Frozen Shrimp Or Marionetta? Freedom Of Speech Is The Question. Not That Its Any Of My Business.

Scattered thoughts, preoccupation, tongue-cut-out restraint. Who said there was freedom of speech?

There was freedom of speech, I guess, just a few long years ago. You could write and say what you thought, as long as it did not hurt folks. The “long and the tall of it” (did I get that line from an old Morse? Or the later Inspector Lewis?) is that freedom is no longer here. At least I feel like the freedom of my speech is gone.

Yes, it is because of that man who came into all our lives and will not leave us alone. It’s like his acquaintance Roger Stone said, (and I paraphrase): “not just the good publicity, all the publicity – every word, every day, every news cycle.”

I have never been so ashamed of the press in my life. If that man tweeted, Wolf Blitzer would come into work early. One did not need to follow Twitter. Just watch CNN and every tweet was rebroadcast 24/7. Sucking for ratings? Maybe it’s one of those David Pecker things with Nat Enquirer. We must ask: What do that man and Pecker have on Wolf?

When that man went down the escalator in 2015, I said I could vote for a businessman – as seedy as he sometimes seemed through the years. Then he opened his mouth. It was over for me, day one.

Nonetheless, the news folks gave that man their all, and he used the air time like a pro. News from the rest of the world ended, so now we have to find something besides TV news to occupy ourselves – hoo ray! Except for the little problem of the consequence of the news world’s propaganda success: One has to keep their mouth shut or suffer the consequences.

Not just about politics, about anything. How far can genealogy be from politics? As far as one could keep it for years. Long before the Facebook tirades of pictures and insanity came along, there were the emails of jokes and spam and worse. Even then, there were the right-wing cousins with overbearing tales of woe, and all told in anger. I told more than one to take me off their email lists. The same people with the same issues angrily share meanness on Facebook, and I guess my previous sharing about Love Thy Neighbor, was not welcomed either. My posts that said Americans were paying ten times the price, and even 100s of times the price for pharmaceuticals were especially not received well. How the propaganda is missed I do not know.

But it is like frozen shrimp – old frozen shrimp that will be pitched out in the clean-up. It needs to be timed to get it out of the house, because it will thaw quickly and it will stink. It will be slimy and it needs to go to the tip – the same day it leaves its cryogenic state.

The smelly shrimp is how I feel about the news cycles that hamper thought. They want to Roger Stone you – to stonewall information. You only get a tweet. Not a word about any news, only the tweet. Fine.

Now it is unpatriotic in some circles to dare suggest that man is wrong. I have lost friends, lost family. And I don’t mean just unfriending, I mean sharing a Bernie Sanders post about universal health care and being reported to Facebook for sharing a bad fake post. I digitally walked away.

It is mind-boggling that that man could take advice from all the yahoos  around him. He got the presidency and pissed it away. He had and still has the power to unite in a way I have never seen before. It is the hard right who would not cooperate, in my view. He could have snapped his fingers and they would have followed him right to the table to eat with us all. Instead he has driven wedge after wedge to make the gulf wider. What a waste!

I wanted to write about the wonderful healing I saw in Canada, a kind of healing that had no strings attached and no bill to follow you home from the hospital. A healing that was not just for the wealthy, but also for the poorest of the poor. A healing that would not bankrupt you because the cost was shared out countrywide. And that meant no price gouging. And it ended the choke holds on our wallets held by the robber pharmaceutical companies and insurance/health provider/hospital gang.

I wanted to write how my heart broke in Alabama when everyone was not treated fairly. The name Birmingham still sends chills down some people’s spines. I remind myself every day of the countless ways I must still carry bias in my head. I still loathe and fear the bigots. I always make sure to know who is bigoted about what, so I don’t say the wrong thing.

I write, often, how there were many reasons to run away, so many years ago, and the place itself was one of them. But that place seems to be recreated everywhere I go; I find the same hellhole with groups angry at one another, often for good reason. And never will either side listen to the other.

And that man seems to say it is OK to be angry at each other. Do not dare to get along. And now all these other folks shilling, shilling always shilling. Oh, that’s bad, and oh that is bad, and eat each other alive. I am done – I cannot hear it. Boy!.

Oh God have mercy. Did I just say a bad word?

Granny said a bad word? F-k yes I did. “Boy” — a bad word.

Christ almighty.

The elderly Welsh cousin called Dai over to where he was sitting. We were visiting, about 12 years ago, and he called Dai “Boy.” He pronounced it “buey,” with the beautiful Welsh accent. He was Dai’s father’s generation, speaking as elder to younger, so it was not at all deprecating. But I was struck to hear it. I wondered then and I wonder now, whether people were called “boy” even before there was America.

Yes. I know this use has nothing to do with the other use. Of course not. But this is terrifying. I still use “boy” sometimes, as in “oh boy” but leaving out the “oh.” I was certainly not talking color – color had nothing to do with it. But how can we know what to dare to say or think? How is it that just a word can suddenly be thrust into your life?

The federal life of control has taken over – but not for good. We need each other. We need to get along better, one-on-one.

There are so many people now who listen to whatever propaganda they like. I listen to multiple networks to learn who is saying what, and everyone seems to think the enemy hates them. Yes, enemy. That man has sold everyone on being angry. Now the propaganda side has had more than a year to tell the other half of the country why they need to reject others out of hand,  never forgive, never allow for people to change or learn.

Over and over I hear people say the GOP folks are just “going along” with that man. Is this somehow trying to excuse them, that they would not be doing these awful things themselves if it weren’t for being afraid of that man and his voters? But why excuse the GOP folks who do “these things?” The right wing wrote this playbook; that man just mastered it.

After surviving the 1960s and the South, seeing this hatred spring up so visibly again is frightening. And social media transmits the hatred faster than the speed of light.

This anger froze me, silenced me. It frightened me. And if I dare to forget that, I can turn on the news again tomorrow and I will hear again just how scared I should be or not be.

I think of the Star Trek Next Generation episode where the crew encounters the meanest, most evil, fighting-killing monster. The creature is just getting worse and worse, killing more and growing, and the show is almost over.  The good guys are fighting with all their might, but losing.

Then, I think it was Data who beamed in and yelled for everyone to think good and loving thoughts. That calmed the creature down and made it stop fighting.. The monster had been feeding off the anger and fear of the crew, growing stronger with each of their aggressive acts. But the loving thoughts sucked away the hostility.

Sssssh. Don’t say a word.

I have to clean my mind, clean my heart and clean the old shrimp out of the freezer.

Not that its any of my business.

I am still searching in vain for the Star Trek episode I am thinking of. The one I need is Next Gen.

This is not it. But it is another with the theme. Star Trek: Day of The Dove

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22star+trek%22+day+of+the+dove&oq=%22star+trek%22+day+of+the+dove&aqs=chrome..69i57.9815j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8