Masks

Most of us try to put our best face forward, but that face may not be our real selves.

I wear a mask.

It is a mask that I have put together to protect myself.

I suffer from too much empathy.

Too much empathy is a type of handicap in this world.

People's emotions can flood into me.

The first mask I use to deflect emotions that can flood over me is to hum to myself.

If the number of angry people around me increases, I'll sing a random song softly to myself.

At other times, I put on the mask of humor.

My best shield, my preferred boundary.

I have used that mask ever since I can remember.

It's my oldest and favorite.

That mask was developed to survive physical violence.

When you're raised in a home where violence, mainly random bi-polar violence, occurs, it turns out to be a good thing to keep your empathy at a frosty level of awareness.

Dad could switch on violent anger at the drop of a hat.

He could be laughing and joking at one moment, but one unpredictable remark or action from you could send him into an angry fit.

It could sometimes be defused with a well-placed piece of observational humor.

Sometimes, it could not, and the bloody beatings would follow.

I still do not do well around anger.

I don't run away.

I don't hide.

I've learned to face it.

Look into its empty eyes for a while.

The darkness of man…

However uneasy it makes me.

Just like a monster in a nightmare, I have found that if you stare into the face of anger, you will see its source.

Tonight, around the world, in our nation, in our homes, we are facing a nightmare.

The source material of this nightmare has been crafted from our own shared experience.

There are issues that we, as a people, have not addressed because we are fearful.

Fear is a force.

Fear, if not confronted, will grow into a monster called anger.

The beast called anger stalks the streets of the American consciousness.

Anger leads to hate…

The fear in the world and our nation is a genuine concern.

Many want to hide from the truth.

It is more fearful to look into the source of the anger than it is to project that anger at the innocent.

I'm sure my father had a problem that made him angry.

But like most humans, instead of addressing the problem head-on, it was easier to beat his kids to a bloody pulp.

They offered no resistance.

So you're saying most problems don't offer significant resistance?

No, the complete opposite.

That's why problems are a problem because they resist ordinary human effort.

Most problems require the extra mile, extra effort, and more willpower than the average person is willing to expend to resolve.

The biggest problem we have in this Republic is "Race."

A nation founded on freedom yet kept slaves.

That is, by definition, hypocrisy.

A Constitution that says all men are free, yet these over here are not.

The human duality of mind…

To be human, by definition, means you can keep two thoughts in your head that are in exact opposition to each other.

Military intelligence.

Crash landing.

Jumbo shrimp.

Free Lunch

Masks…

The war between the States never ended.

The battle to free men's hearts continues today.

Many wear the mask of civility, but in their hearts, they don't believe that all men are equal.

Behind these masks, a dark ocean of anger has swelled.

The finger of blame is pointed at the innocent.

Scapegoats.

When the real source is never examined.

Where does this anger come from?

How do you tell a person they believe in a false God?

How do you tell a person they swallow a false story about themselves?

How do you help a person understand that their problem is not outside of themselves?

It's inside.

It's them.

They are the creators of their doom.

Like an addict, they blame everyone but themselves for why they are at death's door.

The racist needs someone else to blame because to face the nightmare that they are to blame for their life is too much to bear.

Generation after generation scapegoat and blame their object of resentment, never once looking into their own hearts, minds, and actions, that they are the source of their unhappiness.

Masks…

Masks are only effective in the short term.

No mask will save you from the beating.

The only way to save yourself is with the truth.

Be kind to yourself.

You are deserving of love.

Open your heart and your eyes, and awaken from your nightmare.

See that you are surrounded by a golden light.

That darkness that you are afraid of?

You only had your eyes shut.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Stronger Together

One day, you may find that person you love, and they will love you back.

Stronger together.

That time when you were on top of a ladder, and that friend held tight at the bottom until your work was done.

Stronger together.

When your mother kept you home because you were sick.

Stronger together.

That night, when you got a flat tire and called for help.

Stronger together.

One night, it was late; a mother and a father got a call that their son was in an accident.

The nurse couldn't tell them what was wrong until they showed up at the emergency room.

Once they got to the hospital, the nurse could answer their questions.

Their son had been drinking, and he had run a red light and struck a utility pole.

No one else was hurt.

The father could have come down hard on his son and told him never to darken his door again.

The mother could have screamed and yelled and demanded why her son could make her life so miserable.

They both could have made the actions of their son about themselves.

However, their son was no longer a boy; he was a man.

He bore the responsibility of a man.

Of an adult.

They came to his bedside and told their son that together, they'd find the answers.

Together, they can weather the storm.

Together, they are stronger.

A storm of another kind has found its way into the heart of America.

A storm of the soul.

Dissolution of the conscious.

A thunder of misplaced rage.

A flood of half-truths mixed with a hailstorm of outright lies.

A belief that has been cultivated by activists and opportunists of a kind of White American Apartheid.

A division between them and us.

Right and left.

Good and evil.

A propaganda that your absence of economic security is because the other has taken your fair share.

The other is responsible for all your problems.

I'm here to say that's a load of horse shit.

It may grow roses, but it's hard to swallow.

This division, sewn by these opportunists, pushes the buttons of the disenfranchised.

You tell a generational factory worker their job is now gone because those union people asked for too many benefits when the truth is the owner of the company, whose God is profit, moved the company to maximize their investor's profit share.

It has been the same damn story for all of human history.

The rich and powerful, the few, continue to pit the poor, the majority, against each other.

Consequently, the majority never hold those responsible for life's misery accountable.

The powerful know they must keep the people segregated and divided to maintain their hold on the reins of power.

Otherwise, a true democracy might break out…

They know we are stronger together.

Stronger together.

The wind is howling outside.

For that matter, the wind is howling in a lot of homes across America, too.

That wind is saying we don't need those people.

That wind says we can do it by ourselves.

That wind that whips up rage, hate, anger.

There can be no peace without honesty.

One day, a man took some friends fishing.

While out on that lake, a storm came up.

The people in the boat became afraid.

They began to blame each other for even considering they could venture into the unknown.

Their fear turned to rage.

Some wanted to turn back; they were afraid of the unknown.

The others wanted to get to the other side of the lake; they were afraid of where they had come from.

Both sides blamed each other because they both believed there was no hope.

They began to fight each other.

They saw the worst in each other.

The storm was going to send them to the bottom of the sea, and it was the other side's fault.

How could we be to blame, "Aren't we better sailors than them?"

Then, the boat's owner, the adult at the wheel, told the wind to be silent.

The rage stopped.

The boat owner told his friends, Don't you see you're all in the same boat together.

Your fear is our fear.

Your hope is our hope.

Your love is our love.

We are stronger together.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Grounded

Our President is a boil on humanity's neck, but he's not the only one.

As the world becomes smaller with information, both real and false can be had in an instant.

The veil that was the American dream has been lifted.

It is not a pretty picture.

Like the reveal of Dorian Gray's portrait, all of the hatred, the crime, the bigotry, and the injustice have left us with a gruesome portrayal of what America has been hiding from.

Through our own personal experience, all of us, no matter where we come from, try to put our best face forward.

Even though we may have a load in our pants, most of us, most of the time, want to be perceived as good people.

However, if we were perfect, why is there still fraud?

Racism?

Rape?

Child molestation?

Murder?

Somebody is committing these crimes against humanity.

The lifting of the veil that had previously covered the American way of life is only the most recent curtain-raising in history.

This underbelly of our society has been there since before the Pilgrims landed.

This is a significant point to understand.

We all like to believe in a good story.

There are many good stories at the heart of any society.

The core story that founded this nation in 1776 was that all men are born free.

He has always been free.

Anyone, including any organization that includes governments and religions, who tries to abridge that natural order, this inalienable right, is a tyrant.

They who oppose this Natural Freedom are tyrants.

Broadly defined, it is referred to as the tyranny of men.

These individuals and organizations are not friends of humanity; they oppose freedom.

Yet even though there have been those who hate others' freedom and will burn and kill to prevent those freedoms, these people are also a part of the fabric of humanity.

The threads of humanity are made of many fibers.

Most are common.

Some shine brilliantly.

While sadly, many are dull.

And some threads are just plain evil.

But all of them are part of the quilt of humanity.

Our nation was founded upon the idea of freedom, remember?

A bold proposition, given the history of the world.

Could people reconcile the social and ideological war that has been going on between those who believe in freedom and those who do not?

All of the previous institutions of the world, no matter the people or the region, did not wholly believe in the innate freedom of man.

The power of institutions of governments of religions is to control and to segregate.

Freedom is only granted at the price of membership and is reserved for those within the organization's power structure.

The American experiment aims to determine if enough people can overcome their past and their myths and embrace the concept of freedom for all.

Could all the threads come together and form a nation?

Could they drop their racism?

Could they drop their segregation?

Could they drop their story?

Could they drop their hate?

And pick up hope?

From the inception of that proposition of freedom for all, and including to this very hour, America and Americans have been at odds with their history and traditions.

And for those that have been at odds, those that feed and prosper from the old beliefs of segregation, division, hate, and racism, they have been looking for their personal savior to come and destroy their enemies and set them up as Kings of the Earth.

Their prayers were answered when Trump ascended to the Presidency.

Those racists knew a great day had arrived.

This President would usher in a new world.

This President and his followers believe they are the beginning of a new American brand of White Apartheid.

Make no mistake about it; the fear of a future Brown America by many Americans is genuine.

They see the demographic shift, and they are terrified.

Like dogs under the table being fed scraps of meat, people like the current President nurture the fear that white people are doomed as a race.

Don't start; nothing won't be nothing.

Right now, right today, we are at the bookend of the story started by European greed.

If the Aristocracy of Europe didn't want to lose their White identity, they should have stayed home.

It's ironic, and I understand very few actually get irony, but here goes…

It's ironic because the European Aristocracy believed that the White race was dominant.

Their arrogance allowed them to freely explore the world and claim it as their own, with little regard for the people they encountered along the way.

Those tens of millions of more people…

It turns out that, numbers-wise, the White population is a racial minority.

Fact.

It's also been perplexing to me how a minority group gained control of a majority, and that majority didn't conclusively tell this minority to sit down and stop rocking the boat.

But that's a digression.

Another discussion.

Back to the boil on our necks.

This President perpetuates a false narrative that many Americans believe, allowing him to shield himself from personal scrutiny as he accumulates financial wealth.

He's not a patriot.

He's not there for the majority.

He's there for a minority.

He's in office for the one.

Himself.

It's becoming increasingly obvious.

The only way to get rid of a boil is with a lance.

The actual substance of the argument must be pierced.

And in our case, the lance of truth must pierce the prejudice of tyranny.

The veil has been lifted, and our way is clear to see.

We must be grounded in the knowledge that freedom and justice are for all.

We're going to try to save as much of the quilt of America as we can.

But that lance can be used for more than lancing old boils.

It can be used as a needle to sew new bright threads of compassion, truth, and honor into the fabric of our nation.

Do not suffer fools.

Drop hate and pick up hope.

Shine the light of truth before freedom's door.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Baby Teeth

The world is growing up.

Living has a way of creating a set of expectations.

When you are a child, you think you will have your teeth forever.

Then, one day, one of them comes loose, and soon they are all falling out.

Your expectations did not match Reality.

Most of us believe the stories told to us by those in authority over us during our early years, such as our parents and caregivers.

These stories we naturally believe to be true.

Why would our parents lie to us?

An example is that someday, you will have a job.

Most of us get some level of education, and from there, we make choices and pursue a career.

Life sometimes throws us a curveball, and instead of a career with a 9-to-5 job, we end up with an hourly wage at a fast food joint.

When we were told we would grow up to have a career and dream about what that career would be, the difference between Reality and our dream can be strikingly different, can it not?

Right now, you and I are living in a time of change.

We are witnesses to what I'm calling a clash of expectations.

Each of us expected our lives and the world to work one way, only to be confronted with something very different.

That difference is Reality.

This clash of expectations today occurs because, for the first time in history, we can have both the truth and lies delivered into our hands and minds instantly.

Steve Jobs wanted to put the power of the computer into everyone's hands.

He saw it as a way of incorporating, blending, and merging the human race in a specific manner to achieve the harmony of humanity through knowledge.

He helped usher in the communication age.

People like Buckminster Fuller recognized that the desktop computer would be the most revolutionary force to unite all aspects of humanity on a critical path of knowledge.

For the very first time in human history, humanity would be able to know information instantly.

Unfiltered.

Joseph Campbell, on the other hand, saw a canyon opening up in humanity's future.

As Arthur C. Clarke put it, humanity was coming to its own childhood's end.

It was going to lose its baby teeth.

Campbell rightly witnessed the end of humanity's transitional traditions.

When I was a child, I thought like a child, and when I became an adult, I thought like an adult.

Childish things are to be put away when we become adults.

Campbell observed that the world over had lost those cultural traditions that previously told children, 'Now you are no longer a child, now you are an adult.'

Our modern society…

As an adult, you are responsible for the common good of the whole.

Children, conversely, are primarily concerned with their own happiness and welfare and are often selfish.

Previously, in the West, this time of transition from childhood to adulthood was called the age of responsibility.

When a person reached the age of eight or thereabouts, the child was recognized by the adults in the community as being able to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Being aware of that difference meant they could be held responsible for their actions, not only for themselves but for the community.

They realized Joe was old enough to trust that he could take the cows down to the river for a drink and not leave them there to go off and play.

Responsibility…

The individual left behind their childhood and took on the role of the adult to support and defend the common good.

Our modern society has allowed that tenet of humanity, what it means to be a human and an adult, to drift away, much like Wilson the soccer ball did in the film Castaway.

Today, we allow 40-year-old adults to behave in public as if they were toddlers.

Somehow, collectively, we are afraid to tell these adults to put away their toys, clean up their rooms, and behave like adults.

Be responsible for your community welfare.

There is obviously a whole host of issues that these childish expectations from these immature adults can come into conflict with Reality.

I deserve a trophy!

I will marry Prince Charming!

I will have the perfect career!

I'm always right; you're always wrong!

You can't make me!

I'm winning; you're not!

I'm better than you!

It's mine!

Children.

Children.

The Child/Adult can resist growing and being responsible for more than just their selfish interests well into their 80s.

However, one day, they will have to face Reality.

The truth.

We only get one chance at life, and sitting at the children's table, living as a petulant child tyrant, is a sad existence.

A sad existence for the child and the parents.

In America today, we find many people who we have previously elected to Office who demonstrate that they are still children.

These representatives of ours whine, they stomp their feet, they cry out, and these Senators are throwing a tantrum because they refuse to do the chore that they were sent to elected Office to do.

Their expectations of power and prestige as a member of a representational government have come into conflict with the Reality of which is more critical, their self-interests or the Constitution?

They resent having to serve the Constitution and not solely themselves.

The Constitution is written for We the People, not I, the indulged child/adult.

At the head of our government currently sits a particular kind of spoiled brat.

Indulged throughout his life, never told he was wrong by those who served his father; he believes himself to be his own law, his own justice, his own judge.

He has an expectation that his world cannot be challenged.

It's time that the adults in the room introduce this child President to Reality.

It's time to give him a timeout.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Broken

Broken is not a bad word.

Most, if not all, things in our universe must first break to be useful.

When we break away from the story, we reflect on the world and our place in it, and we can then come to terms with the truth of life.

We become an instrument of the power of love.

Do you live behind a wall of your creation, and did you have help building it?

All the isms out there in our world purposely put up rigid walls to keep people locked up.

The isms fill minds with half-truths and goad followers to attack and deny all others as false.

Have you ever heard anyone say you can't trust so and so because they are ________ fill in the blank?

Compassion, honor, duty, and truth all fall away in favor of the prejudice and the advocacy of the given ism.

The ism feeds the personal prejudice of the individual of the group to keep its followers from straying.

But more importantly, it feeds the need to maintain power and position that the followers of the ism are afraid they will lose if they don't fight back.

But what happens if you let your narrative of how you believe the world works fall away?

What happens if your world breaks?

Think about this sentence: billions of years ago, a star exploded, creating the elements you are made of.

Just reading that sentence could break a worldview.

Only in the supernovae of a star, a star large enough that when it reaches its end of days, it collapses on itself, forcing together atoms.

These atoms that are broken and reforged in the massive explosion constitute the elements we find in our solar system.

Think about it.

A Sun in the past had to die to give life to us today.

That is the truth.

You don't have to accept it as the truth.

However, the universe doesn't accept your personal story.

The universe neither accepts our sense of morality nor asks for our permission to do the things it does.

The universe is.

It is up to each of us to discover it.

Discover its truth.

When we break from prejudice and see the world as it is and not how we pretend it is, the distance between you and the next person is just an arm's length away.

We all like to think of ourselves as being unique and special.

Unique, yes, on the outside, but in the heart, we are all the same.

Fear keeps us from doing what we are intended to do with our lives.

Once broken, we can hear the call of love.

Once broken, we can see the need for love.

Once broken, we can reach out to the world with compassion for the first time.

Break the walls of the ism.

No matter how small a person may believe they are, love will give them both strength and courage to make a difference in this world.

A young woman named Rosa Parks made a difference that day when she defied the Jim Crow laws, which were unjust.

The unnamed people who march in our streets against the immigration policy of this president have moved the conscience of a nation.

The Parkland students, the parents of Sandy Hook, have moved others to stand against the ism of the merchants of death.

That person you saw who dropped a coin into a bucket made a difference in the world that day.

It's ironic that the smallest, what seems to be ineffective, the broken, are precisely the type of people who love to change the world.

Our world is broken.

Some of us have been tasked by love to bring the pieces back together again.

To heal.

To bring back hope.

The world will not be the same as it was.

The world will be better.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

More Than A Feeling

America has a problem, and it appears to be us.

One step forward, two steps back.

That's right.

One step forward, two steps back.

The problem that America has did not arrive with the election of the current President.

No.

There has been a sickness at the center of the American heart that we, as a people, have ignored generation after generation.

Just like our physical health, the mental health of America is not what it can be.

There is obviously something broken in our will.

There is obviously something overheated in our choices.

There is obviously something falling apart at the center of our idea of Justice, of fairness, of the common good.

At least half of our nation's population lives in a world without hope.

I don't mean they can't live day by day, but to tell you the truth, that's just what I mean.

If all you are doing each day is just getting by, just living, lust living because you have lost hope for your future, you are living in purgatory.

You are working hard each day but getting nowhere.

You feel your head slipping under the surface of the waters of life.

You are choking on the words of promises not kept by those entrusted with your vote.

On the other hand…

The condition of America's mental health is not held solely contingent upon the actions of others; we, the people, are also responsible for letting our conscience get distorted.

Loss of income and loss of job opportunities are a part of life.

They always have been.

Life ain't easy then you die…

There have been places and times in the past where economic opportunity failed the people of the world and created a fertile ground in which political opportunists and tyrants ransacked and destroyed nations.

They plunged their populations into wars, blaming others for their own financial and moral circumstance.

It's easy to say the devil made me do it, but it's harder to take personal responsibility for your own failures.

Your own demons.

Yet, here in America, we, the people, have always understood that the good of the many is extended to the few and to the one.

Our great American experiment is about a nation of many living together through thick and thin.

Our strength is that we leave no one behind.

The rich, the poor, the healthy, the sick, the old, the young, and all the colors of humanity work together to make a better nation, a better world, and a better life for each other.

Here we are at this time and in this place in America.

The times they are a-changin' yet again.

Today, instantly, people can unite or divide over a single Tweet.

Words matter.

Words can make people swallow hate, or words can lift them out of fear and give them hope.

Each of us has a responsibility to the nation and to one another.

We need to give each other hope.

What can hope be?

Hope can be if you become sick, you can't lose your home.

Hope can come from not being afraid that your child will be killed in their classroom.

Hope can be working hard and earning a living to pay your bills with a little extra left in your pocket.

Hope can come out of the shadows of racism, misogyny, and sexual bias and contribute without fear of economic and social retribution.

Hope can be an educational safety net that, if your career opportunities change, your new education is free.

None of these ideas to bring hope are new.

No, they are not.

They have been there since the foundations of this Republic.

We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

All that means is we believe that hope belongs to everyone.

The more Justice, the more peace, the more security, the more universal good, the blessing of love and hope will be had by this generation and the generations to come. 

Who doesn't want that?

Who would work against that?

Those who profit from fear, that's who.

Fear is power, and for those who either want control or want to retain it, fear is the thing that is fed.

Fear can do a lot.

It can build walls.

It can start wars.

It can starve people.

It can stop dreams.

It can destroy compassion.

It can throw down honor.

It can drown duty.

Fear is the enemy of hope.

More than a feeling, hope is the foundation of America.

After all this time, after all the people who have fought for, died for, and have stood for what this nation stands for, we are not the generation to turn our backs.

No.

Let us each ask ourselves and our neighbors to do better.

Not just for ourselves but for all those generations yet to come.

Let us each, in our own way, drop hate and lift up hope for all.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Where Are The Strong

When the unexpected tragedy falls upon us, we ask Where are the strong?

When the flood overwhelms our home, the water rises, and we ask Where are the strong?

Long days at the bedside of our loved ones, wiping away the crust from their mouths, we ask Where are the strong?

A child cries in the night, alone, afraid, in the next room, their mother is beaten, she asks…

Where are the strong?

A man is stopped in the street because of the color of his skin. 

He's afraid, having done nothing wrong, but a fear he's grown up with confuses his reason.

He's afraid.

He runs.

He's shot dead by the police.

We ask.

Where are the strong?

A mother and father are raped and killed, and their child runs out into the darkness away from their home.

They run, run, through the night until they collapse.

They find their way north.

North.

They follow the story they hear of a land where mercy and hope rain down freely.

They make their way through fear and terror only to be stopped at the border of America by people who forget how to care, how to share, and how to love.

Where are the strong?

Over here in Washington, there is an administration headed by a man who is familiar with corruption.

His familiarity with corruption comes from his own mouth.

He admires tough, corrupt men.

They get things done.

He's been around "flippers" all his life…

This President doesn't see that the rules either before he became President or after apply to him.

Rules are for losers.

We who believe and follow the rules are a waste of flesh and blood.

Suckers.

Things to be taken advantage of.

This President and his defenders use the goodwill of those who follow the rules to hide their corruption.

One horrible lie after another rained out of the mouths of these people, spinning a myth greedily gobbled up by the fearful.

On and on, day after day, they spit on the face of justice and laugh, daring anyone to stop them.

Who can stop them?

We all ask, Where are the strong?

Who among us will have the moral courage to stand and do right?

Who will realize that they must sacrifice their all to make a difference?

What we fight against is a dark sickness of man's soul that has eaten its own since the foundations of the world.

This evil, this corruption, will not stop unless and until people of goodwill stand up against it and say no more, not today, not ever again.

There is no bargain with evil.

There can be no compromise with corruption.

You can't spin political partisanship enough to share a seat with fraud, graft, and malfeasance in office so that you can save your job.

Is that what it's all boiled down to?

Saving your job?

Congress…?

Senate…?

You don't want to make waves, you politicians, because you might lose your job? 

When Joe got his boat out and went up and down the flooded streets, saving his neighbors, he was supposed to be at work that day.

When Alice took care of her mother, who was dying of Alzheimer's, she missed that job interview.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched in the streets, he didn't receive his pension from the Baptist Church.

When Robert Kennedy was shot dead in LA, he didn't get the job he wanted as President of the United States.

The life you have, the freedom you enjoy, was built by hands, both great and small.

Each set of hands has set into place bricks of justice, of freedom, laid there by people just like you and me.

No different…

Rich and poor, old and young, lay there with the intent that freedom and justice for all make a better world for us all.

No one, no one, not even the President of the United States, is above the law.

If we cannot hold a corrupt President responsible, what does this government, what do our representatives, what does this country and these people stand for?

Is the Constitution just some kind of racket?

Is the Declaration of Independence just a come-on for suckers?

Is Democracy a fraud?

No.

No, it is not.

We, the people of the United States, cannot be extorted by this President.

We, as a people, do not have to do the heavy lifting alone.

No.

There is a whole nation of people, a majority that holds the truth of justice dear to them.

I've asked, ' Where are the strong? '

We are the strong.

We're the people.

We are not afraid.

Love asks more.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Right From Wrong

How can you know if you're in the right?

Many people, past and present, have and will go to their graves believing they are right.

Over 620,000 Confederate soldiers died for the cause of the South during the American Civil War.

They believed they were in the right.

1,773,700 plus German soldiers died during World War I.

They believed they were in the right.

Then, the German people still believed they were in the right, and the rest of the world was wrong, and for a second time, they went to war with the world, and over 4.3 million soldiers were killed, and over 500,000 civilians were killed.

They got the message that they were wrong.

3 million North Korean soldiers died for their cause.

They believed they were in the right.

1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers died for their belief.

They believed they were in the right.

This doesn't count the tens of millions of non-believers killed by these true believers during these conflicts, who murdered the other under the assumption that there can only be one truth.

Today, we can see who was on the wrong side and who was on the right side during those conflicts.

But why didn't the people during those wars see the writing on the wall?

Why couldn't they see they were wrong in the first place?

There are big questions of right and wrong, but there are also everyday interactions, conflicts, and issues that require answers. 

How do you know you're in the right?

How many of us are willing to kill for a belief?

In our nation, many believe that they have the right to own guns and to kill whom they want when they want for their reasons.

No one can stop them from killing, not even the Constitution they believe in.

We have subtler folks who casually discriminate based on race.

Discrimination is a kind of casual death sentence upon the victim who is never given a real chance to thrive.

Greed drives many to accumulate wealth through fraudulent businesses, charities, and religious organizations.

Greed instructs the follower that the innocent are sheep, and you are the shearer.

Take from the stupid; they'll never miss it.

Does taking from the poor to make oneself rich ever raise a flag that they are immoral?

Does it matter to them, and if it doesn't, why?

Does a type of social or economic racism allow the person to convince themselves that this other kind of person doesn't deserve to be happy?

I'm of the mind that you either like humanity or you don't.

You're either willing to lend a hand or believe that life is a party and it's there for the taking.

I'm also of the mind, given our current time, that the split between those who are aware and support the common good versus those who don't care about it is approximately 60/40.

I'm being an optimist, and based on the current polls, which demonstrate that 40% of our citizens support our current President, and 60% don't.

That ratio can be applied to every issue that comes up today.

There are, 40% of the nation who want children locked up.

There are 40% who want to discriminate against brown people.

There are 40% who don't want women to have equal pay.

There are 40% who would be happy with a dictator as long as that dictator favored them and oppressed the 60%.

There are 40% who want no restrictions on their right to kill with guns.

There are 40% who don't want the LGBTQ+ community to exist, let alone have equal rights.

There are 40% who don't want abortions for any reason.

There are 40% who believe that the rich and corporations love them.

There are 40% who don't believe that man can change the climate.

There are 40% who don't want to share food, neighborhoods, the street, the sidewalk, waiting in line, your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There are 40% who don't believe in the Constitution and want it abolished.

It's a truly sad thing to consider.

How could so many be so willing to destroy so much and yet still believe they are in the right?

What blinds people to pain?

What makes people deaf to the sound of sorrow? 

What makes people ignore the crippling predatory power of poverty?

What takes away a person's ability to feel the anguish of hopelessness in another?

Is it as simple as "At least it's not me?"

How did generations, these generations that share this nation with us turn their hearts and minds away from love?

What put up the walls?

What burned down the truth of the common good?

What ground up common decency?

How did respect become hate?

Why did so many stop dreaming?

Why did so many of us stop dreaming of a better world?

They stopped dreaming altogether…

So many have swallowed the pill of bitterness and now spew rank hatred in their wake.

Why?

How can a person believe that hatred, discrimination, intolerance, and selfishness are standing on the side of goodness?

Of goodness?

Of compassion?

Of honor?

Of duty?

Personally, I'm gobsmacked.

America, and please, psychologists, tell me if I'm wrong, but America has a personality disorder.

An example is the "Opioid" problem.

Yes, a corporation and doctors collaborated to make money from their product.

They are sociopaths, for sure.

However, there is another problem that is more disturbing than corporate greed and the willingness to abandon their customers.

It's called personal responsibility.

Vast swaths of the Midwest have seen and are living in the aftermath of losing heavy industry and manufacturing to other countries, driven by corporate boards' pursuit of ever-growing profits.

Unemployment, economic downturns, and even depressions of the past meant everyone had to work harder.

Tough times made a tough people.

Can do spirit.

It didn't mean that they threw morality, society, self-respect, and belief in the rule of law out the window and went from no job to heroin addict overnight.

Historically speaking, if you're out of work, you become an alcoholic.

But opioids?

Heroine?

How is that doing right?

What makes one say I am different from the rest of these losers, I'm not an addict, I got this under control, I'm in the right?

I need this to get my life straight?

This personality disorder that America has did not develop on its own.

No.

No.

People do bad things when their dreams are taken away.

When people can't dream, it means they are depressed.

Suicidal.

When dreams turn into nightmares, some people lash out in fear and anger.

There is something we as a nation need to know, something we all need to hear.

We can dream again.

We have to, and it is our duty to dream again.

We don't have to believe we need to tear up and burn down what we have to make a clean start of it again.

No.

You don't set your house on fire because you need a new pillow.

Some of us need to calm down.

Open our eyes.

Our minds.

Our hearts.

Understand that the first principle of being right is to believe in truth.

Even if that truth reveals that we are in the wrong.

There is and only has been one truth in all of human history.

Not your truth or my truth, but one great universal truth that has united us from birth to death.

Wisdom comes from compassion.

It's why a man a long time ago said, "What parent would give their child a rock if they are hungry?"

Too many fellow Americans believe they are in the right and are handing out rocks to the rest of us to suck on.

That's got to change.

Love means doing more, not less.

Love asks more of each of us every day.

Reach out to that brother and sister and share some of your courage with them.

Lift that box off their heads called fear.

Push away the night terrors created by their fear.

Ask them to join in a new dream.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fundamental

The times they are changing.

The people at the top have undergone numerous name changes throughout history.

A moving target is hard to hit.

For a very long time, they were known as bandits.

Then Master.

Then King.

Then Aristocracy.

Then the Man.

Then, the Ownership Class.

They have had a few things in common over the past 10,000 years.

The ownership class does not like to share.

The ownership class does not like public education.

The ownership class does not like the Public period.

The times they are changing.

In the past, 400 years ago, the fear that struck at the heart of the Aristocracy was movable type.

Moveable type meant that anything said on any given day could be printed and read by thousands on the same day.

The Kings in the past were not afraid of the public learning of their thievery in time for the public to take action.

The Master's controlled the narrative about themselves masterfully.

The public couldn't understand the motivations of the wealthy because we were poor.

Not just poor in the pocketbook, but also poorly educated, poorly understood politics, poorly endowed with brains that were equal to those of the rich.

Moveable type enabled the almost instantaneous dissemination of facts to the general public.

It took many social and political revolutions, including the American Revolution, before the Aristocracy regained control of the narrative.

You can point to the American Civil War as being one of the turning points in history, where a War of the Aristocracy was committed to further the power and control of industry.

The First World War was a war between the Aristocracy of Europe.

Every war since then has been about control of corporate power over resources and who ultimately sits on industry boards, controlling the planet's natural wealth.

Those commodities are oil and uranium.

The Man in control of the "Business" gave money to politicians who wrote the laws, who then made the world favorable once again to the aristocrats.

Dissent was easily suppressed through the media, and narratives casting doubt upon public institutions were firmly ingrained in the public perception once again.

Can't trust the government…

Freedom had the drapes pulled, and the public didn't see it coming.

The ownership class is good at its public relations; you have to give them that.

However, an immigrant to America had an idea from watching Star Trek. Steve Jobs wanted to own and operate a company that built and supplied the computer that controlled the Starship Enterprise.

Today, over 2.1 billion smartphones are in the hands of the public, and this number continues to grow.

This is causing, yet again, a fundamental shift of power to which the Aristocrat is once again in jeopardy.

The Ownership class is throwing the kitchen sink at the truth, trying to stop the information age.

At least those are aware enough to see that their yacht is on fire.

The Masters are losing control of the narrative once again.

Every day, countless millions can see and hear how their neighbor fell off their skateboard and broke their tailbone.

They can see and hear what their government representative has said about cooperating with an enemy of their country.

They can see and hear the owner of an airplane company say, "…oops, we made a mistake, people died, our bad."

They can see and hear how current-day Aristocrats tell women what they can and can't have in their bodies.

The narrative is no longer in control of the invisible corrupt.

We are witnesses to a transition in history, just like the time of the invention of movable type.

Our world is changing.

It will change fundamentally.

The genie is out of the bottle.

No amount of alternative narrative can prevent the truth from being revealed.

The sight of a man running away, shot in the back by police.

A Sex Trafficker is sitting with your senator, your president's family.

A teacher is choking a student.

A teen is shooting a store clerk in the face.

Men in the street are carrying tiki torches and chanting slogans of Nazis.

The sight of a melted North Pole.

This power, which has been given to us in the palm of our hands, is an instrument for fundamental change in our world and our society.

For the first time in human history, those who feed and profit from fear can no longer hide.

What happens next?

The times they are changing…

Peace 

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Self Interest

Why has the Republican Party jumped off a cliff?

What has happened to that political movement's reason?

How can a majority of Republicans embrace hate yet deny the history of hate and the disaster that the future will bring to their party?

Spite.

Spite is one of the answers.

Spite.

Bitterness.

Animosity. 

Hostility. 

Vengeance is all included in spite.

One day during the two terms of President Obama, the Republican Party majority woke up that day and realized that the world they believed would never change…

Did.

Somewhere between poor people getting health care and Trans people using the same toilet as them, their collective heads exploded.

The myth that they had consistently told themselves that being White and conservative in America would protect them from having to share the wealth with brown people evaporated in their minds.

They were painted into a corner…

This mental realization of the change, the broadening of the social good for all, drove a hot knife into their guts.

The reaction has been that the Republican Conservative Party would rather burn America down than allow one Black, one Brown, one they to share in "Their Homeland."

Among the many things that this executive branch has done while in Office to go where doomed political parties have gone before, boldly…

It was when their President and his people declared they were to defund the Special Olympics.

A moment of pure joy and a revelation to the nation…

The conservatives in this country exposed the dark heart at the root of the hate that is being fed.

The Republican Party and conservative America believe that it is in a fight to its death.

They will not listen to reason because they are embroiled in a struggle with what they believe to be true.

I've said it before, have you ever tried to take a bone away from a hungry dog?

These conservatives will bite your hand, they will claw your face, and they will rip your life apart to protect what they believe has been given to them by God.

Their rightful place as stewards of this country.

I personally know the depths of this feeling, being born into this conservative culture.

It is not only believed but preached from the pulpit every Sunday in America.

The story of White supremacy is taught to this very day, not just in alleys and in bars out by the highway.

White supremacy is in the Office, in the home, in the church.

The idea of segregation and Whites being the stewards of the earth is in the book of Genesis.

You don't believe it?

The racists believe it.

At least, that's how White racists interpret it. 

So, trying to reason with the Republican Party currently is a losing strategy.

When was the last time you asked a card-carrying Christian to stop believing in Jesus?

A story that says you'll have eternal life if you believe in me.

That is not something that can't be casually laid down, can it?

No.

Especially when, through the long, dark history of racism in this country, the two stories of racial superiority and Christianity have been woven together into an ugly basket of hate.

I honestly have no concrete answer to this problem of our current day.

I don't know how to stop the fear conservatives have that they are losing their world.

Because they are losing their world. 

The world is waking up.

The light of truth is shining into the dark places of our society, revealing an ugly, dark-hearted mold that is growing there.

Today, we are working to clean out that mold of the heart and mind.

Those who are happy to live in that darkness are upset that we are letting in the sunshine and spraying bleach around.

Like that show Hoarders…?

They are furious that we want to remove the trash from their house.

They love living in their filth.

They are comfortable with the status quo, and we are upsetting the apple cart.

In one respect, we are watching conservative America ride its anger off the cliff of history.

We who are looking towards the future are watching the past commit suicide.

We, the people, the majority, stand at the mountaintop and ask aloud, "Why did they do that?"

Love binds people to move toward truth and justice.

Love can bind the wounds of a people, too.

Love can sweep away the nightmares in the mind and restore hope.

Conservative America's last hope is that they can separate truth from lies.

Conservative America, if you can hear me, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fear

Fear creates false stories.

If you are afraid, you are willing to believe the worst of the things you are scared of.

This phenomenon has been a part of human consciousness for a very long time.

Entire faiths and entire societies are based on fear.

Fear of death.

Fear of the stranger.

Fear of new ideas.

Fear of change.

Fear of you.

That's right.

Somebody, somewhere, right this very minute, is afraid of you. 

Of what you represent.

What do you represent?

Are you working for peace between your brother and your sister?

Or do you work against them because you don't trust them?

Or do you fall into the third thing, which captures the majority of us, which is that you do nothing?

Fear will render the most logical person to accept the illogical.

Since humanity first arose, fear of fear has created a false narrative.

A false story.

A false idea that there is a choice to be made.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Upon the question of immigration, we are told you must have security first; then, possibly, consideration will be given to why undocumented immigration happens in the first place.

Why can't we do both?

We have adopted an ugly discourse of narrowly believing there is only one way to solve a problem.

We search for a magic silver bullet that we can fire off and finish off the beast.

We want to eliminate the thing that causes us to worry and work as quickly as possible.

We want a better world without doing any work.

I'll declare that to be a lazy, sluggish way of thinking.

It ignores our reality of life.

Let me put it this way…

When your parent cleaned your bottom, did they do it only once?

Did they say I'll find the best method of cleaning my child's bottom, and I'll be done with that!

They cleaned your bottom once and walked away.

They were self-satisfied that they had done the job in the best and most efficient way they knew how and never came back.

No.

Life is about messes and how we do our duty to attend to them.

Messes are renewed on a daily basis.

Your parent didn't have a fear of their duty to love their child.

Your parent saw it as a privilege to care for you.

It is our privilege to care for each other.

Each of us has an ability, no matter how large or small and humble, to reach out and care for each other. 

We can both walk and talk.

We can both care and have standards.

We can praise and critique.

Fear wants us to believe there is a binary choice between yes and no when, in reality, we all know that the world is gray.

Evil never wants a compromise.

A compromise would mean giving and giving, but that is not what evil is about.

Our duty to each other is never-ending.

Love doesn't stop at the border.

Love doesn't stop at the patient's bedside.

Love doesn't stop at the arrest of a suspect.

Love doesn't stop at the bench before the judge.

Love doesn't stop with the words in our Constitution.

Love asks more.

Love asks you to do all things with a glad heart.

You don't get to choose on the path of love how you can segregate your heart.

The realm of good ideas all has a seat at the table of humanity.

Love demands that we do all of them together.

We do not get to choose.

Love knows we can handle it.

Only fear tells us to choose one.

Life is not like Sophie's Choice.

We are not at the point of a gun to choose the life of one of our children over another.

We do not live in a world of a Paleolithic culture, having to decide which child we must sacrifice to the "gods" so that we can have a good crop next year.

We don't have to create gods to get past the fear of death.

Attention!

The world has moved beyond that cultural, mental restriction of child sacrifice.

Human sacrifice for a hollow safety.

Although some who feed fear want to feed that monster once again.

Blood doesn't have to be spilled for us to realize what the right thing to do is.

No.

We can keep both children.

We can keep all the children.

We can keep your children and mine. 

Hasn't the world gone through enough to realize that compassion has a huge hug?

Compassion's arms are endless.

We can do both…

It's not difficult.

It's called love.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Cannibals

Straight up.

The wealthy cannibalize society by hoarding wealth and stealing its dignity.

Throughout recorded history, this has been a fact.

It has never stopped.

It's a fact.

It has never stopped.

Why should it?

The wealthy are a crafty type of parasite, for the most part.

They feed off their host to the point of weakening it.

But the rule for the wealthy is not to bleed the host so much that they die.

In recent centuries, the French Revolution is a good point, in fact, demonstrating how the wealthy lost control of their greed.

Centuries of no justice, enslavement, and destruction of the common good to enhance the coffers of the wealthy made a lot of ordinary people in France really upset.

They were so upset that they believed chopping the heads off the wealthy would lead them to a better society.

It alleviated the immediate problem of the local wealthy ignoring the needs of the host they were feeding on, but it wasn't a cure.

Killing is never a cure.

Government-sponsored killing, primarily of the non-wealthy, is a part of the cycle of justice put into place by the wealthy so that the larger society never addresses the source of the problems we all face.

People who cannot and will not share.

Some of us may recall the words of the golden rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Or, as the wealthy use that same sentiment but with a twist, do unto others before they do unto you.

Wealth does a terrible thing to people. 

It enhances their character flaws.

If a person were a small ass, they would become an enormous ass with a wealth injection.

Sharing is not a trait that we are born with.

It is a fact.

If you are not aware of this, please look into the current human genome project to understand how we are all born with a selfish nature. 

Are Babies Born Good? by Abigail Tucker, Smithsonian Magazine, 2013.

Sharing has to be taught by "caring" people.

Some of us get the lesson while others are naturally predisposed to be resistant to sharing.

Others still may have had bad parents who never took the time to instruct or demonstrate sharing with others outside their immediate family.

Sharing means giving up some of your resources to help another.

On a hostile planet with a rapidly changing environment, resources to keep you alive are critical.

It's obvious why an inborn trait of not sharing would be a universal fact in all of humanity everywhere.

Hoarding resources allows the individual to survive and pass on their genes.

However, this biological method of survival is antimatter to a society.

Society is all about cohesion, right?

Sticking together?

The rugged individual who is the self-made man, always winning, the top dog, the alpha male, or the wealthy, is the complete opposite of what a community stands for.

Right?

The wealthy tell the poor we are better than you because we won't share.

So, in point of fact, the wealthy are the best at being humans who survive to pass on their genes and their inhumanity.

They survive at the expense of the lives that they destroy.

Is there a cure?

Is there a way to prevent this cannibalism?

There has been a cure right in front of our faces.

Love.

Love is the answer.

Love derives from our better angels.

We all have the instinct not to share.

But right there from the very beginning of our lives, a whisper tapped us all on our hearts.

You may or may not have recognized it. 

The wealthy shout in our faces to follow their example, to deny each other and ourselves, to serve them.

Some listen to those callous voices, thinking they will be like them one day.

Yet in the quiet spaces of all of our lives, the voice of love asks us to do more.

Love asks not to do one act of love but to do many acts of love at the same time.

Love knows we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Love knows we can share bread with the lost.

We can heal those who cannot repay us.

We can protect those who cannot defend themselves.

We can lift the hopeless and hold them in our arms till they feel safe.

We can wipe away the tears.

We can do all that any one of us can in just one day and do it again the next.

Love is stronger and more profound than the instinct of the wealthy not to share.

Love is a code that has existed in this universe long before the Earth was formed.

Love is a code, as elaborate or as simple as those who want to hide from it versus those who want to walk with it.

Love is wealth that can never be taken away.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Never Done

When we owned a home, the North side of the house had a problem with peeling paint.

Every summer, I had to get the ladder out, scrape the bubbling paint, and repaint it.

Each early spring, my father went out to trim the old growth on his fruit trees.

During the previous growing season, the tree would sprout sucker branches, which would leach out the tree's strength and divert that energy away from the growing fruit.

Sometimes, there is never enough time to complete what we need to do.

That's why there's a tomorrow.

Many tasks take more than one day to accomplish.

Completing a portion of the task each day with due diligence will help us reach our goal.

In the late 1800s, vitamins were discovered, albeit in a preliminary sense.

It was realized that some foods made people's health stronger than others, but the reason was unknown.

Grand claims were made by health food hucksters of the day that their mixtures could cure everything from ingrown toenails to women's complaints.

People then, as now, didn't go out of their comfort zones and habits.

It was known that inmates developed sickness and death from eating just cornbread and nothing else during imprisonment, but the authorities didn't know why.

It wasn't until 1912 that Casimir Funk isolated and confirmed the biochemical properties of what he termed vitamins, after which the public became aware of their benefits.

It turns out that the adage "a man can live on cornbread alone" is not valid.

You need a whole range of vitamins to live a healthy life.

Eating cornbread only and water will lead to a gruesome death.

However, knowledge of the right things to eat didn't flip a switch in people's diets.

Society abhors change.

People, on the whole, don't like to expend energy, do they?

For many, a crisis often serves as a catalyst for taking action.

The house has to be actually on fire before they think about taking the stacked newspapers out.

People have energy at the beginning, but for most, that enthusiasm dwindles with time.

They plant an herb garden and return a few months later to find that the weeds have taken over.

Our nation needs to tend to its democracy right now.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. admonished us all that the task of achieving equality and justice for all would not be accomplished in a day.

We each have our part to do.

The forces we fight will not give up.

Evil is not lazy.

Bigotry doesn't take the day off.

Racism feeds upon ignorance every day.

Injustice sprints ahead of the common good.

The weeds of intolerance grow in the fertile soil of anger and hopelessness.

Our challenge is not to succumb to apathy.

Nihilism.

If you've never picked an acre of beans, at the start, the task seems long, hot, and daunting.

The sun beats you down and stings your eyes.

The fly bites your ankles, and the blood flows.

You take a break, but the nagging feeling persists, urging you to get up and get it done.

While you're working, a friend stops by and lends a hand.

The neighbor next door sees you working and brings you a drink of cold water.

That neighbor joins in, and then the guy across the way brings a sandwich and helps with the picking, too.

A community has come together of brothers and sisters, young and old, rich and poor, all joining hands and hearts to share in the work.

To share in the riches.

To share in the love. To share the burden of the task.

A human thing.

We will get there together, all of us, one day.

Love has always been stronger than hate.

Always and in all ways.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Hear That?

In the night, where the streetlights buzz.

The smell of cooking still lingers.

A sharp word yelled through broken walls.

A slap.

A body hits the wall.

Silence.

Hear that?

Saturday night, the lights of the city are a blur.

Running from a ghost of a memory.

Fear propels relief into the vein.

Fear turns eyes away from truth.

Funny how the world doesn't fit into the story told.

A hollow cry for help.

Hear that?

There are sounds we want to hear.

The comfort of a familiar song.

The beat of rain up on the roof.

The thrill of children who are about to eat.

The words that tell us that we are wanted.

The abiding of love.

Hear that?

You and I can hear it.

How is it that so many can't?

What has happened to make pain invisible?

What story is more important to protect, which allows suffering?

Why are peace and prosperity only for a privileged few?

How can so many hope for so little for so many?

Hear that?

It's a sound that this President has never heard.

It's a beat that puts fear in the corrupt.

It's a solo voiced by knights of this republic that makes Evil run.

It's a chorus sung by the old, the young, the weak, the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the majority, by we the people.

It's the sound of justice coming right quick.

Hear that?

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Keeping It Real

Keeping it real is a phrase that means staying true to yourself.

For the past month, we have seen leaders in our government display their true selves.

We saw a Speaker of the House stand for the people of this nation who are not afraid of the future.

We saw a leader of the majority in the Senate hide behind his office, and not until the President laid his own head on the chopping block did he meekly say I think you're wrong, Mr. President.

We saw a President who has an apparent personality disorder that doesn't allow him to tell the objective truth.

Our President can only say what he thinks we want to hear.

Our President sees no difference between doing what is right and what is wrong as long as he gets his way.

This week, we also observed the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, who kept it real.

Keeping it real.

What does that mean to you?

As you progress through life and age, you may develop wisdom.

Where wisdom comes from is learning from your mistakes.

If you don't learn from your mistakes, that's a sign too.

Time and time again, the President makes the same mistake.

The mistake that the President makes is that he believes we don't care.

We don't care about refugees.

We don't care about those who don't have health care.

We don't care about government workers.

We don't care about non-white people.

We don't care about what this nation has stood for these past 200-plus years.

This nation has stood for freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

He believes we will all be satisfied with the status quo, with White men making all the decisions and everyone else waiting around to serve them.

That's the world from which he came.

From his perspective, he's…

Keeping it real.

Physicians take an oath.

That oath they swear to says they are to do no harm.

They are to do no harm.

I think our elected officials, from dog catchers to Presidents, should take that same oath.

To do no harm.

Harming people for the sake of political power or gain is evil.

Sociopaths the world over practice that ideal as a large part of their personal philosophy.

In the book The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout, Ph.D., tells us that 1 in 25 people are sociopaths.

That means if you know 100 people, 4 of them are sociopaths.

The sociopath is the one who's making trouble and never taking responsibility for the disaster they created.

Doesn't that sound like the President?

Should the President be pitied?

No.

He knows the difference between good and evil but doesn't care which device he employs as long as he gets his orgasm, no matter what that may entail.

We, as a nation, are learning what it means to have a president with this kind of personality disorder.

I've said before that I have had a personal experience with a sociopath who almost destroyed my life.

It is both illuminating and tragic to see our nation go through the same experience I had, as we, as a nation, suffer at the hands of this man, our President.

Keeping it real.

Remember.

This, too, shall pass.

We will all learn from our mistakes.

Will we protect ourselves in the future from repeating this tragedy?

On the other hand, as a nation, will we learn to take better care of ourselves, and will we become better people?

Keeping it real.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Character

How has your winter been this year?

We are all in the middle of this time of the season.

Snow, rain, cold, dark skies.

Makes you want to stay inside and find that thing that comforts you.

Hot chocolate does it for some.

For others, macaroni and cheese, maybe a crackling fire, a favorite book to read, and some heartwarming music.

We all know that this season will pass, and ahead of us lies Spring.

We will change our garments to shake off the warm clothes and welcome the return of the sun.

Life comes in cycles, a phenomenon recognized by people worldwide.

What if a group of people didn't want the Spring to come?

What if this group of people wanted it to be winter all year long?

What would you ask these people why they want it to be winter all the time?

What would you do?

Character.

Character is a lost word in our 21st-century society.

For many, it is defined by the celebrity.

Character is recognized as the person who stands out from the crowd.

Character is defined as a remarkable individual.

That's one definition, but it's not the origin of what the word 'character' means. 

To have Character, the individual lives by a set of moral principles recognized and defined by the society at large.

A real way to know if a person has Character is when adversity strikes.

You lose your job, what do you do?

Do you immediately take drugs and alcohol and soon die from an opioid overdose?

That person has no character.

Your wife dies, leaving you penniless.

Do you rob a bank to get back the money you believe you are owed?

That person has no character.

A woman is going through a lousy divorce. 

Do you hit on her for sex?

That person has no character and is a sexual predator.

A person with Character will not sit idly by when presented with adversity.

A person with Character will not turn their back when injustice strikes.

A person with Character can be anyone, regardless of their size, age, wealth, or social status.

It is not just one definition of Character that can respond to injustice.

We celebrate the differences.

Each and everyone has a responsibility and a privilege to stand against injustice.

There are those without Character who seek to profit from adversity.

They sow seeds of fear, of anger, of myth.

Their gratification lies in creating as much turmoil as possible.

They enjoy spreading the darkness, the cold of an eternal winter of the soul.

Hold up in a cave of white stone, they blow ill winds of deceit.

However, you want to know something?

They're just some old silly bears afraid of the change of season.

Their eyes strain at the brightness and the newness of the world to come.

No matter how much they may growl and howl and grit their teeth, they can't stop the Spring from coming.

They can't stop justice and equality for all.

Why?

Because the universe itself bends towards justice.

No old bear in the White House can stop or will ever stop the rollout of justice.

Character…

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their Character. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Found and Lost

Found in history…

The communist GDR, the German Democratic Republic, was fearful that its citizens were tempted by the sins of the West and erected a wall to keep them safe from temptation around them.

In reality, it was a wall of tyranny to keep a people subjugated to the will of the Soviet Union, formerly Russia, ruled by non-religious oligarchs of a type of organized crime state.

The GDR soon realized that the Berlin Wall kept the sheep in but did nothing to prevent freedom from seeping into the minds of the people of East Germany.

Lost…

The Wall failed in its purpose; the year was 1989.

Found in history…

Construction began in 122 AD in the province of Britannia, the farthest northern border of the Roman Empire, under the rule of Hadrian.

The purpose was to draw a line in the woods of Britannia, later to be known as Great Britain, to keep the annoying raids conducted by the barbarous Picts, the northern city-states of the common area of Britannia.

You can also attribute the construction of the Wall to the voices heard in the heads of the Roman aristocracy, who believed the gods had instructed them that a wall was needed to encircle the entirety of their Empire, thereby establishing its importance to the world.

Hadrian's Wall stretched from the Atlantic to the Dover coast with an average height of 4 feet or 1.2m.

People must have been remarkably short in stature back then because the average person today could easily trip and roll over Hadrian's Wall without any planning.

The Wall stood, but the Roman Empire did not.

Lost…

Hadrian's Wall fell out of memory, its purpose lost to the narcissistic whims of a former aristocracy.

Found in history…

The Greatest Wall!

The power of tyrants lies in their ability to instill fear, whether real or perceived.

The emperors of China and the Mongols had been engaged in a centuries-long war.

The Chinese emperor had the noble notion of erecting a wall across their entire northern border to keep out the obviously inferior northern tribes from immigrating and diluting their culture.

Construction of what was to be called The Great Wall of China began in 220 BC and continued till 206 BC.

A Great Wall it was indeed.

Strong, high, thick, and made of the best stones ever.

Ever…

In the 14th century, the Ming Dynasty built the Wall higher, stronger, and faster than anyone had ever done before.

It could stop an army.

It did stop armies.

But it couldn't stop corruption and betrayal in the Chinese aristocracy.

The Wall failed.

Lost.

Found and lost.

Walls are built by tyrants, but not alone.

Walls are built by people who are afraid.

We, the people of the United States, have never been afraid.

A strong people are not afraid.

It is reasonable to give voice to both protection and defense.

However, fear is not a position from which we Americans have historically made decisions.

Fear, in its primal form, allows those who are in the midst of the discussion to be manipulated by tyrants.

Those who are afraid will say or do anything; they will parrot the tyrant's mindset in an attempt to alleviate their fear.

A wall is a projection of fear.

It has been a part of human history.

Like children hiding under the covers in the dark of night, a nation, 

a people cannot hide from the reality of this world behind a wall of concrete and steel.

They cannot hide from the economic and political problems they have contributed to.

There are no guarantees.

Yet, this nation was founded upon the idea of freedom.

A freedom-loving people do not hide behind a wall.

A freedom-loving people stand against the headwind and face the dilemma with resolution.

A resolution born out of that specific knowledge that from strength comes responsibility.

That's right!

A nation with great strength has a great responsibility to protect its citizens, but to reach out to the world, it must do so with the steady hand of love.

We have nothing to fear.

Found.

Love asks more.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

RESPECT

I personally have never achieved respect.

Just like Rodney Dangerfield said, "I get no respect!"

I know that out in the world at large, some people believe they deserve respect.

I know that these same people also believe that they are owed respect.

Respect, where does it come from?

What is respect?

Respect means to genuinely admire someone or something due to their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

Does just existing earn you respect?

Like a child is supposed to respect their parents.

But what if the parents neglect or abuse the child? 

Does the child still require respect for their guardian?

If a poll could be taken asking if your parents were flawless, having a perfect set of parents is akin to the same odds as being struck by lightning.

The odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 3,000.

Those odds seem low to me, based on my own experience of being struck by lightning three times in my life so far.

I thought I was unique.

I get no respect from lighting, either.

Respect.

Respect is earned, never given.

Respect is earned, never given.

Respect is earned, never given.

Two figures this past week entered the Thunder Dome of Respect.

One lost respect.

The other earned respect.

Our President, Donald Trump, lost respect when he demanded it of the former head of the CIA, John Brennan.

Admittedly, our President has been on a slide, losing respect from the nation, starting with his inauguration.

Trump's high-water mark for respect was the day of his inauguration.

Every minute of the day since, he's been shoveling crap as hard as he can, demanding respect and personal loyalty.

He's obviously losing respect.

The second, the winner of all time, is the one and only Aretha Franklin.

She earns all of our respect for her character.

She earns our respect for using her gift to uplift us all.

It is our privilege to have been witnesses to her talent, her style, and her grace.

It is humbling to know that a great soul, an angel, walked among us.

Her hands reached out to touch us here on the edge of darkness to pull us back to the light.

Her grace was amazing.

Thank you, Aretha Franklin, for sharing yourself with us.

Respect.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Without Our Permission

Change happens without our permission.

That's a fact of this Universe.

The Universe does not wait for our approval.

You can have an opinion about it, but it doesn't change the facts.

Can you stop the tide from rolling in?

Can you stop your child from growing?

Can you stop the sun from setting?

No, you can't.

I can't either.

Nobody can.

Change is the fundamental nature of life.

We are born, we live a life, and then we die.

At each step along that path, we find that the world changes around us as we change.

Some of the changes are welcome.

The look on your child's face as they master riding a bike.

Watching your daughter's face as she marries the person she loves.

That new job you've worked so long and hard for.

Suddenly it's gone.

Gone.

Some changes are not welcome.

Your dog is ill and needs to be put down.

There's no work in your town anymore.

The McRib will no longer be sold.

The biggest unwanted change…

The death of a loved one.

Today, March 24th, 2018, in the streets of America and around the world, a collective shout demanding change was issued.

A choice, a demand that life be preserved versus the right to kill.

Why do we reserve the right to kill in this nation?

Could it be the lingering cancer on our soul of racism?

Fear of the other?

Fear of the stranger?

A new voice was raised today to join the old chorus of the past.

Its beat and melody are unfamiliar to the ears of an older generation, yet, at its heart, its driving beat is as familiar as that old gospel sung by other marchers for freedom from tyranny.

Change comes without our permission.

You can be part of the solution, or you can step aside.

A better world, free of the fear of gun violence, has always been in our hands to make real.

The spirit of their children has lifted up the eyes of a nation.

March for Our Lives.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Lift Them Up

Walking into my favorite coffee spot the other day, the hostess Josseline looked tired. 

"How are you today, Josseline," I asked?

She smiled, "No one ever asks how I'm doing. Thank you."

Lift them up.

Some girls were out in front of the grocery store the other day selling Girl Scout cookies. 

They had their learned lines down asking each person as they went by to please purchase their cookies. 

Many did.

An old woman walked by. 

They asked her if she would buy some of their delicious cookies. 

She said she liked to, but she didn't have extra money. 

One of the girls handed her a box for free.

Lift them up.

This coming Saturday, March 24th, from 10 AM to 2 PM starting at Pershing Square, 582 South Olive Street, Los Angeles, CA,

March For Our Lives is holding a rally and a march.

Everyone is welcome, not just students and teachers affected by the rule of the gun in our land.

Wait!

Listen...?

Did you hear that…?

Do you hear it?

People, a nation, a time when voices filled with fear call out collectively for justice.

A sound heard through the long halls history foretells of a building wave. 

A wave built upon the broken and shattered lives cut short by the tyranny of a few men over the many.

Lift them up.

Why can't some people hear other people crying?

Why can't some people see the suffering people not like them

Why do some people turn their backs when they can help stop injustice?

Fear of change clouds the eye.

Fear of change darkens the heart.

Fear of change binds the hands.

Fear of the stranger resists compassion.

Lift them up.

You can read the writing on the wall.

You can see the summer change to fall and then to winter. 

You can see the tide roll in and out. 

You can witness the sunrise in the East and set in the West.

But can you see the despair in others, not like yourself?

Can you feel what it is like to live in fear of death?

Can we as a people ask everyone to be responsible? 

Everyone.

Is that too much to ask for? 

Is that a bridge too far? 

A shore too distant? 

Are we collectively going to fall into a trap set by profiteers of death?

The profiteers who stoke the fears of the unknown. 

Who whisper horrible intent of races not your own. 

Who raised up Jesus yet tell us that even the man of peace would have a conceal-carry under his robe.

That if everyone carried a gun, we would all be safe?

I tell you that's a lie.

It is a lie made by dark-hearted men to make a profit out of the fearful.

To tell you the truth…

I can tell you there will never be a time in your whole life that you will you ever be safe.

Never.

That is the reality.

The story that many believe is if you live a good life, worship the right god, live in the right neighborhood, drive the right car, marry the right person, go to the right school, get the good job, mind your own business, mow your lawn, keep your house painted, donate to charity, care for your family, that somehow through all these things you will be kept safe by an invisible spirit.

You will not be given anything you cannot bear…

That's a story.

It is not reality.

There are some storms we cannot bear…

Bad things happen to everyone. 

You can't stop it.

Death claims everyone.

You get just one chance at this life.

But you can, with compassion, do the thing that we all can recognize as the right thing to do.

You can reach out and take a hand that reaches for help.

You can reach out and hold that person who is afraid.

You can lift them up.

Stand with us on March 24th everywhere in our nation.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Most of all, for life.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby