June 29, 2025: (F)end (F)or (Y)ourself

 

America used to be a good place. If you needed help, there were systems in place to offer it. It wasn't perfect. It never was perfect. Perfection is highly overrated. Once you achieve it, what is there to work to improve? America was built on the effort to improve, the journey forward, the vague but ever calling American Dream. But now? It's FFY everywhere unless you're already rich. What the rich don't understand, what they are incapable of seeing, is the struggle to survive day to day. Shame on them for that.

I just read two statistics that say it all. First, according to Ramsey Solutions and Yahoo Financial, the average estimate of monthly expenses for a family of four in the United States ranges from $8450 to $9817 per month, or $100,000 plus per year. GoBanking puts the numbers lower, but well over $80,000 annually. That's roughly $6,700 a month, and no savings. Based on a forty hour work week, that translates to having to earn $42 an hour just to make ends meet, what the experts call a living wage. Obviously, most Americans fall far short.

Statistic Two: according to HSA for America, the average cost of health insurance for a family of four, not subsidized by employer or government, is $1500 per month. That comes to $18,000 a year, or 22% of the low-end living wage. Without help, health care becomes prohibitive.

Trump's Big Beautiful Bill will only make matters worse, but the deciders on that bill's passage will never have to worry about making ends meet. And we haven't even started addressing our responsibilities to the rest of the world.

Americans have always taken pride in their generosity. That is ending. The rich don't want to give, the rest of us can't afford to, and humans across the country and the world will suffer needlessly and die prematurely because of this radical shift in attutude and wealth. Perhaps shift is the wrong word. It is an entrenchment. It is political codification of a new America.

FFY.

I end with a quote from Warren Buffett: “If you're in the luckiest one percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.”

Democracy Is Not Dead

 

This is only the fifth blog since my return to the front, so to speak. From time to time I return to material I wrote in the past, often for myself as a way of keeping a record of events and my response to them. Reading through some older things, I found this, written after the 2020 election results came in, but before January 6.

It goes:

As we waited to see how the transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden would play out, Linday Graham, that beacon of convenience, declared that Republicans had to change the rules or no Republican would ever again be elected President. The whole waiting game was a scary, scary moment. Many of us feared that the peaceful transition of power simply would not happen. It seemed that the honor system had been blown to bits. Trump seemed to be searching for ways to justify overturning the election results, or tossing them aside altogether. We speculated on all the ways that could happen and wondered if we were strong enough and clever enough to stop him. And yet. The election itself was a refreshing boost of democratic confirmation.

I wrote the following poem on November 17, 2020, two weeks after the election. It was inspired in no small part by Ingrid Jonker's brilliant poem, “The Child Is Not Dead,” and, as always, by the incredible words of Wilfred Owen, one of my soldier-poets of World War One, “All the poet can do is warn.”

Democracy is not Dead

Democracy is not dead.

She rides upon the millions

Of restless, marching feet,

Demanding to be heard,

Mis-quoting Twain, “Reports

Of my demise are just a bit

Premature—be vigilant!”

Democracy is not dead.

She shouts alongside the millions:

I have spoken, let me speak!

Her epitaph, though written,

Lies inside the editor's desk

Unpublished.

Her voice, though trembling,

Has found renewed strength but is

Caught in her hesitation,

Looking for words, needing but a few.

Democracy is not dead.

Her body shows the bruises

Of every time she stumbled

But the multitude each time

Has picked her up and set her back

Upon the terrible long path to Golgotha

While Liberty awaits her

To share her fate.

Democracy is not dead

Though there are so, so many

Who would make her so.

June 17, 2025: Tanks But No Tanks

 

Saturday was Flag Day. We flew our flag with pride. We love our country. We are deeply embarrassed by our current goevrnment. We are also very afraid of President Trump ignoring his role as protector of the Constitution and creating a totalitarian government. Therefore, flying the American flag was also a protest and a warning, in our minds. There are two paths America can go down: one, to everything for which that flag stands, or two, to dictatorship.

It seems obvious to me which one Donald Trump wants.

Saturday was also marked by Trump's Big Beautiful Parade. Make no mistake, the parade was less to honor the Army's 250^th anniversary and more to honor the Trump who would be King. Members of the administration claim 250,000 people showed up for the event but I saw rows and rows of empty seats along the route and Cabinet members looking bored. As many as 5 million people across America attended the No Kings rallies. Even if the numbers for the parade turn out to be accurate, that means 20 times more people stood up to protest Trump's policies than to support his birthday salute. Diane and I were among the No Kings protesters in Kalispell. It was hopeful to see so many people of all ages in attendance.

What are we so afraid of, you may ask. When Trump sent National Guardsmen and Marines to the streets of Los Angeles, despite assurances from the city's mayor that the situation did not warrant such a move, and despite the governor of California not requesting help, it sent a signal. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem spelled it out, telling us plainly that this administration wants to liberate Los Angeles from the socialist and liberal leadership of the mayor and governor. It is another hiking up the rhetoric to divide the country. Democrats are the enemy. The use of American troops against American citizens is not just on the table, it is the plan.

Dialogue and discourse are going away. Loyal opposition does not exist in Trump's world. The right to disagree is being replaced by intimidation and fear, backed by guns and tanks. If our military is sworn to protect the Constitution against all enemies foeign and domestic, I beg you to look hard at just who in America is threatening that precious document.

Friday the Thirteenth: Day of Fear

In preparation for my self-imposed deadline to blog almost every day, I have been building a back-log of blogs, quotes, and poems to share with you, but events are happening as quickly as a world at war. I know it seems that the world is always at war, or at least that there is a war somewhere in the world demanding our attention. These are troubling times. It turns out, all times are troubling.

It is easy to be discouraged by the daily news. The news feels like an onslaught upon our senses and emotions. National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles. ICE looking for hardened criminals among the pickers in blueberry fields. Crazy conspiracy theories and even crazier lies presented as the truth as if saying it out loud makes it so. Threats to deploy thousands of troops onto American streets. Out and out, obvious attacks on freedom of speech. Donald Trump himself saying, “We're not King.”

I know my stress levels are growing exponentially in every day of the Trump administration as they push the boundaries of presidential power beyond what the Constitution allows. Yet I have very little power to do anything about it. I know most of you feel the same way.

It is with this in mind that Diane and I have decided to do something neither of us has done in half a century. We are going out tomorrow to join the No Kings protest. If nothing else, we will stand up and be counted in the fight against the totalitarian takeover of our country. The late Senator from Arkansas, J. William Fulbright, encouraged us to stand up when he said, “In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.”

 

Breaking Silence

 

I begin with a quote:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” -----Edward R. Murrow

I have an admission to make. I am afraid. I am afraid to speak out. I am a liberal in Montana, a rare breed up here but not as rare as you might think. But I see so much anger and defensiveness around me—on both sides—that I want to follow my Daoist teachings and choose the path of least resistance. That means, being quiet. It does not mean being silent. Silence can become the fodder for dictators. And fear is the fodder for silence. Fear and indifference.

I find myself in an interesting position on the political spectrum. I have always considered myself a bleeding heart liberal. What I really am is a concerned citizen desperate to help my fellow citizens find their way through the quagmire that is everyday life, with an eye toward the future our offspring will inherit. Progress is inevitable. We always move forward. You can't stop it. What you can do is try to make sure that progress is not irrational or self-serving, and at the same time make sure that the push back against progress is thoughtful and not irrational or self-serving.

It's a big ask. Most of us have very little power to influence anyone or anything, at least on our own. But you are not on your own. Like me, you have a voice, even if you are afraid to use it.

President Donald Trump is busy pushing against anyone who has an opposing viewpoint on anything and everything he wants to accomplish. He thinks he knows what's best for us, and has the God-given right to make it so, and no one should object.

I object. I object as loudly as I can.

I end with another quote:

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” -----Theodore Roosevelt

Flag Day (the Blog is Back)

 

I'm back! I found my old blog and have decided to start again. I have dusted off the cobwebs, stretched out my fingers, and climbed out of my temporary paralysis to once again talk about the things that matter to me, whether the world notices or not.

I begin with a reminder. Be kind. It seems simple enough, but the world of Man is filled with unkindness. America under Trump, in particular, has become obsessed with rejecting kindness altogether. I see nothing Christian in that. Just as I see nothing democratic in ignoring the slender but profound document upon which the United States were founded.

Name calling goes nowhere. You may think I am naïve, while I might think you're bull-headed, but saying either out loud immediately shuts the door on useful exchange. Unfortunately, rational discussion with reasoned arguments no longer seems to work, either, but it is far better than the alternatives.

And yet, as I write these words the President of the United States has declared protests to be an insurrection after having stated the January 6 insurrection to be a peaceful protest. He is working hard to suspend the safeguards provided in the Constitution in order to make an enemy of anyone who disagrees with him. He is entrenching his power and no one seems able to stop him.

On Saturday there will be a massive parade in Washington replete with tanks and missiles in a saber-rattling, North Korean or Russian-style show of strength that “happens” to fall on Donald Trump's birthday. It is also Flag Day. I will fly my flag, in honor of all the things this government is setting about to destroy.

So I return to speak out. My audience is small, but I have to say my piece. I have to join those who came before me to warn. Fascism is real. As George Orwell and others have said, when you see soldiers goose stepping down your street, it's too late.