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                                                                                    ​What I'm Gonna Do . . . 


A Message from Your Once and Current GOAT President (That’s Greatest of All Time, in case you don’t know about my buddy, Tom Brady). 

I’m the only one who can save this country, right? You all know it – everybody knows it, but they won’t admit it! Not Teddy Cruiser, not Ronnie De Santa Claus, not little Marco Rubeey-o. They’re OK as senators and governers and cabinet members, but they’d never cut it as president. And who can the Democrats nominate that could stand up to me. Not Petey Bootybudge, definitely not Pocohontas – I’d crush her like I did Hillarious. Not Caramel Harris – I beat her in a landslide. I’ll have the Republican Party straightened out in 2026 and we won’t have any more stolen elections. Well, we won’t have any more elections, period.

I’m gonna lock up a long list of real criminals like Stutterin Joe, Kumbaya Harris, Nancy Polishi, Bernie Sandwich, Mike Pence (his name says how much he’s worth), Jack Smith, Robert Mooller, whatever his name is, traitors Liz Cheney, James Comey, and Adam Kinsucker and Mitch Romney, Adam Schifty, Pocahontes (I love callin her that), Mark Milley, John Kelly, Hillary and Bill – I call em Billary, Barack Obamala, Leticia James, Fanny Willis, Arthur Enmoron, Alvin Bragg, Mary T (I can’t call her a Trump), Jimmy Kimmel, – and Number One on the list, that backstabber Michael Cohen, after all I did for him! And that Garvin Newberry guy. You can’ talk about the President of the United States like that!

We need to get this country back to what it always was – a White Christian nation. First I’m gonna get rid of all these Moslems – they gotta go, right? We can’t have any tower-bombing terrorists in this country. We’ll send em to Siria and Agfanistun and Ei-rak – they lost a lot of people anyway, so they can use a few more. Then we gotta do something about all these black people that moved here a long time ago. How’d we end up with millions of black people? They belong in Afrucca anyway – they’ll be happier there. 

Then we gotta get rid of the Jews. We’ll send them all to Israle where they belong – they’re all radical-liberal losers, except for my son-in-law Jared, so we’ll keep him. Where did the Jews get that religion, anyway? Some liberal snob made it up no doubt. They even adopted half of our Bibble – did you know that – most people don’t know that. The same goes for all these limpy Buddhists – they belong in India or Veet Nom. Don’t you think their religion’s weird? I heard they all sit naked in the forest chanting all day and begging for handouts. I don't know, just what I heard. We don’t need weirdos like that. The Chinese and Japanese gotta go, too, although we might keep a few to fix our computers when they break down. Then we’ll be a White Christian country like we were supposed to be. I’m not too Christian myself, but if you’re gonna have a religion, that’s the best one to have. And all the Christians vote for me, most of em anyway. 

We gotta get rid of the Democritic Party next – can’t have parties that steal elections in this country. And just one party like Russia and China to keep things simple. Gets too confusing with two parties – or even more, like in Germany and France and Britain. I don’t know how they keep things straight – well, they don’t really. That’s why they’re so weak. Russia and China figured this out a long time ago. It'll be better with just one party. Then we won’t have all this fighting and confoosion about who to vote for. Just one party, strate down the ballot. 

Then we gotta get rid of PBS and all the other fake news networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, and especially CNN and MSNBC. Might as well can FOX News along with em, they’re so unreliable. We just need one network, anyway. We’ll call it UBC, the United States Broadcasting Company. Or maybe TBC, Trump Broadcasting Company, so you’ll know you’re getting the truth. I’ll own it of course – gotta get the money to pay off my fines and debts somewhere. I’ll be on it all the time, whenever I feel like it anyway. We won’t have those losers Rachel Madder or George Stepopopulus around anymore. 

Things are gonna be so great, you won’t believe how great they’re gonna be with me. Better than even than in the 80s – so much better people are gonna forget Ronnie Rayguns. GOD BLESS AMERICA. AND GOD BLESS DONALD TRUMP!! Making America great again! Aren’t we great, huh?

Your Presidident


BN

(The people only have one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.  Mark Twain)





Dear Donald,

I can see how hard it is for you to keep up with yourself, Donald. You try so desperately to put over a façade that you know most people see through, so you keep having to top yourself, knowing that most sane people are laughing in disbelief at the last lie you told. It must be really difficult to keep coming up with a topper every day. The walls keep closing in, and you’re circling the wagons to defend your ground the best you can, firing people by the thousands left and right who don’t follow your lead.

You do have a talent for perceiving people’s weaknesses, and you’ve made almost everyone in the Republican party afraid of you, as well as a whole stable of corporate entities, and a few governments of other nations. But one of the truisms of history that’s become a cliché is that it’s far easier to destroy things than to build them. The study of psychology has taught us that ego inflation is always followed by ego deflation, because egomaniacs can never recognize that their power does have limits. They eventually overreach those limits, the balloon gets punctured, and there’s nothing left but a limp piece of stretchy plastic on the ground.

You’ve boasted in the past about your intelligence, but in truth you’re a simpleton who is unable to grasp the most basic ideas, and your bank of knowledge is virtually empty of funds. You’re trying to singlehandedly run a country whose history and principles of government you seem to know or care nothing about. The framers of the constitution designed it to form a government that would prevent exactly what you are doing, but it seems it wasn’t robust enough.

I’m not sure if you were always simple or you really are in serious cognitive decline, or you're just living in a delusional world that exists only in your imagination, which at times seems to border on psychosis or dementia. You’re like a narcissistic one-year-old banging on his highchair tray and screaming at not getting what you want!    Even those in your own party laugh at you behind your back. Good luck. I think you're gonna need it.

But my heart is full of grief and dread at the dismantling of the framework this country was built on that's held it together for 250 years, and dread that you have no comprehension of that. It’s going to be a big job trying to put it back together. 

Dumbfounded


BN

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            Who’s at the Wheel?  

            I like to drive,
            to have the steering wheel in my hands,
            free to go where I want.
            In my twenties I cruised the northern Indiana countryside
            and lower Michigan glacial moraine
            full of lakes, rivers, and creeks,
            hills and curves, woods and fields.
            Riding with friends, I like to be the driver.

            This century has us hemmed in like a herd of sheep.
            We’re pitched six things every ten minutes on network TV,
            and PBS is headed for the dustbin.  
            We jump through hoop after hoop
            to navigate phone menus
            that are more seller service than customer service.
            They say we have capitalism 
            but it’s really corporate socialism. 
            We can go anywhere we want online –
            driving internet roads that are limitless
            but full of swamps of disinformation,
            where anyone can say anything 
            in easy-to-swallow sound bites
            and truth is hard to find.

            Our elected servants mostly serve
            the corporations who fill their coffers
            and listen to lobbyists rather than voters.
            They talk about the will of the people
            but can’t compromise to pass a bill
            to benefit those who elected them.

            We used to be drivers 
            but now we’re sitting in the back of the bus,
            unable to see who’s at the wheel
            and where we’re going
            but pretty clear about where we’ve been lately.

            BN

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God Wonders Why We Don’t Talk About Him (or Her?)


Memo to: The human community

I’ve noticed lately how rarely people mention me, let alone say what you actually think about me, including whether in fact I actually exist. This is puzzling. I don’t believe most of you think I’m irrelevant to your lives. Quite the opposite for most of you, I think, so I wonder why you so carefully avoid saying what you think. I’m speaking to you now in the voice of that image you’ve created of me, as if I’m a sort of superordinate divine human being. Though you say I created you in my image, I suspect that who you think I am is something you created in your image, the nature of the image depending on the culture it springs from. 

I’m painfully aware of the horrific brutality that has been perpetrated in my name around the world. The twisted logic that’s used to justify such atrocities according to what is claimed to be my will is a practice of your species which is disturbing and appalling to me, and it grieves me deeply. There is considerable appreciation of this concern in a significant minority of the populace, including many atheists and agnostics as well as devout people in all religions, which gives me some hope. But I’m afraid you’re collectively on a path to destroy yourselves and the delicate balance of nature that sustains your fragile ecological niche, doing it all in my name. 

I want to assure you I’m not at all offended by those who doubt my existence or are convinced that I’m just a result of wishful thinking on the part of people too afraid to contemplate my nonexistence. It’s an understandable point of view, given my choice to avoid showing myself, but I don’t have a face or a body to show. I am a bit disappointed that I was once called “the opiate of the masses,” however. I thought I deserved a little more credit than that. But I wasn’t offended and didn’t take it to heart. I respect the atheists and agnostics for having the courage and intellectual honesty to voice their doubts openly. 

It's clear that many of you fear what you imagine to be my wrath, indicated by the strange concept of “hell” that developed a couple thousand years ago. That was an intellectual development I was acutely troubled to see. A large part of humanity seems to fear they’ll be doomed to an afterlife of agony if they “get it wrong.” It disappoints me that you think I’m such a vindictive entity. I’m not, as it’s been said, a “jealous God.” That idea is a projection of a trait characteristic of you, not me. 

It’s understandable that many intellectually honest people live all their lives under much uncertainty about me and go through many changes in their beliefs over the course of a lifetime, hopefully intrigued by the questions rather than afraid of not having the right answer. Fear of the unknown rather than fascination with it seems to be a trait you carry to a high degree, except in scientists and novelists and poets. You seem to fear that any disagreement about my nature and existence will mean casting aside friends with different views, or that leading someone to doubt their faith will keep them from going to the “good place.” 

It’s clear that many of you are comforted by the beliefs your religions expect you to adhere to and are uneasy with any questioning of or doubt about religious dogmas like those in the Apostle’s Creed of Christianity. But your philosopher Voltaire was wise in saying “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is certainly absurd.”

I hope you can outgrow these prejudices and free yourselves from your anxieties enough to speak openly of your thoughts about me. I’d take it as a sign of respect. I’d welcome the discussion and be interested to hear the debate. And for God’s sake (so to speak), quit worrying about being right!

Affectionately yours, 

Your humble creation, God