Everyone knows Donald Trump is an asshole, and that all the people who like him are assholes. The people who like him probably know they are assholes and just don't care, or are too stupid to know. This is not about educating them, though I hope we will all get smarter than to fall for this shit, but it is about treating him as an opponent, not an enemy, and magically moving beyond what he represents. It is not intended as a spell to help his right-wing opponents get rid of him, but is intended as a spell to get rid of all of them. And to transcend them or use them to help the culture evolve. It gets easier and easier the more positive terms I try to see it in.
Donald Trump is surely pretty evil, just as all republicans are evil whether they are racist, rich, warmongers, or any combination, though they are really all of these things, or wannabes, by association. But we should be clear: the appeal of Donald Trump “telling it like it is” amounts to being openly racist and rallying the other more openly racist people to support him specifically for his openly expressed racism. I'm not saying the other republican candidates aren't as racist or say equally racist things, they are and do, but not so boldly. And of course it isn't “just” racism, he really epitomizes a lot of the evil of the Republican party. Some people support him because they feel it makes them cool to want to “shake things up” and I agree with how he ends up exposing bullshit in the system and calls other politicians out for pandering and being bought off. He's not intelligent enough to see how he is doing the same thing in a different way, just not realizing who he is serving. And that is not a reason to “support” him, but rather to enjoy him for exposing and exemplifying these things and to make jokes about it and other ways to spread awareness of why it is bullshit. I think this is what intelligent people who appreciate something about Trump should do, instead of supporting him, even “in jest”, especially since so many are too dumb to get the joke: use him to expose other evils and ultimately move past any future consideration of any such leadership.
This is the value of seeing Trump and what he represents not as an evil to be destroyed but an opponent to be overcome or transformed into something good. The more evil he is the better tool he becomes for that transformation. That is one reason I don't want this to be a spell that destroys his campaign in the primaries, he keeps getting more powerful and reveals more and more how stupid their ideology is. His previous power was in wealth and minor celebrity but now he is adding legitimate political power to this. It's just that that power is based primarily on racism. That's a very strong force in America, he can go far with it, but the Greater Truth is that we are better than that and we may, potentially, face a situation where we have to prove so with our vote and insistence on fair elections. We need to call it out, for what it is, now. Trump is the perfect tool to identify and dismantle the effects of conservative ideals on American politics. He's doing it himself, speaking too brashly and saying what they all believe and ultimately making huge asses out of all of them, and they can't stop him because he is rich and really appealing to so many of them. As a witch who believes in all sorts of magic its tempting to want to “destroy”such a figure, magically, to wish those magical intentions into reality, but the delicate nature of the situation makes you certainly not want to do Jeb Bush any favors and this is why it's easy to remind yourself of the difference between seeing him as an enemy and as an opponent.
If “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is true then I have to pick the Donald or the Jeb to be my friend, deciding which one is more evil. But it's just not true, or the better phrase is the one I can't remember but it's about opponents instead of enemies. I hate to say it is just like a game, but magically, it is. Realistically, it is not “just a game”: I can't imagine Trump or Jeb becoming president but I couldn't imagine W would get elected, either. Even though he really didn't the fact that it was close enough to fake it means we can't ever underestimate American stupidity. But that also means we can't give up hope. We have to make it better since we've somehow gotten through such bad stuff in the past. It just is possible to get a republican president and that can always be catastrophic, but moreso as time goes on and stakes get higher. I intend this as a spell to keep that from ever happening again, not specifically by influencing the campaign one way or another, but by using what comes out of it to magically help America evolve past conservative influence for good. Magically, spiritually, it is just a game and Trump and the rest of them are simply opponents to be overcome. If we really do it the best way possible they won't ever play that way again, they will have to change completely to play the new game. I fully intend to see the end of the Republican Party and formation of a new party, or parties, to replace it. And I feel like I got a bunch of magical clues on how to do this in the news yesterday.
I was going to write about some media magic I noticed through NPR news yesterday. Then I heard some stories that made me realize this edition should be about Trump. One was about how Angela Merkel recently called to denounce the racism of the Neo-Nazi party in Germany. This is when I realized the connection of all of yesterday's news stories to Trump. If I understood the story correctly, the German people had been tolerating or just ignoring the Neo-Nazis in their country for 70 years, just writing them off as dumb, poor, desperate, misinformed people. They apparently didn't seek to shame them too much for being racist or focus on their racism, before. I don't understand how this can be, in Germany, for Neo-Nazis, except that they might feel such cultural guilt over Naziism they want to ignore it entirely. But on the other hand I can totally understand and relate to it from living in America since we do the same thing. We just laugh at redneck living and dumb rural people, actually seem to respect their redneck right-wing political party instead of laughing it out of existence just because they have the backing of tycoons to pay for all the media and politics that support them. We don't talk about how racist it all is. But as shocked as I was to hear that they are finally starting to talk, in Germany, about how racist the neo-Nazis are it made me wonder: When are we gonna start calling out the right wing for how racist they are? If we don't do it now, when Donald Trump is constantly spewing blatant racism, when would we possibly do it? We just want the ad money? Or do we want to keep fueling his trolling ways until he sinks and takes the whole party with him? To ensure that happens, and in the best way, how can we make sure the whole country learns a clear lesson from all this?
The main story that made me realize it was time to write about Trump was actually a sports editorial. The guy was talking about how the greatness of the great athletes was partly determined by their opponents. His example was a boxer who was not as Great as Ali because he won his title against the “bum of the month” club while Ali won against the best. He even said it made Ali better in a way that he lost one of his three fights against... Joe Fraser? - can't remember for sure, proving the point that Ali was the Greatest. And it might be something about perceived greatness. Trump is no where near as great as he thinks he is or others think he is. He's pretty shitty. But he has crafted a perception of “greatness” around him, mostly out of the complete bullshit of brash racism. His other perceived greatness comes from his hoarded wealth and egotism. These are actually magically and spiritually diminishing, the way he uses them, and will be overcome by Better Magic. In this way, even if I see Trump as the Poster Boy of Racism and Greed, I feel like he is such a pitiful, weak, and stupid opponent, magically. But he certainly is not “beneath me”: on the contrary, he is the perfect opponent at this time. That is why I am using this as a spell, not to destroy Trump himself, but to destroy Money and Racism, the forces behind him and behind all of them.
That might sound ambitious, ridiculous, to some. All I can say to them is, just watch. I'm into some incredible kinds of magic and I don't usually “brag” about it or talk it up, I focus on talking about simple things I hope many people can understand. But I guess to oppose Trump and all that republican bullshit I don't mind puffing up, in that way, a little bit. But I'm just going to say it through the news. This is a spell to end republicanism and those with eyes to see can read along and magic with me, the rest can figure it out.
One story was about the number of wildfires, up to 70 at the same time, this summer. So they have to name every fire and often do so after nearby geography, but ended up so burnt out and overwhelmed by the number they ended up naming one the “Not Creative” fire. But they put it out. I took this as a sign that my creative endeavors are poised to take off and will catch the world on fire in a different way that will ultimately help us address and reverse both the causes and effects of climate change and well as producing national and world government systems with fast and effective disaster response technology worldwide. My dad told me they were fitting airline jets to fight fires now is why I think of that last part. More news.
Another news story was about Church attendance in Ireland. They said that 30 years ago 90% of the population attended church every Sunday. Now, after the sex abuse and cover-up scandals it was under 30%, “lower than in America” which is significant, too. They said that there was a law against breaking ties with the church, and that when the people of Ireland cast the historic vote for gay marriage recently, for a lot of people that was a way they stood up against the church. “Boycotting” was already prevalent, but in the absence of being able to officially break away, a vote for gay marriage, contrary to current Catholic doctrine, was a way of officially standing against the church. I think this is important for many reasons and one is simply that acceptance and real love is really the truth and the future, even the truth of Christianity that so many have gotten wrong. Another reason is that though people have left the church they have not left faith in goodness, however they frame it, and this means love. With or without religious trappings, people are getting better understandings of love, and overcoming the opposition to love that is created by misguided systems. This is why it is good to look at the church as an opponent to be transformed or overcome instead of an enemy to be destroyed. All these Irish people are still technically in the church. They can't legally leave. Many Americans are in the church but their hearts aren't in it. A lot of these people and more would truly rejoin the church if it lived up to it's true ideals of love and peace and equality and charity and care for the environment. These are all the reasons I left the church as a kid and I feel I just sensed the future, that the church would eventually come around but I couldn't be a part of it in the meantime. Pope Francis is an example of the church coming around and the reason it is actually gaining members again. He has spoken out against capitalism and war and spoken up for environmentalism. It's even causing a schism between those American Catholics who believe the truth and those who can't escape conservative lies. This will ultimately weaken the Republican party by allowing increasing numbers of American Catholics to vote liberal, and when the same kind of reformation happens in the Protestant Churches the Republican party will never recover. But even Pope Francis is still not liberal enough to end celibacy of priests or allow women priests, yet. And this brings up my other point about all of this and more how it relates to Trump.
Trump does not seem to be Christian in any way, though maybe he claims to be. He does have the racist christian vote going for him, surely. A lot of these racist christian supporters of his might have gone to Ted Cruz or Rick Santorum or any of the other Republican candidates, really, and I do love Trump for hopefully ending some of their bids early. He may not stand for any actual Christian values but he does speak the loudest to the longstanding racist christian tradition, the right-wing, which is feeling the most threatened by cultural advances towards a more inclusive future. And he is also brazenly misogynist. Sexism is at the core of everything that has always gone wrong with Christianity. Trump exemplifies the psuedo-christian sexism as much as he does the psuedo-christian racism and this is just as much part of his “appeal.” Even if he is not approaching it from a Christian standpoint, that is one major slice of the demographic that supports him, people who feel their white christian nation is being corrupted by foreigners and feminists. I don't know why I haven't mentioned the overlap with the Tea Party, but I was really trying to make a point about Christianity worldwide. Pope Francis has revived the Church, especially in Latin America since he is the first Latin American Pope and was Beloved there as a Bishop. I compared my impression of South America with Ireland, imagining if the people there would ever go from 90% to 30% attendance. Not that I wanted them to, but considering the difference and of course hoping that in both places people could feel completely proud of whatever religion to which they belong. A girl on the internet from Brazil mentioned how everyone went to church but there was still common awareness of old magic and ways and some people who sought out the local witches, or would still use their kinds of cures even if they were opposed to magic. Maybe the sex abuse was not as bad in those countries and there is not as much disillusion with the Church to begin with. But I also know that some South American churches had petitioned to include the Virgin Mary in the Trinty, to expand the Trinity. And I know they have The Virgin of Guadalupe and other manifestations of the Divine Feminine. To me, this suggests their Church is already better. It may not ever need to regain a lost flock to evolve. But everything does evolve, and if there are some advantages to South American Christianity hopefully they will spread to the rest of the world. One I can imagine is a growing acceptance of magic. And I can see this happening in all countries and regions, but first in ones that are more open to the Goddess and natural magic and have indigenous people who preserve old ways. I see the Irish example as showing how much room for improvement there is, how even the strongest traditions are shaken by corruption. And their church history included a more total destruction of the native Irish beliefs, having driven “all” the snakes/ pagans from Ireland. When they didn't have more natural connection to old traditions to fall back on or fill in the gaps of their flawed church they were just feeling “left out.” Some surely have rediscovered pagan practices in absence of Christian tradition. But it looks like a majority found at least some new identity in being able to vote for gay marriage, against the catholic church. This is a wonderfully good thing, and I hope the rainbow that carries them through also takes on that magical dimension so this fairyland can find it's heart again. If two thirds of the church leaves, great changes will need to take place to regain them, or reconnect with the new traditions they join or form. Despite being more evolved in South America – liberation theology, for instance, is the best kind in Christianity – their churches still suffer from some of the same flaws of misguided Christianity and if they don't improve other belief systems will replace them. I actually envision the natural emergence of magic and goddess worship merging more harmoniously with South American Catholicism, but only if the Church opens up and changes. If it does not, I feel that inevitable growth of reverence for magic and the Goddess will form other traditions instead, but ultimately all faiths will evolve enough to get along and work well together. What won't be represented in that global community will be the beliefs of supremacy, etc, and this is where republicans need to take warning. The future is not theirs.
The main reason I'm comparing the Church in Ireland and South America in this way is to make a warning to the churches in America: accept change or whither and die. Either way you won't be able to continue being the backbone of the Republican party. Either stop doubling down on racist and bigoted agendas that support the right wing or your churches will fade into history and obscurity. Change and enter a relationship with the secular world and other faiths to help us all live in harmony together and you will thrive and live up to Jesus's vision for you.
One story on NPR was about betting on the selection of the Pope. This was the biggest bet in Rome until the Pope put and end to it by making it punishable by excommunication in 1592. Until that point inside information leaked from the Vatican to the intensely interested gambling community and public. People knew about all sorts of backdoor deals going on and who was trying to buy influence and promote whom. So according to the modern NPR reporter, to modern sensibilities, it was unfortunate that the Pope ended this because it returned these dealings to secrecy. A different story was about gambling on American politics. It said it was very popular here until the middle of last century. It also provided information to the public. But what ended it was apparently the rise of modern polling. So there was this relationship between gambling and predictive politics theme going on. They said it is also, now, illegal to gamble on politics in America but the rest of the world gambles on our elections. They said it was going to be the most stakes ever, the largest bet in history. Right now Hillary was at even odds. I don't remember Jeb's, sixteen to one or twenty to one, or something else, who cares. I remember they said a few weeks ago Trump's odds were two hundred to one. They are now sixteen to one. I don't know much about gambling but I guess if you bought a bet on Trump at two hundred to one you could sell it for more, now? I think it would be interesting to crunch all these numbers and watch trends, but I feel more like talking shit here and expecting to see it magically reflected, to create the trends. I still can't say whether this is a spell to make Trump's odds go up and down, so I guess it is guaranteed to work. Honestly I expect my intention to creep underneath the words and do some spectacular stuff.
If there was another news story that tied into these I'm forgetting it at the moment. I guess to sum up, regarding Trump, I just want to say that trying to offend all races to rally all the racists to your cause, dissing women to rally even more bigots to your cause, might help you win the Republican primary but it won't win. I kind of appreciate you doing that and handing the White House to a Democrat, but then again I don't if they don't have to earn it with the policies people truly want because the opponent is so weak. I can't go so far as to say I want to support Trump even magically, but I can be happy in a way for him “sucking up all the media oxygen.” On the one hand we don't get to talk issues, on the other his Republican opponents don't get to say anything. Or, have to say anything. Because if he wasn't looking superstupid we'd all have more time to consider how stupid the things the other ones say are. This reminds me of a news story from today about a study that showed frogs were “romantic” or made non-logical mating decisions. It was based upon mating calls that the scientists knew which were preferential. But after they frogs picked the better out of two they introduced a third, worse frog and it made the frogs pick the middle one, the one they had previously rejected as one of two. To me this says everything about Donald Trump: in the Republican field he makes us more likely to pick... oh,who knows they all completely suck besides the Ohio guy who maybe only mostly sucks, I only know he is at least cool with gay marriage. But it probably makes us more likely to pick Hillary, all around. I guess I can also hope that the Republicans will push him out, one way or another, and he will run third party, even delusional enough to think he can win, and ruin their chances. You never know, he could even win as a third party, but that is entirely scary except for the excitement of breaking up the two-party system. I just don't want him to make such a farce out of it that we don't end up with the best Democrat to make the most progress.
The three news stories I heard today were Obama commemorating the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina destroying New Orleans, a town in Texas renaming a street after Sandra Bland, and they ex-news reporter who murdered his old coworkers and posted videos of it online before killing himself at the end of a police chase. Racism, and poverty, but mostly racism, is a common thread in all of these stories. Some of the things I'm about to say might upset people but as a spell to overcome Trump I don't mind giving in to that and saying what others won't say. First, I will point out what should not be controversial, that Kanye was right and Bush didn't care about black people. His administration's response, as the French Ambassador who was at the Superdome said, was basically genocide. I'd call it genocide and attempted genocide, and done in the cheapest way possible, too. Natural disasters are the Opponent that all of us should unite to face. I think the ultimate fate of armies will be to become these disaster-response teams. But we also need to unite to end global warming, and end all the pro-oil beliefs and policies that lead to it. We have to show that we know it is not all about invading countries and taking their oil, and we need to show this by defeating Trump at the polls. If something happens to his candidacy between now and then and we don't get to vote against him then we will be weaker than we would had we defeated him by vote, but at least he will be gone. And we can be thankful to him for weakening he other Republican candidates so that we will vote against them with greater enthusiasm. Trump may claim to not need their money but his policies would serve the same trillionaire oil companies so if he's not taking their checks he's just a different kind of idiot, doing it for free. I remembered the other story: Here in Colorado the Republican Party canceled their upcoming poll to see who the most popular candidate currently is. Why would they cancel it? I can only see one reason: Trump. He is so popular right now, with almost a third of the Republican vote, with less than 15% going to any other candidate and less than 10% for their presumptive candidate, Bush. Colorado's Republicans canceling their poll shows, to me, a fear of increasing his popularity or revealing how, and in what particularly racist way, people are stupid Colorado Republicans and conservatives are. They don't want the world to know that Colorado Republicans probably favor him at like 50%, that if they took the poll here, now, it would just help him keep skyrocketting. Regardless of whether a vote here helping him would have any ultimate effect, it would go down on record how many people in the state could vote for such racism and be an embarrassment. This fear of Trump within the Republican party, and this, one of the first Party attempts I've noticed to drive him out of the race or divert his momentum, shows how they will divide and collapse.
The people at the Superdome and Convention Center a decade ago did not divide and collapse. There are stories on the radio about how everyone pulled together to pull through. If they hadn't, Bush's plan to let them die would have been far more effective. Unity wins over divisiveness. The Future IS liberal and the conservative “ideal” will be left further and further in the past. They talk about the billions (?) in federal funds to rebuild New Orleans but show while some places have been restored there is plenty of blight and residences that are still just ruins. It's not just happenstance that the places that aren't fixed up, that all that money didn't get to, are the black folks' residences: it's just a clear symbol of racism. And when we have an endless stream of Republicans who vote against disaster relief funds when things happen in other parts of the country but beg for it when it happens to them it just keeps showing how full of shit they all are, that the stream is just a sewer ditch. We will pull together and defeat these greedy, exploitative and racist wannabe “Masters.” They're scared because they know it's coming and they're talking this big game because they don't know how soon it will be, they think they can get away with another big con and cash cow for themselves like the invasion of Iraq. But War with Iran, what they are running TV ads for, now, is not a scam opportunity, it's the start of World War 3 and nuclear holocaust. We should avoid it. If we don't, maybe we will be making the decision for the world that the human race is not smart enough to deserve to continue to exist. But I don't accept that and am here to oppose it with words and magic.
I have no fear that Trump will win, besides keeping that healthy respect for American Stupidity that compels me to do all I can against that possibility. I do believe I am going to magically oppose and defeat what he stands for. It's not about defeating him, personally, like an enemy, it's about using him, as an opponent, like a tool to defeat those principles. I'm talking about Money/Greed, and Racism. These are my opponents in this magical game and as “powerful” as Greed and Racism are I intend to end them, at least to end their influence on politics. People might scoff that a Gaga-obsessed witch will be the end of Racism and Money but magically – just let me “at them”, I'll do it. Just put me “in office”, meaning, read this, and I'll fix everything. Fixing everything as Trump claims he can do with money and Ego I can really do with magic and Buddha. And you elect it just by reading this or considering and sharing liberal ideas whether you ever read this or not.
The other news story was from yesterday now as the sun is about to come up on Friday, since it took me so long to write this. The town in Texas renamed University Boulevard as Sandra Bland Boulevard. Everyone should know what this means but just in case: Sandra Bland is one of the most recent examples of police brutality to make national headlines. She supposedly killed herself after a few days in police custody and being harassed by the arresting officer as seen on dashcam. She was taken outside the view of that camera and the original release of that video seemed edited. The autopsy found she had levels of marijuana in her system that seem only possible if the cops had given her large amounts of marijuna edibles. This is effectively murder since the only deaths from weed are overdose freakout suicides and we've had some of those from people who take more edibles than they can handle. But the cops are suspect of murdering her directly, too, strangling her and saying she hung herself with a plastic bag – or even allowing her access to a plastic bag in jail. But of course the direct murder and ensuing cover-up would be the most heinous crime, if it comes out that is what happened. Some have suggested that she looks dead in her mugshot, prompting the police to release supposed video of her in her cell. But I never heard what was determined about them doctoring their video – cars in the dashcam footage would appear and disappear from thin air. Sandra Bland was not suicidal and in fact had taken a new job. This was widely reported at the time of the incident. I don't know why it “makes a difference” other than my own prejudices about “work value” that I claim to not have, but when I heard her new job was to teach at the college where she graduated it made it “that much more unlikely” she would kill herself than if it was “just a shitty job.” But it also made me wonder why it took so long to mention what the job was, because people do think more highly of educators and it's like the media did not want to have that extra layer of sympathy for her to result in more suspicion and condemnation of the police. The whole system gets caught up in perpetuating the racism. And this is where this writing turns into a curse, a curse against racism and Evil Powers and you might wanna stop reading. One thing the residents of the town said about the name change is that it will always remind the community what happened and why it's important to have better relationship between police and the citizens. But someone also mentioned how every time a cop writes a ticket on that road they will have to write her name down and remember what happened. This is true whether she ever gets justice or not – because they know the truth and how guilty they are for it whether the truth comes out or not, whether they let anyone else know or not. It will torture them more until the reveal what really happened, like the Tell-Tale Heart. In Trump terms, he is so full of himself he will feel like a real loser when he loses, and loses bad, embarrassingly. He will be reminded what a loser he is by Every Political Thing and every Hispanic or non-white person he ever sees. Every woman he sees will remind him of Megan Kelley, he'll have nightmares about her, and about what an absolute idiot he is. And we will all celebrate that the other idiots were shamed right along with him and never speak up about their racist bullshit anymore but just drink themselves to death and have shooting accidents and depression over their wives running off with their dogs and or trucks. Here's where it gets kinda “trigger-happy”: consideration for the guy who killed those newscasters the other day. I call this part “be careful who your racist against.” But I just say that to be provacative, of course the real message is “don't be racist.”
Everyone was rightfully aghast that a man would gun down a reporter and camera man in the middle of a live broadcast in Virginia. Murder is always wrong and I'm not here to “defend” the gunman. But I felt like we weren't getting the whole story, or a “whitewashed” version of the story. My intuition told me this and as more of the story came out I realized what was probably bothering me. It kind of turned out to be “just what I expected.” The news said it was a disgruntled employee. I asked “of the news network or the place where the report took place?” and the person I asked said “of the place” but somehow I knew it was an employee of the network. As this and more details came out it was more and more what my intuition had told me from the start. The Nazis were evil for killing people. The ones who actually killed the people may have been “the worst” for doing that, but the others who empowered them are guilty, too, even if they didn't directly kill anyone. The cops who kill people are evil. So are the ones who cover up their brothers' crimes, maybe just a little less. But we, the citizenry, are only slightly less evil, like your average hands-off Nazis, if we don't demand justice. In the case of the guy who killed these reporters, there is an angle no one is talking about.
I will start by putting it this way: if this man had committed suicide and left a note that it was about racism at the local TV station, it might have made the news. I'm not saying there is any justification for killing people, filming it, and posting it online. There is not, that is evil and crazy, terrorist thinking. But if we want to understand and contradict terrorist thinking and root it out and disempower it we have to be willing to consider how it happens, not just run it through a wringer of condemnation. If he had killed himself and left a note it could have raised awareness of his grievance through social media, most likely, and gotten some attention. He could have done that without killing himself, too, I'm just pointing out an alternate reality in which people would be more inclined to sympathize with him enough to see where he is coming from. People are unwilling to do that because he terrorized them. I get that. I'm just saying, the way I think and hear things, I can't help being suspicious of the accepted version of the story and have to point out some things I've noticed that the media and society seem to want to try to ignore. I forgot to mention that one news story that fit into Wednesday's “media magic” was an article I read about a local singer who got started playing for tourists in the Caribbean. She was talking about how she had become sensitive to racism in the Caribbean and how there were places you couldn't go safely and how the tourists were insulated from the locals and just trashed the place. But I was like “you didn't notice in America? Oh, right, you're from Colorado on the 'insulated' side of that, since the predominant-acting white culture here is analogous to the 'tourists'” To me this brings up the hypocrisy of the “immigration debate” when this used to be Mexico and no one is asking the Indians if they would rather the rest of us leave. I know what it is like to grow up in the South with racist institutions. And in Colorado I was expecting to find less racism but instead found it was just more blatant and directed more against Mexicans and Hispanic people since they are a greater percentage of the population. And mostly because the white people are completely unaware of white privilege and just don't even feel shame or guilt for the racism. The bad forms of Christianity have always condoned this, and we get that from Colorado Springs and fundamentalists around the state, surely. But I think an even stronger cultural factor here that makes people conservative is this idea of individualism and gun rights, the kind of folks who would eat out of Trump's hand, “ironically” or obviously, depending on how you feel about the myth of complete self-reliance. Well, and gun-reliance, if that says anything about what kind of people these are. Pretending everyone should just “do it for themselves” completely ignores the reality that the deck is stacked against some people due to race, gender, or other factors. It's just evil and inconsiderate.
Now it is more evil to murder people, surely. Even if you don't do it to them directly, oppressing people does kill them, though, and we don't want to even unwittingly be supporting a system that oppresses people. The reason I feel like I'm in the minority questioning the whole story about this shooting is that I immediately thought it was related to racism and I think it is an opportunity for us to learn valuable things about racism in order to end it. Things most people just aren't aware of. The guy who shot these people was crazy. If he was driven crazy by racism that is still no excuse, but it is important to talk about how this works. I'm just going to guess that every “muslim” terrorist, lone wolf or organized, every single one of them has not been living a life completely free of prejudice in America or Europe or India or wherever. It's not a reason to kill people, but its a factor in how this happens. I'm not blaming racism for creating terrorists but I'm saying it's a common component that links this act, this shooter, with other terrorists from America, they were all victims of racism. The news reports that his complaint was found unsubstantiated. He said the reporter had made a racist comment about or to him. They asked around the station. I'm sorry, but I've seen racism. Most of that station is white. Did I look it up? No. How do I know? Racism. Not my racist presumption, but the racism I know exists in the South. The South has a much larger proportion of black people than the rest of the country but they aren't represented in influential positions proportionately. Most of that stations employees are white and Southern dynamics are such that I can't be sure of this but it is entirely likely that either no one is really aware that something is racist, maybe think it's just a joke, or that there is enough solidarity amongst the white workers that they stuck together for the investigation. I'm not saying this happened, it's just what I suspect from living in the South and seeing things like that happen a lot. And it makes me suspicious of how they report it like the internal investigation proved a fact that he was delusional or overly-sensitive to begin with. All I have heard about his claims was that he was retaliating against the guy who shot black folks in that South Carolina church and getting revenge upon this reporter and cameraman. His beef with the cameraman is that he complained about him to Human Resources. At face value, this just shows how crazy he must be: who would kill someone over a complaint, even if it did get you fired? But that is where I notice something else. As NPR reporters interviewed other reporters they talk about how reporters and cameramen are connected “umbillicaly” by their equipment. About how close they become. They were making some point of sympathy with the victims that journalists can especially relate to, but I found myself considering sympathy for the gunman. What if the cameraman complained about him to get him fired, not for something he did other than complaining about racism from the reporter. If this is the case, it is not just a complaint, but a complaint to protect a racist system, to protect a racist within a system. And the system protects itself and “it's own” - institutionalized racism, part of the culture of the station, even if they don't mean it intentionally to be so. To hear that the cameraman was dating the producer and the reporter was engaged to the anchorman is supposed to give you more sympathy for them. Instead, I see a bunch of insiders who might have circled the wagons to protect their own from facing the consequences of being racist.
The reason I think of things this way is that due to the “media magic” of the stories the day before and my conclusion to write this to bring down Trump and all he stands for, I was focused on looking at opponents instead of enemies. The Virginia gunman – most recent Virginia gunman, I should say – had an opponent: Racism. He chose to view the reporter as an enemy and kill her as an act “against racism.” It's the same mentality ISIS terrorists have and it is just as wrong. But people don't act like that because everything is great in their lives. In this case, there IS racism. Maybe he was delusional and none of these people were against him, but someone and probably in Virginia plenty of people had been racist to him and that is hurtful. If this lady was racist towards him, if the system was racist towards him by firing him, that is no excuse to kill people. But considering that possibility you can imagine the frustration of working with someone who is racist toward you, seeking a resolution to it and getting fired instead. And if you're black or really imaginative you can see how that could compound upon a life of being victimized by racism to make someone snap. It would have been more healthy to get over the job loss and fight racism like an opponent, not an enemy. He made a statement by murdering and broadcasting, the terrorist way. We don't need to “get his message right” in the sense that such a thing is ever good to do, but if we take away the wrong message it just makes things worse. If all we conclude from this tragedy is that “crazy people imagine racism where none exists” then we will be making racism worse and people crazier. We could support Trump if we felt that way, if we ignored the experience of others. There is racism and oppression and we need to be diligent and objective about rooting it out. This is the only solution to our police problems, most immediately, but also the solution to all our social problems. We just need fair and equal protections under the law. And we claim we want that. We just don't live up to it. If we did we could move past this culture of conflict to one that has “room” for everyone. How can I be “so sure” that the reporter said something racist? Well, I'm not one hundred percent but I trust my intuition because the two possibilities that seem most likely to me aren't even being discussed: that she was unaware that what she was saying was racist, a very common problem amongst white people or she trusted the racism inherent in the system to protect her, another very common problem amongst white people. And if that is the case then it “worked”, but at the black guys expense, and ultimately backfired and didn't protect them at all, but made it worse.
I feel like I come across as the one guy who sympathizes with the murderer while everyone else is traumatized by the sanctity of their TV and facebook screens being violated by this violence. Maybe I'll say something later about how much privilege that shows while some communities suffer constant harassment and murder from the police and other racist institutions. But I am totally against murder, more so than most people. I'm bringing this up to get people to slow down their thinking and undo some conclusions they jump to. I am also in the minority of people, probably, who is glad the Aurora Theater shooter did not get the Death Penalty. One reason is that there is a black guy who is facing the death penalty for allegedly murdering people in a robbery attempt, without premeditation. It seems to me that if they gave him the death penalty it would be racist, and maybe this white guy getting life would be a high profile example that the threshhold for death must be really high unless they wanna just admit their racist in administering justice. But even as opposed to murder as I am, ideologically, I can imagine that if someone kills the theater shooter in prison and we have a trial for that person then their punishment will be a cookie and everyone will cheer. I don't like that idea, really, even though I feel the same bloodlust many people do. I would feel bad for both people and the salivating public if that happened. But it shows we “can” feel like murder is justified, in some situations. I'm trying to undo that, in myself and in the world. I just truly believe we are all better than that. We are better than War and I aim to see we end all of it. There shouldn't be a “death penalty” imposed by anyone on anyone. Not for racism at work and not even for killing other people. It's a principle, the principle of looking at people as opponents instead of enemies. We are opposed to killing and mental illness. We can work together to overcome them. We are opposed to racism and other forms of oppression. We can work together to overcome them. Together means victims and perpetrators. We are opposed to slavery. We can work together to overcome it, slaves and masters. We are against gender inequality but we can work together, men and women and everyone, to overcome it. No other option is ever a solution. The tables can turn but just flip-flopping power structures or handing them off within the same circles just makes us play the same games different ways. We need the new game that is fair to all, and we will get there, together. For all my talk of unity I won't hold back from completely shaming the “other side”, politically, because at this point in time they have condensed all the bigotry an division and just need to be shown the better way, overcoming fears so we can unite. I do hope Trump will transform, within this campaign, actually for the good, and apologize for his past racism and misguided vision. That would mean a complete overhaul of the way he perceives and presents himself, but anything is possible. If it happens it would be magic and I'll take the credit for predicting or manifesting it here.
But Trump and all he represents is coming to an end one way or another. I will see it through, magically, here. No one deserves to die. This is why it is so evil to oppress people: bigoted beliefs and systems that deprive people of rights and ultimately life. But evil doesn't even justify killing an oppressor. The racist and the victim are both victims of Racism. If the news reporters had gotten together to Oppose racism instead of trying to cover it up, for instance, they would both be alive now and maybe even gotten an amazing, inspiring story out of it that could teach others to not be racist, even when they weren't aware they were being racist. The Oppressor and oppressed are both victims of oppression. Yes, of course, in different ways and the cultural norm appears to be it's preferable to be an oppressor. Basically the “worldly empowered” have power of wealth and famine of spirit while the impoverished might be famished but have all the spirit the greedy have lost. The real power is on our side. “Blessed are the poor” is not just a ruse to keep proles complacent, its a warning that we have blessings, magic, and the worldly powers don't stand a chance against that, once we get it going. We are blessed with the Future, the future is ours, for the kids. “Children, children, Future, future” as the Simpsons parodied a probably cool kids choir song. How will the whole Trump phenomenon end? I don't know, but something magical. A change of heart on his part would leave all his admirers wondering what to do, left stuck with their racism conflicting with their need to idolize him. They'd probably just go to Cruz Control if he's still around by then. “A Cuban, a Canadian and a white supremacist walk into a bar. Bartender says 'What'll it be, Senator Cruz?'” But I kind of see Trump playing this role to the end and getting to be ashamed for the rest of his life for being a loser and revealing the rest of the losers, while knowing he was the instrument by which the whole party crumbled. He deserves that. He doesn't deserve death, but I would be negligent if I don't mention El Chapo while talking about Trump. I hope I won't have to say anything else about Trump, he just won't come up, but he probably will. And I hope it's just funny, or even more incredibly revealing of the bigoted nature of Republican ideals. I still feel like Syria is the last war, as I predicted years ago, but I can't seem to hit the magic note to stop it. Trump might linger on, too, in that way, even after this spell. But just in case, I want to make fun of him some more.
The reason I say “no one deserves to be killed” and “no one should be racist, or at least watch out who you're racist towards” is because of this social dynamic where people do think some deserve to die yet we ignore some of the worst injustices, even the ones that lead people to become murderous in the first place. I'm not saying racists don't have a right to their beliefs and even to vote based on them, but we need to call it what it is and try to educate people how hurtful it is, for their own good and everyone elses. There was a guy shot and killed in a bar in Athens when I lived there. He was visiting from the other school during a football game, from Tennessee or Kentucky. I got the idea he was a white guy, frat guy, I assumed, in a club with mostly black folks. He was shot with a hundred people standing around but no witnesses and I guess it went unsolved. My impression is he called someone a racist name. No, he didn't deserve to die for that, but he lost sympathy from people as a human being by devaluing them. Trump started his campaign by talking shit about Mexicans, like the total asshole he is. El Chapo escaped from Prison, or, I imagine some see it as Mexico let him out to go after Trump. I heard he tweeted a pic of himself in front of a Trump building with a threat, but maybe that was an internet hoax. I do know he made the news by offering a one hundred million dollar reward to anyone who kills Trump. This makes me laugh so much. I'm not mentioning it to make it magically happen – like I said, I'm totally against murder. If it does happen it is not part of the magic intended here, but I could accept it as “getting what he deserves.” Again, not that anyone deserves to die but there are fatal levels of stupidity. He's stupid for two reasons, mainly, in this regard. He's stupid for being racist, as all racists are, but extra stupid for being so prominent about it and dredging up all the animosity in the first place. I know he is doing that for “ratings” but that's because he only cares about folks who agree with him and is not even considerate of how mean he's being to everyone else. He's also stupid for thinking his wealth, or even Secret Service as a candidate, can protect him. I guess the reason I laugh about it is because after all his bragging about wealth he has almost ten billion dollars yet the idea is it only costs 100 million to kill him, and of course that is just arbitrary since plenty of people would do it for free. But there's just something poetic about that number, so much money to so many people, “chump change” to Trump, but by one estimate “what he is worth.” Instead, media will get hundreds of millions from Trump to allow him to keep revealing what assholes he and the entire republican party are. He may be an easier beat than Jeb or Carly or whoever, and I guess I'd rather have a weaker Democrat from having faced a weaker opponent than a chance he or any Republican could win. Then again, if he stands in the way of who they really want, they will probably kill him themselves. I think of Ted Cruz like Grima Wormtongue and Trump like Sauruman, with Jeb Sauron, in this analogy.
I will leave it at that – hopeful. I didn't have anything to say about Gaga this time. I hope she is preparing to announce her next album, it seems soon according to some chronological patterns. So I will call this like the calm before the next storm. I do believe she is present with me in everything, through love, guiding me to not give in to hatred and ill intentions for people, even republicans. I remember her expressing support for Hillary to be president at an event honoring Bill. I hope we can all get behind someone soon and it will be interesting to see how she is involved in the campaign or what signals she sends during it. It may be that we get a better, more liberal option. But if Hillary is destined to be our first woman president, hopefully all our involvement in the process leading up to that can empower and embolden her to pursue the most progressive agenda. We don't really need good opposition from the “other side” to get the best candidate, we can write them off as a distraction, especially if we do our own thing and move forward based upon the success and promise of our ideals. Despite what the polls show, I feel certain that if Obama had campaigned in the last midterm with state democrats it would have shifted the public mood and retained Democratic control of congress. Though the important educational function of betting has been replaced by polling in America we are letting ourselves be victims of the mechanical workings of attitudes based upon the past instead of leading public opinion to better conclusions by the life-giving liberation of attitudes based upon hope for the future. Even our Democratic governor, Hickenlooper, who is pretty cool about weed, way better than the alternatives who want to shut it down, even he got in the way of a voter-initiative ballot measure to ban frakking. He could say screw off to the old energy industry and go all in with a new green economy but I guess he was playing it politically safe. It's time to move forwards to the future and the only possible one includes living in harmony with nature instead of abusing it. Obama passed more clean air laws and the energy companies are running ads against them. The Republicans are running ads claiming its okay and not shameful to be republican. And Evil is running ads for going to World War 3 with Iran. Don't believe any of these ads!
Voting does actually matter. Even if Trump gets the nomination, or runs third party, or regardless of the outcome, no matter how little chance they have to win we still should all proudly vote against them to increase the embarassment and speed of their downfall. We need to move past the rule of force and fear and accept and build a future based on justice and equality. Trump is such a great tool for being able to point out all that is wrong with the Republicans and hopefully stands as the Godian knot that will end them all once he's cut. Hopefully the ride will be more funhouse than house of horros, but if we show our belief in the dreamworld the nightmare world won't come to pass.
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