Sunday, August 23, 2020

Empty Garden

 

If one clicks on the link below one will see the changes Melania Trump visited upon a once gorgeous rose garden just in time for the Republican convention of harsh cruelty.  She uprooted beautiful trees placed in the garden by John F. Kennedy as well as colorful gorgeous roses and other flowers put in by President Obama.  The link is aptly entitled: "Americans Recoil In Horror After Melania Rips Trees Planted By JFK Out Of White House Rose Garden."  The journalist Howard Fineman in a Tweet says "The Trump family did its best to turn the lovely Rose Garden into a neo-fascist parade ground."  It is, by its appearance, a sterile and empty garden. I agree with his thought.

When I began my attempt to understand political thought I would constantly be thinking about the differences between left and right. The left in the extreme was Communist taking many concepts from Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in "Das Capital" and the "Communist Manifesto."  The extremes of left and right have similarities for sure but the one characteristic of those on the left that the right does not possess is a feeling of empathy for the little guy and a disparagement of undue corporate power. The right wing, polar opposite to the left, makes no pretense of empathy. States like Nazi Germany, Brazil or Mussolini's WWII Italy become partnerships between corporate power, the military and barbaric enforcement for life of the authoritarian power of the state itself. Putin's modern day Russia is a good example.  Yes, Communist states like the historic Mao's China and N. Korea control the means of production and the extremes often possess ruling characteristics of each other.  Any challenge to power is met by the force of the state to crush it.   Still, the alleged philosophy behind leftist states pays at least lip service to humanitarian concern. 

In a Fascist state one gives me the autocratic power and I will allow and, indeed use, corporate power to ensure the entrenchment of those who own things and those who occupy the seats of power. This is a loose conception of how I believe the left differs from the right. Obviously, there are degrees but extreme nationalism and the racism that buttresses it are the province soley of the right.

I am not a Marxist or a Communist as those structures are a failure, but I do believe government should exist to benefit those who have the least and that government should lend a helping hand when those without power need it.  I believe massive corporate money should pay its fair share of tax so that those who were not the luckiest in life derive benefit from those who have it all.

Melania's jacket said everything when she visited the children her husband cavalierly put in cages at the border.  It said "Do I care?" The answer to that is a resounding no!   She does not care.  I place her in the same category of her zero empathetic and cruel husband. They both do not care. They care about two things: the maintenance of their power and the corporate money that sustains and massively enriches them.  This was exactly why Trump ran for the presidency to make himself richer by any means necessary.  I believe both Trump and Melania have a sterility of character -- unfeeling and non empathetic which the empty appearance of Melania's garden reflects.  Howard Fineman was right.  It is a neo-fascist parade ground.  Cast your eyes upon the before and after pictures of its  sterile sight.

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