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
I
loved the segment on Morning Joe which was an exchange between experts
discussing the difficulties of having an intellectual discussion between
groups with diametrically opposing positions but the desire to have
those discussions nonetheless.
I
am telling you why I, a liberal's liberal progressive on every issue,
find it extraordinarily difficult to have a rational discussion with
those who support Trump or those who support other right wing so called
"conservative" positions.
I think the reason for the difficulty and the reason these discussions devolve into explosiveness is because the positions that so called conservatives take if
implemented
would even deny life to minorities who have been trying for decades to
be given a fair shake. For persons of color the issues are obvious. If
conservatives
have
their way they gerrymander districts, they use voter suppression
techniques, they deprive people of government assistance and even CHIP
for children assistance. If people who need the help are deprived of it
death is not an outrageous possibility but conservatives do not care
and, in fact, I may jump out on a limb here, some are happy about it.
They want it to increase their ranks and decrease Democratic ranks. If
persons of color are denied these rights both voting rights, civil
rights and medical assistance these are the life threatening policies for which conservatives advocate.
Conservatives want to return to a nation of the 1950s. Anti abortion
efforts kill women by forcing them to have illegal quack abortions. They
die, often, from blood poisoning. It's their own body they want to
control and who is to tell them they cannot -- the state?
Anti
gay initiatives are deadly. Sexuality is DNA determined. So called
inhumane "conversion therapy" or praying the gay away doesn't work.
Millions of people will be forced back into the closet of lies, denied
the benefits everyone else takes for granted through marriage and other
civil rights allowed everyone else but gays will be relegated yet again
to a second class status where they must be afraid if anyone knows the
subject of their personal affectation. It is depressing and it is why
there were and even still are so many suicides among homosexuals who
love one's own sex over the other. That fact cannot be changed. It's a
question of love but the truth must be suppressed. That means death to
those who merely want what everyone else wants -- happiness by having
someone to love and love them back with all the rights that go with it.
Health
care that should be a right is given only to those who have a job or
can afford it and denied to the poor and denied in the past even to gay
couples. This makes death a distinct possibility. As Alan Grayson, the Democrat from Florida, said if Republicans get their way make sure to die and die quickly. If
Social Security and Medicare benefits for which people have worked and
that sustain them in retirement years are demolished we die. It's that
simple but Republicans do not care if we die; in fact, it means more for
the top 2%.
Those
Republicans with whom I take issue treat minorities unequally to those
things the majority takes for granted. It forces suicide as a sole
option for those who cannot lift themselves up by their boot straps
because they have no boots. Again, Republicans do not care. The empathy
gene is vacant among Republicans.
Republicans
views of war and peace are killing. How many wars have been promulgated
by those who did not serve but based this nation's entry in them on
lies that have killed thousands and forced now millions into refugee
status. Republicans, however, do not want to give them refugee status.
Where do the refugees go? They are shipped back to their own countries
facing certain death. How is this fair and how does one argue nicely
with those who want to inflict policies like that which do nothing less
than discriminate and kill.
The Republican Party now bows its head to Nazis and says some are "fine people." One is running in
California as a neoNazi for the Senate seat Diane Feinstein occupies. It
is an anathema to tolerate that position or inhabit a Party that makes
room for it. Other so called Alt Right candidates are running for
positions around the nation. This cannot stand. It is inhumane and
wrong.
Tell
me how and I will adopt a more pacific stance in argument with
Republicans but for now the administration of Donald Trump is more than
lethal it is murderous. My blood pressure rises at the prospect of his
getting away with all the illegalities --
some treasonous -- he allegedly has committed. It simply cannot happen but it may.
I am so upset about The New Yorker
article by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow, two sterling journalists, about
Eric Schneiderman now former attorney general, a liberal's liberal,
that last night I wished I drank. I do not drink but I wished I did
because these allegations IF true, and I am assuming the women are
believable by just reading The New Yorker story (linked below) is SO
outrageous on a scale of 1-10 it is an infinity is sickening and a
threat to liberals everywhere. His career will be finished and if those
women prosecute he could go to jail. I went to bed thinking about it
and I woke up thinking about it. I didn't go to bed until 1:00 a.m.
because I had to calm down and knew that story about one of the
strongest Democrats and progressive liberals destined to do and has done
big, wonderful and humane things would ruin my sleep. I wonder how he slept.
Forgive
my hyperbole but I must write in such a way as to express my outrage.
It's the hypocrisy stupid!! I just do NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT
times infinity get it. I do NOT get these men ESPECIALLY liberal
progressives who commit these violent, sometimes racist, career ending
outrageous acts. Those who speak for humane justice, fairness and
humanity who are in supreme positions of power to obtain that justice
but commit career ending acts. Those who are the criminals of those
crimes get prosecuted by men like Schneiderman and sent to jail or in
Trump's Trump University civil case Trump, bastion of electorate
outrage, Eric Schneiderman got him to cough up 25 MILLION! These alleged
acts of sexual violence are so sick it defies description. The
HYPOCRISY is enormous. Again, I do not get it. These men of great power
think
they are so powerful they cannot get caught, are above the law and the
president of the United States can get away with anything even as he
said if he shot someone in Time Square.
I even feel bad for men
who are righteous and how scared they must be. All it takes is
one time, one allegation and their career is ruined. If JFK were alive
today he would have surely been impeached and possibly convicted. JFK
compromised national security by an affair he had with Judith Exner, a
mob kept woman. Just think about it. Thomas Jefferson would have been
taken down by Sally Hemmings, a slave he impregnated. Where does it
stop? The question at hand is either power or men's unabridged sexual
proclivities most women cannot understand that is so strong it simply,
in many men, cannot be denied no matter how risky, no matter how
threatening, no matter how illegally wrong?
The
earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and man, who evolved much
later, has evolved to this. Just think of all the men who preceded
Schneiderman and did what he did to women with impunity no matter how
violent. With all those years of cultural advancement I still just
don't get it!
Never in my entire
life observing things political did I ever hear a president say to
winners of games for the handicapped that it was "a little hard to
watch." That is a big deal and should be aired on news commentary shows
over and over again. They often play
his inane comments that are less than this presidential humongous faux
pas. Shame on that man. A heroic man who knew disability and pain,
Senator John McCain, does not want him even at his funeral. I do not
blame Senator McCain after Trump's impugning the Senator's heroic
capture by egregiously and insultingly with unmitigated gall dared to
say that he "liked heroes who were not captured." Odd coming
from a man who received five deferments during the Vietnam War for bone
spurs. I wonder how the president's bone spurs are now.
I
know what it is like to be disabled at a time when it was not as
accepting as it is now but even in my day if people thought it was hard
to watch they surely never said it. On the contrary I was heaped with
praise when I attempted things that many disabled never would.
We
did not have the Paralympics then but if we did I would have wanted to
have been in it. If I had had the blessing of being so athletically
proficient that I was invited to the White House for recognition only to
have the President of the United States tell me it was "hard for him to
watch" I would have been devastated maybe even hurt for life.
Perhaps,
one day Mr. Trump will know what it is like to lose the use of a limb.
I can only hope someone is there to say hey, Donald, you are really
hard to watch. I already say that but not because of a handicap but
because he is without a doubt the most disgusting, irreverent, cruel,
sickening, vicious, mendacious, unethical excuse for a human being to
ever occupy that hallowed office. Anyone who saw fit to vote for this
fool should consider seriously the content of their own character.
May
he not see another term in an office he has abused with filth. I pray
our nation survives this intemperate jerk and I surely hope I will survive him as well!
There is
no climate change is there? Yes, there emphatically is and it is not
simply the temperature in Pakistan that is at issue. It is the strongest
storms, droughts, and fires ever recorded on the planet. It is the
Everest size tornadoes we see in the west, it's the huge mudslides from
torrential rains in California sparing no one not even the 2% wealthiest
as many have lost their multi-million dollar homes to it. It is the
massive hurricanes on the east coast. It is Hurricane Maria, a rare
Category 5 storm, that hit Puerto Rico the devastation from which the
island still has not recovered. Electricity is still out for thousands
and there is putrefied drinking water with the disease it births. It is
Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey and, yes, remember Katrina?
The
always lying Trump does not give a damn as long as his entourage of the
wealthiest 2% can afford repair of anything that goes awry. I hope I
live to see the day when even Mar-A-Lago falls into the Atlantic because
the rising oceans everywhere will affect everyone. Trump's alleged
billionaire bank account will not save him. Where will his god, he says
he believes in but we know he does not, be for him? Answer: Nowhere.
Climate change is an equal opportunity employer.
Those
of us who revere science, know climate change is real and have been
saying so for years. We will be swept up with its onslaught that makes
the Biblical story of Noah's Arc look like a child's swimming pool. We
and generations after us will not be spared. Our mendacious, cruel,
wretched and racist president promises climate disaster by pulling out
of the Climate Change Agreement signed by nearly every nation on earth.
Moreover, he courts a nuclear agreement with N. Korea but rejects a
finalized nuclear agreement with Iran that is poised to give those who
want to avoid a planet destroying nuclear holocaust a 10 year reprieve
from the most devastating annihilative weapon on earth sitting in the
middle of the most contentious human tinder box on earth. Trump is the
Anti-Christ of the modern era and he is the promise of Revelation about
which Evangelicals love to preach but for whom they love to vote.
Fred
Trump (Donald's father) what have you spawned? Trump is a terror
unleashed on our nation and the world. We must repeal and replace him
by any means necessary!
RESIST and
save yourself, your children and your children's children from the most
destructive man on planet earth. Vote Democrat in November, 2018 and
beyond.
White House chief of staff John Kelly thinks the president is an idiot. So says a new report by NBC News
that relies on multiple White House sources. Apparently Kelly views
himself as “the lone bulwark against catastrophe, curbing the erratic
urges of a president who has a questionable grasp on policy issues and
the functions of government.” In making this case to aides and other
White House officials, according to the report, Kelly has called the
president an idiot not one time in a fit of frustration, but rather
“multiple times.” Kelly has called the allegations “BS.”
Kelly’s
ridicule of the president’s intelligence is not an unusual occurrence in
this administration. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly
called Trump a “moron” — a charge he refused to deny.
Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster complained that Trump is “idiot’’ and a “dope” who has the intelligence of a kindergartner.
Even outside confidants like Fox News head Rupert Murdoch are not too impressed with the president’s intellect. Murdoch called Trump an idiot after struggling to explain immigration policy to the president.
Kelly’s latest indiscretion is yet another broadside to hit this White
House, but the shock here is not that Kelly (and a healthy percentage of
White House officials) thinks his boss is an idiot. What would be
shocking is if he didn’t think that to be true.
All you need to do is listen to Trump speak or watch him try to explain
any of the myriad policies that a president is supposed to understand in
order to do the job. Trump talking about immigration or North Korea or health care
is like watching a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. We know from
repeated White House leaks that the president doesn’t like to read; that
aides need to talk him out of harebrained ideas, or use models and
dioramas to explain complicated issues to him. According to a recent report by Reuters,
“Trump was shown a scale model of North Korea’s sprawling nuclear bomb
test site with a removable mountaintop and a miniature Statue of Liberty
inside so he could grasp the size of the facility.” If ever a visual
aide said a thousand words.
If there’s a scandal in Kelly’s true feelings about the president
being revealed, it is that so many of the president’s closest aides are
critical of his intellect. Imagine what they see from Trump, on a daily
basis, that causes them all to draw the same conclusion. It’s one
more example of how Trump is the “emperor has no clothes” president. It
seems everyone who works for this administration has to publicly assert
that he is able to carry out the functions of the presidency and that he
is engaged on policy issues, when in reality he’s intellectually naked
as a jaybird. In the days after the Ronny Jackson debacle,
administration officials like Sarah Huckabee Sanders publicly claimed
that Trump’s nominee to become head of the Department of Veteran Affairs
had been “more vetted than most nominees,”
when, in reality, no one believes that and Trump’s own aides leaked to
reporters the fact that Jackson had not been vetted at all.
No one believes the White House’s own talking points — not even the people who work in the White House. Perhaps the 30 to 40 percent of Americans
who still support this president have convinced themselves that he’s
smart enough to be president, but frankly, that says more about them
than it does Trump. I suppose this is the ultimate example of how Trump has gaslighted the country.
Most of us can see that the emperor has no clothes. White House aides
mutter under their breath and unload to reporters; members of Congress
complain off-the-record or talk among themselves; journalists come up
with euphemisms to capture Trump’s intellectual limitations. We can
pretend that Trump is wearing the finest and most magnificent garments
in the world. But the truth is, John Kelly and former administration
officials are right about the president — and we all know it.
While I thought the
jokes against Trump by Michelle Wolf on target I still believe it is
not a good idea to play into the hands of the cruelty that is Trump.
His minions who were in Michigan probably were few in number but
the damage he can do and has done to those forces of good work and good
will can be legion as they sound like thousands are cheering him.
I say do not give Trump anything to
use in front of his campaign crowds. It plays poorly for us in the
long run because so many in this nation do not know the difference
between
right wing and left and the devastating damage he is doing to our
nation. It is dangerous. I have never seen a country divided so badly
as we are divided now; where Nazis the president can deem good people.
The facts that ruined the election for Hillary are many
but what good does it do to lament it. November, November, November and VOTE for Democrats. Let's not give this angry,
mean, mendacious human that is Trump anything to hold against us
because a comic cannot stop the crudity creating more division. Like
Michelle Wolf said "They still have no water in Flint, Michigan"!
A shameful past is being carried on into
the present by a president who is a shameful monstrosity and emblem of
what our embarrassing history is with respect to race. God forgive us
and forgive those who have had the chance to rectify so many wrongs our
nation has committed but decide instead to perpetuate them.
I
pray that this current so called president is relegated to the ash bin
of history and is a testament to the most egregious ugliness by far in
comparison to all others who came before him. You, Mr. Trump, are a
national disgrace. I pray fervently that those in this nation who have
been so hurt by you ruin you!
Wishing
both S and N. Korea the best. Can miracles happen?! They are doing
this
for themselves. Hats off to them. The US has become a second rate
nation under Trump and matters little to the stability of the world
unless Trump, in fact, blows us up. It seems, post WWII the US
destabilizes every nation it touches whether it is Vietnam, Iraq or a US
president who owes an unquestioning allegiance to a murderous Russian
dictator, Vladimir Putin. Maybe soon we will find out why or he will
send this nation into the convulsion of his incurable madness by firing those
investigators who could save us from him.
I love the pic of N.
Korea and S. Korea shaking hands one stepping over into each of their
respective nations and over the line of war into peace. I wish them
well. This will go down in history, if a permanent peace is achieved,
as one of the great events of the 21st century like the
defeat of Nazism in the 20th. Both leaders planted a tree of peace.
That act gave me chills running up my spine.
A
close family friend died in Korea in 1952. He was a gem. He said to
my mother and father when he left that he thought he would not return
and he did not. His name is up in the town's hall of heroes. I salute
him and cry because he could
not see this day. Thank you
S. Korean President Moon Jae-in
and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un for making me feel, at least for
now, if you succeed, our family's wonderful friend's death will not have
been in vain!
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mick-mulvaney-lobbyists-who-pay_us_5adfed8ee4b061c0bfa2c06d My Comment:
Nothing surprises me anymore
especially about Republicans and double especially about the Trump
administration and their Congressional Republicans. Somehow they got
those on the white lower socio-economic end of the spectrum to believe
that Trump's Republicon Party is about them especially
if they are white. It was a con maybe the biggest con ever sold
because, in fact, they were not about the middle class or working
classes they were about
the white 2% richest in the nation.
Trump lied (big surprise) and got
low intellect unthinking voters to believe there was nothing in it for Trump because
he was a billionaire and did not need the money. In fact it was ALL
about him while he spit on the emoluments clause of the Constitution. He slipped the working classes a mickey telling them he was giving them tax
cuts. The tax cuts for the middle class and working classes were minimal and NOT permanent
but the billionaire tax cuts were HUGE and permanent. What a con.
My
hat goes off to them, though, because despite the media showing the
light Trump over and over and over again called it the fake media and
fake news
allowing his propaganda arm of Fox to tell his lies to his
so called base who believed it.
In the end Trump was NOT going
to drain the swamp but add to the
swamp pulling the wool over many middle class and blue collar taxpayers'
heads. Just wait until his new tax code kicks in. My accountant said
the working classes will get the surprise of their life but it should be
no surprise at all if you figured out that every time Trump says
believe me one needs to believe the opposite.
Those
who insanely pulled the lever for Trump you have been had, as Sherlock
Holmes would say, properly had! Maybe in November, 2018 you will think the opposite and vote your interests.
RESISTAND VOTE DEMOCRAT IN NOVEMBER, 2018. SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE.
Can this man Trump do anything proper and nominate candidates for high
office who are qualified? The number of things for which this Cretan
president could and should be impeached are legion, could fill a library
and are growing every day. The stages of my accepting this mentally
unfit monstrosity as the president have morphed from maybe he will not
be as bad as I thought after all he was once a Democrat to he is as bad
as I feared he would be. In fact, he is worse than I thought.
Trump is not only unfit for the office of president he is a danger to
it.
Trump must be removed from office by all legal means necessary
and with speed. Republican Congressional resistance to that means they
are complicit in the possible demise of democracy, our nation, the world
and even the planet. He is ignoring the corruption of those he, with
the assistance of Congress, has put into positions of cabinet
secretarial power who are unqualified for the positions of power they
hold.
Scott Pruitt, EPA secretary, has as Oklahoma Attorney General
sued the EPA numerous times, wants to eradicated the office he holds and
is undoing pollution regulations that keep our nation and its children
safe. He has cost this nation millions in abuses of power, in unusual
and unnecessary expenses for personal office security and travel
requirements. Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, courts
"allegations that Zinke has mixed professional and personal
business, dodged campaign finance laws and generally demonstrated
dubious ethics that have led watchdog groups to call for investigations
for other allegedly illegal conduct such as attending political events
while on duty, private plane travel, selling government property under
the value of the property." Ben Carson, HHS secretary has ordered
expensive items for his office including a dining room set and hutch
worth $31,000,
custom-made chairs and blamed his wife for ordering them. Trump and his
cabinet are unnecessarily bilking the taxpayers of millions.
The latest of unvetted
nomination of this lazy president is his nomination of the White House
doctor for oversight of the VA, a huge job for which Jackson has zero
experience and now there is more egregious behavior alleged. Either
other allegations of Dr. Jackson's lack of character and immoral conduct
are untrue OR if they are true the fact that he has no
experience running a huge organization like the VA will be the
least of his problems. The further allegations against him now if true
will sink his nomination. They include his alleged disrespectful
relationship with
White House medical staff, heavy drinking during office hours as well as
-- the worst of all
those rumored accusations -- the improper writing of prescription
drugs. If true these egregious accusations would not only deep six his
nomination but
also leave him, in my opinion, criminally at risk!
A doctor who
deals with life and
death issues putting patients at risk by bad or illegal behavior is
unfathomable and further, to oversee the gargantuan office of the VA for
which he has zero experience is intolerable. In the end it is the
president who shows us over and over and over again just how unfit for
and dangerous to the presidency and our nation he is. The committee
that oversees the nomination of Dr. Ronny Jackson for VA secretary
should deny him the position not write him a prescription for it.
Jeff Jacoby, an editorialist with whom I usually disagree but his editorial "Our &@*!^$# public discourse" on Sunday, April 22 (see link below) I could not agree with more. A point of personal privilege, however, is an admission that I am guilty of using profanity in both political and personal discussion as well at times. I plead meaculpa to that. I believe his article hits a Red Sox home run with the Ortiz example after the Boston Marathon bombing. What we say and how we say it says much about so much. One can tell one's educational level, one's ability to speak cogently correct English, the level to which we will stoop to articulate a point and how much off color language we think we need to use to prove that point.
The late 1960's, an era I loved and often want to relive, ushered in a freedom of many cultural things heretofore taboo. It loosened sexual mores, it freed up the dress code, it opened up topics for discussion one would never have mentioned before and it allowed women to say things only a man used to be able to say. An allowance of profanity in language never before used is now commonplace and permitted to be used in discussion to emphasize one's point.
It was refreshing, then, to me that the late 1960's era ushered in a freedom I never before experienced. I thought it was a social good after all who wants to remain imprisoned by so many ridiculous social customs illuminated by June Cleaver, Beaver's mother, wearing a hat, gloves and high heels to a barbecue while her husband was dressed in comfortable clothes? As often is the case human beings take a social good and create a monster ushering in a coarsening of culture with, as Steve Allen entitled his book, vulgarians at the gate.
The election of Donald Trump has ushered in a continuation of a cultural coarsening monstrosity on steroids creating a hardening of the national culture already on its way to the extremes of crudity. When bad language is permitted and used at the top by the president it sets a standard that it is okay not only to use vulgar language but to degrade one's opponent by any words necessary. The presidential licentious behavior sexual and otherwise, his using of ugly profane language when others are witness to what he said sums up the dastardly nature of the president, his allies and what our culture has become when six year olds are barred from listening to the 6:30 p.m. news. Donald Trump has given a permission slip to use the profanity he uses all the time and a toleration of a sidecar of violence associated with it. His many campaign appearances prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.
Personally, I will try to do better curbing my own use of bad language since I do have the ability to use correct English both in written language and its oral counterpart. I surely cannot say the president will curb his own profane and often hurtful language as well.
I thought the
following quote written by James Comey in his book "A Higher Loyalty --
Truth, Lies and Leadership" was another example among many that
represents the essence of an honorable man:
He
says, "All of us have encounters with death in our lives. It's
inevitable. I've had my share. I visited Patrice [his wife] who at that
time was just my girlfriend, while she was in the Peace Corps in a
remote village in Sierra Leon, West Africa, I nearly died from
contracting malaria. If she had not driven me in the middle of the
night on the back of her motorcycle and literally dragged me into a
remote hospital, I would not have made it. But
sometimes it isn't when we face death ourselves, but rather death takes
away those we love the most, that we really learn about just how short
our time on earth is and why what we do with that time matters."
These
are the words of a thoughtful empathetic man who does, in my opinion,
not deserve the pillorying he has gotten from the most irreverent,
thoughtless and cruel human on earth who
unhappily
just happens to be our president now. Hang tight, Mr. Comey, keep hoping President Obama's thought rings true: "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."
President Obama took that quote from Martin Luther King. Martin Luther
King took that quote from Justice Theodore Parker. In case one does
not know who Theodore Parker is as I did not Wiki explains:
"Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810 – May 10, 1860) was an
American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian
church. A reformer and abolitionist, his words and popular quotations
would later inspire speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King,
Jr." and I might add President Barack H. Obama. I imagine that James
Comey might be on that distinguished list too.
My Comment: Trump is obsessed with the dossier and specifically with the sex tape. If one has nothing to worry about then one should want the FBI to use him as a "subject" of an investigation to exonerate him.
Obviously
Trump is obsessed with it all, trying to figure out how to fire the
next FBI man up who dares to investigate him. God knows what they will
find and God knows if Michael Cohen flips what trouble Trump will be in next.
If
you have lost the thread in this complex quilt who can blame you. It
is very hard to keep these complex potential illegalities, lies and the
twisted business dealings with which
Trump has been and is involved.
The
only thing that makes sense to me is the potential tape with
prostitutes doing unmentionable things that the president may (or may
not) have done or witnessed. Are we really talking about such sordid seamy things with respect to the President of the United States? Unbelievable.
I do think though Trump focuses on that so much because he does not want that thread pulled. The man doth protest too much, methinks.
A BIG hug to Senator Duckworth, an amazing woman. That child will have the best parenting I'm sure. Many many congrats
and hugs to her and the baby. Wishing her family the best, health,
the best life and the best of everything. Thank you for your service to
our nation, Senator Duckworth, and thank you for setting an example to
others with disability that the will to live is the strongest force in nature!
See
link below for the amazing video of her and her baby on the senate
floor -- a first and below that link is a link to her web page if you
want to send congrats.
See the link below to explain the subject of this email.
My Comment:
The
radical right is extreme, angry and violent. In my opinion there is
more to fear in this country from white supremacist extremism than from
Muslims or politics of the left. White nationalists are mean,
malevolent, miscreants who have zero ethics
or morality. They will attack and kill their perceived opposition in a
heartbeat minute. The Oklahoma City bombing killing 168 people
including children and maiming countless others while taking down an
entire building is evidence of right wing violence. There are many more
examples. People who would commit these heinous acts are those whom
Trump has courted for his base and why he
refuses to criticize them even when they march with Tiki torches and
swastika flags shouting "Jews will not replace us" calling them fine
people objecting to them only when he must to save face.
Right
wing nationalism and white extremist racist ideologies walk hand in hand
and have found, much to their surprise, a home in the national
legitimacy of the Republican Party through Trump. It is why if one
wants a humane society, a country that lives up to its oft stated and
fought for creed by those who believe in its egalitarian promise that
you must realize the difference between right and left on the political
spectrum. The extremist right and the left are not the same. They are
polar opposites.
I
have devoted my entire politically aware life to stand for compassion,
humane politics, and empathy for those whom, through no fault of their
own, life's luck has passed them by. I stand for understanding and
empathizing with the so called "other." I stand against discrimination
based on DNA composition of which we had no choice. We are who we are
because of an accident of birth from which we derive our DNA nature that
has determined many traits from eye to skin color to sex and sexual
orientation. It can determine one's fate and it can relegate one to
life or to death.
Make your life count for something. Support
policies that help people and do not hurt them; stand for equality;
stand for fairness and for justice; stand for policies that will
advocate for them all.
RESIST
Trump and his base. Voting for Democrats throughout the land you will
vote right wing extremist Republicans into historical oblivion. Pass
this on to anyone you choose.
I still believe
James Comey to be an honorable and honest man. I know some on my progressive
side of the political spectrum place Hillary's loss on him. I do not. I am beginning to read his book: "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership"
He begins with an introduction quote from Reinhold Niebuher: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."
I placed that quote at the top of my Commentary. I have yet to find
one more descriptive of my philosophical thought than that.
MY
COMMENT: James
Comey is an honorable man. I am prepared to say that whether he is
investigating Trump or in his investigation of the Hillary Clinton's
email server. She deserved the verbal rebuke she got from Comey
something it took
me a long time to admit. She was not a newcomer to politics and should
have known if not through anything else her husband when she said
there was a right wing conspiracy to take him down. I believed it then
and
I believe now that is true. She should have obeyed the
instruction on her email to not have a private server. Ignoring the
warning, she ruined her candidacy and led those of us who supported her
to a near nervous breakdown when we saw the most disgusting candidate
Trump walk into the oval office the winner of the 2016 presidential
election.
If Comey erred
-- and I am not sure that he did -- it was tying her to the sleaze
Anthony
Weiner and his computer where her secretary, Weiner's wife, received
emails from her. I did think Comey coming out to announce that to the
American public so soon before
the election was a poor choice of timing. He did it for the reasons he
has stated and said he would do it again. He may have made that mistake
but he
is not one thing this president so sadly in triplicate is -- a liar.
James Comey
tells the truth and he is spot on about the corrupt sickening Trump.
Thank you, Mr. Comey, for your attempt at spotless
leadership and for loving the civil liberties that set this nation
apart from tin pot dictatorships all over the world. I am
hoping that Senior United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York, Kimba Wood,
will find for the
state prosecution and allow Trump's attorney Cohen's papers confiscated
in well orchestrated and court warrant sanctioned raids of Cohen's
domains to be read. Attorney client privilege does not -- I repeat
does not -- apply to crimes that may have been committed. Allegedly
Cohen with the
probable acquiescence of Trump has committed a boatload. The people
should have the
right to have that story revealed so that we can get finally get to the
bottom of the sewer that is Trump! https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/comey-trump_us_5ad3fd37e4b0edca2cbaf7fa
Gary
Oldman plays Winston Churchill so well that I forgot about the actor
and thought I was watching Churchill himself resurrected from the dead.
This film is that good.
I
have not finished it yet but the 3/4 I did see concentrated on the
miserable circumstances of the battle of Dunkirk in 1940 and Churchill's
heart wrenching decision whether to seek a diplomatic solution with a
psychologically sick unreliable (to say the least) Hitler or press on
refusing to surrender. The losses of the Brits and French at Dunkirk
were many and the German military the most superior on earth in1940.
Brits were stuck in this French town and surrounded by superior German
forces in land, sea and air honed through their many victories in
Europe. One by one western Europe was falling as Belgium fell, eastern
Europe was in Nazi hands and Nazi victory seemed inevitable. Nothing
less than Western civilization was at stake. Churchill desperately
needed American strength but Roosevelt while empathetic to their plight
in 1940 could do nothing as there was no Congressional support nor
popular appetite to get stuck in another war in Europe.
From
the history I have read the evacuation by boat of the 198,000 British
and 140,000 French and Belgian troops was miraculous. They were saved
from an untenable situation and total decimation of their army at
Dunkirk. They were miraculously helped by the Halt Order of Hitler the
rationale of that Order still debated today. It was a spiritual victory
for the Allies and set the table for Allied victory with American much
needed help finally culminating in the 1944 D-Day Allied invasion by
sea of Europe.
The
film shows perfectly the resolve by Churchill to never surrender, his strong and quirky
personality with a monumental task laid in his hands and no prediction
of victory. He was a force of nature and an example of what great leadership truly is.
If one is interested in WWII history shaping our own history to present day this film is highly recommended.
The following link below "Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump
Presidency" written by Adam Davidson of The New Yorker is a
wonderful read and one which I suspect you will not be able to put down.
It is a riveting story of a war costing trillions, hundreds of thousands
dead and millions of refugees as Americans watched the Fourth of July
like fireworks from the peace of their living room when about the only
thing made in America blew up the Middle East. 17 years later Americans
still fight the so called Mission Accomplished war.
In 2007
most knew the economy was in free fall and that the planned machinations
of Wall Street sent it there. The price was paid by you and me, the
middle Americans, while those CEO's of the corporate banking system who
perpetrated it laughed all the way to their respective banks flush with
American taxpayer bailout cash and bonuses stuffed in their pockets.
In
2016 a man says he is a brilliant billionaire success story and that he
is the only one who can make all the wrong things right, drain the
swamp and we all know, too, because he said it that it's the "other" who
put us there so he will build a bright shiny impenetrable wall that
Mexico will pay for and keep those law breaking undocumented brown men
and women out. He will prevent all those from Muslims lands from coming
over here as well. Only he can make it all okay. And so again
Americans in their insipid naivete decided they loved the pumped up
chest of the seemingly quintessential alpha male, Donald J. Trump, even
though they knew about his sullied reputation of less than honest
business practices but hey businessmen have to conduct some things on
the shady side of the street so they did not care. The question becomes
why do Americans know something is wrong but simply do not care until
it is too late.
Read
the link below "Michael Cohen and The End Stage of the Trump
Presidency" and weep as we watch the end game of the most corrupt, most
immoral, most seamy, most unethical presidency to ever occupy a space in
American history comes to its end and again ask why Americans remain
willfully ignorant of that which is right in front of their collective
noses but do not care.
The question will in the end be can we
pull a rabbit out of a hat and right the ship of state. One thing I
believe is true as Betty Davis said in her famous line in the film "All
About Eve": "
Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night."
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.
