Just a minute!

Hi everyone! I’m afraid I haven’t had much time, as of late, for my blog but plan to be back in full force before the fall elections. I have voted in my own State primaries, and sad to report, I had the shortest primary ballot that I can remember ever having.

I’m afraid there is little to no acceptance for choices on the Democrat ticket, this year, since my State like all other red states appear to be taken over by tea party funding. I’m sure the Democrat machine is more supportive in some of your Blue States, than it is in the Red States, that go overwhelmingly for Republicans,anyway. At least it is my fondest hope, they are!

I’m not ready to come back full time to my blog yet, as at this stage, we are looking at a home remodel,here,followed later by an extended trip out of the heat. I just wanted to remind you, my readers, that the only way we can lose is to believe we are powerless and not vote.

Statistically Democrats do not get out to vote in the off years and in 2010, because of it, 72 new tea party paid Republicans took office in Washington and our States and have been chipping away at the equality of women and minorities ever since! Vote!

Thanks for your continued support of my blog and for your remaining loyalty! Later then!

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Delayed Gratification

Just as hardship can make us grateful to those who are in our lives rather than take them for granted as we too often do when things are going our way, so can the bad days teach us a real appreciation for the good days in our lives. When we have time in life to develop our dreams or memories we will often find delayed gratification makes us much more grateful when we do reap what we worked a lifetime to achieve.

Its not that I am deliberately trying to rush the up coming Holidays, as it is that I need to be accomplishing a long list of details before my husband and I leave our lives here in the cold temperatures of the North to join the snow birds who migrate each winter to the Southern regions. Since my enjoyment is not spent on Social media or the internet when I go South, but instead I use my time to pick up and to acknowledge other perspectives, I do not write while migrating:)

In many ways it is the time I spend away from the internet and media that reassures me of the goodness of Americans. The internet and social media has become way too much a part of the lives of cowards and the disgruntled to the point it is sometimes way too easy to think they are the majority when they are such a small part of what, in truth, is the bigger picture of America.

I welcome the diversity I meet when I do get away from my writing and instead learn different cuisines and different cultures and what does make America great. I also get to meet a great deal of tourists from other parts of the World and admire them for their ability to speak more than one language, unlike most Americans.

More and more younger people are reversing the order of past generations to move to vacation spots, to work for less when they are young, with the reasoning they want to enjoy their lives while they have the health to enjoy the activities they find there, instead of waiting until they retire and are so old they can no longer enjoy the activities.

It is a good argument on the surface of things but when the younger generations do not spend time establishing themselves when they are young, they will not be able to do so when they are older, as many of them believe they can earn a better income, later, when they tire of playing.

Without a resume of accomplishment in the work force these young couples are in essences trading a very few years for a life-time of hard work and difficulties because instant gratification does not equate to gratitude or satisfaction in ourselves but instead often denies us the right to succeed later, in life, when no one will hire us without a work record that lives up to our own special abilities. It is when we fail to succeed in areas where we would have achieved or excelled in our youth, we fail ourselves as well as our own satisfaction and enjoyment in life.

There is a reason for developing dreams and delaying gratification for those years and time when we can be more relaxed and comfortable with life and reap what we sow, as there is an innate need in the breast of mankind to join a pecking order or to develop a sense of accomplishment, through bonding with the knowledge, often deep within ourselves, before we truly can enjoy the freedom that comes along with appreciation and gratitude for the lifetime of hardwork and accomplishment otherwise never recognized by others but by the people we shared our lives with, while gaining our own perspectives of life.

Without appreciation and gratitude for achieving the climb to the top, many of us often times will join others who feel we can never fill our need to achieve so it instead becomes a distant dissatisfaction with ourselves, while we blame those closest to us, when we fail to live up to our full ability to achieve in our youth.

Just as mountain ranges grow to different heights so does the
competency levels of each of us have the capabilities to grow to
our own heights of ideas and choices according to our talents and ability to become the best we can be, by reaching out and challenging ourselves while we still have the exuberance of youth and the ambition to perform. When we ourselves choose to exert neither, we place ourselves into denial while blaming circumstances or finding excuses. All of us will run into those who attempt to put up road blocks in our paths, but the spirit in all of us will succeed on pure determination when we empower ourselves to reach our goals.

Too often when we think the idea of enjoying the activities or instant gratification now, instead of waiting for the sense of accomplishment we feel later,is the fault of others when our expectation fail to live up to the dream we had before embarking to parts unknown, it is too easy to forget why we exist to improve upon our own lives, to learn from our mistakes, as well as to help improve the lives of others.

Peace only comes when we do deal with the humbleness and compassion that makes us human and tells us that we no longer have to prove ourselves as our lives speak for themselves. Those who profess they only want to be happy often fail to understand that happiness can only come with achievement. We often find in every generation those who succeeded against the most difficult of circumstances while an equal number fail when they had every reason to succeed.

When reality sets in and those days we spent in the sunshine taking it easy while working beneath our own ability to succeed, in vacation resort-like settings as a metaphor, are replaced with going hungry when the tourist trade leaves or being displaced when the storms move in, the young who work for less, so they can enjoy life now, experience a far different reality from those of us who are bankrolled by the success of our lives before we leave home to enjoy the spoils of our individual victories. Facing obstacles of life during difficult periods is what makes victors of all of us, regardless of our abilities to reach new heights and different levels of success.

The whole point of retirement is slowing down enough to enjoy the sunsets and to smell the roses while basking in the freedom to move elsewhere as the weather changes. Many of us get a taste of it on vacation during our younger years and know the importance of being able to save for more time to spend together knowing first we must earn the right of passage as we understand a life, unfulfilled in achievement for other’s needs as well as the needs of our loved ones, is a life never totally reached.

When we older folks go to the vacation spots filled with peace of mind and the sense of having given life our best shot, and satisfied knowing that we both failed and achieved, we would have it no other way because we did it together, and if we are both fortunate enough to live to retirement we are fortunate enough. It was never the activities that ever did matter, as it was always the effort put forward in the final analysis of life.

It is in being able to look past the wrinkles and weight gain of our partners who worked hand in hand with us, while we remain humble in knowing just how fortunate we are to be sharing together what we worked a life-time to gain. No amount of activities can ever replace those moments when we sit together enjoying the company of each other, without even having to say or explain a thing because we both already know and understand; “These are truly the golden years of our lives,” only earned through our own completion of goals beginning in our youth.

I wish all of us the peace and love of the Season, where ever you may be and however you choose to spend it. I ask all of us to keep those who suffer, especially in the Philippines and all the children who go to bed hungry in our generosity, as the majority of us do , each year. It is that kindness in most of us that makes all mankind a step above the rest wherever we live in the World. Spend it your way! God Bless and Happy Holidays!

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What Frustrates Some Older People

It may come as a surprise to some of you, who are younger than ourselves, but many of the same things that frustrate you, have frustrated us the older generations, over the years, as well

The stresses you face today are many of the stresses we were up against and are the same frustrations that drove us as well. Just like every other generation before you, however, you do have some only unique to your own generation.

Many in our generation failed at the responsibilities that were their own and often laughed or bragged to us about how they may not have paid their bills on time but always landed on their feet while not giving two cents notice to the fact they were not providing for their future retirements, knowing full well that Social Security would not fill all of their needs. We even heard people say, “You have to be a damn fool to save for old age.”

By no means were they the majority as an equal amount of people who had parents that invested in the stock market said to our generation, “Just buy the stock and leave your money in it,” or “land is the one thing that will always increase in value as God is making no more land,” only for some in our generation to see the values of both fall so great as to bankrupt them.

Many others thought they had done everything right only to find out they had made high risk investments, when they were ready to retire and had nothing in reserve.

Every generation has had to deal with the apple shiners in the market place who looked pretty and impressed the bosses or were too lazy to breathe strenuously on their own. It was a continual frustrations with all of us who had to train them or worse yet, train lazy family members, to only find our jobs were ended when they were ready to take over their family businesses.

None took more advantage of their parents inability or guilt to say “no”, though, more so than has some done so in your generation. I understand your lack of willingness to share a collective financial pool with them thinking that you can do better on your own without them.

Rare is the person, who does not learn the lesson that whether we plan for it or not, we all must learn that plans are what many of us do, while life has a way of showing us that we only amuse ourselves in thinking we have control over our lives. For that reason alone, if you do achieve financial freedom you more than most generations before you do need controls in place over your medical care and costs through affordable health care now and Social Security later.

When the young amongst you share the belief that the tea party and Republicans share and professes, that they can invest in the stock market over placing money into Social Security, we older people understand as many of you do, who had parents ripped off understand, just as soon as the corrupt get insider tips and dump a company of its assets or management is failing to invest in your pension funds, it will be you who lose everything just as some of our generation, did.

You have the lessons that many generations before you had to learn, and too many of your generation and especially those who get elected are going around America spouting off their great ability to achieve success for you if you only elect them, just as too many other generations did, but at no time in recent history did other generations have the heavily paid for machines willing to invest billions in order to tell lies to get their candidate of their choice elected, as today.

The one thing we do have on our side is the ability to use technology to research credible web sights. Recently a white conservative candidate placed pictures of minorities taken from the inter-net all over his web sight to give the appearance of being minority friendly, only to beat out the candidate who actually is, so we all must use our own due diligence in selecting credible web sites.

The conservative pipe dreams being promoted by them as a replacement for healthcare and Social Security will ultimately find yourselves penniless when you are ready to retire and without the ability to buy medication or food to sustain yourselves, because they did away with healthcare and Social Security for the middle class and the poor, and you voted for them, just as too many of our generation continue to do so.

You will be confronted with even greater realties than our generation faced but instead you will have to deal with poverty as your grandparents or great-grandparents did because you are being fed a “sale of goods,” by the Conservatives and Tea Party who have also been responsible for the falling of your own wages, by eliminating unions and establishing, “the right to work laws.”

You, just like ourselves who retired well, will be responsible for not only your own salvation but for paying off the debt incurred by our generation because we have had a Congress with a conservative majority for the last 14 years out of 16 who refused to pay the bills, while they expressed concerns about spending money on the needs of the middle class, while they instead invested government money into pork and the rich got richer.

This frustrates many of us in the older generations who made sound investments, while not listening to the charlatans who told us ,”You have to spend money to make money,” of our day as well as it does you.

To clarify that statement, it is true that if we have extra cash to invest in our futures, it does sometimes take money to grow our business, to make sound investments, or to pay our obligations, if we lose our jobs. What I am talking about are those who think we have cash not invested, laying around so they are as entitled to it as we are if they promise to pay it back, because they can’t afford their own lifestyle. In much the same way the Tea party through the Ryan plan is suggesting just that to all of you who have already paid into Social Security.

When Congress fails to pay their bills they only increase added debt with money we pay in that could be better utilized towards health care or job creation. We can compare it to a family member who thinks we can pay high interests rates if we cash in our IRA early, risk the lost of our homes to foreclosure by taking equity out of our homes, pay penalties for early withdrawals, or are convinced we can take out a second mortgage in order for them to live a better lifestyle. It frustrates all of us, regardless of our age, that Congress does nothing but campaign in their own best interests.

Not all of you, anymore than all of us, but many of you did have parents who did or who could entrust enough faith in you to make your choices matter and to assume your responsibilities, and who found while taking care of our own needs, our concerns and frustrations are as great as your own for your futures despite all you have already learned in self-sufficiency.

Many of us had to learn or already knew the conservatives have done nothing about paying off the debt they refused to pay when the economy was good, nor have the tea party done anything but obstruct the justice we all earned to help us care for ourselves. We know they get away with it too many times because they hind behind the shield of family values and religious freedom, which is far from how they actually vote or which lobbyist they promote and who promoted them.

It worries us greatly that if we as a Nation continue on the vein of the Tea Party and Conservative movement, steeped in a history of lies that only benefit themselves and Capitalism, and they continue with their platform that is self-limiting to choices of all races and genders, that our children and grandchildren will never understand the freedom of Democracy that, you, better than any generations before you, have promoted.

You are our future and our pride and joy so the frustrations many of we older people feel, who have not hid behind denial, has been filled with the same frustrations by our own generations refusal in some cases but their inability in other cases, to deal with their problems. a

We as much as your generation know and understand that it is you who must deal with the after affects created by both generations before you, and those who fail to understand the disaster taking place in the Republican Party, due to the tea party and the religious right-wing mentalities drive to destroy our own Constitutional rights, both as women and minorities.

When you think we aren’t there ready to stand with you, some of you might be surprised to find out that as independent and willing as you are to get on without our help, we are standing beside you at the election polls.

Enjoy your day and know that America always does come along and rights itself in the election polls, despite those who would try to stop us from doing so, as we are a Nation of many blessings and a majority of common sense and decency. We all have had to develop patience in and with the process, before the light comes on for those who are slower to catch on, than some of the more aware are. It seems to be the American way that eventually does draw us all together as one voice to correct the wrongs of a few misguided amongst us. Nothing spells success faster than voting them out of office. It works every time!

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OH, But We Do!

It is with great pleasure that I direct this post to those believers in the GOP and media who think, “we older people just do not understand.

The common theme that runs through the Tea Party and conservative mentality is, “Older people just don’t understand.” This has been the song of the Harvard business graduates for years. You Ivy league boys have been so fed on your own importance that some of you, seem to think if we are older and middle class, we simply do not understand what the younger generations are up against and certainly will never know the pressures to succeed as you who are the elite must deal with, when it comes to balancing budgets or the difficulties the younger generations are living through.

Every older generation must deal with the arrogance of the young, who believe that everything they read in their history books are true, when they are in college, and once they get out and must apply it to real life, often find that it really didn’t matter if they did go to Harvard or JUCO, it was all about being at the right place at the right time or who Daddy owed a favor to or if he could sit you up in your own medical practice or law firm. Like Mitt Romney said, “If you don’t have the money, ask your parents for it.” The rest of us were out pounding the pavement, long before the internet, and grateful to get any job we could because we started out our lives in debt.

Todays’ generations are no different from what our own was, as we too had to out think, out work, out sacrifice, and out position the next person to move up the ladder, if we were a member of the poor or middle class with an education. Much about what all college students read about have absolutely nothing to do with what were the common nuances, beliefs, and or actions felt by the people at the time, when history does most certainly repeat itself, so the young think every idea or philosophy they derive or read about is brand new and has never been tried or endured before.

That was certainly true in the age that my husband and I graduated, as we were the first generation to actually see history move forward with a progress dedicated to the needs of the people. The generations before us saw manufacturing move as rapidly as we saw improvements being made in the requirements of what people would never again be willing to settle for in the way they would be treated by others. Each generation brings with it both set-backs and improvements and the older generations are well versed on both.

Generations had before us, began the movements to bring civil rights and equality forward along with financial and health care for the elderly through government. It wasn’t until social security was passed we would see it set up in a government trust fund and taken out of our checks as early as our teen years, for the first time, with our generation.

We were the first generation to actually see the FICA taxes removed from 16 through 66 to provide for our retirement. Every generation prior to us would pay in for a part of those years and gain cost of living raises the longer they lived.

Prior to this in the 1940’s and going back into the 1800’s, and all years earlier, as America was developing as a Democracy, America was building it’s foundation on Capitalism and it was all about the almighty dollar and serving the needs of the ruling class or the wealthy over the needs of the workers.

Some of today’s Ivy league graduates are with the conservative movement while denying workers minimum wage or equal rights is nothing new and certainly everything we older people know about and understand. We were the first who heard all the same arguments then that the Tea Party and Conservatives are saying about minimum wage bankrupting small business then just as they are today. Oh! But how the older generations does understand your brand of conservatism!

As I have said often, before unions and fair wages, the wealthy provided pentinence to the workers, for wages. The wealthy wives or mothers, who were considered the Elite ladies were expected to dress in full refinery and regality and go out in their buggies to show their refinery to the poor each day, because so out of tune was this generation of Rockefellers, Vander Belts and RothChilds that they actually believed if they got all dressed up in their best it would actually raise the spirits of the poor and downtrodden.

They refused to believe the workers were paid so little that they could only use flour sacks for clothing but instead these wealthy women thought the workers wives would want to buy silk and copy their dresses. Sadly the mentality hasn’t changed much beyond that today. The distain for the wealthy by the poor still carries over from those day just as even today we find people still gather at that magic hour of ten in the morning or two in the afternoons, to socialize, just as they did then to be seen in their fancy buggies by the workers.

If we had a dime for every 40 year old who came out of an Ivy League college with a business degree and who felt they were an expert on matters of budgets, we could fill barrels full of our dimes to sort out, before we would be lucky enough to find a hand full of nickels from the great many of them who do go into politics and even have a clue of how the poor or middle class feel or thinks, much less are credible when they say,” the older generation just does not understand.”

We look at the Kennedy’s sufferings and loss as well as the suffering of Roosevelt due to polio and add the farm boy beginnings of Truman to politics and we can understand why these men knew what previous generations had not learned. They knew and understood just as did Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who came out of humble beginnings know and understand,”A Nation where people continue to being put last over the almighty buck is a Nation that will fade into anonymity.”

It does not take a rocket scientist to understand why the hardships and suffering of both the Kennedys and Roosevelt over-rode the wealth of the Kennedy’s and Roosevelt, but why their pain taught them instead compassion for the people. It is no less of a stretch to those of us who understand the sacrifices made in agriculture as to why farm life taught Truman how to speak frankly in all of their dealings in government by putting the needs of the people before, Capitalism.

The needs of their own elite class, when viewed through the eyes of suffering was as shallow to them then as it is to the middle class today who are falling farther behind into poverty while the richer are getting richer. These new young brilliant Harvard grads of the todays conservative movement and tea party, who cannot think beyond enriching themselves, as though their fresh new ideas aren’t the same ideas that our parents and grandparents hated and warned us against, will never understand as they accuse older people of not understanding them.

Our parents knew, just as yours’ do, unless we were educated we would be taken advantage of just as they were, We paid for our own education costs in most cases just as you do, but they made the sacrifices necessary while telling us about the tactics, the tea party now believes are new and fresh ideas.

As our Dads, and in some cases moms, returned from world war two, We would be the first educated generation who could call the bluff of the employers who were no longer willing to show us any loyalty in exchange for the hours we worked, while many felt we were over-paid when the laws were passed during our tender to pay minimum wage.

We were educated so they could not treat us as poorly as what had been forced on our ancestors, previously. It was we who grew the private sectors who are responsible for the jobs you now work. We knew that to rely on jobs that were offered by the elite would mean our families would go hungry as those jobs went to their friends and who their friends knew and who they felt obligated to hire. We found that minimum wages hurting the private sector was as much of a ruse then as it is today because when families are provided for our work ethics increase. The jobs become part of us and your profits increase the better we can care for our families. We older people know very well the arguments of Conservatives.

Our parents were the poor or lower middle class in most cases and knew they were dependent on the wealthy to support their families. They were always over-worked and under paid by the wealthier amongst them. They knew this mentality most certainly would arise in their treatment of us if we were not educated. Our grandparents and parents always knew and feared that the mentality of the tea party and conservative movements would return. Many of us in the older generations have always understood exactly what the conservative movement is all about, while we have watched our ancestors worse fears realized.

You are not the first generation to get out of college and be lucky that you found part time work nor are you the first generation who may not ever be able to find work in your own field. You are dealing with, however, the largest generation of adult males who ever felt less shame by living at home or moving home to live off of mom and dad, for years, because their lifestyle is the only lifestyle too many of them will even accept living. Starting at the bottom and working their way up, just as other adult males and women and minorities always have done will not afford them with the lifestyle that some amongst them feel their right to live.

Women and minorities are not taking jobs from them, but in some cases,they simply have not yet learned the lessons that the older generations have and that is what goes around comes around. The less effort they make towards employment or inspiration applied to the job market the less anyone wants to hire them. When adults fail to venture out on their own to seek
independence in their youth,the more it hurts their future outlooks towards employment. In short they put themselves, many times, in a real catch 22 because of their refusal to make sacrifices, by moving to the location of the jobs.

When we combine that reality with the reality that many times they do want to work but greed and profits matter to those who hire way too much, then we see too much significance placed on
the worship of the almighty buck. This has always been the truth in the lives of all of us if we are educated or not. When
It is more important than your own willingness to pay your way or for the needs of the people, all generations always will lose but the younger generations have far more years to lose than do the older generations.

We, war babies, placed our money in the government Social Security Trust Fund, in good faith for some as long as 50 years, to be paid back to us when we retired and could no longer compete with you for jobs. During the time the middle class paid out far more than the wealthy ever have in percentages
so when we retired and needed food and medicine we had our trust funds that the wealthy take for granted.

It was the conservative groups who felt no obligation to the poor and middle class, not unlike the tea party, who spent our money on Capitalism over the needs of the people. Now when one Paul Ryan is saying to us, “We can’t afford you,” it isn’t that we don’t understand it so much as it is that we are in disbelief of his own callousness. We understand that bills need to be paid but it would appear that those in the tea party elected and conservative movement, who we elect, are the ones confused on that simple fact or that it takes raising taxes in a just way to put receipts into our National treasury.

Paul Ryan can parade his mother around as he did, during his last campaign, but I’m sure it will be all of us who lose when people fail to matter entirely to the GOP. When John Boehner says, “We might as well go home for Christmas because Congress isn’t going to do anything, anyway,We older people do understand and are not so confused as to not understand the simple truths, much better than you realize.

When jets and bullets become more important to the tea party and conservative GOP and their media, than education, medicine or food for the poor and elderly or more so than minimum wages that will support our families, I’m pretty sure the entire middle class and poor understand exactly what they mean, regardless of our ages.

It seems to be the conservatives who do not understand that it is we, the middle class, who pay them to represent us the people. I’m sorry,but it is not the older generation who does not understand but they who will learn when the heart is removed from any cause, we all lose when we elect those who see no real value in the people they serve.

Perhaps when you, the younger generations of the tea party and conservative movements find that wisdom applicable to your great wealth of wisdom, then you all will work together again by putting the needs of the people, first, for the sake of all of those who understand you, as we older people will be long gone before you learn the practical lessons of life that all of us already had to learn before you.

No matter how much jubilation you are getting now,over the slow start off of Obama care,by 2016 it will be a non-argument because you the tea party populists and Republicans refused to pass legislature for the people when we needed immigration, jobs, and tax reform along with wage increases. It is you who failed to change the GOP platform to one of equality .

Texas has already began disenfranchising minorities and women at their election polls just as you did last time and on your platform but it will not buy you an ice cube in Alaska much less a vote, any better this time, than it did last election.

We’ll remember that, for you, as you continue to practice your own theories. This time you can’t turn and say to each other, “let’s not do anything, but lie and say we did.” Oh! Not only do women and minorities of all ages understand you,but many of we older white people, who you think you can count on to elect or re-elect you sure do understand you, as well!

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Holding Public Figures Responsible

Freedom of speech is a very dear subject to my heart, as without it I would not be able to write my own posts, but something is very lacking in the rationale of too many when our public officials behave as they do and still do not get the message from the majority of us, that they cannot talk or behave as they do and still represent us because the majority of us “just want them to cease and desist or go away.”

In reviewing the past week we have seen news coverage on Mayor Ford of Toronto Canada swinging his arms and threatening murder while he announces even as the highest member of law enforcement in his City, he plans to stay. What kind of image are regular Tonrontians willing to allow this seriously disturbed man to stoop to before they do something that says, “You can no longer make us look like the back end of a bad joke, and run away our tourists trade.”

Incognito of the Miami Dolphins is on tape throwing around racial epithets that should be as equally offensive to anyone who has purchased a ticket to watch the Miami Dolphins play,as it is to the African-American race. Instead we hear other players and fans dismissing his words as locker room talk. He has gotten away with his extremes for way too long as if his behavior was typical he would not have been disciplined for it twice while playing college ball at Nebraska to the point he found it necessary to leave.

If we continue to worship our football players in America and do not hold them responsible for their bad behaviors aren’t we guilty of telling them they can do anything and say anything as our laws and rules of common decency do not apply to them?

Sarah Palin who single-handedly helped crash John McCain’s’ attempt to run for president is on a book tour once more trying to cash in,” on her also ran status,” to put more cash in her pocket by selling a book that ultimately is nothing more than a disguise to promote the belief than Americans are only Christians and to turn the voters into the belief that one Atheist in California who files lawsuits is representative of those who are not Christians.

There is not a single American citizen, who follows the laws of our States, who cannot worship in the Church of their choice or celebrate Christmas in the way they choose despite Sarah Palin’s statements to promote her own book. We too often forget that it is the people who are discriminated against by the Churches, who choose not to belong to the Churches that do discriminate against them. Instead the innuendoes of Palin’s speeches and book are underpinned by her belief that we should all hate atheists or those who have different spiritual beliefs from us because according to her they all worship almighty government.

Who are the people who continue to give Sarah Palin the venue that allows her to speak when clearly her views are so misconstrued and she has been on a self-promotion cause to put dollars in her own pockets since “she also ran.?” Don’t people who continue to promote people like Sarah Palin hold responsibility for promoting con artists and scammers on the American people?

Before this we had Paul Ryan’s budget plans that represent austere attacks against the elderly and the poor, run as vice president of our Nation. The Tea Party and many elected politicians in the Conservative movement still promote Ryan’s plan as their answer to healthcare as they use fear tactics against Obama care.

The Tea Party and right-wing conservative movements, own actions and campaigns drum up false beliefs that both the elderly and poor are someone draining the pockets of our children and grandchildren by adding to the further division in our Nation that they and they alone create with one witch hunt in Washington after another. In doing so it helps subtract from our noticing it is them who are failing us through government by their own failure to govern for the people.Will we finally show the conservative movement in America that we have had enough of both their and the Tea party movement’s failures to govern
at the election polls by holding them and not just Ted Cruz, responsible?

Anthony Weiner’s persistent efforts to run for office after flashing himself on the internet and the refusal of the mayor in California who apparently failed to understand that groping women is not only offensive but also illegal as he was acting as the protector of laws in California are just more of the same coverage that has taken place in the last few months. Luckily we do have people both in Virginia and California, anyway, if not elsewhere who, were willing to tell both of these men that they will no longer tolerate women being treated as a man’s “play thing,” or as second class citizens.

There was a time in America when we were raising children, we only had to tell them to avoid a neighbor, who had child predator tendencies, or one who ranted and raved against minorities or threatened to kill someone when they got drunk. What parents are dealing with today, is so much greater than what previous generations had to deal with and for that reason we all must assume the responsibility and challenges that are facing us as a Nation. We can’t simply blame others while we do nothing to help towards making the changes.

People who are behaving as our public figures are today were the butt end of every joke told. Those who tried to capitalize on us to make a few bucks with their exaggerations and lies, were people who we simply didn’t hire or answer the door bell when they visited because we had enough common sense to know they were selling an inferior product or were so full of themselves that they lied about themselves at a cost to us.

We didn’t have political parties or media such as CNN or Fox News welcoming or interviewing these incorrigibles, as though their views or opinions were important or mattered; Instead we had media who pointed only to their fallacies if they did interview a member of the White Supremacy, KKK, or any one who would have dared to invite a hate group to their meetings.

Those of us who were inspired by John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King never wanted to invite a member of a hate group to our meetings, as these conservatives had the exact same mentality then as they have today, but they are now almost all Republicans who attend CPAC, and invite all these hate groups in.

The conservatives have always denied both women and minorities their Constitutional rights. No politician could have set at any meeting with just one of them, much less whole groups, in the 1960’s, and expected to win another election, if the media discovered it then, regardless of which party they represented. The Dixie Democrats proved it when they were the politicians who held the same conservative views, we see today, and we ran them all out of office, at the election polls.

We stood up against the John Birch Society who spawned the tea party and their fight against Democracy. We didn’t need arming ourselves because politicians did not pass,”Stand Your Ground laws or profess a return to vigilantism,” because the media did not show these politicians any credibility when they did try to defeat Democracy.

We didn’t need forming militias or hate groups anymore then than we do today, once we became aware of who was behind this mentality. We had private owned media then instead of corporate owned and they were committed to telling us who was believable, over those who were protecting their own best interests.

We had as a generation grown tired of the lies told to us by previous generations, just as had the media. The good news is common sense and decency still exists in the majority of us, today, who have felt the pain of their lies. We only needed then just as we do today, people who were/are willing to stand up against the insanity and injustice, and show the courage and voting out of this mentality, at the election polls, in order to right a wrong. We still have that commodity in the majority of us who do not bury our brains or common sense behind hate or rhetoric.

We need to add more people who are willing to use their brains through common sense and standing together for common decency in order to advance justice for all of us and to show future generations, regardless of our age, we have the decency to do just that by eliminating those who discriminate against us while excusing their right to.

Justice sometimes does take what seems to most of us as being far too long and has been slow in coming to too many. If we quit passing blame we can continue to correct that by all of us working together to promote equality for all of us in the way we speak, the example we set, and how we vote. Those trying to effect change through fear tactics and hate need to be turned into the dinosaurs they are instead of promoted as heroes.

When a football member behaved as Incognito did at Nebraska, they still had enough back bone to see one way or another Incognito wasn’t going to be a part of their team. If a person was elected to govern we expected to see positive results. We didn’t want politicians who read “Green Eggs And Ham,” on the Senate floor or any person who professed to be with either the conservative movement or tea Party to shut down government, while the economy and middle class lives are still dependent of the functioning of government.

Haven’t we listened for too long to the conservatives in both the media and government, who speak out against Hollywood types lowering the morals in our Country while they themselves are setting standards so low that apparently truth has taken a second chair to the lies they tell. No generation ever woke up one morning and heard hate and rhetoric surround them. It starts in small almost unheard of innuendoes until it grows so loud as to come crashing down on us in such loud crescendos to the point we can no longer stop it from taking place.

Why would the next generations who will no longer stand for promoting hate, want to be guided by us, if we cannot hold our own public figures responsible for their own poor behavior by not buying the book, switching the channels or turning the televisions and radios off, buying a ticket, or by refusing to vote for them?

Haven’t we been complacent or indifferent long enough to what really should matter to us, by making certain we have the facts in spite of their influence to turn us against each other. How long can Democracy last if we accept the conservative and tea party view to represent us?

Sometimes we forget that it is not about them but about ourselves and the history we leave behind as well, when it comes those who we allow to represent us.

We all will be judged as a generation of Society for what is happening today because it is we who allowed the behavior to take place, when the truth is told by history. Yes we are each responsible for the individual behavior we exhibit but as a Nation who is governed by a Democracy, each of us hold responsibility for ignoring the current behavior as much as we do for doing nothing to prevent it from taking place.

Will we be on the lists of, “the lost generations?” The old true and tried phrase, “I don’t vote,” can no longer be used as an excuse as to why we did nothing when it came to assuming our own responsibilities. We need to stand up and be counted ourselves before we can hope to be thought of as credible in the eyes of future generations.

Isn’t it time we all ask, “where can we make a difference that counts,” instead of looking all the time to pass blame? With the Holidays coming up that message should be especially poignant to all of us, if we are going to matter to more than just ourselves.

So many of us are true believers in the Season ahead where we still have the right and freedom to celebrate as we choose according to our own Spiritual beliefs. The fear tactics being used by the conservative and tea party movement who are only self-serving, needs to be stopped before they do win. As a Nation, we have already tolerated too much of their attempts to disillusion us by their own media and tactics.

We need to remember, sometimes, we can only feel better by forgetting for one moment how stressed we are and instead by replacing the negatives in our lives towards positives that can and do matter, one person at a time, because we are part of a much greater picture, than just now or just ourselves.

When we stand up for our neighbors just as we do ourselves, We will all feel better about ourselves when we fill in the need to get back to what matters to all of us. In that vein, I hope everyone of us have a good week knowing we all matter and we, ourselves, can make a difference!

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Rant & Raving, Family, & Passion

We need not look any further than Mayor Ford of Toronto, Canada, to see a person on the latest video circulating with the Mayor ranting and raving to understand what rant and raving looks like in it’s extreme.

People who absorb much of the nastiness of others along with life’s stresses often will blow with the help of alcohol. I certainly am not suggesting that Canadians need excuse Mayor Ford’s behavior, as an elected official, but instead I think we can all agree we are witnessing the effects of alcohol on the brain and he needs treatment.

I admit when I was still drinking, while dealing with accepting the fact I was becoming more disabled from chronic pain everyday, going through empty nest syndrome, and dealing with 3 women who took it on themselves to make certain I knew their point of view on a family matter was not in synch with my own, I did a little ranting and raving myself.

If I hadn’t of unloaded at the time, I’m not sure that I would be alive today. Stresses in our lives often build and we do sometimes in life, need to emit, but never to the extreme that Mayor Ford did.

My major upset with my entire extended family at the time was their refusal to understand why I was not the person to be taking care of a verbally abusive elderly person, which most rational people would understand and act accordingly. People who are facing disability themselves, are not in a position to care for another person who is also looking at the same future but extremely abusive as well. Most rational people do know and understand this, but because they refused to accept my own circumstances as being real, denial became their weapon of choice.

My own circumstances have already been written about by me in previous posts, but it would have been an equally heavy load to bare for anyone, much less someone who was fighting for their own health to stabilize. I found the betrayal I was going through way too much to have to deal with along with the total lack of understanding from those who felt I was letting them down. Needless to say I had no choice but to eliminate those people whose only concern was for their own beliefs and points of view from my life. Many times we can deal better without our loved ones’ opinions when it comes to dealing with our own problems than we can dealing with those who only have ulterior motives.

For years I pretty much accepted people for their own short comings and to have my own body turn against me at the same time I was experiencing the loss of motherhood while my sisters and mother were turning the knife, was a heavy load to bare all at the same time. Its not that I hadn’t experienced their criticism over the years or game playing in the past, but when compounded by other serious problems of my own, it was the straw that would have broken the back of a healthy back much less one that was already as injured as my own.

I didn’t deny their right to their opinions and still don’t but since I was the one who they took for granted would think as they did or do, and found their views self-serving rather than understanding or even practical I really wasn’t left with any choice but to spend my life criticizing them as they had criticized me, or walking away. When no one is listening it is never possible to find solutions. Since it was me stuck with the problems, it was my responsibility to find the solutions so I took care of it.

As I include what became the turning point in my life today, I want to point out how we too often may think life’s upsets or tragedies are very unfair, only to find out with time, it is true many times what we think are the worse storms of our lives are followed by sunshine and clear skies. It was when I was pushed as far as I could be pushed I found the real joy in my life. For the first time in my entire life I could truly enjoy the success of my marriage, children, grandchildren and my own struggles. I had given so much of myself away, through no one’s fault but my own, that I had lost my passion for life.

Perhaps its the people who are drawn to me that I find are too listless or unevolved in life, because when I really get passionate about my writing, collecting of antiques, travel,
and painting I often hear one person still partially in my life refer to my rant and raving during a difficult time being the same as my joy and passion for life today.

I don’t pretend to understand why it is so difficult for some to ever get passionate about anything. I just know those who I do know that never do, never raise their voice an octave regardless of what kind of excitement is taking place in their lives. They also accuse all people who do get passionate and raise their voices in excitement as ranting and raving.

There is a parable in the Bible that says”…….An God will vomit forward the lukewarm…” I can relate to that, because there are too many people sometimes in the life of all of us who never get excited about anything and if we surround ourselves with too many who don’t,we do lose that passion we are all reaching for in life.

Nothing brings down anyone more than someone whose opinions, ideas, or actions are as changeable as the wind. Too often people who lack passion themselves become a real downer in our own lives if we allow them to as most caring people can and do become affected by the moods of those people who we surround ourselves with on a regular bases.

I find the same people who accuse passionate people of ranting or raving when they are simply exuberant about life almost resentful of those who do get a kick out of life.

My own experience is: I find people who misunderstand or are pretty well lukewarm about most things in life, are quick to criticize a smile, a different point of view, judge those who express themselves through the joy of living differently from what their lives may be. They tend to be too quick to blame instead of achieving on their own,and too many times hear nothing but their own inner voices.

I feel sorry for people who do not even want to in some cases, or can’t in others, get passionate about their own lives. I don’t expect them to get the excitement out of life that I get out of my own, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all could at the very least understand the difference between passion as verses rant and raving?

Find something this weekend that you can share with your friends and see if you surround yourselves with people who are passionate about life, lukewarm, or simply don’t give a damn. It takes a real friend to share our excitement with us! Have a good weekend all.

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Con and Scam Artists

We all hear about or know someone who has fallen for the lines of con or scam artists, and often wonder how can they be so gullible. It is only after they are scammed out of their life savings they recognize they have been scammed or conned or worse yet marry them only to find they are still married to several others.

Today’s post is as much about those of us who think it could not happen to us, as it is about those who get conned or scammed, since on some level we all have been conned or scammed by someone even though we may not have a clue that it was done deliberately, yet.

As a Nation of people, I like so many others often write about the problems that exist instead of those whose lives are very much functional and who are successful in finding their way through what almost always will feel like a maze during some time or period in our lives. There are many successful people who accomplish much in both their homes and their lives who are often humbled first by the experience of it, because we are both a generous and a forgiving people as a majority.

I write about people who are truly trusting or those who fail to understand that people who think,” their ship is always going to come in,” without any effort on their part or they just haven’t met the right person yet. This can include all of us at some point in our lives and people who prey on others to get what they want can always recognize us, usually when they open their mouths because we will listen when others ignore them or hang up the phone.

We often see both older people as well as younger ones who are taken in by the hardship stories told by what has become known sometimes as the bad boys’ or sexy girls’ appeal. Others have a feeling that they have been drawn out and will some day win a lottery, so when scam artists call and say if we send them the taxes on an estate that we just inherited, they will send us a small fortune.

This happens most frequently in elderly people, who are the number one victims of telephone scams. It isn’t until they are repeatedly asked or threatened by bodily harm that they realize they have been conned out of their entire life savings. Some still do not understand even that there never was an inheritance as they lived their lives so certain that they would eventually win either a lottery or be handed something for nothing since they knew someone else who had won and they just knew it was their turn to win.

People, but mainly women, quite often ask themselves, do I have a mark on my forehead that goes off like a beacon that draws these type of people out or is the problem me? The problem is that con artists are good at what they do as they have put in a life time of practice towards recognizing people who are at their most vulnerable state. They always pick on the most trusting amongst us, because we many times are the only ones who will listen to their tales of hardship.

The great majority of us will get burnt once by a con artist either calling as a charitable organization, what we think is a friend asking us for help after having been refused by their own family, or by our own family member. We all get those phone calls telling us we won a free trip only to have the extra expenses be more than what we won, or we dated a scam artist and after we learned from that mistake we recognized the next con artists’ attempts to get their hands into our wallets or to win our hearts.

Many statements or cliché’s told to us in life are true and no matter how many times they are repeated to all of us, some will dismiss it and think it does not apply to them because the voice they hear the loudest is always their own and that is almost always certain to be, “my ship has finally come in.” No matter how many people tell all of us, “You get what you pay for,” “you never get something for nothing in life,” or “If it is too good to be true, then it usually isn’t,” we all will at some time in our life ignore those truths. If we are lucky it will cost us very little and we will come out of it a bit wiser for having learned the experience. Others are not so fortunate and never get another chance to learn from their mistake.

Those who we often shake our heads over or spend sleepless nights over worrying about their safety, if they are a member of our own family, are sometimes so immune to the fact that they seek out bad boys so are bound to fail in their relationships, so rarely will they ever learn that if they hear someone say, “I am a hit man,” or “I have mob connections”, then these probably aren’t the kind of guys they should be dating.

Some women are many times addicted to the thrill they get when they are with these bad boys while they hang on to the fantasy that they will always be treated as their queen even while they are being knocked around.

We see just as many men who are so into wanting arm candy that they will marry the first stripper that says yes, and then bemoan their uncanny luck when it comes to picking out women. Some people who are trusting by nature will spend a life time trusting others before they evaluate the character of the people they choose to surround themselves with, and then blame anyone but themselves when the relationship or marriage fails or they lose everything they have, including their own self-respect.

It is hard to sympathize with them even though they are usually the best and sometimes the most competent amongst us when it comes to other areas of their lives. They often make good and loyal friends because they will listen when others fail to, and therefore it is both their trusting nature and their loving spirit that gets them involved in these bad or poor relationships.

We will sometimes find people who are not all that trusting and who seldom date because they do not get taken in by the unscrupulous or the lines, but the con man or woman are so charming and will ask questions as though they are interested in us, but are in fact only asking to find out what our vulnerabilities are so they can later tell us exactly what we want to hear or promise us they can make all our dreams come true. When we meet them through the internet we do not have the same ability to detect the warning signals going off as we often have when we meet them in person and can make a character judgment of their true nature, on our own.

It is especially easy to run into these people who are all over the internet, to the point it has become a national crises in many of the lives of our children who are picked off by predators for their own sexual desires. As parents we need to supervise their internet usage as they are the most vulnerable when it comes to the unscrupulous con and scam artists amongst us.

We must first recognize our own vulnerabilities, as an adult as well, before taking on another relationship and many times we do but a good friend will often say ,”I just met or work with this man/woman who would be perfect for you, you just have to meet him/her.” Our friends or family members are not always the best judge of character as they too can be taken in by charming con or scam artists, who use them in order to meet us.

We cannot be so paranoid as not to trust anyone we meet but we need to be able to trust our own ability to access or evaluate the people we meet and to understand if we are in a position to begin another relationship, before we automatically believe everything a stranger tells us or commit ourselves.

What happens in movies or romance novels is fiction or fantasy and not the kind of reality any of us can afford to base our futures on when we do feel ready to begin a relationship. What happens in fiction and movies is not real. It is not the typical behavior of adults and unless we look for typical behavior we can be scammed or conned. If we have just been through a relationship or are not the best judge of character, ourselves, then we can turn to someone who we do trust to do that for us if they have a better history of being able to do so, than we do.

Other times people too often turn to others to fill their own feelings of loneliness when in truth only we can fill our own void. The majority of us fill that void through charitable work or through interests, be it hobbies, social functions, or travel while others turn to making their own dreams come true through achievement of making a difference in the life of another or through self-improvement.

Anytime we meet someone and they tell us they are in the CIA and cannot share their job with us, they are studying to be Doctors or lawyers but are never at the hospitals to all hours and on weekends or in classes and studying late hours, they disappear for days or a day or two and give us reasons that make red flags go off in our own minds, or they tell us they served in the special forces and were trained to kill, we should question why we feel inclined to date them or to begin a relationship with them. These are almost always common lines told by all con or scam artists. People who truly do work for the CIA or were in the special forces only discuss this information with their colleagues if they discuss it at all. It is not a line used to get women interested in their great manly prowess.

Men or women who claim they are all alone and have no family to attend the wedding, to introduce us to, or take us home to on Holidays do exist if they were raised in orphanages or are estranged from their families but we should always be aware of these relationships because many times they have a great deal of family. We should be just as leery of those who claim their family is on Holiday and currently out of touch since people today are as easily reached on cruises, over-seas, or anywhere in the World as they are in our own local. If the family is absent it may be due to the fact they are already married or they have worn out their welcome by always having their hands out or through telling an exuberant amount of lies, to the point they cannot be trusted anymore by their own family members.

Families break up due to any number of reasons and sometimes family members will also walk out on other members who have relied on them too much and shown little to no gratitude or appreciation in return but instead acted as though they were entitled to the generosity shown them. The chances that we will meet these successful members is very remote along side of the con artists who are trying to impress us with their accomplishments or compliment us by telling us everything we want to hear.

Successful people have very little they need impress anyone else with and are humble enough to understand many times they were simply in the right place at the right time or fortunate enough to know the right people, in some cases, while other times they are highly impressed with their own importance and too arrogant to be complimenting us or anyone beyond bragging about their own accomplishment or success story. Some do tell us what we want to hear only if they are interested in a one night stand.

We need to always be aware of those who claim to have properties around the Country but hang out in bars or at our place instead of working. We should know the chances are great that we are being conned, if they do not have a job to go to like everyone else does. Even when they say they have trust funds or are retired, they are not going to be sitting idle or be found in the places where we hang out in. When we have to pick up their meal ticket because their funds are temporarily held up in Court, we should understand we are dating a con man.

Too many times they will first throw around their money or appear to buy us expensive jewelry, usually taken from the home of the last person they scammed, before they start professing to be temporarily out of funds. They may even have pictures of these properties that they claim to own but titles they never have unless they conned someone else out of signing over titles to their own property because the previous person was so desperate to keep them. These are not people who should ever be in our lives but instead they are criminals and no matter how much we want to believe they care about us, they only care about themselves.

Those who deliberately seek out people of low moral character are not conned as they know very well what they are going along with or getting themselves into but will either pay to keep them in their lives financially or by accepting abuse and mistreatment at their hands, since they share the same lack of concern for anyone other than themselves, as do these men or women, they get involved with.

We should never mistake either for people who are conned or influenced by others, no matter how much they try to convince us of their innocence. They deliberately are looking for each other, and will only leave when they find someone they feel can provide for them better or serve their own needs to a greater advantage to themselves. We should never mistake the innocent people who truly do get conned due to their own trusting natures and generous spirits with one who is looking to con but only gets out-conned themselves.

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Mental Illness

Todays post is based on my own practical learning, experience, and views and is not intended to replace medical fact but to share the knowledge I have learned through life and living.

Too often we think convicts are the only people who are narcissists or who exhibit anti-social personalities. In a court of law mental illness often gets dismissed behind the defendant knowing right from wrong so if they are judged sane then in the minds of too many,mental illness does not exist but instead they are pure evil.

In our own lives we will excuse friends and families for not knowing the difference between right and wrong because they suffer from mental illness, and other times think they are just a little eccentric. over worked, or different from ourselves. Other times when people think they act like we do, we often think they are perfectly normal, because we are normal. No one believes their ideas or lives are anything less than normal because if they do then they may need to expect more or less of themselves. It is when we cajole, shame, or manipulate adults through control, shame, guilt, abuse or threats or we allow it to happen that the whole family ends up dysfunctional.

No family can be complete or mentally whole when ruled by the dictates of one. At the same token every family needs structure that can only be improved upon by both adults agreeing to the achievable standards before they marry or have children.

If there is one term that has destroyed more marriages and is at the root of unhappiness or good mental health than any other, in my estimation, it is the term “soul mate.” There is no such thing as two people sharing an identical thought 100% of the time due to the differences in their own childhoods much less being, “soul mates”, unless one is trying to please at a sacrifice to themselves or only one or neither have a definition of their own goals.

When what we think is cute in each other becomes irritating it loses the magic of what too many once felt were “soul mates’, when it was only fantasy. It is our differences that should compliment the needs of all of us, that makes a family whole. We often see parents who have tried to replace needs with wants to the destruction of our own needs and because of this we destroy our own ability to be happy, that we only are responsible for achieving. A healthy family will all work together to make sure everyone’s needs gets met.

No person is perfectly mentally well, we all have a few idiosyncrasies or dysfunctions that we bring into our new relationships/marriages because there is no such thing as normal. One who does not think as we do but rather shares a broader view than what the group does, is neither eccentric or suffers from mental illness.

The more evolved a person becomes in those things, such as activities, learning, people, hobbies, and occupations or just current events in general and their cultural backgrounds vary the less like us they are. Everything done in moderation is a sign of good health but when one person is limited as to what their interests are while another wants to absorb it and experience it all, we will not always think alike if we are neighbors, friends, married, or related.

This does not make the person who does not behave or think as we do eccentric when they find subjects we do not enjoy or when they are repulsed by gossip, because they find it boring or demeaning. Many people literally find the great majority of conversations as being repetitive or small talk, and a total waste of time, but are instead driven to enjoy so many more facets of their lives yet, unexplored. Some people would rather talk while others would rather do, and both behaviors are totally acceptable behavior when we are both enjoying our lives.

Many times people are called anti-social, snobs, or shy because it is literally stressful for them to enjoy the same old same old as we do. They do not feel obliged to socialize with what has become redundant or familiar. Their interests may be less likely what we would call normal but who is to say that they couldn’t much better adjust to another culture much quicker than we ourselves could adjust to, and in doing so make us and our views look way out of bounds of normalcy or eccentric?

We often find the more social people are before the loss of a loved one, the more difficult time they have when recovering from the lost. Good mental health is being able to accept ourselves and our choices as well as everyone’s else’s right to do the same for themselves, without name calling, labeling, or judging. When we do all three, especially when they do nothing more than wish us well, its ourselves we need to question.

People who hear and use the word anti-Social personality disorder use it too often as a term they think means that these are people who do not like to entertain or leave home and socialize with others. Anti-social and people who prefer the company of spouses or family over socializing with many, have nothing in common.

Instead anti-social personality disorder is quite the opposite as they often times are the most social and charming in our group,family or neighborhood. They often are the first to offer help as long as they get something out of it worth more than they offer us and almost always say the things we want to hear, in an effort to manipulate us.

Anti-social personality disorder or socio-path, is common in the behavior of con and scam operators. They are always very charming and usually very sociable, although there are sometimes loners but both lack any conscious beyond their own feelings of victimization. it is a serious personality disorder that use to be known as sociopath and can be seen in both harmless individuals but is almost always found in murderers and rapists, and goes hand in hand with lying and what is known to mankind, some times as evil.

Todays post then is to clear up misunderstandings too often held and repeated and part of what is often behind the difficulties we, get ourselves into or are led into, and why we too often make judgment calls against others or gossip against each other even knowing to do so is often baring ‘false witness against our neighbors.’

Mental illness if it is bi-polar, personality disorders which can include narcissists and sociopaths, schizophrenia, paranoia, or a neuroses does not mean people who suffer from these illnesses are any more dangerous to a community than is the person who suffers from arthritis or cancer.

Almost always those who act out through acts of rape or murder have any one or several of these mental illnesses present but the seriousness or depravity of their actions is not because they do not know what they are doing is wrong but instead their mental illness is so severe they lack control in some cases, while others are drug or alcohol induced, or they simply choose the behavior.

It is a disgrace in the way people who suffer from mental illness are too often judged by the behavior of the most depraved amongst us and are denied the health care they need. We as a Society still act ashamed to admit that a member of our own personal circle suffers from mental illness and requires our medical help, when they do initially develop depression and mental illness is still acute. It is not just a phase, they will out grow. It needs to be treated. When we consider the numbers of people who commit depraved crimes against those who suffer from mental illness and never do, the numbers are not even close in comparison or degree.

Sometimes due to the person speaking, suffering depression or mental illness own lack of knowledge or ability to understand the effects of their disease, they themselves, will fail to understand the full realm of consequences to others their mental illness have on those who they truly feel has victimized them instead of it being their own behavior that caused them to feel victimized.

I have known people who are feeling lonely or suffering from depression accuse or asks me if I don’t get lonely or accuse me of suffering from depression, when I am getting a real thrill or enjoyment out of life, because they themselves are lonely or depressed.

In the same conversations they speak about another time when everything was simpler or happier without realizing they suffered the same emotions at the same stage as the next generations did, but their imagination becomes better than their memory. They either transfer their own bad feelings on to another, remember a fantasy they held that had unattainable goals that could never exist, or no longer recall the disappointment that followed the broken promises they felt when they were younger.

To mistake lack of rationality from not knowing right from wrong; or to excuse it, will only perpetuate the already poor behavior in those who suffer from mental illness and make them feel even more victimized in the process. Too many friends and families are torn apart because of a member or members of a family or group’s refusal to get medical help for the person who does suffer from mental illness.

When the personality or views of those who suffer from mental illness is closer to our own, than to the rationality of the person who is seeking help for the person who suffers, we often will view the person trying to get help for our loved one as being mentally sick or as an aggressor who is victimizing the person who needs help because they are being honest about the need. It fits into the thinking, “Sometime I think the whole world is nuts, except for you and me, and some days I wonder about you.”

As a family, a friend, and as a Society we need to understand treating mental illness is a much greater need over owning guns, for instance, when we neither plan to hunt or to feed ourselves or to injure another.

the facts are that guns in our homes are rarely used to protect ourselves, but are accountable for third of all deaths in our children, and it can be rationally justified as a reason for stockpiling guns in our homes, then irrational thinking must be a new trend of acceptance and is running rampant in America. if we think the new Patriot or militia groups bred on hate can justify arming ourselves, aren’t we a member of an equally irrational group planning a revolution in America?

When families struggle enough due to insurance companies refusal to pay for the expenses of mental illness, that often takes long term treatments, incurred with hospitalizations or evaluations, shouldn’t we put down the guns and help the mentally ill get the help they need or at the very least understand that all families are effected at some level by a family member who should have gotten treatment but were either denied medical help or the friends and family chose to over-look or not understand the nature of the illness?

If we quit putting mentally ill people into prisons the same way we do drug addicts who also suffer from mental illness, we would have far less crime and a greater appreciation for why arming ourselves while ignoring mental health treatment needs never solves anything but instead brings more grief to our loved ones as well as ourselves.

We have a military, home Security, FBI. and law enforcement, whose job it is to protect us and laws that say they must or be held responsible. If we let go of our own paranoia over them doing their jobs then perhaps we could all find life much less depressing and just down right enjoyable. We need to get back to showing our children and grandchildren that we actually have real family values, in the way we treat others, before we can profess to teach them through our own example.

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So-Called Horror Stories

The truth when it comes to Republicans is before Obama care was even drawn up and voted on, they were going all over the red States and telling anyone who attended their town hall meetings horror stories against Obama care.

The Republicans have been trying to stop both Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid since the 1980’s and the conservatives since the 1950’s.

The Republicans certainly are not now going to see Obama care passed, since they are a conservative majority, while they are working on trying to pass the Ryan plan with vouchers going into the pockets of private insurance companies.

The self-serving goal of the conservative movement is not in the best interests of the people, and that is fact. They can’t hardly eliminate government insurance if they can’t eliminate the Social Security trust fund and then add another trust fund to government with the affordable health care act.

While the tea party and conservatives continue to state emphatically that the people have heard horror stories on Obama care they absolve themselves entirely from using these scare tactics, that they themselves initiated.

The private Insurance companies got away with ever-increasing profits for years with selling worthless policies and kicking people with pre-existing diseases off of their policies. By selling these worthless policies so that business could claim to be providing health care to their employees, while corporations were getting tax relief from tax breaks, and the employees felt the brunt of the high premium costs that provided little to nothing, Obama care would not even be necessary.

Obama care is offering the people better coverage so that Insurance Companies can no longer get together and set their own prices with escalating higher premiums while offering the workers little to nothing in coverage.

What the private insurance companies would cover has been dropping even while the premiums have been rising, because no one was regulating it before Obama care became law. If the employees are insured or stricken with serious disease or a family member suffers the same, they just kicked them off the policy because of pre-existing diseases as companies like UPS is trying to do before having to adopt Obama care, and if it cost Corporation or business more, then the employees were fired because of increasing costs to the Corporations or companies.

While these same hypocrites who are talking about the horrors they hear from the people, and denying they led most of the people to believe many of these horror stories by giving them false information they started themselves, they are now backing it up with the Obama care sight not being safe.

The same Republicans and tea party conservatives who tried to stop or repeal Obama care 42 times are now finding the perfect excuse that Obama care is a failure by hiding behind the system sight failures. Their talking points also stress,”if big business gets a delay then the people should get a delay.”

We are all too stupid to see what is behind their reasoning, of course, because another of their talking points is the older people just do not understand as they do what a disaster it will be to our economy. Since when did paying for our own use for a policy that protects us, while offering us good secured health care and peace of mind if the worse should happen to us or our loved ones, so we do not have to pay for those who refuse to get health care, become a horror story to anyone but the Republicans and the insurance companies? The better insurance we have the more we will have to put back into the economy instead of into the pocket of the Board of Directors who own major stock control of the insurance companies.

It is just more of the hypocrisy and they’re all on the same page with their talking points to make us feel cheated, some how, as they themselves are using these talking points to confuse us. In all of the Democrat or Blue States where they chose to adopt Obama care and two of the Red States, all systems are running smoothly and reporting favorable response to their successful enrollment.

It is only through the middle and into the South of our Country where the worst reporting or horror stories are being told by the Republican talking points, and where the State’s leadership are still trying to stop Obama care from working, that we are hearing stories of disgusts over Obama care. If any of us are confused as to where these horror stories have risen, we need not be. The facts are, we are seeing the worse results in States where a great deal of that responsibility of propaganda and horror stories are still being told by Republicans due to their leaders still refusing to co-operate with setting up and installing Obama care.

Small business does not have to provide insurance anymore than they ever did. Small business over-whelming numbers of employees are paid by the hour. Insurance has always been the hourly workers responsibility to buy through the company or business, where they work. Insurance was never a part of the benefit package for hourly workers, which Corporations provided their monthly or bi-monthly paid waged workers. Corporations often got a break from the tax system as well as the Insurance companies themselves, if they bought the increasingly becoming worthless policies they were more times than not offering their employees.

After the primarily Republican and tea party conservatives started all these horror stories against Obama care,they are not now about to tell the people the reason they are asking for a year delay is because it is just more of their effort to prevent Obama care from ever taking place.

In 1972 the Federal government enacted the anti-kickback Law. It was suppose to prevent insurance companies, agents, and politicians alike from promoting one insurance company over the other or to lie against government Medicare and Medicaid. Fraudulent practices can have a wide range effect on a customer’s decision to get health care. Passing the law and trying to enforce it are often separate endeavors in the world of capitalism and politics.

Fraudulent practices can effect the patients financial well-being and health and unfairly strengthen a company’s standing in the market place, as well as increase the amount of premium costs to individuals who must purchase the product. Federal penalties are suppose to reduce the number of fraudulent incidents and thereby lower the over-all costs to the Federal health-care system. It would appear to the great majority of us who hear these conservatives repeating the disaster of Obama care before it was even decided on, that they are doing as poor of a job towards promoting affordable health care to us, over capitalism, as they are in governing in Congress.

As long as the Obama care sight is not working smoothly, the Republicans can buy more time to delay Obama care, with their continued talking points and scare the people into believing their private information is not safe so we refuse to sign up, there by making Obama care unaffordable and that is exactly what they want.

We the people do not need the delay because the people are being offered legitimate health care coverage through Obama care and, the sooner the better. It is big Business that needs the delay so they can accept the fact they will have to provide legitimate health care and pay legitimate costs if they are going to continue to offer it in employee package deals, and to understand they will lose both the incentives they have gotten from tax breaks and insurance companies.

Because government health care insurance is 7 times larger than all insurance companies combined, if the Republicans cannot stop Obama care from taking place, the Insurance companies are going to have to compete and stop their practices of higher premiums with little to no coverage and stop kicking off people with pre-existing conditions in order to increase their profits. They have gotten by with doing just that for years and by only insuring healthy people.

The Republicans know as we all should know by now, they will lose their own package deals from the insurance lobbyists when they cannot continue to broker a deal for the insurance companies’ profits.

Yes the Obama care system is frustrating but it will be running smoothly given enough time. People will not be penalized as long as the system is not performing correctly. It took 7 years before the first Social Security checks were mailed out and that was not nearly as complicated as trying to run a secured sight.

It took Power ball years before I could get up and check my numbers because the system was over ran by high traffic. Obama care isn’t about making the people pay unjustly for pathetic insurance policies but instead making certain that Insurance companies and their paid for Republican politicians can no longer get by with punishing the people. If government insurance was so bad, then why do all the politicians continue using their free policies that the rest of us pay for? The horror stories will become decreased greatly once the Republican Party can no longer use their talking points and we can help them by voting them out of office.

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Education, Ambition, & Application

One of the main reasons we are seeing so many disgruntled and displaced people joining up in the conglomerations of Hate groups, John Birch and Tea Party like groups, combined with the religious-right is because we have a whole group of kids who were never forced into getting out of bed or taught goals or application of work standards.

The other problem being,as the behavior problems started, more and more children were sent to what is known as Jesus camps. The camps had a two fold mission, stress the importance of loving Jesus and indoctrinate them in serving the Lord much in the same way Al-Qaida indoctrinates their followers. They are suppose to come out of these camps as Soldiers willing to fight for the Lord.

I don’t know for sure when it started but I know by the 1980’s class room time was taken up in many public schools with disruptive kids to the point that school time was turned into basically assignment time. Instead of teachers being able to teach, class room time got shorten while extra curricular increased. This meant that instead of having time allotted for student-teacher time much of what was learned was done by home work being sent home for the students to be taught by parents or if parents were absent to help it either did not get done or students taught themselves.

When the time shortened in the class rooms meant that time had to be shared by the behavior problems who were disruptive then the teacher student time lessened even further. Add to that the attempt to correct the increasing problems later with the no child left behind program and we ended up with a whole generation of children who either taught themselves, were tutored by those who could afford tutoring, or by parents out of work, or they went through 9 years of school only to drop out in frustration or due to hardship and necessity due to a lack of parents working.

Although the idea and concept of no child left behind had the right idea and intention it would prove to be a dismal failure because the discrepancy in family incomes were also widening. We started seeing children skipping schools in increased numbers, shop lifting increased, street gangs increased with girls gangs and children joining at younger ages since they would not be held as adults as the older gang member would be, and more and more children roamed malls.

While this is all taking place with our children, parents are being over-whelmed with increased work hours because pay is beginning to go down. Parents are having to add on another job or work holiday time because they get time and a half and the families need every extra dollar they can get.

Where a high school diploma previously meant these same parents use to be able to make a good living and maintain a home those jobs were becoming fewer and fewer between as they were being replaced by automation and technology, so instead of the man of the house being able to earn a good living, although he was seldom ever seen at home; while the wife stayed home or worked part time for minimum wage to pay for little extras, a high school education now meant both parents worked minimum wage and picked up any hours they could get and while their application increased to their jobs, many of their children were being spoiled as they had been when their parents had more.

As the stresses in the work force and the homes increased so did divorces increase leaving parents fighting over custody of the children who were/are often used as pawns between the parents. With children being used as pawns between warring parents eventually the parent who had visitation rights failed to show up or keep promises made to the children.

Since women statistically had custody the fathers dropped out of the lives of their children and single parent homes began to increase with absentee dads. In cases of dads getting custody moms failed to show up to see their children. Many men quit working out of spite against paying child support and what was once a middle class family was thrown into poverty with women needing to work more jobs and children becoming latch-key children, who raised themselves, unless moms remarried.

Single parent homes also increased in the poorer neighborhoods with baby daddies who were very rarely a part of the family structure in single parent homes, and it led to increased gang activities in children where increased street violence became everyday happenstance. Drug exposure increased throwing parents into jails over treatment and children being shifted to different family members or foster homes, in both the poor and middle class homes. It has now become a three generational problem going well into the fourth generation in many families.

On the other end of the spectrum as education increased parents hours increased with it. Because these educated adults knew and understood competition for fewer jobs were increasing they began over-whelming their children with the need for and importance in sports, and other extra-curricular activities if they were going to get into the best colleges.

All this driving but lack of conversation while the children caught up with home work on the way to activities saw one of the parents running continuously in transporting of children in pushing them to be their best to the point of exhaustion on the part of the child as well as the parent.

They lived in the car and came home exhausted while disappearing to their rooms. The sad thing is while these children were being coached they were never able to think for themselves but instead, just like when they were attending Jesus Camps, they were being told what to do and how to think. So ultimately despite the wide discrepancy in education and incomes in children of these generations both suffered from the insecurity brought on by absent parenting and exposure to the alcohol and drug cultures.

Long story short we end up with a whole generation of kids who got a better education than their parents had and on the opposite end a generation of dropouts and neither were ever taught application, ambition, nor did either have much parental input into their years when it was necessary for them to transcend from child to adulthood and the responsibilities that goes along with each of these growth stages.

If they were not being neglected to grow up on their own or taught by gangs then they were being neglected through being trained by coaches or by strict disciplinarians in Jesus camps who were to be ran as al-Qaida groups in the rural areas or by nannies in the upwardly mobile neighborhoods. The idea that sports build character from the past was fading fast as more and more pressure was placed on coaches to win or leave by the alumni children felt the pressure placed on them.

There hasn’t ever been a generation that did not deal with the lack of competition they got from the indifferent or lazy on the work force. Every generation has dealt with both the under and over educated but this is the first decade they aren’t even trying to show up for work. What else are they going to do when they get out of college or drop out of high school and can’t even get minimum wage? They come home and mooch off of Dad and Mom,of course, or if they drop out of high school they marry young in order to feel loved and hit the Streets as drug runners, prostitutes, or anything that will give them whatever everyone else has.

The number one thing that none of them want to do, regardless of their back grounds is to bust their backs like their parents did on one specter of background while another has no choice but to remain unemployed since they dropped out and in no way are they going to work a two-bit job has often covered for the fact that they cannot even find a job, so we end up with grown men not working,

As they feed each other with the idea they are told they become more convinced they are victims and being discriminated against and that all jobs are going to minorities and women, even though the majority of them have no interests beyond video games and partying. They are ripe for the picking as being picked off by militia and hate groups where with a gun in their hands they feel like somebody.

Whether these kids were from the poor neighborhoods or the upper class neighborhoods they both had absentee parents, because when parents were there it was all about competition and being your best and join, join, join, but when they went home exhausted they faced the same absentee parents because no one sit down at the table any longer and shared their ups and downs of the day. Application, ambition, and goal setting never got taught to these generations.

When parents did not have jobs they hung out with their kids and let them drink a beer or smoke a joint and was their friend instead of their parent. When parents who earned good incomes had time it was spent as friends to their kids because they felt guilty they had spent so little time with them so money had no boundaries.

They threw the biggest and best parties while their kids friends entertained them with even bigger parties. In the poorer neighborhoods where mom and dad both dropped out,alcohol and drugs lessened their sense of feeling like failures, while on the other hand both worked so many hours for less pay they did not have family time, or sometimes both were in and out of prison due to the use of drugs.

In both neighborhoods the one thing that did and could draw them together, providing there was time, were the Churches and when Dad could not go then the kids and mom went. Sunday and Wednesday were Bible reading time and summers Bible or Jesus camps. In many cases it was the only time in the lives of both walks of life that these children felt the genuine comradeship of shared interests off of the sports or the academic fields or being left alone to entertain and teach themselves. Religion and Faith in God has always been the nectar and in many cases the only luxury of the poor.

Without the ability to work in some due to the lack of education, the lack of desire or interests in others to work when they have an education but were never told no, the entire lack of teaching by parents and not by a coach or friend or camp councilor in
earlier application and ambition, we have idle men who are finding a lot of free time to play but not to work.

Women have pretty much grown up the care takers in the family so in many ways they like minorities who are generations behind white males, when it comes to being denied the ability to succeed
have faired much better because they are better educated, more driven, better organized, less dependent on others to fulfill their needs, and accustomed to working harder for less.

Many parents during this time were parents and taught their children an even balance of responsibility to care for their own needs while giving them a balance of guidance, application, education and teaching the necessity to earn ambition and to set goals through providing for themselves. Their exposure to religion was one of giving their children choices instead of enforced indoctrination In short they were parents who behaved as parents whether they divorced or remained married. But because their kids were exposed to the dysfunctional homes their job as parents had increased pressures not felt by other parents in the past and those pressures continue, today.

Unless we learn importance of being educated and taught ambition and application through practicality and self expression,with hands on work experience and attention from both parents and business input, and beginning early teaching our sons something other than sports the trend will continue with boys not growing into men and taking on responsibility but instead feeling like victims.

With parents refusal to be parents but instead friends to their children and their lack of acknowledgement when it comes to application and teaching the importance of self-respect through their own example, of both establishing goals and ambition or work is not punishment but the thrill of rising to a challenge, we are going to see more and more hate groups and self-righteous organization brainwashing and manipulating those who cover their own sense of failure by joining hate groups and being driven by religious fanatics.

Not only are these politicians already into our government this same mentality is growing daily in our own families where parents being parents and teaching their children the importance of education, ambition, and application has been on a decline in favor of parents being friends and doing everything themselves to compensate for their own guilt; or the opposite of that is
parents who are not educated having to work sometimes 3 jobs just to feed their families because minimum wage has not increased since 1989 and cannot sustain a families needs.

As a society of people we need to do better by getting rid of the Grover Norquist Conservatives and Tea party who are forced to sign either the tea party or Grover’s “No More Taxes” pledge and with schools, parents, and businesses working together again to strengthen the middle class and needs of families again by training our people for better paying jobs, teaching our kids early with skills they can apply to real life, and by increased receipts paid back into our government treasuries.

We just learned what happens when government is shut down by these groups and how important government is to our economy. Our kids and grand kids need to know, as a Nation, we support them so they will not be left with a debt that is unattainable for them to pay, while government fails, due to lack of funding. They will need to be able to provide for their children, while government continues to feed the hungry, and provide health care and housing for the elderly who have paid into the Social Security trust funds, as we did.

Our children and grandchildren need a government, that is funded, and is able to provide protection, against the radicals and extremists groups denying future generations the Democracy we have enjoyed. With out taxes or receipts, because of the ever increasing debt in government, too many will adapt to the mentality of the radicals and extremists views to eliminate a strong government and a Democracy, over that of a dictatorship.

We need to take ownership of our own failures instead of doing nothing by passing blame, in order to begin to find solutions for those failures, if we are to succeed, as a Nation. It all begins in our homes, schools, and communities and with follow up at the election polls. Texas is already trying to eliminate women and minorities with voter ID requirements although they have only had 1 reported fraud case in their recent history, so be aware, that this bunch of Republicans are offering just more of the same.

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