Trump’s Chief of Staff, retired general John Kelly, recently lamented: “You know when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore…”

Sacrosanct? Women? Really? Was I sleeping through that chapter of our history? I guess my 5th grade teacher who kept touching me during class, or the college football players who threatened to forcibly take me to a “party,” or the guy who didn’t want to let me leave his apartment… all simply viewed me as a sacred chalice from which they wished to partake.

The sad truth is that Kelly’s comment was more a revelation to men than to women. We know the deal. And while few of us have the platform those so-called powerful women at the upper echelons of corporate America, politics or Hollywood have, all of us know (literally) the score. In the end, as that tired adage goes: “it’s a man’s world.” While so much has changed for the better since the days so missed by the John Kellys, the all boys club known as the “GOP” and, of course, our Abuser-in –Chief, Donald Trump, too much remains status quo as seen by the tweet hashtag #MeToo.

The irony behind the tens of thousands tweeting #MeToo is that I have never met a woman who was not, at some point in her life, sexually abused and/or harassed. The surprise would we to find that woman who could say #NotMe. It’s time to end this cruel and unspoken female “initiation” rite.  It’s time for all of us, women and men, to say #NoMore

The chaos president has us jumping from crisis to crisis. He wants to keep our eyes off the prize: voting the Republicans out at every level of government. Our only hope lies in the ballot box and not just on the federal level but also on the local and state level. From the PTAs that are purging textbooks to corrupt county governments that have shortchanged public education, to state governments passing voter suppression laws, these Republicans have got to go. The emphasis  has been on the 2018 Congressional elections but we must get out and vote this November 2017. We must begin to retake local and state governments and that’s mostly during off Congressional and off Presidential election years. Register to vote. Take your friends, help a neighbor get whatever documentation needed and get out and vote this November.

Vote this November before it is too late.

Looking for information on voting? Go to:

Votelocal in Spanish: https://www.facebook.com/VOTALOCALMENTE/

Vote local in English: https://www.facebook.com/votelocaltaketheequalpledge2017/

Look for your local candidates and issues and let others know about your local elections:

New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont https://www.facebook.com/groups/1531319183586004

MidAtlantic: D.C., Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York https://www.facebook.com/groups/1383179565052352/

Great Lakes: Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin https://www.facebook.com/groups/1914341472121374/

Midwest: Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota https://www.facebook.com/groups/1794407224205434/

Southeast: Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida https://www.facebook.com/groups/811288802363783/

Southeast Central: Kentucky, Tennessee Mississippi, and Alabama https://www.facebook.com/groups/1693165557659202

Southwest Central: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana https://www.facebook.com/groups/146538415900696/

Mountain: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada https://www.facebook.com/groups/455392028165443/

Pacific: California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska https://www.facebook.com/groups/1691400461155891/

One of the most common comments since the Weinstein sexual harassment story broke has been: “It was common knowledge so why wasn’t it exposed earlier?” Seriously? Is there a living American male or female that doesn’t know the answer to that question?

The American workplace is still dominated by men and it has become the dominant force in our daily lives. It’s more competitive, more insecure than ever before. It is understood that you either park your rights and feelings outside the corporate door or lose your job. And this includes keeping your mouth shut if the  boss leers, pats, makes lewd jokes, or even attempts (or does) lay his hands on you. It’s been going on since time immemorial despite the occasional high profile scandal. Remember Anita Hill? Isn’t her abuser still sitting on the nation’s highest court? And that was twenty-six years ago. My, how times have not changed.

Still surprised Weinstein’s behavior went unexposed for so long? Didn’t America just elect serial abuser and sexist par excellance Donald Trump as its president? And that vote came after we all heard him admit to all manner of lewd, crude and theoretically illegal behavior on an Access Hollywood tape. And wasn’t it the same Donald Trump who mocked, threatened and continued to harass the brave women who came out to corroborate his history as a serial abuser? Their reward for stepping up: he was elected president.

So, let me ask again: are we really surprised that Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, or Bill Cosby got away with such behavior for so long? No, they are just the tip of the iceberg, which, I bet, will stay firmly in tact long after earth’s last glacier has melted.

The NFL, a private corporation, is about to succumb to the nattering and tweeting directed at them from our bullying POTUS and will shortly require all NFL players to stand during the National Anthem. Should you be concerned? Yes, of course. Free speech it what separates our nation from authoritarian regimes. For centuries it has served as our bulwark against those demagogues who, attempting to profit from momentary fears and national calamities, would reduce us to an unfree people. The sanctity of a free press, our right to boldly disagree with one another and even to take unpopular positions are the pillars on which this nation stands- not on a National Anthem or even on a flag. It has been and always will be our devotion to liberties such as free speech, which will maintain our status as a free and independent people.

If we permit this childish demagogue masquerading as an American president to bully us into standing during the National Anthem where will it end? What will be the next action or thought disliked by Mr. Trump which he proclaims as unpatriotic and must be censored? Once we go down this road it can only lead to one destination: authoritarian rule by Mr. Trump who will, at some future date in the not too distant future, ask us to bend our knee to him as our pledge of allegiance to him, as the smartest, bravest, most stupendous man to ever occupy the White House. At that point, who will be left to say, “no”?

It doesn’t take much to get Mike Pence or the Trumpites to leave. Just bend the knee. Apparently, bending the knee is taken as disrespect to the flag and the imperial Trump presidency. Mike Pence considered it so disrespectful that on October 8^th at the Indianapolis-San Francisco 49ers game when the team bent the knee Pence and his entire entourage jumped up, boarded a taxpayer-funded plane and flew off into the sunset. If only we had known it took so little to get them to go away we would have all bent the knee in front of them sooner. So, let’s all take the pledge to gather in the near future in front of the White House and bend the knee so that Trump and his entourage will flee.