Dear Hillary...

Dear Hillary,

HOW ARE YOU? I know that seems like a trite question to ask, but I think about you all the time and genuinely hope that you’re doing well, perhaps even better than anyone might expect. It seems like eons since you were a daily part of all our lives, so the notion that you’re a seriously private citizen now is a bit disconcerting to those like me who’d been looking forward to your eight-year run as the natural and successful follow-up to the remarkable Obama presidency.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Given the disastrous reality of the current administration, I started thinking about the myriad reasons that your run for the White House ended up with you winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral vote, a situation that has turned out to be so much worse for the country than anyone could possibly have known.  That is, anyone other than almost everyone who voted for you, because WE KNEW what would happen if you lost and now there’s no doubt about it: we were right.

That’s cold comfort, for sure. The more I look at the 2016 Presidential Election… the one you should have won handily… it struck me as wildly obvious that the reason you didn’t become POTUS was not the result of you’re being (as some claimed) ‘the worst Presidential candidate ever’, an assertion that even a cursory analysis would debunk.

"Politics is a contact sport. Only those on the sidelines have clean uniforms." 
      --  The Rev. Jesse Jackson

Nope, I have a different view, one that seems to have gotten almost no airplay, no consideration, not even a decent look.

In my humble opinion, the reason your run for The White House came up short in 2016 was the direct result of a series of forces, actions and events that were employed to willfully and purposefully derail your ability to win an eminently winnable campaign.  Once I started my analysis of the roadblocks you endured, it was as obvious that if any one of the multiple elements listed below hadn’t been enacted, you’d be Number 45 right now.

You had to fight against the most venal, vindictive, dishonest and politically negative powers ever assembled to prevent anyone from getting to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and even in the face of such a massive and calculated campaign against you… YOU STILL ALMOST WON!!!!

The challenges in your path to The White House were many, they were well-funded and well-supported by your enemies, and in concert they were ultimately successful.

Clinton Derangement Syndrome

The 'vast right-wing conspiracy' you spoke about all those years ago did and does exist and has been with us ever since you were First Lady. That so many people seem to viscerally hate you and Bill has never been adequately explained to me. Even now, when I get into a conversation with Clinton Haters about WHY they hate you two so much, they literally cannot quantify that hate... they just hate you!

I liken it to the bloody hatred so many veterans still have at Jane Fonda, the result of a badly-timed photograph taken of her in North Vietnam in the 60's and flaunted out of context.  That hatred of her is still a thing, and so it is with you and Bill. Was his Presidency perfect?  Of course not.  Was he a perfect husband and father?  Of course not. Are you both imperfect human beings who were trying to do their best towards the betterment of our country?  Of course you were. 

Sadly, it didn't seem to matter, and the illogical hatred of you from those days gone by was fostered and nurtured and kept alive for reasons known only to those who chose to allow such venal hatred to live inside their heads and hearts. They had a plan to weaponize that hatred and slavishly enacted it.

What a waste.

Benghazi

If I have to read about another person who is convinced that you were responsible for the deaths in the Benghazi consulate, yet can only offer the most inane facts to support their belief, I'll eat my own right hand.

After numerous hearings and investigations, it didn't really matter that you were 100% cleared of any wrongdoing, malfeasance or malicious involvement in that awful chapter of a country at civil war. THEY ALL BLAMED YOU.  Why? Well, because no matter that they proved you weren't culpable for the deaths, they still believed that you were, and nothing was gonna change their minds. Your guilt was pre-ordained because HILLARY CLINTON, but their own analysis proved them wrong.

They even admitted their goal was to stain your name against achieving the Presidency because their hatred of you was so intense and all-consuming, blinding them to their own venality.  But stain you they did, and it was effective. Another example of the Clinton Derangement Syndrome deployed against you.

E-Mails

Madeline Albright used a private e-mail server during her term as Secretary of State.  Colin Powell also used a private e-mail server and even recommended that you do the same when Barry tapped you for the job. Your server was never hacked, and you never knowingly sent or received classified documents via that server. These are facts.

Your private server was the only shred of an issue found during the Benghazi investigation that could be flogged against you as a tool of destruction. You were called reckless even though literally nothing questionable ever happened as the result of your use of a private server. Given the current chaotic state of the White House's communications and lack of staff security clearances, it's almost laughable that you were pilloried for such a minor issue.

Once again, the Clinton Derangement Syndrome whipped into gear and used your 'reckless' use of a private e-mail server to stain you as unfit for The White House.  They knew they had to do it because you were considered one of the most popular and powerful politicians in the world.

FBI Investigation

It's a natural progression for the Hillary Hate Machine to go from the bogus Benghazi hearings to the bogus e-mail scandal to the FBI probe, which ultimately found nothing to see and even said so. The fact that Director Comey decided to revisit the issue only weeks before the election in order to make sure he got in front of leaks about you from within his agency was a galactic blunder on his part, and most assuredly kneecapped your campaign in a way that has never been seen in modern American history.

And of course, he also failed to mention the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, which was well and truly under way. 

Russia

Putin hates you, and I think you enjoyed trolling him because you've always stood up and shoved right back at him when he tried to exert his formidable powers. Unfortunately, he'd already been grooming DJT for years as a dim-witted accomplice. Vlad saw his chance to subvert the will of the American people by schmoozing his way into the Trump campaign, establishing a digital beachhead and using that foundation to manipulate ignorant and gullible Americans.

It's almost unbelievable that so many people simply accepted what they saw on their devices about you without even the slightest bit of curiosity about its veracity. You had Parkinson's... you were a lesbian... you were involved with a child sex ring in a pizza joint cellar... you were a shrill harpy that everyone on your campaign hated... you were a Russian puppet... you had Alzheimer's... and on and on and on.

Those of us who knew better knew these insane stories were nothing but baloney. We had no idea the Russians were pushing these narratives into our country with a weaponized social media program that went almost totally unseen until it was too late. Putin directed this plan from the Kremlin, and anyone who doubts that now is just plain wrong. Putin was out to get you... and he got you. That so many Americans believed the fake stories and made voting decisions based on them is a modern tragedy.

A Starstruck Media

It was an amazing thing to see in real-time. All during the campaign, you were constantly peppered with accusing questions about E-MAILS!!! BENGHAZI!!!! FBI INVESTIGATION!!! WHY DO YOU LAUGH LIKE THAT?!?!?!?!?! WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE YOU?!?!?!?! It seemed like there wasn't a single interview, news report or op/ed that didn't harp on the negative aspects of stories about you that were not only false, but aggressively pointed to make you appear as some kind of criminally-minded America-hater.

Through those withering interviews brimming with venom and misogyny, you gave honest and detailed answers about your platform, how you would act to resolve the myriad issues that mattered, how you would reach out and govern as a leader for all Americans, not just the ones who voted for you.

But the negativity and disdain for you was all that anyone could or would see or hear... it drowned out your positive, inclusive message.

At the same time, that same media swooned and fawned and lobbed softball questions at The Very Famous Donald Trump, rarely talking about or vetting his horrible business record, his tax evasion, his decrepit moral character, his pathological lying, his ignorance of foreign or domestic policies, his violent tendencies. The media fell all over themselves trying to highlight every shred of his bullshit celebrity, seemingly oblivious to the actual disgusting person he really was.

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I know I know... you already know all this, but this letter to you is my way of trying to make sense of the mountain of forces that were aligned against you, your campaign and your chance to become the 45th POTUS of this here US of A.

I wish I could offer you some kind of solace or apology for the horrific treatment you were subjected to during the 2016 campaign... and the decades that preceded it. For some reason, you've been characterized as an awful person without a moral foundation, but that simply isn't true.

You've been a civil rights champion... a women's rights champion... a First Lady times three... a State Senator... a Secretary of State... and twice a formidable candidate for the Presidency. 

Because of who you are and what you've achieved, it took the collective negative might of all the forces listed above to deny you the chance to lead this country as the First Woman President, and for that we will always be the poorer. We watch now as the 2016 campaign winner dismantles our government, disgraces the office of the POTUS, alienates our allies, coddles our adversaries, enriches himself and his cronies, debases Americans he doesn't like and foments division, racism, bigotry and hatred among our own people.

My fervent hope is that you aren't done yet. That you'll continue to speak up and speak out, to use your formidable skills as a politician and an American advocate to help rescue our severely listing ship of state. We need you now, perhaps more than ever.

However, I will totally understand if you choose to just say "OH HELL NO" and recede into your private life, washing your hands of the American electorate who took you for granted for far too long.

On a personal level, I want to thank you for being exactly the Hillary Rodham Clinton that I've always known and loved. I'm only one person, but my gratitude for your efforts towards making this a better nation will never be diminished or eroded. I have always been a proud supporter of you as an imperfect human being, an imperfect politician, an imperfect leader, an imperfect woman/wife/Mother, an imperfect American. 

Imperfectly American... just like me.

"Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." -- Voltaire, French philosopher and writer (1694-1778)



'Young Hillary' image, gracias de wellesley.edu; Aretha Franklin 'Respect' video, muchismas gracias de youtube.com; Thanks, Hillary!!!!

Anatomy of a Murder

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” -- Martin Luther King

Donald J. Trump is set to become the 45th President of the United States of America.

He will be my President.  I'm not happy about it, but that's how politics and elections work sometimes.

A large number of us are still mystified as to how and why Donald Trump defied the odds and snuck away with enough electoral votes to move into the White House.  

My standard answer is: it didn’t just happen. It took almost a decade for us to get to the point where a racist pussy-grabbing tax-cheating scumbag like Trump could con and lie his way into the Oval Office.

It's no secret that Donald Trump, a pathological liar, murdered Truth as a pathway to his electoral success, but there were many accomplices in this murder. Each in their own way, with their own agendas, conspired to murder Truth as a means to an end that they held as Most Important, moreso than their citizenship or civility or decency. They lied about facts, lied about their motives and intentions, lied about reality, lied lied lied about everything they could think of to generate a reality we now refer to as ‘post-truth’.

And guess what?  IT WORKED!!!

I knew trouble was brewing a few weeks before the election.

I had a conversation with an elderly fellow who, for the sake of all involved, will remain nameless.  We were talking about the upcoming Presidential election and he made it very clear that he was voting for Donald Trump. This is just a small sample of how the entire stupefying conversation went:

Me: “You realize that he’s wholly unqualified and unfit for that job, right?”

Him:  “It doesn’t matter. He’s going to make America great again. He’s a successful businessman and knows what he’s doing.”

Me: “Does a successful businessman claim a billion dollars in losses and file for bankruptcy multiple times?”

Him:  “That’s not true. Where’d you hear that?”

Me:  “Ummm… yeah, actually it is true. So what exactly is he gonna do to make this country great again?”

Him:  “He’s gonna bring back law and order to stop all the riots going on.”

Me:  “Which riots are those?”

Him:  “Well… the ones all over the place, those riots where all those blacks are destroying property and killing cops!”

Me:  “Surely you’re not referring to the civil unrest over indiscriminate police shooting of unarmed black men?”

Him:  “Yeah, those riots.”

Me:  “Riiiiight… OK, what else is he gonna do to make this country great again?”

Him:  “I forget, but I know that I knew and I agree with everything he says.”

Me:  (incredulous, eyes bugging out) “Come ON… he’s a racist and a bigot and a sexual predator! He’s a tax cheat and a pathological liar!”

Him:  “No he’s not! Who says that?”

Me:  (eyes narrowing, throwing a sideways look) “What news shows do you watch?”

Him:  “Well… mostly Fox News.”

Me:  “Any others?”

Him:  “Nope… don’t need to.  They’re the only ones who tell the truth. The rest of the lamestream media are liars.”

Me:  (head explodes and launches brains all over the walls, body falls into a twitching heap on the floor)

Congressional Republicans Murdered Truth

From the moment Barack Obama announced his run for the Presidency in 2007, the latent racism and bigotry bubbling just below the surface of our national skin spewed out like a ripe pimple being pinched. It didn’t matter that he was an American citizen, a Christian, a public servant, a Harvard graduate, a constitutional law expert. The GOP and Congressional Republicans would seek to de-legitimize and destroy him because they could not and would not allow a Black Man to be President.

They lied about his heritage. They lied about his faith.  They lied about his education.  They lied about his family. They lied about his politics. They lied about his qualifications. They lied about his patriotism. They lied about everything pertaining to him and they never stopped lying, not even once.

When he won the Presidency, they lied about his intentions. They lied about his motives. They lied about what he would do.  And on the day of his inauguration, a group of powerful Republican liars met in a Washington DC restaurant and developed a strategy to destroy him. They agreed to obstruct, delay, stonewall, obfuscate, slow-walk, deny, torpedo and sabotage anything and everything he tried to do. 

Don't believe me?  Go look it up.

They wanted to teach that uppity Black Man a lesson for thinking he could make things better for Americans. Their guy W had spent the previous eight years destroying the very fabric of our country and left a smoking mess for Barack Obama to somehow fix (which he eventually did), and that just would not do. And they would be damned if they’d give the uppity Black Man a single solitary win, so they enacted their plan to do just that, as only Republicans can do because they are inveterate liars.

If Obama was for it, they were against it. Didn’t matter what it was, who it would benefit, how right or fair or just it was.  They objected to every single thing he tried to do. From rescuing the economy to providing affordable healthcare to creating a more just legal system, they dug in and stood their ground.  NO NO NO to everything.  And then they lied about it.  They refused to govern and became the Disloyal Opposition, sabotaged everything he tried to do, and then blamed him when the results weren’t as successful as they could or should have been. They even shut down the government based on lies and blamed that uppity Black Man for it.

They lied about the economy even when it revived and thrived.  They lied about the Affordable Care Act even though it dramatically lowered the costs of healthcare, reduced the Federal deficit, provided 20 million Americans with coverage and dropped the number of the uninsured to historic lows.  They lied about unemployment even though it was reduced to the lowest rate in decades. They lied about a lack of jobs even though millions and millions of new jobs were created.  They lied about his foreign policy even though he ended two illegal wars and rebuilt trust and admiration from around the globe that had been squandered by his predecessor. They lied about the federal deficit, claiming it had skyrocketed when in fact it had been lowered by two-thirds.

They went on Fox News, the most popular ‘news’ channel ever, and lied and lied and lied. Every time they were in front of a camera or reporters or constituents, they lied and lied and lied.

And guess what?  IT WORKED. The unthinking and incurious masses of Americans who watched Fox News night after night, lie after lie, believed the lies and started to blame that stinking liberal Obama for all the bad things that were happening, for the inability for Congress to get anything done, for the stagnation of job creation and the skyrocketing crime rate, even though it was all based on lies.

Those ignorant Americans didn’t bother to think about whether or not their single source of information might be lying to them because it was too much trouble to check other sources, to use critical thinking about what they were hearing, to weigh facts against hyperbole and lies. They bought the lies hook, line and sinker.

And here we are.

A Compliant And Weak Media Murdered Truth

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy in the Summer of 2015, his speech was filled with lies and racism and unhinged insanity, but the mainstream media slavishly covered every single minute of it.  Oh sure, they chortled and guffawed at his obvious stupidity, but... no one came right out and called him a liar, nor would they.

They couldn't, and he knew it, because he is a Master of the Universe, an entitled celebrity asshole with wealth and power and influence. Someone who spent his entire life supping from a gold-covered chalice, shitting in a gold-encrusted toilet, demeaning and insulting and degrading everybody else because he could... always had, always would. And NO ONE would ever be able to tell or show him otherwise.

The mainstream media both craved and feared Donald Trump.

They would enable and embolden this pathological liar because regardless of how insane he might be, they wanted to make sure he would always give them what they craved most:  ACCESS and RATINGS. His incoherent ramblings were ratings gold, and they would never EVER do anything that would jeopardize access to the fountain of stupid that is Donald Trump because he is a Master of the Universe.

What they didn't realize is that a massive number of Americans had been pre-conditioned to believe the lies he was spewing each and every day, because they'd already been brainwashed by the incessant lying of Congressional Republicans.

The very same Republicans that had been lying and lying and lying in front of every camera that would point in their direction. Access is key, and any reporter or media that questioned them on their lies was immediately cut off from access to the Lying Republicans. No more interviews, no more quotes, no more access... so a decision had to be made. Maintain access by glossing over the lies, or question the lies and suffer the consequences.

Guess which one they chose?

And here we are.

An Ignorant and Brainwashed Public Murdered Truth

"If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be" -- Thomas Jefferson

In the weeks leading up to the election, it was obvious that we had already entered the 'post-truth' era. The lies and bullshit being spread about Hillary Clinton were unbelievable, but a huge swath of the public believed the lies because they had been preconditioned to think that way. They loved the lies, and what Grade-A Quality Bullshit the lies were! For example:

"Hillary lied about Benghazi and purposefully allowed the embassy to be overrun and burned and did nothing while the staffers were murdered."

"Hillary lied about her e-mails and server."

"Hillary suffered a stroke and is barely able to stand on her own."

"Hillary is a crook."

"Hillary has never done anything positive during her time in the public sector."

"Hillary is sick and hiding it from the media."

"Hillary is a secret lesbian."

"Hillary profited from The Clinton Foundation."

"Hillary is involved in a child sex ring run from the basement of a DC-area pizzeria."

"Hillary is responsible for the civil wars in Syria and Iraq and civil unrest throughout the Middle East."

And yet... rather than try and analyze these statements to see if there were any facts to bolster them, the Ignorant Public that loves to not think swallowed the lies whole, without hesitation, without a single thought given to the notion that maybe... perhaps... possibly... the lies were actually LIES.

Nope.  Didn't happen. They swallowed the lies whole like a carp sucking down a mayfly. Didn't even taste it going down. Sustenance.

There's a popular meme that says 'If you think education is expensive, wait until you see how much ignorance costs.' And make no mistake, a large swath of the American electorate is 100% USDA Grade-A Select ignorant. It starts with the watering-down and elimination of high school Civics and Social Studies and History and Political Science courses, allowing students to whip through to graduation without ever thinking... even once... about their civic duties and responsibilities, or How Things Work.


Then the semi-ignorant students are allowed to swim through college (if they go at all) without ever knowing the most basic facts of American Citizenship or American History. Those who don't attend college become Diploma'd ignoramuses with no critical thinking skills or the ability to reason fact from fiction, ripe for the picking by Lying Liars.



And here we are.

Does this seem a bit harsh? Am I being needlessly cruel or caustic or otherwise unfair to those mediocre students who, through no fault of their own, become dim adults lacking the capacity to think for themselves without their spacephone?

Well, harsh is pretty much all I have in me right now, because one of the best parts about getting old is that I've stopped giving a diddly-fuck about what others may think of my opinions. I've stopped worrying about the delicate fee-fees of the vast swath of Ignorant Americans who can't think their way out of a paper bag, who can't be bothered to educate themselves about their world, who are as incurious and bereft of context and contrast as our new Asshole-In-Chief.

As an adult trying to navigate the vast ocean of life, I've always tried to fall back on the meaningful brilliance of the many fine teachers I had in junior and high school, along with my years as a Cub and Boy Scout.  It was all of a piece, and among the most important things I learned to strive for are:  

Be truthful, no matter what. 

Treat others with the respect they deserve. 

Call 'BULLSHIT' when it's obvious. 

Question everything, and be prepared to deal with the hard answers. 

Don't be afraid to ask questions or admit you don't have all the answers.

Give everything you can to the benefit of others.

Never ever stop learning.

Truth is easily lost in the blaring reality we all share, but we gotta keep our eyes on it at all times or it becomes obscured, shaded, hidden from view. I've opined before that we have so much information flooding into our lives that it becomes almost too much to bear, allowing facts and truth to be lost the fizzy reality cocktail we drink deeply from every day.

Don't let it happen. Don't let Truth be murdered right in front of your eyes.  I know it's hard, but you gotta weed through the noise and keep looking for the hard-nuts Truth about what is meaningful and important.  Otherwise you'll become just another American Ignoramus, calmly feeding on the radioactive pablum that suffocates Truth in a thick layer of bullshit.

As a Boy Scout, I had to memorize and try to live by the Twelve Scout Laws:

"A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent."

These weren't meant to be hard and fast rules, but instead goals to strive for, to achieve in order to be a Better Scout, a Better Human Being, a Better American.  Little did I know that as I grew into Adulthood and Curmudgeonhood, those very same laws would guide me in my world view, in my interpersonal relationships, in my understanding and treatment of others.

Trustworthy is the first Scout Law.

trust-wor-thy -- (adjective) -- able to be relied on as honest or truthful; synonyms: reliable, dependable, honest, upright, principled, true, truthful, ethical, virtuous, incorruptible, unimpeachable, above suspicion, responsible, sensible, levelheaded, staunch, steadfast... "a trustworthy citizen".

Maybe this is why I'm so unbelievably angry with the Lying Republicans, the Lying Media, the Ignorant Americans who lie to themselves. I know it may be too much to ask that other citizens try a bit harder to be more truthful, more honest about the things that affect us all. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I really try hard to be honest and trustworthy in everything that I say and do, every single day.  

Why can't they at least try to do the same?

Actually, I know why... and so do you.

Lying is easy. 

Lead image, gracias de vintagecoolhunter.com; 'Politically Challenged' and Rollins Band 'Liar' video, muchismas gracias de youtube.com; todas mis gracias y alabanza a Carlos Magallanes, Los Boy Scouts de America, y Mi Papa.