Tag Archives: Political commentary

King of Fools

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King of Fools

It’s a virtual world we sink into for fun
now that our worldly contact is done.
Facebook is our friendship and Skype our salvation,
Zoom our replacement for kids’ education.
It’s our succor in sadness, replacement for sport,
when others malign us, our means of retort.
Our childrens’ frondescence confined to Twitter,
how can they resist being surly and bitter?

We’re culpable, all of us, I must confess.
How could we let things get in such a mess?
Money our God and diverted by pleasure,
we sacrificed a more vital treasure,
giving up liberty, we were distracted
by a buffoon who reenacted
presenting reality just as a show—
impressing with posturing, bluffing and dough.

And those for whom books were replaced with a screen?
They couldn’t tell the difference between
what entertained and what was for real
and that’s how he managed to posture and steal
liberty—both on a scale that was national
making decisions stupidly irrational,
and our own liberty, now that we’re trapped
within our boxes, trussed up and wrapped

with only the foolish wandering round
making decisions, unmasked and unsound,
the dupes of a Mother who’s finally decided 
that all of these humans whom she has abided
for thousands of years are on their way out,
aided by their foolishness, without a doubt,
and by their leader, that king of all fools
who will bring down the world with his asinine rules!!!

 

Prompt words for today are frondescence, culpable, virtual, succor and sink. All photos thanks to Unsplash, used with permission.

An Empirical Truth

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A Empirical Truth

I’m writing to our leadership–selfish, short-sighted fools
who are selling off our national parks and making other rules
about protected species, pollution and our health.
Saying it’s for our good while the rich expand their wealth.

If Nero fiddled as Rome burned, it’s also true today
that our most notable leader also likes to play.
As he’s shooting birdies on wild habitats turned tame,
his kids take off for Africa to shoot some wild game.

What we do to others turns back on us in time,
and Mother Nature will  find a way of dealing with your crime.
I suggest that you use caution when visiting a zoo
lest the animals you threaten end up hunting you.

 

Prompt words for today are explain, empirical, zoo, caution and leadership.

It’s Not Just About You!!!!

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(Copied from a friend and shared. Please do the same. Sorry, I don’t know the original source.)

Let’s say you woke up with a terrible cough, a fever, and severe body aches. Immediately, you rush to the doctor and unfortunately, you’re diagnosed with COVID-19. For the last two weeks, you’ve been unaware that you were infected and you’ve ignored “the rules.” You’ve gotten together with some close friends for pizza, had a few people over, even visited a park and a beach. You figured, “I don’t feel sick. I have the right to keep living my normal life. No one can tell me what to do.”

With your diagnosis, you spend the next few days at home on the couch, feeling pretty crappy; but then you’re well again because you’re young, healthy and strong. Lucky you. But your best friend caught it from you during a visit to your house, and because she didn’t know she was contagious, she visited her 82-year-old grandfather, who uses oxygen tanks daily to help him breathe because he has COPD and heart failure. Now, he’s dead.

Your co-worker, who has asthma, caught it too, during your little pizza get-together. Now, he’s in the ICU, and he’s spread it to a few others in his family, too–but they won’t know that for another couple of weeks yet.

The cashier at the restaurant where you picked up the pizza carried the infection home to his wife, who has MS, which makes her immunosuppressed. She’s not as lucky as you, so she’s admitted to the hospital because she’s having trouble breathing. She may need to be placed in a medically-induced coma and intubated; she may not get to say goodbye to her loved ones. She may die surrounded by machines, with no family at her bedside.

All because you couldn’t stand the inconvenience of a mask; of staying home; of changing your familiar routines for just a little while. Because you have the right, above all others rights, to continue living your normal life and no one, I mean no one, has the right to tell you what to do.

#SocialDistancing = It’s not about YOU!
#WearAMask = It’s not about YOU!
#StayHome = It’s not about YOU!
#GetTested = It’s not about YOU!
#MaskItOrCasket = It’s not about YOU!

 

Image may contain: text that says 'A mask is not a political statement. It's an IQ test. @johnlundin'

Five Little Words

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Today’s post is dedicated to all of you who labor every day to post your prompts and to read our responses. You and your predecessors have been my motivation for seven years now, every day, and I have probably rarely thanked you, so for Ragtag Daily Prompt, Fandango, Your Daily Word, Word of the day and The Daily Spur, this one is for you. And Ragtag, your prompt today wasn’t meant to be taken personally, right?

Prompt words today are windbag, (Hope this one isn’t personal,) begrudge, futile, inspire and ease.

Five Little Words

Lest you think I’m a windbag and lest you begrudge
my words meant for chuckles, to inspire or nudge
for social reform and for giving the boot
to public servants who pillage and loot
our public coffers and fill up their pockets
with money or spend it on guns, walls and rockets.

Better the money be spent on our own
in stead of a POTUS who sits on his throne
dreaming of golf games and bragging of pussies,
berating mask-wearers as alarmists and wussies.
OK see how I’m off on a whim or a breeze,
raving again with remarkable ease?

I can’t seem to stop, even though I’m retired.
I simply can’t shut off the words when inspired.
So long as the world is so stupid and brutal,
efforts to stifle my words would be futile.
Just five daily words will inspire the rest.
I write all the others at their behest.

Leaked Excerpts from Bolton’s Book/Stephen Colbert

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Trump’s Bone Spurs Act Up At West Point.

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You’ve probably all seen these Stephen Colbert episodes, but just in case, I’m making it easy to do so. I heard Alice Walker speak at the beginning of Trump’s reign and she gave us ten ways to survive the Trump years. The last one was to get all of your political news from comedians. These are great examples.One more coming up.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEGC2MjaWAM

 

Five Bombshells about Trump in Bolton’s Book

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https://judydykstrabrown.com/2020/06/17/five-bomshells-about-trump-in-boltons-book/?fbclid=IwAR2s3y85qKZntRGa6Ve3lTYlMSuMkVXq47nkLSegiDi-5ozDTTeB_WC4QEI

The Politicizing of the Coronavirus (Reblog of Thom Hartmann Article on Common Dreams)

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To read more click on link below:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/16/what-should-punishment-be-crime-weaponizing-virus-political-purposes?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR35r231ItrqBpWiGoUmPh8lVgqSBxQXw5QcO3VEKpEb56asta0pfL0qHGc

 

 

Noam Chomsky: Trump is Worse than Hitler (National Observer Article)

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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/06/15/analysis/noam-chomsky-post-covid-19-society-trump-worse-hitler-peasants-are-coming?fbclid=IwAR1Z01FiEcfa87uhRyRuykemktnvWV4SOwRnjzKTFTdu9V_NGVwqLviscGo

 

 

The Comfort of Old Men

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Photo by Jan Abellan for Unsplash. Used with permission

The Comfort of Old Men

Children are sleeping sound in their beds,
inured to the missiles launched over their heads.
They’re used to the discipline of a cruel world
where bullets are served when the flag is unfurled.

They call it allegiance their country to serve
Old men sit at tables displaying their nerve
by setting out battle plans whereby the young
provide the chests where the medals are hung

that they earn facing death so the old men can gain
more gold that the young men pay for with their pain.
They posture and pose. They salute and they brag.
They call it a privilege serving your flag,

but none of the old face the bullets and fire.
It is not the aged men marked to expire.
Their rigors of battle are all of the head.
None twist to the impact of napalm or lead,

but war’s golden rewards are amassed in their pockets.
Munitions and guns and bullets and rockets
are the fruit of their plunder and part of the fun
they will buy from the profit they make from each gun.

This generation’s blood sweat and tears
will pay for the yachts of the rich and the gears
of the factories smudging the skies with their waste.
Air chokes on their vapors, the oceans all taste

their lethal remainders and sicken and die.
We have poisoned our water, our earth and our sky.
What is left once the old men have all had their say?
They will live life in splendor and the future will pay.

Prompt words for today are inure, twist, golden, privilege and discipline.