Sly Says: But What About The Men?

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Sly Says:

But What About the Men?

Please read this article. I would speculate that many of the men involved in these attacks have antisocial personality disorder. However, this does not explain everything. There are female sociopaths, and there are sociopaths who go through life without ever committing violent acts. In fact, the majority of sociopaths never commit violent acts. So what is the other factor that isn't being discussed? Meghan Murphy, the author of the article, suggests that our toxic patriarchal Western society is key, and I agree with her.

Our toxic, patriarchal society is failing everyone, men included.

Whenever these horrific incidents happen, the need for mental health intervention is always brought up.

Yes, mental health needs to be addressed. Better mental health care needs to be available and affordable for all. But most people with mental illness do not kill other people. The majority of people with mental illness are invisible to the public, not standing out in any discernible way. They aren't raving lunatics terrorizing the streets, swinging knives as they rail at unseen foes. The mentally ill are, however, easy scapegoats.

We need to look deeper, and the answer isn't going to be pretty or easy. It calls our way of life in Western society into question.

~Sly Has Spoken~

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Come On, Sly, Give the Rump A Chance--Please?

Tell me again how I'm supposed to be okay with having this in a key government position

The first election I voted in was Reagan vs. Mondale. I voted for Mondale.

I've had people tell me I'm being an "alarmist" and being "unfair" to The Rump, that I'm being "disrespectful" and need to "give him a chance."

I've been around for a lot of years and I have never felt this concerned before. Frustrated, yes. Worried, sure. After all, there was the Cold War and there was Reagan and his "Star Wars" plan. But I never compared Reagan to Hitler.

I never saw reason to compare either of the Bushes to Hitler either.

Surely one would think I might have reason for thinking as i do about The Rump, for disrespecting him so utterly, for feeling that comparisons to Hitler are apt. But nope, I'm just a silly little neophyte with and overactive imagination. These people can keep telling themselves that about the dissenters while The Rump and his lackeys destroy this country.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Copyright juliahenze@123rf.com

Sly Says: Become the Avalanche

Marty Walsh, Mayor of Boston

Here's the thing with the whole "you have to accept Trump as your president. You have to give the new administration a chance" bit.

I didn't vote for either of the Bushes. I accepted both of them as President. I wasn't afraid of either of them, although I was critical of certain of their decisions.

I accepted Ronald Reagan as president. I was very critical of his decisions. I was afraid that he might make a stupid decision that would end us up in a nuclear exchange. I still didn't despise him to the core.

I never thought that Reagan or either of the Bushes were inherently evil. I thought that there were ways in which they were misguided. I didn't think that joking about Reagan's Alzheimer's disease was funny.

I don't know if Trump is "evil" per se, but he is not a good person. He is a con man. However, I also don't think he's actually in charge. I think he's a puppet, and I think that those who are pulling his strings are very, very bad people.

You know how they say that one bad apple spoils the barrel. Well, there are a lot of bad apples in the barrel right now. If we don't get them out, they are going to destroy our country.

I do not accept Donald Trump as my President, and I do not accept this new administration.

If that makes me a "special snowflake," then I'm proud to be a special snowflake alongside people like Marty Walsh, the Mayor of Boston, who is resisting the bad decisions made by the new regime because they are harmful to the people of his city.

When enough special snowflakes resist, we can become an avalanche.

Let's be the avalanche.

~Sly~

Copyright: juliahenze / 123RF Stock Photo

Sly Says: Wake Up, People!

Image by Shepherd Fairey

For anyone still believing that everything is fine, that people like me are just being overly dramatic and/or unpatriotic, who still think that we need to give this new regime a chance, well, don't take my word for it. Just look at what has happened in the space of a week since tRump and his cabinet of deplorables took over.

Those who study authoritarian regimes suggest keeping a list of abnormal events after a demagogue is elected, as a way to remind yourself that this isn't normal and to keep from being overwhelmed into acceptance by the onslaught of attacks on our rights.

Here is a list below. We are 4 days in.

As the author says, "when you see all of this in one list, it is easy to get overwhelmed, at first-- it is also easy to see a pattern and to finally, finally recognize that none of this is normal, nor is it ok."

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the DOJ’s Violence Against Women programs.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Minority Business Development Agency.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Economic Development Administration.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the International Trade Administration.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Fossil Energy.

* On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered all regulatory powers of all federal agencies frozen.

* On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered the National Parks Service to stop using social media after RTing factual, side by side photos of the crowds for the 2009 and 2017 inaugurations.

* On January 20th, 2017, roughly 230 protestors were arrested in DC and face unprecedented felony riot charges. Among them were legal observers, journalists, and medics.

* On January 20th, 2017, a member of the International Workers of the World was shot in the stomach at an anti-fascist protest in Seattle. He remains in critical condition.

* On January 21st, 2017, DT brought a group of 40 cheerleaders to a meeting with the CIA to cheer for him during a speech that consisted almost entirely of framing himself as the victim of dishonest press.

* On January 21st, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference largely to attack the press for accurately reporting the size of attendance at the inaugural festivities, saying that the inauguration had the largest audience of any in history, “period.”

* On January 22nd, 2017, White House advisor Kellyann Conway defended Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts” on national television news.

* On January 22nd, 2017, DT appeared to blow a kiss to director James Comey during a meeting with the FBI, and then opened his arms in a gesture of strange, paternal affection, before hugging him with a pat on the back.

* On January 23rd, 2017, DT reinstated the global gag order, which defunds international organizations that even mention abortion as a medical option.

* On January 23rd, 2017, Spicer said that the US will not tolerate China’s expansion onto islands in the South China Sea, essentially threatening war with China.

* On January 23rd, 2017, DT repeated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing him the popular vote.

* On January 23rd, 2017, it was announced that the man who shot the anti-fascist protester in Seattle was released without charges, despite turning himself in.

* On January 24th, 2017, Spicer reiterated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing DT the popular vote.

* On January 24th, 2017, DT tweeted a picture from his personal Twitter account of a photo he says depicts the crowd at his inauguration and will hang in the White House press room. The photo is of the 2009 inauguration of 44th President Barack Obama, and is curiously dated January 21st, 2017, the day AFTER the inauguration and the day of the Women’s March, the largest inauguration related protest in history.

* On January 24th, 2017, the EPA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to freeze all grants and contracts.

* On January 24th, 2017, the USDA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to stop publishing any papers or research. All communication with the press would also have to be authorized and vetted by the White House.

* On January 24th, 2017, HR7, a bill that would prohibit federal funding not only to abortion service providers, but to any insurance coverage, including Medicaid, that provides abortion coverage, went to the floor of the House for a vote.

* On January 24th, 2017, Director of the Department of Health and Human Service nominee Tom Price characterized federal guidelines on transgender equality as “absurd.”

* On January 24th, 2017, DT ordered the resumption of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, while the North Dakota state congress considers a bill that would legalize hitting and killing protestors with cars if they are on roadways.

* On January 24th, 2017, it was discovered that police officers had used confiscated cell phones to search the emails and messages of the 230 demonstrators now facing felony riot charges for protesting on January 20th, including lawyers and journalists whose email accounts contain privileged information of clients and sources. 

~Compiled by Amy Siskind~

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Copyright: juliahenze / 123RF Stock Photo

Sly Says: So I'm an Alarmist, Eh?

And so it begins my friends...
In Case You Missed It
The Senate voted 51 to 48:
1. To end coverage for preexisting conditions, veterans benefits, and aid to rural hospitals.
2. To remove discrimination protection for women in healthcare.
3. Against the provision allowing children to remain on their parent's insurance till the age of 26.
4. To cut off funding for the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
5. Against ACA contraceptive coverage and maternity care provision.
6. To direct committees to send budget legislation to de-fund and repeal the Affordable Care Act.
For those who get health insurance through work, no pre-existing conditions. Lifetime caps for coverage are back for everyone.
Real actions are being taken that will affect more than just the 20-30 million people who will lose their health care coverage and the 3 million people who will lose their jobs.
Despite their assertions of this being an action to "repeal and replace," no viable alternative plan has been proposed.
As of this moment, no replacement exists.

Send letters. Tell how you or someone you care about will be hurt by these changes.

The White House has turned off its public comments site and they all ignore email. Need postage? Let me know. I bought a bunch of stamps today, so I can help if postage stamps are not in your budget.

Apparently, Speaker Ryan has had his phones cut off because of the volume of calls, so here is his mailing address:
1233 Longworth HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515
Fax: (202) 225-3393

I'd also urge you to find out which way your state's senators voted and give them a piece of your mind (positive or negative), and then keep this in mind when elections come around again.

COPY AND PASTE THIS. EVERYWHERE!

~Sly~

Copyright Juliahenze@123rf.com

Fat, Old, Ugly, But at Least Not a Sexist Piece of Crap

Kiss my fat ass

Mary says: Feeling really upset just now after seeing that two senators have made mean remarks about the women who were marching. I did march in DC and to see what's in the hearts of our government and the institutionalization of sexism, makes me sick.

Sly says: Fuck them. So what if they find us ugly? So what if they call us fat? I am fat. I'm also old. I'm also pretty sure most people don't find me to be in even the same zip code as pretty. Doesn't matter. My worth isn't tied to how desirable some cretin finds me. Took me a long time to get to this place, but now that I'm here I want to be in the face of so called men like this even more because it pisses them off, and that makes me happy.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Copyright Juliahenze@123rf.com

Sly Says: Melania Trump, the First Victim

Pity and do not ridicule Melania Trump. In her narcissistic husband's eyes, she's just another one of his possessions. I don't think she really wants to be part of this. Much as he's wretched and deserving of all criticism levied at him, I think she needs to be left out of the attacks. For those who say "why doesn't she just leave?" it really isn't that easy to "just leave." Once a person has been gaslighted for a long time, they come to doubt their own thoughts and feel that perhaps either things aren't "that bad" and they're just being "dramatic" or they fear that things could get worse if they leave.

We need to keep our criticisms confined to those who can actually do things that ruin our lives. That means the Rump. His adult children aren't immune from criticism, although I'm uncomfortable with attacks on Ivanka which insinuate that she's somehow a willing partner in his creepy behavior towards her. Laughing it off is not the same as willingness.

Barron should definitely not be attacked. As a minor, he really has no say. His actions at the inauguration were those of a child who was bored and uncomfortable with what was going on.

The Rump's elder sons seem to be real chips off the old block. I have no respect for anyone who pays for canned trophy hunts to prove their "manhood." And lest we forget, there was the infamous comparison of Syrian refugees to Skittles. Raise the rotten produce and launch, as far as those two are concerned.

There really doesn't seem to be that much to say about Tiffany. She doesn't have any influence.

The Rump is the one we need to focus on. Pictures of Melania from when she was a model are a non-issue. The woman went from one abusive man (her father) to another (The Rump.) She's suffering enough. Let's focus our criticisms on him, not her.

~Sly~

Copyright Juliahenze@123rf.com