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

Hope Again

To feel fear in laughter.

To know hate in singing.

To touch anger in a smile.

Despair in a smile.

Hopelessness in a glance.

To feel real pain when someone falls.

Your heart stops at the clash of loud sounds.

Bright lights burn.

Brilliant color stings.

Tears flow on your face; they do on mine.

Your joy is my joy.

Your fear is my fear.

Your hope mine.

Have you felt the thrill in a song?

Have you felt the melting of a heart?

Have you sung with the voices of the forest?

Do you converse with the steady mountains?

Does the sea speak of a better world?

Can you feel the individual's dreams, the group, and the city push you into giddy laughter?

Can you feel the loss of one life push you into darkness?

Do the waves of ignorance beat your mind?

Does silence crack your skull?

Being an empath does not give you clairvoyance.

You feel real pain, real pleasure from other people.

But those feelings don't tell you why?

Why are they afraid?

Why are they in love?

Why are they resentful?

Why are they angry?

Other people's emotions, especially for me, anger boils on my skin like acid.

I can see a lie before it's even told.

But a funny thing about being an empath?

You can't see your own fiction.

I had traveled a life, not knowing that the fourth wall of my personality did not exist.

I did not know my back door was wide open, letting in all the unregulated terrors of the human mind into my spirit.

That open back door swung so broadly that it let in all the fear, the darkness without boundaries.

Until I decided I couldn't take it any longer.

I had to leave.

Time to die.

But as I was going out the door, a voice caught me.

A voice that pierced the absolute darkness that filled my eyes.

A voice that called me back to the living.

A voice of hope.

Are you alright?

It's really late to discover at age 55 that you're an empath.

I've lived again these past 5 years and learned a lot about myself.

It explained a lot of the secret misery I kept.

The secret pain piled up.

But that voice of love asked me to live again.

To again begin.

And I meekly said I will try once more.

Once more, to help heal hearts and minds.

Once more for love.

This world can be a better place.

For all of us.

Try to see the world through the heart of another.

You will find you are also in that other person's heart.

They want what you want.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Listen

We, the people.

What did you hear?

These truths are self-evident.

What did you hear?

Created equal.

What did you hear?

Perfect Union.

What did you hear?

Establish justice.

What did you hear?

Promote the general welfare.

What did you hear?

Secure the Blessings of Liberty.

What did you hear?

I'll lay down even money you didn't hear what I heard.

Like the husband who only hears what he wants to hear.

Like the child who doesn't hear the word no.

Like the establishment employee who doesn't hear your problem.

Like the wait staff who don't hear your order.

Humans hear what they want to hear when they want to hear it.

Our beliefs color our communications.

If we believe in fairness, our ears are open to new directions.

If we believe in nothing, our ears are unfamiliar with the suffering of others.

If we believe in hate, we are deaf to tears.

A recurring theme I would like to elucidate is perspective.

The Constitution of the United States of America was not written for all of us.

It left out women.

It left out people of color.

It was a document about securing the rights and freedoms of white landowners who were standing against a generational white aristocracy who would take land in payment of taxes.

We, the people, took a while to be noticed.

We, the people, were the squeaky wheel on the shopping cart of democracy.

We, the people, read the Bill of Rights and asked, "Doesn't this apply to us, too?"

We kept on keeping on being in the ear of those who had already secured their freedom from oppression.

Funny how the oppressed, once granted freedom, will always find something they believe they are superior to.

Freedom is not willingly granted to anyone.

No.

And to keep our freedom, we have to make a good noise.

We have to form a choir to keep the music of freedom in our elected leaders' ears.

That's why we organize.

That's why we vote.

This is our duty not only to our past but to ourselves, alive here and now, and to those who will come after us.

Freedom is just a word if it's not followed by hard work.

If you can hear my voice and are comforted, then you are part of the choir.

If you hear a noise, it's a good thing.

It means you're not deaf yet.

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

Freedom When

When you grow up, you let go of your past.

A past where you believed in fairy tales.

Our Republic is growing up.

You and I have felt the growing pains.

This pain is the conscious awakening of letting go of a mythical past.

There have been enough cracks put into the story of this nation that the light of truth is shining upon the interior, the heart of what we define ourselves as a nation.

There are a lot of holes in the stories we tell each other.

Our foundations were built upon the god-given belief that slavery was a right and just part of society.

The belief that some men were more valuable than others.

White men believed themselves superior to all other races.

What this nation fought for was not the freedom of all men versus freedom for only white men.

The tyranny that was overthrown on September 3, 1783, allowed the white man in this newly formed country to breathe in the freedom denied him by millennia of aristocratic sovereignty.

The Revolutionary War ended white male bonded servitude.

Well, truthfully, sort of, instead of calling it white slavery, they called it bonded servitude.

Sharecropping.

There was no regard, no thought given to women, let alone brown and black people in the original Bill of Rights of the Constitution.

It would take hearts, hands, and minds struggling to get those rights for all from our oppressors.

Today, in 2020, women of all colors are still waiting for that same freedom to be won for them.

Cracks in the story.

Who put those cracks into the American story so that we can see we are not who we say we are?

Every person who swung the hammer of justice is who.

People have been hammering on the thick heads and dense hearts of this society for a while now.

Recently, COVID-19 rang the bell of justice, asking us all to take care of each other.

Only half the nation responded.

But it shined a bright light, demonstrating that half of all Americans don't care what happens to our sick, the old, the unemployed, and the poor.

Recently, the tyranny of man reached out and claimed another soul, George Floyd.

That knocked another hole in the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a people.

Who does the police really protect and serve?

Who does the police serve?

Every day, little holes are chipped through the shell by every person on social media.

The story.

The story we told ourselves in the past was better than the reality.

That's what stories are.

Our problem as a society is whether we are writing and believing in a story of fiction or non-fiction?

Every society that has been recorded goes through an evolution.

It grows.

This society has very high ideals.

A high bar is set for itself in that original story called the Declaration of Independence.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights.

But as of late, there haven't been enough writers for a better future.

The dreamer's ink has run dry.

Too many prefer to sit back and dream about the past.

Too many prefer to fight against the future and worship the past.

Too many prefer to shut out change, build walls, and kill to keep equality just a dream.

Those preferences are the desires of the foolish.

They destroy the future so they don't have to worry about it.

Those preferences.

What rights are enjoyed by the majority cannot be denied to the minority.

An idea that keeps getting in the way of determinism.

We are the dreamers.

We are the heroes.

We are the hope.

We can make a better world today, not tomorrow.

Today.

Now.

Even now, we are writing a new story, you and I.

Let's revise our story, shall we?

Let the end of the past be the beginning of the future.

A future where all children are welcome in the story of freedom.

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

Evangelicals

Why do the Evangelicals support Donald Trump?  

Some history. 

I was born into the Quaker church.  

Both my grandfather and grandmother were Reverends in the Quaker church.  

My mother called herself " A preacher's brat."  

My mother's mother and her father came to live with us once my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  

After my grandmother's passing, my grandfather continued to live with us.  

Even though the Rev. Larkin Hadley had retired, he still wrote a sermon every Sunday throughout the week.  

I never heard my grandfather use racist dialogue or tone.  

Ever.  

As much as my burned-down memory can scrape a fragment together, every story I've ever heard was of a man of compassion.  

He saved me more than once as a child from a bloody beating from my father. 

However, religion does not conform to the will of the individual, or to an agreed-upon social morality, but to the power and influence that its leadership can wield over its followers.  

Religion feeds innate prejudice like a trail of breadcrumbs for those to follow.  

In the mid-80s, when membership was declining, and it looked like the church was going to die, the Quaker Church at its Yearly Meeting decided to throw down its old values and accept a new reality.

What is the Yearly Meeting?  

The Yearly Meeting is a gathering of all of the Quaker churches across the U.S. to discuss and plan the agenda of the church.   

A gathering of both professional and lay members.  

So, with the decline in church membership due to the social upheavals of the 60s, how was the Friends Church, as they renamed themselves, how could they bring in more members?    

They believed they had to become involved in politics.   

To speak up and make their position known.  

To be socially active.

To entice young people back into their ranks.

To put people back into the pews.  

Heretofore, they had a prohibition against involvement with politics.   

What is Caesar's... is Caesar's.

What is God's God was dismissed as an error in the face of their funding drying up due to empty pews.

Empty pews mean no one is putting their weekly extortion money for life eternal into the offering plate.

The Quaker Church had become old-fashioned, irrelevant to the movement of the society in which they found themselves. 

A name change occurs once again.  

The Friends Church, which historically is the Quakers, became known nationwide as the Evangelicals.

That's right... don't be confused... the Evnagelicas are the Quakers the guy on the Oatmeal Box.

Consider…  

Why did our founding fathers want a separation between religion and government?  

The separation between church and state.

Don’t Christianity, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution agree with each other?  

A government founded upon the principle that all people are created equal.   

A government of the people, by the people, for the people has a distinct ideology, present, and upfront in that statement.  

We are all equal.

The Christian Bible clearly states we are not all equal.

It's funny the things you can learn when you read things yourself.

Religion, western religion, on the other hand, makes marked separations between the saved and the sinner.   

You are either for us or against us.   

With God or against God.  

Religion makes no room for the undecided, the marginal.

It sidelines the minority in favor of a majority that supports a version of a God.

It is a rule, an idea, a dogma passed down from generation to generation which cannot buy its own rules be questioned. 

A type of window dressing, marketing, has been crafted to make the reality, "this dogma," more palatable to those not born again into religion.  

"Love the sinner, hate the sin."   

The religious can marginalize any group, the individual who does not adhere to, who does not believe like me.

The Christian religion encourages this separation.

This categorizing of who is worthy of God’s love and blessings and who is not. 

You either belong to my club, or you don't.  

If you don't belong to my club, you are an infidel and are worthy of death.   

If not at my hands, then by my God, who will make you suffer in hell for all eternity for not wanting to be a member of my club.   

Let's get real.  

Religion segregates. 

Religion discriminates.  

Religion divides the deserving from the undeserving.  

Religion blinds the faithful to see only one way to God.  

Its purpose is to use the goodwill of the faithful to support the power structure of the religion. 

To keep the King the King.

To keep a permanent 10% income tax levied on every person for as long as they live... paid each Sunday. 

This 'segregation' is taught from the pulpit and repeated in the pews every Sunday in our Evangelical houses of worship.  

Segregation goes hand in hand with racism.  

Ever wonder how good Christian people have the idea that the white race is superior and all the rest are akin to animals?  

Well, you have to look at the story of the Great Flood to get the answer.  

The story of Noah and his sons is used to illustrate who is deserving and who is not in the eyes of God by racist White America.  

After the flood was over and the animals were let loose to propagate once again, God wanted Noah to flourish also.  

To that end, Noah was missing having wine with his dinner.  

So Noah planted a vineyard.  

Noah grew his grapes and made himself some new wine.  

He drank from his new wine and passed out.   

His sons, seeing his nakedness, had homosexual sex with him while he was unconscious.   

For that sin, God gave each son a curse.   

For the son Ham, he made his skin black as night.   

Ham and his descendants were to serve the white man for the rest of their time as the white man's slaves for having sex with his unconscious father.  

This curse was to be a reminder of their sin forever.  

What God has cursed, let no man say it ain't.  

This story was told repeatedly from the pulpit there in Cleveland, Ohio in that little Quaker church I attended.  

It was repeatedly told to me by the Reverend as well as his wife, as to why it was wrong for the negro in 1968 to want more out of life than what God had granted in his mercy.  

Rules are rules, you know.   

Can't question God and say everyone is equal when God clearly made the slave a slave and the free man free.

God has his reasons it's not up to us to say God is wrong.  

That Constitution thing is just plain wrong-headed.  

Those men with the white wigs must have gotten God's word all backward.  

So this adopted myth, this cornerstone of racism in religious white America, is why Evangelicals support Donald Trump.

He uses their coded language of race and class segregation and he must be sent by their God to lead the stupid people like you and me back to God.

On April 4th, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.  

I'm eight years old.  

Innocent of the world, not understanding the turmoil.   

When I heard that someone had killed Martin Luther, my eight-year-old heart was grieved.   

Someone had killed the person who founded our church.   

I was too naive to understand that Martin Luther King Jr. was not Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant movement, in the 16th century, and subsequent Christian derivatives. 

At church that Sunday following the assassination, the adults around me were all happy.   

They were laughing and patting each other on the back as they put on their coats to leave the sanctuary.   

Gleeful.

They were happy somebody killed that agitator.   

That nigger. 

They were happy that someone had killed a friend of Jesus…?  

I didn't understand why good men praised evil.  

My parents didn't understand why I cried.  

Where was love?  

I wept…  

Peace  

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Opportunity

"A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property, widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few." – Dr. Martin Luther King

It's incredible how so many can look across their street and tell themselves that they are better off than the person living next door.

Isolation.

Isolation of mind.

Isolation of action.

Isolation of opportunity.

Opportunity comes in two equal but distinct ways.

First, is there an opportunity?

Is there a possibility of employment in my community?

Will I be hired?

Is there a chance for a better-paying job that will give you a better life?

A happier life?

This is best illustrated by what used to be the box standard economic reality across America, and that is the one-industry town.

Back in the day, one such town was Loudonville, Ohio, where the Flxible Bus Company was the dominant industry.

All across the Midwest, many of the towns had just one industry.

The expectation was created generation after generation that the lowest bar of employment was the local factory job.

But when those jobs were taken out of America by the owners and boards of those companies, places like Loudonville were left holding an empty economic bag.

The story has been repeated in every corner of our Nation.

From the shoe factories in New England to the cotton mills of the South to the steel and rubber industries of the Great Lakes to the plane manufacturing industry of the West.

There are just too many "used-to-be" places of opportunity that are now gone forever.

Now our manufacturing corridors are empty.

Too many of our communities no longer have a wealth of opportunity.

It all was stolen like a thief in the night by an all too human evil.

Greed.

The second type of opportunity is one of personal discovery.

It depends upon the individual to ask themselves a simple but one of the most challenging questions one has to ask oneself eventually.

What do I want to do with my life?

When you live in the city, I currently reside in Los Angeles, there is an abundance of choices.

Living here, you can choose to be just about anything you want to be.

You can be an executive, work as a manager at a fast-food service and make six figures, be a nurse or a lawyer, paint houses, or paint landscapes on an artist's canvas.

The opportunity to do what you see, what you imagine, has virtually no limits.

However, back in Ohio, down around the southern border with Kentucky, I'm very familiar with the town of McArthur.

A lot of great people live down around there, but the local jobs are few.

You need enough money to put gas in your car and drive up towards Columbus or over towards Athens and Parkersburg to have a few more opportunities.

Growing up in a place devoid of choice naturally limits your choices.

It's not that you don't realize that there are doctors, nurses, lawyers, and astronauts out in the world making a living.

It's just not in the crayon box of choices when the biggest employers in your town are the Dollar Store and Taco Bell.

Opportunity is a two-way street.

There has to be the opportunity to take hold of it, but it also has to be in the psychology that says I have a choice; I can do it.

All anyone asks is for the opportunity to succeed.

But we Americans have and continue to have a consistent urge to limit each other's opportunities.

We continue to limit access to opportunities for racial and identity minority communities.

That limit is called prejudice.

This prejudice extends to everyone who is not white.

Women also bear the prejudice of the limitation of opportunity, regardless of race.

As Dr. King says, there are too many men out there willing to take from the many to give to the few.

Today is Thanksgiving 2019.

The sentiment and the visceral acid thrown about today by the conservative party in this Nation makes it more like 1919.

These few men who have profited from the selling of the American dream are taking the opportunity to capitalize on the economic nightmare that they created.

The real loss and abandonment that so many of their victims feel, where opportunity no longer exists, these economic vultures have taken hold of their hearts and minds.

It is an evil we stand against this Thanksgiving, where men pit men against each other, falsely blaming the other as stealing their rightful hope.

Their economic future.

When light casts its brilliance, darkness rushes to the corners.

Yet from within that darkest of nights, a single candle can push back the despair and restore hope.

The challenge of this Thanksgiving has been faced by many before us.

Generation after generation is called to keep up the good fight.

As the night draws near and the grinding teeth of despair cry out, it is up to each of us to hold our light up high and push back against the darkness.

We can seize the opportunity to build a better world.

Light your candle, be thankful for what you have, and help share the wealth of this life with all.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Timid

"The true source of our suffering has been our timidity.

We have been afraid to think… 

Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write." – John Adams

Why do we fear being wrong?

Why would a person, a community, or a political party support apparent corruption and crimes conducted by its representatives and not investigate and prosecute the guilty?

What allows apparently good people to turn their backs in outrage and huddle against the bright light of truth?

Prejudice.

Prejudice is a kind of temerity of the timid.

Lazy minds.

Prejudice is making judgments without truth or factual evidence.

Do you see the link I'm talking about?

The timid are afraid to talk to that black man taking a knee.

The timid don't want to hear the reason for the immigrant fleeing murder.

The timid prefer to hide behind the excuse that nothing matters, that everything is corrupt.

Each of these examples represents a form of prejudice that prevents society from learning the truth.

Even if that truth reveals the corruption behind what we personally believe to be true.

John Adams, our second President, admonishes, asks, and reflects that what has kept this nation and the world from becoming a better place is our collective fear of confronting the truth.

I would add that it's part of the human condition, characterized by a general laziness of mind and body.

You know you should do the laundry; there is a huge pile, and you have no clean underwear.

You don't want to look at the pile.

You know you have to go buy soap.

You would rather tolerate the stink of your clothes than do the work.

It takes effort to gather your resources and apply the energy.

You just tell yourself everyone else is walking around in stinky clothes, too.

Your prejudice and your timid psychology allowed you to make up an excuse for not doing the right thing.

A collective timid psychology, a prejudice against doing right, has taken hold of the Republican Party and its supporters.

What I am calling a political-economic-social-nihilism.

PESN

PESN, in short, means that these people believe a myth that everything is corrupt.

If everything is corrupt, then my personal corruption, my prejudice, and my timid response will not be noticed.

If everything stinks, my stink won't be noticed.

My failure to take responsibility for doing right doesn't matter in the broader context of right versus wrong because everyone is ultimately out for themselves.

Welcome to the Jungle, baby!

This is a myth created by timid minds cobbled together on bar stools.

A world full of prejudice where corruption is the norm, and do-gooders are losers.

A discourse...

Boy Scouts.

The Deep State.

Never Trumpers.

Adams is right.

This timid myth of the world has held back the Great Society.

It destroyed Reconstruction.

It denied the Equal Rights Amendment.

It shut the door on Gay rights.

It has allowed racism to flourish.

It has grown white nationalism.

It has promoted economic disparity between the rich and poor.

It has strengthened a dark discourse of social dystopia and fascism in social media, networks, and print.

It has allowed the monsters who feed off the fear of the timid to take control of half of our Republic.

Is it too late to do anything about it?

Let us dare to read.

Read everything, especially those writings that challenge us to do more.

Think long, hard, and deep, ask the questions, and get to the answer at the bottom of the well of deceit and corruption.

Speak truth to power, demand freedom from the tyrant of the mind that says your freedom, your happiness, your equality, your hope, is not essential.

And write…

Write to that person who stands in the doorway, stopping the freedom march.

Write to that friend who has lost their hope.

Write and be that hope.

Most of all, do not be afraid of the night as you travel on your course.

You are a star in a gathering host.

Together, bravely, with courage and great spirit, we will do right.

It's always the right time to do right.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What Country

A majority of the citizens of this country were born here.

We have grown up in a culture of freedom.

A freedom that allows us to pursue our own happiness.

But that freedom does not come without a responsibility.

That responsibility comes with asking us what country we want to live in?

To be able to keep and enjoy this Republic requires a majority of us to agree on a set of ideas.

Of principals.

Of morals.

Due to our current state of affairs, it would seem that we do not agree on the same ideas, principles, and morality.

The Republican Party now supports the idea of power by any means.

The Republican Party now believes no one can be held responsible for a crime; they are above justice if the individuals accused believe they are not guilty.

No need for a fair trial by peers.

The Republican Party stands behind the leader of its party, who has been demonstrated to be a liar, a cheat, and a sexual predator.

The Republican Party freely admits that the President has no ideas, has no principles, has no morality, and they are OK with that because he believes in cutting taxes for the wealthy.

What has happened?

What has happened to our country?

What country is this?

John Adams said, " The preservation of Liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved."

Without their tacit agreement, a body of the American people has become enslaved to the idea of social and economic nihilism.

Nothing can be done; everyone and everything is corrupt.

So, what does it matter as long as I'm left alone?

As Adams warned, there is a large population in this country without civic-social-economic virtue.

They are the lost souls washed up upon the beach of economic vulture capitalism, which has been picking at the bones of the American psyche since 1776.

The industrial, political, social, and wealthy tax dodgers of this country are consistent.

They consistently feed off their prey, the American people, to the point of killing off the host.

They have sucked the civic morality of this nation almost dry once again.

We, as free people, cannot survive and prosper where a whole class of people and special interests are separate and unequal to us.

The wealthy, the wealth producers, the corporations cannot be allowed the status of untouchable.

We, the people, are unworthy of asking them to do their fair share and be a hope for the people, not their bloodletting Barber surgeon.

These economic parasites have created this social-political nihilism and use their victims to maintain power.

They have infected this country and have brought our Republic to a breaking point.

This President is not the symptom; he's the tip of the iceberg that poked his head out of the green greed swamp ass.

This President is supported by social, economic, and political powers that have been caught with their hand up the skirt of Liberty.

What country do you want to live in?

That's what's at stake with this impeachment of this President and the upcoming election.

Enemies of freedom come primarily from within the borders of any country.

They know the weakness of its citizens.

The enemy from within knows how to twist the truth to get what it wants.

It's why all civil servants in this country swear an oath not to an individual but to an idea.

The Constitution.

That idea that if a majority of us hold it to be true, we, the people, will not be enslaved by tyranny.

A tyranny both foreign and domestic.

What country do you want to live in?

The time is now to do right.

Reach out across the space that separates us and be the hope.

Don't tell your neighbors to hope by themselves.

That's how we got into this mess in the first place, when politicians promised prosperity and had no intention of delivering it.

Be the hope.

Cancel out the evil of nihilism.

Be the hope.

Make a difference simply by being kind, allowing compassion to be the guide to a shared purpose of knowledge and virtue.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Judgment Day

We hold these truths to be beyond question.

Everyone has the right to life, Liberty, and happiness.

Everyone includes the young, the old, the teen, the middle-aged, the straight, the gay, you, me, and the stranger, too.

This nation was founded on those truths.

Those truths of our Republic are absolute then and now.

What isn't true is the haphazard barstool knowledge that too many Americans bring to how their government works.

Too many rely upon urban legend.

Too many rely upon personal myth.

Too many rely on the know-it-all at the end of the bar for answers.

Too many gather together to tell each other stories with no basis in truth.

It's a sad truth about humans that the real reason they gather together, like minds, is to support each other's prejudices.

That prejudice doesn't exclusively mean racial.

No.

It also includes those who like to sew quilts.

Those who like to fix up old cars.

Those who believe their God is superior to 'those' people's God.

People stick together because they enjoy each other's company.

That's a no-brainer.

They like what each other says.

When was the last time you joined a group or were in a conversation that pointed out how wrong you were?

How wrong you were every time you joined in a conversation.

Many Americans believe that the government is wrong and corrupt.

Why?

The answer is easy because it's the same sentiment that countless generations have expressed over and over again.

That sentiment is because the government isn't doing anything for me.

If the government isn't helping me, then damn them let the whole thing burn down.

John F. Kennedy famously intoned at his inauguration, Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

It seems many Americans have either forgotten those great words of civic responsibility or chosen to do the easy thing and join the nihilist crowd.

The Nihilist Crowd is a non-exclusive group of people with no party affiliation who want others to take on their responsibility and hand them their due.

All the while complaining that doing anything to help make your community, your home, and your life any better is a waste of time.

Everything is corrupt.

Our Republic is in desperate need of its citizens to pick up their civic responsibility and join in the fight.

There needs to be active participation and an intense realization of how government works and who it actually works for.

We have to end these urban legends, these tropes used by scalawags the world over telling us your government doesn't work for you.

However, the big secret is that when the government isn't working, that's precisely what these nihilists want.

It's not working for them.

Frankly, it's a very sociopathic way of thinking that everything is corrupt, so why bother doing the right thing when something wrong will work just as well?

Somehow, two concepts got lumped together.

Change equals corruption.

For this, nihilist anti-community, anti-republic, anti-ethical thinking has adopted the idea that any change is corrupt.

Freeing the slaves was a corruption.

Giving women and blacks the right to vote was a corruption.

Allowing black children to go to school with white children was a corruption.

Black and white people marrying was a corruption.

Welfare is corruption.

School lunches are a corruption.

Taking prayer out of school is corruption.

Allowing gays to marry is corruption.

Having a black President is corruption.

To the nihilist conservative mind, all of these changes are corruptions of how they believe the nation was founded and for whom.

Have you ever seen that picture of Jesus at the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the Constitution, too?

Change equals corruption.

And anyone wanting change is corrupt, too.

It's no wonder that so many Republicans believe the government is corrupt.

We're not talking about corruption like stealing money out of taxes…

No!

The corruption that the conservative nihilist believes is taking place is the corruption of traditional values of white purity to be perfectly clear and honest.

Consequently, why so many support this current President, even in the face of boldface criminal and personal crimes and corruption, is because of his verbal stance supporting conservative nihilism, as I'm calling it.

Recently...

Judgment day…

This past Tuesday, the American people demonstrated once again that they heard the call of Liberty and have come running.

The third nationwide election and Republicans got their walking papers handed to them once again.

They may rail against change and call it corrupt all they want.

But change comes like the rising of the sun without our permission.

It's a beautiful thing when you're in harmony with the tide.

The nature of the universe is based on one truth.

Everything changes.

You can't stop the sun rising.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Rule of Law

On the playground in fourth grade is where it all starts.

A rule is laid down concerning kickball, defining the boundary of a foul ball.

Most of the kids understand.

A few take that rule and write it in stone.

It's the beginning of a lifetime of two outwardly similar individuals living under two different expectations.

The heart of the law and the letter of the law.

The letter of the law says you can't cross the street when the light is against you.

The heart of the law says I'm rushing to the bathroom before I have an accident.

The letter of the law person believes you should fill your pants; those are the rules.

The letter is hard.

The heart is soft.

Two different types of people living side by side in the same office, the same job, the same family.

It's almost 5 o'clock. I'll go home now.

I have to wait till after 5 before I clock out.

Rules have to be obeyed, or society will break apart.

Rules are ethical up to a point, but circumstance has to be taken into account.

The heart of the law, individuals will always jump to the end of the book and read the last page.

The letter of the law, individuals will dutifully read each and every page till they get to the end.

No skipping.

The heart of the law person will play their music loud after 10 pm because they are in the mood.

The letter of the law person will call the police and report a noise violation.

The heart doesn't temper its designs with practicality; it jumps.

It is emotional; it rushes to the end, knowing its conclusion is correct because it feels it.

It feels it.

The letter takes each step in a decision with precision, with effort, step by step, the procedure followed by procedure, never making a judgment until all the facts are known.

Neither is helpful.

Neither has a grasp on reality.

Neither helps move humanity towards a better day.

Each, in its own unique way, keeps on holding humanity back from advancing.

Advancing towards a better day, towards a real brotherhood of man.

Each can learn a lot from the other.

The letter needs to be tempered and internalized, as circumstance plays a significant role in all of our decisions.

The heart needs to develop the patience to let all the facts come out before proclaiming what is right and what is wrong.

Our nation has been wrestling with the letter and the heart of the law for a good long while now.

Who is the law for?

Who is the law against?

Who does the law work for?

The President believes he is above the law of the United States, which he represents.

There are people in the House and Senate and in the media who agree with him.

They believe that the Constitution is in error.

They believe that the President sets what is real and what isn't real.

My question is, what happened to law and order?

What happened that so many of our representatives believe they are exempt from the laws that they write?

The laws that the administration is to enforce.

The laws that the judiciary is to adjudicate.

How can they defend injustice?

How can they exempt themselves from justice?

How can they support criminality?

How can political tyranny within a party be justified?

What happened to all those individuals who believed in the letter and the heart of the law?

They may have been stick-in-the-muds, but they could be counted on to do the right thing when everything was said and done.

What is it that binds them to this President, who shall go unnamed?

They are so tightly wound about this President that they would abandon their rigid principles of law.

Case in point...

Secretary and Ambassador John Bolton.

Has a point of view.

A person who has expressed a belief in the rule of law.

A person who worked with and around a group of people who do not believe in the American Experiment.

He traveled and networked with people in this administration who looked to subvert the Constitution to maintain their power and accumulate personal wealth.

Is he okay with this?

Has he also been corrupted?

I say this all in bewilderment because what was up is now down, and what was down is up.

Republicans and Democrats have traditionally disagreed with each other over how to cut or raise taxes.

Not how much of the Constitution they were going to agree with or burn.

A real palpable sickness has entered into the minds and hearts of our conservative brothers and sisters.

It may be caused by a weariness of our rocket-speed societal changes.

A weariness caused by the stress of too much too fast.

With no way of digesting and integrating change into their lives.

Conservatives, liberals.

Tortoise and rabbits.

Slow, fast.

Different but two outward-facing ideals of the same coin.

Conservatives and liberals don't see eye to eye because they are back to back.

They need each other more than they know.

Conservatives in our nation have a fever.

We liberals need to show our compassion and be the hope that they need.

We have to lift the hate they're holding onto.

We have to reach out and demonstrate that we can walk the walk and talk the talk.

We have to let them know we have their backs.

We have to support them and help them see past their fear.

We just can't sit around and hope things will be better.

We can't have just the letter or just the heart of the law.

Reconcile and find the truth together.

That's how democracy heals.

That's how freedom rings.

That's how justice sings.

That's how hope works.

Be the hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Costs of Freedom

The rain comes down.

The refrigerator is empty.

Nothing in the cupboard but crackers.

Standing at the window, the grey sky barely moves.

Silence in this box on a hill.

Yet in my head, the thunder of disquiet rolls and rolls and rolls.

I could go out?

But I'd get wet.

The umbrella is broken from the last time I used it.

The last time I tried to resist, I resisted the elements.

I recheck the sky for any change in the weather, but no, it's still the same outside.

Maybe things will change in a little while.

I'll read to pass the time.

Celebrity news, no…

Sports, the World Series, is a no-brainer.

Children are being killed.

Parents in terror.

Legislators seeking the truth and its potential implications.

Legislators are playing games with the Constitution.

Tyrants and their disciples thumb their noses at justice.

Fall and spring, I may never see it come back in my lifetime…

Is it still raining outside?

Yes, it's still coming down; it looks like there is no slowing down.

I'm hungry.

Maybe there's something I missed in the cupboard?

Maybe way in the back?

Nothing.

I drink a glass of water.

I check back at the window.

The rain falls…

Damn it, I'm going to have to do something.

I go to the bathroom.

I brush my teeth.

Thunder shakes the room.

It's gotten worse outside.

I turn back to the sink and look in the mirror.

I look at my reflection and ask What are you going to do now?

What are you going to do?

The thing I want, the thing I need, is not outside.

It's in me.

It's within my power to change the weather.

To better my life and my community.

What's kept me inside?

Fear.

Fear of the unknown.

Fear of failure.

Fear of being uncomfortable with the truth.

Fear of the revelation that all that I thought was true is not.

Fear of beginning again.

I put on my coat and hat and rushed to the door.

I pull it open without hesitation.

The rain falls, and falls, and falls…

I put my hand out and feel the rain soak my hand.

Looking up into the sky, the rain washes over my face, over my eyes, and into my heart.

A sound...

I look over at my neighbors, and they, too, have stepped out to resist the climate.

We take each other's hands and are soon joined by more than we can count.

Drop hate.

Lift hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

To Fight For My Neighbor

Who is my brother?

Who is my sister?

The tie that binds us all together is an awareness of combined interest.

That interest centers upon the knowledge that if you are free, so am I.

And to tell you the truth, we who fight for freedom are not the only ones who recognize the fact of this freedom.

The power brokers, the aristocrats, the kings, the princes, the tyrants, the President, and the crime bosses all know this truth.

That's why tyrants spend so much time and effort fighting against freedom.

You see a free people; a free person is not afraid.

Fear is the enemy of free people.

Fear is used to find the cracks in the resilient nature of free people.

Fear loves to sow the seeds of doubt and anxiety in society.

Fear will break apart the strongest alliance.

Fear will destroy a community, a society, and the individual.

We can never allow fear to govern who we are, to become fools to cower and capitulate to bullies.

To fight for my neighbor.

The concept of standing up for what is right, to stand with, and for those who can and cannot stand for themselves is not inherent in our human nature.

The self, the ego, governs our actions. 

It dictates to us to preserve ourselves at all costs.

Compassion is learned.

Caring for others is passed down through traditions as well as personal human interactions.

I was hungry, and you fed me.

I was lost, and you found me.

I was under attack, and you defended me.

I was sick, and you cared for me.

The act of stepping out of one's own ego into the realm of compassion for others is the core of what it means to be superhuman.

When you take the time out of your day to go vote, you are exercising your superhuman powers, your empathy, by demonstrating your compassion for your community.

The knowledge that freedom is the essential wellspring for all society is why we fight for our neighbor.

I give my vote so you, too, can live a better life.

I pay my taxes so we all can drink clean water.

I drive defensively because your life is meaningful, too.

Agreed upon norms of society.

I will fight those who oppose your freedom to live a good life, too.

Anger at the world is fertile ground into which fear plants seeds of hate.

There is no doubt that anger, hate, and fear have a profit goal.

The merchants of arms sales, drug sales, human trafficking, religion, gambling, charities, and the energy industry all profit greatly through the use and destruction of human lives.

Many of them have significant PR and marketing stories that keep the prying eyes of the average citizen from asking too many questions about how they make their profit.

It is why holy hell rains down upon anyone who dares question the merchants of fear by defying them and calling out their toadies and industries.

They don't want the apple cart, their access to unlimited profit, and their feeding at the hog trough of human destruction to end.

So when someone stands and says I will fight for my neighbor, it is why ridicule is heaped upon them.

To fight for my neighbor.

Today, Rep. Elijah Cummings from Baltimore, the son of a sharecropper, passed from the earth.

Elijah stood in the doorway and told fear to back off.

He got up every day, joyful to join the fight for freedom and justice.

Like so many before him, he, too, has passed the torch to each of us.

The fight is eternal, but also real is the promise of everlasting love.

Pick up that light and fight for your neighbor.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Justice Now

Justice now.

A child can't wait ten years to be fed.

A People who march in the streets, asking for freedom, can't wait for someday to arrive.

You can't ask justice to wait for a tyrant who brutalizes their nation and the world to give themselves up.

Time doesn't wait for any of us.

Time doesn't wait for those who are afraid.

Those who have been given the reins of power by us need to check themselves.

They need to check themselves now.

Justice now.

That family was killed by bombs falling. How long will history wait for justice?

That woman was assaulted by a powerful man; how long is she supposed to wait to ask for her attacker to be prosecuted?

How long has it been for some men and women to know they are responsible for despair?

Telling justice to wait is justice denied.

The very act of saying "wait" is a conscious act of tyranny.

That thing, that dark beast we fight with, is the tyranny of men over other men.

Today, I said politics is an amoral belief system.

Politics, at its roots, is sociopathic.

It doesn't care if it does right or wrong; it only believes in what results are effective to win.

To keep power.

But now, here and now, this very moment in time, the nation, the world, is awakening.

The world, through social media, has broken bubbles of isolation.

Those institutions, those isolations that were safe behind their barriers of public relations, of the story they told about themselves, are being revealed as lies.

Lies.

What is being exposed is the amoral positions, the amoral platforms of all of our institutions.

The fact that our institutions are willing to sacrifice you and me so that they can maintain the status quo is the rule by which they live.

In government, there is no Jimmy Stewart, as in the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, who will stand on their own for justice.

And then the masses, seeing their failing, have a redemptive moment, a come-to-Jesus minute, and rally around Jimmy, proclaiming liberty throughout the land.

That's a sweet story, but it's not reality.

What we see in Washington is the reality.

A bully on one side, daring anyone to step across the line in the sand.

On the other side, a group passes notes to each other condemning the bully, which the bully chews up and spits back.

What is at the heart of this all?

It is simply nihilism.

Nothing matters.

Social media has also revealed that too many of us are not willing to put actions behind where our ideals stand.

We are too willing to let that guy be beaten by a cop.

We are too willing to let that woman be shouted down.

We are too willing to let people be bombed because they're over there.

We are too willing to let the rich steal from the poor.

We are too willing to believe the evil in our ears, telling us that we can't stop it, so why do anything?

Justice now.

This country is built upon the ideal of freedom.

But do people deserve freedom if they are not willing to stand for it?

You simply have to say no!

We, as a people, have to stop being a helicopter parent and grow a spine, be decisive, and tell the children in the White House, "No!"

This problem in Washington with this President is not going to be solved by giving him and his henchmen a time-out.

They are not going to be stopped by taking away their access to their phone.

Grounding them.

Telling them that they need to treat other people better.

The wolf is not stopped by moral principles on a nice letterhead.

Now.

Now is always the right time to do right.

Now, hear the cry; now, feel the despair; now, be the wave that lifts hope.

Justice now.

Justice now.

Justice now.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Backbone

Many lifeforms on our planet do not have a rigid spine.

Jellyfish are a type.

So are insects that are hard on the outside but soft in the middle.

Broadly, lifeforms without spines are called invertebrates.

Strangely, we as a people have decided that we prefer our elected leaders to be spineless insects.

Collectively, politicians do not have spines.

No backbone.

They look like you and me but for one crucial difference.

They have to be given cover to react.

You won't find a politician rushing into harm's way.

Like cockroaches, they won't scurry about if the lights are on.

That is, unless the herd, everyone else, is also rushing in to save the day.

The politician can always be counted on last.

Politicians are not leaders.

Politicians' morals are bendable.

Politicians can be said to be afraid of their own constituents, who put them into office.

They are malleable.

They blow with the wind.

To stand upon a principle of morality, of justice, they have to have a shield behind which they can take cover.

It's just about damn impossible to find a politician who will stand up by themselves for principle, even if it's in our Constitution.

Two or more standing together, yes.

As long as standing together serves an immediate purpose.

Our ideal of a congressman and senator is a fiction that makes a good story.

The bold individual representing the constituent doing our work for us so we don't have to be there in the boring halls of the legislature.

But the reality is indeed something entirely different.

This past week, something or someone handed out backbones to our legislative branch of the federal government.

Like lifeless puppets, one moment, suddenly, the Blue Fairy came through the window and made them real boys and girls.

Was it the President and his double-dog dare, "You can't bring me to justice; I can do anything I want," that gifted them with a backbone?

Were there high crimes we don't know about yet?

Was it a tiny spark of duty they pledged to uphold to protect us, the people, and our document, the Constitution of the United States of America?

You never see 100 percent of anything these days.

But this week, 421 congressmen and women, 100 senators, male and female, agreed that the whistleblower should be heard.

That was a disturbance in the Force.

Something shifted.

Something fell off the shelf.

Something lit a watchfire on the mountain peak of Rohan.

Politicians are not used to having a backbone.

Don't expect them to be comfortable with it for long.

Like toddlers learning how to walk, they will stand, stumble, and fall…

But they will get up again.

It's something unpredictable.

Those of us on the front lines calling for help to defend our Republic have looked behind us and have lamented that there is no cavalry coming to save us.

No Hail Mary.

No plot twist.

We were doomed to a no-win outcome for justice.

Yet when the world seems darkest, and please trust me as one who can speak about life after a fall, life always finds a way.

Even jellyfish can rise together under a common cause.

Life versus darkness.

Justice versus injustice.

Truth versus deception.

Corruption, tyrants, and criminals all have a blind spot.

You see, darkness cannot see into the light.

Darkness assumes the motivations of the light are the same as theirs.

We who live in the light know that is not true.

We do not seek profit, power, or wealth when we do right.

We do right because it is right.

We don't need thanks when we extend our compassion and our love to help others.

That is where the darkness of man's soul always makes its fatal error.

Tyrants can be counted on like clockwork to be evil.

Good men and women can't be counted on to stand for goodness every time.

Just like this President, it can be counted upon to impeach itself.

Do right.

Drop hate.

Lift hope.

Show your backbone.

The world will be better for it.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Impossible

Steve Martin said once that it was impossible to put a Cadillac up your nose.

There are impossibilities.

You can't build a stairway to the moon.

There is no way to stop time.

I will never be an Olympic athlete.

Impossibilities are limits.

Limits define the extent of expectations.

Humanity has and continues to impose limits on itself.

What it believes to be impossible.

We can't provide housing for free.

We can't educate those people.

We can't feed you unless you work for it.

We can't provide for your safety because that would limit our access to guns.

The Constitution can't be changed.

You are not equal to me.

Those people are lazy.

I'm a winner, you're a loser.

A good portion of humanity believes that the world is set in stone.

Or it should be.

Belief in the power of the impossible means shelter from reality for too many of us.

If equal rights are impossible, why even try?

If the 2nd Amendment can't be changed, just shut up and bury the dead.

If a President won't sign a bill, why would we want to talk about that?

Belief in the impossible allows the shallow-minded evil of low expectations and high personal interest to hide behind a straw man.

It is the foundation of nihilism.

Nihilism rejects the value of your life and mine.

It is the Bible from which the sociopath preaches.

Incidentally, that's a bit of irony because the nihilist rejects all religious and moral principles.

From its conception, the idea of nihilism was created as an intellectual canard.

It is a dull instrument used to smash the ties that bind humanity together.

Like a plow forced into the solid ground of society, it turns over the soil of compassion and destroys trust.

Nihilism is the acid that is thrown onto hope.

Nihilism is the friend of the tyrant.

That tyrant is only limited by their access to power.

Not all of us know a dictator personally, but we do have a relative or friend who believes it's impossible to make change.

Isn't there always someone who says that's impossible, why would you bother, don't waste your time, you can't do that?

Why do these people in our lives want to set a limit on the possible?

Who are they?

What is it they want?

They want you and me to live in fear.

They are your brother and sister, your friend, your parent, your relative, your pastor, priest, Rabi, police, congressman, senator, and President.

Fear is used by tyrants to manage expectations.

Fear is used to keep the possible from happening.

There are a lot of people selling fear these days, aren't there?

There are a lot of people throwing a rope around expectations and trying to pull it back in.

Trying to keep things from changing.

They can feel the world tipping up onto its side and all the pieces on the chessboard of life falling out of place.

They like order their order.

They don't want to share a lunch counter with a person with brown skin.

They don't want to buy a cake from a Gay baker.

They don't want strangers coming to their country.

They don't want you to have a home and a hot meal.

Their god told them that the world was only for them and not for all of us.

We're upsetting the apple cart.

We need to sit down because we're rocking the boat of their expectations.

Some of these people are so angry that they will kill us because we believe in the possible.

Their belief in fear is that deep.

Their oneness with hate knows no limit.

Can the ocean keep from rushing to the shore? 

It's just impossible.

Can you stop justice from exposing the evil plots of mankind?

It's just impossible.

Can you stop the Brotherhood of Man from filling our hearts with hope? It's just impossible.

That sentiment you hear in our country echoes down that street where a guy is being beaten.

That sound you hear is when voices shout for the re-establishment of our democracy.

That sound you hear is the feet marching for our human right to exist free from fear.

We are the ones to take up the challenge to make the impossible possible.

Don't say no, say yes, I can.

Do right.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fringe

Carpets.

Carpets have a fringe.

A fancy decorative edge.

A flash, a glint there to catch the eye.

The broad weave of the carpet, the dull, boring part in the middle, is usually not as attractive as the golden edge.

The center of the carpet is where you stand.

The fringe has an initial appeal.

Look what I have bought into.

But it soon gets old.

You walk into your room, and the fringe trips you up.

What was once a feature is now a distraction.

It catches the dirt.

You can't get it clean.

Its only purpose was to draw attention.

Maybe I spent too much?

The broad weave of the carpet does the real work.

It keeps your feet warm when you walk across the hard, cold floor.

The fringe can't do that.

Now, the fringe has tripped you up once too often.

It's time to trim the fringe back.

Maybe cut it off entirely.

Once free of the fringe, your carpet has a new life.

It no longer serves two purposes.

It can fulfill the reason why you bought it in the first place.

It can do the real work.

Fringe.

Political movements.

Movements have their fancy edges also.

They throw out flashy objects on social media to draw attention.

They stir the pot and get people talking.

But do they put feet into motion?

When the world is cold and hard, are they there to give comfort and compassion?

Or do they only think of themselves?

Do they only think about how much money and power they can pile up?

Often, the political fringe will trip up a given society.

It will cause the self-destruction of the individual.

The political and social fringe can draw attention, but when it comes down to doing the real work, they trip up the body politic.

Fringes, political, and social fringes are out only for themselves.

Like the social media poster who sets out a sympathy trap, they bait for clicks only to increase their following.

They're not there for the children.

They're not there for the dogs and cats.

They're not there for the poor.

They're not there for the person who has done their time and needs a job.

They're not there for those who have lost the people they love through addiction.

They're not there to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give comfort to those who despair.

No.

No, they are there only for themselves.

Right or left self-interest does not discriminate who they ask for money.

On the contrary, self-interest is an equal opportunist parasite willing to take advantage of the compassionate as well as the racist.

It's not just those who want to save the turtles that get taken advantage of.

The hardcore racist gets taken advantage of, too.

People like the President tell them things that they have long believed to be true about non-white races.

He makes a pact with them that only he can change the movement of time and restore the glorious White past.

They want to believe in their racist Santa Claus and will follow him over a cliff to their own economic and social doom, only to make it all come true.

The fringe.

However, remember that the fringe is not the broad weave of American society.

The heart of America is where the real work is done.

The fringe, all fringe, wants you and me to believe they are there for us, but they are not.

The pitchman who wants to sell you the greatest frying pan ever made will not be there to comfort you when your job goes away.

He won't be there when you can't pay for the medicine you need.

He won't hang with you at the time of your despair.

He'll still want that payment of $19.99 each month.

Our attention should be on the broad weave of our Republic.

Let the voices of intolerance, racism, and hate be so much fringe.

Like a crow at the top of a tree that squawks, don't let it distract from our true purpose.

Our purpose is to give warmth and compassion to each other in this cold, hard world.

To give a place for each of us to stand upon the earth.

To realize each one of us our truth, our purpose, and to reach for and obtain that purpose.

We are all here to embrace, not pull apart.

We are here to bring people together, not separate them.

We are here to love, not to hate.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Gone

Standing on the corner waiting for the ice cream man.

Seeing the Wizard of Oz only once a year on TV.

LPs, 45s, CDs, cassette tapes, VHS, Super 8.

S&H Green Stamps.

Manual typewriters.

White-only counters.

Single-sex public restrooms.

50-cent coffee.

Stockings.

Compassion.

Charity.

Civic courage.

Responsibility.

Leadership.

Consequences.

Justice.

Reason.

Common ground.

United States.

Gone…

Vanished...

Like a thief in the night, America awoke to find its house empty.

A shell in which individuals cannot see each other because of the hate that wraps their heads like a blindfold.

Those things that were once so familiar that we could touch, see, and hold onto vanished like a mirage.

America has awakened from its dream of ideals.

A dream that reassured its people that everything would be okay.

Everyone was going to have justice.

No one was above the law of the land.

No one was above the law...

Like a dream, as the hours and days pass, that dream becomes increasingly harder to recall.

Email, texts, news, social media, entertainment, sports, school, job, and lifestyle —none of these aspects of our daily experiences speak to a healthy Community.

None of it brings two people together over a common piece of ground.

Gone are the ties that once bound each of us to each other.

Where did they go?

Who took it?

Who is responsible?

We are.

You and me together.

We did it.

We destroyed the American dream.

Dreams do not vanish on their own.

To make a dream come true, you have to work to make it real.

Otherwise, a dream, including the American Dream, is a story with no more relevance to reality than any other dream.

Understand how, when someone tries to tell you their dream, we don't really listen to what they are saying?

Dreams require individuals and society to strive every day to reach for the dream of a better tomorrow.

Dreams require you and me to march against giants.

Dreams require us, no matter how beaten down or how tired, to stand once again and say the ignorance of mankind will not rule our lives.

Like a dream, those American ideals that are gone are only out of sight, not out of mind.

The mind can bend time and space.

The mind can span the distance between you and me; we can see each other and know we want the same things.

We strive for good work that will provide us with a fulfilling life.

We want to be free of living in fear.

We want hope.

We need a new American dream.

The old dream was at its heart only for the few.

This new dream should align with the truth revealed by this President, his administration, and his believers.

This President demonstrates the truth that ignorance never goes away.

The truth is one political movement, conservatives, courted that ignorant vote and have no intention of letting that vote go.

We, the people, the majority, must recognize that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Ain't going to happen.

We ain't going to convince ignorant racist Americans they should just give up everything they know to be true and join us.

That's absurd!

We need to take that dime in our hand that we were going to give to the ice cream man and find ourselves another corner to stand on.

Those brothers and sisters are not going to follow us to a better community for everyone.

They won't get on the Freedom Train.

This means we shouldn't be waiting for them to decide if they want to join us; we need to move forward.

We have to realize that we are not going to get the racists to behave and sit cordially at our table of humanity.

They want the food fight and want to turn over the table of the Brotherhood of Man.

Our Block Party has to move location because our angry old neighbors are upset that our party attracts the wrong kind of people.

We have to be content with what we have.

We need to get along to that better world.

That doesn't mean we won't hold an open seat at our Block Party in case hell freezes over, but it also means we need to be realistic that some people hate us.

They don't like the people at our party.

We all need to do the right thing right now.

When you're saving a life, you don't worry about your appearance.

You do the right thing.

You can't dream of a better world; you've got to make it better with your own hands.

'Ideals' will only get you so far unless you are willing to stand for them.

They are meaningless if you don't put actions to your rhetoric.

It's clear that this President and this administration are willing to fight for their ideal world.

Will the good people of these United States fight for theirs?

Who will win out?

Injustice or justice?

It will depend upon you and me.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby