Absence of Sanity

THE ABSENCE OF SANITY BY OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS IS DESTROYING AMERICA! 

We find ourselves dealing with an unprecedented pandemic that has placed the world as we know it on hold. We are battling that which we were unprepared for, COVID-19. Struggling through and adapting to whatever is necessary to protect not only our health, but also what we treasure—our families, our freedom, and all that we’ve worked for in our lifetime!

Unfortunately, our politicians are using this tragedy to not only further their agenda, but also to vilify all efforts and medical strategies offered by their rivals that would aid in combating this virus showing us that we mean very little to them!

Who’s caring for our forgotten warriors, for the mentally ill and addicted, for the old and misplaced during this pandemic?

How will we know how many are sick and dying?

The very fact that our streets are overrun by drug addicts, dealers, the homeless, the mentally ill, and our Veterans is outrageous! It reveals how out of touch, disengaged, inept, and corrupt our politicians truly are. Yet, we allow them to remain in office doing little but moan and groan. We have become soft, lazy, and take our freedoms and rights for granted. While half of Americans don’t even vote, they still manage to judge and criticize those who do!

In San Francisco, a nude elderly man shoots heroin in broad daylight with impunity as addicts line the streets.

Parts of San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and many other cities across America look like Third World countries, but very little is being said by the media or done by our leaders to end this scourge. Ignoring this will inevitably greatly hinder all attempts to curtail the spread of COVID-19. 

Everyday people, the human beings that surround us, mean nothing to those who cherish power and winning above all else! The “Rule of Law” seems to have little significance! Drugs are taken out in the open. Human waste is everywhere. Instead of correcting this issue, the police have been told to stand down. One law after another is being implemented to keep criminals on the streets. You might get arrested, but in lieu of bail, you are simply let go over and over again.

Business owners and entrepreneurs beware! Your right to defend your property is in question! In Arlington, VA, an employee who attempted to stop three burglars caught stealing cash and merchandise was instead arrested for malicious wounding and reckless use of a firearm. 

The Second Amendment has lately been vigorously challenged encouraging the perverse view of the laws governing legal gun use. In truth, it’s the reason for owning a gun!

COVID-19 and Opioid Statistics

(Please note, these numbers change daily, but when written, were gathered from sites including CDC—COVID-19 and CDC—Opioid.) 

More deaths occur each year from drug overdoses than from gun violence, automobile accidents, or even breast cancer. Last year, America lost more than 135 people a day to opioid overdoses! Since 1999, there have been over 700,000 drug overdose-related deaths with opioid deaths increasing six-fold! To date, we have lost over 35,000 Americans to COVID-19. We are now battling two epidemics—COVID-19 and opioid abuse, but only one has been addressed by all Americans. 

Addicts have a new face, a new “MO”, for they are now often responsible, hard-working Americans who trusted their doctor to have accurate information concerning the medication being prescribed to them. Unfortunately, this is not the case! The new dealers of devastation and ruin reside in offices caring for you and your family. Sadly, addiction will take us all to Hell where you make your bones and travel the road all addicts do…to jails, institutions, and DEATH! 

The “Best of the Best,” our brightest and most gifted, will fall for Addiction doesn’t care what you look like, or where you are from. It takes whomever lands on its doorstep stealing not just their life, but the lives of their loved ones! Unfortunately, addicts bring along a well-documented dossier of crime and devastation so they are judged and condemned like the plague.

Drug-related crime has become such a burden on the legal system. If we don’t address this issue appropriately, take steps to end these epidemics through education, by opening more rehabilitation centers and having fewer prisons, or by simply shutting down the irresponsible manufacturing of these drugs by the pharmaceutical companies, we will keep losing lives! 

The answer to stopping addiction is long-term treatment, not prison time. We must come together as we are with our efforts to eradicate COVID-19!

The Pharmaceutical Lobby is so powerful and has such a foothold on our politicians who enable the drug companies to continue dealing their drugs and ultimately killing more than 50,000 Americans a year. This overdose epidemic leaves the United States with a $78.5 billion economic burden, including health care, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and the overwhelming cost to the criminal justice system. Yet, there is still no plan, no unified movement, to resolve the opioid tragedy as we are presently seeing to stall COVID-19. 

The question I put forward is:

Why haven’t our public officials, our leaders,

seriously addressed the opioid epidemic that, in the long-term, will likely kill more Americans than COVID-19, continue to add to the homeless crisis, and further burden the already overwhelmed prison system?

Could it be because the homeless, mentally ill, and addicted don’t vote? Or that our leaders don’t live in the neighborhoods where these unfortunate individuals do?

Out of sight, out of mind!

The faces in the above collage are from Lee Jeffries’ “Faces of the Homeless” portrait series.

This April, 2020, LA is shut down and locked up in hopes of avoiding and/or contributing to the COVID-19 pandemic—except for those in skid row and many other homeless encampments.

The “Truth”

Heroin was legal in 1889 and remained so until 1924 when our local and national elected officials, along with the medical community, realized that drugs like heroin and cocaine were both dangerous and addicting. At that point, there was no Pharmaceutical Lobby to hinder a bill that mandated heroin or cocaine to be taken off the market when they were deemed illegal substances. The very fact that OxyContin, introduced in 1996, and other addicting medications weren't taken off the market like heroin and cocaine were in 1924 is extremely telling. This fact takes us directly back to the politicians who are getting rich supporting the Pharmaceutical Lobby, Credit Card Lobby, and China who has an overwhelming control of our pharmaceuticals producing over 80% of our medications. Fentanyl, for example, is a synthetic opioid that comes primarily from China and is 50-100x more potent than heroin.

"We can no longer believe what we read, rely on what we hear, 

nor say what we feel."

These rights we once took for granted are quickly disappearing, 

as are our VALUES!

As a young man, I took it for granted that the information I obtained from newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV was factual. At that point in my life, I believed people were fair and honest. In the 1950s and 60s, most people trusted and relied on reporters, writers, publishers, and especially TV anchors to dispense the news not just fairly, but honestly.

It never occurred to me that the news I digested might be manipulated to fit a point of view that only some adhered to. Was I naïve to believe that the media held itself to a higher standard honoring their responsibility to uphold our precious First Amendment right of a free press, or has everything changed?

As time passed, I came to understand the news media was changing and becoming an arm of one specific ideology or point of view. Sadly, there is now a wealth of misinformation and dishonesty in said media—be it in print, movies, TV, and now online! Misinformation is more often than not driven by an unethical journalist on the take. Their preferred mode of payment, their currency, is appearing woke, being recognized and applauded as archaic functions of puffery produced by those as out of touch as our politicians. 

TRUTH has been manipulated, bullied, and so beaten up 

that it's unrecognizable!

Some news has morphed into a provocative arena—a form of “hate speech”—inflaming the angry mob that displays a visceral reaction to authority, property, opposing views, and MAGA baseball caps. You are now framed a fascist for simply wearing said hat! Common sense tells us there are most likely some racists in this group as there are in both “Black Lives Matter” and “Antifa” for sadly, that is the human condition.

The groups attending events only to create discord are prepared for battle. They will beat, kick, and mace all those with opposing or misguided convictions. Inevitably, the police stand down allowing crime to happen right in front of them! Upholding the law is too sensitive an issue and much too politically incorrect for our elected officials to get involved!

The news is now about molding and altering the political ideology of their audience by once again demonizing those that don’t agree. Their modus operandi consists of relentless lying in spite of any facts that would disprove their hypothesis. They see their mission as having been ordained by a higher power; that they, the “Elite,” must show us “God-fearing, gun-toting, common folk” the way.

Regrettably, our “Guardians of the Truth” are instead blatant liars. They have traded in their journalistic ethics and credibility for bitterness toward their subordinates and any they wish to destroy. They impose threats or revenge on those who don't fall in line. They no longer respect the will of the people, the election process, nor the “Rule of Law.” They do not believe most Americans are smart enough, or worthy enough, to have their vote count as much as these Elitists. Some believe it should be decreed that the “Rabble” heed the moralizing and pontificating of “The Chosen” from their offices high above us in the very cities and states they are destroying.

For some, the validity of the First Amendment is even on the table for change in an effort to further stifle OUR freedom of speech by once again following their game plan of demonizing and scandalizing those who have the audacity to question the validity of what they are told. All dissenters are fair game for destruction. It’s become a blood sport! Fortunately, many of these weekend warriors are of the prissy or artsy types from whom you only hear at awards shows!

Social media sites engage in eliminating free speech by excluding content they don’t want you to see. They shut down ideas, concepts, and ideologies they deem as bourgeoisie, while approving content that furthers their philosophy and cause. These provocateurs of malice are influencing our election process by utilizing their sites to blatantly promote those they support in an election and recklessly deprecate those they want to lose. It’s called PROPANGANDA!

These are the true fascist dictators of our time who are complicit and more dangerous than Russia and China in negatively influencing our elections. Make them come out and proclaim to the world who they truly are. Make them embrace their beliefs and ideology and pay taxes for these are the richest companies in the world.  They do not pay their fair share, but have purchased…

...TRUTH, INFLUENCE, and far too much of America!

WAKE UP! Your America is disappearing!!!!