The Nightmare of Reality and Moving Forward with Purpose and Vision

Facing a world with Donald Trump as the USA President-elect...

So on that fateful Tuesday we all waited to see what would happen in the USA 2016 election. While people were vaguely concerned about Trump winning, it didn't seem likely. Then again, everything to do with this election hasn't seemed likely and yet it has all been happening. So when we then woke up on Wednesday, November 9th everything seemed like a bad dream. I myself had work at 7am that morning, so I had gone to bed around 10pm before anything was certain... Inevitable, yes, but not yet certain. So while I suspected what had happened I did not know for certain and was in denial for a good 5 hours. And then I realized that this was my new reality and I needed to get used to it. 

I probably spent the next 2 or 3 hours being quite depressed and upset, but still, things weren't too bad in my head at that point. Until I realized what a Republican President, House, and Senate would mean for the USA and the world as a whole. And then I couldn't switch my brain off. Everything was swirling like a maelstrom in my head; LGBTQIA+ rights, gay marriage, women's right to choose and abortion access and legal consequences, healthcare and access for low income families, the environment, Trump's climate change denier appointment as head of the EPA, Endangered Species Act future support, my future career choice of conservation biology... Everything that is important to me went from being supported and protected by the government to facing complete dissolution and active threats from the entirety of the government. The fact that republicans now control the executive (presidency), legislative (congress), and judiciary (supreme court) branches of the government terrified me.

When Obama was president republicans chafed under his "control", but his presidency has been plagued from the very start by a gridlocked congress. In the beginning, democrats controlled the senate and republicans the house, and Obama managed to make some progress with congress. However, then the republicans took control of the senate as well, and then Obama's hands were virtually tied behind his back for the majority of his presidency. So while republicans were not happy with Obama as president he couldn't do as much "damage" as they feared he would if congress hadn't blocked him at every turn. However, democrats are now faced with a very different situation. Republicans now control the house, senate, presidency, and will likely have the choice of the new supreme court justice filling Scalia's spot.

They prevented Obama from carrying out his constitutional privilege of appointing the supreme court justice on the basis of them wanting the next president to choose because then the "people would be choosing". Regardless of the fact that this is perhaps the stupidest argument I have ever heard, it worked for them. The president-elect of the US is Donald Trump, the republican candidate, and as such he will appoint someone and congress will gladly accept that person, and then we will have a majority-conservative supreme court that will likely then attempt to overturn gay marriage rights, abortion rights, women's rights, equal pay for equal work laws, environmental protection laws, and everything else the House majority leader that looks like a turtle has suggested so far. There are also 2 justices on the supreme court over the age of 80, so there is a possibility that they too may need replacing in the near future. Ruth Bader Ginsberg (83) and Anthony Kennedy (80) are the oldest members of the supreme court. While Ruth Ginsberg is famed (or notorious, depending on who you ask) for supporting liberal ideology and protecting social rights of people. Anthony Kennedy on the other hand is shaky at best when it comes to protecting individuals rights and the environment. While he has not voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade, he has been the swing vote that often allows more restrictions on abortions and state decisions to restrict access. He also is shaky on protections for the LGBTQIA+ community. He was the swing vote striking down measures that would actively stop gay couples from claiming domestic partnership, however he also refused to support anti-discrimination laws for gay people. If Ruth is not able to hold out for the next 4 years, we are faced with an overwhelmingly conservative supreme court, and if Kennedy kicks the bucket, he will likely be replaced by someone much less likely to support individuals freedoms.

So the stark truth of reality is now facing us. Trump's picks for "Secretary of ___" make the simple fact that he is president-elect even more terrifying. Add to that the republican agenda of squishing the light of progress out of the world, and the idea of a conservative majority supreme court and you've got my personal nightmare and the US version of the Nazi regime mixed in with dictatorship and communism in Russia. Yay.

I have spent the last two weeks in a mixture of being okay for a few hours, to the most incredible despair I have ever experienced. I spent a good two weeks getting maybe 3-4 hours of sleep each night, and what sleep I did get was interspersed with nightmares and waking up frequently. Not a good way to keep up with schoolwork. On top of that I burst into tears and had panic attacks randomly throughout the days if I thought too hard about things. I couldn't get schoolwork done. I couldn't concentrate in class. I fell behind on homework. My nerves were shot to hell. When I heard loud voices in the street outside my house I always listened to see if they were harassing anyone, prepared to fly out my front door with my pepper spray and give them hell.

I'm not even a minority ethnicity or religion. Yes, i'm female, so I am naturally worried about the normalization of sexual assault and the lack of respect for women, their wishes, their consent, etc... But other than that i've got a lot of things going for me. I will fully admit that I am privileged. I am a white middle-class female with good family support. I'm atheist, so that's not great in this country but it's not seen as an immediate threat worth being expelled from the country over. I'm i'm scared, I can't even begin to comprehend how people who are actually at risk of verbal and physical abuse are feeling. People who already experience rampant racism and hatred towards them for their skin colour, religion, sexuality, and clothing choices related to their religion, etc... People who have already lived their entire lives being targeted because of who they are, attacked by random strangers with verbal slurs, aggression, and even physical violence are even more at risk now. Trump has "normalized" the "Alt-Right" which is really just a glamorized way of representing the white supremacist/Nazi agenda.

The more cabinet members Trump picks, the less likely it looks like this government is going to work for making all americans lives better. This government will take care of the rich old white people with political ties, and pretty much everyone else is screwed. Even the people who most vehemently support Trump will in the end suffer from this election. They think he's going to wave a magic wand and suddenly they'll all be millionaires? There's going to be a very rude awakening for some people. But his supporters who overlooked or even embraced every single character flaw and lie... Will they even notice that they are suffering for their choices? Or will they continue to blame everything on the "dirty lying cheating liberals" that they see as a parasite on this country? Sadly, it's probably the latter.

I see a bleak future for this country for the next 4 years. An undoing of all the progress made in the last decade. A fall back to the "great" times of America where women, minority religions, and people of colour were subjugated by white conservative christian zealots and their backwards agenda. I see a world where we will fall back by at least 20 years into the past. We will fall behind pretty much every country in the world. America is already the laughing stock of the world. Now we are not only a global joke, but a terrifying out of control torpedo that could hit other countries and do devastating damage with very little warning or provocation.

I see very scary times approaching and i'm currently planning my escape. I'm planning how to get out of this black hole as fast as possible. I'm planning on joining the Peace Corps where I can hopefully do some good in the world, where I can make a difference in people's lives. Where I can spend 2.5 years without having to worry about my future, where I can focus on the here and now while doing meaningful work, traveling, learning new cultures and languages, and learning more about myself and what I am capable of. When I get back I'll be faced with a few months of political campaigning and then an election that will hopefully get this country back to a place of sense and caring. If not, I can then apply to graduate school in Norway, which was already part of my plan. I can get out of this terrifying place and get a foothold in Europe, hopefully find a niche there for my specific skill set and integrate with life there and not have to return.

Part of me wants to stay and fight, fight for people's rights and for those who need the help. Part of me wants to tough it out and come out the other side stronger than before, knowing that I made even a tiny little difference with my resistance to bigotry and hate. But the larger part of me is just too terrified to even consider what that kind of life would be like. My parents moved my family from South Africa to escape what was quickly becoming a tyrannical government. They wanted my sister and I to have a better life than what was offered to us there. They wanted us to be safe, to have careers, to find meaning in our lives and experience all the things they never did. And now I see that vision of theirs dying. I see their hopes and dreams for us being flushed down the toilet. Maybe not for my sister, an iOS app developer in the Silicon Valley tech hub of California... She'll likely be fine and untouched by this. But the career path that I have chosen and worked towards for nearly 4 years of my life is slowly fading and shattering. My career was going to take me to places like back-country South Dakota and rural Colorado... Places where sexism and racism flourishes unhindered. Places where I would already not be welcome as a woman working for the federal government. I was willing to work at it, to quietly prove my worth to a community that didn't want my presence. I was willing to suck up my opinions and work with people I don't necessarily agree with to try and make progress on carnivore conservation and environmental education, even if I was faced with resistance. However, I am not willing to put myself in the way of bodily harm and person attacks. I am not willing to sacrifice my morals and everything I believe in. I am not willing to sacrifice my sense of safety and happiness fore years...

So, my plan is to get out of dodge as fast as possible. I'm just sorry that for so many people this plan of action isn't an option.

Those who have fallen by the wayside...

My High School Fellow's sheer Moronity... 

If that's even a word. 

(if not, it should be)

Recently, a teacher from my high school that I keep in contact with posted something on facebook about why people were or were not voting for Trump in the upcoming election, and for people to please not drag Hillary into the discussion. There were some simple responses of I will not vote for him, and some I will vote for him's. There were of course the quintessential posts about "he'll make america great again" and all that claptrap. And then there was a post by someone stating that she was definitely not going to vote for Trump because...

Person #1: "He is a greedy racist narcissistic ignorant asshole who cares about no one but himself. He doesn't give a shit about our country, he just wants the attention and is pandering to fear"

Pretty solid stuff right? Nothing we haven't all heard before as a viable reason not to vote for Trump in the 2016 election. Nothing too unreasonable here. I continued this sensible discourse with a comment of my own, showing my support and appreciation for her beliefs with...

Me: "Agree with everything you said! He's got a media deal going for when he loses... He's so good at drawing attention it's the perfect business for him to go into next." 

Also a pretty solid reply. Not too "nasty" or anything. Just the belief that he has found his true calling and that is "media whore", but said much nicer than that. Unfortunately, as is common on Facebook, someone replied to my simple comment with an inflammatory statement.

Person #2: "What would you say Hillary is best at? Protecting our troops? Ha! Not a chance"

I was somewhat taken aback at this, as we had been talking about Trump's true gift as media central, nothing to do with the military, his position on protecting troops abroad, foreign policy, or anything relating to those. We were simply commenting on him ability to grab attention and draw people in. As I am not the greatest lover of the military in the US or the purposes to which it is used, I found myself unable to not answer such an off-the-wall inflammatory comment. Just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Me: "(teacher's name) did kindly ask people not to bring Hillary into this as it is a discussion about Trump's shortcomings, not "who is worse at ____"... But to answer your question even though it probably wasn't directed at me... Well, as I really don't think american troops should be occupying other countries because the US government destabilized those regions in the first place, no I really don't give a shit about that. And I would say Hillary is less likely to start a nuclear war, so in that scenario she is the better option for not only protecting troops, but everyone in the damn world."

In retrospect, I can see how my statement, when read by an individual who's brain runs on a very different wavelength than my own, might be construed differently than the intended meaning. When typing my response, I was thinking how I have never heard Trump say a single thing about protecting any Troops, just about how he thinks it's okay to blow up the family members of terrorists, and how waterboarding is totally fine if it gets results, and even if it doesn't, they probably deserved it. (For those not aware, the killing of innocent family members and waterboarding are considered hate crimes and torture). I was also thinking about how the last republican president sent our troops into dangerous situations in order to cause chaos and gain control over crude oil natural resources for the US to make a profit off of. So, when I was saying that american troops shouldn't be occupying other countries I was thinking that it is immoral to invade another sovereign nation for the express purpose of stealing something that belongs to them to then make a profit ourselves. A side effect of that initial action by our great president Bush was the destabilization we now see in the Middle East, the rise of multiple different terror groups - usually initially funded in part by the US government for some legitimate purpose, or supplied with weapons for something that would have benefitted us... probably. So my comment about the destabilization was just mentioning that I recognized why there were troops there to begin with, even though I don't think they should have ever been placed there. It was my way of saying that I don't support our invasion of other countries, but I kinda get why we haven't pulled out completely just yet. And then my wonderful and lyrical comment about how Hillary might just have the mental capacity to avoid WWIII, whereas I'm not so sure if Trump is sentient enough to manage that.

I then had the very great pleasure of this response:

Person #2: "youre a god damn idiot" (yes, the punctuation was missing, not an error on my part)

Now at this point I was genuinely curious as to who this person insulting me was. He had written other rude comments on other people's voting choices, and I had a vague feeling I recognized the name. Now remember, the person who started the post was a teacher that I had in high school, so I did not discount the possibility that this rude individual calling me an idiot might be someone that I had met while in high school in Bend, OR. So, as the logical solution to being curious about who someone is, I stalked him on facebook. And to alleviate any confusion that statement might incur, I mean that I clicked on his profile and started rummaging through pictures. To my not-entirely-great astonishment, I not only recognized the person's face, but I actually remembered who they were, and that we had come into contact before while in school together. Not personally as friends or even acquaintances, but interacting with friends of friends of friends... I did remember his face, his speech pattern, even the time he accidentally smacked his friend in the balls.

His pictures on the endlessly useful facebook showed an very muscled young man, who appears to be on a fire fighting crew, spends time firing guns in the wilderness, hunts, fishes, and is pretty much the usual suspect of all around country-boy conservative that I have grown to despise with almost every fiber of my being. (Not every fiber, as I reserve at least 20% of my being for the ownership of my dog, haha).

I of course could not let the challenge to my intellect go unanswered, so I responded thus:

Me: "If having an opinion that differs from your backwards notions makes me an idiot, then I will wear that title proudly. Just because I do not support invading other countries to take control of their natural resources for US profit does not make me an idiot. Similarly, thinking that Hillary is the safer option for maintaining some sort of "world peace", also does not make me an idiot. 
And you are a budding war monger as far as I can see... Do you really want to start in on personal insults? I can come up with plenty, but I really don't see the point."

Now, I was really on my high horse, greatly enjoying being on the high moral ground for not being the first to issue a personal insult. And I was really looking forward to what he would respond with, because I had already pigeon-holed him into the type of person who gets so upset when he cannot understand one's argument or see their point of view that they resort to aggression tactics and attempts to either upset or intimidate their opponent so that they win. That kind of thing doesn't really work on me as the more aggressive they get trying to intimidate me, the more riled up and aggressive I get in return. I'm that unusual type of female that doesn't cower when a man yells at her, but instead puts on steel toed boots, grabs the nearest weapon, and prepares for battle. Unfortunately, the original poster of the discussion decided that it was time to put an end to the brewing storm, and removed my old high school "buddy" from the conversation because personal insults are not nice...

So I will never know what he would have said in response to me. I do know that he was later invited back into the conversation, probably with a warning to behave, and he promptly proceeded to confirm my worst fears about republicans and rural conservatives. Not only did he rail against Hillary or use every attempt to malign her, but he also vehemently supported everything about Donald Trump, his policies, his "beliefs", his speeches, and the fact that he wore an american flag pin about the size of a penny, was apparently a great sign of support for our wonderful military. The fact that Hillary does not accessorize similarly appeared to be a great personal insult to this male from my past.

On the same FB post, another person (person #3) extensively listed why they were not partial to Trump's political stances...

Person #3:

To which that asshole person #2 just had to respond...

Person #2:



I could have summarized all that, but I really didn't feel like tainting my own soul by typing any of that utter shit from person #2. I always knew that there were backwards people out there that could not only justify Trump's skewed world view and principles, but actually agree with them. I just never realized that I might have actually come into contact with them. And now i'm struggling to reconcile this new world view, and the fact that whenever I visit home I may come into contact with this person. If I do, i'm going to really struggle not to give him the ultimate glare of death that I was notorious for in high school. If looks could kill there would be a glorious line of bodies trailing behind me, mainly of assholes like this.

I know that there's this whole "freedom of speech" thing that conservatives and liberals alike enjoy protecting their speech. And sure, I'll respect your right to say and believe whatever you want, but hell to the no will I respect what this guy believes... As far as i'm concerned, people like this do nothing to enhance their community. They sit around, drinking beer and complaining about how the liberals are making their lives shitty. Instead of working hard, educating themselves, contributing to their community and the world, they just complain about their lot in life and vote in fuckers that will only make things worse for people like them. And if things do get worse, they continue to blame the liberals, not the republicans that are actually in charge.

These people are so obsessed with military glory, with our "brave troops", with the idea that America is the "greatest and most powerful country in the world", when in reality the whole world both laughs their asses off at our backwards-ness and inability to make a smart choice whenever it is presented to us. While also being freaking terrified that we'll let someone like Trump actually rule over us, because that will have world-wide consequences for them as well. When people like this exist in the world, its really hard to look past this and see the somewhat-sensible republicans out there that are just trying to make the best out of a shitty situation in their party. I cannot respect them for voting for Trump, even if he is their party nominee, but I can somewhat see where they're coming from in that they don't like him, but are voting for their party to have control of government for the next 4 years.

But those who not only vote for Trump but espouse everything he touts from his podium on high... those people scare the shit right out of me. Those people are the ones who give the rest a bad name, who go to rallies and scream that Obama is a muslim, those are the ones whose FB profile pics show them holding big assault rifles, sipping a can of beer, sitting in their big-ass jacked up truck, with a huge american flag hanging out the window, wearing camo, and possibly even taking a selfie with a dead deer, all at the same time. These are the guys that make me scared to walk down a street at night, that make me nervous of daring to voice my opinion in a public space, who would beat up someone just because they have a different opinion, who would go down to a voter station deliberately to intimidate minorities out of voting... Those are the guys that allowed Trump to be the republican nominee, and those guys are the ones who will riot when Trump isn't elected in 7 days...

And If there is any god(s) out there that I haven't recognized as a thing yet, please intervene in this madness for the whole world's sake. If you really did make the world, surely you don't want to see everything in it burn because Trump felt insulted by a something Putin said about his hair... There are much better reasons to watch the world burn than that, I'm sure...

Victim Blaming... The all american pastime of the US

Victim blaming for both rape and murder...

Americans have so many national passtimes... Baseball, flag obsession, racism, sexism, religious zealotry, appropriating the name "football" from the rest of the world and repurposing it and renaming the original sport bearing that name "soccer", bombing innocent bystanders and failing utterly to actually kill the person they're aiming for, and - at the forefront of my mind today - victim blaming. It's been an interesting year for us living in the amazing US of A. We've had Donald Trump turn from an amusing sideline of the election into an actual threat who could possibly have control over nuclear weapons in the not-so-distant future. We've had rapists left-right-and-center getting ridiculously pathetic short sentences, rape victims being disbelieved and slut-shamed. We have had news reports virtually every week about police shooting people all over the place - usually unarmed black kids and adults, the Black Lives Matter movement gaining incredible momentum - and of course opposition. We've had a football player kneel during the national anthem in protest of police shooting unarmed black people and white people going back to the overt racism we saw when the KKK was a popular club to be in, and then that same football player be called a muslim, a terrorist, received death threats, told he's a communist, should both kill himself and allow others to kill him, etc... 

Pretty much the US is a fucking insanely stupid nation at the moment. It's scary to live here, and i'm a privileged middle-class white girl. If i'm scared, I can only imagine how people who are actually in danger from this shit that's happening feel. I'd be fucking terrified to even leave my house. I'd become a hermit and only come out at like 4 or 5 am when almost everyone is asleep and there's less chance of me becoming a target for someone's racist vendetta. 

The US has an interesting history of blaming people for things they can't help. When the British "discovered" North America, they blamed the Native Americans for defending themselves, and punished them by slaughtering them, scalping them, and killing them (admittedly unknowingly) with diseases. When the Dutch and British started the whole slave trade, white people in the US enslaved Africans simply because they had a different skin colour, language, culture, etc... When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Government rounded up all the Japanese (and even Chinese) immigrants they could and shoved them into what were basically concentration camps without the whole gassing chambers part. For thousands of years, women have been considered "unclean", "stupid", "hysterical", and "too delicate" for pretty much everything except embroidery for the simple fact that we have vaginas and periods.

But we seem to have entered an all new low period in our history when we blame women for being attacked and raped, and black people for being murdered. The girl who was sexually assaulted behind a dumpster "had it coming" to her because she was intoxicated, and therefore we cannot even consider punishing her rapist because "it will affect HIM for the rest of his life..." Never mind that she will have to live with the memory for the rest of her life, knowing that when she was helpless someone took advantage of her and tried to stick his penis inside of her... No, the rapist's life and future are what we have to protect right now, obviously...

When it comes to rape the first question is not, "what the fuck did the parents teach their fucking rapey kid growing up?", it's what was the girl wearing, was she revealing too much cleavage, how short was her skirt, did she flirt with the guy, was she a "tease" or "leading him on", did she consent to kissing or fondling, because if so she was definitely asking for sex too, how much did she have to drink, was she wearing makeup, did she tell him she had a boyfriend, did she have a history of one-night-stands, was she "loose" with her sexuality, did she go to parties often, etc... We don't look at the perpetrator of the rape, the person with the penis who - for some reason - thought it was okay to force himself on a resisting woman. No, we look at the woman and analyse everything about her to decide how much she is at fault for another person attacking her. We give her a score of 9/10 her fault for the rape, and the guy only a 1/10, because he must have just misread the signals. 

Universities don't expel rapists, especially if they're on a sports team. They punish the victim of the rape and force her to go to a school where she sees the person who may have ruined her life, who has given her nightmares, panic attacks, a fear of intimacy with people she cares about, possibly even a fear of hugging her parents or friends, and who knows what other triggers and side effects of being sexually assaulted and abused. Judges give rapey little swimming kids 6 months in prison and then let him out after 3 months because anything else will DAMAGE HIS FUTURE... HIS future, mind you. His father pleads with people to be kind to his kid because 6 months in low-security prison was a "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action"... Why not teach your kid to respect women and if he tries to rape any of them turn him in yourself or beat the shit out of him until he understands what apparently 20 years under your tutelage failed to teach him in the first place. 

"20 minutes" was 20 minutes too much action. Even 5 minutes is too much, 1 minute, 30 seconds... There is no "amount of rape" that is okay. It's not like there's a line of right and wrong, and when you hit the 30 minute marker you've suddenly gone too far. Like, 29 mins and 30 seconds of rape is okay, but 31 minutes earns you a prison sentence... It doesn't work that way. You don't get a free pass because it was a small time period. That's like saying that you get to murder 6 people without any consequences, but if you murder a 7th, OMG, you done fucked up... 

People get taken to court and stripped of their life savings because they bumped the car in front of them and the other driver falsely claims whiplash, when they still have an open cup of water in their cupholder that didn't spill a drop. We can consign a person to bankruptcy and strip them of everything they own because some dude wanted a fat payout by suing, but god help the person who suggests that we legally punish a rapist. That's "cruel and unusual"...

Similarly, all people seem to do these days is blame black people for their own murders at the hands of cops. They don't look at the little kid that was playing in the park with a toy squirt gun, they look at the dude who called it in and said there was a black kid with a gun. The cops didn't investigate what was going on, they just tore up to the park in their cruiser, flew out of it, and shot a little boy dead. No questions, no "put the gun down", no consideration that this was a little kid playing in a park. White people look at a grown man that was shot by the police and they ask "Was he wearing a hoodie? How tall was he? Did he look angry? Did he put his hands up immediately, or ask questions first? Did he resist arrest? Did he follow instructions? Did he have past convictions? Was he doing anything illegal?"... They tell black people to just "follow the law and do what they say and you'll be fine"... Well, obviously not! I'm pretty sure that by now some black people just drop to the ground with their hands out the minute they see a cop, regardless of what they're doing at the time, even if they are just selling girl scout cookies... It's no longer about keeping your nose clean, going about your business, and being safe. It's about assuming you must look like a criminal 24/7, so you have to always assume someone's going to try and shoot you.

And then when it comes to the protesting, the black community can do nothing right. Either they protest by trying to get laws passed to protect themselves, or they go to court to get punishment for the murdering cops, and nothing gets done. Protesting via the court system isn't effective. So they try getting support from the communities and politicians around them. But no one is interested, or even sees that there is a problem. So they get mad and sit down in the middle of roads and conduct peaceful if disruptive protests. They get attacked by white bystanders and the police, even though they are exercising their constitutional right to protest. Next they get really angry and hold violent protests, marches, smash windows, destroy public property, anything to get the attention of the world and highlight the very real problem that their community faces every single day. Discrimination, racism, hate from white people, unequal opportunities, lack of resources and lack of quality education in their communities... The list goes on and on. Even when a single black person protests in a completely non-disruptive, non-violent, not in your face at all way - by taking a knee during the national anthem at a football game - he is held up as an example of a "dangerous, disrespectful black man". Called hateful names like communist, devil, told to go back to where he came from, told to leave the US if he doesn't like the way things are... 

We blame the victims of crime all the time. We blame rape victims for being too provocative. We blame the victims of cop murder for being ex-cons or just looking suspicious (i.e. having darker skin caused by more melanin pigmentation), we blame regular murder victims for pissing the wrong person off, being disrespectful, refusing to do something for someone, not having better house security, etc... We blame pregnant young girls killed by their boyfriends because they wouldn't abort for getting pregnant in the first place. We blame women killed in childbirth for getting pregnant in the first place, even though they tried to have an abortion for their own health and safety. We blame young LGBTQA people who commit suicide for being LGBTQA, and say that if they could only just have tried to be "normal" heterosexuals then they wouldn't have been unhappy enough to kill themselves... 

When horrible things happen to good and innocent people, we blame THEM for it. Not their murders, or their tormentors, not their rapists and their torturers, not the abusive boyfriend or the religious fanatics, not the unfair court systems that pass laws preventing women from terminating pregnancies that threaten their lives... We blame the very people we SHOULD have been helping. We allow this disgusting victim blaming culture to not only perpetuate, but to thrive. 

Why? I have no idea. I cannot comprehend how little compassion a person has to have not to feel the pain of these needless deaths or feel sorrow at how their lives ended.

The Orlando Nightclub Shooting

The Real Issues Here, not Fear Mongering

My thoughts are with the survivors of the Orlando Pulse shooting, the families and friends of the deceases, and the souls of the murdered. There is nothing that can be said, no comfort that can be given after such a horrific event, and all I can say is that I am so sorry for their losses.

I am once again sickened and horrified by the latest shooting event in the US. This has become an every week thing, if not more often. 2 shootings in 2 days. One was a rising talented youtube singer at a concert shot by a supposed unbalanced fan. The other was the largest mass shooting event in the history of the US resulting in the deaths of 50 people with another 50 or so injured, some still in surgery and in critical condition.

All day yesterday and today all that has been reported on the radio is the connection of the shooter in Orlando to ISIS, Trump's insinuation that Obama is in some way to blame for the shooting, the constant obsession over the ethnicity and religion of the shooter, etc... The internet is full of forums of people talking about how the shooter was an immigrant and we need to close our borders, how our decreased military presence worldwide is why this tragedy happened. People are liking posts about how it's Obama's government that has led us to this point and allowed such a thing to happen, people are retweeting disgusting comments about how the shooter is the hero for killing gay people. This is reminiscent of the shooting that occurred several months ago at a Planned Parenthood, where people were applauding the nutjob who shot up a waiting room, claiming he was a hero saving babies lives. I wrote a blog post about that as well when it occurred, disgusted by the so called "Good Christians" outpouring of hatred against dead people, and how they somehow deserved to die for aborting helpless freaking babies.

Now, instead of focusing on what the real issues here are, the media is completely ignoring the real reasons why this horrible tragedy happened. Homophobia and a lack of gun control. That's the real root of this shooting. I am the first to usually look at religious extremism as a motive, and yes, that may be the reasoning behind the homophobia, but it's the homophobia that resulted in the shooter choosing this particular target. A club that is frequented mainly by the  LGBTQ community and it's allies was the target, and if this is not put down as a hate crime then i'm not sure what the hell the media is doing anymore. It was a hate crime committed by a domestic terrorist. Not an international terrorist working for ISIS, not a muslim immigrant, but a U.S. citizen born in the U.S., raised in the U.S., who didn't like gay people. That is domestic terrorism - the same cause of the Planned Parenthood shooting - and homophobia.

What I want to know is when is enough going to be enough? There have been 998 mass shootings (where 4+ people died) in the 912 days since the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting on December 14th, 2012. In 912 days 1,105 people have been murdered by guns in mass shootings, and another 3,929 people have been physically injured - not even counting the emotional damage from being in this situation, the PTSD that some survivors must have, the impacts on the family members and friends of those killed. In just over 2 years since the first "wake-up-call" shooting we have done nothing to prevent this from happening. We blame it on mental health issues, which undeniably have had a hand in these shootings in some cases. We blame it on immigrants and Islam - which also have played a role in some of the cases. But when have we ever blamed it on christian-based motives and "morals"? When has anything actually changed to make the acquisition of a gun more difficult? When have we had the nerve to call it what it really is: Domestic Terrorism? When have we looked at the perpetrator and said the words that really show the underlying motives? Pro-life, Homophobic, Christian, Islamic, Pro-gun, white supremacist, racist. 

First, people manage to somehow confuse hate crimes with mental illness. Sandy Hook can be attributed to a combination of mental illness and developmental/behavioural issues and was probably not a "hate crime". On the other hand, the shooting at a Charleston Church with a predominantly black congregation can probably be classified as a hate crime brought on by racism and the perpetrator there seemed obsessed with white supremacy. And therein lies the difference. On one hand you have a person with actual mental and psychological deficits, and on the other you have a person with an intense hatred of a specific group of people. Once again, after the Orlando shooting, republicans are calling for more mental health awareness but saying that there is no need for gun control. Because obviously every person who uses a gun inappropriately must have some mental illness. It can't be for any other reason. The mass shooting in Orlando was not a crime committed due to mental illness, rather a crime committed due to homophobia and hatred against the gay community.

Second, there is the discussion of the shooter at the Orlando nightclub and how he has connections to ISIS and international terrorism, rather than domestic terrorist and his homophobia. The man's own father says he showed his disgust and hatred of men who liked other men. There has been no link found between the individual and ISIS. ISIS put out a statement congratulating the shooter and saying how wonderful it was that so many had died. ISIS exists to monger fear, to sow distrust, and to turn us against one another to make it easier for them to cause havoc. The media says that this statement shows the terror group "claiming responsibility" - which it does not actually claim - and this just gives more weight to ISIS's campaign to terrify everyone. But, it has nothing to do with the shooting event itself. NOTHING has been found to indicate any connection between the shooter and ISIS other than his religion. As far as the information shows, this was purely a crime against the LGBTQ community and was a hate crime. Discussing connections to international terror groups distracts from the real horror of what happened and diminishes the suffering of those injured, the families and friends of those who have died, and those who survived the traumatic attack.

Third, there is a ridiculous amount of emphasis being put on the fact that this man was a Muslim and followed the religion of Islam. People seem to think that his religion dictated that he must go and kill gay people. This could have easily been a white Christian man, and no one would dare insinuate in that scenario that he would have been following the orders of his god and Jesus by killing gay people, even if he chanted that very thing as he shot people. While the shooter was probably motivated by the belief that his religion taught against homosexuality, it doesn't actually matter what his religion actually was. All of the major world religions teach against homosexuality; Christianity, Islam, Catholicism, even some sects of Judaism and Hinduism. The fact that he was religious and was taught that homosexuality is wrong by his religion is of note because it was a religiously motivated hate-crime but the individual religion is completely unimportant here.

Fourth, hate crimes in this country have been increasing since extremist views about race, religion, and sexual and gender orientation have come to the forefront of our countries politics. Donald Trump is a political figure running for the highest office in the U.S. who is openly homophobic, racist, sexist, and who feeds the rabid masses foaming at the mouth for vindication that their hatred against certain groups of people is justified. He eggs on his supporters to violently assault people that don't agree with him. He promotes the illegal barring of an entire race from entering the U.S. on the basis of "they might be terrorists". And he regularly slanders people based on race, religion, and gender. All of the extremists out there now have someone to rally behind and they are becoming more and more comfortable expressing their views in physically violent ways. With a person like Donald Trump running for President, it's no wonder that we have a racist kid shooting up a black church, a radical pro-lifer shooting up a planned parenthood clinic, and a homophobic man shooting up a LGBTQ community gathering place. 

Fifth, we once again have a discussion on our hands about gun control. All the things that have been pandered about different communities; "good guy with a gun" nonsense, the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, "the liberals are trying to take away our guns" diatribe... What we "liberals" want is for more people with sketchy backgrounds not to be able to get ahold of dangerous weapons that can cause this amount of damage to other humans. We want the system to be improved so that people with histories of narcotic convictions or domestic abuse or mental disturbances that could lead to psychotic breaks or extremist viewpoints about sexual identity, race, religion, women's choice, etc... won't get ahold of deadly weapons. If you are a sane person who has no history of violence or drug related charges and who shows no inclination to violently attack someone because of their race, gender or sexual orientation, religion, or life choices, then by all means go ahead and buy a gun. But something needs to change in the system now, not in 10 years when even more people are dead. 

And Finally, can we please acknowledge the insanity of people CONGRATULATING the shooter on killing people. It doesn't matter if these people were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, other, or even straight... they were living breathing human beings. For people out there to celebrate their deaths is disgusting and horrifying. Sure, it might be a small group of people out there that feel this way, but the fact that they exist proves that we have a broken society. They wouldn't have this intense hatred if people didn't tell them that it's okay to hate gay people, that it's okay to believe they should "burn in hell" or "die for their sins". If prominent individuals (pastors, priests, ministers, preachers, rabbis, reverends, imams, politicians, government workers, parents, groups like WBC, etc...) did not actively promote homosexuality as evil and abnormal and sinful and wrong, then these extreme viewpoints would not exist and we wouldn't have evil little fuckers making comments like the ones below. Just read them and let it sink in that the things that you might think most important in your world (god, religion, holy texts, preachers, etc..) can cause people to actively celebrate the deaths of 50+ people and congratulate mass murderers.

  

 

 

 

 

Boys will be boys...

How we raise boys to be sexist
assholes...

Recently, the news feed on my Facebook has blown up with articles and posts about Brock Turner, the Standford student who sexually assaulted a young woman behind a dumpster. The only reason he wasn't convicted as a full-blown rapist is that he was interrupted before he could stick his penis inside an unconscious young woman. Now, people have been saying that it's reprehensible that even though a jury found him guilty of 3 felonies of sexual assault, a judge decided to give him just a 6 month jail sentence, and that this has now been reduced to 3 months is just shy of criminal behaviour in itself... 

All of this I agree with whole-heartedly, but not much more can be said that I have not already read or heard or said myself. The brave young woman he attacked wrote an amazing letter to him which she read in court, detailing the many ways in which his assault has affected her life. She said it better than anyone else could, because she lived through the experience. Anyone who disregards her feelings on the matter does not deserve to breathe the same air as her. 

However, I want this blog post to focus more on an article I read today about how we are taught from a young age the the way boys and men treat us is okay and just part of what makes them boys, something they cannot help and something that is pointless and unnecessary to discourage when they are young.

The author talks about her experiences growing up with her male family members and with strangers and how her parents unknowingly indoctrinated her into a world where women are actively supposed to protect themselves against men and unwanted advances, but boys are not taught to treat women with respect as basic human beings. The article "3 ways my parents unintentionally taught me that my consent didn't matter" discusses three different lessons learned in early childhood that set the stage for how she was supposed to view the world as a woman, and what she should expect from the men and boys around her.

1. 'You're Not Allowed to Say No' - Girls are supposed to be gracious and sweet and acquiescent. We're not supposed to raise our voices, or argue and talk back, or really stand up for ourselves in situations where we feel uncomfortable.
2. 'Boys Will Be Boys' - Boys can pick on girls, force them to play in a certain way, or be cruel little jerks and we just push it aside as exuberance and "the way boys play" without teaching them not to be oversexed monsters.
3. 'This Is What It Means to Be a Girl' - Sexism is just part of the system and we're supposed to get used to it because that's the way it's always been and it's not going to change...

These 3 lessons come into play with how children are raised in the modern world. Boys play exuberantly, like toys that make a lot of noise, destroy stuff, run around crazily ignoring their parents, and mercilessly tease girls (often cruelly). Often times, parents do nothing to curtail this behaviour and teach their male children control, manners, and basic human decency toward one another and the young girls around them. If another parent even suggests that they should discipline or control their male offspring, the parents are likely to get offended, shout about "how dare you tell me how to teach my child", or mutter something about how "boys will be boys" as though there is nothing they can do about their children and/or no need for anything to be done. 

When a girl comes home crying from school telling her parents about how a boy was teasing her, or pinching her, or pulling her hair her parents are likely to tell her that if a boy is mean to her that means he likes her. This sets the stage for years of putting up with abusive and manipulative males in her life because somewhere in her subconscious she thinks that the men in her life just don't know how to express them and that they're not trying to be assholes, just merely shy about telling her how they really feel. The other side of the coin though is that if the parents take the appropriate action and call the boy's parents to talk about how their child hurt or upset the girl. The response is usually "well that's just how boys play", or "he doesn't know how to express himself". This is not an acceptable response form a parent... its a cop out, a lack of responsibility for one's own teachings to their offspring, and does nothing to fix a problem rearing it's head. Instead of making excuses for "that's just how he plays", wouldn't it be nice if they sat their child down and explained to him how his actions affected other people, and that being mean to girls (and boys) wasn't an acceptable way to behave? Might that not solve problems down the line, if he learned how to treat other people in his life with respect?

When a parent ignores a negative action that their child displays early on, that is the same as giving permission to the child to behave in that way. When you teach your child table manners and to say 'please' and 'thank-you', you consistently make sure that they follow the established rules you have set forth. You teach your child to be polite, to chew with their mouths closed, and to show proper respect to adults. What if - and I know this is a crazy idea here - we approached teaching our children to be kind to each other (and for little boys not to be crazy lunatic assholes) the same way, instead of letting them run wild and figure out social interactions with no guidebook. 

In schools, you often hear about how teachers spend a disproportionate amount of time helping boys with their studies, or how boys are more likely to have ADHD, a short attention span, and an inability to focus. Are boys really more likely to have ADHD than girls? I don't know the real answer to this, but I think it is very unlikely that only boys can have ADHD. The difference is that girls are taught early on not to run around crazily, to sit down and pay attention, and to be polite. More time is spent teaching girls to have good manners because that indicates good breeding and will make her attractive later in life. Boys on the other hand are supposed to be "macho" and "manly" and "authoritative", so they are allowed to act like little hooligans rather than be taught self control and manners and to sit still and pay attention in class. So it is likely that just as many little girls have ADHD, but were taught manners and self control, and therefore pay attention in class. If teachers didn't spend so much time trying to control their male pupils, maybe they would have more time to teach the girls too, and the boys would learn like normal people and not take extra attention. 

Teaching boys and girls different sets of manners does no good in the long run. Girls are supposed to be maleable, soft, polite, quiet, intelligent, unobtrusive, and above all things not provoke aggression from boys and not display herself to 'tempt them'. Boys are supposed to be strong, authoritative, manly, unemotional, protective, assertive, and be the 'man of the household' the 'provider', the loudest voice in the room. 

Pictures like this do so much unintended damage, reinforcing that little girls and women are supposed to be happy and pretty all the time, are supposed to make the people around them feel good about themselves. While boys are not supposed to cry, and if they do then it must be something really serious and important and everyone needs to pay attention immediately. If a girl cries it's no big deal because they must do it all the time anyway, they must be super emotional and unable to control themselves... But if a boy does it we must call the fire brigade immediately. 

This is supposed to be sweet and touching and make girls feel special, but it does so much more harm than good, teaching them that boys expressed feelings are more important than those of girls. Why are the boy's tears more valid and important than the girl's?

These types of quotes are meant to show how much a girl means to a boy if she willingly expressed feelings, but just diminish the validity of a girl's feelings and physical demonstration of emotions. They add colours and cutsie fonts and hearts that are supposed to give us warm and fuzzy feelings inside, but are really just part of a culture teaching girls from a young age that it's okay for boys to be mean to them, and that if a boy cries its time to drop everything and treat him as though he's made of gold, and that when she cries it isn't nearly as important and doesn't mean as much.

And even things like this, sweet in theory but harmful in practice. Teaching your boys to beat someone up (although it is good to teach your son to look after his little sister) is less effective than teaching your daughter to stand up for herself and do the beating on her own. If a boy hurts her feelings, she shouldn't have to wait around for her brother or her father to come to her rescue. She should be taught that she has self-worth and that if someone if mean to her, she can stand up for herself and give them a piece of her mind. Instead of dissolving into tears as her only option, why not teach her that she is allowed to get mad?

What is it in our culture that reviles strong women who can take care of themselves? Now don't get me wrong, it is important to show our emotions, to cry (therapeutic even). But that's not our only option as females. However, so often when we do stand up for ourselves, shout, throw things - act the way men do when they get angry - we are called "crazy", "bitch", and told we must be "on our periods", as though it's unthinkable that we might have real human emotions and express them violently too, just the way boys and men do. 

We women need to stand up for our daughters, sisters, friends, and even strangers we do not know. We need to move beyond the age where girls are pretty little flowers and can't do anything for themselves. We need to teach girls to stand up to the men in their lives. We need to teach boys from an early age to respect women and girls, and change the way we raise our boys so that they grow up to be decent, patient, kind men. Things need to change and that starts with parenting. 

And more than that, men need to learn to stand up for us too. Feminism isn't just for women, and it's not about only giving rights to women, or putting men down. It's about giving women the same rights as men around them and equaling the sexes. Its about equal pay for equal work, and it's about teaching your boys that they're allowed to cry when they're upset. It's about deciding who gets child custody based on the good of the child, not the gender of the parent. Its about believing women when they say they were raped and letting them decide if they want to bring an unplanned for child into the world. It's about supporting men who decide to pursue typically female career paths like nursing and standing up for them when others laugh. Feminism isn't some dirty word to be pushed around and hidden from. It just means treating people with fairness and human decency, regardless of gender. How is that a bad thing?

Who Really Owns the Media?

Bernie's Revolution... A new age of politics

We live in a country that prides itself on having freedom of speech and press, but how free is it really? Can we say what we like in the media? Yes, legally we can, but what does freedom of press really mean in this country? To me, it means that whoever has the most money and will give newspapers the biggest headlines can buy the attention of the media. That sounds like having a significant other with incredibly loose morals who will spend time with anyone who can pay for it... You can see where I'm going with this I hope.

For instance, Oregon had it's primaries this week, and as we drew closer to the 17th, the media was pushing more and more heavily the idea that Hillary Clinton actually is the favored candidate in this incredibly liberal state. All I saw on the politics pages of every major news network was how Bernie didn't really have a chance here, how his following was really just a very small (if loud) group of radical democrats, and how Clinton was obviously going to win by a landslide. But that didn't actually happen. Bernie won the primary 55% to Clinton's 44%, which is a pretty big margin. By contrast, Kentucky had such a close primary that Clinton's reported win margin so far is 0.5%. The more the media continues to claim that Bernie doesn't have a shot at this, that Bernie supporters should get with the program and switch to Clinton Camp, the less likely we are to want to compromise.

There's something about being lied to by the media that just pisses me off. I hate how impossible they find it to be impartial, or at least give due credit to the other democratic candidate running for president. They focus in on Clinton and barely even give mention to Bernie, despite the fact that for the first time in what is probably several decades, people between the ages of 18-30 actually give a fuck about primaries and are showing up in huge numbers to vote. That's a big deal, and it's not because of Clinton. The fact that mainstream media gives almost no credence to Bernie's campaign, that they reluctantly even mention it, and that even popular shows like Trevor Noah's Tonight Show fail to even mention that Bernie is running against Hillary is a problem. Bernie is running a social media campaign because the real media won't give him the coverage he needs to reach people, and they don't give him the time because they know he's not going to give them anything for it. He doesn't have the funding to buy them, so we are instead given an unequal view of the candidates. And We Don't Want Clinton. 

She does not appeal to the younger age group in this country. She doesn't show any interest in supporting our issues, or even listening to our concerns. The younger generation is increasingly concerned about developing a less toxic energy source, with harnessing the power of wind, water, and sun instead of catering to big oil companies. The younger generation wants someone to recognize that the system of continually rising education costs, the devaluation of a college degree, and the never-ending student debt that will follow us around forever doesn't work. Clinton has been in the system so long and gotten so used to dealing with the "real adults" in the world... the baby boomers, our parents generation, the immovable people who were more concerned about lowering taxes and getting out of the recession than in improving on the political system, and in looking forward towards the future.

It's not Clinton's turn. I know she's waited a long time. She thought she had it in the bag in the 2004 election, but then Obama won. Then he had a second term. How in 2016 people claim that it's her turn, that it's time to have a woman president, that she has the political experience and knows how to work the system... That's exactly what we (the millennial generation) don't want. We don't want a conformist who's going to follow the system that we consider broken. We don't want someone who is comfortable caving into and being supported by big oil companies. We don't want Hillary Clinton to be our first female president. We want someone like Elizabeth Warren someday. Someone who stands for the things we believe in, someone who is moving with the times and who is not beholden to any one corrupt entity. We want someone who remembers what it's like to be with the little people, who argues for us and our issues. We want someone we can trust, and unfortunately that person is just not Hillary Clinton. There's too much uncertainty and mistrust associated with her. She lies through her teeth almost incessantly, and that's not a quality we want in the person making our decisions for us. 

Now I don't discount the many contributions that Hillary has made to the cause of gender equality in this country. She has a place in history that cannot and should not be disputed. She is an iconic figure in the rise of women from homemakers and wives to strong people with high-powered careers just as valid as their husband's jobs. But I'm sorry to say its still not her turn and likely never will be. 

Hillary may have the media in her back pocket paving the way for her to the presidency, or at least to the presidential candidacy, but if she thought it would be an easy time of it, we've shown her that she has another thing coming. Bernie's movement is not something that will just go away if she wins the primaries. We're here to stay and if she wants our support she's going to need to change up some things, and definitely improve on her lack of interest in the younger generations. We've been woken up to our political reality and we're going to fight tooth and nail to make sure our issues and concerns are addressed. The time when college students and young adults didn't pay attention to politics is over, and if Clinton does win and doesn't change her attitude towards us, and show some interest in hearing our voice, then she'll lose herself the presidency.

Of course, I myself will vote for her if she wins the primaries, but I know plenty of democrats and Bernie supporters so disgusted by the media's lack of coverage and the DNC's lack of support for Bernie that they refuse to support Clinton in any way. They will not vote at all if it means voting between her and Trump, and that's a problem. The party is so heavily divided right now that if she is the candidate, she's going to have to put herself out there to bring in the Bernie supporters. We're not just going to concede gracefully and join her side. She's going to need to extend the proverbial olive branch or she'll go down in history as the candidate who willingly lost to Donald Trump. Unfortunately, I can really only see a few choices for Clinton here... choose Bernie as her VP running mate, choose Elizabeth Warren as her VP running mate, or some other senator that appeals to the younger generation. Unfortunately, Warren is probably out because there will be the need to balance Clinton's womanhood with a man or people will get pissy. But if Clinton rejects Bernie out of hand, then she's going to have a democratic revolution on her hands that she probably won't survive.

The Trump Campaign

The Rise of Fascism in the US

The Mirriam-Webster Dictionary defines fascism as " a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government". Wikipedia defines it as "a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that came to prominence in early 20th-centruy Europe and is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left-right spectrum". 

FascismUS.com quotes from Mussolini - "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power"; Lenin - "Fascism is capitalism in decay"; and Sen. Huey Long's warning - "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism. I'm afraid, based on my own long experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security." 

This website also lists 14 characteristics of fascism:

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
2. Distain for the recognition of human rights
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as unifying cause
4. Supremacy of the military
5. Rampant sexism
6. Controlled mass media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and government are intertwined
9. Corporate power is protected
10. Labor power is suppressed
11. Distain for intellectuals and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

The scary thing is, I recognize all of these points and characteristics as things that have become commonplace in the current US political system. Bertrand Russell warned us of the current political plight we now find ourselves in, either under Cruz or Trump:

"The next step in a fascist government is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand, and terrorism on the other." ~Bertrand Russell

Links:

http://www.fascismusa.com/

When the Nazi's rose to power in Germany, they began as a small group of radical extremists. They were a small and minor "official" police group in the German SA (Sturmabteilung or "storm troopers") commonly known as "Brown shirts" similar to the Italian Dictator Mussolini's "Black shirts". Both Mussolini and Hitler started out their political careers in their respective National Socialist parties, appealing initially to young, nationalistic, working class men. Both had an air of legitimacy to their bid for power, climbing the political chain more or less legitimately.

Hitler made a grab for power early on in his leadership of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi for short), and was imprisoned for it. At his trial, he was so passionate in his speech about returning Germany to the world as the great nation it once was, that the judges felt sorry for him and reduced his sentence to 5 years. He was released after 9 months in part due to public sympathy and appreciation for his frankness and national pride. From there, he drew a lot of german youth who were dissatisfied with the options available to them, particularly difficulty getting work, feeling that foreigners were taking their jobs, feeling as though they were owed more and resenting anyone who wasn't as German as they were. Jews have always faced a lot of persecution, in part because they tend to have good jobs, are well respected, and have a strong community that helps them succeed in life. The working class youth saw these things that they wanted and decided they could take them from others because they "deserved" it for being more german than others were.

Fear is an amazing motivator. As Russia had a revolution in which the Communist Party took over, Germany became worried by the rising interest in Marxist ideas and communism. The Nazi party used the Reichstag Fire (some believe Hitler himself engineered the fire) to "fan the flames" of anti-communist fear and solidify his position in politics by promising to rout the group of "dutch communists" that had started a fire to burn down the parliament building. From 3,000 members in 1920, the Nazi party rose to 108,000 strong in 1929, pulling in extremists from the right wing conservative faction of german government and lower-middle class workers who wanted better pay and more jobs.

Hitler used the SA brownshirts as street thugs to enforce his ideas and destroy anyone who didn't agree with or support him. The brownshirts began as a movement of public thugs, but soon became legitimate as first the police supported their marches and vandalism, and then many police became brownshirts themselves. If a newspaper printed anti-Nazi articles, made fun of Nazi leaders, or disagreed with Nazi propaganda, the brownshirts would march in and throw typewriters out of windows, beat people up, smash windows and doors down, and steal personal items without the police lifting a finger to stop them. As the brownshirts gained followers and people joined, they began to disrupt other political parties meetings, breaking them up and even roughing up the people attending. They transformed from a small group of violent and unorganized extremists into a well-organized gang of political thugs, were given weapons and legitimate government positions and the authority not only to beat people up, but to take them away for questioning. Few returned in condition in which they were taken away, if they were ever seen again.

This all happened fairly slowly at first. From the historical records I can find, various interviews with people who survived the Nazi's regime, and Hitler's own books, it seems as though the initial stages of Nazi control were fairly subtle and unthreatening. People ignored the preliminary warning signs, thinking that there was no way sensible people in their country would ever vote someone like Hitler into power. It was all just smoke with no flame to be concerned about. Until it wasn't. Until it became real. Until Hitler did get voted into office, became a dictator, and began to slaughter millions of people from Jews to the mentally/physically handicapped.

The reign of fear and anti-semitism and thuggery in those times is mirrored in our own history today. In the US, we are constantly told to fear terrorist attacks. Ever since 9-11, even the hint of a bomb or a plane crash immediately sets people looking for a terrorist. It's like the "where's waldo" of America now. We are all so terrified of foreign terrorism, not only do we not afford domestic terrorism the concern it is due, but we overlook it entirely and claim it to be "just stuff that happens". Mass shootings are a form of domestic terrorism. Blowing up Planned Parenthood facilities is domestic terrorism. Shooting up a black church because the people there happen to have a different coloured skin is racist domestic terrorism. And yet we are all more concerned about ensuring that the TSA airport security confiscates an old ladies short sewing scissors and throwing away shampoo.

Donald Trump inspires a zeal of hatred against people of different colours, religions other than christianity, women, the LGBTQ community, and pretty much every other group apart from fat, white, middle-aged gun-happy morons and their gun-happy bible-thumping sons. He literally tells people in his rallies to go and beat up anyone who disagrees with them. He promotes violence as a way to achieve goals. He stereotypes muslims and hispanics, he is a sexist pig when it comes to women, pretty much categorizing us as a pair of breasts and a piece of meat to have sex with. He preys on the weak-minded people's fears, telling us we need to get rid of the Mexicans because they are taking all our jobs, we need to bomb the middle east because that's where all the terrorists are, we need to piss off every other major country in the world, just to show everyone how big our collective nationalist dick is.

Trump supporters are obsessed with nationalism, just as the Nazi's were. Everything is about "Making America Great Again" and "'Merica" nonsense. Wearing red/white/blue clothing, waving a flag (often the confederate flag) for no good reason, and singing patriotic songs while ganging up and  beating the crap out of someone smaller than they are while outnumbering them 10:1. Yea, really fair odds there.

And as a quick note, illegal immigrants in the US find it extremely difficult to get a job. They are not "stealing american's jobs", because you need a valid Social Security Number in order to get a legitimate job. As illegal immigrants do not have a SSN, they cannot be employed and paid legally. So instead of saying that the "Mexicans are stealing our jobs", you should really be pissed off at the American business men who are too cheap to pay a fair wage to you americans and instead pay meager pittance under the table to illegal immigrants.

The point of this blog post however, is just to illustrate how shockingly similar Trump supporters are to the "brownshirts" of the Nazi party that nearly took over Europe and destroyed the world as we know it. History is repeating itself here. The Germans were so sure that Hitler couldn't possibly be elected in a fair election, but he did. I was sure in the beginning that people couldn't really be stupid enough to believe Trump's lies and bullshit. But I guess I was wrong, because it's happening right before our eyes. If he is elected, how long do you think it will be before his supporters start setting fires to jewish and muslim owned businesses and houses. How long before they attack LGBTQ bars and meeting places because they are homophobic little creeps. How long before they set fire to women's health organizations like Planned Parenthood. How long before "free speech" is only free if it follows the appropriate mantra of America is the greatest, Trump is wonderful. How long before we go from being a slightly dysfunctional democracy to a dictatorship where the people who are supposed to keep us safe (police) turn into a fascist enforcer group who beat up anyone who doesn't hold to the status quo.

Nazi's, Stasi, KGB, Trump supporters... they're all the same in the end and they're coming for America. That's what we should be afraid of and working to prevent. Not building a wall between the US and Mexico, not waving our metaphorical penises in the air to see who has the biggest balls, and not being so obsessed with "terrorism" that we loose site of domestic terrorism.

There's more at stake here than who gets to live in the white house. I for one do not see a bright future for the US unless we really say no to the Trump supporters and start some proactive actions to ensure that they cannot turn into the new "brownshirts" pushing the Nazi regime. But the US has never been good about being proactive. We're a reactive nation that waits until the very last moment, that waits until nearly all hope is lost before actually getting up off our asses and doing something for the world, not just for ourselves. We're cowards, and probably always will be. It might just be the end of us.