are and where we stand.

The Sound of Silence

As a child, this song soaked so deeply into my DNA, through my little am/fm radio.  It’s part of the soundtrack my generation was infused with, saturating my cells, and fusing with my soul.

It came to me this February morning in 2025, this day when I’m all too grown up.  The sound of silence.  And all these layers of the lyrics, terrible layers, layers I never completely and clearly understood, experienced, felt and knew like I do now, hit me.  And all I can do is cry.  Because since October 7th, and the world’s reaction to it, I understand the terribleness of the sound of silence, the sounds of silence, the sound of chanting, the sound of invisibility.  “People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, people writing songs that voices never share, no one dared, disturb the sound of silence.”

And I know I’ll never be the same.  I’m not the child who first heard this beautiful, haunting, poetic song.  I felt and understood how deep it is but I didn’t know.  All the layers, all the truths, some of which are terrible, you have to know for those chords to be fully audible.  And now I do know and I mean really know, which you can’t get from history, even very well communicated and expressed history, you can only *know* when it happens in your time.

And even before October 7th, I was starting to really know.  Then October 7th came, and everything I had started to learn before it crystalized, and became exquisitely clear.  So crystal clear.  And people, communities, and places I thought were mine and were safe and were home and knew me, are not, were not, and did not, and probably never were and never did.  And the chanting got louder and deafening, but so too did the silence.  And then the silence grew and grew, even after the loudest chanting, at least temporarily, had subsided.  The silence just keeps growing, and getting more and more deafening.  It reached a crescendo in the last couple of weeks.  And this morning, this beloved song from my childhood came to my mind from my soul and heart.  The lyrics, the music, all so intimately familiar, hit me like a crushing tidal wave in terrible new ways and intensity, and held me under.  There is no air in this totally enveloping, powerful wave.  I cry yet make no sound, into the terrible, terrible silence.

Click here to listen to the song "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel

Chimney Rock

This is my country. These are rocks I climbed on in wonder and awe as a child, in Catoctin Mountain Park, in my home state of Maryland. This is Chimney Rock. This is part of my physical country that is in my DNA and my heart and my imagination and soul. This is the physical country I love.

This country also has more to it than a breathtaking, awesome physical landscape. We also have an awesome constitution. The word constitution literally means what we are constituted of--what we are made of, what comprises us. Our land is constituted of great beauty. Our society is constituted of laws, and a separation of powers, and a free press, which are designed to make us a healthy, functional, strong, free country that is a democracy framed in a constitutional republic.

Just as we have to protect the precious and priceless nature in our country from those who would violate, pillage and plunder it, so too must we protect our constitution, our constitutional republic, our democracy, our FREE COUNTRY from those who, as we speak, are violating it.

I don't know why, this time around, there is no Women's March in the streets. The first time, we were out there, filling the streets from sea to shining sea, a beautiful, diverse quilt of Americans blanketing our country and standing up for it. I don't know why this time we all instead seem to be going about our days in stunned, horrified and helpless silence. We may be talking among ourselves, but why are we not CALLING Congress (202-224-3121)? Why are we not out in the streets, shouting and holding up signs? And why are our elected representatives not resisting all the fast and furious moves by 47 and his cabal taking us to fascism? Why are we just allowing these robber barons, these treasonous traitors, these fascists, these oligarchs, to roll over us?

RESIST. Resist, with all your might. Because even though my beloved Chimney Rock will still be there, whether we are a constitutional republic or a fascist oligarchy, it is vital to ensure that future generations of American children will be FREE to go there, carefree, and climb the rocks, and gaze out over the beautiful Catoctin Mountain vista, and only feel the beauty, wonder and awe. Children, and none of us, should have to feel the fear, danger and dread of living under fascism. They should breathe deep and free, in a free country. And it is up to us. Right now.

It's up to us now.

Well, friends, it's here.  Inauguration Day.  I could be dramatic and, tragically, possibly accurate and say:  "The end of America", but I won't because you know what?  Whether it is or is not is going to be up to us.  It always has been, just like the message in one of my favorite movies of all time, "The Wizard of Oz", in which Dorothy learns that is isn't up to Glenda the Good Witch of the North to save her, it is she herself who has always had the power to go home.  Bernie Sanders (who I am currently upset with but who I spent most of my life holding up as one of my few, true heroes in this world, and who I must admit I still love, despite my current upsetness with him on one thing--the man is usually spot on, and he sure was when he said the following) once, or more than once, said:  "democracy is you, and you, and you."

Surprisingly to me, I find myself fighting back tears suddenly, upon writing that last sentence.  Guys (and gals--I wish one could just say "guys" anymore without being deemed to be sexist, but if even Jeff Probst won't do it, I guess I can't either... but moving on...), we're in trouble.  Our country is in peril.  Yet what I'm realizing is that, actually, it always has been--democracy and the rule of law always are.

One thing I can say for the 45 administration and everything that has unfolded during and since:  it has been a front row seat in class, as well as an in living color experience, to learn all about the fact that our constitution, our rule of law, our separation of powers, and our democracy are at once very strong yet very fragile.  All of those things are only as strong and in force as WE, the people, those of us who happen to be here alive at the time, collectively decide they are.  It's up to us to interpret and enforce all of those.  And it is up to the 4th estate, the free press, to be courageous and integrity-laden and report on what's going on, even if it places them in the crosshairs of a vengeful, sociopathic fascist.  If we have a strong, courageous free press, and if we, the people, decide to RESIST tyranny and to uphold our constitution, we just might make it through the next four years (and then we can set about the task of really healing what is broken, such as--and thank you, President Biden, for mentioning this in your awesome farewell speech--passing a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court's America-ending ruling that a POTUS is above the law.  But right now, we just have to make it through the next four years, which is a HUGE "just".  We have to RESIST.  We have to stand up and speak up for each other, for our neighbors who may be among the scapegoats, and some of us must be aware that WE may be among the scapegoats, so honestly be ready to decide what you are going to do if faced with that reality.  When others are threatened I hope I will be like Miep Gies who, during WWII and the Holocaust, hid the Frank family and others in her hidden annex.  I have actually visited there.  I have ascended the very narrow, quintessentially Dutch stairs.  I saw the faded pictures of movie stars Anne had stuck on the wall.  And even though the Nazis found Anne, her family, and the others hidden in the annex in the end, Miep did everything she possibly could to save them, at great personal peril.  If I can be like her through the next four years, I will know I am living up to my own ideals.

Things are about to get really scary and really ugly.  All we can do is stay true to our ideals.  Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."  Be respectful, reverent, loving and kind, this is what I pray to be and do every day.  45/7 has already signaled in his horrific speech last night on the eve of his inauguration that he plans to be as divisive, xenophobia-inciting, hate-mongering and terrible as ever, so we have to counteract that!  LOVE is more powerful than hate.  Say it, show it, live it.  Stand up for our constitution and rule of law and, perhaps most of all, stand up for each other.  Don't fall for the divisiveness.  I gotta quote Bernie Sanders again, but I'll just paraphrase instead of digging up an exact quote, as he says this again and again and again, and I know it by heart--literally, it's in my heart, and we all need to put it there and let it fuel our actions for the next four years and beyond:  no matter if you are black, white, or whatever skin color, and no matter whatever ethnic background you hail from and call your own, no matter if you are female, male, non-binary, straight, gay, bi, old, young, middle-aged, rich, poor, middle-class, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, athiest, Hindu or whatever religion or no religion:  when we stick together, when we stand together, there is nothing we can't accomplish.

We can stand up to this incoming sociopathic, vengeful, hateful, treasonous traitor of a fascist who also happens to be a Russian asset.  We can stand up to the oligarchy that he and his puppet master, Putin, are clearly--out in the open!--trying to usher in by making the richest person on earth (Musk) his shadow President (so much for "draining the swamp" and getting rid of the "elites"--I would say that the richest person on earth is as "elite" as they come).  It will be the farthest thing from easy.  But if we are courageous, if we resist, if we speak out, and if we stick and stand TOGETHER, I believe we have a chance of surviving the next four years and saving our country.  It's our turn now.  There's no Glenda the Good Witch of the North to save us.  But we have the power.

"Democracy is you, and you, and you."

Time Change

 They tell me the time change is tonight, but I fear it is actually on Tuesday, when we may be falling back to 1933.

What took everyone so long to say the F word about 45?

I have been shouting from the cyber-rooftop (a.k.a. Facebook, mostly) since 2016 (possibly 2015) that Trump is a fascist.  Actually, initially, I shouted that he was a "wannabe fascist".  He graduated to actual fascist with his family separation policy, in which he KIDNAPPED babies and children from who they belong with, put them in cages in concentration camps with nothing but a "Mylar blanket", neglected them and traumatized them for life, and orphaned many of them as he didn't record who they belong with.

I've been shouting DANGER, DANGER, FASCIST, FASCIST for 9 or 10 years.  It's amazing to me that suddenly now, just days before this treasonous traitor of a sociopathic fascist could actually assume power again and will, if that happens, take our country into fascism, people who were very high up in his administration are speaking out and the news media is actually covering it.  While I'm saying hallelujah to that, I'm also saying WHAT THE BLEEP TOOK YOU SO LONG?!  So long to say it, in some cases, and also so long for the news media to pick up on it and actually USE THE WORD and talk about it.  The F word.  FASCIST.  FASCISM.

We have ONE chance to stop 45 the fascist from becoming 47 the fascist and, this time, with the guard rails of our amazingly strong constitutional republic so weakened by his first term and all that his COMPLICIT party has done since, from taking America into fascism.

For anyone thinking of not voting for any reason, I must quote Cher's character in the movie "Moonstruck":  SNAP OUT OF IT!

VOTE!

SNAP OUT OF IT and VOTE!

Short and Sweet

The only walls and bans that all of 45's xenophobic othering attempts to appeal to his equally xenophobic base are going to get him this time around are a big, beautiful wall of voters who are going to ban him from ever entering the White House again!

Stop the Train! (VOTE in November against 45 ever becoming 47!)

I was up way past midnight, watching 45's absolutely horrifying and terrifying speech to the RNC.  I don't know which is more frightening:  the fact that he engages in such blatantly dehumanizing, hate-inducing othering, or the fact that his cult following is so rah-rah fueled by that.  The way 45 dehumanizes immigrants is horrifying.

He kept lying, first of all, and saying that the current administration is somehow bringing in thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants from "mental hospitals" and "prisons", and that all these thousands, upon thousands are an "invasion" of "murderers and rapists".  He kept using the word "invasion" and talking about how all these murderers and rapists and violent criminals are "invading" by the thousands, as soon as Biden somehow (per 45's lies that he kept repeating last night) is releasing them from mental hospitals and prisons (I didn't realize that Biden somehow was in charge of mental hospitals and prisons in Mexico and/or Guatemala and/or wherever, but, according to 45's lies, somehow Biden is just bringing in this "invasion" of murderers, rapists and, oh yeah, I left out that they are all terrorists, too, into "our country").

This is how dictators, how fascists, instill and/or nurture existing HATE, which they can then run on as their very fuel, weaponizing the masses to be in lock step with whatever they do.  This is how you "Other" human beings so that various groups of same are no longer looked at by the majority that the dictator wants with him, wants behind him, as human beings, and so that the dictator can then do anything he wants to those "Others" because they aren't human beings or even innocent sentient animals deserving kindness and respect, no, they are all subhuman and evil, they are all "invaders", "murderers", "rapists", "thugs", and "terrorists".

Yet when 45 was POTUS, the immigrants I saw him kidnap from their family, throw into cages in concentration camps, with nothing but a Mylar "blanket", neglect and traumatize, thereby torturing and orphaning were just BABIES.

Now he is saying that he will do mass, mass, MASS deportations the likes of which haven't been seen in American history, if he gets back into power.  And he went on and on yet again/still about how the 2020 election was stolen from him (never mind that its been litigated massively and the 2020 election was found to be totally legitimate), setting things up to not accept the results of this coming 2024 election, which, per the news last night being discussed during the RNC by the journalists on air, something like 20 states already have MAGA officials in place, in charge of certifying the election results, who are saying they will refuse to certify the results if 45 loses in 2024, which could thereby muck up the electoral college being able to proceed normally.

So we have a fascist (not a wannabe fascist, as I used to call him, years ago, until the aforementioned babies in cages, but an actual fascist, which he became upon implementing that policy) who is wanting to get back into power, who now, thanks to his despicable, complicit, disgusting party has people who have been systematically put into place over the last few years while most people assumed that the January 6th coup attempt was over (oh, it wasn't, it was just getting started), and who are now poised to basically and actually OVERTHROW THIS NEXT ELECTION IN NOVEMBER, if they have to, to get this man back into power.

Once back in power, 45 is GOING to engage in mass deportation and, in my strong opinion, WORSE--he will have concentration camps, again, and they won't just be for all the immigrants he is continuing to "Other", to dehumanize so that no one among his followers will bat an eye as the trains roll by, he will be putting American citizens onto trains to deport and/or to throw into concentration camps, too.  Mark my words, because even though, as the fictional Dr. Ian Malcolm from "Jurassic Park" said, "I hate being right all the time" (and I, in fact, am not right all the time, but I've been right all the time about everything I predicted 45 would do in his first term), I was right about everything I predicted in 2015 and 16, and throughout the 45 administration, about what he would do, even though quite a few people told me I was being over-the-top.  No, I was listening to 45 tell us and show us who he was, and I was, as Maya Angelou said in a famous quote is important to do, believing him the first time.

Friends:  it is IMPERATIVE that every single one of you reading this get out (or stay in and fill in your mail-in ballot) and VOTE in November, for whomever the Democratic presidential candidate is, it does not matter who it is, you get yourself to your polling place, and you drag every single person in your life who is of voting age with you, and you vote AGAINST 45 BECOMING 47.  Period.

America, the constitutional republic and democracy that I was amazingly blessed to grow up in, even with all its pathologies and flaws, is already gone, as of the July 1, 2024 Supreme Court ruling that we now are a kingdom (and I feel that word is way too non-alarming, as we are a potential fuhrerdom and that WILL happen if 45 becomes 47), so I thought that the ONLY silver lining of that tragic truth is that, maybe now I could finally rest.  I could stop trying to do whatever little, tiny bit I as an individual could do to save America, as I've been trying to do since I came of age in 1980.  I could just rest and maybe take a vacation one of these years.  But no, because even though our special democracy is GONE, we at least have a decent person in the presidency at the present moment, so we have not gone full fascist as far as the reality on the ground, yet.  If 45 becomes 47, WE WILL HAVE A DYSTOPIAN, EXTREMELY DARK, FASCIST COUNTRY IN WHICH WE WILL ALL FIND OURSELVES WITHOUT MOVING ANYWHERE:  IT IS COMING TO US.

Vote, vote, vote, vote, VOTE in November against this terrifying, othering, sociopathic, treasonous traitor, con artist FASCIST.  Or you will hear trains in the night and you will know you didn't do everything you could to prevent them.  And you just may even be on one.