To my neighbors & other former friends

Shout out to the neighbors who stood in my backyard in December 2016 and insulted me and said I was being hysterical and that Trump and Hillary Clinton were the same and none of my predictions about the Supreme Court, abortion, immigration and more would EVER come true, as well to the people on Facebook who said I was too political and absolutely ridiculous to be SO worried about any of this. 

And ALSO to all the "we need to come together with the other side" people. 

F*ck you, sincerely & completely. You did this. This is you:

Of course, you'll never admit it. You'll never apologize. That's also why you are .

Embrace the words that describe you

I embrace words that accurately describe me, even if they may not be said in a way that is complimentary. These words include activist, dissenter, feminist and cantankerous. I cannot deny that they are accurate, because I know what words mean.

Am I a socialist? Well, if socialism is passionately supporting public education, social security, affordable health care access for all people, taxing the rich at rates greater than the poor are taxed, public lands (city parks, national parks, national monuments, etc.), and taxes paying for social and public services then, yes, I am part socialist, because there are aspects of socialism I want in the USA. However, I also want people to be free to invest money and make money, to own their own houses and their own property, to become wealthy, to buy luxury items, to buy things they want but may not need - and a socialist, nor a communist, would be down with any of that. Karl Marx said, "The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." And I own a house and I love my house and it's mine, and I love my motorcycle and really don't want anyone else riding it EVER...

But, still, if I'm willing to accept the word socialism as a word that accurately describes of some of my beliefs, no matter how incendiary it is to some people, then why do people who are racists refuse to accept the description that they are racists? Racism is the belief that members of a category of people - a category based on their ancestry, their ethnicity - possess behavioral characteristics and intellectual abilities specific to that category, that race, especially so as to distinguish people of that race as inferior or superior to people of another race or races.

That means that if you think most people who are Latino, because of their biology, have a predisposition to rape and kill greater than people who are of European descent, you are a racist. If you believe that the biology of people from Asia makes them predisposed to be smarter than people who are black from Sub-Sahara Africa, you are a racist. If you think black Americans are predisposed to commit crimes at a much greater rate than whites because of their brain makeup, you are a racist. If you believe culture comes not from external factors and history but, rather, a person's biological makeup, then you are a racist.

By this accurate definition, Donald Trump is a racist, as are his supporters. There's no getting around that. based on his frequently stated beliefs and the crowds that cheer those statements. By calling Trump supporters racists, yes, I am insulting Trump supporters - but I'm also being accurate.

The list of Trump's racist remarks is too long for this blog. But here are just some highlights:

Trump characterizes cities with a large black population as dystopian war zones. In a 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump said, “Our inner cities, African Americans, Hispanics are living in hell because it’s so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot.” Trump also said to black voters: “You’re living in poverty; your schools are no good; you have no jobs.” Trump frequently offers false crime statistics to exaggerate urban crime in cities with large black populations, including about Oakland, Philadelphia and Ferguson, Missouri. This comes from his racist belief that black people are more violent than people of other races.

Trump frequently talks about crimes committed by dark-skinned people, sometimes exaggerating or lying about them (such as a claim about growing crime from “radical Islamic terror” in Britain). Again, this comes from his racist belief that people who are identified as not white are more prone to violence.

Trump is very slow to decry hate crimes committed by whites against dark-skinned people (such as the killing of an Indian man in Kansas last year). Trump called some of those who marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., last August “very fine people.” This comes from his racist belief that white violence against other races is somehow justified, or not as bad as violence by people from other races.

Trump said a federal judge hearing a case about Trump University was biased because of the judge’s Mexican heritage. This illustrates his racist belief that people of Hispanic or Latino descent are inferior in their abilities to white people.

In June 2017, Trump said 15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS” and that 40,000 Nigerians, once seeing the United States, would never “go back to their huts” in Africa. Do I even have to explain what makes this racist?

At the White House, Trump vulgarly called for less immigration from Haiti and Africa and more from Norway, because he believes people from Scandinavia - white people - are superior to other races because of their biology.

His favorite insult of black Americans seems to be that they have a "low I.Q." or are not "smart": he's used this insult for Don Lemon, LeBron James, Maxine Waters. By contrast, he likes to use sexist remarks to insult white women, and insults about character and appearance for white men.

In the 1990s, Trump took out advertisements alleging that the “Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity is well documented.”

Trump once referred to a Hispanic Miss Universe as “Miss Housekeeping.”

Those are just some of the racist remarks he's made. If words have meaning, then Donald Trump is a racist. Why doesn't he embrace the title? He almost has: he's now admitted to being a nationalist, which is an extremist form of patriotism and is a term beloved among fascists. And fascism is inextricably tied with racism - the two cannot be separated.

Trump's domestic and foreign policies are based on two things: increasing his family's wealth and promoting his racist ideology. So, if you support him, there is only one thing to call you: racist. Why not embrace it? The description CANNOT be wrong unless you also believe your ideology about race is wrong. Period.

There is no denying that the US, like most countries on Earth, was built on racist ideologies. It is my choice every day, not just on election day, to embrace that or to fight against that continuing. Regardless of the election results, I'm going to continue to fight. I won't be "coming together" with racists. I won't be "looking for common ground" with racists. If it makes you uncomfortable when I speak out or walk out - it should, and that's your problem, not mine.

Not ready to make nice, not ready to back down...

Living the consequences of Nov 2016 elections, dreading Nov 2018

In December 2016, I was told, "It doesn't matter to the average person who is President. It doesn't really affect everyday people."

In response, I said parents would be ripped away from their children because of the election. I said people would start losing their health care and some would die as a consequence. I said public lands would start shrinking and environmental protections would be radically rolled back.

As I said in a blog back in 2016 after that night, that smirking person said:

I was being "alarmist" and "overly-dramatic" regarding Trump and his supporters, that it's not "that bad", that I should be more tolerant and caring regarding his supporters, some of whom are my neighbors, that they aren't "bad" people, that being polite and listening to them would be good for me...

My pushback against this person made observers uncomfortable. I ended up losing some people I considered friends because I dared to talk openly after that night about the horror show that quickly unfolded after January: the ban on Muslim immigrants, the canceling of green card status for people who have lived and worked here for many years, the scaling back of the affordable care act and the taking away of health care coverage from thousands (soon millions), the flat wages while prices rise, the layoffs of thousands of people and closing of businesses, the scaling back of public lands, the elimination of various environmental protections, the elimination of protections for home buyers and people with student debt, Nazis proudly marching in the streets of the USA, emboldened and empowered by the President, the President's open adoration of violent regimes (Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korean, etc.), the separation of children and their families at the borders, the internment camps for immigrants, and, of course, the rich getting oh-so-richer while critically-needed safety net programs were eliminated.

So, yeah, I was right about the consequences of election night - in fact, I underestimated the consequences. But I take no pleasure in being right about it. None. I would have loved to have been wrong.

I didn't really think about then was how the Presidency would affect me, personally, so quickly: two much-needed jobs in the pipeline completely disappeared within weeks of the election because of anticipated federal budget cuts. Former clients have greatly scaled back because of federal cuts. We're holding our breath over a quickly-approaching green card renewal as we read horror stories of denials.

When I say elections are going to have dire consequences and affect real people, I'm not imagining things nor exaggerating. All of this affects real people, and if it hasn't affected you, then you are privileged.

It's not enough to vote in November - ask neighbors if they are registered. Ask them if they need a voter guide from the League of Women Voters (your state has them online). Ask them if they know where their polling place is. Ask your college-student sons and daughters' friends the same.

Also see Silence means approval

Who is behind right wing bots?

A friend created a fake Facebook account around lunch time on Friday - yesterday:

• He used a right wing meme as a profile photo, and had a big USA nationalist cover photo (flag, etc.). 
• He marked his religion on this fake profile as “Jesus Christ.” 
• In his profile, he said he is divorced.
• In his profile, his high school is fake - it's somewhere in Kentucky, and has the name "Christian" in the title
• He “liked” Fox News, Breitbart, and some “we love Trump” account. 
• He put up a few status updates, all political in nature.
• Then he sent friend requests to 5 - 10 people who were posting right wing crap on those pages.
• He did NOT comment on any pages at all.

24 hours later - around noon time on Saturday:

• he sent out another 5 -10 friend requests, choosing people out of the comments section of the aforementioned pages, and had about 7 Facebook friends. 
• he added an implication on his profile that he’s an Army veteran and as having graduated from a fake Christian high school in Kentucky.

By 6 p.m. that evening, he has MORE THAN 100 FRIEND REQUESTS.

I want to note, that as of 6 p.m. Saturday evening:

• He hasn’t posted on any page other than his own. 
• He hasn’t engaged with anyone at all except to send about 20 friend requests. 
• And in the time it took me to type everything you have read up to this point, I have been informed that he had about 10 more friend requests.

Later that same evening: he went through 100 of his friend requests. He said that:

• Some say they are women, and have flowers and inspirational quotes in their profile. They also each have hundreds, even thousands, of friends. 
• Some are people that, in their status update, have only posts selling something: knives, ammunition, survival items, etc. 

Some things to consider:

• On his real profile, the one that uses his real name, location, job, etc., he does comment on public organization's status updates - for instance, on a news organization's facebook page status update.  
• On his real profile, he rarely gets friend requests - and when he does, they are usually from people he knows. 

So, my conclusion: There are bots - software programs - that do nothing but seeking out right wing people on Facebook. Some of the friend requests are from real people, some are from fake profiles, but most, and maybe all, are a result of bots that has been programmed specifically to find people that lean far right.

But WHO has created these bots?

FYI, this experiment by my friend was inspired by What goes on in a far-right Facebook filter bubble?, an article in Deutsche Welle about two TV reporters for Germany's ZDF broadcaster that created a fake account for an imaginary, and extreme, right wing German, and what happened regarding who reached out to that fake profile on Facebook.