No! I Won’t!

 I don’t care what any Democrat says or tells me to do! I will not compromise my beliefs to satisfy the 70 million or so who voted for Trump in the 2020 election. On the contrary, I believe the Republican Party in every venue should be prosecuted for violation of the Voting Rights Acts across the country! This is not a political issue; it is a legal one. The blatantly unconcealed attempt to corrupt our Democracy has invalidated the Republican party’s political standing in our country.

The Republican party has proven beyond doubt that their concept of citizenship does not meet the values guaranteed every American citizen under the Constitution of the United States. According to their wildly broadcast and highly public legal actions across the country, American citizens not approved by the Republican Party do not have the right to vote! While the Conservative Evangelical Republicans hold the Bible close to their chests, they choose to overlook the Bible in Exodus 21:7-11 which tells a father how to sell his daughter! While they may get to pick and choose which Biblical passages they choose to ignore, the same does not apply to a secular government such as held by the United States of America. All laws apply to all citizens. But not according to the Republican party! The Constitution be damned!

How could I possibly meet these people? Would I ask them to take off their white, pointed hoods - but let them wear their insignia-decorated robes - as we discuss how they want us to run the country? I don’t think so. Are there 70 million of them? Doesn’t matter to me. I will never bow to their white power mantra. Ever.

This isn’t about politics; politics is a moot point among the masses. Politics is only discussed by the educated. Emotion rules the rest of us. This is a football game gone bad. Team supporters wear their team’s colors and vehemently support their team. The rabid fans spend small fortunes on trinkets and flags and paraphernalia sold with their teams colors. Why? The winning Superbowl team fans gets to drive around honking their car horns and being generally obnoxious after the football game. They honk and yell as if they really accomplished something.

However, in a Presidential election, the honking goes on for four years. The trump supporters have no idea what they accomplished. Sadly, they do not care.

But I remember Charlottesville.

Dilemma

On this day in early October, 2020, over half of the entire population of the United States is in a dilemma. These are the very people who voted against Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election or those who now oppose him in the 2020 election. The quandary is President Donald J. Trump has been diagnosed with COVID-19, a virus which can be very deadly if it so chooses, so do we pray for his recovery or not?

Technically, Mr. Trump tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus of which the COVID-19 is a component. He was transported Friday afternoon to the Walter Reed Walter Reed National Military Medical Center even though he previously had bone spurs that prevented his US military services and therefore prevented his admittance to this iconic medical institution. His current position as Commander in Chief overrides any previous disqualifications for admittance to a US military hospital.

On his first day of hospitalization his doctor, Dr. Sean P. Conley, Trump’s physician, said we’re “72 hours into the diagnosis,” meaning the president could have tested positive as early as Wednesday, even though the official White House release said "The President was first diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 on the evening of Thursday, October 1st and had received Regeneron's antibody cocktail on Friday, October 2nd,"

The quandary is how do Christians, or any other humanistic form of religious belief, wish or pray for the recuperation of anyone who could kill them if he survives? They know Trump would drive a dagger through any opponent’s heart, deny it and blame it on someone else if the situation were reversed.

As a humanist, I can not wish ill of any life form, no matter how despicable it is to my sensibilities. Yet, I know my survival depends on its extermination. My whole being, my family’s future, the future of my beloved country, depends on the defeat of evil and turning away from Fascism.

It is only a dilemma for those who would abandon their loved ones and their country for temporary moral solace, those who fail to see there is no America coming with a future D-Day to save the world.

In Trump's own words, "It is what it is."

Snakes, Religion, and the Pandemic

These times will try everyone's faith in their particular religion. Please remember what works for some does not work for others. Case in point is an article you may want to read about a Pentecostal Pastor who refused medical aid for a Rattlesnake bite during a church service. He died that night at home. The article states "It's estimated that 125 churches in the United States use poisonous snakes during services today, with many clustered in the South. In tiny churches tucked away in rural Appalachia, ‘snake handling’ is a long-standing tradition, one that took root in this region more than a century ago.”

These pastors believe that to "take up serpents" is a form of religious expression. In the King James Bible, Mark 16:18 says, "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them."

Do you think they are foolish? That is their religion. How about you? Will you go to church service this next call for prayer or mass because you are not afraid of the Corona virus? Even the Pope was socially isolating, there was no mass in St Peters for Easter.

How do people not of your religion view you?

Whether you believe God will protect you if you handle poisonous snakes or go mask-less and unvaccinated during a pandemic, keep your religion to yourself and act like a good citizen. How would you feel if someone put a rattlesnake around your shoulders and said, “Don’t worry, my God won’t let you die if the snake bites you?”

Stay safe and isolate! Wear a mask! The virus doesn't spread by itself, we spread it! Don’t put your snake around my shoulders!

George

Bandwagon

I finally found a supplier on the Internet to order my cloth Air Force missile badges at a reasonable price. I took my discharge from the Air Force before the patches became available and never had the chance to sew the badge on my fatigue uniform. 

“Who cares?” You ask? Well, I do. I want to sew it on my fabric anti-COVID-19 face mask. A mark, a notice to all that wearing a face mask is the right thing to do. If veterans do it, then it must be OK. But, things change and what was once a special badge of service is now a long forgotten footnote in the short American attention span. My old job is so passé nobody even remembers why we did it in the first place. Only my peers who also wear the badge know what it means.

Before I go down the rabbit hole of distraction here, let me first express my admiration for those who excelled in whatever MOS, NEC, or AFSC they were in. Don’t know what the acronyms stand for? A few of the “veterans” I meet don’t either. For the ones who really sweated it out, I simply ask for your understanding. I sweated it out, too. I hold a Master Missileman Badge and it took me seven years to earn it. And that brings me to the complainers. You know, the ones who say we’re taking away their freedom by asking them to protect others.

Many of the anti-maskers I’ve listened to are not veterans, but oddly, there is a group of hero wannabes who parade around in badgeless, second-hand camo uniforms, holding their imitation M-16s they bought with credit cards across their chests who only wear face covering to prevent identification. They act like they are begging for someone to thank them for their service while they try to intimidate those who think and act differently than they do.

My dad, an Army field artillery veteran who ended up with five bronze battle stars, went ashore at Oran, North Africa, in 1942, exactly one week after I was born, once told me “Beware of flag wavers, most of them never served.” If he knew I ordered my old Air Force badges to sew on my COVID masks to encourage others to wear protective face covering, he would simply look at me over the top of his newspaper, and keep on reading.

George

A Letter to My Country

Robert Stubblefield, my great grandfather, served three years and one week in the Confederate Army. He spent over eighteen months, or half of his enlistment, hospitalized with gun shot wounds, and the last six months as a prisoner of war. I have the US Army records showing Robert was captured by Union troops after being wounded at Winchester, Virginia, on the September 19th, 1864, but didn't receive field surgery until six days later. He received field surgery on September 25, 1864, from Ass't Surgeon Burdett, USA Depot Field Hospital, Winchester, Virginia, for "removal of rib fragments and simple dressing."

Robert Stubblefield is on the on the CSA Roll of Honor for wounds received at the second battle of Manassas. His name is cruelly misspelled as Studfield, but his official records shows Robert signed by “X.” He could not have corrected the error simply because he could not read or write.

Robert was not a slave owner, in fact, it appears he was in bondage when he enlisted and was freed by serving in the Confederate Army. Plain and simple, he was just another foot soldier, a GI. One who does what he is told to do, and believes what he was told to believe. He did it proudly and at great cost. He was no different than the young soldiers of today who have been ordered to tear gas innocent protesters because that is their duty to obey orders. Unfortunately, history will judge them as harshly as it has judged my great-grandfather. It will be even harsher on those police officers who fail to serve their communities much less their country.

I qualify to join the Sons of the Confederacy, or more correctly the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Their mission is, and this is a direct quote from their website - “Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought.” I do not understand why. Vindicating slavery is appalling to me. It should buried along with the racism that burns as embers in the hearts and minds of organizations like the Sons of the Confederacy.

There are no monuments to Hitler in Munich. There are no statues of Himmler in Berlin nor parks or streets named after Goebbels anywhere in the country. There are no organizations in Germany that openly glorify exterminating Jews as we have here extolling the virtues of slavery. In the five and a half years I was stationed in Germany with the U.S. Air Force, I never once saw a swastika or any kind of tribute to the Nazi’s. There are no Nazi flags flying the infield at any automobile race.

Yet in my country, I see monuments to insurrection and slavery every day. Americans have been molded to believe we are the moral saviors of the oppressed the world over, but sadly we not only condone oppression in our own country, we systematically and comfortably indulge it. 

Keeping hatred alive and festering has a deep, evil motive. It is time for America to tear down the statues that glorify evil. It is time to remove the names from government facilities that honor the insurrectionist, including army bases and courthouses. Those names of Confederates do not show our love for our forefathers, only those who served the political and financial bidding of others. They serve only to misdirect the youth and the easily deceived. They are not heroes.

It is time to for America to change. It is time to honor our Constitution. It starts with “We the People...”