Trump, Seeking the Bottom

WHEN I BECAME AWARE of the alleged fact that the president of America, while visiting Japan, insisted that the warship bearing John McCain's name be hidden from view, it brought to mind, first, the famous and mysterious "Philadelphia Project", according to which, during world War Two, attempts were allegedly made to render a warship invisible. Then it brought to mind far less appealing thoughts. Evidently, the order pertaining to the U.S.S. McCain actually was given; if not, it certainly sounds plausible, considering the president's long standing hatred of the late, great Senator. Trump's hatred of McCain is among the most petty, despicable manifestations of one of the most despicable people (Trump) to ever do damage to the United States. You'll recall that Trump denigrated McCain for having been captured in combat. He also called McCain a "loser"; a laughable comment from a laughable excuse of an American citizen. Appropriately enough, the very circumstances that made McCain a genuine hero to his country are what the president cited as reason not to consider him a hero. Heroes do not get captured, and do not become prisoners of war and suffer and amazingly somehow endure torture for years, declared the reprobate in chief. The source of Trump's hatred? Only that McCain told the truth about Trump's policies, disagreed with them, found the president's behavior disgusting, particularly the constant lies, and was not afraid to say so on the floor of the United States Senate. To arouse the ire of Donald Trump, one need only disagree with him, one need only fail to lavish praise upon him. Comparisons of Trump to Hitler were once somewhat humorous; they no longer are. Now, they have become deadly serious, by virtue of being accurate. Trump is a demented narcissist, whose only concern is for his personal fortune, and for the amount of veneration he can get from adoring sycophants. Trumps hatred of McCain is Appropriate, because whatever Trump says, the opposite is usually appropriate and true, and whatever he does, the opposite is usually the noble and appropriate course of action. It is not possible to explain admiration and support for Trump by referring to patriotism, but only through anger, hatred, and pathologically distorted mentally. It becomes necessary to conclude that Trump, his assistants, his associates, and his millions of supporters are seriously diseased emotionally and intellectually, and are in fact, as Noam Chomsky points out, criminally insane. Those who admire and support President Trump do so because the president's hatred of immigrants, his racism, his lack of compassion for anyone, and his pathological need to control and abuse women reflects their own twisted thinking. That Trumps' support derives largely from the far right of the political spectrum, and particularly from devout evangelical Christians exposes the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the conservative Christian movement. Indeed, when we finally rid ourselves of this demented leader, we must not celebrate nor congratulate ourselves, but rather, we must look deep inside ourselves and ask: how could we ever have allowed such a thing to happen at all?

Explaining Trump's Support

THERE IS BEGINNING TO EMERGE, quite predictably, a considerable body of literature, consisting mostly of magazine articles, exploring the question and attempting to explain the support for Donald Trump. Those who say they support him because he says what he means also tend to defend him by claiming that he doesn't mean what he says. Conspicuously, his support resides within the most conservative, religious segments of the American demographic. It is noteworthy that political conservatism and devout Christianity tend to go together in the United States. The obvious explanation is that both are predicated on veneration of tradition. Trump, by espousing nationalism and eschewing internationalism, by parroting traditional values, fills the bill. Racism, contempt for immigrants and foreigners, disregard for mandated equality, a preference to allow various forms of inequality, economic, social, gender, are traditional American values, the idea being that society should be left alone to manifest as the sum total of individual preferences, without any artificial adjustments based on pressure from government or social activism. Whether racism is repugnant isn't the issue: the salient fact is that people should be free to be racist, without being shamed into abandoning it. Liberals and conservatives are "hard wired" in fundamentally different fashions, studies indicate. Conservatives are more responsive to fear, and see the world as a far more threatening place than do liberals. Trump, by constantly talking about threats, appeals to conservatism. The rapid rate of change in American culture during the past several decades has created the notion among conservatives that all traditional values are under attack, including capitalism and Christianity. This is true, in that the percentage of Americans who disavow religion and capitalism is increasing, and has among millennials reached a high percentage, well over half. Although socialism has long been popular (in both the elections of 1920 and 1932 more than one million people voted for socialist and communist candidates for president), and is of course the means of production and distribution of most basic goods and services, including police and fire protection, and streets and highways, it retains, despite its long tradition in the United States, the stigma of being "radical", liberal. Conservatives seek order, conformity, and transparent explanations. Liberals show a preference for the ambiguous, and for innovation. That we live in an ambiguous, innovative culture bodes well for the continuation of a historical trend which could be called a law of cultural nature; that society inevitably discards all traditions, and tends to move from away from deeply established cultural norms, and towards change, away from today's conservatism, and towards today's liberalism, which eventually becomes tomorrows conservatism. this does not bod well for enduring support of Trump, and seems to indicate that his current popularity, though quite limited even now, will wane greatly in the near future, and that Trump will eventually be among the most reviled figures in American political history.

Killing Ourselves, and Asking Why

SINCE 1999 nearly one hundred and thirty eight thousand American military service veterans have committed suicide. Currently approximately twenty take their own life each day. This compares with the slightly more than five thousand two hundred who have been killed on the field of battle during the same time period. Since the perpetual war of American aggression in the middle east actually began in 1991, the numbers stated above are necessarily low. It is estimated that the American military has killed nearly half a million people in the middle east during the same time period, many if not most of them civilians. To justify this, the usual platitudes are applied: defense of freedom, defense of liberty and the spread of democracy and virtuous American values to benighted regions of totalitarian government. None of this, obviously, is true. What is true is that the American people signaled their intent of becoming an empire as early as 1763, when thousands of colonists defied instructions from their overlords in London not to attempt to resettle west of the Appalachian mountains, on account of the inability of the British Empire to protect them. The American government further expressed its intent of empire in 1846, when it deliberately provoked a war with Mexico as pretext for stealing half of Mexico. Then, in 1898, the American government provoked a war with Spain for the purpose of extending the American empire overseas, and its expansion has continued apace, economically and politically if not always geographically, to this day. The governing principle of American foreign policy is that might makes right, and the disastrous American foreign policy of the second half of the twentieth and first fifth of the twenty first century clearly demonstrates this. Viet Nam was a war provoked by American imperialism, by a desire to open foreign markets and plunder foreign resources for American corporations, as were the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States deliberately enticed Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait in 1991 as a pretext for the imposition of American military power in the middle east. The wars in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been American failures. Appropriately, we venerate memorial Day as a day of remembrance and appreciation for the thousands of brave patriots who gave their lives for the pursuit of American foreign policy goals. Memorial Day was not actually formally declared a national holiday until 1967, surprisingly, having theretofore been traditionally called "Decoration Day", a day upon which citizens honored the Civil War dead, beginning in the late nineteenth century, by placing flowers on their tombstones. Prior to the civil war cemeteries had been used by civilians as public parks; pleasant places to have picnics and group gatherings. After the civil War, when the same cemeteries were filled up with tens of thousands of too young dead, the recreational purpose was forgotten, supplanted by a more somber one. It may one day come to pass that the ideal behind Memorial Day evolves yet again, and becomes a day to ponder not only the brave ultimate sacrifice made by millions of patriots, but also a day during which we the American people reflect back on the foreign policy which precipitated the mass slaughter, and bravely evaluate its veracity, and then ask ourselves "was it really worth it"? As of now, we have not yet reached that point, most likely because we are not yet prepared to accept the answer.

Choosing The Keyboard and the Ballot Box

GOETHE SAID: "We are united by sentiment, and sundered by opinion". Goethe, widely believed to have been not only the greatest writer ever produced by European culture, is also widely considered to have been the most intelligent person to have ever live. This, from those psychological and intellectual analyses often conducted on long dead famous people. Its dubious. No matter how intelligent we think someone is, or how beautiful,or athletic, or virtuous, there is always somebody else, usually lurking just around the corner, with superior attributes. To compare people becomes folly. Goethe, nonetheless, was always correct in his description of the world. You are invited to read anything he ever wrote. We all came together when the World Trade Center fell. We all come together when floods and tornadoes devastate the land. We all come together on Christmas and Memorial Day, sentimentally. Then, when we stray into the murky, turbulent realms of religion and politics, the twin titans of animosity, we find ourselves, once again, sundered by opinion. My temptation to thoroughly despise Trump supporters, my friends among them, runs rampant, assuaged only by a kind word or deed, an invitation to dinner. My complaint with deeply religious people is that they seem invariably to have the tragic misconception that the religion they embrace, no mater what it is, should be embraced by all other people. some fine day humanity may well come to the realization that, as Goethe said: "when I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." But don't hold your breath. Notwithstanding my complete disdain for traditional religions and for political conservative, particularly Trump supporters, I have, a bit belatedly, determined to withdraw from the battlefield of argumentative conversation, and to be content to express my opinions and beliefs in two venues: essays, and the ballot box. there is a ray of hope. One of my best friends, an ardent Trump supporter, recently confided to me that, well, Trump supporters"cringe" as he put it, as many as a dozen times a day. its the most i will ever get out of him, but I'll have to take it, its enough. It offers a glimmer of hope. There is a sense of liberation, I am finding, in knowing that my future consists of writing and publishing essays, and going to the ballot box. The senseless arguments can be discarded. Confirmation bias precludes any hope of accommodation. see, its like this. Facts don't matter. We humans only accept facts which support our preexisting convictions, and we reject those which do not. It is not possible to "win' an argument, nor to influence anyone, with fact, except in a debate class, in which the respective arguments are carefully scored by an authority figure. I do not intend to seek out a moderator to monitor every argument with some dumb Trump-lovin' sumbitch, or some cross loving christian barbarian. I am reduced to writing and publishing essay, and voting. Somehow, it will be enough. It will have to be.

Using Words As Weapons and Shields

A WISE PERSON whose identity my failing short term memory prevents me from remembering indicated that the term "snowflake" has become a term and a means by which people justify and even glorify their own lack of compassion and empathy, while seeming strong, and deriving pleasure from their own self perceived toughness and individual reliance and desire that others share their thick skin. Upon reflection, I concluded that each time I have encountered the term "snowflake", either in print, on screen, or via mouth, it has issued forth not from a bleeding heart liberal, who is by definition a snowflake, but from a far right wing red MAGA hatted Trumper. You are thinking: "how surprising". A snowflake, according to my limited analytical capacity, would be a person who becomes emotional at the slightest perceived insult, or the slightest affront to one's sensitivities, and takes offense at words like "queer", "immigrant criminal free loader", or "lib hypocrite" (someone who believes in climate change but drives a car). A snowflake, to wit, is a sensitive person, emotionally. When one, while attending a Trump campaign rally, events which have inexplicably continued throughout his presidency and thus seem redundant, screams "shoot the asylum seekers", one is avoiding being a snowflake either because one glorifies in a lack of emotional response to human suffering, human suffering precipitated entirely by the human sufferer itself, or because one lives one's life in a perpetually sub freezing personal bubble, able to wax emotional while impervious to the emotional state of others, without melting. Is a snowflake nothing other than the outward behavioral manifestation of political correctness? Political correctness is the invention of Mao Tse Tung's little red book, transformed by nineteen sixties California lib types mocking themselves, according to which one must be respectful rather than disdainful of queers, coons, degos, sex changers, and all other non white non male non conservative types who tend to vote for Democrats, and is actually nothing other than a requirement imposed upon the crass that they either treat everyone respectfully, and stop calling people "broads", "babes", and "libtards", and start addressing people as "Yo, homie", or ma'am, or sir, or walk. Political correctness is nothing other than common courtesy, sometimes taken to the extreme by the extremely sensitive, to avoid melting. The right to be rude and disrespectful, guaranteed by the first amendment, shall not be infringed by snowflakes or political correcters, and any perceived threat to the right to be repugnant shall be met with.....anger....MAGAtry, and derisive responses, which, if one did not know better, could be construed as conservative snowflake-ish sensitivity, the only caveat being that as of this printing, no such characteristic has yet been identified within the entirely diagrammed human genome. But that don't mean that conservative snowflake-ish sensitivity don't exist. It merely means that in order to assert its existence, it is only necessary to disavow the findings of modern science, which is no trick to the evolution, climate change, science denying far right religiously trumped up wing.

Being Pro Life

THE TWO FERAL CATS, it turned out, were both female, although I didn't know it at the time. They were beautiful, white, apparently Siamese. When they came into my yard looking underweight, I fed them, and this became a habit. When they had my loyalty and I had their trust, they both brought their litters with them, precious tiny ones clinging to them. To me it was a total shock, blindsided, but really shouldn't have been. We reached an agreement wherein I would feed the mothers, and the mothers would do the rest. Both mothers and all five kittens thrived, and became mine, to the extent that is possible. The next project was spaying, neutering, and vaccinating all members of both families, and this I accomplished by degrees, one animal at a time. With six down and one to go, the final patient, a beautiful female kitten, was the hardest part. Its easy when it doesn't matter which cat you lure into the cat carrier. The final female I got to a bit late. Turned out she was, as they said at the vet, "very pregnant", which, in all truth, I had suspected. So, my little kitten girl "Destiny", had an abortion. I saw her in post op, lying there wide eyed but unconscious; my first thought was that she was dead. A little intravenous hydration and a heating pad, she perked right up, and to this day all seven, my "magnificent seven" two males and five females, live preciously in my garage, well provided. And still I think of the sweet baby kittens whose lives I prevented from coming into being. I don't like the thought. Of course I did the right thing. But still I don't like it, and will always lament my tardiness. So yes, I am "pro life". But who isn't? For me, if abortion isn't murder, it is much too close to murder for comfort. Anyone who fails to understand the validity of both pro choice and pro life viewpoints simply isn't fully implementing the moral compass. All the arguments are sound. Women should make the decision. A woman should have complete sovereignty over her own body. Men should have nothing to say about it, without being willing to take full responsibility, including financial, for the life they engender. A pro life man should back up his position with action, and full child support. Those who wish to include God should perhaps have sufficient faith in God to believe that God is aware of every pregnancy, and provides proper guidance for every woman in choosing her unborn child's fate, without any intervention from clergy or government needed. It seems that those who most fervently believe in God and most abhor abortion rights for women are the ones who place the least amount of faith in God's willingness to provide guidance to pregnant women, and to provide it directly, without intercession from clergy or legislators. That is perhaps the most enigmatic aspect of the entire controversial mess.

Doing Unto China

ARGUABLY, the United States has historically had as its overriding concern in its foreign policy towards China a single objective: economic exploitation, and, to that end, if necessary, domination. As early as the eighteen sixties the U.S., in concert with its nascent railroad industry, facilitated the bringing to America thousands of Chinese workers for use as virtual slave laborers in construction of the transcontinental railroad, without regard to their health, safety, quality of life, or prospects for an adequate life beyond their working years. Eventually, and predictably, the number of Chinese living in the American west exceeded acceptable limits in racist America, resulting in discrimination, violence, and culminating with the Chinese Exclusion Act, under which all further Chinese immigration to the U.S. was forbidden. Bring 'em here, use 'em, abuse 'em, then discard them, and ensure that no more of them enter the country for their own purposes. The moral implications of this behavior are evident. By the end of the nineteenth century, it was apparent that China's vastness offered opportunity for economic exploitation by expanding European powers, and by the United States. Under Queen Victoria, the British had long sold opium in China, forcing it upon them at the end of a gun barrel, the queen thus becoming the biggest drug dealer in world history. The western powers avoided conflict by carving china, without its permission, into zones of commerce, spearheaded by the Americans, and their "Open Door" policy, which gave each imperialist nation its own zone of commercial exploitation. President Theodore Roosevelt gave the Japanese his blessings to invade and exploit china, in return for Japanese acquiescence to similar behavior by American interests. Franklin Roosevelt later withdrew American consent, long after the Japanese had already taken full advantage of it in the nineteen thirties. That reversal of American foreign policy led ultimately to war. Now the Americans complain that it is being treated unfairly by China in trade arrangements. The Chinese might respond that turnabout is fair play, and that it is about time. The American complaint is essentially twofold: that the Chinese are buying far fewer commodities from American manufacturers than its own producers are selling in American markets, and that china is imposing unfair trade requirements by requiring that trade concessions be accompanied by the sharing of American intellectual property. All this, of course, is well known, well documented in the media. It could be argued that if one is disgruntled by the insistence on the part of one's potential trade partner on certain requirements imposed by said partner, one's best option is to simply walk away from the trading partnership. It could further be argued that free market capitalism should be allowed to flourish, and that all trade imbalances are merely the result of unequal demand for goods and services. If Americans want more Chinese products that the Chinese want from America, so be it; free market capitalism is the guilty party. Strange complaint coming from a country so intent on defending the free market against government intrusion. It is the Americans who forced the Chinese to open their markets, and the Americans who rapaciously, voluntarily, soak up products of Chinese manufacture. It is the Americans who made the rules of trade, and now, it is the Americans who, when the resulting economic intercourse fails to materialize according to their desires, chose to begin a trade war. One scarcely need wonder why for centuries the Chinese were reluctant to involve themselves with western nations, in any manner whatever.

Anachronistically Racist Christian

JUST THE OTHER DAY in some small town in Georgia a member of the city council came bleating out that because he is a Christian, he does not approve of interracial marriage, since he believes his faith forbids it. As you might hope and expect, there has been considerable "push back" as we like to say, and last heard the racist was considering resigning from the council. Good for America. Whereas interracial marriage has always been and among ultra right wing circles still is greatly frowned upon in these United States, especially with the Christian community, we have made progress, and it is no longer considered politically correct to disapprove of it publicly; one must keep one's prejudices to one's self these days. Much scriptural proof has been cited for the prohibition of interracial marriage. None of it, however, is valid, for the simple reason that "racism" as a concept did not exist in Biblical times, and is in fact a surprisingly recent invention of us dear darling humans. Mid fifteenth century, approximately. Nary a single word in the Bible has anything to say about race. The children of Israel were admonished by God to not marry outside Hebrew society. The ancient Israelites were not regarded by God nor by themselves as a "race". Humanity had not yet invented the concept of race, thus, neither had God. Therefore, any christian in human history who has ever condemned interracial marriage on biblical grounds is, whether wittingly or not, being quite mistaken and dishonest. The Bible tells us not to interbreed different kinds of animals, as if we could do so in any event, not to plant two kinds of crops in one field, which we know now to be terrible agricultural advice, and not to make clothing from more than one kind of fabric, which, if nothing else, might save time, effort, and money. Still, nothing about race, or interracial marriage. Falsely citing Biblical passages to use in condemning interracial marriage is a strategy of our current crop of conservative Christians, whose behavior can scarcely be explained, so pervasive are their crazy, corrupt, and incorrect beliefs, by anything other than brain damage. When a person consistently, passionately embraces beliefs which have absolutely evidence supporting them, and consistently refuses to believe universally accepted, obvious, demonstrable, settled science, one has a problem, intellectually, perhaps mentally. Racism as an articulated concept first appears in history in teh mid fifteenth century, in a biography of Prince Henry the navigator, and it is used as justification for slavery. we today would be far better off to merely "uninvent" the idea of separate, discrete human races, and evolve to an understanding that every last one of us has a separate, uniquely identifiable skin color, all part of a single human race. Think of the trouble it would save. Race is an invalid, inaccurate concept which best belongs in history's dustbin of discarded ideals. Maybe someday we as a human culture will arrive at that understanding. Unfortunately, it probably won't happen anytime soon.

Calling A Spade

EVERYONE WHO KNOWS ME know how much I despise Donald Trump. But if they know me well, they also know that I have a fundamental sense of fairness, and that I do not despise anybody merely for the sake of emotional gratification. On inauguration day, I promised to give him a chance. And, I have. Amid all his corruption and insanity, the president appears to have done something so wonderful that I cannot refrain from openly embracing it and showering the president with credit for it. He proposes to henceforth require all pharmaceutical concerns, in the course of their television commercials, to articulate the actual price of their product, amid the usual avalanche of described benefits and possible side effects. Presumably this will be enacted through a regulation issued by the Food and Drug Administration. If you aren't ashamed of your prices, advertise them on television, along with all your other propaganda and information. We on the big government regulatory left seriously need to congratulate and support the president on this one. The pharmaceutical cartel, aka known as the American pharmaceutical industry, is outraged, and planning to challenge the new regulation in court, vigorously, as one would expect. They say that they will not comply with the requirement that they reveal prices on television, because it would be impossible to do so and to explain it to the viewers. Instead, they will direct viewers to a website, which, presumably, will explain everything. This means hammering the viewers with a massive propaganda message explaining why drug prices absolutely must, for the benefit of society, be high. This is exactly the sort of regulation, the exact sort of government economic intervention, needed in American prosperity; holding corporations accountable does nothing to harm the economy, it does everything to make corporate capitalism more moral, more compassionate, and more equatable, if that's possible. It is socialism, at its finest. Whether the trump administration realizes or understands this does not matter as much as whether we the american people do. Wouldn't it be great if Donald Trump and his cult like supporters suddenly started advocating for and pursuing good policies like this one, instead of the steady, daily flow of lunacy we have had thus far in the Trump era? These drug commercials always entice the viewer by promises of vastly improved health, while down playing all the associated side effects and problems, including cost. Its time to force them to be honest, upfront, accountable, and amazingly, Trump seems to be trying to do it. But if corporate power in America is ever going to be replaced by the power of the people, we the people must see to it, rather than relying on some billionaire demagogue and his adoring, criminally insane sycophants.

American Greatness

THE UNITED STATES does not like it when its subordinate client states misbehave, disobey. In America, might makes right, and we the voluntarily brainwashed have always been perfectly willing and happy to suck up the spoon fed garbage in our hagiographic history classes about American greatness, American values, America's crusade to spread good throughout the world, and eliminate evil. When Iran decided to nationalize its oil reserves in 1953 the British and the Americans were very unhappy, since the British and American governments, like all other European governments, are owned an controlled by corporate interests like British petroleum, Inc, and Standard Oil Inc. American corporations wanted the oil, so the government of Iran with replaced, regime changed as we like to say today, with the Shah of Iran, an American puppet, taking over in a dictatorship, a dictatorship amenable to American corporate control of Iran resources. The shah was such an agreeable puppet of the United States that for his entire reign, the U.S. actively assisted Iran in the development of nuclear weapons, encouraging Iran to acquire them, which it never did. Iranian students in nuclear physics were features on campuses such as Harvard and M.I.T., guests of the United States. My, how things have changed. All was well in the Untied States of Aggression until 1979, when the Iran masses overthrew the Shah and replaced him with the Islamic theocracy we know today. The new government promptly made it abundantly clear that Iran's days of serving as an American puppet state were over, and it has admirably backed up its bold talk aver since. Relations between the two countries has been bad ever since. now a trumped up American armada, aircraft carrier and all, is heading towards Iranian waters, precisely because the Untied States still thinks it should control Iran, only now, Iran instead of being required to develop atomic bombs, it is prohibited from doing so. If I were an Iranian, I would think the United States is afflicted by some sort of bi polar insanity, and i would be right. We do not merely want Iran and North Korea to not have atomic bombs, We want everybody to not have them, we want them eliminated from the planet, and you agree with that, even if you think you don't. The treaty we signed with Iran under Obama, which included fiver other super power nations, was a perfectly acceptable agreement, its only flaw being that it failed to eliminate all nuclear bombs from the planet. but, it was better than nothing. Now we have Trump, totally screwing it all up. The lunatic is likely to get us into a war with China and Iran, at the same time. What we really need, of course, is global agreements to eliminate all nuclear weapons, to reverse climate change, toe cure diseases and explore space, together, as a single human race. Unfortunately, Trump and his maniac gangster supporters would rather bleat about making America great again, while actually making America stupid, angry, aggressive, isolationist, nationalistic, and destructive to us all. Not long ago Henry Kissinger, when asked why on earth the United States would have ever wanted Iran to become armed with nuclear bombs, responded: "They were our friends then."

Declaring National Moral Bankruptcy

A LETTER signed by hundreds of former federal prosecutors asserts that the Mueller report very clearly proves that Trump committed obstruction of justice. The letter is quite correct. Mueller describes several of Trump's actions which meet every criterium for the crime. The Mueller report also proves that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians operatives interfering with the election helping Trump get elected. Trump knew about, accepted, welcomed, and failed to report or try to stop the Russian project, a highly organized and extensive operation which intended to and successfully helped Trump get elected. In essence, Trump cooperated with the Russian effort. that is collusion, if only informal. We knew at the time that Attorney General Sessions was fired for failing to stop the Mueller investigation, and that William Barr was appointed to replace him because of his willingness to act on behalf of Trump in dealing with Mueller. His four page summary of the report was intentionally misleading, intended to instill within the American people the false notion that Trump was found innocent of all wrong doing, when in fact quite the opposite is true. Mueller plainly reveals Trump to be a criminal, and practically begs somebody else, probably Congress, to take action. Meanwhile, Trump is describing the Mueller investigation as an attempted coup, and trying to encourage his supporters to do likewise. Most amazing in all this is what a depraved low life of a reprobate Donald Trump is revealing himself to be, on a daily basis, year after year, and that his many supporters, at least forty percent of the American people, are no better than he. To support Trump at this point requires either a complete ignorance of reality, or a wanton, depraved disregard for it, i.e., complete moral bankruptcy. There is strong evidence that Trump's supporters are indeed going to buy into this outlandish lie that the Mueller investigation was from the beginning at organized attempt by Trump haters to bring Trump down, a coup, if you will, rather than a legitimate investigation. Undoubtedly the Republicans will engage in a massive investigation of the investigation, and do their best to fabricate facts to support their lie. For this, they can count on the assistance of right wing think tanks such as teh Heritage Foundation to churn out the fake news. Just a point in fact; when it is discovered that the Russians interfered with an election in which the person they were trying to help won the election and became the president of the United States, an investigation is in order. But Trump's extreme right wing supporters, a large part of whom are evangelical Christians, have repeatedly shown their willingness to deny reality and to fabricate their own false version of it, in order to avoid the truth about Trump. By doing this, they have forfeited any claim to integrity, decency, or honesty. America's far right is angry that gays are demanding and getting equality, that dark skinned immigrants are swamping the country, that the Christian religion is unable to take over the country, and that political correctness has swept across freedom's land. Let us hope there will come a time when they find a way to except all these horrible social changes, before they hysterically elevate Trump or somebody even worse to Hitleresque power and consequences. At this point it hardly seems surprising that right wing extremism and religious rigidity and zealotry have, through neurological research, recently been shown to be the result of brain damage to the frontal cortex.

Playing God

EVIDENTLY, DONALD TRUMP, with nothing but the stroke of a pen, by decreeing an edict, in effect passed a law which allows medical professionals in America to refrain from offering any medical assistance to any patients which violates their (the medical professional's) personal religious beliefs. That's true, isn't it? Am I dreaming? Did congress pass the law, did the supreme court decide it, or did the chief executive sign the law into being? Fact or fiction, anytime in America that anybody or any governmental entity, local, state, or federal, puts forward a proposal legalizing discrimination on the basis of religion, we're in trouble. The proponents of this religious zealotry are not trying, as they claim, to defend religious liberty, but rather, to insert religion (Christian) into American government, and by degrees, turn the U.S. into a theocracy. This is the opposite of the founder's intentions, and is antithetical to the very principles upon which our nation was founded, and thrives. The religious exemptions, as they are being called, presumably refer to the christian religion, although there is evidently nothing in the actual wording of the proclamation which specifically says so, which is weird, but understandable, coming as it is from Christian zealotry, one of which the president, periodically and to great humorous effect, pretends to be. No longer will pro life forced birth christian zealot types be required to assist or participate in any way in , say, abortions. Religious exemptions can, at length, to great lengths, as anyone can, in theory and in practice, embrace any religious belief of one's choice, and, by extension, refraining from rendering medical assistance at any time of one's own choosing, based on religious beliefs. Der Trumpster the human Dumpster and his millions member gang of religious zealots and right wing red neck hate mongers may have unwittingly opened a can of worms far larger than their meager ability to control. someone cogently pointed out that this executive decree has simply got to go, and I suggested that it might require convincing the supreme court that the religious exemptions decree is unconstitutional because it refer to the christian religion, and therefore violates the clause against congress/government from establishing any religion in its governance. But of course, I aint a lawyer. Maybe the supreme court will rule that religious exemptions are in fact constitutional, which means all religions, not just christian. Everyone can use personal religious exemptions, no matter what the religion or religious beliefs, to become exempt from helping anyone, at anytime. I won't give her emergency roadside assistance because she has an image of a cross on her bumper, which is against my religion. You can imagine a young doctor asserting that according to his religious beliefs, conservative Republican evangelical Christians must not be given modern medical treatments for their illnesses and medical conditions, but must rather be left in the hands of God, their God, whom, according to them, will take care of everything. Perhaps the brilliant brain surgeon from Pakistan will consider it absolutely necessary, from the viewpoint of his religion, to refrain from entering the skull of a Christian without the permission of the christian god. Who knows? Anything, as they say, can happen, and therefore anything, says Murphy, will. As individual's and as a society, we must be careful to consider unintended consequences of our actions, and to ask ourselves the degree, extent, and wisdom of trying to play God, or imitate God.

Turning Away

WHEN TRUMP announced his candidacy for president the first thing he talked about was immigration. Specifically, illegal immigration, although there is good evidence that people who are the most troubled by illegal immigration are not particularly fond of any kind of immigration into the United States, legal or otherwise, especially of people from countries in which the preeminent religion is not Christianity, and the prevailing skin pigmentation is not white. They're sending rapists, murderers, criminals, and some, I assume, are good people. There are several very troubling aspects to this iconic Trumpian comment. His use of the term "sending", as if illegal immigration is part of a highly organized, planned conspiracy, a project. Who, exactly, is 'sending" these people? Governments? Placing by inference all illegal immigrants into the category of deadly criminal is a propaganda technique somewhat remindful of Hitler's remarks about Jews. Trump's campaign began with the sort of blatant lies and false assumptions which have characterized every day of his administration. But his policies towards immigrants have kept his campaign promise of being unwelcoming to them. Ironically, the current huge surge in the number of asylum seeking refugees began not long after Trump, with his anti immigrant policy, took office. In fact, none of the people trying to get into the United States nowadays are "illegal" in any sense of the word. They are legitimate seekers of asylum, asylum from violence, poverty, hunger, and death. Furthermore, the terrible economic and social conditions which adhere in the countries whence they come are due, in large part, to united States foreign policy, including policies of exploitation and subordination of Latin American countries. The chickens, as it were, are coming home to roost, and being greeted with treatment more horrible than any American could possibly imagined prior to the Trump era, I dare say. Good Americans hang their heads in shame that we have allowed our country to behave like this towards desperate people; ripping families apart, separating parents from their children. locking people in cages like animals for weeks without proper diet and comforts. Forcing refugees to pay a "fee" to enter the country". The Americans who approve of this brutal Trump policy, laughably, are generally the Americans most likely to self identify as "Christians", and the Americans most likely to consider the United States a "Christian nation", with pride. The United States has always been a white supremacist country which was founded by violence and conquest of indigenous civilizations, and built largely with slave labor. Nor has the United states ever, ironically, been welcoming towards immigrants. This immigrant nation turned against immigrants early and often, as early as the eighteenth century. So really, all this, Trump and all, is nothing new for the United States. But shouldn't we, however, at least have the integrity to erase the words on the Statue of Liberty: They make us seem hypocritical, and have, for a very long time.