#NotMyPresident and Here's Why

I am crazy busy trying to pack for my first march since 1969.  But I had to stop and write.  Because this is important.

I have been listening to the debate about whether to appear at the Inauguration for a few days now.  Since John Lewis took a stand, the way he took a stand last year when he led the sit-in on gun control in the House, the way he has stood up for democracy and for the American people all the way back to Selma.  And the idiot who made great deals with Russia and the FBI and the republican party tweeted attacks against him.  Nothing clever, just his usual same old names and falsehoods.

This is the guy we are supposed to show up for on Friday.

His very attack on Lewis is the reason I won't be there.  I will not respect a man who mocks, who lies, who attacks other Americans.  Minorities, women, the poor.  People who are not like me, and people like me.  A man who will do anything to get what he wants, who will do anything to get revenge for a perceived slight.  A man who spent years accusing our president of not being American, and who did it for the notoriety.

I am as disillusioned by the members of the party he joined in order to win the presidency.  They have sold out.  Sold out their beliefs, sold out our country, sold out the Americans who elected them.  They have done this because they will always follow people they believe have more power, because they believe this alliance will allow them to keep their power and their fortune.  Paul Ryan has become a pathetic shadow of Trump.  McCain is trying to be tough, but I can hear him waffling every time he is asked about the incoming "president" or about a cabinet pick.

And then there are the people who Trump has chosen to flank him, to protect him, to defend him, to give him his ideas.  Neo-nazis, plutocrats, people with more power than he has, and people with less power that will do his bidding.  Smart and mean, or stupid and mean, but always mean.  Willing to cut down anyone who gets in their way.  Trump's kind of people.

I am listening to republicans and Trump's own chosen pretend to be appalled that Americans are questioning their leader's legitimacy after he questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama.  Who are silent when Trump attacks the media.  Who will gladly give up the freedom of the press to follow a man who is as crazy and abusive as the worst third-world dictator.  I wonder how far they will go, just as I once wondered how Nazi Germany every was allowed to happen.

He was elected with a minority of votes.  He was elected by virtue of Russian intervention in our democratic process, with Putin continuing even today to feel free to comment on the validity of our government.  He has refused to be transparent about his wealth and property and his ties to foreign governments, and has refused to break any ties that would cost him fortune or power.  In fact, he has already used his presidency to increase his influence and wealth.

I can be sure that every accusation he made against Hillary Clinton is one of which he himself is guilty.

So there it is.  He is not my president because he is not democratic.  He will profit and grow his power.  He will deny us our constitutional rights, the freedom of our press, the freedom to worship as we choose, the right to protest.  When mockery doesn't work he will use force.

There is far too much at stake to stand by and let history repeat itself.  We all must take a stand.  We cannot talk in trite patriotic cliches.  This country was founded on dissent.  Our founding fathers knew that the most important principle is freedom of speech.  We have been allowing our liberty to be corroded by attacks on women's bodies, voting rights, religious freedom, and much, much more.  We have allowed the rich to buy our government while too many of us lack a living wage, decent housing and health care.  Our liberty is dependent today on whether we are afraid to disagree and dissent or whether we will stand up to the corruption that has been building for decades, and has concluded in the coronation planned for Friday.

I don't go to big events, but I will be at the march on Saturday, speaking in defense of my democracy.  I won't be at the inauguration of a despot, not there in the audience, and not in my heart.

Call it undemocratic.  I call it patriotism.

I haven't spent a lot of time composing this rant.  I surely wish I could have said it the way John Lewis said it, the way Barbara Lee said it, the way Gilda Cobb-Hunter said it, the way Luis Guitierrez said it.  But they said it for us, and for that I am thankful.

Pomp and Chauvinism

Okay, I admit that I got teary watching the Inauguration.  And the Battle Hymn is one hell of a song and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir gave me the chills.

Now allow me to revert back to my true nature.

I was more aware than ever today of how our country drips in the words of Christianity.  Which leaves me, a non-Christian, unimpressed with the rhetoric that pretends to include the rest of us.

I do not take the Pledge of Allegiance.  Have not done so for I don't know how many decades.  I do not take pledges.

I am proud of the fact that I live in a country where, despite what some think, we are not forced to pledge allegiance to the flag.

Our greatest goods and our greatest evils come from the kind of chauvinism that occurs when people pledge to God and country.  We need to unite to perform the greatest good,  but these days, some of the groups that are most united do so in the name of power and greed for the purpose of coercion.

The National Rifle Association will have us all armed presumably to protect ourselves and our property, but in reality to increase profits and corporate power.

Anti-abortion groups have taken the great feminist Susan B. Anthony and sullied her name by forcing their cause on her. Where irony knows no bounds, the narcissistic Paul Ryan who has again co-sponsored the ever-so-ironic "sanctity of human life act" will be keynote speaker for the anti-abortion group which I just learned is called the "Susan B. Anthony List."

In the name of corporate freedom, governors and legislators from states like ours are joining forces with groups like ALEC to make certain that our workers will always work cheap, our taxes will be too low to provide good education and health care to its citizens, and the wealthy will continue to be in charge.

And every one of the people who are responsible for the damage done by their work takes the Pledge of Allegiance, proudly, publicly, and as often as the cameras will allow.

It's good that today we are inaugurating a president who fights for the people of this country.  I am cynical (of course) about just how strong his allegiances are to the 98 percent vs. Wall Street and PhRMA, ExxonMobil, and the others of great wealth and privilege.  I wonder if he has further entrenched the spy and war machines into our lives in the name of security rather than take the riskier path of fighting for our individual freedoms while working to keep us safe.

And yet he has fought for equal rights and equal opportunity in a way we had not seen for eight years.  So for that, when he was sworn in today, I was proud and yes, even shed a tear at the pomp and pageantry, though not the chauvinism.