My personal opinion: I am using my right to vote to write in Bernie Sanders to express my hope that our country will get its soul back from the devil (Corporate America and wealthy sociopaths like Trump and Clinton)

My ballot is here.  As I’ve mentioned before, Americans have died for my right to vote however I please – i.e. the price for me to vote was the highest possible.  And in my opinion, this presidential election is the worst of my five decades of life and neither candidate is deserving, for different reasons but ultimately both are self-absorbed and corrupt.  To vote for Trump is like voting for a lesser Hitler, but Clinton is as corrupt as they come and one thing I know is that the US needs to change and a vote for Clinton will ensure all the existing issues — racism, labor abuses, wage inequality and using our military to impose our Corporate America agendas — will continue.  So, with all that in mind, I am voting for Bernie.  This way, I am keeping my soul intact;  absolutey worse case, Trump will be elected, there will be outrage across our country and the world, and it might be the real first step in our country getting its soul back from the devil (Corporate America and Fortune 500 sociopaths).   I’ve never seen a more divisive election, which is saying something, but the beauty of my journal/blog and of America is I can express my opinion and vote how I want, so here goes… 🙂 

Some disturbing facts about college football

College football players are paid very little, over a third of them won’t graduate, only 1.6% of them will make any money playing pro football, all while damaging their brains in ways that won’t show for 8-10 years after they finish playing; 2/3rds of college football programs lose money. Players who are injured have to pay for their own medical care.

Commentary: Encouraged and discouraged that many Americans realize Clinton is as corrupt as Trump

According to the News yesterday, this election is unprecendented for how many registered voters don’t like or want either candidate.  Most people I know talk about moving out of the country if Trump is elected, but what I find encouraging (and discouraging) is that people realize how corrupt Hilary Clinton is.  I used to love the Clintons, but a few years ago when my wife started studying at depth for her Global Health initiatives, we were both surprised to learn how corrupt Bill and Hilary Clinton are.  Over time, it grew where I didn’t want her to be president at all, as it would make us not much different than those third world countries with corrupt leaders.  But still Clinton is better than Trump, who is equallty as corrupt and a Hitler Mini-Me to boot.  But change — long-term change — can’t happen without recognition, so although I am horribly worried about the next four years (at least), and least Americans are savvy enough to see Clintons as corrupt.  So maybe this is another step closer to change. 

This election as much as any reminds me of how important it is for kids to read 1984 and Animal Farm, as well as All The President’s Men.  We can’t take domestic Liberty for granted, even in America.   

Trump did one good thing after all – called foundations on the carpet

Wife M is back in school, and has studied the Clintons a little. Basically, they are corrupt people who’ve ravaged Latin America and used their foundation to enrich and empower themselves even more than they Already were. But that aside, I think foundations are a convenient tool for rich people to avoid taxes, employ friends and get free toys/trips. So I was glad to see Trump/Chump call them on the carpet about it and hope we are getting closer to reform. Terrorists/Revolutionaries blow up shopping malls but they should be blowing up private yachts and private jets and rax-dodging Corporate Board Rooms if they want to see change (note: I am not saying they should do this – I am a peaceful person – but blowing up common people is a useless instrument of tragedy). Anyway, I look forward to the days when us Commoners peacefully put an end to foundations, tax breaks and private yachts/jets.

Banning College Football although I love it very much

I love college football.  My parents are football fans, and at times had season tickets to both the UW Huskies and Seattle Seahawks, so football in particular and all college football in general was a part of my life growing up.  But as I read The System, as I learn even more about how inept the NCAA is while it and the TV Networks make *huge* dollars while kids work for free, how the vast majority of college football teams *lose* money despite huge expenditures at the expense of education, how coaches make millions per year while universities lay off professors, how the players are at huge risk for brain injury despite making no money at all, I simply can’t watch it anymore. I *won’t* watch it any more.  I want to, but to do so is to be complicit in it.  My conscience won’t let me do it.  I can try to justify it, or try to ignore it, but if I do that I am just as guilty as anyone, like Pontius Pilate.  Just like I refuse to watch porn since porn is usually exploitation of young human beings, I will not watch college football.  

I will watch the NFL for the time being.  I think the NFL is in decline anyway, since so many parents refuse to let their kids play football anymore, just like if we are  honest with ourselves Major League Baseball is a shadow of its past since many fewer kids play baseball today than decades ago.  But President Obama said it best, I think: “The NFL players have a union, they’re grown men, they can make some of these decisions on their own, and most are well-compensated for the violence they do to their bodies.”  But, still, many NFL players probably don’t see themselves as having a choice, since often football is all they know, and honestly 95% of them are treated like cattle.  It may be that some time in the future I refuse to watch the NFL, as well.     

Sources: The System (Benedict et. al.).

The past 10-20 years, I’ve realized that my beloved America’s elections are as corruptible as anyone’s

The first time I realized that the US’s dometic freedom was not guaranteed was during the Iran Contra hearings in the 1980s when the Bush/Reagan stoolie Oliver North talked about proposals to suspend the constitution in times of crises (it is amazing that Richard Nixon was hung to dry for Watergate but that Reagan and Bush skirted through the Iran Contra situation with barely a mark — that is true and corruptible power).  But somehow I still beieved our elections were mostly honest. 

But watching the George Bush and Al Gore election battle in Florida in 2000, the governor election in the state of Washington a few years later where mysterious votes were found and votes were mysteriously rled ineligible and three different election counts produced different results, and the all the reports of election fraud in Hilary Clinton’s march towards the White House has taught me that what I thought was an honest and free election/process (with flaws, of course) is as corrupt and maleable as some of very Third World Countries we claim are rife with election fraud.  When it comes to power and the access to power, there are a certain percentage of human beings who are actually wired to stop at nothing to get it, including corrupting the process of the most powerful country in the world.  Uncle Sam is as vulnerable as any of them, I’m afraid 😦  It is up to us Commonors to stand up against those in power, to protect the common good.

Deeply offended that Democratic National Party mocked Bernie, rigged the election and made racist (jewish) comments.

Who are these people?  Where do they come from?  Why do — no matter how many generations we see — they keep coming?  How can you possibly be so ignorant and — pardon me — stupid in 2016 USA, after decades of civil rights and every attempt to educate/coach the human spirt?

Why do they keep appearing to mock the process?  To make racist comments?  To put inappropriate comments in email (which is absolute stupidity).  Then to blame the Russians (whether it is true they hacked the server or not is actually complete;y irrelevant – if the DNC didn’t do those things it wouldn’t have mattered).  

Today was the straw that broke the camel’s back…  Bill Clinton schmoozing the Attorney General during Hilary Clinton’s investigation (then turning his back when her staffers were sacrificed) pushed me to the edge, and then the DNC corrupting the process pushed me over it.  

People have literally died so I can have the right to vote — there is no way that I am going to waste that vote on corrupt people, whether it is Chump/Trump or Clinton.  I was already decided yesterday to write in Bernie Sanders, now it is cemented.  No matter what, I can’t vote for someone who is so blatantly corrupt — too many people have given too much over the years for me to endorse corruption by voting for someone who is corrupt.  Bernie for President.  Clinton and Chump/Trump – I hope 2016 is the last we ever see of them.  Of course, the names change, but the people are the same, but that’s okay – my vote is still mine and all I can control is today….

Personal commentary on 2016 Presidential Election

I honestly did not think there could be a worse candidate for President than Mitt Romney in 2012.  Romney was the worst kind of elitist – an elitist (and a literal schoolyard bully) who saw himself as self-made despite having a rich/powerful father and who made his own personal fortune by exploiting the system at the expense of average Americans.  Now, we have Trump, who is essentially a clone of Romney except worse, and a blatant racist to boot, which is empowering other blatant racists in America.  Essentially, Trump is yet another reminder in the world to appreciate the what we have at the moment, because it can always get worse.

The trouble this year is Clinton.  Unlike Obama, Clinton leaves us no way out.  The world has been a slow destructive spiral since 9/11, when we fell into a recession and when we started to emerge from it the money pooled at the top instead of making any effort to redisribute it to the masses, and when we went in and basically kicked a bee’s hive in the Middle East while enriching a frenemy in China for the benefit of rich American Corporations.  The result of this are growing seeds of hate in the world, that are continuing to percolate and simmer and are manifesting as shootings and bombings that are increasingly more frequent and disturbing, and in new extremist organizations like ISIS — and Donald Trump.  Clinton has been part of the 1% elitists who have not only enriched themselves at the world’s expense, but as Secretary of State showed herself to be untruthful and a war monger.  So by voting for Clinton, I’m basically ensuring the world continues on its slow and increasingly destructive spiral down.

So, in 2016, we are left with a very strange and can’t win choice where for the first time in my lifetime I do not believe there is a “safe” or “less destructive” choice.  In a way, I feel like it is a combination of 1860 and 1930, but instead of Abraham Lincoln or Roosevelt as a candidate, we have a choice of Hitler’s little brother or a Robber Baron for President.  To vote for Trump is to support a blatant, elitist, ignorant, lying buffoon who will probably be harmless in many ways (who will listen to a buffoon?) but will plant divisive seeds of hate in the domestic US while allowing powerful enemies to run unchecked in the world, probably resulting in a horrific world blow up and race divisions in America.  And on the other hand, if I vote for Clinton we are sure to continue growing the seeds of hate and discrepancy in the world while the 1% continue to enrich themselves, essentially ensure things will be worse and more violent in 4 more years but with less likelihood of an immediate world wide catastrophe.

So, it is like the world is giving me The Lady or the Tiger choice.  It is a true dilemma.  Do I vote for cointuined pain to ensure the world does not blow itself up (Clinton), or do I burn the house down in the hopes of re-building a better house (Trump)?

Honestly, I am going to write in Bernie Sanders. I am not wise enough to vote see the smart decision for Trump or Clinton, if it is better to vote for revolution or a continued unhealthy world order.  So I am going to go with my ethics, and write in Bernie Sanders.  It is the only time in my life I’ve written in a candidate.

Feeling like the country is in a Civil Cold War

All the killings. Don’t remember a time like this in my life in the US. What will pull us out of it? Usually it is something shocking that requires everyone to rally together, which isn’t ideal, especially since it means the underlying issues won’t get addressed. For me, I feel like at the root of it is the US government is too focused on special interests and not jus
the citizens of the world. All the other issues are casualties of that.

Lot of similarities between France in 1789 and America today

Am perusing (scanning) through the history of the French Revolution and am struck by how many similarities there are between France pre-revolution and America today.  

In essence, it was a geographically complex country that had rich territories and poor ones, and while the actual government sank deeper into debt and the 98% of the people sank deeper into poverty, the 2% made most of the laws and continued to add to their holdings.  Eventually, the people lost hope and a revolution began.  Makes me think of how in debt our government is, how Corporate Interests rule Congress and the Aristocrats of America (e.g. Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Steve Bezos) are so far removed from the struggling average American working multiple low-wage jobs while coping with soaring rents.  Additionally, France was suffering from increased beggars — i.e. poor farmers who lost their lands and had to beg for a living.  Anyone walking through the streets of any major Coastal city in America has to be oblivious to not notice the 1000s of people living on the streets with no hope.  

I swear, America is a powder keg with many matches laying about.  There have been a few sparks, but nothing has hit the largest powder kegs yet.  I hope we (the masses) figure that out and start more equally distributing everything (e.g.substantially increasing taxes on anyone making more than 1M a year and increasing land/ownership/asset taxes on Billionaires and Corporations) before something explodes.

In France, it meant the wealthy (literally) lost their heads and chaos for years before Napolean took control and sent thousands of peasants to their deaths via the army in England, Russia, etc.  But honestly, I think France is a far better country today — 200 years later — than the US is…

We are not rich, but we do own a house and have enough to eat, so have something to lose if all hell breaks loose.  I do hope there is significant reform so I feel better about our country.