I was asked to give a speech at the “NO KINGS” demonstration in Florence the other day. Below is what I came up with. 

The first thing I did was go to the ‘Googler’ and ask it what “No Kings was about:

“Trump wants to rule over us as a tyrant. But this is America.

And power belongs to the people – not to wannabe kings or their Billionaire cronies.” – The Googler

And now “The Speech” to a crowd of roughly 300.

“Let me remind you who we are talking about:     

*A man who dodged his military service with a foot doctor’s note…who did not like our soldiers who ‘got caught’, who said his contribution to Vietnam was he did not get syphilis.  Who did not appear for a soldiers wreath ceremony in Europe because it was raining…A man who was selling Trump Merch at the recent return of dead American Soldiers…Is this a king?Perhaps…(an aside to the crowd: “If you wish to “BOO” at the end of each point I make, please feel free to do so.”)

• A man convicted of Fondling & raping and not yet paying his  related fines…(Several “BOOS” followed)
• At least 6 bankruptcies. “BOOS”
• Trump/Vance/ Zelensky meeting. Ridiculing Zelensky and his military outfit….Not ridiculing the Saudi Prince for wearing a white sheet.  (More “BOOS”)
• The establishment and activities of DOGE.  (Loud “BOOS”)
• Secretary of State closing many consulates and Embassies throughout the world  (“BOOS”)
• Threats to: Greenland, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Law Firms, Libraries, Universities, Women, News media, Judges, Congressmen, Senators, Ad infinitum.”  (Long “BOOS”)
• The Gulf of America  (Groans) 
• Decimation of National Park system (“BOOS” and Groans)
• Shuttering of USAID (“BOOS”)
• Tariffs  (“BOOS” and Groans”)
• Sanctions lifted from Russian Oligarchs (BOOs and a “When did we do that?”)
• Oh, The Washington Post claimed Trump told 23,000 falsehoods or lies during his first term…I don’t know if Bezos is counting them this term…I cancelled my subscription  (“YAYS”)
• The SAVE ACT …so WE can save Trump from Impeachment…(BOOS and an occasional “No, No shouted out)
• Hyping Tesla cars on the White House front lawn…(Groans)
• Closing the Dept. of Ed, Putting RFK jr. in as head of Health, not to mention the manic binge drinking Hegseth and his department of war. (Long “BOOS”, like (BOOOO”)
• Number 47 has reputedly filed over 4,000 lawsuits …he has over 500 suits against him in 2025 alone… (Groans)
• Estimates show he has increased his wealth since his first term by over $4 billion…not counting his sons and Jared’s new found cash…in the Billions.  (Gasps)
• ICE…how do you like them? Gestapo at home…(Mutterings)
• Did I mention Venezuela? Fishing boats? (Some swear words)
• How about the 6 or 8 wars he stopped? If he stops the Iranian war, it will be 9 wars he’s stopped. (BOOS and Groans & Mutterings)
• The Board of Peace? The Trump Kennedy Center? The Trump ARCH? The Trump named buildings and banners in Washington, Maybe his face on Mt. Rushmore? Do you know where the rubble of the EAST WING is? …it was dumped on the D.C. public golf course… (“BOOS” and a lot of noise)
• Pardons of Jan 6ers?  Jan 6 itself.  (Long “BOOOOS”)
• Regarding the Pardon of a billion dollar drug dealer…he said ”I never heard of him?” (Confused silence)
• His million Dollar lunches at Mar-a-Lago?  (Groans and ‘Gaagh’ sounds)
• Putin?  Trump’s de-sanctioning Russian OIL and his attempt to give the Donbas of Ukraine to Russia? …Bibi? We have not gotten to him yet. Trump’s allowing Bibi to drag us into his problems…perhaps several wars. You got your copy of The Trump Bible? …He said when asked which is his favorite part…he said “I like it all.” (Much aggravated noise sounds.)
• Oh, Environment …”Climate Change is a HOAX”, Windmill farms disbanded, Big beautiful COAL and OIL re- invigorated…Do you think anybody is making any money off all this? (More noise from the crowd, but the they seemed to be enjoying themselves in their anger at it all))
• Rivers, lakes, swamplands, etc. polluted…Oh, and ‘Round-up’ isn’t toxic anymore… (Exhausted “Boos”)
• Almost forgot there is this illegal war…this  Iranian thing…How about that? Are we now the bad guys?  Are all of us in this crowd complicit?  How bout them straights of Hormuz that the Court Jester Hegseth had never heard of?  Anybody you know besides the Trump family, or courtiers making money off the Oil trades? (Groans…)
• “All I need is 11,000 votes…”“ (Angry sounds)

And then my time was up even though I was not out of material.

 

So. Here is what I figure happened: A long time ago, a Human picked up a rock and dragged it into the ground – and a little grub was exposed – and the Human ate the grub. Thus, the first tool was born. Later, he threw a rock at a rabbit, or some creature that was around in those days – and he killed it and ate it. Thus, the first weapon was born. After the Early Human did those things he went back to his cave and slept and then did it all over again. Life was simpler in those days. I figure everything we have made – every gadget invented – through to the robots – is a tweak off that rock. And every tweak off of that rock has changed our behavior and changed the way we behave in our new and various forms of caves. I understand the olden days better than those of today.

Below, are a few of the things I do not understand:

• *String Theory: Tiny one dimensional rips in space.. What Are They Talking About? And is it important?  *Quantum Physics *Bitcoins, Ether coins, Digicoins, Liberty coins, Gold Trump coins. *Epic Fury  *Tariffs as a source of Revenue  *ICE getting away with wearing masks, etc. *The Board of Peace and what it is doing regarding Iran. *Electricity...and don’t tell me about protons, neutrons & electrons.  I’ve never understood any of that. *Congress and how they have rolled over on the Dictatorship whims of You Know Who. *The Supreme Court’s decisions *Billionaires and how they want more and more and more, ad infinitum…and is enough ever enough? *How did 77 million, or so, Americans vote for such an immoral, corrupt and, crazed man? *How come Americans pay so much more for many meds than do Europeans? And do the Americans believe their President when he says  they pay otherwise? *AI and will it hurt the workforce longterm? …and will it be good or bad for educating our young? …and will we need human teachers anymore? …and who is going to pay for the energy it uses? …and a lot more questions that only AI can answer. *Why are we bringing back the Woolley Mammoth? *How can blue toothpaste make your teeth white? *Can Trump pardon a person for a crime the person has not yet committed? …and why not, if he can do anything he wants? *How can Inflation be under control when the price of food and fuel is going through the roof? *How can Climate Change  be a “HOAX”, considering what is happening out there, with glaciers melting and all? *…And how can windmills be a “HOAX”? … and why haven’t the Dutch noticed their windmills haven’t worked for the past several hundred years.

There is more; but I’ll end it here for the week and weary.

When I was a child and acted like a child, I went to Sunday school one day. Sister Agatha told us God made Heaven and Earth and Everything Else. I raised my hand and asked if God made the telephone poles. Sister Agatha walked over to me and slapped my hands – and she told me not to be rude. To this day, I still do not know who made the telephone poles – and I try not to be rude, either.

So I got to wondering about God over the years. A little bit later in life, I heard God knows everything. He even knows how many hairs there are on my head. And I can’t stop thinking about this. Does He know how many hairs are on everybody else’s head?…all nine billion of us and how many we have lost?  And does he remember how many there were on everybody else who ever lived? Why does He bother to cram his head with this stuff? Perhaps this is why He has not been answering my prayers lately.

Now, after I have grown up a bit, I find many people disagree about who or what God is.  Is God a He or a She? Or, God forbid, Both?  (Warning, if you choose “Both” you will not be allowed to teach anything in Texas because they won’t tolerate such nonsense there.)  Did God write the Bible?  Or is it merely a written down version of stories told many years ago?  Did God write down the Ten Commandments?  And then throw them away?  And then did Moses remember them correctly and someone else wrote them down hundreds of years later…and did Moses ever really exist?  And did God give the land to Moses’ people – even if Moses did not exist, …from “the river to the sea”…and does that mean from parts of Iran, Egypt and God knows where else. And what is this “Thou shalt not kill” business?  Who is this ‘Thou’?… And when can you get dispensation from the not to “Kill”?  If you are a good Patriot?  Or a good soldier?  And what if you were to assassinate a dictator who has killed thousands of people and is going to kill many more?  Can you kill him to save millions of lives and does that make you a hero?  Or a villain?  And do you go to Hell for saving millions of lives…and you ask for help and God is counting the hairs on your head…and you wish you had all the Answers like Sister Agatha had.

      Forget about all that early childhood stuff.  I go to High-school and I learn there were Dinosaurs before Adam and Eve.  For millions of years, some say, dinosaurs were stomping around, eating big flowers and such…Why?  Was God fooling around in some sort of a creativity lab?  And then one day He threw an asteroid at earth and killed all the dinosaurs and this was all before the 7 day business.  

     And now, while we are all here fighting with each other over:  Land ownership (including which land God gave to whom) and Citizenship, Food, the American Dollar, and Bitcoins.  God, it appears, is building universes and galaxies we never heard about – and for what?  Does He or She even remember we are here, let alone know the numbers of hairs on my Head?  Soon AI will know the number God knows, God knows….so this skill is not such a big thing.

     …Having given this much thought and having pondered even more God related questions than I’ve mentioned here, I find I am beginning to formulate a theory of sorts, about the future:  Imagine, we are today’s dinosaurs, and God has tired of us.  Remember He threw a big rock into the earth and the show ended and a new one began.  So…this time, instead of a hard slider, he throws a Human Dictator into the mess.  And the show, as we know it, ends.

Now, I have friends, some of them seem fairly intelligent.  Some consider themselves ‘Optimists’ in that they think ‘Man’ will overcome these ‘short term’ problems we have created for ourselves.  Somehow we will ‘Rally’ – take to the streets, like we did for Vietnam.  We will march for Women and against Kings and Cruel Deportations and life will be good again.  Me?  I think that takes a belief in Man – a subject for another writing.    

      Have you noticed the telephone poles are almost all gone?  We don’t need them for the phones any more.  They also carried electric wires…but everybody wants the electric wires to be underground.  If we can’t afford to take them down, the poles just rot up there.  If she were around, I’d ask Sister Agatha if God knows how many telephone poles still stand.  I bet you she’d give me a big whack on the knuckles for that.

 

Our TEST continues…Test yourself to see where you fit…Are you a Friend? or a Fiend? …A Lover of America? Or a Hater of America?

• A) Last week we saw a picture of Mr. Trump’s neck with a large patch of purplish skin discoloration on it. (Maybe 2″s x 2″‘s) Do you think this purple mark was caused by? 1) An altered photo by some Left/Wing Nut Job. 2) An Epstein Victim over-excitedly kissing him in appreciation for his bringing justice to the cause. 3) A bruise endured from a kickboxing match he was in for the fun of it. 4) A typical reaction from a neck skin tightening operation. 5) The same kind of worm RFK Jr. had that crawled down his ear and into his neck and maybe made him go forever crazy.
• B) Iran is a country…1) That most Americans don’t know where it is. 2) That the President of the U.S. probably does not know where it is…(though he knows where Palm Beach is – give him credit for that.) 3) That has more bombs and missiles than our Secretary of War knew about a few days ago. 3) That – soon most Americans will know where it is; including many U.S. soldiers who do not know where it is. 4) Controls the Straights of Hormuz, which has a great influence of the price and shipments of Oil – even though we don’t know where it is our Navy has discovered the Straights 5) All of the above
• C) Underline each country which is a potential enemy of Iran. Draw a Circle around each country which is a friend of Iran. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Russia, Israel, Qatar, Syria, Yeman, Lebanon, Israel, U.S., China…(Do you see the Problem?)

Answers: A) There are no verified correct answers to this question. B) #5, All of the Above  C) No one in the State Department, the ‘Agency’, or the White House can agree on how this answer should be drawn. So, how can you be expected to do it? The best answer would be “I don’t know” …and then not bomb any of these places for now.

 

 

 

 

Thoughts from others:

• “War As Politics By Other Means.” -Clausewitz
• “The man who raises a fist has run out of ideas.” -H.G. Wells
• “War is peace… Ignorance is strength.” -George Orwell, 
• “All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.” -George Orwell
• “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.” -George Orwell
• “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” -George Orwell
• “The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”  -Aldous Huxley
• “Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.”  –Aldous Huxley. 
• “Sometimes I think I understand everything. Then I regain consciousness.” Ray Bradbury
• “When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent” -Isaac Asimov
• “The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.” -Isaac Asimov
• “Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.” -Isaac Azimov
• “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” – Isaac Asimov
• “It’s not what happened but how it is told.” -Philip K Dick
• “This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance.’ -Philip K Dick
• ‘You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” -Robert Heinlein
• “A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” -Robert Heimlein.
• “In my first ten months, I ended eight wars.” -djt.  creator of ‘Board of Peace’