Denial, Vanity, Faith & Freedom

I have a paralyzing fear of doctors and hospitals.  I’m convinced that if I avail myself to examination, invariably disease, illness and likely death will follow.  Intellectually I understand this is irrational and yet I pride myself on being a rational man.  Nevertheless, I suffer under this enigma and struggle, even today, as I vacillate between what I know to be reasonable thought and action and that other world of inaction and dismissive denial.  I manage somehow to live in both worlds.

With my emotional dilemma as a backdrop, I begin this up until now untold story of my health care journey, reluctant in the telling because I am fiercely private, but important in the understanding that it might help others in similar circumstances.  Or maybe, more likely I suffer this unreasonableness alone.

In 2016, I grew tired of looking down and seeing the unsightly protrusion of what I came to understand was a condition called an “umbilical hernia”.  In more common terms, this condition causes your belly-button to pop out.  When combined with what is commonly known as a “beer-belly”, (which I was and am reluctantly fighting and yet cultivating), it made the overall condition rather unattractive.  I have been an active athlete all of my life and because I wanted to retain that level of activity, I conjured up all of the courage I could muster in order to visit with a surgeon who would relieve me of this condition.  Full-disclosure:  I was also highly motivated by no small dose of vanity and the come-to-find-out unrealized solution to my protruding gut.  The surgery fixed the belly-button but I was still stuck with the belly.

The surgeon dutifully visited me upon recovery and informed me that although he had successfully repaired my hernia, during the process unusual amounts of fluid were taken from my abdomen and additional testing was required.  I was scanned, examined and probed and told that it was very likely that I had lymphoma.  A few days later, after visiting with the oncologist it was all confirmed; stage 3-to-4 follicular lymphoma.

Aggressive chemotherapy was to begin, 6-courses of treatments three-weeks apart.   Good-bye hair, good-bye weight, and good-bye what was heretofore known as a daily and routinely expected quality of life free from illness.  Until it is taken from you, that assumption of good health as a guarantee is a life-changing adjustment in attitude.

The entirety of the experience completely reinforced that irrational side of my psyche concluding that the hernia operation somehow caused the cancer yet the rational me did come to terms with the reality that the hernia surgery actually saved my life, thanks to my own vanity.

So obviously I recovered, but the recovery wasn’t the typical story-book of ringing the bell to celebrate my last treatment and being ordained as “Cancer-Free”.  For me it was that purgatory of in-between.  The doctors were puzzled that they didn’t completely get rid of my cancer, but regardless, I was seemingly in remission and symptom free.  Now my world became that of the endless follow-ups, never allowing for the certainty of relief and again, playing right into my worst, irrational fears that were now becoming real.

The uncertainty is by far the hardest part.  I began to live life in segments, gleefully unburdened of my fears by a positive doctor visit or a lab test result that catapulted me into good spirits for about a single day and then turned back into the grim reminder that my good fortune is measured in the time frames between medical exams.  I feel like nothing can harm me, especially early on during those “good-news” times, but the shelf-life of that comforting certainty is short and quickly replaced with doubt, fear and a gloominess hard to describe unless you have experienced it yourself.  My life is lived in narrow slices of time.

My local, community health care providers were, I’m sure, happy to hand me off to the regional cancer research-university facility that would address the “in-between” condition of my illness.  And so began the 2-hour car rides back-and-forth to Rochester, NY in order to get a higher level of expertise and to hopefully address and arrest this limbo of not quite having cancer, but being threatened by it’s reoccurrence.

For the first few years, visits, tests, scans and exams were regularly 6-months apart.  For a guy like me, this is what that looked like.  After leaving a Rochester visit and being told that everything was stable and unchanged, I would be on cloud-nine.  The car-ride back would be joyful, the air cleaner and crisper, the sky bluer, the conversations, more important, more meaningful.  This state of glee would last for a few days and then normalcy would return, the reality that my life was rewarded to me by my doctors, but only rationed out to me in 6-month portions.

As that date on the calendar for the next visit loomed large, the dread, the fear, the anxiety welled up inside of me.  I turned always to God for relief, and most times I was rewarded for my faith.  But other times, my self-doubts overwhelmed me and the silent, solitary struggle commenced a terrible cage-fight between courage and despair.  The terrifying reality to me was the fact that in that instance, I had to endure this alone, there was no one to solve this, no one to save me, it was me facing my own fears, my own mortality, my own test of faith.  I could not do it without God.

It took me a number of years to get more-or-less comfortable with my relationship with the Rochester caregivers.  The anxiety lessened to some small degree, but that old, irrational fear of more care yielding more bad-news and illness never completely disappeared.  It sounds stupid to say this, even as I write it and look at my own words, but it is the reality of what bounces around inside of my head.

And so finally, we get to the point several years ago when my providers agree that my situation has now evolved into a nearly 8-year remission and the prognosis seems promising and stable, so we go from a 1-year to a 2-year follow-up plan.  Again, the elation at the moment is hard to fully transmit to someone what has not experienced it.  In my mind, this has guaranteed me a disease free slice of life that just got thicker by a whole year!  I was bullet-proof, at least until this September.

I scheduled my CT scan for that 2-year follow-up.  My doctor in Rochester tells me that although there is no indication of any changes regarding my lymphoma condition, the scan has discovered something else.  Something is growing on my thymus.  (I had to Google it)  After a biopsy, sure enough it was cancerous and it, along with the thymus itself had to be removed.  Here we go again with the reinforcement of the irrational yet ironically, this time the follow-up scan for the lymphoma may save my life from an otherwise undiagnosed and symptom-free cancer that is totally unrelated. 

My surgery in late November was successful, except that the growth had penetrated into my pericardium as well as one lung.  Because of this, radiation is required and I start that course of treatment tomorrow, daily sessions, 5-days a week for 6-weeks.  Just like I did with the chemo, I plan on simply integrating this regiment into my normal day; treatment at 8AM, then to the YMCA for a light workout/shower, breakfast and then begin my day.

I don’t know what I’m in for, but I’m all in because I know that God has equipped me.  I’ve been saved twice in spite of my best efforts to ignore reality and then the Lord made it right. 

Here I go again and as always, thankfully shrouded in His everlasting protection.  Thank you Lord.

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The Value of Life is Apparently Negotiable

One-single-solitary 84-year-old woman went missing and the United States collective of shallow-mined pop-culture morons took interest gigantically disproportionate to any reasonable reaction. While no question troubling, maybe even tragic, why is it that this single event has such out-sized relevance?

According to the FBI, over half-a-million people in the US go missing every year. That is roughly 1400-a-day. Do all 1400 get helicopters flying around looking for them? Does the President go on the TV every day and lament the tragedy of it all? Do entire police agencies stop what they’re doing and hold news conferences to keep a nervous nation up-to-date on the latest developments?

Obvious to anyone paying attention, the elderly mother of a popular TV host is infinitely more important than the thousands of nameless and faceless mere mortals gone missing.

What a sad and damning commentary on the American psyche.

Just a reminder, while the FBI was offering $50k for information about missing person Mrs. Guthrie, another 1400 American went missing as well, no rewards, no recognition. Yet FOX news is covering this single, tragic story like it is the 2nd coming of the Lord. The last time a sitting US President took a personal interest in a civilian abduction was back in 1932 when the Lindbergh baby was abducted. So much for the myth that all lives are of equal value….

While news outlets camp out in the front yard of this woman’s home, say a prayer for the thousands of families that suffer in obscurity.

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Justice?

Would be failed assassin Ryan Routh is sentenced to life in prison for failing to kill President Trump with no shots fired.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in the United States, the average time served for murder or non-negligent manslaughter is approximately 11 to 15 years in state prison before initial release. In California, the sentences range from 3 to 11 years.

Right here in Broome County, a man driving drunk, with nearly 4-times the legal limit of blood-alcohol, struck and killed a police officer with his car and served less than 5-years in prison. So tell me, how is “justice” being served for Mr. Routh?

Just another example of how society does value lives very differently.

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ICE Capades

In order to fully understand what is going on today with ICE, (Immigration & Customs Enforcement), especially in the context of Minneapolis, you need to hearken back to the Biden administration, specifically their lack of border control.  As millions, (14 million according to the Pew Institute) streamed across our southern borders during the last administration, hundreds of thousands were dangerous criminal felons; murders, child molesters, rapists, gang members and violent, anti-social people that should have been in prison.

Today, approximately 1.5 million illegals have Final Removal or Deportation orders and yet remain in the country.  Over 660,000 are either convicted felons or have pending criminal charges.  Within this group are some 13,000 CONVICTED MURDERERS and 15,800 CONVICTED SEX PREDATORS.  Not suspected, or charged or on trial, but adjudicated and convicted.  These people belong in prison.  Please, someone on the Left, stand up and explain to the rest of us the justification of protecting murders and rapists?  When you create a so-called “Sanctuary State or City”, who exactly do you think you are going to attract?  States and cities defined as “sanctuaries” should lose all federal funding.  Elected officials creating them should be criminally charged as co-defendant in the result of murders and violent acts perpetrated in their jurisdictions by these illegals invited to be safe in their communities.  Victims should have a legal recourse against those elected officials breaking federal law.

If we are to actually call ourselves “a nation of laws”, then enforcing them is part of the process.  If you are flummoxed by the apparent disconnect those on the Left have with these seemingly clear-cut and rational explanations of legal enforcement, here is where their self-proclaimed but misguided “righteous indignation” comes from and how it today comes into play.

Many white Leftists hate themselves.  This self-loathing is attached to the premise that the original sin of slavery and the way we treated the American Indian so significantly stains our founding legacy that anything we do before and without addressing that sin, that unforgivable foundation on which we exist, is unjust because it builds upon the fatally flawed condition without any redress.  The whiteness of their skin just reminds them of the sins of their ancestors and reinforces the awfulness of their shamed lineage.  They can’t stand themselves because they can’t stand who they came from.  Their dilemma turns dangerously towards delusion and insanity as they struggle to somehow make amends.  They rationalize open borders and sanctuary spaces as ways in which they can pay their penance for being who they are and denying their evil forefathers.  They seek a divorce from their legacy and this kind of acting out relieves them of the sin of their “white guilt”.  Screaming at the police, protesting and perhaps even getting arrested promotes their “street-cred” and makes for bragging rights at the ladies Wine Nite get-together.

A quick history lesson would be in order.  The USA led the world in addressing the evils of slavery and eradicated it over 100 years ago.  The American Indians were indeed poorly treated and we have been making amends for that ever since and continue to do so.  There is no history of any nation or tribe or people that doesn’t include war, plunder and unjustified death.  We all did terrible things to each other and from those awful histories we have observed, learned and evolved, all of mankind.  Some have learned faster than others.  All humans and regions and nations throughout the world took eons in order to become civilized and the United States was no exception however, we were the exception when it came to leading the way in that civilization process.  Today, our nation is about to have its 250th birthday, still intact and still civilizing.  We strive today to make ourselves better people, our nation more strong and righteous and the world a better place.  We are happy to share our democracy and our way of live with whoever is interested, but we do it in a lawful and organized way.

We are indeed a nation of laws and we need to vigorously enforce them if we are to maintain our country.  Liberals need to wrap their heads around the fact that yes, we made mistakes, but we strive to do better, we are a nation of compassionate people trying to constantly evolve to the next higher level of civility.  There is no going back, we need to look forward and up not back and down.  We won’t do that until we embrace one another and make that advancement our common goal, within the framework of the Constitution and the well defined laws that have flowed from that document.

  To those on the Left, we are not the awful people you think we are.  We want all of the things you want, peace, happiness, security, safety, healthy children, and we can all begin to work together to increase all of those things by humbling ourselves, renewing our relationship with God Almighty and continue to make America the greatest nation on God’s earth.  . “Through one’s tears for the past, one’s future becomes blurred.”Criss Jami


Protecting criminals won’t absolve you from your own self-loathing but God will, if you embrace Him.

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ICE Over-reach

The latest sequel to the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter debacle comes to you live from snow-white Minnesota with a cast of lily-white performers.  Noticeable differences include the absence of burned down neighborhoods and the twist in the plot that includes the cop in this case actually getting it wrong.

Bottom line on the ICE Shooting, if the agent could have gotten out of the way, he should have gotten out of the way. In reality he was able to get out of the way because he did get out of the way, uninjured, so again, clearly his life was not in danger, he simply had to step aside, which he did while firing his weapon.  Had he simply let her go, at most, charges would have been violations or at a stretch, low level misdemeanors.  Instead she is dead.  Not obeying a lawful order to stop, or to get out of the car, or whatever, is not license to use deadly force.

The shoot was bad.

The hoopla of course, has much to do with the built-up frustration, and hostility as America repeatedly witnesses angry-middle-class housewives turn into urban-warriorettes, pretending to be righteously indignant in order to be the center of attention in their wine-club.  Virtue signaling from the rare-air of the upper-middle class mommies looking for something to do makes them Tic-Tok and X celebrities, validated from the comfort of their SUV’s.

While they may be easy to hate, that doesn’t sign their death warrant.

And here is the most troubling part.  We are all so over-loaded with the barrage of stories coming from the news-cycle; we tend to forget over time what has happened.  In eight weeks or so, this episode will be a distant memory, covered over with whatever the next story will be and in some small by-line buried in the newspapers or perhaps not even mentioned in the larger media machine, the family of the dead woman in Minnesota will be paid an undisclosed sum of money and no admissions of wrong-doing will be forthcoming and with that, we’re off to the next stop for our outrage machine to become re-engaged.

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Hegseth the Horrible

Peter Principle poster boy Pete Hegseth had reached the zenith of his intellectual career as a talking head for FOX.  His hawkish-military machismo persona, bravado and, brazen-pretty-boy face got the attention of our President.  If you haven’t noticed, good-looks ranks as high on Trump’s “must-have” list as actual credentials.  Now, as Secretary of War, Hegseth is in so far over his head that the US Navy can’t even save him.

The role of what was traditionally called the Secretary of Defense, (now War), was specifically meant to provide a clear demarcation between civilian management of the US armed forces and the fighting forces themselves.  According to the National Security Act of 1947,” “There shall be a Secretary of Defense, who shall be appointed from civilian life by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate: PROVIDED, That a person who has within ten years been on active duty as a commissioned officer in a Regular component of the armed services shall not be eligible for appointment as Secretary of Defense.”

Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy.

In 2018, eight years ago, the National Defense Strategy Commission said, “…civilian voices have been relatively muted on issues at the center of U.S. defense and national security policy, undermining the concept of civilian control…It is critical that DOD—and Congress—reverse the unhealthy trend in which decision-making is drifting away from civilian leaders on issues of national importance.”  The appointment of Hegseth does nothing except exacerbate this issue.

Hegseth is a bully.  He vented his spleen while addressing Generals and flag officers at Quantico marine base in September of 2025, in a tone many found condescending.  His sentiment remained me of someone who has had a chip on his shoulder for some time and now has discovered the opportunity to vent with impunity.  This is what the Center for Strategic & International Studies had to say about his remarks.  “Hegseth could not restrain himself from getting personal. He criticized Generals Mark Milley, Peter Chiarelli, and Frank Mackenzie by name, the latter two because of their association with the Afghanistan withdrawal; despite their having criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the operation. Belittling officers by name smacks of pettiness.”

And once again, Hegseth doesn’t disappoint with demonstrating just how petty one can get.  After Senator Kelly and five other congressmen issued a public statement suggesting that military personnel have a right to disobey an unlawful order, Pete went right to the internet and accused Senator Kelly of sedition and reckless misconduct, threatening to degrade his retirement allowance.  How clearly vindictive.  This is, in part what the statement from Kelly and the others said:

“Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution”. 

The words above are statements of FACT.  The words are TRUE and our soldiers need to know where that line is.  Equating the utterance of these statements with acts of sedition is preposterous.  While not saying so directly, it would seem that this statement might refer to the extrajudicial assaults and murders of alleged drug runners on the high seas being conducted by the military under Hegseth’s orders.

We are not at war.

Simply declaring certain boats in the Caribbean as “narco-terrorists” doesn’t magically create some kind of legal authority to blow them up.  Putting video all over television of US forces blasting boats out of the water and killing people every other day serves to harden the hearts of viewers and reduce the human element to the status of a video-game.  These boats were in international waters.  We have no legal authority over them.  We killed over 100 people without a clue as to who they were or how they found themselves in those situations.  Telling the American public that the boats are running drugs and coming to our shores is really quite a stretch.  Are we to take it all in and believe it as an article of faith?  Is the unrelenting mantra of “fentanyl is killing our kids” justification for anything and everything we do?  If we know all of that, why can’t we simply interdict these boats once they are in our jurisdiction?  Could it be that we needed a pretext to go after Maduro and overtake the Venezuelan oil supply?  Trump always has bigger plans.

Hegseth is a henchman, only better than those he pursues by virtue of his own sense of his virtue above yours.  Pete is the kind of guy that measures the mark of a man by how many pull-ups he can do, a warrior not a statesman, a useful idiot for the Trump agenda, and that agenda may have many highlights, good things and great outcomes, but at what a price when we begin to ignore the ends and means arguments in favor of just getting what we want.

While Lailah Gifty Akita, tells us that “A warrior walks alone in the dark.”   Henry Kissinger reminds us that, “It is imperative that the statesman bridges the gap between his nation’s experience and his vision.”

What the United States of America needs immediately, is that heretofore unacknowledged leader that can take us into the future with the balance, freedom, understanding and moral surety that God demands from a nation that sets the example for the rest of the world.  

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Realities of I.C.E for Dummies

Whether or not you are a Liberal or a Conservative, I think we can all agree that anyone who is a fugitive of justice, that is to say, someone who has already been arrested, arraigned, indicted, tried and convicted of a crime, is someone who should not be free in public, but should be incarcerated, according to the conditions of their sentencing.

Addressing the apprehension of these kinds of criminals is what the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE) officials are sworn to do.  Unlike the domestic police agencies, (i.e. Police departments, sheriff-agencies, the State Police etc.) ICE agents concentrate on non-citizens.  Estimates of between 11 and 14 million represent the number of illegal aliens scattering throughout the USA.  Reports state that well over 2-million of these illegal aliens have deportation orders and or pending criminal charges or convictions.

If you are an illegal alien with a deportation order, (issued by a Federal court), or you are a fugitive from justice, this qualifies you for arrest.  The agency that handles that is ICE.

Historically, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have worked together in the interest of justice.  How things have changed, (Olim numerari poteras, nunc non potes..)  When state and local policymakers created “sanctuary spaces” that shielded criminals from accountability and created an illegal reality.  Article 4, Clause 2 of the US Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, states that federal law supercedes state and local law and binds lower court judges to enforce that.  Clearly, states and local jurisdictions that declare themselves as “Sanctuary Spaces” are lawlessly acting against the supreme law of the land.  This disregard for the rules that govern us creates the tension and now bloodshed as ICE exercises their authority in order to enforce the law and protect American citizens.

When you advertise your status as a “sanctuary” you are inviting in those who need it.  Therefore it becomes the most likely place to go looking for criminals.  While doing their jobs, ICE officers are often assaulted and accosted by mobs, seeking to interfere with their duties.  This is where the arrests happen to people who otherwise might have gone unnoticed by ICE, had they not stuck their nose into someone else’s business.  Assaulting an ICE officer is a felony and, interfering in their investigative duties is obstructing justice, also a crime.

A quick check on recent arrests in Minneapolis shows a dozen men located and arrested for the following litany of charges, some 56 in total including:  Murder, rape, child-rape, sodomy of a child, kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct with a minor, and gang affiliation.  While trying to locate and arrest these scum-bags, others interfere and because of that, they are also arrested.

I’m curious how the Liberals explain away their pride in protecting these criminals?

We are still a nation of laws.  Sanctuary places and the people who support them are lawless thugs bent on anarchy and many more will be hurt and killed until they regain their senses and fight for change in a civil fashion, not by becoming a criminal.

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Spectrum News Bias

Spectrum news anchor JoDee Kenney made a comment this weekend about the issuance of Commercial Drivers Licenses, (CDL) in New York, referencing national news about states lax oversight, professed by National Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy when he was addressing recent instances of truck drivers that can’t speak English and can’t read or understand road signs.

Kenney made the comment that these CDL audits were mainly occurring in “Blue States” and inferred, directly, that this was a form of retaliation coming from the administration.

Kenney is supposed to be a news anchor, not an opinion host.  Her obvious bias disqualifies her from serious credibility as an anchor and she should either step down or be removed.

These are the FACTS:

The Department is now moving to withhold $73 million in federal funding if New York fails to follow the law, revoke every illegally issued license

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy today announced that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) nationwide audit of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) uncovered that the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has been routinely issuing CDLs to foreign drivers illegally. The federal audit exposed a shocking 53 percent failure rate in the records sampled, indicating a total collapse in the administration of New York’s CDL program.   
 
FMCSA’s audit of New York’s non-domiciled CDL issuance practices found numerous failures by the state of New York including:  

  • Out of 200 sampled records, 107 were issued in violation of federal law—a failure rate of over 53%. 
  • The DMV’s systems defaulted to issuing 8-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired.
  • New York issued commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.

“When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake—it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership. Gov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses. If they refuse to follow the law, we will withhold federal highway funding,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “This administration will never stop fighting to keep you and your family safe on our roads.” 
 
In a stunning admission, New York DMV officials confirmed that their licensing system is programmed to default to an automatic 8-year expiration for non-REAL ID CDLs—intentionally disregarding the expiration of a foreign driver’s lawful presence in the U.S. This systemic failure allows the state to blindly grant long-term commercial driving privileges to foreigners that expire long after the expiration of their lawful presence in the country. 

Spectrum is and always has been strongly Left-Leaning and this particular story involving Kenney should be corrected and taken down as opinion not news.  Spectrum needs to apologize to their viewers for mixing opinion with news and Kenney needs to be fired.

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Can We Handle the Truth?

The mark of a true thinker is the willingness to allow information that is contrary to their perception of incomplete and unknown situations to become useful in the intellectual mechanism of how they draw their final conclusions.  Ignoring certain events and facts in order to avoid challenging a narrative plausible only when conceived in their absence veers away from the truth.

The recent events involving missile attacks and scores of killings of alleged drug traffickers in international waters is a great example of the intellectual schism confused as a Right- v -Left issue when it is not that at all.  Strip away the narratives, official statements, opinions and take no position other than an investigative one and then consider the facts.

The public is treated to an aerial screen-shot of a high-speed boat, we’re told somewhere in the Caribbean, just too grainy to identify cargo or faces, carrying drugs we’re told, bound for the US.  Seconds later a flash, fireball and smoke are all that is left.  Clearly those on board are killed and whatever was the cargo is destroyed.  As of this writing, this has happened 22-times with 80 dead, according to the US government.

With the intelligence apparatus of the US military, we are told these boats are full of drugs and we obviously know their location, so given the capabilities of our naval powers, why aren’t we interdicting these boats?  The President simply declaring groups “terrorists” does not permit murder on the open sea.  The Caribbean is not a war-zone and the people piloting these boats are low-level actors, perhaps forced into compliance for fear of death or family suffering.  Those we kill might well be innocent victims.  How do we actually know what is on-board these boats?  They tell us drugs, but are we supposed to simply take their word for it?  There is no proof that the boats are in the Caribbean, or that the bombings happen at all.  Is it really so far-fetched to consider that the whole show is just that, a show?  Just to be clear, I don’t actually believe the whole thing is staged, but we ought to be skeptical.  I do believe the US military has carried out these strikes, but I’m making the point that we all see these snippets of violence and death and we react not with any pity for the dead or dying, but almost like we are winning some real-time video game and because we are making the world a better place, it matters little our methods or tactics.

Conservative television outlets continue to show viewers thousands of times these awful images of human death and destruction.  It is meant to harden us, to justify this by repeating the narrative of the number of drug-deaths in the US but again, where is the proof?  Everything and everyone is conveniently blown into oblivion.  And again, I’m not suggesting some extensive conspiracy here I’m well aware of the drug traffic problems, but it seems that this exercise in getting the public to approve of what is really extra-judicial murder is OK when done in order to save American drug-users.

Unfortunately for the government, the blow-up-the-boats imagery of September 2nd didn’t fit so neatly into the video-game like finish.  After the smoke cleared, it appeared that 2-men were clinging to wreckage.  A second missile strike took care of that but here is where it breaks free from the other neater and more final versions.  Clearly, 2-men were targeted to die and the imagery, formerly akin to a video game became a snuff-film that jolted Americans back to reality.

No one wanted their fingerprints on this one and so conveniently, the US Navy Admiral in charge of this particular section of the world says it was all him and then quickly retires.  The public is promised publication of those videos, but they never come, relying on the strong undercurrents of the news-cycle pressure to sweep it into vague memory.

So with this unprecedented hard-line on alleged drug boats justifying public pay-per-view instant death without proof, force of law or trial, how can we juxtapose Trump’s sudden pardon of former Honduran President Hernandez?  This thug was essentially the King Pin of a narco-state who was arrested, tried and convicted.  His power makes these drug boats inconsequential by comparison yet he walks away from a 45-year prison term, inexplicably, while we slaughter nameless and faceless strangers in the name of justice? Perhaps Trump is using the public execution of all of societies “bad-guys” as a pretext to invade Venezuela, oust President Maduro and exchange our nation-building largess for our own oil supply, justified by the promise to liberate the Venezuelan people from the evils of one man to the evils of another.  This nicely avoids all of the domestic environmental concerns and creates a literal pipe-line of oil to the US, all under the guise of protecting our citizens from drugs, freeing Venezuelans and ousting bad leaders, with the uncomfortable exception of Hernandez, who’s value is entirely entangled in his insider knowledge of the South American drug world, all entangled up in a pretty package of competing interests and the reality of a world in the troughs of an existential crisis of character as the Lord looks upon us and weeps.

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