POLITICALLY CORRECT HISTORY

The following is from www.experiencefestival.com/

Political correctness - Examples of language modification
Political correctness - Gender-related
The term server is increasingly used for a person of either gender who waits tables.
Chairman was replaced by chair, chairperson (or president or some other term). (The term chair has its own history within academia.)
Fireman was replaced by fire fighter.
Congressman was replaced by member of congress. The former remains in use for male members of congress, however.
Policeman became policewoman when referring to females; then the term police officer was introduced for both genders.
Likewise, Army wife, Navy wife, etc., are now Army spouse, etc. (Occasionally male civilian spouses of military members will ironically refer to themselves as Navy wives, etc.)
"To boldly go where no man has gone before", from the introductory sequence of Star Trek: The Original Series, was changed to "To boldly go where no one has gone before" in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
"Man does not live by bread alone" became "People do not live on bread alone" in the 1996 NIV Inclusive Language Edition of the Bible, Matthew 4:4.
Airlines no longer use the term stewardess (nor steward for men), partly due to disparaging stereotypes and the condescending nickname stews. Thus they have replaced it with the gender-neutral term flight attendant. As is the case within nursing, male members of the profession, who are the minority, are typically referred to by their gender (e.g. male flight attendant as opposed to flight attendant for females.)
The word sex has largely been replaced with the word gender, though gender classically did not mean male/female, but rather it referred to grammatical masculine/feminine constructs ("steward" vs. "stewardess", or "actor" vs. "actress", for example). The word sex seems to have become an impolite or emotion-charged term, at least in part because it is prevailing verbal shorthand for sexuality and sexual intercourse.
Lacking a gender-neutral alternative, many actresses now prefer the term "actor" when defining their profession, thus eventually likely rendering the term gender-neutral through common usage.
TIME Magazine's Man of the Year became Person of the Year regardless of which gender wins it (there had been "Women of the Year" in the past).
The phrase "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me", attributed to Jesus, is frequently changed to "Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me."
Miss and Mrs. have been supplemented by Ms., providing a word that does not indicate marital status. The term was ridiculed by many when it was first introduced in the 1970s, but over time it has become common usage.
The 1960s-1970s TV show The Dating Game needed terms for unmarried contestants; bachelor was obvious, but the feminine "equivalent" was the negatively-charged term "spinster", which was only more slightly polite than "old maid"; so the show either coined or popularized the term bachelorette, which has since come into common usage.
The time-honored "I now pronounce you man and wife" at weddings has largely been replaced by "I now pronounce you husband and wife". Some etymologists find this amusing, as "wife" is Old English for "woman", while "husband" is Old English for "householder"; the original expression was meant to define a moment when both members of a couple officially and legally became equally committed to adulthood.
Generalized uses of man when referring to humanity (mankind) are frequently replaced by gender-neutral terms.
Political Correctness comes to America via a Marxist Organization: Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, which was founded in 1923 and came to be known as the "Frankfurt School." After the Nazis came to power they moved their operations to America and set up shop at Columbia University. Inspired by the brand new communist technique, Mao, in the 1930s, wrote an article on the "correct" handling of contradictions among the people. "Sensitive training" – sound familiar? – and speech codes were born. When a people become sensitive to the "needs" of others it makes it far easier to make people have a more socialistic political form of government.
I am still trying to rap my mind around the fact that President Obama feels it is more important for people to be required to have health insurance than a job or career.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognition's" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
What if a person goes through life as a Christian and converts to Islam and then takes up Jihad and kills Christians for his new God?
The old saying, “If you tell a lie enough times it becomes a truth”, goes along way to explain why things are societies attitudes have changed over the years. This is an example of people changing their lifestyle because they have not questioned new laws or socially accepted norms such as Global Warming and being Politically Correct.
When a person acts out of the perceived “norm” and people accept these actions in this time in history when they would not have 100 years ago is an example of what I call Camouflaged Change. Years past it would be unacceptable for men to wear shorts in public yet even in the middle of Winter men are seen wearing shorts. Several years ago the military instituted ,"Don't ask Don't tell policy concerning being a Gay or homosexual in the military. Over the years the fact a person is Gay no longer has the sting socially as it once did but the military policy still holds. At the same time a person can be any religion in the military even a Jihadist Islamic Terrorist and no one will demand these people be discharged from the military as they do with Homosexuals. The major difference here is that I have never heard of a homosexual gunning down unarmed people while screaming God is Great in Arabic. But then according to the president of Iran there is no such thing as a Gay Muslim.
Some people are saying about the Army Major who gunned down all those people at Fort Hood as being mentally unbalanced and he simply snapped. If this person who committed this Terrorist act at Fort Hood, Texas had strapped a bomb around his waste and blew himself up instead of using a gun who there still be people who would question his motives?

November 6, 2009, Anxiety
Fort Hood Exit Strategy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a Military Psychiatrist
Firing a gun at Fort Hood was an exit strategy.

With the recent tragedy at Fort Hood, the time has come to face up to two facts:
War is Hell-this we know.

War is not conducive to mental health.
This we don't want to realize.
And it may be that if a little war is bad for one's mental state, a whole lot of war is a whole lot worse.
Leaving aside the merits of any particular war, and more detailed information about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, it's easy to imagine how any one of any background would feel terrified and entrapped under the following conditions: • Possessing first hand knowledge of the combat experience and the severe mental damage it inflicts upon deployed military
• Facing deployment, (and unlike other military heading into deployment), having prior knowledge of the hazard to one's mental health and psychological status
Related Articles
· What Can We Learn from the Killer at Fort Hood?
· Murder and Mayhem at Fort Hood: Post-traumatic Embitterment, Madness, or Political Terrorism?
· PTSD in the Military: An Interview of a Military Wife
· Massacre at Fort Hood
· The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil

It's safe to say that the majority of those facing deployment, have no real clue what they are in for. But Major Hasan undoubtedly did. Further he,
• Received his medical and psychiatric training as a military officer• Was therefore beholden to the military for the cost of that training• Had no way to leave the military
As heinous and reprehensible as were his actions, correctly or mistakenly, Hasan saw no way out of the military, no way out of his deployment. Firing a gun was his exit strategy.
I am sure that soon all the "bad apple" stories will briskly circulate. But before they do, let's ask: Isn't it possible that being a military psychiatrist could readily induce outsized cognitive dissonance in just about anyone?
Cold, calculating, numb, sedated, and murderous. Bonded first and foremost to comrades in arms. Is this a prescription for mental health, a solid marriage, successful parenting, or even a good night's sleep? Of course not. But these are the traits cultivated and inculcated in servicemen heading to battle.
Upon returning they can change into civilian clothes, but they can't so easily shed their traumatized neurology. For many, the military becomes a form of life long entrapment, a club that once joined, can't so easily be left behind, for economic, social, and psychological reasons.
By definition, a military psychiatrist is under military authority-- is that a conducive environment for building therapeutic trust?
A couple of months back, I attended a program lead by a military specialist in treating returning military suffering from psychological distress. First of all, it was evident that this specialist was himself traumatized. Empathy was for sissies. Maintaining the military code was more important than facing up to the pain. PTSD, he claimed, could be dealt with by a change of attitude.
"Just snap out of it," he told us he exhorted his clients.
This "expert" didn't want to call a spade a spade. He didn't want to call it post-traumatic stress. He wanted to call it "combat stress." That was more manly. In fact, the entire thrust of his therapeutic approach could be captured in a single sentence: "Figure out a treatment approach that conforms to military codes, and is palatable to higher ups, so that we don't have to admit the immense psychological damage."
I can't say for sure that this attitude is endemic to military psychiatry. I hope not, and would welcome hearing about places where good work is being done. I'm sure that there are numerous mental health professionals in the military who do a lot of good. I know that work with guided imagery has been proven successful with CDS available at www.healthjourneys.com
But the basic problem is that when you train people to be eternally hypervigilant, bond them as one in a killing group, put them through traumatizing experiences, and then upon their return signal that retaining the military code is more important than their personal mental health, then I can guarantee you several things:• They will know that they are not safe in receiving mental health treatments you offer• They won't easily find their way to helpful treatments for fear they violate their military code and bonds with their fellow officers• It will be harder for them to down-regulate their automated stress reactions and heal• They won't be safe for their families and loved ones people to be around • Ours will not be a safe world
So bravo, we went to war to create safety, and look what came back.
Until we can admit all of this, how can we help troubled people in the military? Or for that matter, find safety as civilians.
The good Major had never been in any combat and since he was an Army Major and a Psychiatrist it is doubtful he ever would. I have been in combat and am not afraid to talk about my experiences to anyone who would care to listen but most people who have never been in combat want to hear what it is like. At the same time I have never felt a need to pick up a weapon and gun down unarmed civilians but I am also not an ISLAMIC JEHADIST.

REWRITING HISTORY

To write this entry on the blog I actually did some research on Google for find some other look at how people have been rewriting history but could not find anything I could actually use.


The lords Prayer as said in a Protestant church is very different from the same prayer said in a Catholic Church and is never muttered at all in a Mormon Church.


To make old stories relevant to people today many old stories are being rewritten and that goes for history as well. The problems with rewriting history is two fold.


1. It can change the actual history making event to either a smaller role in history or it can glorify it.


2. It can have a domino affect in that it can affect how we view a certain group of people affected by the event.


Several years ago in Denver there was an annual parade for Columbus Day, it was a celebration for all Italian Americans because Christopher Columbus was an Italian. The following appears on www.dickshovel.com/colum.html


The following appeared When Taino Indians saved Christopher Columbus from certain death on the fateful morning of Oct. 12, 1492, a glorious opportunity presented itself.
The cultures Europe of and the Americas could have merged and the beauty of both races could have flourished.
Unfortunately, what occurred was neither beautiful nor heroic. Just as Columbus could not, and did not, "discover" a hemisphere that was already inhabited by nearly 100 million people, his arrival cannot, and will not, be recognized as a heroic and celebratory event by indigenous peoples.
Unlike the Western tradition, which presumes some absolute concept of objective truth, and consequently, one "factual" depiction of history, the indigenous view recognizes that there exist many truths in the world and many legitimate recollections of any given historical event, depending on one's perspective and experiences.
From an indigenous vantage point, Columbus' arrival was a disaster from the beginning. Although his own diaries indicated that he was greeted by the Taino Indians with the most generous hospitality he had ever known, he immediately began the enslavement and slaughter of the Indian peoples of the Caribbean islands. As the eminent Columbus biographer Samuel Eliot Morison admits in his book, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Columbus was personally responsible for enslavement and murder of indigenous peoples. He was personally responsible for the design and operation of the encomienda system that tied Indians as slaves to the lands stolen from them by the European invaders.
As detailed in the American Heritage Magazine (October,1976), Columbus personally oversaw the genocide of the Taino Indian nation of what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Consequently, this murderer, despite his historical notoriety, deserves no recognition or accolades as a hero; he deserves no respect as a visionary; and he is not worthy of a state or national holiday in his honor.
Defenders of Columbus and his holiday argue that indigenous peoples unfairly judge Columbus, a 15th century actor, by the moral and legal standards of the late 20th century. Such a defense implies that no moral or legal constraints applied to individuals such as Columbus, or countries, in 1492. As Roger Williams details in his book, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought, not only were there European moral and legal principles in 1492, but they largely favored the rights of indigenous peoples to be free from unjustified invasion and pillage by Europeans.
Unfortunately, the issue of Columbus and Columbus Day is not easily resolvable with a disposition of Columbus, the man. Columbus Day as a national, and international, phenomenon reflects a much larger dynamic that promotes myriad myths and historical lies that have been used through the ages to dehumanize Indians, justifying the theft of our lands, the attempted destruction of our nations, and the genocide against our people. Since the 15th Century, the myth of Columbus' discovery has been used in the development of laws and policies that reek of Orwell's doublespeak: theft equals the righteous spread of civilization, genocide is God's deliverance of the wilderness from the savages, and the destruction of Indian societies implies the superiority of European values and institutions over indigenous ones.
Columbus Day is a perpetuation of racist assumptions that the Western Hemisphere was a wasteland cluttered with savages awaiting the blessings of Western "civilization." Throughout the hemisphere, educational systems perpetuate these myths - suggesting that indigenous peoples have contributed nothing to the world, and, consequently, should be grateful for their colonization and their microwave ovens.
As Alfred Crosby, Kirkpatrick Sale, and Jack Weatherford have illustrated in their books, not only was the Western Hemisphere a virtual ecological and health paradise prior to 1492, but the Indians of the Americas have been responsible for such revolutionary global contributions as the model for U.S. constitutional government, agricultural advances that currently provide 60 percent of the world's daily diet, and hundreds of medical and medicinal techniques still in use today.
If you find it difficult to believe that Indians had developed highly complex and sophisticated societies, then you have been victimized by an educational and social system that has given you a retarded, distorted view of history. The operation of this view has also enabled every country in this hemisphere, including the U.S., to continue its destruction of Indian peoples. From the jungles of Brazil to the highlands of Guatemala, from the Chaco of Paraguay to the Supreme Court of the United States, Indian people remain in a perpetual state of danger from the systems that Christopher Columbus began in 1492.
Throughout the Americas, Indian people remain at the bottom of every socioeconomic indicator, we are under continuing physical attack, and are afforded the least access to economic, political, or legal redress. Despite these constant and unbridled assaults, we have resisted, we have survived, and we refuse to surrender any more of our homeland or to disappear into the romantic sunset.
To dignify Columbus and his legacy with parades, holidays and other celebrations is intolerable to us. As the original peoples of this land, we cannot, and will not, countenance social and political festivities that celebrate our genocide. We are embarking on a two- pronged campaign in the quincentenary year to confront the continuing racism against Indian people.
First, we are advocating that the divisive Columbus Day holiday should be replaced by a celebration that is much more inclusive and more accurately reflective of the cultural and racial richness of the Americas. Such a holiday will provide respect and acknowledgement to every group and individual of the importance and value of their heritage, and will allow a more honest and accurate portrayal of the evolution of the hemisphere. It will also provide an opportunity for greater understanding and respect as our societies move ahead into the next 500 years. Opponents to this suggestion react as though this proposal is an attack on ancient time-honored holiday, but Columbus Day has been a national holiday only since 1971 - and in 1991, hopefully, we can correct the errors of the past, moving forward in an atmosphere of mutual respect and inclusiveness.
Second, and related to the first, is the advancement of an active militant campaign to demand that federal, state, and local authorities begin the removal of anti-Indian icons throughout the country. Beginning with Columbus, we are insisting on the removal of statues, street names, public parks, and any other public object that seeks to celebrate or honor devastators of Indian peoples. We will take an active role of opposition to public displays, parades, and celebrations that champion Indian haters. We encourage others, in every community in the land, to educate themselves and to take responsibility for the removal of anti-Indian vestiges among them.
For people of goodwill, there is no better time for the re-examination of the past, and a rectification of the historical record for future generations, than the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival. There is no better place for this re-examination to begin than in Colorado, the birthplace of the Columbus Day holiday.
Russell Means and Glenn Morris wrote this position statement in 1991 on behalf of the American Indian Movement of Colorado,1574 South Pennsylvania St., Denver, CO
Consequently the Columbus Day parade has been canceled to appease the AIM. There is no record showing Italians did any thing to the American Indian and yet because the rewriting of history by Russel Means the Italians are blamed for the enslavement and murders of many Native Americans.
Any time a group of people want to make an impact they can simply do so by what I call camouflaged change. When a person rewrites a fairy tale to make it more politically correct it changes the perception of those who read the story. Sometimes changes made to one thing can have an affect on something else. If you are going to work and you are required to make a detour through a street you never saw before you may make this same trip later after the detour is gone because it is a more enjoyable ride than the old route. If someone makes a small change to a history book someone else may take what was written and use it as a reference for another book down the road. Thus we start a domino affect. Truth is actually the process of what we see. Two different people may have two separate believes because of the things they have seen and experienced. A little girl in Germany in 1938 may see a different world than another little girl all because of their religion. A white school boy in 1950 Arkansas would have a different view of the world than a little black school boy in the same town.
Reading Shakespeare or even Sherlock Holmes is difficult for modern day Americans because we do not talk the same way they did way back then. When a movie is made of World War II the way Germans and Japanese are portrayed depends on when the movie was made as well as by what country. A recent movie about the attempt to kill Adolf Hitler by German Army officers had everyone talking in a German accent except for Tom Cruise. An old PBS mini series called I Claudius had all the actors speaking with a British Accent and the joke at the time was that the one thing I learned about Rome from this mini series was that the Romans spoke with a British Accent.
How is it possible that the King James version of the Bible and the Catholic version are so different? As far as that goes why were certain books included in the Bible and other not included. When people rewrite history most of the time it is to support their specific agenda and when we read these history books we need to keep all this in mind. The problem here is the fact that elementary school kids do not have that luxury and over a period of time certain historical facts are deleted or changed very slowly from the history books.
I guess the best thing we can do is not believe everything we read and read several versions of the same thing to give us a better round impression of what we call history.
Most of the things I have learned in life about history comes not from my school years of dry history learning dates and names but historical fiction. But fiction is fiction but at the same time we can get a better grasp of how these historical times affected people. Keep in mind that history is not just names and dates but is sort of like a big line of dominoes and as the dominoes fall they knock down the next domino in line. The things that we take for granite now at one time did not exist. Every change that has happened in history affects the way we think and act today.

Why have my class mates changed?

I will be getting back to Mattie and her diary shortly.

I used to be on FACE BOOK and found that many of my former class mates there as well. We had graduated from Fort Bragg High School in 1965, after which we all went our separate ways. During the past 44 years we have all changed by different events in our lives.
Keeping in mind that a Paradigm Shift happens to everyone hundreds of times each day, every time we make a choice of turning right or left. It takes us from where we may have ended up to where we eventually did end up. After walking in my shoes down this road I call my life, I look over at my former class mates who seem to be on another road and no matter how much I yell to them to get back on the correct highway they simply yell at me informing me that I am the one who took the wrong turn 20 or 30 years ago. The older we get the less we want to change our ways to match the ways of other people.
I was making my opinions be known on FACE BOOK and apparently most of my former class mates did not appreciate all the information I was providing them and words started to fly about me personally. I would say something and they would say,"Prove it and stop calling us Fascists and Marxists." So I started to flood my face book with videos and news items and such and still they said, "These are all lies prove it." I have found in my life that if a person is of the opinion that people need to be taken care of by the government, no matter what someone else says will change their mind.
There is an old saying, "You can not go back home again." Very true because the home as we remember, is there in you mind but may not be there in actuality. The way we see things today are not the same as we saw them when we were children.
Last night Ruth told me that her daughter, my step daughter, Becky, complained to her about me putting my opinions on face book and it hit me that what ever I was placing on my FACE BOOK was showing up on her FACE BOOK and her liberal friends down in Texas, would be able to see that she had some wacky old step father in Colorado. I guess it was probably pretty embarrassing for her to be associated with my anti big government views.
With all the problems we are going to encounter in the coming years, almost all will be introduced into our lives by the federal government. Non-funded mandates to states will cause financial hardships beyond what we can even imagine now. The fact that the Bush and Obama administrations have borrowed all that money from the Chinese, they will most assuredly want it be paid back with profit.
It seems like the Chinese are becoming more capitalistic at a time when the United States is becoming more and more Marxist Fascist. Is there anyway we can get back to the way we once were when people actually relied on themselves to solve their own problems.
When I was a child in the 1950's, we got our news mostly by news papers and that was once a day and now with the Internet cable television and radio news is now instant. During the Civil War it would take months for some of the war news to reach places like California and now members of the armed forces in a war zone can Email daily to loved ones. When I was a Marine in Viet Nam in 1966 I would sometimes resort to writing notes on a used C-ration box to let my mother know I was still alive, back then to make a telephone call from the war zone was unheard of. When I was in combat the only source of news we had was from the Stars and Stripes and AFR or Armed Forces Radio and it was all run by the military to fit their agenda. We knew very little of the protests in the streets or even what new rock songs were out. I often refer to 19666-1967 as my lost year because it was almost like we had been placed in a dark box for a year with no outside news. Today in Afghanistan the troops sleep between sheets and eat inside at tables and actually have somewhere to go to get out of the elements. Our wars today in Iraq and Afghanistan reminds me of cops on the beat, after their shift is over they go home to another world. But Viet Nam and Afghanistan are two different wars and even though they may say War is War, comparing these two wars is like comparing apples to basketballs.
There are two types of military veterans, those who remember what happened and are still open to talk about the most important events in their lives and those when asked about what they did in the war, will simply say, "You don't want to know about it."
Awhile back a former class mate of mine, who was a Navy Corpsman with the 3rd Marine Regiment in 1967, went back to Viet Nam on a tour of his old battle fields. I wonder if my son-in-law who is a Captain in the Air Force, will want to return to Afghanistan in another 40 years after spending the last year as an intelligence officer for the NATO forces in that war zone.

George Adams Journal 19 March 2034

Sunday
19 March, 2034

Journal,
Mattie has been gone for a week now with no word where she ran off. I am George Adams, Mattie’s Father and the night before she climbed out her bedroom window and ran away, I took this journal that she had been writing in and I will be recording the events in our lives just as she had been doing before she went through her change.
Talking to other parents from Mattie’s school I have found that other children also ran away from home last Sunday. It is as though they had been programmed to do this at their school, during what they call the Quiet Meditation hour. None of the parents that I have spoken to can figure why the school would want to turn our children on us but it has happened and there really is nothing we can do at this time.
First off, let me tell you a little about Mattie’s family. As I said, my name is George Adams, I am 42 years old and my parents named me after George Bush SR. He was the President when my dad was in the Marines during the war against Iraq in Kuwait in 1990. My wife’s name is Debbie and she is also 42. We met in grade school and became high school sweet hearts. After high school in 2010, I joined the Marine Corps and she went off to College at CSU. One might say I was fulfilling a family tradition, just like my dad and grand father had done before me.
In 2011, they sent me over to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. After a year in Afghanistan my unit was shipped off to Somalia. It seems that some pirates had captured the USS Stockdale, a guided missile destroyer off the coast of Somalia. That story was pretty amazing in its self, how a bunch of little speed boats could capture a United States Navy ship is beyond my comprehension. Obama had developed a theory that the pirates were not a real threat to the world’s economy and if ignored would not cause any real harm. The fact that their actions had nothing to do with any Jihad had a lot to do with this theory.
The really bad thing is that the pirates still have the USS Stockdale 21years later. The missiles were all sold off to other pirates who have used them to sink two Royal Navy ships on the East coast of Africa.
My unit set up a staging area in Kenya and used it to off- load supplies for the operation. The plan was for us to fly by Osprey from Kenya and attack of the pirate town of Xarardeere, about 12 miles from the east coast of Somalia. Several hijacked ships were anchored off shore, including the Stockdale. I was actually kind of surprised to find the ships were not in any harbor but along the Somali coast there are very few inlets to anchor a ship or boat.
Along with my unit, the 3rd Marine Regiment was a Brigade of Army Rangers. We boarded the Ospreys on April 22, 2012, at 0300 hours. Our mission was to rescue the crew member of the Stockdale and someone else was supposed to recapture the ship. Reports told us that the captive crew was being held in Xarardeere and we figured we would run into lots of resistance from the local bad guys. At the same time we also figured on some covering Naval gun fire and close air support from Navy and Marine fixed wing air craft as well Army and Marine helicopter gun ships.
It was still dark as the Marine Osprey V-22s dropped us into the landing zones about 20 clicks (13.4 miles) due west of Xarardeere. Even though I could see some lights from the town, there was no sound coming from any of the buildings. I was a radio operator for my platoon leader, Lt. Johnson, a tall Texan who was built like the football player he once was for the University of Texas. He was always talking about the Dallas Cowboys and could not wait to get home in October to go to one of their games. Running the twelve miles from the landing zone we finally came near some curved stone walls around some local homes and a building that was probably a barn or work shop.
Suddenly, a flare exploded over the top of us and it lit the whole area like it was day light. Explosions shook the ground and the pinging and popping of rifle and machine gun fire assaulted my ears and erupted all around us. We had been ambushed, they knew we were coming! Crouching next to the Lieutenant, a round pinged off the wall next to my helmet, sending pieces of stone into the side of my head. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and I could feel the sticky goo running down my neck as I fought to stay alert. With a shaky voice I called one of the Cobra helicopter gun ships overhead that we were under attack and told him to look for a red smoke that would indicate our position. As I was talking to the gunship, Sergeant Hernandez tossed a red smoke grenade in between us and the bad guys. Before he could get back behind cover a rocket slammed him in the head tearing it from his torso. Blood spurt form his open neck wound like a fountain of red. My stomach was starting to feel like someone was turning it in knot and I felt like I was going to throw up. One of the buildings at three o’clock started to burn with flames throwing weird shadows on the other buildings all around us. Someone in back of me screamed and Smith who was our Navy Corpsman ran past me to a fallen Marine. Jackson, who was our machine gunner, started laying down fire at the roof of the building in front of us and someone else started firering rifle grenades at the building. My heart must have been beating at 300 beats per minutes and I could feel each pump of blood leaving my heart. It was so damn hot and as I was crouched next to the stone wall gnats started buzzing around my head. I could hear the gun ships coming from our left, but could not see anything for all the smoke and blowing sand. The stench from the rifle fire and all the explosions was over powering and I could taste the bile coming up from my stomach. The pinging of passing rounds was like angry wasps flying around my head and a bright explosion in the next block sent more sand swirling down on us. Looking overhead I saw one lone red cloud in the predawn morning and it reminded me of the cartoon character Snoopy sitting on his dog house yelling, “Curse you Red Baron”. The Cobra gunship was firering it’s 50 caliber machine guns, sending bright red tracers flying into the buildings. Sitting down in back of a stone wall, I could see the outline of the landscape as the sun started to rise in the east. Looking at my watch, I saw we had been in this one location for one minute, yet it seemed like a life time. Off in the distance, a man could be heard calling the faithful to prayers. How strange I was thinking, they are actually going to church while people are dying here. The Lieutenant grabbed the radio hand set from me in slow motion and started yelling to the battalion commander that we were trapped and that we needed more men. All I could hear was the static from the hand set and in mid sentence he stopped screaming. There was an almost terrified blank look on the Lieutenant’s face and without a sound he fell over on his side. He had been shot in the head and there was blood oozing from his ears and mouth. I picked up the handset and told the battalion commander, Colonel Smith, that the lieutenant was dead. More men were being hit and I was now the senior member of my platoon and I was just a Corporal. Sergeant Hernandez was lying in a heap ten feet from me still holding his rifle but his head was some distance from his body and blood was still trickling out of the top of his uniform where his neck used to be. Someone to my left yelled something and then he stood up while holding his machine gun under his arm pit and started running at the building while firering the weapon. The Cobras were coming in for another pass and it seemed like all the Marines around me had jumped up and were running toward the building following the machine gunner. What were they thinking? Explosions rocked the ground and red hot metal projectiles were flying from the buildings like someone had lit off fire works from a Forth of July celebration. The noise was deafening, between the explosions, gun fire and men yelling all around me. I was caught up in all the craziness like I was in a dream and no one could touch me. I was invisible! Standing up, I felt the ping and snap of a round passing my head. The only thought I could think of was from an old movie called, Little Big Man, “Today is a good day to die.” Once in awhile I have reflected on that moment and still wonder what the hell was I thinking? I started running; it felt like my feet were not even touching the ground. Men were all around me now, some were lying on the ground coughing and crying and others were still running toward the buildings. I slipped on something looked down and saw it was blood from a wounded Marine; he was still holding the machine gun but was missing a leg and he was crying and asking for someone named Fligger. It was the same guy who had led the charge with the machine gun. I took a closer look at him and recognized him from boot camp. Pollock was his name and was a big black guy from Mississippi. In boot camp he had told me that after he got out of the Corps, he was,”Gonna open up one of those fish taco stands along a beach somewhere. He had dropped out of college to go off to fight for his country and now he was probably going to die for his country.
Someone yelled,”Doc!” just as a bullet hit Pollock in the chest. It went right through his flack jacket and just made a soft thud as it embedded itself into his heart. He arched his back and then slumped to the ground, his legs and arms lay limp at his side.
The smoke was so thick I had a hard time seeing any further than three feet but I could hear the sounds of men yelling is two languages and felt the flash of rounds passing my head rather than hearing them.
Feeling along the wall of the building, the air was so thick with sand and smoke I could hardly see anything until someone rushed me. He was just a 12 year old boy wearing a pair blood spattered shorts and no shirt. He had a crazed look of someone on some sort of drugs and was pointing a mean looking AK-47 rifle at me. Before he could fire the weapon, I raised my rifle and shot him in the leg and he went down screaming in pain.
Stepping over him I looked down and saw he was crying and the crazed look had been replaced by that of just another little boy crying for his long lost mother. There were so many orphans in Somalia back then that it was not really surprising that a mere child would cling to war as his new found family. Sometimes I wonder if that child ever found peace in his life.
Through the smoke, noise and explosions I made my way to the back of the building trying to keep from being seen by the enemy. Finally I came to the rear of the building and stepped into a sort of alley. To my left was what looked like a large warehouse. According to our intelligence this was where the crew members from the ship were being held. Soldiers and Marines were in fierce hand to hand combat all around me and it looked like snipers were on the roof shooting down at us from the roof of the warehouse. I still had the feeling that I was invisible and no one seemed to pay me any attention as I crossed the alley to the back door of the warehouse. An explosion hit the roof of the warehouse as a Cobra gun ship fired on the snipers. My world was full of pain and bright lights as the shock waves hit me like a sledge hammer hitting me in the chest. I was knocked off my feet but regained my balance and charged the door using the butt of my rifle as a battering ram.
Inside was pitch black but I could hear American voices crying in pain in the far corner of the large room I had entered. I flicked on my flash light and saw a large wall of steel bars cutting across half the space of the ware house and I went toward it. Finding the door to the steel wall, I shot the padlock off the bars and entered inside. Men were laying and sitting around the walls of their cage and barely looked up as I entered their world. I yelled at them to follow me but still they just looked at as if they thought I was their collective imagination playing tricks on them.
I knelt down to one of the men, an officer and shook his shoulder and screamed in his face to get his men and follow me if they wanted to live. He looked me in the eye and finally it sank in that I was a real person and he needed to get his men to follow me. Slowly he stood up pulling the person next to him along with him. Finally signs of joy started to dawn on their faces and the entire group of 380 men and officers jumped and rushed me to touch me and know I was a real American come to take them home.
The explosive sounds and sights of battle were still going on as we emerged from the warehouse. Slowly I opened the door and saw the path to escape was closed. How was I going to get 380 unarmed men out of their temporary prison to safety in Kenya?

Mattie's Diary: March 2034

Mattie’s Diary
To illustrate my fears of the change addiction America has been going through for the past 50 years, I will be writing short stories on my blog. These stories will take several days to complete. This first story I will be writing is called: “Diary of Mattie Adams” and takes place in Denver Colorado in the year, 2034 and illustrates how the same change can affect different people.

Diary of Mattie Adams
Sunday
1 January, 2034

Dear Diary,
Today is the very first day of the year! Since Mommy and Daddy gave you to me for Christmas, the birthday of Baby Jesus. I have not written in you because I told Mommy that I wanted to wait until the New Years Day to tell you about myself and my family. I love my Mommy and Daddy so very much and I know they love me too. Lately they seem so afraid and I don’t understand why?
My family had Christmas last week even though the mean man on the load speaker at the end of the block said that Christmas was no longer allowed. Mommy and Daddy told my brother Ronny and me that our Christmas was a secret. I think I can tell you Dear Diary because you are my new best friend and friends can share secrets. Mommy and Daddy also gave a diary to Ronny. Daddy told us we need to write something every day of things we saw and learned, because it may be important one day to document how our world has changed around us. I do not know if I can find things to write about every day but I will try when I can. It was so very hard for Mommy to find the materials to make our little diaries because of the rationing of paper for the average citizen. Mostly it is only allowed for government people to be able to have writing material because Glorious Father has told us we must save what precious trees in our forests for future generations and in order to save the forests paper is no longer sold to the private citizen. Only through abandoning greed and the need for ownership can we as a people find harmony with nature. This is told to us by my teacher. She also told us that in order to save energy Glorious Father decreed in ten years ago to ban the sale of private auto mobile to the average citizen and because we no longer depend on the automobile people are healthier and are more in harmony with our surrounding and this is a good thing. My teacher told us that in order to delete greed from our everyday life it will take time and effort but is part of Glorious Father’s Revolution that I may some day be part of this thing called a Revolution.
It is snowing today and is very cold in our house. The man on the load speakers at the end of the block said we should not be so greedy with our heat so that other people can be warm. I do not understand why me being cold is going to make other people warm but since the power is turned off on our block for 12 hours a day, we have no choice.
The day after Christmas, Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Bill came to live with us. I love my grandparents and they love me and it should be fun to have them live with us so that I can get to know them better. Family is the strongest bound in our lives and without family we are all alone with no one to take care of us. They seem so very frightened, not like they use to be. Five years ago, Grand Pa Bill took Ronny and me fishing up on the river west of Fort Collins in their camper trailer. They called it their Mountain Cabin and even put a sign on the back of the camper that says so. We had lots of fun cooking Smores and hot dogs over the open fire and counting the stars at night. Grandpa showed me how to put an icky worm on my hook and everything. Sleeping in a big tent next to the Mountain Cabin with Ronny was so much fun, I love my big brother and he loves me and when I am with him I am not afraid of anything. It is sad that Grandpa and Grandma had to give truck and trailer to the men in green uniforms. My teacher told us that ownership is an old way of looking at things. She said that no one needs to own any thing because the state will provide everything we need and in this way we will eliminate greed and secrets our lives. In the future, no one will have any needs or wants. When these things are eliminated, thanks to Glorious Father, we will all live in perfect harmony with all those around us. My teacher on the viewer at my school told us that people who have fun and desire to create new things and art are greedy because it is unfair to be happy when so many people are sad and can not create. I do not understand why being unhappy and uncreative will make all those other people unsad and creative. Sometimes grownups can be really silly the way they talk. Sometimes I am so confused and I wonder if they tell us the truth all the time.
Everyday a big white bus comes to our neighborhood and men in green uniforms and round hats go into the houses and return to the buses with old people who live in the houses. Daddy told me that these old people are going away on vacation. But why don’t they ever come back home? The other day when a big white bus stopped at Mary Johnson’s house, Mary’s grand parents came out with suit cases and got on the bus. I asked Daddy why Mary’s grandparents were going away on vacation, how come they can go off on a vacation to have fun and be happy and we can’t? Are they greedy to have fun and I am not allowed to have fun? I don’t think Daddy knows why the big white buses are taking people away.
Now that Grandma and Grandpa live with us, I have to share my bedroom with Grandma. At night she makes lots of noise when she sleeps and is always touching my dolls and things and I do not like other people to touch my things. We no longer have a television or computers or even radios some men in green uniforms came to our home a few months ago and took them all away. My Teacher Miss Xorphong says it is not fair that we should be able to own things that other people can not afford. So we have to give them to the big men in the green trucks. It is so quiet in our home, all the big people are afraid to talk to one another any more and there with no television or even a radio to listen to music there is no joy any longer in our home. Everyone is so sad. Last July some men came to our house and put some big boxes in each room. Daddy said they were listening devices so that anything we were talking about could be heard by the big men in the green uniforms. They let me keep my dolls, Susie, Agatha, Emma and Annie but a few days ago my teacher told me I have to rename my dolls to be more acceptable to other people and I was given a list of acceptable names for my dolls. Why do grownups have to make things so difficult?
I miss our big old house out in woods. It was way out in the country west of Longmont and I was so happy there. We had deer that would come down to our yard every morning and it was ever so much fun watching them from our front window. Sometimes there would be baby deer and they would hop around like they were on springs and I would laugh my self silly until I would fall down on the floor. I don’t understand why we had to leave that big house and big yard to move to this little house. My teacher told me that it was unfair to have so much room when other people had so little but I do not understand why us giving up our big house for this little house makes it fairer to the other people who do not have a big house. At my old school my teacher was Miss Smith and we had so much fun. I loved Ms Smith; she was happy all the time and made learning fun. At my new school it is not fun to learn anymore. I have been told that teachers have to follow a strict script given to them by people who study teaching but have never been an actual teacher. How can people who have never experienced being a teacher tell other teachers how to teach in a class room? Sometime I think that grownups make things far more complicated than they need to make them. Our school is in a big building and all day we sit by ourselves in big boxes called Q Bee Q’s, what a funny name for a box. Anyway, we sit in front of a “School viewer” all day long and watch a grown up lady who lives in a place called China. This grownup is teaching us a new language called Mandureash. Daddy told me that he heard that some day soon, everyone in the entire world will speak Mandureash because the world is “smaller now days” and to make things easier, we all need to be on,”The same page”. I do not think the world is any smaller then it used to be but maybe that is why we now live in a smaller house. My Daddy talk’s funny sometimes but it seems like he does not like this new Mandureash very much, Grandpa Bill tells anyone who will listen what he thinks of us changing our language to be equal and in harmony with the rest of the world.
The other night I heard Daddy and Grandpa Bill talking in the back yard. They were away from the listening boxes inside our house. They were talking really quietly and they kept looking around as if they were expecting someone to pop over the back fence and say Boo! Daddy kept saying things like, “Are you sure? And they lied to us!” Grandpa Bill was saying things like, “Of course I am sure. People told us this would happen way back in 2009 but most people did not believe it could happen in our country.” Grandpa Bill also used words like “underground”, “getting rid of dead wood” and something called “Mandated Age Reeducation Centers”. Grandpa was not very happy about the Mandated Age Reeducation Centers and he said that it was a “one way trip” and he for one, was never going to take that trip.
Last week the grownup teacher on my school viewer, Miss Xorphong, told us that it is only fair that we are all equal and it is unfair for one person to have more money than other people. But if a person works harder and is more productive than other people shouldn’t they be rewarded with more money? Who has the right to tell one person is allowed to be paid for their labor. Miss Xorphong told us once again that the failures of the past and the reason the Chinese needed to take care of us came from greed, liberty, freedom and choice. Eliminating choice in our lives makes our lives simpler and puts us in closer harmony with the rest of the world. Without choice there is no need for greed, liberty or freedom because everyone lives the same way and in harmony with each other. Without harmony society would fall apart and nothing would move and nothing would be able to function.
Mommy and Daddy had a meeting with a lady from my school last month, I have never seen this grownup before but she seemed to know all about me. She said she and the school had been tracking my progress in my studies and that I was not working to my full potential. She said that in April there would be another test to track my progress. If I had not changed my selfish attitude and learned to be part of the team by then, I would be put into another school to be more in harmony with the teaching of Glorious leader. Later at home Daddy got mad and said something about them taking me away to become a “Delta”. I do not know what a Delta is but if it means I would be taken from Mommy and Daddy I do not want to be a Delta.
One night after supper, we were all sitting in the back yard away from the listening boxes and Grandpa Bill told us that back in the old days, America borrowed lots of money from some Chinese people. When America could not pay back the money, the Chinese people took control of America and now we are no longer independent and free of China. Big people really talk funny sometimes, how can we be independent and free when everyone knows everyone is equal, my teacher told me so. Grandpa Bill does not like all the changes going on these days. He says that all these changes have been caused by greed, just like my teacher told us. Grandpa told us that about a hundred years ago, after something called WW 2; we used to have a form of government in America that he called a Republic. In those days people were able to think and talk any way they wanted to, as long as it did not hurt someone else, he called this the freedom of speech and said it was in something called the Constitution. He said Constitution like it was something holy. He also said that there were many things in the Constitution that have been “trampled on and forgotten”. How can word be trampled on words? He also said there used to be something called the freedom of the press. But if Freedom is in conflict with Harmony than anything called a freedom must be a bad and evil thing as it only confuses and frustrates people making them less harmonious. To me this just sounds silly, why couldn’t everyone just be happy and live in harmony? Anyway, Grandpa Bill said that the unhappy people were “hooked” on making changes to control the lives of other people. The more changes they cause a vacuum and more change need to be made to fill the vacuum. The more social changes these people got, the more they wanted. Grandpa also said that happiness has to come from within each person and can not be forced on them by the government. I am just a little girl but I would think that eventually we would run out of things to change. When there is nothing left to change what will happen to all those people who are addicted to change?
Tomorrow at school we will start meditation hour for the first time. My teacher told us that for an hour we will be in a deep sleep. During this deep sleep we will be given special instructions directly into our brains. My teacher told us this is another example of how progressive our school is. During our sleep we shall learn many things that would take us years to learn by simple instruction. I can hardly wait; I feel like my brain is so empty and needs to be filled up with all the wisdom Glorious Father can impart.

I think I will give you a name, Dear Diary. You will then seem more like a real friend to me and not just a book with blank pages. I will call you Dee from now on. Mommy and Daddy told me it is important that I write in you in only English no matter what. I am not sure what could happen that I would not want to write in English as that is how we talk. This will be our very own secret. I will tell you all my secrets Dee and I hope you can keep a secret. Can you keep a secret? I hope you can. Good night Dee.

Saturday
4 February 2034
Dear Dee,
The man on the load speaker at the end of our block announced today there would be more rationing of water to our sector because they are updating the water treatment center. My brother Ronny told me that he had heard that some people had damaged the water treatment center. I don’t understand why someone would want to keep us from getting water to drink.
Sally Hernandez, my new best friend, and I walk to school every day. She told me her daddy has just been promoted to a new job in Mayor Wong’s offices. He is going to be in charge of removing all English and Spanish signs in Denver and replacing them with signs in Mandureash. My teacher told us yesterday that within the next year, English and Spanish would no longer be used on any communications. I bet that will make Grandpa Bill really upset. He is always saying, “This is America, dog gone it, our constitution was written in English. Why should we have to change just because some idiots back in 2009 had to go to those loan sharks, the Chinese to borrow our way out of debt?” Grandpa Bill can get really upset sometimes. Last night, Grandpa was saying to Daddy, “Since Obama has been president of the United States for twenty five years, I wonder if he has gotten all the changes that he set out to do or if he still has something else up his sleeve.” I can not imagine what it would be like if we did not have our Glorious Father to lead us but Grandpa says he remembers back in the day when people could be president for only 8 years. My teacher, Miss Xorphong, told us that in the old days everyone had their own ideas of what the government should do and it was so disorganized. She told us that thanks to Glorious Father, we are more enlightened and with our support of the Glorious Farther we can complete the Revolution.
Grandpa also says he almost longs for the old days when his biggest complaint was the fact that some people only spoke Spanish in America but since there are no longer national boarders, the world needs a common language or else no one would be able to understand the other person.
Mommy goes to the food distribution center each day because we are no longer having a refrigerator, because they waste electricity and causes ice bergs to melt. The food distribution center is where the mean man from the government checks Mommy’s ration card and is always looking at me like I am going to steal something. Mommy told me that in the old days people were able shop in super markets that were not owned by the government and citizens could build and own these super markets. Some of these stores were so very large and full of all sorts of things to choose from, it must have been so very confusing in the old days. Mommy told me that back in the old days you did not even need a ration card to shop as long as you had the money to pay for what you bought. It all seems so exciting and confusing to think that a person could actually own a business without someone in the government overseeing the business. My teacher, Miss Xorphong, told us that the government makes decisions for us so that we can be more productive for the Revolution. She told us that if we were left to make our own decisions in life, we would most likely make the wrong decisions and ruin our lives down the road. I sometimes wonder what if everyone was doing the wrong things just because the government told us it was the right decision.
It is so very cold today. I do wish that we were able to turn on the heat in our home but the man on the loud speaker at the end of the block told us that the government has had to cut back on power production again. We are now only allowed to turn on our electricity 30 minutes a day. Ronny told me he had heard that another group of people had damaged the power station North of Denver. These people who are doing all these things to us must really be bad people and I hope the men in the green uniforms catch them. Miss Xorphong told us on the monitor at school, that one day soon; very soon, there would be no need for power stations because Glorious Father will be issuing power production kits for each home of all people who vow an allegiance to him and to the Revolution. Grandpa Bill told me what Glorious Father can do with his vow of allegiance.
Grandpa Bill told me he never voted for Glorious Leader back in the old day but that is just plain silly; President Obama has always been Glorious Leader. Grandpa Bill told me that in the old day, there was no Glorious Leader, that anyone could become president by being elected by private vote, deciding on their own who should be the best leader. How confusing it must have been to make a decision like that, it almost hurts my head just to think about it.
Today at the food distribution center the mean old man told Mommy that there was no bread today and would not be any in the future. Glorious Father has decided that wheat, oats and potatoes are unhealthy for us to eat and has decided that all Americans will now eat rice. This upset Grandpa Bill when he heard of the new food choice Glorious Father made for us. “Ten years ago they told us rice was bad for us and outlawed the production of rice in our country and now it is good for us? Where do they propose we get the rice since it is no longer grown in this country?” To this, Grandma simply said, “China”.
Daddy looks so tired these days. He comes home every night after his twelve hour shift at the GFO (Glorious Father Obama) Factory, where he stencils GFO on all the products made at the factory. Daddy used to be an attorney in Boulder, but Two years ago Glorious Father decreed that trial by jury was no longer needed and abolished all courts. Since Daddy was not trained in anything but to be a lawyer he took the only job available at GFO Factory. I do miss our big house outside Longmont and the deer that would romp around our front yard. I wonder sometimes if the deer are still eating the flowers Mommy planted so long ago.
Mommy is calling me to supper Dee, so I guess it is good night until tomorrow.

Saturday
11 March, 2034
Dear Dee,
I am so sorry I had to hide you under the floor at night but I am afraid I will have to do this each night because Father told me that the men in the green uniforms are starting to search homes for anything written in English. I hope you are comfortable in the box I placed you in last night because I don’t want to hurt you.
My teacher, Miss Xorphong, told us yesterday that in order for America to become self sufficient in the future, China will start sending advisors to our country next month and we should all welcome them with open arms. My school is picking students to represent it in the parade of flags when our guests begin arriving at the old State Capital building. I hope I get chosen, I just know Mother and Father would be so proud of me standing tall with my school uniform and red arm band. They say the new China-American National Anthem will be played in a show of friendship and solidarity to our guests. Miss Xorphong told us at school that without China’s help, the revolution would die, much as a new flower would die without water. Grandfather does not like this news and calls it an invasion and something about dancing on George Washington’s grave. He also says that Teddy Roosevelt and someone called Abe Lincoln are probably turning over in their graves. I don’t really know who these people are but to I guess they must have been the God’s that people used to pray to in the old days. But now we have Glorious Father to pray to and all the old Gods are dead. Grandmother is really worried with Grandfather’s outbursts, because we all know Glorious Father hears everything and neighbors are turning in neighbors and relatives who have said any cross words about Glorious Father. We all know Glorious Father is the fatherland itself. Glorious Father is no longer just one person, he is everything. If we are unhappy with Glorious Father then we are unhappy with everything around us. Just hearing Grandfather say those mean things about Glorious Father hurts my head so.

Today the big white bus stopped at the house across the street and the nice old people, who live there, were brought out the door of the house. I don’t think Mister Jackson wanted to leave his home and go on the bus because he was yelling at the men in the green uniforms and his wife was crying like nothing I had ever seen. Daddy told me these men were called Special Forces. Daddy told me that at one time, Special Forces were used to fight in other countries for something called Liberty and Freedom. Adults use some really funny words.
Anyway, Mister Jackson hit one of the men in the face with his cane and another man shot Mister Jackson in the back of the head and he fell to the ground with only a soft thud. Then the man in the green uniform turned and shot Missus Jackson in the face.
I do not understand why Mister Jackson would want to hurt that man. Hitting a Special Forces man was like hitting Glorious Father and striking at Glorious Father is like striking at all of us. I think the Jackson’s deserved to die for being so mean to those men. Did they not understand they had the duty to do as Glorious Father whished them to do? I heard one of the men say to another one, “Well that makes two less old farts to take care of at the center.” And another man said, “But what about all the damn paper work?”
They carried the two old people into the bus and drove off.
Later that evening Grandmother told Grandfather about the shooting and all he would say was, “They were the same age as us. Ruth, do you know what that means?” With those words Grandmother started crying softly as Grandfather wrapped his arms around her and whispered something in her ear that I could not hear.
Just last week my teacher Miss Xorphong told us that if a person is no longer able to function at a productive level for society, they have a duty to move on and get out of the way so that others can take their place. Old people only hinder the Revolution. Not only because they are slow and are no longer productive, they also find fault with all the changes Glorious Father wants to bring to his people through Revolution. It is said that it is because they long for the old days of indecision and Greed.
A few weeks ago, we had an assembly at school. It was so exciting, The Peoples Revolutionary Band of Boulder was there and it was playing the new national marches. Mister Chow, my school principle and the district cadre leaders were all standing on the stage under brightly colored banners proclaiming: VICTORY IN THE REVOLUTION! POWER TO THE PEOPLE! UNITED WE STAND! Suddenly, it became really quiet and the lights all turned off except for a spot light that focused on the doors at the back of the assembly hall. The doors flung opened and in marched many stiff legged men in black uniforms all waving large red flags. I had never seen flags like these before. They were all red except in the upper left side there a gold picture of what Grandfather called the Statue of Liberty. He once told me that it was really big statue on an island in New Beijing harbor, and used to be a symbol of freedom for the world. Adults use such strange words like freedom and liberty. My teacher Miss Xorphong says that Freedom and liberty are no longer the opposite of Harmony and therefore evil words. She told us that liberty and freedom is the same as a person having to make choices and making choices only slows down thought process and most times given a chance, most people would only make the wrong choice or decisions. Glorious Father makes our choices for us now days so that we may be more productive. Now the statue has a more proper name, “Workers Victory.”
The men in black uniforms continued to march to the front of the assembly hall and in front of the stage they turned so that every other man went left or right until all the men were in front of the stage marching in place to the music. The sight was so exciting and I could feel my heart beating as if it would pop out of my shirt. When the band stopped, all the men stop marching and lowered their flags as if pointing at each of us students. A hush came over the boys and girls as Mister Chow lowered his hands in a meaning for us to sit down.
Mister Chow seemed to be looking directly at me when he started to speak in Mandureash.
“Students, Glorious Father has sent word to me of how proud he is of your progress this year. This has been a year that has seen the culmination of the first stage of Glorious Father’s 100 year struggle in the Revolution for Social Justice in America.”
Applause erupted from everyone in the assembly hall and a sense pride came over me and I felt as if I were floating above the floor. Mister Chow continued to speak about the importance of brotherhood, teamwork, and pride in the Fatherland. He told us that we would need these things in order to achieve the second phase of Glorious Leaders 100 year plan. The Father land, Mister Chow told us is no longer just what used to be called the United States but is all inclusive of all nations since the old notion of national boarders was done away in the tenth year of the Revolution. Today the entire world is one and we are all the same, praise unto Glorious Father!
Mister Chow went on to describe the things expected of us, the things we would see and things we will be required to do. We ended the assembly with everyone chanting, “Mmmmmmm Yes we can, Glorious Father Obama, yes we can mmmmmm.”
Later that night, I told Grandfather of the things I had seen and heard. He looked very sad. “So the old son of a bitch is still getting away with the same crap that he did in 08’. Guess the old saying still holds water.”
“What is this saying Grandfather?” I asked.
“Grandfather, when did I become Grandfather? What are they doing to you in that school anyway?”
Today at breakfast, Ronald asked me if I was okay and I told him of course I was okay.
He just looked at me like I had developed a third eye or had worms crawling out my ears but made no more comment. I feel like my family is changing and for some reason I can not put my finger on it.
That is all Dear Dee. I must put you in the hiding place Father has made for me. It is really quite silly to have to hide you from the world to read. My praise of Glorious Father is not a bad thing but since I am still writing to you in English it could be a bad thing. Maybe in the future I will start writing to you in Mandureash after all English like Latin is now a dead language and the whole world now speaks Mandureash. Praise to Glorious Father and good night dear friend.



Dear Reader,
Mattie is no longer writing in her diary because her father has taken it from the hiding place and hidden it where Mattie will not be able to find it. He and Mattie’s mother and grand parents had grown fearful at the changes they have seen in Mattie during the past few months and are determined to keep her diary from being destroyed by Mattie herself. The following is being written as though Mattie might have written it herself in her diary.

Sunday
12 March, 2034

After breakfast Mother asked me to join her outside for a minute. When we were both outside and away from the listening boxes, she held my hand and looked me in my face and I thought I saw a tear in her eye. We sat down at the picnic table and she started to speak with a quivering lip.
“Do you remember those stories of Jesus we used to tell you and Ronnie when you were small?”
I held my breath for a second and did not answer her. I was afraid to even hear her say his name. The mere thought could put us all in danger. Did Mother not know that people were always listening and reporting far simpler things than mentioning his name?
“Oh Mattie, I am so afraid for you and what you are turning into” She cried softly.
I know I must have looked startled by what she had just said to me. Why should she be afraid for me, was it not her who was talking crazy? Did she not realize this person who I can not bring myself to repeat his name is no longer our God? My teacher Miss Xorphong tells us daily in our quiet and meditation time that there is only one true Lord and God of the Earth and heavens. He is Glorious Father and all the other so called gods that people once prayed to are dead! The mere thought of them is blaspheme, punishable by death. Last week in front of the Denver City Hall, they burned ten people to death who were caught trying to hold some sort of ceremony in an old warehouse near the old baseball stadium. My mother must know that uttering his name outloud is a sure death warrant for all of us, how could she do this to us.
I held my hands over my ears in an attempt to stop mother’s blasphemies and I started to cry and say “No, do not say these things! Why are you doing this to me?”
She tried to take my hands from my ears but I was stronger and jumped up and ran into the house. Father stopped me as I came in the back door and held me in his arms in a strong embrace.
“Mattie, you must hear your mother.” Father said in a stern voice and returned me to Mother who was now standing next to the picnic table.
I was in rage and at the same time afraid for all of us. My eyes filled with tears of hurt and rage as my mother continued in her certain death sentence for all of us.
“Mattie dear, you have changed so much I do not know you any longer.” This hateful woman who used to be my loving Mother was now talking pure hate at me. It was as if a vale had fallen from my eyes and for the first time I was able to understand the teaching of the Glorious Father and was unable to see these people as anything but enemies of Glorious Father!
This hateful woman who I had once called my loving Mother went on about how this false God and teller of lies and tall tales, had died for our sins and was the son of a God. How could he be a son of a God, Glorious Father is the only true God and he has no son. He alone came to this earth and now reins supreme in his holy city Maobama DC. She continued on and on as if in an attempt to drive me crazy. Why were these people, who I had once thought of as my loving family turning on me and were now treating me with such contempt? I had to escape from them tonight. I had to leave this house with all these crazy people. This crazy talk could only end one way and it was with us all being arrested for Blasphemy and burned at the stake as traitors to Glorious Father. I had to let them think I was one of them once again and regain their trust.
Father was still holding me tightly but when I stopped my struggling he loosened his grip on me and we all sat down at the picnic table. Even though this hateful crazy woman was still smiling and talking about her false God and his so called salvation, my ears were closed. I simply nodded and tried to smile the same way I used to smile when the vale was still in front of my eyes. Thoughts of my escape were all I could think of as both of these two strangers threw insult and lies at my ears. Would they never stop this insane talk? What gave them the right to treat me as though it were I who had changed and not them? They were no longer my family, my family was Glorious Father and my class mates who like me had become true believers in the site of God himself. Praise be Glorious Father, there could never be one before him.
After what seemed like hours they both hugged me as though they thought I was still one of them and the man I had once worshiped as almost a God himself put his arm around me and we walked back into the house together. Even though I continued to smile, the tears of hate still raged inside of me although only I could see them. For the first time in my life I looked around this house I had once called home and I was ashamed by the things I saw and at the same time afraid and this fear and shame turned to hate. It was an invisible hate that stays with me even now. How could I have not seen the ungodly things I saw now before the vale dropped from my eyes? So much room for so few people and were those paintings I saw on the wall and a large black book lay open on top of a table as if someone had been reading from it and it was in English! How dare they continue to read in English?
Oh no! My diary is in English! Why was I so stupid? I must get the diary and destroy those words I had written before the soldiers come to our door and make a search of my room!
I ran up the stairs in this large house fit only for those who could control our destinies from the outside. The old idea that people were able to think and decide for themselves how they would live their lives is over. Why can these people who I once thought of as family not see this? At the door to my room I opened it slowly as though I were entering a strange and wild place. A place that only last night I had slept and dreamed of the world to come under the exulted guidance of Glorious Farther.
Pushing the door open I looked in and it seemed I was in a strange bed room. How could I live like this? How could I be so selfish and full of greed? The window in my bedroom had brightly colored drapes covering it. Why would I need drapes on my window? I had no secrets to hide from the outside world and no one had any secrets to hide from me. I would rip those terrible symbols of my past from that window and let the world know that I was not a slave to greed and secrets. My bed was covered with a yellow piece of cloth and the pillow was covered in a cloth bag. How could I sleep this way? There was enough cloth on my bed and on my window to make several uniforms for Glorious Fathers Special Forces. Praise unto you, my father and may the days shine upon your soul.
Quickly I went to the hiding place under my bed and pulled up the floor boards. The space where my diary should be was now empty! Where was my diary? Who would take the pages I had written, was it the police? Had they come while I was outside with those evil people? Or was it one of the people I have lived with? If they took it, would they turn me in for writing in English and all the lies I had written before the vale fell from my eyes? I could not let them know I knew my diary was gone. They would probably imprison me in a closet or beat me. My life was now in danger from the very people who use to protect me. I must leave this house now.
I went back to the bedroom door and looked into the hallway, there was no one there. I could hear them talking but it seemed as though everyone was down stairs. They all seemed so happy they thought I was back as one of them. Closing the door softly I rushed to the closet and pulled on my school coat and hat and moved to the window. After I raised the window I climbed out on the roof. It was cold but it had not snowed over night so the roof was dry and I was able to climb down the side and crouched next to the side of the house. I was so excited I was escaping my imprisonment and would soon be home with the people who truly understood me and loved me for my love of Glorious Father.

Wal Mart Health Care

HERE IS SOMETHING TO CHEW ON, HOMER.

Why do small towns fight like hell when WalMart wants to build a store in their town? Because it will drive the mom and pop stores out of business. What happens when the Feds go into competition with the private sector? The private sector can not compete against the Federal government. Does this new federal government insurance company have to pay tax? I really doubt it. Will there be any share holders. will they have to follow the same rules as the private sector? Nope nope and I really doubt it.

WHAT IS MISSING?

It seems to the conservatives or the Right that no one was complaining about the health care situation in our country until President Obama was sworn into office in January, 2009.The progressives, are pushing for a "public option", but at the same time the main street media says that no one actually knows what a "public option", is. From the way I see it, a public option is sort of like expanding Medicare pure and simple, okay so what is the big deal? The big deal at least from the view point of the Right, the conservatives and Libertarians is the way the health care bill has been written. It is a power grab and a way the Federal government can gain more control of our personal freedoms and lives.

The President also said we would not have to give up our private health care option. What happens when our employers make the change for us in order to save them money? When a corporation or small soul owner business provides health insurance for their employees, the employer pays part of the insurance as a benefit to the employee. Given a choice and to save labor cost why not let Good Old Uncle Sam pick up the tab.

There can not be any fair competition between the Federal government and the private sector.The progressives or as I call it the Obama's Faithful sidekick, do not hear what is being left out of the health care bill: tort reform, insuring the Illegal aliens and interstate sales of health insurance.

TORT REFORM

Currently when one goes to a doctor because they are feel like crap the doctor who knows crap probably knows what is wrong but to cover his or her butt puts his patient through numerous medical test. Look at a commercial for any and all medication on television and you will hear all the disclaimers and warnings. The warning labels on OTC medication like even Aspirin has health warnings covering half the bottle. It kind of reminds me of the old snake medicine salesman selling his junk out of the back of his wagon. "Yes sire bob, Billy Bob Johnson's Joint and pain lexer will cure weak bladders, flaky hair, scaly skin, dropsy, wooziness and snoring", says the man on the back of the wagon. The only difference is now the pill people are telling all the side affects their medication might cause, like sleeplessness, sore throats scaly skin, cancer, dropsy and death. This way they cover their butts. I guess if someone actually dies from taking this OTC Medication they can't sue for the cost of the funeral.

If the Tort reform were included in the health care bill, it would limit the amount of money a person could sue their doctor for. Currently people can seek millions of dollars for loss of sleep, humiliation, loss of sex drive, loss of jobs, depression and dropsy. I have yet to meet any who has suffered from Dropsy but apparently lots of people actually died of it during the 1800's as I have actually seen it listed on tomb stones in old grave yards.

Getting back to the Tort, doctors in an effort to cover their collective butts, cover every possibility that a patient could sue them if something goes wrong. In doing so the cost of performing a simple procedure can sky rocket. If the Feds were to put limitations people could sue their doctors and hospitals for, less CYB tests would be needed thusly lowering insurance costs. Thus making insurance more affordable for younger people to purchase. When a person is earning $2,000.00 a month or less and an insurance premium costs $1,200.00 who can afford that?

There is an option in the health care bill where by if a person does not choose to get health care insurance they will be fined by the feds $800.00 a year. $800.00 if they don't and over $12,000.00 if they get the insurance. Does anyone see this as an extra tax foisted on the young singe tax payer?

ILLEGALS

Currently if an illegal goes to a hospital E R, they will be treated free of charge, Fact, period.

President Obama said with a straight face, in front of Congress & on National TV that the health care bill would not cover Illegals or abortions.

If an Illegal Alien were to show up at an emergency room in the near future with a knife sticking out their leg, is the president telling us that the hospital will turn this person away with no medical care? This is America and not Mexico, we do not turn away people for lack of insurance.

ABORTIONS

The question of abortions in the health care bill is up in the air. At the same time, the United States gives big bucks to foreign countries to pay for abortions. If it is good enough for Mexico why not here. To some of us, the act of Abortion is the same as killing unborn children. A few years ago a fellow in California was actually convicted of killing his wife and Unborn baby. I find it ironic that if a person can be sent to prison for killing his pregnant wife and unborn child why is it that abortion doctors are not prosecuted for murder?

As we go forward in this debate, no matter what we the people on the right side of the political spectrum want, we will have to accept what the people on the Left ram down our thoughts.

I guess the question of the day is how much more will some people take of all these social changes. In my future blog post I will be writing a fictional story and I repeat it is all fiction it has not happened ......yet but will be along the lines of 1984 but takes place in 2034 or 50 after 1984. It should be fun and since I and my wife are the only ones who read my blog I can say anything I want and not need to be Politically Correct and hopefully I won't have to listen for a knock on my front door in the middle of the night but who knows who is out there in cyber space.

Speed Bumps To Change

Speed Bumps
FIGHTING CHANGE.

What would happen if they gave us a war and nobody showed up? What if Obamas's Faithful hired guns (the Dems in Congress) can not get the Knee Cap & Trade bill passed because some people see it for what it is. what if the Federal Government actually passes the Gazillion Dollar health care bill and all the PRIMARY CARE PHYSIANS in the country went on strike and refused to see any patients that had any insurance. What if all the Doctors in the country decided in mass to only treat patients on a pay-as-you-go way of doing business? Why not? How many people have car repair insurance? How many people have Dental or eye care insurance?
All the warm hearted people out there who are pushing this health care program with the public option, are overlooking one little detail.

Medical Doctors are human.

When a person goes off to college to become a doctor, they sometimes take out very large student loans to get that MD title. Eventually they have to pay back these loans. The work is hard, the hours are long and it can take years to pay back these loans. Now President Obama and his "FAITHFUL SIDEKICKS", the progressives, have described all medical doctors as GREEDY SOBs. Being only human, medical doctors tend to look first for the welfare of their own family & then at the welfare of their patients.
"How Dare They!" screams Obama's FAITHFUL SIDEKICKS.
They will never understand that sometimes they can not bully people into doing what the theysee is the correct thing to do. This is because for a progressive or Marxist there is only one way to do things, their way.
When and not if this public option health care program hits the American people square in the face in the next few years and everyone has access to "Free" health care, because everyone will have a piece of paper that says so, will there be any Real Medical Doctors to treat them? Or will only the Ultra Rich Like Bill Gates, Donald Trump, the Kennedys, the Clintons, Al Sharpton, & Jessie Jackson be able to see thier very own personal primary care physian?
Right now there is already a shortage of primary care physicians in our country, does the Faithful Sidekicks of Obama not understand even medical care is part of the business Eco System?

BUSINESS ECO SYSTEM?

What do I mean by Business Eco System? In the real world, which apparently members of Congress and all of Obama's Faithful Sidekicks, do not live in, everything is governed by nature, not by the Progressive in congress. If you remove an object from a pool of water does a hole develope in the water? If the government tries to stimulate the economy by throwing money at wish list projects for a set period of time, there will be no lasting benefit.

"If you give a man a fish to eat he will eat for a day, but if you teach the man to fish, he can feed himself forever."

When the Government gives a person a choice of taking government money or earning more money in the private sector they will opt for the private sector.

I've got real news for all those Obama Faithful Sidekicks out there.

YOU CAN NOT FORCE DOCTORS TO WORK FOR THE FED GOVERNMENT UNLESS YOU DRAFT THEM.

And as I recall it, Obama's Faithful Sidekicks call the Draft,"Slavery". Are we about to turn our Medical Doctors into "Federally mandated Slaves"?

Just like all the good white folk that wanted to prove they were not racist by voting for Obama for President of the United States, the Faithful Sidekicks will wake up one day and realize they have been had.
I have a real hard time understanding why Obama's Faithful Sidekicks are doing this to us, why do they hate us so much? There are cheaper and quicker ways to reduce the skyrocketing costs of medical insurance but in doing so, it would take POWER & CONTROL away from the people who actually control congress and even the president of the United States of America.