The GOP Today

What controls the modern Republican Party today is hate born of fear.

The hate is directed at anything, anyone, who represents change.

This child called hate is not responsible for its own birth.

This hate is not an immaculate conception.

This hate was born of parents called fear and ignorance.

Fear is the name of the mother of the child of hate.

Fear of the other.

Fear of the stranger.

Fear of sharing.

Fear of truth.

Ignorance is the name of the father of the child of hate.

Ignorance of empathy.

Ignorance of justice.

Ignorance of freedom.

Ignorance of truth

Together, fear and ignorance met long ago in the human story.

Fear, ignorance, and their child hate have been why we don't have nice things in our American society.

Universal health care, a living wage, high-speed rail, paid sick and vacation days, child care, clean food and water.

Fear, ignorance, and their child hate have been the roadblock, the hurdle, the moat, the barbed wire, the wall that has kept society from reaching the promised land.

They have been the crab in the barrel of life that keeps pulling those back who want to escape the cycle of violence.

Fear and ignorance didn't produce just one child.

Every generation, another abandoned sibling of hate is added to the orphanage.

This generation's child of hate finds its refuge in social media.

There, it feeds upon the prejudice with relish and abandon.

Before today, the children of hate had to gather in secret, in the woods, with hoods.

Hide who they were.

Now, they take pictures of themselves as they desecrate the House of the People.

Fear finds refuge in the pulpit.

Every Sunday in America, it is taught that God ordained the White man to be on top of the social economic pyramid.

Every Sunday in America, fear is given shelter when it's declared that the mixing of the races is an abomination in God's eyes.

The White race must stay pure and faithful to God's word.

Every Sunday in America, fear sees the browning of America and the world as the end times.

The time when their savior Jesus will return and kill all the enemies of the White man and make him ruler of the earth forever.

Whites are the chosen people.

Fear finds companionship with those who hate other religions.

The babysitters of fear, like Putin and Trump, use the fear of the Islamic religion to incite violence.

These fearmongers, people who sell fear, create a problem so they can declare themselves the only ones who can fix the problem they created.

The children of hate.

It's what unites the Republican Party, this fear both politically and financially.

The fear that White people and their God will be replaced by brown people and their brown God.

This understanding of the world based on fear is reinforced every time they tune into the news.

The child of fear knows it's right when it sees Black Lives Matter marches.

The child of fear knows it's right when it can't make jokes about a person's race anymore.

The child of fear knows it's right when they can't get a job at a living wage.

Those people took my job.

This fear knows they are doomed if their White savior is not re-elected President.

Is there a way to stop the hate from multiplying?

No.

No, there isn't.

That's the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear.

The child of hate is not the source of the problem.

The source of the problem that threatens to destroy American democracy is fear and ignorance.

The parents of the children of hate need to attend a family planning session.

Their fear needs to be listened to.

Fear needs compassion.

Fear needs to feel safe.

Ignorance is the harder of the two parents of fear to help.

Ignorance will deny they need help.

Ignorance cannot be told what to do or that it's wrong.

If you do, it will lash out and destroy anyone or anything that comes to tell it the truth.

Ignorance can only learn through example and consequence.

Love, compassion, and sharing have to be lived and demonstrated as a path to happiness.

Ignorance needs a step-by-step guide on how to achieve happiness.

Through living a life of love, ignorance will eventually catch on; there is a better way than nihilism and destruction.

It is up to every generation to pick up the torch of freedom and carry on the fight.

Drop hate be love.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Rescue

You can't save a drowning person if they believe they can swim.

A person's confidence in their belief provides protection from self-doubt.

The enemy of any belief is doubt.

This is why belief is fortified through a structure of rituals.

You daily repeat a ritual to remind yourself of your commitment to your belief.

Any doubt means you have slipped up.

You left the belief; the belief did not leave you.

A daily affirmation, a daily repeating of sacred words, enshrines the structure of belief in your daily ritual.

Consequently, generally speaking, most beliefs do not lose any followers.

They live, worship, and believe within the protection of like-minded practitioners.

Racism is a belief.

Racism is a belief.

People live, worship, and believe alongside their fellow practitioners that the white race is solely responsible for the history of this world.

Racism does not lose many followers.

Racists use words of discrimination against the race, gender, and sexual orientation that they know are not as important as they are.

The believers in white apartheid have no doubt in their correctness.

Their faith has been given to them by their Bible, which is the word of God.

God created Adam, and he was white.

Moses white.

Jesus white.

The devil... Black.

Racists' belief tells them that the Bible is the story of the white race fighting against the forces of evil led by dark-skinned people.

They have no doubt.

You can't save a racist when they know that white equals power.

There is no doubt.

For centuries upon centuries, racism has been fed and grown in wealthy homes and poor.

It is a structure that gives comfort against the harsh realities of life.

Some of us liberals believe we can rescue the racist.

But like a person drowning in a river, if the lifeguard is not careful, they too will be pulled down to the bottom and die.

Racists can't hear us call them back to shore.

Racists can't see that too many people have died.

Racists feel it in their hearts and minds that they are right and we are wrong.

Half this country voted for racism in November of 2020.

Half this country voted for the protection of the Confederacy.

Half this country voted for the separation of immigrant children from their asylum-seeking families.

Half of this country voted for discrimination against women and gays.

They don't want to be rescued because the water they're swimming in is fine.

They see no danger.

They don't see the dark water rising.

They don't feel the riptide pulling them down.

You can't tell a person they're wrong when they believe they are right.

Racism is a belief.

These senators and congresspeople are defending the white power structure in America.

They are willing to burn the Constitution to keep that structure in place.

This is what we who believe in the Constitution's heart are fighting against.

We genuinely believe in the words that all people are created equal.

So what do we do?

We listen to wise words on how to travel together to the beloved community.

We resist evil.

We make friends across the divide.

We defeat injustice that makes victims of both the target and the actor.

We suffer hate with dignity and grace.

We love, not hate.

We know that the universe bends towards justice every time.

Every time.

That's what we will do.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

To Feed Evil

The comfort food of evil is fear.

There are three types of people in this world, with a varying degree of mixture between the types.

There are evil people.

There are good people.

There are those in the middle who are neither.

The majority of people throughout our collective history are those who pack the middle way.

Their primary goal is to be left alone.

To be insulated from the hot and cold weather of life.

Their choice is not to choose.

To maintain this choice, they have to believe in fear.

Evil is happy to provide the fear on which the fearful feed.

In America, this food is equal.

The founders of this nation were afraid to make everyone free and equal.

The fear was fed upon and made black people 3/5's of a human.

The fear was fueled when states declared they did not have to obey the federal government.

The fear was fueled during the Civil War, which was fought to unite a nation but ultimately failed to quell the fear of equality.

The table of fear was now set after the failure of Reconstruction.

Reconstruction was that brief time when black people were given equal rights.

But the terror stalked the streets in white hoods, in whispers of protect your white women.

Hope was burned away by flaming crosses.

Middle America fed.

Middle America was comforted by its fear of the other.

Those people who live on the bad side of town are different from me, they told themselves.

We're different, we're good, we're blessed by God.

We humans like to feel superior.

We like to feel we are doing better than others.

The fear-mongers know this.

The fear-mongers who profit from feeding the racial fears of this nation gather to themselves great wealth and power.

These fear-mongers are not just in government, in industry, in boardrooms, but they're in your home.

In your circle of friends.

They keep the heart of racism beating.

Once upon a time, the home of the racist in America was the Democratic Party.

But once President Kennedy and President Johnson pushed for the Voting Rights Act, the Dixiecrats felt uncomfortable with the main course set out by these progressive liberals.

They did not like where the nation was going.

The racists wanted the old bone they had been chewing on since Reconstruction.

Nixon and his election team saw an opportunity. 

They called upon the racists to leave the Democrats and come over to the Republican whites-only picnic.

Since Nixon, that's where the racists of America find their daily bread at the table of the Republican Party.

Trump did not create the menu that feeds fear in our nation.

He is the latest head waiter to take advantage of racial hate and hunger in our country.

Racism, at its heart, wants us to believe that other people are to blame for why we don't have nice things.

Racism is a way of deflecting personal responsibility for the problems we face.

Blame the other guy.

I can't be to blame for why jobs moved away.

I can't be blamed for the decline in wages.

I can't be bothered to vote.

I can't be evil, can I?

The Republican Party is happy to feed the fears of Americans.

It's the easy thing to do.

It's hard to get people to do the right thing.

How easy is it to floss your teeth every day?

Get enough steps in?

Read a book?

Talk to a friend?

Doing good is not easy because if it were, everyone would do it.

So here we are in a plague that is killing thousands every day.

Half the nation believes in the racism of Trump.

But more than half don't!

Got to keep your eyes on the prize.

If it were easy to get to the Brotherhood of Man, all of us would be there already.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

To Be Blind

No morning.

No night.

No afternoon sun.

No fog in the trees.

No rainbow in the dew.

No leaves saying goodbye.

No ocean waves.

No fields of grain.

No light on.

To be blind.

Tears not seen.

Despair not seen.

Dreams broken, not seen.

Hearts emptied, not seen.

Innocence is not seen.

Love lost.

Not seen.

To be blind.

Fear.

Fear put out the eyes.

Fear killed compassion.

Fear revoked equality.

Fear drove the heart of evil into the Republican Party.

Their fear grew in a sheltered darkness.

Fear.

Racism was and continues to be used by the GOP to maintain power.

65% of eligible voters voted in the 2020 presidential election.

79 million people voted for Biden.

73 million people voted for Trump.

73 million people shut their eyes.

73 million people closed their minds to the truth that Trump represents.

73 million people agreed that white privilege trumps the American ideal of equality.

73 million people agree that immigrants, black and brown people, women, gays, and liberals are not welcome in their vision of what America is supposed to be.

To be blind.

To be blind.

When we shut our eyes to our brother's plight, we shut off the possibility of our own happiness.

When we turn our backs on injustice, that same prejudice will rebound upon us.

When we refuse to do the right thing, we become small, something that place and time will forget.

Neglect.

To blind oneself on purpose leaves oneself vulnerable to falling off a cliff.

You can't see the future coming.

Americans are afraid.

Fear blinds people.

Blind people are easily led by those with a dark destination.

Fear.

This is why we must keep the watchfires burning.

This is why we must stand in the door with the lamp of truth held high.

This is why we will keep a seat open on the freedom train.

But this train is moving out.

We all have a place to go, and it's called the future.

This old world is not slowing down for any party or anyone.

Drop hate, be hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Possible

The rain falls.

The rain falls and gets everyone wet.

A yellow glow of light in a window tells you mom is still awake.

Drawings on the refrigerator.

A young man waiting in a car for a girl to come out.

My test results.

Possible.

Dad is angry.

Where is the money coming from this week?

He's on the wrong side of town.

God is angry.

God is silent.

Possible.

Will they care?

Will they listen?

Will they feel the things that I feel?

Possible.

The comfort that darkness brings is that it covers us up, so we don't have to be responsible.

We can't see the way things are.

We only see what we imagine.

The irresponsibility of comfort.

That's one of the discomforting realities of life in America.

Comfort shortens vision, curtails possibilities, and deadens responsibilities.

This past election, only slightly more than half of Americans were made uncomfortable.

Seventy million people were comfortable with darkness.

They were comfortable with the way things are, resentful, fearful of the way things could be.

Their comfort stopped them short in their journey of life.

They have stopped asking themselves what is possible.

None of us likes to admit when we are wrong.

It makes us uncomfortable.

Too many of us rely upon our own ego, which tells us that we can never be wrong.

We don't look at ourselves in the mirror and ask, "Who is that?"

We find ourselves at odds with the universe.

Impossible?

Justice is impossible.

Freedom is impossible.

Equality is impossible.

Love is impossible.

At the core of this impossible view of life, we will always find fear.

Fear of being wrong.

Fear of being right.

Fear of allowing ourselves to be happy.

Fear of being who we are.

Fear of sharing.

There are no magical words to stop this fear.

No magical incantation or phrase will turn our lives from darkness and seek the light.

For those of us who live in the light, all we can do is keep the door open.

Redemption is always possible.

It is as it has always been.

The world turns, and a new day comes.

The world stops for no people, no person, no government office.

Life lives; it does not bury itself alive.

We all want love and happiness. 

I know I'm not the only one…

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Home

Home is where you are, not where you're going to be.

Where are you today?

Are you on your way to work?

On your way to the refrigerator?

On your way to despair?

To hope?

Everyone is seeking meaning.

Meaning of life.

Meaning to sadness.

Meaning to circumstance.

Home is where you are.

What does that mean?

Ideas are given power by the people who believe them to be true.

The idea of home, for many, is an external dwelling.

A place where four walls come together under one roof.

Yet whether you own a home or want a home, you can only rent that home.

All of our lives are a trek from one home to another.

We don't own it.

We are only caretakers.

The current occupant.

Renters.

Life.

Home is where you are, which means you are home.

You are home already, right now, this very second.

Where you are, so is your home.

You are the precious dwelling of the infinite.

Your life is the meaning of home.

Wherever you are, there will also be life.

Where are you going?

If you are looking for happiness, a home outside of yourself, what are you looking for?

Unless and until you are happy within yourself, you will never find contentment outside of yourself.

Life is the journey, not the destination.

Life is now.

Life is in you now.

Your life is in your home, which is you.

But our lives are not tied to the ground.

All of our lives are mobile.

Each person is in their own recreational vehicle, traversing the world.

Each is gaining experience and building a collection of memories.

A scrapbook.

Where are you taking your home?

What is your destination?

Are you ignoring the signs on the road?

Are you drowning out the sounds in the streets calling for justice?

Have you pulled the curtains so that you don't have to see children caged?

Have you put up a fence to keep the neighbors off of your property?

If you have, you have forgotten you're a renter like the rest of us.

You're a renter.

We are all given only so much time in this world.

It is up to each of us to do our best with the time we have.

Not to waste our home.

Our life.

Our time.

Our responsibility to each other.

Our love.

On November 3, we have a responsibility to ourselves and our neighbors.

Vote to save our democracy.

Vote to save your home.

Vote for peace.

Vote for love over hate.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Masks of Hate

Slave Masters.

The Church.

The Klan.

The Anarchists.

The Nihilists.

The Fascists.

The Neo-Nazis.

The Skinheads.

The White Supremacist.

The Proud Boys.

The Boogaloo.

Pepe the Frog.

Q-Anon.

The history of the masks of hate.

The masks of hate that people wear.

People, yes, people wear these masks for a reason they believe in.

People wear masks of hate to cover their fear.

A fear planted into their spirits by people they trusted.

A fear of a world they do not want to see come into existence.

People fear a world where everyone is equal.

Because in an authentic sense of fear, equality means personal responsibility.

If everyone is equal, there is no one to blame when things go wrong except for yourself.

When life doesn't turn out the way you expect it, who is to blame?

Whole societies, whole industries, and whole religions base their existence on blaming the other.

The other guy, the other stranger, the other foreigner, the other unrighteous asshole.

Scapegoats.

A person, a people, to blame for why we don't have nice things.

I certainly can't be to blame because God is on my side.

I'm not the asshole.

My friends believe the same way; we can't be wrong.

My parents wouldn't lie to me.

Masks of hate.

And who maintains these masks of hate?

Who has built empires of wealth on the destruction caused by these masks?

People with wealth and power.

Ever try to take a bone away from a hungry dog?

A hungry dog will bite your hand.

It will let you die so it can have just one last chew on its bone.

It won't listen to reason.

Its only concern is that the bone belongs to it.

The bone is believed to be the dog's only means of survival.

If the dog hasn't learned how to share, trying to take a bone away from it will bloody your hand.

People wear all kinds of masks.

The mask of hate covers the fear of reprisal.

That inevitable future that is coming, we can all see it now.

A brotherhood of man where blacks and whites live together.

They judge each other by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

People have a fear of this future becoming real.

They imagine the same horrors that they allowed to happen to black and brown people to be reciprocated.

They are fighting for a false way of life.

Just like that dog fighting for that last piece of gristle on a bone.

So, as we prepare to vote out the White House's chief hater and creep, keep in mind the prize.

A world where children are no longer taught to wear masks.

A world where children can be who they are.

Free, living in truth and justice for all.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Wait

The sun at dawn.

That coffee in the pot.

A red light.

Wait.

In line for a meal.

In line for a job.

In line to vote.

Wait.

To be seen.

To be recognized.

To be respected.

Wait.

Freedom.

Equality.

Justice.

Peace.

Wait.

It's easy to sit back and not do anything when you have everything.

It's easy to dismiss the tears, the fears, the anguish of people not like you.

It's easy to live in fear of change.

It's easy not to see, not to hear, not to feel when doing so means sharing this world.

It's easy to do nothing.

It's easy to tell others to wait when you are in power.

It's easy to wait.

Wait.

Why should we wait?

This nation of ours has wrestled and fought over the timetable of freedom that it laid down in its foundational documents.

It has fought every step of the way to allow those words of freedom to ring true.

All are created equal...

You would think that a People whose credo is freedom for all would be cheerful and grant this to be true.

Yet here we are today in the first part of the 21st century in America, and a good 40% of Americans do not agree with the Constitution.

My freedom is more important than your freedom.

If you have to have freedom, I'll do away with my freedom before I allow you any of mine.

My power is sanctified; I will not share my abundance with you, the takers.

It's bizarre that a People who declare themselves defenders of liberty and justice only mean themselves.

No one else need apply.

Wait?

No, we ain't waiting anymore.

The Freedom Train is pulling out of the station.

We've got a few more weeks until this election, and we're moving on.

Freedom won't wait.

Freedom, like a falling rain, will change with the season.

In the Winter, it will fall like snow, slow and beautiful.

During the Spring, it was long and drenching.

In the summer, hot and fast, the thunder rolls across the hills and echoes in the valleys.

There is no need to wait.

Everyone has a ticket to get on the Freedom Train.

It's up to each of us to get on board or not.

To get your ticket punched, all you have to do is vote.

Don't wait.

Vote.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

The People

Who are we?

Important.

Forgotten.

On the street.

In the home.

Running a business.

Retired.

Able to leap buildings.

Fallen.

On the corner.

Behind the scenes.

Top floor.

Out the back door.

Who are we?

Driving.

Riding.

Marching.

Humiliated.

Fighting back.

Alone.

Together.

Who are we?

We are a people who can trace our origins through an ancestry that believes in freedom.

We are a people bound together in a struggle against our fellow humans who fear freedom.

A preference to live in the dark in both mind, spirit, and heart.

We are a people who stand on the right side of history.

A history governed by the simplest idea yet the most powerful in the whole of the universe.

Love one another as you would want to be loved.

If you are sick, you are taken care of.

If you are lost, you are looked for.

If you are afraid, you are protected.

This is the overriding idea behind the Constitution of the United States of America.

That a government of the people, by the people, and for the people would stand for justice.

Not just for themselves but for everyone.

Together, the People would secure the fundamental rights of freedom, prosperity, and happiness. 

We all might rise together to form that more perfect union of love.

Who are we?

We are the children of freedom’s light.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Racism

Racism is a belief.

It is founded on a biblical principle in Western society.

More specifically, in the evangelical interpretation of what the followers believe is the divine word of God.

The following is the foundation of White racism in America: The Bible.

The Old Testament, taken from the Jewish faith, the Torah, was plagiarized by Christians.

After centuries of debate and internal genocide of its followers, Catholic Christianity introduced its Bible in the late 1500s.

Pissing off the Protestants in England who, in the early 1600s, introduced their King James Bible.

The King James Bible is the official racist text for racism, not the ungodly Catholic one.

The King James Bible.

The word of their White God.

The Bible is the literal, actual truth.

So Yahweh, Jehovah, God laid down the rules for a Bronze Age society, which was for the Jewish people.

The word of God is a guideline for everyday living.

Everything has a place and a place for everything.

Each person is born into a set of circumstances that God has prescribed for their life.

To wish for and to want anything better for your life is a sin against the will of God.

A poor person wants to have money.

Sin.

A woman who does not want to be beaten by her husband.

Sin.

A slave wanting freedom.

Sin.

To change your life is to declare the will of God is in error.

Which is a sin.

Punishable by death.

We are not to 'want more' than what we are given.

This is why in the Charles Dickens tale of Oliver Twist, when the orphan boy Oliver asks for 'more' gruel, he is seen as a sinner.

He is depraved, going against the will of God.

No matter if he is hungry, starving, or wanting more than what God has given you, it is evil.

So, the Protestants took the holy text of another culture.

People copied it word for word, gave some sizzle to some of the text, and presented it as their own holy book told to them by their White God.

This is the origin of the Old Testament in both the Catholic and Protestant Bibles.

Not the New Testament, which is a collection of letters written to the members of the early Christian Church some 150 to 300 years after the death of Jesus.

But that's for another day...

Racism.

Racism is a belief.

To paraphrase Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most racist hour in America is that hour in church every Sunday.

The second most racist time is the hour that proceeds in Sunday school. 

I was raised Evangelical, a Quaker.

I can affirm what Dr. King has said.

The tenets, the foundations of racism, are taught in our protestant, evangelical houses of worship to the faithful as the foundation of society.

White makes right.

More than once, I listened to the following tale from the pew.

Noah built a boat.

He and all the animals, including his family, his sons, and their wives, rode out the storm.

When the land was dry, Noah was thirsty and decided to make wine.

He planted the seeds, grew the grapes, made himself some new wine, got drunk, and passed out.

While he was passed out, his sons performed some unnatural acts upon the sleeping Noah.

God got upset.

He visited a curse upon the three sons of Noah.

Upon Ham, he cursed him for being black.

That's why we have black people today.

Their blackness is an outward sign of their inherited sin.

That is why black people are considered lesser in the eyes of God than white people.

Dogs will have a better chance on judgment day than a black.

Do you understand the problem?

Racism is a belief.

It's a religion.

White religious people are defending their faith in God and the order of the universe when they are standing up for racism.

To present any kind of rational argument before a racist is useless.

Have you ever tried to get someone to give up their religion?

Give up drinking

Give up drugs?

Unless they see their problem, it's impossible to elicit a change in mind and heart.

Once a person is a racist, their fate is set in granite tablets.

Like weeds in a garden, racists will always be with us.

But we don't have to let the weeds take over the garden of humanity.

We can keep racism in check.

We, the people, have that ability.

That power.

Because together, we are stronger than any Bronze Age story.

Together, we have the power to demonstrate a better way of life.

A life where harmony makes the very stones sing.

As night is to day, the light of justice, of freedom for all, must rule our lives.

Why?

Because love is easier to live with than hate.

There is a philosophical idea that we need opposites to understand what is right.

As night is to day.

As hot is to cold.

The beauty of life is to see the wonder, the miracle of the diversity of humanity.

All want the same things.

Life, liberty, freedom, and love.

Love asks more, never less.

Add love, and find hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Say Her Name

Breonna Taylor's death and subsequent charging only of the officer who shot into other apartments and not the two who did and who shot her and killed her is a blatant cover-up.  

Covering for bullies.  

Covering for racism. 

Covering for a white apartheid that says one race gets justice while everyone else doesn't.  

Racism is not something that will smoothly go away.

No one answer will empty the hate of racists. 

Racism is a belief, and like any belief, it has its promoters and followers.  

It's priests, and it's laypeople.

It's policing of policy.

Ultimately, we will never get a leopard to willingly change its own spots.  

Ain't going to happen.  

Which is why we move forward, why we march, why we shout, why we talk, why we listen.  

Why do we work together?

Why do we get into good trouble? 

We believe in justice for all, which will lead us to that better world where the brotherhood of man awaits us.

Justice is not just for the opposed but also a freeing of the mind and soul of the oppressor. 

Justice comes in ways we do not always expect.  

Yet justice will always answer for those who ring the bell of freedom.  

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Hello?

The media has a collective cognitive disorder.

The media reports news and then forgets what information they said.

When the Pandemic first struck America, all news sources put up CDC charts of the potential total number of deaths over time.

Does anyone remember those charts?

When you looked past a year, those numbers mounted up to 500,000 to a million dead.

Every day, you can hear the media wince about why this President acts the way he does.

Why does he lie and act the way he does?

Why?

Why?

They seem to forget that they tell us one week he's a sociopathic, malignant narcissist liar, and the following week it's totally forgotten.

Why does he keep lying?

Why does he have trouble with facts?

Why doesn't he remember what he said?

I'll acknowledge that the media are providing a kind of service to the nation.

Not everyone is up to date on every turn of current events.

These media people have busy lives; they can't be expected to keep track of facts.

Current day fact: Those who enter a public building today have to be reminded that there is a plague killing a thousand-plus people every day, and they need to wear masks.

Some people, very human, may not realize it's still killing people.

They have to be reminded.

The average person is too busy to keep the facts of a worldwide plague at the forefront of their lives.

A plague...

So the news purveyors do a rehash, a gentle reminder to their consumers each day of what was on the previous day's menu.

Yet the media forgets what they say as soon as they say it.

Yet the media forgets what they say as soon as they say it.

Yet the media forgets what they say as soon as they say it.

The biggest one in the past year, which continues every day, is what the media said about the mortality rates for black and brown people.

After the first two months, studies of mortality rates demonstrated that black and brown people were more adversely affected by COVID.

Black and brown people died more often than white people.

It was said over and over and over again.

Then, by June, we start to get a set of silly questions out of our news hosts.

Why are the President's supporters not wearing masks?

Why is the President saying you don't have to wear a mask?

Why are the President's rallies requiring attendees not to wear a mask?

Why are guys and gals with red hats, white trucks, and Trump flags all refusing to wear masks in public?

These questions require a memory.

The news hosts told America that black and brown people die at a higher rate than white people.

These questions require deductive reasoning.

Being able to recognize that 2 + 2 = 4.

If our news hosts didn't do more than just read the news and look at what the red hats are saying to each other daily.

Conservative Americans posting to each other over social media shared this scientific data that COVID-19 kills blacks.

Let the celebration begin!

The news hosts ask, Why are people not wearing a mask?

The answer is racism.

Racism you fools.

The second the news media said blacks die at a higher rate than whites from COVID was the second that white apartheid America took off their masks.

It is why white racist Americans will not put their masks back on.

A side note, that's 37% - 40% of Americans, which is the current President's base.

Understand the simple math?

COVID became a plague that kills them, not us.

It kills brown people.

White racists want brown people dead.

It kills brown people...

This lack of cognition is genuinely an all-too-human response.

News flash!

Did you know that McDonald's has a new breakfast sandwich?

Did you see that rat running away with a slice of pizza today?

Did you know we landed on the moon?

Humans take in information at all speeds.

From instantly to not at all.

News organizations report the news, but they don't necessarily understand what they are saying.

They speak before they think.

They expose themselves as readers, not thinkers.

They drill into the middle of a story and are proud of the hole they made.

But they all have a problem with the bigger picture.

The bigger meaning of what happens in the world.

If problems could be solved by throwing a switch, it would have been done long ago.

Problems in any society are an ugly mixed-meat sandwich.

Everyone in their camp thinks they got the best sandwich.

Each camp is willing to go to war over the selection of meat and condiments.

What we all need is a bridge of information.

A conduit of truth.

A concierge of just the facts.

Just the facts.

The facts.

Some good people are keeping track, making connections, and doing the work of analysis of the facts.

How for every action, there is a reaction.

The leaping from headline to headline, screaming like Chicken Little that the sky is falling, will only make a nation weary.

Listen more.

2 + 2 = 4

Serve, We the People.

Facts.

Listen.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Sports

There is nothing like taking away the bottle from those who indulge in indifference to bring attention to what really matters.

Indifference is a kind of drug.

Indifference numbs our sense of responsibility.

It numbs our compassion.

It numbs our hope.

It blinds us to brutality.

It makes us deaf to the sounds of injustice.

It cripples our will to stand for what is right.

Sports is the novocaine injected into the jaw to keep you from feeling the pain in society.

Have you ever heard of sports called the Great Distraction?

A pastime?

What are we being distracted from?

What are we passing over?

The answer has always been to keep us happily gelded and not question why things are the way they are.

You give a child a toy and tell them to go play so you can do the thing you want to do.

You do this because you don't want to make the effort to engage with the child.

Boring!

You don't want to take responsibility because it's inconvenient.

You have better things to do.

You. You. You. You.

Distraction.

Sports play their part in our society.

In and of itself, it is not evil or good.

Except for that worldwide territorial organized crime online gambling thing...

The Fix is in...

It is a thing that can be enjoyed.

But ask yourself why this President and his supporters were so gung-ho to get sports back?

Distraction.

Today, right now, the NBA leads the way to stop the distractions.

They have the power of their members, as does the rest of sports, to focus the attention of a nation.

They have the power to break the stalemate of indifference.

They can address our broken police force.

They can be more than a distraction.

Distractions...

COVID came along and removed some of our distractions.

George Floyd's brutal death and the indifference of the officers who killed him burned into the hearts and minds of all those who saw the video.

Enough is enough.

Time and time again, the integrity of our police force has been demonstrated to be broken.

Broke.

When a thing has been repaired over and over again and still doesn't work?

Is it time to get a new thing?

Am I right?

Rethink what is possible.

Responsibly, our old, broken police forces should be set aside.

And in its place, a new force created.

A new force reimagined.

What it should be.

A clean slate.

Some things that broke can't be fixed; you have to get new ones.

This time, genuinely based on justice for all.

Our current police force will no longer be the de facto guardians of white supremacy.

To truly protect and serve all.

No longer should they see themselves as the Marshall in a lawless territory to be judge, jury, and executioners.

But to serve and protect a diverse modern society.

Some things that broke can't be fixed.

You have to get new.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

How

How do we help the blind see?

How to help the deaf hear?

How do you help the numb feel?

Obligation.

How can I help?

How can I matter?

How can I walk the walk?

Compassion.

How to run?

How to reach?

How to be hope?

Love.

The acid that will dissolve any democracy is willful ignorance combined with intolerance.

Willful ignorance is defined as the choice to ignore reality.

A preference, a choice, not a mistake.

Willful ignorance is tied spiritually to entitlement.

I am owed, I deserve, I’m next in line, I will take at the expense of others.

Consequences are not for me.

Consequences are only for those who are unfit, unworthy, on the other side…

Willful ignorance, intolerance, and entitlement are walls of fear built by humans.

They are high, they are thick, they are not fragile.

Many have tried to attack these walls directly, but always with no effect.

You may win a battle, but not the war.

Not only will the individual rebuild these walls, but the community that they protect will assist.

People who live protected behind the walls of willful ignorance, intolerance, and entitlement are numb to voices in the streets.

They are numb to the images of despair.

They are numb to the feelings of loss.

How do you reach them?

Why would you want to reach them?

Really?

Why?

Haven’t they placed themselves above humanity?

Haven’t they walled themselves off from human kindness?

Haven’t they buried themselves in the dirt like the living dead?

Yes, they have.

Fear will always have the potential to make all of us do bad things.

For those who have been given much, much is expected.

If you know how to swim and someone is drowning, love says save that person.

If you know how to stand and someone has fallen, love says help them up.

If you know the truth and someone has lied, love says speak up.

Someone has to be the adult in the room.

We are not here to save those who are already safe.

If you are reading my words, more than likely, you are in the choir of hope.

To round out our choir, we need all the voices of the earth.

That’s why we care.

That’s why we fight.

That’s why we sing.

We are not afraid of the fight for justice.

We will stand outside the walls of willful ignorance, intolerance, and entitlement, calling to our brothers and sisters to join us in a beautiful land.

There is redemption

You can begin again.

A land where fear has its place.

A land where love leads the way.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Brotherhood of Man

Love will never ask you to subtract.

Divide.

Exclude.

Love asks all of us to add.

To multiply.

To include.

What side of the equation are you on?

Humans.

Humans are peculiar.

They can hold two contradictory thoughts in their minds at the same time.

Love your neighbor.

But not those people.

Feed the hungry.

Not them.

Care for the sick.

They deserve what they got.

Our lives matter.

Their lives don't.

COVID came along, and at first, there was a unity of mind.

Beat back the Grim Reaper.

But on the day when the media pointed out that black and brown communities got sick at a rate 2 to 4 times that of white communities…

The fight became their problem, not ours, in racist white America.

The pandemic was over!

I was raised in white, racist America.

I know what they say behind closed doors.

I know what they say at the dinner table.

The church.

At work.

They cannot imagine themselves as equal to a black or brown person.

They cannot imagine sharing their good fortune with a person of color.

They cannot imagine a community where all work towards a common good if black people are included.

They have cut themselves off from humanity.

Believing in a certainty passed down through the generations that white makes right.

The God is white.

Jesus is white.

How can we appeal to those who have locked their minds with the shackles of hate?

How do we get hearts to open to feel once again what it means to be human?

You can't do it.

Have you ever tried to move a blob of Jello with a needle?

You can't do it.

The individual can do a lot of poking, but the Jello won't budge.

What is needed is hands, many hands, a community, a society, a nation coming together with a purpose.

The purpose is to drop hate and lift hope.

The outcome is through all our efforts together, the mountain of racism has no chance.

We can lift that mountain out of its self-inflicted darkness.

A better world is our goal.

The journey requires all our effort today and tomorrow and every generation to come.

Won't you join me?

Love asks more of us every day of our lives till we lay ourselves down.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Legacy of Fear

You were not born to be a monster.

You are not a creation of evil.

You do not have to pledge your life to cruelty.

There is no requirement to carry on a legacy of fear.

Trust is earned.

Trust should never be given to tyrants.

Tyrants come in many forms.

There are those in history.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao…

There are those in our neighborhood.

The old person who won't allow children to play in their yard.

The manager who won't report workplace harassment.

The elected leader who only cares for themselves and not for the community they were elected to serve.

Then, some live in our personal circle.

Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces.

Friends.

We all know them.

People who treat others like dirt.

That uncle, who is referred to as being that way…

Everyone knows not to cross them.

They are the soldiers who carry on a legacy of fear.

Everyone enjoys their stories.

Their superficial charm.

But no one doubts that those who know them know that if they believe they are right and you are wrong, you will never change the outcome.

They are damaged people.

Broken.

Broken and reformed into spirits that are blind to empathy.

Just as a person who is born blind has no knowledge or understanding of what color is.

They don't know despair, fear, sorrow, happiness, or love.

They can only, to the best of their intellectual capacity, imitate human emotions.

These people rise in power…

Always.

They don't let anything or anyone get in their way.

We allow these people to be our elected leaders.

We falsely believe they are strong.

Have courage.

Are leaders.

Our clergy.

Our police.

Our leaders of organized crime.

They are all of a kind.

They distribute a legacy.

A regime of fear.

They learned the lesson of fear from those they respected.

Those that they feared.

Not understanding that fear is the foundation of evil in the world.

It is the cornerstone upon which hate builds the temple of racism.

We who have not submitted to their stories, their bullying, must expose them.

Their stories of how the world works, who is on top, who is on the bottom, cannot stand against the light of truth and of love.

Love trumps hate.

Love trumps fear.

Don't ask someone for help who cannot see that you are drowning.

We cannot ask of this President for assistance.

He and his supplicants cannot give what they don't have.

Rocks don't bleed.

We all need to take responsibility, rise up to the challenge, and vote into office leaders who can see.

Who can hear?

Who can feel?

If we are ever to have good things on this earth.

For everyone.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Drop Hate

When I became an adult, I put away childish things.

When I was blind, I could not see the suffering.

When I was deaf, I could not hear the cries for freedom.

When I could not walk, I rolled in my own intellectual filth.

When I was mute, I did not speak up for the oppressed.

When my heart was cold, I could not feel.

I could not feel.

Age does not create wisdom.

The original idea is that with age, you gain experience and learn from mistakes.

Humanity teaches us again and again our willingness to commit the same mistakes over and over and over again.

This time, we'll get what we want.

Age does not create wisdom.

Humanity is like a forest.

In a forest, you have life growing at many different rates.

Some fast.

Some slow.

Some don't give a shit and are stunted.

Life progresses to maturity on a broad scale.

Some seeds fall into the earth too early.

The late winter snow kills off the blossoms.

Some fall too late.

The waning sun, the cold earth, the seeds never burst through the ground.

They lay dead, never to see the sky.

We who walk through the forest only see those that were successful.

We don't think about the tens of thousands of seeds that had potential but were wasted.

A seed.

A seed in the forest.

I became an adult.

I stepped out of the shell of my seed and created a life beyond self.

I opened my eyes and saw that the war between the states had not ended.

I opened my ears and heard the same cry for peace down the darkened streets of this nation.

I stood on my legs and joined the march in the street.

I found my voice and spoke truth to power.

My heart beat in my chest, and I could feel.

My mind was opened.

I heard a voice call my name.

It said to put away the hate.

Put away my pride.

Put away my will.

Put away the stories given to me by damaged people whose stories were given to them by damaged people.

Put away an evil past and make right a glorious today.

Love asks more, never less, of each of us every day.

If we are adults, then it is time to put away our toys in a proper place.

The adults need to find the courage to say no to their children.

No more.

Every society has had an awakening.

It is not unusual for a people, a nation, to realize that their past was a mistake.

To promote, honor, or defend a mistake in the light of truth is an evil act against life.

To roll in lies, to bathe in hate, to inflict pain with words, acts, or symbolically with statues is tyranny.

The tyranny of man against man.

It must stop.

End the Civil War.

Put away the evil past.

Embrace the power of love.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What You See?

Look over there.  

What you see?  

A woman is walking a dog.  

There is a Starbucks cup on the tree lawn.  

It’s cloudy today.  

Look over there.  

What you see?  

A young black woman is playing with a Hispanic child.  

There’s a delivery at the door.  

A cop grins because he killed some guy.  

Look over there.  

What you see?  

Congress deaf, dumb, and blind.  

Senate deaf, dumb, and blind.  

President mocks humanity. 

Look over there.  

What you see.  

I see fear held so long that it has burned out compassion. 

I see hate so deep that there’s no turning back.  

I see change coming.

Change coming.

A child yells.  

A mother weeps.  

A daddy lost.  

A dream destroyed.  

Look over there.  

What you see?  

Through tears, I see truth setting minds free.  

Through tears, I see justice push back.  

Through tears, I see our hope is here.  

See it?  

It’s right in front of you.  

It’s you.  

You will remake the world.

You.  

You are our hope.  

What you see?  

Peace  

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Heart Of Darkness

Where does discrimination come from?

Why do we allow people to suffer?

What is the belief that allows us to kill?

When was the last time you admitted you were wrong?

Where was the last place you cried?

Why can't our leaders hear people ask for their freedom?

What will people say about you behind your back?

When will racism end?

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically 

bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that 

the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood 

can never become a reality." – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The other day, a man woke up.

He may have had a plan for how that day might have wound up, but…

We can all recognize that the outcome was not what he intended.

Like so many people before him, fate chooses us without asking.

George Floyd woke that day and did not know he would be dead before sunset.

George's life, like so many of ours, is lived day by day.

Yes, we have an idea of where we want to go, but getting there remains hidden.

Only a few superficial people ever believe they are important.

None of us wakes up and says I'm the best.

Well, almost none of us.

No, we each try to get a piece of happiness each day.

Some days, it works out; others, it doesn't.

George Floyd was murdered by the police.

The police woke that day and didn't know they were going to start a fire that would burn around our collective consciousness.

They didn't know that their anger, their regrets, and prejudice would murder a man.

There's never been any evidence that hateful, bigoted racists ever killed anyone, right?

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe rings in those policemen's ears.

I can't breathe rings in the streets of America.

I can't breathe rings in the hearts of people across the world.

Dr. King was right.

The dark night would not hold its power over the hearts of humanity forever.

If there is a night, there will be a dawn.

Those who were faithful to pursue justice for all carried the light of truth before us.

The truth is that racism will never end.

However, the arbiter of racism is justice equally applied to all.

We have a lot of old rules in this Republic.

Rules meant to keep one People in power.

Rules written can be unwritten by better ideas.

People in the street march towards that brotherhood of man.

George Floyd blew a trumpet blast and brought down the walls.

Heroes are not created; they happen.

Let freedom ring in the morning's holy light.

As George's six-year-old daughter said, "Daddy changed the world."

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby