{"id":2554,"date":"2016-11-18T22:11:20","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T06:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/?p=2554"},"modified":"2017-01-19T13:37:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T21:37:14","slug":"did-i-do-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/did-i-do-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Did I Try Hard Enough????"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/BumperStickerTrumpolini.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2557\" src=\"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/BumperStickerTrumpolini-300x90.png\" alt=\"bumperstickertrumpolini\" width=\"757\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/BumperStickerTrumpolini-300x90.png 300w, https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/BumperStickerTrumpolini-768x230.png 768w, https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/BumperStickerTrumpolini-1024x307.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/BumperStickerTrumpolini-801x240.png 801w, https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/BumperStickerTrumpolini.png 2027w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 757px) 100vw, 757px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Nov. 22, Update:<\/strong> I have not seen a single reference to the fact that today is the anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy, in 1963.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*************<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Okay, I&#8217;m screwing off again. The election is over but I&#8217;m still coming up with bumper stickers when I should be doing marketing and trying to sell for the Holiday Season, or maybe compiling my blogs, drafts, and thoughts for <em>Play Nice, Don&#8217;t Be a Trumpie!<\/em>, which looks like it is my next project.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I&#8217;m sixty-eight, and if the actuarial tables are right, I&#8217;ve got eleven years before the Grim Reaper shows up. But right now my question for myself when I think of my obligation to posterity is this: did I do enough to defeat Trump? I certainly tried in my own, off-the-wall, half-assed way, didn&#8217;t I? I came up with a slogan, graphics for a dozen bumper stickers, a patriotic song parody, and a flurry of opinionated blogs, all to no avail.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I thought Bernie Sanders had the best vision for the country, but voted for Hillary in the primary because I thought Sanders would be eaten alive by conservatives for being a &#8220;commie,&#8221; a miscalculation made by me and ten or twenty million others. Maybe I should have gone out and knocked no doors or volunteered on a Get-Out-The-Vote phone bank, but instead I did on my own what I hoped might amplify my single voice and single vote. Having come of age in the Sixties and felt the power of protest songs, I&#8217;ve always thought that a writer or a songwriter could have an out-sized influence on public opinion, having taken to heart the Chinese proverb: &#8220;It&#8217;s not those who write the laws who run the country, it&#8217;s those who write the songs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I wrote my first political song back in the early Eighties and drove around to open mics trying to defeat Ronald Reagan. That didn&#8217;t work any better than my internet efforts this year. I just checked on the stats for my YouTube song <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/zr9ckj2\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;When Donnie Goes Trumping Home.&#8221; <\/a>It was posted three months ago and has received all of 175 views! Hot damn! Other songs, parodies and such about Trump have viewers in the hundreds of thousands.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I&#8217;ve clearly been doing something wrong in my internet promotion efforts. I was astonished at today&#8217;s reports about fake news on FaceBook that claim that the election was swung by fake new reports by Trumpies from places like Macedonia (<em>Macedonia?<\/em>) which somehow overwhelmed real news on tens of millions of FaceBook feeds. Today some guy is bragging at making $10,000\/month posting fake news blogs that appear in millions of FaceBook newsfeeds and credits himself with swinging the election. So here&#8217;s a guy claiming to make $10k every month posting completely phony news stories seen by tens of thousands and my stuff is lucky if it is seen by dozens. I clearly have a lot to learn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On a positive note, I have learned a lot, and the &#8220;Official NoTrumpZone Sign&#8221; could yet play a part in thwarting the Trumpies. Maybe it&#8217;s a good thing my site and videos and tweets and blogs and songs and novels have so far been ignored. If the Trumpies thought I was making any kind of impact I&#8217;d be inundated with hate mail. I&#8217;m absolutely certain the Mussolini-Trumpolini graphic I came up with for this post will not go over well with the clean-shaven, alt-right conventioneers that today&#8217;s news says were meeting at a fancy hotel a few blocks from the White House, where they joined in denouncing Jews and anyone of non-European descent and celebrating their hero&#8217;s win with outstretched Nazi salutes and cheers of &#8220;Heil Victory.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/NoMussolini-NoTrumpolini.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2583 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/NoMussolini-NoTrumpolini-300x170.png\" alt=\"NoMussolini-NoTrumpolini\" width=\"431\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/NoMussolini-NoTrumpolini-300x170.png 300w, https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/NoMussolini-NoTrumpolini-768x435.png 768w, https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/NoMussolini-NoTrumpolini-424x240.png 424w, https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/NoMussolini-NoTrumpolini.png 1021w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 431px) 100vw, 431px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another Chinese proverb, one considered to be a curse, says: &#8220;May you live in interesting times.&#8221; Our times are about to get very interesting in a way that does not bode well for the future of America or the planet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On different note, and just for posterity, here are the lyrics to &#8220;The Great Deceiver,&#8221; a parody sung to the tune of the 1950s hit &#8220;The Great Pretender.&#8221; At the time I wrote it (1983) the press was calling Reagan &#8220;The Great Communicator,&#8221; a takeoff on Native Americans&#8217; &#8220;Great Spirit&#8221; made famous by TV and movie westerns. The head chief of the Sioux tribe said it was more accurate to call him &#8220;The Great Deceiver,&#8221; and after reading that I came up the the following lyric. It looks as if Trump will soon surpass Reagan in terms of &#8220;greatness&#8221; as a deceiver, so maybe this lyric will be updated before too long.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Great Deceiver<br \/>\n(Sung to the tune of &#8220;The Great Pretender&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;Oh, yes, I\u2019m the Great Deceiver<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<br \/>\nVoters think that I\u2019m really swell<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<br \/>\nI\u2019m an actor by trade<br \/>\nPolitics is my game<br \/>\nI\u2019m pretending<br \/>\nBut no one can tell.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;Yes, I\u2019m the Great Deceiver<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<br \/>\nI\u2019m the best at casting a spell<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<br \/>\nI\u2019ve got the voters respect<br \/>\nI\u2019ve got\u00a0 the Teflon Effect<br \/>\nNancy times me<br \/>\nSo no one can tell.<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">It\u2019s real, this feeling<br \/>\nOf make believe<br \/>\nNancy\u2019s on the job<br \/>\nUsing astrology<br \/>\nOoooohhhhh&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;Yes, I\u2019m the Great Deceiver<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<br \/>\nPretending that we\u2019re doing swell<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<br \/>\nI\u2019ll borrow and spend<br \/>\nAnd then I\u2019ll pretend<br \/>\nThings are better<br \/>\nAnd no one can tell.<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">CHORUS<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;Yes, I\u2019m the Great Deceiver<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<br \/>\nI\u2019m the best at casting a spell<br \/>\nVoo doo, voo doo<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I\u2019ll borrow and spend<br \/>\nAnd when my term ends<br \/>\nI\u2019ll blame liberals<br \/>\nAnd no one can tell.<br \/>\nBlame the liberals<br \/>\nAnd no one can tell.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nov. 22, Update: I have not seen a single reference to the fact that today is the anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy, in 1963. ************* Okay, I&#8217;m screwing off again. The election is over but I&#8217;m still coming up with bumper stickers when I should be doing marketing and trying to sell<br \/> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/did-i-do-enough\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,51,72,24,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-scottadmin","post-2554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-history","category-personal","category-play-nice","category-politics","category-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2554"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2620,"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions\/2620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.castaliapub.com\/williamscottmorrison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}