Things Howard has Written

Red Dregs and trump

a Parody by Howard Hedlund, with all due respect to Dr. Seuss
September 2020
with help from:       Rebecca Hedlund
                                  Miriam Hedlund
                                  Karen Christen
                                  Roland Christen

I’m Uncle SAM;   Ol’ Sam I am
Our Uncle Sam!  Great Uncle Sam! 
trump’s killing you, dear Uncle Sam!

Do you like pence, trump or grah’m?
We do NOT like them, Uncle Sam!
We do not like pence, trump or grah’m.  

Would you like them here or there?
Could you like them anywhere?  
We would NOT like them here or there 
We do not like them ANYWHERE!
We do not like pence, trump and grah’m.
We hate those bastards, Uncle Sam.

Would you like trump in your house?
Would you let him grab your spouse?
I would not let him in my house!
I WOULD NOT let him NEAR my spouse!
I CAN NOT stand him here or there,
I hate his kids;  I hate his hair!
I just despise that asshole trump.
We need to trash him in the dump!

Do you like his raging rants?
Would you like him without pants?
NOT without pants.   I hate his rants. 
Come on now, people:  Take a stance!
trump always lies,  and whines and cries,
Under his rule, our nation dies.

His daughter:  she’s a nasty slut
And barr’s nose stays way up his butt
I really hate pence, barr and trump
All three of them can kiss my rump!

Do you like their far-right views?
Can you watch them on the news?
We all detest their fascist views
We hate their bullshit in the news

I’d run them over with my car!
Go grab the feathers; heat the tar.
It throws me into such a rage,
To see a poor child in a cage.

trump’s tiny hands. He makes me sick.
He prob’ly has a tiny dick.
We hate trump’s policies on race.
Someone should punch his ugly face.

They think ivanka has such style.
trump wants to screw her! Oh how vile!
Suppress the vote!  That makes him smile.
grah’m pence and barr all shout Sieg Heil!

In Air Force One, trump’s campaign plane.
Could you like them in that plane? 
He’s not a king!  He does not reign!
And Air Force One is NOT his plane! 
He cannot grasp a hero’s traits
They’re all just suckers, so he states
Losers all,  he calls the slain.
He disses HEROES  ‘cause of rain.

R B G’s body, not yet cold,
To Satan trumpster’s soul was sold.
Her vacant seat he’ll try to fill.
Democracy he wants to kill.

trump’s fat orange face.  His fake gold hair.
I’d like to stomp his derriere!  
pence, grah’m and barr all think he’s great.
All four of them spew lies and hate.

And Moscow mitch, that turtle-face
We need to put him in his place.
There’s also cruz, that piece of shit,
He has no brains; he has no wit.

And grassley, he’s a lying jerk.
They make me want to go berserk!
I really hate them Uncle Sam
They’ve put us all in such a jam.

How ‘bout the wall?   trump’s border wall?
Would you, could you, at his wall?
Of course, I could not at his wall!
There’ll never be a wall at all.

Could you like trump in the rain?
Is he nice? Is he humane?
NO, I’d still hate him in the rain.
He’s caused this land excessive pain.
Two hundred thousand souls we’ve lost!
trump’s lies have had a frightful cost.

Not barr, nor pence nor grah’m nor mitch,
mel-a-n-i-a’s  a slutty bitch!
While COVID dangers trump denies,
He spews out more bombastic lies.

With seven bullets in the back,
Just a “choked putt” was his cold crack. 
When Black Lives Matter comes to town,
His Nazis march to put them down.

And barr and pence and grah’m and mitch
Each one is a:  son-of-a-bitch
And McEnany;  lying whore,
We’ve NEVER seen such crooks before

I CAN NOT like them here or there.
I’ll always hate them everywhere.

You do not like pence, barr or grah’m?
I just despise them, Uncle Sam!

Could you, would you at that church? 
Is there no good?  Please try to search.
No! trump and barr defiled that church.
No! On our country, he’s a smirch!

I do not like that scumbag trump
He’s made our once great nation slump
I hate his brags to say he’s great.
His mouth spews naught but lies and hate.

I do not like his childish pouts.
I do not like his boastful shouts
I can not stand his racist words
His mindless minions, brain-dead herds

I simply hate his sexist acts.
With Putin he’s made treas’nous pacts.
He thinks he’s smart, but he’s a fool
We need to flush him down the stool!

You do not like trump, so you say.
Do you hate all the rest that way?
barr, pence, grah’m, mitch and trump all five?
Should they no longer be alive?

Poor Uncle Sam!  Why can’t you see?
They need to go. We must be free!

If I must like them, here’s the scoop:
I’d LIKE to see them force-fed poop.
Of human-kind they are the dregs.
They’re just a bunch of rotten eggs.

So, liking trump?  Well, let me check…
I’d LIKE a noose around his neck!
Another thing I’d like as well,
I’d LIKE to see them all in Hell!

I’d like to never hear their lies. 
I’d love to cut them down to size.
I’d love for trump and Moscow mitch
to be some prison inmate’s bitch.

I’ll love it when they cry and shout,
‘Cause all us voters KICKED THEM OUT!
So let’s all boot that orange-faced turd.
WE’LL  VOTE  THEM  OUT  NOVEMBER  THIRD ! 

A Legislative Proposal Inspired by IQ45

September 2020
This, or possibly something with better “legal” wording should be put on a referendum for a vote across the entire country:

“All official statements; all responses to authorized press inquiries; and all responses and/or statements at official press briefings by any elected or appointed official while in office (basically any statement made in an official capacity while on taxpayer payroll or under taxpayer contract) shall be treated as being made under oath, and shall be subject to perjury prosecution if knowingly stated or answered untruthfully. This MUST include ALL digital media and posts including Twitter “tweets,” Facebook posts and emails from a government account. Minimum penalty should be ALL of the following:
1.) loss of office or position
2.) a fine commensurate with damage done, but not less than the full salary of the offender for the entire term of office
3.) a jail term not less than the full term for which the offender was elected, to be served in the general population of a federal penitentiary. NO minimum security country club prisons!

This should be something we can all agree upon, whether far-left, far-right, or anywhere in between.

Open Letter to People of Color from a White Male Boomer

September 2020
Dear Fellow Americans who happen to have more melanin than I do,

I must start this letter by explaining that I am a 61-year-old white male from the Midwest.  I was raised in an upper middle-class family in a town of 50K that was almost exclusively white.  We said grace before we ate, and we went to Sunday School and Church every Sunday as long as we slept under our parents’ roof.  Our parents were loving and supportive, and although we weren’t rich, we were very comfortable.  My family opposed racism at every turn, but I am undoubtedly the product of white privilege. 

I am also the product of racial isolation. This was never intentional. I have no idea what the neighborhood policy and politics were like. Our grade school was entirely white. It was simply what happened. I need to look this up for sure, but my high school class was about 800 graduates. I don’t believe that we had 50 that would have qualified as minorities.

People with my background are often nightmares for people of color.  I am sorry! I cannot truly imagine the struggles that you all face every day, even though I know of them.  It is completely out of my realm of life-experience.  I have never had a reason to fear the police …unless I had weed.  I have never been followed around by department store rent-a-cops.  I have never been the object of slurs because of the genetics that make my complexion what it is.

So, who the Hell do I think I am writing this letter?  Just another privileged know-it-all giving unwanted advice to people of color?  Just one more condescending white boy telling you how to live?  Well, I hope not.

 I was elated when Barak Obama was elected President of the United States.  Eight years later, I was devastated when Trump was elected.  Then, 2020 hit us all like a sledgehammer.  Now, as we draw near to November’s election, I am terrified for our nation, our shared culture, and our democracy.  I fear for my fellow Americans who do not share my innate privilege or skin color.  

So, I have a plea to make: Let’s unite to fight this battle and defeat racism, inequality and inherited privilege, once and for all.  I cannot lead this although I will volunteer to be among the first in line. I wish to offer the following thoughts for consideration.  Some are idealistic.  Some are pragmatic.  All are sincere and are offered up with humility.

• We achieve nothing through violence.  Somehow, in spite of the barrage of provocations, people of color must not yield to the temptation to respond to injustice in a violent way.  It is completely wrong, unfair and unjust that you cannot stand up for yourselves the same way that I can.  But at the present, under the current regime, it is the hard reality.  You can’t merely be my equal.  You must be better than me to achieve equality.  Do this for the future where we will all play on a level field.
• Vote.  Register your friends to vote.  Help people to the polls so they can vote.  Put up with bullshit and long lines in order to cast your vote.  Endure more hardships to vote.  If you can stomach this one more time, and remove “white supremacy” from government, then we can make things better already by the 2024 election, and the journey to electoral equality will be back in motion. 
• Black Lives Matter!  They matter equally, but unfortunately, history right up to today has not shown that to be the case.  To overcome this, we must continue peaceful protest and avoid mistakes that set us back.  Case in point: the shooting of the two policemen in LA on Sep. 12 may have seemed like a good idea to the perpetrator, but it was a disaster!  Apart from the tragedy for the officers and their families, that act alone will galvanize the far-right-white-trash in ways that terrify me, and I’m not black!  That shooter might as well have lynched 1,000 black brothers himself.  YOU can not – must not tolerate such behavior!
• We must all change our language.  Start with our children.  We can teach them the language of hate – they need to know and understand it – but teach it through instruction and discussion when they are old enough, NEVER by example or through common usage.  Again, it is completely unfair, but you of color must be better than I am.  You must be better than I so that our descendants can enjoy equality.
• Diversify.  Don’t take the easy way out and self-segregate with those who look, sound and act just like you.  You can’t trust the privileged to invite the under-privileged into their sphere.  They won’t.  Again, it’s unfair, but you will all need to be the ones who take the initiative.  Give white people the opportunity to actually judge you by the content of your character by showing us that character first-hand.  To judge you by the color of your skin, we only need to see you.  That’s easy, and done in an instant.  To judge you be the content of your character, we must get to know you.  That’s harder unless we all make the effort.  It certainly requires a greater investment of time.
• White people fear people who are not white.  It’s stupid!  It’s wrong!  It’s sad but true.  Much racist hate is actually born out of fear.  Understand this and show us that we have nothing to fear.  Go out of your way to show kindness and restraint.  Persevere and continue to turn the other cheek just a little longer.  Anecdotally, my wife and I have been the victims of violent crime.  The crimes against us were committed by a white man.  
• We must all start with our children, and it must start at birth.  We are all burdened with so many things that we must unlearn.  We must not pass our mistakes on to the next generation.  It is far better to LEARN RIGHT sooner, rather than to UNLEARN WRONG later!
• Celebrate education and culture.  Music from Jazz, to Hip-Hop, art, fashion, poetry, cuisine, dance – these are all areas where persons of color have made the entire world better.  Make Neil deGrasse Tyson as big a black star as LeBron James.  Celebrate ALL the peacemakers.  Give your children a poster of John Lewis or MLK to hang up next to the one of their favorite athlete, musician or movie star.  
• Finally, know that there are white people born into white privilege who share your desire for both equality and for peace.  We will try to follow your lead. We will participate in redressing lifetimes of wrongs. All lives cannot matter until black lives matter equally, and there’s a lot of catching up to do.

HKH

OK. Let’s end Abortions!

Ending abortions is a noble goal.  Abortions are never desirable as a method of birth control.  They are traumatic and irrevocable.  So, lets do the right things to end them!

• Most abortions have their origins in unwanted pregnancies.  If all pregnancies were desired, and only wanted pregnancies occurred, there would be little demand for abortions.
• Sex education needs to start early, and it must be done honestly, and continuously.
  • Sex education needs to be science based.
  • It needs to start with appropriate curriculum at an early age.  It MUST NOT reinforce gender roles!  It must continue throughout a child’s education.  It is as important as reading, writing and STEM curriculum.  My “official” sex education back in the early 70’s consisted of ONE after-school sex-ed film that had probably been produced several generations earlier.  It was black and white; that’s how outdated it was.
  • Sex education must include discussion of sexuality, and alternatives to traditional sexual norms.
  • Sex education must address the rampant portrayals of sex in the media.  Censoring the media is wrong and will never work.  Intelligent discussion of movie and Internet portrayals renders media sexual portrayals at least somewhat impotent.
  • If sex education includes religious teachings, it should do so dispassionately, and include the teachings of ALL major religions and belief systems.  It must also include the viewpoints of Atheists and Agnostics.  Sex is a human activity.  No religion has a monopoly on truth regarding sex.
  • Sex education needs to acknowledge the primal urges involved in sex.  Evolution has created an overwhelming desire for the sex act in ALL living organisms that reproduce sexually (as opposed to simple asexual cell division).  The sex drive is completely independent of the knowledge of the inevitable procreating result.  Humans are possibly unique in the knowledge that sex produces offspring.  But our sex drives are far older and more primal.
    
  • In accordance with the various points above, birth control methods should also be taught. Abortion is a birth control method. It is probably the only 100% effective method apart from sterilization. Abstinence is unrealistic, and is probably the least effective excuse for a birth control method. Other methods lie somewhere between and should be taught and discussed rationally and realistically. Anything less is lying to our children.
  • Finally, education needs to include much more emphasis on the real consequences of engaging in sexual activity from STDs, to pregnancies, to psychological issues, to social and cultural stigmas.  The decision to engage in sex is irrevocable. It cannot be undone, and kids need to understand this.
• Women need safe, discreet, affordable access to ALL aspects of women’s healthcare.  Ob-Gyn services should be readily available to ALL women, everywhere.  
  • Women’s health is among the strongest arguments FOR universal, single-payer healthcare.
  • Women’s health deserves HIGHER priority than men’s health.  Biologically, a man’s contribution to procreation can be over in a matter of minutes.  A man with only days to live can still procreate.  A woman’s contribution requires a minimum of 9 months.  During that time, the woman must be healthy for two lives.  
  • Women’s healthcare is human healthcare.
  • Women’s healthcare needs to include mental health services.  Without meaning to sound flippant, we men can drive women crazy. Mental Health = Physical Health = Mental Health!
  • Psychological and emotional counseling for women MUST be NON-judgmental with regard to sexuality.
  • Birth control, including abortion, MUST be free.  No ifs, ands or buts!
• Much more of the burden for contraception MUST be shifted to men.  We men have escaped responsibility for our contribution to unwanted pregnancies for far too long.
  • Why is there no male version of “the Pill?”  Why is this not a major pursuit of the pharmaceutical industry?
  • Let’s face facts.  Men simply won’t wear condoms if they can find any way to avoid them. 
  • Why are men celebrated for their sexual “conquests” while women are denigrated for promiscuity?  This “stud” vs. “slut” dichotomy is wrong on every level.
  • When a pregnancy occurs, the father MUST be held responsible and accountable!  DNA evidence has made the question of paternity a moot point.  
    • Child support, as currently implemented, is not nearly enough.  
    • If a biological father doesn’t wish to be an active parent, that’s fine, but they must then be on the hook for providing parental duties at their expense.  Single mothers can’t have a life if they are required to provide 100% of the parental duties.  For example: if a single mother wants a night out, the father should pay for the sitter.
    • Patterns of irresponsible impregnation must be criminally punishable.
  • Bottom line:  Make men suffer equally for unintended pregnancies.  Men will never give a shit if they pay no price for their actions.

There.  If the ideas above were implemented, the number of abortions would plummet to lows never seen before.  If half as many resources were put into implementing the steps outlined above, as are applied to so-called pro-life efforts, the end result in terms of actual abortion reduction would be phenomenal.

Note that abolishing abortion through either restrictive legislation or through misguided court rulings wasn’t even mentioned above.  THAT OMMISSION IS INTENTIONAL!

There are a few more points that need to be made:

• In the end, only the woman has a say in what happens in her body.  It is nobody’s business but the woman’s and her doctor’s.  Everyone else needs to simply shut the Hell up!
• Abortions are appropriate events in certain situations.  This MUST be realized and supported.
  • No woman should EVER be forced to carry a child that resulted from rape or incest.  Not EVER!!
  • The life and health of the mother outweighs the life of an unborn child.  Every time.  Without question or judgement.  
  •  Debilitating birth defects happen.  The fact that modern medicine can keep a severely disabled child alive does not mean that a mother should complete a tragic pregnancy.
• Unwanted pregnancies will still happen.  Let’s do all we can to minimize these unfortunate pregnancies, but the decision to carry or to abort is none of your damned business if you aren’t the pregnant woman.
  
• The following quote from a Benedictine nun should be a part of any pro-life / pro-choice debate!
  “I do not believe that just because you are opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, a child educated, a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.” 
  Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister
  
•  Do not tell me that you are pro-life if you also favor capital punishment. That is simply wrong.
  
• Do not tell me that you are pro-life if you supported IQ45’s actions at the US-Mexico border that ripped children from their parents and put them into detention cages. If that doesn’t appall you, you need to sit down and shut up when discussions on abortion start.
  
• The fact that YOU weren’t aborted has NO bearing on any woman’s current decision. Maybe you should have been!
•