Everything we take in is filtered through the perceptions and beliefs we each hold.  We give the meaning to every single thing we witness, think and hear.  It’s interesting … for instance, one person can hear the lyrics, “if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow”, and think that John “Lennon was saying that if the parties start an argument with no recognition of any common ground, any effort to reach a real solution is doomed”.  I don’t get that message.  Especially after meditating with Maharishi, John wanted to usher in a peaceful Revolution.  Mao Zedong was a violent revolutionary, who is believed to have caused the deaths of between 40 and 70 million of his own people in China, through mass-slaughters, starvation, torture, political purges, etc.  The two major communist powers were Russia and China, and were both allies of North Vietnam, supporting their fight and supplying many of the weapons that ultimately killed 58,220 of our U.S. military loved ones.  Russia’s Stalin and China’s (Chairman of the Communist Party) Mao contributed substantially to the Vietnam War victory.  John Lennon and Yoko Ono were staging peaceful, public protests against the war.  So if anyone had been carrying pics of Mao or Stalin (or Putin today) — meaning you liked them or resonated with them — you were most likely a treasonist, and weren’t going to “get on well” with anyone of value in our society, anyhow.  Though there was a message about intolerance in there somewhere, it wasn’t about — we should try to have a meeting of the minds with Chairman Mao or his supporters.  It was about STOP WAGING WAR, murder and mayhem!  STOP sending our people off to fight your bogus wars!  My take-away is:  ‘Don’t hang with Treasonists, pun intended.  We must save our country and restore our democracy!  That means bringing down autocrats, treasonous politicians or citizens, and their corrupt supporters; and promulgating peaceful relations here and abroad.  There is no good reason to keep wasting our life-blood to satisfy an insatiable military machine.  “If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché, that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that’s his problem; Love and Peace are eternal”, mused John Lennon.   I invite everyone to Google: ‘Tedtalks, Revolutionary Love’ and really listen to the message.    I recently saw the movie, HOSTILES, and I thought about revolutionary love.

Trish Forsyth Voss

I am not anti-military; my elder brother served in Vietnam, my father served during the Korean Conflict, his brother served in WWII, battling Nazis; my maternal grandfather was a career military man; my 4th great-grandfather fought in the War of 1812, my 5th great-grandfather came from Scotland, joining our fight against the British, to create this great Democracy!   Mr. Higgins, if you choose to view my brand of patriotism as hateful, so be it!  I have no respect for Donald Trump, who the majority in this country see as the loathsome imposter that he is.  Many on the “right” hated Barack Obama for his intelligence and goodness, as many of us loathe Trump for his ignorance and crookery.  No, our military doesn’t “goose-step”, but that statement meant to imply that Donald Trump, who is using Hitler’s playbook to the hilt, would love Nazi-style, “goose-stepping soldiers” marching to his dissonance.   Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, brought down indictments against 13 Russians, charged with meddling in our elections; stealing identities of American citizens to set up internet ads to negatively influence potential voters against one candidate, to the benefit of their favored candidate.   Trump will eventually be found to have conspired with Russian mobsters to undermine our democratic electoral process.  Mark my words, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will be indicted for acts against our country — assisting a foreign power to determine which states to target with those bogus ads, and that is part of the reason the most recent indictments were handed down — to lay down a predicate on which to roll out the next wave of indictments.  Trump, Kushner and others will no doubt be charged with money-laundering, tax-evasion and a host of other charges, as I have said from Day One!  I honor our military, who fight for our rights and freedoms, and my right to dissent.  I thank all veterans for their service, but I don’t need to lick or kiss anyone’s boots, not in this country, not yet, hopefully not ever!  Donald Trump had no reverence for our military before stealing into the White House; there should be no military parade thrown in honor of that 5 times draft-dodger.  He has no honor.  Military parades are for military heroes!  Thank you for your expressed concern regarding my well-being; I assure you that I am quite healthy.

Trish Forsyth Voss

Thanks for the shout-out from Charlie Gruner on appreciating diversity — he seems to say he found some ‘area of agreement’ with me, when in reality he was trying to use my argument on the importance of a free press — to push his and Adriana Cohen’s conservative agenda of “no safe spaces”, especially for students.  People who have copped that mindset argue as Gruner did, “Institutions that provide these ‘safe spaces’ are just doing a disservice to their students, actively cheating them, taking money to teach young people to think for themselves, but are instead turning out shallow robots that can only spout the ‘party-line”.  I’m sure that “their” mindset on that issue only includes Liberal Arts colleges that ‘fail’ to bring in enough radical-right speakers.  I don’t believe for a moment that “they” think a Bob Jones or George Mason university should be bringing in Pro-Choice speakers to talk on Safe, Legal, Rare abortions for victims of campus rape; or handing out free contraceptives while lecturing on the Big Bang (God-less) Theory of Creation.   No ‘safe spaces’ to “them” means ‘no liberal safe spaces’; it means liberal college students should be forced to listen to the likes of Ann Coulter, hater extraordinaire, who said in April 2017, that she believed she had the “constitutional right” to address Berkeley California University  (on the day she wanted to speak, not a week later when Berkeley offered to re-schedule her, due to opposition and threats of violence by other outside groups within the city; Berkeley was even prepared to pay for hundreds of officers for extra-protection for her).  Ms. Coulter had lost the backing of the conservative groups that had initially sponsored her appearance, and with her “knack for provocation” she fumed that she’d show up anyway, insistent on making the point that “conservatives like her would not allow their remarks to be censored by liberal academics”.  CLASS-LESS!   Mr. Gruner,  the students who should learn to think for themselves have a right to vehemently protest their liberal bastions giving in to far-right Hate-Talkers!  Knox college hosts speakers like President Bill Clinton or comedian Stephen Colbert; they don’t want Steve Bannon or Alex Jones types!  I would advocate Fox-TV be allowed to air, but be clearly identified as a propaganda station, so that the shallow robots, who sit in their ‘safe spaces’ before their sets, at least be INFORMED that THEY ARE CHOOSING PROPAGANDA entertainment!

Trish Forsyth Voss

How dare you lecture us about Treason!  This is NOT a dictatorship.  It’s a democracy and we DON’T HAVE TO STAND for a reality-show host masquerading as president of the United States of America! (Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. on the House floor).  Besides accusing Dems of being Treasonous for not applauding his State of the Union address, Trump taunted that he WANTS another government shutdown …to get his way!  Besides that and a pony, Captain Bone Spurs WANTS a hugely-expensive military parade thrown ‘in his honor’!  No, really — he does!  Goose-stepping soldiers and armored-trucks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue; the cost: millions of dollars …that could be spent on another security detail for another golfing weekend.  He WANTS to fire Rosenstein and Mueller and put this ‘collusion thing’ behind him and get on with converting us to the U.S.S.R.  For those who hate hearing people speak any language other than English — YOU better start learning Russian!  Not only has Don Trumpino NOT enacted any of the sanctions against Russia per the directive Congress passed last fall and sent to Trump’s desk, but government officials are still courting favor with the Russkies.  The first week in February, three Russian spy-chiefs (at least one .. previously banned from entering our country) secretly met in Washington with CIA Director, Mike Pompeo.  There’s much more than meets the eye about all this.  There’s never been an election-campaign or an administration with Russian ‘assets’ on board.  But Trumpo celebrates Firsts!  We need real heroes NOW, stepping up with reasoned-voices, cutting through the cacophony and waking people up!  Republican Senator John McCain said, “Elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan side-shows.  The latest attacks on the FBI and DOJ serve NO American-interests!  If we continue to undermine our own Rule of Law, we are doing Putin’s job for him!”  Senator Flake, R-AZ said, “None of this behavior should ever be regarded as normal”.  Michael Gerson, Republican columnist reflected, “The political damage to the GOP as the party of corruption and cover-up should be obvious; and this rare case: rats rather than desert a sinking ship — seem determined to ride it all the way down”.  Steve Schmidt, former Republican-strategist, (whom I’ve grown to love), in discussing how Republicans were comporting themselves … recently said, “it couldn’t be more vile — if they were monkeys in their cages — hurling excrement!

Trish Forsyth Voss