political

friends?

I don’t block or unfriend people as a matter of course. I have, on occasion, removed a hitchhiker… someone who I don’t know; never met, but who maybe was a friend of a friend from a literary group or a high school classmate’s neighbor, who I may have given a chance, who turned out to be more trouble than they were worth.

I do not.

But I have been.

Unfriended.

Blocked.

By FAMILY.

By “friends”…

…Because my religious beliefs and behaviors don’t align with theirs. Note–I am NOT in any fashion STOPPING THEM from worshiping as they wish. We are, for the time being at least, still FREE to worship as we see fit. YOUR desire to worship should have NO BEARING on how OUR country is GOVERNED….

…Because my political philosophy doesn’t align with theirs. My opinions are based on factual information, not hyper-partisan spin. (Of course I have shared a misplaced meme once or twice. I have occasionally not vetted something as well as I should. I happen to be human.)

But I WILL NOT BE QUIET. Not in the face of injustice, not with willful ignorance staring me in the face, not when people have locked themselves into a narrative that excludes all EVIDENCE because of some perceived, CREATED fear. When people refuse to CALL OUT EVIL because their ‘leader’ is providing them tax relief…. real or perceived… when the three co-equal branches of government will not call out utter fraud and possible treason, all because they crave POWER over patriotism…

I will continue to maintain my grasp on the correct side of history, as all of the horrors of this world through themselves at us. No matter that people vilify me or mine. I know I am in the right.

AND I WILL BE VOTING.

(Note also, that I have it on good authority I WILL be going to heaven. Sr Concepta assured me of this on many occasions over the years that she spent walking in my neighborhood, when she would pat my tiny daughter on the head, and say hello to my overgrown puppy.)

 

All the papers had to say was that Marilyn was found in the nude.

Some thoughts have gelled in my head over these past few days of such private tragedies of public people.
We ALL know the pain of loss. All of us. Some of us have had more charmed lives than others, but we all know loss.
And all of us know the particular pain of the loss of death by suicide. (if you think you don’t, look more closely. You do. I can rattle off the names of three people–without even thinking about it)
It’s different than death by cancer, or death by drowning or death by car accident or death by old age.. And while we rush to comfort the survivors of death by many means, we pick apart death by suicide in a different way. We do not mean to, of course.
YES. That person may be alive today if only ….
“They had so much to live for, they had success, they had money, they had fame…”
When you do this, this picking apart, this cataloging, this ticking off of whys, you are hurting the people they left behind in ways that can’t even be imagined. You are minimizing their lives in pursuit of analyzing their deaths.
In the same way that someone who loses someone by some chance accident will have to live with the idea that if only that Lego hadn’t been on that top step, you are consigning the family and friends of those closest to someone who died by suicide to never be able to find peace with the fact that truly, they could not have stopped it.
Sure, they may have delayed it. Who knows, they may already HAVE delayed it, once. Or four times. And certainly, if that person was able to get the medical care they deserved they may have gone into remission.
But just as an alcoholic is always an alcoholic, a cancer survivor is always in remission or not, someone who is suffering depression isn’t cured. They are managed– by medicine and therapy.
And every time someone in the public eye dies by suicide, and everyone bemoans the loss, EVERY SCAB IS PEELED OFF and the bleeding starts again and the healing takes three steps back for all those anonymous souls who are left behind.
We attempt to respect the privacy of death by other means, but for this, for this–we want the gory details…and all the papers had to say was that Marilyn was found in the nude.

Seriously?

Do we REALLY need tell people to think about this logically? About half the country is R, about half is D; with a good chunk from either side claiming to be something closer to OTHER.

  • Are we TRULY shocked or upset or thinking there’s a nefarious plot because some CAREER agents of the Secret Service or of the FBI openly fall into ONE of those three categories?
  • Are we HONESTLY suggesting that all those people should have NO PERSONAL POLITICAL OPINIONS?
  • Are we saying that if they DIDN’T vote for the person who won they should then LOSE THEIR Job?
  • Are we saying no SS or FBI should be voting at all? That part of their employment is to be disenfranchised?

How exactly would that work? Grownups (theoretically) have the ability to work with others, even if they disagree, on a personal level, with almost EVERYTHING about their boss.

We 100% can NOT, I repeat CAN NOT pick on the “affair” aspect of these two FBI agents, as we as a country, have apparently decided that marital infidelity with a PORN STAR is acceptable behavior nowadays. (Mulligan?? Are you kidding me? He got his mulligan when he was married to Ivanka and cheated on her with Marla. )

And, god help those who have made it past age 20 without the amount of humor and sarcasm that might produce a “secret society” comment between friends. Insert rolling eyes, people. Seriously.

Spoiler alert:

I dislike my boss. I don’t think this person is capable of the job in front of them.  I gossip about my boss to other employees and to friends/ family, IRL or via text. I didn’t vote for this person to be my boss…I was there first. I would not have voted for this person had that been an option.

I still do MY job. And I can do MY job because it’s MY job. I have respect for MY behavior. I don’t respect my boss, because respect has to be earned, and my boss has yet to earn it, but that doesn’t stop me from following the directives I am given, as long as they are legal, ethical and moral.

If the FBI, the SS et al, can do that, then what the actual F?

Unless we ARE now a Banana Republic, or we DO have an Emperor…