Public Comment

I was born in the 1960's, and when young, would watch a television show called, "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." The program taught young children that the world is friendly, that people are good, and that you needn't be afraid when stepping out the front door of your house.  

And, really, some of the time, all of the above are true.  

I also participated in the "New Age" spirituality movement that seemed to evaporate at the end of the 1980's. The group in which I participated was led by the late Ken Keyes Jr., and promoted the idea that the world is your mirror--e.g., a hostile person lives in a hostile world, and a loving person lives in a loving world. The group taught people to believe that if you just follow the steps that were taught, you would end up having everything you need.  

But now, it is 2017, and all of this naiveté has become useless, or worse.  

People who expect the world to function according to sanity, are being freaked out by the insanity now taking place. Sensitive people, good people, people who want peace, are getting a shakeup. The U.S. is almost in a civil war. It is not actually the North vs. the South, in fact there are no geographical lines. The battle lines are undefined, and the battle is between ideologies, between those who live on hate, versus those who want the U.S. to be restored to the illusion of fairness and safety that we had just a couple of years ago.  

Some individuals are willing to start a confrontation, or even a fight, over someone getting a parking space they've been waiting for. I was at County Hospital in Martinez, and lucked out on a parking space. Soon after I parked, a man stood next to my car door, was hostile, and acted like he was going to get violent because supposedly I took his space. I got out my cellphone and acted like I was about to call the cops, and he left, but not without banging a fist against my vehicle. Also, a Sheriff car was parked two spaces away from me on unrelated business.  

I was just in Concord doing some business when I lucked out on a parking space again. Someone honked at me. And when I was getting out of my car, a woman stood at a distance, complained and left. I had difficulty hearing exactly what she said. However, I am pretty sure the person was unhappy over the parking space.  

However, if the current trend continues, we're going to have much bigger worries than who gets the best parking space.  

I feel some amount of future shock (even that term comes from the 1970's). I do not do Facebook or LinkedIn very much. I do not know the new conventions of abbreviation that apply to texting. Apparently, Y W means "You're Welcome" but I didn't know that. I thought it meant, "You Win." When I was corrected I had to apologize for the mistake. 

However, we have bigger worries on the horizon. 

Trump isn't denouncing the Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, probably because he is one of them. He doesn't want merely to be President of the U.S., he has a far more sinister agenda. And he may very well succeed. This is because of the power that violence and fear have--in their ability to silence people.  

But not everyone will be silenced. Millions of Americans are not happy with him, many of whom are willing to put themselves in harm's way in order to fight against this craziness.  

Yet Trump may have a plan in how he intends to take over. We could be in for a rough ride.