BartBlog

Thanksgiving is coming up pretty soon, right? Pilgrims and Indians, turkeys and pumpkin pies. So now might be a good time to ask ourselves, “Why did the Pilgrims come over here in the first place?” Let us review.

It was cold and wet and rainy on Plymouth Rock back in 1621 and there was no WalMart and no AirBnB. Pilgrims must have been out of their minds to come here! So why did they come? Pilgrims came here because Britain was a hot mess back in the day.

Today, Americans just love to go visit Merry Old England and I myself totally look forward to the annual San Francisco Dickens Christmas Faire every year. But Britain wasn’t like that back when the Pilgrims left it — way before Prince what’s-his-name married Kate Middleton.

No, the Pilgrims left Britain because they were forced to. It was a matter of life and death. They were basically refugees. And a whole bunch of other refugees from all over Europe followed them here later — and America became a huge melting pot of ideas, cultures and religions.

But now the New World’s melting pot has moved to Toronto. Everywhere I look here, I see people from foreign lands who, like the original Pilgrims, also came to seek refuge from the craziness of their former homelands. But there is a really big difference between the 1621 Pilgrims and the 2017 Toronto refugees — and the difference is clear. https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Syria-US-and-UK-Illegally-Supplied-Chemical-Weapons-to-Proxies-20170818-0006.html

Every single refugee in Toronto (and there are thousands and thousands of them from all over the entire world) is here in Toronto today for one reason and one reason only: Because their own home country has been systematically attacked, invaded, bombed, infiltrated, irradiated, impoverished, stolen and/or devastated by the USA. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48026.htm

PS: Back in 1620, American Indians were perfectly happy to live where they lived — until the Europeans came, that is. Not such a hot Thanksgiving for them, now was it? More like a Halloween.

Here’s a poem I just wrote:

Hurricanes, wildfires and floods — oh my!
“Help Help Help!” you mournfully cry.
“You’re on your own,” our corporatized government replies.
“We gots other uses for your dollar supply.”

Wait, what? Exactly what other uses are our corporatized government talking about? “Don’t we pay out our hard-earned tax dollars so that our government will have enough money saved up to be able to help us out in emergencies like these — sort of like paying into an insurance policy and then expecting a return?” You might think that. And you would be wrong.

Fire destroyed your home? Obsessed gunmen shot up your kids? Floods made a wreck of your new carpet? Hurricanes stole your front porch? Too bad for ya. All your tax dollars have gone off to Wall Street and War Street. None left for you. Get over it. www.workers.org/2017/10/10/why-u-s-and-saudi-arabia-back-rohingya-in-myanmar/

Currently, our tax dollars are going almost exclusively toward making

America’s billionaires even richer than they now are. “Crazy Rich Americans.” Sorry, but you ain’t never gonna get your hands on that $$$ again — even though it was originally yours in the first place. Trickle-up economics. Sucks to be you.

And it sucks to be living in the Middle East too, BTW. Americans now look on in horror at the brutal firestorms raging through NorCal. And yet nightmare firestorms like these are an everyday occurrence in places like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc. — thanks to America’s very own masters of “war”.

PS: I’m up here in Toronto at a convention of murder-mystery readers and writers. But there’s really no great mystery about who is murdering America’s national budget. See above.

PPS: Toronto is the ultimate melting pot for all kinds of races, ethnicities and cultures. “There are at least 120 languages spoken here,” someone just told me. I didn’t even know that there even were 120 languages.

“And Toronto is one of the safest cities in the entire world.” Muslims on every street corner, Blacks and Asians everywhere you look — as well as a hecka lot of White people. And everyone gets along just fine.

And the police here don’t need or want to dress up like Robocops and/or ride around in tanks. And nobody here tries to blow up anything or shoot up stadiums or schools either.

So what’s my point? How come, after America spends so much money making “war” on so many countries on the other side of the globe, that somehow America’s “wars” always seem to come home to roost in America? Perhaps Canadians have a better idea.

https://jpstillwater.blogspot.ca/2017/10/disaster-victim-need-help-too-bad-for.html

“How exactly does one go about writing a book,” you might ask. It’s easy. Write about something you know. Write 500 words a day until you have a whole bunch of pages. Get it published. Sit back and be all proud of yourself. But then comes the fun part — throw yourself an online book-launch party including digital confetti, digital balloons and even digital cake! Then invite all of your friends.

Yes, I really did just finish writing my very first murder-mystery. Yes, it is now available on Amazon and Kindle. Yes, it has a hot new cover photo of me being far ahead of the current punk trend by dying my hair black, way back in 1965 (Abby on NCIS eat your heart out). And, yes, the book is reasonably priced. And interesting. And fun. Do please buy it now.

Buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Trip-Damascus-Jane-Stillwater/dp/1548204730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507138636&sr=1-1&keywords=road+trip+to+damascus

PS: I’ll soon be leaving for this year’s BoucherCon book convention in Toronto, and will be trying to get all the murder-mystery lovers there to buy my book too. Wish me luck. http://bouchercon2017.com/

PPS: Here’ the blurb on the back of my book:

How in the world can we expect a relatively naïve (and unarmed) soccer mom from suburban Virginia to be able to take on the meanest and most powerful super-villain in history—and then actually live to tell the tale? And how can she also find time to search across the entire planet for a missing physics professor on the run for his life? And can she also get her kids to soccer practice on time….

As Marcy travels from city to city across the globe while desperately attempting to save Professor Ayyad and his earth-shattering new discovery that could change the international balance of power forever, our heroine is obviously into this mix way over her head.
These daunting tasks seem impossible for Marcy to accomplish—as she struggles to survive a dangerous mission that resembles playing “Where’s Waldo” with the Devil. But unfortunately she is the only person available who can save the professor, bring down an evil empire and even return to suburban Virginia before anyone in her family notices that she is gone.

“Black Lives Matter” is a slogan that is frequently used in America today. But do Black lives really matter in America right now? Probably not. http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/46084-we-should-have-seen-trump-coming

And also, do Arab lives in the Middle East matter either? Clearly not. https://consortiumnews.com/2017/08/21/covering-up-the-massacre-of-mosul/

But what about all those rich dudes in Saudi Arabia? Will all their crazy-rich moola save them from ultimately being seen as just a better-dressed version of “raghead” by the West, where Islamophobia is rank? Do Saudi lives really matter? Or are the Saudis only there to serve Western leaders their sweet tea before being sent back out to pick cotton again?

PS: Between the massacres in Yemen, Gaza, Mosul, Raqqa and Las Vegas as well as the callous treatment of victims of Irma, Maria and Harvey, one beings to wonder if any human life matters any more. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-end-of-empire/
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books — thus helping me support my addiction to Justice and Truth. http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html

Plus my latest book, a thrilling murder mystery entitled “Road Trip to Damascus” is now available! https://www.amazon.com/Road-Trip-Damascus-Jane-Stillwater/dp/1548204730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506708458&sr=1-1