Eliminating the Dream

There's a drastic difference in dating when we talk about men and women, and it's probably based on the patriarchal society more so than personalities.  Since most of my friends have been guys because of work over the last 30 years, I've noticed the differences and for the most part decided the main difference works against online dating... for women.  What is the difference?  Men eliminate. Women dream up. 

So first let me explain. When movies say most women have decided in person in the first few minutes whether a man even has a chance, most women will nod emphatically, even me.  But it's part of the patriarchy.  Women for hundreds, even thousands of years, would get a chance introduction, not be allowed to have any real or meaningful conversations and have to answer a marriage proposal.  Read any classic about women, particularly in the 1800's when women were finally able to write about it.  Men who had only a glimpse of a woman would come to see her at her parents, maybe stroll along a garden or just sit on a porch with her for less than an hour and then propose in the next day or so.  Women had to draw pictures in their minds based on these short encounters on whether or not to give their whole entity to this man.  Rebuking an offer often wasn't even an option for some women.  A great example is from one of my favorite books where the heroine is asked by a man only less than a couple days after meeting him to marry him.  She refuses and is warned she might not get another offer.  Later, her best friend accepts an offer from the man only a few days later with her friend explaining this offer is probably her last chance since she's not as strong, pretty, etc as the heroine.  Okay. Got it. We have had this ingrained into us from a young age and most of us don't even think about it.  It's natural after centuries of it being a cultural norm. Women make a more snap decision on men and tend to see the best qualities first. 

Men, on the other hand, typically didn't have to make any decisions at all. The more money they had, the better looking, women were drawing perfect pictures of them. They hardly had to try.  Just a hundred years ago men needed nothing but a large income and other men would pay them dowries to take daughters off their hands. Men could be more choosey.  They could hold out for prettier, smarter if that's what they wanted, more docile, less docile.... They could hold out for decades and never be rebuked for not marrying, never referred to as a "burden" on the family because of not marrying and not being able to work. As a result, men in general are eliminating.  

What do I mean by eliminating?  Men tend to look at women for our faults or even what they decide makes us "out of their league".  On one occasion a guy spoke to me for about 45 minutes, nice looking, good job, seemed alright.  When I told him I was an engineer, he asked what my degree was in. When I told him mechanical engineering? He looked disappointed and said "oh you're too smart for me" and excused himself politely although fairly abruptly. My education level compared to his own "eliminating" me from further effort in his mind. One of the guys I grew up with "eliminated" almost every woman.  She could be beautiful, smart, friendly, literally near perfect; he would find something wrong with her.  He reminded me of Eddie Murphy in "Boomerang". Eddie's character obsesses over "perfect feet" and ends up played as a result. Men can become fixated on their version of perfect and eliminate near perfection.  

How does this affect online dating?  Women talk, text for a bit, they've got a picture, probably more like a movie short, of what a man is.  Women dream up the man they've been communicating with.  Often by the time they meet, if there's any attraction on the woman's part, she's got this version of who he is in her head.  He could tell her anything, true or not. She really can't be sure because most things we learn about each other over time.  The picture is there nonetheless after centuries of grooming.  Men don't really have a picture in their minds of what she is, but rather a picture in their minds of what they see as perfect.  Men are comparing to that picture, whether it's realistic or not.  Online dating means they have a plethora of women to choose from.  No one is measuring up, so next.  Women now are forced to hedge their bets because men always have been able to hedge their bets. 

Women don't usually hedge their bets. In the past women who rebuked or refused a man who was considered viable by their father was often chastised as being full of herself, warned she might not get another offer, but worse? If they had multiple suitors at the same time, society frowned on that if she seemed to take her time picking one.  Men could just go house to house until someone said yes, if they were so inclined.  So internet dating gives them a never ending row of houses.  Let's not get into the 20 something females, some fake, some real, trolling for sugar daddies making this whole fiasco even more complicated.  Or the catfish just using other people's pictures because they are bored, manipulative, lonely, whatever.  Just the real people using online dating are going to have enough problems without the fakes out there pretending to be perfection. 

Does this all sound jaded?  Yes and no.  I'm kind of sick of it, yes.  But long term, not in my lifetime and certainly not with men my age, this will balance out.  Younger women are better educated, generally have their own jobs, self sufficient, don't need a man to have a home.  They can literally buy their own now, but in actuality, this is all very, very new in societal terms.  Just 50 years ago, a young woman, never married, not living at home with her parents? Buying her own home? This was very upsetting to people usually.  I'm not joking. We have come a long way, ladies.  These norms have shifted and over the next 50 years so will dating. We see it already. Millennials and the Zs are marrying later and tend to have more stable marriages than Boomers have. Their expectations not the same so online dating for them to tends to work a bit better.  

There's a bigger problem with online dating and it's the "addiction" of something better out there.  A female acquaintance said to me once of a guy she met online, "if I could land this guy, maybe I could find even a better fit (guy)".  What she meant was this guy wasn't her dream, so maybe she could start over with a new guy and a new dream of his imaginary perfection.  I had a guy I used to work with just bragged how many women slept with him.  He had no intention of giving that up.  He eliminated women as soon as he got into their pants.  In the past, at least based on the norms, we knew better than to give up on near perfection because there might not be another opportunity.  In online dating, there's always another opportunity.  

Now I know online dating is about the only way to actually meet anyone anymore. Most men don't talk to women in public anymore. There's no ego attachment to being ignored or rejected online. Move on to the next profile.  In person, there was always that crash and burn in front of the other guys you know possibility.  Women playing the eye contact game, again up until maybe 50 years ago.  Can't do that with online dating.  It's really taken the personal out of one of the most personal things we do in our lives.  

Probably why I've never gone out on more than a couple dates with anyone I've met online. Literally, it's been a total waste of my time. I have never dated anyone seriously that I met online. This blog started with laughs over some of the most ridiculous dates I had from online dating.  I've never made any real friends from online dating either.  Unlike a lot of people, I can honestly say, I've never even been intimate with anyone I've met online and I figured out why.  I can't dream up the perfect fit for some guy I've never met in person.  I know other women can but I can't do it.  Online dating let's me be more like all the guys I've worked with and am friends with over the years. I'm eliminating. 

In fact, based on a recent dating experience, I'm even eliminating in person now.  Not that I wasn't able to dream him up better than the guy is. But I was quick to see where he didn't live up to that.  It was work trying to decide how to handle that while getting frustrated by what a total shitbag he actually is. It's one thing to watch the dream picture we see initially fade and have a guy be a good guy overall.  It's a reckoning when you have realized he's actually a shitbag on top of it. Would it matter if I wasn't eliminating?  I mean really. I know other women that hold onto their illusions still.  I mean dream and keep dreaming.  So much for my fairy tale ending. 

But you're darker than I am...

Why, why oh why, would Trump women even exist?  I mean the open misogyny was disgusting. He has more open ties than any other man in the country to Jeffrey Epstein.  No one woman with any knowledge of this could possibly back a man to the point that they would vote for a man like that.  But 56% did in 2016... and 63% did in 2020.  I know, for the average minority women and the almost 40% other white women (yes that 63% represents only white women), we all stood by expecting them to vote against the female hate.  I guess this is how the suffragettes felt.  What women would actively protest against women getting the Right to vote?  The same ones that would actively back the policies of the far right that Trump has become a God over.  So, we need to decide what and why. 

First why do we need to understand them? Who cares?  Well, unfortunately, the reality is Trump's control over white men dropped from election to election, and it took a drastic drop after the insurgence at the Capitol.  But white women?  Not as much, let alone the increase from election to election.  There's something wrong that any women would vote against themselves, but it goes deep and we have to acknowledge it.  

Women, a large majority, have all of self value tied to our looks, and whether we like to admit it or not, to our "color".  I know this because I'm not different than anyone else.  I am the spitting image of my mother when she was younger and even her last living brother will tell you he sees her when he looks at me.  My mother was Polish and German. The family roots with direct DNA and historical links to Berlin, Warsaw and Lviv (used to be Poland, now Ukraine). My mother's skin was a slight shade lighter than mine but not once I stayed out of the sun.  My ex sister in law and I were often mistaken as sisters.  She very Italian looking but half Scottish and half Italian.  Both of us always thought of ourselves as "white" but because she spoke fluent Spanish (and her looks) people often assumed she was Hispanic.  Neither of us ever liked that.  I have to be honest. It's simply because of the way people say it when they incorrectly assume. They're being assholes.  It's never genuine curiosity.  It's always peppered before and after with insults.  Before because they're racist f**ks and after because they are positive in their own pea brains you're lying. They couldn't possibly be wrong. God friggin forbid. So we get taught early and over and over our looks, but even our skin color means something to someone. 

Except I grew up in a large Slavic area. Polish, Hungarians, lots and lots of various Slavic decent, and lots of full blooded Germans, mostly Berlin decent.  My grandfather was 6'5-6'6" and dark blonde hair, somewhat olive and his entire family (and our DNA proves) is almost entirely back to Berlin.  (We won't get into how tight knit German Americans were for almost a century leading up to WWII.  Three of my grandfather's cousins answered the call to the Fatherland in the 1930s.). I'm so German my grandfather would speak German to me when I was little. 

Now I've met German decent folks in the South.  Yeah, they have no idea what I'm talking about. Lutheran churches are almost non existent compared to the Great Lakes.  They complied with not speaking German or being looked at like aliens and going up North where it didn't become a travesty until after WWI. 

Okay why all the history?  So I haven't been insulted about the color of my skin till Trump, by a wrong assumption of my race, until this idiot not since the last election, so let's call her Karen (it might be ironic if that was her real name, wouldn't it?).  She and I had similar experiences with men belittling our value at work. Poor, poor Karen. We had common ground. But her introduction of common ground was only preface to find out my race. She was quite convinced I was Native and quite flabbergasted that I told her I wasn't.  I know my background, even have had a DNA test done. She absolutely had to know what it said. No Native. She just "couldn't believe it".  Oh for fucks' sake Karen. Every one of you dumbasses.  My immediate thought was my sons are "whiter than you".  

Then I glanced down at our hands.  I'm whiter than she is.  I pointed it out. She was so flustered she started to argue her hand, her skin was actually lighter.  It was something with the lighting, which was aimed and shining brightly on both of our hands.  I held back laughing in her face.  I explained that pretty much all Slavic have olive tones.  Oh no, no, she insisted. I couldn't possibly be German. Her husband is German and Germans are blonde hair and blue eyed.  She went on about how her husband's family knew all their roots.  Nevermind that he was barely 5'6 to 5'8", dark brown hair, dark brown eyes--short and stocky.  Hardly blonde, blue eyed or tall. Nothing Arian about him.  I held back.  

Now she went into the open conspiracy theory nonsense, the media, every thing is a lie except Trump. Okay. I held in my laughter.  Come on honey. I did point out that since she was darker than me and she never had a DNA it was likely she had some Slavic or Eastern or Southern European like Italian or Greek. She was adamant she was Irish. Maybe I said but Irish don't have olive skin at all, and being the smart ass I am, again I pointed how how she was a shade or two darker than me.  Yeah, she might have been close to coming unhinged. I really didn't care.  Our common ground that we might have capitalized on in a sisterhood was way, way less important than her desperate need to be better than another woman. 

Welcome to who these women really are.  They really need to be better than other women so badly and find their value from men valuing them more than other women. They can't find the common ground with us because their value is nothing, still, without a man's approval and praise. Well, isn't that all of us?  

Well, yes at some level.  My grandfather and my father fed my ego well.  I don't need any man's praise on how I look. I look how I feel and like to look.  But I'm sure that's more because I still know what impressed the two of them. I know who I am and am secure in who I look like because of them. I don't need a random man's approval, and for better or worse, I don't need a man I date or marry to approve either. (They probably should if they're going to like being with me but that's really not about me so much as their security.). But it was clear, she needed her short, stocky husband's approval, at bare minimum. She also had tied herself to this belief system. She had to be better than me based on skin color and I'm guessing my nose. Which is sadly very Polish.  Several of my Polish Americans cousins (more Pole than me) have it too. In fact, if you look up Melania Trump at 14, that's me at 14.  So Melania and I would probably be pretty close in looks if she hadn't had bone shaved off the front of her skull. I don't know why women do this.  But I had a grandfather tell me all the time I reminded him of his favorite cousin and how beautiful I was. Pure German American cousin. So yeah, my security even with this poor little shallow thing who couldn't recognize her husband hardly represented the blond hair blue eyed stereotype she had of German.... While mind boggling, very telling.  

These women have no value other than the level of disrespect they temperate and tolerate.  Their value is tied to women like Farrah Fawcett and Marilyn Monroe.  Dye in a bottle.  Drug addicts.  Whores.  That is what we told them was sexy and deep in the darkest corners of their minds they still believe it even with all the evidence to the contrary.  What is more praising to misogyny, than convincing and confining women to being proud to be fake, fake hair color, fake bone structure, fake skin colors, and real whores and drug addicts?  Singing a sleezy version of happy birthday to one of two brothers you've screwed in front of the one's wife and the entire nation?? Falling over drunk and coked up in interviews with everyone from Barbara Walters to Johnny Carson to David Letterman?  This is who these women believe they should be. Should we be surprised that my counterpart and all that plastic surgery is appealing and defendable to them? 

Eh, but what do I know?  I don't have a man. Sure, but maybe that bar was set super high from the jump.  My grandfather told me how I could do anything a boy could do. How beautiful I was and how amazing I could be.  He told me take no crap. My father treated women with the utmost respect.  He deserved my mother's and step mother's respect because he treated them like they were the only women in the world that mattered to him, respectively. With examples and the confidence they instilled in me at a very young age? Are we surprised?  Really? I'm pretty sure my friend with her PhD would say my confidence is textbook level for a boy who's given all the love, support and confidence to be successful.  How sad is it that all of that is often used to attack me as a woman?  

So excuse me if Karen was laughable and a bit on my nerves when I gave it a thought. Her insecurities were why she insulted me, why she blew by our common ground and why it was so easy to aggravate her in response.... But it's also indictive of why 60% of white women voted for Trump.  He promised them they could be better than other women again, if only for the most shallow worthless reasons. When and how do we get them to look in the mirror and live and love themselves enough that shit doesn't matter and the only thing that matters is we all have been lessened by some man just because we are women and thousands of years we have been nothing but property?  Black men have suffered horrible injustices, but even now, black, white, purple, green, women get raped and it's us who get demonized.  And this Karen and all her other Karen friends voted twice for someone who wanted to keep us there. Literally more worried about being more "whiter" than uniting over our common ground.  And yeah Karen, I'm still "whiter than you".

Why Trumpkins Get Dumped As Friends

Most trumpkins surround themselves with people that agreee with them.  They haven't realized they did this, and if you point it out, they will instantly claim it's by design.  It's your fault you don't want to be around them anymore.  Anyone with family that they are not speaking to over Donald Trump understands this better than anyone.  Family for most people is the one bond you overlook those annoying flaws of your drunken uncle and at least tolerate him at family gatherings.  Yet, not anymore. People have divided from friends and even family over what can only be described as a cult response on a unrecognizable level since Nazi Germany.  

Four years ago, a good friend said she wasn't talking to her parents anymore. What?  She and her parents had always been close, yet suddenly her father, and even her mother, would yell and scream at her about the fact she didn't like Donald Trump.  They watched Fox news, read only Breitbart if they read anything other than memes that agreed with Fox on Facebook.  She was at her wits' end.  She did Thanksgiving but refused to do Christmas.  Her husband's mother was an independent and couldn't stand Trump.  They felt more comfortable there.  Her parents haven't barely spoken to her since 2016.  She doesn't call them because she doesn't want to get yelled at, even now, about the "hoax".  She's worried about them but for the most part has given up. 

Does her story sound familiar to you?  Either side?  If you think you are the parents here, and even if you don't, the parents literally think she's the one that needs to come to her senses.  But does she?  I mean parents tell you what they think when you are doing something they think you shouldn't, right?  But they don't call her. It's like tough love, but not over drugs, alcoholism, stealing or some criminal activity.  They literally have no desire to talk to her over Donald Trump.  Is this still you?  Have you screamed, yelled, name called, carried on, about how great Trump is to the point you've forced someone to decide they can't stand you? 

Yes, I know the standard response here is "they were yelling at me".  Funny how that works. You yell and they respond with yelling.  You name call and they get upset.  You insist Trump is the best of the best and just keep insisting even with example after example of some of the most ridiculous stuff anyone, not just Presidents, has ever done. You don't care. You scream how great he is. That's it.  They didn't even have to say a word.  A friend's husband, who has never been that fond of me anyway, just started yelling at me, drunk, about Trump.  Not even because I brought him up, because for her sake I was avoiding it completely.  Didn't matter he started ranting, she made him calm down and I cut my visit short. I haven't talked to her since other than in text and only because he's been extremely sick.  But otherwise, why bother? Besides the fact he doesn't need to get hyped up over me versus Trump. I don't want to listen to that crap just because you know I disagree with you.  No one does.  But rather than try to discuss or argue it out, anyone anti Trump have had to decide whether they have to cut people like that out. 

Here's my favorite example, only from my own life.  A friend's husband allowing someone to call me racist names online because he was a "Korean War" vet and deserved to be able to say whatever he wanted.  He served in Korea in the 1960s after the shooting stopped. I served in the Gulf.  He saw less action than I did.  That was disrespectful of me to point out anything anti Trump. Really? But it was perfectly fine for this ahole to call me a couple racist slurs during his rant at me. I'm born and raised American citizen but because I'm not white male enough, my service compared to his service was nothing they BOTH mansplained to me. I cut him out and as a result his wife.  The hypocrisy and disrespect was aimed at me and the only thing I did, no name calling even, was say I didn't like Trump and point out a couple of the idiotic things Trump has done. We all have experienced it if we don't like Trump. 

Don't believe me?  Go to a trumpkin and point out Trump still hasn't responded to the fact we know Putin has been putting bounties out on American military in the Middle East. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.  They will respond with some crap about Clinton or AOC or Biden's "dementia".  Biden's "dementia" is completely hilarious considering Trump bragged about a one page cognitive test that asks you to draw a cube and identify 3 wild animals.  Let alone on top of it, claiming how hard it is.  O-kay. Biden's real problem is he grew up with a stuttering issue.  Some of the most intelligent people in the world suffer from stuttering and other similar issues.  

Still a trumpkin reading this will tell you or me or anyone that will listen that I'm just a hater.  A liberal. Snowflake. Pansy. C*nt.  Dumb b*tch. Just mad because Trump doesn't like illegals. A slew of racist terms that don't fit because I'm not "white enough" in their minds.  Yes, these things have literally ALL happened over the last 4 years.  From friends I've known and thought the world of for years, a couple even decades. Friends.  At what point do you say enough?

Trumpkins will tell you it's you. Gaslighting you into thinking it's you not them.  But I snapshot the Facebook interactions when they happened.  I recorded some of the verbal interactions.  It starts off with them yelling and me trying to stay calm.  It starts with them starting to call names and me trying to explain my position.  And eventually one of two things happened at these exchanges. Either I got mad and they danced around like idiots pleased because now they claimed I was the one that got mad first (if they even admit they were screaming and name calling at all).  Or I got fed up and cut them off.  I've got over 2 dozen of these exchanges that I kept for review because I am one of these people who had dated an abusive asshole (maybe a couple).  One thing that is recommended is to prove to yourself you are correct.  Documentation helps to prove to yourself you are better off without the abuser. 

When you do this?  It's like my friend with her parents.  They were good parents but when she went back through things her father said, so hateful.  She had even had a confrontation after Charlottesville with him where he said something very similar to several friends of mine I've cut off. Something along the lines "I'm more prejudice/racist now" than this or that or then.  I've gone back and can say at least half a dozen of my so called friends said crap like that too.  But she pointed out that it wasn't that they were "more" now.  It was they were not "allowed" to be before. Society frowned on it, but with Trump, they were free to say and be "more" racist. It wouldn't be Trump's fault except the only thing all these half a dozen plus have in common with each other and her dad? Trump and they are "white" in their minds. (I'm not getting into the "white Hispanic" nonsense other than to point out to be Hispanic means you have a mix of some South/Central America Native blood which makes "Hispanic" therefore white Hispanic is an oxymoron.)

Can we wake these people up? I look back at my grandmother who loved Richard Nixon.  Nixon was a power hungry, insecure, albeit smart man. He had stepped down in shame, caught in a criminal conspiracy.  She didn't believe it. Even with the majority of the country agreeing he was.  By the very last live interview with David Frost, my grandmother was convinced Nixon was still the good man she dressed him up to be in her mind.  Right up until Nixon lost his cool, screamed at Frost that he had done what he was accused of, and how dare anyone question him.  She never talked about Nixon again.  You couldn't even mention his name without a dirty look of quiet rebuke.  And Trump has done far worse than Nixon ever did and in the 1970's a shit ton more was more acceptable compared to today.  It's almost bizarre to watch Trump get away, even brag when he does something heinous, and people like my grandmother just keep defending him. Bizarre is probably an understatement, but definitely makes it questionable whether short of Trump going to prison.... Well.... If Biden wins, NY State has the indictments waiting....

The third party myth that Libertarians swear by

So I'm just going to point out that there's never been a true third party win in a presidential election. It's a myth. 

Back in the 1859-60, where the famous myth forms, there were two parties. The Democrats and the Whigs were twists of the original two parties that formed from the Jeffersonian democratic thinkers and the Hamilton republic thinkers. There's always been just two main parties.

These two parties right before the Civil War were both of divided minds. The Southern and Northern Democrats who were divided only on the issue of slavery.  All races were still inferior to white.  The Whigs had a bigger problem because of the time, they were the "intellectuals".  So they were all opposed to slavery, but they had differing views on what the end of slavery meant. Full equality? Give them passage to the Caribbean or Africa? Or some brand of Jim Crow?  The first two grouped together whether they agreed on full equality or not.  The third group, incensed by the idea Natives, Africans, etc. could be equal, ran their own candidate, as did the Southern Democrats.  So you had 4 candidates from the 2 major parties.  The main body of the two parties ran a Dem who wanted to keep slavery legal but "free new births" or some other hocus pocus, basically find a nice way to end slavery.  The third group of the Whigs (the smallest but most vocal ironically) ran a guy who was basically the same.   The Republicans (the Whigs who wanted an immediate end to slavery and the majority of the Whig party at the time) ran Abraham Lincoln. 

We know that Lincoln won. What we rarely know is he represented the majority of Whigs.  It was not a third party coup d'etat.  It was the majority of a party taking their party back from a minority who kowtowed to the money and power base. 

There's no third party winning historically. A myth to try to transform the Republicans of the late 1800s into a wrongly elected end to slavery.  In a strange twist, the Republicans used a repackaging of the third party myth to make themselves the "Grand Ole Party", aka. GOP.  The myth it could happen again when it's really never actually happened before?  Some feel good nonsense for the disgruntled to think they can find a way to fix what they view as wrong.  

However, right now as our laws stand it's actually an impossibility.  The two major parties "own" the Presidential debate as they always have.  The last 3rd party candidate to be allowed in the debate was Ross Perot, only because of a massive donation he made.  Next, even if the 3rd party candidate can get on the stage, he/she would need to be on all 50 states ballots.  Since Perot, only Gary Johnson in 2016 was able to pull this off.  And finally, the Electoral College.  So many want to talk about how it should be abolished.  It can't be.  The whole reason it exists is so lesser populated states have a fair effect on the outcome of the Presidential election.  (Believe it or not, it works exactly as the Founding Fathers' planned.)  

We know only 2 out of 3 are fair right now for a 3rd party candidate.  Lawsuits to force the debates to allow the 3rd party candidates still haven't managed to get all the way to the Supreme Court.  This won't change until it gets that far, if it does then.  Even if it gets the SCOTUS okay (it should, not the point), the CPD will still be able to place limits like having to be on all 50 ballots.  But the big hurdle is the Electoral College.  All but two states, Nebraska and Maine, give 100% of the electoral votes to the majority vote.  In Nebraska and Maine, a candidate gets what percentage of the state they take.  In Nebraska (5 electorates), if a candidate gets 20%, they get one of the 5.  This would actually open up the ability for 3rd parties to overcome the electoral hurdle.  It would also mean where votes are close, people in certain states wouldn't be disenfranchised that their vote doesn't "count" because they are "red" in a "blue" state or vice versa.  However, you can see where neither party can be very invested in making this happen.  Red or blue is pretty much in their favor, so why would they encourage a change that means both might lose?  

While I'm all for both being changed and those 3 things that keep us couped up with only 2 "real" choices, I have had plenty of conversations with Libertarians that have no idea what the hell they are talking about.  They talk about the government being limited, but ramble on about walls and protecting ourselves from some real and mostly imaginary threats.  Or likewise, others (same party) who ramble on about no infringements at all.  Mostly they don't want to pay any taxes.  (So unrealisitic that's all it will get.)  They can't even organize around the definition of what is or isn't "big" government.  So it's not going to appeal to anyone until the majority in their party are on the same page.  But does it really matter?  Maybe, maybe not.  If we ever break the winner take all for the electoral college votes for each state, then we all might feel better about being 49% of the population in our state, regardless of what the 51% are.  Until we address that, a third party is nothing but a joke.  A group or several that can't agree on what they want to believe in, let alone pitch it, with no hope of ever winning an actual election. 

Trump's Deep State

Facebook is just as culpable for last night's shooting as Fox news and OANN. (Lincoln Project shared proof, added in comments.)

FAKE information and home grown terrorist organizations have been allowed to flourish here.  So much so, these groups act here unencumbered by any sense of decency. Even reporting various threats get ZERO response from Facebook.

“Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

When George Orwell talked about "big brother", this is what he meant.  Home grown terrorists who would take over by elections and then terrorize the rest of us into submission.

"We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”

When these types of people come into power, they use divide and fear as their hoist to more power. More hate, more anger, more intimidation, more killing.  They do not denounce it, because they feed on it.

"Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless."

When people talk about the "deep state", Trump's created it.  The people who pretend to be paranoid about it are it.  They are the weapons that have been mobilized. They don't see how the deep state was the people held at bay, that lied and still lie, to feed their own power, their own ego.

"...always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing..."

And when it's finally over and all of people who have been organized and pulled into this feeding frenzy decide they want their say, they will find there was never any voice for them either. Just obedience with Trump. 

"The heresy of heresies was common sense.”

I truly want to believe the United States of America that I fought for, that ALL People have Inalienable Rights of LIFE and LIBERTY, still exists to grow and flourish. But anyone with a gun against a fellow American must realize that is against everything we declared we are about.  The RIGHT TO LIFE AND LIBERTY for ALL. That's what I fought for.  NOT Americans KILLING other UNARMED Americans...

"...a nation of...fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually... persecuting..."

I fear this has gone too far. That November will not be the end of this, but just a rocket boost into the depths of a hell this entire planet thought we ended with World War II.  And even if it ends the way I hope and pray, that the glorification of hate is too enticing.

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”

Maybe it will be fine.  November's election will come; there will be skirmishes. But, 95% of us well be relieved it's over and want to move forward, forgetting what brought us here.  The brink of Trump's deep state from '86 to '16 to seize power almost destroying a Nation that only 80 years ago was so full of resolve. They will need to be exposed fully, instead of us breathing a sigh of relief. 

"..the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.”

 Or they will regroup, try again, over and over, until they succeed. 

Vote Biden not because you like him. But because the Deep State has always and still is people like Trump greedy for power and money.  He is the Deep State, for God's sake.

The Way of the Brontosaurus

When I was in elementary school, my father took me to the Met, as in NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art from the front entrance on 5th Avenue.. The architecture of the building was a bold statement that even people that have never been to New York recognize.  It's an icon often used on TV.  My favorite exhibit was the dinosaurs and my favorite dinosaur was the Brontosaurus.  We knew they traveled in herds, are plants and were bigger than a T-Rex.  The sight of the skeleton was humbling.  Then in 2012, a discovery made the Brontosaurus go away.  Just like that one of my favorite "animals" was gone, much like Pluto was no longer a planet.  Did I scream denying conspiracy theories all over YouTube?  No.  Rush to fight over school books and lesson plans?  No.  Scream that scientists were wrong?  No.  Frankly, because I'm not an idiot and it's not my field of expertise. A couple years later, the Brontosaurus was back, because science had found another piece of evidence that proved there were three, not two, similar animals. I was quite pleased. So I understand some people have a hard time wrapping their minds around "new" science, and how things like the disappearing, reappearing Brontosaurus might be confusing 

Sometimes things exist or are accepted to exist until something proves it was incorrect. Certain things have been proven.  Gravity for example.  Sir Issac Newton "discovered" gravity, that it had a fixed rate of acceleration on Earth and a formula that has been proven consistently over and over.  There's no doubting gravity. Yet suddenly we have people believing in "flat earth" nonsense.  (I'm just going to call it what it is.)  These people want it taught in schools to your kids.  Forget that gravity wouldn't actually exist without the rotation of the sphere we call Earth.  Forget that Magellan sailed around the world literally in 1519, 500 years ago, proving the Earth was round. US Navy carrier groups often do *world cruises". Thousands of Marines and sailors each time would have to lie and/or be fooled on every single one for more than 2 centuries.  Yes, that's how absurd the flat earth conspiracy "theory" is.

So one huge problem?  We need to stop calling these "theories".  Theory in science means it's been hypothesized, then verified by multiple other sources. A hypothesis hasn't been proven and independently verified. Scientific theory has been verified by multiple scientists and data.  We have done a great disservice by using the term "theory" colloquially for any lame brain idea that pops into some idiot's head and gives their conspiracy nonsense some semblance of reality, even with every known fact flying in the face of the nonsense. Flat earth conspiracy is just one of the dumb ideas nutjobs around this country want to teach your kids. 

Who cares?  Why do I need to know?  Because these snake oil salesmen are pushing schools to teach this garbage and the current GOP is making it happen. How dumb do you want future generations of Americans to be?  We are talking 3rd world level hocus pocus, fear based, nonsense that would weaken our nation.  How can we compete if the next generations are basically educated like this is 1620 instead of 2020?

Maybe the most horrifying is the story of Adam and Eve  Creationism is on the rise again.  Most educated people are familiar with the monkey trials in 1950's Tennessee. This was already decided. Creationism is a religious thing. It in fact is an Abrahamic thing; only Christianity, Judaism and Islam believe the world was created this way.  Buddhists do not believe God created the world. The world just is. It has no end and no beginning. It is ever changing much like the shoreline does as tides roll in and out. The universe as a whole just ebbs and flows.  Wicca believe Mother Earth created the world as we see it but nature only. It's unclear who created the rock nature is built upon.  Neither of those religions agree with the Abrahamics. In fact, no other religion agrees.  These 3 can't even agree. Christianity, the youngest of the 3 claims the Sabbath is on Sunday. Muslims claim Friday. And Judaism is Saturday. All 3 have the exact same book of Genesis as their reference.  Even if their views were exactly the same, why as a Taoist would I want my kids taught what I find completely unacceptable both from my religious beliefs and scientific knowledge?  More importantly, why would any Americans want our kids to be taught something that has no basis in actual science in a science class?

Back to flat earthers. What is this?  Complete nonsense. Yet, 650+ attendees at the last "Flat Earth" convention.  It's like Scientology minus Tom Cruise.  It's one man's ramblings on YouTube rather than in a book. Nevermind if  lthe flat earth conspiracy were true, you couldn't fly from Hawaii to Hong Kong in 12 hours and to San Francisco in 5 hours. They cut the Pacific in half.  So you could do one or the other but not both. The whole premise of a flat earth is idiotic. Yet people who are "home schooling" their kids are teaching this crap because they don't have the educations to be teachers in the first place.  This YouTube clown is convincing them even though we have over 500 years of proof he's an idiot.  Worse?  Now, he wants your kids to be taught this garbage in real schools.  As if it couldn't get worse, some GOP elected officials believe this nonsense and agree with him.

Now, if flat earth and creationism don't scare the bejeebies out of you?  There's also a group that teaches the moon is a hologram. Nevermind we don't have the technology to create a hologram that large.  Seriously, these people don't believe we can build rockets capable of going to space but they believe we can create a hologram hoax of the moon for thousands of years.  Nevermind the proven fact the moon's mass controls the ebbs and flows of the tides--because that's all faked too on flat earth.  Nevermind its gravitational pull is what keeps our atmosphere just right.  The moon is a hologram. The moon landing was a hoax.  The pictures astronauts and cosmonauts alike have taken from the space station of the beautiful sphere we call Earth are all faked. You've got to be thinking this is ridiculous.  However, think back to the dumbest kid in your 3rd grade class, not paying attention, and only listening to the dumbest people in his family, now 40 something with his own YouTube channel.  Voila. Suddenly that guy has got all kinds of people believing this nonsense and wanting to teach it to your kids, in public schools you fund with your taxes.  Never happen?  Yet 7% of Americans believe this and are home schooling their kids and... and vote almost exclusively GOP. 

Sure 7% is pretty low and most people don't believe that garbage.  Yet, 20 years ago only about 30% of Americans believed in Creationism.  Today?  Around 40%.  *eye roll* How is that even possible?  Does it even matter?  Yes, it does  In the SE USA we allowed the states to teach that African Americans liked being slaves all the way up into 2010's in one state.  As a result, I know people in their 40's and up that still believe that because that's what they were taught IN school.  Nevermind the idea of being a slave goes completely against our own American Doctrine that happiness is tied to liberty and freedom.  Only a complete idiot would believe anyone liked being a slave, right?  But kids are basically idiots with a sponge for information. If the information you put in there is garbage, they will think the garbage is true for what may be the rest of their lives. 

Hell, scarier? Yes these conspiracies get even more ridiculous.  How old is the Earth?  Geologists say 4.5 BILLION, yes billion, years. Yet, 40% of Americans now believe it's only 6000 years old. That we lived and rode dinosaurs.  Obviously people who have never actually seen an actual Brontosaurus skeleton. 

These people aren't screaming to reopen libraries and schools. They are screaming for us to reopen churches and bars. That tells you everything you need to know about them. Make no mistake; some college educated are this undereducated too. They majored in business, basket weaving, even some in engineering and sciences (although so minute in comparison).  They just didn't pay attention in elementary to high school, or worse, this is the crap they were taught not just at home but in schools. So they want to take a giant leap backwards as every other westernized nation moves ahead of us in the sciences because we are letting these conspiracies run rampant thinking facts will win out.

When you vote for a Republican, and especially Trump which is crazy since he doesn't even go to church at all (unless we count Twitter), this is what you are voting for.  Not just the dumbing down of America. Complete and utter stupidity where we will have multiple generations of people so undereducated they will be slave labor for everyone else on the planet. Science may be taking a beating and starting to look like the loser here.  But it's time for a big comeback like the Brontosauruses, for the sake of our kids, multiple generations of Americans to come, and for God's sake, for truth. God didn't make fools. They choose to be and then they want to spread it like a cancer.  I've used a quote from the Dalai Lama before in similar blogs. "If science proves (a fundamental religious belief) is wrong, then we simply quit believing in it.". 

How to Live With a Guilty Conscience

Many years ago if my boys want to tell you they will tell you that two amazing women helped me raise them.  The first one because as a mechanic/electronics/maintenance tech in a plant, third shift was my only option, and this amazing woman, who was really like a sister to me, negotiated with her supervisor to leave her second shift job just couple minutes early to take my boys home with her, provide them a good night's sleep and be like we expect family to be.  A few years later, another friend, an empty nester whose children were grown, college bound, and who had so many indirect familia ties, also helped.  She was so like we expect family to be that my boys referred to her and her husband as Aunt and Uncle.  It's really debatable if her husband was really ever more than an unwanted brother in law, but that's family, yeah?  Both of these amazing women helped take care of my boys for the better part of a year and a half to two years. Both were absolutely like family to me. These two women are my sisters.  I would never forsake them like I have my blood family at times.  Yet, a couple years back, I had to realize that I didn't treat them the same.  What?  Was one more unfair?  Was one less giving?  Was one or the other a better friend?  Was one more consistent?  No, no, no...no to all of.  Both fantastic to my boys, like they would be to their own children.  These women, in spite of husbands or real family or even ugly so called friends, were amazing to me and to my sons.  Both of them unquestionably my sisters, unquestionably family.  So why did I raise my sons to call only one of them "Aunt"?

If you've read this blog, you know a couple years back I was attacked by some "white" asshole in a very nice brand hotel for not being "white" enough.  He assumed, wrongly, that I was Hispanic in descent.  It wasn't that it was the first time.  I went to Clemson after getting out of the military.  Clemson was an oasis, but 15 minutes back then in any direction and I learned, very unpleasantly, that as "white" as I had always been treated all over the USA, I wasn't "white" enough for some people.  It was a rude awakening, and yet none of those experiences came close to this "white", supposed-self identified CEO of a company, self identified graduate of the University of Wisconsin, screaming at me in a drunken stupor that I had no Rights in the country I was raised in, that I served in a war, that I was a various number of Hispanic slurs AND NOT A LICK Hispanic.  Yes, it bothers me still.  I can't imagine what it would be like to fear some random asshole acting like that to me daily.  While I was at Clemson, late 90s and early 2000s after serving my country, yeah, I never imagined.  But over the years, I've met men like him. Way more than anyone should ever have to, but I would stand there stunned as the on-lookers at the hotel did.
A racist schmuck screaming bloody epithets.  Inciting.  Hurtful.  Cruel.  Just based on the color of someone's skin tone.  I'm a light olive. I look Italian, Slavic, Polish, Hungarian.  No joke.  I should I'm descendant of at least two of those. Yes, that is me being smart-ass-ish, but I grew up "white", or so I thought.  And no one was changing that in the Deep South, but he wasn't Southern and we weren't in the Deep South.  We were in Michigan, at a higher end hotel, both I presume for work.  It was a really rude awakening.

I had to process.  It was devastating. At the same time, one of my former friends, beautiful, blonde, blue eyed, 1970's stereotype of "All American" ran a DNA test.  She decided she wanted to know about her ancestors.  There were blanks in her family tree and she was hoping that a DNA test would fill those gaps.  Imagine how she reacted when the blanks traced back to a black slave who was so "high yella" (yeah I didn't know what it meant till I came South but it's just a rude way of saying "white" enough black to pass for "white")....Are you picturing a Cheryl Ladd look-alike?  Maybe more like Farrah?  Somewhere between.  That'd be about right.  Her DNA came back 1/8+ African American.  So what, right?  Two grandparents had "black" blood.  It was 2018, yet she went ballistic.  That might even be an understatement.  She was ill, pissed, angry to the point of accusing the DNA companies of lying.  Like yeah, they would lie. They don't even know her.  Our friendship was destroyed by this revelation.  She was "white".  Well, by visual, absolutely.  But one thing most people don't know about the falling out, was it was shortly after I had been attacked and she said to me that I couldn't possibly understand how "important", HOW IMPORTANT, it is to be "WHITE".  How fucking important is it?  Like that statement in itself screamed "white privilege", superiority, how she viewed herself in reality better than anyone that she perceived as less white and suddenly I saw her for what she was.  A bigot, a racist, and the worst kind.  Nice to your face while sub-consciously believing down to her core she was better just based on the color and heredity of her skin.

The silence in that conversation could have choked both angels and demons alike.  I grew up  "white".  Slavic, Polish, Italian, Eastern European, Hungarian,...I grew up with people that looked just like me.  In the Deep South, she had grown up that if you looked like me you were either "black passing for white" (her words in another forthcoming spew of shit) or Native.  "My people", the Natives she presumed, were mistreated-ish, but now they have casinos and money so it all "evens out".  Tell that to the Navajo Nation...."eye roll".  But I'm not any of those, so it all just made me more angry and more ridden with guilt.  I'm not "white" but I lived where I could assume I'm "white" so I'm "white" until I meet someone, worse a friend, who just threw it in my face that I'm not "white" and therefore "obviously" I would take the non-white position???  Wow.  Not "white enough" and i "already knew that".  That experience in Grand Rapids Michigan had happened before.  But not really.  Only in South Carolina.  Never anywhere else in the USA until the racist f*s crawled out from their rocks.  Everywhere else in this country, no.  She thought that was the norm, ALL MY LIFE, EVERYWHERE in the USA, because it was normal in her minute little world of 25 miles radius around where she was born and raised.  Just another day in paradise in her mind.  I had no reason to be upset with her, afterall, she had treated me "white" and not allowed anyone like this asshole in Michigan to treat me as less than "white".  But I was "less than white" in her opinion.  We had never discussed it.  I assumed it didn't matter.  I assumed that it wasn't even an issue to be discussed.  She assumed I wasn't "white" and knew I wasn't "white" and therefore there was no discussion necessary.  

What a rude awakening.  I wasn't "white" enough.  I really never had given it any thought until then.  My sons are blond, blue, hazel and green/blue/grey'hazel (changing colors based on mood).  White.  Dimples.  Surfer looks.  Farm boys.  They look like my grandfather or my ex or Parker Stevenson.  I wasn't "white" enough.  She didn't say it direct.  She didn't need to.  She made it clear.  Only a "white" woman could possibly be upset by finding out they aren't "white" and she was "white" no matter what some "bullshit" DNA said.  Three DNA tests...She's still "black", whether we're friends or not.  The end of our friendship didn't change that.  According to Blue Book laws here, she's less than 95% "white" and therefore she's a mulatto.  Her path of acceptance has been a long one as we have a mutual friend still.  I'm not sure she's there yet.  But this isn't about her, but the opening to me to do some real self evaluation.  

What started to change?  My own views. The one experience was the catalyst and the other the push forward.  Did I have my own sub-conscious issues?  My grandparents were racist, but by 1960's standards quite progressive.  Times do dictate appropriate.  As we grow, what was appropriate is considered inappropriate as we consider others' feelings and equality.  I know most people don't self analyze like I do.  But I look at everything that happens to me as a learning experience.  I take the Buddhist, Taoist view, that each experience is an opportunity to see something in myself.  I wanted to understand, maybe release myself, from my own racism.  Most "white" people see racism as they are blatant racists or they are not.  They either use racial epithets or they don't.  They refuse other races or they don't.  They hate or they don't.  But life isn't really black or white, is it?  Puns intended.  Life is a hue of everything, and each of us harbor what we grew up with whether we want to acknowledge it.  Whether we recognize it or not.  Suddenly I had to think about my view of the world.  I'm not racist.  I would've stood up and defended a woman in my position with some jerk screaming racist insults at her, whether I knew her or not.  I call people on that behavior, both in my past and to this day.  I don't allow that behavior in my presence.  I'm not racist.  Yet, neither was my blond bimbo friend either in her own eyes.  Deep breath.  

So I asked my friend, the one who had arranged to get off work early to help me with my young boys, who treated them like her own, who's son is like my own.  My fair skinned "black" friend.  She let me off the hook.  I could've taken it.  She told me that because I was "ambiguous' looking it was just how some people were.  I'm still "white" enough was the basic message, but I didn't want what I wanted to hear.  I wanted her view.  Her view?  She prays everyday for her son.  That he won't be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  That he won't move too fast or too slow and spook at cop at what should be a normal traffic stop.  How everyday she knows her son is an amazing educated young man, but how she worries he might be driving the wrong car, look at the wrong person, lean over the wrong direction.  What.  The.  Fuck.  Suddenly, I was a bit guilt ridden.  I hadn't gone through this.  I worried about wrong decisions my sons might make.  That I might not have been the best parent.  She worried about those things too, but she had this other worry that I didn't even imagine, let alone think about daily.  

Over the last two years, I've cut off a lot of my "white" friends.  I was so shocked as I discussed these things with some how they would tell me that "of course" I would be "sympathetic" because i wasn't "white" enough.  Or how, "those" people ask for it.  Or how I was obviously stepping out of my "zone".  Sigh..And I'm not racist, but somehow I seemed to have a LOT of racist friends...

But that wasn't the worst of it.  Suddenly, I realized that I had two women that were like family.  Helped me with my boys.  One was Aunt and one was not.  The two both gave so much I could never repay either.  Yet, the Aunt was the "white" one and the one that was not?  Was not.  I'm not saying one was more or less than the other.  In fact, quite the opposite.  They were both so good to me and my boys.  They were both my sisters and my sons' aunts.  They both earned that.  So it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Why was one "Aunt" and the other was not?  It was my own, bit of sub-conscious racism. Both are family.  I just didn't openly acknowledge my non-white friend was an aunt to my sons and a sister to me.  They, both of these women, deserved the same level of respect.  I had just been inconsistent in applying that respect.  

What's the take away?  If you are "white" America and you think you aren't "racist" because you aren't blatant, you aren't screaming at other races, you smile, you are polite, you do your "best" to be a "good" person?  That doesn't mean you aren't racist.  What means you aren't racist is you self analyze.  You recognize you have no non-white friends and you make the effort to change that.  We all work with multiple races, so you can.  You don't roll your eyes when you see a couple kids of another race.  You don't assume too brown, isn't it nice they are Native, brag how Native you are when you look "whiter" than bread.  You simply start to acknowledge we fail no matter how "non-racist" we are.  I'm not saying go out there and kiss ass.  I'm saying the Indian couple whose wife wears the full garb and with the Hindi dot on her forehead aren't weird and why did they move into your neighborhood isn't a problem for you.  I'm saying the asshole neighbor who you drink beer with twice a week who's bitching they moved in?  You tell him to shut the hell up nicely once and then if he keeps saying shitty things?  You quit drinking beer with him until he realizes he's being an asshole.  If he never realizes he's an asshole?  You go over to the Hindi neighbors with a fruit basket because you looked up that food baskets are considered respectful and you are making the effort, no matter what that asshole you thought was a good guy says.  And when he asks you?  You tell him flat out.  Nice neighbors.  Different?  Yeah, you suppose, but you like diversity and how amazing the wife's stuffed grape leaves are.  It's not enough you are not blatantly racist.  You have to try to overcome the underlying racism that we all have, the underlying racism so many of us allow by inaction.

Here's my way.  I am so sorry to one of my best friends, a sister, that my sons didn't call her Aunt.  She earned that.  I just had underlying racist beliefs, ones that should never have endured.  I'm not using them as an excuse for my guilty conscience.  I know it was wrong.  I'm sorry it took me this long to know it, and that it took even longer to grow a pair and admit it.  I cannot correct it.  My sons are grown.  I'm just glad that I did everything to teach them that I wasn't perfect and that skin hue was never a reason to judge anyone, whether capabilities, intelligence or friendship.  I just wasn't completely consistent with my message.  Fortunately for me, they knew I was wrong before I did.