By Hipolito Navarrete, Managing Editor/Publisher
We have heard this so many times that we actually believed it and those that pushed this mantra out there are now able and willing to hurt people because their strategy worked, what is the mantra: “all politicians are the same.” We are experiencing the basic fact that what was pushed out there was a strategic lie, but coupled with the sarcasm, and the opportunity provided by the lazy folks that would not really research this hyperbole, enough people bought it and the result, an administration whose full focus is to hurt those that can not or will not defend themselves.
We may soon be at war with a country that does not have the capacity to feed its people, we are at war in a part of the world where we followed a flawed policy and we are now, in this country, they are aggressively pushing defunding the programs that protect those that are most vulnerable, children and elderly. They are aggressively pursuing policies that other administrations would have considered against their moral compass. It does make a difference who the politician in power is.
We have always been marketed to look for ease and comfort, to not do research because marketing teams have already done that for us. In order for anyone to consider buying something or changing their choice of providers, they must feel dissatisfied with what the options available are. If all the products available are effective, then marketers will focus on creating or providing a product that is more aligned with the feelings of the customers, if it wasn’t for some regulations, then the marketers would not care about the safety or effectiveness of what they are proposing to their customers. It is important for us to acknowledge the feelings of the customer, but also it is much more important to provide facts and allow for opinions, but that does not sell products or candidates.
We have fallen pray to distrust and fear, these flames fanned by the rhetoric online and on the airwaves. We need to think and be critical more than ever. We need to find our personal selves so that we know what our voice is. Critical thinking is what will help us and our need to be more civil towards each other is what will help us save ourselves from our hubris. In order to survive the times we are living in, we need to be less fearful and more informed. We need to be more articulate, knowledgeable, better listeners and more vocal. We need more coffee shop conversations and more willing to have rough conversations and have our own perceptions challenges so that we become more humane.
What we are experiencing is the personal interpretation of the law to fulfill the desires and prejudices of those that are trying to establish their superiority by any means necessary. We are experiencing what living in isolation produces in a person and what he does when he is in power, especially if he feels untouchable. Trump is the personification of irrational emotions, a person completely unprepared for the challenges of a position he is struggling to understand and control. There is now evidence that our openness as a civil society gave opportunity to the Russian administration, a foreign power bent on destroying our civil freedoms, to destabilize our voting methods. What seems unbelievable to some folks is that there is a large group that claim to be patriots to look past the establishing philosophy of this country and seem perfectly fine with it being ignored and trampled because they feel they are now going to be second rate citizens, as they have made of those that they do not like, simply because they do not like that they do not look like them. Folks are not ignoring Justice; they are imposing their own interpretation because according to them, laws are designed as tools for them to use, and for others to fear. There is also the guilt that comes when the facts about how they have treated and undermined the ancestors and manipulated institutions to keep them as second rate citizens, its too much guilt to deal with.
We are in a very important moment of definition, as this administration approaches the one year of its barreling into office, there are now those established Old Guard, such as Mr. Sessions, who is savvy and focused on making sure his own prejudices are his guiding light. Although we have all have personal prejudices, a president needs to be more compassionate for all those that he is supposed to serve. Now let’s get the pop corn and watch this abusive administration fight with the NFL, whose professional athletes are mostly black, about their rights as citizens.
