patriot /pā′trē-ət, -ŏt″/

noun

One who loves, supports, and defends one’s country.

One who loves his country, and zealously supports its authority and interests.

A person who loves and zealously supports and defends his or her country.

-American Heritage Dictionary

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Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

-Mark Twain

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I often wonder why someone has not killed Donald Trump. He is a mentally ill, depraved, perhaps soulless, raping criminal hated by multitudes. He is a vile malignancy upon this country, perhaps even a terminal disease. More than a few highly regarded persons have called him a “clear and present danger” to this nation. I do not wish death upon him, although I do believe his death would greatly benefit this country. I am certain, however, that a true patriot among us might believe it was necessary to kill him in self-defense, genuine defense of the nation itself. Perhaps my concept of patriotism differs from most.

Very much a counter protester at a Tea Party gathering around 2010 in the rural California foothills.

I could not kill Donald Trump. Here are three reasons why. First, I do not believe in murder. I’ve done a lot of activism to abolish capital punishment — state-sanctioned murder. While many humans view their individual sovereignty as extending over the lives of other humans, I reject that notion. We are sentient beings that can hardly imagine why we even exist, and yet in our inconceivable arrogance we self-righteously end the lives of our fellows. Second, I am a physically weak old man owning no firearms so have no capacity to violently assault a person behind the well-armored shield of the Secret Service. Even if I had the capacity, I wouldn’t know where to begin. As police procedurals would say, I have neither the motive nor the means. And finally, I am not a patriot. I don’t see this country as worth defending, even against the corrosive danger of a fascist madman with no conscience — and one who may well be an agent of the Russian state intent on decimating this nation. It’s a perfect case of Leave Things Be.

U.S. military service ribbon, Vietnam war.

Yes, by accident of birth I am a U.S. citizen, but I am no patriot. If I had the wherewithal, I’d live somewhere else and certainly not identify as “an American.” I neither love nor support this country. As for “defending” it, I tried that once; all I got was betrayal and lifelong guilt. The U.S. military sent me to Vietnam in 1967 saying it was necessary for our national defense. At age 20, I didn’t know enough to question the judgment of the Commander-in-Chief who outranked me by infinite orders of magnitude. So, they used my naivete to involve me in our callous, calculated murder of millions of people who had committed only the offense of wanting to determine their own political fate. We decided we knew better, and our policy was to kill as many as necessary to force them to do what they were told (by U.S.). Eventually, we accepted the wisdom of prophet Ammon Hennacy, “Force is the weapon of the weak.” The Vietnamese people courageously and heroically defended their land. We relented, turned tail and ran away. That history could not be uglier.

What do you really think of the government you live under?

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I came back from Vietnam and worked to oust Richard Nixon as he kept waging that war, despite promising to have a “secret plan” to end the war. James Carter was then elected president, and I hoped for progress on all I had been promised about “my” country. Carter’s goodness was too much for the “deplorables” of this country to stomach, and so we kicked him out in favor of an old B-movie actor with charisma and evil friends. This is when the systematic dismantling of the government really got underway, and it’s been downhill for we the people ever since.

For me, they crossed the Rubicon on December 12, 2000. The U.S. Supreme Court usurped the peoples’ right to elect their president by declaring the spoiled, rich brat George W. Bush the president. I believe from that day forward the U.S. government has been illegitimate. I never voted again, and I abandoned any fealty to the sham government. Bush, a genuine traitor who deserted his military post in time of war, then used the September 11, 2001 attack on the country as an excuse to wage war against a non-combatant country because they had threatened his father. U.S. taxpayers got a lot of television entertainment for their money; not much else.

In 2016, it seemingly hit bottom when the people elected a television “celebrity” with no ability to govern and a diseased mind brimming over with evil intent. From the moment he pledged a meaningless oath to protect and defend the country as president, he has used the power to literally destroy the country. Even now, out of office, he continues relentlessly to take us to an even lower bottom.This is when I fully abandoned Mark Twain’s admonition and viewed even loyalty to the country as untenable. We literally are what then United States president Trump described as a “shithole nation.”

We may not all have it coming, but we are all going to get it. An old adage says: “You may not get all you pay for in life, but you’re sure going to pay for all you get.”

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Today, Trump holds in thrall seemingly half the elected government, a portion of the Supreme Court, most mainstream media companies and a large number of state governors and their elected officials. He is treated as legitimate and so has unlimited power to use media for his benefit; not a day goes by when he is not a center of media attention. If he were to die today, I think half the media companies would dry up and go out of business. Like the petty child he is, he needs attention. For normal people, a surfeit of felony criminal charges would be a condemnation. For crybaby Trump, it’s a tool to keep himself in the spotlight and to profess his martyrdom – “The teachers are picking on me.” And if somehow he manages to carry this ball across the November election goal line, I will be witness to the most important historic event ever in this nation, its collapse and demise. I believe we will see the rule of law, such as it is, slowly replaced by the will of one sick man abusing the world to fill his gaping inner abyss.

I’m too old to worry much about what the end of the United States would mean to me. I’ll find it fascinating from the historical perspective, and I’m sure there will be hardship. But I am saddened that so many lives, all over the world, may be flung into chaos and disorder and despair. If I thought we actually did have some supernatural overseer, I’d say “God help us.” Maybe we will choose to help ourselves, but not likely.

Disclaimer: I do not publish this with the intent to inspire or foment violence, physical or otherwise. It is solely my view of the current political landscape of the United States and my place in it.

In anticipation of comments:

Yes, I am not a “team player.”

Yes, I am not a “happy camper.”

And yes, comments from the ill-informed, poorly educated and unthinking (deplorables) are pointless. Save your outrage for someone who cares what you have to say.

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A fun day at seaside?

On a towel upon the dirt with a searing, scorching sun overhead and occasionally frolicking in a death-dealing salt bath, all while hoping for a cool offshore breeze.

-Brilliant Bill

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My initials are WET. Inherent irony. Childhood trauma has always made me uncomfortable around water, and, like a cat, I hate being wet. A dry towel is my best friend. Most people walk through small puddles on a rainy day. I don’t put my foot anyplace water has accumulated. This goes way back, and I’m regularly affected by it. The story originates in what I’ll call the South Jersey Black Hole.

The triangle formed by Black Horse Pike, Lower Landing Road and Chews Landing Road is at the heart of the psychic black hole of South Jersey. This is where Black Horse Pike crosses over North Branch Timber Creek.

There is an area along the Black Horse Pike (Rte. 168) in Glendora, New Jersey that stresses me anytime I’m near there. Maybe it’s a mild PTSD. Maybe it’s something more ethereal. A highway bridge, barely noticeable, crosses the North Branch of Big Timber Creek. It’s tidal water, ever dark and muddy. There’s a sewer treatment station there. Traveling south, you go down a hill on the Black Horse Pike from Glendora (passing a cemetery on the right) into what feels to me like a constricted, depressing ravine, cross the bridge and go up a hill (a cemetery on both sides) to the appropriately named “Hilltop,” complete with ice cream shop (heaven?). The whole general area seems fraught with tragedy. It’s sort of a mystical negative energy vortex. This is the exact place where the North Branch of Timber Creek transitions from a lovely, meandering freshwater  stream into a dark, muddy, marshy tidal creek. The gateway to a psychic black hole?

News story of the drowning of seven-year-old John Hackett of Glendora, NJ. He lived (and died) in the psychic black hole of South Jersey.

The tragedy, for me, goes back to Thursday, February 24, 1955. It’s the only day I actually remember from my second grade experience. I recall sitting in a pew at St. Teresa’s Church, along with every other student in the St. Teresa school, and I see a little white casket, all alone in the center aisle. In the casket, the body of my seven-year-old classmate, John Hackett. The Sunday afternoon before he had been at a railroad trestle over Timber Creek in Glendora, skipping stones over the frigid water with a friend. He slipped and fell into the water, no doubt wearing warm, bulky winter clothing. According to the local newspaper story “…the younger boy lost his footing…fell into the icy stream and sank. The creek was at full tide, and about 12 feet deep.” That was 70 years ago, and I still cringe every time I drive over that Timber Creek bridge. Whenever possible, I go out of my way to avoid the area altogether.

Bee Lane (upper right corner) off Somerdale Road is where Joan and Craig sacrificed their own lives in 1969. Left of Black Horse Pike is the place where a railroad crossed Timber Creek in 1955, and that’s where John Hackett died. The block of trees at the northeast corner of Black Horse Pike and Front Street is where the bridal shop was.

That area seems to invite tragedy. Not half a mile away, a teenage couple committed suicide on October 15, 1969. Joan Fox and Craig Badiali were idealistic and promising young people who decided such an act of protest against the Vietnam war was worth their lives. Having participated in that war, I was also protesting at the time, but dying would not have changed things. And so, two more senseless deaths are recorded in that little South Jersey “Black Hole.” Those deaths tore apart families and seemingly drove a local religious minister to madness. The whole sad story is in the excellent, comprehensive book, Craig and Joan, by Eliot Asinof.

Less dramatic, but in the same area, was a fire that destroyed a bridal shop, described in the news story as a “114-year-old local landmark.” Seventh Heaven Bridals was the go-to place for women preparing to walk down the aisle. And the fire meant death to the business, a business that delivered more happiness than most.  Like everything and everyone else sucked into that Black Hole, it  never came back.

A business in the business of happiness fell victim to the psychic black hole after surviving 114 years. Today, that site is simply a dense stand of trees.

If you’re skeptical about the mystical element of this place, consider this. The day I wrote this story I sent an email about it to my sister, Kathy. She was in first grade and also present in the church the day of John’s funeral Mass. I ended by telling her I was going to Aunt Charlotte’s candy shop, a Merchantville “landmark” to get a dark chocolate-covered coconut creme egg in anticipation of Easter. While waiting to pay at the counter, a man in front with his son was talking about the boy taking up competitive swimming. I asked how old the boy was — “Seven,” he said. I didn’t ask his name.

Looking north on Black Horse Pike where it bridges the North Branch Timber Creek. The water may look blue, but that’s photo rendition. The liquid is dark and muddy and deeply foreboding. It’s there to lubricate the psychic black hole.

Afterthought: John seems to have been a bad name to have in my grade-school class. There were six, and half died before they were 20. John Hackett drowns, age seven. John Sulpizio, high school gym accident, age 15. John Haley, Vietnam war, two weeks short of age 20.

News of the death of John Sulpizio, my classmate at St. Teresa’s for eight years. I don’t think the psychic black hole got him, but it’s not far away!