Growing up in Fear of the Future

I am afraid of the America my kids will grow up In. I am worried that it harbors the wolves of discrimination and bigots in conservative sheep clothing. I have interest in politics and have been watching everything closely this year. I am not a Fox news fan but I do watch it to see both sides. I believe it is fair to say that Fox News caters to conservative America. I decided to watch the Huckabee Presidential Forum. I really enjoyed watching the candidates sit and talk about their stand and what issues they hold close to. The major points where Family and promoting the Conservative Republican agenda. I felt the echo of theocracy more than democracy.

I believe strongly in Democracy. A form of government in which its citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives is what democracy is to me. In an idyllic world, Democracy includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law. I cherish the freedoms I have as an American. One of the freedoms I cherish most is freedom to practice my religion without persecution. I believe when one religion loses its freedom, whether I agree with their practices or not, worries me. America is a very diverse country and the religions that are practiced here are no different.

I personally consider myself a Christian. I raise my kids in a deep belief in God. My children read the bible every night, and I am proud of them for it. What I teach them is to treat others like they want to be treated. I teach them that you need to live by example. What I mean when I say live by example is not being a bigot, discriminating or spreading hate toward others just because they don’t agree with you. I also am aware that Christians don’t all have the same unilateral beliefs. I am not sure if candidates like Rick Perry are aware that to fairly represent this country you have to represent all of it.

The candidates seem to in general to portray themselves as the voice of a very conservative Christian America. They often state very clearly they want to give government less control in the laws on individual states unless it goes against their personal religious beliefs. I found this to be very contradictory. I don’t want to live in a country where human right violations are running rampant. That only one religion has the right to worship or pray in public places. I believe if the candidates said, “I want America to be a country where all Muslim can pray and worship at school. They can break out the Koran at their senior graduation and read from it. We as a country need to go back to our basic Muslim American Values.” If candidates said these things there would be uproar, and rightly so. You cannot fight for one religion to have freedom to worship and ignore others, because they don’t fit in your personal agenda.

We are a diverse country. We need to govern in a diverse matter. We aren’t all Christians. CNN recently did a report saying that less than 50 percent of Americans are Christian. Are we supposed to deny another their rights because they are the wrong religion? Are we supposed to adapt the religious views of our President whether he is Mormon, Catholic, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Jewish or Muslim?

We have to ask ourselves how constitutional is it to impose our personal religious beliefs on every American? We constantly berate and belittle countries where religious beliefs rule 100% of their political policies. I refuse to believe that we all must fit one mode. That America has come down to a true war on religions that aren’t Christian.

My fear is that we will start a war on non-Christians. I am scared for my children and their future like many Americans. I don’t want our country to turn into 1981 by George Orwell. A land of theocracy with pervasive government surveillance and incessant public mind control all accomplished with a political system administrated by a privileged Inner Party elites.

We have to ask ourselves what we as American People really want. I want the civil rights of every American to be honored. We have tough road ahead and no one is concerned for our journey. I believe this is a time to come together and really be bi-partisan to fix what is broken. We can’t be a great country divided by discrimination and self-serving theocracy politics. We are a nation of many races, religions and backgrounds which is our nation’s greatest strength, but it has to be united.

Abraham Lincoln said Democracy is a “government of the people by the people for the people” Our politics need to allow all citizens to experience the freedoms guaranteed in the constitution no matter how diverse they are.

Poem 2

I believe this is the second poem I have posted. I was inspired to write this. This is my poem intitled Bad Bad boy. Inspired by the ones we all run to that don't save us, but we take it glady.


Bad Bad boy

You feel like fire
Hot to the touch
Flames pulling me
Kisses congenial breath lost
Halt don’t escape

Agony hurries on skin surface
Touches satisfying demise
Blows magnets for red
Yield gladly twisted masculine embrace
Perverted matrimonial bonds

Love the infection with no treatment
Bruises shattered glass
Tranquil waters placid winds
Light shining on ocean eyes

Super human strength battered weakness
Superman soaring against clouds
Hate encompass in disappointment

Swayed hips lips pulsating
Joy springs, blossom flowers and broken shells
Embrace so constricting
Snake clutching charming life
Thrust and heave

Dominant in the sun
Obscure and fatal in the night
Angry your heritage
Love redeems and hoards you

Bad bad boy

Rick Perry - My Reaction to Your Strong Ad

On August 13, 2011, Perry announced in South Carolina that he was running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election. I couldn’t believe this, Rick Perry was one of the single most reason I didn’t want to live in Texas. He now wanted to be President of the United States. I wasn’t happy about Rick Perry being anywhere, but democracy is what makes our country great. I sat and watch all the coverage of the Republicans vying for the nomination. I watched and read indiscriminately every news story, newspaper article, and debated with people of all backgrounds.


I than saw a Rick Perry ad on Television entitled Strong. All I have to say to Rick Perry is oh how nice of you to take a stand for all religions and taking a more utopian view point. I really want to walk around my son's school and say Happy Hanukah and Ramadan to all my peeps!! Oh let me not forget Pagans and Christians celebrate Christmas, so Merry Christmas too! I will be pleased when you’re elected and all religions are free to worship and pray at school like Muslims, Christians, and Wiccans etc… just like the religious freedom the Pilgrims came to this country in search of. Oh you meant religious freedom just for Christians? That only Christians should be allowed to pray in school?

What a wonderful world we would have if gays could serve in the military openly and everyone is free to practice their religions; utopian ideals again. Rick Perry is on a roll. Wait, Rick Perry is not talking about the war on a place where all religions can practice as they see fit at any place. He is talking about establishing a place where only Christians can worship. Homosexuals for the first time in this country can fight for the freedom they believe in without fear of being persecuted by the person in the fox hole next to them. The armed forces have finally totally been unified into a force that can’t be reckoned with. Rick Perry is not fighting for this in our schools. He is promoting a place of fear for children that are not Christians; a place where children have to fear bullying for believing something different. We all know that as soon as something is labeled different, it is rejected, deemed less than human, and then exterminated. Haven’t we learned the lessons of slavery and native Americans, not to mention the NAZI final solution. Rick Perry’s utopia is a STRONG, WHITE, CHRISTIAN society only!

Burn London Burn!
2011 London Riots


I live in a small place called Weeting in the U.K. My husband recently got stationed here. I have been here before as child and continue to love it. I wake up in the morning to the ray of sunshine greeting me in the summer. I can enjoy long refreshing walks into town and sit at the café for a sweet hot cup of coffee. I love going to the pub knowing everyone there and having a good conversation over a pint. I feel secure in the familiar faces I see every day. I try to stay away from Little America (what I call the three American Bases here) so I can immerse myself in the culture.

On the night of the riots I was playing my most beloved role, a tourist in London. I had been to London several times, and I didn’t imagine it being any different. I took the tube and enjoyed the faces all around me. I sat and at some point stood and drifted off into my imagination. I played a game, looking at people and trying to read them base on their cloths, actions and facial expressions. I got excited when a little baby came on the train, I would sit back and make funny faces at him, secretly giggling in delight when he smiled back at me.

I got off the tube to walk around. I felt like London was my home. The chaos of the busy walkers, loud talks and historical sites mixed in with the modern developments that sat like a painted picture in the background. I bought my favorite treat, spiced almonds from the street vendor and decided to check out the London eye and aquarium. I then settled to end my day with a nice plate of fish and chips, all while noticing the calm of it all tickle me with enjoyment.

I got home and heard the riots were going on that day in London. I said to myself I was in London and I didn’t notice anything. Then I remember London is a big city, but I still thought, could this really be happening? Riots are nothing new to Americans and I quickly remember being at the same place and time as the last Detroit riots. I thought to myself, people in revolt.

I love a revolution that brings about powerful change. The London riots started off with angry young people rebelling against the system that they felt oppressed by. Poverty fighting for a voice and not knowing how to express itself turned into nights of fear and violence. Everyone that was involved in the riots, for positive reasons and or negative ones, became victims of it at the end. What happens when you tell a group they have no voice?

I recently saw a Planet of the Apes remake with James franco. I have always felt that it brought out social issues that are very relevant. In the movie Franco's character is seeking a cure for Alzheimer's disease . He creates and tests several of his cures on Apes. In, short they become smarter and capable of doing everything including talking. There was no pause to think of the apes future. Where would they live and what would they do with this new found intelligence? Were these Apes now human because they could understand and learn at a greater compasity? At the end of the movie the solution was to destroy what man had created in the first place. The Ape's however had other ideas and wanted more. They wanted to experience life on their own terms. They wanted freedom.

I am by no means comparing the rioters to apes but isn’t that what happened. We tell our youth that anything in life is possible. You get your education and you will be able to find a good job, buy houses and provide for your family. Our we prepared when these things don’t happen?

We live in a society now where those who have degrees and training can’t find work. What about our high school grads who don’t make it or can’t afford college? How should they live there lives? We make excuses for poverty but there are no excuses when you can’t feed your children. When you look for and applied for every job but no one is hiring. Who hears those voices crying out in the night? Who saves the single mother in fear in her apartment of the gang volience that her childern are exposed too? Do we hear their voices?

I live in a small rural area but I don’t know if my neighbors are struggling to buy milk or feed their familes. I don’t see the struggle to survive every day. Most of us don’t. The world had little interest in the London youth until the riot broke out. We had no interest in the day to day lives of anyone more than 1 mile from us that wasn’t related . Now, we are volunteering for clean ups and noticing are neighbors more. All this makes me think that the youth have been put here to fail because of our past mistakes.

We create our democray and laws. We say that everyone has a fair shake in life proudly but that isn’t true? We let our schools fail our children, then blame it on the parents; Parents who are most likely having to work long hours to provide for their children, parents who may have no education of their own. Children should have a community looking out for them and supporting them, but they don’t. Let that child misbehave and all of a sudden we are a community again? We are worried about our youth? Did London here their voices or merely brush it under the rug of poor rebillous uneducated kids being trouble makers.

I don’t condone the riots at all, but I know it's deeper than just stealing and lighting a couple fires. In The Planet of the Apes, apes were given everything except a place in the world. Excpet a voice and a choice about their future. They were put aside after testing to be forgotten so that everyone could just move on. The problem was supposed to solve itself. Caesar, the main parimate charchter in the moive decided to find where he belonged on his own. He decided in order for him to have a life and freedom he had to escape the bondage he was in. Yes, Ceasar could talk but What would us, silly human, do with a talking Ape? We wouldn’t take him seriously. We wouldn’t let him have a voice in our congress or parliments so Ceasar had to gather his follow parimates and seek out freedom for himself.

As a soctiey we have to learn to give all our youth a voice. We can’t just leave it up to the rich, or upper crust ivy league students to repsent the youth. In order to have a real voice all our youth needs to be represented, including the poor, rich , the college educated and the high school drop out a like. We as a people need to listen. We are so afraid of what we can’t control. When that control is taken from us and turned into chaos, we all stop. We all decided okay now we will pay attention. We often wait too late. I know London and the surrounding areas will heal from this but my hope is we will all learn form this as well.

Charlie

Poem I wrote about my crushes. I use like these type of guys in high school from a far. Than in college from a far. Now, I am older and married and they still catch my eye. I guess we all have our fantasy guys

Ode to Charlie

Your clothes blend with night
Black jacket, boots, hat so composed
Wicked smirk the devil and Angels dancing in your eyes
Gauges in your ears tattoos painted racing over your pale skin
Stepping on hearts as you walk by
The sound of the crutch you pretend not to notice
Lonely soul wanted everything and nothing
Bad to your bones but sweet in the middle
Rotten candy treat, tangy in a attractive wrapper
Hypnotizing I can’t resisted you
Pain, worry, misery steam for you the heat
You got me
I pull away, but your force is so powerful
Heavy thick trapped I can’t move
I lost the fight
Tired, Bruises,cracked lips,
Pulsing pain and pleasure in my eyes
Battles won and lost
Dark boy stole my heart
Back to midnight where no good is
Deep down you want war
You wanted this
And I love the fight

Scarlet O’Hara Affect

Scarlet O’Hara Affect

The American South has always been intriguing and scary to me. I have family White, Black, Asian and Native American that have etched a picture of the south in my mind. I had the privilege, as a child to learn about the south in a diverse number of ways. I was fascinated about the romanticism of the South and the horror of it.

As Child, I had little worries. I was very carefree and happy. I had my run-ins with racism but they bounced off of me and seemed to disappear when the moment had gone. I was never worried about my skin color being shades darker than my peers. I always saw myself as this lone individual that transcended color and stereotypes. My interactions with racism did not change the way I viewed myself.

I remember the first time I was called nigger. I was with my mother, a military wife, and we were stationed in Louisiana. My father was an Airman and often worked 18 hour days. My mom had a hard time finding a barber for my brothers’ hair. My mom is a very proud intelligent person and has never been easily intimidated. When my mom walked in to an all-white barber shop full with nothing but white males, she wasn’t fazed in the least. She took her ticket and sat in her chair. My mother smiled at everyone and said a friendly “hello”, before grabbing a book and reading to us. She waited patiently until her number was called. I do not recall the stares or being uncomfortable but I do remember the smell of wet hair and cigarettes. How the barbers had on white button coats and dark pants. I remember my mother’s voice, strong and steady as she read to us while we waited. Then, like the scattering of broken glass my peaceful moment was taken away from me. My mother was arguing with the Barber who said, “I don’t cut Niggers’ hair.”

My mom wasn’t shocked or afraid of the word nigger. She often acted like she heard it so many times there wasn’t any emotion in her when someone said it. I remember the white males in the shop surrounding my mother and saying “Get your little niggers out of the shop.” My mom stood her ground and looked at that barber right in the eye and said to him, “You cut hair, don’t you? Why shouldn’t you be able to cut my sons’ hair? The barber looked puzzled at the fact that she was not scared or shaken. My mom explained how she had been on her feet all day looking for a barber shop. She said “I am hot, tired and way to pretty to have sweat running down my face. My new dress is about all wrinkled and I don’t want to have my sons looking like a mess. So you are going to take those clippers there and cut my sons hair!”

All of sudden the room ran with an eerie peacefulness. The barber smiled at my mom and said in his sweetest voice, “You’re not like the rest of them are you? Come son,” he said, as he lifted my brother up in the chair and, without missing a beat, began cutting his hair. The barber did a great job on my brother’s hair and I remember us going once a month to that shop to get their hair cut. The barber often gave us suckers and smiled and chatted with us.

The barber shop would be my greatest lesson on racism and how I would react to it. My mom had not only told me but showed me how to deal with it. She had instilled in me, wisdom and strength. My mother grew up in the South. She came from two southern parents that had experienced the south in different ways. My Grandmother came from a tragic but loving interracial relationship between a white man and a black woman. My grandfather’s parents were unique for the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Although my grandmother’s father had come from European immigrants, my grandfather’s father came from China to work along the gulf coast. His mother had long reddish straight hair, big eyes and dark midnight skin and she was as skinny as a tooth pick. She was a beautiful mix of Native American,black and white. She was born doing the end of slavery and my grandfather said she was known to always have a book in her hand. My grandfather’s parents’ relationship was one that tore his family apart and left my grandfather scared. My great grandparents only had two children both boys, one being my grandfather.

I don’t know what happened to my grandfather’s parents, only that it left a wound my granddad refuses to open. When he was no bigger than 5 or 6, he went to live with his grandmother and worked delivering ice. I remember my grandfather saying it was hard being dark as night with blue slanted eyes and red hair. He said he dyed his hair often to blend in more.

My grandfather pictured the south as a hateful disease. He had stories of being scared of playing under trees because of the swinging black bodies hanging from them. He would remember the pitches of screams by mothers when they found their raped daughters, beaten with inches of death, on door steps or on open roads. He remembers vividly the Jim Crow laws and how he felt like less of a man having to answer to boy. He grew up with hate in his heart from all he had seen and experienced. He hated the south and never saw any beauty in it.

My grandmother, on the other hand loved her southern upbringing. She has a since of pride when you ask her about it. In a very confident voice she would say, if we stayed on our side no one would bother us. She had no fear when it came to whites in the south and actually had great experiences. Her fondest memory is a white relative letting her work at his restaurant so she could save up for college. She remembers being treated like family in the restaurant because she was. My grandmother even had fond memories of her parents and their love for each other. As a little girl, she would sit at the kitchen table, bouncing on her daddy’s knee, while her mother cooked supper.
These were the two views my mother grew up with and that I know made her so strong. My mother came from two educated parents who traveled, played chess and always had a library of books. She was proud of her southern heritage and her northern upbringing, she loved the film, Gone with the Wind because she was and always will be a southern belle.

Scarlet O’ Hara was by all means was a loose and diligent women but she had strength and the ever present will to survive no matter what. What others thought of her meant little. She lived life by her own plan and reasoning. I believe to my mother, Scarlet O’Hara represented the dueling ideals of the South. Gone with Wind was much like how her childhood was. Everyone around her was tip toeing about slavery, racism and the horror of what was going on around them. The unlikely romantics that showed love could endure almost anything, even in the South. The reality is, in the end, where you grew up and came from will always be a part of you, as Tara was for Scarlet.

I am my mother’s daughter. I am a military wife now myself and have been stationed in the South. I have experienced joys and the harsh reality of the south. I was raised all over the United States and the world. The places I call home being England, Germany, Italy, Hawaii to Ohio and everywhere in-between. My mom made sure we read all the classics, played chess, musical instruments, and spoke foreign languages fluidly and were all well-traveled. This was important to her like it was for her parents. She was determined to instill in us that no one was better than us. She made sure that people opinions of our race never had time to slip into our hearts and cause us anger or pain. When I watched movies like Gone with Wind, I can’t help but feel two sides of the south running in my veins. The beautiful picture of heaven on earth painted so eloquently in the movie and the harsh realities of its gritty, dirty and bloody soul that is imprinted in me. Scarlet O’Hara’s character in the motion picture Gone with Wind was more than a southern belle. She embodied the evil and good of the South with all its strength and weaknesses.

United States Terrorist Flag

United States Terrorist Flag


1.Terrorism- the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

Terrorism has become an interesting topic since the 9/11 attacks. Our views still produce a very fearful response. We are all scared someone at any given moment will invade our since of safety. We double check who is getting on the plane with us when we travel, pretending we can spot a terrorist by their presumed nationality. Countries we stopped having interest in after dessert storm are now in our daily conversation. Our children now mention war, Iraq and Afghanistan in the same sentence. We as The great country of United States can spot terrorism in heartbeat. We can spot it unless; we are looking at ourselves in mirror.

In 1860, when Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president, it caused seven southern states to secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America; four more joined later. The Confederate States of America were not a part of the U.S anymore. In their eyes they seceded. However the U.S government believed that the South’s session was illegal. C.S.A (Confederate States of America) formed a government and even elected their own president, Jefferson Davis. C.S.A wasn’t recognized by foreign countries but was able to interact with other countries a part from the U.S.
C.S.A declared war on the U.S. Their military, government and laws were in place to over throw our elected president, invade, conquer and rule. Their plan was to use violence and threats to over throw the U.S. government for their own Political Purposes. This was an act of Terrorism on the U.S., a war on our soil and an act that still divides North America.

There are two flags for a country that was supposed to be united. We are The United States of America, but refused to remove the confederate flag. The argument is patriotism on both sides of this issue. I found nothing patriotic about the confederate flag. I equate the confederate flag to a U.S. Marine in full dress uniform walking around Washington D.C. waving a Taliban flag.

We make the war of words over the confederate flag about slavery, racism and the pride of southern heritage. The confederate flag represents secession, that is a fact. It also represents the separating of the U.S into a divided nation and country, when brother fought brother and slave fought freemen. It was a dark time in the United States history. My question is, why is this Confederate flag allowed to be displayed as patriotic in Court houses and several government buildings?

I can’t find any reason that displaying a confederate flag in any government building is necessary or justified. If you are proud of your relative’s conscience choice of Terriosm on follow Americans then keep in the privacy of your own home. This issue isn’t about Slavery or racism. Abraham Lincoln said himself in a plea not to have Civil war, that states that already had slaves wouldn’t have to free them and that new states could not take on the act of slavery, but the civil war happened anyway.

The southern and Northern military both had Slaves in some capacity fighting in the war. The slaves were promised freedom if they fought for the North. Many freemen fought out of pure principle in the terror of bondage. The South also had blacks unofficially in it’s ranks. They served in the Confederate Army in unofficial, non-combat roles as servants, laborers, teamsters, musicians, cooks, etc. This war not only put whites against their brother but in theory did the same for many black families.

There is no debate the Confederate flag is still a very controversial issue and what it stands for. We however must simply look at it for what it is, terrorism, arguably the first act of terrorism on our soil. The Confederate States formed a government and Army to overthrow the United States. They wanted to take our country and destroy it. What was the Confederate States’ goal? The Confederate States’ goal was to preserve slavery and states' rights by war and not democracy. They were so entangled in this goal they formed their own country with in a country. They disowned our flag and made their own.

The Confederate States were defeated in 1865. Defeated 146 years ago and so was their flag. We should have simply been one country with one national flag. The stars and stripes is our United States flag yet we have two flags. The confederate flag was designed and made, to honor the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, and to replace the United states’ of America National Flag. The Confederate flag with it’s “southern cross is a satire to the diagonal cross. With these facts I found the confederate flag offensive and anti-American.

When our brave patriotic American troops fight terrorism in foreign lands they do it under one flag. When we raised the flag on Iwo Jima it was the Stars and stripe, the United States flag. The Stars and Stripes flag that we raised gives us hope and our troops encouragement. I refuse as a patriotic American and military wife to honor, accept or agree with the displaying of the Confederate flag in Government buildings.

We as Americans say we are against terrorism. We are struggling to weed out the terrorism of other countries yet we let a flag of terrorism wave in our own great country. We make excuses of history and southern pride but in fact the south lost. Their flag is no longer a symbol of seceded states. We are united now, so should our patriotism be to one flag.