Don't Presume, Never Presume

I am fascinated by the media's handling, or perhaps mishandling, of the Democratic presidential field this election season.  They talk a great deal about Secretary Clinton.  They talk a great deal about Vice President Biden.  Clinton is in the race.  Biden isn't.  For all intents and purposes they ignore Bernie Sanders, save to use the dread word SOCIALIST, no matter how many people appear at his venues. Well I am a Socialist, and I am here to tell you that there are many worse things you can be - most of which are attached to our government by the tentacles of Wall Street and corporate America and on both sides of the aisle; but let that go.

Since twenty-two seconds after President Obama won his re-election in 2012, corporate media and the Democratic Party have proclaimed Secretary Clinton the nominee presumptive. Perhaps that is why she is a little cavalier, a little tone deaf when she speaks to the thousands of us who support Bernie. Thus, while acknowledging with one breath that she understands why we are sick to death with the political parasites of both parties that infest our Capitol like mosquitoes swarming a stagnate pool, she touts the number of them supporting her with the next breath. Apparently, she hasn't given Bernie enough thought to understand that it is exactly his isolation from the sort-a-kind-a-Left-leaning, career politicians like McCaskill and Wassermann-Schultz that has rallied so many of us to his cause.

Now I am old, certainly. I am cranky, definitely. I am not as sharp as I was 20 years ago, indubitably. Nonetheless, I still have the wit and perspicacity to know when I am being pimped; or taken for granted because of my gender and supposed political leanings; or worse yet ignored by people who have bought into the idiocy of an American royalty and think that they have some kind of divine right to govern. In other words, I can still tell the manure from the roses. I don't like it when someone presumes that I can't - I don't like it at all.

The Pope and the Pretenders

David Brooks, Conservative columnist for the New York Times, informed Chuckles Todd, the clown-like ring master of Meet the Press, that the important thing about Francis' visit isn't his comments on Climate Change but his elevation of spirits. Apparently Brooks thinks the pope elevated those spirits with a tire-pump. If it isn't what he said about Climate Change, poverty, greed, the death penalty and other things, what the fuck is it? Brooks, Cruz, Rubo and the rest of the Rightwing squirrel cage are furious with this priest.  It appears that he has offended them because he persists in explaining that Christ was not a hedge fund manager, an overpaid CEO, a white guy with a gun or the third Koch brother.

This Pagan lady has found it all very amusing.

The Dream

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.  Who looks outside, dreams.  Who looks inside, awakes.  

… Carl Jung

Last night I had a dream.  I was sitting in the Big Top of a huge and very populated circus.  I have never been a fan of the circus, detesting as I do the way the animals are treated.  Fortunately, in my dream circus there were no elephants, tigers, lions or other beautiful creatures being exploited.  Only human animals occupied the center ring. 

When the performers starting parading past I was surprised to see that they were all members of the Republican Party’s 2016 Presidential pack. Almost all of the candidates – Cruz, Walker, Rubio, Paul, Huckabee, Kasich, Jindal, Christie, Santorum and Graham appeared dressed as clowns wearing various painted facial facsimiles of Reagan, Bush I, Cheney, North and other Rightwing heroes.  Next I saw Fiorina, trying to swagger like her fellow performers and wearing a beard.  She was followed by Jeb Bush, costumed as a tight rope walker – no doubt to tread above the abyss of his brother’s foreign policy, not to mention the one he is opening with every stupid remark he will have to distance himself from in the general election.  Carson followed as the juggler.  He was fighting to keep the balls marked physician, researcher, Christian, pro–life, proud African American, Obama hater, non politician, Rightwing politician and humanitarian in mid air.  Finally and most popular was Donald Trump, concessionaire supreme, peddling pink cotton candy full of sugar and air. 

A man sitting directly in front me turned and said, “It isn’t any different in England, you know. Politicians are the same everywhere.”  The gentleman was Edward Woodward.  For those of you who don’t know of Mr. Woodward, he was the beautifully turned out, impeccably well spoken star of one of the few American television programs that I have ever been able to stomach – The Equalizer.