Trying To Figure Out Trump, The Constitution, and the Court

THERE WAS ONCE A TIME, not so very long ago, when American conservatives tended to believe that the constitution of the United States of America is sacred, inviolable, carved in stone, and that all decisions made by all the courts across freedom's land should be predicated very strictly upon the literal truth and meaning of the sacred document, and that only the original intent of the authors of the constitution should be taken into consideration in rendering justice from the judicial bench. James Madison, who stood five feet four, dressed entirely in black each and every day, was nicknamed "little Jemmy", and wrote the constitution based upon earlier documents which prevailed among the former colonies, most notably Virginia, is never mentioned specifically by the "strict constructionists", quite likely because they are not aware that he wrote the constitution. Madison, however, like his friend and mentor Thomas Jefferson, firmly believed, ironically, that his document was destined to be in use for a generation or two, then replaced by an updated version, and he certainly understood that the very act of reading words on paper requires interpretation, no matter how fervently one might wish to believe that they are chiseled into stone, and not parchment, and that it is possible, when reading words on paper, to somehow know exactly what the person who wrote them was thinking. Madison also feared that a "bill of rights" might be superfluous, forgotten, and ignored. Then came Trump, threatening to issue an executive order abolishing the fourteenth amendment. Since its inception, the Supreme Court has consisted of a small group of legal scholars with very strange attitudes towards the law. At one point the court defined human beings who were slaves as property, rather then people. Although the high court has tended to avoid the issue, it now seems to believe that corporations are human beings. The court seems confused about what human beings are. It used to strike down minimum wage and work place regulations like fly swatters swatting flies. It no longer does this, but might soon begin again. Little wonder that President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to add so many members to the high court that it would be an incoherent mob, ineffective, impotent, and malleable. These days nobody is allowed to become a member of the Supreme court without being a card carrying conservative. The high court has become, as they say, "politicized". Actually, its always been politicized. President Thomas Jefferson invited Aaron Burr to dinner, not long after Burr had murdered Alexander Hamilton in a childish duel, to try to persuade the still Vice President Burr to favor removing Supreme Court associate justice Samuel Chase from the court - for being too politically biased. Chase was impeached, but not removed. Burr was of no help, so he lost his job as Vice President, and lived the rest of his life in ignominious hiding, after a brief attempt to start his own empire. Ignominious not because Chase remained on the court, but because he (Burr) had killed the popular Hamilton. Jefferson, who hated Hamilton but did not like Burr either, probably approved of Burr's killing of Hamilton, although he never said one way or another. One can rest assured that if Trump signs his, shall we say, highly questionable executive order abolishing the fourteenth amendment, he will be supported by the American conservative community, which does not like immigrants, and can dispense with strict constructionist original intentism at the drop of a gavel. The whole affair might make it all the way to today's Supreme Court, where the issue will be decided by a group of legal scholars with strange opinions about words on paper, two of whom sit on the court despite the likelihood that they are former sexual predators. And who knows how people like Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas might rule? The fourteenth amendment might be gone, as they say, with the wind. If we are jurisprudently fortunate, we won't all lose our citizenship amid the jurisdictional confusion, even those of us who were born here.

Rolling Back The Constitution

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, it is rumored, intends to issue an executive order rescinding the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. constitution, in particular the clause in which it is stipulated that anyone born on American soil is a full citizen of the United States, and entitled to any and all benefits, rights, and privileges deriving therefrom. Or something to that effect. The fourteenth amendment was of course enacted shortly after the conclusion of the Civil war, a period of time in which the so called "radical republicans" in congress, in passing the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fourteenth amendments, sought to foster a newly conceived nation in which all people are considered to have inalienable, and unalienable (your choice) rights as human beings. These three amendments can collectively be regarded as the most magnanimous part of the constitution, as noble in intent as the original bill of rights, which, ironically, its authors, principally James Madison, feared would be ignored, and therefore irrelevant. The Republican party originated as a liberal political party, predicated on the noble idea of halting the extension of slavery into newly constituted states, the "free soil party". My, how things have changed. By the late nineteenth century the party had been captured by big business, and thus imprisoned it remains today. Behold our current Republican party; determined to press forth with a xenophobic agenda,, hostile to immigrants, and now, to the newly born babies of illegal immigrants. the president evidently thinks himself capable of nullifying constitutional provisions at will, through executive order. Exactly where he got this bizarre notion will likely be lost in the mists of future history, which, in all truth, cannot come soon enough. The process by which changes are made to the constitution are quite clearly enumerated within the document itself, and do not include executive orders issued by would be tyrants. The president asserts that any child born to illegal parents on American soil receives eighty five years of the benefits of American citizenship, unjustly. He omits mention of the details, inconvenient to his argument, that the same child spends a lifetime working, producing wealth, and paying taxes, thus sharing the wealth she produces.What else might one expect from a chief executive who beholds a group of hungry, desperate children desperately trying to survive, and describes it as "an invasion". The president should not be impeached; he should be laughed out of office, and out of sight of decent human society.

Competing For God

A COMMENTATOR, commenting on the Pittsburgh tragedy, remarked that anti-Semitism is the oldest form of hatred in the world. This supposition is highly dubious; one can easily imagine various sects within early Hinduism contending for supremacy in ancient India, long before the advent of western civilization or the emergence of any of the Abrahamic religions, or even easier one can imagine neanderthals and Cro-Magnon primates, filled with tribal hatred, fighting it out in the primordial forests of Europe forty thousand years ago. Nonetheless, her point is well taken; anti-Semitism goes back a long way, long enough, and pervasively enough to rank, regrettably, as a core value of western civilization. Anti-Semitism originated within the Jewish faith itself; among the various tribes which existed before most of them vanished into the mists, so to speak, of history. religious hatred is a religious matter. The early Christians, who began as a splinter groups of former Jews, aroused the ire of mainstream Judaism in the first century after Christ, and very rapidly, as the new religion spread spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean Christendom fragmented into numerous small groups, each claiming to be the true messengers of Christ. religious disputation and conflict arrives early and often; wherever you find religion, you find internal conflict, as well as conflict between religions. Anti-Semitism has swept across Europe on a regular basis throughout the centuries, as the christian faith become dominant throughout Europe, spreading across the continent with the expediency of the communications channels of the Roman Empire. the common denominator in hatred of jew is; Christians. Christians rejoice in their salvation through the blood of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and yet, many of them blame the sacrifice on the Jews as if it were avoidable, and as if the Romans had nothing to do with it. To blame it on the Jews can be seen as a way of giving them credit for facilitating the very act which made the Christian faith possible. I have never known an atheist who harbors any particular animosity towards Jews, or any other form of religious worship, but merely refrained from believing in God, believing instead that belief in God is a superstition, a primordial response to the difficulties of life, a fantasy. people who are not religious tend not to disparage any particular religious tradition or even religion itself; they merely see religion as a primitive form of human culture which will eventually wither away as human kind advances to a more enlightened state of being. On behalf of atheism, if everyone were an atheism, anti-Semitism would never have existed in the first place.

Coming To Terms With Our Divided Selves

IT ITS WORTH NOTING that the United States of America has always, to one degree or another, been divided. The very idea of declaring independence from the British empire caused extreme division. Between 1776 and 1781 tens of thousands of Americans loyal to England left the United States, never to return. Of those who remained, a large percentage were strongly opposed to the Revolutionary War, which they considered, quite rightly, treasonous. Then, of course, came the "Civil War". In every state which seceded, there was at least one county which refused to secede. In America, internal divisions are ubiquitous. There was a large faction opposed to entry into both world wars, and throughout much of the nineteenth century tens of thousands of women marched to outlaw alcohol and to legalize women's suffrage. Discord between labor and capital management is a fundamental feature of the American economy. The divisions associated with Viet Nam scarcely need mentioning. Many of us are old enough to remember that nightmare well. The notion that there was once upon a time a contented and united states of America is as false as the notion that there was once a time when American public political discourse was civil; no such animal ever existed. The notion that we ought to return to a happier time of contentment is false, simply because there has never been a happier time of contentment and domestic tranquility. The United States exists, alas, in a permanent state of turmoil and internal conflict. Much is made of today's divided climate. It is estimated that ten to twelve percent of conservatives and eight to ten percent of liberals have no interest in ideologically uniting the country, but are only interested in defeating the other side. I have one foot firmly planted in the intransigent sphere. I simply cannot respect anyone who refuses to accept human made climate change as a clear and present danger, nor do I consider xenophobia, and the vilification of immigrants as detrimental to America as having validity. Nor, for that matter, do neo-liberal supply side economics seem at all acceptable to me. All these things i wish to defeat, completely. But at least I'm willing to compromise on gun ownership rights and the need to discourage abortion. That's a start, if nothing else. There may never be a time when the United States is a truly a united country, and it may be best that way. But one can at least hope for some improvement in our hate filled culture, and hope and work for a better time when the hatred is ameliorated by education, tolerance, and mutual understanding.

Standing Up, and Blowing Up, For Trump

THE GUY WITH THE BIG MUSCLES who liked to show off his arms, was, according to people who knew him, somewhat of a kid in the body of a man. One of these people, who as a kid might have been over exposed to America's leisurely recreational wealth, who kind of got the idea that skating and coasting through life was the best way to go. One of those ambition free folks. No problem with that, until it turns to listless anger, and lashes out harmfully at others. He's pushing sixty, and people pushing sixty probably ought to think less about body building and looking like Adonis, and more in terms of health, and ameliorating the ravages of age, which arrive in every life. Also, pushing sixty, its not a bad idea to have some home equity, some life savings, some economic stability, more than just living in a van, like one might do in one's early twenties in the late nineteen sixties. The pipe bomb stunt, and the political decor of his live in vehicle can be seen as a cry for attention, an attempt to gain some measure of status and respect in a society which does not give it automatically, which rewires some tangible accomplishment. Showing up at the beach in late middle age wearing tight tank tops does not gain one status in America. he should have done that in high school. Admittedly, however, if it did anywhere, America is where it would be. The pipe bombs, the FBI assures us, were not phony. They were, however, ineptly made, as if their true intent was not to explode, but to draw attention. This guy wanted to either be caught, or be recognized, by somebody, anybody, for fighting his glorious war against liberals. He is an ultra conservative. Hatred of blacks, Jews, gays, liberals, women in power, the whole nine yards. That's what extreme conservatism becomes, (just ask the KKK), just as extreme liberalism becomes communist utopia. Cesar Sayoc could have taken pride in his cool name, and left it at that. The same is true of "Trump". Both men care more about adulation from others than about actual achievement, social concerns, or political agendas. No, Donald Trump is not responsible for Cesar Sayoc; not at all. But when the president of the United States applauds body slamming, leads chants of "lock her up", and encourages people to beat up other people, all of which he has done in front of millions of people, and then this overgrown little boy has Trump plastered all over his vehicle, and Hillary and Obama in cross hairs, and anger at the exact same things against which Trump has repeatedly railed, there is a connection, a tragic connection.

Chickens, Coming Home To Roost

GUATEMALA IS A POOR COUNTRY today in large part because of United States foreign policy. That foreign policy, in essence, consists of making the world safe for American corporate investment and exploitation. The pattern has repeated itself many times. For precise descriptions of specific examples of American corporate involvement in poor countries, consult the writings of Noam Chomsky, or Joseph Stiglitz. In 1954 Guatemala elected a socialistic populist president, Jacobo Arbenz, who came to power promising to instigate land reforms, to break up the huge estates of the ultra wealthy, and to distribute land among the peasants to provide them an opportunity to earn a decent living. Twas unacceptable to the United States, which always prefers the corporate concentrated wealth approach because it is governed by the corporate wealthy, and which never met a socialist foreign leader it thought worthy or remaining in power. The United States of Avarice prefers the right wing, pro capitalistic sort of strong man ruler in poor countries. They tend to be amenable to American corporate involvement in their countries. The United fruit Company wanted the farmland of Guatemala for itself, so, in a joint operation with the CIA, corporate America overthrew Arbenz, ended his land reforms, and paved the way for the production of wealth and its distribution, directly into the hands of the wealthy corporate elite. Guatemala has been impoverished ever since. Not only is it hardly surprising that Guatemalans would seek new opportunity in the United States, it is, in a very real sense, appropriate. The same is true with every other country south of the Rio Grande; they have all been victimized by American corporate sponsored military and economic aggression and greed. The United States made its intention known very early; in 1823, with the Monroe doctrine. We decided early on that we wanted central and south American to be our plaything, and no one else's. So here comes the caravan, inching closer, evidently dwindling in numbers as it moves northward, serving as a political tool for America's far nationalistic right, who act as if the desperate people walking north are nothing but animals, or scum. The far right can now act like real bad asses, with Trump leading the hatred, as usual. Africa and Latin America are producing the people that places like Europe and the United States need to continue functioning, but the conservatives are too busy trying to prove that they aren't racists to even notice. Immigrants do not take other people's jobs; they create new wealth and jobs, but, again, who has time to notice facts when busy ramping up hatred against imaginary threats?

Toning It Down, Getting On Board

THE PEOPLE WHO RECEIVED BOMBS in the mail appear to be a who's who list of all the people that president Trump despises, and has spent the last couple of years vilifying. Hillary, Obama, and a few others. Also CNN got their bomb in the mail, the network which Trump has repeatedly accused of propagating "fake news". The bomb sending pattern clearly indicates a person behind it who is loyal and faithful to Trump, and believes every hateful word our hate spewing president utters. Trump either realized this, or, much more likely, somebody shoved the facts in his face hard enough that the message got through; his hateful angry words can cause others to become hateful, angry, and deadly dangerous, even to the point of attempted murder. The President's comments regarding the necessity of civility are to be commended; he said and did the right thing, for once. Now, if only he would start living up to his own words, start practicing what he preaches. Trump has emotional problems, it is obvious from his behavior. There has been, since he began running for president, far too much anger and hatred from him. When he first announced his candidacy, I was excited, wanting some new political blood. But I soon grew tired of his rhetoric, and I still am. I turned from a Trump supporter, if only for a couple of weeks, into a resister, one of millions who believes the best remedy is to vote Trump and Trumpism out of the White House, out of Congress, out of politics. There is a relatively new organization, called "Vote Common Good", which is Christian in its orientation, and made up largely of evangelicals who have become disenchanted at the evangelical support for a man as un Christian as Trump, and his agenda. Their purpose seems to be to vote the Republicans out of office, although they do not identify as hard core, fire breathing democrats or liberals, not at all. This group is willing to point out the obvious, the white elephant standing in the room; that Trump and the Republican party agenda have nothing in common with Christian values, values such as helping the poor, welcoming the stranger, and being good caretakers of God's Earth. Its like Vote Common Good is trying to embrace progressive values, without declaring themselves progressive. And that is exactly what America needs; an awareness on the part of the Christian community that the teachings of Jesus are progressive; sharing wealth, renouncing war and conflict, helping each other, not tariffs, trade wars, and tax cuts for the rich. Welcome aboard, evangelicals.

Stopping Ignoring

I BELIEVE IN, or rather I know, empirically, that human made climate change is real. I have three reasons, and I shall attempt to name them in order of importance. First, I have had chemistry classes. Not many; I'm not a good chemistry student, but enough to understand the basics of climate change, which are very real. Secondly, all the experts say its real, and I believe the experts. By "expert" I mean scientist, science teacher, or person educated in science. And thirdly, I believe in climate change because I see it, every day, where I live, and I suspect that most other, if not all other people see it also. The chemistry is simple: seven hundred fifty billion tons of man made carbon in the atmosphere, which stays there, twenty four seven, retaining heat. Its unavoidable, this conclusion, this reality, because its so simple, and provable. The overwhelming consensus within the scientific community is another indication of the truth of global warming. Scientists always try to disprove each other's theories, ans when one sticks, it sticks, for real. Climates change is real, because, if nothing else, so many people can finally see it as real. It has been obvious, and provable, for two hundred years, climate change, but, its been ignored. Everybody can understand basic chemistry. Anyone can see for herself that the climate has changed. And anyone can figure out that when all the people who know the most about something say the same thing, its probably true. Perfectly intelligent people claim, with confidence, that climate change is merely cyclical, and natural, and will return to its normal state soon. The president himself has said this. It sounds good, and intelligent, but..it isn't. Earth's climate is not going to return to its "normal" state, because the carbon in the atmosphere is not going away. In fact, its still increasing, although w must soon make it decrease, or face extinction. This crazy idea that there's nothing that we want or should want to do about climate change, because climate change is natural...is sheer lunacy. We must reject climate change Trumpism, and replace it with sanity. It is absolutely stark raving crazy for the United States to have, in 2018, leadership which does not accept climate change.

Striding To America

THE CARAVAN IS COMING. Its inching its way north, up the Mexican map towards the United States. I saw some video of it on TV, and actually the caravan seems to be striding along fast, hiking as a very good speed, young, healthy, fast paced walkers, from what I saw. Most of them are just kids. They - the ones I saw on television - had a very confident stride, and a very determined look to them, as if they are on a mission from God, striding towards America with a glorious purpose, despite all odds. I wouldn't bet against them making it here. And then what? Will Trump have them arrested, locked up, and treated like criminals? Mexico evidently has no intention of stopping them, and turning them back, as it obviously could do. If it were going to, it would have done so by now. Or, maybe the Mexican government will think about it, and decide not to buck Trump, and his threats. Trump is making dire economic threats against mexico if it doesn't stop the caravan; Mexico seems determined to defy America's Don. From every conceivable angle, the best option is to accept them, give them whatever they need, probably food, clothing, and shelter, just a wild guess. Find out who they are, organize them. Get plans started for each of them, either education, employment, or both. Soon as they come of age, fourteen or whatever, they'll be working, and contributing to the American economy, building houses, and doing other important, good jobs. Conservative Republicans tell us that these immigrants must be kept out because they steal jobs from Americans. That is so laughable its hilarious. The opposite is true. Too many good jobs available, no one to fill them. All across America's fruited plain, its the same story; not enough workers. Every housing contractor in the country will tell you that they cannot find enough people to build houses, framing, and all the rest, they cannot find people to fill jobs which can pay fifty grand a year, amazingly. Immigrants can and do pay huge amounts of money into the social security fund, and others. Without immigrants, social security and the others will go bankrupt, because not enough Americans are working to support them. America needs workers, right now. Welcome the caravan!

Fighting Demographics

ALTHOUGH THE U.S.A. HAS ALWAYS been multi ethnic, multi colored, and multi religious, it has also always been, in a very real sense, a country of white Christian men. "White" people were once a high percentage majority, of course, but no longer are. Already less than fifty percent of America is white, or European caucasian, or whatever term is best, since "white" is the color of paper, not human skin. The percentage of white America can only continue to decrease, as immigration brings in millions of Asians and Hispanics, and the white birth rate stagnates and declines. That's why the U.S. so badly needs immigrants. Immigrants tend to be young, and the U.S. is a rapidly aging country, running out of young people, running out of workers to pay for the social security and medical expenses of the nation's huge and growing elderly population. Not only is the white conservative Christian declining numerically as a percentage of total population, his political and economic power are similarly eroding. Equal justice movements of the past half century have brought African-Americans and women to the forefront, and now the LGBTQs, Hispanics, and Asians are running for political office, getting more education, achieving more upward mobility, and generally turning American society into a multicultural and ethnically diverse mix with equally diverse political, economic, and social leadership. The white American male feels threatened, a sense of being replaced, of being relegated to less than first class status in a country he had long since come to believe belonged to him. And that is why the conservative Christian white male is so angry. This anger is manifested in all the anti immigrant activity, voter suppression movements, and especially the white nationalist movement which has emerged since Trump became president. the most obvious and most extreme manifestation of white male anger is the election and presidency of Trump himself, who embraces and encourages all the various forms of white male anger. Like a fever, it will probably run its course, and white male American men will come to accept their new status, as co equals in a diverse society, rather than masters.

Trump, Constantly Running

FIVE MINUTES AFTER he was sworn in, Donald Trump filed the necessary paper work to run for reelection, to start a reelection campaign committee and fund, and all that. Ever since, he has been holding huge campaign rallies on a regular basis, as one might expect. You suspect that once he became president, Trump thought about it for a few minutes, liked the idea, and decided to do all in his power to make it permanent. Last night in Houston, Trump spoke at a campaign rally for Ted Cruz, yes, the same Ted Cruz Trump called "lying Ted" hundreds of times, when they were both running for president. The president seemed to be in rare form, even for him. He promised everybody a ten percent tax cut, said he was going to "put it in". Just like that.."put..it..in. I'll bet you didn't know that the president has the power to do that, to just "put in" a tax cut, even when congress is nowhere close to even being in session. Trump'll just snap his fingers, evidently. Maybe he figures the democrats will win control of the House, and he can blame them for the lack of a ten percent tax cut. This will backfire on him. Americans aren't that stupid. They have learned how to spot presidential prevarications (lies). The seven thousand member caravan of people heading towards the United States is a Democratic plot, says the president, in other late breaking presidential prevaricative update. Not only that, but the caravan is infused with folks from the middle east, no one knows exactly how many, but presumably enough to launch terrorist attacks, implies the president. The plan, evidently, is for the democrats to inject millions of illegal people into the country, then get them to vote illegally, presumably for democrats. Millions of illegal aliens vote illegally in American elections, Trump said last night, in what might have been his craziest comment of all, in a night full of crazy comments. Trump figured out long ago that his base supporters simply do not care what he says, whether he lies, as long as it sounds good, which means as long as Trump sounds pro America and bad ass, anti immigrant, anti government. As long as Trump gives his supporters a healthy dose of virulent right wing jargon, fact checking matters not, all who oppose Trump are spreaders of "fake news". The leader is sounding more Hitler-like, more fantastic, and his followers more detached from reality as the Trump agenda is repudiated by facts and common sense, and cast aside, finally.

Voting Ignorantly

IN EVERY AMERICAN ELECTION, it seems, its only a matter of time until the candidates start calling each other dirty names, like "socialist". When we get desperate, we resort to vicious name calling in American politics. Its always republicans accusing democrats of harboring socialist tendencies. Latent, insidious, evil socialism, lurking just beneath the surface of the opposing liberal Democratic candidate, ready to spring forth and devour all that is good and right and clean in America if you vote for the wrong person. Roosevelt was accused of being a socialist before he was even elected president in 1932, and since he hardly bothered to campaign that year against the already defeated Herbert Hoover, nobody really knew much about him. But within a few weeks of his administration's beginning, Roosevelt revealed that he truly was a socialist, and had to live with the accusations the rest of his long presidency. In 1920 and again 1932, socialist presidential candidates got more than a million votes. The young African-American running for governor of Georgia is the latest to be accused of socialism; they can't accuse him of being black, so, they use the next best thing. What Democrats should start doing is owning up to it, pleading guilty to being, at least partly, socialists. The same people who don't believe in climate change or evolution, our dear ignorant Christian conservative friends, seem to be confused about what socialism is as well. Socialism is governmet control of the economy, and in the United States, we have plenty of that. Many of our most basic goods and services are delivered through socialistic institutions, because its teh best way to deliver them' police and fire departments, roads and highways, schools, and so many other examples, owned and operated by the government with no profit motive; socialism. No matter who you are, if you are an American and you don't want your local police department to be a private profit seeking business, you are partly a socialist. When accused of it, Democrats should say: "I am part socialist, part capitalist". Actually, republicans should say the same thing, but will probably never bring themselves to it, because their entire agenda is based on the false idea that socialism is some kind of evil dictatorial. government, rather than merely public ownership. Better education, about such matters as climate change, evolution, and socialism would assist American society in having more intelligent policy discussions. For the present, too many of our conservative electorate are ignorant of the basic facts,

Learning Something, For Once

WHAT I NOTICE IS THAT often, if not usually, the same people who refuse to believe in the reality of climate change also refuse to accept the scientific fact of Darwinian evolution, and furthermore, they tend to believe strongly in very primitive, barbaric religion. They are called Christian conservatives, and what they fail to understand is that socialism, progressivism, with its support for minority equality, economic equality, and social equality, is much more closely aligned with the teachings of Jesus than political conservatism. Render unto Caesar, give unto the poor. Redistribute the wealth. These people refuse to abandon the insane belief that God's truth can be found in a book, an ancient primitive book full of demonstrable errors, a primitive, absurd notion. We humans must evolve to a higher level of intellect. It should not be forbidden to believe that the Earth is flat, but it should be nonexistent. The persistence of literal belief in the Bible into the twenty first century is a phenomenon most people in the late eighteenth century would never have predicted. It certainly is not necessary for every human to have a college education, or to be able to quote Shakespeare, or that sort of thing. But literacy is a good idea for everyone, is it not, even for people living in the wilderness, off the land, back to nature? Literacy, and a basic understanding that the Earth is not flat, that the universe was created billions of years ago, that we humans are actually a species of primate, like monkeys, that we evolved from bacteria and cock roaches, and that nature, God, and the universe are far more subtle , complicated, and magnificent than described in any of our ancient, traditional religions, or for that matter, in our modern science. Like Einstein said: "we don't know one millionth of one percent of anything" if nothing else, that means that we ought to stop pretending that we know everything. You will notice that in America, we are all experts on everything; we all have the right religion, the right politics, the right everything. In fact, we don't know anything, which is fortunate, because with open, empty minds we have a chance to learn something, just as soon as we are willing to begin.

Defeating Trumpism

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, basically, is the white Christian party. The white Christian conservative party. Its become very narrow in focus, the party of the wealthy pretending to be the party of the hard working, trapped with Trump, which is even worse. That's why it would benefit the country for the Democrats to win the forthcoming election. Horrible it must be, to find oneself in the same political party as Donald Trump, and winning with him. It would be like being a Democrat and having to support Jane Fonda as president. We in America need to get back to serious leadership, soon. But evidently we elected Trump to turn everything upside down, so we could start over. Or something like that. America is not a country which needs to reverse Roe v Wade, or needs to ignore climate change, or elect politicians who do, or remove itself from every international agreement it has ever signed. The next thing you know, Trump and his mob will eliminate minimum wage laws, totally privatize medicine, and remove all restraints to business speculation. Under Trump, under the Republicans, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. In 1972, I campaigned for Nixon for president. He started the Environmental Protection Agency, and was planning to introduce government health insurance, when he was forced to resign instead. Our modern Republicans have moved far too far to the right, too much free market capitalism and free market Christianity. The Democrats are the party of the multicultural future. Obamacare, we must all agree, is here to stay, as re all the other socialistic programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and so forth. There is money to be made in converting to clean, sustainable, energy, without fossil fuels, big money, and money to be made by allowing, indeed encouraging immigration to the United States by amazing children. This mob called "the caravan" which is heading north to the U.S. could give the United Stats an economic boost like none before, in terms of hours worked, production accomplished, taxes paid, far into the future. If only our conservative colleagues understood. The great Ronald Reagan signed a nuclear weapons reduction treaty with Russia in 1987, now, Trump has torn it up. The most recent example of a presidency gone crazy. And the Republicans who support this kind of stuff will suffer Trump's political fate, which is ultimately defeat.

Thinking On A Higher Level

CARL SAGAN SAID that we live in a world extremely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. he also pointed out that there is no shortage of intelligence among Americans, or among people in general. What was lacking was education. Thus we deduce that if we could greatly increase science and technology education in the United States and world wide, we could significantly reduce the number of people who know hardly anything about science and technology. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out. Another problem is that a significant percentage of the population has a negative attitude about science, usually for religious reasons. Wherever science disproves long accepted sacred religious beliefs, religious people reject science. In America, a large percentage of conservative Christian republicans reject both evolution by natural selection and man made climate change, both of which are scientific fact, but neither of which conform to their political and religious ideology, and so are rejected. This is dangerous. its very dangerous to human civilization and progress for a significant percent of the population to arbitrarily reject reality because of extreme devotion to a belief or religion which is nothing more than sheer fantasy. Science, including evolution and climate change, is truth, religion, whether the Old Testament, miracles or Hindu history of the gods, is human imagination in primitive cultural circumstances. The sooner we accept this, the better. Einstein said that problems can only be solved by using a higher level of intelligence than that which created the problems in the first place. It would be nice if all the energy we use arguing over whether to teach evolution and climate change in public schools could be used - to teach evolution and climate change, as well as the rest of science. It would be even nicer if our dear conservative climate change denying friends would suddenly see the light, and help the rest of us fight climate change, while we still can. The twenty first century, with our fast computers and ever expanding knowledge, is a mighty poor time to be rejecting basic, factual, everyday, obvious science, and dwelling in a world of pure fancy. The sooner we can get all the right wing conservative Christian types to the table, and get them on board with modern reality, the sooner the better and just maybe, for once, we can all live together in intelligent, enlightened harmony.

Trump Supporting "Lyin' Ted"

Donald J. Trump twitter tweeted his support for the man he has always called "Lying Ted" Cruz, which, if nothing else, leaves you scratching your head a bit, makes you question the sincerity of his endorsement. Roughly paraphrased, the comment was something like "Beto Rourke is a lightweight compared to Ted Cruz, and doesn't represent the values Texans have and desire. You notice right off Trump's description of Beto as a "lightweight". Trump is a gangster, a mob leader, and has talked like that, crudely, like a New York mob boss, all his life. Why not? Trump is an amazingly inarticulate man considering all the educational advantages he's had. Trump is merely perpetuating the conservative lie that America is a conservative country with conservative values. In fact, poll after poll indicates that the American people favor progressive values, like pro choice, religious and ethnic diversity, pro immigration, pro gun control, and pro government health insurance. This includes Texans, poor Texans, poor working people, the type the Republican Trump agenda ignore, and a majority in America. It is utterly amazing the sheer number of working class Americans, mostly white Christian conservatives, support Trump and actually believe he is fighting for the average middle class working American. he isn't. Trump's huge tax cut for the corporate wealthy helped only the corporate wealthy, not the rest of us. Incredible how passionately they argue with the lie that cutting taxes for the wealthy helps the poor Trump, Cruz, and the GOP represent the wealthy, and nobody else. how can anyone ever forget the number of times Trump called Ted Cruz "lying Ted" during the campaign. Trillions of times. So, the president wants us to believe that we are better off supporting a liar for Senate. it is of course sensible that Trump prefers liars, or people he considers liars. Someone should devote a website to reporting, analyzing, and commenting on Trump's tweets; they are the craziest aspect of his behavior of all, and that's goin' some.

Getting Together

WHEN PEOPLE GATHER TOGETHER and form organizations, the organizations themselves take on a life of their own, so to speak, somehow they become an individual themselves with a personality, and all. Undoubtedly many if not most people have noticed this, particularly in the white collar world where professional and other organizations are ubiquitous, and certainly in every other segment of society, people form groups, often organized hierarchies, sometimes not. Corporations have such obvious personalities that for over two hundred years we Americans, and every other country in the world, has been debating whether corporations are actually living, breathing human beings. You'd be surprised at the most widely agreed upon answers. Basically, ever since the Constitution was installed in the United States in 1787, corporations have been in court, arguing for their right to be granted the official social status as legal individuals". And, for the most part, they have won this right, to the extent that corporations have the same basic legal human rights as the rest of us do. There is a certain convenience to this economically, and it allows for a thriving, powerful, wealthy, corporate economy and political power base we have today. Today corporations own, control, and operate the United States of America, and we the people might wish to consider whether we might wish to change that, to put it mildly. I am not a fan of corporations and hierarchical organizations; never was a joiner. And, in truth, since I was in first grade I have not been too terribly fond of administrators and folks in authority in general. Oh well, that's just me, I guess. They somehow seem to always take on a personality malevolent to people. Deeply entrenched, complicated, huge bureaucracies are everybody's favorite. Mindless, soulless, heartless snaky things, they tend to control and rush people. Government, particularly government overseeing a vast socialistic web of social programs, like the United States government, tends to encourage such unpleasant organized hierarchies. So, we must blame both capitalism and social, both ends of the political spectrum for the unpleasant fact of large, mindless living entities called "organizations". To keep them simple and no larger than necessary, with a clearly defined purpose and clearly defined rules of conduct, and democratic distribution of power whenever possible, and we might be able to learn to live with our organizational selves.

Experiencing the Peter Principle, Firsthand

I AM ASTOUNDED by the administrative incompetence which permitted our best employee at the senior center to resign, indeed, to force her to resign. In fact, she was fired. How many times has it happened wherein administrators or managers, wanting to avoid paying unemployment benefits to former employees, harassed an employee into resigning, to avoid terminating the person. how many times has this happened? Your guess is as good as mine, and I'll bet that whatever we guess, our guesses are large numbers. Because we all know in the United States of Avarice, the almighty dollar is king, and it happens all the time, along with many many other unsavory forms of behavior related tog reed. The funny thing about administrators, and her I am referring to administrators of public and government institutions, mainly, is that they all appear to be models of competence. Well dressed always,often regal in demeanor, administrators in general, and my experience is overwhelmingly with administrators in academia, from preschool to college, tend I find to exude a certain regal manner, an air of authority if you will, as as if they belong in their lofty positions in no uncertain terms I am now convinced all that is sheer fakery, a cover for ineptitude.those who can't teach, teach teachers, that sort of thing. According to the peter principle, taken from a popular book from the seventies, people are promoted up to their highest level of ability, promoted as high as their abilities permit. and then, promoted one step higher. In an organizational hierarchy, people rise to their level of incompetence. 1969, "The Peter Principle", by Laurance Peter. A great read. Very funny. Thus, according to peter, we end up with a society of leaders whoa re all one level above their actual level of intelligence and competence. Throughout my thirty five year teaching career, I never really liked administrators, principles and assistant principles, although i have always understood their necessity and value. it was their personalities and treatment of me which alienated me, and that is plenty. Of course, admittedly, I do not like authority, and don't always respond affirmatively to it, though most of the time I manage. As I age, my disrespect for most forms of authority and my belief in greater democracy in the workplace makes me a less and less suitable worker, so, in that respect, my advancing age is not the only factor destroying my employability. Americans in general have a distaste for authority, because of their history of rebellion against oppression, and because of their culture of individual accomplishment. workplace democracy is the perfect evolution for the American economy, and the fact that we lack it now is yet another proof that in America, we the majority of people are governed by a small minority of wealthy elite corporate power brokers. Long live the people, long live the revolution.

The Caravan Is Coming

THE CARAVAN IS COMING. "Caravan" is Donald Trump's word for it, as far as I know, if not, he picked up on it early, and let's give him credit; he'll take credit whether or not anybody given it to him. The Caravan is a group, a mob, an army of at least four thousand people, mostly Salvadoran and Guatemalan children, walking from Guatemala to the United States, or trying to. Last I heard they were being stopped at the Guatemalan Mexican border. They may never reach the U.S. They may be better off if they don't. Trump has threatened Mexico if Mexico doesn't stop the caravan and has pledged to use the military to defend the border in the event Mexico fails. Why this country doesn't use the military to defend the border already is due to a law, a law which it seems strange that the U.S. government bothers to obey. Trump talks about "the caravan" as if it were a mob of sub humans, some inferior species of rodent, or something. Not even human, not even worth considering, nothing but trouble, like a plague of disease, or locusts. Oh, what an idiot Trump is. Millions of Americans, primarily conservatives, agree with Donald J. Trump that immigration into America by foreigners is a bed thing, that it harms America, and that it should be stopped immediately, if not sooner. Immigration is Trump's big topic, its what won him the presidency, and its a big priority for his supporters, the right wing, many of them evangelical Christians. As they are wrong about everything else, Trump and his right wing mob are dead wrong about immigrants. All you have to do is calculate the cost of taking them in, and helping them become American workers. This includes food, clothing, shelter, training, etc, all the stuff you have to have. Then, find the value of all the taxes, income, sales, property, all taxes, that all these people will pay into he system during their working lives. It isn't even close. Immigrants are, have always been, and always will be hugely profitably, beneficial to America. The dirty little secret is that the birth rate of Americas is too low to sustain the population, has been for a long time, and will be from now on. Without immigrants, America dies off. If we want to keep Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a whole bunch of other social programs, we had better not only allow immigrants into this country, we had better encourage them to come here, just to save our country, just like they always have. If you calculate the cost of taking in the whole caravan, getting them established in America, compared to the value of the tax money they will contribute when they begin their careers, its no contest. The caravan could finance Social Security. The caravan could be a gold mine for America. Its too bad that Trump and the conservative fools who promulgate false policies every time, don't understand that.

Feigning Moral Outrage, Republican Style

THE DEMOCRATS are in real trouble, because the Republicans are hoppin' mad, mad enough to cone out to vote in droves, and to express their anger at the Dems by voting Republican, which, as the president keeps reminding us, is in effect a vote for him. With this assertion I could scarcely agree more. To vote for any Republicans, to even be a Republican these days, is a vote for Donald J. Trump, and all that goes with him. the republicans have hitched their wagon to Donald J. Trump, and all that goes with him, which, when one thinks about it, is a lot. A lot of twisted, reprehensible words and deeds. Trump keeps reminding his base how horribly the Democrats treated Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and how mad they should be about it. Trump's followers, in usual lockstep, seem to wholeheartedly agree, particularly the evangelical Christian Trump supporters, who are especially outraged by the treatment of a man who has not been proven, only suspected, of being a serial sexual molester. Trump the multi billionaire who has done, and continues to do everything in his power to avoid rendering unto Caesar, who has married and fathered children by three women and has had affairs, according to him, with dozens more. Trump, the political leader of the evangelical Christian community, tells monstrous lies constantly, and who viciously attacks his critics, the darling of the evangelical Christian community, who hardly seem qualified to judge whether anyone else is acting like an immoral mob. These horrible women had the audacity to claim that Kavanaugh had sexually molested them. The Democrat Senators had the audacity to ask the women about it, and opponents to Kavanaugh's nomination had the audacity to carry signs and assemble and shout anti-Kavanaugh comments. God, what a mob. A mob of people vociferously opposing a man accused multiple times of sexual misconduct. To try to gin up phony moral outrage to get people to vote is rather clever, diabolically clever enough for Trump supporters to be inspired by it. Such people obviously care nothing for the truth, otherwise they wouldn't support Trump. They, including and particularly the evangelical Christians, have sold their souls to the devil and revealed their moral bankruptcy. Their charade of being righteously outraged by the imagined indignities heaped upon a man whose moral character is evidently as low as their own but whom they nonetheless support is a clever ploy, but not clever enough.

Calling Off The Dogs

WELL, IT DIDN'T QUITE work out the way I had intended (see previous article). No flaming barricades, the streets filled with the ragged but undaunted oppressed, carrying torches and banners, no excitement at the anticipation of the emergence of a new order. I had intended, in short, to instigate an uprising. I laid it all out in the previous essay.I was going to begin with a petition, invoking Jefferson. I would have dozens of my fellow senior center members sigh in - that, I knew I could accomplish; everybody really liked amy, and would plainly feel that her dismissal as kitchen manger was suspicious, questionable, if not an outright violation of the principles of human decency, as I saw it. The, of course the presenting of the grievance to the administrators, and senior centers, being something of a public and therefore government entity, are of course administered by a vast, mindless, heartless, government style bureaucracy, with not a trace of caring. Government bureaucracies are not definitely caring institutions, we might all agree in the United States of Administration. My petition was going to ask that she be given her job back, with no loss of pay for times missed due to temporary termination, and a guarantee of no further bureaucratic harassment. If that failed, my next step was going to be organizing a boycott, and then, as a last measure, a protest march around the town square (small and quaint, perfect for a mob of eighty five year olds) carrying protest sign, like "justice for Amy". And then a few hours passed, then a day, and I stated wondering how Amy was doing, how she was feeling. At our confrontation in the parking lot (that's another good story) with the administrator, she had cried. I started thinking how I would react, and I concluded that over time I would begin to feel a sense of relief, of liberation, of a burden having been removed, and that this feeling would not take long to form. I would look forward to a better future, with a better job. The, one of Amy's friends confirmed that this was exactly what was happening to her. The senior center kitchen job was receding into past, replaced with glorious visions of a better job in a market made for job seekers (near full employment). And that, dear reader, truly took the steam out of my revolutionary fervor. Why protest if the aggrieved is no longer aggrieved, but rather liberated and stress free? Gone, my eloquent invocation of the spirit of Jefferson, and the desperate circumstances which "impelled them to the separation" (his words, not mine). Yes, I had really seen this as a Jefferson struggle, because I believed, and still believe that Thomas and Amy were two peas in a pod, painted into a corner, with no escape possible. And i will always feel that way, as I slouch into elderly infirmity, and my visions of revolutionary glory fade with time, and age.

Making Your Choice

THOMAS JEFFERSON wrote the Declaration of Independence because he had to, he had no other choice. Not only was Benjamin Franklin taller, bigger, stronger, and angrier, he was insistent; young Thomas was going to do his duty for his country. And he did. My oh my, did Thomas Jefferson ever rise to the occasion, and do his "duty" for "his" "country". Quotation marks because it is highly questionable whether Jefferson had any "duty" or "country" to call "his". But the British gave them no choice. Sometimes, you get backed into a corner, and you have no choice but to fight. We've all been through that, and anyone who hasn't, hasn't lived. Some things are worth fighting for. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing in history, and every American must read it. In it, Jefferson makes it clear that nobody wants to start a revolution, nobody wants to turn against their own country in rebellion, to fight, and maybe die, but that as he put it, "when a long train of abuses evinces a design to reduce them under tyranny", or something to that effect, people have no choice. Here I am, a retired teacher working in the kitchen of my local senior center, and my boss, a person I greatly esteem, has been terminated, or actually, forced to resign due to a ceaseless barrrage of negative criticism, insults, threats, and humiliations. Her superiors, as they are called, engaged in an organized, systematic conspiracy to get rid of her, whether the conspiracy was intentional, or accidental. All that, so they could force her to resign, so they could avoid the responsibility of firing her outright. Cleaver. And I saw this with my own eyes. The constant minor, petty complaints. The verbal warnings. The written warnings. The sudden new requirements concerning signing in and signing out to go anywhere or do anything. Where were you on your break? Where did you go for lunch? Very clever, very shrewd tactic, to drive her off, and avoid responsibility for firing her. However, I won't stand for it. For me, my time has come, my time to rise up reluctantly, to revolt, to fight for justice. I intend to write and circulate a petition insisting that our administration offer her her job back, with some sort of compensation for their ill treatment of her, even if such compensation is nothing more than a solemn pledge to cease the ill treatment. What's right is right, and, as my hero Davy Crockett might say; "I reckon I'm a mite wrathy, and I aim to fight for justice, come hell or high water, and I'll stand up to my rack, fodder or no fodder, and may the devil take the hindmost." My petition will have many names on it. If that doesn't work, out come the protest signs, and the boycott begins. Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that people are much more inclined to put up with unfair treatment than to rise up in protest over it, but that you can only push people so far. That's why they did it, why they wrote, signed and backed up the Declaration of Independence. They had no other choice.

Sacrificing Decency For Conservatism

IN THE MIDST OF the election season's craziness, the television ads are interesting, and revealing. The first thing Republicans running for office try to convince their audience is that they are true, blue, conservative, right down the line, strictly conservative. As if being conservative were a virtue, rather than a serious character flaw and moral deficiency. However, these shrewd right wing candidates know exactly where their bread is buttered, so to speak, they know who watches the ads and who votes; and in red states and red areas, such as the one in which I politically regrettably reside; right is the right way to go. The United States of America, its people, are in fact, progressive, or what we used to call "liberal" before the right wing attack media got hold of the word "liberal", and turned it into a nasty word with bad connotations, forcing liberals to start calling themselves "progressive", a phenomenon at which I roll my eyes, both at the depth of right wing attack hatred, and the panty waisted liberal response to it. A considerable, solid majority of we the American people support and embrace progressive values; pro choice, government health insurance, reduced military spending, more support for education, research, and spending on social programs, redistribution wealth to the poor through progressive taxation, and so forth. Most Americans want these things, surveys repeatedly reveal. Maybe that's because most Americans are not wealthy. We are, in fact, a nation governed by the wealthy, assisting wealthy interests. We the American people are being handed a bill of goods, being ripped off, by a minority of Trump supporters, a minority of right wingers who have sold their souls to Satan in supporting Trump, who is very definitely not a Christian, at least not in terms of behavior. Our conservative candidate in his TV ad is a conservative, Christian, capitalistic gun carrying patriot. As if all those things even have any remote semblance of compatibility. And yet, America's right wing goes about its addled business convinced that they are compatible; convinced that Jesus was a hard working personal wealth collecting gun rights advocate, packing heat for the Lord. America's right wingers are either very good at compartmentalization, overlooking facts, accepting nonsense as fact, or, they are just plain crazy. The way in which they overlook, ignore, justify, or compartmentalize the ceaseless barrage of lies from Trump is astonishing, and worse. Its morally repugnant, and mentally ill. Just ask yourself, particularly if you happen to be a conservative Trump supporter, how you and millions of other Republicans would react if Obama or Hillary said the things Trump says, or were accused of attempted rape. You right winders would organize a lunching party, is what you'd do. Can you imagine what would happen if Obama were caught on tape saying that he can get away with grabbing a woman's pussy any time he wants, because he's a celebrity, or Hillary calling African countries "shit hole countries?", You right wingers would be yelling "lock her up", with your rope in hand, made into a noose. So why do you still support Trump, other than Satan having your soul?

Bringing More Bad News

ONCE AGAIN, there's bad news. This time, it appears that songbirds are decreasing in numbers, disappearing, which means that if something doesn't change, they will become extinct. We have known for a long time that this is happening to frogs and butterflies, as well as many other species, due primarily to climate change. animals start to move their habitat to cooler areas, and run into survival problems, getting enough food, escaping predators, etc.. So, whenever you happen to be fortunate enough to see a bluebird, cardinal, or yellow warbler, or to have some living in your yard, be sure to be thankful, and to remember the event. If possible, take some pictures. It seems weird to be living through what looks like the final stages of human life on Earth, maybe all life on Earth, as the effects of climate change begin to show up for real, and we extrapolate into the future. It is beginning to look bleak, like those of us whoa re alive right now, even old fogies like me, may actually live to see catastrophic damage to life on Earth. Back in the nineteen sixties and seventies I grew up immersed in apocalyptic fantasy; aliens invading, the sun going nova...various scenarios regarding the end of the world in science fiction. Basically, it always seemed like fiction. But in my back yard, where spring now begins in February and summer lasts through October, climate change is not fiction, its noticeable. Somehow I sense a slight decrease in annual rainfall, and I notice the increasing frequency and severity of droughts, and the fact that it never snows anymore where I live, and, to be honest, it makes me paranoid. Obviously, climate change is happening. Most of the world's population is noticing it in their daily lives. Now, the deniers are retreating to their default position: climate change is happening, but its natural, its not the result of human activity. For the climate change deniers, who are always conservative Republicans, anything except the truth is good enough, as usual. President Trump now admits that global warming is not a hoax, liberal nor Chinese. That in itself is quite a turnabout for our president. now he says climate change is real, but that its entirely natural, cyclical, and, get this..he says that it is going to change back to what it used to be. So, its no problem. he also says that he doesn't want to spend the money it would take to reverse climate change, trillions of dollars. Trump chooses not to believe in climate change because he hates to spend money. Most conservatives refuse to believe in it because doing so would force them to admit the need for change in American and all over the world, economic, political, and social change, which they, being conservative, abhor.

Being Correct, Politically

I AM POLITICALLY CORRECT. or, in butchered German, Ich bin politically correct. Either way, its a stark, courageous confession, considering the pounding political correctness has taken in the popular culture over the past few years. It seems to have become distinctly uncool to be politically correct, as if by so doing you are supporting tyranny, abridging free speech, or succumbing to cowardice and blind conformity. Actually, the term "politically correct" is a misnomer, since most of the time a better descriptor would be "socially correct". The term "politically correct" originated in the famous little red book of Mao, in which he laid out the characteristics of a good Chinese communist revolutionary. Political correctness was simply being a good Chinese communist revolutionary. Liberals in the fifties and sixties coopted the term to jokingly refer to any among their ilk who did not conform completely to liberal values. When the expression made its way into the popular culture in the nineteen eighties, it came to mean behaving in such a way so as to totally avoid any trace of disrespect or even the appearance of giving offense to anyone, particularly minorities. When it got out of hand, when the fear of giving offense and the verbal acrobatics become too extreme, convoluted and bizarre, P.C. lost favor, and become the object of ridicule, a state in which it exists today. At its core, political correctness is nothing other than courtesy and respect. We who are politically correct assiduously avoid the "N" word, and all other terms degrading to minorities, such as "spic", "kike", "queer", dego"...the list is lengthy, and goes on and on. When even the slightest trace of any reference to a person's ethnicity becomes taboo, political correctness has gotten out of hand. I use the terms "sir" and "ma'am" to address just about everybody, including young children. I figure, give 'em a good example early; maybe they'll emulate it as they mature. Why not? Also, terms like "broad" I avoid. "Lady" is always safe. Just basic respect for people, the kind I think should be universal. I like to listen to baseball on the radio, a habit I picked up in the sixties, when I was a kid. I love to listen to the announcers, and form a mental picture of the action on the field. Part of that process entails, of course, forming a mental image of the players themselves - including their skin color. If you happen to know whether a person is African-american or European-American, and this knowledge helps form your mental image, you are not, it seems to me, being politically correct; you are merely being visually accurate. however, there is no way to listen to the radio and know what "race" (sorry to use that horrible term, fellow P.C.s) a player is, unless you have seen him before, in person, or on TV. The radio announcers never mention it. Ever. Its like there's some hard, fast, inviolable political correctness based rule against describing a player according to his ethnicity on radio. That, to me, seems an example of political correctness run amok in the general culture. Political correctness is intended to eliminate disrespectful, insulting ethnic references, not references to ethnicity, or ethnicity itself. Let's keep being politically correct, as far as common courtesy goes, but let's keep it sane, nome sane?

The Weirdness of American Mass Shootings

UNTIL RECENTLY I had no idea, but at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, where a mass shooting took place which killed seventeen people, elaborate preparations had been made in advance, every conceivable precaution had been taken in the event of just such a catastrophe. The Parkland shooting event is one of those which everyone remembers; one of the more sensational, to add to a lengthening list. A few weeks prior to the nightmare, school officials had decided that considering the frequency of mass shootings in America, particularly in schools, it would be advisable to form and implement a comprehensive plan to increase school safety. Fences, gates, and cameras were installed, of course. Eight employees of the school, including teachers, administrators, and custodians, were trained in the use of firearms, and given licenses to carry. It was decided to install eight gun safes at various locations around the large school for storing the handguns, with lock combinations and finger print I.D. technology. Then, a series of drills was conducted, active shooter practice, in which the entire student body of three thousand, and all employees took part. In fact, at least one active shooter practice drill had been conducted not long before the actual shooting incident. About eighty percent of public schools in the United States have made such preparations, conducted active shooter drills, and formed specific procedures for everyone to follow, including where to go and what to do. Then, the unthinkable actually happened at Parkland, and the question was immediately asked, and still remains: did all the advance preparation help or hinder the school during the actual shooting; were lives saved or lost because of all the preparations? Astonishing, that this question even needs to be asked. Equally astonishing, that we still do not know the answer. It may be that the guns should have been kept on the persons of the people certified to use them, instead of in safes. Everyone seems to have opinions about specific procedures. On the day of the Parkland massacre, everyone was expecting an unannounced drill to take place; nobody knew when it would be, and when the real event started, there was large scale confusion as to whether it was a drill or a live shooter, and whether the confusion hampered responses. Since no mass shooting is likely to happen according to expectations, it is questionable whether preparations, no matter what they entail, can possibly help. So many mass shootings have occurred over the past few years, large organizations are forming nationwide of survivors and relatives and friends of victims, and "reunions" are being held in an effort to come to terms with these tragedies. it may be that eventually a sizable percentage of the American population will belong to such an organization. There is also a fairly large, ridiculously large number of "truthers", or crazy people, who perpetuate the notion that the mass shootings are not real, they they are staged by the government in an attempt to justify restrictions on gun ownership. Most of this craziness is the work of the infamous Alex Jones, who uses the media to make trouble and spread lunatic conspiracy theories. For Alex Jones his style has paid off in terms of fame and money, but not in terms of community service. These are dangerous people, some of whom harass and troll friends and family members of mass shooting victims, believe it or not. What all this adds up to is a vague, disconcerting sense that the whole mass murder phenomenon is symptomatic of very deeply rooted societal illnesses in the good ole U.S. of A..

Creating, Defining, and Promoting Freedom of Speech

WHAT WE IN AMERICA CALL "Freedom of Speech", and "Freedom of the Press" are what we consider to be basic American values, written explicitly into our constitution, the sort of values which the young king of Saudi Arabia might have been referring to when he asserted that: "Saudi Arabian values are not American values". True enough. All countries and all people are allowed by nature, and therefor ordained by nature's God, as Jefferson might say, to have their own values. Expressing them openly is anther matter, of course. We all have freedom of thought. But because speech is such a powerful tool, people have always been aware of how important it is, both to secure individual freedom and to hold and keep power over other people, to control it. Speech, among humans, has never been without restraints. Our first amendment, legal scholars agree, says that congress cannot infringe upon free speech, but it says nothing about parents, teachers, employers, and friends. Our fist amendment rights are protected by government, only from government. I, however, tend to think of myself as having far more wide ranging free speech rights than are actually guaranteed in the constitution, as I suspect just about all Americans do. In America, we feel as if and believe we have free speech, even if we only have it guaranteed protected from government infringement. Unless I am dreaming, the term "congress" in the constitution in the first amendment has come to mean the federal government in general, and all government in America, state, county, and city. None of the above has the right to infringe upon free speech, unless, as I said, I am dreaming. The same is true with the press, the media in general, including online media and social media, unless I am still dreaming. The truth is, free speech and freedom of the press have always been very rare and limited, like they are today, and, alarmingly, they are under severe attack, all over the world, including in the United States, where Trump's relentless attack on the media is only one of the many reasons why Donald J. Trump is a horrible president, and must either change his behavior fundamentally, or be removed from office. (...and let's face it. he aint likely to change)... His constant accusations of the mainstream American media as "fake news" is a complete lie, and a dangerous, unwarranted attack on the freedom of the press. Anything in the media that criticizes Trump or that Trump doesn't like Trump labels "fake news". Trump gives the impression that he wants to be another Hitler, or petty dictator, an authoritarian ruler about whom nothing negative is permitted to be printed. That is one of the many reasons why Trump is very dangerous, and must be removed, and why freedom of speech and of the press must be defended and encouraged everywhere. Maybe it should be considered a universal, not just an American value.

Killing Journalism

THE SAUDI ARABIAN journalist lived in the United States, in the Washington area, and worked for the Washington Post, writing articles about Saudi Arabia which were not always complementary, often highly critical of the Saudi government. he walked into the Saudi embassy in Turkey, presumably thinking he would gather material for an article, and vanished, disappeared. The Turkish government says that a hit squad of Saudis, disguised as diplomats, were sent to the embassy by the Saudi government specifically to kill the journalist, which they did. Afterward, a theory has been circulating that they cut up the body into small pieces, and smuggled it out of the building for transport to some unknown destination, or, they ate it before leaving the embassy building. So, its created quite a stir, so to speak. the Saudi government quite predictably denies any involvement. The young Saudi head of state, king, crown prince, sultan, whatever his official title, is a most impressive young man, darkly hidden behind his full black beard and head covering, a darkness ab out him, his eyes glowing and alert, hes demeanor regal, above the fray, his mannerisms indicate that he has been raised from early childhood to become king, and he has taken to the job smoothly, with obviously high intelligence and education. He is to be commended for liberalization of Saudi society, at least to an extent; recently, women gained the right to drive. Clear the roads, right guys? While being interviewed by western journalists about the disappearance of the Washington Post writer, the king, when informed that American due process requires a full accounting for the journalist's whereabouts and fate, and that, rather than murdering a critic of the Saudi Arabian, the man should either have been left alone to his opinions or at least give due process, including arrest, indictment, and a fair trial, was not happy to receive a lecture on American due process, "Saudi Arabian values are not American values", he dismissively replied. We,, maybe not, but...aren't certain values, such as fair play and sanctity of human life, more than American? Are they not universal? Aren't all the highest values concerning human life universal? It makes one appreciate being an American where criticism of the government is not only perfectly acceptable, it is a requirement for good citizenship. president Trump, between a rock and a hard place, doesn't know whether to insist on justice for the missing journalist, or just let it go, to preserve relations and military equipment sales to the Kingdom. Trump, a we Americans well know, is not exactly a great champion of the media, and the journalist profession, so any defense he offers of journalistic freedom and the safety of journalists rings quite hollow. But at least we Americans, who often fail to live up to our own values, can insist that there are human values and moral precepts which transcend national borders. Surely one of these is the right to disagree without being murdered because of it.

Trump Seeking Attention; The Lies Keep Coming

PRESIDENT TRUMP has been spending a lot of time lately seeking attention. You're thinking; so, what else is new? He constantly does this. He does it twenty four seven, seeking, and receiving attention. He's been doing it since he was in diapers. Nothing's changed. True. But lately its been excessive, even for Trump. Campaign rallies galore, press conferences, sound bite seeking, hard hitting, bombastic comments made off hand while walking between planes, mansions, and microphones. Rampant narcissism in action. He's been out on the hustings, in swing states, campaigning for Republicans for the upcoming election, or more accurately, pretending to campaign for them, using the opportunity as a shallow disguise for his real intent: to promote, aggrandize, ans draw attention to himself. Its actually quite entertaining. The Republicans may live to regret having Trump campaigning for them, judging from the polls. Trump is an entertaining speaker, and he is so alarmingly remindful of Hitler, psychologically, that its either hilarious or frightening, depending on how you choose to look at it. Why not a bit of both? A time of division, hatred, and anger, and a grass roots right wing movement dedicated to choosing a strong man to challenge and overthrow the establishment, break up the entrenched bureaucracy, reform the government, and make the country great again. Make Germany great again. Make America great again. Hitler, and Trump. The bombastic, screaming speeches, full of hatred, contempt, accusations and lies about the news media, the judicial system, immigrants, and everything else, constant lies, and nationalism, hyper patriotism. Hitler...and Trump.. Its creepy. Trump said that we must elect Republicans to keep the Democrats out, with their hatred, anger and mob mentality. The crazy thing is, this is Trump, talking about himself and his own followers, and either not knowing it, or pretending not to know it. Either way, its dangerous, bizarre, sick, twisted, and must be rejected and defeated. These Republicans and their leader must be removed from office, soon. Trump has been spewing anger and hatred since he announced his candidacy for president, encouraging his followers to be violent at his Hitler like rallies, leading chants of "lock her up" against Hillary, Feinstein, and who knows who else, exhorting the throng into a frenzied anger. Trump is always viciously attacking somebody or some group, including other countries, spewing extreme hatred and anger. The recent protest against Kavanaugh by the Democrats, who represent a majority of Americans, was an attempt to stop the evil, the evil in which Trump and his followers overlook their own evil, which is pervasive, and deflect attention from it by accusing others of it. The lady said she was molested by Kavanaugh, as did several women. They all seemed credible, with no ulterior motives. It was a very alarming situation. Kavanaugh should have been replaced, by someone beyond reproach, like Neil Gorsuch. It would have been easy to find someone. Instead, Trump and his immoral gang of Republicans chose to utterly ignore the situation, and accuse Kavanaugh's opponents of being a "mob". It would have been easy to find a good person, like Neil Gorsuch, to replace Kavanaugh. But instead, they chose to turn it into a fight, a war, and for this, as well as for their general immorality and evil, they should be cast out of office, and out of decent society.

Rebuilding

AMID THE DEVASTATION, the hurricane, all hurricanes, and for that matter tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and, heaven forbid, bombing campaigns, has a silver lining. Namely, by forcing us to rebuild, they give us the opportunity to rebuild better, smarter, safer. Whether human habitat should be withdrawn from coastal areas is a question requiring an answer involving thoughtful planning. No matter where and what we build, there are risks, naturally. Perhaps future generations will expand human habitat to floating cities, and cities on the ocean floor, as well as cities in Earth orbit, and on and below the surfaces of Mars and the moon. Maybe it would be a good idea to declare the world's coastlines natural habitat, and to withdraw human development ten or fifty miles inland. If the human race explores all possible habitat, it could be that eventually as much as one half of the Earth's surface could be redesignated wilderness and natural habitat, without straining humanity for resources. We need to redesign human society and habitat, starting now, because what we are currently doing is not working, The Earth is in poor health. It is in fact dying, right before our very eyes. More plants and animals are becoming extinct than ever before. The climate is changing drastically, rapidly. And its all because of human activity, the pouring of billions of tons of poison into the ecosystem, for hundreds of years of accumulated environmental poisoning. We are all dying, of course, but most of us die from natural causes, not sustained poisoning, and it doesn't work like it did for Mithridates, the constant bombardment of poison does not make Earth, its people, plants and animals immune to poison, it kills them. We are in a sense killing the Earth with kindness; nature loves carbon, but in the right place, at the right time, in the right amount. Putting a trillion tons of it in the atmosphere and leaving it there does not sustain, but rather, kills, because of the increase in heat energy stored by the excess carbon. The planet Venus, with its eight hundred degree surface temperature, is a good example of what too much carbon in the atmosphere does to the surface of a planet. Every new updated climate change forecast is more accurate than the previous one, as the science continues to improve, and each forecast is more dire, more frightening. The next thing you know they'll be telling us we only have two weeks to live. As it is now, they are saying that by the year 2030, only twelve years away, if we have not made significant reductions in atmospheric carbon, we are finished. If the scientists ever tell us that we are doomed, we are. The science improves every day, as you may have noticed by the quality of your smart phone and television set, as well as medicine, and other amenities. In the long run, science is always right, even if it takes a while. We have known about climate change for two hundred years, but not enough of us have known about it. Einstein knew about it; he thought adding carbon to the atmosphere might be a good idea, to warm the atmosphere, increase the growing season, and produce more food for a hungry humanity. He was talking about controlled climate change. What we now have is out of control climate change, getting worse, fast. And still not enough people know about it, or care.

Keeping An Eye On Customers

WAL MART'S NEW shopping cart have been designed, tested, and the bugs worked out, and are ready for mass implementation. Its just a matter of how many they can produce over the next few months, and which stores will get them first. They have sensors on the handle, and as you place your hands on it to push the cart, it monitors and measures your heart rate, blood pressure, height, weight, body mass muscle index, body temperature, cholestoral, triglycerides, bank account, social security number, I phone number, Facebook password, favorite television shows, work history, and status of mortgage. Well, maybe not all that, but heart rate and blood pressure, yes, Wal Mart is going to begin keeping track of.their stated reason is to help them predict more accurately when somebody is at risk for or is actually about to stroke out or have a heart attack. Precisely how this is going to help anybody, the store, or especially the customer, remains unexplained, unless Wal mart is planning to install an Emergency Room in its stores or start having an ambulance parked right outside the main entrance. On the surface, it sounds sneaky, suspicious, like one of those incremental process you hear about, in which some powerful force takes away a little bit of what you have, then gradually more, and more. I mean, why on Earth would they (Wal mart) want to do this? People can monitor their own vital signs any time they want, with their smart phones and other gadgets. Will retailers and then corporations and businesses start doing this, start collecting information, whatever information they deem worthwhile, from customers about themselves, without the customers really even being aware of it? And why, other than to exploit the customers, to increase sales and profit? You might hear powerful corporate executives sneer and scoff a the very notion, at the apparent paranoia, sanctimoniously protesting that their only concern is to better serve and protect their valued, beloved customers. That, of course, is bullshit. but let them sanctimoniously sneer. The powerful often sneer to cover perfidy. What you begin to wonder about, if you are reflective, contemplative by nature, is the possible extent of future corporate control over the consumer, the individual, the citizen, the country. Consider how omnipresent and powerful the corporate community is now. they practically own and control our political system, paying for the election of their chosen politicians, influencing, even controlling American foreign and domestic policy. how much more power and control over the customer, the citizen, teh culture, teh country do we want to confer upon our corporate masters, who are already our masters, and could quickly become much more so, if we aren't careful.

Trump Doing His Hitler Thing

UNLESS I'M DREAMING a very bad dream, President Trump has been having campaign rallies on a regular basis ever since he was sworn in, correct? Am I imagining this? No, I'm not. These rallies are full of high intensity emotional excitement, much of it anger, as the President screams insults and threats at his opponents, and proclaims his own greatness, how many accomplishments and victories his administration has already achieved in making American great again, and incites anger at all the usual suspects, Hillary Clinton, Democratic congressional leaders, the media, you know the list. On many occasions I and many other people with some historical knowledge have compared the Trump phenomena, including his followers to Hitler and his followers, but these rallies take the cake, these frenetic, frothing, screeching semi religious revivals are the most Hitleresque aspect of Trump of all. During the one the other day the mob was chanting "lock her up", yet again, but this time referring to Diane Feinstein who, according to Trump, has a secret [piece of legislation in Congress called the "Open Borders Bill", which she soon intends to spring on the American people, maybe after the elections, when Feinstein hopes there will be a Democratic Congress. The whole thing is a lie, of course, completely made up by The Great Prevaricator, our pathological liar president. He must be mentally ill, to tell so many huge, obviously fabricated lies in front of so many people, without the slightest show of shame, or humor, or guilt. Even more frightening is the sheer number of people who brainwash themselves to believe him. What must their mental illness be, some complex combination of schizophrenia, paranoia, stress, denial, and delusion? these weird rallies are exact duplicates of the sort Hitler and other dictators tend to stage, to mobilize and inflame their base of support, which is always a minority of the population, but a very frightening, vociferous minority. Trump's shocking pathological lying, and the willingness of his followers to either overlook or embrace the lies are extremely alarming, perhaps harbingers of an America with out of control culture, full of anger, aggression, and fantasy. You can almost see Trump talking his minions into believing that not only would it be in the best interests of the world to become more like America, but that it is America's sacred duty to Americanize the world, by whatever means necessary, and if that proves impossible, then the rest of the world is a deadly threat to America, and must be dealt with strongly. And what about America's enemies within, the liberals, the Jews, the minorities....will it become "necessary" to "deal with" them as well, with Trump leading his minority faction of extreme conservative patriots determined to make America great again, as it once was and is finally becoming again, to ever greater heights of virtue and power? Stranger things have happened.

Spending Flat Screen Poor

AMY, MY FELLOW MEALS ON WHEELS DELIVERY PERSON, drives through the ratty trailer park, until we finally find the right ratty trailer. I get out, with a warm lunch in my hand, and knock. On the warped wooden front porch sit five cats, who sluggishly scatter as I approach. The trailer is rusty, looking much in need of....something. This is my first time running a route. Amy, long familiar with every consumer, gives me whatever information I need before each trip to the front door. This one, she says, will take a few minutes, but I will be greeted by a nice, soft spoken elderly woman. After a long pause, a little old lady in a bathrobe cracks open the door, and I can see into the room behind her. She smiles, mentions that she has not seen me before, and I introduce myself. In the room behind her, I notice complete chaos; junk piled high, newspapers and some paper trash lying about, holes in the carpet, large stains. Then, in the corner, I notice a huge, beautiful flat screen TV, turned on, with a huge, beautiful picture, pimple free people smiling..When I return to the car I cannot help but mention it to Amy, the seeming incongruity between the run down modest dwelling, the apparently poor occupant, and the big beautiful, presumably expensive television set. It makes me wonder if the lady has other electronic devices, hidden bank accounts, hidden wealth. Amy agrees with me. Both of us think its somehow out of place, funny. We think its very funny. In fact, I have always thought it funny, when I see something like that. Several times I have seen unshaven men dressed in ragged clothes standing in front of Wal Mart, pan handling, talking on smart phones. That's always seemed kind of funny to me. This incongruity can be seen fairly often among America's poor. Conservatives consider this phenomenon absolute proof that the entire welfare system is a bleeding heart liberal hoax, a scheme to cheat wealthy people, whom they supposedly resent, out of their money, to create an entire, permanently dependent class of loyal democrat voters. People don't need the government to support the poor and make them dependent on government handouts; the poor need work. Obviously, there is truth to that, but not enough truth. It fails to take into considerations the real, complicated reasons for widespread poverty in America, which go far beyond individual laziness. Not enough truth to justify terminating all cash transfer programs, or any of them, which would only plunge millions of people deeper into poverty. These poor people with big TVs may have saved nickels and dimes for years to pay for the flat screen, or, they may have received the gadget as a present from family members. The point is, we want the poorest people in American to be able to afford a flat screen now and then, whether they work for it or not, whether they get their income through employment or through social security or welfare. Every time somebody buys a flat screen, businesses make money, people get jobs, and the economy grows. The more people who spend and consume, the better for us all, for the country. The key to making capitalism work is not cutting taxes on the wealthy, it is increasing the market place, increasing demand for goods and services, by getting money into the hands of people who do not have any, turning poor people into consumers, with growing demand from a growing consumer class of formerly poor people resulting in increased production and supply, and more jobs. You sometimes wonder why conservative Republicans, who tend to believe in capitalism, or claim they do, apparently fail to understand such a basic truth about the free market, and capitalism.

Delivering

MEALS ON WHEELS is one of those federal social spending programs that conservative Republicans are so fond of describing as wasteful, unnecessary, and beyond the intended purposes of government, which only exists to defend the national borders, defend the country, enforce the law, and, once in a great while, build a road or two. Government should hardly even be collecting revenue, should collect only as much as needed to perform these few basic services, and for the most part, leave people alone and on their own, fending for themselves. At least, that seems to be the basic right wing attitude about government; correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm not. All taxation is forced compensation of personal wealth, should be and used to be illegal, back when America was great. Only occasionally should low tariffs be put in place to protect fledgling businesses and industries from crushing foreign competition; tariffs should be the primary means of raising revenue for the government. high tariffs inhibit free trade, and high taxes sap the strength of the economy. social spending programs to help the poor, such as SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program, which used to be called 'food stamps", unemployment insurance, aid to mothers with dependent children, or whatever that one is called, and meals On wheels are not popular with fiscally conservative socially conservative right wing republicans, TEA Party types the Senior Center Where I volunteer has a Meals On wheels program, and I sometimes deliver meals. its fun and fascinating to get to know the people; many of them want to form a friendship with the delivery person. Most of the recipients live i modest houses and seem to be relatively low or very low income people, but interestingly, most of them, nearly all of them seem to have a very large flat screen TV, presumably all up to cable TV, with hundreds of channels. Frankly, it makes me chuckle. Unfortunately, this arrangement gives ammunition to the right wingers who often argue that most people on welfare or public assistance of one kind or another are merely free loaders, perfectly able to provide for themselves. Well, for that matter, I've seen men looking unwashed in old clothes standing in front of Wal mart on the highway pan handling, talking on smart phones. You republicans, back off. Meals On wheels is one of those programs the right winders love to hate, and the Trump administration wants to do away with it, like it wants to do away with many beneficial government programs, as well as business and environmental regulations. Redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor is the solution to economic stagnation, and the best way to promote growth and prosperity. All these social welfare spending programs which redistribute money from wealthy to poor are exactly what the country needs, a shot in the arm economically, turning millions of people into at least occasional consumers, creating new consumers out of people who were previously spending nothing, doing nothing to help the economy grow, but now, with money from the government, with a little money to spend, can help drive up aggregate demand, thus stimulating new production, supply in response to demand, wealth, job creation, and prosperity, exactly what the business leaders and capitalists say they want. The more flat screens I see, as I drop off meals in the homes of people who look like they can't afford them, the better the economy is for everybody.

Changing Values

THE POINT IS WORTH MAKING than when multiple women accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct, nary a Republican asserted the presumption of his innocence. Clinton was Accused, and Clinton was guilty, because that's the sort of low life Clinton, being a democrat, absolutely, certainly was. He wa guilty a priori because he was the sort of [person who would do such horrible things; ultimately, hes was guilty because those who hated him said he was. For Bill Clinton, the presumption was guilt. Bill Clinton was even impeached for his alleged sexual misconduct, for allegedly lying about it, not for having been convicted of it, or of anything pertaining to it. Presumed innocence is apparently a protection granted by conservatives, reserved for Republicans. Those who apply high moral standards selectively, discriminantly, only for the benefit of a few elite powerful people, are in fact weaponizing morality. Doing so is not only hypocritical, but verification of moral bankruptcy. And so it is with the Congressional Republicans and conservative community, shameful in their behavior, shameless in their defense of their shameful behavior. Even Donald Trump, whose self proclaimed sexual misconduct is expediently overlooked by Republicans,is either presumed innocent of any wrongdoing, or has done wrong which is being ignored, for teh benefit of the political aspirations of his supporters. Had Brett Kavanaugh testified under oath before Congress that he had in his younger days misbehaved sexually, more than once, it would either be immediately dismissed is irrelevant youthful indiscretions, or consigned to the category of a false memory, or meaningless locker room talk. warped by te passage of time. for our morally bankrupt conservative Republicans, morality is relative to circumstance, and morality is used as a malleable tool to achieve the goal of placing a conservative on the Supreme Court. the most tragic aspect of their behavior is that it worked, like a charm.In recent months dozens of prominent men have been accused of sexual misbehavior; all of them have paid for it by losing their jobs; there has been no presumption of innocence for them.But Kavanaugh's nomination was too closely tied to the right wing political agenda, and to Republican Congressional pride, and defiant stubbornness. Those who argued that Kavanaugh's integrity was compromised and must be removed from consideration were people the Republican majority despises, and hatred rules their actions. And then right wing manipulation took an even more bizarre turn; you blinked, then looked up, and before your very eyes there was Brett Kavanaugh, now suddenly the injured party, now suddenly the victim. those who opposed and protested his nomination because of serious questions about his morality, possible criminal behavior, and ill suited temperament for the bench had now become a mob, out to destroy a good man only for spite.And then the final, most amazing transfiguration; Kavanaugh's supporters had now become victims just like Kavanaugh, champions of truth, justice, and the American way bravely defending themselves and virtue itself against the evil horde. It would be funny if it weren't true. Brett kavanaugh and his supporters, victims of a mob of maniacs with the temerity to suggest that a nominee sullied by the possibility of serious misconduct should not be hired, not because of any proof of guilt, but because of a compromised reputation, which destroys trust. A large majority of the American people do not trust the new Supreme court justice, and wanted another nominee. this is but one of many examples of the Republican leaders of the country governing against the will of the people, Our conservative leaders want the supreme court packed with conservatives, to facilitate a conservative American future. to maybe even over turn Roe vs. Wade, to maybe eliminate all government regulation of the economy and the environment, and to legalize Jim Crow discrimination, none of which the American people want. A hopeful sign is that the Republicans are governing for the benefit of their shrinking base of supporters, whose shrinkage will some fine day result in its extinction.