Symphony of White

Two of the strongest memories from my early childhood are the muddy yards and roads soaked into deep ruts by rivers of steady pouring rain and the pristine whiteness of the winter wonderland stillness when the dirt and mud are covered by a blanket of gleamingly white and fluffy snowflakes, blanketing snow glittering in the bitter and biting cold sunshine, accumulated and piled high above my head.

I could not imagine a prettier color than alpine white in the majestic Carpathian Mountains set in a wild and rocky terrain ringed with blue-green spruce.

Our snow at Christmas in grandpa’s yard was stained red with the splashed blood of the sacrificed pig raised to feed our entire extended family that otherwise would starve.

My memory brings back the red poppies in the fields of green and yellow wheat, guarded by a man armed with an axe; he meant business when he chased kids trampling government wheat in search of the bountiful and beautiful flowers that had more “useful purposes” to the guard’s communist bosses. The bright red was inviting us to pick them and take them to our moms to add a splash of color in the otherwise dreary and utilitarian grey space we called communist apartment homes. Picking wild flowers in a small bouquet was such an innocent delight which flooded my eyes with God’s beauty.

A sea of red hammer and sickle communist flags dominated the landscape when the population was forced out into the streets, rain or shine, to march in praise and glory to the dear leader and his wife.

Yellow and white were the fields of chamomile flowers we picked and dried to make tea, a soothing greenish liquid that relaxed us at night and helped clean infected wounds.

Our uniforms were plain shades of green, grey, brown, and navy. For a proper contrast, our school shirts were blue, freshened in the wash by hand with a cube of blue dye when they faded.  Hands would look blue for a while as we did not have latex gloves to shield the skin while doing laundry.  Girls as young as five were taught how to properly wash clothes.

Our hands would turn chocolate brown when it came time to pick and shell the green casing of walnuts which had not dried completely on its own. The purple plums we gathered for brandy and the juice we squeezed out of grapes in the fall to make wine stained our hands magenta.  

We cried crocodile tears when the pungent and juicy yellow onions had to be pulled by hand from the ground. We dug potatoes with a hoe and brown became embedded under fingernails for the duration no matter how much we washed our hands. The smell of fresh dirt and the worms we dug up with the potatoes was overwhelming. When it rains and the first drops fall on dry dirt, the smell reminds me of digging up potatoes from the soil which we then spread evenly on the floor of the cellar to dry up.

Grandma’s flower garden blossomed in summer and autumn with fragrant roses, dahlias, narcissus, tulips, chrysanthemums, lilacs, peonies, and lavender.  She was proud of her garden located close to the cast iron water pump that brought fresh ground water from the deep well. I helped by pumping enough water to nourish her precious blooms twice a week. Grandma and mom looked at the plants as God’s colorful gifts that filled the soul and eyes with beauty. The colorful and scented blooms were mom’s treasures.

Grandpa gave me a box of watercolors one year and, without consulting mom, I painted a small red rose on the wall by the couch where I slept. Each morning, when I first opened my eyes, I saw the rose.

We did not have any paintings or pictures on the wall except my parent’s oil portrait from their imaginary wedding. It was a fantasy wedding portrait as they were too poor to have a proper wedding and a formal dress. I wish I had that painting today! It had been long confiscated by God knows who.

Nature’s colors amazed me and I often dreamed that someday, when I could afford to, I would never wear anything else but bright colors, teal, pink, purple, lavender, grass green, magenta, orange, white, and reds.

I often wander in the woods to capture on camera nature’s palette. Fall is a symphony of yellows, browns, greens, and maroons that take my breath away. My husband laughs that I must have photographed the same trees for the last ten years but to me, each autumn brings another shade of color that I have not seen before with my naked eye. And the sun adds that little sparkle, a glint of gold, orange, pink, and cerulean blue streaking from the soft white clouds.

The fragrant green fir trees at Christmas and the tiny real candles we lit, the few glass ornaments, brought a warm glow of yellow light, joy and color to our otherwise drab existence.

One summer mom bought enough material for a new dress. It was not often that I got a new dress. Everything had to be altered, let out, let in, and hemmed to last several seasons. The print was small red roses with green leaves set in a black background. My seamstress aunt‘s masterful fingers created a work of art without a paper pattern. Every time I wore it, the splash of color made me feel special and I rode on a cloud of happiness all day, bathed in the hues of red and green.

My wardrobe today is an eclectic splash of cheerful and sunny colors. It’s not hard to find me in a crowded airport. To me, black is for somber occasions and funerals; navy is ceremonial; and brown is best served in dark chocolate.

The whiteness of snow is still so pristine that no garment can possibly match it. But I wear white long after Labor Day, a bright spot in a crowd of winter.

Cultural Marxism and the Red International Women's Day

Photo: Wikipedia

Global civic demonstrations as practiced by young and compass-less anarchist hordes has become the latest expression of cultural Marxism, an “unseen plague which corrupted America” and now threatens the rest of the western world, including small, formerly communist countries that allegedly overcame Soviet satellite status.  

To understand why I use the term “allegedly,” you must understand the nostalgia of older generations, for the good ole simple days of communism, the longing for the days when they were dependent on the meager rations doled out to them monthly by the communist party apparatchiks in order to keep them compliant and willing to be subjected to the utopia of “communist freedom,” a form of mental and physical enslavement.

The insidious cultural Marxism has affected the minds of millions, how they think, how they perceive the world around them, life in general, and how humanity evolved.  Academia, liberal textbooks, and books in general, movies, the main stream media, Internet, and television have shaped a new generation of drones who worship at the feet of cultural Marxism.

Karl Marx and the Bolsheviks in Russia tried to unite the proletariat by force under the Soviet banner but countries resisted, they cared more about their nationalism, their borders, about their economic freedom than the Bolshevik’s envy and desire to destroy capitalist success. But Antonio Gramsci’s idea, lesser known to the western world, was to change the western culture, the American and European culture slowly, so that the new generations will be willing and eager to accept Marxism.

The Marxist-Communist Party in Germany established in 1923 an institute later known as the Frankfurt School, to overturn the accepted societal standards and replace them with Marxist ideals. When Hitler rose to power, these “scholars” were chased out of Germany and they sought refuge in America, at Columbia University in New York – George Lukas, Antonio Gramsci, Charles Reich, Max Horkheimer, Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Wilhelm Reich.

So far they’ve been quite successful in destroying Christian morals upon which the west was founded, replacing Christianity with values such as “cultural pessimism, sexual revolution, destruction of marriage and family, feminism, gender identity, transgenderism, bathroom use by biological opposites, and same sex marriage.”

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and other NGOs, injected the virus of Cultural Marxism into societies around the globe, with large infusions of cash that produced generations of followers at universities, high schools, middle and elementary schools, in the mass media, and Hollywood’s militant actors who fancy themselves the ultimate scholarly authority.  Generations of politicians, actors, lawyers, doctors, teachers, journalists, professors, and other intellectuals have graduated from this school of thought in the last 25 years.

Many advisors to presidents in Europe and the U.S. have been brainwashed as well into the Cultural Marxism school of thought. A very high percentage of my former high school and college students were products of Cultural Marxism and its intolerance for divergent opinions and belief systems.

Europe, by virtue of its location, is more advanced in its acceptance and total embrace of Cultural Marxism but we are not that far behind.

Communists who call themselves progressives today have co-opted language and invented Political Correctness, a form of language censorship, among other things, to indoctrinate the pliable youth into Marxism.  You could say that language matters.

The slogan Forward, used in the past by communists and fascists alike, is a good case in point. Forward to what? The Chinese under Mao went so forward with Marxist exploitation of the masses that they starved their own people to death. The Soviet people starved to death under Stalin, often by design as was the case in Ukraine, other times because the economic five-year central planning of the Communist Party was a disaster.

Hillary’s campaign used the slogan Forward in recent times. Her young and old supporters cheered like the sheep they were. How forward did the Democrat states and cities go? Look at the financial disaster that the state of California is and at the impoverished Detroit and other Democrat-ruled bastions, and you will understand the Democrat’s communist brand of Forward.

Democrats and the virulent left have totally appropriated terminology in political discussions. Ordinary people hear sound bites, over and over, and believe them because most people take their information from the main stream media.

Progressives are now involved in “resistance,” they “resist” through violence a duly-elected President they do not like by calling him “Hitler.” The man has done absolutely nothing to resemble what Hitler did to millions in Europe during WWII and in his concentration camps. Progressives are using “resist” as if they are fighting against injustice or some kind of oppression that does not exist. The term, however, has now spread around the world because the communist left is well-funded by globalists who want to make sure there is a pliant populace in the entire western world. The young people “resist” through street demonstrations paid by the same Soros-sponsored NGOs.

If you want a pause in immigration, for safety reasons, you are immediately labeled by vitriolic lefties and “Islamophobe” or “racist,” no logical discussion is allowed any further.

The words the left loves to throw in people’s faces, “Palestinian,” or “Palestinian state,” were invented by Yasser Arafat; the term stuck even though these people are Arabs, many are nomadic Bedouins, who have never ever had their own state or even a city.

In the leftist jargon, the words “equal opportunity,” actually mean preferential treatment to a group of people they see as having been taken advantage of by the evil capitalists. The fact that many of these people do not deserve the things they get for free is lost to the communist left. “Social justice” means taking from those who worked hard and succeeded, and give it to those who were lazy or failed. In order words, redistribute the middle class wealth according to communist dictates, while the elites get to keep their wealth. Failure is not acceptable to a communist – you must have failed because the system held you back.

Word usage is very important in the communist war against the minds of the ordinary Americans. Leftists are masters in inventing euphemisms or repurposing words in order to pass their global communist agenda. Somehow, by hook or by crook, all of you are going to live under the Democrat’s brand of communism/Islamofascism.

Progressives, a misnomer, as they should be called Regressives, are committing cultural suicide on your behalf and you are agreeing through silence, afraid to speak, pinned between the official corner of free speech zones at universities and Political Correctness at your work.

Cultural Marxism was evident today, on the International Women’s Day, a day sanctioned by the United Nations and celebrated in all current and former communist countries. Women were told to protest their importance today and to stay home from work, not buy anything, and wear red in solidarity with the March 8 communist celebration.

The biggest participants in this protest were teachers who stayed home in droves, resulting in some cases in the closing of schools. Perhaps that spared children from one more day of social justice brainwashing. Now you really know which commies are indoctrinating your children into Cultural Marxism eight hours every day, every school year.

 

 

 

On Being "Green"

My late friend Henry Lamb opened my eyes to the fraud of UN Agenda 21 and the environmentalist proponents of sustainability’s “green” agenda.  All of a sudden, everything around me became “green” and “sustainable” – ads, buses, trucks, cars, homes, flyers, construction materials, electronic billboards, gadgets, toys, shopping bags, stores, banks, the military, and companies. Businesses are ecological now and everything they do is “sustainable” for the Earth whether that is true or not.

Nobody wants to live in a polluted area, no matter what political leanings he/she may have. Most Americans take good care of their environment and volunteer to clean pollution. We passed some good regulations years ago and we have cleaned up our act in many areas, giving new life to formerly abused habitats, reducing pollution drastically. However, all this faux “greening” around me is nauseating and so is the EPA.

I started watching with purpose the behavior of my liberal neighbors, who comprise more than ninety-five percent of the surrounding population, and made some interesting observations. I see the eco-nuts shopping in their environmentally friendly Priuses and Smartcars, wearing “Diversity is Great” t-shirts and exhibiting Coexist bumper stickers with religious symbols, carrying dirty re-usable shopping bags with a smug and superior smirk, mixing meats and veggies in the same unwashed bag.

I am not an engineer to calculate the footprint of producing a re-usable bag vs. a plastic bag and the ultimate damage to the environment. I do know that both are made from petroleum by-products. I also know that it is unhealthy and dangerous to re-use eco-friendly grocery bags that are not laundered frequently and thoroughly.

I get dirty looks when I take out grocery store plastic bags and reuse them for trash, dirty kitty litter, and recycle the unused bags. Judging by the scant content of recycling trash bins in the street, liberals do not recycle much, in spite of the loud and obnoxious “save the planet” rhetoric. Perhaps they cook everything from scratch, never use any packaging, and live like the Wild West pioneers.

There is bright red communism inside the “green” environmentalist power grab and control. The country is spending billions it does not have in order to appease the “green” egos and the money making political machine.

We must pay punishing carbon taxes but Al Gore and Hollywood can fly their jets shamelessly while lecturing us on cutting our carbon footprint, turning the thermostat down in winter, up in summer, buying $50 light bulbs or mercury laden compact fluorescent light bulbs, driving less, riding bikes, walking, or staying home for the sake of the planet.

We are spending money borrowed from China in order to advertise that we are “green” and to reinvent the wheel. Our President wasted billions of dollars on alternative and expensive green energy, and “saved or created” non-existent green jobs, causing generations of future Americans to be slaves to a national debt far exceeding Gross Domestic Product.

Rep. Darrell Issa asked a BLS representative recently what the definition of a “green job” was. I was curious myself and I got my answer from President Obama’s highly qualified professorial administration. Any job can be green if you tweak the definition - bus driver, floor sweeper, Salvation Army employee, antique dealer, college professor in an environmental studies department, repair shop mechanic or clerk, any worker in a place that recycles, oil lobbyist, and the list can be endless.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) defines green jobs as any products and services that “collect, reuse, remanufacture, recycle, or compost waste materials or waste water.” Rep. Darrell Issa said, “Any type of business that sells used goods is a green job, according to BLS.” By this definition, a flea market seller has a green job. (The Blaze, Becket Adams and Jason Howerton, June 8, 2012)

If I increase public awareness of environmental issues, I have a green job. If I drive a bus instead of a car, I have a green job. If I drive a two-seater tin can called the Smartcar, I am green. If I teach about environmental doom and gloom, I am a green employee. If I make a movie about nature, I am green. National Geographic is definitely a green company. If I work at the zoo and scoop poop, I have a green job. If I compost my garden, I am green.

It has been evident for almost four years now that the Labor Department has been manipulating employment data for political purposes. Rep. Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, indicated that the Obama administration has reclassified ordinary jobs as “green jobs” in order to prove that billions of taxpayer dollars have created green and eco-friendly jobs, and to increase President Obama’s re-election chances. The government should actually create jobs not attempt to snow job the taxpayers.