17: One Liners Starring Rick Thomas & Co-Starring the American People

A New Rick Blog Podcast, 10/10/17: It’s a Strategy

10/10/17: it’s a Strategy

Mercer is top of the Fascist food chain. Bannon is the strategist. Trump is a puppet.

Mussolini was laughed at until dissent and laughter stopped.

Pence goes to oppose First Amendment at a football game. Eventually the national gag order will be enforced.

Trump requires obsequiousness from his Cabinet — the praise is not only about ego. It is about power. A personality — one guy — represents all authority. Of course Trump is a straw man. He is a spokesperson for Mercer’s power as orchestrated by Bannon. Scalia and Citizens’ United paved the way for a national takeover by one Plutocrat.

Nazis marched again in Charlottesville last weekend and the demonstration goes largely unnoticed.

The “base” — your neighborhood fascists — is even more “angry” — Judge Roy Moore wins in Alabama, Eric “Blackwater” Prince is going after Barasso in Wyoming — Bannon is going after the whole Republican Party in a hostile takeover — a Trump loyalty test is required — Republicans resigning and folding.

Future elections are completely compromised. Russian interference continues, is proven and is unchecked.

This is another inflection point where Mercer, Bannon, Trump and Putin should be stopped.

This isn’t a matter of signing petitions and writing your Congress persons.

We are in the middle of a slow-moving and accelerating coup. We should be in the streets demanding that this government should stand down now — immediately.

But we won’t go into the streets because consciousness of what we are up against is not nearly high enough.

We will win eventually, we always do when it comes to this, but life is going to truly suck — our day-to-day lives. This is what I’ve been about from the beginning.

I don’t want to live in a fascist country.

Mueller is a ray of hope. He can indict and recommend impeachment at the same time. Normally, indictment of a President would be a non-starter — the criminalization of politics — but treason by illegitimate usurpers of the Presidency could be a different story.

Mueller is working fast, but is it fast enough? After and during the consolidation of the takeover of Congress the justice establishment and judiciary will fall as well.

Fascists subjugate the law. The Holocaust was administered by a bureaucratic legal establishment — that was created by the Nazis. They turn the law from a tool of equality to a weapon of authoritarian oppression.

I have great confidence that Mueller will be brilliant in face of this challenge. I hope it is enough. Brute force has beaten the rule of law before. Brains and character loses battles to violence (they always prevail over bullying in the end — but a punch in the mouth sometimes ends an argument.)

The Rick Blog has outlined the themes of this farce/tragedy since these criminals came upon the scene.

Oh yeah — with the abandonment of Puerto Rico and the looming war with North Korea, White Supremacy is going international. I know Puerto Rico is part of America, but the fascists don’t think so. They see an opportunity to subjugate Puerto Rican people as a first example. And North Korea is an opportunity for racial genocide.

These villains are persistent and relentless. Trump’s buffoonery helps them. They benefit from our under-estimation.

I’m not anxious or afraid. Some things can break our way. Tough times ahead.

A New Rick Blog Podcast, 10/10/17: Much More Needs to be Changed than Trump and Weinstein

A New Rick Blog Podcast, 10/10/17: Much More Needs to be Changed than Trump and Weinstein. Copyright 2017 Richard Thomas. Written and performed by Rick Thomas. Contact Rick Thomas at therickblogpodcast@gmail.com.

10/9/17: Much More Needs to be Changed than Trump and Weinstein

When I worked at the attorney disciplinary commission we dealt with many cases dealing with similar subject matter as the Harvey Weinstein situation. I have a wife, a mother, a sister-in-law, step-daughters, nieces, women who are my good friends, and work colleagues who are women that I greatly respect. I am greatly insulted and offended that any man feels that he has the right to abuse these people that I love in such a gross manner.

It’s all about power. The worst of us lead our society in all of its sectors — government, business, culture, religion …

Our whole society is one of abuse —

the pharmaceutical industry abuses those in pain and turns them into opioid addicts

the fossil-fuel industry destroys our climate and abuses hurricane victims

the gun industry abuses us all by killing for money and destroying everyone’s sense of safety

the financial and banking industry destroys most people’s prospects for prosperity and security

the health insurance industry steals all people’s right to timely and preventive health care

The armaments and defense contracting industries consign us to a state of perpetual war… and even prospects of Armageddon …

(Add more of these in the comments section)

What is wrong with America is far broader and deeper than Trump and Weinstein — they are just obvious examples of the problem in extremis.

What is wrong with America is far greater than the Republican Party, even though they dangerously ADVOCATE all that is wrong lustily and without apology. Democrats are wrong with America too.

What is wrong with America is a selfish lack of responsibility in the large majority of people who have and seek power. The Power People are shallow and want power merely for its own sake. There is no ethos in America of moral and substantive excellence — ideals of true service. Clout is the end all and be all.

And all of this applies to Big Business and Politics, movie moguls sexually assaulting women, and partners in small law firms who act like pigs with their female assistants and paralegals.

Our problems are existential, moral and political. But ultimately they are spiritual.

All men and women are created equal.

We must take care of each other.

Real achievement is important. Shows of clout and personal power are not.

We must begin with ourselves — be the best people we can be.

We must have zero tolerance for the abuse of power that we describe here.

We have to recognize that this change doesn’t only have to happen in the macro-world of the news.

Trumps and Weinsteins are all over the place and inappropriately touching our lives every day.

Fight on your respective hills!

A New Rick Blog Podcast, 10/6/17: Rick Blog Live at Louder Than a Mom, Chicago on 9/18/17: “I’m Sorry Women I Didn’t Know”

A New Rick Blog Podcast, 10/6/17: Rick Blog Live at Louder Than a Mom, Chicago on 9/18/17: “I’m Sorry Women I Didn’t Know”. Copyright 2017 Richard Thomas. Written and Performed by Rick Thomas. Contact Rick Thomas at therickblogpodcast@gmail.com.

My September 2017 Set at Louder Than a Mom, Martyrs’ Bar, Chicago: “I’m Sorry Women, I Didn’t Know”

This is my set from the September 2017 Louder than a Mom show. I needed the vid early and Dee Ryan went to a lot of trouble to make it happen, and she is really busy. Thanks to everybody at Louder Than a Mom, especially Dee, Kate Hill and Karen Carter Lynch — the videographer. Women! The best! I like this one quite a bit.

A New Rick Blog Podcast, 10/3/17: Something’s Coming; Life and Death are Choices.

A New Rick Blog Podcast, 10/3/17: Something’s Coming; Life and Death are Choices. Copyright 2017 Richard Thomas. Written and performed by Rick Thomas. Contact Rick Thomas at therickblogpodcast@gmail.com.

The questions are bigger than the events of the day, even when they are horrendous. The politics are easy — the NRA fronts gun manufacturers — the politicians are bribed — the ignorant fools are manipulated. But why do we let it go on? Why do people who know better root for the murderers? Why do we love, admire, envy or fear people of great financial means who are killing us? Why do we cling to an illusion of security, by membership in this failed society, that doesn’t exist? The winds that destroyed Puerto Rico, the bullets that murdered Las Vegas come for us, you and me. Yet we sit inert. We know democracy has died and that the rich control the duration of our lives.

No reassurances or answers from the Rick Blog today. Checks and balances will do their work, but forces are at hand that are far greater than a President or political party; and solutions will be had from deeper sources than the lessons of history. Our problems dwarf our troubles with Trump, a minor subset of our misery.

The world is in a state of amorphous Armageddon and the wisdom of the ages can’t help us now.

Life will continue, but many will die — from one thousand cuts of greed, dishonesty and injustice.

Great theater in the time of Trump will be about more than Trump. It will be about what happened in the American soul that made Trump possible. That is the concern of theater.

Death of a Salesman exposed the lie of the American Dream and its inherent corruption in the immediate post-war period.

Last year The Humans summed up the failures of the Obama period which contributed to the rise of Trump — the human toll related to economic injustice.

Hamilton the musical takes the American story and gives it to the diverse peoples who have not been fully or fairly included.

The large dramatic question that has not yet been answered is — what happened to white people? Why we’re so many naive about their hatred of life, and why do they so strongly commit to evil attitudes that are so self-destructive and wrong? This is a story that must be told without sentimentality, and certainly without sympathy. Compassion, yes, but not at the expense of brutal honesty.

The great theater of the Trump era has yet to be made. The human situation is an opportunity for great art.

The World Reflects Our Thought; A War is Coming; Heroes and Saviors Will Emerge; Life and Death are Choices

Bad leadership is not the most important factor. How people think is most important. When we reach zero tolerance for evil the world will change in a moment.

Puerto Rico after the storm is an inhumane reality and a gruesome metaphor. We live in a slow-motion genocide that is gaining momentum as each second passes.

Incompetence, indecency, greed, selfishness, mendacity, ignorance, hatred, racism, fascism and indifference is murdering us en masse.

We should be at war now.

But the declaration of war emerges with an agonizing slowness. What oppresses us isn’t easy to perceive like a dictator or invading army. (Although we have a nascent dictator and have been invaded by Russia.)

Our oppressor lives in our hearts and minds. All societies are evil but some descend so far into darkness that if a massive course correction toward decency does not occur they cease to exist. And society is just an idea that we collectively decide to go along with; when we reject the social idea — break the contract — society ends.

We are at that moment when we should break the “deal”.

Violence is being done to us every day.

I want a war. I want an end to the rotten American way of life. i want to push back against its violence.

We are oppressed by a misguided tolerance that names criminality directed against us “an opinion.” That’s on us. We put up with every indignity. We resist and think it noble. We need to revolt.

I am personally non-violent. But I wonder how long people who are more disadvantaged than me in the current existential attack on our lives — poor people, people of color, students, the sick and disabled (all canaries in the coal mine — the current evil will reach me in devastating ways and will reach you too if it hasn’t already— ultimately no amount of money or education or talent will protect anybody — the oceans are boiling and injustice is roiling — an unleashed destructive energy killing everything in its wake) … how long will people being pummeled in the current moment refrain from retaliatory violence in response to the constant violence that rains upon their lives —from the criminal justice system, the economic system, the education system, the health care system, the man-made weather systems and every other dehumanizing mechanism that shortens, disfigures and destroys their lives?

I’ve hated what is going on now my whole life. Now it is so far out of control that it is obvious to any sane person possessed of reason.

Opportunity lies in this great adversity. We can make a great country now. Or we could die, of course, as we are currently doing.

It is all up to us. Not Trump. Not Mueller. Not God. (He gave us a free will.) The world is a reflection of our thoughts and visions. It is the result of each time we say yes and no.

Seriously ill people sometimes choose the moment to let go and end their lives. Some choose to fight and get better. In either case the decision is to end what no longer can be endured.

I still want to live. I want a war. It’s easy for me. I fight with words. I am not called to political prison or physical battle. We will have heroes. Blood will be defiantly spilled, not merely and passively spilled as it is right now. But not by me.

I have no right to give a call to arms. But I can let you know what I see. I’d be lying if I said that I am not relieved that I am not called to die in battle. I am just consigned to an obsession over a keyboard. My body will ultimately atrophy instead of explode.

We all sacrifice our lives in order to live. That is the paradoxical nature of life.

But many will soon be called to die dramatically for freedom. The plaintive cry of looming genocide in Puerto Rico and a thousand other locales will transform into an international call to arms from the ground of the being of mankind — not from any political leader and certainly not from any blogger.

I’m just a writer. I’m a thought, an idea, an intuition of us all that is delivered through me. Keep your eyes open for the saviors who will step forward now with great courage.

And be careful. It might just be you.

It isn’t me. I just know which way the wind is blowing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOQPMjKLQQU

9/30/17: The World Reflects Our Thought; A War is Coming; Heroes and Saviors Will Emerge; Life and Death are Choices