This is a running commentary on contemporary social, political and religious issues. From the Introduction of James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty -- Truth, Lies and Leadership" "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary" Reinhold Niebuhr
Michael
Avenatti
, Stormy's attorney, the best attorney ever, said
the worst attorney ever is Michael Cohen, Trump's "attorney." Moral of
the story NEVER EVER NEVER go to an attorney who tapes you!!! What an
idiot Cohen is.
A Blogger said: "Very serious national security issues
to be discussed. God! how low can anyone think and talk about the leader of
our country and the free world! We have become the laughing stock of the
entire world."
My Comment: A
president of the United States having an affair here and there while he
is married seems like Sunday School compared to Drumpf. I used to think
that a golden shower meant that pure gold was coming out of a tub
shower head. I was surprised when someone defined it as something
else. Now pure gold is falling on the handsome Michael
Avenatti, the greatest attorney ever with the greatest story ever to be
told. Great work, Mr. Avenatti. We of moral scruples are glad you are
on our side! I do wonder, though, what parents tell their children when
listening to the XXX rated evening news. Perhaps, the mute button on
the remote is useful to block one's ears and the ears of one's
children. Good luck to Mr. Avenatti who now does battle with the
Voldemorts of our nation!
An apropos Yiddish word describes the entire mess: OYE!
The
incredulity of this moron president is that he ran for the office in
full knowledge of his scandal ridden life, his business failures,
swimming in conflicts of interest, tax evasive allegedly fraudulent
activity, money laundering bottom of the barrel mafia-like friends and
his seamy ugly sexual adulterous behavior, even alleged rapes, and god
knows how many other sick sexual proclivities he owns and yet still he ran for
president thinking there would be no opposition and no scrutinizing of his
life.
If one runs for president of all the political positions for which one could run one's life
will be examined under a microscope as if one were a bacteria and
Trump's life is saturated with infecting bacteria. Either he is an utter dope or
he thought he never would win and the run would be good for his
business.
But he did win to our torturous consternation. How
his head does not explode from all the
investigatory elements of the law and his never ending unethical,
unconstitutional if not illegal entanglements I will never know.
Hang it up, Mr. Trump, and resign. Your so called "presidency" is OVER. If you have one humane cell in
your body spare the American public the infinite torture from the examination of your sewage
infected life!
We are headed yet again for a potential quagmire Syria with
its Herculean complexities that could cost the lives of thousands maybe
more including our own. Let's see where have I heard the words never
ending war? Oh yes, the so called easy war this nation has been in for
17 years. Worse yet, if Trump responds through military power Trump
risks opposing his best friend Putin who suffers no fools. One can bet
Putin is laughing at the fool Trump because Trump is now between a rock
and a hard place worrying about the red line crossed and worrying about
Russian blackmail if Trump should engage Russian aircraft or troops.
The
other side of the Syrian war is at least one of "Axis of Evil" powers
which includes Iran. The opposition will be the other power involved in
Syria -- Russia -- the man at its helm Trump most admires for his
capture on power, Putin. So what will it be Mr. Trump -- attack Syria
and risk encountering Iran and/or worse Russia (a major power with
nukes) or make the threat and not act thereby losing one half your
base--a Shakespearean conundrum. The other half of your base is made up
of rightwing extremists of the isolationist Linburgh variety. It's
called damned if you do and damned if you don't. Add to that
investigations of collusion and corruption galore of your
"administration" and you are like Sisyphus trying to push that damn
heavy rock up the hill.
Too bad you don't drink, Mr. Trump, you will have to endure the stress cold turkey -- an apt appellation of you!
If you have not
seen the Academy Award film "Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing,
Missouri" then you might want not to read my assessment of the film.
Most
probably know, generally, it involves a mother (Frances McDormand)
whose daughter was killed and raped, in that order, in Ebbing, Missouri
and its police inability to solve the heinous crime. It is about a
woman's justifiably insatiable anger, played brilliantly by Frances
McDormand, and her indefatigable attempt to force the police to keep
looking for the murderer of her daughter by putting up three billboards
(at considerable cost) asking essentially why the Ebbing Police have not
solved the murder yet.
If
one was expecting a "who done it" film that leaves the viewer satisfied
at the end by the murder's capture then one should not see this movie.
It is substantively, I think, about much more than that. I believe
the film is about anger and a human being's inability to satiate its
imprisoning grip. I believe this film is omni applicable not only to
those who have lost loved ones through the violent acts of another but
also to nation states whose occupants carry insatiable anger that
compels them to commit the most heinous and illegal acts against another
without guilt. One need only look at the recent horrific poisoning of
children in Syria by nerve gassing them to death. What could possibly
justify this act that compels men to commit this crime against
humanity?
If one thinks Hitlerian Fascism died in 1945 at the
end of WWII one must think again and see the rebooting of it in the
present day Europe. Right wing violent extremist nationalism swimming
in hate is alive and well living in
Hungary, Poland, France, Britain and in some Scandinavian nations as
well.
It can be seen through Russian oligarchic tyranny, corruption and the
attempted murder of two innocents sitting on a park bench in London by a
mass destructive poison attempting to kill them in torturous fashion.
In Syria, Israel,Yemen and many other Middle East states one can see
over decades and sometimes centuries man's constant desire to crucify
the other.
In "Billboards" it is said by one that "anger begets
anger" and so it does. Its cousin revenge is man's attempt to quell
the rage within which seldom through the ages, gets resolved. Finally,
there is, lest one forget, the tyranny of Trump. One who in Vel' d'Hiv
Roundup
fashion (French round up of Jews during the Holocaust) captures
those brought to this nation as young children, loving this nation and
knowing no other only to face being sent back to their parent's country
of origin where they may face death upon their return to violent alien
cultures. Trump orders the round up of those allegedly undocumented
workers who came to this country to escape fractured nations defying
Lady Liberty's mandate: "Give me your tired your poor, your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free." Trump pardons the Torquemada torturer
of inmates, former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, found guilty of contempt of
court. Trump who lets his cabinet steal millions from this nation
showing Trump is the swamp he said he would clean. Who would have
thought this evil, mendacious, miscreant would be catapulted to the apex
of power in the most advanced nation on earth?
Where
and when does the anger end? Where is its peaceful resolution? In
Ebbing, Missouri Mildred's anger is diffused .... a bit .... through the
kindness, empathy and forgiveness of others. Luke 6:29: "And unto him
that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other to him."
How many of us are able to do that? I think "Three Billboards Outside
of Ebbing, Missouri" was a film about anger and its resolution through
the help of others from whom one might be least likely to expect help.
We should learn how as it is three minutes to midnight and we have a
sick man in the presidency just itching to press the button that would
end all of man's problems while ending all life on earth itself.
Psalm 30 in pertinent part says: "Weeping may tarry for the night,but joy comes with the morning"
I
am joyful this morning. Democrats
are getting elected when Democrats pay attention; when they do not take
anything for
granted. Wins are happening all over the nation by Democrats unseating
Republicans in special elections. I am joyous this morning because of a
great win in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court by a Democratic woman
that turned the balance of power finally toward Democrats and against
the Republican Governor Walker and his Koch Brother allies who care only
for the the 2% richest.
I am, however, ever vigilant. There needs to
be more Democratic victories culminating in turning the House and even the
Senate Democratic blue on November 9, 2018. Our eyes ultimately should
turn to the Democratic Party selecting a strong, electable, and incorruptible candidate for president but Democrats cannot rest.
Trump's
win of the presidency has done one and only one good
thing. It has woken up Democrats to the threat of what happens when
Republicans win. Republicans abandon the very people for whom
government should work. They abandon the middle class, the poor, the
sick, the elderly and want to take away decades of New Deal legislation that
began Social Security, Great Society Medicare and Medicaid policies that
have kept us alive; The modern Democratic Party has helped those who
had no freedom to be free at last. The Democratic Party has bestowed
rights on those who were abandoned. It has helped those who are sick,
who are disabled, and who are poor. The Republican Party wants to take
power away from those who have bent the nation's arc toward justice.
The Republican Party of this era wants to take hard fought for justice
honed over decades away from people who need justice most. The
Democratic Party has ensured voting rights, overthrew Jim Crow
segregation and tried to give health care to those who could not afford
it. The Democratic Party tried to ensure justice to those who
heretofore had none.
Pursuing justice is still a work in
progress and why Democrats must win to overthrow the most corrupt, the
most mendacious, the most cruel Republican Party that has morphed
unrecognizable from its beginning. It is not the Party of Lincoln. It
is the Party of George Wallace, it is the Party of Bull Connor, it is
the Party of Jeff Sessions, the Ku Klux Klan, it is the Party that has
made room for racists of all stripes and it is the Party now giving a
place to be for the most egregious of the extremist right -- the
American Nazis. This is the racist, mendacious and brutal Party of
Donald J. Trump. This is not for what the nation has stood but now we are going to take it back
from the most corrupt president in U.S. history, who promised to drain
the swamp but became it, who promised to keep DACA but then destroyed it
and blamed Democrats who created it. No
matter the flaws of
the Democratic Party it is better than anyone or anything with the word
Republican after it.
Republicans must be electorally crushed across the nation in local,
state, and national politics, in special elections and in all elections
to undo the corrupt Constitution shattering horror of Trump. The Democratic Party advocates for
justice for all people irrespective of skin color, country of origin,
sex or sexual preference. We are ALL -- each one of us in this nation
-- American and deserve equality under the law, a hand up to the refugee
from nations of violence through an immigration bill that works and the pursuit of happiness for which the Declaration of Independence advocates.
We go on even through assassinations of MLK great ones who were poised
to deliver justice permanently to those who did not have it. We go on
despite the hardship, despite the poverty, despite the pain, despite all
the advances in social justice that all Republicans would take away to
make a nation not great again but all white again. Democrats are
about equality through diversity and we go on to get what was once ours again.
NEVER
stop, NEVER give in, and NEVER give up. Change comes from the bottom
up and those Democrats we the people elect will ensure that our joy in
the morning lasts through the night.
I have ordered many
things over many years from Amazon. I cannot think of a single time I
was disappointed in its service. In view of the criticism the president
is levying against Amazon and how a president's opinion without
veracity but, in fact, filled with untruths and a lack of knowledge can
dramatically affect the price of a stock, affect the company and the
people who have invested in it I decided to write to you. The president
is an abomination and that he would do such a thing to his country is
despicable. He, through his lies and his 24/7 news omnipresence, is
having a negative effect not only on the company Amazon itself but the
plethora of other investors in Amazon who depend on its success.
We
know Trump's tweets today against Amazon and sympathies for the US
postal service are laughable if they were not so consequential.
Moreover, his opinions via tweet bounce back to hurt the American
population he claims to care about so much. His venomous tweets,
however, are really propelled by his animosity toward Jeff Bezos who
runs one of the most reputable news sources in this nation and, indeed,
in the world, the Washington Post. Why else would this mendacious
conman president care about the amount of the US postal price delivery
of a company's products? He cares because he wants revenge against the
owner of the Washington Post that has exposed his certainly unethical
and possibly criminal conduct capable of getting him impeached and then,
I hope, convicted. His lies affect millions. Let me be counted as one
who loves Amazon, hope it succeeds and hope those who invest in it are
not stung by this poisonous viper president who cares nothing for anyone
but himself and that he retain his 39% base.
My
purpose for writing this email to you is to voice support for your
company and to ask that you gather more voices in support of it and
against this immoral, unethical and careless president. He does not
realize his words, even if untrue, will have consequences and sometimes
dire ones. This president cares nothing for the postal service and
nothing for the millions who have invested in Amazon. He cares solely
about himself and the pound of flesh he can exact. What he is doing to
Amazon and Jeff Bezos he has done to President Obama, his continuous
pinata of choice. His words against Amazon are steeped in revenge. He
is not, as he promised, draining the swamp he IS the swamp and we are
drowning in it. He will find any noxious nefarious way he can to attack
anyone whom he perceives as critical of him. I pray Special Counsel
Mueller will lift this ugly burden from all of our shoulders and I know
there are many if not most in our nation who feel as I do.
Organize
and speak loudly against all that this mindless, cruel, and mendacious
president espouses against Amazon. Do not cower in fear but Rise up, speak out and defend your company with the truth. You will have the support of millions including me.
My Comment: I loathe nationalism, nativism and the
anti-globalism for which Steve Bannon has been an advocate and for which
Trump not only advocates but now employs. It can be summed up in part
by Brian Levin, the Director of the nonpartisan Center for the
Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San
Bernardino in his article below. Nativism is an ideology promulgated by
Bannon, infused into the politics of Trump and swallowed by an ignorant
segment of our nation heretofore existing on the fringe perimeter of
right wing extremism. It is hateful and it is as isolationist
as Charles Lindburgh was, a Nazi sympathizer in the run up to WWII.
It carries with it its side car of hate -- hatred of the other, hatred
of the immigrant, and hatred of all those for whom inclusiveness is
their doctrine. Its cheering section is corruption, conflicts of
interest and people of zero ethics. They care for no one but
themselves. In this article Bannon cheers for the emptying of the White
House of its Republican moderates placing in their stead bunches of
right wing extremist ideologues, nativists and white supremacists.
Finally, America is seeing and will see just what poses for our nation,
stripped of its humanity, stripped of science, stripped of its
democracy, stripped of all semblance of rational thought and ethics.
Along with it is the ever present anti-Semitism hating always the Jew, a
convenient scapegoat over 2000 years of history. Read this article and
weep. Trump is the brain dead monstrosity for whom just enough of the
nation voted to capture the anachronistic electoral college and elect
him as a so called "president" while he lost the popular vote. This
sanctimoniousness bully, misogynist and mendacious racist for whom
Roseanne Barr voted while disparaging the eloquent Parkland school
shooting survivor, David Hogg. Barr's parents were Holocaust
survivors. She should read this article below and be chilled. The life
she sacrificed by voting Trump may ultimately through noxious racist
Trumpian policy be her own!
"Bannon's revenge: How globalism went from a mainstream ideology
to the far-right's favorite smear With the departures of Gary Cohn, Rex
Tillerson and H.R. McMaster, Trump has effectviely purged his cabinet of
globalists."
“Come on dude!!!...end of the globalists
!!!” crowed Steve Bannon,
the deposed chief political advisor to the president and former
Breitbart editor recently. Bannon’s schadenfreude — sent via text to a
journalist at Axios — was specific to the firing of Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson. But it could as easily have been referencing the
resignation of National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, the
troubles of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner or the replacement of
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster with John Bolton. It's all
“strictly business,” as the fictional mobster Michael Corleone would
say.
For
Bannon, the self-appointed godfather of nationalism, news of these
departures represents an almost complete purge of globalists from
Trump’s cabinet. Predictions that moderates were winning the war for Trump’s ear now seem premature.
Just a year after President Barack Obama left office, the White House
has shifted solidly towards isolationism. How did America get here, and
how have evangelists like Bannon turned a mainstream ideology like
globalism into the far-right’s favorite smear?
As author David Neiwert writes in “Alt America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump,”
today’s anti-globalists are defined by their fear of a newly resurgent —
albeit familiar – foreign tinged threat: “[T]he Enemy is always the
same: namely, some variation on the New World Order, or ‘globalists,’ or
any other term used to name the secretive cabal they believe is
conspiring to rule mankind.” According to Anti-Defamation League Senior
research fellow Dr. Mark Pitcavage, fear of this enemy is fueled by
conspiracy theories about a tyrannical transnational socialist
government intended to trample over the rights of Americans. While
members in the purported cabal rotate somewhat, a key target for
particularly bigoted anti-globalists is Jews. The term globalist is also
“commonly used by white supremacists as one of many euphemisms for
Jews, typically employed in an anti-Semitic conspiratorial context along
with similar terms such as ‘international banker’ and ‘cosmopolitans'.
President
Donald Trump’s initial failures to mention Jews on Holocaust
Remembrance Day, or disavow former Klan Grand Wizard David Duke;
as well as his post-Charlottesville “very fine people” description of
torch-wielding white nationalists and neo-Nazis emboldened supporters
whose isolationism dovetails with anti-Semitism. (During the 2016
campaign, Jewish philanthropist George Soros was an oft-mentioned
villain.) Moreover, Trump’s tweets also rebranded material from
wholesome folks like “whitegenocideTM” — a “Jewmerica” resident. White
nationalists carry torches on the grounds of the University of
Virginia, on the eve of a planned Unite The Right rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 11, 2017. Alejandro Alvarez / News2Share via Reuters fileTo
be sure, this is not the first time America has viewed the outside
world with suspicion. America’s wariness of “entangling alliances” dates
back to George Washington’s farewell address.
Washington’s warnings, however, were not premised on bigotry, but
rather reflected a more straightforward strategy to avoid the recurring
violent clashes occurring between empires across the Atlantic. Thus, the
United States largely avoided international treaties until well into
the 20th century, at which time America’s superpower status placed it at
the top of an international order it once feared.
Nativist fears
returned with a vengeance almost 100 years ago, as a backlash over
record immigration, Communism, international conflicts and shifting
social mores propelled the Ku Klux Klan to its zenith of several million members members.
Not merely an anti-black organization, it had expanded to embrace an
increasingly anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic bigotry to
attract new rural Protestant members in the heartland. At the same time,
business icon Henry Ford’s four volume set “The International Jew” and
the bigoted forgery “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”
promoted international anti-Semitic conspiracies on an industrial scale.
Following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the focus of the extreme right in the
U.S. shifted to the subversion of domestic institutions by a revolving
assortment of international players.
Dr. Hussein Ibish,
senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
(AGSIW) notes that Ford’s narrative “distills the essence of
anti-Semitism into a single term: the stereotype of the ‘international Jew,’
alien and disloyal to their own societies and plotting with each other
transnationally to subvert, control and destroy Western, Christian
civilization for their own nefarious purposes.” Ibish maintains that the
term, “globalist” now ties “the poisonous 19th-century myth” to contemporary conspiratorial theories.
Following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the focus of the extreme right in the
U.S. shifted from an external Sino-Soviet Communist threat to a more
nuanced one: the subversion of domestic institutions by a revolving
assortment of international players. Much of this fearmongering was
directed at those in power. President George Bush, a World War II
veteran, invoked the term “new world order” during his Congressional address
on September 11, 1990, applauding international cooperation against
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait the month before. Bush meant the term as a
positive, but it didn’t take long before the anti-government patriot
movement of the 1990s started using it to describe various conspiracy
theories.
Over
the last decade, unease over terrorism, income stagnation, a
diversifying demographic base and a divided social media landscape has
reinvigorated talk of subversive global enemies. Obama’s election was an
important recent turning point, as it lead to an increasing number of
“mainstreamed” anti-globalist pundits like Trump, Glenn Beck, Pam Geller, Alex Jones
and Steve Bannon claiming socialist or Muslim conspiracies were behind
everything from immigration and health insurance legislation to the
president himself.
The election of Trump, of course, took this
rhetoric to a new level. His “America First” inaugural address —
purposefully or not — echoed a term originally used by isolationists and
Nazi apologists who opposed our nation’s entry into World War II. Polls
suggest millions of Americans find Nazi views acceptable. Meanwhile,
far-right European nationalist parties have been polling in the double
digits
as Bannon travels around Europe, exhorting French nationalists to “Let
them call you racists. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you
nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor.”
Over
the last decade, unease over terrorism, income stagnation, a
diversifying demographic base and a divided social media landscape has
reinvigorated talk of subversive global enemies.
For
the first time in over a decade the United States has had consecutive
annual increases in hate crime as well as disturbing spikes in those
incidents targeting Jews, Muslims, Latinos and Arabs according to the
FBI. The month of the 2016 election was the worst November for hate
crime since the FBI began keeping track a quarter century ago; hate
crimes against Muslims spiked immediately after Trump made his “Muslim
ban” a key campaign promise.
All this occurs amidst a
backdrop of routine presidential malapropisms, diminished trust in
institutions, declining life expectancy, a breakdown in race relations,
and white Christians losing their majority status. These developments
and profound socio-political divisions have been further exacerbated by
an echo chamber social media landscape, which has in turn become
increasingly manipulated and prone to conspiracy theories.
The
current deck chair reshuffling on U.S.S. Trump has catapulted numerous
high-ranking “globalists” overboard. As a result, his administration is
increasingly navigated by ideologues blind to, or potentially even
approving of, the dangerous, bigoted undercurrents of a conspiracy
driven by ethno-nationalism.
Criminologist and attorney Brian
Levin is a professor of criminal justice and director of the nonpartisan
Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State
University, San Bernardino. A graduate of Stanford Law School and former
NYPD officer Levin is the author, editor or co-author of books,
academic articles and Supreme Court briefs.
Passover, many Jews
celebrate tonight, for me is a ritual of rebirth. Easter, often
occurring at a similar time as Passover, is the story of the
resurrection of Christ. It symbolizes to me a victory over the slavish
fear of death we must all face. Both stories are liberating with an
emphasis of renewal. The Passover story of the Exodus in the Hebrew
Bible tells of the escape of the Jews from slavery to freedom. That
story rings true for many around the world even in our time. It did so
in our nation for persons of color who knew the veracity of the genuine
tortures of slavery, their person brought to this nation by ship in
hellish conditions, against their will and in chains to be owned by
another person who through accident of birth was born white. The faith
persons of color adopted in their new land suffering the gravest
injustices gave hope as the story of the Exodus did for Jews that they
would be liberated from slavery to freedom overcoming it, as the song
dictates, some day they will. The veracity of these stories matters
not. There is no hard evidence that Jews were enslaved in Egypt for 400
years nor is there hard evidence that Christ rose from the dead. They
are accepted on faith and by tradition. What matters is that these
stories bestow to people who need it the precious commodity of hope to
choose life despite the vicissitudes of it and to go on to live another
day. Faith is the hope that the arc will, in fact, bend toward justice.
Today,
however, in this land the freedom fought for so assiduously over 150
years ago is threatened by an entire major political Party which has
morphed. It has changed from the Republican Party of Lincoln standing
for uniting the union with freedom for all to a Trumpian Republican
Party devoted, in large part, to the top 2% richest, to white supremacy,
hatred of the other, a denial of the vote to them, to others who
believe differently from them and to do so by any nefarious means
necessary. It is a noxious effort by those who have lost the meaning of
the Declaration of Independence essence:
We
hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness ...
Those
who fought to keep the union together and free knew the essence of the
nation's principles, that all men are created equal was its pledge and
to liberate those who did not enjoy its promise. The historicity of
Passover retold in the sedar tonight may not be literally true, as the
Charleton Heston film version of the Exodus would like you to believe it
is, but it is a story worth retelling if it can be retold with a sense
of the promise of national and global justice. The link of a new sedar
book below shows how one can keep this tradition of the retelling of the
Exodus in the most equitable and justice-infused way possible never
forgetting those who still are not free. It is entitled "Next Year in a
Just World -- A Global Justice Haggadah." Happy Passover and Easter
to all!
The
Holocaust is the seminal historical occurrence of my life; shaped who I
am, the politics for which I advocate and the empathetic human being to
the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden I must be.
Click on the link to view the list of the magnificent musical pieces that will be played.
This march is
beyond inspirational it is magnificence in motion. (See link below) My
heart is with them all. Second Amendment bah humbug. Our forefathers who crafted it had NO idea assault weapons and bump stocks with semi automatic powers would be available to millions including teenagers. These weapons are used to kill massive amounts of human beings. That is all
they are for. Make these guns illegal throughout the land available solely to the military and police who would need them
as part of their job.
The NRA does not give one rat's petuti about saving lives. They and the politicians who take their millions care about one
thing -- MONEY! Is money in these Cretan's pockets worth one of your children or grandchildren's lives? I think not.
Massachusetts is one state that has strict gun laws and curiously enough has the lowest gun deaths.
It
does not take a rocket scientist to see what must be done: Assault
weapons like the AR 15 and bump stocks should be ILLEGAL, mandatory deep
background checks on all those who purchase guns. The gun shows where
weapons to kill sell so easily without checks should be made to conform to ALL gun laws across the nation which should be federally uniformly mandated.
Government sponsored mental health help should be available to all who need it.
Go
to Huffington Post or MSNBC and see the goodness that does exist in our
beloved country. This is for what our nation stands!!
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ -- TEENS DESCEND ON D.C.
My Comment: I
believe we are in the most perilous times since any of the nation's most
dangerous periods. I believe we are on the brink of a nuclear
Armageddon against North Korea and Iran with the addition of the hawk's
hawk John Bolton to replace Trump's National Security Advisor, H.R.
McMaster and the elimination of Trump's attorney John Dowd the last of
the quasi rational legal voices restraining Trump from his emotional
outbursts.
John Bolton was nominated by George W.
Bush for United Nations Ambassador. He sits on the most right wing
extremist position of the political spectrum. Bolton hated the UN,
wanted to see its demise, and eliminate it from our nation's quiver of
diplomatic weaponry. Bolton's verbiage against the UN was so indicting
that he would not be confirmed by the Senate at that time. Despite that
Bush gave him a recess appointment as ambassador to it. Moreover,
Bolton never met a war he did not like and advocated for a preemptive
even nuclear strikes against N. Korea and Iran with zero care about the
devastating deaths and injury it would cause to 28,000 US military
troops stationed in S. Korea and to the millions of S. Korean people as
well.
The following are cogent and
informed reasons put forth by Richard Painter, former White House ethics
lawyer for President George W. Bush as to why Trump's firing Mueller
would be very difficult. He is a fierce critic of Trump and an advocate
for his impeachment.
NB: The Stock Market was down
700 points yesterday and circa 400 points the day before. It is poised
for a repeat performance today. Does Trump care? Absolutely he does not
care. The ONLY one Donald J. Trump cares about is himself and does not
even care about the fate of his so called "illustrious" family. Yes,
we are indeed in perilous times!
Globe: Richard W.
Painter is a professor of law at the University of Minnesota. He was
chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. Painter's view: There are three big reasons why any
rational president in Donald Trump’s position would not even think of
firing special counsel Robert Mueller in the middle of the Russia
investigation. First: It would technically
be hard to do. Trump cannot
directly fire Mueller, because he is not an appointee of the president.
Trump could try to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions
to fire Mueller, but this is not happening, because Sessions recused
himself from the Russia investigation after being caught in untruthful
testimony about Russia by former senator Al Franken. Trump could try to
persuade Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller,
to fire him, but Rosenstein will refuse. This leaves only one option —
to fire Sessions and/or Rosenstein, and replace them with someone who
will fire Mueller. Apart
from the difficulties of finding anyone willing to fire Mueller, Trump
runs into serious difficulties if he goes outside the Justice
Department: for example, tapping EPA administrator Scott Pruitt as
acting attorney general. The Vacancies Act most likely allows the
president to fill a vacancy inside an agency with only another person
already inside the agency, not from another department. Appointing
Pruitt as acting attorney general might not be valid, and if so, a court
would strike down any official acts he takes in that office, including
firing Mueller. Such an appointment from outside the Justice Department
is an invitation to litigation over this issue, on top of all of the
other controversy that would ensue.
Trump could
avoid this problem by finding someone inside the department to take
Sessions’ or Rosenstein’s job and then fire Mueller. But because firing
Mueller would likely be an obstruction of justice, it could be difficult
to find a Justice Department lawyer willing to do that. Robert Bork did
it for Richard Nixon in 1973 (Nixon had to fire two attorneys general
on the same Saturday night before he got to Bork), and that did not go
over so well for Bork (the issue was raised at his unsuccessful 1988
confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court). Given the fact that the
present investigation, unlike Watergate, involves Russian espionage, and
Trump has already fired FBI Director James Comey in an effort to stop
the probe, the blowback for any DOJ lawyer who fires Mueller could be
much worse than what Bork experienced. It is not at all certain there is
someone at the Department of Justice reckless enough to put at risk
their career and their bar license, and perhaps their liberty, to do it.
Second: A Mueller firing probably would be obstruction
of justice. Because of the Comey firing, this would be a second strike
against Trump, compounded by his Twitter feed and public statements, as
well as television interviews with the Russian ambassador that make the
president’s motives crystal clear. As several Republican senators have
warned, a Mueller firing could mean the end of his presidency. Given the
mounting evidence of obstruction of justice by the president, it could
be just what prosecutors need to try and convict him. He cannot pardon
himself under the Constitution, and Vice President Pence need only
observe how well Gerald Ford did in the 1976 election after he pardoned
Richard Nixon to realize that a pardon of a predecessor is not a good
idea. Trump is already at risk of prosecution for obstruction of
justice, and a Mueller firing might land him in prison.
Third: Firing Mueller won’t make the investigation go
away. Congress will insist on a successor independent prosecutor, just
as Congress did in 1973 when Archibald Cox was quickly succeeded by Leon
Jaworski, who was at least as vigorous in going after Nixon and his
aides. Mueller is a great prosecutor, but he is not the only game in
town. Furthermore, a Mueller firing would likely accelerate
investigations in both houses of Congress, which would demand access to
all of Mueller’s records. Not to mention the New York attorney general,
who likely already has a lot of those records and the power to prosecute
some of the crimes being investigated, such as money laundering. And,
unlike federal crimes, crimes prosecuted by the State of New York cannot
be pardoned by the president. Shifting the center of gravity of this
investigation to New York is a good way to land a lot of people on
Riker’s Island. But all of this does not necessarily mean that
Trump won’t try to fire Mueller. He is a reckless president. He is
emotional and unpredictable.
He obsesses about this investigation. He detests Mueller, a symbol of
what used to be right with the Republican Party before Trump destroyed
it. He may fire Mueller or try to fire him. And if Trump does, we must
all be ready to do our part to defend our Constitution and the Republic.
I was sickened
during Trump's latest dive into the swamp of immoral depravity as he
instructed the reptilian Attorney General Sessions to fire FBI Deputy
Director McCabe on Friday night two days before McCabe was to receive
his pension. At 1:45 a.m. I had to turn the endless talking heads off
as the country braces for more 24/7 Trumpmania broadcasts. Could
Sessions at the instruction of Trump have waited the two lousy days for
McCabe to receive his pension for 20 years of service to his country?
Of course they could but that is not how the sadist Trump operates. His
goal is always to inflict the most humiliation possible to his
perceived political enemies and to do it in as cruel a Hitlerian way as
possible. Solid news reporting about his scandalous activities from the
Russian scandals to the numerous sex scandals he automatically calls
"fake news." We know the news to which we listen is true news not Fox
lies. Some say the apolitical IG (Inspector General) objectively
determined McCabe's flaws within his FBI service and that the firing was
not influenced by the Beast aka Trump. I think that is ludicrous.
Nothing is done without the sanction of Trump. He is now one step
closer toward ending the Mueller probe if he dares.
Add to that the salacious Stormy Daniels
litigation involving a $130,000 payoff to her allegedly for her silence
about an affair she had with Trump years before the election while he
was married to Melania and after the birth of his son Barron. The cad's
name, David Dennison (Trump's alias) is on the Non-Disclosure Agreement
but not signed. Stormy is suing Trump for the rights to speak of the
affair. Trump's attorney moved the Stormy litigation from state
court to federal court hoping the US Court would send it to closed-door
arbitration where he might offer a larger payment to silence her. It
may not work for a variety of reasons one of which is Stormy Daniels has
the sharpest attorney in the pencil box who knows his client is
speaking the truth. Much of the electorate surmises there is one, two or
maybe three whoppers in her head that just may cook his proverbial
smarmy goose. Her attorney admitted on Morning Joe that Trump, in fact,
surprise, physically abused her. One can hope, ironically, it may be
his adulterous sex with this woman of pornographic adult film who could
bring him down. Why else would he try so hard to suppress her speech
when he boasts continuously about his prowess with women even on Howard
Stern's sex talk radio. No, there surely is something or some many
things else. Watch 60 Minutes on Sunday March 25th to find out the
prurient details of the most classless and corrupt president in United
States history.
From
the first day the Beast stepped off the Trump Tower escalator to
announce his candidacy for president his essence has been about two
things abhorrent to
me: Lies and injustice. I cannot stand either but injustice tops the
list and that is all the porcine flotilla of ugliness,
Trump, is about. Our nation has survived
because it is a democracy
where a moral wrong can be made right through institutions that allow
for correction of past national moral wrongs. It may seemingly take
forever
but as Martin Luther King said "The arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends
towards justice."
Today, in our time, with this moral sewer worst-of-all presidents I
wonder if it still will.
I
have never experienced the social evils of slavery, I did not
experience the
immorality of the Dred Scott Decision or the Civil War, I did not
experience the evil of Jim Crow laws of southern whites keeping persons
of color from voting or sitting at a lunch counter, nor did I,
thankfully, experience the strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree
visited upon persons of color by KKK racist thugs. Under Trump's reign I
have, though, experienced a reactionary right wingnut return to those
immoral and unjust times. Trump has carved out a place in the
Republican Party for anti-Semites, Nazis and the KKK. How much longer
will it be before a new dawn of justice and truth prevails and we turn
away from this time of madness?
Donald
Trump is the most inhumane, mendacious unconscionable cat on a hot tin
roof who has occupied the presidency and is being carried on the
shoulders of Republican hypocrites. They choose to place their bets
with him. I suspect they will lose that bet come November, 2018. At
long last, Donald Trump, have you no shame for the ruination of innocent
lives while you and your minions unconstitutionally
soak in a pot of American taxpayer gold? I suspect the answer is "no"
he has no shame. Well, there is a remedy for this time of madness one
can find in Article I, Section 2 Clause 5 of the United States
Constitution entitled Articles of Impeachment. Use it. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/3/16/1749674/-Just-Read-Andrew-McCabe-s-Statement-Regarding-His-Firing-By-Donald-Trump-Just-Read-it
Conor
Lamb's win of a House seat in the Pennsylvania 18th District, a
heretofore completely Republican blood red district, was thrilling! He
was a perfect candidate for that deeply conservative district reminding
me of Gene McCarthy for whom I stumped in the NH primary in the late
60's. The anti Vietnam War student movement of that era propelling Gene
McCarthy to come in a strong second in the NH Democratic primary sent a
message that the government could not play with and send young lives to
their deaths by the thousands in a futile foreign policy never ending
adventure without being held accountable. To my chagrin, the protest
movement that birthed Gene McCarthy turned violent presenting a ruffian
image the electorate hated. It saw, as Connecticut Sen. Abraham
Ribicoff said from the Chicago Democratic presidential convention
podium, "Gestapo
tactics in the streets of Chicago" to put it down.
Those in our
student movement protested the
wrong candidate as Vice-President Humphrey may have stopped the Vietnam
war he hated. Instead, Richard Nixon capitalized on the
cultural divide that ensued. He won the presidency and prolonged the
war even expanding it into Cambodia. Before he was through thousands
more died handing a defeat to this nation from which it has never
recovered. The Vietnam War took 50,000 American lives and a million
Vietnamese lives. Worse it lead to the formation of the so called
"Moral Majority" allowing the Republican Richard Nixon the presidential
win. The modern day Republican Party with its Tea Party sidecar, has
morphed from it into a mostly white supremacist, gun-loving group with a
penchant for right wing extremist violence egged on by a mendacious,
conflict-of-interest ridden, treasonous Russian Manchurian president who
encourages the madness.
The student movement gathering
blistering steam today following a brutal high school assault rifle
killing of 17 innocent students in Parkland, Florida presents, unlike
its late 1960's forebears, a gentle, non-violent but strong, articulate
and well groomed image appealing to many in its attempt to gain
political power to change policy and ultimately dethrone a con man clown
from a presidency he won with Russian assistance and support of his
Republican Congressional lackeys blinded by Citizens United
boundless coffers of cash. Trump is using the presidency as a cash cow
and Republicans do not have the fortitude to reject the money and take
their
Party back from crackpot crazies. We will lend an assist.
Most
of America rejects crass, crude, mendacious and violent politics as they
rejected the same in the 1960's. Conor Lamb's victory gave the
Democratic Party a kind, smart, articulate, impeccably dressed and
nicely coiffed candidate with a sterling Marine Corps and federal
prosecutorial history. Democrats should take note from Lamb and from
the new non-violent and articulate student protest of 2018 over insane
gun NRA owned policy to wrest Republican seats in the House and perhaps
even the Senate from their flypaper grip on gerrymandered seats that
should be earmarked for Democrats.
We as Democrats bide our time
until we take Congressional power to impeach this
embarrassing excuse for a president and neuter his administration. Eric
Schneiderman Attorney General of NY
is waiting in the wings to prosecute them in New York state with no
chance of presidential pardons to negate their horrific crimes. They
will face prison. Huge congrats
to Conor Lamb for his impressive Democratic victory and for giving
Trump with his hair netted son a reminder that they are not kings!
Conor Lamb came in as a lamb and left as a lion. May we all benefit
from the example his win taught.
I
am the least supportive of Trump and most in his administration. Today,
however, Secretary Tillerson showed me that a few have dignity,
humanity and compassion. Too bad Trump did not show Secretary Tillerson
the same but rather, in classless form, Secretary Tillerson had to find
out that he was fired through the most classless way -- in a tweet. Shame
on you Mr. Trump for being the nastiest, classless, most inhumane
person that ever held the presidency and graced the oval office. You are
an embarrassment to your Party, your people and most importantly to
your country. May you suffer the embarrassment you have caused so many
others through your incessant lying, profane speech and ugly behavior.
Stormy, your porn star alleged sex liaison, is a Dickensian name that tells the truth behind who you are.
Your administration and all you represent are the tornadic forces that
god forbid could sink a nation. May you leave in disgrace as you
have disgraced the office. You are a mean, mendacious, crude, rude, profane
and disgusting human being!
Beto, so happy to
hear of your primary win for the Democratic national Senate seat of
Texas!! Now it's on to the general and let's win there against Ted
Cruz!! I am a strong Democrat from Massachusetts who is committed to
ensuring Democrats win across the board -- in state senates, in state
houses, in the governorships and with special wishes for a win in the
Congressional Senate wrenching Ted Cruz's ruinous extremist right hand
from its ugly grip on power; ruining policy for most especially the
middle class.
After what Trump called Cruz's wife Cruz has the
immoral gall to keep supporting this Henry Hill charlatan, womanizer and
alleged woman abuser, not to mention adulterer mendacious evil man many
times over. It is a shame for the world, a shame for your state, a
shame for those in our country who want desperately to support ethical
government dedicated not to the 2% billionaires but to us, the middle
class. Who was Trump/Cruz kidding? Tax cuts sound so good but they
really meant permanent tax cuts for his billionaires and smaller
temporary ones for everyone else.
He and those who give him
support are con men and the fact that Cruz with his holier-than-thou
Christianity is still a supporter of our liar and thief-in-chief, Trump,
is an immoral outrage. Both Trump and Cruz are vile, Trump's
"presidency" is vile, and the Republican Party who could have, if they
wanted to, stopped him cold but chose rather to support him giving him
ebullient praise. Some may have even known of an alleged $130,000 payoff
to a porn star to keep her quiet -- immoral and unethical by anyone's
standards. Republicans knew and gave Trump the penultimate praise even
though there is more than a hint of treasonous collusion with an
adversarial power Russia and its immoral authoritarian leader, Putin, to
swing the 2016 election to Manchurian candidate Trump. He has defiled
the Constitutional Emoluments Clause with business conflicts in
Washington and around the world subjecting Trump and his merry men to
blackmail.
Trump has spat on our Constitutional balance of
power, has kicked dirt in the fact of the Fourth Amendment due process
clause and paid homage to cruel and abusive treatment, a Constitutional
prohibition. He has paid deference to Nazi nationalists calling some of
them "very fine people" after they killed an opposition supporter.
American Nazis are not ever "very fine people".
Your
victory in November will be one of the most joyful I could watch almost
as joyful as watching Barack Obama taking the presidency in 2008. You
have a supporter in me and I will to the best of my ability offer
support to you and ask my friends to do so as well if they can as so
many of us try with all our heart to change this nation from red to blue
to work for the people and not the 2% richest. Good luck!!
The question Joe presented is
why did liberals in 1996 support Bill Clinton in view of his sexual
improprieties. If you and Mika would think about it one should not
make general statements indicting an entire group like that. It is not
true that all liberals supported Clinton's indiscretions. I did not
support his behavior then even though his policies for the most part
with some exceptions I did support. I thought his misdeeds were unfortunate because he would have a Republican Party that would pounce on it and they did.
Beyond that is the important issue that Republicans base their very
politics, courting religion, courting Evangelicals, being the strict
moral -- especially sexually moral -- Party that was supposed to bring
that social culture into the political realm. They caught Dixicrats in
their political net for among other things of a racial nature, their
hatred of libertine sexual mores that the late 60's generation they
thought provoked. If you and Mika gave two substantive thoughts
about the issue you would realize that Democrats do not run on a strict
platform of sexual mandates. They do run on a strict platform of not
abusing women sexually or otherwise. Liberal Democrats, of which I am
proudly one, emerged from the late 1960's culture that threw much
(not all) sexual morality over for a
culturally freer milieu. That is the difference. Democrats did not
demand Clinton fess up because many did not think his behavior then an
egregious sin. Republicans are all about religion, sin, sexual sin and Trump surely
is the antithesis of that! That makes him and them hypocrites! Give things some thought why doncha
instead of simply reading from a teleprompter where Mika says thank you
more times than a ticket taker and more than she certainly emotes well thought out ideological
analysis. I could read from a teleprompter and make the
millions I assume you make.
Use your big brains for analysis of issues, analyze them and think!
Facebook has its problems of that there can be no doubt but the purpose
for which it was born few I think would say better that Facebook never
existed.
I search every now and then for names of youth who may have
meant something to me for good or not-so-good. I found an old boyfriend
of mine from 1970. I had some regrets as to how I treated a very
intelligent and nice man who ended up being a philosophy professor. We
met on the MBTA when I was reading the NYT. I think he was
impressed at the time for a woman to be reading that paper. He came
over to me and we chatted.
He was a lefty of that era as I was but I
suppose as time went on I was not interested in him and was less than my
usual sweet (I jest) self. I regret that now as Facebook told me of his death.
Damn! The moral of the story I suppose is life is shorter than one
thinks and yes, to treat others as you would want to be treated yourself
even if you do not want to marry them.
My comment: What does it take to employ one's empathy gene if one
has an empathy gene? Walk in the other guy's shoes, try them on and see
how they feel. Please read the pertinent quotes from wise men and then
sign the petition below.
“Centuries ago, Rabbi Hillel allegedly was asked
by a skeptic if he could succinctly define his religion, all while
standing on one foot.
His answer was: ‘What is evil unto you, do not to unto others. The rest is commentary."
Kennedy quoted an American proverb:
Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes.
Presidential candidate John Mahoney -- Congressman John Delaney was elected in 2012 to serve Maryland’s Sixth District: "DACA Expired today: When President Trump mistakenly
endangered the DACA program in September, he set up an artificial
six-month deadline. Well, it’s now six months later, and DACA expired
today with no indication from the White House that they actually want to
restore the program. It is important to note that despite this deadline
passing, DREAMers will NOT be deported starting today. Several federal
judges have ruled that the Trump administration’s legal justification
for ending DACA was shaky at best, and the Supreme Court has said that
it will not get involved. For the time being, DREAMers will be allowed
to renew their status. Despite this good news, DREAMers are still in
limbo and deserve a permanent fix that provides them with stability and a
path to citizenship.
The
most frustrating part of this process is that 90 percent of Americans
support a legislative solution on this topic, yet a clean DACA bill has
not come to the floor for a vote. The GOP and Trump have demanded that
any solution for DACA be tied to funding for a border wall. DREAMers
should not be a bargaining chip and held hostage over a pointless wall.
We have a real opportunity to change the course of immigration policy
for the better, yet are letting it pass us by. DREAMers embody what it
means to be American, and it’s time they are treated as such. DREAMers
deserve better, let’s find a permanent solution for them." Sign my petition and tell Trump that we demand a DACA fix now!
When the Voyager 1 probe was 3.7 billion miles from Earth, Carl Sagan made a request.
He asked NASA to turn it around to
snap a quick photograph. The result was a faint image of Earth
surrounded by the vastness of space. The late astronomer would then use
this picture to share his own reflections on what it meant and why it
was important for us to capture.
“Look again at that dot. That’s
here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you
know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived
out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of
confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter
and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of
civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every
mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher
of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme
leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived
there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in
a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those
generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become
the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless
cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the
scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent
their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how
fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined
self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in
the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a
lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in
all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere
to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known
so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near
future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet.
Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is
a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no
better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant
image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to
deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale
blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”1
The Scales of Perspective
There isn’t much that needs to be
added to that. It beautifully captures a delicate part of reality that
is neglected by the majority of us as we go about our day to day
concerns.
It puts into context many of the
things that we see and do and their relative importance in the scheme of
things. It’s a reminder that there is a very distinct world that exists
beyond the daily lens through which we impose our own agenda and
centrality on our surroundings.
The human ego is a survival
mechanism. If we didn’t see the world around us as if we were at its
center, very soon, we’d lose the incentive to do things that would allow
us to endure. At the same time, however, this ego is also programmed to prefer conflict over cooperation.
It competes even when there is no
reason to compete, it shields itself from feedback even if feedback is
necessary for growth, and it closes itself off even if opening up is the
answer. There are different scales of
perspective that we are all capable of applying if we are aware enough
to do so. Sometimes, the scale that matters is the one that gives you
confidence about your place in the world and whatever it is you need to
do to get by in your daily routine.
Much of the time, however, we would
all be better off if we learned how to zoom out. This may not solve
every internal conflict in our mind or external battle that plagues the
world, but it can give us the tools to treat ourselves and the people
around us just a little bit better.
To some degree, the world adapts to the perspective you employ in seeing it. Choose wisely.
The Wealth of Connection
There is a partial melancholy in the
recognition of our insignificance. To some, it reinforces feelings of
inferiority. It takes away from the pride they take in their identity
and sacrifices. If the universe is so large, and if
we aren’t at its center, and if nothing we do matters in some objective
sense, then what is the point? Why go on concerning ourselves with small
matters? Carl Sagan would likely tell you that
the shared reality we all live in with each other still matters. In
fact, it’s the only thing that matters, and all that the vastness of the
universe does is remind us to keep this shared reality organized in a
way that makes it more bearable.
If there’s anything we have learned
studying the sciences, it’s not just that everything around us is deeply
connected, but it’s that these connections are why things work in the
first place.
The networks and ideologies we have
created are responsible for allowing us to leapfrog beyond our
individual genetic potential to shape and influence the world as we
have.
The underlying chemical elements that
create planets, stars, and solar systems are precisely the same ones
that have created our bodies, brains, and everything else that we
observe.
For you to feel threatened by the
size of the universe, you have to treat it as if it’s something that
exists independently of yourself. As far as we know, that’s just not the
case. It may be vast, uncertain, and contain parts that we may not
understand, but it isn’t at all separate.
There is something fundamentally
sublime about the fact that we are essentially a dance of molecules in
an ever-expanding line of molecules. That there is more going on around
us. You can either choose to contribute to this process or just let it take the pressure off.
All You Need to Know
Few people have added more to the scientific education of the public than Carl Sagan.
Outside of his own research, he
brought us a list of books and television series that spoke a language
that we actually understood. In many ways, he was science’s very own
poet.
The Pale Blue Dot
was captured on February 14th in 1990. Since then, along with Sagan’s
moving tribute, it’s inspired generations of people to look differently
at their place in the universe. It gave an illustration of something we
had all suspected, but never fully verbalized.
It was a reminder to view our
seemingly large and complex planet on a scale that showed a different
side of things. It gave us the courage to accept and utilize our
insignificance.
While not all aspects of our lives
demand that we see the world through this lens, it is critical to have
it be a part of our mental toolkit. The human ego may be a mechanism to
ensure survival, but it isn’t what pushes progress, and nor is it what
drives prosperity. What really makes the world move
forward is interconnectedness. It’s the ability to interact with our
shared reality in a way that ensures our individual efforts add rather
than detract.
There is a far larger process going
on out there, and we are all a part of it. The degree of responsibility
we want to take in that process is up to us, but the beauty of it can’t
be denied. That faint speck of dust we live on is all we have ever known. Let’s start treating it that way.
