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.

August 26, 2025: Calling it What It Is

On orders from the White House, United States troops are patroling American streets. The pretext is crime. Yet the level of crime in Washington, D.C., is actually down, 33% in 2024 and even further in 2025. The other cities that the Trump administration is threatening with boots on the ground are Chicago, where, likewise, the crime rates are dropping, and New York, which is considered one of the safest cities in the world. All three cities are deeply blue, all three have Black mayors, and none of the three has asked for Federal help to combat crime. It makes me wonder just why Trump wants to insist these areas are in crisis.

Memphis, Tennessee, has a much higher crime rate. So do Saint Louis, Missouri, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Baltimore, Maryland. Why are those cities not on the list? The answer is simple. This is not about crime. It is about retribution and suppression. The Trump administration is targeting anyone who disagrees with his vision of America, and showing his willingness to use military power even when prohibited by the Constitution. It is a show to his base. It is a warning to everyone else—see what I can do?

He is working hard to destroy the two party system, and this is part of the battle plan. It is also flagrantly and unashamedly racist. But then, white supremacy is also a major part of his agenda. The question becomes, is it yours? If so, put on your marching boots and grab your rifles and goose step down your own street. But please stay off mine.

22, 2025: A Poem for Joni

 

Here is a poem, inspired by Republican Senator from Iowa, Joni Ernst.

We're all gonna die, she said with great cheer,

So why should I care about any of you here?

And, by the way, the Tooth Fairy is false

But President Trump has really big balls.

So you see, my christian values are on full display

In the help to my neighbors that I take away.

She is just one in support of Trump's goals,

A powerful minority caught in the fold.

They want us to know that our rights are all shattered,

That what's moral and legal no longer matters,

And troops on the ground can invade any city:

Washington now is a town without pity.

The Republican Party has a very long list,

Manufacturing crises where none exist.

Immigrants are criminals who all must go!

Give jobs back to legal citizens, although

If you throw dinner parties, if you have the nerve,

Just who do you think will clean, cook and serve?

August 21, 2025: Just Who's In Charge?

 After World War Two, the powers that be, C. Wright Mills' Power Elite, were so grateful for the defeat of Adolph Hitler and the Axis powers, that they rewarded their soldier-citizens with a liberal dose of economic opportunity. Since then, the elite's next generation began clawing back. And the next generation after that, the rich and powerful 1/10 of 1% who really run things today, actually resent having to help anyone, forgetting that a happy, healthy workforce is a productive one, and that their own wealth comes off the backs of that work force.

I know. I sound like a conspiracy theorist gone mad. But it is undeniable that America has become a plutocracy, that is, governed by the super-rich, of the super-rich, and for the super-rich. They have one agenda, increasing their wealth and power. What has changed is that the rich are outwardly righteous in their greed. Their monster, Donald Trump, has made this blatantly obvious. But is Trump merely a side show reality TV distraction, or is he a threat even to them?

I know that comparisons to Adolph Hitler are not considered useful or realistic, but who exactly is telling us that, particularly when such comparisons are so obvious? The MAGA movement considers itself a revolution in American politics, economics, and governance. The Power Elite, the Republican Party, and roughly 40% of the American people are lock-step behind them. Donald Trump is their face. But I think back to 1934, a scant 91 years ago. The German industrialists told Adolph Hitler that if he could not control his Brown Shirts and their leader, Ernst Roehm, they would not support him. Over the course of two days, June 30-July 1, Hitler eliminated 2,000 potential opponents, gutting the Brown Shirts and murdering his so-called friend Roehm. He won over the industrialists, then set the world on fire.

Ernst Roehm once famously said, “All revolutions devour their own children.” With Trump looking to control every aspect of American life, from minutia like the name of a football team to his authoritarian, and what some are now calling Marxist, approach to the economy, I again ask the Power Elite, Is Donald Trump your Adolph Hitler?