Silver Linings! - by Hénock Gugsa

 Silver Linings!

// by Hénock Gugsa //

Think about it! This is a strange situation we are in. In Donald Trump's never-imagined rise to his current status as leading candidate of the GOP, there really have been many silver linings in the gray clouds.
1-   He has exposed all the dirty laundry of the Republicans.
2-   He has demonstrated the inanity of the media by exploiting them and showing them up as the moronic talking heads that they are.
3-   Donald Trump is not unlike Attila the Hun. He indirectly drove the Roman Empire to the ground by attacking the Goths who in turn invaded the civilized power of the world at the time.  Donald has routed the establishment’s run-of-the-mill candidates and brought the Republican Party to its knees.
4-   The theater of absurdity in which he is the leading actor is waking up a lot of Americans to realize their true natures.  We are truly seeing Americans as they are, all of them … the wise, the foolish, the insanely idiotic, and the dangerous.
5-   In Trump’s world, the rule is that there are no rules!  He has amply demonstrated that he is not here to be given power, instead he is here to outright take it.
6-   He demolished every one of his republican opponents, and he is going to do the same with Hillary Clinton.  The reason is because she is no different from the people he has already vanquished … remember Jeb Bush.
7-   The only formidable obstacle to Trump is someone with impeccable integrity, stamina, and unwavering principles and ideas about where this country should be heading.  Trump, the revolutionary of the right, meet Sanders, revolutionary of the left!
8-   America has been going down the wrong path for most of the last thirty-five years.  And now, Donald Trump is about to push us over the precipice to uncharted territories.  It is time to wake up and save the republic … let us go back to the basics, let us bring back “The Constitution of the United States of America”!
9-   Go Bernie!!
10- God save America!!!

Faux Patriotism ~ by Hénock Gugsa

 

Faux Patriotism  ~~ Hénock Gugsa ~~

When I was in 10th Grade in Ethiopia (I won't tell you what year), I had a Canadian teacher who was literally a goldmine of both useful and trivial knowledge.  I swear he would have made a great "Jeopardy" champion had that TV game been around back then.
 

Anyways, I remember him telling us about a tiny Japanese town (or island) called USA. At the time, Japan was the up-and-coming economic threat to the United States. This teacher told us that Japan was labeling  some of its exported products as "Made in USA" and selling them worldwide. This little piece of information taught me a very wise life lesson: Never put much credence on labels!
 
The commercialization of patriotism is even more widespread now; and sadly, no one questions the legitimacy or veracity of labels anymore. If you remember back 15 years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Chinese unloaded on us cheap "patriotic" items like U.S. flag pins and even U.S. flags. They were the most bizarre and absurdly exploitative commercial products in anybody's memory !!!
 
Rampant and dishonest commercialism/materialism is accepted as a fact-of-life. Even the most learned and leery consumers just smirk and stop questioning what is real and what is phony. When we stop questioning the truths behind labels, we are only a step away from forgetting our values. In the end, there is no difference between a phony (deceptive) product label and the phony (unsubstantiated) claims of patriotism.