These uneducated (presumed) white dudes, all MAGATs, all blind Trump supporters, want to remind women of their place in the home and in society. “Stay barefoot and pregnant in front of the kitchen sink” (to paraphrase VP candidate JD Vance/Hamer/Baldwin) and “Stay out of our White House.”
They’ll tell you that Kamala Harris is a “DEI hire” who is unqualified for the presidency and only rose to the position of VP by “going down on her knees.” Well, which is it, Misogynist America? Was she picked solely on race and gender? Or did she “blow her way to the top?”
These same idiots couldn't even tell you what DEI stands for, let alone SPELL IT!!!
None of them qualified for even a middle management position, yet believe this former prosecutor, Attorney General of California (border state the size of a small country) and Vice President is UNqualified to hold the highest office in the land. Let's say the Chief Operating Officer of a Fortune 500 company is promoted to CEO. Are they unqualified, too? Oh, they are...because of their race and gender, perhaps??? Your sexism and misogyny is exposed! Just quit with the dog whistles!
White dudes in America feel their grip slipping. Propping up this wannabe Dictator who is rich and white and who will "protect" their rights/power, is their last hope to hold onto power. The patriarchy is crumbling and this scares them! They want to regress instead of embrace progress and change. They believe the stereotypical myth that America was "so much greater" in the postwar flee to the suburbs where Jews, blacks and other minorities were restricted from homeownership. America was never that great for these Americans, just ask them.
I grew up watching these same whitewashed re-runs, from a bygone era in early TV days when neither a black person nor a minority (lone exceptions being Tonto on Lone Ranger and Buckwheat on Little Rascals...which were bad racial stereotypes) were represented. These false, white archetypes just bolstered the patriarchy and made sure everyone else, from women to minorities, KNEW THEIR PLACE! And this falsehood is when Trumpites (cultists) thought America was "great." It wasn't. Again, just ask the women and minorities who lived through the turbulent 1950s.
People like JD Vance/Hamer/Baldwin still believe the mythical standard set by June Cleaver is the gold standard for all women. Women everywhere are chanting the refrain, "WE'RE NOT GOING BACK!!!"
We are not. Progress demands that we look forward, we move forward. White men have had all the power forever and a day. They've believed these false 1950s stereotypes are what kept the family, the economy and America strong. But we don't live in the 1950s! We've made 70 years of progress since then...progress for women, Jewish Americans, minorities, civilization. Those who would look back through rose-colored glasses are willfully deluded.
Take the inbreeders in the photos at the top. How would they react to an infringement on their personal rights...on their private parts? What if women said to them, "God gave you that limp dick and you should just live with it." If he wanted you to get hard and be able to impregnate a woman, he would've given you the ability. Then, they outlawed erectile dysfunction treatments of all kinds, from pills to pumps. If men were threatened with imprisonment from seeking such treatments on-line or across state lines, you'd hear a VERY DIFFERENT TAKE on bodily autonomy. But their autonomy has never been challenged or questioned. So why do they believe they have the right to limit and take away yours? That's exactly what the Dobbs decision did overturning Roe v. Wade.
The polls show a growing wave in support of Harris/Walz, including young people, disgruntled Republicans and NEVER TRUMPers of every race, creed and color. Data also shows record numbers of young people, Gen Zers who 2/3 of them hate Trump, registering to vote. If they turn up in numbers, this will be a landslide for the left! I welcome the trend towards progress. Change is good.
I've written about race in America quite a bit in the last eight or so years because it affects me deeply and personally, like on a soul level. From the above pics, you can see that I live in a very MULTI-RACIAL family. My sister adopted an African-American sibling pair the year before I adopted my first daughter, who is white, and four years before I adopted my second daughter, who is multi-racial. So when Americans started shouting "ALL LIVES MATTER" in 2016 and again in 2020, I had to dissent. ALL lives haven't mattered even though the preamble to our Declaration of Independence signed in August 1776 PRETENDS THEY DO!
I wrote in June 2016 that "the backlash to the Black Lives Matter campaign is rooted in ignorance," and it very much is. Ignorance of history. Ignorance about white privilege and how this country was founded. "ALL MEN" were endowed with "UNALIENABLE RIGHTS." But even as our forefathers penned that, they didn't really believe that ALL LIVES MATTER. In fact, they ruled that African men were 3/5 of a human being, justifying their lower status and white ownership of slaves. The founding fathers believed in Manifest Destiny and that it was bestowed on WHITES by their Creator. Hell, it is believed that George Washington's "wooden" teeth were actually those of slaves...but I digress.
I concluded in my June 2016 blog post that, "It wasn't blacks who created the divide amongst humanity. By and large, it was white people. It began with the premise that races OTHER THAN white were somehow inferior. In the case of Africans, they were classified subhuman. The African slave was classified chattel. They were no different than livestock and often treated WORSE! So white people created the US v. THEM culture between themselves and everyone of a "lesser race" (blacks were often referred to as "mud race")."
That STAIN ON AMERICA is what we are still living under the dark shadow of. It is the basis for the systemic racism we see in our Institutions, from governance (at all levels) to housing policies to media disinformation. But even still, in white-controlled America, we still have African-American's towing the line to protect the status quo of racial inequality. Watch this video about Tim Scott, one-time Republican Presidential Candidate, narrated and produced by a black man who compares Scott to a "magical negro" from Hollywood lore.
Not only do "conservative blacks" like Scott distort the narrative, they effectively try to REWRITE it! And our national narrative, as told in history books and propogated by the far right, is ALREADY AS WHITEWASHED as it can possibly be. It's why Republicans vehemently OPPOSE the ideology behind Critical Race Theory and want it banned from any and all curriculum. HOW DARE BLACK PEOPLE TELL THEIR OWN STORY IN THEIR WORDS!!! White America would rather keep them shackled and muzzled. WHAT'S NEW?!?!?!
Tim Scott shucks and jives with the very best of them, selling his version of "the American Dream." Ask most African-Americans what they think about this dream! Just like the preamble to the Declaration, it's HORSE MANURE! It doesn't apply equally. What Scott's story wishes to ignore (dare I say, WHITEWASH) is the struggle his parents and grandparents faced in a country that didn't see them as equal human beings! It ignores the fact of how they even got to this country. MOSTLY BY SLAVE SHIPS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC!!!
Most Black Americans did not immigrate here BY CHOICE, they were dragged here BY FORCE in some of the MOST INHUMANE means possible! And though their blood, sweat and tears built this country, sustained the Southern U.S. Economy until the Civil War, and was spilled on the battlefield (from the U.S. Revolution through the latest conflict in Afghanistan), they were not treated as equals until the civil rights movement some 100 YEARS after Emancipation!
So spare me the false narrative Tim Scott. Even today, you could just as easily be profiled, assaulted and killed as George Floyd!
To that point, I have to worry about my own daughter.
Unless you've had to "have the talk" with your kid, YOU DON'T GET IT!
My daughter has faced micro-aggressions her whole life! She doesn't look any more African than Kamala Harris. But she's a lot more brown and "ethnic-looking" than her white friends. If a group of them is caught smoking weed (a legal drug where she lives) out in a public space, guess who the cops are going to single out!
You don't think racism still exists in America?? YOU ARE BLIND. Maybe you're just too white and need some black friends, I don't know. But it is a SYSTEMIC problem rooted in our very dark past. It's just a fact.
And if you don't understand white privilege, I invite you to read my post from August 2017. In it, I write how us whites "benefited from the way the system had been rigged for all of history." That was an inherent privilege bestowed on us by "our Creator," I guess. It goes back centuries to Europe and the Roman Empire. It was the basis for the rise of Nazi Germany and wanting to engineer an Aryan society of blond-haried, blue-eyed whites. Nazism was very strong in America in the 1920's at the height of the KKK movement. Look it up. Manifest Destiny all over again.
The bottom line is, YOUR EXPERIENCE is not your neighbor's experience, regardless of the class or race of person he/she is. HOWEVER, the white American experience is VASTLY different than the black experience in this country, and if you'd just take the time to ask or to look into it, you'd see that. JUSTICE FOR ALL doesn't mean for folks on both sides of the tracks and it never has! We see it every day in stories of police brutality and racial profiling.
That's proof of systemic racism. It's built-in. It's always been there, from slave times forward. America is a melting pot and we all give society it's flavor. Without the black experience, told by black voices (not the Token Tim Scotts), we lose some of that flavor that makes us all Americans. I see that when I go to one of our oldest cities, New Orleans. You talk about rich American history, rooted in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean! Jazz music, which started in the Treme', a historically multi-cultural neighborhood in the heart of N'Awlins, is the most American music there is! Cultural diversity is our strenghth, not our weakness, and it should be celebrated.
This isn't my white angst or guilt coming out. I don't hate myself or the race I was born into. I had no say in the matter. Neither did my daughter. But this is deeply personal to me, not just because of her, or my brother-in-law or my many nieces and nephews. I got sick watching the original Alex Haley's Roots in the 1970's as a kid. It was so eye-opening and stomach-turning revelational to me. It changed my perceptions from then on about race and how one was so disgustingly treated. So please don't come at me with your white angst about how your power and circle of control is vanishing. White Americans will be in the minority in another couple of decades. Get used to it!
When I got back into a committed relationship with Lynn Ann Farber, nearly TEN YEARS TO THE DAY after we first broke up, I knew I was treading into dangerous territory filled with emotional land mines. But we both convinced ourselves to ignore the obvious red flags and warning signs. She adopted my narrative that I really only left her here in February 2014 to be with my kids. That wasn’t a complete fabrication, it just wasn’t the whole story. Our demons got the best of us and my flight response was triggered.
It took several weeks to heal and this blog captured much of it. Even though I wanted out, did the breaking up and the leaving, I was still heartbroken. My pain and recovery all spilled out into my journal and onto this site. I wish I could simply repost my March 3, 2014, post “Moving Forward.” I’ll share a couple of snippets below by screen capture, but please take the time to read the full blog post by clicking the link, above.
History, indeed, repeats itself when we don’t learn our lesson the first time.
Is American Democracy at a breaking point? I think it is. Watch this Mother Jones video to see why.
My daughters have told me for years that it’s mine and their Papaw’s generations fault for propping up the patriarchy. I cannot argue their point. We just mindlessly go along with the system that we know is horribly broken and corrupt!
I’ve felt for years that the Electoral College is skewed in favor of red, less populated areas of Rural America. The Senate, meant to level the playing field between states, gives a vastly disproportionate advantage to rural red states, like Wyoming, the least populated state in the Union. So that when the Senate votes, to say nominate a Supreme Court Justice, two votes representing just over half a million voters (580k) carries the exact same weight as two votes from California’s Senators who represent almost 40 MILLION! California has nearly the population of some countries (39.03 mil) yet in the highest legislative body shares an imbalance of power with Wyoming at 1.5% the size.
So basically a very smal minority of our citizens are actually represented in the Senate and by our Supreme Court. Shows you how the MAGA cult took over and reversed a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. If American women don’t control their own bodies, what control DO they have??
And to the point of this video, if the founding fathers who rigged the system this way, many of them slaveowners who believed black men were only 3/5 a person, HOW could they possibly write the preamble to the Declaration of Independence?
The same author featured in the Mother Jones video, above, also appeared in a Democracy NOW! video three months ago. The host of that video said the attack by the right-wing minority “violates one person, one vote,” further bolstering the populous view, especially among millennials, that our votes don’t matter, they don’t count. Author Ari Berman lays out a compelling case. Watch the above video or the one I just linked to for more.
To put an exclamation point on this post, I turn to the ladies of I’ve Had It Podcast. They point out how President Obama was ready to place Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court. Obama who won the Electoral vote AND the popular vote TWICE in 2008 and 2012, yet he was BLOCKED by Republican Mitch McConnell and Trump’s cronies in the Senate. WHY? So they could stonewall a moderate pick for a radical like Neal Gorsuch, who Trump then appointed. Trump who didn’t win the popular vote EVER!
I blogged just ELEVEN DAYS AGO that, “Gen Z and younger millennials are going to become the main voting block in this country.” And we are seeing it happen already. In the week since KAMALA HARRIS became the Democrat’s presumptive nominee for U.S. President, voter registrations by this group have gone through the roof in states like New York and Michigan. Regisrations surged by 38,500 in just 48 hours according to Vote.org, and USA Today reported Friday that number had surpassed 100k.
Don’t believe me? I watch a lot of progressive political YouTubers like The Rational National, David Pakman, Adam Mockler and Luke Beasley and their audiences are energized, just watch this clip from Beasley’s channel.
The USA Today article says, “A number [of younger voters] described themselves as ‘double-haters,’ or said they planned to turn to independent candidates if they'd bother to get off the couch at all.” They are tired of establishment Democrats, mainly old, white men, running the party and our nation’s politics. Harris, a middle aged, woman of color, has been a breath of fresh air to them and her team’s excellent use of social media, namely TikTok, has touched a nerve. On Saturday, The Guardian called it a “gen Z-powered wave of online ‘Kamalalove.'"
This surge in popularity is reflected in the polls. The same article states that Harris is up 18-20 points over DJT among voters under 30, depending on which poll you look at, NYT or Axios. It’s reflected in the energy you feel surrounding this fledgling campaign. With every TikTok that goes viral or the daily releases her campaign posts, you see these young progressives on YouTube get more on-board the “We Will Win” train.
And while this post might feel like an “I told you so,” IT IS! I’ve been saying this! I raised a 20 and 23-year-old daughter in this millennium. I’ve listened to their views on the world as well as their friends, several who are openly gay or live somewhere in the rainbow.🌈 They hate the patriarchy and were just waiting for someone like Harris to emerge to the forefront of American politics. As the USA Today article headline asserts, this presidential race just got a lot more interesting. Stay tuned.
In my March 2016 post about white angst, I wrote, "But the Trump phenomenon is beyond weird. He played upon the growing angst of white, conservative America. He served up, in true reality TV fashion, all the most inflammatory rhetoric he could muster, like a grand dragon at a KKK rally in the deep woods of Mississippi. He's yet to distance himself from that domestic terrorist organization, by the way." And I wrote this a full year and a half BEFORE the Charlottesville incident!
White angst is rooted in the real population data which shows a declining percentage of white Americans, down more than FIVE MILLION in the second decade of the 2000's. Pew Research Center found in 2021 that only FIVE PERCENT of Republicans think the dwindling of white Americans is "a good thing." And because the whites now feel marginalized--Native, Black and Brown Americans are saying "WELCOME TO THE CLUB!"--and their way of life under attack, they have lashed back. "This is why they cling to their 'traditional' and 'family' values. They want to believe that life was actually once like 'Leave It To Beaver' and their favorite black-and-white television shows of the 1950's. They'd like nothing more than to turn back the clock and relive those heydays of segregated bliss. They want prayer back in school, abortion abolished and white privilege to once again reign supreme," as I wrote way back when. That last line could be the promotional ad for Project 2025, Trump's current platform of Christian extremism. But I highlighted the segregation part of my quote because that gets to the root cause of white angst, a topic I've taken on several times on this blog page.
No longer in the majority, many whites feel like they're world is crumbling, like the people of color are taking over and their rights will be stripped away. To heighten those fears, the traditional, family and "Christian" values they've held since the 50's (when a lot of GOPer's were born) are no longer in the mainstream, widely accepted, adhered to or en vogue. In the 2020's we've seen church attendance dip below 50% for the FIRST TIME EVER in this country. More and more Americans are non-religious; and those who once were are no longer attending church nor are they requiring their children to attend Sunday school, VBS or youth services. Those were all things I was required or encouraged to do, growing up in a middle class, Christian American home.
But this country, sorry to tell you Heritage Foundation, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, WAS NOT FOUNDED on the Bible or Christianity. Morality DOES NOT depend on your scriptures or sacred texts. There were codes of morality in the Mesopotamian region LONG BEFORE your religion or the texts even existed. Morality is determined by humans who make the laws governing society--humans who are both influenced by religion, but also by humanism, atheism and lots of other ISMS! Quit ringing your hands that Jesus was taken out of government and the classroom. HE NEVER BELONGED THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! Even HE washed his hands of government and politics. "Then he said to them, 'So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.'" Luke 20:25, Mark 12:17 and Matthew 20:21. So for those keeping count, that's ALL THREE Synoptic Gospels quoting Jesus on his views about taxation and government. He wasn't too concerned with it. His concern was "his father's heavenly kingdom," which he makes quite clear throughout the gospels (and might I insert here, he never once mentions homosexuality anywhere in the gospels).
So now that we've made clear that Jesus agreed with our Founding Fathers on one issue--that is separation of church and state--let's get back to our main point. White Christians, in particular, feel that they are under attack. Because they no longer control the narrative or censor Hollywood or the media or control the halls of justice, they feel marginalized and bullied. Guess what, TOUGH SHIT! You controlled the narrative for long enough! Ever since the Roman Empire co-opted Christianity, white Europeans have controlled the narrative, written and told the story still printed in our history textbooks today. Talk about INDOCTRINATION!?!?! When was the minority view ever considered? When were they're stories ever told?
Only since the civil rights movement of the 1960's have we even BEGUN to learn about black and brown contributions to our great country. Only in recent decades have the voices of Native Americans been heard. ALL OF THOSE MARGINALIZED PEOPLES since the beginning of Western Civilization contributed greatly to our history! Think of the Native American code breakers who assisted our war effort, the black Union soldiers (and black veterans in every war since) who left their blood on battlefields around the South and the World, the migrant workers who put half of the produce in your local Walmart, etc...they have helped to shape America into the inclusive, representative republic that it was supposed to be. Their stories are finally getting added to the history books, but not without white backlash. Take for example, Critical Race Theory and how angry that made white Christians and other conservatives. HOW DARE THEY HAVE A VOICE! DON'T 'THOSE PEOPLE' KNOW THEIR PLACE???!
Which brings us back to whites becoming the minority. When you are the minority, your stories don't get to dominate the history books, the media, the collective narrative anymore. Again, WELCOME TO THE CLUB! How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine???
Like I wrote in March 2016, "white privilege breeds fear and it has ever since the end of slavery." Conservatives who want to roll back time and "Make America Great Again," are just perpetuating age-old stereotypes, now including brown immigrants, and preying on white people's fear, their angst. Back in the 1870's, they didn't know what to do with newly freed slaves roaming the countryside, looking for work, housing, equal rights to free white citizens, so there was a huge backlash. Enter the Jim Crow era for the next 100 years!! And now, since civil rights assured them their equality, we are seeing the same Jim Crow-like backlash. It's called Project 2025 and the new, more aggressive, more fascist Trump regime. He's preying on that white angst like a mother####er!
Those "Christian values" they hold so dear are the same ones that "put Africans in shackles, Native Americans on reservations, turned a blind eye to the mostly Jewish Holocaust, interred Japanese-Americans and now wants to deport every 'illegal' back to their homeland," I wrote in 2016. Are the whites now afraid of a new black and brown backlash? That the same oppression they perpetuated for millenia will be brought back to bear on them??? Is that their fear? "Did the African-American President ever open those FEMA camps to inter white folks? Has any minority--Latino or otherwise--ever considered putting privileged white folks in shackles and selling them into slavery? So what are they so scared of?"
We've seen how the Establishment of old, rich white dudes react every time black or brown people seek to be heard, whether it's kneeling through an anthem or marching to protest George Floyd's death. I wrote in October 2017, "It's like a sudden eruption of white-hot angst from just below the surface that bubbles over in the form of hate, outrage and bigotry." And now that a WOMAN OF COLOR will probably be the next Democratic candidate for President, watch how the right responds. We already know how the white Christian right feels, it's in their manifesto (Project '25).
Their fear is that eons of "white privilege" is slowly being eroded away due to the fact that they will SOON no longer be in the majority. The socialist redistribution of wealth is a threat to the stranglehold they've had on this country since it's foundation. This is at the heart of their angst. This is why conservatives have aligned themselves with hate groups (like in Charlottesville, 2017) who shout, "WHITE POWER!" They are not ready to give over their privilege or their power. It causes them to lash out in anger and support a neo-Fascist (but only on Day One, right?) who whips them into a frenzy, even leading them to attack our government (like on Jan 6, 2021), to deny election results and to hate their black and brown neighbors--both legal and illegal. See my post from May 2019, "White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism."
It's about to all play out again this November and probably in January, when the election results are contested by the Orange Cult Leader and his minions.
I'm just going to need the white Christian nationalists and those worried about their white privilege, to sit down and simmer down! We've heard ENOUGH out of you. Let the black and brown people speak. It's their turn now.
In this chart from TLDR, a British news YouTube channel, we see how much more liberal leaning the current generation, that is 26-41 year olds, is than the ones before it. And they aren't trending upward with age, either. Experts blame many factors. The TLDR report cites things like the Great Recession of 2008, where millennials watched wealth get stolen from their parents' and grandparents' pensions and 401(k)s at an alarming rate while the rich Wall Street Bankers got away with it scot-free. The report also cites their disenfranchisement due to financial stress, deepening political divides and unrest around the world, concluding, "This generation has grown into political maturity through a very different and difficult time."
It calls what they are experiencing collectively as the "cohort effect." Science Direct explains that "Cohort effects are variations over time, in one or more characteristics, among groups of individuals defined by some shared experience," especially among those of certain age groups. TLDR News says, "The specific situations and experiences a generation lives through are so fundamentally different than the generations that came before them." What are some of those cohort effects?
Traditionally, the expectation has been that each generation gets progressively better, as in more financially sound and economically secure. But as the June 2022 Economics Explained video, "Young Generations Are Now Poorer Than Their Parents and It's Changing Our Economics," points out, this is no longer the case. It asserts that even though the world has grown richer than it was in the previous millennia, millennials are holding less of that wealth, while their grandparents are hoarding more of it. They pose the question, "How is it that a world that is richer overall is producing generations that are poorer than the ones that preceded them?" It largely blames home ownership and what it calls "the housing divide." It's certainly a factor effecting wealth potential. It cites a 2020 Pew Research Center study that says 52% of young adults, ages 18-28, still live at home with their parents, causing them to be less socially and geographically mobile.
Scott Galloway, an NYU Professor, has become a leading proponent of changing this generational wealth gap. His TED Talk went viral two months ago on YouTube, inspiring more than 22k comments. Galloway framed his talk in this way, "America's War on the Young." He claims we're "taking away opportunity and prosperity from our youngest" generation. Further, a 30-year old today is not doing as well as his/her parent's at that age, for the first time in our history, he asserts. This causes young people to be less patriotic and he showed a 2023 graph comparing those 55+ to those 18-34, and only 18% of the latter were "extremely proud" to be American while 50% of the former were. He says this leads to anger and unrest and gave rise to movements like #MeToo and #BLM among the younger citizens of this country. I touch on this in the section, Gun Violence, below.
Galloway blames the generational wealth gap on the stagnant, federal minimum wage which sits at $9.50 when it should be about $22 if it had kept pace with productivity and inflation since the 1950's (it hasn't even doubled in those 70 years, that's nearly two generations). Meanwhile, median home prices have skyrocketed for the last two generations of Americans, resulting in an average monthly mortgage payment of $2,310 (as of Feb 2024). It's led him to ask, "Do we even love our children?"
He says, "This has resulted in an enormous transfer of wealth." A graph showing that between 1989 and 2023, the share of household wealth of those under 40 has been cut nearly in half, from 12% to 7%. Galloway also blames wages v. wealth. Like in his statistic on the minimum wage, above, he says that corporate wealth has so far outpaced income that the median income line on his graph looks flatlined, while the S&P 500's numbers are nearly off the chart (numbers from 1974-2021). This is why millennials can't get ahead. Poverty among the younger generation is way up while senior poverty is way down, which he claims has been purposeful.
The cohort known as the Silent Generation sits at the top and holds all the power--politically, socially and economically. Think about it. Rich, old white dudes have always run this country. The color of justice is green, just ask the disproportionate number of poor, black males in lockdown. How many young people are represented in town hall, the statehouse or the Capitol? This wealth gap equals a gap in power. This leads millennials to be further disenfranchised.
GUN VIOLENCE
The Washington Post reports there have been 413 school shootings since Columbine in 1999. It got even worse in the last half of the 2010's, as Security.org reports. "Since 2015, school shooting incidents in the U.S. have skyrocketed compared to previous decades." That same report says that cries of "never again" rang out in the wake of the Sandy Hook (2012) and Parkland (2018) shootings. "And yet, since the Parkland shooting in 2018 — a period of just six years — more than 200 people have died and over 550 have been injured in shootings at K-12 schools." And still, nothing was done to curb the tide of gun violence on our nation's campuses.
SOURCE: Security.org
My girls and I marched in a demonstration against gun violence in the immediate wake of the Parkland shooting. They were in high school in Tallahassee then and Parkland is just a six-hour drive down the Florida Turnpike. They became political activists that day at the state capital, but they'd always held strong opinions.
As I reported in my assassination-related blog, millennials by-and-large are sick of the status quo, namely the patriarchy. My daughters, both staunch feminists and on the LGBTQ spectrum, are vehemently against the patriarchy and the Establishment.
OUR POLITICAL FUTURE
Red states are economically struggling (legalize weed), they’re bottom in education (quit pushing Jesus and indoctrinating children), high in crime (quit marginalizing people), etc. It’s no wonder the parties have dumbed down their message to lowest common denominator, especially the GOP. A change is coming.
As the graph at the top of this post points out, millennials are by-and-large more left leaning than the generations before them. They are very socially liberal in that they support the causes mentioned above, also gender equality, transgender rights, reproductive rights and slowing climate change. Financially, they are tired of the generational wealth gap holding them down. They support socialist policies like higher taxes on the wealthy, more government spending on individuals and less on corporations. They feel slighted when banks and Wall Street CEOs get bailed out, a form of "corporate socialism," but they can't get free health care or college tuition because politicians tell them socialism is a 'failed experiment,' minus a small handful of progressives in office, like Bernie Sanders and AOC. They see the overspending on the military industrial complex and the fight to save Social Security (for the Silent Generation, who already hold most of the country's wealth). As mentioned above, they are not represented in the government, so they feel they don't matter.
The silver lining is that those in power are elderly. Baby Boomers and their parents are dying off in great numbers, comparatively, which is going to shift both the wealth and the power in this country. Gen Z and younger millennials are going to become the main voting block in this country. And the backlash against the Establishment, the patriarchy, the ultra-conservative Supreme Court and the repeal of basic human rights is going to be swift and aggressive. Wait and see.
In many ways, America is already leaning more to the left, when it comes to women's rights, reproductive rights, cannabis use, etc. In many polls, these important issues tend to have 60% and higher approval by a more liberal America. Kids that can move out of rural areas and red states are doing so. They aren't big fans of corporate greed, raping our planet/killing our very habitat or of the Electoral College. As they become the power brokers and policy makers, we are going to see a vastly different American government in the coming years. The "land of the free" will once again start to feel that way, with the restoration of liberties to all citizens, the welcoming of foreigners and immigrants and a shift in our representative republic away from wealthy lobbyists (like the gun lobby) and the corporations who pay them. Hopefully, we'll see it return to what the framers of the Constitution intended--by the people and for the people (not special interests or Wall Street).
My daughters have been groomed to make it so. Hopefully, their contemporaries will wake up and realize that they hold the keys to our future.
Politico Magazine calls FDR's nomination for a second term in June 1936, "the pinnacle of American socialism," which I chose for the title of this post. I found their 2019 article, "What FDR Understood About Socialism That Today's Democrats Don't" after a discussion with my girlfriend about communism, socialism and democracy during the Cold War. We don't often discuss politics, but with the attempt on the 45th president's life, we were waxing more that way than usual this week.
I like what David Brooks, a New York Times Opinion Columnist, said in Dec 2019, "The best version of socialism is defined by Michael Walzer’s phrase, 'what touches all should be decided by all.' The great economic enterprises should be owned by all of us in common. Decisions should be based on what benefits all, not the maximization of profit." Full disclosure, his opinion piece was promoting capitalism, as he had become one after years of promoting socialism. Still, his former ideals are on full display in this quote, above.
If you read Brooks' piece or simply Google, "Why is Socialism Bad," as I did, you'll get a litany of conservative groups, media organizations and political think tanks that talk about the failures of socialism, like in countries that have tried it. But Canada, our neighbor to the north, is a democratic socialist country and they haven't failed. Their citizens aren't flocking to their southern border to try and escape the horrors of socialism by seeking refuge in capitalist-crazed America. No, quite the contrary, they mock us for our backwards, non-progressive politics.
Other hits will talk about how the ideals never live up to the reality and, in fact, undermine individual's motivation to learn and work hard. And yet, we can clearly see how people were VERY motivated and actually put back to work by FDR's post-Depression policies during the "pinnacle." The very short-sighted articles you'll see in the Google search don't even explore FDR and Socialist America. They only want to look at contemporary folks, who they call neosocialists, like Bernie Sanders and the "redistribution of wealth."
Well, let's think on that a minute, the actual distribution. The top one-percent gets to keep most of it, while dividing the rest of us with capitalistic rhetoric, all while their oversized Florsheims are firmly on our necks. Those "one percenters" aren't going to have to work themselves to death at age 75 or 80, nor are their children or grandchildren. We just have to keep working to support them. The way capitalism has rigged the system in this country is that the rich just keep getting richer, pass down their wealth (avoiding the high cost of estate taxes through loopholes) to their successors, who also never have to work, etc., etc., etc. That's the "American way," the status quo as it's been in this country for decades, at least since Reagan took office. Where is the "trickle down" effect, Ronnie? As Reich, who I mention below, put it succinctly, "In the mid-1980's, the bottom 90 percent of Americans together held 36 percent of the nation’s wealth. Now, they hold less than 23 percent." (Source: RobertReich.org)
Robert Reich, an American economist, wrote in 2014, "The richest Americans hold more of the nation’s wealth than they have in almost a century...the richest one-hundredth of one percent of Americans now hold over 11 percent of the nation’s total wealth. That’s a higher share than the top .01 percent held in 1929, before the Great Crash. We’re talking about 16,000 people, each worth at least $110 million." He's comparing today's uber-rich to those in FDR's time, during the "Great Crash" of 1929, aka The Great Depression.
In FDR's America, the Politico article says, "The rich were subsidizing the poor," at a tax rate of 75 percent. And by and large, people were okay with this type of socialist redistribution of wealth because the working class were starving in our streets. Those of the upper class who criticized the president, it says, "cloaked their greed in an affinity for capitalism." The same can be said today. Socialism, they claim, is a dirty word because it is anti-capitalist, meaning bad for their bottom line.
Roosevelt said back then in his famous "Rendezvous With Destiny" speech, "In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and Constitution stand for," while he stood "against dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.” The very same could be said for the flag-draped, neoconservatives today whose real allegiance is to The Almighty Dollar, and not to God, country or Constitution.
FDR's "New Deal for America" Socialism was, in fact, so popular it won him four terms as president and became the basis for today's term limits. He served from 1933 until his death in 1945. His socialist programs that encouraged unions and established Social Security and the Works Progress Administration were wildly popular. In fact, socialism got us out of the Great Depression. To argue otherwise is foolhardy and blind. Yet, still today, socialism is treated like a dirty word, and it's proponents, like Sanders and AOC, mocked. How quickly we forget. Our grandparents' generation never forgot. Many of them grew up in Depression-era America. It drove them to become what some call "America's Greatest Generation," but don't let the neoconservative rewriters of history tell you it was something else. It was FDR's socialist policies that created that generation. You can argue this all you want, but the fact remains, he was the longest serving president in our history. His brand of socialism was popular in this country. And now it's a dirty word. That's counter-intuitive and sad.
LET ME PREFACE…You knew violence was coming. You’ve been fanning the flames since BEFORE Jan 6…and when that didn’t ignite the next Civil War, as you were hoping, you just ramped up the rhetoric and turned your platform over to Christian Nationalists because you thought they’d secure enough votes from Middle America.
Oh, you thought I was gonna denounce violence???
Violence is what got us here 248 years ago! We just celebrated that bloody revolution on July 4th.
Violence eventually ended the slave trade.
Every country who experienced a change to democracy had to do so through violent takeover of the status quo—France, for example. We are headed down the same, exact road in 2024 thanks to the current oligarchy and patriarchy. Look at our choices this November—two aging, privileged white men.
NOW we arrive to the point of this post. You think you are disgruntled and disenfranchised with our government and the status quo. Let me tell you how my daughters and most of their generation feel. They have HAD ENOUGH WITH THE PATRIARCHY and wrinkly, curmudgeony OLD MEN looking at them, judging them and stripping away their rights. They have ZERO empathy with the status quo as it predates them (and us) by EONS. The establishment, with its systemic racism and sexism, has been in power FOREVER and they ain’t having it. My daughters blame me and the generations of men before me. I can’t say that I blame them.
Where is the representative government they were taught in civics class? Where are the young women—black, white, brown, ANY COLOR—in Congress, the statehouse, town hall??? In more than 100 years of suffrage, we still don’t have an Equal Rights Amendment OR any semblance of equality!
It’s not a lot better for young men. We’ve pampered and sheltered boys who don’t want to ween from the teet nor the game controller. We’ve raised a generation of unsocialized savages who take out their angst on virtual enemies and have no real grasp on reality.
WATCH and see what comes out about the young gunman who shot at DJT. I’d stake my life on the fact he fits the stereotypical profile of the bullied, anxious boy-man who shoots up schools.
AND HE’S AN ALT-RIGHT, GUN-TOTING REPUBLICAN!!!
Even those kids are so disgruntled and disenfranchised that they’d take violence to their own candidate and try to take them out. ARE YOU LISTENING RNC & DNC? As you head to meaningless conventions that only matter on Wall Street and not Main Street?
NO ONE WANTS MORE OLD, WHITE, OUT-OF-TOUCH MALE CANDIDATES! PERIOD.
As I wrote earlier this month, not even the GOP is united behind their cult leader, I mean, candidate. And all we’ve heard for DAYS from the left is that Biden needs to step aside.
The country wants change. It probably won’t happen in the most civil of ways. Yesterday was a warning shot from a disgruntled and disenfranchised young man. He’s not alone…on either side of the aisle…or gender spectrum.
It's funny that the European countries we were beholden to and where most of us immigrated from are so much further advanced than we are when it comes to equality and social policies. Even Mexico, to our South, and Spanish-controlled Florida in the 1800's had abolished slavery when the trade was at it's peak in our country. And ever since racial equality has been a thing and gender equality (and insert social justice or policy issue here), the Europeans, namely British and French have been way ahead of us, Great Britain's Slavery Abolition Act of 1834 following France by some 40 years. Spain, who brought slavery to this continent, signed a pact with the U.K. in 1817 to abolish the slave trade. And even though we got on board in 1865 after the Civil War tore this country apart, slaves still weren't free. After a short period of "reconstruction," the South still persisted with the "new slavery," sharecropping, and Jim Crow Laws. It took the civil unrest of the 1960's to finally end the systemic racism and oppression of African Americans, a cancer that hasn't been totally eradicated from our culture.
Women's suffrage was a popular civil rights movement some four decades earlier. Still, women don't enjoy the same freedoms, bodily autonomy or adequate compensation for similar work as men.
This is one reason we need more female representation in the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of U.S. Government. How can we call this a "representative democracy," a republic, when our Legislative branch is dominated and controlled by old, white men? The disparity was called out in an April committee meeting on Capitol Hill by Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).
Pool/Getty Images (Google)
In a Young Turks video from April that garnered 2.4 million views, Rep. Porter goes head-to-head with a Heritage Foundation official, Dr. Burke, at this hearing. "Only about 28% of members of Congress are women. The median age of the Senate is 65 and the median age in the House is 58...so, on average, lots of older people, lots of older men," as she points out that policies protecting women's rights, especially single mothers, are never prioritized. These policies, specifically early childhood education, "won't benefit many members, most, the average member of Congress...even when their kids were young, most members leaned most heavily on their wives, and I say wives because most members are men...Too many in Congress don't get it because they didn't have to live it," Rep. Porter said.
She calls out "the familiar policy pattern" in Congress to invest in things they understand. "The collective body of older, richer men in Congress OVER-invest in things they understand (emphasis hers)." She claims policies to benefit single mothers don't personally benefit the average member of Congress and so they don't try to understand the problem as it never affected them personally, so they don't invest public dollars to support things like early childhood education.
STRUCTURAL SEXISM Rep. Porter continued to call out her male colleagues for ignoring the plight of women, in general, and single mothers, in particular. She identified the ongoing inequality in public policy a result of "structural sexism."
"When we say that structural sexism continues to permeate this body...and our policies, that's what we're talking about. We're not imagining it." She claims that policies to benefit women are what "always ends up on the cutting room floor in legislation." She intends to make structural sexism go away with more progressive policies. "Women can and must contribute to our economy if we're going to have a globally competitive economy." Rep. Porter hopes that her colleagues will be moved to take action by "this single mom asking them to care, on behalf of all the other parents of young children who are struggling in this country." She claims to be the only single mother in Congress. She asked the committee, "What about the 10 million single moms? Where do they fit?"
She concluded by saying, "I'm sharing my story because my story doesn't get heard in Congress...Our whole perspective here is warped by the fact that this body is so disproportionately UN-representative of the American people's experience."
Springer Link says, "Structural sexism refers to discriminatory beliefs or practices on the basis of sex and gender that are entrenched in societal frameworks and which result in fairly predictable disparities in social outcomes related to power, resources, and opportunities. [It] also functions to normalize and legitimate such beliefs, practices, and inequalities of conditions and outcomes."
An October 2022 study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports, "Structural sexism manifests via norms that constrict women’s social participation, including
at work." Furthermore, "Intimate partner violence (IPV) is underpinned by structural sexism, patriarchal norms, and
unequal gender power dynamics."
FSU Assistant Professor Patricia Homan developed a new structural sexism approach to the study of gender inequality and health. Her approach, published 2019 in the American Sociological Review, goes beyond sexist mistreatment by individuals to examine how the degree of systematic gender inequality in power and resources — i.e. structural sexism — in a society can impact people’s health. This was the same focus as the above-referenced NIH study. Both point to the effects on children and society, not just women. "Structural sexism can be evident in major social institutions, such as the government and the economy, in interpersonal interactions and relationships, such as marriages and in individuals’ beliefs and identities." The effects in government were pointed out quite well by Rep. Porter. Professor Homan came to the same conclusion about more progressive policies to reduce it's impact. “The first thing we need to realize is that gender inequality in the United States is not only a human rights issue, but also a public health problem,” she said. “Therefore, gender equity policy is health policy.”
WHY DO I CARE? You might wonder why I began with the issue of slavery and racism. Well, because one led to the other as a systemic societal issue, one that persists today. We will never eradicate racism, but we can educate. The same applies to any social issue, including gender inequality.
I have raised two daughters, one who just celebrated her 20th birthday, the other turns 23 in a few days. Both of them were adopted, my youngest daughter is African-American. That is why I liken the race and gender inequality issues. She faces them both and suffers micro-aggressions on the daily, even in progressive parts of Colorado. That's why I care deeply about these issues, but specifically the sexism that is so deeply entrenched into the fabric of our culture.
My daughters both have a problem with this patriarchal society, as do I. We finally have a woman of color in the White House, but it'll still be many, many years before one is elected to the highest office. As Rep. Porter points out, my daughters, especially my youngest, are so under-represented in Congress and at all levels of government, that it's no wonder.
Screen captured image from a YouTube video posted by Graduate School of Social Work - DU, titled "Power Privilege and Oppression," uploaded six years ago
The history of humankind, as we've been taught for eons, was pushed and pedaled by the patriarchy. They have controlled the narrative, from the time of the ancient sages until the present. We've been force fed a whitewashed, male-dominated version of human history. Why did it take until 2016's "Hidden Figures" film with Tom Hanks for most of us to learn that black women were behind our successful lunar missions at NASA??? Their stories, by and large, are untold in the history books. Harriet Tubman was one of the exceptions in history class, and not the rule. How many female heroins does the Bible exalt? Exactly, very few. The Judeo-Christian worldview for all of time has been one of patriarchy. God, the giver of life, has always been portrayed as an old, white man. Why does God possess a gender? And why would we assume his race? Jesus was born of a Virgin Middle Eastern woman OF COLOR! He was a man of color. Seems kind of silly that we've been pedaled a patriarchal view even in Sunday School.
I've fought hard against these stereotypes and have encouraged my girls, likewise. They grew up to be feminists just by their observations of the world. I merely joined them when they were old enough to make these judgments about society for themselves. And because I don't want them to suffer the inequality of old, nor for their potential daughters to grow up in a patriarchal society, I've pushed for more gender equality and been an outspoken advocate of same...for my daughters and granddaughters benefit. Men have ruled the narrative--the church, government and history--for quite long enough.
"White people are scared to death right now, particularly white males. They are scared to death they are going to lose their power in the future, and they are," says renowned race relations teacher Jane Elliott. "If you want to be treated well in the future, treat people well in the present."
I grew up in the Heartland of America, in a Reagan Republican household, believing unions are bad for business, Democrats are bad for the economy and that "the Commies" were our number one enemy.
Fast forward forty years and I'm looking at those ideologies a whole new way. I no longer believe any of those tenets of Republicanism. I don't think Reagan did anything good for this country. His "trickle down" economics policy is a big fat bust that I now call "trickled on," since most of us in the middle classes--upper, middle and lower middle class--got pissed on and pissed off. He was just another flip-flopper (big time Democrat and union leader in Hollywood turned rich, white Republican and union buster), who pandered to Middle America and their blue collar work ethic and Protestant virtues. He gave rise to the whole Moral Majority and politicization of the American pulpit for which we can now thank him because we have a militant alt-right movement where Neo-Nazis have found a home in the Christian Nationalist extreme neo-conservative right. It's disgusting.
Oh and enemy number one is no longer Russia. On that point, I'll bet Reagan, and all those who supported him, like my parents, are rolling over in their graves. What was the point of the Cold War and all those drills spent hiding under classroom desks??
The thing is, the Grand Ol' Party can no longer claim moral superiority when the candidate they clamor behind is a known rapist, misogynist, homophobe and xenophobe who now has 34 felony convictions to his name. His immoral behavior has racked up more criminal charges than a mob crime family. The Trump Crime Syndicate has sent countless among it's ranks to prison, most recently, their Minister of Propaganda, Steve Bannon. But the "moral majority," Christian Nationalists on the extreme right could GIVE TWO SHITS!!! They just want to see Hillary Clinton and the Bidens locked up for imagined crimes for which they have ZERO evidence.
President Joe Biden, on the other hand, quietly observes his faith and attends church every Sunday with his wife, whom he didn't cheat on. His Christian virtue and morals are on display daily--in his actions, his social media posts, his White House demeanor. You won't find ketchup stains on the wall of his White House. You won't see him throwing virtual temper tantrums on a money-losing social media platform he had to set up after getting banned from all others. You also won't see him mocking our veterans, POWs, the disabled, his political opponents (or threatening them, for that matter). Yet the "moral majority" right want to sling all the mud they can at the ACTUAL Christian, not the Bible-hawking pretend one. They'd rather prop up the immoral, orange buffoon, as their beloved cult leader.
But that's just what the alt-right has become, a cult. They DO NOT SPEAK for the entirety of the Republican party! That's where they are about to get blindsided in 2024.
Which brings me to the point of this blog post.
If I were to switch my allegiance back to the conservative right and the GOP, it would be to one of these "Never Trump" sects of the fractured (beyond repair?) Republican party.
Founded by "former Republican strategists, The Lincoln Project is dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of democracy. Since our launch in December 2019, The Lincoln Project has played a unique role in American politics. We entered the political arena with two stated objectives: first, to defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box in 2020. (Done.) The second was to ensure Trumpism failed alongside him. We understand that the real fight against Trumpism is just beginning and we’re committed to seeing it through. Our democracydepends on it." (from their website).
"The American experiment in self-government can only survive if we all agree to abide by the laws and rules we make together. That means everything from election outcomes to jury verdicts to court decisions. Republicans for the Rule of Law hold fast to the principle that no one is above the law, from the average citizen to the president of the United States." This is what their website says on it's homepage below a quote from John Adams, a Deist NOT a Christian, per se, though the Library of Congress website says his faith remained a mystery to most. "Republicans for the Rule of Law is a group of life-long Republicans dedicated to defending the institutions of our republic and upholding the rule of law."
Their About Us page says, "On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked by radical Trump supporters who were attempting to overturn a fair election. The attackers were directly incited by Trump and the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress who had been falsely claiming, for months—and in the immediate moments before the attack—that the election had been stolen from Trump." They formed in May 2020 to produce a $10 million advertising campaign to ensure that Trump is not elected ever again. They vowed more recently to hold Republicans accountable for the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol.
NEVER TRUMP
The New York Times reported, "In March 2021, one survey indicated that five factions of Republican voters had emerged following Trump's presidency..." and the first listed was the Never Trump Movement, made up of moderate conservatives who do not support the previous president. And even before his bid in 2016, there had been a growing divide in the GOP between establishment old-timers and small-government Tea Party new comers. It was that growing faction of anti-establishment, conspiracy theorists with a huge distrust of government that launched sites like Q'Anon and became the base of the Trumpist or MAGA Republicans. The factions became even greater after the January 6th insurrection, a debacle of epic proportions that could have led to our second civil war.
Newsweek reported in late March of this year, "PAC Republican Voters Against Trump spent $50 million on 100 videos recorded by anti-Trump Republicans explaining why they no longer support him." That article also reported that in the previous month, "Trump's ex-chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, published an opinion piece for The Hill pleading for a 'viable' third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential election." That's how fractured they have become. Some members of Congress have vacated seats over their disgust with their own party, like Colorado GOPer Ken Buck. He claims others will follow suit, giving their party less of a majority in the House. The Newsweek article still doesn't believe in the viability of a third party in this country, nor do I.
Groups like those listed above, who are more level-headed, non-conspiracy-supporting conservatives, grew like wildfire in the wake of what they saw as an attack on our Republic. They have actively campaigned AGAINST THEIR OWN PARTY LEADERS to ensure that Trump never gets re-elected. So yes, I would align myself with the Never Trump factions if I were ever to register again as a Republican (extremely unlikely).
My point in all this IS... that MAGA GOPer's are so drunk on the koolaid, so blind with tunnel vision and brainwashed by Fox, Newsmax and Lindell TV (and greed) that they don't even see how divided their own party is. How is a house divided ever going to stand? In more immediate terms, how do they expect to maintain control of Congress or win back the White House???
The Democrats need to grow a spine and quit calling for Biden to step down. He's their best chance at defeating a convicted criminal with only a PERCENTAGE of his own party behind him. We already know that the majority of Americans are center to left of center and would vote Democrat by a landslide if they would just vote. But the alt-right knuckleheads think they'll sweep the polls this November when their own party, a minority in America, isn't even on the same page. It'd be laughable if it just weren't so damn sad.
Democrats need to get their shit together, mobilize their base and get them to the polls, PERIOD. Get behind the nominee and incumbent President, despite how he comes across on TV or in debates. Hell, Reagan was in the early stages of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease when he was re-elected in the 1980s. Nancy propped him up in just the same way Dr. Jill Biden has her husband. We can do this, EASILY! We need to rally behind the moderate conservative Republicans and our OWN FREAKIN' PARTY and get the job done this November.
THE FUTURE OF OUR DEMOCRACY IS AT STAKE HERE!!!
Even our own Supreme Court Justices see this! Hell, Justice Sotomayor wrote in her recent dissent that she FEARS for our democracy. This isn't hyperbole, this shit is real! Do we WANT another civil war on our hands? Because that's where this country is headed.
We should make this our mantra, then:
NEVER EVER TRUMP!
***UPDATE: Here’s a great video just released to underscore this post:
Just look at this picture. You can smell it, can't you?
There's nothing quite like the smell of bacon. That salty, sizzly goodness, especially fried to a crispy dark brown in an iron skillet, is one of the best smells and flavors around. Maybe it's my pioneer Indiana roots, iron skillets used to cook salt pork over an open fire in the hearth of a log cabin, the abundance of pork, raised in Southwestern Indiana, packed and shipped to far away ports, like New Orleans...
Yep, I have an affinity for bacon, especially thick cut, meaty bacon. The fat has to be brown and crispy. If it's springy and chewy, I gag. I'll eat it cut to any thickness, but I prefer the thicker cuts.
The smell of it frying in the morning immediately takes me back in time.
My dad was a breakfast connoisseur, often getting up early to make it for himself or the fam. Bacon, spam, mush, eggs, potatoes and such were typically on the menu. If you don't know mush, you don't have Appalachian roots (I see ya Kentucky and Southern Indiana!). But the smell of bacon often reminds me of early childhood and dad on the weekends in the kitchen. Mom liked to sleep in.
My Uncle John would be the first adult up on trips to our Sullivan, Indiana, cabin. I'd be sleeping on the cool sheen of Grandma Doyle's old couch in the living room and on the other side of the bar, Uncle John would be banging around in the kitchen. I'd hear the iron skillet come out and soon the sound and smell of bacon! That would rouse me from sleep the quickest. The smell of bacon reminds me of those cool, musty mornings in that old cabin, Dad and Uncle Al asleep on old Army cots on the screened porch, kids sprawled about the floor in sleeping bags, the smell of the smoldering fire pit wafting through the open windows. There was dampness from the swampy land Grandpa Doyle purchased for the family cabin, a low spot on Greenbriar Lake, a spring-fed strip mine pit, abandoned in the late 40's/early 50's.
There were countless mornings at my house, cooking breakfast for my girls, bacon first into the skillet before scrambling eggs or making muffins, toast or biscuits. Thanks to my Dad, I've always been a fan of breakfast. First thing when I get up, the coffee is brewing and I'm getting food out of the fridge. My girls would often wake to that glorious smell. It signifies some of the simplest, yet happiest memories for me of fatherhood. And when we'd go to the family cabin, I'd be the one up early banging around the kitchen, looking for that old skillet. My girls would be asleep on inflatable mattresses just long enough for their short bodies, built-in Disney Princess sleeping bags on top. The couch long gone, along with the interior walls, my ex and I would have just slept through the night on an inflatable mattress of our own. A day of fishing, swimming, exploring and rowing would usually begin with the smell of bacon and that smoldering firepit just outside the cabin. Sometimes, I'd even regnite the coals and cook out there over the open flame.
That brings me full circle to my pioneer roots.
Our cabin, built by Dad's father, was about two counties north of where Mom's family, my pioneer ancestors from the East Coast, settled circa 1811. In those days, rough hewn logs from recently felled trees were notched and placed, like Lincoln Logs, into a rectangular shelter, fireplace at one end for heat and for cooking. I can imagine my 5th great uncles banging around with the iron skillet and setting some salted pork or smoked bacon in to start sizzling to perfection.
That smell, tops among all other food smells (garlic being a close second), is what takes me right back to my childhood, to the cabin, to fatherhood and makes me very happy. The payoff, the thick, crispy breakfast meat, is the end result every time. Paired with a couple of over-medium eggs and skillet potatoes, maybe an English muffin hot and buttered, is one of my favorite meals, so good I'd eat it three times a day!
I posted to Facebook on May 30 that I was about to celebrate one year since returning to my happy place--Fort Myers Beach, FL. It was May 30, 2023, that my brother and I loaded what I had left since leaving Evansville (and most of my things) and made a road trip south. We drove down Interstate 65 from the southside of Indianapolis (Wannamaker, to be exact) all the way to Panama City Beach, taking U.S. 231 out of Montgomery, AL, to the white sand shores of the Florida Panhandle. We landed at my sister, Heidi Jacob's, new place that evening.
Wasting no time on May 31, we travelled down I-10 and made a stop in Tallahassee. I spent many years in the Capital City, starting my adult life, going to college, gaining employment and beginning a family there (1986-2006; 2014-2020). My brother, 10 years my junior, spent some of his formative years, 1986-89, in a three-bedroom apartment. We drove through the old complex where we once lived, then toured campus and several areas of town, before re-starting our journey to SWFL.
It was after dark the night of the 31st last May, that he and I pulled onto a dark and desolate barrier island still marked by devastation. There was an uneasy, eerie feeling as we drove under the crosswalk at Margaritaville and south down Estero Blvd. The place looked like a ghost town, the shells of buildings and piles of debris everywhere. Not many street lights were in operation at the north end, so we drove slowly down that dark, desolate road. Making the turn at Connecticut St and into the Beach Baptist property, it still felt very surreal. Knocking on Pastor Shawn's door at 9:30 at night, a surprise visitor with a brother he'd never even met, was equally as surreal.
He embraced me like a brother (which he has been since 2011) and instructed me where to store my things and that "work begins at 9:00," under the tent. I learned the next day that the church had just erected the tent and had moved most of what was stored under the damaged church building into it. My job began promptly at 8:30 June 1st, helping Jerry Warren and a few volunteers that morning move pallets, break down boxes and get the place organized. They were reopening their food pantry and disaster resource center and setting up a temporary worship center under the tent. I helped there through the summer heat and made lasting friendships.
At the end of our workday, I ventured over to the beach for the second or third time since my arrival the night before. I couldn't believe I had awakened that day on MY BEACH!!! I headed over from the tent, sweaty, a trucker cap hiding my wet, disheveled hair, and made a video for my daughters to let them know I was safe and sound.
My beard, as you can see in the above video, was epic! I kept that for several months until a female friend told me how badly it aged me. Good thing I shaved it, too, as my girlfriend doesn't care for it...AT. ALL! (And honestly, I was starting to look like Captain Caveman, LOL!)
Fast forward almost four months and we were preparing for the first anniversary of Ian on September 28, 2023. I'd met Jenn Turbeville while volunteering at the church. We sat down in July for our first extended conversation, which turned into an FMB Islander interview, about the commemoration to be held that day, and became REVIVE THE VIBE.
So I should back up a bit...
I was serving under the big, hot tent in early July when the thought occurred to me that, other than Beach Talk Radio, no one was really covering island news. I had once worked for the Island Sand Paper, an FMB-specific weekly, a decade ago. I decided I would start telling the island's stories once again, so I started the online paper, the FMB Islander.
Back to September 28th, and the festivities were underway at Bayside Park and in the last two blocks of Old San Carlos Blvd. in the island's "downtown district." I'm enjoying a beverage as I walk through a lively crowd at Wahoo Willie's. I get pulled over to a bayside-facing table by an old friend, a dear friend from Indiana who's lived down here in the Iona area for decades! She informed me, when I asked about my ex, that she was available after getting out of a 10-year marriage.
Hold the phone. Come again??
That planted the seed that months later took root and grew into a beautiful new relationship. But in the meantime, I reconnected with several old friends, including my partner in crime (and beach misfit and fatherhood) Christopher Alward. We became reacquainted while he was recovering from a leg amputation just below his knee. Around Thanksgiving 2023, he lost his other leg and I spent some time at Gulf Coast Medical Center with him. He kept me abreast of the ex's whereabouts as they'd kept up a decades-long friendship through social media and occasional interaction. She'd helped him and his neighbors out in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
Alward took me in when I needed a place to stay and he needed companionship and someone to help out with his dog, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. While I was living in his off-island apartment, I reached out by text to the only number I had for Lynn Ann Farber, the woman I'd left on Mango St, FMB, February 13, 2014. It was months before she'd respond that the old Fort Wayne, IN, area code number was still her cell number.
I was dealing with health issues at the time and our paths had crossed so many times, including the hospital in late January. She'd dropped a patient to the ER where I was staying to await my pacemaker surgery Jan. 25, 2024. She contemplated coming to find me and check on my condition. She was worried about me, but I was completely unaware. I had thought I might run into her there. From her profile picture on Facebook, I'd known that she'd been working in EMS as an emergency medical technician for Lee County.
It wasn't two weeks late that she finally reached out for conversation, first by text from that old number I still had in my phone. Apparently, that wasn't all I'd saved for her. There was still unresolved business and a lot of love left in my heart from all those years ago (nearly a DECADE TO THE DAY!). It was February 10th when our text conversation at 4:45 p.m. turned into hours of phone conversation and a desire to reconnect. Two days later, she was at the apartment with Alward and I sharing drinks, memories and laughs. It felt like the decade between the three of us had magically vanished in mere hours. She wasn't even IN our apartment before the laughter over some shenanigans had begun.
Lynn and Alward shenanigans at Danny's Saloon in March
I met her in the parking lot and she was rummaging through her work gear in the SUV. Within minutes, I was doubled over laughing with her as I donned her jumpsuit, helmet and EMS gear, including blue latex gloves. The only thing that wouldn't fit me (or make it into that apartment) were her work boots. They were too small for my size 12.5 feet. The connection was instantaneous. The minute we locked eyes, it was over for the both of us.
Not long after, I was living with her back on the island, which I had missed for MONTHS by that point! Our love affair restarted, we boasted that we were rewriting the end of our story. We still are.
To recap, I returned to this beach the night of May 31, 2023. The next morning, I wasted no time grafting myself back into my first beach family, the Cristsers and their Beach Baptist family. I met my newest sister, DebyRoxane, that first morning and my brother, Jerry Warren, June 1st. He started bossing me around immediately and we joked about his OCD way of doing things and his "Illinois engineering" degree. LMAO!
In the first week, I reconnected with my musical brother, Craig Nelms, who had me volunteering at the church's food pantry (Choice Market) way back in 2011. So many new friends were made under that tent in the first two months I was here. I even joined Nelms' band "Simply-Fi" in August and played through some serious health concerns until mid-January. It was a blast! I didn't even own a set of drums anymore, but we worked out a solution.
Fred Johnson, the band's guitarist through December, became another musical brother and we remain in contact to this very day. In fact, he tagged me yesterday in a comment on FB. So many others, like Ollie Curan, Howie Hoffman, Turtle Rick, Jenn (who I mentioned above) and "Aunt" Pat, island icons, became instant friends. I found a home on the island among them, moving into a party house behind the Catholic Church until I moved in with Chris Alward, circa Thanksgiving Weekend.
So many great memories have been made this last year and three weeks on the beach, at places like Rude Shrimp, Wahoo Willie's, Danny's Saloon, The Whale, Times Square...
My work writing and reporting for the FMB Islander has introduced me to so many more friends than I would have otherwise met. Going to the Tiki Bar at the Lighthouse for NFL Sundays introduced me to more Hoosiers (and Colts fans) than I even knew existed on this island! I also met lots of Packers, Vikings, Bears and Browns fans, too! This island is made up mostly of Midwesterners! I've even made connections to my Indianapolis high school (our football coach's sister lives mid-island).
It has been a joy to relocate back to this seven-mile stretch of paradise. If I ever leave here, it'll either be for a tiny houseboat in Key West or by body bag. Period.
