Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight

The prophets of my generation were songwriters.

Our religion was music and they were the high priests. 

They fought corruption and injustice with their words. They were fearless in the face of overwhelming blowback. Often arrested on trumped up charges. They put on concerts to raise money for good causes, for humanity, to try to change the status quo so humans could just be humans instead of pawns in an inhumane game.

They spoke out, they protested, they flaunted convention in every way possible. They fought back, believing they could change this country, maybe the world.

For a while there it felt like we were a little ahead. But we never really were.

The world is a corrupt and vicious place. Money and power rule everything everywhere and it has always been that way.

We "average" people think we have some sort of freedom, to run our own lives, but we don't. Only a little, and only up to a point. 

Everything and everyone we should be able to trust to protect us, fails us. Because they don't care about us. The contempt of the rich and powerful for everyone else is staggering."A piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla and one other thing" tells you everything you need to know about the scorn the rich and powerful feel towards us.

It has always been that way, but recently the venomous hatred and contempt, the willingness to resort to violence to maintain control, the easy way they lie about what they are doing to justify their means, are right out in the open. They are daring us to do anything about it. 

The world is being carved up by three dicktators who do not care who gets hurt or dies in the process.

The game is over. The world has been exposed for what it really is.

If You Want Us to Believe in Justice, Justice Better Be Real

 "They want it all, they want it now

They want to get it and they don't care how.........................

Want that Mercedes, that Gulf Stream too

They want to get it, get it from you

They want your life savings and your mother's ring

They'd like to have everything..............................

They want that mansion and they want it full

Of wine and women and political pull

They always have a President or two

That's how they get away with what they do

That's how they do it............................................

They bleed the companies they're supposed to run

Ain't no different than taking your money with a gun

They make it to Jamaica and their wire comes through

They sacrifice a lawyer and they're laughing at you........................

They don't get prosecuted don't even get charged

They're somewhere in the sun belt livin' it large

And the government says we can't prove they did it at all

Besides they've got these underlings ready to take the fall............................

These people that they stole from whose lives they laid to waste

They should have to meet them all face to face

And explain just why their momma didn't teach 'em not to steal

If you want us to believe in justice, justice better be real........................

They just don't give a damn"

They Want It All by Crosby and Nash  2004

Some of These People.............................

 "You could throw a rock in any direction in any part of this country and hit somebody who wants this country to look and taste vanilla and never come close to having a scoop of cherry or chocolate anywhere near the horizon of possibility. And some of these people will not stop until what we have today is replaced with something more 1930s Germany than 2020s America."

From To Die For, by David Baldacci

Indisputable Truth

 "A man grows old; he feels in himself that radical sense of weakness, of listlessness, of discomfort, which accompanies the advance of age; and, feeling thus, imagines himself merely sick, lulling his fears with the notion that this distressing condition is due to some particular cause, from which, as from an illness, he hopes to recover. Vain imaginings! That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is."

From Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Careful......careful

 If you indulge your unhappiness, while attempting to feign optimism for the sake of your spouse, you are walking a fine line indeed.

Virtually guaranteed to end up like Karl Wallenda.

Paradise Lost

If you live in a country ruled by a dicktator, I feel sorry for you. Heartfelt sorrow. 

Because I am sure your life is miserable. You have no one to protect you and look after your best interests as a human being. Your beloved dicktator is most likely doing everything in his power to destroy your life financially, health-wise, security-wise and every other way he can.

Because he doesn't even recognize your existence.

He did before he was elected because he needed you. Needed you to believe his lies, to believe he would protect you and improve your life so he could win the election. He won. Now he doesn't care if you live or die. In fact in some cases, probably a lot of cases, he wants you to die.

And if that dicktator is a cold-hearted, vicious, greedy and stupid man who cares nothing about the citizens of "his" country, you must be really hurting. A dicktator who feels it is perfectly OK to kill citizens who disagree with him. And then perfectly OK to lie about those murders in an attempt to turn it around and blame the victim.

It must be awful for you.

I am lucky. I live in the United States of America. A country conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

A Democracy. We have free speech. We can say what we want and be whoever we want to be. We have a Constitution to protect us, and laws, and a legal system, an ethical Supreme Court to interpret those laws with wisdom and compassion in a non-partisan way. We have principled elected representatives who think about nothing else but our welfare.

We are safe from exploitation and manipulation and violence. All of our citizens love and support each other because they understand that we are all in the same boat.

The people who live in this country are well educated and actively engaged in our political system. So they make wise choices at election time, which is what protects us from dicktator-wannabes. Serpents are not welcome here.

I am grateful.

The United States is truly a Garden of Eden.

Bob Weir (Requiescat in Pace)

Lately when I hear about the death of a musician from my generation, that announcement is followed by "leaving ____ as the only surviving original member" of the band.

I am sick of reading those words, but that is where I am in life.

You get to a certain point in your life where you can palpably feel your generation quietly slipping away.

In 20 or 30 years my generation will exist only as a memory.

Luckily for me and many others, the people who affected me the most were musicians, authors, and actors. Creative people who I can enjoy until the day I die.

And that's exactly what I'm gonna do.