Getting To Know Guy part II

GUY, IT TURNS OUT, is homeless. (see article "Getting To Know guy" below) That is to say, he lives in his car. I had no idea, and finding out shocked me. The information came from an impeccable source, so I'm sure its true. Also, he apparently can neither read nor write. He comes to our local senior center every day, and eats, and several people think he looks better than he did when he first arrived. He brings a Tupperware container for leftovers. We managed to get him an application, many pages long, for low income housing, and filled it out for him. The word is he is going to get into a nice apartment very soon. In our very small town we have a very nice government subsidized apartment complex, with a dozen units or so, all very nice. Across the nation, we need a massive investment in housing for low income people, and seniors. Guy must be seventy five or eighty years old, but I would be more than happy to teach him how to read and write, were he willing, which, for all I know, he might be. Remind me to ask him. We all agree; its never too late, right? Of course, he'll probably say no. If he were interested in learning to be literate, he probably would have become so, long ago. Guy can't hear a thing. He says the thing he misses most is his hearing, and I think anybody can understand that. We were sitting at his table, and across the room a country band was playing, loudly. he couldn't hear a note. I think he understands me only because of lip reading. Hearing aids are, of course, ridiculously expensive, and should somehow be made far less so. Dare I utter the dreaded word "socialism"? Getting Money in Guy's hands, by any means, can only help the rest of us, by supplying the economy with another consumer, driving up demand, fueling production, job growth, and prosperity for all. The more money we can get into the hands of more different people who do not currently have much, the greater the stimulative effect on the economy. So let's all pitch in and help guys and gals like Guy, by any and all means.

Calling the Raise

MISTERS BLOOMBERG AND STEYER will most likely do no harm to the Demmocrat(ic), (parenthesis to acknowledge the clever gimmick invented by Rush Limbaugh of calling the party the "Democrat" party)... party in its quest to save the nation from Trump and his supporters. Presumably, all party members are aware of and on board with this quest, which is nothing more or less than a quest for human survival. Neither will probably get the nomination, which still seems likely to go to one of the big four; Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttegeig. But maybe its good to have a couple of bona fide multi billionaires in the hunt, just for appearances. that is, lest we forget that this is still America, the land where, as the song says, "Its Money That Matters", and all political power is purchases, a bit too expensively for most of us, the mere masses. People who oppose Trump oppose him so thoroughly that they would be willing to elect a yellow dog, or anyone else, to replace him as president. Those who support Trump, a somewhat shrunken but hardened core of fervent sycophants, are evidently willing to do most anything to keep him in power. Thus, the nation may be headed for head on reckoning, followed, kn the best case scenario by a period of repentance, atonement, and reform among right wing evangelical extremist Trumpers. The Democratic party, like everything else in life, is a plutocracy; it was never realistic to suppose that billionaires would fail to seize control of it. But you have to like, if you have a brain and heart, what folks like Steyer, Gates, and Buffet have done with their money, compared to what people like Trump do with theirs. Bankruptcy protection is but one of a myriad of socialistic government based programs of which Donald Trump has taken massive advantage to stay financially afloat, ironically. I for one would rather hear a progressive billionaire complain about paying insufficient taxes than hearing a conservative billionaire talk about cutting taxes on the wealthy to relieve the poor dears of their terrible burden of contributing to society.

Getting To Know Guy

I NOTICED that there was an old guy, a new old guy, sitting alone at a round table in the corner. This happens often at the senior center; some senior sitting alone, though generally folks tend to clump up, cliquishly. This particular old guy started showing up every day, staying awhile, and always sitting at the same seat at the same table, drinking coffee until lunch, then, having lunch. he droves himself to the center, saying that he lives nearby. The second day I noticed that nobody had bothered to walk five feet to his table, introduce themselves, and welcome him to the senior center, which did not surprise me, since I recall receiving roughly similar treatment from many members upon my arrival, four years past. Angered me, but did not surprise me, having lived in the United States my entire life. Hell, how much effort would it take for just one or a couple of seniors sot sit down with him, for a few minutes, and chat? Americans can be friendly, but they can be cliquish, stand offish, you know how it is, if you're an American. No, American culture is not the friendliest, nor the most welcoming, in the world. It might not even be in the top ten, but then again, that's a matter of opinion, and another topic. I mentioned it to my fellow kitchen workers, that our mainstream members did not seem to be all that friendly to the new guy, and they agreed. I sat down at his table and introduced myself; his name was "Guy". He turned out to not be very talkative, with a soft hard to hear voice, and also very hard of hearing, so, conversation was a bit hampered, but not seriously so. He needs a hearing aid, but, who can afford one? I started getting in the habit of initiating conversations with him, and found, that like most average Americans, he prefers talking about himself. Nor does he initiate conversations, unless he has a question about the senior center or a piece of information to share about himself. He is looking for a place to live, and our society is starting to see the need for low income housing for seniors. He has been coming to the center for about a month, and the people there are no more friendly to him now than before, although to their credit they are neither hostile nor "unfriendly" to him either. They just kind of tend to ignore him. I have accepted the fact that they aint gonna change, not at their age, and that if guy ever wants to make friends, he had better initiate the process himself, the way I did, all those long years ago.

Impeaching, Or Whatever

AS FAR AS I KNOW, there is no doubt by anyone that the president frequently bears false witness, merely different reactions to it. His opponents righteously declare their abhorrence to it, while his supporters either ignore it, or, more strangely still, insist that it really isn't all the important. Trump's flippant remark that he could gun somebody down in broad daylight on new York's bustling fifth avenue without losing any support doesn't seem so flippant now. It seems obvious. So now it merely becomes a matter of whether what the president did, tried to blackmail the Ukraine, was bad enough to merit impeachment. I could go either way on it. My bumper sticker "Impeach Trump" has been on my car for at least two years, but I've never been fervently a believer in his impeachment. Some progressive organization sent me the bumper sticker, and I put it on. Although I, like half the country, am convinced that impeachment and removal is appropriate, I am perfectly willing to await to next election, now less than a year away, and let my vote do my talking. This Ukraine scheme cannot possibly help Trump. the fact that all the testimony comes from members of the Trump administration pretty much disproves any conspiracy theories accusing Democrats and media types of orchestrating a coup. Only Devin Nunes is crazy enough to even say something that crazy, let alone actually believe it. As the election approaches, defense of Trump will begin to sound more laughable, more ludicrous, more desperate, more so than they already do. Trump's first term, in terms of both his words and his deeds, will be used against him, as evidence, proof of his unfitness for the job. In the seemingly unlikely event that he is reelected, the impeachment process might be pushed forward all over again, a nightmarish thought. Equally nightmarish is the thought of how brazen Trump's lawlessness could become in a second term, when he has no concerns about being reelected.

Wearing The Color

THE OLD BOY came walking into the senior center wearing a MAGA cap, black, not red. He did it just to push a few buttons, including mine. I told him that the cap needs to be red, and he said that he got it for free, because its previous owner was indeed looking for a red one. He didn't care, since for him, the whole thing, all the fuss and politics, is irrelevant, nothing but a joke. Maybe he has a point. Somebody wrote "MASA" (Make America Smart Again) on a piece of tape, and covered up the old boy's message, which was spelled out across his cap. He didn't even notice, until he went home, and took off his hat. He blamed me, falsely. He watches the news, usually in his NRA cap, and probably understands, like nearly three quarters of the American people, that the president did something very, very bad. Every witness on national television came from within the Trump administration, doing damage to conspiracy theories linking the investigation into Trump's little blackmail scheme to a massive hoax involving the Democrats and all the other usual suspects. Its just a matter of how bad. The defense that since the president got caught before he could complete his scheme and is therefore innocent of any wrongdoing seems hollow as well, if only because it is. As the better than fiction narrative of Trump's prolonged, organized, and widely known attempt to blackmail the Ukraine sinks in, the percentage of Americans who actually understand the seriousness and danger of this will creep, inexorably, towards one hundred. of course, it will never get all the way there.

Capitalizing Church

I barely have TV. About a year ago I bought my first flat screen, and never bothered to subscribe to cable or satellite. With my small antenna I can get from three to six channels. Even so, I flip around a lot. That's what men do, right? If my eyes weren't deceiving me, I suddenly saw Joel Osteen and Kanye West standing together on a huge stage, under bright lights, wearing I barely know who these people are, but I vaguely know that they are both huge celebrities in greatly divergent areas of endeavor. If I'm not dreaming, Joel has a huge megachurch with thousands of members, a tremendous quantity of devotion to Christ, a beautiful wife, and, apparently, a lot of money, judging by the Lamborghini I vaguely remember seeing him slip into on TV. Kanye is a big time rap singer, actor, director, or all of the above, correct? and, again, unless I'm dreaming the content of his artistic creations as well as his personal behavior have not always been anything even remotely remindful of Christian values, am I wrong? Is this a marriage of convenience corporate values? Big time big money religion, and big time big money mainstream entertainment culture, mating for..what? more power and money? The Korporate Kristian Komplex, and the corporate entertainment industry, merging, to accumulate more people and more money for Christ? Kanye, cleaning up his image by finding the lord, and Joel, ever expansive, expanding his empire for Christ? Global and particularly American economic developments make you wonder whither eventually one person will end up with all the money in the world. What about religious authority? will huge corporate church complexes emerge around the world, and ultimately compete for global supremacy?

Bringing The War Home

ANYONE WHO KNOWS ANYTHING about American history and culture knows that white supremacy is and has always been a core American value. More specifically, white Christian supremacy. As much ado as Americans have made about "equality" among their core values, the United States has never had social, economic, racial, ethnic, legal, gender, religious, nor any other type of equality, including equality of opportunity. So, precisely what is meant by the term when it is used to describes American characteristics and aspirations may be a bit uncertain. The more Americans espouse rehe virtue of equality, the less of it the country seems to have as a whole. You can't help but notice how often some angry young man commits, mass murder, then gives thanks to President Trump for inspiring him, and spouting extremist right wing ideology. The mainstream conservative American community has chosen to describe every one of them, notwithstanding their obvious similarities, as "lone wolves", flukes, anomalies. This, of course, is pure nonsense. The anger and hatred of america's right wing is palpable, roughly defined as conservative christian evangelical Republican capitalistic Trumpers. This, by and large, is community from which racism and white supremacism emerge. The complete history and analysis of white supremacism in the United States, from before the civil War to the Trump movement and the alt right, is brilliantly delineated by Kathleen Belew in her seminal work "Bring The War Home". Our modern movement, she asserts, originated in the nineteen seventies, in the aftermath of post Viet Nam war societal unrest. Obviously, modern white supremacy has its American origins with slavery, and the entire tragic history stemming from the Civil war and emancipation. But there has been a cyclical nature to it, and the era Trump is an era of white supremacist resurgence. Like most sociologists and historians, Belew sees Trump as more a symptom than a cause. Progress in recent years in gaining equal rights for minorities such as the LGBTQ community, African-Americans, and Hispanics, and particularly the election of Barack Obama, Belew sees as engendering a backlash throughout the white Christian conservative community. Considering the president's apparent popularity because of, not in spite of his racism and anti-minority attitude, the current racial and cultural situation in America does not seem to bode well, for equality, inclusion, tolerance, or acceptance, for the foreseeable future.

Lingering Laughability

FUTURE GENERATIONS of Americans will be amazed that Donald Trump was allowed to remain president as long as he was, considering. Considering the fact that he was in violation of the constitution the moment he was inaugurated. he still is, the emoluments clause, among others. But with each passing day, it is becoming more difficult for his supporters to support him, their excuses for his behavior become more laughable and ludicrous. Donald Trump was so determined to blackmail the Ukraine for political dirt on Biden that he orchestrated a smear campaign which led to the ultimate removal of the United States Ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, a lady of impeccable quality, her only fault being that she was opposed to and would be an impediment to Trump's blackmail scheme. Her "involvement: in Trump's criminal plot, opposing it, was the reason for her testimony in Congress and appearance on national television. Like all the other witnesses so far and those to come, Ms. Yovanovitch's testimony was quite damaging to the president. Her testimony was so impressive, that as she walked out of the room afterwards, everyone, including the Republicans, gave her a standing ovation. Even those who know Trump best would probably never have expected that the ill advised president would actually start tweeting an attack on her during her testimony. This is another Donald Trump crime of the day; witnessing tampering, specifically. Trump's defense? It isn't witnessing tampering, because it was done during her testimony, and she never would have known about it had somebody, the committee chairman, not interrupted her testimony told her about the president's attack. We'll see how well that laughable argument holds up. meanwhile, the tweet will be listed among the eventual articles of impeachment, along with obstruction of justice, and others. it is very cooperative and convenient of teh president to contribute to the list of impeachable offenses even as the list is being compiled, and this cooperative behavior, were it not unintentional, would be grounds for a lighter prison sentence. Historians sometimes marvel at how long and how many of Hitler's followers remained loyal, even after the war. The Trump cult is remindful of this, but, there are some slight indications that as Trump's massive criminal behavior comes to light, his support will shrink, and that, if little else, gives us reason for hope.

Seeking Perfection On Paper

IN AMERICAN CULTURE there seems to be a tendency for people who are extremely religious to also be extremely patriotic, as if these two pillars of conservative tradition somehow automatically go hand in hand. The bible, and the constitution, two documents which were not considered perfect by the people who wrote them, and whose serious flaws render their alleged "perfection" dubious at best. Perhaps there is psychological comfort, as well as social strength, in veneration words on paper, or in stone. As if we humans need superior role models to which to aspire. Thomas Jefferson, who didn't write the constitution but taught James Madison how to, firmly believed that a new version would be preferable every generation, that each generation could govern itself, without being constrained to the methods of its ancestors, a reasonable sounding notion. As a society, we have chosen, of course, to do just the opposite, the enshrine the constitution of our ancestors, content to let them govern us, willing to change the slightest part of the sacred text only with great reluctance. Thus we the modern American people live under a constitutional which mention slavery three times, but never by name, which seems strange, almost as if the framers realized that the peculiar institution required addressing, but were ashamed of it,which, in fact, they were. without protecting slavery, the constitution would never have been approved, and the new nation would never have come into existence. Indentured servitude, a form of slavery for white seven year slaves, also required protection. In all three mentions, the institution is upheld, the slaves regarded as property, not people. This is one of teh reasons why some people believe that we should heed the message of Thomas Jefferson, and create a new constitution, suitable for the twenty first century, rather than the eighteenth. The problem, of course, is the literate human tendency to place way too much importance upon words on paper, or in stone. Illiterate humans, strangely, often share this tendency. regarding the Bible, Goethe said it best: "It is beyond me how anyone can believe taht God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not reveal itself to us, and if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we will surely not learn it from books, which at best are designed only to give names to our errors."

Wising Up

THE MOST OBVIOUS BENEFIT of the televised hearings is that millions of Americans will learn something about what has been going on. It is difficult to imagine this elucidation to chance Trump's following; by now, you'd think, anyone on board with Trump got on board long ago. The facts are damaging to the president, which is why the hearings are occurring in the first place. Simple hatred of Trump alone is not enough to motivate such an elaborate situation, including many high ranking officials from within the Trump administration, people of high character and impeccable backgrounds, including decades of service and purple hearts, providing the damaging information. The people who hat Trump didn't start out hating him. They paid attention to his behavior, his words and actions, and their hatred grew, reluctantly. I started out as a Trump supporter, when he began his campaign, but I turned on him when he called Ted Cruz a liar, dozens of times. For me, that was over the top. The rest has been even more atrocious, including this Ukrainian blackmail scheme, which is intolerable. Nobody is calling it "blackmail", even the Democrat Trump haters are calling it "bribery" or "coercion", but blackmail is what it is, and laying it out on television cannot but help hurt the president. The project involved many high ranking people, took a lot of effort and time, weeks, and includes a great deal more than one phone call, which itself was far from perfect. The best scenario might be to impeach him, try him, and fail to remove him, and then let the election next year decide. By then, enough people will have enough facts. In particular, the patriotic conservative evangelical Christian community will have to eventually abandon Trump, not only because of his distinctly un-Christian personal behavior, but because of his traitorous behavior as well. Conservative Christians will have to accept the fact that progressive political policies are far more Christian, and there is no war against Christianity, merely a determined movement to keep church and state separate, as they were intended by the founders. Particularly relevant are the defenses of Trump being offered by his assistants and supporters, all of which might sound good on the surface, but fall flat and fail, badly. The accusation by Trump and many of his cult members that this is nothing but a witch hunt", is even more dishonest and ridiculous than it was when used to attack the Mueller report. Republicans with courage and integrity, like Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, and Colin Powell, are coming clean about Trump. Everyone else will be forced, one way or another, to do likewise.

Participating

YOU MIGHT NOT WIN the Super Bowl, for instance, but you can show up on the playground at recess, catch a couple of passes in a pick up touch football game, lose with your team by a point or two, then go back to class a bit pissed at having lost, but relaxed, smiling, and feeling pretty good about your personal performance, exercise, fun, and participation. And that, arguably, is a good attitude, a healthy attitude, the "right" attitude. Leave it to American culture to have no idea what the right attitude is about anything, but to decide arbitrarily, then impose the arbitrary choice upon the world. Noticing, like most people, that American Darwinistic competitive culture, with its win at any and all cost moral fiber, had subsumed America's children, the bleeding hearts started handing out participation trophies. In my childhood, over fifty years ago, they were unknown. Either you won or you didn't. But I also recall that back then it actually something to finish i second place, or even third, in a field of, say five. Winning wasn't everything. Nor was it the only thing. But somewhere along the way it became everything, fueled, one might wonder, by some unseen but insidious indoctrination of corporate competitive culture? When in doubt, blame corporate indoctrination. Maybe we handed out a few too many participation trophies, and patted a few too many last place losers on the back, because, sure enough, one way or another, we inspired the ire of America's conservative community, fearing as usual the demise of tradition. Political correctness, which began with liberal's poking fun at the artificial equality of everyone espoused in Mao's little red book, morphed from basic decency and equality into subversive assault on American core values, chief among them, the right to be rude. Political correctness became the laughing stock of mainstream America. when you've been mocked by a right wing mob, you've been mocked. Somewhere, in fact probably most everywhere, there are participation trophies sitting in the back of the closet, gathering dust, awaiting their inevitable trip to the dumpster. There are more to come; the very notion of celebrating and rewarding fun and participation is becoming about as acceptable in rough and tumble Trumpland as opening doors for other people, just because they're people.

Critical Thinking

I CONSIDER MYSELF a basically positive person, with a healthy dose of healthy skepticism. Skepticism is crucial for human progress. Without skepticism, without questioning everything, people will believe anything. Prolonged skepticism can lead, however, to cynicism, a negative attitude which is far less productive, to the point of being detrimental to progress. We are indeed entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts, which can be verified or disproven empirically. Trump is dangerous because of all his many lies, and even more dangerous when he calls proven facts which don't suit him "fake news". American culture needs more skepticism, a good healthy dose of it, and less cynicism. At my local senior center where I volunteer, a co worker, during a political discussion, decided to rise above it all, a popular tactic. Referring to our political leaders, she exclaimed: "I think we should just throw the whole bunch out!" As if we haven't all heard that before. Its way too cynical also. And simplistic, with not enough analysis. Obviously, every politician should be evaluated on his or her merits, individually, and obviously, its better if nobody stays in any office for too long. They're not all bad. One of my senior comrades, summarizing history, asserted that "greed pretty much explains it all". Greed is indeed a big factor, and far be it for me to diminish its impact, but, I had to remind the cynic; there is much more to all of us, and therefore much more to history, than greed. Even the most cynical among us would surely have to acknowledge that much. Again, the observation was too cynical, too simplistic, too general. Simplistic, categorical thinking leads to false conclusions. it is no coincidence or mystery that the same people who believe in an all powerful anthropomorphic god in the sky and that its a good idea for all good people to carry guns tend to generally not believe in evolution or climate change. Believing in nonsense impedes one's chance of believing in reality. If the time ever comes when the human species uses its intelligence intelligently and wisely, its survival chances, and the conditions in which it survives will be far better. But that, as they say, is a mighty big "if".

Celebrating Peace

WORLD WAR ONE was such a nightmare that when it ended, the joy and celebration inspired the idea to create a new holiday in honor of the end of the war to end all wars, "Armistice Day". A day to celebrate peace. The war was so horrible, so destructive compared to earlier predictions, and its end so wildly wonderrul, such a great salvation, that it was widely and mistakenly believed that all the major differences between nations had finally been solved permanently, and humankind was ushering in a permanent peace. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a time of peace. Then the holiday morphed into veterans day. The Armistice part of it, the message of peace through negotiation, agreement, and treaty, peace for all time, got lost in the shuffle, as it became obvious that there was no such thing. Celebrating peace seemed silly in a world filled with war. Better to honer to vets as heroes, and honor the wars as glorious, noble endeavors, rather than celebrate a nonexistent peace. It always makes us better to justify our behavior even our bad behavior. Maybe its time to reintroduce the original meaning of the holiday, the return to celebrating peace, and the hope and dream that we can attain peace permanently. What, precisely, is wrong with celebrating aspirations and hope? Veterans, Armistice, and Peace Day. Over the one hundred years since the end of World War One the trend has been for few wars, and lower death rates in war, believe it or not. Despite our seemingly war torn world, it seems that the world is less war torn than ever. this certainly says much about human nature and history, but it also gives up reason to be hopeful, about our capacity to create lasting peace. Einstein said that as long as there are people, there will be war. maybe he was wrong. It wouldn't be the first or the only time. may we always celebrate and honor our heroic military veterans, and particularly those who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the United States. And what better day to pay tribute to the humany capacity for living in peaceful harmony, and the eternal hope that we will someday achieve it?

Being Careful What You Wish For

I CONFESS I hadn't seen this angle coming. But, that's what makes life interesting. The Facebook post said, roughly paraphrased: "Now that the rainbow flag is fling from government buildings, I want to see crosses and statues of the Ten Commandments on government property, and bibles and prayers in the classroom". I immediately responded: "The difference is that the rainbow flag does not represent any religion, and therefore is not prohibited by the first amendment." Then, just to be safe, I added: "Don't take my word for it. Ask a legal authority, preferably a constitutional expert." I omitted mention of the actual separation of church and state clause, assuming the person would know what the first amendment, says, which, come to think of it, you can't always do, when dealing with Americans. As far as I know, the rainbow flag, symbolizing inclusiveness, ethnically and culturally, has only been flown at a few U/S. embassies around the world, for specific reasons. I don't think it has become, or threatens to become, standard practice at government buildings and facilities. The thought occurred to me that there are probably at least one hundred million Americans, mostly conservative evangelical Christians, (the usual suspects) who agree with the idea of inserting Christianity into the government wherever possible, and ultimately turning the United States into a "christian" nation, officially, a theocracy. Historically and currently, the United States is only a Christian nation in one respect: a majority of Americans are Christians. But that's a s far as it goes. The founders passionately created a secular government entirely separate from any and all religion, for a reason. We can be certain that conservative evangelical Christian American patriots would resist violently Islam ever became the official religion of these United States of America. there are thousands of religions in the world, and in the United States. We all truly and deeply want, love, and wish to defend our great American separation of church and state, whether we fully realize it or not. All thoughtful, intelligent Christians well educated in American history understand this. Dig if you will a picture, of Christians symbols and rituals springing up everywhere, on all public property across the fruited plain. A nationwide explosion and proliferation of crosses, statues of Moses, Jesus, and God on every public lawn and park, Bible in every classroom, with no disagreements between Christian denominations about the details. You can't. You can't imagine it because its impossible. To formally, officially Christianize America would be to create a never ending war among the hundreds of Christian factions, which at fist sounds humorous and desirable, but, upon further reflection, becomes nightmarish. We want to, and thankfully do indeed live in a wonderful country in which all religious expression of all religions is permitted and protected, and none of it is prevented, nor endorsed and adopted by the government. God Bless the United States of Secular America.

Warning the MAGA Peeps

THIS WILL HAVE TO SERVE as my final warning to my friends and fellow Americans. To wit; the more devoutly you support president Trump, the more likely I am to disrespect and despise you, and the less likely I am to respect or associate with you. Fair warning. To support Trump at all at this point is, to my reasoning, simply unacceptable. The latest, you may have heard, is that he is required by the justice system to pay two million to charity, Trump having confessed to white collar crime. He paid, reports have it, calling it a "donation" to save face, which, at this point, is arguably impossible. Trump has a lifetime of white collar crime under his belt, which is only now being thoroughly investigated, and which in all likelihood will at length result in the current president's incarceration. For instance, the Trump Foundation, now defunct by court order, was evidently never a charitable enterprise, as advertised, and in fact was never anything other than a money laundering operation, the money in question being raised by donations under false pretenses. While running for president, Trump raised millions for veterans, or so he said, then bragged about his great patriotism, you may recall. Then, he directed the money, through the Trump Foundation, into his campaign, for which he should be imprisoned, not merely fined. By all indications, this is neither fake news nor a conspiratorial set up engineered by some fictitious "deep state", Democrats, the mainstream liberal media, the Chinese, extraterrestrials, et al. This is Trump, committing crimes. Can you imagine anything more reprehensible or traitorous than pretending to raise money through donations for veterans, then giving it to yourself instead? Fraud, and embezzlement, all rolled into one. Throw in the Ukraine blackmail scheme, the obstruction of justice, collusion with the Russians, massive violations of the emoluments clause, and a thousand other crimes, and we are confronted with the dreadful specter of a president so evil that to support him is evil. Hence my warning to all Trump supporters, friend and fellow citizen alike: stop support him now, and throw his criminal ass under the bus. The president must be impeached, removed, indicted, tried, convicted,and incarcerated. Beyond that, let god control what happens, as a final gesture of respect to Trump's devout Christian evangelical supporters. You'll find dumping Trump infinitely easier than clinging to a sinking ship, all stressed out, knowing full well that by so doing you are selling your soul to the devil, forfeiting any remaining claim to human decency, and good citizenship, allowing your pride to destroy your integrity and your very soul. You're in so deep that you're afraid to back out, afraid of what other people will do and say, thinking you will be the object of scorn and ridicule. Trust me, it won't be that bad. We who are smart enough to oppose Trump are more forgiving than you might think, and we will welcome your change of heart, ever as Trump screams at you for being traitors to his glorious ass. Its your last chance to save the vountry and keep my friendship, and that's worth a lot. And who cares how mad Trump gets..at...you?

Being American

SHE CAME TO AMERICA in 1996, as a nine year old, with her parents. It bears reminding that she had no real choice but to accompany her parents, who made all the decisions, and kept a tight rein oh her. In El Salvador, their life had become hell. Their gang infested town had few job opportunities; you could only get work by either joining or pledging strict obedience to to local controlling gang. Gangster government. Wages were pathetic, and much of every paycheck was extracted by the gang as fealty. The family lived in constant fear, and already her two older brothers had been killed by gang violence. There seemed to be no hope for the future, other than escape, or death. So, her parents planned and saved what they could, and finally one spring morning they headed north. Mostly they walked, since they had sneaked out of town on foot, without any companions, who would make escape difficult, detection easy. The journey took about six weeks in its entirety, and would have taken much longer without several lucky breaks. Without several lucky breaks neither they, nor anyone else, would have made it to the Unites States at all. Much of the way they were able to get a ride, once with another friendly family, and once by paying a single man who was on his way to America. Fortunately, they never had to sell their souls to any gangs or coyotes. They easily sneaked into the country, through a hole in a fence, in the middle of the night. Legally seeking asylum or a passport had never a possibility, not in their home town, not at the border, where for their own survival they simply could not risk being caught, turned back, incarcerated, or worse. President Clinton had made it clear that he was a hawk on illegal immigration, with no pity or sympathy for them. In America they built a life, the parents got work, and she started going to school. Through persistence and hard work, they achieved upward mobility, and she turned out to be a superior student. Her study habits got her into a respected university, and into a lucrative career in corporate management, where she rapidly climbed the ladder, advancing into mid level corporate management. She managed to dodge, elude and avoid any problems due to her illegal status, and she remained a dreamer, in more ways than one. Her family developed a comfort zone, and an ongoing fear of revealing their illegal status. She married, had a family, and with her hard working successful American husband and her own career, she and her two children thrived. Now she is thirty two, a beautiful brunette with an American accent without a trace of Latino, who loves her adopted country, and thanks most Americans take it too much for granted. She has never returned to El Salvador, nor does she intend to, unless perhaps for a brief visit. Though arguably as productive if nor more so than ninety nine percent of "native Americans", she remains an illegal immigrant, with a hidden life of sorts. Under Trump, her chances of clearing the situation up seem dim, if not impossible. Though she could be deported at any moment, she at least has the satisfaction of knowing that her children at least for the moment, are legal birthright American citizens, and that her husband could remain behind in America to raise them. She has overcome great obstacles to succeed because she works hard, makes good decisions, and lives in a great land of opportunity. Arguably, she deserves more.

Reaching The Breaking Point

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSIONALS have not yet reached a consensus concerning exactly what it would take for Trump supporters to abandon their support of an obviously corrupt president, corrupt by his own, unwitting admission. (he publicly called for foreign countries to investigate his political opponent for damaging information). Trump was evidently on the right rack when he proclaimed his capability of gunning someone gun in broad daylight without suffering any loss of popularity. With each passing day, with each passing witness, the testimony increases, the evidence accumulates, and hardens into plain, irrefutable proof that president Trump blackmailed a foreign country into assisting his reelection campaign in exchange for military assistance, using his office for personal gain, flagrantly illegal. Wednesday, 11/9, when the House hearings come to television, millions of uninformed, undecided citizens will learn a great deal, and this may push the president's popularity below any hope of recovery. Then, again, maybe not. The Trump base, somewhere in the upper thirty percentile, has hardened beyond any hope of cracking. Hitler's people went through the same process; hardening their support for their leader, and continuing it even beyond the war, and into hiding amid the ruins of post war starvation, devastation, and mass migrations of millions of refugees across Europe. There are simply a brand of sycophants who insist on going down with the ship. Nixon comes to mind. Initially the prospect of his impeachment had far less public support than Trump's impending impeachment does. But when the vast abundance of evidence of his shenanigans came across the fruited plain via television, the tide turned, and Trickie Dickie bailed, just as his supporters already had. television was the catalyst which broke the camels back, back then. the difference, then and now, is that Nixon was not a cult leader, the fuhrer at the head of a vast right wing extremist populist uprising, which came to power with the power of a coup, with foreign assistance. Donald Trump is an illegitimate president, who was elected illegally, a de facto coup, and who while in office, starting the day of his inauguration, has engaged in a monstrous variety of unethical and illegal activities. And yet,his support remains firm, albeit a minority. First, he and they calime he did noting wrong, and his accusers are witch hunting. then, confronted with proof, they insist that even though he may have done something improper, there was nothing seriously illegal about it. The final step is to accept the illegality, but to insist that the crime does not rise to impeachable standards. Plainly, these folks, the forever trumpers, are determined to go down with the ship, and to maybe even cling to a bit of floating flotsam, singing their sieg heils as they slowly sink beneath the murky swamp, and down into the abyss.

Going To the Movies, and Escaping

AT MY LOCAL SENIOR CENTER, tucked into the green hills of the American south, Thursday afternoon is movie day. Right after lunch, before they all leave. I have to rush to get done with the dishes. The girls bring out the popcorn machine they found cobweb encrusted in the storage shed. Safe,y ensconced, El Director slapped in "The Amityville Horror". By this time I had done the dishes, and a little work on my computer. I was just logging off when all hell broke loose. Seventy five percent of the audience, church ladies, stormed out, summarily, while the director came racing in, hysterical, screaming apologies. within ten minutes a couple had gotten naked, and begun making love. Wrong version. When everybody had settled down, and the original version of the movie loaded, my interest "peaked", and I decided to join the party. First, I got my popcorn, which was delicious. Then, I settled in next to the four remaining ladies. I like to hang with intrepid, forgiving, open minded people. Within ten minutes, teh same couple (or was it?) began making out, but kept their clothes on. I decide to have a little fun, to get into the evident spirit of the day.Up I bolted, and proclaimed: "We need another movie! This one's no better than the other one!" It drew laughter. A couple more one liners, and I realized I had actually conveyed the false impression of being a prude. Oh well. Worse things can happen. Much worse. The local university, from which my father graduated law school in 1940 before serving int he war, he once described as "an oasis in the midst of a vast cultural wasteland". And he wasn't just whistling Dixie. There are memes out and about to the eff,ct that we can disagree and still respect each other, and treat each other with civility. I'm all down with the civility part, but respect I have trouble with, not to end a sentence with a preposition, a bad practice, up with which I will not put. I have low standards, but I have them, they're mine, and their all I've got. If you don't believe in don't accept their reality of evolution by natural selection, and climate change by human behavior, I don't respect you. Willful ignorance is has no excuse, unless you'r in denial of your time in Afghanistan, Iraq, or an E5 tornado. NO, this is not my insistence that my view point is the only correct one, and everyone should agree with me, so you right wingers needn't even try pulling that one on me. I am the intelligent, educated, tolerant , open minded one, and you, alas, are not. To worship a book, and to believe it even when it says that the world is flat and the stars are holes in the sky is simply not acceptable. You're the one who needs to change, grow, and improve, and abandon your willful ignorance, Also, the time for climate change deniers to straighten up and fly right has long since arrived. Basic science proves God made evolution and human made climate change as well as it does Newtonian physics, Euclidian geometry, and rocker science. If they had just given the original movie a few more minutes, we might have gotten to see some more good sex, and who knows, maybe a better flick.

Being A Good Traitor

LET'S FACE IT. We Americans know all about how to be traitors. We're good at it, and always have been. After all, we started early, by necessity, or so we like to think. We were being treated so badly by the British that we had no choice, so we are taught. We never say much about the colonial American aristocratic land owning powerful elite's desire to assume actual ownership and control of the country; the replacement of one governing aristocrat, the traditional, "legal" one, and another one, an upstart. And in fact, all of Jefferson's complaints enumerated in the declaration of independence are perfectly valid, perfectly true. And yet, in many ways, British colonial rule of the American colonies was soft, gentle, beneficent, hands off, by comparison to how the British governed their own people. The ocean had its advantages. We Americans had to be talked into revolting, and nearly half couldn't be, called "loyalists" or "Tories", and ended up siding with the British, meaning that over one hundred thousand left the country, and went to places like Canada and the Caribbean. From the British point of view, the Americans were traitors. Objectively, they were. Traitors to their country. the same was true in the Civil War; the founders and citizens of the Confederate States of America were traitors. A second vicious revolutionary war started and waged by traitors. Its happened many times; groups of Americans, or individual Americans, turning against the United States. During the Civil war, at leas one country in every Confederate states refused to join the Confederacy; traitor's traitors. Every few years you hear about some country in some far western or southern state wanting to declare its independence from its state and the United States, adn form its own country. there is and always has been a strong independence movement in Texas, which of course was an independent country for ten years, 1835 to 1845, after being a colony of five different superpower empires for centuries. There have been African-american secession movements, justifiably,and of course many native-american nations exist within the United States, a technically independent but in reality controlled by the American government, a hodge podge nation rife with conflict, division, and separation. So maybe this time we will split up into a Republican America, and a Democratic America. Who are the traitors? All of us?

Creating The Perfect Firestorm

EVERY YEAR, the wildfires which consume California consume larger portions of it, or so it certainly seems. The wet and dry cycles which the climate bestows upon this land mass which came floating in from the ocean and collided with the continent hundreds of millions of years ago, are nearly as ancient as the collision. Wet and dry seasons, and a veritable plethora of earthquakes are, alas, California's heritage, its destiny. Nonetheless, the dry season gradually becomes longer, and drier, as climate change inexorably changes the climate of the entire world. A perfect storm, a combination of circumstances, produces this tragic situation. First, of course, is climate change. Then too, the sheer abundance of ill advised human construction; cities and housing projects built where these firs are most common, only exacerbates the loss of property and life. Unwise construction methods, predicated on maximizing profit rather than minimizing fire hazards, plays a large role. Houses are literally built to burn, that less money money be burned building them. California, perhaps more than any other state on the union, is replete with invasive species of flora; plant species which do not belong there, have been imported for aesthetic and other reason, which multiply, crowd our native plant life, and fill the land with a tangle of flammable bio mass. and, there is much truth to the oft mentioned lack of forest clearing, the tendency of land management policies to place too great an emphasis on preventing wildfires, rather than allowing them to burn naturally, thus clearing the land, thinning out the foliage, and in the long run reducing the flammability of the land. Above, the most serious cause of this dire situation is not what people do, but what they have not done. We the people have failed to develop desalination and water management policies which could and would replenish the water content in the soil, depleted by too mush use by to many people. funding for fire management measure has been lacking, and even now the Trump administration is reducing federal aid to California, based on the president's misguided belief that the entire blame belongs to the state's policies, and ignoring the huge impact of climate change, in which the president famously, like most of his misguided supporters, famously do not believe. The president is conspicuous by his silence during the current conflagration. Trump does not like California, for good reason. The progressive people of the state despise him at the highest levels in the country; the west coast and the east coast oppose the president by huge margins, while his support comes from the conservative center of the country. For this to underpin the president's refusal to address California's fire plagued woes simply reveals yet another form of presidential criminal behavior, among the many others, well known. Like solutions to the nation's other pressing problems, solutions to California's dilemma will beyond doubt come from progressive thinkers and politicians, not the intellectually moribund reprobates on the far right.

Descending To Traitors

IT HAS LONG SINCE BECOME OBVIOUS to any dispassionate observer that a comprehensive investigation into the president's behavior, perhaps leading to impeachment, is not only appropriate, it is necessary. regrettably, dispassionate observers appear to be extinct, nor gravely endangered. Members and former members of the Trump administration have come forth and given damning testimony to Congress, including Trump chief of Staff Mulvaney, Ambassador Taylor, and others. There are more to com, and soon the public will see the entire proceedings. All the testimony is clear: the president attempted to use the promise of military assistance to gain damaging information on his primary political opponent. Mr. Mulvaney explicitly stated this, then asked: "What's wrong with doing that?" Damage control propagandists have since been flocking to the talking head televisions programs, using desperate tactics, denials, and lies. The Trump administration members who testified have been accused of being "never Trumpers"; and their testimony has been twisted by the Trump propagandists to claim that the president never made any bribes or offers, and was merely conducting lawful routine inquiry into corruption in foreign countries, ad a prerequisite for receiving assistance. The inquiries focused on Joe Biden quite by chance. Trump supporters are drinking it like sugar free Kool Aid with artificial sweetener. It would behoove them to ask themselves what their attitude would be if a Clinton or an Obama behaved exactly like Trump. Everyone knows the answer. It is no longer possible to defend trump by using facts; only a web of fabrications can be used to defend his behavior. Assertions by Trump supporters that Trump's political opponents have been trying to impeach this president since his inauguration are quite correct. Impeachment was appropriate within minutes after he took the oath of office, at which point he was massively in violation of the emoluments clause. The propaganda machine necessary to offer a defense of Trump is and has thus become Goebbels-like in its distorted, dishonest proportions. Trump's supporters, with less to lose and more desperate every day, are now beginning to open proclaim their racism, their contempt for the rule of law, and their willingness to go to extreme measure, including violence, to prevent Trump's impeachment and removal. Trump himself has hinted that he might be willing to circumvent the political system to remain in office indefinitely, and none of his supporters offer even the slightest hint of disapproval. The now obvious fact that Trump's dealings with the Ukrainian president render him an outright traitor is of no concern to his gangster supporters, because, the truth is, they are traitors too.

Gazing Into the Abyss

ACCORDING TO THE FBI, which, despite the president's claims to the contrary, is highly reliable, the greatest terroristic threat to the United States is white supremacism. White supremacism emerges obviously, from within the European-american community, rather than the African-american or Islamic-Arab community. More broadly, it emerges from within the conservative Christian community. To verify this, interview a meaningful number of avowed white supremacists. They disproportionately, overwhelmingly self identify as Christian, conservative, and patriotic. White supremacy ideology is a traditional, conservative value, unshared by the liberal progressive community, which prefers to advocate for equality for minorities, including blacks, LGBTQ folk, and the usual groups, all well known. A cursory examination of the most horrific mass murders inside the United States and elsewhere reveals angry young white males, giving credit to Donald Trump for their inspiration. Islamic terrorists rarely if ever do damage inside American borders, and they seem to be in very short supply, indeed nonexistent, inside the United States. White supremacists, however, are ubiquitous. They are our neighbors, our coworkers, they attend our churches, and the infiltrate the American military and police departments all across the fruited plain. This is a fact, not rumor, slander, nor propaganda. The most threatening and demonstrably damaging organized terrorism in America emerges, renewed again and again as new generations come of age, fro within the very bosom of mainstream American society, the very foundation of American culture, from among the people who are the most venerated, widely regarded as America's most virtuous, upheld as paragons of American goodness. We the American people are reluctant, if not altogether unwilling to confront this fact. To verify it, merely talk to the FBI. The only resistance is to claim that the FBI has been infiltrated and captured by hordes of left wing agitators, which doubtless many conservatives, after the fashion of president Trump, will stoop to do. Human hatred of other groups is as old as paleolithic society, an expedient, like most human behavior, to survival. In modern times it has become an infinite, dark abyss into which endless energy, resources, and human life are thrown and wasted. Nietzsche wrote: 'if thous gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into thee". We Americans have a marked propensity for looking elsewhere for solutions to our problems than where they actually lie. We have a distinct preference for fantasy, a preference to escape into fabricated realities to confronting the realities within and surrounding ourselves. "Know thyself" said Socrates. "Know thyself? if I knew myself, I would probably run away" said Goethe. And so we run away. The time may be rapidly approaching, however, when we must choose whether to confront the monsters within ourselves, or to sink irretrievably into the abyss of our own manufacture.