Shell Game?

In keeping with the spirit of this blog, i was thinking about Donald Trump and my anger and outrage over his statements and actions over the past few weeks.

Anger, that just like with Clinton the Republicans just can't seem to be able to accept that Mr. Obama IS the president of the United States. Duly elected by a majority of the people in the country (in much the same way that W was NOT).

Outrage, that it has not been demanded of any other President that they show their birth certificate, or college transcripts. God, I'd have LOVED to see W's!!! Meanwhile, Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard....wonder how thy faked that.

Disgust that he is so proud of himself...that he believes he forced the president to do "show hos papers" and that of course we must verify the authenticity of these documents.

Then I realized that Trump is really not unique....there are LOTS of people in America that make statements and ask questions like he does. The difference here is that these other's are usually found on street corners wearing aluminum foil hats or walking the streets of any major American city pushing a shopping cart full of cans muttering about Socialism.

The difference is that we are giving Trump a forum to make his insane viewpoints public. It take two to pull these things off: A lunatic, and someone willing to listen! Why on EARTH do we even care what he thinks, let alone allow him to sidetrack the political debate like he has?

That's when I started to wonder if that isn't the whole idea here. It reminds me of the two man pickpocket teams. One that distracts the mark by bumping into him or, makes a public scene like faking an injury; and the other to pick the mark's pocket while distracted? If Trump is the distraction, who is picking our pocket? Could it be people like Walker of Wisconsin? or Christie of New Jersey? or Brewer of Arizona?

Parade the clown with the funny hair in front of the cameras and microphones so the spotlight can be taken off the people making the direct assaults against the poor and middle class? Shift the anger, disgust and outrage of Americans from coming together to stop these people and focus it instead on this sideshow barker.  After all, America has the attention span of a five year old with ADHD locked in a candy store.

Best advice: Ignore this loser and focus on what is important!

Blog Name

Thought I'd start out easy and explain the name of the Blog. False Echoes is the name of one of my favorite Jimmy Buffet songs, found on his Banana Winds album. James Taylor joins him on this song with beautiful harmonies on the chorus. Its one of his most beautiful and melodic pieces and is in fact a tribute to his father, who at the time was suffering from Alzheimer's. You won't hear it on Top 40 radio, and I don't think it sneaks into his concerts very often if at all. The term False Echoes suggests the "hits" on a radar screen of things that aren't there, and the phrase from the song "He waltzes on memories while he fades like a flare" seems to be about as poetic a description for the awful disease as can be imagined.

At any rate, False Echoes also brings to mind a lot of what I feel about the world at present. The political state of America especially seems to spend a lot of time inventing False Echoes for the media and the public to chase.

Finally, False Echoes is personal. As it applies to me, it means this blog will have opinions which are in many ways False Echoes themselves. They can lead us into dangerous waters if we don't take the time to step back once in a while and say "Do I REALLY believe that???" While it would be great for someone to actually READ what i'm going to write, i think this is mostly for me. A place to examine the echoes on my radar screen, and hopefully to get other radar sets (that's you!) to confirm or deny my readings.

So, for all the reasons above, and as not to be a total thief of Jimmy, I named this Blog Fox Echoes.