Author: Tom Fitzpatrick

Life

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I never much liked school. For the longest time, I thought my parents hated me for sending me there every day.  I thought why on earth would anybody go to such a terrible boring place. I was an early advocate of do what you have a passion for, and, let me tell you, I had very little passion for school, so I put very little effort into it.  If I wasn’t interested in the subject I did the absolute maximum I needed to do to get a C.  Which was fine during the mid-1960’s, when I was growing up, C’s meant what C’s were supposed to mean, it meant you were average.  I was fine when they appeared on my report card, and, more importantly, so were my parents. 

My journey to being a C student really got going in the second grade.  This was when I took the Iowa Basics which, at that time, tested a child’s intelligence. The Iowa Basics were taken seriously.  You were given a questions book, an answer sheet, a strict time requirement a proctor to make sure you followed all the rules. The answer sheet was a page of unfilled ovals which students were to give their answers on by filling in the appropriate oval with a number 2 pencil. The proctor emphasized the importance of the number 2 pencil mark and also the need to stay within the boundaries of the oval.  If you failed these two simple instructions, your answers would be invalid, you would screw up the whole test and be considered a dim wit for the rest of your life and, since I went to Catholic schools, you would probably end up in Hell. 

Teachers could be blunt in my day.  If they thought you were stupid, they told you so. If you complained to your parents that your teacher called you stupid, your parents called you stupid too.  The teachers and the parents always agreed when the stupidity of the child was under discussion.  So, if the teacher thought you were going to Hell, it was her duty to let you know so that, perchance, you took her guidance seriously, you could at least make it to purgatory instead of rotting in Hell for eternity. The good old days. 

Anyway, I ran into a problem with my Iowa Basic test before I even had a chance to open the questions book. The answer sheet didn’t have enough ovals for my very long name – Thomas Bartholomew Fitzpatrick. Instead of notifying the test proctor of my dilemma, I fumbled around trying to figure out where I made my mistake. That this was the design of the test never occurred to me. So, while other kids were filling out the appropriate oval with their more manageably sized names, I was desperately trying to jam my full name onto the answer sheet.

Things came to a head when the proctor tried to start the test.  She asked if everyone had completed putting their name on the answer sheet and I had to admit I was struggling.  Of course, she became irritated with me for not bringing this to her attention earlier. I had ample time to complain and now I was going to delay the start of the test for everyone. How thoughtless of me. However, I am happy to report that she was equally stumped on how to proceed with getting my full name on the answer sheet.  She needed to call the principal who didn’t know what to do either but she had the good sense to realize that there was no good reason to hold up the test. She told the proctor to start the test and she would figure out what to do about the name later.   

So, there I was taking the test that would determine the course of my entire life. I was nervous wreck already. Full of questions and worries.  Why did my parents give me such ridiculously long name, didn’t they know about the ovals on the Iowa Basics?  Furthermore, because of my ridiculously long name, both the test proctor and the principal were angry with me.  The proctor particularly irritated because she looked foolish in front of the principal and took every opportunity to glare at me as if I was trying to subvert the Iowa Basic test she was proctoring thus dooming all these other children’s lives as they would be marked for life as dim wits along with me. And, finally, my fellow students, not knowing how long my name was so not understanding my dilemma, looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. How hard could it be to fill out an oval with a number 2 pencil.  To say I was nervous was an understatement, I was a wreck as I tried to pull myself together while under the watchful eye of every living soul in the room.  

The terrible pressure of that moment is the only explanation I have for my completely average score. Because, I am certain, if I hadn’t been so discombobulated by the stress of that day, I would have scored much higher. Instead, I scored smack dab in the middle. 50 percent of the American children scored above me, 49 percent scored below me. The good news, at least for me, my parents took the Iowa Basics seriously. If the Iowa Basics determined I was average, I was average. No reason to get their hopes up for Harvard and the Presidency for this child. From this point on, their only expectations of me from that point on was C student.

I can’t tell you how liberating it was to be a C student.  I was left alone to determine my fate. And, with such low expectations, all I had to do was find a job, pay my bills and not be a burden to society.  I am happy to say, with very little exertion on my part, I have met those expectations and had an awfully good time doing it. Just think, if in the second grade I had aced the Iowa Basics, I would still be battling the other smart kids so I could get my chance to maybe make it to the top of the heap, giving up nights of fun for working even harder so I could keep my hands on that greasy pole called success. I shudder at the thought that my parents could have chosen a less lengthy name.

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If nothing else, David Chappelle is a marketing genius. He artfully generated some free publicity for his television show. Controversy is the best way to get the media involved. Chappelle provided them with a controversial topic. The media, whose distribution of controversies is its only reliable function, hungrily bit the hook and frontpaged the outrage. Particularly perplexing is how the transgender community fell all over itself to give Chappelle more free publicity. Controversy rarely stops people from doing anything, it does, however, entice people who might never have even heard about if you hadn’t bothered to complain about it.

I tried to understand it but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out exactly what Chappelle did wrong. He is making fun of transgender people. OK. Probably not a good idea for people who are sensitive about this issue.  Still, it is in his job description to make fun of people.  What he said that makes him transphobic is unclear to me. All I can get is that he doesn’t adhere to some standard people are expected to follow in order to avoid being called transphobic.

Since I can’t make heads or tails, I now have to see his show. Standup isn’t really my thing, I have absolutely nothing against it. But if I have a choice, I prefer other types of entertainment. Standup was always something that I could pass on for other shows.  Now, however, I want to see Chappelle’s show. Everyone is talking about it, I need to know what I am talking about in order to put my two cents in.

So, other than people yelling at him, which, ironically enough, only creates more controversy, so more free publicity for him, Chappelle has come out of this unscathed. The press, on the other hand, has no excuse.  This was, maybe, a one-day story.  Then came the yelling match.  The media, who is patently unable to pass up screaming individuals, kept the story going.

When will people learn that if you want to stop people from seeing something, absolutely, positively keep your mouth shut. Otherwise the very thing you wanted people not to know, will now be spread even further than the performer ever dreamed possible without the controversy.  Kudos for Chappelle for showing us how to sell a television show using free publicity.

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The resignation of Jon Gruden has raised a lot of hackles with conservative columnists. It was a little shitty how his emails came to light, but when you make enemies, as Gruden has, you should expect these enemies to use any weapon they can find against you. The bottom line is that Gruden sent prejudice-laden emails. If he had paid any attention to the HR videos that every other employee in the civilized world is subjected to, he would have refrained from sending them in the first place. After years of incessant lectures regarding appropriate e-mail procedures, everyone should know that once you press send your email is both stored forever and can be sent absolutely anywhere. So, this incredibly responsible and privileged man ignored the rules of corporate e-mail etiquette and got caught. He now paid a high price for doing so.  

This is why HR departments worldwide conduct classes to instruct employees what is appropriate behavior to avoid such embarrassing situations.  HR, also, reminds us that if that e-mail is sent on a company server and/or with a company email address, your company has the right to read your emails.  If your emails are deemed inappropriate, you could be disciplined up to and including termination. I find it difficult to believe that someone at Gruden’s level didn’t know that words like “faggot” and “pussy” are offensive words. Everyone knows that e-mails are not private that is why HR instructs employees to be careful when sending them.

More importantly, Gruden is using blatantly homophobic, sexist and racist words while communicating with other top executives associated with football. He says he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. Maybe Gruden reasons that he was only talking about the size of DeMaurice Smith’s lips. He could be talking about any person of any race who happened to have big lips. Right. Context is everything here. He was describing a black man using one of the most frequently used stereotypical descriptions of Black people.   

Even if we could give him some wiggle room for his big lips comment, what was his intention for “faggot.” Any person living in 21st century America knows that the word “faggot” is an offensive term. There is absolutely no debate about “faggot” which undermines his argument about not having a racist bone in his body. He seems pretty comfortable using homophobic language when describing gays, then it also seems likely that he is just as familiar with the racial epithets.

Some argue that OK he may have used colorful language but this was a private email. He never intended for anyone other than Bruce Allen to read it.  This is a troubling argument because Gruden manages blacks, women and gays.  How can a person be a private racist and a public non-racist? Is that even possible? It is not something you can turn on and turn off whenever you move from public to private. If, as a work colleague, you have Gruden’s homophobic statements, how confident could you be that Gruden treats his gay employees fairly. At the bare minimum, it should make you suspicious.

You would think that someone would have reminded Gruden about his phrasing. From what I can determine, absolutely nobody said a word to him about his choice of words. None of these men owed their jobs to Gruden, they could speak freely without fear of losing their jobs.  Yet, they said nothing. Indeed, they carried on with their conversation as if this is the way they talk every day.  Conversations filled with racist, sexist and homophobic innuendo.

And, to their argument that Gruden doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.  These men probably believe it. They don’t see any harm in talking like this with other white men. They have a very narrow definition of racist. To them, a person has to be a member of the KKK or the Nazi party before a person can be considered a racist.  Every other White is basically OK.  Their casual racists remarks are forgiven.  He was just being funny. He doesn’t really mean it. He would never do anything to physically harm someone. The KKK is a racist but a white man noticing that a black man has big lips – that isn’t racist, it is observation.

So much for all these HR trainings having any effect on the workforce. Clearly Gruden and Allen need to attend another course.

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Why are we still debating about vaccinating people who have already had COVID? It is a small point but someone like Rand Paul harps on it anytime he gets a chance to spar with Dr. Fauci.

Sen Paul’s point is that someone who has had COVID has antibodies to COVID thus erasing most of the danger of getting COVID.  Antibodies are antibodies. Public Health officials go through horrible gyrations in their explanation of why people who have recovered from COVID still needs the COVID vaccine.  They give it the old college try and it is painful to see. After watching these people squirm I realized that Sen. Paul must be right.

So why argue about it? It is a  losing battle? More importantly, it isn’t going to have any impact on bringing down deaths from COVID.  If a person has had the disease, can prove it with an COVID antibody test that person is considered vaccinated. This would eliminate opposition from some of the people who are presently fighting vaccination.  Public Health officials then can focus on a much different group – people who have no antibodies to COVID. They are, after all, the people who need to get vaccinations.  And, as an added benefit, the government is giving them a choice about how they get their antibodies – they can either get COVID or get the vaccine.

To continue to argue about is insanity. Let’s save our time, energy and money for something that really matters.  This would save Public Health officials from looking like sputtering fools defending the indefensible and we shift the focus back to the problem – how to keep people who don’t have antibodies from getting the disease. It is a very small bone to throw to anti-vaccers. But a bone is a bone.  It would have little impact, if any, on the spread of COVID. So why argue about it. What worries me is that the pro-vaccinators have lost their patience with anti-vaccers to such an extent that they continue to fight a losing battle because they now want submission . They want everyone vaccinated and that is that. I understand the frustration but it seems to me a stupid battle. A hill not worthy of dying on.

Let’s choose our battles wisely.

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I find myself increasingly irritated with the quality of reporting emanating from even the most prestigious news outlets like the BBC and the New York Times in regards to the evacuation of Kabul. It seems like everybody needs to get evacuated. Everybody.  I am not sure why and they aren’t particularly adept at telling me why.

A good example of this occurred several weeks back on the BBC that still nags at me.  Lyse Doucet, a BBC correspondent, interviewed an Afghan man who felt abandoned by the British because of visa issues which left him in Kabul after the Taliban took over. The man worked for the contract caterer who supplied meals for the British Embassy. He felt like he served the British well during his tenure and deserved evacuation without all of the visa application roadblocks the British government were putting in his way. Again, his only connection to the British government was serving meals to the embassy staff. He felt this work made his immigration during this time of chaos automatic and necessitates the British to ignore their application process for him and his family. He never really explained why other than he worked hard for the British. Doucet doesn’t pursue it. She does let the viewer know he feels abandoned and would like to very much for the British government’s help in bringing him there. 

I do not want to live in a Taliban controlled Afghanistan. I feel sorry for any Westerner or any Afghan ally who was left there.  I also want the Western governments to continue to help anyone who wants to leave.  I am sure that there are hundreds of thousands of people who want to leave Afghanistan. But, if the BBC was looking for a compelling story about someone trapped in Kabul and who is in immediate danger from the Taliban, the trusted news organization missed the mark by quite a lot with this particular story.

Evacuating a country, in the best of circumstances, is difficult operation. Afghanistan is far from a perfect situation. The country is in a civil war.  It was a dangerous place before the Taliban took over and it remains a dangerous place today now that the Taliban has taken control.  Both the Westerners who went to Afghanistan and the Afghan allies who worked with western governments knew this when taking their jobs. The British government was faced with a difficult job of evacuating their citizens and any Afghans allies. They had to prioritize based on the chaos around them, the resources available to them and the people who needed to leave immediately.

This is where the BBC breaks down. Just because the man felt he should be evacuated doesn’t mean that it was urgent for him to leave, or that it is important for him to jump the queue. Doucet doesn’t even try to make his case.   I kept thinking what exactly has he done that warrants the British government getting this man and his family to Britain. I am sympathetic to him wanting to leave, a lot of people do. But does he risk death or prison because he remains in Afghanistan. Did the Taliban threaten him?  Did the BBC have evidence of the Taliban threatening anyone and everyone who worked with the British embassy?  What were other Western governments doing for their catering staff?

Doucet milked this man’s uncompelling story for all that it was worth while spending precious little time determining if the man warrants any real concern. It is sad that he wasn’t on the list to evacuate immediately but if I were compiling that list, and given the facts I have, I would certainly have left his name off of it. Which leaves me pondering why the BBC chose to air this story. I am certain there are better examples out there that illustrates the point they were trying to make. Unfortunately, this man’s story fails miserably. It lacks both context and urgency. In the end I learned about an Afghan who doesn’t want to live under Taliban rule and who felt his very tenuous link with the British government entitled him to better treatment. The British government disagreed and he remains in Afghanistan with a lot of other Afghans who want to leave and who will have to struggle with British visa process to gain entrance.  It is a sad story and I am sure there will be more sad stories like it before the Taliban is through, but the man was not abandoned and he doesn’t warrant any special treatment.

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I accidentally got involved in Facebook argument the other day.  I know better than to argue with people who disagree vehemently with my position as I can never change that person’s mind. NEVER. If a person is passionate about an issue they are committed. They do, however, think that they can change yours. The argument will begin with the pretense of reasoned argument and end with taunts and name-calling.  I avoid these types of arguments as much as I can.

I stepped into this particular pile of shit because I thought I was replying to someone I knew, and probably agreed with. The post had the following statement: Why do you hate the rich? I answered the question with another question: Why do the rich hate us? There are billionaires out there that make more money than they know how to spend, why don’t they give this money to the poor and middle class so that everyone can enjoy a better life.  Today’s rich live in the greatest luxury known to humanity so even if they were taxed more, they would continue to enjoy the good life with little, if any, discernible change in how they live.

As I thought I was talking to my largely liberal friends, who would disagree? Yet, the disagreeing comments came.  When I checked the names of my opponents, I realized these were not people I knew and I should move on without comment.  I need to make a small confession here. I like to argue politics.  It is fun.  Or it used to be. I remember in college that I would go to a bar with people of varying political beliefs. We would drink and argue, but even though drink was involved we were mostly respectful of other people’s opinion, we listened and occasionally minds were changed.

Facebook arguments, if you haven’t been in one, aren’t friendly bar room arguments.  And that alone is saying a lot. I would rather argue with blind drunk political partisan in a bar than a completely sober person on Facebook.  Facebook arguments are savage hand-to-hand combat followed by the full nuclear arsenal raining down on the wounded bodies strewn across a bloody battlefield. It is bloody to participate in, impossible to win and thus pointless to respond.

But if I were to respond this is what I would say.

The crux of their argument wasn’t even an argument, it was a question: why did I care about how the rich spent their money.  It was their money and they earned it. This is where I disagree. What happens is that a company receives profit and the leaders of the company decide to divide the money between the people who are employed at the company.  The people who divide the pot are also the big wage earners. Low income earners are not invited to this particular table.   

It should be no surprise to anyone that the people dividing up the pie are the same people taking the biggest slice of the pie. The perverse side effect of this type of distribution is that high earners demand more and more money because their wages keep increasing and in order for companies to stay competitive they must pay their top earners more while the lower income earners wages are stagnant and there is little pressure to give this group more money. In fact, the top wage earners have abandoned their low wage-earning peers by putting more and more pressure on the lower income earners through automation and out-sourcing. So, while everyone at a company contributed to creating the profit, the top wage earners decided to take the lion’s share of the money claiming that the market made them do it. They personally had nothing to do with this skewed distribution, we are only following the dictates of the market.  If it was up to us, we would happily pay more money to low wage earners but, the market, you know must have its way.

Which brings me back to my question: Why do the rich hate us.  They take an unequal portion of the profits. They drive down global wages. They allow low income earners, people who by the way work a full-time job, to live in precarious economic situation while they live in luxury. They work to limit access to good public services for low income people. They are contemptuous of everyone who makes less money than them. Why do they hate us so?

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Thank you President Biden for getting us out of that hellhole of Afghanistan.  The cost was way too much. Over 2 thousand Americans dead and 20,000 wounded, 2 trillion dollars spent and 20 years of time. For what exactly?

 I understood the war when it started – we were punishing the Taliban for supporting Osama bin Laden who had attacked New York and Washington.  I supported that but once we accomplished that – sometime around 2003– what else could we do? Oh, yes, bring democracy to a country with little history of democratic institutions, shockingly high illiteracy rates and a widespread adherence to an extremely fundamental version of Islam. It will be a challenge but we might as well give it a go, right?    

Of course, everybody knew the Americans would fail. We have terrible intelligence. We don’t understand the issues on the ground. We always screw these things up.  I find this “I told you so but you didn’t listen to me” stance particularly irksome. If everyone knew this was going to happen, why do we now find ourselves in the position of evacuating all those trapped people at the Kabul Airport?  I don’t know about you but if I knew that the Taliban was going to rollover the Afghan forces in a little over a week, if it was truly that obvious, I would have gotten my ass out of Afghanistan. Well, everybody why did you stay?

But there are Americans caught in a war zone. Everything should be done to get them out. On the other hand, these aren’t thousands of tourists who got caught up in an unexpected civil war.  We are talking about government workers, contract soldiers, and aid workers who knowingly went into a war zone.  Even when American troops were present, their safety was at risk.  And, after all, wasn’t the Taliban victory inevitable. Everybody knew it, and still these people took the risk.

Well, then, everybody says we have to bail out those Afghans that worked for us. They are facing death. Again, I am all for trying, but this is not our war and it isn’t our country. The Americans were trying to help Afghans bring democracy to their country. The mission was theirs not ours. If Afghanistan was in any way salvageable as a democracy would all of these people be trying to escape instead of heading for the hills of Afghanistan to fight another day. It speaks volumes about what they think is going to happen.  They think the Taliban is going to stay in power.  But, of course, everybody knew that beforehand.

Still, everybody says these people risked their lives to help us, we owe it to them. The Afghans helping us were also the ones supplying us with information about how the project was going. Did they ever tell us that it was hopeless and the Taliban was going to take over when we left? It appears the everybody else knew, why didn’t our Afghan allies tell American intelligence?  Now I am just guessing here but maybe our Afghan allies weren’t giving us accurate information because they wanted us to stay. They were stuck in wishful thinking that the Americans would never leave and they would be protected forever. Or they were just plain corrupt – taking the money as long as the Americans were giving it out. Whatever they were doing, they weren’t telling us this was a hopeless cause.  Do we really owe evacuation to people who fed us 20 years of bad intelligence? Can anybody tell me why?

 It is a horrible situation, but there are millions of horrible situations on this earth – why do we have to spend any more blood, treasure and time on this one. The Afghan people supported the Taliban instead of our Afghan allies.  If we empty the country of all of the Taliban’s political opponents, we really are giving up on Afghanistan democracy. Is that what we want? Wouldn’t it be better for the Afghan opposition to stay and fight?  Again, that they want to leave instead of stay, gives you the ugly truth – it, at least for the foreseeable future, is hopeless.  And, again, why were we there?

Well, then, everybody is saying that the Americans triggered the pullout, the Taliban leaped at a chance to take over and when we decided to leave, and the Afghan government was left in the lurch. The Afghans armed services had about 300,000 people with the best equipment and technology in the world facing a smaller force of 80,000 Taliban fighters with older weapons much of which has been captured during the course of the war. The Afghans troops didn’t get run over by a superior force, our Afghan allies left the fight before it happened. So even though everybody knew our departure date, and everybody knew the Taliban was on the march, and the Afghan army had ample time to prepare for the fight – it appears that our Afghan allies decided to head for Kabul airport instead.  

Everybody says we should have started the evacuation earlier so it could be more orderly withdrawal.  This is the most galling criticism of all.  How exactly was that supposed to work?  On one hand, we announce that the American troops are withdrawing but we are leaving you in the good hands of the Afghan army. Then, on the other hand, with a sly wink wink we say you better get out of Afghanistan because these guys couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. Don’t worry though we support the Afghan government 100 percent and we think they are going to do a swell job. We couldn’t evacuate anybody until the Afghan army got routed because to do so would have brought screams about how our evacuations were undermining confidence in our allies. And they would be right. Everybody would have had a fit if we had done that.

All those American lives, don’t we owe it to those soldiers to win this battle.  If we give up the battle, those lives were lost in vain. How long do you want to sacrifice soldiers’ lives to a losing cause?  Do we give it another 20 years? We already have 2,248 dead Americans. If we can’t win, why do we want to lose another 2,000 people? Can anyone say that additional soldiers lives would change the present outcome?  At one point do you give up on, what everybody admits to being, a hopeless cause?

And the money.  I can’t even wrap my head around two trillion dollars.  I had to write it down on a piece of paper and actually see it  — $2,000,000,000,000. If we were going to spend  2 trillion on Afghanistan, it would have been better spent giving every Afghan $50,000. Instead of fighting a vicious 20-year civil war, the Afghan people could have been sunning themselves on the French Riviera. Everyone would have been happier too.  More importantly, we wouldn’t have to worry about evacuating them now, they would already be gone.

It really takes a lot courage for President Biden to end a failing project. It’s not pretty and it is painful. I also appreciate that President Trump, a person who I rarely have a good word for, took the initial steps to leave Afghanistan. President Biden deserves kudos for keeping to the schedule despite intense pressure from the power elite to change his mind.  But, honestly, can anyone tell me what more can we do? And, if all you got is keeping American forces in Afghanistan indefinitely then you are admitting you don’t have an answer.  There is no way this enterprise would ever be successful. 

As a side note: this citizen is done with nation building. Everybody says we are bad at it and, for all I care, everybody else is free to take on any future endeavors of this sort since they know so much more about the subject.

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I was watching a documentary on UFO’s  where there was a discussion of when the US government was going to tell the truth about UFO’s – which, at the bare minimum, would be to admission that there have been credible UFO sightings. One commentator speculated that it would be difficult for the government to admit the truth because they would also have to admit to lying for the past 70 or so years. The irony made me laugh.  What a quandary. 

I can’t tell the truth now because then you will know I lied to you in the past. How can a battered institution with low public confidence come clean when, by doing so, it confirms all of the public’s worst suspicions and fears that they already have about the institution. It really is an impossible situation and reveals the problem with lying in the first place.

In the late 1940’s when there were few UFO sightings, a world recovering from the most horrific war of all time and very little information on what exactly a UFO meant, there may have been some justification for the government lying.  But now, there are many independent accounts of UFO’s. There are reputable scientists who think there is enough evidence that this information should be put into the public domain. Unfortunately, the US government has a tiny problem with giving people access to the information they have gathered. They would have to first admit they were lying and they don’t want to undermine the public’s confidence in their information. This lack of trust could cause problems in a genuine crisis.  Like, say, for example, if the government was encouraging people to take an effective vaccine during a global pandemic.

The  government is so desperate to look honest, they end up preferring to look incompetent instead. Almost as if incompetent is a more preferable look to dishonest. Both the Viet Nam war and Afghan War were a good examples of this thinking.  The US government realized long before the collapse of these ally governments that these were hopeless situations.  Instead of coming clean with their findings, they doubled down on the lie.  Pouring good soldiers and a lot of money into causes that they already believed to be hopeless.

But they were in a bind. If the government did nothing, the public would get suspicious. Why aren’t we fighting back? Why are we abandoning our ally? To keep the whole mess from seeing the light of day, the government, instead, sent troops, equipment and money to a doomed enterprise. All to keep the truth from the American public.  They would rather lose American soldiers, leave billions of dollars of equipment in the hands of enemy combatants and put billions more into the hands of locals who want the money but don’t necessarily believe in the wars to beat the enemy. And, for these efforts, they get to look incompetent.

Instead of cutting our loses, telling people we gave it our best efforts, we gave our allies a chance to show they could put a viable government together and they failed, we relentlessly do the same thing over and over again – just to avoid telling the truth after lying. The problem is, particularly in these inevitable situations, the truth eventually does come out.  The government only delayed the day of reckoning.

When that day comes, instead of saying yeah we knew this was a stretch but we felt like we had to give it a chance, we say we weren’t expecting that, we can’t explain what happened, complete surprise.  So the public sees incompetence and, unfortunately for the government, it has the same effect as lying. What is also troubling, particularly in the case of UFO investigations, is that a lot of money goes into programs whose only purpose is to quash independent people from investigating UFO occurrences. Yes, you read that correctly. The government is spending billions ruining the reputations of whistle blowers and witnesses to UFO’s instead of enlisting these interested parties in finding out more about the phenomena. Why? What purpose can this serve?  According to a Gallup poll taken in May of 2021,  about one third of the American people believe that UFO’s are a possibility. Are these people running amok in the streets shouting about little green men? There doesn’t seem to be a panic to worry about so let them investigate. I don’t know what to do about this. Apparently, the best and brightest in government don’t either because they continue to double down on keeping the lies hidden and the truth seekers under heel. But when people stop believing the lie, you might as well stop lying and tell the truth. The mixed reception that the COVID vaccine received should give us all pause. COVID is, at least so far, a minor world crisis.  Government was tested and we can see some problems that need to be addressed if we are to succeed in a bigger crisis (say a UFO invasion of earth). Some of the responsibility for these problems lay outside of government, but this is a fact of life – there were assholes thousands of years ago and there are assholes now.  Assholes always have to be factored into any crisis. The truth isn’t always popular or pleasant and it is sometimes quite ugly. It is also the best place to start when faced with difficult problems. But until the government addresses the well-founded belief our government lies and directs us to take actions against our own best interests, we won’t have the tools a democratic nation needs to resolve these problems.

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The bad actors in this affair are easy to find and condemn – The Conspirators to Murder, the Sex Traffickers, the Corrupt Bureaucrats. There is, or I hope there is, no argument that these people have committed a crime and should be punished.  I have a bit more difficulty regarding the increasingly annoying excuses coming from the innocent bystanders however.  I didn’t know anything about what Epstein was doing. Which OK maybe you can say that if you never visited the island but anyone who had, give me a break. It was known by some people as Pedophile Island. When you are attending a party on said island, and you see a lot of teen girls running about, you might put 2 and 2 together. Apparently, though, I am wrong.  A lot of the best and brightest minds were simply unable to make this connection.

If nothing else, these bright minds showed incredibly poor judgement. The men who run our country were thrown for a loop when a bunch of sexually available teen aged girls attend a party. Some of these bright bulbs succumbed to this temptation which speaks volumes about them. What are you supposed to do when a nubile girl appears at your bedroom door? You wouldn’t want to insult your host by leaving her out in the cold, now would you?  

But the people who just ignored what was going on and just enjoyed the party without taking advantage of the human party favors, what about them?  I didn’t know what Epstein was doing isn’t a particularly reassuring stand to take when you turned your head to avoid witnessing a crime in progress. Did they really think that these girls were capable of making an adult decision about prostituting themselves? Did none of these people have teenage daughters? And these people were just regular Joes and Janes off the street.  These were powerful people. People who make a difference.  People who could have made Epstein’s life difficult if they wanted to act.  Yet, they decided to let the party go on, indifferent to the girls and not wanting to offend their host.

But the cowards are better than the people who still cling to the notion that they didn’t see anything at all. If you really and truly believe this, I have to say you are unfit for any public office much less the highest levels of government.  If you couldn’t figure out what Epstein was so obviously doing then I would say your cognitive facilities are pretty useless.  I tremble at the thought of you working with a person like Putin or the Chinese government or the Taliban. And as a lie, it simply makes you look stupid. It is so blatantly a lie that you look worse for repeating it than just refusing to talk about it. At least if you refuse to talk about there is that air of ambiguity about it.  People might suspect you of being a little fast and loose with the truth but you still have their faith that you are a sentient human being.

Which brings me to Bill Clinton.  I used to like Bill Clinton.  I voted for him twice and, if it were possible for the Democrats to nominate him, I would do so again. Nonetheless his behavior with Epstein is beyond disappointing. What exactly did he think about the girls? His wife wasn’t with him. The island has a reputation. You think that he might have been just a wee bit suspicious. Clinton is known to be smart. People actually talk about him being smart. Yet he happily RSVP’d for Epstein’s party on Pedophile Island. Did he not question why a billionaire might be inviting him to an island with the reputation for orgies with teen girls? Did he check the room for cameras? Did he have any suspicious that Epstein might be putting him in a compromising position? Clinton has two eyes. He isn’t naïve. And he, in fact, was the father of a teen-aged girl. Which means that he turned a blind eye to it. He apparently didn’t feel he had the power to take on someone like Jeffrey Epstein or Epstein had something on him or he felt he was above it all and rich men have the right to sexually abuse teen-aged girls. None of these speak highly of his character.

I didn’t know what was going on Epstein’s island. That is the story they are telling and, so far, they are getting away with it. Rich and powerful people would rather go to Epstein’s parties than cause a scene which might save some teen-aged girls from prostitution.  Which is sad.  I feel trapped in a very bad marriage. I cannot vote Republican because they are bat shit crazy. I want to keep power out of their hands. Which leaves me with morally bankrupt people like Bill Clinton. I can’t, in good conscience, ever vote Republican, so what is a responsible citizen to do? On the bright side,  I am going into with open eyes and very low expectations. There is something to be said for that.

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If nothing else, Jeffrey Epstein’s death has uncovered the pervasive rot in American society. Unfortunately for him, he was a person so loathsome that nobody really cares if he committed suicide or was murdered.  He deserved to die.  Most people are happy to have him dead, buried and forgotten.

The problem is that the man had evidence which could implicate leaders of the Democratic Party, the leaders of the Republican Party, the British Royal Family and Captains of Industry. Very important people were in the crosshairs of the cops and the American government failed to protect their prime witness in a high security prison no less.  Every fail-safe procedure available in such circumstances failed. A man on a suicide watch commits suicide. The technology failed. The staff failed. And Jeffery Epstein decides on this day when all the fail-safes were failing to commit suicide. A remarkable coincidence, don’t you think?

Any half way sentient being would find this a little difficult to believe. Yet, this is what we were told and this is the answer we are letting the powers that be get away with. I was really offended that a better explanation wasn’t provided. I mean come on. Really. This is your explanation. Nobody believes it. And I mean nobody. It is an insult to the American Public that it is being offered as the definite result of an extensive investigation.  

Then it slowly dawned on me that this wasn’t about giving a somewhat believable explanation about what happened, they don’t care if anyone believes their story. The powers that be saw a bigger problem.  They wanted to warn people away from investigating Epstein’s death. If you want to find out what happened to Epstein, you are putting your life into danger. We killed once and do you really want to take a chance that we won’t kill again?  You have been warned. I don’t know about anyone else but message received.

You can tell it was important to the powers that be because it took staggering levels of corruption to pull this hit off. A billionaire just doesn’t die in prison without a lot of buy in from powerful people. I imagine a group of men in a gentlemen’s club, smoking cigars and drinking fine whiskey,  passing the hat around to get enough money to deal with the Epstein problem.  Nice guy, great parties but we can’t take a chance with the old scoundrel, every one pony up $100,000 and we can give the old boy the send-off he deserves.

Two low level prison employees have taken the fall although it beggars belief that these two were the only ones involved. The right person had to get into the prison. The right people had to be guarding. The right tech people had to turn off the right equipment.  Money men and lawyers had to move money to the right people so that the right strings were pulled. A lot of people, up and down the food chain, were involved in ensuring Epstein met his fate. But since it didn’t really matter that anyone believed what happened or, God forbid, take responsibility for what happened, the two prison guards supplied enough rolling heads to finish off the story.

After seeing this crime spree from our social betters, I find it particularly irksome that Americans still cling to the notion that the rich are good stewards of money. They are, quite obviously, not. Think about the cash it took for Epstein to create his pedophile island, find underage women to fly over to his island, fly over his guests so they could partake in the amusements pedophile island had to offer.  Think of the money spent by Epstein to defend his crimes in court.  Think of the money spent by Epstein’s friends to silence him. As far as I am concerned, we would all be better off if the government taxed Epstein and his ilk and the money received was spent giving every skid row bum in the USA a six pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes. Perhaps some girls would have been saved from the indignity of becoming prostitutes for the world’s power elite.