Manns Medium

  My wife saw this article and decided to share it with me because she knows just how the actions of many claiming the title of U.S. Marine has been making some erroneously bad choices and doing untold damage to the universally wide image to the title MARINE. The title was “Three men — including ex-Marines — sentenced for involvement in plot to destroy power grid” written by MAKIYA SEMINERA for the Associated Press on July 26, 2024, it reported that “three men have been sentenced in federal court for their involvement in a plan to strike a power grid in the northwestern United States. Three men with connections to white supremacist groups were sentenced Thursday in federal court after plotting to destroy a power grid in the northwestern United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Paul James Kryscuk, 38; Liam Collins, 25; and Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, were all sentenced for their yearslong involvement in a scheme to strike the power grid as part of a larger, viole...

  I find it quite humorous when I hear people claiming to be one thing or another.   Claiming to be a republican, a Democrat, or an Independent but the thing that seriously bothers me when people claim the title of Christian and yet act like a total hypocrite. Hypocrisy is defined as “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense” and if we are to be honest with ourselves and those around us, not one person can ever claim to not have claimed to be one thing while their actions depict something else.   I don’t think that any one mortal can ever claim that they have not fallen into this trip at least one time or another in their lives.   Because we are human, and accidents happen, it is okay to admit that we have faults and work to fix them instead of covering them up but of course many of us will go to our earthly graves pretending that this has not or currently happened to them. Hence the title of...

  We all have heard this term batted around like it was something to behold and a true compass by which to live and thrive. Some have even used it as an excuse to justify their dominance and their oppression of others, but let’s be real and ask ourselves this question. Could those who claim to have mastered this “natural selection” thing should be always seen as the ruling class and thereby granted all of the privileges that comes with the title? I ask you to consider this question because if your agree with it, then my only argument is, would the current class of privileged individuals retain that title if they had to endure the true trails of those that they wish to reign supreme over and/or suppress. Consider the following.   Survival of the fittest is “also known as “natural selection,” a simple statement of the fact that in dangerous circumstances, only those individuals most adapted to their environment survive—and the world, with its limited food supply, fearsome ...

  Today’s experts say that what we are dealing with today regarding Donald Trump and the Maga-Republicans making an unveiled attempt to end democracy as we think we know it is new.   Some used the word “unprecedented” but these proclamations from those who we are supposed to depend on to help understand what is really going on are WRONG.   The time of Donald Trump and the Maga-Republicans is neither new nor unprecedented.   It has happened before in our history but because we did not learn the lessons of the past and still to this day refuse to even honor that past, we are allowing history to repeat itself.   For the same souls that occupied the bodies of the once Dixiecrats have returned and now they inhabit the bodies of Maga-Republicans. In 1957 there was a small faction of governmental leaders lead by then Governor Strom Thurman within the Democrat Party who called themselves Dixiecrats.   These highly educated dictators were so in defense of the so...

  Please allow me to begin with a phrase that we all have heard and many repeated over time, HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, yet utilizing another phrase many may have heard but seldom repeated In God is speaking about rebellious people. “They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear” (Ezekiel 12:2). Today we consider the influence of Donald J. Trump in reference to his ability to lead the MAGA-Republicans in a take over of the Republican Party.   Many are surprised by this and have been asking how it happened and what does it mean for the democracy of these United States, but truth be told, this evolution is not surprising and should have been expected since history does repeats itself and many of us have eyes but do not see and ears but do not hear. The dye was casted when the Whig Party, “a conservative political party that existed in the United States during the mid-19th century and joined the Democratic Party to become one of the two major parties in t...

  In this year, 2022, so many Americans are screaming about the clear and present danger facing our democracy as well as those whose current position within this society lending credibility to this claim but as it has been for so long, there is still a lingering element within this society that do not carry the fear of this decay.   They are those who are much more aware of the history of this nation and its system of unequal justice.   History of this action of attempting to hold those truly responsible for seditious acts to account, are welcomed by those who have been emboldened to exercise this perceived right or privledge because they hold the victory over it’s coming. This idea that certain laws does not apply to certain people found its beginning when the Constitutional Convention got together in May of 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and did something on September 17, 1787, that not only guaranteed that this democracy would eventually decay but fired the start...

  The very nature of this species called “man” is one where we can be easily influenced and with an unchecked amount of influence can be easily corrupted.   This corruption can come in many different forms and often we focus on a simple type while ignoring or refusing to see the others. I contend that the filibuster is one form of corruption wielded by those who care less about the majority and more about the group of which they, themselves, are a member.   As a species, we find comfort in aligning ourselves with like-minded individuals and because of that we convince ourselves that what we envision is always the correct path for a town, a city, a community, and a nation.   To view it any other way would mean we would have to force ourselves to consider another’s truth and their opinions even if they differ from our own. As many of you well know, a filibuster is a parliamentary procedure used to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote. It occurs because on...

  When people say “the truth” they often are confused as to what this truly mean.   Many will tell you that there are but two ways to do things, the right way, and the wrong way when really there are quite a few more ways.   These other ways are often hidden from the view of many because they are never recognized or unacceptable to suit our idea of the truth. There is the perceived truth which spawns all other truths.   This perceived truth originates from what you were told, what you have learned and what you have perceived during your lifetime.   The number one reason for it being the perceived truth is that what we view as the majority of human beings believe.   Consider being told that the sky was blue.   We perceive this to be true based upon it being widely accepted and repeated as the truth, but what if whomever gave us the name of colors were wrong and what we consider blue now is brown.   Would then the sky be brown instead of blue? T...

  A brother Marine asked me “Why does the African-American community vote Democrat?   He asked me if I could try to explain it to him and below is my explanation. Since no race of people are all the same, I can only tell you what I think that reason maybe but if you want a more definitive answer you are going to have to ask individual blacks.   Here is what I believe could possibly be the reason so many others vote Democratic.     The first thing that needs to be made clear is the majority of African Americans don’t follow a party but an idea.   If a politician promises to do right by the African-American community, he/she has a really good chance of getting their votes but when they get in power, forget their promises and/or turn their backs on blacks, know that next go around, many blacks would not spit in their butts if their guts were on fire and if the turning of the back was brought on by a group of people, that group would pay as well.   Her...

  Today’s focus is on this election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden for the office of the President of the United States and while I cannot say that it is not something we should not be focused upon, there are other things going on behind the scenes of this that we refuse to recognize or choose to just simply ignore. Many claim that it is a fight between Democrat and Republican, Liberal and Conservative, the Right and the Left, the Right and the Wrong but that is not the truth, as I see it.   It is and always will be the fight between Good and Evil. This battle has been waging since the beginning of time and it is a never-ending war.   It is a battle that will be and must be fought every day of our mortal existence.   It is one that will never have clear winners and losers because if just a few of us fail to achieve victory in this war, we all fail.   This is not a battle to save the soul of a country, a nation, a world, or a universe.   It is the ba...

One of the factors that many of us seem to forget is the one factor that is often times over looked and is the most inconsistent part of not only the way we see things but the way we reaction to things. This factor is the “human factor” and when I say human, I mean human. We as individuals reaction based upon the knowledge that we have about any subject and since the bulk of that knowledge comes from our experience or what we have been taught at one point in our lives it is also gained from what we have been exposed to either directly or indirectly. Direct exposure tends to lend itself to something that we know and sometimes will not only base our existence around but flatly refuse to change or modify that stance for any reason. Indirect exposure is malleable and can be shaped by thoughts or opinion of others so it could be fluid and quickly changed or modified. Our divine over this George Floyd murder and many of the other atrocities when it comes to the authorities’ heavy...

Growing up in the Deep South, all I heard from black people was, you can’t do this or you can’t do that because “the man” won’t let you.   I had always wondered who this “man” was and when someone finally had the nerve to tell me they said it was the “white man”.   I used to walk around thinking that every white man had the decision on who I was and who I would be, that was before I began to read my Bible. My Bible taught me that the only person in complete control of me was God and he was a spirit not a mortal man.   My Bible told me that God entrusted me and me alone with this treasure we call a soul and I and I alone was responsible for caring for it and protecting it until that day God calls me home to review what I had done with this soul.   After that, I began to understand that only those whom I allow to control me can and those who I allow to not manipulate me couldn’t.   No mortal holds power or dominion over me unless I choose to let them.  ...

The arrogance of the Americas began a long time ago and they still continue today.  It’s the belief that those who are not Americans are less than intelligent or uncivilized.  If we look back in our history and study the attitudes and opinions of those then, we may come to realize that these same attitudes and opinions are prevalent today.  Looking at another and finding the differences instead of seeking the similarities often times leads us to excusing our distrust, dislike, disdain or simply ignorance of them.  We know neither their culture, nor their history or even care to learn of their experiences and this oversight, this refusal to see all as having the same rights to exist, live and pursue their dreams as we do ends up with us categorizing them instead of trying to understand them. The American Indians were thought to be savages because they choose to live in teepees instead of log cabins and worshipped the Great Spirit instead of a single God and did n...

There is an inherit belief which appears to be shared by the majority of all races, gender and religion that there is indeed a proper pecking order found within the human and all other species .  We often see this idea played out in real time by those whom many have come to call “hate groups”.  It is further evident if we closely observe the stories of the Bible where one group conquers another, takes all that they deem important and make them their slaves.  Constantly looking down upon them as less than and never equal to because they lost that battle and in some cases that war.  This attitude has become a consistent and undying theme among the species and has been documented and infused into what many call the history of this nation.  What frightens these hate groups more than anything else is the fear that finally the real truth would be revealed and all that they have been taught and come to believe will be found to be false.  The reason I say that thi...

As a novice and not an expert in Middle East Affairs, I have always said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his loyal followers and party was the biggest obstacle to Middle East Peace but if things continue as they seem to be going right now, the opportunity for the next American President to build his/her legacy on being the one who finally forged peace in the Middle East will be extremely possible and probable.  According to the Wall Street Journal in an article titled “ Supporters Rally Around Netanyahu Amid Police Probes; Pressure is mounting on the Israeli leader, who tells crowd the left wing and the media want to topple him” written Rory Jones, it reports that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a rare public rally here as police corruption probes pose a growing threat to the Israeli leader’s 30-year political career.  Mr. Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party and known by his nickname “Bibi,” on Wednesday blamed the turmoil on a “witch hunt” by...

I was presented with this article titled “ How Jared Kushner built a luxury skyscraper using loans meant for job-starved areas By Shawn Boburg for the Washington Post which leaves me with two questions.  The first is why this was not discovered and reported during the campaign and the second is whether this is what even local politicians mean when they say that only they know how government works.  An extension of that question is whether this action has been happening right here in our city of Rockford and other places where federal dollars sent to cities to help with the high unemployment numbers or to benefit the lesser of us were re-routed to serve only those in power or people that they knew in power? The story mentions that “ Jared Kushner and his real estate partners wanted to take advantage of a federal program in 2015 that would save them millions of dollars as they built an opulent, 50-story residential tower in this city’s booming waterfront district, just acro...

Listening to my local news and wondering, out loud, how someone who has millions of dollars to spend could find themselves millions of dollars in the hole just really did not make sense to me.  Especially since the money that they were spending did not totally belong to them.  I had a hard time understanding how someone trusted to represent those who elected them, could ignore their pleas and cries while pretending to hear them at the same time.  After several days of this and many rhetorical questions later, my wife made one solid suggestion.  She suggested that I either stop complaining or run for office and fix the things I saw was wrong.  As I looked into her eyes, saw that she was serious and felt the faith that she had in me to not only care about the suffering but my ability to figure out a way to stop it, I became convinced that she was right.  It didn’t take much longer for me to begin to conceive of ideas and ways to fix these issues as well as j...

Since Donald J. Trump made the decision to run in the Republican primary, I have been struggling to understand why it is still difficult for me to totally accept this man as the 45 th president of the United States.  My better angels are telling me that one can only control that which one can and therefore must accept those things that they cannot but for the life of me, I cannot understand why being reasonable in this situation is harder for me than any other I have ever encountered.  That was until just a few minutes ago. It was after hearing those voices in Kentucky who benefited  from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare hearing Trump say that his main focus will be to repeal and replace it, would still vote for him.  It all became clear to me when I heard this one voice say that the only reason she voted for him is because she detested and did not like Obama.  So because you don’t like a person, you stand against all that they say or do even if ...

It doesn’t take a “rocket-scientist” to figure out that a major mistake has been made in the recent presidential election and that ow the fear of America being totally ignored and its reputation severely damaged by the choice of over 62 million people and over 500 on the Electoral College board.  The current rate of temperament being demonstrated by President-Elect Trump has begun to have a reverse effect even upon our market-driven system.  If this trend continues and Americans are spending more time making excuses for his lack of knowledge and protocol, soon world leaders will begin to over-look any statements, advise and even warnings coming from Washington or in this case New York.  The recent economic crash may prove far easier to recover from than the damages this may do to this country we all claim to love so much. Notwithstanding the other massive misfortunes  of the in-coming administration stands a very clear example of a world leader speaking before t...