I've Had It with You Trump Supporters - But Not Entirely

On November 8, 2016, the nation elected Donald Trump as President of the United States.

Some of the people I love were very upset. One cried all the next day.

I lost a relative a few days later, when she made light of the one who cried and me. Then she decided to unfriend me for her sanity...

Other relatives simply remained quiet. I have had a few friends explain why they voted for him. I respect that they at least tried to explain and were sincere, even if I think they were wrong.

Since the inauguration, I have watched as President Trump and his people have attempted to dismantle many of the policies and precedents that I believe should have been left in place. I have watched as Cabinet members were selected not on their knowledge and ability, but on their wealth and their opposition to the departments they were to lead. Steve Bannon admitted as much, with his idea of "deconstructing the government."

I have heard that the country needs a President who is a businessman. I disagree, as the traits of a successful businessman are not those of a leader.

Trump was a dishonest businessman as well. Over twenty years ago, my older brother Charlie told me that most people who did business with Trump would not do so again, as he cheated them. Contractors would do a job for him, and he would get out of paying them based on being dissatisfied with their work. Legal - but immoral if one plans it that way.

I fear that Trump is not intelligent, not intellectually curious, dishonest deliberately, and psychologically unfit to be President.

I can't hate him. I pity him.

I pity him from the depths of my soul. Imagine being so needy, so desperate for others' approval, that you have to lie, cheat and steal to remain on top. I can't imagine living like that.

Three wives, none of whom respect him. Several adult children who are busy trying to cover for him. Of course, I don't actually know what is going on in his head, but I am forming my opinions from my reading and observations.

I say I have had it with you Trump supporters. But I can't even be angry with you. You were led by the nose by a con man. You still believe in trickle down economics, and blame the nonexistent Welfare Queen, or illegal aliens, or black people, or anyone else but the right people, for the fact that you haven't been able to get ahead.

Take a look at facts, and you will see that once again, the extremely wealthy who have no conscience (for there are those who are wealthy with consciences) have taken the money and really hope you will blame the School Lunch Programs and SNAP for your troubles.

Are you really that stupid? Do you really believe raising the minimum wage will cause job loss? That Mexicans are taking our jobs? That all Muslims want to bomb us?

Take your country back, under the real principles for which it was founded. Taking care of others and our world isn't a Socialist thing. It is a kind thing.

And by the way, I am sure someone is smart enough to get it across to Donald Trump that he will look much better, now and in the history books, if he actually does the right thing.

 Please try.

I've Had It With You People and Your Unbridled Greed

Down through history, some people have taken more than their share, and others have had to slap their hands and tell them they can't have it all - they must share. Share with their employees, especially, the people who work hard at their factories and restaurants and the like.

I have no problem with rich folks, really I don't. They often have good ideas and take risks to start companies, which provide jobs for people. Often they earn large sums of money doing so. Not a problem. Good for them.

I have a problem, however, with corporations which pay their CEOs almost 400 times what they pay their lowest paid worker.

I have a problem when taxpayers have to subsidize the meager pay of the workers with welfare.

I have a problem with corporations being bailed out with taxpayer funded government payments on the premise that the corporation will create jobs - and then they don't.

I have a problem with those corporations then hiding their money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying income tax.

I have a problem with companies shipping their manufacturing overseas and paying those workers even less than they would pay American workers.

I have a problem with the newest scheme - companies merging with overseas companies and making the foreign company the headquarters. Of course, the foreign country has a very low tax rate and the new merged company pays no United States income tax.

And on and on.

As Nick Hanauer, a very wealthy self described "plutocrat" says in a talk on YouTube, speaking to his fellow plutocrats - "The pitchforks are coming."

Meaning that throughout history, the "peasants", those working for the wealthy, have taken only so much - then revolted. In France, they came after the nobles with pitchforks. It wasn't pretty.

As I keep saying - you have to take care of your people. Or, trust me - they will take care of you.  And it won't be pretty.

I've Had It With You Corporations and What You Don't Pay Your People

A lot has been said and written and posted on Facebook and Twitter and such about the minimum wage and how you can't live off it. You can't.

To hear some people talk, raising the minimum wage would only benefit the pimply teen at the burger joint, and just give him more money to buy dope.

Unfortunately, the average minimum wage worker is not 17, but 35. And more likely to be a woman raising children. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Then these same people freak out about how prices will rise if corporations raise the minimum wage. Oh, my, God, we might have to pay fifteen cents more for that burger.

Or, on the other hand, the CEO and his top minions could take a pay cut. The average CEO's pay - compensation and perks included - is now over 300% more than his lowest paid worker. This is up from 46% in 1983, and down from over 400% during the tech boom in the 90's.

Several reasons have been given for the inequality of pay between CEO's and their lowest paid workers. The demise of unions, the rise of sending jobs overseas, shareholders wanting to retain the best CEO so their profits will stay high, and just plain greed.

None of these individually explain it. The world has gotten extremely complicated in the last 40 years or more, and there are few clear cut answers to society's problems. Sometimes I think those in charge count on that.

If they can keep us confused as to the facts surrounding our pitiful wages, not to mention fighting each other over whether or not we should get a higher minimum wage, they can laugh all the way to the bank.

Shame on them.

Shame on Walmart and other corporations paying their workers so little that they qualify for food stamps.

Some corporations are getting it, finally. The CEO of Costco found that his training costs were greatly reduced if he paid his workers a decent wage. They never left! And Dan Price, the young CEO of Gravity Payments, cut his own salary from one million a year to $70,000 to insure he could pay his people extremely well. His profits are soaring.

I would imagine that theft by employees would go down as well. Imagine that.

Come on, corporations - get smart. If you take care of your people, they will take care of you. So many of your people are already taking care of you. Please don't continue to let them down.

I've Had It With You Junk Food Producers

Every time I go into a store, I have to walk past rows and rows of candy, cookies, cupcakes, pies, ice cream, crackers,all kinds of packaged junk food that is not good for me.

There are frozen dinners containing more chemicals than actual food. Packed macaroni and cheese that has powdered cheese and chemicals. Cakes of every imaginable style and flavor, some with garish decoration. Breads of all types, so many you have to be a real sleuth at reading labels to buy the one or two kinds that have healthy ingredients.

I once counted seventy-two different candy bars in one small convenience store.

Consuming this junk has contributed to the obesity epidemic and all sorts of chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, cancer. You know, things that will kill you.

You know, I don't really believe you people are out to kill us. I do believe you do not care.

You just produce it, piously saying you are only giving people what we want.

HORSEFEATHERS!

You produce it because you know we will buy it - because we are weak. You display it in tempting ways. There are even college courses on marketing the crap.

You do not produce what we want. You make what you know we will buy, and you do not care that you are contributing to our demise.

Sadly, a ban on the junk smacks of censorship and government control, things I do not care for.

Maybe you could wall off a section of the store and put the junk behind there, and people would have to ask to go in to buy it, like porn - but no, that wouldn't work, either.

How did it get so bad? What can we do now? Thanks a lot, you creepy manufacturers and marketers. Wish you'd grow a conscience.

Just Say No to Junk Food?

We will be doing our best to do so.

I've Had It With Some of You Religious Folks

The whirlwind of Christmas and all is over. The season of brotherly love can be packed away with the Christmas ornaments, and some of you will go back to hating each other again.

You will go back to feeling superior to those folks in other religions and denominations, so certain yours is THE ONLY WAY.

I don't think so. Fails the logic test. And any God worth worshiping, a Creator who made our minds, and who did not say turn them off, is not so narrow-minded as you make Him out to be.

I've watched and listened for a lot of years, and seen people scream, yell and kill each other to prove their religion was right. What are they afraid of? Hate comes from fear.

As far as I can tell, we all became aware as children, babies, that we are here on this Earth. We gradually see that we are separate from our caregivers. Beyond that - we haven't got a clue.

We don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt why we are here or how we got here. And we darn sure do not know what we are supposed to do. So, we guess.

Some of us guess better than others. Some of us have wonderful, safe lives and never have to worry about much. They have nice, safe beliefs and never challenge them.

Others are born into hellish surroundings, scrabbling for their very existence. I wondered once as a child if it were not set up that way - poor people in Africa were there to give rich Americans something to do. But that would be wrong - wouldn't it?

Fact is - we don't know. But we don't like not knowing. So we make up elaborate explanations for it all.

There is no incontrovertible proof to support any religion over another. Not as far as I know, and I've been looking for it for years. Does it make logical sense that only a few people got the memo? That they know exactly what is going on? No. It does not.

I've had it with you people who smugly flaunt your knowledge and make others feel small thereby. Who only give to the less fortunate because you think it will get you a better seat in Heaven - which you made up. Who think it is okay to kill (choose one):the Infidels, Rag heads, Niggers, Abortion Doctors, Christians, Jews,.....

Stop trying to make yourselves okay by making others wrong. I know you are scared and confused. We all are. You have chosen the wrong path to make yourself feel secure.

It's as if we are allowed, in our separate groups, so get a glimpse of God, of a tiny piece of the infinite puzzle that is Life. The Creator knows we are different and what scares one will inspire another. So He (or She, we don't even know) lets us construct elaborate rituals and temples and hymns and smells and bells, and it's all just fine - until we insist that our small piece is the whole puzzle, and laugh and ridicule the other groups for daring to think they had the whole puzzle. And then kill them for making us feel bad.

Stop it. It's wrong.

Put your pieces together. See what the others know. Come out of your caves, your temples, your mosques, your churches. Talk to one another. Listen to one another, more importantly. Their piece of the puzzle is no threat to yours - nor should yours be to them.

Put your puzzle pieces together. The whole puzzle is from the Creator, who loves His creations very much. Imagine that kind of love. Deep, abiding,neverending, all enfolding love from a Creator we only can imagine is like the best parent ever. Imagine that - you are so loved. Then love each other, as best you can. That's the only thing that consistently makes sense in this confusing mess we call Life.

We are Created. We are Here. We Don't Know Why. We Are Loved. We Must Help Each Other Figure It Out.

Love Each Other.

All else is details.

Way Too Much Stuff

I realized the other day that a few things had changed in the forty years I have been paying attention to society (before that I was a teenager and pretty much in my own navel). I looked around and here's what I saw - you see if you can guess what it means.

Lots and lots of storage facilities.
Very big houses being built on tiny plots of land.
Rent-to-Own places everywhere.
Ditto for Title Loan establishments.
Lots of stores, and inside them, lots of stuff.

We have so much stuff we have to rent spaces to stuff it. Didn't happen back a while ago. Wonder what started us thinking we had to have all this stuff?

Could blame the advertising on television, telling us we "deserved" that new color wide screen TV.
Could blame the people who made all the stuff and got it put on the shelves for us to want.
Could blame the neighbors, those "Joneses" we all have to keep up with so our stuff won't look raggedy next to theirs.

But the bottom line is, WE fell for it. They put it out there, all shiny and tempting, but we bought it, lugged it home, and plugged it in.

It didn't seem like a bad thing at the time. Didn't we deserve these things? We worked hard for them! We thought it would make us happy!

I'm not any less guilty than anyone else, but I did realize a few things.

Those big houses are way too much to dust, especially if you are both working to pay for it.
Storage facilities separate you from your stuff, so if you have to put stuff there, you don't need that stuff.
Stuff can own you. You have to do the aforementioned dusting, as well as repairing, maintaining and yelling at the kids to get off it.
Rent to Own places charge way too much interest. It's a tax on the impatient.
If you have to pawn your title to the car, you are in debt way too deep.

Going through a mall now makes me dizzy. Who ever asked us if we wanted this much choice? Choosing toilet paper alone is a several hour affair.

And buying clothes? Please! If I end up getting dizzy from playing "Ring Around the Display Racks", someone will pay.

You spend your first fifty years getting stuff, then at some point you spend the rest of your life getting rid of it. Why get it in the first place?

Yeah, I know. I did it, too. I'm in the process of unloading most of it onto my kids, so I can live the Simple Life.

I'll just go to other people's houses if I feel the urge for stuff; look at their stuff.

Then I'll go home to my simple place and not dust.

I Have Had It With You Politicians

Being President, a Senator, or a Representative used to be a very respectable job. Mothers told their children that if they studied hard, they could grow up to be President. Now? Not only is it not true that anyone can be President, but most mothers are not so sure they'd want their kid to become President.

It's because you politicians are not doing right.

Now, I'm just a simple old woman, but even I know enough about human nature to tell you many of your schemes are just plain stupid. You write bills and laws up there in Congress and we have to live with them. You act like you do not have a clue what will happen.

As long as it looks good on paper, and plays well on television, and GETS YOU RE-ELECTED, you'll pass anything and damn the consequences.

I'm on to you people. It's not about being a public servant, it's about what you can get for yourselves.

Sure, there may be some of you who are sincere and smart - I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the rest of you. Either you can't think your way out of a paper bag, or you're crooked.

Here's an example: In 1990, Congress passed and the President signed into law a 10 percent luxury tax on yachts, furs, jewelry and expensive cars, hoping to raise revenue from the rich. The yacht portion was repealed in 1993, because while it did raise revenues, it also sent a few yacht makers in the United States into bankruptcy, and forced them to lay off hundreds of workers, which cost the government a lot of money in unemployment compensation. Why? Wealthy purchasers simply did not buy, or bought overseas. You couldn't have seen that coming?

You people love to pit us against each other, rich versus poor. We didn't have the kind of class envy we have now until you changed laws that let the wealthy predator types cash in. More on that in another post.

You demonize "the rich" as if they are not major creators of jobs. But they are, not only by financing companies and hiring workers, but - because they buy stuff! Thereby giving the middle a lower class people jobs making and selling that stuff.

I will talk about the rich ones with no social conscience later.

In a puzzling move, the current President proposed a tax on corporate jets. Either you are not well-read or advised, sir, or you have another agenda. Creating jobs and reducing the deficit will not happen by soaking the rich.

Now I'm talking to the voters: People, do your research! Who is lying to us, and why? Follow the money.

Yeah, it's complicated. Use your brains, not your emotions. Or don't complain.