Inventing Reality

MOST REPUBLICANS and conservatives don't believe in climate change, or say they don't. Maybe deep down some of them understand that climate change is real, but don't want to admit it. Most of them are absolutely certain that climate change is a hoax. Some of them accept the fact of global warming, but insist that it has nothing to do with human activity. Those who so insist are remarkable in that not only do they know for certain that human activity has nothing to do with climate change, they also happen to know exactly what is causing it. Its utterly amazing that these people know all this, because none of them has an education in science, and many of them have no education beyond high school, if that. And yet, they know more about science and reality than all the scientists in the world, and all the professors of science at all the world's great universities, nearly all of whom tell us, emphatically, that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and that we must act now to reverse it, or die. climate change deniers conveniently ignore basic science in favor of their personal fantasy, a fantasy in which humans have nothing to do with climate change, and in which there is nothing humans can do about it. An amazing level of arrogance and ignorance is exhibited by climate change deniers. Their most common refrain is that even if the climate is changing, its merely a natural occurrence, since the climate on Earth is constantly changing, and always has been. What they omit is that even though this is true, there is nothing in this fact preventing humans from influencing the climate, by changing the chemical content of the Earth's atmosphere, which is exactly what is happening. Some of the more creative deniers claim that the sun is changing, fluctuating in its power energy output, and that this is causing climate change, and that climate change is occurring on every other planet in the solar system as a result. This, of course, is pure bullshit. These imaginative climate deniers ignore the fact that there are thousands of scientists who study the sun constantly, and measure everything about it, and would tell us is the sun's output were fluctuating. Solar scientists assure us that it is in fact not. As you probably already know, this fact doesn't faze ardent climate change deniers, who much prefer their own little fantasy world, over which they have complete control, to the real one, over which they have no control. We reject the truth, said Goethe, only because we fear we might perish if we accepted it. Climate change deniers, always the conservatives, are terrified of what might happen if they admitted the truth about climate change: that the liberals were right all along, and that a massive and fundamental set of changes must be made, immediately, to our economic and industrial systems. For conservatives, change is blasphemy, and so too, therefore, is climate change.

Falling

AT MY LOCAL SENIOR CENTER I volunteer in the kitchen, four hours a day or so, five days a week. Its hard work, but very rewarding. Each day right before we eat lunch I stand at the front of the room, leading the pledge of allegiance. Then, we pray, then we eat. I choose someone to pray each day, then, during the prayer, I rush back to the kitchen to take my place at the serving window, passing out blue trays full of delicious nutritious food, one at a time. Some days I say the prayer, then rush super fast back to the kitchen. Today just as i got to my window, I slipped on a wet spot and fell, suddenly, hard. I was on my stomach on the ground before I knew what happened. However, I bounced right back up, and took my place at the window, my right knee throbbing. Everybody was shocked, at how hard I fell and how quickly I got back up, seemingly unhurt, and paying much attention to me, I reassured everyone that I was all right. I started handing out trays like nothing happened. About an hour later, I wet home after work, my right knee hurt a little bit, I took an Advil, and the pain was soon gone, for good. No other part of my body was hurt, or bruised, or anything. It was as if the fall never happened. except, it did. And, as hard as it was, it should have killed or seriously injured me. the floor is solid concrete, with a thin layer of linoleum. I should have hit my head, and died. Starting with sprained, severely sprained, or fractured ankles and moving up, there are dozens of injuries I should have had, but did not. A sixty four year old man, falling hard on his face onto concrete, without being injured. To me its a miracle, and I'm the one to whom it happened. It was such a blur, but it happened in a slight second, and, again, it happened way too fast for me to react at all. And yet, I must have reacted. I must have gotten my hands out in front of me, and caught myself before hitting my head, without spraining anything in my arms, wrists, or hands, which I find hard to believe. Causation is the key question concerning comprehension of the cosmos. Its what all science, all religion, all human endeavor is directed towards learning. What caused all this? Possible explanations are limitless; measuring specific, tangible forces of nature and ascertaining their relationship to each other through observation and reason seems to be the best way, so far. But we seem to agree that things, all things , happen for a reason. Humans, noticing causal connections in nature, have been seeking a more complete understanding of natural processes for millennia, and the various explanations have mostly been wholly inadequate, primitive, factually wrong, barbaric, and religious. My current proclivity is to attribute my miraculous salvation to an omnipotent supreme being, "God", if you will. And, in that spirit, I wish to hereby declare my gratitude and love of this supreme being for saving me from my fall. Nary a scratch, bruise, bump, nor sore, after a hard fall, on concrete. Another possibility, of course, is that I was saved by one or more invisible aliens lurking in the kitchen. I, however, prefer the simplest explanation, that which has been termed "Murphy's Law", which in this case would seem to either be incredible athletic ability and good luck on my part, or God, intervening, saving me.

Atrocities Speak Louder Than Absurdities

VOLTAIRE is one of those people from whom one is incessantly tempted to borrow a pithy and profound quote, seeing as how he was the consummate wordsmith. He said: "Those who can be convinced to believe absurdities can be convinced to perform atrocities." I almost wish he had made it more direct, something like: "Those who believe absurdities commit atrocities." Voltaire never fails to make you think, and I started thinking, about what seems to me to be an alarming number of people, almost everyone, it sometimes seems, who seem to harbor at least one, and usually more than one, ridiculous belief. Amid all our modern science, we somehow seem to be living in an age of belief in the unsubstantiated incredible. It seems that nowadays anybody is likely to believe almost anything. And then there are the atrocities, which follow, even as the wheel follows the hoof of the draft ox, to quote the Dhammapada. The most glaring example is of course climate change, and the fact that, despite absolute scientific proof concerning what's happening and what causes it, half the people in the United States refuse to believe it. A hundred million Americans, like frightened ostriches, head in sand. The atrocity which follows this absurd belief (lack of belief) is the failure of the United States, despite being a primary cause of climate change, to allow its government to take action to reverse it. Every month the planet warms, America does nothing, under Trump. An obvious atrocity. Examples, of absurd beliefs triggering atrocities, abound in modern America. We currently have a measles epidemic due to people refusing to believe that vaccinations work. What an atrocity. Nobody should have measles. White supremacy, the absurd to the point of being insane albeit tragically common belief among conservative Americans particularly among conservative Christian Americans, that people with lightly pigmented skin are actually in some way, shape, or manner "superior" to darkly pigmented people is so widespread that it infects every nook and cranny of American society and culture, and, tragically, determines much government policy, foreign and domestic, and has since our nation's inception. The entire history of the United States of America, including the present, is a racist atrocity, deriving directly from the nearly ubiquitous presence of the utterly absurd, insane concept of "racism", and "white supremacy". Absurd beliefs engender atrocious behavior, to paraphrase Voltaire. Again, the list is nearly endless. One might have hoped that by the year 2020, in which everybody has a computer in one's pocket and access to nearly unlimited information, that absurd beliefs would be far less common, or at the very least, not widespread to the point of including nearly everyone. But alas, in our information age we seem as capable of abusing information, of twisting it into fantastic unreal shape of our own choosing, as utilizing it to achieve wisdom and know truth. Let's just hope that the good folks who believe that highly advanced alien beings are living among us, disguised as human beings, gradually taking over the world, don't get a notion to do something about it, organize, and arm themselves with easily obtainable fully automatic assault rifles, and go out hunting aliens in disguise, disguised.

Knowing

IN AN ARGUMENT, the first thin most Americans are likely to do is to become, instantaneously, an accomplished historian, with an encyclopedic knowledge of historical facts. It truly an astonishing transformation. it happens from eighth grade dropouts to the especially erudite business degree recipient. Perhaps not so astonishing, when you consider how often, which is almost always substantive disagreements of any kind eventuate as historical scenarios presented to justify or prove assertions about the present or future. History underlies everything filed of knowledge, and behind every winnable argument is historical fact, ready to be taken from the shelf and opened for all to scrutinize. Americans, arrogantly and temperamentally unsuited to losing arguments of any kind with grace or dignity, seldom, therefore do. Often, and always in the bible belt, the very buckle of which I tenuously reside within, historical knowledge is especially strong concerning the United States, the Christian faith, and that most dreaded of all combinations, the two, together. Invariably the combination of strident political conservatism and devout christian faith in a single human mind produces dangerous volatility of varying types, fueled by the ability of the person so encased to become a world class historian ad the first hint of a disagreement. I finally decided what to do when one of these right wing evangelicals says something like: "America was founded on Christian values", or, worse: "America is a Christian country". I mumble, audibly: "u....not really", or, "maybe in some ways, but not in others". i give them just enough to clearly reveal my confident disagreement, but make them decide if they want to hear the whole truth. I really do, after all, have an advanced degree in history, which means only that I know enough history to know that I know hardly any of it. I explain to people that there is one tangible way in which the United States is a "Christian country"; in the percentage of its citizens who identify themselves as Christian. The other part, the part about whether the government, the legal, and the political system of the United States was founded on "Christian values", I dismiss with a single sentence. "The founders wanted a completely non religious government, so they gave us freedom of religion and freedom from religion. God is purposely not mentioned int eh constitution." If necessary, I throw in a few facts about Madison, Jefferson, deism, Thomas Paine, enlightenment values, and so on. sometimes I even throw out the title "Natures's God" The Heretical Origins of the American Republic" by Mathew Stewart. Regrettably, none of this even remotely fazes your average American die hard rock solid right wing evangelical Trump support Christian, but, hell, why should I expect anything else from these people? Their minds were made up before they ever opened an American history book by anyone. And besides, every damned time, the zealous religious patriot always miraculously turns out to be a renowned historical scholar.

Trump, Spewing Trash

OF ALL THE RIDICULOUS, reprehensible, laughable things our president has said and done, among the most reprehensible is his constant vilification of the news media. Trump has also repeatedly and incessantly criticized the court system, the intelligence gathering community, and law enforcement and investigative agencies like the FBI. This does good for American society, and much harm, by encouraging doubt and mistrust for America's most important institutions. The strategy is remindful of a petty dictator, trying to seize power. Despite the constant clamor to the contrary being prevaricated by America's right wing, the American news media tends to report the truth, fairly accurately, and for a liar like Trump to be reported accurately in the media is to him the worst possible situation. The mainstream America news media is corporate, with a corporate point view, which is basically conservative. Pathological liars do not like to have their most outrageous, blatant lies refuted, which is what the American news media tends to do, tends to hold elected officials accountable, much to its credit. Trump's hatred laced lies are becoming more outrageous, and o more frequent, raising questions about his mental state. When his absurd suggestion that the United States purchase Greenland from Denmark was called "absurd" by the Danish prime minister, who happens to be a woman, Trump called her"nasty" and canceled a trip to Denmark for good measure. The president has called dozens of women "nasty", ranging from Hilary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren, among many others. He never calls men nasty. You can scarcely conceive of the ludicrous irony of Trump, perhaps the nastiest person on the planet, feigning offense because a strong intelligent woman called one of his absurd ideas "absurd" A few days ago he told the howling mob at one of his bizarre campaign rallies that unless you want your 401K to vanish, you must vote for him, whether you love him or hate him. The rhetoric is getting worse, more vicious, more dishonest, more delusional and nasty. The big bully Trump tuns out to be a delicate, easily offended snowflake, not some tough guy, after all. The overweening question of exactly how his supporters can not only put up with all this, but can either completely ignore it, or accept, or, most frighteningly of all, approve of it and admire it, remains largely unanswered, although it appears to be a combination of moral compromise and denial. How can anybody possible respect, or pretend to respect, somebody who acts like Donald Trump?

Fighting Facebook

ATTRACTING READERS has never been the first priority of this website. The purpose here has always been writing for the sake of writing, for the enjoyment of it. Being published, indeed being able to self publish is a great and rare privilege of the twenty first century, of the computer age, for people lucky enough to have lived long enough to remember typing on an old Underwood manual. Being able to push a button and have my essays published online, and thus all over the world, is a great opportunity I must honestly admit I never dreamed I would have, until about twenty years ago. Like a dog licking its won genitals, I write and publish essays because, well, I can. its fun to keep track of teh readership, which is worldwide, and to wonder what might or might not attract people. The Truthless Reconciler is quite popular in some countries, not so much in others. Several months ago I got a Facebook account, mainly out of curiosity. I was skeptical about whether I would like Facebook, based on what I had heard about it. I ended up liking it, gradually. for me Facebook became a way of spreading left wing political propaganda and anti-Trump messages, and to promote this website. Eventually I started putting a link to it on the Facebook posts so interested people could simply slick on the link, and go straight to The Truthless Reconciler. The plan didn't last very long. One day I tried to post a link, and got a message saying: "Facebook cannot post this link because it goes against community standards. If you think it does not go against community standards, let us know". Exactly that. Well, although I have not yet let Facebook know that this website most certainly does not go against community standards, but I can assure you I fully intend to, and will, very soon. I can only speculate that at least one person found one of or several of the essays offensive, in that they made disparaging remarks about conservative, or conservative Christians, or conservative evangelical Christian Trump supporters. Most of the disparaging remarks made here are against Trump supporters, and will continue to be. In a sense, this is a great honor, to be tagged by Facebook as unacceptably offensive. Rather like having one's books burned by Hitler. Facebook, of all people. Maybe Facebook should focus on its own internal corruption, and leave my poor little old website alone. Free speech, freedom of the press, against the big, all powerful, dehumanizing corporate power structure. You gotta love it.

The Rich Leading the Poor

THE UTTER INEXPLICABILITY of anyone, let alone millions of people voting for ans supporting Donald trump has been written about, studied, researched ad nauseam, yet remains unresolved. These studies have often revolved around the curious fact which stands out above all others: that Trump, who is notoriously immoral in his behavior, words, and attitudes, enjoys as his strongest basis of support the American Christian evangelical community. Incompatible as Trump and fundamentalist Christians may seem, most researchers conclude that by promising to pursue policies which reflect widespread fundamentalist beliefs, the Christian conservative community is willing to overlook Trump's un Christian behavior, considering him preferable to a liberal democrat. Evidently America's evangelical Christian community, eighty percent of which supports Trump, are either not overly concerned about Trump's racism, his pathological dishonesty and narcissism, his denial of climate change, and all his other seemingly unacceptable behaviors, or, those behaviors reflect the true, largely hidden values of America's evangelical community. Less often mentioned is the apparent contradiction in which Trump, a billionaire whose policies are distinctly favorable to the wealthy at the expense of the poor, enjoys the support of millions of America's working poor. This may be the greatest paradox of all. There is, for instance, no reason for anyone who is not a millionaire or billionaire corporate owner to support the fourteen percent tax cut for the wealthy which Trump and the Republicans successfully rammed down America's throat. Only the very wealthy benefit from this, and yet, from the non wealthy, we hear not a peep, except from liberal socialist types. If America's tens of millions of poor people decided to actually vote in an educate, informed manner in favor of their own personal best interests, they would all vote for Bernie Sanders, or some other tax and spend bleeding heart liberal Democrat, from which there are dozens to choose, all running for president. A close examination of every policy of the Trump administration, a close examination of every piece of legislation supported by and passed into law by republicans is favorable to the wealthy, and harmful to the working class, and the poor. In america, the wealthy elite have the teeming poor masses duped and brainwashed, mainly through mass media, which is of course owned by billionaires and corporations. If the poor working class in America, which consists of about two thirds of the population at lest, ever decides to start voting in its own interests, a revolution will take place, and corporate billionaire control of America will be ended. But, from the looks of things, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Going Downhill, Fast

LIKE MANY PEOPLE OPPOSED TO TRUMP, I cringe whenever I hear of see him speak. I have come to associate his voice and face with perpetual prevarication. It seems to me, and to many others, that during his presidency his mental state has deteriorated significantly, and that his anger, delusion, paranoia and narcissism have all worsened. The number of lies has now exceeded twelve thousand, with no end in sight. I don't watch much television, and don't see Trump much on TV, but whenever I do, I am amazed at the arrogance and anger he exudes, and even more amazed at the obvious anger, arrogance, and ignorance of the mob which can always be seen in the background. The screen is always full of MAGA hats and screeching, grimacing, sneering faces. The anger and arrogance of Trump's assembled mobs is always palpable. Trump was elected because of right wing anger at a society increasingly moving towards progressive values, such as acceptance of gay and transgender people, acceptance of immigrants, and embrace of cultural diversity and religious diversity. Diversity is that last thing the Trump movement wants, in its desperate ill fated attempted coup to restor America to the nineteen fifties, culturally. I saw Trump screaming that whether you love or hate him, you have to vote for him, to save America, to save your 401K, which otherwise will "go down the tubes" as he put it. He sounds increasingly like some petty tyrant, like a little Hitler, spouting lies about his own greatness and his indispensable value to the country. Increasingly, as I observe Trump's behavior and the behavior of those who support him, I realize that America is as vulnerable as any other country to devolving into a tyranny, with the far right wing conservative christian evangelical mob, which forms Trump's most solid support because, imposing its twisted religious values upon the rest of us. It increasingly clear that the primary threat to America is not Trump, but rather, the people who voted for him and who still support him. Trump has already reneged on is promise to take action against gun violence, and his gun wielding evangelical gang are once again appeased. It might require a few dozen more mass murders committed by Trump followers to once again precipitate a serious conversation about gun control, something more than monitoring mental health and reducing video games. Conservatives, the Jesus, guns, and money crowd, will blame our American mass murders on anything other than assault weapons misuse. They love their precious guns too dearly. And Trump will continue to blame the media, the liberals, and immigrants for all of America's ills, while his supporters screech and shout his name adoringly, apparently totally unaware or unwilling to admit that most of our problems, including climate change denial and mass murder, originate with them.

Cars Don't Kill People

IT IS WIDELY UNDERSTOOD by people who know what's going on that within a few years, all automobiles will be driven by computers, and that therefore the number of people killed in automobile accidents will decrease precipitously, form the current staggering, unbelievable one million per year, approximately, to none. You got that right. Zero. Zilch. The reason, of course, is that computers don't make mistakes, and while people make more mistakes per second while driving than the number of atoms in the universe, causing the annual global vehicular slaughter, computers, make none. Zero, Zilch. Just program them properly, and keep them running, smoothly sure, there will be the occasional computer driven automotive accident, band perhaps a fatality or tow, but it will be demonstrably attributable to human error, not computer error. computer driven cars will save a million lives a year, so, its gonna happen. too many people insist on it. first, computer control will be optional, then, it will become mandatory, for obvious reasons. Cars don't kill people. People kill people, sometimes, in fact all too often, while driving cars. In a way, people and cars work together to kill people, the people supplying the brains, and cars, the muscle. There really isn't much we can do about people, other than to encourage them to drive safely, so we have to do what we can with cars. We make them safer, and, after decades of trying, we are on the verge of making cars so safe as to be harmless, or rather, so as to prevent people from harming themselves using cars. Much the same is true about guns; they don't kill people, people kill people, using guns. And, there is only so much we can do to improve people. Background checks, mental health programs, will only go so far in preventing gun violence. We are reduced, like it or not, to trying to do what we can with guns, just like cars, to make them safer. We are stuck with people using guns, wrongly, and we must not blame the guns. But we can control guns much more than we can control people, correct? Agreed? So. let's do what we can do. Let's ban assault weapons, and institute universal background checks, immediately. and also, let's take a look at countries, like England and Australia, which suddenly got rid of guns, and greatly reduced gun violence. We might want to imitate them, to save lives. Even if it means giving up our precious guns. The awful truth is, we human beings simply are not capable of operating machines like cars or guns properly, without inflicting carnage upon each other. The only question is: How do we prevent the carnage? And the answer, obviously, is, by doing whatever is required.

Trump Just Being Trump

THROUGHOUT HIS FIRST and I hope only term as president, president trump has continued to have these huge, loud, high energy campaign rallies, almost as if the election had never happened, and he still running for president, or can't stop running for president, or decided to stat the campaign for a second term ten day after his first term began. Of all the crazy things he has done and does, and there are many, this is perhaps teh craziest of all, these frenetic, boisterous, angry campaign rallies, without and apparent purpose other than to keep Trump's small and shrinking base from dissolving altogether. At these rallies Trump is at his worst, screaming false promises to his adoring mob and vicious insults at his political opponents. His most recent involves yelling at a protester that she really had a weight problem. As always, his mob hooted and roared with agreement and approval. This begs the question: exactly how presidential is it for the American president to ridicule someone about bieng overweight during a speech? Or, is it presidential at all? It is even remotely acceptable? Not to intelligent people, it isn't. Third grade children get in trouble for behaving this way. That's the alarming aspect: that there are actually millions of Americans who either approve of Trump's crude, crass behavior, who are not aware of it, or who simply do not care, and choose to ignore it. None of these options reflects favorably upon the people who choose them. Upon examination, the Trump mob, those who attend rallies and those who do not, are no better than he, Trump, their inspiration and leader, whose behavior they seem to not only admire, but wish to emulate. Every face at these rallies is white, loud, and angry, the mouth either wide open yelling or twisted into some hateful grimacing sneer. Trump and his supporters are so disillusioned with this world, that they spew anger incessantly, and create their own fantasy version, in which 'white" people once again dominate America, and all the rest. They long for a simpler past, and seek to return to it. They seem to approve of Trump's insult mongering, almost as if he echos their own sentiments. it is a frightening situation, with forty percent of the country angry, immersed in fantasy, and violent, wanting to turn back the clock by decades and willing to do whatever it takes, including inciting war, to achieve that dubious end. All one need do is compare the Trump position on climate change, foreign relations, and most other areas of concern, with the progressive position, and its obvious the progressives accept reality, and the Trump folks reject it. We must somehow find a way to make America sane, honest, and intelligent again,including a great moral revival to inspire the hearts and souls of America's conservative evangelical Trump community, and return those poor captured souls to health, and to God.

Dethroning Neo-Liberalism

"NEO-LIBERALISM", as students of economics know, has nothing to do with what you might think of as "liberal". It is neither a political movement nor viewpoint, but in economics, simply refers to the resurgence of the idea that the less involved government is in the economy, the more prosperity. By removing government from the economic system, markets are freed up, "liberalized", as they had been in the good old days when America, by some accounts, was great. the term "neo-liberal" goes back to at least the immediate post world war two period when the Chicago school of economics, named after the University of Chicago, collected a faculty of mainly neo-liberal economists, including the famed Milton Friedman, who espoused a Laissez faire (leave alone) approach to government intervention in the economy.This philosophy finally took hold in government in earnest beginning with the Reagan years, and has been with us ever since. The idea, as Reagan said, that government is the problem. Throughout history governments have been deeply involved in the economics of the various nations, the common reason being the preservation of some semblance of economic order, the avoidance of economic chaos. Also, government has historically been under the control of the wealthiest members of Society, who have tended, unsurprisingly, to use government as a means of protecting and enhancing their personal wealth. For most the nineteenth century American corporate capitalism was allowed to function unencumbered by overbearing government, but abuses and corruption precipitated the involvement of the federal government beginning at about the turn of the century. after another brief period of neo-liberalism in the nineteen twenties, Roosevelt injected government into the American economy as a response to the great depression and the second world war. Under Roosevelt, the federal government was directed towards assisting the worker class, rather than the corporations themselves. Trump is a continuation of the pro corporation pro wealth neo-liberal philosophy that big business is good for everyone, without government intervention on behalf of the working class. As a result of this "Reaganomic" philosophy, the consequences include: violent fluctuations between periods of prosperity and recession, extreme concentration of wealth, corporate control of the political and economic system,decline of the middle class, and stagnation, in terms of real wages, over decades, of the working class. Government can be a tool for generating economic prosperity by limiting the greed of the super rich, enacting policies which distribute wealth widely and raise the living standard of the working class, and offering opportunity to all, not just a few. And if anything is obvious, it is that corporate control of society has to end, and must be replaced by control of, by, and for the working people, for the sake of the majority of society, which is more poor than wealthy.

Standing and Pledging

ONE DAY AT THE SENIOR CENTER I had a bright idea. That shouldn't be surprising - I have bright ideas often, but it might be surprising to a few of the folks at the senior center, who are much more accustomed to seeing me wash dishes than generate bright ideas. but one day I had one and I took it straight to the director. Each day, I explained, the director reads the announcements, then we pray, and eat. why not start reciting the "Pledge of allegiance' each day before we pray? she turned me down cold. when I questioned her patriotism, she promised she had plenty, but just wasn't going to start reciting the pledge every day. So, i simply waited to the director to get tired of her job, and to quit, which she did within a couple of years. I asked the new director the dame thing, and received wholehearted approval. Go figure. Different folks. She immediately appointed me to lead the pledge, a possibility I had not considered, and how could I say no? it works out well. Each day I march to the front of the room carrying a big flag, and lead the pledge. Everyone seems to like it. I think its important that we left wing types demonstrate our patriotism, because we are the ones always criticizing the country, while the conservatives, imbued with tradition, tend to kiss the country's ass, so to speak. Above all, I believe that expressions of patriotism, in a free country, should be voluntary. Likewise expressions of love. when somebody kneels during the national anthem in protest, I'm all down with it, not indignant with righteous outrage like some conservative nationalistic ass kisser. someone asked me how I would feel if several of the seniors failed to stand and recite the pledge with us. I replied that I wouldn't mind at all. I find it interesting that the people who most vehemently complain about anthem kneelers and flag burners and protesters in general are the same people who most fervently embrace religious dogma, as if by nature they love acceding to authority. If some senior failed to stand during my pledging, I would either assume they were protesting something, probably something worthwhile, as most protests are, or, that being seniors, they were having a "bad day", and lacked the energy to rise and recite. Jefferson is reported to have said: "Where injustice is law, resistance is duty". No matter who did or did not say it, its true. Kneeling during the anthem or during the pledge of allegiance seems like a rather tame way of protesting, all things considered. Just because someone else chooses to protest, it doesn't mean you have to, or you have to approve of it. But why should you, why should anyone, expect everybody else to behave according to our beliefs and values, and not their own? I choose to stand during the anthem, and to pledge allegiance. But for me to automatically assume that my behavior is always correct and should be emulated by everyone is nothing short of arrogant. Arrogance, of course, is a widely recognized American characteristic. Loving America, however, should be optional, and voluntary. My liberal friends chastise me for placidly acquiescing to existing authority, simply because it exists. Fair point, I admit. My conservative friends sharply denounce my tolerance of unpatriotic heresy, which only shows that they do not understand the basic premise upon which our great country was founded. Screw both groups. I have my own beliefs, I do not attack theirs, and do not seek to appease or please anyone.

The Trump Cult, In Denial

I RECENTLY TOLD A FRIEND, and I meant it, that I would never have any desire, tendency, or intention of calling President Trump a sexual predator, had he himself not bragged about being one. To me, his word is good enough, and whether he really behaves like that or not, the mere fact that he is willing to talk like that, let alone think like that, is enough to repulse me, or any decent person. My tendency is to give people a chance, and to look at the good side. The Access Hollywood tape made a believer out of me, concerning Trump's personal character, morality, behavior. I still find it absolutely amazing that one month after the Access Hollywood tape release, Trump was elected president. His followers simply do not care. I then went on to say to my friend that I would never, ever accuse Donald Trump of having anything to due with the recent epidemic of mass murders in America, were it not for the fact that several of the mass murders explicitly gave Trump credit for motivating them to commit mass murder. I'll take their word for it. Why would they make it up? Are they all closet liberals, just trying to make conservatism and Trump look bad? I don't see anything unfair about that: Trump's own words reveal his sexual misbehavior, and the mass murders themselves give credit to Trump. And yet, my friend said nothing in response, either in defense of Trump, or criticizing him. What could he say? That he willingly supports a reprobate president? It so obvious, Trump's racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, his cult like following, and the fact that his followers never seem to mention any of it, they seem to either be totally unaware of Trump's multiple forms of horrible behavior, or they simple don't care about it, it makes no difference to them. My friends who support trump never say anything about all of trump's incredible lies, has vicious attacks on innocent people, - just yesterday he accused Bill Clinton of killing Epstein - his generally aberrant behavior loudly bespeaking mental illnesses of various sorts: narcissism, delusional psychosis, and others. Imagine how vociferously Conservative Christians would bellow if a liberal Democratic president behaved like Trump dies? they would have impeached him long since. but for them it is sufficient to have a president with a conservative agenda, and morality be damned. some might offer the ludicrous contention that trump is merely firing back at his critics, giving tit for tat, instead of letting people walk all over him. This is nonsense. there is nothing retaliatory or defense about Trump's attacks: his attacks are offensive, gratuitous, totally unnecessary, undignified, and beneath the dignity of the office. Trump should, be never will be, ashamed of himself. His supporters, even though they like h is policies, should be ashamed of his behavior, and ashamed of their own, which, you suspect, they one day will be. So unacceptable is Trump's behavior, and so inexplicable his support, that it has been suggested that what America needs is a "moral revival" or a "moral uprising". This indeed seems needed, but would have to be led by anti-Trump progressives, since pervasive immorality, and acceptance of immorality in which America seems immersed is a product of the conservative movement, particularly the far right evangelical Christian community, which so strongly supports Trump, and so wantonly, immorally overlooks trump's horrible behavior. If we can simply convince Trump supporters to return to their moral roots, if not to their senses, we have a chance at national moral renewal, so badly needed.

Fighting For Change: Calling A Spade A Spade

WE ARE SO FOND in America of calling the United States a democracy that it bears reminding, from time to time, that in fact it is not. Our mistaken belief derives from several sources, first among them is that our country, in many respects, closely resembles a democracy. then too, from our earliest childhood we are all told, repeatedly, by authority figures to whom we look up, that this country in fact is a democracy - and, credulously, we believe it, and keep believing it, throughout our distinctly undemocratic lives. We vote often, on many issues. WE seldom git in any trouble with the government because of what we say or do. the trouble, usually if not always comes from our friends and coworkers. Which brings us to another common misconception, that we have free speech, everywhere. In fact, we do not; congress, now meant to mean "government" cannot limit free speech; anyone else parents, teachers, and employers, may. the votes we cast are all but meaningless, because the candidates and issues are chosen for us, by the same elite group whose possession of most politically and economic power in America renders our nation a "plutocracy", ruled by the wealthy, and not a democracy", rule by the many, by the people at large. Like many great thinkers, among them Aristotle, James Madison, and many others have noted; you can have a democracy, and you can have great economic inequality, but you cannot have both. Political equality requires economic equality; otherwise, the wealthy rule, having purchased the government, like they have in the United States. On almost every issue, in america, the will of the people is ignored, and replaced by the will of the wealthy. nothing could be more obvious. To change this, to change the system and bring actual democracy to our country, fundamental changes of a revolutionary nature will be required, and will thus require a de facto revolution, if not one in the streets. Economic equality can be increased by raising wages on the poorest workers, and by installing a progressive tax system, in which the very wealthy pay their fair share, as defined by experts. A nine word law would take the money out of politics, and give poor people a chance to run for office: "The sale and purchase of political advertising is prohibited". We could and should eliminate the electoral college, which, contrary to what you may have been told, was created not to give small states more equal power, but rather, to give all power to the wealthy, and to limit democracy. It becomes obvious that much could be done to foster actual democracy in america by making a few basic changes, but those changes, because they are fundamental, will be met with overwhelming opposition, from our elite wealthy ruling corporate masters. this is why we the people must all get involved, and fight for the necessary changes, online, in the media, at the ballot box, and if necessary, in the streets.

Excuse Mongering, the Right Wing Way

THE LITANY OF LAME EXCUSES being offered by the conservative community to explain America's ongoing mass murder epidemic sounds like the punch line to a bad joke. Mental illness. Video games. Homosexuality. The removal of prayer from public schools. There are others, too stupid to even mention. Anything and everything except the hard, cold, naked, and all too obvious truth. The conservative community is, after all the gun loving community, what Gore Vidal used to call the "Jesus, Guns, and Money" crowd. In this context, right wing pro Trump evangelical America will do all in its power to protect the reputation, status, and imagined benefit and harmlessness of firearms, while throwing a bit of its twisted morality and religious values into the mix for good measure. The precise causal connection between the gay and LGBTQ movement and mass murder has never been, and never will be nor can be, delineated. There simply isn't one. The precise cause and effect between omitting organized public prayer in public schools, based on a 1962 Supreme court ruling, and the slaughter which has been ongoing in America for the past generation has never been articulated logically, because it cannot be. No connection exists, obviously. There is never any science or common sense to support nonsense. Meanwhile, the real primary causes of this national nightmare are as obvious to those willing to see them as are our other national problems. A socio-economically Darwinistic culture which [its people against people, producing winners and losers, and millions of permanently angry, alienated Americans. Pervasive poverty in the world's wealthiest nation. Racism, sexism, you name it, we Americans perpetuate every form of institutional hatred known to humanity. WE have created in America an angry, alienated, aloof citizenry, from which there issues forth a seemingly never ending supply of desperate people, who have decided to quit, to leave it all behind, and to take as many as possible with them. We even went so far as to elect a head of state and congress which willfully embraces these twisted values, if only tacitly, passively. And, according to the experts themselves, the mass murderers, their most effective inspiration comes directly from the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. They say so, in tweet posts, social media statements, lengthy manifestos, over and over again, they make it perfectly plain for all to see: Donald Trump is their inspiration in committing mass murder, as they try to contribute to what they consider Trump's highest priority; the elimination of non white minorities. We have a racist, angry, hate spewing president, with millions of followers, some of whom are tragically willing, able and ready to bring his twisted agenda to full fruition. People kill people, when they have decided to abandon all hope, and when they have the help of a fully automatic assault rifle. Make no mistake: the arrogance, aggressive, angry, alienated sector of America producing the hate crimes is the far right. The far right is the home of white supremacy and racism, and is angry about encroaching American multiculturalism, immigration, the movement for LGBTQ equality, and all the fuss liberals are making about climate change, which conservatives would rather ignore. Liberals like and support immigrants, multiculturalism, gay people, gun control, and economic reform to fight inequality and climate change; they are the positive one,s not the angry ones. The problem(s), my fellow Americans, is on the right, with its twisted "make America white again" agenda, and its constant lies.

Weaponizing Information

AS PRINCE SAID: Dig, if you will, a picture. A picture of the American intelligence gathering community obtaining information damaging to our Russian adversaries. Something such as half the Russians general military is addicted to Vodka, and tends to make decisions directly inimical to their country, when all the while the government seems paralyzed and unable or unwilling to correct the situation. The information becomes top secret, because the last thing the American government wants to to let the Russians know about their own weakness, or that we know about it. The last thing "We" want is for them to fix the problem, because we might choose to and be able to exploit it later. So, it becomes a deep, dark secret, until some know-it-all do gooder like Mr. Snowden spills the beans, decides that it is his sacred duty to save the country by divulging the secret. All hell breaks loose, the libtards and rethuglicans argue bitterly over whether he has done the world and country a favor, or is a traitor. Te United States government tracks the traitor down and sends him to his maker just before he crosses the border into Tijuana. Everything changes. The Russians, suddenly shocked into alertness, clean up their military command, and American loses a valuable informational weapon. Information has always been a potential weapon, and we in our modern world have accumulated enough information and developed sufficient means of weaponizing it that the world is in fact a constant struggle to obtain, control, and utilize it for any conceivable purpose or cause. A world of unregulated information warfare, individual, corporate, and international, loos before us, threatening our survival. Its part of what the current trade war with China is all about, and the danger is enormous. A transparent world, where most people have access to most information is a partial answer; how to achieve that while protecting privacy rights poses a difficult question. WE must retain the freedom of refraining from having government cameras in our homes, and the freedom to choose whether to have computer chips inserted into our brains. e as citizens should and must have control over personal information, as Facebook is starting to realize. at the same time, government must have certain information about everyone; name, rank, and serial number, if nothing else. however, a world divided into mutually hostile military powers, each with a huge abundance of secret, potentially harmful information, and the ability to use this information at any time in any way whimsical, quixotic leader might see fit - is a disaster waiting to happen. How to manage information is as urgent an issue as how to manage natural resources or military weapons. If the United States should happen to discover a weakness in Russia, instead of weaponizing it, it should be shared with Russia, and help should be given to detox the military, and to get the commanders off Vodka. That's just one example.The management of information must ultimately be guided by a system of morality which we have not yet invented, but must, the sooner the better. Otherwise, we are headed for a world in which there is no universal morality governing the use of information, and chaos, destruction, and death.

Seeking A Stronger Word Than "Evil"

NOAM CHOMSKY recently said that he is searching for a word in the English language to describe someone who is wealthy but willing to destroy the human race and all life on Earth to make a few extra dollars. "Evil" says the eminent scholar, doesn't even begin to suffice. Do people who deny climate change actually realize that its real, but deceive others and perhaps themselves by pretending not to? Either they do, are they are very stupid and ignorant of basic science. We see climate change all over the world, science confirms it, and yet, and his idiotic ilk, still deny it, thus placing the entire world in grave jeopardy. this describes most, if not nearly all Trump supporters. Trump's supporters are as fascinating, and frightening, as Trump. You never hear one condemning or even criticizing Trump for his torrent of outlandish lies, and all the rest of his abhorrent behavior, especially racism. The racism is obvious, and the statements by mass murderers crediting Trump for inspiring them are irrefutable. Trump supporters are digging themselves an ever deeper trap, now forced to pretend that Donald Trump does not cause mass murder in America. It is difficult to imagine a more morally undesirable position to be in, of feeling that you have to defend by ignoring the actions of a murderer, which of course make you an accessory to murder. Trump supporters are either incapable or unwilling to accept the reality that by ignoring trump's racism and incitements to violence, they, by supporting Trump, are complicit. this renders Trump supporters more than merely morally bankrupt; they have crossed over into the realm of the immoral. the only way of excusing this is by diagnosing it as criminally insane, thus relieving Trump supporters of responsibility for the behavior. And since they obviously do not want responsibility for their behavior, they must accept themselves as criminally insane. it is easy to understand the number of cars in the world, the amount of carbon which comes out of every car's emission system, and how much heat is absorbed by the carbon that cars, and many other things, put into the air. Easy. All so easy. Just basic science, and math. So, you've got to believe that climate change deniers understand climate change, but are pretending not to. and that, indisputably, is criminal insanity. Bear in mind that these tend to be the same people who think that gun violence can be eliminated by arming all good people, that all economic cooperation is sinful, and that Jesus Christ is going to return soon. So goes the criminal insanity of mainstream conservative Christianity, aka the Republican party, aka Trump supporters.

Taking Over America

ARISTOTLE SAID: "Poverty is the cause of the defects of democracy. That is the reason why measures should be taken to ensure a permanent level of prosperity. This is in the interest of all the classes, including the prosperous themselves; and therefore the proper policy is to accumulate any surplus revenue in a fund, and then to distribute this fund in block grants to the poor. The ideal method distribution, if a sufficient fund can be accumulated, as to make such grants sufficient for the purchase of a plot of land: failing that they be large enough to start men in commerce or agriculture." (Aristotle:"Politics" book 6 chapter 5). Aristotle, the father of politics, was saying that in any society with great economic inequality, the wealthy minority will tyrannize the poop majority, and the poor will eventually unite, rise up, and destroy the wealthy, taking their wealth. In order to maintain a democracy, a nation must have widespread, general economic equality among its citizens. The American founding fathers knew this. They, and Aristotle came to different conclusions and solutions. Aristotle wanted to redistribute wealth to create economic equality, and the American founding fathers decided to accept economic inequality, and to avoid creating a democracy. that's why they created a 'republic", more specifically, a plutocracy, a representative democracy, a democratic republic, in which the wealthy and all the political power, and were to be trusted to represent the best interests of the poor. Madison and the rest of America's "founders', the inventors of our system of government, actually trusted the wealthy elite to behave nobly, in the best interests of all Americans, not merely themselves. The constitution went into effect in 1787, with within five years James Madison knew that he had made a great mistake, and wished that he had never written the kind of constitution that he did. For by then it had become rapidly obvious that the wealthy class in America had no interest other than itself, had no intention of taking proper care of the vast majority of poor Americans, and would only use their power to enrich themselves and increase and maintain their power. And so it was then, so it has always been, and so it remains today; a government, legal, and political system created of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy, with the sole purpose of protecting, maintaining, and increasing the power and the wealthy of the wealthy powerful. Hence, welcome to the United State of corporate America. In order to bring about a true democracy, corporate power would have to be broken, and taxes greatly increased on the wealthy, and worker's wages much increased. If you want to change our system, to replace this system with a true democracy by redistributing wealth and power equally among all the people, you are probably on the extreme left of the Democratic party, and are called an extremist, marginalized. You are Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the Attractive, the bane of conservative Republicans, who want to keep the plutocracy we have today, rule by the wealthy and have always have. In america today, the poor greatly outnumber the wealthy, partly because they always have and because it it always that way, but also because for many years in America, about 40, the rich were getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is shrinking. this is the way conservative republicans want it. The Democrats want to build a huge, all inclusive middle class, with nobody too rich or too poor, and everybody having equal poor, as well as wealth. the amazing is the huge number of poor people who support the rule of the wealthy. The wealthy, who control the means of communication, the media, have brainwashed the poor into supporting the wealthy. Now would be a great time for the poor masses of America to awaken, to organize and create a democratic socialist labor party, and take over the country. Amazing how easy it could be.

Eliniminating Gun Violence

ELIMINATING GUNS, said some conservative Christian minister, or something to that effect, will not stop gun violence. Mass murder is caused by a lack of God in the heart. In other words, is he saying that eliminating guns won't eliminate gun violence? How can you use a gun, if you don't have one? Anger and hatred and alienation cause gun violence, and having God in your heart does not eliminate any of those, nor does it prevent gun violence. Many a gun is fired in anger by many a Christian. Eliminating anger, hatred, and violence might be better accomplished by inclusion in human communities, a decent standard of living, fulfilling work, and happy relationships with people and animals. Obviously, having God in one's heart doesn't hurt, unless one happens to believe that God is telling one to commit mass murder, as often happens. If and when god tells one to commit mass murder, one, obviously, would be better off to not have God in one's heart. If one is misunderstanding God, its better to not listen to God, or anyone else, than to misunderstand them. Good health helps, especially mental and spiritual. This can be accomplished by atheists as well as monotheists. In England and Australia, they eliminated guns, and gun violence, and violence in general were greatly reduced, almost eliminated. Gun advocates predictably but falsely claim that the opposite is true. Guns don't kill people, people kill people, they smugly say. True, perhaps, but guns certainly help. We can't eliminate people, but we can, over time, eliminate guns from widespread ownership by the public, particularly assault rifles and hand guns. Background and mental health checks should be mandatory, plus banning assault rifles, again, which worked well for ten years, but was repealed by republicans. Believing that religion is the answer, or that video games cause gun violence is pseudo science. People become angry and alienated when they are isolated from society. Unjust treatment is a cause of anger and alienation. And, of course, mental illness is a key factor. Everybody is mentally ill, at one time or another, just as everybody is physically ill, at one time or another. If we render unto Caesar, and give unto the poor, like Jesus says, gun violence will be greatly reduced, because there will be less poverty, anger, and alienation, and a much greater connection to the human community, for everyone. Conservative Christian republicans are staunchly opposed to taxes other than extremely low taxes, and they do not believe in welfare without work. And that, dear reader, is why we in America do not do a whole helluva lotta rendering unto Caesar and giving unto the poor, or, at least, not nearly enough of it. We could do much, much more, to reduce anger and alienation which comes with poverty. the ministers who say that we need God in our hearts seem somehow to be opposed to rendering unto Caesar and giving unto the poor. they want God, so they say, but not the message of Jesus in our hears and mind and politics, because, after all, they are conservative Christian Republicans.

Implementing Solutions, Starting With Trump

THE DISEASE is widespread, and afflicts us all. Arrogance, combined with anger and alienation, produces pain, which produces hatred, which produces aggression, and violence. A nation founded violently, nurturing an unshakable belief in its own superiority, with a social Darwinistic economic and social ethic, provides a perfect recipe for the three capital A's. The United States of Avarice is a perfect storm for mass murder, and that is has come to full fruition so belatedly is a miracle of history. We white supremacist exhausted our supply of native Americans upon whom to enact our revenge, we shamed ourselves by brute legislative force into refraining from organized societal violence against Africans, women, homosexuals, among others, and we re left with no recourse but to exact our competitive violence vicariously, which we do, daily. Our mass murders are a fundamental America value, not some constantly recurring fluke. Fluke do not constantly recur. If we have the will, we can all do something to ameliorate or even eliminate the problem, after we have expressed our thoughts and prayer. Let us begin with the president, and a few comments from him. To wit: "I, Donald J. Trump, hereby renounce all racism, and to whatever extent I have displayed it throughout my life, I repent, I apologize, and I fully intend to atone. Totally terrific. I condemn white supremacy all who practice it, and I hereby declare the absolute, complete inherent equality of all people of all skin colors, light and dark, bigly. Likewise cultures, you'll see. All cultures are terrific, and they all contribute to our great American melting pot, whether or not it melts and produces a ubiquitous American culture, or remains solid, separate, identifiable, and equal. I hope that before I leave office all american neighborhoods are inhabited by people of all cultures and races, living happily together. Anyone in America should be left alone to speak whatever language, worship whatever deity, and perform whatever rituals of their choice, without censure. I repent of and intend to atone for every single one of the hateful, racist remarks I have. uttered previously, beginning with a visit to Baltimore, to lunch and chat with Representative Cummings, whose resistance to my previous bad behavior i greatly admire." He could say much more. he could talk about the need to redistribute wealth and opportunity more equitably to not only stimulate. free marked capitalism by increasing consumer demand, but also to reduce alienation, anger, our widespread societal frustration, and class resentment. Much can be done with the presidential bully pulpit, and it doesn't always have to be insulting, vicious, racist, and hateful. It can be uplifting, unifying, and inspiring, and, loving. This, notwithstanding that a snow ball has a far greater chance of surviving in hell than we the American people have of ever witnessing Trump behaving nobly. Yet, ultimately, it truly is about hearts and minds, thoughts and prayers. The president, at least in theory, has spoken. Now, its our turn.

Talking Guns and Trump, In One Last Breath

IT IS LIKELY that more essays have been published on this site about mass murders in America than any other subject, except Donald J. Trump, a distinction which probably does nothing to recommend this website, the people who work on it, or the cultural context whence it emerges. Yet, alas, as we say, its the only game in town, at least at the moment, much to our collective regret. There is something disquieting about these two topics: guns and mass murder, and Trump, something strangely symmetrical, as if the two belong together, but shouldn't. After all, the president is assiduous in offering both his prayers and his thoughts, much like the rest of us. Come to think about it, "thoughts and prayers" are yet another pair to draw to; they go together in our collective hearts and minds (another fine pair!). They assuage our vague and disquieting feeling of fear, guilt, and deflected responsibility, much as mass murder and Trump evoke similar images of chaos, bombast, anger, and retribution. When all else fails, offer thoughts and prayers. That'll surely make everything just fine. Let gun control legislation banning assault weapons languish in committee, or let it even fail to arrive to a committee. Espouse vehemently a better solution: that all good citizens take up arms against a sea of troubles, and go out into the world bearing, and ready to defend to the death the right to peacefully...bear arms...All it takes ia one good man or woman or child, properly locked and loaded, ready, willing and able to become the next Matt Dillon hero of the day, in a shoot out of a country much in need of citizen law. After all, Matt himself can only be one place at one time, and he is currently down at the Long Branch, having quick beer on the house, deflecting yet another flirtatious advance from Kitty, listening to old Doc growl and to the illiterate Festus, symbolizing most of us in the United States of Amnesia, with his broken English and slightly twisted reasoning. So, we come full circle, back to where we began" another of our patented mass murders, another cynical essay, and the same best answer; arm all god people and that means us all, for starters. This, because we can never tell beforehand whence will come the next snapped mind, with the next fully automatic rifle, in a crowded public place of opportunity. After all, we start out as "good people", eligible for personal concealed armament. and we can all take the eight week course - or is it two weeks, or but a day? - and become instant potential Matt Dillons, plural. Sound about right? or, sound a bit psychotic, culturally? We have the further good fortune that most of our current killers, apparently aware of America's propensity for the proprietary, generously provide full ideological and personal credit where credit is due. Thus they point their loving trigger fingers straight down the sight at Donald J. Trump and the extreme right wing white supremacy movement, the one closely associated with modern American Christian evangelical Trumpian fervor, church of Christ, prince of peace, incorporated. And in a land where everyone wants to be famous, if only for a few minutes, what more fitting accreditation than to give credit to a former reality TV star turned head of arrogant state, the United States of Anger. We would never have even the slightest hope of assigning proper credit for our blood letting reality TV past time, but for the fact that our superstars of the mass murdering day conveniently do it for us, asking little in return, but a few minutes of fame.

Reconnecting

I HAVE MORE THAN THREE THOUSAND friends on Facebook, nearly all of them former students of mine who kindly reconnected with me online. I am flattered, and a bit overwhelmed, and greatly grateful for the attention. For the most part, they seem to be doing well, and it shocks me to realize how many of them are now, how long it has been since many of them were in my classes, a reminder of my thirty five years in the teaching profession, mostly high school and college. My mother used to say that she had no difficulty comprehending her own age, but could not believe how old her children were. now, I fully understand. so many of them have gone onto successful careers and family lives, and so many of them generously give me credit for having inspired and even been a primary source of their success, that I am compelled to remind them of what little I did, and how much they have done. I find it difficult to remain appropriately humble amid all the sincere flattery. I succeed. Again, its appropriate. my feeling of satisfaction, I hope is also appropriate. One student in particular, however, dismays me, concerning his pathway beyond graduation. I remember him well, and had lost track of him, like most of the others, until Facebook brought us back together. he was in one of my Western Civilization classes at a major university, and was a most promising student. He aced my class, which seemed too easy for him. he aspired to a career as a writer, and to that end went on to obtain a masters of fine arts degree from an Ivy League school. This in itself was a risky career choice: deciding to become a successful creative writer is like deciding to become a rock star: it is an ambition best pursued in one's free time from the security of one's basement, while pursuing a more tangibly lucrative career, like teaching, law, or accounting. No matter how talented you are, you never know whether the world will appreciate your talent, and pay you for it. But he had a dream, and he went for it. He never completed his first novel, never pursued another career, and we left to take on off jobs and temporary employment, and to rely on the beneficence of his parents, while he languished through his twenties, unpublished and underfed. At some point, about the time he reached the age of thirty, he evidently lost faith in the real world, and decided to retreat into one of his own manufacture, and to remain there, to this day. it stated when he became a votary of someone called "Ramtha the Enlightened one", about 1985. Ramtha was, and still is, a woman who channels the spirit of an ancient philosopher warrior from ancient India, and gives lectures, seminars, and consultations, at at great profit. The guru cult industry is quite lucrative in America, attracting hordes of lost souls, and their financial support. From there my former students life continued ever more deeply into the realm of alternative universes of reality, eventually encompassing contacts with various extraterrestrial species, journey into parallel universes and dimensions, and an endless outpouring, by him, of information about intelligent beings living within the hollow Earth, on mars, and intermingling among human society, unseen by anyone other than himself and others of his kind. Of course, conspiracy theories are part and parcel, the stranger the better. Many of them involve unseen organizations determined to enslave us all and to control the global economy, consortium of mysterious trillionaires and extraterrestrial operatives. My troubled friend is heavily involve in all this to this day; he tells me all about it, when he isn't out delivering pizzas.I now know that man has never landed on the mon, that vaccinations are a form of insidious government sponsored mind control, and that only President Trump, whom he adores, can possible save us from all this. I find it interesting that people who have left the realm of reality through alienation form a large part of support for president Trump, who himself surrounds himself with an aura of the unreal, of living in an alternative unreal universe, by constantly fabricating fantastic imaginary facts, and feeling them to his uncritical sycophants, yearning for meaning and purpose in a world they angrily feel has abandoned them. Alarmingly, there are millions of people like my poor former student, all seeking something unknown to themselves. I'll stay in touch,and try to help, knowing that he sees no need to be helped. I cannot possible enable his fantasy by explicitly agreeing with his notions. I can, however, let him know that while I do not share his world view, i support without reservation his right to have one, and that, after all, we all share what Einstein called "our weak and transitory comprehension of reality."

Forcing Religion On Kids

ALTHOUGH DEVOUT CHRISTIANS seem fond of proclaiming that the United States of America was founded on "Judeo-Christian" principles, and was intended from its beginning to be a "christian nation", they are, as they are about so many fundamental things, dead wrong. The United States was founded on the principles of John Locke and other enlightenment thinkers, to be a secular republic, governed by an elite educated propertied class, with a strict separation between church and state, and freedom of religion, from religion, and religious tolerance. If the United States had been founded on Christian values, it would be a dictatorship; the Christian faith is not a democracy, nor even a republic, nor a plutocracy, as the United states was intended to be, always has been, and still is; the Christian religion is a dictatorship, of God. Madison and Jefferson agreed that there must be an "Impenetrable wall' between the two, between church and state. The word "God" is not mentioned in the constitution, on purpose. In the Declaration of independence, Jefferson uses the term "Nature's God": God is created by nature, not the other way around. In 1797, Congress passed a law unanimously saying that "the United States of America is no more a Christian nation than an Islamic nation" (they used the word "Mohammadian"). The law, called the "Treaty of Tripoli" was signed by the president, and remains on the books today, as well it should. In the constitution all treaties entered into by the U.S. government are law. In his seminal monograph "Nature's God: the Heretical Origins of the American Republic" by historian Mathew Stewart, all this is carefully explained. He explains that the first six presidents of the United Stats were not Christians, that Andrew Jackson, the seventh, was the first true Christian president, although the others attended church regularly, to keep up appearances. Jefferson in fact believed Christianity to be "superstition", and said so. Nobody could figure out what George Washington's religion was; he never talked about it. Hamilton and Jefferson had an ongoing wager over who would be the first to discover it. Neither ever collected, but like the others, Washington was actually a "deist", a popular form of religiosity among late eighteenth century intellectuals, who believed that the universe was intelligently designed, but not by any sentient, anthropomorphic deity which any extant human religion espouses. In 1962 the Supreme Court forbade organized prayer in public schools as a violation of the first amendment, but did not prohibit prayer in public schools. Anyone can pray in any public school in america, just not in unison with a class led by a teacher, out loud. And yet, even as their primitive religion slowly declines in adherents throughout western civilization, in a last gasp desperate effort, American evangelicals, in at least one school district in America, intend to hold worship services before school, and in another, plan to hang "in God we trust" banners in the hallways, in this upcoming school year, 2019, the year of our lord. Both actions are not only pathetically and blatantly un American, they are blatantly unconstitutional, and will soon be shown as such, in court, no matter how many extreme right wing religious fanatics the conservative religious extremists, and their leader and hero, Donald J. Trump, manage to force down our throats and into America's judiciary. Religious fanatics die hard, but they do mercifully die, as do all religions, including our present primitive barbaric ones. In due time, once and for all, the school children of America will be free of religious indoctrination foisted upon them for generations by the perhaps well meaning but seriously misguided not so moral devout.

Leading By Example

MORAL LEADERSHIP is a tenuous concept. It becomes tangible only when a person or group of people behave so admirably that others are inspired to emulate them, and the emulation can be verified. It is not always easy to ascertain whether any particular behavior or action is in fact performed in imitation of anyone else's actions, and people are not always honest in disclosing attributions. Often, if not usually, the true motives of people and nations are purposely concealed. Some people have expressed concerns that under Trump the United States is at risk of forfeiting its moral leadership among nations. My response is that the United States does not have nor has ever had moral leadership of the world, but rather has had and often exercised economic and military dominance, always for its own benefit, or more specifically the benefit of its corporate ruling class, which is an entirely different matter. In a world dominated by a species of beings both peaceful and aggressive, economic and military dominance can be easily mistaken for moral leadership. Might, as they say, makes right. The French third estate, consisting of ninety eight percent of the population, had among its members admirers of the American Revolution, and sought, with some degree of success, to emulate it. This is the first example of anything resembling moral leadership displayed by the nascent United States. Throughout the nineteenth century, examples of any kind of American moral leadership are mostly nonexistent. The United states was admired mostly for its land, resources, and optimism, as popularized by Alexis de Tocqueville in his study of America in the eighteen thirties. But this is more an admiration of the unique peculiarities of a cultural exception rather than any moral leadership. America's entry into World War One, the assistance it provided in bringing about the defeat of imperial Germany, and the leadership of Woodrow Wilson in advocating a moderate approach to the the Treaty of Versailles garnered respect in some quarters, as the United States for the first time demonstrated actual leadership on the world stage. its failure, however, to ratify the League of Nations agreement or to even join the new organization quickly nullified that. The belatedly entry of America into World War Two did nothing to engender any morel leadership for the country, but the crucial role it played in the defeat of Germany and japan, and its vast assistance in rebuilding both countries earned the respect of the world community. In the post World War Two era, the United States very forcefully informed the world that, as the world's only superpower left relatively intact, it intended to exercise global hegemony, and this hegemony, manifested by the maintenance of a global empire consisting of its military and economic domination, coupled with an incessant torrent of lip service about its dedication to democracy and freedom, have given rise to the notion that the United States has actually exhibited moral leadership. American post war foreign policy has consisted in an endless prosecution of foreign wars of aggression and destabilization and removal of foreign governments adverse to American corporate investment. American post war domestic policy has consisted largely in resistance to and deflection of populist appeals for a reasonable degree of economic and social equality. In its conduct of neither foreign nor domestic policy has the United States historically behaved, nor does it currently behave in a manner consistent with any reasonable definition of moral leadership. The salient point is; so often have American assertions championing democracy and freedom been belied by actual American policy, both foreign and domestic, that no serious scholar of twentieth century history is willing to give unqualified approval to the notion that the United States does, or ever has in reality, exercised moral leadership around the world. In fact, considering the current chaotic state of the international order, and the fact that even the existence of the United Nations and other organizations have failed to establish and maintain anything resembling a stable, acceptable state of affairs among nations, it could well be argued that the absence of any moral leadership, from the United States or anyone else, is precisely the problem.