September 25, 2025: The Enemies List

 In the wake of what seems like ever increasing politically motivated violence in our country, the Trump administration is pushing hard to weaponize the Department of Justice. Trump himself spews out hateful rhetoric every day, most of it directed at what he calls “the radical left,” whom he proudly says he hates. But is he talking about a handful of dangerous extremists with far left ideology, or is he aiming his hate speech at anyone who opposes his policies? I had always believed that a healthy and loyal opposition was good for democracy, but Donald Trump seems to feel, and often state, that people who disagree with him ought to be investigated, tried, and imprisoned. That he has managed to appoint an attorney to the DOJ who will do his bidding makes the future look ever more precarious. Indicting James Comey and threatening Leticia James and Adam Schiff, all on evidence that is flimsy at best, is not justice. It's revenge.

We should not be surprised. Trump has long taken personal grievance from anyone who points out a flaw in his thinking. His vitriol against Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020, shows his hatred for any opponent. He also has a long relationship of betrayal of the truth. I long ago realized that this man easily will accuse others of doing exactly what he is doing or plans to do himself. Just today, Trump again spewed out the Great Lie that he won the 2020 election, but that the results were rigged. He then referred to himself as having spent four years in exile. Exile? Really? Was he sent off to a deserted island and told never to return? Was he banned from political action within the borders of America? Does the man own a dictionary? Or a smart phone?

By all accounts, voter fraud in the United States is astonishingly rare. But maybe Trump knows something we don't. Maybe he knows how to rig an election. Given his track record of accusing others of doing exactly what he is doing, I have to wonder out loud if the Trump team rigged 2024. Yet I did not hear Kamala Harris accuse Trump, or call on her supporters to do what they could to block the certification of that election. In fact, as Vice-President, Harris presided over that certification. Smoothly.

In 1937, the top military officer in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, was tried and convicted of treason against the Stalin regime, and shot. His only true crimes were two. First, he was more popular among the Russian people than Stalin at the time. Second, he told Stalin that the military was severely out of date and needed revamping, especially with the growing threat from Germany. Stalin decided the military was fine. He also thought he could make arrangements with Hitler to be left alone. It was easier to decapitate the military and take control of future development. Stalin knew best. It was also expedient to take out a key potential rival to his power.

Reportedly, once he realized how precarious his position was, Tukhachevsky stated that his biggest crime was that he never wanted to oust Stalin. It was a campaign of lies and unbridled power that led to his death. Within two years, Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact, and two years after that, Hitler invaded Russia.

What am I telling you? Beware. We don't know how far current policies will go, but if we don't push back, if we let our freedoms and safeguards slip away, our country will disappear. There is still time, but the clock is ticking.

September 23, 2025: Pushing Back Works

On June 5, 1989, one lone man of undetermined age stood in front of a column of tanks, raised his arm toward them and gestured, Stop! I am not sure how long he stood there before other people standing by whisked him out of the way. Nor am I sure what happened to him afterward, although the authorities stated they were pretty sure he got away safely. I do know that someone snapped a photograph of the moment and that the picture is now a symbol of the constant fight for freedom that must be waged everywhere, not just at Tiananmen Square.

Yesterday, the Constitution and its supporters scored a victory. We won! Jimmy Kimmel has been reinstated on ABC by parent company Disney Corporation. It was a stunningly quick victory, prompted by widespread protest and threats of boycott. Take a victory lap! Speaking freely in favor of free speech still works! But remain vigilant. This is just one victory in one battle in a long and continuing war, and we cannot let up.

What Jimmy Kimmel said that night was not an attack on Charlie Kirk, nor in any way critical of him. Kimmel expressed outrage at the violence that took Kirk away, and gave his condolences to Kirk's family. What he said next is allegedly what caused him grief. He pointed out that MAGA supporters were quick to accuse the far Left of criminal conspiracy without knowing just what the assassin's motives, or, for that matter, his politics, were. He railed against the weaponization of Kirk's death. He went on to shift his focus to President Trump, noting how insincere Trump's grief over the loss of a supposed friend was. Personally, I think that was the real reason Trump and his cronies got so upset.

It doesn't matter. Charlie Kirk once stated in public that Joe Biden should be imprisoned or perhaps sentenced to death for treason. That sounds pretty hateful to me, but it was his right to say so. Just as it was Kimmel's right to accuse MAGA of using Kirk's death to their advantage. Just as it is my right to write about it. No one should be murdered for their thoughts. No one should be prosecuted for their thoughts. Great people, great patriots have died to protect that basic, critical tenet of our system.

I think of Tiananmen Square, one of so, so many moments when people fought and died to expand human rights. In my mind's eye, I see “The Man” stopping an entire column of tanks in their tracks. It was a wonderful, hope-filled moment, but it passed, and China is still China.

This is a wonderful moment, but it will pass. It will become frozen in a photograph if no other moments follow.

September 19, 2025: Radio Free Amerika

 

It is interesting to note that the first thing Vladimir Putin did when he gained power was to go after comics who lampooned him. He applied pressure to get state-run Gazprom Media to take over the network broadcasting the satirical program Kukly (translation: Puppets), and end the program in 2001. That was only the beginning of Putin's clamping down on free speech in Russia, a precarious, recent thing in post-Glaznost Russia. Also interesting is the fact that Volodymyr Zelenskyy began his career as a comic before running for president of Ukraine. Strongmen and comics do not get along. Maybe comparing Trump to Adolph Hitler, which is highly incendiary according to the Right, is outdated. Trump is much more like his good buddy Putin.

To Mr. Trump, all opponents are democrats and all democrats are communists, and therefore enemies of the state. He paints anyone with a differing viewpoint as unpatriotic, who should be looked at closely as possible criminals. If that's not hate speech, I don't know what is. But I don't see Trump singled out for suspension from his job over his exercise of free speech.

I know I can say these things in America, still, at the moment. I also know I am a small voice preaching to the choir. I may be too small to bother about, which is all the more reason to keep warning anyone who will listen that We The People have all but surrendered democracy to a spiteful buffoon dedicated to power and greed.

Let us be clear. The watershed moment was not Charlie Kirk's brutal murder. It was Jimmy Kimmel's suspension. Kimmel, and the dozens of people who worked to create his program, have been economically assassinated. Trump doesn't have to kill people to silence their voices. America has become Amerika. It is a dictatorship. Every member of Congress who remains compliant is complicit in our betrayal and is a traitor to the Constitution.

My only hope is that the severity of the response to the perceived threat of a couple of late night talk show hosts will backfire.

September 18, 2025: Speeking of Freedom, Upside Down

 

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

-----George Orwell

Charlie Kirk may not be the best choice for a martyr, but he can't help becoming one. This is a man who called for then President Joe Biden to be sentenced to the death penalty. Kirk said it. Look it up. Yet that's okay, but saying his assassin is a MAGA extremist gets Jimmy Kimmel fired. The world is upside down, and speech in America is no longer free.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

-----Theodore Roosevelt

The Right is trying to silence the Left and everyone inbetween. They act as if it is morally reprehensible to challenge or disagree with Donald Trump, or, for that matter, any of his cronies in the Cabinet or throughout the country. ANTIFA, which is an anti-fascist and anti-racist movement made up of individual groups without a central hub, Trump wants to label a terrorist organization. Yet he has no such plans for the Proud Boys, which is a centralized organization that promotes violence, and which has been declared a terrorist group in Canada. Trump wants to destroy balance in our country, and he has lots of help.

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

-----George Washington

Freedom of Speech in America is not dead, but it has been shot, and ICE agents have taken it into custody, preparing to deport it. They are now after its family members, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Religion, the Right to Peacable Assembly, and the Right to Petition the Government. But Speech goes first, replaced by the freedom to accuse anyone you don't like of being unpatriotic.

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

-----Benjamin Franklin

Beware! Poets warn. Alarmists keep watch. Ignore them at your peril. Our country is in danger of slipping into totalitarianism, and soon. We are not staging mass executions or sending people who disagree with us to the Gulag, yet. But we are encouraging employers to take away their livelihoods because of how they think. In a country dedicated to majority rule with a strong minority to check them, we are run by a minority and subjected to their opinions without the benefit of a proper check and balance system. Without that, dictators rule and opponents perish.

I leave you with this dire warning from John Adams, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Is that what we are witnessing now? Can we prevent it? I know two things: fear is the weapon, and silence is the enemy.

September 17, 2025: We Interrupt This Program

 Yet again, political violence has struck America. Charlie Kirk was murdered at a public speaking event a few days ago. I personally did not know much about Mr. Kirk. From what I have learned about him, I probably would have disagreed with him on almost every talking point. Yet, I mourn his loss and the loss to his young family through yet another senseless act of violence played out on the political stage. In a book written before I was born, Government By Assassination, the author outlined how the Japanese government reshaped itself into a despotic world power through a series of political murders. I think of that book in the context of today, and shudder.

Political violence in America is a serious problem. But are we really going to keep score? Making violence a political issue in the first place rachets up the rhetoric. Both sides are guilty. Remember, we watched January 6, 2021, unfold in real time, then saw our president pardon almost all the riotous conspirators. It seems hypocritical for people on the right to be pointing fingers at people on the left after the extreme and abominable act of one human being. When Paul Pelosi was attacked by a single person, I don't remember hearing Biden or any other fellow democrats calling for wide-spread investigations of anyone who did not automatically express sympathy for the then Speaker's husband or her.

88% of Americans oppose political violence. That opposition goes across the board. The Cato Institute reports that 54% of violent acts that qualify as politically motivated are done by people with extreme views on the Right. Yet the rhetoric we hear claims it is the Left that encourages violence. It is a glass house. Everyone should put down their stones.

I grew up in what I call the “We Interrupt This Program” generation. Every time our TV screens flashed that phrase, we knew someone had died, usually violently. I hope we aren't re-entering that era. The difference then was that our leaders sought to unify, heal, and lead us beyond our shock and grief, not throw kerosine on the flames with generalities and hate.

The scariest part of the aftermath to Charlie Kirk's assassination is a spreading message that everyone must mourn his loss regardless of their feelings about his views. People are being fired from their jobs for having an opinion that runs contrary to what our president and his cabinet members want us to think. When John Kennedy was murdered, most but not everybody mourned his death. That was their right. Charlie Kirk believed in his own right to free speech. He invited others to join him, to dialogue. He was robbed of that. It insults his memory to deny free speech to anyone else, regardless of how you feel about the speaker.

September 12, 2025: History Relocation Act

 

In honor of my second favorite President, Andrew Jackson, whose time I am actively attempting to return to, I hereby declare, without Congressional imput or approval, because, after all, who needs Congress, the Historical Relocation Act of 1825, er, 2025.

Facts are bad things. Facts are evil. Facts are dangerous. Facts take the truth away from your president and his vision for America. In fact, Facts are criminal, perhaps even treasonous. It is time to take Facts out of our museums, our libraries, our schools, our road signage, our national parks, our cities and our countryside. We are in very successful negotiations with several foreign governments who have declared themselves more than willing to take our facts for us. Therefore, pursuant to the Supreme Court ruling of September 8, 2025, anything that looks like a Fact, sounds like a Fact, or holds a low paying position in a Factory, will be rounded up and deported. In fact, we will rename all Factories into Truthtories and eliminate Facts from our beautiful nation altogether. Anyone sympathetic to Facts may be brought up on criminal charges and face suspension of citizenship, expulsion, imprisonment, or even death.

You are warned.

To the many, many people who say this is a good idea, thank you and God bless, and help me to Make Amerika Gullible Again.

September 10, 2025: White Washing

 

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument stretches over the full length of the battlefield. There are markers approximating where the dead were found. They are scattered over five miles of land from where Major Reno and Captain Benteen held off one attack, to Last Stand Hill where Custer and the remnants of his 225 men lost their lives. In the 1990's, the site began displaying markers for the sixty-odd Native Americans who also died in the battle, as well as changing the name from Custer to Little Bighorn Battlefield. This added balance to the story, which was as much an Indian victory as it was a military defeat for the United States. It helps impress a vistor today of how complete and overwhelming the victory was. Seeing markers for soldiers and warriors where they fell helps make those events of 150 years ago real, honest and human.

The Trump administration wants to white wash our history, from downplaying slavery to rewriting or ignoring altogether our treatment of Native Americans. Trump lies constantly, but he believes his lies. Somehow he has come to believe that disagreeing with his version of America is treasonous, even when that version denies or ignores the factual truth. The truth is not something we should run from or tuck away out of view. Our ancestors made mistakes, as humans always do. But we learn from those mistakes, and strive to do better. If we lose the record of our past, how can we do better? How can we learn? Donald Trump has his own agenda, to make America over in his image. Now he wants to put his lies all over our national parks and our coastlines, to “edit” informational signage to match his flawed vision of Amerika the Beautiful.

Five of the first seven US Presidents were slave owners. It is fact. Is pointing that out a sin against America? Those men were a product of their times. Most of them hoped for a time when their new country would abandon slavery as an economic tool, human beings as nothing more than machinery. Andrew Jackson, whom Trump called his favorite President, himself owned 200 slaves. Jackson also pushed through Congress the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which codified a policy of relocating native tribes wherever it suited the government. It began with the forceful relocation of the Cherokee, one of the so-called civilized tribes, and the Trail of Tears, and spread westward through the Plains. It was an effort to push Plains Indians back to the reservation that led to Custer's defeat in 1876. But the policy continued.

Donald Trump wants to forget all that.

What's next? Do we pull the markers of the dead native warriors out of Little Bighorn National Monument? Do we start burning every book that reports our true history? Do we arrest anyone with a different view from the administration? Do we white wash history? And does that do anyone service? Remember, history is always written by the victors, but the vanquished always keep a record, even if they have to pass it down generation to generation by word of mouth.

September 9, 2025: War, What's In A Name?

I apologize for being absent these past many days. We had company and it was wonderful to play tourist again for a while. After lunching at the Izaac Walton Inn, we drove the full length of Going To The Sun Road, which dissects the lower area of Glacier National Park, from Saint Mary's to Apgar. The sky was hazy with smoke from forest fires in adjacent areas, but not horrible. The scenery was spectacular and that road, a true marvel of engineering, was great fun to drive. But the world, sadly, kept going down its own, chaotic path. Stuff happened.

It's hard to pick a subject to write about, there are so many. Then I remembered my old stand-by. All my life, ever since I can remember, I have fought a war against war. It permeates my thinking. It shows up in about half my poetry. I even assembled an entire set of “war poems” along with a tribute to the soldier-poets of World War One, Charles Sorley's Ghost.

I hate war. I would kill it if I could. All it does is destroy. Not just people: war butchers the land and the life upon it. So it disturbed me greatly that our President, who proclaims to hate war at least as much as I do, re-named the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

You may ask, What's in a name? Inevitability. “Defense” is just what it says, a term that promotes a steadfast preparedness against war. “War” is an invitation. It is aggressive. It is a threat. And it accepts its own inevitability.

It allows this administration to murder eleven human beings aboard a small boat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, on suspicion that they were smuggling drugs. Maybe they were. We will never know. They weren't stopped and boarded, or given the chance to surrender. They were brutally attacked and killed, and all evidence destroyed, by an act of war.

The rule of law has no meaning in America today.