Trump, Breaking Bad

THE PRESIDENT ELECT attended and spoke at one of those right wing extremist conservative pep rallies of which he and they are so terribly fond, something called "Turning Point", an annual gathering of a conservative organization. Why aren't there left wing groups and pep rallies? These things can get pretty freaky, with chanting, screaming, speaking in tongues, fainting, especially when the great demagogue himself is on hand to gin up the gang. The soon to be president again thinks that it costs too much to use the Panama Canal, that Panama is charging too much to let ships go through. Also, he wants the United States to take possesson of the Canal it built, for the most part, and to once again own and operate it, as ia did for decades before President Carter signed it over to Panama in 1977, which took effect in 1999. Panama, unsurprisingly, has already declined the offer, and expressed opposition to it. Some older folks might remember that at the time Carter made this deal with Panama, many if not most Americans were against it, against handing over the Panama Canal to Panama. It shouldn't be beyond Trump's abilities to incite the conservative portion fo the American public into once again expressing outrage over Carter's handling of the situation At that point, who knows what he would do? Also, once again Trump's desire to annex for the United Staets the huge island of Greenland rose to the surface. Greenland is a colony, in effect, of, of all places, Denmark, and is still partially governed from Copenhagen. Trump at one point apparently wrongly believed that the United States already owns Greenland, and still thinks it should. Trump has also indicated his belief that Canada should possilby be a fifty first state of the United States. He has never, as far as is known, expressed any similar interest in Mexico or Cuba,possibly because of hs racism,and the darker color of Mexican and Cuban skin generally. Trump won't even be president for nearly almost another month, and yet, his craziness is manifesting full bore, rearing its ugly head, as if it ever failed to rear. The impending Trump presidency portends to be crazy, with an unabashed Trump, unlimited by any traditional constraints of decency and protocal, surely is preparing to go all out to implement his bizarre, destructive agenda. The absolutely worst part of it, hands down, is Trump's refusal to acknowledge the reality of devastating human made climate change, and to take action against it. Instead, Trump is going to encourage climate change, by encourageing fossil fuel use. Trump's plan is suicidal for the planet and the human species, to increase climate change. His slimate insanity seems to have the support of most of his MAGA gang,many in Congress. We the remaining sane must, absolutely must stop Trump's pro fossil fuel agenda, because if enacted, it will kill us all. At the state and local level, among msot American citizens as individuals, and throughout the corporate business community, there will undoubtedly continue to be more and more action against climate change. But it isn't enough. The United States government, the USA as a nation, must lead the world in combating and reversing climate change, before its too late, which it soon will be, if it isn't already. The Trump administration and his MAGA minions, and the conservative community in general and the Republican party in partiualr must do an about face, and get on board with dealing with climate chagne, instead of denying it, before its too late, if it isn't already.

The Trump Wolf, In the Coop

EVERY NOMINAION TRUMP has named so far, and he has named nearly all of them, is distinguished by being antithetical to the organization, department or agency which she or he has been nominated to lead. The wolfpack is inside the chicken coop. The EPA will be led by a person oposed to government regulation of the environment. The Department of Education will be headed by a lady who wants to destroy it, the FBI will be headed by a man who wants to weaken and diffuse it, and the Department of Justice will be led by a person who wants to use it for injustice, as does Trump. Trump wants to use the D.O.J. to attack and destroy his political enemies, not to oversee the nation's legal matters and represent the interests of the American people. Trump wants to dismantle, disable, destroy the federal government bureaucratic apparatus. Its a long list of agencies he wants to eliminate or impair, and it gets longer. Trump wants to replace all this eliminated federal power, to replace the authority vested in all the federal government agencies he intends to do away with, with himself, in true authoritarian fascist style. They claim the purpose is to enhance state's rights and state control over the states, to simplify and streamline an alleged "out of control" federal government, and, especially in education, to return power and authority to the states, to local leaders, and to parents. All these suspicious sounding reasons and excuses are, of course, complete nonsense, lies, a hoax, intended to cover the real reason for the dismantling of government by America's right wing extremists. The goods and services these government entities provide, and the vast array of services and benefits, are all progresssive, idealistically liberal, antithetical to the go it alone, dog eat dog ideology of conservatism. If all this takes place, which is highly doubtful, it will be a complete, unmitigated disaster. It will be such a disaster that its almost tempting for the Democrats to just sit back, let it happen, let the nation experience the disastrous consequences of it, and then be ready to pick up the pieces and repair the damage in another four years or so. Tempting, but not desirable. Better to oppose, resist, and defeat this blatant, attempt at authoritarian power and control by Trump. Shockingly but not surprisingly, it is supported by almost all of his MAGA gangster mob, in and out of Conpress and political leadership - but not by all of it, not by all conservatives. Trump is a true fascist authoritarian figure, both in his own mind and in the sparsely scattered little minds of his brainwashed sycophants, the "MAGAts". Indeed, over the decades there has been and continues to be a considerable expansion of the size and duties of the federal government, as the nation has grown. As the nation has grown, so has the bureaucracy needed to effectively operate it, at the federal, state, and local levels. What the Republicans either simply do not understand or willfully choose to ignore is the provable, demonstrable fact that all this government expansion has been and continues to be for a reason, a good reason. Also, it works. The American government, by and large, works, and provides the services, benefits, and results for which it was and is intended. The Republicans, Trump and his MAGA mob would have you believe that not only are all the various appendages of the federal government bureaucracy inefficient and expansive, but that they are downright dead weight, or worse, they are harmful to America, deliberately destroying the nation with a misguided, malevolent conspiracy to inundate the nation in bad policy, deliberately draging down the country for some vague, ampophous, nefarious left wing liberal scheme to gain control of the entire nation. Simply paying attention to what the Trumpublicans think and say and do shows their crazy insanity, and they are about to start trying to implement their insanity, and impose it on the whole country. We the remaining sane must vigorously, strenuously oppsoe, resist, fight, and defeat it, all of it, with whatever help we can muster from disenchanted newly awakened formerly brain dead ex-Trumpers.

Banning Books, Bearing Arms

WHAT WITH ALL the school shootings and all, you might think that even here, in the United States of Side Arms, we would by now have done something to stop them, or to at least reduce them. And, supposedly, we have. Armed cops in the hallways. Armed teachers in the calssrooms. Volunteer parents roaming the hallways and guarding the doors daily. Ten foot high barbed wire fances surrounding the school. Bullet proof doors, always locked. Cameras monitoring everything, everywhere. Student I.D.s, Visitor I.D.s, and identification badges while in the building. And perhaps, indeed quite likely, all this has contributed to deter and thus reduce the number of mass school shootings, in schools, and other places. But is it enough? A high percentage, perhaps even a majority of American citizens love firearms so much that the second amendment has become a sacred, holy scripture, indespensible to American freedom and safety, inviolable, untouchable. Whether it makes sense to equate a constitution with holy scripture is debatable. And, not coincidentally a majortity, a significant majority of Americans evidently own firearms, in many if not most cases, more than one, many more than one. In every society, every country in which firearams have either been eliminated or largely eliminated from public possession, the crime rate, the shooting rate, has dropped drastically. Especially good examples are Great Britain, Australia, and Japan, in which there are only a handful of shootings a year, while in the United States there are tens of thousands of shootings per year, a veritable blood bath. If the United States regulated firearms the same way these other countries do, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the number of gun shootings in America would decrease drastically, and would keep decreasing, year after year. No doubt whatever. The United States could practically eliminate school shootings, but, refuses to. The reason given by gun enthusiasts is that a country in which the general population is well armed is much safer than one in which only criminals are armed. This, of course, is sheer nonsense, demonstrably, provably so. Its an outright lie, a blatant, transparent lie. And yet, it works. This bogus argument suffices to capture enough minds to paralyze any possible action to regulate and remove guns from society. The real reason why gun lovers resist gun control so passionately is that they love guns. The same people who want to defend America's schools by arming them and turning them into impregnable fortresses are the gun lovers, the opponents of gun control, and they are conservative Republicans, evangelical Christians much of the time. Quite naturally they want to stop school shootings by injecting more gusn into the equation, insanely. These are the same people who ban books like "The Diary of Anne Frank", "The Grapes of Wrath", and the writings of Martin Luther King, because, ooh horror, they disuss progressive values. These are the same far right wing extremist religious fanatic Trump supporters who prohibit any mention of racism in history classes in American public schools, scrub all signs of gay and LGBTQ culture from society, and falsely claim that the United States of America was founded on Christian values, is a Christian country, and should be a Christian country. And, last but not least, they tend to deny climate change the reality of it, the cause of it, the urgency of it. The worst news of all is that they are about to come to power in the U.S., and in a way already have. And yet, a majority of Americans support none of this insanity. Since we the remaning sane Americans must resist all of it ferociously, beginning now, this fact might be auspicious.

Reducing Conflict, With, Or Without Trump

THE SHEER AMOUNT of conflict in the world is appalling. The wars, strife of various sorts, not to mentnion disasters, mass migrations and hunger, are shocking. Any decent person wants to help mitigate all of it. Spending the next four years opposing, resisting, and trying to get rid of Donald Trump hardly seems like an avenue to that end. It sounds more like conflict than reduction of conflict. And yet, it is the way to reduce conflict, because Trump is a one man conflict factory, which must be shut down. Look...even if, even in the highly unlikely event that Trump's policies as president are beneficial to the country, the world, and the American people, it is a simple, basic moral fact that nobody, but nobody, as morally depraved and legally challenged as Trump should ever be allowed or elected to be president, much less dog catcher. Anybody currently involved in more than four thousand lawsuits and who has been convicted of dozens of felonies hardly seems qualified to lead the world's most powrful nation in the directinon of peace, law, an order, peace within itself, and peace with the rest of the world. However, while opposing Trump, one must offer a better way, a more cooperative, peaceful way. For instance, one might advocate for providing a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented, illegal immigrants who work, and obey the law, rather than deporting them. Reduce conflict, stress, and economic hardship, for the whole nation. Oppose Trump, offer and provide a better way. It should be interesting to see whether Trump actually ends the Russian war against Ukraine his first day as president like he promised. Trump presents himself as a great man who brought peace to the world in his first term, and will do it again in his second.. We certainly hope he can and does, but,to put it mildly, we are skeptical. It is extremely important for those who oppose Trump, the millions who hate Trump and want Trump gone, to give him credit if and when he says or does anything which is true and makes sense, or which is beneficial, beneficial to the country and the world, not merely to himself. Deciding in advance that everything somebody, including Trump, says and does in the future will be stupid, false, and harmful, merely because you passionately hate the person and everything he or she has ever done is stupid, false, and harmful, is counterproductive. Loss of objectivity, loss of open mindedness and tolerance, is never beneficial, to anyone. What if Donald Trump suddenly, inexplicably turns into a morally pure and noble well educated honest articulate genius, and just as suddenly ceases to be the criminally insane pathologically narcissistic and dishonest reprobate that he is and has always been? Unlikely, yes, but not impossible. Alien abduction and mind altering intervention, maybe. In such an unlikely but remotely possible scenario, pretending that Trump hadn't changed would be nonsensical, denial. One can simultaneously oppose Trump, working to end his political career, poste haste, while working for the improvement of the world. Those two objectives are not only not mutually exclusive, they are highly compatible. There are two people on this planet who, arguably, could do the world a lot of good merely by passing away. They are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The arguments are well known to all, and are not hard to make or difficult to articulate and explain. Opposing Trump will probably become an exercise in identifying false assertions and harmful actions by him, protesting vehemently against them, and, lord willing, mitigating or even reversing them and their harm caused. If Trump starts trade wars, deports millions of people, lowers taxes on the wealthy, shrinks the national parks and leases federal land for oil and coal production, cuts social spending, he'll hear about it from millions of people, stridently. The damage Trump is soon to do will be shocking, staggering. If protesting with words doesn't help, there will be many people, probably millions, willing to stage mass protests against Trump in the streets. Trump will doubtless be extremely very active from his first day in office, while he has Republican majorities in both houases of Congress. All of the above policies, which Trump has openly advocated and promised, would be harmful to the United States, the world, and the American people, and should, and will be strenuously opposed. Preisely how he intends to end the war in Europe on his first day in office is a fascinating question, which will soon be answered, one way or another. One thing is for sure: if he fails to keep this promise he should be excoriated vigorously by the American people, and the rest of the world.

Still Trying To Understand the Trump Phenomenon

SOMEONE SAID ON FACEBOOK that he still can't believe that January sixth, 2021, Trump's Capitol insurrection, wasn't, as he put it, a "deal breaker". In other words, how in the hell did the insurrection not bring Trump's political career, and much else, maybe his freedom, and even his life, ultimately, to an end? How indeed did it not result in Trump's incarceration and or execution, at least? To many and to me, the fact that Donald Trump will soon be, once again, the president of the United States, is absolutely, utterly, amazing. Well beyond mere crazy. Trump conceived of and planned his entire election denial insurrection scheme weeks in advance, and planned it down to the last detail. He is guilty as hell, and everyody knows it. He is guilty of treasonous incitement to insurrection, and is not fit to be president, but fit only for imprisonment, and perhaps execution. This is not wild, crazy, anti-Trump hate speech, based on hatred, anger, and emotion. Not at all. This is perfectly logical, legally sound reasoning, based on solid, irrefutable evidence, base on proof. I recall that I, and many other people, thought that the "Access Hollywood" tape, in early Octover 2016, would be the end for Trump, and it probably should have been, so damning was it in terms of revealing Trump's true, malignant character. What it boils down to is that the Trump policial movement has truly morphed, evolved, turned into a cult, with Trump a cult figure, cult leader, a situation he has encouraged all along. Trump's supporters, in and not in Congresss, are as dangerous as he is, because of the likelihood that they will support everything he says and does, no matter how harmful, no matter how crazy. Including, undoubtedly, his trying to remain in office as "president" (fuhrer?) for life when his term expires in 2029, assuming he is still alive and in power then. Again, this is not idle, unhinged speculation. This is based on Trump's own words and prior actions. On Inauguration Day, Trump will enter office trying to make a big splash, doing dramatic things, attracting attention, which he craves, does, and has. He will probably sign multiple excutive orders ordering all illegal immingrans out of the country, immediately, or else, and placing tariffs lord knows how high on heaven only knows what coutnries, maybe China, Mexico, and Canada. He might sign one reinstating his infamous ban on Islamic people entering the United States, and maybe another disbanding the EPA, other environmental protection agencies, and eliminating environmental regulations. The actual constitutionality of his actions, on day one or on any other days, will most probably not even be on the radar screen of President Trump's twisted, injured mind. And it may get crazier than that, much, much crazier. In his early days in office, like the first day, Trump will undoubtedly try to do as many dramatic things as possible to rev up his base, get attention. and anger progressives. He will take actions and make staetments worthy of strenuous oppostion, if not impeachment, removal, indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration. For that reason, those who oppose Trump, about half the country if not a bit more, will need to remain involved, attentive, and ready to, as we say, "rock n roll" on Inauguration Day. Ready to speak out, write, and get out into the streets, in group and mass protests. Only mental illness of varying sorts explains Donald Trump. His MAGA mob may be explained in terms of the psychology and sociology of human power and influence dynamics, gang and cult formation. Gangs, groups, and Cults form fast and furious among humans, we now know, just as religions do. We must be very careful as individuals and as a society in choosing which ones to allow, which ones to tolerate, which ones to encourage and join, and which ones to oppose vigorously and destroy.

Ending Poverty

"POVERTY EXISTS not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the wealthy". So goes the provocative assertion. First and foremost, it provokes the question: Is it true? The second question, provoked by the first, is: If it sn't, then, what is? And, if it is,then, what can we and should we do about it to change it? Because, beyond a doubt, nobody but nobody wants anybody else to live in poverty. We can assume that, correct? WE need to eradicate all poverty, but, how? Is it really caused by the wealthy, and, could the wealthy really remedy it, presumably by sharing their wealth? In other words, is economics a zero sum game,or not? It certainly is, if one considers only a moment in time, if one takes a snapshot of a certain moment,and mesaures the amount of and distribution of wealth, at that precise moment. But reality is, of course, more than a single precise moment, more than a certain number of precise moments in time; life is an endlessly flowing succession of moments, an unbroken river of time. Two undeniable facts emerge: There is in fact enough food, water, clothing, and money on Earth for everyone. And, the elite wealthy few, on a global basis,own and control a huge percentage of the wealth, an entirely disproportionate share of it. The top one percent own forty percent of the wealth of the world, or something even more hideous, grotesque, and extreme than that. But the question is: could the huge majority of poor people, about half the world or more, "catch up" with the middle class, without disturbing or taking much of the wealth of the wealthy? And, Do the wealthy actually prevent billions of other people from getting wealthy, or even from having a decent standard of living, or having enough to eat? Often overlooked is that Adam Smith said that in the absence of all economic externalities and distortions, then a truly free market should naturally distribute the wealth essentially equally among everyone, including workers, managers, and owners. Assuming this is true, then obviously our current supposed"free market" capitalist system is not working, and/or is very heavily, deeply distorted and fraght with externalities and corrupting factors. Some of these are easy to see. Monopoly formation, and a political system which not only does not prevent monopoly formation by law, as intended in the U.S. and other countries by law, but actually tends to encourage it. In the U.S., virtually every major industry is a virtual monopoly, with only a few, a handful of corporate participants, few enough for them to eschew actual competition in favor of unspoken, unwritten, informal de facto coopertation, acting as a single cartel, cotrolling the makrdt, setting prices, price gouging at will, and exploiting labor. There are many other corrupting, "external" factors, such as the obvious fact that in the United States, the corporate oligarchy which actually governs us, "our corporate masters" as Gore Vidal called them, own and control the political system by virtue of having long ago purchased all the politicians, and keeping them under control, over the decades. In the United States, and throughout the world, much, much greater economic equality is needed,for a wide variety of reasons. Our current system in which a tiny fraction of the global population possesses a huge portion of the world's wealth and power is harmful, destructive, and unsustainable for many reasons. Some of the moe obvious reasons include widespread pvoerty, starvation, ad a political tyranny of the wealthy. Some obvious remedies include a progressive income tax system, progresive property taxes, and wealth taxes. But when the wealthy sue their wealth to purchase political power, which they are doing now, and hae alwasy doen in the United State of America, even these basic remedies, these fundamental solutions to a major problem, are impossible. The wealthy simply will not allow it. Before the world's poor gain a fair share of the wealth, they must gain a fair share of the power, by whatever means necessary.

The Burning Earth

THE BASIC PURPOSE of history, most might agree, is to help us understand the world we live in, how it came to be this way, and so forth. How to understand ourselves, and our lives. A seminal, new, magesterial work which accomplishes precisely that aim is "The Burning Earth; An Environmental History of the Past Five hundred years", by Sunil Amrith, an Ivy League scholar who writes brilliantly, compellingly. He eloquently weaves together a factual narrative including wonderful stories, characters, descriptions, and explanations of how human history and the environement are interconncted. Humans have been transforming their environment for thousands of years, and, of course, the Earth's natural environment, the ecosytsem, has shaped and influenced human development and history. Paleolithic and Stone Age humans altered the environment, and their lives were almost completely controlled by their environment. The more technologically advanced we have become, the more drastic the degree of our influence, and the more harmful and dangerous have become the environmental changes we have made. And the situation is not good. The impact, and the effects of that impact, that humans have had on the environment have never been clearer or more obvious than now, and are about to become much more obvious, and severe. Climate change is now apparent to all, and only the most devout climate deniers still dare to deny. The daily weather,everywhere, is so strange so consistently, on a daily basis, that not only is it obvious that the climate, everywhere, has changed, but also that the change is ongoing, will continue, will increase in speed, and will not stop. Its here, and its going to get worse, fast. This is the conclusion that the book inevitably, irrevocaibly points to, the same dire warnings we are now constantly, appropriately, exposed to and receiving. We simply have not acted and are not acting fast enough to prevent climate change from becoming severe, for us,in our lifetimes. In my lifetime, and I'm sixty nine. I wouldn't be surprised, for instance, if within the next five years, 2025-2030, we don't have a summer in my area in which the temperature rises above a hundred on June first, and remains there until Labor Day. I sure hope not, but, we'll see. But there is still hope for an eventual, ultimate solution. In fact, such a solution is clearly possible, within the laws of science. In a way, its no big deal, but we just have to do it. We have the knowledge and the technology, but, so far, not enough mass political will. We The People need to put more pressure on our leaders to lead, and to lead us to undo the damage we have done, before its too late. We have filled the air with carbon and other poisons, have devastated and poisoined the Earth, land, air, and water, and have almost succeeded in killing the Earth, including ourselves. But carbon can be removed from the atmosphere, and poisons can be cleaned up, removed from oceans, the land, and our bodies. Precisely how to remove the plastic and the radioactive atoms which evidently inhabit our bodies currently eludes me, but, it is to be hoped, not our scientists. As I move closer to the end of my life, I keep hoping that before I die I will have some idea of how its going to go: whether humanity is going to destroy itself and die, or repair and reverse climate change and environmental destruction, and thrive indefinitely into the future. As of right now, I'd have to say that its "nip and tuck", that it could go either way.

Preferring Admiration

I RANG THE BIG BELL five times, as usual,five minutes before the service, and went to my seat. Same pew, same place, as always. I was alone. As always, I was eager to begin. I started going to church about eight months ago, arter sixty nine years of not going, and I aint lookin' back. Brenda, one of our congregation of twelve, came in and sat down, across the small quaint church. We spoke. She's a nice lady. The chat reached the point where I said: "I'm not religious, but I belong here". Which is true. I know it is, as nobody elee possibly could or can. I also said that Jesus is the way, I believe in and love God, and that I am a "pantheist". I broke the word down for her, mentioned Spinoza and Einstein, and stopped. I suggested she google it. Google is god. Google knows all. Seek Google. She suggested that I really am religious, and just don't know it, because I sound like I'm religious when I talk. I reassured her that I am not, and said that religion has more to do with doctrine and dogma than basic love of and belief in Jesus and God, my ideal of Jesus and God, not yours. Doubtful for a few minutes, at the end, I think she was on board, if barely. How could I not be a true believer, I guess, since am here, and sound like I am? Its basically the same service every Sunday, and I like it, as do I think all twelve of us. Yes, we need new members. No, you don't have to be Christian to attend, and enjoy a Christian church, although there might come a time, if, just hypothetically, thosuands of people like me, "non believers" started flocking into churches all across America's fruited plain, spoiling the broth, diluting the message, or, as Donald Trump says, "poisoning the blood, the true pure Christian blood of the true Christian (Trumpist) believers, or course. Such an unholy infux might eventually change the religion itself, change the basic nature of the Christian religion, by the influence of many new people and many new ideas. Unless, of course the church sniffs out the "conspiracy", the trend, early, and kicks out the heretics,people like me. If so, then so be it. If the Christian church would rather stagnate and commit suicide than evolve and thrive,that's fine with me. That is how religions evolve, live, and die...all religions. For me, its the message that counts, wherever it comes from. Often many things I dislike about religion and the Christian religion in particular, and trust me there are many things I dislike and despise about Christianity and religion in general,it is this: that religious folks, especially Christians and Moslems,tend to, indeed even universially do...worship God. Quite simply, I do not like the concept of "worship". I don't much like the reailty of it either, so, I don't do it. I don't worship, God, or anything else. To me, worship is an ectreme state of mind, like raod rage or falling in love, and all such self inflicted victims should therefore proceed with extreme caution, avoid letting it get out of control, avoid letting it control one, and avoid becoming a victim of any of thoese extreme emotional states of mind, in as much as possible. Worship might and probably does have a purpose, but that doesn't mean that it should be encourged, praised, and valued, and demanded, any more than should be road rage and falling in love. Worship, in a sense, and in reality, is a form of insanity, just like the other two. Pleasant insanity, maybe, but insanity nonetheless. Nor do I like fear, as in "God fearing". More insanity, it seems to me, to ba avoided not encouraged and inculcated. Let's love and admire God, but lettuce snot fear him, or her, or it. Always eschew insanity. But what to replace it with? Admiration, admiration and love, that's what. So... Here's my religion, the religion of Spinoza and Einstein: "My religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitorty understsanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation. Morality is of the utmost importance, to mankind, but not for God.", And, from Goethe: "It is beyond me how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveals itself to us, and if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, then we will most certainly not learn these things from books, which, at best, are designed only to give names to our mistakes. There you have it. My sacred scripture. See you in church!

Reconciling Views On Trump

IN THE PREVIOUS ESSAY, below, I presented an argument in favor of giving Donald Trump a chance, in favor of giving him multiple chances. And yew, I would want him, or anybody else, to do the same with me, for me. But there is a difference in givng a person a chance to play better tennis, for instance, and a chance to stop trying to steal elections and overthrow the government. Simulteneously, I have joined and am now as "All STar" contributing member of a Facebook group called "Donald Trump Will Be the death of Our Country".It has, so it says, about thirty one thousand members. The stated purpsoe of this group is the impeachment, removal, conviction, and incarceration of Trump. Its members aren't always up to the task. It seems that every time I suggest that we go seriously about the business of advocating strenuosly for the fulfillment of the group's stated purpose, members come pouring in responses that it cannto be cone, that it has been ried and has failed; even to the point of calling my aims, and me "delusional". One verbally challenged lady even slandered me horribly by calling me "dilutional". I responded that it is she who is "dilutional", for she is diluting th epurpsoe and effectiveness of the group by casting serious doubts on its chances of success. She vanished,and, probably best for her, hasn't been heard from since. Perhaps she went to look for the dictionary which I suggested, bitingly but accurately, that she badly needs to find. Yes, I believe that Trump can indeed be impeached, removed, and incarcerated, for incitement to insurrection, for which there is no statute of limitations, but probably not before the mid terms in 2026,and most assuredly not unless the Democrats take control of Congress at that time. Very well then. We can spend the next two years inundating the nation with a veritable avalalanche of facts, not gratuitous insults but facts, including facts aobut what Trump does or does not do during the first two years of his new administration. We certainly have an abundance of material to use, even before he takes office in Janaury. We can do better than make fun of his hair. So yes, we need to give Donald Trump a chance; a chance to succeed, and a chance to fail. He is much more likely to do the latter, since his agenda includes highly questionable and dubious components, such as deporting eleven million people and using the Department of Justice to wreak retirubtion, vengefaul, retatalitory retribution, upon his perceived enemies, enemies which indlude perfectly innocent and legitimate people such as Joe Biden and Jack Smith, among others, whose only crime was the pursuit and prosecution of justice, by due process. Trump seriously intends to so greatly epand the powers of th presidency undr his leadership that he oviously wants to become an authoritarian figure, with the complete apparent support of his MAGA cult mob of supporters. Donald Trump, as alwys must be stopped.He has already failed before, n manyw ays, but to stop him now he must be given a chance to either succeed or fail. It he succeeds we who despise him must at least consider the possibility of reversing course, and supporting him, as unlikely as that evantuality seeems or has ever seemed. And so, I, and presumably we the many millions shall continue to vigorously, relentlessy strive to destroy Trump, while also giving him a chace, to either once again prove, as he has so many times, that he deserves destrutcaion, or that our relentless crusade against him is unjust. Based on recent history, there can be lttle doubt about which will manifest, about which course of action will deem itself necessary and prudent. Either will suffice.

Giving Trump A Chance

I GAVE TRUMP A CHANCE, the first time around. Then, I gave him another. And another. And he blew them, every single time. At some point, a man runs out of chances. But..at what point? Well, what does it say in the Bible? Seven times seventy? Okay, fine. Let's try it that way. When in doubt, turn to the holy scriptures, I suppose. As they say, whatever works. But Donald Trump ran out of chances long, long ago, and here I am, giving him more. And yes, I still despise Donald Trump, and always will. But, you give a man a chance, and you behave like a lady and or gentleman. Donald Trump in the past few days has done two good things. He has invited the premiere of China to attend his inauguration, and he has expressed support for the hard working dock workers of America in their struggle with their corporate shipping employers. Fair enough. That's a good start. Give credit where credit is due, always, and forever. Now, lets' see the prevaricator elect in chief back it up, with action, not lies. Let's see him continue doing good things, correct things, making peace with our adversaries rather than threatening an insulting them, supporting fair practices for labor, rather than cutting taxes for the wealthy billionaires and refusing to raise the federal minimum wage for the rest of us. Let's see it. When does one condemn a man, and when does one redeem? When does one admit one's faults, when does one come clean? Well, Okay then. Let's stop the nonsense. Let's stop the lies, the insults, the slander. I don't appreciate being called "vermin" by the president elect, merely becasue I oppose his policies, oppose his lies, slanders, threats, insults, and crimes. I doubt anybody does. I never, ever hurl gratuitous insults at Trump, nor anybody else. I stick to the facts. Just the facts,ma'am. I call Donald Trump a liar, I call him a criminal, and I call him a traitor. I acknowledge that from his point of view he is not a traitor, but rather, a hero, a patriot, a Christ, or what the hell ever. From my perpective, however, when the president of the United States incites and sends an angry violent mob to the capitol to disrupt the electoral college and replace the duly authorized elecors with his chosen illegal ones, he has attempted to overthrow the government, steal the presidency, and has thus become a traitor, a traitor to democracy, a traitor to his country. These are not insults. These, dear reader, are mere facts. When you lose an election, or a tennis match, you congratulate the winner, and invite him to play tennis with you again, just for fun, to facilitate your improvement. You congratulate Biden, and offer to help him. You do not claim that the other player cheated, and stole the match or the presidency from you. Proper gentlemen do not do that. Mr.Trump owes the nation an apology, and while he's at it, he owes us several, or several thousand apologies. One will do for starters. We'll settle for one, a sincere, heartfelt one. Trump needs to step up, become a gentleman for perhaps the first time, come clean, and tell us that he made a mistake, a mistake in moral judgment, that he indeed did lose the twenty twenty election, that he was wrong dead wrong to try to overthrow the government by means of a violent, well incited mobe, and he needs to apologize, and ask for forgiveness. He needs to go to his God and, he needs to come to us his employers, and ask for forgiveness, and offer atonement. Perhaps a few billion of his ill gotten emolument clause violation dollars given unto the poor, for starters. That's where it starts. And I need to forgive him, and I need to keep giving him a chance, or many chances, as many as it takes.

Supporting Nixon

IN 1972, WHEN I WAS a high school senior, Richard Nnixon ran for reelection. My friends and I enthusiastically supported him. At the time I was not necessarily a Repblican, not necessarily a Demorat. My political identity had not yet been formed. I had not yet emerged as a full fledged left wing democratic socialist Bernie Sanders liberal,as I am now and have been for many years. Of my high school clique-gang, only one among us,the smart one, the one who became an endicronogist, a diabetes doctor, had the good sense to support George McGovern, whose political ideology was perfectly aligned with mine as mine is now. We Nixonians had our own little chant: "Reelect the president!" We thought ourselves terribly clever. George McGovern was one of many failed Demoratic presidential candidates who would have been a great president, but lost. Others include Hubert H. Humphrey, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris.Each of them lost to a far inferior Republican candidate, inferior by virtue of either being a criminal, an idiot, or both. In the fall of 1972, my first semester as a high school senior, the Watergate scandal had not yet broken open; that would happen in the spring of 1973, when the Watergate tapes came out, the seventeen minute missing part, Rosemary Woods, Nixon's private secretary, and her energetic foot, Nixon's self incriminating tape recordings made by the White House taping system which he inexplicacly allowd to run, when he easily could ahve unplugged it.. all that. It seems amazing to think that anyone much younger than I,and I am sixty nine, is too young to remember those turbulent times, the summer long Watergate hearings in 1973, which I spent watching from early in the morning until early afternoon, instead of getting a summer job. What did the president know and when did he know it? As 1973 and 1974 gradually and steadily revealed that Nixon was indeed a criminal, which we now kwow he was his entire political life, from college, when he bought votes for his election to the student council, on to his resignation in August 1974, I, like seemingly everyone else in America, turned against him, and I soon emerged as a liberal Democrat, thanks in part to Tricky Dick, although I have no doubt that I would have anyway, Nixon, or no Nixon. Richard Milhouse Nixon, the inspiration behind my lifelong political ideology. As we like to say: go figure. By 1975, it was as if the entire nation was ashamed of itself for having reelected Nixon, but for having done so by a landslide,a super landslide. People denied having voted for him, falsely. Everybody in America claimed to have voted for McGovern, when in fact very few had. When Ford pardoned Nixon, there was another national uproar; it seemed that everyone in the country wanted to see Trickie Dick go on trial, be convicted, and incarcerated. The leader of our gang was an influence on me in my supprt of Nixon, but I take full responsibility for it, and I freely admit that I made a mistake. As for our leader, he was class president, a natural leader. But he wanted to become a writer, which was a bad idea, and he ended up with no career, and is now living in a log cabin in the Pacific Northwest, immersed in alternative cosmic paradigms, chasing interdimensional entities. without a career (one should never plan to be a writer, or a rock star, those things just happen, by accident.) Worst of al,he is an avid, MAGA cult member Trumper, to the core. I reminded him recently of our experience with Nixon; no luck. He never learned his lesson. At least I did.

Indoctrinating Children

IN MANY AMERICAN FAMILIES, especially those of the conservative evangelical Christian kind, it is taken as a matter of faith that when young couples marry, they will soon start having children, raise a fine family, and proceed to abundantly replenish the Earth with human beings, to be fruitfual and mulitply, or however the Christian bible puts it. Married but childless couples can even become the object of suspicion, scorn, or contempt. As if the world didn't already have a sufficient quantity of human beings, as if more than eight billion, and counting, were not enough. One begins to sense that the global population isn't the actual issue, that the actual issue is the number of white Christian folks multiplying abundantly. American exceptionalism, Christian dominionimm, Christian nationalism; all these terms have common underlying overtones, the key ingredients of which seem...seem, to be the color "white", the religion "Christian", and the country America the United States of. Among the thus anointed, it is considered of the paramount importance that the children be raised in a Christian home, and that they are raised to be Christians. Whether the kiddos have any choice in the matter, is left unsaid, as if there is no other choice, other than eternal damnation dangling over the flaming pits of hell, and all that. Indoctrination is fine and dandy, so long as it is indoctrination of the proper kind, the only kind, the Christian conservative kind. Heterosexuality is the default sexual orientation; nothing else is acceptable. The rainbow gay pride LGBTQ flag shall never fly above a white Christian conservative home, the Christian domionionist flag shall. That, and the American flag, turned upside down only on those rare but heretical occassions when an election is stolen from Donald Trump. Trump is the default politician, the annointed one, appointed by christ, by God. Political conservatism is the default political setting. Progressive politics is indistinguishable from socialism, that dreaded specter, and from communism, that more dreaded specter. One needn't even bother to know the difference. Social Security, public schools, public streets and highways are all fine, as long as we don't call them what they are, "socialism." Them kids gotta be raised right, and Bernie Sanders and the secular multciultural socialist Democrats don't cut it. Verboten. The strong, macho, capitalistic Jesus Christ, an American, through and through, and, white as a ghost, to boot, is the one true savior of the one true faith. Within these clean cut families and communites the "Sermon On the Mount" and the "beatitudes" never appear on the walls or magnetically attached to the refrigerator. Nor are they making many appearances in lily white right wing Trump loving churches; they are the weak Jesus, the inclusive Jesus, the Jesus who never said a word about gay people, but who condemns them by defaul, The Jesus who did say "welcome the stranger: and "blessed are the meek", as they inherit the Earth. is forgotten. White Republican households much prefer a stronger version of their savior, much more compatible with true American values. "The Ten Commandments" must be nailed, in large print, on the wall of every classroom in these United States of Avarice, by law, by God. But nothing about welcoming the stranger of the meek inheriting the Earth. The weak, liberal socialist render unto Caesar give unto the poor Christ is banished, the strong, white, muscular American one proudly dominant. Jesus, above all else, was and remains an American. The children of such families are being brainwashed. The parents are guilty of child abuse. Any normal, reasonably intelligent human being is perfectly capable of deciding which, if any, religion to embrace. People, all people, have an inalienable, sacred, God given right to select for themselves from among the world's more than four thousand religions, or to select "none of the above." The dirty little secret is that we are all free to invent our own religion, or should be. The even dirtier little secret is that we indeed all do invent our own religion, for we have no other alternative, even if we have to wait until we leave home, and the terrible abusive tyrannical constraint of your average middle class white conservative evangelical Christian parents.

Trump, Intending Harm, Doing Harm

IT IS THE EVIDENT INTENT of Donald Trump, with the apparent full support of not only the incoming Republican majority Congress, but the Republican party generally, to make cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade, probably not for current recipients, but for future ones, people are are currently workng and paying into the fund, but not yet eligible to receive benefits. It is difficult to imagine the American electorate, especially that portion of it currently under the age of sixty five, having anything other than an unfavorable response to this. People currently between the ages of eighteen and sixty five are well aware that the Social Security trust fund is predicted to run out of funds within the next fifteen years, and are expressing doubts as to whether they, after having paid into into it their entire working lives, will ever reap any benefits of their hard work and sacrifice. A few simple solutions would remedy the problem, solutions such as raising the minimum retirement age. Delaying the start of Social Security and Medicare are not likely to inspire much support from current workers who see the number of years of their own retirement dwindling away, while their parents and grand parents enjoy relatively longer "golden years" of post career leisure. Trump's threat to slash the size of the federal government by ridding the bureauracy of hundreds of thousands of emplyees and slashing government services will prove to be unpopular among the people in general, not only among those losing their jobs and careers, but among those losing the services they provide. Over the previous decades, as the population of the United States has grown, so has the size of the federal government, so have the variety of services provided to a population in need of them, and paying taxes to receive them. Trump's stated objective to replace thousands of federal workers, among those remaining, with new people, based not on their qualifications for the positions they inherit but based only on their sworn loyalty to Donald Trump, seems destined to fruther reduce the competance and efficiency with whith those government services are produced and delivered. It has been said that the conservative aproach is to reduce or eliminate services to a hundred recipients in the fear that among them there might be one who does not deserve or qualify for them, while the progressive approach is to be willing to provide such services to a hundred people who do not qualify for them, to guard against the possiblity that by so doing one person might be prevented from "falling through the cracks", falling into poverty or going hungry. The number of people paying taxes to support the social welfare system is much greater than the number of recipients of the services provided, but the number of recipients is still quite large, and Trump's plans will affect them all. Taxes for middle and workng class Americans will not be cut; only the wealthy, according to Trump's plan, will get tax breaks, tax breaks they arguably simply do not need. The wealthy are greatlly outnumbered in the U.S. by people of modest means. As of now, numbers of voters and voting blocks and demographics still matter. It is not difficult to see that the number of people who will benefit by Trump's domestic agenda, which basically includes only the very wealthy, is far exceeded by the number of people who will by harmed by it. Despite the current euphoria and smug optimism of Trump's newly empowered MAGA minions, and despite the palpable despairing attitude current among those who oppose Trump, the numbers add up to an inevitable growing national discontent with the second Trump administration, a discontent of such proportions that it will be reflected in the opinion polls, and, ultimately, in the behavior of the electorate, and above all else, of elected politicians.

Making Music

MY OLDER SISTER, a retired professional musician who remains active in music among other civic activities, recently decided to become a dulcimer player. Her main instrument in the military band was the flute, and she still takes lessons, keeping her skills sharp. She has a fine piano in her living room,but doesn't play it. She says she lacks the ability to use her feet and hands simultaneously, a rationale which eludes me, since foot work on any piano is minimal. But now, the dulcimer. She acquired a copy of the string instrument, and away she has gone, into the world of quaint instrumental folklore culture. Whether she intends to sing while playing remains a mystery. I sing. Maybe we'll end up dueting, a latter day Simon and Garfunkel on dulcimer. Ever the dutiful little bro, I have been contacting local dulcimer players in my small town rural Arkansas local community, giving them my sister's phone number with her prior permission, and imploring them to reach out, and give the kid a break. A nice lady and forty year veteran of dulcimerism has consented to contact her, and to provide a presumed pep talk. So I started thinking about stringed musical instruments generally. I recall inventing one as a child, a thing made of cardboard and rubber bands, which never went viral,strangely. In theory the number of potential stringed musical instruments is equal to the number of hydrogen atoms in the known universe. All over the world, in every culture in every continent in both hemispheres, string instruments have been being invented since antiquity. And yes, the fiddle and the violin are the same thing, one from the British Isles, the other from Italy, played in different styles. One of my heroes, David (Davy) Crockett, played the fiddle, the other, Albert Einstein, played the violen. Both played well, in my estimation, despite critiques to the contrary by upscale, self important critics. Both were self taught, and both did it just for fun, which is the best possible reason to do anything. Einstein often joined in sting quartets, and played his Mozart part passably. He once overheard a neighbor lady playing alone, invited himself over, and joined her in a duet. On another occasion, he forget to bring his lecture notes to a scheduled lecture on relativity, but he gladly informed the audience that he had not forgotten his violin, and the scheduled leture morphed into a violin concert, of Einsteinian proportions, a thing of genius, to be sure. Legend has it that nobody demanded their money back. The King of the Wild Frontier took up the fiddle to alleviate the tedium and bordeom of sitting for hours in Congress listening to speeches, waiting for his time to stand and speak his immortal words into the congressional record. "Congressman, that don't make good sense. Hell, that don't even make good nonsense." Up and dwon Pennsylvania Avenue strode he in buckskins and a coonskin cap, fulfilling expectations, fiddlin', to the delight of the inevitable mob of teenagers following him from tavern to tavern. He got in, they didn't, usually. Davy died a heroe's death at the Alamo, fiddling for his trapped brothers until the very end. I hardly expect anything so dramatic from my sister and her new dulcimer. But given enough time, I have no doubt that she'll become a passably good dulcimer player. After all, she is a pro. And, after all the investment in time and energy I have made towards her fledgling new found musical career, the least I should exect is a dulcimer concert free of charge, later, if not sooner.

Denying...Reality

WE RESIST THE TRUTH, said Goethe, only because we fear that we would perish if we accepted it. We all, or certainly nearly all of us do this at point or other in our heavily fear based lives. Rare indeeed is the noble soul who accepts reality without reluctance. Modern psychology, a rather new science, has improved little upon Goethe's basic understanding of this human tendency and the reason for it, other than to confirm and verify it. I can recall the events of my early life that I might rather have pretended hadn't happened. The outcome of the 1964 World Series. My father's drinking, his womanizing, and his regular departures from home, as he returned to the mental hospital in which he was confined, but given frequent home visits from. My mother's emotional pain,my older sister's bullying. We suffer,and deny our suffering. I once had a lady friend who, at nineteen, was obviously pregnant, but who seemed unwilling to acknowledge the fact, at least to anyone else. All turned out well, however. She gave birth, and raised a wonderful daughter. All in all, I have done well, I think, at accepting and adjusting to reality. But the temptation to deny those unpleasant things has always lurked within me, as it lurks within...everyone. Conversely, whether entrenched deeply in denial or reality, humans derive confort from their beliefs, whether real or not. As Goethe said: "Habit is our sole comfort. We dislike doing without even those unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed". Psychologically, sociologically, mass denial, denial by large numbers of people, even whole socieities, presents an equally interesting phenomenon. Countires in the throes of catastrophic military defeat sometimes seem to deny the reality of their desperate situation. Even as foreign armies and navies surrounded and ammassed near their borders, preparing to invade, the civilian populations of Germany and Japan in World War Two remained persuaded by their delusional leaders that victory was within their grasp. Hitler, supposedly, late in the war, issued commands to military units and armies which no longer existed. The cult - and it is a cult - of Trump has obvious denial "issues" as we like to call difficulties these days. Despite Trump's return to power, its members still have difficulty grasping the reality of his election defeat in twenty twenty, so painful was it for them, seeing their great leader going down to defeat. Now they continue to deny his blatant, pervasive criminality and immorality. The forms of denial they manifest and display for us to see as the second Trump administration proceeds chaotically along will be a fascinating study in human psychology, if it doesn't get us all killed. The most popular, and perhaps destructive manifestation of denial today - and, be asssured, all denial of reality has consequences, often harmful - is denial of human made climate change. There are three basic stages of climate change denial. First, the denier insists that climate change is a hoax. A fabrication, perpetrated by the left leaning media, the "deep state", the Chinese, whomever. Whomever it takes. Anybody will do. Then, grudgingly,as reality is forced upon them and they dimly, slowly begin to accept it, the deniers admit that, yes, indeed the climate is changing, but deny that human activity is the cause. In this false paradigm, stage two, the climate is always changing, without human intervention, and humans are too weak and puny to have any impact on it, case closed. Climate change is being caused by changes in solar activity, in the Earth's orbit, or..something...again, anything will do. In stage three thirty billion tons of carbon injected into the atmosphere each year may be, may... be... partly responsible, but since India and China, the main culprits, are not cooperating with initiatives to mitigate the problem, there is little or nothing that we in the industrialized west can do for now. The religious add: and, in any event, the imminent return of the lord makes it all irrelevant and all the concern needless. We twist and contort ourselves intointellectual pretzels in our ceaseless resistance to uncomfortable, inconvenient realities. We protect and defend our ideologies of choice unto death. Ourhope, however,rests in the observaboe process, ongoing now, in which people, confronted with overwhelming, irresistable reality,begin to slowly accept it,as their minds gradually adopt and heal an begin to deal with the truth. We resist the truth only because we fear that we would perish if we accepted it.

Juxtapositioning, Conservatively

THE LIST is nearly too long, but not quite, and it could probably be longer. 1) Belief without proof. No doubt.One word: religion, the Christian kind.2) Loyality without truth: aka "Blind loyalty; Trump.3) Wealth without sharing. Say "TEA party". 4) Religion without caring. Jesus, and capitalism don't mix. 5) Women without voices. Pro life = forced birth. 6) Freedom without choices. Conservative conformimity of the cultural kind.7) Knowledge without learning. Again,faith and dogma over science and free inquiry. 8) Pride without earning. Proud to be an American. 9) Honor without service. Emphasis on social status based on wealth. 10) Order without justice. Mass incarceration. 11) Praise without critics. the MAGA cult. 12) Power without limits. Trump, first, and last............ This list of twelve juxtaposed concepts describes the conservative state of mind. Conservative minded peopple are far more likely to be religious than those of a liberal, or what we now call "progressive" mindset. Progressives are less religious, and more prone to seek answers and solutions in science, and to require scientific proof. Religious faith is a conservative, traditional vallue. Blind, unquestioning loyalty is also a tendency among conservative thinkers, to place trust in a religious text,religious figure, or political leader or demagogue. The MAGA movement clearly illustrates this. Capitalism,the economic system preferred by conservatives, emphasizes competition for and the accumlation fo personal wealth. Progressives are more inclined to embrace socialsim, in which wealth is shared, confiscated by taxation and gevernment mandated redistribution of wealth. By marrying the Christian religionto the capitalist system, conservatives manage of remove the socialistic component of the message of Jesus (render unto Caesar, give unto the poor) from their faith. The conservative "pro life" position takes power away from women, and gives it to the government. "Freedom without choices" can be applied to either ideology, conservative or progressive, but most aptly applies to conservatism in matters of social ideology and cultural matters. Conservative are far less tolerant of cultural diversity, for example, and much more intolerant of gay and transgender people, for instance. Knowledge is readily confined to dogma in conservative thinking, free thinking and inquiry is not as much emphasized. The phrase "proud to be an Amerian: bstindicates the idea of unearned pride. Patriotism is inherent in both right and left wing thinking, but more emphasized in conservative ideology, blind loyalty to one's country,regardless of the country's behavior. Honor and public esteem through personal achievement, rather than through selfless public service is more apparent in conservative thinking. Punishment as a means to achieve a crime free civil society, rather than rehabilitation, is a conservative hallmark. Sometimes, punishment can be too extreme,and self defeating, and opportunities for rehabilitation overlooked and ignored. Praise without critics and power without limits are of the same ilk,and go hand in hand. Both are apparent in the cult like manner in which MAGA Trump supporters regard their iconic leader,despite his many serious moral and legal shortcomings,and his obvious lust for unbridled personal wealth, fame, adoration,and power. The mere fact that Donald Trump is the current flag bearer for the conservative movement in America speaks volumes about the current state of American conservatism.

Steel, And We, Going Green

"GREEN STEEL", the term, evokes images, it almost seems, of cannibus fiber, tightly wound into rope or bundles, replacing the metals of which steel is traditionally made. What are they? Nickel,copper, aluminum, iron? Well, whichever. Previously steel sturctures, even skyscrapers, made of cannibus, if I aint mistaken, is something being considered. Cannibus has a amillion uses, other than smoking, and is, it almost seems, a wonder plant, which can save the world, and which we can wear as clothing, replacing cootton, which depletes the soil, with cannibus, which nourishes and enriches it. But no, green steel, apparently, refers to the manufacture of steel by obtaining the necessary energy from hydrogen fusion, or some form of hydrogen processing, rather than from coal fired plants, as has traditionally been the case. Whether that energy source can also replace the fossil fuel consumption needed to extract the various and sundry metals from beneath surface of the Earth to make steel was not detailed in the sources I consulted. But the whole point is innovation, substitution, replacement of primtive, harmful manufacturing processes with safe, efficient, environmentally harmless ones. The possibilities are amazing, and seemingly endless. Cannibus for paper,clothing, and heaven only knows what else. Wind and solar energy replacing coal, oil, and natural gas. Hydrogen fusion replacing nuclear fisson, nuclear fission being deadly dangerous on account of the radiation released which must be strictly controlled and contained, and on account of the spent nuclear waste, which must be disposed of safely somehow, somehow better than merely burying it beneath a barren mountain in New Mexico. People, called "downwinders", are still getting cancer left over from the above ground atom bomb testing which went on during and after World War Two in that aprt of the country. Predictably, the U.S. federal governemnt is reluctant to make due compensation, and is dragging its feet, as it has for decades, denying, defending, and deposing, or something like that. One might easily imagine advanced beings from worlds far away, invisible in orbit above the Earth, their spaceships and bodies made of light,fascinated by us, looking, observing, wondering and asking, why on Earth are these primitive but potential laden creatures below seemimgly deliberatley destroying their planet's ecosystem and thus themselves through their use of primitive, inefficient manufacturing processes, when, not only are much better, cleaner methods available to them, but, when they seem to not only be talking about these better processes among themselves, and they actually seem to have the ability to switch to them? And really, that's a good question, if a rather lengthy one. There are other good questions, unanswered. Precisely why on Earth have we not long since changed form fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources? Why is the United States, at this very moment, drilling for and pumping out of the gorund more oil than any country ever, including iself, at any time in human history at precisely the time when climate change is becoming worse by the day, and threatnes to overwhelm us within a few short years? We are, to put it crudely, eating and defacating in the same place, which, as any intelligent animal, such as as your cat, knows, is a very bad idea. The answer, dear reader, is "conservatism". Conservative thinking resists change and innovation, and respects and supports entrenched, traditional holders of power, and institutions such as large corporations, which posssess and wield to their economic advantage wealth, power, and privilege. And the answer, of course, is revolution, change on a revolutionary scale. For as Goethe truthfully said: "The world advances only because of those who oppose it."

Denying, Defending, Deposing

THE THREE WORDS have alliterative value, attractive to tyrants and their sycophantic subjects alike. It may be surmised that Brian Thompson, United Health, Inc. CEO, was so attracted to them, but only very privately, only within the sequestered confines of the giant conglomerate health insurance provider and denier in...where..midtown Manhattan? (where else?). Thompson, a regular looking guy with a very regular sounding name, met his end in a very irregular but melodramatic manner, gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel in broad daylilght by a hooded figure, after the fashion of a mafia crime family boss, which, many might assert, he in effect was. (Gambino family mafia Don Paul Castellano was gunned down outside a steak house in New YOrk in 1985. John Gotti allegdly ordered the hit, and later died in prsionfor ohter crimes). Now, this... The three infamous "D" words were found, printed or imprinted, on the bullet casings of those ejected after leaving their chamber and finding their destination. Neither the weapon nor the shooter has been found, but will be. The police know for certain the precise weapon still being carried, maybe, by the man or woman seeking martydom, perhaps not without some degree of justification, notwithstanding the poor choice of method. (Martyr murderers always have a reason, and a cause). Perhaps the gun person or somebody beloved of same had indeed been tripled D'd. Martydom could have been achieved merely by going without the necessary treatment or medication, but delayed. But where would the melodrama be, and the point made, in that? Justice delayed, and all that. First, find a reason, any reason will do, as long as it sounds even remotely defendable, then defend it, and support the defense by obtaining from the victim of denial a deposition, substantiating the corporate viewpoint by asking only questions to which their high powered corporate lawyers damned well know the answers, in advance. Similarliy denied and outraged people started posting their stories on Facebook, and they sounded convincing. At twelve year old daughter denied admittance to a hosptical, three Dee'd. A mother of three who died on the operating table, her claim processed too late, languishing, denied. On, and tragically on. The comments started coming in, many in favor of the murder. Then, of course, the moralistic backlash. I posted: "My complaints are with the fundamental structure and inherent for profit nature of the corporate health insurance industry, which, like nearly all major industries in the United States, is a virtual monopoly, the inadequacies of which must be addrssed and rectified, but which cannot be accomplished through murder of violence of any kind." As usual, I took pride in my eloquence, and nobility of purpose. The feedback which I got on social media was to me surprsingly sparse and disappointing, lacking in intensity and volume; I would not get my fifteen minutes of fame, not for this. People remained more interested in the murder itself, and in expressing their moral outrage, some against the violence, others in favor of the complaints precipitating it. Actual complaints against corporate greed and perfidy, I must presume, will be forthcoming, in a later episode. The complaints will not be sufficient to motivate us, our corparate masters, and their puppet politicans to do the right thing, not in this era of Trump and right wing Republican suzzerainty: socialize all industries which provide necessary goods and services, like food, water, and decent health care. We already have a good deal of socialized economics, and always have; we simply need somewhat more, a more healthy balance between capitalism,and socialism. But Until Bernie Sanders and the Democratic socialists come to power in these United States of Avarice, we'll have to wait at least a bit longer for economic and health care justice, and, as always, it will be, Deny, Defend, and Depose.

Explaining Trump, Emotionally

ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD is an eighty four year old sociology professor at U.C. Berkeley who, rather then retiring, continues her reaearch into and writing about the part which emotions,rather than reason and intellect, play in people's behavior,especially in the public arena, and especially, in her recent book, in voting for presidential candidates in the United States. A fascinating lecturer and excellent writer, she is the author of several such best selling monograpshs, and her latest: "Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right", joins a long line of attempts by people, which seems to include nearly all of us, attempting to answer by asking the question of the ages: precisely why and how in hell did we the American people elect a career criminal and reprobate, one Donald J. Trump, to the highest office in the land, not once, but twice, as if the first Trump experience were not sufficient to deter us from making the same mistake twice? She begins by asserting that both sides, the left and the right, are in denial about one thing of their choosing. Fair enough. By writing off Trump supporters as mereley stupid, wicked, racist, and poorly educated, anti - Trumpers deny that MAGA folk have a very real and to them very valid reason for their support of a New york City billionaire as the self proclaimed champion of the common man, of the forgotten man. Again, fair enough. Although it can be argued that there is plenty of room in the Trump explanation tent for all theories, great and small, it cannot be denied that there is more in Denmark than merely the rotten eggs Democrats seem to see smeared across MAGA call caps. And, abviously, white blue collar America has long been and still is looking for something, whatever it is, that they seem to think the progressive socialist Democrats have promised to provide them, but haven't. What the Republicans seem to be denying is that Trump is a criminal reprobate, which, one must admit, is a rather large white elephant, so to speak. For this book Dr. Hochschild spent time in appalachia, ground zero of white blue collar anger, in a Kentucky coal county, in the second poorest county in the country, where coal has dried up, and unemployment and crystal meth infest the wooded hills and hollers like maggots on a pile of cow dung. Proud people, with once stable middle class incomes and families, reduced to poverty and shame, at the loss of their livelihoods and self respect. So along comes Trump, blowing hot, exhorting us to "bring back coal". Sounds mighty fine to country and small town folks who care not a whit about climate change, but simply want their jobs and houses back. All well and good, but what the author fails to address is, notwithstanding the fact that all this grievance and anger is quite legit, is how they, or anyone else, can possibly believe that a pathological liar with big city money bags and weird overdone hair can possibly help or has any interest in actually helping them, which he most assuredly, demonstrably does not. But they don't care about that; the blatant immorality, criminality, and verbal idiocy. What they care about is simply that Trump is "different" than the rest of them, and that he talks straight to them, in simplistic terms, using one syllable words they can understand. And, he seems as angry and confused as they are. And, well, who else is there? Well, there is Bernie Sanders, there is taxing the billionaires, there is reistributing the wealth, but, the problem with that is that all that has a name which Trump can easily use to deflate it all, and that word is the one word in the English language other than "landlord" which sends good capitalistic freedom lovin' Christian country folk into paroxysms of whiskey rage. That one word is the one word which big city corporate billionaires have managed to equate sucessfully with the devil himself; socialism.

Calling Genocide Genocide

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, crown jewel in the progressive treasure chest and bane of hard ass conservative white supremicist Christian nationalists, has finally, after exhaustive in country documentation and research, finally, at long last, belatedly, deigned to call a spade a spade,as it were. Genocide is now genocide in Gaza. I, and presumably millions of other less than percipient televised news watchers, probably could have told them that, oh, months ago. You wonder what Hamas was thinking. You always did. You know what Israel is thinking, and always was. It is this: Now, we have the pretext we have long sought; a pretext for the elimination of arch enemy Hamas, and the horses they rode in on, namely, the Palestinian people. Hamas was and is willing to precipitate the extermination of the people over whom it allegedly governs and whom it laughably claims to protect, all for its own glorification and martyrdom. The butcher of Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu, is quite willing to oblige, believing, like any normal right wing ideologue-demagogue, that he can justify the unjustifiable with platitudes and bombs, predictably. The United States, Biden or no Biden, is content to assist in the Israeli genocidal project, and to issue lame press releases of meek condemnation and threats of fewer gift bombs and bullets for use by the murderers. In other words, to stand by, stand back, and do...nothing.. There is, as the astute like to say, more than enough blame to go around. Blame lord Balfour. Blame the British. Blame the failure of the Hebrews and the Christians to unite in the fommation of a single, unified religion, dedicated to the glorification and love of the monotheistic deity. Truman Capote, the great gay writer whose seminal 1966 novel "In Cold Blood" detailed the true story of the vicious, senseless murder of the Clutter family in rural Kansas, wrote the novel to make a point. Its not the point that many think it is, that killing is bad, that many misread, and keep misreading. The point is not that brutal murders of a livng wholesome family is a bad thing. After all, we all, including Truman Capote, already knew that. The point is that we are all, as a species, as a supposedly civilized intelligent group of beings, participatants in all that we create, and all that we bestow upon the world. No, this in no way abrogates our individual responsibility for or individual actions. We act, and we experience the consequences thereof. The point is that we are all complicit, we are all a part, whether great or small, of the enormous panorama we call "the human experience", to wit, of the societies we create in which love, hope, despair, and gratuitous violence all play a part. Every single one of us is directly responsible for every murder which ever takes place, and for every noble act of the heart and soul nobly enacted by every loving human entity who ever walked across the face of the Earth. Truman capote said this, straight to Johnny's face, straight to all our faces, live and in livng color on the Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson. We all killed the Clutter family, all of us, together, as a unit. Carson sat and looked straight into the eyes of Truman capote, and neither winked, nodded, nor offered a smart ass hilarious dry witted rejoinder. Johnny Carson was transfixed, impressed, duly. So was I, if also a bit bemused, for I was only a teenager at the time. So it turns out that genocide is still genocide, and that we are all responsible for it, anywhere and every where it happens. Truman Caopte, I think, had a point. So did Bertolt Brechet, perhaps, when he wrote in a poem "There shall remain of our cities but the wind that blew through them"... All that remains for us is to hope and pray that Bertolt Brecht was wrong, and that we, with our weak and transitory powers of action, can finally make it so.

France, Collapsing, the Enemy, Within

FRANCE, for the first time since 1962, has experienced a complete collapse of it parliamentary form of government. Now,a new government will have to be organized and mandated to govern. This will require compromise,no easy task in European countries nowadays, just as in the Unted States. In 1962 the issues involved the dispostion of France's far flung colonial empire in the post World War Two era of colony's demands for national sovereignty and independence from their long time European masters, as well as the governance of war hero Charles DeGaulle,among other conerns. This time, the issues involved are almost exclusively financial, as the French economy, again remindful of the American, sinks into ever deepening debt, with high interest payments neeeded to service it. In the ancient republic,once again as in these United States, a sharp national political polarization has left the nation with an extremist far right wing commumity, both in and out of the government, and a leftist democratic socialist movement, with its political leaders equally intransigent, unwielding. All too familiar to Americans. But in France, unlike in America, there is also a relatively strong moderate faction, a fact which, unlike in America, offers hope of reason and compromise. Problem is, all three factions unabashedly despise each other, and all three offer distinctly different and irreconcilable solutions to the nation's various looming financial crises, dimming all remaining hope of reconciliation and problem solving. This is nothing other than polarization, prouct of our narrowing minds, something about which we the American people know a thing or two, or should. Everybody goes to their side of the battle field, forms a protective bubble around themelves, isolated, in insular fashion, from all who dare disagree, a bubble of false contentment among sycophants and yes men. Nothing ventured,nothing gained, nothing accomplished, no problems solved, as we lay lurking in waiting, waiting for that one moment of opportunity, when we might sneak out from behind our barricaded sense of security, and, undetected, seek out and destroy the enemy. What is not desroyed, and what engendered the present set of circumstances and cannot be vanquished, is the most formidable enemy of all, the enemy within, the enemy within us all. We have gathered up our arms,and weaponized to our hearts content, have retreated behind our lines of battle, into our fortresses of safe despair. In his epic peoem "The Wasteland", written in 1922 by T.S. Eliot, who was born in St Louis but moved when young to England, Eliot captures perfectly, in five sections with 422 lines of intense,elegant poetry, the abject despair and hopelessness which festered in western civilization and culture following the senseless, useless destrucion of Word War One. The war to end all wars was caused by nothing, fought over nothing, produced nothing, ad ended nothing, other than hope and human happpiness, and gave us only destruction, death, and despair on a colossal scale. WE still feel the effects of it today. Today seems very much like the aftermath of the Great War, or perhaps like the prelude to another war to end all wars. A war of the spirit and the soul, fought with insults, venom, hatred, and lies. Our modern wars, said Goethe, make everyone miserable while they last, and noone happy when they are finally finished. WE inherent what we create, and our legacy is our foolish folly. Our fear, arrogance, and conceit are our enemies within ourelves. They create nothing, and they destroy everything, including ourselves. Utter deslolation, without even the faint hope of redemption. "This is the end, my beautiful friend", said Jim Morrison, dead at twenty seven, buried in France. Or, as Eliot said in "The Wasteland": "I will show you fear, in a handful of dust".

Wanting Trump Dead

WHEN DONALD TRUMP descended the golden escalator in Trump tower in the summer of 2015, slandered immigrants, and announced his bid for the presidency, I decided to give him a chance. Fresh blood, a new experience, business acumen. The chance lasted about two weeks. His ceaseless slandering, including calling Ted Cruz "lying Ted", alerted me to his negativity, dishonesty, and cruelty. I knew from the beginning that I would ultimately vote for and support Hillary Clinton, who I still consider the most qualified presidential candidate in American history, who would not only have been a great first woman president, but would have been a great president. Now, of course, we'll never know. "Thou shalt speak no ill of a fellow Republican" spoke the intellectually mediocre but nominally honorable Ronald Reagan. In retrospect, the arguably corrupt Reagan now seems like a saint, much as despised and still despise him, by comparison to you know who. When Trump won the election of 2016 I, like millions of people, was devasted. Somewhere deep down, I still am. Every day during his first administration that Trump remained in office, I grew to despise him more. His constant lies. His criminality. His stupidity. Then, the piece de resistance; the big election lie, the insurrection, and the widespread Republican support of it all. That was when I, a lifelong Democrat, turned my aversion to Trump to outright, abject, unmitigated hatred. That is when my aversion to conservatism and the Republican party turned into venemous, relentless hatred. Just the other day I posted, on an anti-Trump website: "I despise Trump more than John Wilkes Booth despised Abraham Lincoln".Then, after a moment's reflection, and wanting to avoid jail time, I added: "I do not kill". Gotta have that disclaimer. And yes, I meant every word, except perhaps for the no kill clause. The remark, as one might have expected,drew immediate attention,almost all positive, from this band of approximately thirty two thusand Trump haters. It also drew fire from the other side, the dark side. I received he usual death threats, mostly on this website, some in email, some via smart phone texts. Ho hum. Real killers tend not to issue death threats as warnings. I have no idea how these MAGA reprobates always get my ever changing telephone number, much less summon the intelligence necessary to form a complete sentence. On second thought, their death threatening sentences are never complete, nor grammatically correct. More like grade school blather. As we say; "go figure". But again, I mean every word. I want Donald Trump dead, deader than the proverbial door nail. In the long run, I want all of us dead, simply because God seems to, but Trump? Well, he's in a special category. The "man" is..what...seventy eight? Aint that long enough, long enough for who is arguably the most reprehensible piece of garbage of a human being I have ever beheld in my nearly seventy years of life on Earth? The answer, in a nutshell,, is yes. The average life span in these United States, post Covid, stands at seventy six. So, Don the Con has had a fair shot, two years beyond stanard issue. I want him dead, of natural causes, before he ever agin sullies the acred halls and walls of the White House with his ketchup and immoral stench, period. I speak German, at about a middle school level, for years I taught European history, and I plan to visit Germany, as early as next summer. Had I been alive and Germany in the nineteen thirties, I would, at some point, have wanted Hitler dead. I'm not sure when, quite possibly within a few hours of his election to German Chancellor in January of 1933. Definitely before Von Stauffenburg planted a bomb under Der Fuhrer's butt in the summer of forty four, far too late, and succeeded only in partially paralyzing the puritanical tea totaling fink. Assuming that Trump, horror of horrors, manages to serve out his second term, Grover Cleveland like, without putting a pistol to his mouth and pulling the trigger, oh happy thought, five'll get you ten that, like Hitler's cult zombies, the tattered remnants of the MAGA mob will keep their shrines to Trump and putrid red ball caps intact, unto their own ignominious demises. There are still "people" who insist that Hitler wasn't all that bad a guy, had some good ideas, and all that blather. Among them is, predicatably, Donald Trump. So it shall ever be with Trump, and MAGA. It is what it is, as we so insipidly like to say these days. No,I do not kill, which is a far cry from saying that I haven't thought about it, or that I don't want to. I never ever in my life had the faintest idea that I would come to hate anybody as much as I hate donald J. Trump. It doesn't feel good, and is contrary to my nature,but there's no point, at this point, in denying it. I want Donald Trump dead, by any means necessary, preferably by natural causes, preferably by God.

Jesus, Ruling the Universe

Editor's Note: All essays published in The Truthless Reconciler are rough drafts, and are published as they are written, one sentence at at a time, in their raw form, wthout revision or editing. The reader can literally watch them being written, and can view them at all stages of their composition. At times we omit proof reading, to ensure and maintain their complete originality.... I CAN"T RECALL the context of the Facebook post, but it struck me, as I'm sure it did many people, as rather fantastic, not in a flattering way. Facebook is alluring in that over time you can structure what they give you by merely expressing your preferences; they aim to please,and to manipulate, and exploit, and maybe a few other unsavory things. Rumors abound. I just try to stay above the fray, and stick to bashing conservatives, trying to bring down Trump, and promoting this website. Oh, and maybe a girl chase here and there, just for fun...but, I digress. I like to look at cats, big and small, scenic beauty,and astrophotography, and Facebook knows it. So, we're both happy. It must have been one of those gorgeous, awe inspiring astrophotographs, of the sort we see so many of, thanks to the Hubble and Webb telescopes. I gave up my favorite hobby of my youth, astronomy, partly because, even as early as the nineteen seventies, the big telescopes were putting me to shame, and making it easy for me just to grab a book, and admire from the comfort of my couch, instead of spending frigid winter nights and sweltering mosquito infested summer nights out under the stars, searching, straining my eyes, losing sleep. Now, I just grab a computer. These pictures all can inspire a sense of almost religious reverence, for creation, by whomever. So it was hardly surprising when a deeply religions person chimed in, a person who could with justification be called a "religious fanatic". What he typed in, obviously inspired but seemingly unprovoked, was: "Humanity's ultimate, unbelievable destiny is to rule the universe, not by man's (or woman's?) will, but by God's,through Jesus Christ. Anyone can reach the end of the universe who loves Christ." Full stop. Then he, made reference to somethng called "The Seven Missions of Jesus", as if it were a book, which perhaps it is. I had always thought the expression was simply a matter of theology, but maybe its a book now too.. As they say: "what do I know?". Very little, it would seem, compared to whomever wote this especially "intriguing" Facebook comment. If nothing else,he got one thing right:the part about "unbelievable". What he was trying to do was to find a way to reconcile (I love that word) his religion, with our actual modern, new and improved knowledge of the universe, the real one, not the one depicted in that quaint and curious collection of ancient manuscripts the Christians put so much undeserving stock in. The one which alternately describes stars as little glass trinkets hanging from the dome of heaven, which, at the end of days, will fall and smash to pieces on the flat Earth, as such glass trinkets are prone to do, and/or pin prick puncture holes in aforementioned heavenly dome, through which the glaring blazing light of heaven blindingly shines. That one. One would have to wear some serious sunglaees in heaven, it seems. The larger the real universe becomes, the smaller the Christian one becomes. Christians of the devout kind are and have forever been twisting their minds and theologies into veritable pretzels,using pretzel logic, as Steely Dan might say, to reconcile (again, that lovely word) their biblical but outdated version of reality with reality. Bless their dogmatic hearts. Knock themsevles out,as we say in boxing circles and acedemia. Why they don't just give up the epistomologically hopeless ghost and update their religion to suit modern reality - well, we all know why. They can't. They just can't. We cling to our illusions tenaciously, all of us. And, as Goethe said, we should let all of us do precisely that, stumble along in a perpetual voyage of discovery by trial and error, as we tend, at an early age, to do with children. And so, to our Christian brethren and sistern, Jesus Christ of Nazerath either goes from planet to planet, all across the universe, sacrificing himself over and over again for the sins of billions of species of extraterrestrial beings (one would get tired of that, one would think), doesn't give a hang for any intelligent species other than yours truly, very flattering to us but seemingly very unlikely. Or,most frightening of all, came to Earth only because only Earth harbors intelligent life. With Homosapines destined, htrough christ, to rule over the entire universe, we can safely wager which of these alternatives the writer of the Facebook embreaces. Butone quick question> If we the human species is inded all that the universe has to offer,heaven help teh unverse,why then, what need is their for us to reach out into it, and ultimately, unbelievably onquer it,in the name of Jesus Christ or anyone else? Don't w, in effect already onw and control it, sans resistence. Or rather, doesn't Jesus already own and control it? If not we through him,who else/

Changing the Climate, Despite Denials

CLIMATE SCIENCE, like meteorology, is rather complicated, which is why weather forecasting has always been and remains inexact,or, as some would say, unreliable. During my lifetime, however, the local weathermen and women have vastly improved their predictive capabilities, thanks to advances in science, including commputer modeling and satellite launching. The most recent studies,just released,indicate that the warming of the atmosphere is proceeding at a rate much higher than scientists previously believed, particularly in the polar regions, alarmingly. The scientific complexities of climate science might have something to do with why conservatives often reject it, why they reject science generally in preference to blind religious faith. Also, of course, since the stark reality of climate change necessitates great change in human politics and economics to eliminate it, conservatives, by nature opposed to change, clinging to comfortable tradition, are quite naturally resistant to accepting this reality. Science adances. We learn more. One of hte remaining, lingering questions about the impact of climate change has only recently been answered. Does the frequency, intensity, size, and severity of hurricanes and tropical storms increase because of it? The answer is "yes, they do". Because of climate change, what would otherwise have been a "Category One" hurricane in the absence of climate change is now a "Category Two". And a hurricane season which would normally have featured five named hurricanes now features six. The increase in the number of hurricanes has not been verified as conclusively as the increase in their severity. However, it has been established, to the satisfaction of climate scientists, if not evangelical Christian conservatives. NASA scientist James Hanson delivered the first formal, dire warning about human caused climate change to Congress in 1988. Einstein and others were aware of it before World War Two. Einstein even thought it might be a good idea,to increase agricultural output. Some scientists had figured out by 1900 that all the coal dust lingering above European cities in the late nineteenth century would ultimately, inevitably trap heat and cause global warming. European cities were generally inundated in, bathed in smog througout the nineteenth century. In a four day period in London in 1852, several thousand Londoners dropped dead on the streets as a massive cloud of coal smoke lingered over the city, and near total darkness was unbroken by sunlight. Although we can't say that we weren't warned and didn't know, many still do. One of the most prevelant and fatuous conservative claims in denial of climate change is that we used to say that carbon dioxide was the culprit; now we say that carbon is. We used to call it "global warming". Now we call it "climate change". It seems that these minor changes in terminoogy, intended only to offer clarity and greater simplicity to the ignorant deniers, are proof of a conspriacy among scientists, the liberal media, and perhaps the Russians and Chinese to create an artificial crisis, a "hoax", as a pretext for government control of every aspect of our otherwise ideal fossil fuel burning lives. The sheer idiocy of these "objections" is apparent, but typical of conservative thinking. Perhaps the most fatuous of all religious conservative denials of our impending doom is the one which says that since the Lord is going to return to Earth soon, climate change doesn't really matter, and is a "non issue". Most alarming of all is that, as the recent election establishes, these alarming benighted people are soon coming to power in the United States, which will undoubtedly bring to a halt, at least for four crucial years, all American particpation in efforts to solve clear and present danger, the current and encroaching climate crisis. As an ancient Greek philosopher said: "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. Yesterday I moticed that iris shoots have sprung up above ground in my yard, in December. Go figure.

Being A Traitor, To Trump

I AM A TRAITOR to the United States in the same way that those who opposed Hitler in Germany were traitors to Germany. WE the American people got a good dose of Trump before, then a pleasant respite, and now we prepare to endure him, in all his reprehensible immoral criminality, yet again. When he left office the first time, amid a cloud of insurrection and impeachment, the thought that he would ever be backin power was unthinkable. At that time he seemed to be on his way to multi criminal convictions and probably incarceration, but, like some devilish Houdini, he worked the system, using delay and legal distratction tactics, to run out the clock, while his cult following remained loyal and entranced, perhaps by the sheer power of his spectacular evil, a reflection of their own. The Republican party became his cult, in the public,as well as in all three branches of government. Trump and Congress stacked the Supreme Court with their own kind, and they dutifully rewarded him by declaring him above the law. The American sytem of justice was thus, as it has been many times before, exposed as a sham, a system of the the rich and powerful, by the rich and powerful, made for them, built by them. In retrospect, it now seems likely that even had he not been reelected president, that he would have eluded justice. Just as the poor and the dark skinned are given less justice in the supposed land of the free, and always have been, so the rich, famous, and powerful accorded more. It eventuated that opposing Hitler was the patriotic course of action in Germany, not the treasonous traitorous. So it already seems regarding Trump,a failed insurrectionist traitor who, in Hitlerian, phoenix like fashion, has risen from apparent political death to political power. Just as the United States has always eschewed equal justice under law, making a mockery of it while proclaiming fidelity to it by engraving it on the Supreme Court buiding, so has it always brought shame upon iself, by founding itself in genocide and slave labor. As Thomas Jefferson said: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever". We who oppose Trump opppose him and his MAGA cult in almost exactly the same way that the Germans who opposed Hitler and his NAZI party gang members resisted fascism. Now it is our turn to fight against encroaching fascism. There is one one major difference: in the United States, opposition to power and dissent are still recogized as legitimate forms of expression. In NAZI Germany they were criminal acts. Powerful men have tried to criminalize dissent and opposition to power in the United States before. John Adams made it illegal to critizice him while president, and Thomas Jefferson reversed this infamous un-american "Alien and Sedition Act". Abraham Lincoln became a tyrant, perhaps by perceived necessity, when he suspended the habeas corpus law, so foundational to a system of justice base on law. And then, of course, there was the notorious F.D. Roosevelt locking up of more than a hundred thosuand American ciizens, for the "crime" of being of Japanese descent. Just as it was in NAZI Germany, it is Trump who is the traitor, and his opponents who are the patriots. This will become evident to all soon enough, if it isn't already. We can expect Trump to follow in the footsteps of John Adams and Abraham Lincoln in attempting to silence dissent and punish his opponents. It is up to his opponents to stand firm against this forthcoming onslaught against their liberty, to prevail in their sacred mission to destroy Trump and his malignant MAGA minions,and, if it is the will of God, to preserve what freedom, liberty, and equal justice under law still exist or have ever existed in these United States.