A well regulated militia.

We the people...

Those three words were engraved on my heart, long ago. Long before I even considered coming to live in the United States. Long before I met my wife, a full fledged American, from a two generations Navy family in the Heartland. But there was more. In addition to these three words in my heart, most of all were these other words also engraved, not on my heart, but deep in my soul: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. So you could say I carry the Constitution in my heart, and the Declaration of Independence in my soul.

 

When I was made aware of who the Founding Fathers were, as well as the Declaration of Independence signatories, pretty soon it was apparent to me how flawed they were as humans, how archaic the documents were, in particular the Constitution, and how their true significance rested not on its literal words but in their meaning. And if the Declaration of Independence was a monolith in and of itself, stating a number of self-evident truths that today assume contemporary significance without question, the Constitution appeared to me as a living, breathing heirloom, to be transmitted from generation to generation with the expectation of improvement being made, a natural evolution, in search of the mythical more perfect Union, and to prove this point, the Amendments were added to the original text, assuming they would improve it, make it evolve through time and circumstances.

 

I knew all this long before I landed in America to stay, and it was my expectation that, sooner or later, the Constitution would be revisited since it was last amended in 1992. I was also very much aware of the two most controversial Amendments, not surprisingly the first and the second.

 

Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

 

Right to bear arms.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Judging by the title of this piece, you already know where we are going. The reason I mention the First Amendment is to contrast the extreme character of the two amendments. One a radical concept, the other a reasonable assumption, for the XVIII century, both passed by Congress on September 25, 1789, and yet so differently approached. While the authors realized how important it was to try and stipulate the freedoms in ways that would resonate through the ages, they looked at the guns like... Well, just guns. They did imagine the evolution of the rights freedom requires would change, and made sure the words were a reflection of all that King George had denied the colonists, as they believed these freedoms should always be pertinent in ways similar to those felt by themselves.

 

Now the reason why such freedoms did not, in the eyes of the amendment authors, need to include the right to bear arms, is still a matter of debate, as in "Why the fuck did they not include guns in the first amendment?", but I have an idea, and before everyone goes apeshit, just remember that EVERY ONE of my posts is nothing but MY OWN opinion. So walk with me again.

The reason the amendment authors did not include guns in the First, but rather made them a whole separate Second, was because unlike the rights described in the First Amendment, which in their minds required preservation for all time, the Second Amendment refers to a very time specific right, experienced in their time.

Both reflections expressed in these two amendments, as well as all the others, and the Constitution itself, are a product of the authors' experiences. Regarding the Second Amendment, their recent struggle to reach independence is very much evident. Washington's regular army had nothing on the British, not on land and certainly not in the sea. If it were not for the thousands of militia men who rallied to Washington's side, we'd have had a much different story. Sure the French helped a bit, but let's be real. Without the militias, 1776 would have been just another year in His Majesty's calendar. 

The evolution of the Militias from irregular groups to Minutemen and finally to the assimilation in the Continental Army, provided the backbone of the fighting force that eventually became the United States Army. And herein lies the key to the interpretation of the Second Amendment, for in the Founding Fathers' minds that was essential "to the security of a free State", as it had been indeed: "A well regulated Militia", that would evolve, train professionally and become part of a regular army, under the command of the United States government, with the President as Commander-in-Chief. Pretty obvious, no? No. Not at all. The authors completely fucked up this one. They were preoccupied with the recent independence and how best to keep it, and they went almost completely contemporary on the Second Amendment, separating the right to bear arms from the timeless, well constructed, clear rights defined in the First.

And here we are today.

August, 2023. Two hundred and thirty four years after the Second Amendment was adopted. 400 mass shootings this year alone, recorded a month ago. There are more to add to that list today. How many people need to die because of the freaks who believe a semi-automatic rifle like the AR-15 is enshrined in the Constitution through its Second Amendment? How many CHILDREN? Every year, 19,000 children and teens are shot and killed or wounded and approximately 3 million are exposed to gun violence. You read that right, and we are headed for a record year, in 2023. So why is this normal in America? I see you shaking your heads, affirming yet again this is not normal. I am sorry, but it is. It has become normal. And to many, it is the price to pay for their "right to bear arms", and they say it out loud everywhere, from social media to national television.

 

We are past the "thoughts and prayers" phase, they used to shower us, and the victims' families with. That's gone. As of recent times, they have three words for us: "Suck it up." And really it translates to "We want our guns. Fuck your kids."

It's as simple as that. And they go back to the old common clichés, like video games, pornography, atheism, no family values, and the almighty mental health. We know this. Then, those of us that believe in gun control, counter it with the argument that all democratic countries in the world with similar or equal problems do not have the resulting death toll because America is a gun crazy country, where more people own guns than anywhere else in the world! Well, not true. But let us put aside countries where people are born with a gun slung across the torso, and focus on evolved, allegedly "civilized" countries. Are we right to say that among those, the United States is the country with the most guns available to citizens, especially the most dangerous ones, like the semi-automatic AR-15? No.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Switzerland.

Switzerland is the Western, democratic, civilized country where more people own, not semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15, but fully functional, government issued, fully automatic assault rifles. In fact, according to the last study, 29% of Swiss own an assault weapon. They keep it at home and will do so as long as they are able to use it within the Swiss armed forces parameters. In contrast with this number, only 20% of Americans own the less lethal and more ubiquitous AR-15, compared to the full-sized automatic SIG SG 550 assault rifle the Swiss use (not to mention its variants, some even more effective). Before you start flinging poo at me, read the Washington Post-Ipsos poll, of March of this year. Yeah.

So disabuse yourselves of the notion we are the people with more real dangerous weapons in the Western Hemisphere, available to the general population. We are not. The Swiss are.

 

"Switzerland hasn't had a mass shooting since 2001, when a man stormed the local parliament in Zug, killing 14 people and then himself." (Insider.com)

Now ask yourselves, how many children were killed by assault rifles so readily available in Switzerland in, say, the last year and this year? Or let's make it interesting and say in the last decade? Don't bother to look. The answer is ZERO.

So why? Why do millions of individually home kept ASSAULT RIFLES in Switzerland kill no children (or any remotely comparable number of adults if any), by criminal intent or mere accident? The answers are: education, and social awareness/responsibility. Things we are finally desperate to save and evolve in America, at the same time others seek to pervert and annihilate them.

 

A well regulated Militia we already have. It is called the National Guard, and they serve alongside the Federal Armed Forces of these United States, including in combat deployments. I bet you diamonds to dollars that 99% of these fuckers who call themselves "militias" would immediately grow bone spurs if they were called to serve overseas in combat. They are stains on our flag, that need removal, and yes, many if not most are Nazis. Not make belief, civil war reenactment nazis, they are REAL Nazis. And we should get rid of them, because they are neither "well regulated" nor "necessary to the security of a free State."

 

They are just the reason why so many children are slaughtered practically every week in this Land of the Free. Next time you go to a shooting range to responsibly practice the use of your perfectly normal side arm, or single bolt action hunting rifle, if you see someone shooting with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, take a good look. That's what a fucking Nazi looks like. 

[finis]

Note:

Comments on this blog are locked. This is but a reading platform linked to Threads.

If you wish to reply with your thoughts, please do so on the Threads post that references this opinion piece. Thank you for reading.

Wake the fuck up, America.

 

The attendants started to arrive taking their seats in the large amphitheater. Pretty soon they were all seated. The man takes a good look at the class composition, and says, "This is a Gen Ed HSI class so if you are looking for A&C that's two buildings down." The inevitable three or four dickheads discretely got up and left the room. 

"Very well, welcome to Histories, Societies, Individuals class, today's subject is both an introduction and a wake up call, so get your notebooks ready, and for fucks sake try to learn something today.", looks at one particular blonde placing a book on her retractable tray. "What the fuck is that?" She stopped and said, "The end of histo...", he cut her off, "Never mind, just put it away. Take fucking notes." He sat on the desk and looked at the audience, taking a deep breath. "Let us begin."

 

America, today, is faced with a serious challenge that threatens her very existence as a free and democratic society, and before any of you even THINK about the Republic argument, just know that ALL the so called "Western Democracies", to name just those, are democratic republics, with the exception of a few monarchies, which themselves are democratic parliamentary systems. So you can take the "this is a republic, not a democracy" bulshit and shove it back in your asses. Now, what threatens us the most as a functioning democracy is not some stupid orange moron, that can easily be defeated through elections, or thrown in prison by virtue of the excellent work of the likes of Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis, or Jack Smith, who are making sure he spends the rest of his miserable existence locked in a box, watching the banks seize all he used to own. No. That's not the real threat.

 

The real threat today is indoctrination. The wilful, relentless, focused effort to substitute what we used to call History, and reality itself, by a doctrine based in fiction, lies, and unadulterated Nazism. They started it by warping the significance of facts. Suddenly facts could have alternatives, like mirror images that were nothing like the real fact, but actually a complete distortion, a fake, a lie, an illusion. It's a kind of magic, only dark magic. That's how it started, and as the plot suggests, this was aimed at "mature audiences", and don't laugh at the sarcasm. Sure, most of those willing to believe these warped figures are just plain dumb bastards who have no idea why the Sun keeps showing up in a different place on the horizon every morning, and believe that if they keep walking long enough they will fall off the flat Earth they live in; but disabuse yourselves of the notion that they and ONLY they were the targets. 

 

People like you. People supposedly better positioned than you, college graduates, highly skilled professionals, politicians, lawyers, doctors, you name it. They all bought it. Are they stupid? No. But they saw the opening, and went for it, like a damn seagull trapped in a stairway, seeing an apartment door open. That was their way out. Out of the closet they had been hiding in for years, out from under the rock they were rotting at, out of the fucking bushes nobody bothered to trim anymore. Suddenly it was alright to be who they really are. Nazis. Out of the blue, as part of the "enhanced reality" program, there were good people on both sides! There was a case to be made for the Germans who believed in the final solution, lets hear them out, please, because "freedom of speech". Why not? What harm could come of normalizing the alternatives to the end of Nazism? What if Hitler had won the war? Is there not a case to be made we would all be better off today? Lets hear "both sides", why don't we.

 

The program went on to deny any election result that was not suitable to the needs of the patriotic citizens, AKA Christo-Fascists, AKA Christian Nationalists, AKA fucking Republicans. We are fighting this fight in the courts right now, and whether the results will impact the future in a constructive way or just throw more shit on the pile of dung that is today's American political landscape, it's too soon to tell. What we do know, is that the circus is in town, and lo and behold, the long lines of precognition endowed liberals waiting to buy popcorn for the expected spectacle the greatest show on earth provides are growing. Why didn't P.T. Barnum think of this? Oh, wait, he did! So here we are, happy as can be, in anticipation of the fucker’s mugshot, we will place as screensaver on our computers and phones. What the fuck are you giggling about? I got news for you, folks. This is a distraction! Wake the fuck up!

The idea that all these brainless maggots, that fill reels and reels of news, and make great candid camera reality episodes, see Trump as their savior and lord, and that they will die for him, and give him all their money, are the be-all and end-all of our problems is just another illusion. They are not. They are just the vessel, at the moment directed to "save their president". Do you believe that if Trump had a chance in hell of making it through his current ordeals, the fuckers that really matter, the ones with the real power and money, wouldn't provide him the best legal council in the world, along with the best doctors to cut his edge and make him behave, and push through this thing like a breeze? The reason they don't is because this is exactly what needs to happen, so that the real agenda can be pushed under the radar, while the news cycles revolve around a sad, pathetic, washed up fuck who has zero power and only has words to say. Sure, dangerous. Sure, let's not forget to cage him for life. But hold on a minute. What's that?

That's the problem.

In many red states around the country, legislative initiatives are taking place by the thousands. You heard me right. Thousands. Many of them already in place. And they cover everything under the Sun that can possibly affect the interests of the few who seek to control us. And they tell you who they are when you look at their wish list: transgender bans, gay bans, LGBTQ+ bans, voting rights bans, environment action bans, regulation bans, Union bans, democratic rules bans, establish procedure bans, precedent bans, anything but Christianity bans, migrant bans, abortion bans, and the cherry on top: Book bans. The same exact list, with some chronological adaptations, the Nazis had in the 1930s. They even go as far as using the same projection tactics the Nazis used in Germany back then. They accuse you of wanting to ban free speech, democracy, freedom, country, religion, the fucking guns. And when they achieve their goal, they will turn around and do all those things themselves. This is all too familiar and it's no joke.

People like Marc E. Elias, and others, are doing what they can on the legal front to stop them, but they are thousands, everywhere, all at once. We could use a little help from Michelle Yeoh on this one. Then, of course, we have a fascist Supreme Court, that is not reassuring, even if some cases they will either not touch or, if they have to, decide more favorably to the old rule of law. But that is not going to last long. The minute they have full cover from the White House and Congress they will go ballistic on us, and may God have mercy on our souls. But we have some time. We can still make changes in the Supreme Court, if the 2024 elections work out really well for the Democrats and the people that will actually do something about this are elected. But again, this is just the low hanging fruit.

Since forever, elites in power have tried to keep the populace educated to a minimum degree, so they can control the field. This started with the Bible, and you probably have a small idea how the Church reacted to the printed version of the thing, but let's just say Gutenberg was not in the invitation list to Vatican parties. Through the ages, advances in education have been met with discreet but resolute attempts to make them stall, if not stop. The idea of private schools where the illuminated elites could learn, while the plebeians were reduced to broken public schools are but echoes of the time when the Bible was only accessible in Monasteries and the good word was transmitted down stream by selected few. Both Democrats and Republicans have delved in these efforts in the past, from voucher schools to no child left behind, the purpose was always the same. Keep the lower classes dumb.

 

Well, welcome to the XXI Century in America, where dumb is no longer enough.

Now they are after the real deal. The conversion en masse of public schools into Hitler-Jugend like factories. What is happening today in Florida is not the product of the Nazi genius of Ron DeSantis, don't make me laugh, he is but a schmuck. The ones funding all these public school conversion programs are the problem. They are cunning and focused and they provided the country with exactly the right kind of distraction for them to execute the plan: the Trumpian Circus. And it is a master plan. It starts with pokes. Poke, don't say gay. Poke, no transgender sports. Poke, no gender neutral bathrooms. Poke, the ten commandments in all schools. Did it work? Are we really allowing this to happen? Awesome, they say. and POKE, and POKE. And poke by poke, they arrived at the banning of books. The crown jewel of Nazism. And that went through as well! They lost their shit.

 

For once, they jumped the gun and now we can all see what they are really after.

Organizations like Moms For Liberty and PragerU are pushing hard to have their own approved material adopted in public schools as the norm, teaching scores of children things like slavery had its benefits and better enslaved than dead, and the environmentalists are communist extremists who want to terminate your way of life, and other crap that makes any educated person vomit. But herein lies the problem. If they succeed in turning public education into a broad spectrum homeschooling steroid enhanced system, soon the "educated people" will be "them". What you know as an educated person today is already an endangered species. If this program succeeds, it will disappear from the face of the Earth, starting right here in America. The new Motherland, with millions of indoctrinated morons attending college, and yes, our military academies too.

This is it, people. Close your fucking books and take a good look around. The answer to your questions is not written yet. You must write it yourselves. So stop reading so much, start observing more and write it down, what you know must be done, and share it. Warn everyone. This is the fight of your lives. And nobody has written about it yet. It is up to you now. Make it count, or we are all fucked.

Class dismissed.

[finis]

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Comments on this blog are locked. This is but a reading platform linked to Threads.

If you wish to reply with your thoughts, please do so on the Threads post that references this opinion piece. Thank you for reading.

Perder Achando.

 

Before we begin. Please use THIS LINK (click).

This will setup the soundtrack to this post.

Yesterday… for some reason we talked a lot about Paris, on Threads. And inexorably my mind went there. To 1995. And to what led me to it, almost three years before. So let’s start there.

It was a glorious Summer day by the sea. I was riding my bike, at the time the Yamaha XTZ 750, a trail super bike. Ahead of me, a friend was driving his car and with him was this girl… She was something else. We were heading to his beach house, a few miles South of Porto, Portugal. Beautiful road, railroad tracks on our left, beach houses on our right, and just beyond those, miles and miles of amazing beaches… and my adored ocean. We were traveling South.

About half way through, I decided to show off. There was a long stretch of dirt on our right side, between the two way road and the houses. I throttled up and took it, placing myself on my friend’s car right side, and waved at the girl riding shotgun. She smiled and waved back. My friend noticed me, as he probably checked for me in the rear view mirror and I was gone. He was not smiling, being a motorcyclist himself, he knew me and could just see what was coming.

He slowed down. We were doing 60 mph, maybe. I noticed, and decided to go for it. I hit the gear box two down and twisted my right wrist hard. The bike immediately started to drift on the dirt, starting a long slide, as I was waiting for traction. I was standing, typical off road stance. As soon as I felt the rear wheel engage the solid ground beneath the dirt, I steered towards the road and literally took off, landing on the tarmac road, a few feet ahead of my friend’s car. The bike grabbed the hot asphalt like she wanted to own it. And I was faced with another car in front of me, on the same lane.

Split second decision, I veer left and push real hard. The sound of a XTZ 750 engine is a beautiful thing. 70 horse power to 520 pounds wet, 68 Nm of torque. I was hauling ass like a bat out of hell, when I see this other car coming to me, on the left lane. The driver hit his horn like he was possessed, probably peeing himself in the process, and I just swung right between him and the poor bastard I was overtaking. It was a very close shave.

I went ahead, arrived at my friends house and parked, the adrenaline still pumping hard, my heart beating like a wild horse, trying to get off the rush, pacing around the bike, inspecting it, helmet still on, hardly feeling the heat under the sun, inside my full black leather suit. And here they come, a few minutes later. My friend parked on his driveway, got out of the car and walked straight to me. He was fuming and I was just glad my integral helmet was still on my head. He stopped by me, his nose an inch from my visor, and said, “Next time you want to kill yourself, do it where I can’t see it”, and went inside the house.

The girl approached me then, as I was removing my helmet. I looked at her, bracing myself. She cracked the most beautiful smile, lift her eyes to meet mine, and whispered, “That was amazing.”, and she walked to the house, leaving me standing by the bike, holding my helmet, and just before she went in, she turned back, and smiled bright. My heart skipped a beat, and it went to her, regardless of my will.

Paris. Three years later. Night time.

The last visitors were leaving as it was almost closing time for another day at the Eiffel Tower. I was in the crows nest, holding my cellphone, thinking about it, as the City of Lights shined bright in the most perfect Summer night it ever was, or ever will be. And then I was alone. I had been there that morning, but I wanted to see the city I fell in love with from the top of the tower, at night… and make a phone call.

I had the number on speed dial with full roaming digits, because… Me. I pressed the button and held the phone to my ear. The calling signal rang for what seemed an eternity. And then there was this voice… This voice I knew so well, the voice that lived in my head and in my soul for the last three years, that had never whispered to me the words I desperately needed to hear but once, among the thousands of other sweet words we whispered to each other, over the years.

And the voice said, “Hello?” I took a deep breath, “You’ll never guess where I am.”, I said. “No clue. Where?”, she asked. I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in almost a year, since I started college. “Let me tell you what I can see from here.”, I said.

And I told her what I was seeing. Notre Dame, Sacré-Cœur, Le Louvre, Grand Palais, l’Arc de Triomphe, les Champs-Elysées, la Défense… she stopped me. “Oh, my God… You’re at the top of the Eiffel Tower!” Spot on. We talked a few minutes, about Paris and what not. And then she said, “I am glad you are doing well.”, to which I replied, “Good to hear your voice.” And she said “Good night.”, I paused a second. “Good night.” And that was it.

I stared into the void, glimmering blurry lights in my eyes, like the city shared my pain, and then I heard, “Monsieur? Il faut partir maintenant.” I looked at him and nodded. Yes, it was time to go. I went back to the rental car and drove around town aimlessly, then parked by the Moulin Rouge. I wasn’t going there, I just walked. And walked… I got into a bar, located in one of Clichy’s side streets, and sat at the counter. The music was weird, like it didn’t belong. Or maybe it was me who didn’t. Belong. Two young girls sat by me and smiled, and immediately this flower vendor walked to me and pointed at them. He was holding a bouquet of red roses.

“Une rose pour la belle jeune femme?”, he asked, pointing to the girl sitting next to me. I looked at her. She smiled. I got my wallet, picked one of the thorned roses, paid him and left a couple of franc bills on the counter. I nodded at the girl, as I stood from the bar stool. “Je te souhaite une bonne soirée.”, I bid her, she looked at me, unsure of what to say, except “Merci.” and out the door I went, holding the singular rose.

I drove back to the Champs de Mars, parked by the long grassy pathways leading to the Eiffel Tower, and walked towards it, holding the red rose. It’s a long walk. If you ever can, do this at one or two in the morning. Walk through the fields of Mars towards the iron tower; if you are lucky, it will be flooded with light. It’s unforgettable. It was 1995, and Paris had been on alert due to the Algerian terrorist attacks. The tower was heavily guarded, at all times. I saw the GIGN squad at the foot of the tower, fully armored, MP5s at the ready.

They were scattered over the base of the tower, for sure more than I could see, and they watched me approach without moving a muscle. To this day, I believe this could have only happened in Paris. They for sure noticed the red rose I was holding, and without breaking my slow stride, I walked undisturbed to the center of the tower grounds, right under the summit. I stopped and looked up. There were no flood lights or special lighting, just the beautiful starry sky. I felt the eyes of the guards on me, keeping their distance, so I did what I was there to do.

I placed a knee on the ground, set the red rose on it, and looked at the thorned flower for a minute. Then I stood up, took a deep breath, and glancing at the rose one last time, whispered, “Goodbye.”

I turned around and left, the way I came in, with a new slice of my soul torn from me, forever more, still held by the thorns of the red rose that shred it from me. The rose I abandoned under the Eiffel Tower, one Summer night in Paris.

 

[finis]

 

Portuguese sentences used.

(*) "Perder Achando", the title of this piece, is a Portuguese sentence that has no literal translation. It can loosely be translated as "Losing by finding", the circumstance of losing something you are looking for the second you find it.

French sentences used.

(*) “Une rose pour la belle jeune femme?” means "A rose for the beautiful young woman?"

(*) “Je te souhaite une bonne soirée.” means "I wish you a good night."

(*) "Merci." means "Thank you."

 

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Comments on this blog are locked. This is but a reading platform linked to Threads.

If you wish to reply with your thoughts, please do so on the Threads post that references this opinion piece. Thank you for reading.

Alien sea monkeys.

After going through the Flying Duck car wash today (don't google it, that's how I call it, because... duck) after a bird dumped generously over our car, a number of flashbacks rushed me and I feel obligated to share them with you, as part of my therapeutic process, commonly known as "letting-shit-out". This therapy really works, so here we go again.

The year was 2007, around that time. I was living in Porto, Portugal, which is a coastal city, one of the oldest in Europe, going back to Roman Empire times. Together with its mirror city across the river Douro, named Gaia, it was known to Romans as Portuscale, which in turn would become the origin of Portugal's name. But I digress. So I was living in an apartment building dating from the 1950s, a beautiful construction with a granite stairway and ceramic tiled walls, and hard wood floors in the apartments, right in one of the city's old downtown districts. Now if you ever lived in a coastal city or town, with the inevitable seafaring community of fishermen, you realize where this is going. You got it. The fucking seagulls.

We all like to wash our cars, even if once a year, so you know how cool they look after a good shower, and nothing is more infuriating than having your car spanking clean and shiny and out of nowhere comes this bird fucker and shits all over it. Well, folks, if you never lived near the sea you may not realize this, but of all God's creatures that are endowed with flight and shitting capabilities, the motherfucking seagulls are the worst. They are the fucking bombers of shitting birds, and if you do live near the sea you better have a fucking garage. I did. But they were always eyeing my fucking car and the minute I parked by the sidewalk and ran in to get something real quick, sure enough by the time I got back they had already shat all over the damn thing.

People who know me say I suffer from Yossarian complex, but I swear they were really after ME! And one day, the inevitable happened. I had parked the car in the garage and was going home, when, as I entered the building's foyer, I heard the distinct "meek, meek" of a seagull. And it was coming from inside the building! So I stopped and waited. "Meek", the darn thing went. And I was like "Where the fuck are you?" and I slowly walked to the door that led to the building's atrium, opened it carefully... And there it was! One of those fuckers that kept watch over my car had fallen from the roof into the atrium! It was a VERY small atrium, I have no clue why it was built that way, except for architectural necessity. I closed the door behind me. The confounded bird was standing on a corner and immediately sized me up as I went in. It was a big motherfucker. 

Now seagulls are excellent flyers and gliders, but once they land they look like drunk turkeys, if turkeys were that size, and they need a fucking runway to take flight, so that poor fucker was trapped. The atrium was too small for it to take off. I am a witness relocation kind of guy, my wife will attest to this, and I always carry every living thing inside the house back outdoors where it belongs. Well with the exception of flies and mosquitoes, with those I switch from witness relocation officer to terminator mode and really exterminate them. So, I was looking for an angle to get the damn creature out of the atrium and back on the street. I actually made a shy attempt to capture it, kind of like you would catch a cat, or a dog, but the fucker was big and it was not having it. I would move to it and it would go "MEEK!" and open its wings and beak. It was a big beak! That thing would fuck me up. So I retreated momentarily, closed the door, and went upstairs to my apartment to get a broom.

I got back downstairs, armed with the largest broom I had, opened the building's main door that led to the street and convinced myself this was going to be easy peasy. I went back to the atrium, this time leaving the door open, and the bird immediately started "meek meeking" at me, in a defensive stance as I moved around it, keeping it at bay with the broom, gently ushering it towards the door.

As it got there, it went into the foyer and took a few steps into it, looking around. I turned to close the door, and in that split second, the fucking thing from hell made an executive decision and rushed upwards, half running half flying up the stairway! Well fuck me! I ran after it with the broom, yelling at it, calling it every slur I could think of as it was shouting back loud "Meeks" at me, probably returning in kind. As the chase unfolded, one of my neighbors came to his apartment door, probably startled by the racket, just as the fucking seagull had cleared the previous flight of stairs. He opened the door and the bird saw an opening so it went straight to it, with me in close pursuit, wielding the broom.

"SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR!" I yelled at him as the bird was hurling to it, as the bright light coming from inside the apartment, contrasting with the dim lighting of the stairway provided by the skylights above, looked like a way out. So the friggin' seagull was going for it like "Freedom!!", my neighbor was frozen in disbelief, and I was running after the damn thing swinging the broom. "SHUT THE DOOR!" I yelled again, and that made him snap out of his daze and slam the door on the birds face! It went against it with a huge thud and fell back in disarray, and that was my chance! I quickly went over it and started pushing it downstairs, this time less gently. Finally, I managed to get the damn thing out of my building, and the minute it got out, it clumsily ran its required roll to take off, taking to the skies to shit another day. Damn!

Now these things shit like no other creature can. I mean huge dumps. And in Porto, they fight for air superiority with the thousands of local pigeons, which are pretty awful shitters in their own right, but not even close. It's like comparing Piper Cubs to Flying Fortresses. So inevitably, the carpet bombing will hit you one day, and one of those days it happened just as I was with these two beautiful Dutch girls I met downtown. This was like 1989. I was showing them around the city, trying to figure out how the hell I could fit them both onto the very small 50 cc motorbike I had at the time, and just as I was pointing out to them one of the city's architectural wonders, out of nowhere "PLOP!" But you have no idea. It was huge, even for a fucking seagull! And it had hit one of the girls right on top of her head! 

 

So there I was, cut mid sentence, arm still stretched out towards the fucking building I was pointing out, her friend with her hands covering her mouth, trying not to burst out laughing, and the poor bombardment casualty just standing there, the big poo stain on her head like she had been hit from above by an ostrich egg, the goo dripping over her shoulders and chest, muttering something in Dutch, I imagine it was "What the fucking fuck!?" or something like that. I reached inside my pocket for the clean (expensive) cloth handkerchief I always carry because, you know, ladies may need one, and very carefully proceed to clean the muck from her hair, forehead, face, neck... And then I handed her the damn thing so she could clean her shoulders and chest. I told you I am a gentleman. And as such, I will not reveal the rest of this particular episode.

Seagulls are not from this planet. They are fucking aliens who shit acid that corrodes your clothes if you don't immediately wash them. And what are the odds you get hit next to a laundromat. They are also the monkeys of the sea. They eat EVERYTHING, including money and your phone, if it's small enough. Have you ever seen those videos of tourists having a meal outdoors in certain parts of Africa, where the monkeys start gathering around to try and get some food from them? That's what seagulls do! Back in 1996, I was with a friend in Vigo, a coastal town in Galicia, part of Spain, just North of Portugal, and we stopped to have lunch at this great restaurant, right by the sea, overlooking the docks. I love paella, which is a typical dish made with rice, saffron, chicken, vegetables, and seafood, served in the same frying pan where it was cooked. 

 

So the waiter comes with my precious paella, and immediately I start hearing the fucking "meek, meeks" coming closer. We were sitting outside, by the pier's boardwalk, a few feet from the water, and there were plenty of seagulls flying around, but as certain as the sun coming up each morning, suddenly there were like 30 of these fuckers landing nearby and walking towards us. I started eating, keeping an eye on the stupid things, as they were getting more restless and bold, "meek meeking" their wobbling way to our table, and suddenly, one of them jumped on the rail next to our table. They don't fly from the ground onto rails, they JUMP on them like fucking monkeys! And this particular one was after my paella. I start eating faster, convinced the dreaded bird was going to attack my dish, and just as I had the final piece left it just made its move. I barely had the time to take the plate away and as I did so, the damned thing hit the table, slid across it and dropped on the other side, taking a glass or two with it. As it stumbled away in shame, it "meeked" back at me in anger. "What the fuck you mean MEEK MEEK! Go fish, you fucker!" I yelled at it.

So there you go.

Next time you see a seagull, know they are really alien sea monkeys from hell who shit acid all over you and your car in ungodly portions and can steal what you are eating, or just generally holding, in a flash. You have been warned.

Peace out.

[finis]

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White privilege.

A memory blindsided me this morning.
Like others before it, and others that will come, it just came out of nowhere to remind me who I am, where I came from, and how it matters. Always. So walk with me down this lane no longer forgotten, and remember this: it's always more fucked up than you think it is. My experience is nothing compared to what African Americans go by every single day in America. I can not imagine it. I would never need to have "the talk" with my children, if I had them. I do not have to worry where my hands are, when I am pulled over by a cop, which I haven't been for years. I do not have a fucking clue what all that shit is like... But I feel it. I see it.
And I know its name.

France. 1995. Summer.
The place is Mulhouse, eleven miles from Germany, fifteen miles from Switzerland. I was there with a colleague, on a field trip, and we decided to go check out an art exhibition in Basel. We got in the rental car and off we went. As we reached the French-Swiss border, we noticed an unusual police activity, but we were aware this might happen. After all it was France, 1995. The GIA was all over the place, seeking to expand the raging civil war in Algeria to the former colonists, there were bombings in Paris, everyone was on edge. The French officer at the border line checked our documents, and looked us over.

I am a 6 foot, 170 pound very easily tanned male, at the time 32 years old. My colleague had even darker skin than mine, not tanned as I was, but naturally dark, still we were both white males, only Mediterranean white males. He was a little shorter than me, and his facial features placed him easily in North Africa, if you were looking for it. After one look at him, looking at my tanned self would make me his sibling, almost, despite my very Roman nose. The French officer gave us the papers back and motioned us forward with his arm, and in the same movement he signaled his Swiss mirror. As we entered Switzerland, the guards just hailed us and we were on our way.

We got to the exhibit, had lunch after a very weird experience at a Swiss bank to exchange currency (at the time there were still no Euros), where I traded a bunch of Portuguese bills for a couple of Swiss ones and a few coins, while the cashier was looking at me like "Enjoy your cup of coffee." We had lunch, looked around a bit and turned around, headed back to France, using the same border crossing as before. The Swiss officers let us exit just fine, but... There was a welcoming committee on the French side. No less than eight GIGN officers (the French SWAT) and three or four border police officers. They signaled us to park at a reserved area and politely ordered us out of the car. A crew of other agents, looking like mechanics, started to immediately tear the rental car apart, while we were escorted separately into a nearby building.

The door closed behind me, and a single civilian dressed agent was waiting inside, probably BAC (anti-crime unit). He asked me to empty my pockets on a table, then placed me against the wall and frisked me thoroughly, then proceeded to inspect my belongings. He went through my wallet, leafed through my pocket Moleskine, got all my cigarettes out of the pack and inspected them, one by one, and then disassembled the Zippo I was carrying to the bare bone. I was just jaw dropped watching all this, trying to keep my cool, as I knew exactly what was happening. They suspected we were Arab terrorists. He finished the inspection and asked me what we did in Switzerland. I answered as best I could, but when I finished talking, he looked at me and said "You did go somewhere else, didn't you?" Oh, shit.

Did he know I went in a bank in Basle, or was he just throwing a spit ball at me. I was NOT going to play that game, fuck that! "Yes, I went into a bank in Basle, we had no Swiss francs and we wanted to have lunch." He nodded, "Wait here, please." And he left the room. After 30 minutes or so he came back, apologized and told me I was free to go. I met my colleague outside the building and we both went back to the car. It was as if it had just left the rental station, perfectly neat, like no one ever touched it. There were no GIGN officers in sight, just a normal Summer day at the border. I looked at my colleague, he looked at me. "Let's get the fuck out of here." And we said nothing else about it ever again.

As I was driving us back to Mulhouse, I realized the only thing that kept us from being thrown in a dark hole for God knows how long, was the fact that, despite our appearance, we were just two very European, very white dudes. It started to boil my blood. What if one of us was Arab? What if we had flipped out?
What if they didn't believe us? Were the Swiss really tagging us in Basle? What the fuck! And then it hit me, like a ton of bricks. That was what white privilege was about. And it made me sick to my stomach, not that we had been treated fairly, despite the mistaken identity, but that so many others in our place would have gone through hell.

It took me 32 years in Europe to realize I was a privileged white man, but when I arrived in this country and was going through the green card, legal residency and naturalization process, it took me 5 minutes.
"How long do you think the whole thing will take?" I asked the attorney handling my case (I was lucky we could afford one). And his answer was: "You are a white, European, well educated man. You'll have no trouble at all." 

I arrived in the USA to stay on September 18, 2008. My Green Card was issued on April First, 2009. And it was no joke.

[finis]

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Reality is dead.

  

Around 2000 AD, I went to a conference at Casa de Serralves, in Porto, Portugal, by then already harboring the Museum of Contemporary Art on its grounds. I can't remember the name of the speaker, I attended various events there, but the experience was forever to stick with me.
The conference subject was art currents and what we perceive them to be through the years, and at the end, the speaker told us a story to illustrate the points he had been making. To be honest, until then the damn thing was pretty boring and borderline casuistic. Here's the story.

At some point during the art wars of mid XX Century, in some place like Venice or Paris or something, a singular experiment was conducted. A group of classical art apologists was asked to step into an empty room. Inside the room, nothing but a plaster copy of a renaissance sculpture, David, I think it was, and a bunch of hammers. The door was locked behind them and a tape started to play in a loop, saying "the Greek-Roman Art is dead", over and over. After a while, the guinea pigs started to get restless and looking to opening the damn door to no avail. A few hours later, as expected by their jailers, they lost their shit and grabbed the hammers. They did not motion towards the door. They needed to destroy something. Anything. And there stood David, whom they so adored. One after another, they proceeded to destroy the statue with savage hammer blows, until it was shattered in a million pieces. As were their beliefs. The door was unlocked, and they were allowed to go free, aware of their misgivings.

The audience laughed at the story. It was a good story. To this day I have no clue if he made it up, but it was to the point. But then, out of nowhere, came the coup de grace. The speaker walked towards a table where, all the while, a turntable sat with a record on. He said, "Let me illustrate." and he placed the needle on the groove and stood back, quietly. We all listened. And for exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds, there was silence, during which roughly half the audience left the hall. At the end of the four minutes and thirty-three seconds, the speaker removed the needle from the vinyl, stopped the turntable, and shook his head, saying, "Well, I am very glad the doors are unlocked and there are no hammers around." The remaining audience laughed. "That was John Cage's 4'33'' piece", he finished, "Thank you for coming and have a good night." Yes, I knew what that was and I was very amused. Until I was not. We were still in the same place those fuckers locked in a room 60 years earlier were... And guess what, we are still there now.

Fate is a fickle bitch who dotes on irony, but so is reality. These days, we can't tell reality from fantasy anymore, fact from fiction, real from unreal... It all blurs together in a mush of dung we tend to call news. But it is not. News. Breaking News. Unprecedented News. Shocking News. Morning News. Evening News. News at Eleven. All shit. A pile of crap we are forced to get into to claw the last shreds of reality from. And it's exhausting. It's just fucking exhausting. But we have to do it. We need to grasp reality, somehow, pass it along to others. Make them see, open their eyes! Open their eyes… Why can't they see it? Did we fail to completely remove the muck from the reality we so desperately tried to wash as we got it out of the slush of shit it was embedded in? Is it... real?

I find myself looking at that reality, rescued from the deafening noise it was buried within and doubting myself. Did this happen? Am I just adding to the noise, recycling shit and selling it for more than it's worth? What the fuck am I doing, anymore. Doubt and suspicion are my everyday companions. At every turn they tap on my shoulder and go, "Look again", and as I give them a side eye they smile and just go, "Trust us. Take another look." And what do you know, half the time they are fucking right. It's not reality, it's just shit. News shit at any time of day.

How the fuck did we get here? How did we let this happen? And, please, spare me the "I didn't do it!" bulshit. Of course you did and of course WE did. The same way we allowed Trump to get elected in 2016, all of us did. Especially the "good people" who did not vote for Hillary were the ones responsible for his election the most. Just as if they voted for him. We allowed all this shit to become normal. We did not push back enough - myself included. I am not preaching here, except to the choir. I am part of the problem. We all are, especially the ones who pretend they had nothing to do with this fuckery. No. It's on them too.

We did not force change, when change was forced upon us by the relentless bombardment of "unprecedented" events that were not, of "shocking" news that were not, of fucking "alternative facts" that were not. Once and for all, there are NO alternative facts, they are either facts or fiction or outright lies. So please STOP using that fucking expression; all you are doing is perpetuating the perception that there really is such a fucking obscenity. Just stop.

I admit I was blindsided. I trust most of you were too. I mean... Who could have honestly see where all this was going, back in 2016? Oh sure, a lot of us saw who that orange buffoon was. Hillary warned us. But not this. Not the complete and utter assassination of reality. That no one saw coming, at the time. But it soon was painfully obvious to all, except the most entrenched idealists who refuse to accept... well, reality. Such is our life, these days. An endless spiral of shit, we so desperately try to make sense of, most times unsuccessfully.

Today even as we, on Threads, were laughing our asses off to the fact that Trump dares to call his flying piece of junk "Trump Force One", here comes the news and lo and behold, Andrea Mitchell, on MSNBC, in the most balanced newscast tone she could muster announces Trump just boarded Trump Force One. No voice inflection, no sarcasm, straight up serious news casting. And yes, some still refer to this orange traitor as Mr. President, even when not in his presence. And whenever he says or does something stupid, ignorant, outrageous, provocative, or insane, they report it as BREAKING NEWS, and he gets all the oxygen in the world for hours, days, weeks. 

Whenever they speak of him there is an unending slideshow of his horrendous face filling the screens, screens that are EVERYWHERE around the country and the world, millions of them set in public spaces with NO SOUND, so even if the news person speaking under the horrific slide show of Trump's face is calling him a motherfucker, which is not happening, NOBODY can hear it. All they see is TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, everyday, everywhere, relentlessly banging against our eyes like a never ending free campaign ad that someone forgot to stop. Just fucking STOP!

Reputable explicit sarcastic sources like The Onion, or Andy Borowitz, publish outlandish material and everyone's first reaction is "You can't make this shit up!" as if it were real! "YCMTSU" is probably the most used initialism on Earth. And half the time incorrectly! It's reaching insanity levels. The inability to distinguish reality from fantasy, true from false, fact from fiction, truth from lies, is spreading like a wild fire pumped up by hurricane force winds in mid Summer. And we are trying our best to survive it, the fire, but it's hard as hell.

Deep breaths. Close your eyes and breathe deeply.

It's going to be alright. All we need to do is push back real hard. Do not take any of this shit. Call newsrooms when they fall into these traps, write your representatives when they play into the disinformation plot, correct your neighbors, fact check the hell out of everything. Because trust me on this, there is a lot more at stake here than a few laughs, and if we don't fight back, the laugh will be on us. Reality is dead. But we can bring it back. So let's fucking do it.

[finis]

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The Wide Receiver.

When Obama was in Cincinnati, during the 2008 presidential campaign, my wife and I went to see him. My wife was in the early stages of her illness, and could still walk, albeit getting tired easily, and she wanted to see him so much. My first time in the United States earlier that year, when I met her for the first time, the two favorite things I got were a New York Yankees ball cap (sorry, Barack), and "The Audacity of Hope". I fell in love with his ideas after I "met" him through his words, as I read it back in Portugal, before I moved here. So hell yeah, let's go, I said. And we were there for him, along with thousands of people. When he walked on stage, black suit and black dress shoes, white shirt and tie, I could feel the crowd swell with joy. It was pure joy. We were 48 hours away from election day. And the rest is History.

I have been thinking about this piece for a while. It's only fair to reiterate that this is my opinion, based on nothing but my gut feeling. So, as usual, please walk with me, and search your heart.

The idea that Obama could have done more, could have reached farther, dare to go for the end zone. I mean, you see a wide receiver loose, the ball spinning towards him... You just know he's going for it. So what stopped him?

It was his first term, sure, but he had both the House and Senate, at first. And after 2011, even if things got harder, and Mitch made his life almost impossible and the recourse to the executive pen inevitable, there was that SCOTUS appointment, that to this day many claim he should have gotten done during recess, even if some scholars disagree due to post nomination obstacles the Senate would surely undertake, but still.

And the Affordable Care Act that even if amazing, compared to what existed before it became law, was nothing but a handout to the healthcare insurance companies with some added benefits to the public but no public option (thanks, Lieberman). Still, as Dark Brandon would say, it was a big fucking deal. But so much more could have been achieved! The DACA executive order, and the failure of the DREAM Act. Always short. Always going for the side line. The end zone was right there! Right there! Why?

In my mind, even considering all the obstacles that come with governing in a Democracy, aggravated by the safe plays of a first term meant to be continued and the obstructionism so painfully obvious in the second term, there are two reasons for this. Barack Obama is an extremely intelligent man, and he knew then what Congress was about, and what the presidency was about. He was also very much aware of the dichotomy his administration faced from the get go: to embrace being the first African-American president of the United States, and to balance that historical achievement with the foreseeable backlash from the reactionary segments of society.

I believe that Obama's actions were always guided by this knowledge and the fact they were so careful, played with such extreme consideration for the results they could have, not in the lives of Americans, but in the way Americans perceived those actions. Not because the actions themselves were astounding or unheard of, but because the man advocating for them was... well, a black man.

Obama is fearless. He was well aware of the risk he was putting himself in, but he was also aware of the risks to his family. I also believe Michelle was aware of those risks and willing to take them for the good of us all. But that was not it. Obama would never hesitate, or flinch, because it was too dangerous to take action. No. In my mind, it was the concern for what would have happened if a black man, in the White House, dared to act as any president had before him.

The two eminent risks of a run of the mill, totally normal presidency, except for the fact the president was a black man: assassination or extreme civil unrest, tantamount to a civil war, in our days. The first he was wiling to take. But not the second.

And so the painfully long eight years, or short depending how you look at them, went by with two major goals: to achieve all that was possible under the premises I laid out above, and to lay the groundwork for the next president. No doubt, a Democrat. Yes, well... It was a good plan.

The extreme consequences of a president hated by millions for the mere color of his skin would be avoided and the torch would pass on to the next, who would finish the job.

 

I don't think Obama believed for a moment, except maybe in the final days of the 2016 campaign, that Hillary would not make it. But as I learned after election day that November, misogyny is alive and well in America. Just as much as racism is. Just as much as homophobia is. Such is the America we live in. Such are the fights we have to fight defined. And such is the measure of our challenge.

Obama did his best, where many others would have failed miserably. He was a champion for the underprivileged, the sick, the children, the forgotten ones, and in doing so, a champion for every day Americans.

 

Did big money play a role in all this? Yes. Is he guilty of overprotecting some special interests? Yes. Was he playing Wall Street's game? Yes. 

So did every president before him and will every one after him. He played by the rules WE allow. The rules WE agree on. The rules we must CHANGE. And considering all this, he did just fine. Hell, he did a lot more than just fine.

And he has shown us all what a United States president should be like. And by God, I miss him. We started something we must finish, we the people did it when we elected him. And when we failed to elect his successor we failed much more than him. We failed ourselves.

Well, not anymore.

We are finishing this. Now.

[finis]

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The Nazis.

 

Portugal, where I was born and raised, had stark similarities with Germany in the 1930s. We had our own “strong man”, the “savior” who would deliver on the promise of our waning Empire. In the late 15th Century, Portugal and Spain were the equivalent of the USA and USSR in mid 20th Century. Bigger even, as in 1494 they split the Earth in two, claiming a half for each. The Treaty of Tordesillas, as it came to be known.

The Portuguese Empire touched all continents, from Brazil to Timor, from Angola to Macau, from the Azores to India. Over the centuries, the Empire lost many of its most precious jewels, but in the 1930s, with the exception of Brazil, the colonies were still in place. The imperial shine had dimmed, however, and the liberalism that had prevailed since the overthrow of monarchy, in 1910, was not doing much to regain its former glory and pride.

The republic was weak and petty, divided and ripe for the coming of the one man who could restore the country to its former imperial glory in the wake of the Futurist movement, to take a nation on the verge of decadent collapse and make it great again. Sounds familiar?

The one man was António de Oliveira Salazar, and his ascension to power was a carbon copy of Adolf Hitler’s. He wobbled his way up in the 1920s. He first was nominated Prime Minister, in 1932, and then proceeded to redesign the nation as a dictatorship, becoming dictator in 1933 as he inaugurated a new chapter in Portugal's history: the “Estado Novo” (literally, New State).

 

Being a fierce Christian Nationalist and isolationist, Salazar managed to not only keep Portugal out of the Second World War (with the exception of a brief skirmish with the Japanese in Timor, inevitably leading to its loss), but to play both sides to his advantage. During the war years, Lisbon was a spy nest, where agents from all sides played their games to the benefit of Salazar.

Nevertheless, Salazar moulded the New State in the image of Nazi Germany. There was a large military, enforcing continental rule overseas with an iron fist, there was a single Nationalist party, patriotic labor organizations, patriotic women organizations, a secret police that kept all dissidents in check, in prison, or assassinated, and, of course, a nationalist youth organization, designed to train and indoctrinate the future, our very own version of the Hitler-Jugend, also expected to denounce any "misbehaving" adults, like their parents. They were called the "Mocidade Portuguesa", Portuguese Young-Folk. And no my parents never enrolled me. But some of my elementary school friends were "Lusitos", as the 7 to 10 year olds were known in the ranks.

Although not as brutal as the Nazi ideology, and missing some of its core values, like strict antisemitism, though sympathetic to it, the New State was a breed of authoritarianism that is better defined as Fascism.

And so, due to a successful isolationist policy, while Nazism fell in 1945, Fascism was alive and well in Portugal, up to 1974. I was 11 years old by then.

When I came to live in the United States, I never thought I would see the signs of the ascension of this kind of beast here. Yet I recognized all the signs from early on. Starting with the backlash caused by the Obama presidency.

Without Obama, there would have been no Donald Trump, it’s as simple as that. The reactionary forces that woke up after Barack Obama became president were longing for their own “one man” to save them all from the perils of the rise of blackness as normal, as equal, dare I say, as superior.

The empire they long for still is not a jewel string of colonies, but the lost supremacy, agonizing in a sea of mixed races, cultures and creeds. Their dying empire is White Supremacy. And they needed a “strong man” to restore its former glory. Among these reactionaries, that range from drunk old uncles to the daughters of the confederacy to the proud boys, there is an undercurrent that slowly, but surely, surfaced with renewed vigor: the Nazis.

By virtue of their strong beliefs, they tend to drown the myriad of other reactionaries in their pool. They seize the limelight and pour the Nazi ideology into all they touch.

Suddenly, the KKK was not enough. They miss the international drive that binds the Christian Nationalists into the Nazi ideal. Purity of race, purity of thought, and a common global enemy: Zion. This undercurrent has surfaced in some European countries, like Hungary, France, Poland, to some extent Italy. It’s really a cross breed between Nazism and Fascism, but one must call the ranks by their standard bearers, and there is no mistake to be made. If the flag has a swastika, the beast has but one name: Nazi.

The Nazi beast is alive and well in the United States, and this, to me that know how Nazis are dealt with in Europe, is astounding.

I knew there were Nazis in America, it already boggled my mind that it was even “a thing”, but from afar, I placed them in the same basket of “deplorables” as the Klan, and wishfully thought them away to the insignificant fringes. When I chose this country as my home, there was a black man running for president and to my absolute delight he made it. 

America was over it, I thought. The future looked bright. But then came those eight years that passed away in a flash, one after the other, and during those years it slowly dawned on me the genius of Barack Obama and what it meant. Why he didn’t go as far as he could have. What stopped him.

And when Trump won the primaries, I was dumbfounded. I just could not believe it. And then, the fall of the liberal republics in Europe, 100 years ago, came to mind. It was happening again. It was happening here, and no one seemed to notice. Because of this volunteer dismissal of such possibility, I admit I pushed away that notion to the last minute.

When the glass ceiling didn’t break, I felt betrayed. The promise of a more perfect union was shattered in its place. And as I watched that ill-assorted group of buffoons waddling along the stage to be recognized as our future first family, I felt sick to my stomach. And the memory of the Obamas family perfect image eight years before seemed like a dream. A dream unfulfilled. A dream denied.

It was this horrible man’s nature, his lack of standing, his utter lack of charisma, the repugnant aura that emanated from him, that kept me from understanding not who he was, but who he was meant to become. 

This was America’s version of the champion that would restore her glory. An orange colored, ignorant slob. It was like a horror show. And it was just starting.

 

I cherish the sacrifices made by the greatest generation to free Europe from this type of beast, and to have watched how scores of its descendants had flocked to the polls to vote for such a despicable man was something I needed time to wrap my mind around. To be honest, I still haven't completely come to terms with it.

I grew up going through World War Two era propaganda news magazines, like "War Illustrated", "Neptune", and others, and also the infamous "Signal", the German propaganda publication. As I mentioned, Portugal was a breeding ground for all sides at the time, and all these propaganda publications were readily available, printed in Portuguese. I would go through them at my grandparents place, eager to learn, already realizing in spite of my tender years, that it was propaganda I was looking at, but it sure was History, and I devoured it as such.

I became a WW2 nerd, and collected books and articles about it. It was a fascinating subject. I also mentioned on a Threads post, sometime back, how I came to know about the Holocaust, not through propaganda, but by seeing and reading about it on a serious photographic book my parents allowed me to read when I was very young. It helped me to offset the fascination the Nazi paraphernalia insidiously planted in my child's brain. Yes, I was fascinated by it. The uniforms, the rituals, the discipline, the drive, the architecture. Especially the architecture. I was in awe of Albert Speer! And, inevitably, I was introduced to Leni, and by God I was mesmerized! Leni Riefenstahl. The first time I watched "Triumph des Willens" I just paused, and foreboding John Locke, I said to myself "We're gonna need to watch that again." In all honesty, it was the Holocaust, more than anything else, that snapped my immature brain out of it.

 

In time, I learned how to appreciate the aesthetics and the art, analyze it dispassionately, study it for what it was, and learn from it. But I realize I have the upper hand that comes with a classical education, and the access to serious and reliable sources of Historical information. I was damn lucky.

This fact, however, does not justify or explain the fascination that remains in the minds of so many regarding Nazism, regardless of their disadvantages when compared to my upbringing. There is this thing called humanity, and this other thing called common sense, that should be more than enough to make up for any lack of knowledge, or unfortunate circumstances. And yet...

After World War 2, in Germany but also all around Europe, the Nazi ideology, its symbols and documents, were placed in museums, and the public AND private display, dissemination and adoption of such heinous relics was severely punished by strict laws, designed to ensure such a catastrophe would never happen again.

Try walking around with a swastika blood flag in Berlin today, see how far you go.

And yet, in the one nation that made possible the complete defeat of the Nazi beast, this is protected by the first amendment, of all things! Excuse me?

 

The way Nazis parade themselves in America is mind boggling for anyone who has ever traveled the world a little bit, let alone someone who lived in Europe for over 40 years. It is a monstrous exacerbation of the right to free speech and expression, and it is way past time to penalized it by law, with extreme prejudice. I know we have a lot to think about before we can tackle this issue, even when (not if) we manage to regain control of Congress with comfortable majorities, keeping the presidency, but this has to be right on top of the list.

The damage caused by merely allowing this obscenity is incalculable. Why it's never been done is not beyond me. I know why. But it's time.

 

The answer is not punching them in the face every time they surface; although I acknowledge it is fucking satisfying, it's just a game of whack-a-mole that leads only to more violence. The answer is making it illegal to display, disseminate or parade Nazi symbols and ideology, in public AND in private, by legislating the shit out of these shameful excuses for human beings who feel emboldened by the likes of Donald J. Trump to crawl from under the rocks they were hiding all these years and shove their hate in our faces, like it's just "free speech".

So next time you are wondering what to call your representative about, local or federal, why don't you tell him/her that you just about had enough of this shit and something must be done about it, before it's too late. And time is running out.

I look at these pieces of shit flying Nazi flags outside Disneyland like they are announcing some ball game and I just can't believe my eyes. It's so surreal it actually takes a minute to process, like it's an anomaly you hope will disappear if you blink. Where were these people until now? How is this even possible, in America?

Well I have news for you. These people have always been with us, like an undercurrent, deep in the sewers beneath our streets; and when the flood of hate and racism swept over our land, they surfaced with it, along with all sorts of other shit that we conveniently chose to pretend it was not down there, but for the occasional stench we quickly disguised with a few squishes of Febreze-like liberal wishful thinking. Now it's out in the open for all our senses to recognize for what it is. If it dresses like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi and acts like a Nazi, it is a Nazi.

Do something about it, before they do something about you.

And trust me on this, they will.

Fight Nazism. Fight Fascism. Fight for our right to exist.

[finis]

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