The Not So Great Debate, or, Rude and Crude

Like many of you, I suffered through last night's Presidential debate. Afterwards, I felt drained, depressed and anxious. I was shaken, but like most Americans on both sides, I saw nothing that would change my mind about either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. The debate re-enforced what I already knew, that our Preisdent is both rude and crude, and that his challenger wants to take the higher road even while being tractor-pulled toward Trump's Autobahn. Once upon a time, America was the leading country in the world, in economics, in politics, in philosophy. Today all we lead the world in are Covid-19 cases and deaths. Donald Trump is arrogant, ignorant and rude. He is out only for himself. He is using the presidency to hide from litigation and to try to meet his massive, onrushing debts. The question is, do the American people really want a bully representing them to the world? Why is Trump making no effort to appeal to the “average voter”? It is because he is planning a coup. He has already told us what he is going to do. He screams and yells and makes a mockery of the word 'debate' in front of millions of viewers. He wants to disshearten their resolve to come out and vote. He plans to stack the Supreme Court in the vain hope that the Court will legitimize the illigitimate and erroneous claim he intends to make that the vote was rigged. He challenges the legitimacy of the election process well before election day.. His base agrees. They are, as Trump himself told the neo-Nazi Proud Boys last night, standing by. The President himself told us the truth last night, at least once. About the transition of power he said, “It will be messy.” We all should take note.

Biden for President

The Republican members of Congress are so in love with having power that they have forgotten why most of them sought that power in the first place. They have lost sight of Republican values. Their moral compass is broken into a million pieces. They march in goose step behind their leader, while the Donald struts like Mussolini and spews hate like Hitler. But if they intend to keep following his lead, they had better be certain of where he plans to go. It has been a bumpy ride so far. It has been unnecessarily rough, like shooting down rapids through a canyon so sheer you can't climb to safety on either side. We need calm seas. We need a navigator who knows how to chart a course. I wish Joe Biden were more of a statesman. I wish he were a charismatic leader. But maybe what we need is a calming presence to guide us forward after the chaos of four years with Donald Trump at the helm. Maybe we need an Opa in the White House. Therefore, I must support former Vice-President Biden. I have been given a clear choice. I hope he is the good guy his image projects. Time will tell. He certainly can do no worse. At this point, by comparison with #45, even Sarah Palin looks positively presidential.

The Nazi Equation

“Germany has been good for the Jews and the Jews have been good for Germany. Anyway, what are they going to do, kill us all?” ---Julius Lowenthal to Carl Glocken, Ship of Fools Donald Trump is a fascist. He wants to be our dictator. He is doing exactly what Hitler did in Germany to entrench his position among the people. He is affixing blame for America's woes on the “radical left,” the Black Lives Matter movement, Muslim 'immigrants,' and China, just as Hitler blamed communists, capitalists, and Jews. One difference is that Hitler rose up when the German people were desperate and economically opressed. Trump rose up on the coattails of systemmic racism as the fear that White America is losing its hold on the country. It did not go well for Germany, or the world, the first time around. Anyone who supports Trump today needs to ask themselves, do we really want to go down this road? It may sound cool to pick a fight with China, but China would kick our ass even if their own ass was kicked in the bargain. No one wins. Millions, even billions would die. Billions more non-human creatures would be colateral damage. But Trump, if he lived through it, would stand to make a fortune on the rebuilding. If you think Trump cares about you or your needs, think again. In his first three years as President, Trump's corporations already earned 1.9 billion dollars in profits, He never divested himself of his holdings. His companies have dealings with 25 foreign countries, including outsourcing production of Trump and Ivanka Trump items to China. But if it would give him one more day in the White House, or offer him a chance to make money, he would attack China in a heartbeat. For Donald Trump, no lives matter but his own. You can scoff. I've been saying for years that the United States under Trump smells like Germany 1933. It's advanced now. It's Germany 1936, on the verge and no one can quite believe it could happen again. Please pay attention. Pick your battles. The whole planet is in crisis and all of Humanity is at risk. Donald Trump is a symptom but he wants to be the disease.

Apocalypse Now

“We are striking because we have done our homework and they have not.” -----Greta Thunberg A writer's job is to warn. Yet most writers are Cassandras. No matter how loudly or persuasively we argue, nobody listens. No matter how well we document the truth, lies will out. No matter how clearly the future reveals itself to us, the majority cling to the past. But the past belongs to the dead, not the living. I am tired of holding back, of being polite. It has accomplished nothing. The choir knows who I am. No one else seems to want to hear, and that's too bad. Contrary opinions no longer have value in America. And yet, science speaks, and the Earth, our home, speaks even louder. We have passed the tipping point. No one wants to say it, but just look around. Fires, floods, famine, pandemics: the apocalypse is now. The plagues of Egypt are upon us, but no one gets a “pass over.” Meanwhile we argue over masks and social distancing and whether or not college football should start up. We are currently facing a time when millions of people across the planet will be turned into refugees, not by war or political upheaval, but encroaching salt water. The ice is melting. We cannot turn back the clock. We must prepare. Fix it? Sorry, Greta, but it's already too late. Last year, the fires in Australia killed an estimated one billion living things. The Amazon rain forest, the “lungs of the world,” faces a continuous onslaught of willful deforestation. The past decade was the hottest on record, and 2019 the hottest year ever since people began keeping track. The west coast of America is buring out of control with massive fires for the fourth year in a row. In fact, the seven most devastating fires in California history have taken place during this time. 2020's fires are by far the worst ever. The tropical storm naming game ran out of names in mid-September, going to Greek letters of the alphabet and already at Beta, while one storm thought dormant has re-emerged into a “zombie storm” heading toward Portugal. Even Covid-19 can't slow down climate change. Donald Trump says, “you just watch, it'll get cooler,” and he may be right. All this heat and ice melt will. Ironically, will lead to a new Ice Age. While Mankind stumbles around with its words and its penchant for standing still, Gaia has other ideas. Gaia is on the move. It won't be Waterworld. But it won't be an easy place we pass on to you, Greta, or my lovely grandchildren. We are down to Darwin or die. Evolve or expire. Adapt or drown. The truth is patient. You can outshout it. You can bury it under a mountain of lies. In the end, though, it will reveal itself even if there are no more human beings left to hear it. Adults, are you listening? “You must unite behind the science. You must take action. You must do the impossible. Because giving up can never be an option.” -----Greta Thunberg

Moron in the White House?

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folk of the land will reach their hearts' desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”--H.L.Mencken I cannot decide if Donald Trump is actually a moron or is the greatest con man in the history of American politics. If he's a moron, then, sorry to say, anyone who supports him is also a moron. If he's a con man, then anyone who supports him has been conned. Duped. Made the fool. And yet they do not see. It just does not look good for America. “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is facism: ownership of a government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power.”--Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Matthew 25:40

“And the King shall say to them, 'I will tell you the truth, when you did it to the least of one of my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to Me.'” There are several ways to translate Matthew 25:40, but the jist is that Jesus told his followers whatever good deed or bad one performed for or against even the lowliest human being, was performed for or against Christ Himself. It seems pretty straightforward to me. We are charged to take care of one another. Whatever your belief system, this basic tenet echoes through all of us. To deliberately hurt, torture, maime, scar or kill is against this simple tenet. My dear Christian friends, America has lost its way. Hundreds of children separated from their families remain so. Women are being mutilated within our system. There are slaves in America right now—more slaves than the total number of Africans brought to the colonies. Too many people, most of them minorities in a still White-dominated society, are marginalized, forgotten or ignored altogether. Children go to bed hungry at night. Just one human being facing any of those situations in the greatest land on earth is our failure made manifest. This is not fake news. This is our legacy to our own children, ugly as it sounds, but it is not beyond correcting. I leave you with two more quotes: “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people to judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” John F. Kennedy. And from Theodore Roosevelt: “A vote is like a rifle: Its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”

The Ides of September

Beware the Ides of September. There are just fortry-nine days left before the Election. The West Coast is on fire. President Trump tells us, they should manage their forests better, forgetting that more than half the forests in California belong to the Federal Government. Yesterday he told us, “It''s going to get cooler. You just watch.” That is his solution to climate change—winter is coming. The Gulf of Mexico is awash in the face of Hurricane Sally. It's September and the weather bureau has almost run out of names for their storms, preparing to go to Greek letters of the alphabet, with five more storms brewing. The United States remains the disproportionate leader in Covid-19 cases and deaths. In four years of brutal combat during World War Two America lost just over 400,000 soldiers. In seven and a half months of 2020, we are nearly halfway to that total in coronavirus related deaths. President Trump willingly misled the American people about the seriousness of the virus from the get go, leaving our people and our healthcare system woefully unprepared. Meanwhile, half the country bemoans our lack of leadership. The other half loves our leader. Neither side seems able to budge. Both sides are digging in. Nothing changes. It only escalates. Ignoring politics altogether, all the disasters continue to inflict themselves upon us like the plagues before Armageddon. I am tired of people telling me that it's a cheap shot to draw comparisons between America today and Germany under Hitler. Too easy, they say. Unfair! Yet I have said for four years that America feels and smells like I imagine Germany felt in 1933. Now we learn that one part of the United States government is not afraid to act like Nazis. We already knew that ICE (Immigratiuon and Customs Enforcement) had no problem separating small children from their parents and putting them in cages. According to Fox News, a whistle blower registered a complaint that at least five female ICE detainees at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, have been sterilized, receiving unnecessary hysterectomies. The Nazis used to sterilize people routinely. As one of my close friends in Holland said to me, “I don't recognize America anymore.” Donald Trump did not cause the virus or the fires or the coming floods. His approach to all of them is off-hand at best. It seems he would not mind seeing our country “decrease the surplus population.” he seems like a moron, but it's an act, the role he plays. America 2020 is not Germany 1933, but no one in Germany then had any idea what Adolph Hitler was capable of doing. All they had to do was listen then, and listen now even in the small corners of the country where human rights are forfeit.

Revelations 20.20 - Trump on Covid, the Military, and You

The revelations keep coming. A new one pops up before you have time to digest the last. Now we learn that Trump did understand the dangers of Covid-19 from the start, as early as February 3, but chose to deliberately mislead the American public, he claims, for fear of inducing a panic. Then he kept on misleading the public, doubling down on that strategy, even as the United States became the hotspot of the world. Covid deaths in our country are rapidly approaching 200,000—more civilians than the number of soldiers killed in all the wars America has fought since the end of World War Two combined. This means Trump mismanaged the crisis not out of stubborn ignorance but with intent. Worse, to me, is his disrespect for military service. I read a letter to the editor of our local paper yesterday, written by an 80 year old veteran who says he is neither a sucker nor a loser, and Trump is not fit to be commander in chief. I echo his words. Listen: if you are truly a patriot and you still like Trump, shame on you. If you think the reports on his distain for soldiers and service are fake news, dig deeper. Even Fox News reported Trump's flagrant disrespect before Fox apologists tried to walk it back. The sources for that report have been verified, even by Fox. As to Trump's intentional downplaying of the Covid crisis, the Woodward tapes are real and readily accessible. Check for yourself. Please. Access the article in Atlantic Magazine. And if, even then, you cannot bring yourself to vote against Trump, abstain. Do not vote for him. The man has no love of country, no love for you. You are his subject, not his constituent. Trump has investments in 144 companies that either deal with or outsource directly to 25 foreign countries, among them India, Indonesia, United Arab Emarates, China and Saudi Arabia. How extensive those holdings are we do not know, because he will not release his tax returns. He is itching to establish economic ties with Russia. He wants Trump Tower Moscow. Trump's signature ties are made in China. None of his daughter Ivanka's clothing line is made in the USA. None. 354 items are made in China. Trump explained, "It's very hard to have apparel made in this country." Our country. The United States. When Trump threatened to boycott Oreo cookies because he learned some production was moving in Mexico, he forgot to mention that at least two of his companies either outsource to or import from our neighbor down south. Trump has been playing the American people for suckers and losers all along. The truth is out there, on tape.

Is Trump A Traitor?

Is Donald Trump a traitor to America? Is he a Russian spy? Or is he in Putin's pocket? We know Trump has had dealings witrh Muscovite oligarchs. We know he thinks Putin can do no wrong even when that modern tzar rigs elections, poisons rivals, and offers bounties to Afghan fighters for dead American soldiers. Trump likes Putin. Trunp likes strong men in control We know his third wife is from Slovenia, part of what once was Yugoslavia—but is she, really? Should we check her birth certifricate? Wherever she was born, could she be Trump's handler? Trump has sought Russia's help in the past to get him into power, seeks it now to help him stay there. He owes the modern tsar. Just how much, and what type of payment Putin demands, we do not know because no one in America is investigating Trump as a possible counter-intellegence threat. Trump thrives on chaos and division. He has gone out of his way to make racism acceptable, even mainstream. He has presented a them-or-us attitude toward anyone in America who does not agree with him. He even encouraged, and still does, a debate about wearing face masks as if liberty itself were at stake. He shows no respect for our military, past or present, a commander in chief who thinks the soldiers under his command are stupid losers. On September 3, Trump suggested that voters who mail in their ballots go to the poles to vote again “to test the system”-- effectively calling for people to commit a crime. Lets be clear, under federal law even the attempt to vote twice can lead to a fine of not more than $10,000 and imprisonment of not more than five years. It would be an absurd suggestion to make, but we are talking about Donald Trump, who seems to push the envelope daily to see if he can shake loose any of his base, and so far he has not. He once said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I woulodn't lose any voters, OK?” Trump knows that liberty itself is at stake because he is out to destroy it. This is our President. He has 2/5 of Americans fooled into surrendering their individuality and their Americanism to a neo-fascist ideal for a country that never existed: Trump's Amerika Uber Alles. Is he a traitor? The jury is still out. Hell, the jury has not been convened yet. But count on it, that day will come. There may not be any Americans left to sit judgment, but den Haag awaits. Evidence is being gathered. Somebody is paying attention. Placing travel restrictions and sanctions on individuals at the International Criminal Court for doing their job won't change that, and pulling America out of the United Nations, as Trump suggests, will not keep the United Nations from dealing with us. Perhaps Trump will find a hiding place on the top floor of Trump Tower Moscow when all this is done.

Mail-in in Montana

Montana is white. The percentage of people in the state who are cataloged as white-non-Histpanic is over 85%. It is no surprise that the state went for Trump in a big way in 2016. It is a surprise that Trump is now suing Montana to stop mail-in balloting, turning heavily pro-Trump Montana into a testing ground for his assertion, with no proof, that mail-in voting is a guarantee of voter fraud. But then, Trump likes to set up excuses in case he loses. Sorry, that should read, in the unlikely event that he might lose, which in his mind would necessarily have to be a cheat by the other side. But Montana? Really? Montana voted 2 to 1 for him last time. You would think he would be safe here, of all places. Then again, Montanans have elected democrats to both the governorship and the senate, and Steve Bullock, serving out his final term as governor, has a good chance of putting another democrat in the Senate in November. Bullock is one of the people named in the lawsuit. The other is Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, who is a Republican. All these state officials did was allow each county in Montana to choose whether to go all mail-in or maintain business as usual. Flathead County, where I live, opted against all mail-in, although absentee and early voting would be encouraged. What are the President and the Republican National Committee afraid of? Maybe Trump thinks that he can challenge Montana and not lose a vote. He forgets, or maybe he fears, that Montanans are notoriously independent and wickedly smart. The day after the lawsuit was announced, Flathead County changed its stance and signed on for all mail-in voting, further assuring the voters that there will be plenty of safe locations to drop off their ballots should they choose to do so. Voting at the polling place is still an option, no longer the preferred way. I told you Montanans were smart. Vote!

Lines in the Sand

America has become a nation of lines drawn in the sand. Cooperation and compromise have become ugly words rarely spoken. What happened to the middle of the road? What happened to the road? Americans have become tribal. The dichotomies are too deeply drawn. Voices have become too loud, too insistant. It's us against them, not We the People. How do we work ourselves back to “one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all?” It starts at the ballot box. It continues with open discussions over dinner tables and in coffee rooms and at backyard barbeques. We don't have to agree all the time but we need to listen as loudly as we speak. What happens when you draw a line in the sand? You either have to move it or bleed on it. I think working together in the sandbox, building castles, is the better way. I think we will find that there is more that unifies us than divides us, if we pay attention. We can start by sharing our love of country and our love of freedom, and build from there.