Immune

Walking by a local restaurant, I see people enjoying their immunity. 

Apparently, they are immune not only to the COVID-19 virus.

Our brothers and sisters are immune to society.

Immune to community.

Immune to compassion.

Immune to brotherhood.

Immune to love.

How did these people get their vaccine?

The answer is 'Blowing In The Wind', written by Bob Dylan.

He asked, how many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

How many years can some people exist before they are allowed to be free?

How many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just doesn't see?

The answer is that hate is reborn generation after generation.

By people, humans who believe they are doing good work.

Mothers and fathers.

Brothers and sisters.

Churches, schools, governments, police.

All keep the story of hate alive.

The Great White Myth.

I'm telling you here and now if you don't know this in your heart of hearts already.

This is a cold fact of life on this planet.

People have been making up stories to keep them from seeing reality since before recorded time.

Even before there were written languages, people told each other myths about the world.

They have told themselves these stories so many times that these tales are deeply ingrained in human psychology.

In The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell, "Myth is much more important and true than history."

Human's capacity to believe in their own myth is limitless.

They will believe in ghosts.

In Leprechauns.

In Golden Gods.

Their team will win a sports championship.

The 2nd Amendment can't be amended.

Tom Hanks eats babies.

White people are ordained by God to rule the earth.

Humans believe their own bullshit.

The only balance to myth is truth.

Yet truth is harsh, and myth is smooth.

Truth sticks in our throats.

Myth goes down like candy.

Truth goes against our expectations, and myth feeds our prejudices.

Some of us are lucky to be born able to see the beauty of the world.

While others have turned down that privilege and have focused their sight inward.

People who only help themselves are selfish.

They don't want to know about the cannonballs flying.

They don't want to see the man beaten down in the street.

They don't want to hear people cry.

Just as hate is seeded every generation, so too must love be grown in every generation.

Any gardener can tell you it's a continuous battle against the weeds.

We have to tend the garden of truth to keep out the weeds that would choke it out.

If you have hands, lift; if you have ears, listen; if you have a voice, speak up.

If you have a mind, love.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Labor Costs

American businesses have been living in a fantasy world where labor and material costs are negligible…

The root of the fantasy, the belief, comes from the story of slavery.

The belief in the value of one person.

Business has always fought for a discount.

Slavery eliminated the long-term cost of labor.

Slavery maximized profit.

Profit is the God of business.

What does it profit a man to own the whole world and lose their soul?

Ask the average billionaire if they ruined anyone getting to where they are now.

It's all easy money when you don't believe souls exist.

The world over has been manipulated, coerced, beaten, killed, cajoled, bribed, and marketed to believe what's right for business is good for the people.

Unfortunately, for the sake of the welfare of the People, they have bought what the business has sold.

Slavery teaches that some people have more value than others.

Those at the top of the pyramid, the leaders, have more value than those who support them in their positions.

The needs of the few, the one, outweigh the needs of the many.

Without me, you wouldn't survive.

This sentiment echoes down the hallways of tyranny generation after generation.

This economic slavery has dominated mankind's history.

Capitalism, the pursuit of wealth unregulated, has been at war with the People economically, socially, and morally since the beginning of time.

What has every war been about?

Who has power over wealth creation.

The Punic Wars, The Crusades, the French and American Revolutionary Wars, the American Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, the Drug War, the Immigration Crisis, civil rights, women's rights movements are all about who pays the cost of production.

Or who doesn't have to pay.

Or better…

Who profits.

In America today, the Republican Party has purposefully transformed itself from a conservative, unregulated capitalist business party to a white nationalist fascist party.

They've seen the future, and they don't like the idea of the old business model.

They are done sharing the profits.

They believe in the business model that their white, blonde, blue-eyed God has sanctioned as how to make America great again.

The rebirth of a White America only to dominate the world.

They tell each other this online on social media, at work, at play, and from their pulpits.

They are no longer comfortable with sharing the profit.

They are fighting and willing to burn the American ideal of freedom to the ground.

Who dares constrain the rulers of the earth?

They foment violence, they kick a shit pile, so they can point to the problem of their own creation, telling us they are the only ones to solve it.

Freedom for all means freedom for all.

Suppose we are to turn the corner on this fight for economic and personal freedom in this nation.

In that case, it's up to all of us to make Americans deal with reality.

The fantasy has to stop.

We can no longer indulge the morally bankrupt that there are no costs to labor.

To justice.

Freedom isn't free.

Put the coffee on, walk around the room, stretch, and rub the sleep of indifference out of your eyes.

A new day is upon us all right quick.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Help Not Wanted

Start with the British Red Coats.

They believed they were the good guys.

The Confederate States believed they were the good guys.

The German and Japanese fascists believed they were the good guys.

The Red Revolution in China believed they were the good guys.

The Klan believes they are the good guys.

Today, the Proud Boys, Boogaloo, Q believe they are the good guys.

The Republican Party believes they are the good guys.

Every one of these groups, organizations, and clubs has a sign in their window.

That sign says, help not wanted.

What does that mean?

To want help, you first must come to realize you need help.

You get a flat tire, there's no spare, and you call AAA to get help.

The storm blows the roof off of your house.

You call your insurance because you need that roof repaired.

You have a toothache.

Do you knock it out of your head like Tom Hanks in the film Castaway?

No, you go to a dentist because they have the knowledge on how to help you.

Help not wanted.

Most of us can recognize when we need physical help.

We have a broken bone, a cut, an illness.

However, a significant portion of Americans remain unaware of the need for moral guidance.

They can't see the fairy tales of the 'white hood' have become ingrained in their culture.

They can't feel the emotional temperature rise around them as selfish, tyrannical voices shout allegiance to their great leader.

They can't hear people cry as they deny them the right to exist.

They don't need any help because their god is on their side.

They know power makes right.

They are defending their race.

They are defending their belief.

This is why they can't be helped.

Help not wanted.

The only way to change the course of a river is through real effort.

To redirect to control floodwaters, civil engineering takes decades of continuous effort.

To have a civil society takes decades of continuous effort.

You can't just brush your teeth once and think you're done.

The waters of strife, of dissonance, of anger and hate will always be with us.

The rain will fall on a sunny day.

But we are not predestined to drown in a flood of hate.

We have the ability to control the political climate.

We can build dams of justice so everyone feels safe.

We can build bridges of compassion so everyone feels love.

We can bring the ideal of the big tent to life, making it a welcoming space for everyone.

Not just hope it will happen.

But remember, our help is not wanted.

Many of our brothers and sisters are comfortable like ducks in the rain.

We who live in the sun just have to keep on getting on.

The lost will come to dry off of their own free will.

When they are ready.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Feed The Spirit

Did you feed the cat today?

Did you watch your program?

Did you catch the news?

Did you find that last collectible?

Did you read your book?

Did you water your plants?

Did you meet your friends?

Did you do anything?

What you feed grows.

Did you run in the park?

Did you walk to the corner?

Did you yell at the people you love?

You hate?

Did you give?

Did you take?

What you feed grows.

What didn't you do today?

You didn't listen to your neighbor.

You didn't talk to the lonely old person.

You didn't give.

You took.

You didn't share.

What you feed grows.

Our lives all run in cycles.

There is a time to learn, to fail, to gain.

A time to be born, a time to die.

And yet, in between it all, there is a time to live.

And living means growing.

Rocks don't grow.

Rocks lie there and let the workings of time wear them away until they are no more.

Our spirits are a living thing in each and every one of us.

Each of us is born with a seed of life buried deep in our consciousness.

Through our actions and our actions alone, we are responsible for caring for this precious gift.

We are ultimately responsible for how we respond internally to the world and its inflictions.

It's up to each of us to care for our spirit.

Do you have a green thumb, or are you a deadbeat parent to your spirit?

What you feed grows.

The human spirit is unconquerable.

The human spirit can only wither from within.

If we lower our expectations.

If we stop caring.

If we stop learning.

If we turn from hope.

If we stop listening to truth.

If we only see ourselves in the world.

Consider this…

If you believe you can't see the light, you're just turned in the wrong direction.

What you feed grows.

Turn your eyes upwards, and your life will follow.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

No Justice No Peace

A universal truth is that for every action, there is a reaction.

If there is no reaction, then the action never happened.

You overdraft your bank account.

The bank fines you for your error.

You drive through a stop sign.

The police give you a ticket.

You forgot to buy bread.

You're eating cold cuts with no bread.

For every action, there is a reaction.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

What does that mean?

It means cause and effect.

It means the poor, the minority, the old, the forgotten, the people on the margins who live this universal truth.

When crimes, inhumanity, intolerance, bigotry, and racism are poured out on these groups, nothing traditionally happens.

A black man is shot and killed in the street, and seven years later, with no trial and no justice, the officer who shot them is exonerated and proclaimed a hero.

Nothing happened.

The black man is still dead.

The man who shot him doesn't lose his job; he's moved to another town.

Rinse and repeat.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

We have all seen the videos of the insurrection enacted against our capitol, our congress, our senate, and its employees.

They not only destroyed property through smashing and breaking, but they also filmed their crimes as they ransacked, urinated, and defecated in the seat of our Democracy.

They did this in the people's house.

So you're telling me if a group of people broke into your house, smashed up the place, urinated and defecated everywhere, and left a note saying die bitch, you're okay not arresting the culprits?

You're okay with doing nothing?

As if nothing happened…

No.

No justice, no peace.

Bullies do not respond to timeouts.

Bullies do not care about your feelings.

Bullies only think about themselves.

Bullies respond only to one thing and one thing only.

Consequences.

Without a response to their actions, bullies will do their bullying again, and next time it will be worse.

No matter how hard it is, the bully must be faced and stopped.

Just ask those who appeased bullies in the past what monsters were unleashed when nothing was done?

Ask Chamberlin.

It's strange how the evil side of mankind believes it can get its way until it can't.

Then the darker angels of humanity howl like spanked children, declaring how dare you, you punished me.

You stopped me.

You angered me.

The bully is only stopped when we seek justice over them.

Justice comes right quick.

Let it come.

Let us bring it for the right purpose.

Justice renews hope for those who despair.

Justice lifts the minds and hearts of the lost.

Justice now, justice now.

Justice now.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Gift

Snow pelts against the window.

Rain taps on the roof.

Wind whips over the moon on this clear night.

Young voices carry.

Old voices fail.

The moon chases the sun on this clear night.

Abundance finds joy.

Poverty squeezes a half-smile.

Lights bounce and laugh at the cool light of the moon.

Sharing means participation.

Sharing means giving to others.

Sharing means letting go of your story.

To see through the eyes of a stranger's story.

Stone hearts can't give.

Stone ears can't hear.

Stone minds won't change.

No gift will move a spirit that's given up on humanity.

No gift will lift a spirit that has given up on itself.

Snow pelts against the window.

Rain taps on the roof.

Wind whips over the moon on this clear night.

Build a mighty light that burns with the roar of justice.

Build it high so that all can see its blessed light.

Out of the darkness.

Out of the self-hate.

Out of curiosity, lost spirits will come.

To share with us the gift of hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

A New Hope

Discussing Star Wars and politics may seem alien.

The failure of Star Wars episodes 7, 8, and 9, along with their diminishing box office and fan hatred, share a common underpinning with half of American voters supporting Trump.

How's that?

In a time far, far away, the business of show business was about being a factory of Hope.

Movies are our modern-day way of telling collective tales.

Good stories have a template.

Best sellers have a template.

And the biggest seller of all time is stories that deliver Hope.

No one is getting out of this life alive, and we all know it.

Stories of Hope ease the pain of life and the foreknowledge of one's own death.

They bring a smile.

A tear.

A thump in the chest that says you did well.

They put asses in seats that sell tickets over and over again.

Hope.

The original Star Wars trilogy started off with a subtitle, A New Hope.

Hope.

Before episodes 7, 8, and 9 lit up the silver screen, there was Hope for a new start.

After episodes 7, 8, and 9, Hope didn't show up.

Just like our politics for the past 40 years, promises were made but were never fulfilled.

American society has made a lot of promises to itself.

But like so much of our society today, it's based on hype and not substance.

Special effects, but no story.

Grandiose plot twists without ever having earned it.

Characters that serve no purpose.

People are not that dumb.

They expect and deserve the respect that the time they devote will see a return on their investment.

In episodes 7, 8, and 9, the producers made promises that they had no intention of fulfilling.

They had another agenda.

Their agenda was not about giving Hope but about personal enrichment and the enshrinement of power.

The suits had forgotten what put butter on their bread.

Making their fans happy.

Giving Hope.

Yet Hope arrives unexpectedly from places and sources not looked for.

Hope came in the face of a puppet.

The child.

The child restored lost faith.

It knew its limits.

It knew what the starving Star Wars fan needed.

Not promises.

We needed Hope.

We need to see the bad guy get punished.

We need to see the good guy win.

We need character development that will make our dreams and desires manifest.

Hollywood is a dream factory for the heart.

Washington is a dream factory for the People.

You can't separate the people from their hearts; they're one and the same.

Stories have a beginning, middle, and end.

We are all raised as children to know this.

This template has been around for at least 10,000 years.

We want to see the good triumph and the evil defeated.

It doesn't happen as often as it should in real life.

This is why we turn to our entertainment to express the ideals that we hold dear.

Hope.

Hope is best if you want a return on your investment in film.

Hope is the best bet for anyone who wants to lead a people.

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

Truth Will Out

It starts with…

Ate a cookie before dinner.

Took a dollar from your mother's drawer.

Told the girl at school she was ugly.

Truth will out.

That day when you smoked a cigarette.

The time when you got drunk.

When you forgot your child's birthday.

Truth will out.

Speeding.

Ignoring.

Justifying.

Entitling.

Truth will out.

The reason why you lost your job.

The reason you can't say "I love you" is...

The reason why you don't care anymore.

Truth will out.

Truth is fact.

Fact is the truth.

The President lives in a world of his own lies.

An adolescent fantasy world where nothing matters but his own mortal satisfactions.

We are right to say, where are the strong, who can be trusted?

Truth will out.

The truth will out means the facts; the truth will be known.

The President lies, and these lies are killing us by the thousands every day.

This President's followers want the chaos; they want the deaths of those who want a world where everyone is equal.

Where everyone has justice.

This is a white man's world; all others need to die...

Everyone has it in their power to be the worst or the best they can be.

A bird doesn't say, Can I fly?

It flies.

No one is keeping them from flying with the rest of the flock.

Why do we believe that others are to blame?

Why do we choose to live in a fantasy instead of the truth?

Why does this President prefer his lies to facts?

Why do so many want to believe in the lies this President tells?

The answer has been blowing in the wind since the foundations of this Republic.

A system based upon racial inequality where the whiter you are, the more justice you reap.

The more you can hide the truth about yourself.

This is a fact in America.

Facts are stubborn things.

How do you change facts?

You change the conditions of the question.

You stand for justice.

You speak up for equality.

You march for good trouble.

You demonstrate through words and deeds that you live a life of compassion for all.

The lies are exposed.

They perish.

The truth lives.

And then it happens…

Follow truth; it will lead us all to the brotherhood of man.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Forgotten

Rural America and urban America, are they really different?

Both are underserved by their elected leaders.

Both suffer from the absence of economic investment.

Both see the absence of real jobs.

Both are forgotten by educational institutions.

Both lack 21st-century infrastructure.

Both have stagnated wages.

Both shop at the only store in town, the Dollar Store.

Both cash their checks at a Payday Loan.

Both have lost hope.

If they are both so alike, what keeps them from seeing each other's plight?

Racism.

Racism.

Racism.

I am white.

I was raised in the middle of white, racist, suburban, rural America.

Where everything, including God, is defined as the head of the white race.

The first question you ask is, Where is that person from?

What is their race?

A queer reality permeates the community of white America.

White Americans believe the thing that keeps them from being in the same economic boat as black and brown people is their whiteness.

Somehow, whiteness grants a boon, a step up, a benefit of the doubt.

A buffer keeping them from the bottom of society.

Given the right circumstances, the rich, the wealthy, the aristocrat, the ownership class will invite them to their cash orgy.

It's their 'whiteness' that grants superiority even in the face of their apparent poverty.

The poverty of ideas.

The poverty of faith.

Poverty of spirit

The poverty of honor.

The poverty of community.

The poverty of empathy.

The perverse fear of reverse discrimination is real.

If equality were somehow made real, it is firmly believed that black and brown America would take revenge on white America.

As it was told to me over and over by my racist relatives…

Universal health care is only for the niggers…

If I had a broken leg and a black guy had a broken leg, the black guy would be treated first, get their treatment for free, and I would be told to go elsewhere.

Socialism is communism is a plot of the coloreds to take over our America.

The idea that justice for all floats all boats is a fairy tale to racist America.

You are either on top or on the bottom.

This real fear keeps racist America from seeing its reality.

They have been forgotten, it's true.

They have been forgotten just as much as black and brown people have.

The problem is that it has been, and will ever be, the wealthy who ignore rural and urban America.

The wealthy have gone by other names: aristocrats, the rich, the ownership class.

However, they remain the bane of humanity.

The takers.

Racism continues to blind us to the simple truth of the wealthy's greed.

If only the plight of racism could be waved away overnight.

But it can't.

It is as much a fact as it is a belief in the human racist heart.

If we are to come together, somebody has to reach out a hand of compassion.

Somebody must be strong and say, Welcome, friend.

We hear you.

Let's work together.

Someone needs to say my table is open; come eat and be joyful.

That someone can be you.

You can be the bridge where the forgotten will meet.

You and I can be hope.

It begins today.

Now.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby