Have a Very Scary Halloween

“Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,

Voices whisper in the trees, Tonight is Halloween!”  

Dexter Kozen

A 90 Day Decision

I have come to realize that my quadrennial rant on the U.S. presidential election has been heard before in 2012, 2010 & 2008. I also realized many of my liberal friends will never forgive me this time around. Trump is not McCain or Bush or Romney or even Nixon.

So . . .  I herefore swear to not publish another blog on the election, nor shall I speak words aloud that put forward my now 48 year old position that the only way to change this decrepit system is to stop voting for either of the two major political parties.

Oh wait, I just said it. Well, no more. Not a single political word for the next three months. And, yes my friends, I will not be voting for Hillary and no that does not mean I am voting for Trump. Get a clue, this is not an either/or world we inhabit.

Also I will be disdaining all network or cable news.  I will miss the 'Donald quote of the day' but I'll get over it. For me, I am off to the dandelion patch with my buddy Opus. You guys hang in there and cling to the tattered hope that Hillary isn't who she has always been.

Come On In

As you can imagine, this was going to be yet another commentary on the U.S. election. However, I am trying to wean myself from both the images and the rhetoric of that miasma.

Therefore today, I give you Carcharodon carcharias or the Great White Shark. Relate the image to whatever pops into your mind, as you remember the first time you saw Jaws.

Were you uncomfortable with your legs dangling down in the dark theatre?

No, No, No I'm not going there. The American electorate are not chum.

We Got Old

Last Tuesday demonstrated just how old my generation has become. We gave into the fears of age and voted for a corporate hack over a true revolutionary. Back in the day with another war raging and dividing the country we supported Eugene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy and George McGovern. Now the 60+ plus "liberal" vote went to pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-Wall Street Hillary Clinton.

Another Clinton, nearly another Bush. What happened to us?

I am disappointed in my peers and I am surprised. Have memories faded over the years or have aging fears and 401Ks become more significant than the progressive values we once held together?

I get it that enemies foreign and domestic are on your minds. ISIS, ISIL and all the other threats seem too big and scary. And Hillary has experience with those demons. She bombs them and supports right wing leaders to suppress them.

At home, Trump is looming but poll after poll have shown that Bernie beats Trump by a much wider margin than Hillary. You get no excuse on the home front.

So, to my aging Boomer friends, I say and will say again. I am disappointed in what the years have done to our values and to our fervor. Where did it all go? Why did so many of you, of us, never even look at Bernie Sanders.

I leave you with this memory. When we were protesting Vietnam, do you not remember how it was us (the young) against them (our elders). Families were divided. Parents and children did not speak.

Remember?

U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders is getting 80% of the youth vote.

How can we not remember when we were right where those kids are today.

Do you think we were wrong?

They should have said . . .

In my world it would have gone this way.

Paul: "If I were President I would have fired you."

[Clinton laughs]

Paul: "Did I say something funny Secretary Clinton?"

Clinton: "Several things actually."

Paul: "Would you care to share them with the committee?"

Clinton: "Well first the idea that you would offer me a job is fairly amusing. Second, that I would ever agree to work for you is equally funny. But the most hilarious idea of all is you as President."

If only Washington speech writers had a sense of irony.