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What’s with Donald Trump? Is he really all that stupid? Or just playing with us like a fox in the hen house?

I recently went to a guest lecture at the University of Damascus, given by visiting Australian professor Tim Anderson. There were approximately 600 students in attendance — not counting the balcony seats.

Professor Anderson is an acknowledged expert on Syria. “But I couldn’t even get my books published in Australia.” Sounds typical. Tell the truth and shame the media? Never a safe idea. Just ask Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.

“I don’t believe that Trump is a stupid man,” said the professor, “but the system is making him stupid. There is a great deal of cynicism in Washington. They say one thing and do another. For instance, America funded and weaponized ISIS. It’s all documented.” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29058214-the-dirty-war-on-syria-washington-regime-change-and-resistance

After the lecture, I found a tiny little ice cream shop in the Old Damascus souk and thought about what the professor had said — in view of this latest Turkish invasion against Syrian Kurds.

No, Trump isn’t stupid. While on the surface he appears to finally be doing the Christian thing and pulling American troops out of Syria where they never belonged in the first place.

But Trump is acting stupidly — like a fox, a fox in the hen house. Not Christian at all. And the Syrian Kurds are his chickens. They were told that they weren’t but they are.

And Trump has just left the Kurdish hen house unlocked.

And yet…. And yet Americans seem to actually hate Trump for endangering the Kurdish chickens, right? But. When your goal is to turn all of independent wonderful Syria into Kentucky Fried Chicken, then leaving the Kurdish hen house unlocked is the wily thing to do. A Kurd is a Kurd, sure, but the bottom line is that a Syrian Kurd is still a Syrian.

And Trump the Fox is set on having President Assad for his Sunday dinner. How ironic. Right after he and Melania get back from church.

President Assad is a good guy who has been lied about and maligned by American media — both Left and Right. But it’s hard for most Americans to see the president of Syria as a good guy when Trump’s swamp in Washington can only see him as dinner.

To paraphrase what else Professor Anderson said in his lecture, “If chickens ever want to stay safe, they need to stick together.” For Christ’s sake, yes!

PS: At the university president’s reception, I was amazed and pleased when they served us Ferrero Rocher chocolates. See? The Syrian chickens have more in common with us American chickens than you would think.

“But what am I going to do with all this spoiled chicken in my refrigerator — and how in the freak can I watch TV?” 3,000,000 Californians are probably asking themselves this very question right now. Ha. Just get used to playing your own game of “Survivor”. Outwit, out play, outlast.

And don’t be surprised if a whole new bunch of babies are born nine months from now — as people run out of things to do without their iPhones.

But mainly, by playing Island of the Idols with 3,000,000 people’s lives (probably as payback for when Californians accused PG&E of starting some of those deadly wildfires last year), PG&E has made it abundantly clear to the world that now would be a really excellent time to have solar power instead.

To paraphrase the Pussycat Dolls, “Dontcha just wish you had solar power like me!?!”

The phone rang in my hotel room in Damascus the other day. “Get yourself down to the lobby ASAP!” said someone, not sure who. I dashed out the door, flew to the elevator, ran to the buffet table, grabbed up some tomatoes, feta cheese, hummus and tea. I was ready for anything!

And guess what I was ready for? Get outta town! Apparently President Assad himself was going to meet with us today — trade-union representatives from all over the world. Holy cow! This is some heavy-duty shite.

“He will shake your hand,” said the person next to me. “There will be high levels of security involved. In fact, an Israeli drone could even blow us all up!” What a hot story that would be for my blog — except that it won’t happen because a fortune-teller told me years ago that I’m not spozed to die for another nine years.

I just hope that I don’t blubber and drool.

And then suddenly we were all on the move. Out the front door of the conference center. Herded through security screening. Boarded onto a bus. Driven down the mountainside to downtown Damascus. Dropped off in front of Syria’s answer to the White House West Wing. Nice carpet. “There he is!”

And then here’s me, actually shaking hands with President Assad. “Thank you for saving Syria!” I exuded like some star-struck school-girl Beatles fan. And then the President of Syria spoke to our group.

“The conflicts here are unreal,” he said. “Not that they don’t exist but they are unreal in that they don’t express the real interests of the working people of the world’s countries. We here in Syria try to express the real interests of working people. That’s why I’m happy to meet with you today — because skilled workers represent the veins and the arteries of every society. If the working class is okay, the society is okay.” Except of course in America where they are treated like disposable peons and peasants. https://www.tcfrank.com/books/whats-the-matter-with-kansas/

“War is the most important challenge for us now. We’re trying to express the interests of the Syrian people — and for this we are paying a great price. And all through the rest of the world as well, even including conflicts in Ukraine and the South China Sea, the same foundation is represented — the conflict between workers and the wealthy. All the wars are linked to this conflict. All are interconnected.”

Sad but true. From Vietnam in the 1960s to Iraq, Ferguson, Venezuela, Yemen, Afghanistan, Palestine, Detroit, Flint and Honduras today, working people are getting screwed by the wealthy. Woodie Guthrie was right. https://greatsong.net/PAROLES-WOODY-GUTHRIE,PRETTY-BOY-FLOYD,109236733.html

“State presidents have become more like CEOs, working for corporations. And if they don’t pay the corporations, they will no longer be president. In one night alone, 250 million dollars of weaponry was fired on Syria.” Who profited from that? Trump had his marching orders for sure.

“And regarding France’s President Macon? The same thing happened. He gave the order to attack Syria and suddenly he is a hero! Elections are focused on financial interests alone. In countries across the world, there have been campaigns to weaken trade unions — so that the only ideology that remains is brutal globalization.” President Assad has been badly maligned by the Western media — solely because he refused to go along with this program. https://www.claritypress.com/product/axis-of-resistance-towards-an-independent-middle-east-2/

“For every ten dollars in profit, one study said that eight dollars goes to the world’s wealthy. This is a great failure because workers are not partners. CEOs get millions, hundreds of millions of dollars at the end of the year. The gap between producers and owners has widened.” No one in their right mind can deny this. https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/eye-popping-analysis-shows-top-one-percent-gained-21-trillion-in-wealth-since-1989-while-bottom-half-lost-900-billion/

“In the 1970s, the workers’ role in politics widened and they played a major role here in Syria. And then we got sanctioned and blockaded. We here in Syria have never been extremists. But everybody else was going toward privatization throughout the world and conditions for workers elsewhere got worse and worse.”

1970s? That reminds me. I owe President Assad an apology. I had believed that his father was a tyrant — but here in Syria I’ve been schooled with the truth. America hated Assad’s father because Hafez Assad also supported the working class. WTF? Even I had fallen for that cheesy American propaganda. Sorry about that.

“We currently have a vibrant private sector here in Syria but the workers also have a big role. We no longer have tourists or exports [due to America's proxy dirty "war" on Syria] but you can see that employees still get salaries. Education is free here, and so is healthcare.” Wow! I coulda had a free root canal on my sore tooth!

“People die for their country here because they are partners in this country — but we don’t think this [proxy invasion] will end any time soon, however, due to globalization processes.” If some strong-arm entity invaded America, would Americans drop all their petty differences, unite together and fight against the invader? Hard to say. We’ve already let global corporations invade us — gave up without a fight. But the Syrian people obviously have all joined forces and fought back. Good for them.

“When workers become real partners in governing, then our work is done. There are no conflicting interests when public interests become everyone’s interests. Terrorists and proxy terrorists will no longer exist.”

Then President Assad thanked us for visiting Syria during these difficult times. “Any questions? Please feel safe to speak freely.” What an opportunity! But then a lot of trade-union reps blew it by not asking actual questions but just describing themselves or making pretty speeches using diplomatic protocol. C’mon, guys! Ask a freaking question! President Assad is knowledgeable, friendly, amiable and approachable. Don’t pass up this magical chance! Don’t make me stand up and ask those questions myself!

Finally the union rep from Germany asked a question. “What about the international banking system? How does Syria find a role outside of that? Perhaps with the many other countries now being sanctioned?” Good question, German guy.

“We’re working on it. The United States is now also blockading itself.” Yep, that’s us — happily shooting ourselves in the foot by declaring economic war on so many other countries, spreading ourselves too thin by declaring yet another stupid “war” that, even though it is harming Syrians now, will in the long run hurt America more. In the future, nobody on the entire planet is gonna want to “friend” America.

“Most of the products we used to import from America, we now import from other countries. 20 years ago we would have been in trouble — but not now. It is a whole different world. A network of new relations and new systems. Russia is working on a new banking system for instance. With every country we trade with there is a different agreement with credit lines.”

I’ve run worn out at least two ballpoint pens in the past 24 hours alone. This is interesting stuff.

More union reps spoke. No more questions, however. Mostly just rhetorical stuff. But then Max Blumenthal stepped up to the plate. Oooh, this is gonna be good. “Why has the Syrian military not hit back after all the Israeli attacks?” Wow. He actually went there.

“There is a plan — America, France, Israel, etc. have cost us almost 50% of our army. We have done much but we still have significant steps. We need more deterrent capabilities. We did not have significant capabilities. They had material and capabilities but we have a long-range plan.” Yeah what! The American bullies picked on Syria just because they could — but at great cost Syria has actually fought back. American schoolyard bullies and their ISIS proxies weren’t expecting that. Humph.

And an Iranian union rep finally came up with a good question too. “What’s happening in Idlib and what about sanctions? How do you face sanctions?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz_7ZUmmTzQ&t=5s

“We will liberate every part of Syria,” the president answered. “The stages of our plan will continue to liberate us all. As for the U.S. airstrikes, they said that they attacked al Qaeda but they actually made attacks against us. Some Syrians have acted against their own country but most are highly patriotic. We can talk about a real victory, however, only when we can make independent decisions — but at this point the American financial powers are greater than in Europe so America is still the policy decider. As for sanctions, the U.S. still has a monopoly on technology. 10% of Air Bus parts are American.”

Syrians clearly love Syria under President Assad. For instance, over 390,000 Syrian refugees and some 1.3 million internally displaced persons have returned back home just since last year. They don’t want to hang out in Europe or Jordan or even Lebanon. They want to be safely back home with President Assad. They vote with their feet. https://thinkprogress.org/17-million-americans-purged-from-voter-rolls-between-2016-and-2018-new-report-finds-38c2c5c3124b/

“The next step should be restoring Syria’s infrastructure. We have a common vision. We can’t wait, can’t change anything by criticism….” I missed what President Assad said next because my translation transmitter just turned off. New transmitter. Problem solved.

“Workers’ unions are very active in Syria. They act as advocates. They are financially organized and cover all of the country even to the remotest village. They have excellent pension plans and give workers vacations and healthcare.”

In fact, before being cruelly invaded by American, Zionist and Saudi proxies, Syria was well on its way to being one of the most advanced countries in the world. I read somewhere that before America and its terrorist proxies invaded it, Syria was ranked number ten worldwide in something or other. Healthcare? Education? Good stuff like that.

Hell, the main reason that America demanded “regime change” in Syria seems to be that all those green-eyed monsters in DC simply got too jealous for their own good. “What’s mine is mine — and what’s yours is mine too.” It’s okay for toddlers think like that — but shouldn’t we expect more from our national leaders? Right now, President Assad is looking more and more like the kind of guy that we would like to have as a president. Not an “evil dictator” at all, President Assad actually is the working-class hero that Trump pretends to be.

And in another comparison, the U.S. House of Representatives is currently considering impeaching Donald Trump for some dumb-arse thing that he said in a phone call. But what about all the horrible and barbaric murders he committed in Syria? Or even his many deplorable crimes against America workers? How come no one is impeaching him for that? https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/trump-impeachment-civilian-casualties-war/

PS: While I was shaking hands with the honestly-elected President of Syria, someone took a photo of us. So. If anyone has a copy of said photo, pleeze let me know. Gotta hang it on my wall. Gotta put it on my FaceBook page!
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

In his latest book, The Management of Savagery, Max Blumenthal gently reminds us of the obvious — that savagery can never be managed. Once you let the monster out of the bag, it can never be put back inside again. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/14/syrian-network-for-human-rights-opposition-snhr/

This truism is clearly obvious to even the dimmest bulbs on the porch — unless of course you are either delusional or in charge of America’s foreign policy. “They may be monsters but they are our monsters.” I forget who said that. Perhaps Osama bin Ladin’s first American handler back in the good old mujaheddin days?
http://syria.trendolizer.com/2019/09/visit-to-syria-the-reality-our-media-wants-hidden.html

“I want to go to Douma and Yarmouk today,” I said to the desk clerk at my hotel in Damascus. “How can I get there? Take a taxi?”

“You could — but it would be expensive and take you over an hour each way. But why would you even want to go there?”

“To see the very place where the American media made up all those lies about President Assad using chemical weapons of course,” I replied. https://www.claritypress.com/product/axis-of-resistance-towards-an-independent-middle-east-2/

“We have a tour bus leaving for Maaloula in a half-hour. If you are desiring to see some war-torn ruins, that would be a good place to start.” Plus the tour bus was free. Sure. Sign me up. I got onto the bus.

“Maaloula is a rocky cliff-side town famous for its ancient Christian monasteries,” said our tour’s organizer. “Legend has it that St. Martha herself retired there in 40 A.D. Residents of Maaloula still speak Aramaic.” Geez Louise, this town is out in the middle of nowhere. How did Saint Martha even manage to find the place?

“During the proxy invasion of Syria, the Saudis, Americans and Zionists supported a gang of al-Qaeda-slash-ISIS ‘rebels’ who terrorized this town. See that arched gate over there? An ISIS suicide bomber blew it up first, and then ISIS berserkers rampaged throughout the city.” https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-eastern-syria-relies-isis/5672489

Don’t you just hate hypocrisy? When elected officials in Washington constantly claim ad nausea to be morally holier-than-us just because they name-drop the God-word on TV all the time — all the while secretly supporting al Qaeda and ISIS on the down-low? That’s totally un-Christian behavior.

But if Jesus ever had to make a choice between siding with Saint Martha and the Arab Christians of Maaloula or else siding with the heinous American, Saudi and Zionist criminals who support ISIS? It’s clearly a no-brainer who he would choose! And all those phony American “Christians” who always continue to elect and re-elect butchers like Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump? They ought to be ashamed of themselves. And Jesus is clearly ashamed of them too. https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-relationship-between-washington-and-isis-the-evidence/5435405

But I digress.

As our brave little bus slowly drove up the steep narrow winding streets of Maaloula, we could still see what was left of various bombed-out homes, shops and holy places, still clinging precariously to the cliff walls.

“Al Qaeda forces then asked their Saudi handlers what to do with the residents of Maaloula. ‘Kill them all,’ came the reply.” Even the U.S. media had a hard time pretending that these butchers were “rebels” and “freedom fighters” — but even the New York Times managed to pull it off. And NPR actually had the nerve to insinuate that these al-Qaeda-slash-ISIS “rebels” were actually saving some brutally kidnapped nuns, not holding them hostage. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/12/19/255548730/rebel-leader-nuns-were-led-to-safety-not-seized-in-syria

Our tour bus continued to wind its way up the steep hillside streets of Maaloula until we finally came to yet another bombed-out building on the mountaintop. “This used to be a nice hotel for pilgrims,” said our guide.

The bombed-out hotel was made even sadder by the sight of the twisted steel of partially-destroyed playground equipment in front of it. A mangled slide. A broken teeter-totter. Some metal springs that used to hold up bouncy plastic animals for kids to ride on — you’ve seen stuff like that in almost every park in America.

“I came here two years ago,” said one of the tourists in our group. “Much government-sponsored restoration work has been done on the monasteries and churches since then.”

And the pilgrims have also returned as well. I counted eleven huge tour buses parked outside the Melkite church and another eight tour buses parked outside St. Martha’s former monastery. “If you rebuild it, they will come.”

But wait! It’s hot outside. Is anyone selling ice cream in Maaloula? Yes?

Like Jesus resurrecting from the grave, this wonderful town is in the process of restoring itself. Thank goodness that ISIS is gone! The Saudis would never have let me eat ice cream. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29058214-the-dirty-war-on-syria-washington-regime-change-and-resistance

Managing savagery is an impossible task. Americans need to finally realize that and stop arming and training all of their barbaric al-Qaeda-slash-ISIS savages. But first things first. How do you say “ice cream” in Aramaic?

PS: I can never really take any of my fellow Americans’ petty complaints about their lives seriously any more — not after having seen all the pain and suffering that America’s dirty proxy “war” on Syria has brought to Maaloula.

The conference I’m attending in Damascus has been going on for over seven hours already. Approximately 200 trade-union delegates from all over the world had arrived here in order to express solidarity with their fellow trade unions in Syria.

However, unlike in America where corporate CEOs are the top guns and only teachers and nurses have enough cajones to go out on strike, workers’ unions in Syria are totally helpful and alive. For example, all of us delegates are staying in a massive four-star hotel whose usual purpose is to give hundreds of Syrian workers and their families a week-long all-expense-paid vacation destination.

Can you even imagine Walmart doing anything like that for its workers? Or Jeff Bezos? Ha.

I arrived at the conference hall early and grabbed a front row seat so I could see all the action. “You can’t sit there!” said another delegate who had also arrived early. “You’re not in a union!”

“The hell I’m not!” I exclaimed. SAG-AFTRA, bitches. Union Maid through and through.
But then a nice Korean union representative said I could have a seat next to him, a nice South African union rep also volunteered a seat for me and a nice union rep from Belfast patted my hand. Union solidarity forever! http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/democracy-dies-when-labor-unions-do.html

Seven hours of speeches later? The conference hall was starting to empty out. Only 50 or so delegates were left. “It’s time for you to make a speech, Jane.” Me? Oh, okay. I can do this! Slouching hesitantly up to the podium and bravely looking the last remaining 30-odd delegates in the eye, I began to do my best — and hoped that somehow it might be good enough.

“I had some other kinda cheesy speech prepared to give here today about my own wonderful union,” sez me, “but after seeing Damascus and talking with dozens of Syrians, I’ve changed my mind. I want to talk about America instead — and what, exactly, the Syrian people are actually up against. And how heroic you all are to take an almost-hopeless stand against the American killing machine.”

So far so good. No one has thrown me off the podium yet. No rotten tomatoes. I slogged on.

“21 trillion dollars. That’s how much debt the American government is in right now. It’s as if you went out to buy a car. A fancy car. A Maserati, let us say. And then you were told that no matter how much money you spend on this car, it doesn’t matter. Your credit card will never be maxed out. Your Visa card will always be good.”

At that point some of the delegates had actually stopped leaving. I cleared my throat and muscled on.

“This is what the Syrian people are up against. Bottomless wealth. But. It is a false wealth. It is an illusion, a fantasy. And yet the American people still cling to this unrealistic dreamland. But. America can’t be a global invader, an international empire, the world’s only superpower — not based solely on play money and plastic. America is just a house of cards.”

This speech is going on far too long. I expect Vanna White to suddenly come across the stage and cut me off at any moment — or Steve Harvey to slap his buzzer. But Chris Harrison didn’t come out to lead me tearfully away from the rose ceremony and so I continued.

“Making your average American aware of the fact that he or she is standing on an economic cliff, about to tumble over? That is the hard part for honest American journalists. No one ever wants to be told that they are about to commit economic suicide. But the bottom line here is that while economic sanctions do hurt Syria badly, please be aware that America is also sanctioning itself. 21 trillion dollars worth of sanctions. For which America may never recover.”

Is this speech ever going to end? Have I reached the five-minute mark yet? What the freak am I going to say next? And, even more important, am I going to get shot for treason when I get home — for pointing out that our American emperors have no clothes?

“We Americans here in Damascus must return to the Belly of the Beast itself and try to make Americans there aware of this false illusion. That has to be our next job. And one thing that seems to work well in fighting fake news and false propaganda is to pick just one talking point and stick with it. Such as ‘President Assad has kept Syria from becoming another Libya’. Sooner or later you will get your point across.” Or finally just give up. But hopefully not.

“Another technique that historic labor unions have used in the past to gain support for their cause has been to compose heart-wrenching songs such as The Ballad of Joe Hill. When you get a chance later, please google Joan Baez, Paul Robeson or ever Bruce Springsteen’s version of this song. And here’s my own version of it — sorry in advance for singing off-key.”

And then it was time for my big finale. Good grief, was I actually going to do this? Make a fool of myself in front of the remaining 30-odd delegates? The Korean guy had already left but the South African guy was still hanging in there. Here goes nothing. Break a leg! And why not. Syria has excellent free healthcare.

“I dreamed I saw the SAA [Syrian Arab Army] last night,
Alive as you or me. Says I ‘But guys you’re eight years dead.’
“We never died, said they.
“We never died,” said they.

“From Damascus in the south
To Iblib and Latak-e-aaa
Wherever workers organize
It’s there you’ll find the martyrs of the SAA
The martyrs of the SAA!”

Ye cats! People actually applauded! “And the Oscar goes to….” Oops, wrong dream. I just hope that Joe Hill and The Boss might be proud.

PS: I’m saving you the trouble of googling “Joe Hill”. Here are three different versions. You can thank me later.

Joan Baez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f2J4ceCikI

Paul Robeson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes

The Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2UF8yw89yE

PPS:  Did you know that Dubai is currently going all out, no holds barred, spending billions and billions of dollars on its fabulous new “Dubai World Expo 2020″ which starts this October — and yet the UAE just voluntarily allied itself with America’s rabid war-mongering regarding attacking Iran (always a bad idea — just ask the Iraqis).   https://www.expo2020dubai.com

     How can Dubai possibly expect to lure people into visiting its Expo 2020 when the UAE seems determined to hold it in the middle of a freaking war zone???  It makes no sense at all — but then nothing else that America, the Saudis, various European colonialists and/or the Zionists have done in the Middle East during the last 100-odd years has made any sense either.  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-pompeo-on-face-the-nation-secretary-of-state-says-attack-on-saudi-oil-plant-was-act-of-war-by-iran/

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater

After arriving at the Beirut airport on my way to Damascus for a conference of union representatives, I myself personally experienced just how much the Lebanese people totally hate and resent the presence of those pesky Zionists hovering around their southern border, always up to no good. https://syrianobserver.com/EN/news/28951/international_trade_union_conference_kicks_in_damascus.html

“We’ve beaten them twice already — and we can do it again,” said the Lebanese guy standing behind me in line while we waited to go through passport control. “They want to attack Iran? Ha! They can’t even beat Lebanon!” And that is so true.

After the Zionists sent a suicide drone to bomb Beirut recently, the Lebanese immediately did that eye-for-an-eye thing and returned fire on an Israeli military base. “But the Israeli soldiers had all run away in fear!” But I digress. Let’s get back to my passport-control story.

“You’ve got an Israeli stamp in your passport!” the Lebanese TSA guy exclaimed — and then started looking at me like I was some sort of Mossad agent.

“No, wait,” I replied. “It says ‘entry denied’ on top of that first stamp. See that second stamp? I was banned from entering ZionistLand. Honest!” http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/09/grilled-my-experience-at-israeli-border.html

“But you are an American citizen. They are required by law to let you in.” One would think so — after all the billions of dollars that American taxpayers donate to the Israeli killing machine very year. But, no. Didn’t happen. They’d stopped me at the border on my way to Bethlehem. Rumor has it that Jesus had not been pleased.

Then the TSA guy’s supervisor examined my passport. And then his supervisor’s supervisor examined it too. Multiple photocopies were made. Tears were almost shed. Finally I was let through. Whew.

After that, we drove off to Damascus and got stored in a four-star hotel until the conference here began. And the next day I toured Old Damascus. Narrow streets, friendly people, families out for a stroll in the warm night air — eating pizza by the slice.

And then I went off to a huge exhibition at the Damascus fairgrounds, attended by thousands of Syrians. A grand affair. Families and teenagers and cute little babies. Bouncy houses. Carnival rides. Exhibits. Even horses. I entered a dance-off competition — and almost won! If I do say so myself, I can do a mean twerk. But then some hip-hop dude beat me. Humph.

What’s my point here? It’s as if all of Syria had been holding its breath for eight long miserable years. Would President Assad protect them from the al Qaeda/ISIS “rebel” hordes? Or would America’s “humanitarian” coalition turn Syria into yet another sci-fi wasteland like Libya?

But here in Damascus, on this wonderfully warm late-summer night, it was as if all of Syria was friendly and happy and celebrating with joy that Syrians were now safe to walk in the street at night and go to school and hold down jobs and just be normal again. “Good job, President Assad.”

PS: The high cost of the American-slash-Zionist-slash-Saudi illegal invasion was brought graphically home to me at a border station between Lebanon and Syria. A middle-class-looking couple entered the building, looking to get their passports stamped so they could finally return safely to their home in Syria. A mother, a father, a nine-year-old daughter and a cute little six-month old baby. Perfectly normal, right? Wrong.

The nine-year-old held her baby sister and looked down at the baby with a loving look on her face — what was left of her face that is. A lot of her face had been chewed off by napalm or white phosphorus, including most of her nose.

And which countries that we know of routinely go around bombing children with white phosphorus? Suddenly I was ashamed to be an American. You would be too.

This young girl, almost my own granddaughter’s age, was trying very hard to be normal, a struggle that she would have for the rest of her life. America, is creating all this horror really worth it? Is oil all that important to the powers-that-be who now own our country? Obama? Bush? Trump? What if that had been one of your daughters instead?

PPS: Geez Louise, how did all this horrible murder and slaughter happen to Syria the first place? To the point where America actually hired al Qaeda and ISIS to bring “Democracy” to the Middle East? Let me tell you. In a word. Propaganda. We have all been seriously duped. https://www.claritypress.com/product/axis-of-resistance-towards-an-independent-middle-east-2/

Case in point? The Economist. Revered source of intellectual provenance, right? The Economist would never lie to us, right? And yet here is just one more torrid example of yellow journalism, taken straight from their website: “True to his slogan, [President Assad] destroyed whole cities and gassed and starved his own people. What rebels remain are holed up in Idlib province. It, too, will soon fall. Against all the odds, the monster has won.”

Uh, no. President Assad didn’t gas or starve anybody. Americans, Zionists, Saudis and their proxy “rebels” aka ISIS and al Qaeda did all that. Monster? Tell that to the hundreds of Syrians I just walked among as they celebrated life at a wonderful family fair in Damascus. The Economist would have a really hard time telling these Syrian front-row eye-witnesses that their president is a monster.

Hell, these happy families probably wouldn’t even be alive right now if America had actually conquered Syria.

I’m currently reading Jennifer Chiaverini’s best-selling novel, Resistance Women, a story of heroism and intrigue that takes place in Berlin back when Adolph Hitler was slowly but surely putting the screws on any kind of freedom in Deutschland — all the while claiming that a vicious fascist dictatorship will “make Germany great again”. https://www.newsweek.com/james-dyer-immigration-los-angeles-cbp-fake-news-1455947

It was both foolish and dangerous for anyone to resist Hitler’s Gestapo back then. “But couldn’t they have just formed a FaceBook group and protested that way?” you might ask. “Germans Against Injustice, Racism and War?” Sorry, not everyone had an iPhone back in 1936.

In any case, Jews were becoming an endangered species back when Hitler had his eyes focused on conquering Europe — just like Zionists have their eyes focused on conquering the Middle East today. And, sadly, it’s just about as dangerous to be a Christian or Muslim Arab right now as it was to be a Jew in Nazi Germany back in the 1930s. Pretty soon every Arab from Gibraltar to Pakistan will be ruthlessly herded into Greater Gaza and forced to wear a yellow crescent moon or yellow cross.

“Oh, but that will never happen in Saudi Arabia or the UAE or Kuwait or Qatar,” you might say. Yeah, right. Poland, Denmark, Norway, the USSR, Belgium and France thought that they too were safe from the Nazis back in the 1930s. And look what happened to them. Plus Saudi Arabia is no Switzerland either.

“Lebenstram!” shout the Zionists. But are they perhaps overestimating the rest of the world just like Hitler did? Might there be another Winston Churchill on tap in Iran? And Bashar Assad of Syria has already proved that he is no Neville Chamberlain. And high-powered Tehran is definitely no defenseless Warsaw.

And after having survived night after night of the Saudis’ terrifying bomb attacks, Yemen has become today’s version of London during the 1940-41 Blitz, its women and children bravely resisting Death from the air. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-intl/index.html

“We will fight them in the cities, in the hills, in the bazaars, in the Starbucks!”

PS: Netanyahu recently admitted that the Zionists have just bombed Damascus (again). Oops, that’s definitely bad news. Why? Not only because, like Hitler before him, Bibi is playing with fire, taking on too many offensives, pissing too many countries off around the world and risking having to actually use his famous Samson Option — but also because Netanyahu is pissing me off too.

Bloody hell.

I’m spozed to be in Damascus in two weeks — and if Bibi bombs my hotel, I’m gonna have to start taking this personally. “Jane’s going to Syria? Now’s our chance!” Is that what Mr. Netanyahu is thinking? https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-israel-on-high-alert-prepares-for-iran-retaliation-for-syria-strike-1.5990777

All I gotta say to that kind of back-talk is, “Bibi, go to your room! And no dinner and no GameBoy for you either — until you learn to behave.” And if one of your suicide drones murders me in my bed while I’m in Damascus, I’ll come back from the grave and order my heir who is an attorney to sue you for ten million dollars. “You murdered an American tourist, you idiot!” my heir’s Complaint will read.

OMG, America just bombed Syria too!  Am I going to have to send CENTCOM to bed with no dinner as well?  Apparently so.  If Zionists and Americans are gonna act like spoiled two-year-olds, then they need to be treated like them too.  https://www.rt.com/news/467732-us-airstrike-idlib-truce/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_firefox&utm_campaign=firefox

PPS: I’m also sick and tired of the MSM always ranting and raving on and on about “Assad is an evil dictator!” No he isn’t. His father was. His father was a corrupt bastard who tortured people in really grimy dungeons — and America just loved Assad Senior. The CIA constantly used Assad Senior’s dungeons themselves for illegal torture and rendition. It was a match made in heaven!

But then Assad Junior tried to stop all that — stop the torture, stop the corruption. “What?” moaned the CIA dolefully. “No more sleazy oil contracts? No more torture renditions?” And that’s when America turned on the son. http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/RobRothSyriaPrimer_v3.4.pdf

Books bring such pleasure into my life. While reading, I get to spend major time with some of the greatest human beings who ever lived — hours and hours with them. I love books!

But sometimes what these great authors have to say isn’t always so pleasant.

Currently I’m reading a book written back in 2005 — but it could easily have been written today. What’s the Matter with Kansas, by Thomas Frank. Absolutely nothing has changed in America since 2005. The average American is still trying to do the moral thing — and Wall Street and War Street have still managed to convince him or her that the truly moral thing to do is to hand over all our power and all our money to the global super-elites. That’s just weird. Are Americans still that gullible and masochistic? Apparently so.

The author says that the average voter in America in 2005 cared more about eliminating women’s reproductive choices than about healthcare, jobs, education or even life itself — just as long as there are no more safe abortions. And Americans still think that way. Would I myself vote for some guy who only promises to halt legal abortions — even if it means that I would die tomorrow of starvation, homelessness or lack of healthcare? Hmmm. No-brainer! I love food and a comfortable bed far too much!

But what happens to a fetus after it’s born? “Hey, that’s someone else’s problem.”

I’m also reading another book that was just recently published. America is better than this: Trump’s War Against Immigrant Families. Its author, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, painstakingly details many of the horrors inflicted on kids kept in freezing-cold cages at our southern border. “Inflicting trauma on children has become a political strategy.” https://www.twelvebooks.com/titles/jeff-merkley/america-is-better-than-this/9781538734186/

Americans are saving fetuses? And then imprisoning, raping, endangering, traumatizing and torturing children? Seriously? Where’s the disconnect here, America? What is missing in America’s morality?

It’s like going to church twice a week but ignoring everything that Jesus teaches us.

It’s like protecting embryos in their mothers’ wombs but setting the Devil loose on them after they are born.

It’s like turning morality on its head.

PS: I just heard Senator Merkley give a talk about his new book — and he also signed my copy personally! Now here is a man who has his moral priorities straight. I highly recommend his book. And reading it is probably the only way that I’m going to be able to spend several hours with a U.S. Senator too.

I don’t think I’ll be reading Mitch McConnell’s book any time soon, however. I can already imagine what it would be about. “I screwed the Senate. I screwed the American people. And I made a whole pile of money doing it too! God bless Jesus and amen.”

At his book-signing event, Senator Merkley wrote in my copy, “Let’s re-light Lady Liberty’s torch!” Yeah, duh. And let’s also re-light America’s soul-crushing need for genuine morality. Let’s stop buying the snake oil. Let’s do whatever we can to stop America from kidnapping, imprisoning, torturing, raping and traumatizing little kids.

While commuting back and forth to the recent American Bar Association convention in San Francisco, I dragged along Seth Rosenfeld’s 600-page tome, Subversives, so that I would have something to read on BART during the commute.

Rosenfeld spent years and years in court trying to force the FBI to surrender more than 250,000 pages of documents chronicling J. Edgar Hoover’s personal and highly illegal war on everyone in America who dared to think differently than him. What Hoover did back then was totally un-American and disgusting. And yet even today most of us are still brainwashed enough to allow the FBI building in Washington DC to continue to be named after this abdominal man.

Sidebar: Please sign my petition to rename the FBI building. Rename it for who? I don’t care. Just pick a name. Any honest and moral person in Washington will do — if you can find one! Here’s the link to my petition: http://chng.it/hQNbKVg8

America continues to honor that crook J. Edgar Hoover — yet no one will give a job to Colin Kaepernick? That’s just fracked up!

So when an honor guard presented the colors at the ABA’s final assembly of delegates and Robert Simms sang the national anthem, I too took a knee. Hey, you should try it sometime. Nothing I have done in this world makes me feel more patriotic — than when I am humbly down on one knee expressing my god-given right to dissent.

J. Edgar Hoover would have hated me.

ABA members, however, seemed to think I was doing the right thing — even if no one else joined me. It was that kind of convention. Lots of diversity.

More highlights from the convention: Did you know that cannabinoids are being legalized federally through a farm bill? Seems that farmers all want to grow hemp now that soy products can no longer be profitably sold to China. Even though Trump is eliminating tariffs on Apple products made in China, he’s still willing to screw both America’s farmers and the fan club who voted for him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zhUJE7heU8&feature=youtu.be

I also learned that the concept of judicial review is not written into the Constitution. And also that “If we want true justice, we need to make sure that everyone receives equal justice.” So true. And we were also reminded of what Justice Sotomayor said about being diplomatic. At the end of the day, she still has to work with the other eight justices at least 40 hours a week — so they all do need to be polite to each other. Americans also need to learn not to [poop] in their own nests as well. And, like it or not, in these intense times of horrific war-mongering and terrifying climate-change escalation, the entire world is now our nest.

The Chief Justice for our heroic Ninth Circuit federal court also spoke. The Ninth Circuit is famous for holding out in favor of justice over politics. No judge on the court dares to retire for fear that he or she will be replaced by one of the Koch brothers’ flying monkeys. “Justice is not a spectator sport.”

At another panel, attorneys talked bout Trump v. Hawaii. “The courts must hold the government’s feet to the fire — even with regard to national security.” The Nazis were held accountable at Nuremberg. Americans should be held accountable too. “In times of crisis people may say, ‘Oh this is different’ — but it is not.”

Tell that to J. Edgar Hoover’s evil ghost! And take his damn name off the FBI building in DC while you’re at it too.

PS: The ABA President’s Reception was held at the Contemporary Jewish Museum — which had an exhibit called “Dark Matter,” extolling the virtues of Black America’s street culture. Ha! Tell that to the Palestinians whose “Street Culture” is being systematically murdered back in ZionistLand.

But the rest of the museum was nice. And it would be unjust of me to equate Jews with Zionists. Jews honor justice. Zionists honor…not sure if they honor anything at all. No wonder Trump and Netanyahu get along so well. They both take a knee to self-aggrandizement.

PPS: Many people compare Donald Trump to Adolph Hitler. Same rhetorical style, same appeal to his minions’ base immorality. But I myself compare Trump to Herbert Hoover (as well as J. Edgar) because of Trump’s arse-kissing attitude toward the rapacious global elite and also because of his “Let them eat cake” attitude toward America’s salt of the earth in the face of our upcoming Great Depression II. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zhUJE7heU8&feature=youtu.be

“So what can we do to prevent this oncoming juggernaut of war, famine, death and pestilence?” you might ask. Our small, individual acts of defiance against injustice really do matter. Whenever you see injustice, for Christ’s sake take a knee. Be patriotic!
__________________________________________

Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

At the recent American Bar Association annual convention in San Francisco, I managed to come up with several burning questions. For instance, why are they serving us giant pretzels? It’s San Francisco, for crying out loud. Shouldn’t we be getting crab salad and sourdough instead?

And here’s another burning question. “When the ABA showed us the film And Then They Came for Us regarding the 1940s illegal concentration camps for Japanese-American citizens, why did the rows and rows of barracks in the movie remind me so much of the rows and rows of barracks in the current concentration camps at our southern border?”
https://www.thentheycamedoc.com/

And my next burning question? “If Japanese-Americans were incarcerated illegally because they were accused of being a threat to national security, then how come that threat was never proven?”

According to an ABA panel that spoke on this subject the other day, the answer is, “Hell, no!” A threat was never proven and, in fact, what was proven later was that our government had actually even doctored the evidence. Even that freak J. Edgar Hoover said that Japanese-Americans never posed a threat to America.

So. Next burning question. “Do the Honduran refugees who are legally seeking asylum at our southern borders actually pose a threat to America’s national security — or is this just another trumped-up charge?” I think that asylum seekers are getting a bum rap. And apparently the ABA thinks so too.

Who in their right mind can possibly prove that two-month-old babies are a clear-and-present danger to America’s national security? Nobody can.

But if two-month-old babies actually do pose such a huge threat to America’s national security, then why the freak is our government spending 800 billion dollars a year on nuclear weapons, tanks and killer drones to defend us against babies? Get real. Shouldn’t they be spending all that money on diapers and cradles instead?

Another interesting thing that I learned from this ABA panel was with regard to the Rule of Law. “The Rule of Law isn’t as important than the content of that Rule.” Nazi Germany was famous for its extensive Rule of Law. GWB followed his own Rule of Law. Obama and Clinton instigated NATO’s phony “humanitarian” Rule of Law in their illegal invasions of Syria and Libya and just look where that got us. And Donald Trump’s so-called Rule of Law? Yeah, right. I rest my case! https://unac.notowar.net/2019/08/09/another-perspective-on-middle-east-peace/

PS: The Themis Bar Review gave out some really awesome free ballpoint, pens, the bar association’s Criminal Justice Section hosted an excellent buffet and the ABA itself scored us tickets to a Giants vs. Phillies game!

“Eat your vegetables,” our mothers used to tell us when we were kids — but all we really wanted to eat was birthday cake! And mostly just the frosting. “That’s no way to be healthy,” said Mom.

Unfortunately it seems like the handful of wealthy movers and shakers who run our world also think like these little kids as well. “All we want is something that will produce high interest rates,” they cry — and then bang their spoons on their high chairs too.

But these wealthy .001% elite people have been clearly blindsided by greed. “Let them eat cake” is all they can think. https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4097-giants

And to their narrow vision, the only things that produce high enough interest rates are only Wars and Walls. No one can live for long on that kind of a diet. Not the CitiBank-Chase-Wells-Fargo types. Not the military-industrial complex. Not even Wall Street. And certainly not Marie Antoinette. Eat your veggies, guys!

You can still get good interest rates by investing in solar power, infrastructure, a Green New Deal — even in higher education and MediCare for all. It would be a win-win situation. “Where’s the fun in that?” Just ask Marie Antoinette.

PS: If interest rates based on Walls and Wars are as unhealthy as cake, then perhaps the wealthy .001% should pursue happiness instead — like the Declaration of Independence tells us. High interest rates will never make the elite happy — and never build strong muscles, teeth and bones either.

PPS: Have you guessed by now that the main purpose of Trump’s fake Wall isn’t to keep asylum-seekers out? And that his cruel prison camps for babies aren’t to keep America safe either? The .001% elite could care less about any of that. The main purpose of the Wall and the concentration camps are to make money — but not money for people like us.

PPPS: To quote RuPaul, “Some people are so poor, all they have is money.” No conscience, no humanity, no soul. Even young Honduran mothers trapped in cages at our southern border have more abundance than the elite .001%.

And here’s what journalist Steve Fournier has to say about the recent NRA-sanctioned murders in Gilroy, Dayton and El Paso:

“It’s not what we’re about,” said the mayor of El Paso, Texas, after a young white guy shot down a crowd of dark-skinned shoppers with a military-style rifle. Actually, this is what we’re about.

Shooting, bombing, and otherwise terrorizing dark-skinned people is our stock in trade. We kill them in Iraq. We kill them in Libya. We kill them in Yemen. We’re OK with that. Ask any newsman. Ask your candidates for office. Anybody out there want to end the killing? One presidential candidate had the gall to suggest that the USA might be blameworthy in some way for the wars it wages — this was before the latest shootings — and the newsmen came down on her like a ton of [poop]. https://www.tulsi2020.com/

You can comb published reports of the latest massacres, and you’ll find no mention of the wars we’ve been waging without pause for the last 20 years. The latest two mass murderers never knew a time when their nation was not dropping bombs on people in faraway lands. Does the question not occur to the media: if it’s OK that we, as a nation, employ soldiers to kill black and brown people as a matter of policy in distant countries, isn’t it also OK for individuals to take up arms, on our behalf, and do the same here? ”

“Gun control” won’t help us with this problem, and neither will improved mental hygiene. You want to prevent mass murder, quit killing people. www.currentinvective.com

There was so much to see and do in Philadelphia. Who knew? I stayed in a fourth-floor walk-up in Chinatown and ate beef chow fun at M-Kee, an old-school hole-in-the-wall straight outta Shanghai. Then there was Mueller’s Amish bakery for dessert (no, not that Mueller) at the Reading Market. They surely don’t skimp on the sugar. https://www.yelp.com/biz/m-kee-philadelphia

There is a science museum in Philadelphia with a planetarium and an old locomotive train as big as a house — or even bigger. 350 tons of cast iron, looking pretty much like Darth Vader. I took a whole bunch of photos of it because I couldn’t even believe it was real! After avoiding a whole bunch of food trucks selling cheese steaks, I visited Philly’s fancy wedding-cake and rococo City Hall next. You gotta see it to believe it. https://www.fi.edu/exhibit/train-factory

What should I do next? WWBFD? What would Benjamin Franklin do? Wander over to the Historic District, of course. I even splurged and bought a T-shirt at the Independence Hall gift shop that had a picture of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton crossing Abby Road and singing, “We all want a Revolution….” So appropriate for today — although I would be willing to settle for just a Green New Deal. And perhaps an impeachment or two. Oh, and fair elections that haven’t been gerrymandered and tampered with by the Repubs, Google, FaceBook, the DNC, the Saudis and AIPAC. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/02/empire-coming-for-tulsi-gabbard/

But the jewel in the crown of downtown Philly was definitely the Barnes Foundation — where they are sitting on at least a billion dollars worth of French Impressionist paintings. My jaw just dropped. Dropped! One gallery alone contained a Picasso, several Monets, a few Cezannes, several Van Goghs, a Modigliani and two or three Degas. And that was just one gallery out of twenty. Apparently this Barnes guy got on the band-wagon early and was able to buy up all these paintings for cheap. Wish that had been me. https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/collection

And then things got real. I took the #23 bus out to North Philly and then transferred to the #60 bus for another two miles. Why? Because I had just finished reading Elizabeth Acevedo’s latest novel and she had mentioned at Puerto Rican restaurant named “Freddie and Tony”. Solidarity with Puerto Rico! At least they have the cajones down there to actually stage a revolution when things get too corrupt. http://www.acevedowrites.com/about

The bus ride was worth it. While the pork chops were a bit over-cooked, the homemade flan was dreamy. And I also got to take a look at the Other Philly — home of closed schools, used-tire lots, food stamps, dollar stores, high unemployment, homelessness and broken-down cars. Not exactly the type of place you would go in the “Pursuit of Happiness” but folks in North Philly made do. Good for them.

Downtown Philadelphia was beautiful, wonderful and historic as hell. North Philly just looked like the rest of America — just trying to get by.

It’s time for us all to follow the example of Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Washington — and Puerto Rico — and also demand an end to corruption in our current federal government as well.
__________________________________________

Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

 

Recently 5,000 delegates from all over America attended a Netroots Nation convention in Philadelphia — and one of those delegates was me. And the proudest moment of that entire convention was when all 5,000 of us took to the streets and marched on City Hall to protest the fact that Honduran babies and little kids were being kept in cages like criminals — not only at our southern borders but also even right here at Philadelphia’s Berks Detention Center — right in the beating heart of the City of Brotherly Love.

Remember back several years ago when football player Michael Vick became a national villain when he was accused of being mean to dogs and keeping them in cages? Nation-wide outcry! “Vick is mean to dogs!”

But now, when our very own government goes about caging human children, where is the outcry? Vick is a villain — and yet Trump is a hero? Vick cages 50 dogs and get punished for it — but Trump cages thousands of children and gets completely away with it? Say what?

After the protest march, I trudged off through the streets of Philly, just soaking in the ambiance of all that historic “Cradle of Freedom” stuff. At Independence Hall, I met up with my guide for a walking tour of where Black history also took place back during Revolutionary times — and right there in the very center of the Cradle of Liberty itself, our tour group stumbled upon a sweet, idealistic and hopeful group of young middle-school girls, standing next to the very place where John Hancock had signed the Declaration of Independence. And these girls were holding up signs protesting the caging of children in America today.

Wow!

My first thought at seeing those signs was, “Geez Louise, America has really degenerated from fighting for Philadelphia Freedom in 1776 to behaving like Nazis in 2019.”

But by the time the Black History tour ended, I sadly realized that America had always kept kids in cages. This current atrocity of keeping kids in cages was actually nothing new. Our heroic ancestors had caged Black children first.

Then our guide took us off to see a statue of Robert Morris, the man who almost single-handedly financed the American Revolution. “He got his wealth by kidnapping people from Africa, submitting them to the horrors of the Middle Passage and then selling them on the auction block here.” And Morris treated Black children even worse than Michael Vick treated his dogs. Much worse.

So I wrote the word “Slaver!” on a Post-it note and pasted it onto the base of Morris’s statue, telling the whole world the truth about him. But then someone told me that there were cameras all over that area, spying on us tourists — so I went back and took the Post-it note down. So much for freedom of speech anywhere near Independence Hall.

Next our tour group moved off to Washington Park. “5,000 slaves died in Philadelphia during the infamous yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Many of them are buried right here. In unmarked graves. You are standing on them right now.”

5,000 slaves. 5,000 Netroots Nation protestors. Maybe we have come a long way toward Freedom after all. Let us hope.

PS: I just read where one Honduran mother had been finally reunited with her 14-month-old baby after 85 days, only to discover that her infant was covered with — wait for it — lice! Yuck. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/migrant-baby-returned-to-mom-covered-with-lice-lawsuit_n_5b401388e4b07b827cc07d3c

What kind of sick storm-trooper mentality allows those in charge of such hellholes as slave markets, Dachau, Abu Graib, Gaza and America’s southern border to even begin to think that their behavior is acceptable?

It’s the herd mentality.

“If the guy next to me is happily kidnapping babies, then it must be okay for me to also kidnap babies too.” Just google the “Stanford Prison Experiment” to see how that works — or never mind. I’ve googled it for you. https://www.psychologistworld.com/influence-personality/stanford-prison-experiment

Let’s get this straight. No matter what kind of weird shite the guy next to you is up to, it is never okay to be a mean sadistic bastard. History has proved this time and again. So. Let’s stop all this criminal inhumane madness. Stop it now. Or else history will be walking over our graves as well.

While walking down a busy street in Philadelphia the other day after attending the Netroots Nation convention, I rounded a corner and there was Bernie Sanders — giving a speech to a crowd of protestors who were angry because their only accessible hospital was being torn down by a Los Angeles developer in order to make way for said developer’s upscale condominium project. “800 pregnant women are going to have no place to give birth,” said Bernie. And cancer patients who are in the middle of receiving their chemo treatments will be thrown out on the street, death swirling around their poor sweet hairless heads. Yikes!

At the Netroots Nation convention itself, I had a wonderful time, learned a lot about politics and even came back home with a bunch of free ballpoint pens. What’s not to like! I even got to hear Senator Warren, Governor Inslee, Mayor Castro, Senator Gillibrand and most of “The Squad” speak (AOC couldn’t make it). And I’m here to tell you that Ilhan Omar can really walk fast. She covered the space between the speakers’ platform and the elevator in an even shorter time than it takes The Donald to tweet out yet another blatant hit on our morality and our paychecks.

I also went to a Netroots symposium put on by the LGBTQ community — wherein I learned just how nice, vulnerable, friendly and well-informed that Queers can be. They took me under their wings, opened my eyes, gave me a glimpse into how life in the Gay Lane can be — and even provided free lunch. Philly cheese steaks. Never had it before. Never want to have it again. Shredded beef slathered with Velveeta? No thank you. Even if it is free.

I was also lucky enough to hear Ilhan Omar speak to a small roomful of conference attendees and then take questions after. I, of course, just had to ask a question too. But which one? There are so many questions these days. Death in the Middle East, death in the gulags at our southern border, death in our homeless encampments, death by fire and flood due to climate emergencies….

I got up to the mic, cleared my throat and said, “700 billion dollars a year to the Pentagon. Seven billion people on Earth. Do the math. Let’s give each and every one of us a thousand dollars per year instead of wasting all that money on murder and bombs! Every single year. 1,000 dollars in our pockets. Then and only then will America be safe!” Who would want to harm the goose that is laying all these golden eggs for everyone?

But was that an actual question?

C’mon, Jane. Think of an actual question. Ilhan Omar herself is listening! But I was drawing a blank. Finally I just blurted out, “The Syrian people love President Assad because he kept their country from becoming another Libya!” Now where did that come from? Then I turned to the room and cried “He-e-e-e-e-l-p!!” Help us, Netroots Nation. Help us, Rep. Omar. Help us, all you moral Americans and moral people of the world who are kind people and have good hearts. Help us from being destroyed by greedy billionaires, condo developers, racists and murderous war mongers who just love to create collateral damage.

But then at least I didn’t totally embarrass myself by screaming “Blue Meanies!”

After my impassioned plea, however, someone came up to me later and started ranting that Assad was a dictator who bombed a million of his own people. No, he didn’t. America, the Zionists and the Saudis did that — with a little help from their “rebel” friends in al Qaeda. “It’s well-documented,” I added. Boy, did that piss this person off. Wrong answer. I finally managed to escape to the restroom to lick my (psychological) wounds. https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-waiting-for-new-idlib-offensive-us-continues-to-provide-syria-rebels-with-weapons-and-military-supplies/5683916

Later, in downtown Philly, I got to chatting with a young U.S. Marine. “I will be deploying to Syria in August,” he said. What? See? I was right! It is those pesky Americans who are causing trouble in Syria. I rest my case! But at least he doesn’t have to worry about being bombarded with Philly cheese steaks over there. They don’t have cheese steaks in Syria! Yet. But let’s just wait and see what else the Blue Meanies are gonna be up to after August.

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

Wait, what? Pharmaceutical companies now have vaccine commercials running on our TVs — right next to all those other phony drug propaganda campaigns? “Ask your doctor if this vaccine is right for your child….” Except now there’s another weird twist to their game.

At the end of all those other drug commercials that we are forced to watch, there comes a point where some trust-worthy-sounding voice-over guy is spozed to tell us what the side-effects are. You know what I’m talking about, right? And yet what actually follows in Big Pharma’s new vaccine commercials is just dead airtime. Total silence. What? No side effects are even mentioned? No side-effects even exist? Nothing could ever possibly go wrong? Really? Not even an “Ouch” from your baby? How can that possibly be?

It’s because our very own CDC has actually passed a law telling us that vaccines never have to list their side-effects. Never. Huh? https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article24913978.html

But does objecting to all this new false reality automatically make me one of those ostracized media-lepers with the dread label of “Anti-Vaxxer”? No, no, no and no. Truth be told, I actually sort of like vaccines.

So many horrible and deadly diseases have been prevented due to the wonderful invention of vaccines. If they had been around at the time of Columbus, for instance, approximately 20 million “New World” natives wouldn’t have died painfully from small pox.

And just imagine how different medieval Europe would have been if GlaxoSmithKline, Merck or Pfizer had just come up with a vaccine against Black Plague back in the day.

And the reason that I myself haven’t spent most of my life vegetating in some gross Iron Lung or limping around with a withered arm or shrunken leg is because someone invented a polio vaccine.

However, my own polio vaccine was administered orally. And my small pox vaccine was administered topically. But that was old-school For most vaccines nowadays you get shots — shots that go directly into your bloodstream. 72 different doses of injected vaccines are currently required for our babies and little kids alone. 72 doses going directly into their cute little bloodstreams, each one swimming in a preservative usually consisting of aluminum, formaldehyde and one of the main ingredients in “Round Up”.

That’s gotta hurt.

But, wait. That’s not even anywhere near the end of us getting shot up. There’s even more shots to come! Now the pharmaceutical industry informs us that we also gotta have a measles booster every five years and a flu shot every winter for the rest of our lives.

None of that bothers me however. I’ve already been given the polio vaccine and the small pox vaccine. And I’ve already actually had the mumps, chicken pox and measles. I don’t need flu shots because I never get the flu. I’m good. I never have to be injected with sleazy vaccine fillers and preservatives for the rest of my life. The pharmaceutical industry hates people like me. We are not their gift that keeps on giving.

But our children and grandchildren are.

And apparently Americans can live with that.

But suppose — just suppose — that those gross fillers and preservatives in vaccines do cause autism, altzheimers, eczema, multiple sclerosis, androgyny, Parkinson’s, ADHD, increased auto-immune diseases, the sudden and weird increase in “childhood cancer” and a whole list of other health issues that have cropped up so heavily since 1989, the year that Congress allowed vaccine manufacturers to become far less regulated and leashed. Shouldn’t we be just a little bit upset that no research is being done on possible side effects? That we just take Big Pharma at its word? Seriously? https://thevaccinereaction.org/2019/06/a-nation-where-half-of-the-children-become-autistic/

Everyone gets their knickers all in a twist because certain breakfast cereals may contain a Round-Up ingredient — yet no one seems to care when we pump this same dangerous ingredient into our babies’ bloodstreams? What’s up with that? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glyphosate-breakfast-cereal-still-contains-roundup-ingredient-study-finds/

And we are all sternly warned not to cook with aluminum foil due to health risks — and yet aluminum is still a major preservative in those vaccines that are shot right into our helpless babies’ veins on the very day they are born and then for the rest of their lives — but nobody seems to mind about that either? We live in a very strange world. https://www.healthyandnaturalworld.com/aluminum-foil-risks/

But even if Congress actually did force Big Pharma to finally allow science to actually do any research on the side-effects of vaccines’ preservatives — and even if this research did prove that Round-Up, aluminum and formaldehyde actually did have side-effects when shot directly into the human bloodstream, none of this research would effect me. I’m safe. Your babies aren’t safe. You yourself aren’t safe. But I am. I’ll never be required to get another shot. Or be guilt-tripped, shamed or brainwashed into getting any more shots either.

Vaccine fillers and preservatives are truly the gifts that keep on giving — to Big Pharma only, over 60 billion dollars in profits recently. But all we get are…shot.

Shouldn’t we be doing something about this disaster? If nothing else, for instance, let’s demand that pharmaceutical companies invent vaccines we can swallow instead of getting shot with. Chocolate flavored vaccines? Sure, why not.

PS: Let’s suppose, just suppose for one minute, that the rapid increases in all these miserable diseases that currently effect us actually are the result of all those yucky fillers and preservatives gleefully administered to you in a constant life-long parade of vaccine shots? Drug companies would be (and are) totally delighted with that situation too. Now almost every single red-blooded American in this great land will now constantly require ADHD medications, eczema creams, Alzheimer pills, heart medications and on and on and on. Endlessly. Drug profits through the roof! Better run out and buy stock.

PPS: I actually have done some of my own personal (sort of) scientific research on this subject. For instance, one of my daughters received the MMR vaccine and immediately developed eczema — which she still has to this day, 30 years later. Yuck. https://thevaccinereaction.org/2019/06/another-mmr-failure-with-mumps-outbreak-in-florida/

Further personal research:  I also gotta confess that I actually did get vaccinated a few more times — with disastrous results.  When I went into the Peace Corps back in 2009, they forced me to get a whole bunch of shots. “Either that or you go home.” Oh. Okay. Just like all those thousands of American soldiers who were forced to get all kinds of shots during Bush Senior’s dirty little Gulf “war” — and who later got all kinds of horrible life-long reactions as a result.

The good news? Thanks to the Peace Corps I am now theoretically protected from catching rabies, hepatitis A and B, meningitis, diphtheria and tetanus — plus I also shot up with vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella and polio (which I’d already had) for good measure. The bad news? I passed out cold after each shot — and then became so disoriented over the next few months that they had to ship me back home anyway.  It was almost like having Altzheimers — or being autistic.