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I went to my internist, Kirk, yesterday with the following short-list of symptoms that have gotten so bad that it’s hard for me to stay out of bed: general unwellness, headaches, nausea, worry, anxiety, trembling, depression, fatigue, increased pain, and severe insomnia. Such symptoms could point to numerous diseases, so he ordered blood tests.
Since I was there anyway, he gave me my monthly narcotic prescription early and said that he’s going to start filling it for 90 days, which will save me going both to him and to the pharmacy every month. I already have to go to his office four times a year for a narcotic evaluation plus I have to be available on 24-hour notice for urine screens. It really pisses me off (ha) that, after eight years on narcotics, the hoops that I have to jump through just keep getting higher thanks to America’s drug cops.
As usual, I had to wait a half hour at the pharmacy during which a skinny and jittery woman name Karen came in to pick up a prescription for tranquilizers. When the pharmacy tech said insurance wouldn’t pay for it, Karen started yelling, jerking her body, and slapping the counter. She said she was desperate, that insurance fouls her up every time she tries to fill a prescription, and that, “I know I’m psychotic, but I’m all alone, and no one knows how hard it is to be me.” She said a lot more, but because she had a speech impediment I couldn’t understand it. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to do, and when the right words don’t come unbidden, I remain silent for fear of making the situation worse. A pharmacist told Karen that she was scaring people and needed to calm down, yet I considered it obvious that the only person anyone had cause to fear for was Karen herself. When she finally left, she seemed near collapse and kept saying, “I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry; “I’m so sorry,” but no one responded.
I looked for her when I left the store, but she was gone. I wish I had asked her on the spot how much the goddamn drug would cost and maybe paid for it. Anyone can be broken, but if you’re broken in America, you better have money.
So what’s Trump solution? As is his custom, he contradicts himself regularly, but his longest running solution is to give everyone a woefully inadequate income tax credit that they could use to buy insurance. But what if a person has no income or only makes minimum wage (and, alas, receives no benefits) at McDonalds and therefore doesn’t owe taxes? Or what if a person can’t afford to wait until the end of the year to be reimbursed and is obliged to choose between food and insurance?
Actress and activist America Ferrera told the crowd at the D.C. Women’s March this morning, “A platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday,” and I thought she was spot on. Yesterday, another demonstrator said of Trump, “I don’t care what things he was going to offer me. He was such a soulless piece of shit that I wouldn’t have voted for him anyway.”
Exactly. Even if Trump had outlined specific solutions to specific problems (something beyond, “Believe me. I’m going to fix it. Everything is going to be great”), how can his supporters deny or minimize the significance of his pettiness, immorality, vindictiveness, megalomania, and predatory dealings with anyone from whom he wants something?
Do all of those millions of Christians who voted for Trump really believe that Jesus would have done the same? I would like to think well of Christians, yet to know that millions and millions of them claim, on the one hand, to hold love for their fellow humans beings as their chief value after love for their deity, and then, on the other, to see them turn around and vote for a man like Trump, strikes me as a case of such rank hypocrisy that I can scarcely believe what I’m seeing. Supporting Trump isn’t a choice; it’s a sickness, a depravity. It irreconcilably pits Christians against the values expressed in the Sermon on the Mount by the very man whom they claim to worship as their Savior. This election has caused me to despise with my entire being the dominant face of religion in America. All of my prior criticisms of the church are as nothing compared to the contempt I feel now.
34 comments:
I feel nauseous and upset beyond measure myself and agree with you about the voters, and Trump himself of course. I've just posted something small on my blog regarding my frustrations as I have a friend who voted Trump, and all I read is how ignorant they are regarding him and how they've voted him in to help themselves, sod the country, sod the world it seems, so long as they reckon things will improve for themselves. The worst part being that it won't improve, and then they'll just find some other bugger to blame but themselves for voting him in. It literally disgusts me.
I feel for you with the enforced bed rest sweetie and hope some results lead to help for the vast unrest you're experiencing physically. That woman . . . oh how horrible for her, to be shushed and shamed too. You're spot on about the cash, and one hell of a country to get a long term illness or/and mental health condition in. You're a good man to have thought as you did *hugs him* X
Echoing All Consuming. From this side of the world I have been watching in horror. And fear. Partly (but by no means entirely) because his success has emboldened some of our own right wing nutters. Ours talk about lifters and leaners. And consider themselves lifters and penalise the leaners. And the leaners they hit hardest are the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, the old...
I hope that you get some relief soon. Sending oceans of caring your way.
He's all mouth. A Con Artist. He'll be good at canceling things, e.g. ObamaCare, good at doing dodgy deals and raising money in unscrupulous and roundabout ways. One thing he is NOT: a Christian! He's simply a Con-Christian Con man.
BUT, you can fool all of the people for some of the time ... you know the rest.
Our health industry isn't the best. But it was one of the better ones around
Slowly our government is trying to get it to be like yours
We are fighting it every Step of the way. Right now I can go into a hospital and be treated for free
Most of our meds are heavily subsidised and the general health of our nation is good
I shudder to think what it's going to be like in ten years or beyond
Any person who doesn't want to help everyone have affordable health isn't a god fearing, loving or compassionate person at all
I so feel for that poor lady and for anyone like you who has to jump through hoops just to get the meds they need
You can bet that woman's struggles will increase once her insurance is cut off. I didn't turn the TV on at all yesterday but somehow I heard his stupid speech anyway on how awful this country is but he is going to fix it and make it great.
I should have marched with my friends today though I am not sure what good it would do other than to see there are plenty of people not thrilled he grabbed power.
I do hope that Dr. Kirk will be able to offer you something that works.
The first thing the new president did was to sign away parts of what made the Affordable Care Act unworkable. In effect he has paved the road for millions of us to be without any coverage. Then I read today that he has abolished Obama's mortgage assistance. It will cost present mortgage holders an average of $29 per month on a $200 payment. It will also make it more difficult to attain a new mortgage. See? He's helping us already?!!!?
My first sentence was so unclear. It makes the ACA unworkable because of the parts he has nullified. Perhaps that makes a bit more sense than what I originally wrote.
i am so sorry your health is so problematic and i hope you find some answers soon.
As for American Christianity, healthcare, Trump and that whole shebang, well I agree wholeheartedly
xo
when the watering hole gets smaller, the animals get meaner. trump and his crew seem to represent a group that want to keep others out of the watering hole whom they perceive as not contributing to the water hole. could your current medical state be partially related to the winter weather, seasonal affective disorder? spring is right around the corner and soon we'll be watching the daffodils awaken from their winter rest.
Your lack of sleep, all that upset with the very long Trump election may be partly related for he has been instilling an unrest into the entire world for months now. As for Christianity? It seems that intitution is not serving its believers as well as many claim. Trying to have any faith in these times where all is "a grab all you can for yourself world", makes me wonder if one's desired spitrituality is capable of working ? Inner peace in such troubled times is tough to reach. Just getting through a 24 hour period with no negatives seems very hard.
I do hope you will get better. I loved your post. You are so right in my opinion.
I don't believe it helps to call people names (isn't that what Trump himself does?) but I feel for Karen and certainly agree that some kind of income tax credit is woefully inadequate to solve our health insurance problems. In any case ... hope you feel better.
“I feel nauseous and upset beyond measure myself and agree with you about the voters, and Trump himself of course”
I didn’t know you felt that way about the voters. About the millions of people who marched yesterday, Trump tweeted, “I wonder why they didn’t vote.” So it is that he’s perpetually on the attack, and if he can’t think of something true to say, a lie will do just as well. In this case, implying that the marchers’ commitment to their values is so weak that they didn’t vote, yet there’s nothing to back up his claim that they didn’t vote. It’s like the old saw, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” when there’s no reason to think the guy ever did beat his wife. The goal is keep throwing people off balance in any way possible. This is the same thing that conservative talk radio does. Many people listen to it for hours and hours a day and it turns them into little Trumps.
“You're a good man to have thought as you did *hugs him* X”
I just feel terrible that I didn’t help her. When it comes right down to it, the main reason I kept quiet was because I was afraid it would cost more than I would want to contribute. It was a lame reason to keep quiet, and I’m nothing but ashamed of it. Unexpressed good intentions are no better than callousness. I’m often in the same situation she was, but what I do is to call the doctor and get him to order a substitute, but I don’t know if she was in any condition to do that. I don’t know how she even had insurance given that only people who are working can afford it, and she didn’t look in any condition to work. There is a policy for the poor called Medcaid, so maybe that’s what she had. I thought to myself that here was a woman who might be at risk of suicide.
“his success has emboldened some of our own right wing nutters.”
Sad to say but America’s example matters, often for the worst. I did take encouragement in seeing all of those people turn out to march yesterday. Here in my own small city, 7,000 marched.
“One thing he is NOT: a Christian!”
I think he’s a sociopath who plays life by ear, and does whatever he thinks will benefit him in the moment. There’s something missing in him. When the woman said he was “soulless,” I thought it was as good a way of putting it as any. He’s high energy over an empty shell. A commenter of mine from about two posts back said that she could see the goodness in his eyes, and I remembered GW Bush saying that he could do the same with that murderer, Putin. When I look into Trump’s eyes, it’s like looking into an Orwell novel or a Bosch painting. His exterior is but an inadequate facade over the heart and mind of a buffoon.
“Any person who doesn't want to help everyone have affordable health isn't a god fearing, loving or compassionate person at all”
American Christians, as a whole, believe that God favors something in the direction of laissez faire capitalism, an ideology that was most strongly supported here by the Russian-American atheist, Ayn Rand. Like her, Christians believe that the role of the federal government should be limited to domestic and foreign defense, and that if this happens, the economy will prosper, and therefore the good people will prosper while the bad people—the ones who don’t prosper—don’t matter anyway. Where they see any of this in the teachings of Jesus, I can’t imagine. It’s so perverted, it’s like mass insanity. I can’t, in my heart, look upon it as in anyway different but valid because it’s a malignancy of the individual soul that is spreading evermore into the soul of the nation.
“I should have marched with my friends today though I am not sure what good it would do other than to see there are plenty of people not thrilled he grabbed power.”
I should have too. When I learned that the local march only covered a half mile, I thought that, hell, I could have walked that far. I have marched in demonstrations before, and found it rewarding. While you say it will do no good, you can’t know that, whereas you can know that it will do no good if we all stay home. While Trump might be unreachable, other politicians must think of the next election, so when it comes right down to it, they have a strong incentive to listen to the voices of the millions. The only thing that has disturbed me about the marches I’ve been in is that the damn anarchists like to use them as a front for attacking businesses, and it makes everyone in the march look bad for them to do it (I also oppose burning the flag). How anarchists can claim to believe that we should all live non-coercively, and then go out and try to coerce people into living non-coercively by destroying their property is beyond me. My respect for anarchists is zilch because they don’t care who they attack. They’re as likely to torch my car as your car or Trump’s car. They’re like children throwing a tantrum.
“I do hope that Dr. Kirk will be able to offer you something that works.”
I got an email saying that my tests came back “basically normal,” but it will be a day or two before I get the actual results. Kirk is his first name (I don’t call anyone “Dr”) He’s only a few months younger than I; I’ve been going to him since 1990, and I love the guy. Calling someone by a title puts a distance in the doctor/patient relationship, and would seem to imply that he or she is better than I, so I won’t do it. Actually, I don’t call most doctors by any name because they don’t call me by any name?
“He's helping us already?!!!?”
I hear people say that we must all hope Trump succeeds because if he succeeds, the nation succeeds, but he fails, the nation fails. When I hear this, I think, “succeeds at what?” Tearing down everything that’s good and turning the county over to big businesses that care only about making money no matter who they exploit or even kill? There are people who are going to die because of what Trump has already done, and I look at him and at that smug snake Ryan, and I wish they were dead. This is a hard thing to admit, but I think they’re just that dangerous.
“As for American Christianity, healthcare, Trump and that whole shebang, well I agree wholeheartedly”
Wow, so far everyone agrees. Peggy read this post and said—in effect—it’s just the same old same old. I could see her point regarding the anger that my Trump posts contain, but I do try to approach the subject differently everytime I write.
“could your current medical state be partially related to the winter weather, seasonal affective disorder?”
Yes. I think it likely that it’s the drugs I take that are knocking me to the floor. For instance, he increased my antidepressant to the maximum dose, and that made me so hyper that he gave me a tranquilizer to mellow me out. I’m also on other drugs that affect mood, and I can’t even take a nap anymore without a sleeping pill. So…I’m cutting back on the antidepressant, and I stopped the tranquilizer altogether. I don’t think Kirk’s going to help me much here, so I’m going to do what I think will help, which is to cut back on drugs a little.
“spring is right around the corner and soon we'll be watching the daffodils awaken from their winter rest.”
Daffodils are my favorite flower and have been since my earliest memory, partly because I hate any winter that is identifiable as winter, so when I was a child and saw the daffodils coming up, I knew that winter would be over soon, and my heart would leap like Wordworth’s heart in his poem about daffodils—“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” I think of you my friend. I did read your last post, by the way, but I feel badly that I haven’t coming around more.
“Trying to have any faith in these times where all is "a grab all you can for yourself world", makes me wonder if one's desired spitrituality is capable of working ?”
I don’t see any mystical properties in American Christianity. It has increasingly come to be angry, unreasoning, and inseparable from conservative politics, and I think it is going to pay a heavy price for this. 22% of Americans already identify as “not religious,” and I think that everyday more and more people will go in that direction because as Christians put people like Trump and Ryan forward as exemplars of their values, those who are horrified by their values will just naturally come to think less of Christianity, even to the point of regarding it as the enemy of all that is good.
“I don't believe it helps to call people names (isn't that what Trump himself does?)”
It’s a fair criticism, Tom. I think that, for me, criticizing people personally is an indication that I’ve truly given up on them. Rather than regarding Trump supporters as “fellow Americans” who I must work with for the good of all, I see them as being like rabid dogs (how’s that for name calling?) with whom there is nothing to discuss. If I were, let’s say, a politician, it would behoove me to reign myself in, but my goal in blogging is to present myself as I truly think and feel. Rhymes accused me of exaggerating in my last post, but I’m not, in my heart, exaggerating (that is, I really am as flipped out as I say I am). One might argue that, if I’m really not exaggerating, then I’m irrationally fearful, angry, paranoid, etc., but I don’t think this is true. I think America is having an existential crisis, and that our only hope is that more and more and more people will turn against the Republican Party because the country is so divided that we’re beyond working together for the good of all. Tom, I want you to know that I appreciate you. You always make your points with moderation and respect, and I’m clearly not in any frame of mind for either. I’m way, way, way mad and fearful, and that’s the most honest thing I can say to you.
drumpf has only held office for less than a week and its already looking like its going to turn into one of the dystopian books I've read. If i only take away one thing from this U.S. election, its that people are stupider than I thought. Religious or not, people that voted for drumpf had blinders on
hope your bloods come back showing nothing wrong. but then again, might make it easier to find out what is wrong if the blood work does show something
Almost hard to believe that I could have been disappointed in so many Christians who supported Trump. I should know better by now.
I feel terrible for that woman and everyone who is worried about having access to their medication. I would not be able to function with out mine. Trump does not care about anyone but himself. He's offered no solutions. He is rude and vulgar. He certainly is not Christian. It's a scary time for everyone.
Best of luck with your test results. I hate to say I hope they find something but then at least you can start to tackle the issue if you know what it is.
“If i only take away one thing from this U.S. election, its that people are stupider than I thought.”
I feel so good to find agreement about this because it’s hard to bear so much disillusionment alone. Right after the election, I read a poll in which 40% of conservatives said that had lost significant respect for those who voted for Clinton or another liberal, while 60% of liberals said the same about anyone who voted for Trump. Maybe it’s easier to maintain respect when your candidate wins. After all, if Clinton had won, liberals wouldn’t be so angry and so focused on those who made Trump’s presidency possible. On three occasions, I’ve heard Trump boast about how intelligent he is, and I thought, well, intelligence is as intelligence does. And what does Trump do. He attacks anyone who disagrees with him, even teenagers. A photo of his inauguration showed vast areas where there were no people, and the official crowd estimate was 250,000. Trump’s estimate was six times that number (1.5 million), and he not only denied the accuracy of the photo, he presented it as proof that the “liberal media” is out to get him. When asked about this, his PR lady (Kelly Anne Conway) said that the Trump people have “alternative facts” for how many attended the inauguration. The interviewer responded that “alternative facts” is a euphemism for lies.
“hope your bloods come back showing nothing wrong.”
That’s what happened okay, and I took it as a good thing. Quite on my own, a day before seeing Kirk, I cut back on one of my drugs, and I’m feeling better. The drug was Lexapro; I started taking the maximum dose in December, and it was leaving me so strung out that Kirk prescribed a downer (Buspirone) to take with it. Now, that I’m taking less Lexapro, I’m no longer taking Buspirone. Fortunately, I’m not a person who takes pleasure in downers, so it’s easy for me to go off them.
“Almost hard to believe that I could have been disappointed in so many Christians who supported Trump.”
And to think that you live in Louisiana. I know few Southerners anymore, but only one of them voted for Trump with the rest being horrified by the man. Still, it must be tough to live in a state where most of the people supported such a man. I wouldn’t want to live in any Red State because while liberals are far from having wings and halos, I’ve never seen the mass of them go so completely out of their minds as did conservatives during this election.
“Trump does not care about anyone but himself. He's offered no solutions. He is rude and vulgar. He certainly is not Christian.”
So why did so many people vote for him? Why is it that a man who is so personally appalling and his evil so obvious to you and me, appealed so profoundly to so many millions of people. I don’t know how to understand this. It’s like when I hear religious talk about why they believe in God. I know what they’re saying well enough that I could argue their position as well as they can, but I still don’t understand their position because it simply makes no sense to me. I see it as being founded on shallow thinking and logical inconsistencies. And so it is with Trump supporters. I hear the most eloquent of them speaking on NPR, and I understand their points, but I still can’t say that their points to make sense to me.
“I feel terrible for that woman and everyone who is worried about having access to their medication. I would not be able to function with out mine.”
Americans die everyday because they can’t afford drugs, the reason being that Big Pharma is one of the groups that can control Congress for its own benefit, that is for money. There are literally people in this country whose pharmacy bill is $60,000 a year because they need a so-called “orphan drug,” that is a drug for which there is no substitute. Some of these people are children, and does anyone imagine that Big Pharma gives a rat’s ass whether they die or not. It’s ALL about money. On the one hand, we have a country in which people can’t afford to go to the hospital, but on the other, we have people like Barbara Bush whose medical care is paid for the government and who (two days ago) elected to stay in the hospital when she didn’t need to be there (she said she wanted to be near her hospitalized husband)! The rich have it all, and the rest of us are left with crumbs. Yet, people somehow trust that Trump and his billionaire cabinet members care deeply about us, when in reality their greed is the cause of our problems.
“Best of luck with your test results.”
Thank you. The results did come back normal. I’ll just copy and past part of what I wrote a few paragraphs up: “Quite on my own, a day before seeing Kirk, I cut back on one of my drugs, and I’m feeling better. The drug was Lexapro; I started taking the maximum dose in December, and it was leaving me so strung out that Kirk prescribed a downer (Buspirone) to take with it. Now, that I’m taking less Lexapro, I no longer need the Buspirone.”
Another thing that has helped me to feel better—at least emotionally—is to see how many people oppose Trump as strongly as I do. I refer to the millions who demonstrated over the weekend and to the support I’ve received on this blog. Sometimes, I really need to know that I’m not alone, and you and others have helped me to reassure me that I am not. When I wrote this post—and the similar posts that preceded it—I didn’t know how much support I would get because even those who oppose Trump don’t necessarily oppose him and his supporters with such vehemence as I honestly feel. I can but hope that his entire presidency is marked by bitter strife because unless they take a lot of heat for it, Republican politicians don’t have the guts to stand against him because he and his followers are so hateful and vindictive. Republican values also tend to be as nutty as Trump’s, only they try to cloak their thoughts under a blanket of PR, whereas Trump goes about spilling his guts all over the place.
Thanks for sharing your opinions which most of the time, echo mine. We are not alone. Yep we both should have marched to show the local politicians that Trump and his policies are not acceptable. I used to live in a blue state that seemed to turn red in this last election (not by much) I do live in the blue part of the state whose collective ass was saved by Obama's saving of the auto industry.
You're fortunate, Snow. According to my physicians, it's the "law" that I have to pick up my medications monthly. Even my GP, who I used to see twice a year, paying cash, I now have to see quarterly due to "new drug refill" laws. Thanks, FDA under Obama!! It's a clusterfuck & I feel like that poor crazy lady EVERY time I go to the pharmacy. There's a new crew of clueless employees there every month. It's a nightmare to be in chronic pain & then to have to be treated like a criminal...Sad!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I have to laugh. I voted for Trump because Hillary would have been more-of-the-same shit crammed down our throats from King Obama. I would have voted for a CAT over any Clinton! Look who she surrounded herself with: John Podesta, a pedophile & "spirit cooker". Read his leaked emails...but you'll have to take a bath afterward, they're so slimy. And Muslim Huma, who is married to a crazy exhibitionist! Really! No wonder she lost. Middle America was sick & tired of all this craziness. We just want to live our Christian, gun-owning, hard-working, middle class lives in peace. And FUCK the rainbow lights on the White House! That was NOT middle America, And I'm pro-life, too! Oh, wait, the "inclusive" woman's march told me I was not welcome because I don't believe in killing babies...and NOBODY in Hollyweird OR the music industry represents me or my beliefs!!!
Trump is already creating jobs, strengthening our military and, hopefully, killing some of the PC crap that 90% of America is sick of. Trump won, Hillary lost. Move on. I don't hear one person complaining about their IRA's & the stock market going up, up, up. The hypocrisy of the Left is disgusting. Now you Trump haters know how the majority of Americans felt for the past eight years. It's our turn now, so stop your whining and get with the program. ;-) xo
“I used to live in a blue state that seemed to turn red in this last election (not by much) I do live in the blue part of the state whose collective ass was saved by Obama's saving of the auto industry.”
Peggy and I agreed that if we were to ever leave Oregon—which we don’t plan to do—we couldn’t live in a Red State.
“According to my physicians, it's the "law" that I have to pick up my medications monthly.”
That’s what Kirk used to tell me. I knew it wasn’t true, so I didn’t know if he was lying or ignorant, but I didn’t bring it up with him because he has been good to me—for 27 years now—in every other way, most notably around not having me pee in a cup. I’ve quit going to doctors for that very reason. Kirk sold his practice back in September, and the narcotics part of it has been partially taken out of his hands, so I have no one to complain to when I don’t like what’s going on. Still, he knows how I feel about having to go in four times a year to talk to a stranger and pee in a cup on short notice, so he has agreed that when I come in those four times, I can see him. Kirk likes me, and I like Kirk, so I know he’s not going to give me shit if he can help it.
“Thanks, FDA under Obama!!”
The DEA has been an asshole agency throughout every presidency (do you really imagine that Trump is going to change that?). Now that the fatality rate from narcotics is going through the roof and the states are easing up on pot, the DEA has turned its attention to narcotics in order to justify its sorry existence.
“It's a nightmare to be in chronic pain & then to have to be treated like a criminal…Sad!”
“Sad”? That’s Trump’s favorite word, you know. But, yes, it sucks to be treated this way. I just wish they would legalize the goddamn narcotics and let people be responsible for themselves because I don’t think the DEA has ever attacked a problem without making it worse. For example, by denying people legal narcotics, they are forcing them to turn to heroin.
“NOBODY in Hollyweird OR the music industry represents me or my beliefs!!!”
All the oldies being dead, eh? Seriously, google “Hollywood conservatives,” and you’ll find a lot of them. Just to name three: Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, and Arnold Schwarzenger. Why a gay guy like Jim Nabors would be a Republican, I have no idea, but he’s on the list, as is Peggy’s hero, Alex Trebek. I’ll just give you the list that I’m drawing from: http://www.ranker.com/list/republicans-and-hollywood-republican-celebrities-list/famous-conservatives.
“Trump won, Hillary lost.”
Trump lost the popular vote by 2.8-million, and it is possible, if not likely, that he would have lost the election had it not been for the help of the Russians (whose help Trump asked for) and the FBI violating its own policy by announcing an investigation of Clinton a week before the election. No candidate who both lost the popular vote by that much and won with so much help from the outside can claim legitimacy and be taken seriously.
“ The hypocrisy of the Left is disgusting.”
No side has a corner on hypocrisy.
“killing some of the PC crap that 90% of America is sick of.”
I hate PC as much or more as you do (after all, I live in a PC area), and have often blogged about my disgust with it. I also didn’t like Obama whom I considered a weak man whom, despite promising to be open, persecuted whistle-blowers. He also forgot his promises to the American people and his threats to the Syrian regime. I hated him so much that I muted the volume on the TV anytime he spoke. I didn’t vote for Clinton, who, like Obama, was only too ready to blame the cops whenever a black person was shot, and who I considered to be smug and greedy. So, it’s simply unfair to represent me as you do, because while my candidate lost, my candidate wasn’t Clinton.
“Now you Trump haters know how the majority of Americans felt for the past eight years.”
Again, you’re misrepresenting me by assuming that I supported Obama when the truth is that I despised Obama, and wondered how anyone could vote for him without later being ashamed of his behavior. However, if Obama was like bedbugs, Trump is like the bubonic plague. I’ll tell you this in all seriousness. Those who hate Trump as I do regard him as a spoiled rich man who has no values, no ethics, no limits to how lowdown he’s capable of behaving, no love for anything other than himself, and a deep desire to be America’s first dictator. He gets up telling obvious lies that can easily be disproven, and he goes to bed doing the same. Instead of devoting himself to real problems, he gets all wrapped up in attacking Merle Streep or arguing that his inauguration crowd was the biggest in history no matter what the photos from the Washington Monument say. In the words, his first concern is defending his vanity, and no criticism from anyone is so unimportant to keep him from going the attack in lieu of addressing real problems. Why, therefore anyone would vote for him, is a mystery to us. Is your brain different? Has your mind been poisoned by listening to conservative talk radio for hours everyday? I really and truly don’t get it. I don’t get any Republican values, but there’s a hell of lot of difference between voting for a good man like Rubio (“Little Marco” as Trump called him) and a Hitler wannabe like Trump. I don’t see the difference in Trump versus Putin versus Assad, not that Trump has done as much evil but that he gives every indication of being capable of doing as much evil. I will NEVER “get over it” because it’s in my face, and everyday that he’s president is another day on which he will do one or more things that are evil, stupid, or both. There’s no let-up, there’s no respite, no hope that he will rise to the occasion.
I like hearing from you, Marion. You and I go way back, and you’re a Southern girl, so you feel a little like family no matter how vehemently we disagree. I was biking home from the pharmacy last week, and passed a black woman with an Alabama t-shirt, so I stopped and asked her if she was from Alabama, and she said, yes, she was from Dothan. I don’t even see that many people here, so to find one who had just moved from Alabama gave me the biggest kick.
It was so hard to believe that anyone would vote for Trump. He was seen a s a joke in the UK. You just need to watch his body language to know what kind of a person he is. A bully and a liar. He's pretty ignaorant too. We've had some atrocious Prime Ministers here but never one as horrendous as Trump.
I find it hard to believe he'll last long. Just hope he doesn't do too much damage to America and the US people but it's not looking good.
Take care Snow. Do what you can to change things but just accept what you can't or it will really get you down.
“It was so hard to believe that anyone would vote for Trump. He was seen a s a joke in the UK.”
I’ve heard that if your argument is built upon comparing someone to Hitler, you’ve lost before you open your mouth, yet I do see strong parallels between Trump and Hitler. For instance, he’s amoral; he’s unreachable; he is conscienceless; he’ll doing anything to attain his goals; he’s laughable to the multitudes; he has complete faith in his every ability; neither knowledge nor logic matter to him. Still, when On the other hand, when I’ve watched films of Hitler’s speeches, he behaved in such a way as to make Trump seem downright mellow. He was hyperactive with a severe case of small-dog complex. Sputum would fly from his mouth while he stamped his feet, shook his fists, and looked like he might work himself into a stroke. People in America laughed at him, and I’m sure many Germans, Aussies, Brits, etc. also laughed until he gained enough power that they had to take him seriously. So it has been with Trump. One reader of this blog wrote that she could see his goodness in his eyes, and I was simply astonished. How can people react so differently to the same person? It’s as if he tries to hypnotize us all, but while his efforts work splendidly with some, they horrify the rest of us to the point of wanting to run for the exits. I don’t get it. I can accept that my last commentor, Marion, is educated, intelligent, and well-meaning, so why aren’t Trump’s enormous number and profundity of flaws as obvious to her as they are to you and me? Nearly everyone who has commented about this post are as puzzled as I. For me, it’s like understanding religion in that I know the arguments well enough, but I can’t feel them at a heart level, and this means that I can't claim to understand why they appeal to others.
Hitler could not have survived without his personal doctor dosing him up with a cocktail of powerful drugs to keep him going. Don't think Trump relies on drugs, yet.
“Hitler could not have survived without his personal doctor dosing him up with a cocktail of powerful drugs to keep him going”
Yes, a book that came out two years ago that claimed that his troops were on meth, and that Hitler himself was on meth plus cocaine, heroin, and morphine. http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/books-magazines/new-book-suggests-adolf-hitler-abused-opiates-and-fed-his-army-crystal-meth/news-story/1027b2bb5ef1cd10b253312ec6f30ad1.
As for Trump, I think he’s extreme enough to be insane. He gave God the credit for a break in the rain on his inauguration day; claimed (against clear photographic evidence) that the crowd was the biggest ever to attend an inauguration (he overestimated its size by 600%); and now he’s revived the argument that he would have won the election had not 3-5 million illegals voted, a scheme that would have involved thousands of conspirators. All 50 of the state officials in charge of voting say this is bullshit; the leader of his own party in Congress says it is bullshit; he has offered no evidence to back the claim; he has not called for an investigation to verify the claim; and if his claim of massive voter fraud is true, the validity of his and everyone else’s election would be in doubt. Yet, he persists with what his own people define—without laughing—as “alternative reality.” It’s a mystery to me how anyone can support a man who tells one obvious lie after another. Believing in Trump is like an act of religious faith in that you have to pull it off, not only without supporting evidence, but in spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary. Here’s what defines Trump’s “alternative reality”: If something feeds Trump’s vanity, it’s true; if something offends his vanity, it’s a lie and the press is clearly out to get him or else they wouldn’t have reported it.
Philip, I had to look a bit for just what Trump said about God making the rain stop during the inauguration. I had heard him utter these words on the radio, but since they weren’t a part of the speech itself, I had to run them down. The following are Trump’s words:
"The rain should have scared them away. But God looked down and he said, 'We’re not going to let it rain on your speech.' In fact, when I first started I said, "Oh no." First line, I got hit by a couple of drops. And I said, 'Oh, this is, this is too bad, but we’ll go right through it.' But the truth is that it stopped immediately. It was amazing. And then it became really sunny, and then I walked off and it poured right after I left."
The rain did not stop immediately (Bush put on his poncho during the time that Trump said it wasn’t raining), and the sun didn’t come out after the speech. What’s more, just prior to the inauguration, Trump had complained to Franklin Graham (Billy Graham’s right-wing preacher son) about the rain, and Graham had told him not to worry, that rain was a sign of God’s favor. He said this based upon how rain was interpreted 3,000 years ago in arid Israel. The fact that DC is far from arid is apparently irrelevant to God, so even if it was being washed off the map by floodwaters, rain would still be good and a sunny day would mean that God objected to the proceedings. Graham must perform cartwheels of joy when it rains during family picnics and days at the beach. By the same token, God must loathe the people of Arizona and adore those who inhabit Louisiana.
I think perhaps you thought my comment was an agreement of the president's policies. I was being sarcastic. That man scares me to death. I recently learned a new word... kleptocracy. I feel that is the direction we are headed.
“I think perhaps you thought my comment was an agreement of the president's policies.”
I wrote too much to go back through it, but I don’t mistake you for a Trump fan. A couple of days ago, I saw a list of 24 provable lies he had told during the first week of his presidency, so I can’t even begin to imagine that anyone persists in thinking that this is a good man much less a good president. Now that “alternative facts” has become a euphemism for Trump’s lies, I can but wonder if his supporters live in an alternative universe that overlaps the one that the rest of us are in. He so obviously thrives on keeping everyone on edge all of the time that watching Trump is like watching a train wreck in that I don’t want to see it, but I can’t bring myself to look away. How much longer can elected Republicans carry on this charade that he’s anything but a nightmare to them as well as to the rest of us… Maybe he will end up being impeached. If he were a Democrat, I know he would, but impeaching someone from your own party doesn’t go down as easily. I sometimes find myself wishing that he would up and die, but then we would be stuck with Pence, and would that really be any better?
By the way, my first girlfriend’s mother was named Emma. I was only twelve at the time, but I thought that this adult woman was the prettiest thing I had ever seen, and the fact that she liked me too only made me the more infatuated. As I realized later, her husband, Ed, was gay, and maybe this was why Emma had an affair. Anyway, the wife of the man she was seeing came into the store at which Emma worked (behind a cosmetic’s counter) and shot her. When she got out of the hospital, she loaded her two daughters into the family Buick and moved to New Mexico. I have often wished that I knew whether any of them are still alive and how I might contact them. Perhaps, today, Emma would have brought charges against the woman who shot her, but I guess she was simply too humiliated back in the mid-sixties to do anything other than to go far away. I wish I had been old enough to understand all of this and to at least tell her that I was sorry for it. I also wish the shooter had been convicted of attempted murder. Certainly, she shouldn't have shot anyone, but it wasn't Emma who had betrayed her. I can't imagine living with a woman that mean, and I have wondered what became of her and her husband.
Trump's alternative facts reminded me of one of our Prime Ministers who coined the phrase 'core promises' to explain why some of his election promises were honoured and some were not.
Sigh.
And hiss and spit.
It won't mean much, and it doesn't help the situation, but Aussies like myself watch from the sidelines just wondering how much worse it can get for US citizens, especially those who are already marginalised. I think it might have been an Aussie PM that Elephant's Chikd remarked on. .
“one of our Prime Ministers who coined the phrase 'core promises' to explain why some of his election promises were honoured and some were not.”
I love it!
“Aussies like myself watch from the sidelines just wondering how much worse it can get for US citizens”
Trump’s own party (the Republicans) control both houses of Congress and are thus far willing to approve anything he wants. As for the rank and file, they’re wild about him, and seemingly don’t care how many people he hurts and alienates. Please go to this site (https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/3/headlines/parents_teachers_flood_capitol_phone_lines_demanding_senate_vote_no_to_devos) and scroll down to the second and third stories (the ones about Conway and Spicer) which refer to two of the more outrageous lies that have come out of his administration just today. I mean it literally when I say that Trump’s followers will believe any damn thing he says, although the whole world opposes it and can prove that he lied. So it is that Trump is like a religious leader, and I don’t consider it a coincidence that his most fervent followers are religious people. You really have to be callous and gullible—or paid-off, as with Republican legislators—to support Trump. It’s fine to elevate tolerance, but not everyone or every situation can be tolerated. I have zero tolerance of Trump or of his supporters. I consider his supporters to be mean, stupid, and depraved. I keep hoping they’re wake up, yet I know they won’t until they recognize that they too are his victims.
“I think it might have been an Aussie PM that Elephant's Chikd remarked on.”
Ah, yes, Elephant’s Child, horrible woman who laughs maniacally while strangling puppies, kittens, and baby warf-rats. We’ve been friends for years now.
As a pharmacist (in the past) there were a few times I paid for a persons prescription, sold the rx to them at cost, or just gave them enough medicine for a few days.. Medicine and pharmacy, the entire healthcare industry is just a business today so sad.. I really can't believe what the state of our country is in and/or the direction we are heading.. This came in an email today thought you might enjoy::
And this morning, I watched Field of Dreams for the umpteenth time.
People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game -- it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again… So yes, Ray, Donald Trump is a carbuncle on our nation's ass -- ugly, painful, even dangerous -- but he's just a temporary affliction which will fade and soon.........
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