Dividing the Racist Church

THERE ARE THOUSANDS, of religions in the world, arguably billions, since,as Goethe said: "everyone invents his own religion". Thousands more are extinct, the ultimate fate of all religions. There are hundreds of varieties of the christian religion, inviting the question: why? Isn't there just one God, and one  Christ? Do all Christians assume that their denomination has exclusive possession of the truth? If they do, how do they manage to deceive themselves that God is a Methodist, or a baptist, or whatever, other than by being delusional, mentally ill? Goethe also said: "We are never deceived, we only deceive ourselves". In 1845 the american Baptist church split into two factions, north and south, and the southern Baptist was born, adding one more to the long list of separated Christian factions. Every other mainstream christian denomination in America did the same; Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, among many others. The divisive issue was slavery, which the christian religion, in the bible, clearly condones. All antebellum plantation slave owners defended slavery, with good reason, based on its acceptance in scripture. religion comes in handy, economically. The bible mentions slavery many times, never condemns,it, and provides advice on how slavers should treat their masters. The Christian church in America has a nearly unbroken record of and history of racial segregation and white supremacy, which continues today.Today, there exists a white Baptist church, and a black one.All this is detailed in a new book by Robert P. Jones: "White Too Long" The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity"...Among white Americans, Christians are far more likely to deny the very existence of racism in modern American culture, society as well as law enforcement, than non religious whites, and are far less likely than white atheists to acknowledge the confederate flag as a symbol of racism and black oppression. they tend to see it as simply expressing pride in southern heritage, or whatever. this is indisputable, having been confirmed by verified research.After more than a hundred fifty years of supporting white supremacy, the various Christian denominations apologized for it, the southern Baptists in 1995. Ironically yet predictably, white supremacy persists today, deeply rooted in American Christianity.Witness their support of Trump. As we like to say, talk's cheap.

Trump, tweeting Yet Again

AS DR. FREUD could've told us, we are what we tweet. Examine the total opus of Trump's, or anyone's tweets, and you have your ma. In our latest installment, the president twittered that maybe, just maybe the election should be postponed.This is certainly in keeping with his well established pattern of sensational narcissism. Unless our scavengers failed to assiduously sift through this latest bullshit, Trump didn't say for how long it should be delayed, presumably long enough for the pandemic to subside, the economy to recover, and for Joe Biden to live out his life span. You might think that for the president of the USA to have the temerity to suggest that he remain in office indefinitely would be sufficient material in one tweet evern for a world class narcissist, and you would be wrong in this case. Too much, and never enough. Trump trumpeted his sacred intent to protect and defend the structural integrity of America's suburbs against the ravages of a potential Biden administration by which he implicitly means that he will go to any length necessary to keep upper middle and upper class lily white evangelical 'hoods upper middle class lily white Christian, cultural diversity be damned. he certainly has the experience necessary, back in the seventies when he and his father kept blacks out of Trump apartment buildings until the feds swooped down on them and ruined all the racist fun. No more unseemly encroachment by what James Madison genteely called "the lesser sorts", meaning those with the wrong religiosity, skin pigment, or socio-economic stratum. Trump will keep out the riff raff, Biden will not, is the upshot of the tweet.having long since flown from America's inner cities , the whites on the right shall never be forced to take flight again. Be sure that if working class Catholic Biden is elected, he will reverse decades of federal racist housing policies and force low income housing into the realm of the wealthy. Diversity will rule, and WASP purity sullied. The gene pool will be polluted by lord knows what; Muslims, blacks, browns, working poor. Trump hasn't had much success fighting the viral infection; be damned sure he will do better fighting the human one.

Kneeling. Patriotically

ITS WORTH MENTIONING that people who kneel during the national anthem are showing disrespect for neither the anthem or the flag. They are showing disrespect for something much larger and more important than mere superficial symbols: American, history, culture, and society. The anthem and flag are merely symbols, vehicles to attract attention to the protesters, and their cause,. the elimination of racial injustice, and its persistent existence. This is what symbols are for; to attract attention to whatever they symbolize, for those  whovenerate that which is being symbolized. What is interesting is that the ostentatiously patriotic people who object most strenuously to showing disrespect for symbols never utter a word of indignation or complaint about the real object of disrespect; history, culture, and societal norms, specifically racism. If "America the Beautiful", or "Stars and Stripes Forever", or We Shall Overcome', or "Hey Jude" were the national anthem, the kneelers wouldn't care, they would simply kneel. They would knee to whatever song or whatever flag was being used as the symbol. The Star Spangled Banner, an old English song set to improvised lyrics by Francis Scott Key, became the national anthem in the nineteen thirties. Over the course of American history, no fewer than forty versions of the flag have symbolized the nation. Songs and flags come and go. But the fundamental evils with which American society is and always has been infected are more enduring, stubborn, resistant to reform. All solutions to all problems begin with the identification of the problem, and that is the necessary service rendered by those who kneel. Those who hate the kneelers actually hate their own shame and cowardice for failing to help reform society, for accepting its evils. They hate those who remind them of their own shame and shortcomings. Notice how the piously patriotic hide from the shameful truth about themselves behind a flag and a song, mere symbols, and how they hate those who kneel  for disrespecting symbols, but never express hatred of the kneelers for their disrespect of their country's history, culture, and society, and never express any disrespect of their own for their nation's corrupt history, culture, and society. It is they who deserve disrespect.

Regressing, Again

THE ROLLER COASTER consists in our oft renewed hope that the president will, and has perhaps begun the long and arduous ascent to lucidity, only the fall back down the mountain, in Sisyphus  fashion, back into the normal quagmire of depravity. he simply cannot seem to drain his own internal swamp, let alone the nations's capitol's. He had lately worn a face mask, in public, twice, after months of vain refusal. he had actually admitted that there exists an epidemic, and that something might need to be done about it. then, just the other night, in the wee hours, he got back on twitter tweet. he doesn't drink, so  mark of that tempting excuse. Presumably the twitter masters have considered banning him; petitions have circulated encouraging this. On tweet, he once again hyped the delusion that a malarial treatment, hydroxychloroquine, would cure everyone of Covid 19, that face masks are a hoax, and that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a snake oil salesman. He can't resist playing to his base, and convincing everyone else, the other sixty five percent, that he is in fact ridden with mental illness. then there was teh Yankee thing. After Dr. Fauci threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington nationals home opener against the Yankees, throwing the ball forty five feet before it tailed off towards the home dug out and rolled gently to a stop, petulant Donny got jealous, and announced that he intended to throw out the first pith at Yankee Stadium August 15, before the Yankees play the Boston Red Sox. Then, he announced that he had to cancel out, because he was too busy fighting the virus with everything at his disposal, including snake oil. Upon questioning, the Yankee's executive brass shoulder shrugged, and admitted no knowledge of having ever invited the president to do any such thing. The president reminds one of a third grader, telling his classmates that his father is an astronaut. Severe case of paranoid social rejection syndrome, obviously. Meanwhile, Sec. Of Edu DeVoss alarms us that if American students do not reenter school buildings in huge numbers, and soon, they will be irreparably damaged, emotionally and intellectually. they wouldn't be. If every student in the U.S. spent this entire school year at home with a computer, nobody would be damaged in any way, all would be well, only nobody would get sick and die from Covid 19, kinda like would happen if everyone would wear a face mask when leaving the house. the simplest solutions are usually the best, the obvious one, but like Churchill said: One can count on the Americans to do the right thing, when they have exhausted all other options.

Winning

SUCCESS, we probably all agree,  requires hard work. It begins with attitude, the belief that anything is possible, and that we can and will make it happen. Then the other components fall into place, if we allow them. The focus derives from motivation, and the preparation proceeds naturally because we enjoy taking batting practice, hitting a hundred backhands, writing and memorizing the speech which will move millions for concerted, strong action. To govern our own lives requires hard work. And it is always easier to allow someone else to govern us, to do the work, while we passively accept the results, secure in our knowledge that whatever happens, we can avoid responsibility. Franklin warned us that a democratic form of government requires constant upkeep, like a fragile, complicated machine which functions beautifully only when overseen. Autocratic forms of government have endured for centuries, even millennia, but systems in which the people govern themselves never have, and, it may be, never will. In her perceptive new book "Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism" scholar Anne Applebaum warns us that even people long accustomed to governing themselves can grow collectively weary and frustrated with the hard work, and often find it tempting to revert to simpler, more autocratic forms of governance. It happened in ancient Greece and Rome. after the decline of the Roman republic and rise of the Roman empire in the first century before the advent of the Christian religion, western civilization remained content to accept autocracy, to be ruled rather than to rule itself. finally in teh fifteenth and then sixteenth centuries flickers of discontent with oppression swelled into the rebirth of democratic institutions first in the British isles, than the new world. Thus the United States of American has always been seen by the observant as a tenuous experiment. A democracy must constantly reinvent and strengthen itself with exercise and fresh air, having the courage to change its institutions and to improve them as time and circumstance require. That we venerate a two hundred year old constitution rather than changing and improving it would be abhorrent  to Madison and Jefferson, who knew the dangers of stagnation in culture and society. We have grown lazy, content, and are no longer vigilant, and are showing an alarming tendency towards authoritarian rule. Our American democracy, designed as a plutocratic republic to safeguard against mob rule, seems to be slipping into the trap into which Greece and Rome fell long ago. It isn't too late to restore some measure of popular sovereignty, but soon will be, unless we change our direction.

Defining Fascism

THE EPITHET "FASCISM" has become the go to insult right and left level at each other, referring to each other's perceived autocratic tendencies What does it mean? The root word "fasci" is from the ancient Latin, a noun describing a bundle of sticks tied together with a string wrapped around them, a symbol  of various functions of government concentrated in the hands of a single autocrat, concentrated power from previously dispersed power, as in a republican form of government. The symbol and name was first used to describe teh process by which Julius Caesar, a military hero supported by most of the Roman public, personally took on the powers formally hale by teh Roman Senate, consuls,, and tribunes. Thus the Roman republic became the Roman empire, and the republic was gone forever. To date, no form of democratic government has lasted long; they all devolve into autocracy. Democracy is messy and difficult to operate; people always grow tired of it, and turn power over to a strong man, to simplify their lives and give them perceived security. People inevitably prefer security over liberty. In 1922 Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy, and resurrected the term "fascism', and, after the fashion of all right wing autocrats,promised to restore Italy to the glories of its past, in this case, the glory of the ancient Roman empire. Fascism by definition is a conservative ideology, venerates the past, tradition, an imagined glorious time which has slipped away in modern times. Fascist demagogues rise to authoritarian power by seducing a large enough number of people discontent with modern culture and progress to exert political leverage in a fragmented political environment. Like Donald Trump, fascist demagogues attract a minority but a sufficiently potent plurality within the fragmented society to seize and hold power. These charismatic speakers boast of their unique ability to restore their country to a supposedly glorious past, and to solidify their support they constantly invent enemies of the country; other political parties, the media, foreigners, minorities, intellectuals. Once in power, fascist heads of state,, using distortion of fact, exaggeration, lies and myths to strengthen their loyalty and keep their fanatical supporters engaged. If all this doesn't sound familiar to Americans, it should.

Searching For Answers

THE ENDURING QUESTION, which might not be fully answered until future historians and psychologists and social scientists grapple with it, if it ever is answered, is: why did the great pandemic of 2020 afflict the United States so much harder than anywhere else in the world? With fewer than twenty million confirmed cases of Covid 19 infections throughout the world, and more than four million of them in the U.S. alone, and with a quarter of the world's deaths American, there can be no disputing the fact that the United States is and has always been the epicenter of the pandemic. Assuming that there is no conspiracy to attack the United States virally, and there is no evidence for that, then the answer must lie squarely within the borders of America itself. it has recently been suggested that it is a matter of trust, that the American people do not trust their political leaders nor their science experts, and therefore have disregarded their advice. Arguably, advice from politicians has often been so misguided that it is worthy of disregard. Most of what president Trump has told us about the virus has been outright nonsense, deliberate lies calculated only to enhance and preserve his political career, rather than to help the public. A seemingly more appropriate theory, more in keeping with /american character, is that the general arrogance of the American people and self absorbed nature of Americans tends to motivate them to think in terms of their own convenience and personal satisfaction, rather the public good. Hence the national epidemic of refusal to wear face masks, refusal to social distance, refusal to refrain from gathering together in large number, behaviors we have repeatedly seen over the past few weeks. Joe Biden points out that we need a president who leads by example and who takes responsibility instead of blaming others. In this he is correct. The country needs a number of change, including a new president. we need to restore america's connection to its allies and to the word, repair the diplomatic damage done by the Trump administration, including rejoining the world in fighting climate change and nuclear arms control, and new American leadership needs to restore healthy, intelligent relationships with other world powers, particularly Russia and China. Less pandering to Russia, less hostility towards china, less cozying up to authoritarian right wing populist demagogue tyrants, like Trump himself. Let the repair work begin.

Monumenting

IN 1770, a statue of King George III was erected in new York city. It was the only monument in the thirteen colonies. It didn't last long. six years later, in July of 1776, ablaze with revolutionary fervor, colonists hammered the king's nose,, then toppled the entire statue, melted it down,, and remade the metal into musket balls, which were eventually returned to the British in unfriendly fashion. When George Washington died in 1799, a debate ensued over whether to erect a monument in his honor. Those opposed argued that doing so would be undemocratic, antithetical to the very ideals for which Washington fought, and remindful of King George III. A monument to Washington was erected in the rotunda of the nation's capitol building, depicting a bare chested, muscular Washington seated on a throne like Zeus, conveying a godlike aura. By 1830 a statue of George Washington stood near Boston harbor. This time Washington was standing, clad in a Roman toga. Tourist Davy Crockett, in town to promote his book, said that a man "arter be shown wearing his own clothing", an arguable point. Shortly before the Civil War, construction of the Washington monument was begun, interrupted during the war, and completed afterwards, ending all controversy concerning Washington's personal appearance with the abstract, symbolic monolithic structure we know so well today. People have been building monuments and tearing them down amid political turmoil since the dawn of neolithic civilization. Human nature seems to inspire us to memorialize permanently in stone the people we consider to be our greatest leaders and heroes, as a means perhaps of paying tribute to ourselves. Amid recent social controversies we are beginning to ask ourselves exactly who should be immortalized in monuments. since all people have serious character flaws, it may be that it is never appropriate to elevate anyone to a place of special glory, but better to either memorialize no one, or everyone. maybe a system of temporary monuments could be installed, like Cape Canaveral was renamed "Cape Kennedy" for ten years after teh assassination of President Kennedy. Or better yet, abstract monuments to the human spirit, symbolizing nobody in particular but everybody in general might be the most appropriate form of respect to give ourselves.

Much Adoing About Nothing

I LIVE IN a deep red state, which, had the two political parties not switched colors several decades ago, would be deep blue now. Or, looked at another way, if my state had not slowly switched political parties over the past fifty five years, would be deep red today, but would be the other political party than the one it now is. Trump beat Hillary by twenty here, the governor is a conservative Republican, all all its congressional representatives are republican. I attended no fewer than seven black lives matter racial justice and equality protests here, so progressive is not dead, merely a bit hard to find, at times. The most recent protests have come from the other end of the political spectrum. Conservatives here, as they are nation wide, are unhappy with being told that they must wear a face mask in public. they consider it an unacceptable infringement on their rights. Down main street in several local towns they are marching proudly, most of them carrying American flags, none of them wearing masks, carrying signs which say things like "we the people", and "I can't breathe",  demonstrating their stubbornness and cleverness. From a progressive point of view, it is admittedly somewhat refreshing to see people other than us protesting something. makes us look a bit less bitchy, as it were. On the other had, haven't these people any greater concerns than whether they should be required by government to wear a face mask during an epidemic for the sake of public safety? Why don't they just put masks on, to save lives, and shut the heck up? Maybe they could protest something important, something worth protesting, like the failure of government to do anything about climate change. however, since they don't believe in climate change, that seems unlikely. Or possibly they could join the progressive and protest racial inequality and systemic racism in America. But, alas, they don't believe that exists either. We are oeft to hope that they decide to stop protesting a perfectly sensible piece of leadership from their own party's governor, put on their masks, and, to avoid suffocating, stop talking.

Justifying Nonsense

THE REASONS people give for supporting Trump border on and often cross over into the realm of the inane. He was appointed by God. he defends the Christian faith. He's tough on crime. He's honest, and never tries to be anybody other than who he really is. He rebuilt the military, the economy, the Rio Grande wall, and American pride, by putting America first. Nothing but vague generalities, unsubstantiated by fact, supported only by fabrications. Listening to people trying to justify their support of Trump is like listening to a drunk driver trying to talk his way out of a traffic ticket while trying to hide a half empty bottle under the car seat while the officer stands there, bemused. The most Christian president in American history, is perhaps the most laughable of the lot. Perhaps even more ludicrous is the one often presented by far right wing reprobates; that President Trump upholds the constitution more faithfully than any president in recent American history, if not all of American history. Trump's latest unconstitutional act is his instruction that the 2020 census not include residents living illegally in the United States. The constitution clearly states that every person living in the country counts, and does not stipulate legal status. The president's constitutional admirers seem unfamiliar with the emoluments clause, according to which the president is forbidden to accept personal favors and gifts from foreign governments or their representatives. Trump has repeatedly invited foreign governments to do this, and often they have. They often stay in his hotel in Pennsylvania Avenue, a clear violation. Finally, is scarcely necessary to mention that the constitution does not allow foreign operatives to assist in the election of a presidential candidate, or that attempting to blackmail a foreign government by a president is illegal, therefore unconstitutional. All attempts by Trump supporters to explain their loyalty to this criminal, corrupt president are based on lies, and prove only that his supporters are no more morally credible than Trump himself.

Disinforming

THAT WE LIVE in an age of disinforming, with the internet and social media the main vehicle for spreading disinformation, is well known and widely discussed. Theories and explanations abound. False information, popularly called "fake news", is another societal opiate, like alcohol or religion, diverting attention from harsh reality Social media affords everyone the opportunity of inventing, disseminating, and living in a safe, separate reality, and we tend to take advantage of the opportunity. Alternative realities, or as a Trump spokesperson famously said "alternative facts" often appeal to like minded asylum seekers, and loose knot groups rooted deeply in delusion spread across the internet, virus like. Q - Anon, for instance, is a loosely knot alternative reality right wing internet group dedicated to the crazy proposition that there exists a "deep state" somewhere in space, time, and government, which  purpose is the destruction of Donald Trump and his political movement. Onemight be tempted, assuming one is sane, to wish this mythical deep state well, if only it actually existed. For a fictional organization to destroy an existing powerful, dangerous, and destructive political movement is the stuff of dystopian science fiction, alas. Q - Anon further alleges that the deep state operates a massive pedophile operation. The "Q" might appropriately stand for "queer", in the true meaning of the word, as in extremely odd. This anonymous right wing queer gang is delusional, happily so. so it right wind evangelical Christian U.s. Senator Tom Cotton, who wants to remove all federal funding for any school district which teaches the actual history of slavery and racism in America. Among the religious right, delusion is contagious. Donald Trump, and most of his supporters, consider climate change a hoax, racism and Covid 19 over hyped, and the imminent appearance of the Christian God from the sky as solid fact. America's right wing is where delusions spread rampantly. America's extreme right wing is demonstrably mentally ill.

Going From Are to Is

BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, folks would say: "the United Stats are"....After the Civil War, and ever since, we say "the United States is". The Civil War was fought to change "are" to "is". A collection of independent sovereign states coalesced into a United nation, with a strong central government, to which all Americans are loyal. Robert E. Lee, like everyone else before the Civil War, was loyal to his state first, and to the United States second. When his state left the union because of Abraham Lincoln's election and along with a dozen other states formed the Confederate States of America, they became first traitors to the U.S.A., then treasonous, then finally a foreign country, an enemy military power which attacked and prosecuted a war between two countries which cost nearly half a million American lives. There was no "civil war". there was a war between two adversarial, belligerent nations, one of which attacked the other, igniting a catastrophic war from which it can be argued the Untied States never fully recovered. Robert E. Lee, as well as many confederate military leaders, political leaders, and civilians, was a man of honor, a man of courage, a man of dignity. They were, however, treasonous traitors and foreign combatants of an enemy nation of the United States. Why should they be or ever have been honored on American monuments, honored by having American streets, military bases, schools and many other entities named after them? The fact that the confederat flag symbolized slavery and racism is true, but secondary to the fact that it was the flag of a belligerent foreign country which made war against the United States and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Why should it be, or ever have been, displayed on United States soil?

Ending the Virus

THE WORLD'S MOST OFTEN ASKED QUESTION NOWADAYS  is probably 'when will the virus go away"? The answer, of course, is that it will go away when the human race, using good sense and science, makes it go away. it is becoming, even to the lay observer, increasingly clear that in fact Covid 19 is likely to never go away entirely, but rather to become a staple in humanity's collection of viral diseases,, and annual event, much like the flu. The first flu vaccine was deployed in 1940, after decades of looking for one. But the flu virus proved to be highly mutatable, and every year a new vaccine must be developed and deployed, taylored to what medical scientists expect to be next year's version of influenza. Sometimes the annual vaccine is quite accurate and effective, other years, not so much. it is becoming increasingly clear that Covid 19 is also a highly adaptable, mutatable little devil, and that vaccines for it will have to be the same, redesigned each and every year. Over the past twenty years one virus after another has reared its ugly little head. Sars, Ebola, to name but a pair. AS homo sapien sapiens continues to destroy more natural habitat and replacing it with cities and suburban sprawl, the virus, like all other life forms, look for new places to exist. The viruses, like other wile plants and animals, begin to invade human territory, just as humans have invaded and destroyed theirs. It may well be that the human future includes a great deal of mask wearing, hand washing, social distancing, and vaccine seeking, as one new virus after another comes out of the wilderness and infects people, rather than just other animals. It is to be hoped that each time a new variety of viral disease begins to spread and kill, that right wing pompous demagogues don't dismissively react by calling the new disease a "little flue", or a "hoax", as they have done with Covid 19. And perhaps at some distant and glorious time in the future, a peculiar variety of human being, the extremely conservative narrow minded ignorant evangelical christian will be extinct, no longer around to remind us that sacred scripture, which is inerrant, tells us that just before the end of days all manner of disease and catastrophe shall occur, but that the lord shall soon return, sweeping out of the sky to rapture the faithful into heaven, and to leave the rest of us to fight viruses and other miseries. Then, we the sane will no longer have these inert doom sayers among us, telling us about our sins, while doing nothing to help combat our afflictions.

Coming To Senses

WHEN BARACK OBAMA was president, it became obvious that the people who hated him hated him excessively, far beyond anything appropriate merely by disagreeing with Obama's policies or philosophy.It seemed as if the haters hated Obama simply for being Obama,maybe in part for being black. A vaguely similar opposition confronts Trump, but his opponents can point to a never ending barrage of lies, vicious verbal attacks, and dubious policies emanating from the Trump White House. Obama inherited a bad economy and left Trump a good one; Trump inherited a good economy, and late in his first term presides over a country ravaged needlessly by disease and a subsequently collapsing economy. The disease is needless because with aggressive government intervention it could have been stopped in its early phase. Its almost as if the Trump supporters, the same people whol along with Trump himself spent eight years under Obama falsely claiming that Obama was not an American, do not care about Trump's constant lying, his refusal to accept the basic scientific reality of climate change, and his responsibility for allowing the epidemic to get out of control by denying its importance instead of taking aggressive action. One can imagine what the Obama haters would have thought if Obama had sent federal troops into American citeis to disrupt tea party demonstrations. Climate change Trump and most of his supporters still insist on falsely asserting is a hoax, of liberal media or Chinese manufacture, absurdly. The Covid 19 epidemic, as it kills hundreds of thousands of Americans, they are grudgingly beginning to accept as real, beginning to admit that not only does it exist, but that it is helpful to take basic measures to combat it, such as wearing face masks in public and social distancing, and refraining from gathering together in large numbers. So it may be that Trump and his cultish supporters are starting the long and difficult process of coming to their collective senses. They still do nto believe in climate change or acknowledge the thousands of Trump lies, but at least they are starting to wear face masks, and Trump, at long last, admits that Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Showing Class

I REMEMBER  how devastated I was the day after Donald Trump was elected, and sleep deprived. I walked into the senior center, half awake, and one of my buddies, an old redneck with an eighth grade education said: "how come you aint wearing no Hillary Clinton button today?" I said something rude, like "shove it". or "up yours". He accused me of being a poor loser. I denied it. He said"yes you are" and i again assured him otherwise. he persisted "the hell you aint!", and again I said no, I am not a poor loser. congratulations to Mr. Trump, and I wish him nothing but the best. He and I are on the same team. I was sincere, and I quietened the old redneck. then, on inauguration day, I promised myself and others to give the new president a fair chance, the only honorable thing to do, despite the fact that I have loathed Donald Trump for decades, his grandstanding, showing off his trophy wives and wealth, making in general an ass out of himself, including on his television show in which he drew attention by acting like a tyrant and bully, a carnival barker and clown. I kept my promise, and gave Trump a fair chance. If Donald Trump had not told twenty thousand confirmed lies during his first term, had not accepted Russian assistance getting elected, had not attempted to blackmail an American ally into giving him damaging information on Biden, did not fire and slander members of his administration who dare disagree with him, did not pretend that climate change is a hoax rather than accept the reality of it and take the drastic action so badly needed, did not constantly obstruct justice, promote tax breaks for the wealthy, conceal his own income tax returns, and engage in all manner of corruption, financial and otherwise, did not alienate allies and coddle dictators, and a few other things, I would support him. But one must draw the line somewhere, as we say. I know of no opponent of Barack Obama who even considered giving him a chance. On the day his Obama's inauguration congressional Republicans met, and agreed to oppose everything Obama proposed, his entire agenda, before it was even proposed formally. They refused to give a fair hearing to Obama's supreme court nominee, Merrick Garland. No, Obama's opponents never gave him a fair chance. If nothing else, I can honestly say that I gave Donald Trump a fair chance, and that he failed to take advantage of it.

Reckoning

THE TERM "RECKONING" has been bandied about quite a bit lately. There appears to be an emerging consensus that the Covid 19 pandemic is some sort of reckoning. Wasn't that the title of a Steven King novel? Well..anyhow... a reckoning, if I'm not mistaken, occurs when all the cards are laid out on the table, face up, when the truth comes out, when certain truths become so blatantly exposed and made obvious by circumstances after having been long concealed, that people and society in general are forced to acknowledge reality, forced to confront and deal with it. Goethe said that we resist the truth only because we fear that we would perish if we accepted it. President Trump, for example, seems to be finally coming to terns, under great pressure, with the reality of the catastrophic epidemic ravaging the United States. No longer is he calling it a hoax, no longer does he claim that it will voluntarily vanish, although he still makes vague references to that misguided belief, and he has even been sighted masking his face, upon occasion. Perhaps, in future years when winter ceases to exist, he will have a personal reckoning with regard to climate change, and will stop calling it a liberal and chines hoax,but that is another mater, and he may not live to be so open minded. Will the thirty nine percent of Americans who still support the criminally incompetent Trump ever acknowledge his traitorous behavior and criminality and dishonesty? probably not. Some people defer their personal reckonings indefinitely. for them, Trump's detractors and accusers will forever be a conspiracy of the non existent deep state, the liberal media, the Chinese, the Democrats, and heaven knows who else. Partly because of George Floyd, the American people are coming to terms with  the race based inequalities of American society, the inadequacies of the American health care system, and of America's economic system, now proven to be so terribly fragile. The next great reckoning may be a political one, when the American people are somehow forced to confront the truth that corruption, greed, dishonesty, and hatred are not evenly distributed throughout the political spectrum,and that the vast majority of it is concentrated on the far right, and is firmly ensconced within the conservative
 evangelical Christian community

Trump, Reappearing and Deluding

PRESIDENT TRUMP suddenly reappeared for Covid19 briefings, having been absent from them for three months.Instead of proclaiming the viral epidemic a hoax, as he had previously, and insisting that the country would return to normal economic and social activity by Easter, and that the virus would vanish with the advent of warm weather, the president, evidently high on sodium pentathol, made a truthful statement. He said, and this is a quote; unfortunately, before the epidemic gets better, its probably going to get worse. thus the traitor in chief confirms what everyone else in the world has known for a considerable time, and did not need to be told. some have speculated that the president has not reached a lie total of nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety nine, and did not want o go over the twenty thousand mark on national television. One is tempted to wonder why Trump bothers to say anything about the pandemic at all. The experts were missing from the stage; Trump evidently has decided that since  he is the only true expert on medical science in America, he might as well do everything himself. A vaccine, said the chief demagogue, is just right around the corner, totally terrific, very nice, making one wonder why he bothers to mention vaccines, since he assured us months ago that the virus will simply up and disappear, of its own accord, when the weather starts to warm up. the economy is also improving, doing great, just great, totally terrific, with the stock market going up. with only forty or fifty million Americans in poverty, and thirty million without jobs and living on unemployment, the economy is really starting to turn around, and its beautiful, said the deluder in chief.With about ninety percent of outstanding stock shares owned by about one percent of the population, and the government pumping money into the rigged market at a prodigious rate, it will naturally continue to appreciate, until Jeff Bezos has all the money in the world, there is a one hundred percent poverty and joblessness rate, and the Dow Jones average crashes through the fifty thousand point mark. Everything is just totally, trumpingly, beautifully, terrific.

Following the Faithful herd

BOTH MY GRANDMOTHERS were born in 1890, Victorian women, very religious and racist. To then the word "niggra" was politically correct. I never discussed either topic with either of them, for I was neither religious nor racist. As a ten year old was tried to figure out why anyone would be either, and failed to find an answer. religion seemed to me like fantasy and fiction, and racism seemed like an excuse to dislike people. I liked Willie Mays, but not preachers who seemed intent on frightening me. I have always believed that my parents, neither of whom was religious, prevented my grandmothers from indoctrinating me with their religious beliefs. They both believed that children should be allowed to develop their own religious beliefs, independent of all uninvited external influences. My grandmothers, who would have loved to have led me to the faith, laid off, and I strongly my parents warned them against it. I agree with them, and to this day am extremely grateful to both of them. I feel strongly that indoctrinating children with religions is child abuse. In Islamic countries and Christian countries in particular it is very difficult to survive childhood without being effectively brain washed into the prevailing religions. The indoctrination is simple, easy, and need merely consist of exposure to the ambient cultural environment. This is because humans by their fundamental nature are social animals, and strive to join and follow the herd, to conform to social norms as a way of gaining acceptance and prestige in the social hierarchy. Anyone whose religious views differ from the mainstream, whose religiosity departs from the norm, whose beliefs embrace any form of religion, traditional or personal, other than the prevailing religion, is to be admired as a truly free thinker. As Goethe said: "The word advances only because of those who oppose it". Social norms are an essential element in organizing and stabilizing civilization, and perpetuating it. Without large scale cooperation within large groups of people civilization would be impossible. But advances are made by people who dare to be different, and to such people we all, even the most conservative among us, owe a great debt of gratitude.

Making Misery A Habit

HABIT, said Goethe, is our only comfort. We dislike doing without even those  unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed. For example, a person who has spent half a century in prison does not necessarily want to be released into a strange, unfamiliar world. five years ago if someone had described in exact detail President Trump's administration, presidency, and behavior, no one would have thought such a thing possible. Now, it has all come to pass, and has been "normalized" as we like to say. During world War Two, the Germans bombed London daily and nightly for years, and Londoners became so accustomed to the blitz that after it finally ended they continued to behave as if it were still happening. it seemed strange to them to not be bombed. Therein lies the problem getting people and countries to take meaningful action against climate change. Nearly everyone old enough to remember weather patterns fifty years ago readily agrees that the climate has changed, that seasonal weather patterns are drastically different  now than they were in the nineteen sixties. When I was fifteen, in 1970, if someone had told me that in the year 2020 October would be a summer month with daily temperatures routinely reaching eighty five degrees where I live, that fall colors would begin to appear most years around Halloween, that it would never snow, and that spring would begin in late February,  and that violent storms and severe droughts would be normal, accompanied by vast wildfires sweeping large parts of the United States every year, I would have been shocked. It would have seemed like futuristic dystopian science fiction, of the sort I loved to read back then. Now, however, its reality. Now, I've adjusted to it, and expect it, although sometimes it still seems weird. People in high school and college today have never known any other type of climate, so they have to take climate change on faith, they have to take the word of old people and scientists. I am alarmed about climate change, but I should be more alarmed than I am. is seem to have become comfortable with it, even though I know it is a deadly threat to future life on Earth. We become habituated to our misery. We also take our progress for granted; our modern medical miracles, miracles unheard of fifty years ago, I calmly allow to assist me in keeping good health, without a second thought. By the time the climate changes become insufferable, I'll be long dead, and it will be too late for today's college students, who will have to adjust to the strange new world when they are the same age I am now. By then they might well be adjusted to it, acclimated to it, and satisfied to continue doing nothing about it. All I can do is wish them luck from my grave.

Going Whole Hog Tyranny

PRESIDENT TRUMP, our dear leader, seemingly unsatisfied with the mere formalities and trappings of Hitlerian fascist demagoguery, has finally decided to go, as we say, whole hog. The mega MAGA party rallies were obviously his pride and joy, screeching chantings at deadly decibel levels, an arena filled with grimacing, angry sycophants their hypnotically transfixed leader screaming hatred and death to all who might dare get in the way, and to enemies lurking, real and imagined. All that is gone now, gone with the virus, afte ra poor showing in Tulsa which turned out to be a serious disease spreader. Beginning his campaign for reelection the day after his inauguration was an early indicator of tyrannical intent. Refusing to state unequivocally that he would abide by the will of the electorate if defeated for reelection sent  the clearest possible message of intent to retain power illegally if necessary, by refusing to relinquish it legally, according to constitutional law. Avoiding direct contact with the media while taking regular pot shots at them from a safe distance, guerilla style, has been a nice tyrannical touch to which we've become long accustomed. Always naming enemies, hoping that others might do his sordid work of destroying them. Refusing to declare his opposition to racism. The Chinese enemy. The media enemy. without from without and from within. Insults and venomous hatred slinging at every opportunity. It all hasn't been enough for our gangster leader Donald Trump. Now he deploys military unites to the streets of America to harm and harass American citizens protesting. President Trump needs to distract the nation from his abject failure as president, and using his Gestapo to spill blood in American streets will suffice quite nicely.

Coming Clean

IF EVERY AMERICAN would wear a face mask away from home, the epidemic would be under control within two months, and would eventually disappear, according to the experts. Ans yea, despite the American right wing rejection of science and all thigns intelligent, experts are experts. Several months ago they said otherwise. Several months ago the experts said that wearing a mask was not all that  helpful. that'a the wonderful side of science, what makes it intelligent, and correct: its willingness, indeed its sacred self imposed duty to change and correct itself with new information and research. That is perhaps why the religious right so despises, or seems to despise science, especially when it contradicts their religious beliefs. the religiously dogmatic prefer instant truth, instant perfection without question, preferably from a collection of ancient manuscripts written by people who knew little about science. Its so much easier thtat way, for the intellectually lazy mind to carry around the absolute truth in a book, rather than having to take the trouble to go searching for it, which requires actual effort. Donald trump gets most of his support to the lazy dogmatic religious, and he msut cater to them. It would be so easy for him to simply instruct everyone to wear a mask at all times away from home, but he won't do it, because then he would have to wear one, and the instruction would upset his poorly educated base of support. First Trump called the virus a hoax. then he suggested drinking bleach and eating Lysol. Then he suggested taking the irrelevant drug hydroxycholroquine. Then he said it would go away with the coming of warm weather. Trump, poorly educated about science, fundamentally corrupt and dishonest, is no more amenable to logic and truth than his millions of dogmatic, religious, irrational supporters. Because of his lack of leadership, his followers are having "Covid 19" parties, deliberately defying common sense, spreading disease and death. And they are refusing to wear face masks, for the phony, insane reason that they think their freedoms and liberties are being threatened. Trump and his criminally irrational supporters are causing a needless American catastrophe.

Flip Flopping, and Lurching Towards Progress

I LIVE IN a part of the United Sates which because of Abraham Lincoln was for one hundred years solidly democratic, and for the past fifty years because of Lyndon Johnson has been and remains solidly republican. Go figure. Wisdom in reverse. Entrenched idiocy. I know people who are old enough to be staunch conservative republicans who were once staunch southern conservative democrats. They fled the democratic party when Johnson signed the civil rights bill of 1964, just as their ancestors fled the Republican party when Lincoln freed the slaves. Racism in action. They all believe now that the Democratic party simply isn't what it used to be, that it has moved horribly to the left, become a socialist party, gone badly astray. That, of course, is nonsense. True, the southern conservative racist left the democrats and became republicans, which they are today, which moved teh democrats a bit to the left overall, but generally the democratic party, like the republican party, has moved to the right over the past few decades, the republicans extremely so. In the nineteen thirties the democrats nominated and elected a democratic socialist, Franklin Roosevelt, far to the left of any current democrat. In the nineteen sixties, democrat political leaders included Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern, and Edmund Muskie, all far to the left of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden. Ronald Reagan ushered in a hard right trend for the Republicans, far more right wing than nelson Rockefeller of Richard Nixon in the nineteen sixties. The Republican now threatens to run itself right off a right wing cliff, as America seems to be beginning a move back to the left, with the millennials a much more progressive generation, coming to power. The progressive wing of the democrats is resurgent, with Bernie Sanders one example of this. The conservative era, begun under Reagan, may be ending, a a new progressive era dawning. We can only hope.

Breaking Racism's Bad Habit

IN THE ANCIENT WORLD slavery was an accepted social norm, much like employment is today. During the early industrial revolution, when small scale, independent craftsmen were replaced with mass production in factories, hourly wage earning was widely considered "wage slavery", forced labor for lack of alternatives, and factory work a form of imprisonment. Violent protests and strikes were common, until corporate coercive power beat down the labor movement, and eventually societal attitudes changed, and hourly wage work came to be widely accepted, as it is today. In the ancient world, there are few recorded instances of uprisings against slavery. The Roman slave Spartacus was one. The bible condones slavery, as apparently did Jesus, who never uttered a single word against it, though he was doubtless well aware of its existence. The most notorious slave revolt was precipitated by the Hebrew nation, led by Moses, against Egypt, as described in the book of Exodus.The lord, who generally rarely if ever lifted a finger to free anyone, was persistent in his attempts to convince the Pharoah to do the job, until finally persistence and plagues paid off, and Ramses caved, but only at the expense of losing his mobile infantry to drowning. To be the lord's chosen people has benefits.Although slavery is both an ancient and modern phenomenon, racism, surprisingly, is entirely modern, having been invented in the middle of the fifteenth century by Portuguese business people to justify the enslavement of Africans. The idea of enslaving Africans, and that it was justified because of their "inferior" skin color, rapidly caught on throughout Catholic Europe, which justified it because slavery was evidently mostly condoned by God. they knew it was wrong, however; hence, their need to justify it by inventing a justification. But before the fifteenth century, no mention of people being inferior because of skin color can be found in the entire body of human literature. In the pre Civil War American south, justifying slavery on account of racism was always secondary to justifying it as a Christian value, biblical, a way to bring to gospel of Christ to people who would otherwise have lived their lives in spiritual ignorance. If all this teaches anything, it is this: that religion does not always teach good moral values, that it can be and often is used for destructive, malign purposes, and that racism is a learned habit, a fabrication of the human mind, and that although old bad habits are hard to break, they can be broken. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to break the habit of racism.

Failing Foreign Policy

VLADIMIR PUTIN is thrilled that donald Trump is the American president, and so would you be, were you he. Trump is Putin's convenient puppet in Washington. Putin got Trump elected, once, and is  undoubtedly trying to do the same again, against great odds, and the apparent will of the American people, just like the first time. Better to manipulate a fool than to contend with intelligent people like Obama, Hillary, or Biden.Putin has stolen teh Crimean peninsula from the Ukraine, is working to gain control of the Ukraine in his quest to recreate the old soviet Russian empire He is currently engaged in a scheme to steal Covid 19 vaccine research, which, arguably, should be shared anyway by all, researchers, academic, corporate, government. Trump is powerless to do anything to stand up to the Russian dictator, his admiration and envy of Putin's power is so great, and likely, Putin has damaging information on Trump. Similarly, Trump has long since given up trying to act like a tough guy, and the "little rocket man" North Korean dictator has become the "dear leader", with Trump firmly wrapped around the dictator's little finger. it is incredible, the number of ways in which donald Trump is a clown, a criminal, and incompetent buffoon as is laid out by his niece's new book, and by John Bolton's, among many others. Good reads, all, and very revealing. Remember the great Trump Rio Grande wall? It is but a piecemeal token of its grand planned former self, utterly ineffective, utterly insane, a waste of good hard earned money. Mexico hasn't paid for a single brick, by the way, never intended to, and never will. another blow hard Trump boast bites the dust. Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accords, and teh nuclear arms treaty with Iran,alienating America's European allies and bringing the Unites States to the brink of war with Iran. It is amazing the amount of damage Trump has done to the United States and her future, and to the world, merely by conducting foreign policy.

Comparing Candidates

WITH THE ELECTION APPROACHING, it is vitally important to review the record of the incumbent, and the proposals of the challenger. Biden, laying low, has outlined proposals for rebuilding infrastructure and fighting climate change. his most impressive argument is that trump associates climate change with the word "hoax", while he associates it with the word "jobs". Donald Trump knew about, accepted, and welcomed russian interference and assistance in getting elected, instead of reporting the activity to the FBI. That alone makes Trump a traitor, no matter how he and his supporters try to ignore or justify it. he withheld vital military assistance to an American ally, in a failed attempt to coerce the ally to produce damaging information on Biden. The Senate failed to remove him from office because the attempt failed. Again, traitorous, and treasonous, because his behavior helped a foreign adversary, russia, militarily. None of this was a hoax, nor a conspiracy, as claimed by Trump and his immoral supporters. All testimony pertaining to these corrupt behaviors came from within the Trump administration, from Trump insiders, who provided the testimony under threat of perjury and obstruction of justices charges. The Trump administration refuses to accept the dire emergency presented by climate change, and its dismissive attitude in dealing with the viral pandemic has cost countless American lives, with untold more to come. This is only the beginning of the long list of corruption and, criminality, and failed leadership of the Trump administration. it is already evident that this president is the worst, the most corrupt and inept in American history. the proof is right in front of us, and hardly needs the verification being provided daily by people formerly close to Trump who have written books detailing his massive criminal incompetence. Every day it becomes less defensible and more criminal to support Donald Trump as president. although his supports is shrinking according to every poll, the fact that he still has nearly forty percent of the nation's support is astounding, and proof of the fundamental immorality of a large portion of the Amrican people, mainly the conservative Christian community. they, like Trump, will be remembered with ignominious disdain.

Finding the Founders

SHANNON LANIER, the great great great great great great grandson of Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson's slave-lover sally Hemmings, identifies as black, although hw is lightly pigmented, and believes that the Jefferson Memorial, which was built in the nineteen thirties, should be modified. He suggests surrounding the statue of Jefferson with statues of people who really fought for freedom and racial equality, to augment Jefferson, who merely talked about it, but never did much to back up his words. Jefferson wrote the declaration of Independence, but Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet "Common Sense", which sold half a million copies in January, 1776 alone. and motivated teh colonists to actually seek independency, s they said in those days, through whatever means necessary. Perhaps Paine should stand next to Jefferson. Benjamin Franklin physically intimidated the reluctant Jefferson into writing the document. Perhaps he should stand behind Jefferson, looming over him and looking down upon him, menacingly. We Americans have a habit,, although we claim to be peaceful and democratic, of venerating military and political leaders who wielded great power, , and who often used it in questionable ways. Those over whom they exercised their power, those who were victimized and harmed by the often ruthless and arbitrary exercise of coercive power, are usually forgotten by history. Also often forgotten are the poets, artists, and historians to whom we are indebted due to their willingness and ability to tell the truth about the powerful. What about the farmers, the indentured servants, and the slaves who actually built America, despite suffering oppression and exploitation from the rich and powerful? It may well be that the most appropriate monuments have never been built, and never will be. The best solution might be for humanity to restrain its vanity, and to stop building monuments to itself. they occupy land which nature could put to much better use.

Remembering, and Loving

NW THAT I'M A senor citizen, damned proud of it but finding it hard to believe it, I reflect on all the friends and family members who have passed away. there are too many, and many of them died too young. As we age, our list lengthens. At the top of my list , the ones I miss the most, are the dogs and the cats, my beloved pets from bygone days, the best friends I have had throughout my long and still lengthening life. Most of all I miss my beautiful, huge German Shepherd, who made Rin Tin Tin look like a flea, who turned heads when we walked down the street, he at a perfect heal, a leash unnecessary. A beautiful black and silver, hew as my sweet baby, and he lived ten and a half years, not nearly long enough, not that it ever could have been long enough. At the top of my list is a list of cats, and before i myself die, that list will grow even longer, because I have several cats now. Several years ago my neighbor's sweet cat was dying of feline leukemia, and she kept coming across the street to visit me as her health deteriorated. Finally one day she had that glassy eyed expression as she lay on her side in my garage, and I knew it was only a matter of hours. I called my neighbor, and he came quickly from work to be with her. As he and I held her gently between us, trying to hold back the tears, he said three things to her that I considered the most beautiful three things I havew evern heard anyone to to anyone. first, he told her that he loved her. then, he said "you have been so good for me". then, finally, he said, "we will see each other again". Suddenly I could no longer hold back my tears, and they were tears of pain and of a strange joy. She died later that night underneath my car, as if telling me that she loved me too, perhaps an an uncle. it was raining, but I knew that she would be get wet. For now on, I want to say those three things to everyone I love as they die, and I hope somebody says them to me when I lay dying. I can think of nothing better to say, nor any better way to die.

legalizing Racism

THE UNITED STATES is arguably the most racist nation in the entire history of inhumanity. In his new study "The Color of Law"  author Richard Rothstein describes how government at all levels fosters systemic racism. He points out that verified research by the University of Utah and Indiana University proves that on average African-american home owners pay thirteen percent higher property taxes than European-Americans, and that blacks proportionately own far few hoes, due to barriers erected systemically against black home ownership. Despite the numerous civil rights act passed by congress since World War Two, despite the Fair Housing Act passed in 1968, intended ostensibly to end housing discrimination, such discrimination has instead been perpetuated by other, more subtle means. That government at all levels systematizes racism is indisputable, through arbitrary race base property assessment, zoning laws, urban renewal, and red lining, the practice by which race is factored into consideration of loan grants. Imminent domain is used to destroy black neighborhoods for highway construction, and are chosen for that purpose.. Industrial facilities which produce lethal air and land pollutants are zoned into or near black neighborhoods. The list of race based policies is nearly endless. Despite meager attempts at racial integration such as busing and affirmative action, American society self segregates often through white suburban flight, and America in 2020 if more racially segregated than throughout most of its sordid racist history. White suburban flight is a phenomenon observed for decades, as black neighborhoods are gentrified and turn white, and white neighborhoods turn black, and are deprived of basic social services, such as good schools. White neighborhoods are undervalued for purposes of property tax assessment, and overvalued for purposed of home sales. The opposite is true of black neighborhoods. The Fair Housing Act does nothing to prevent all this, nor to prevent schools in black neighborhoods to be under served, under funded. The most famous violator of the Fair Housing Act is Donald Trump. He and his father were twice cited by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination. In the United States of Antipathy Against African-Americans, racism is passed from generation to generation, and racists are rewarded, financially and politically.

Destroying Ourselves

IT WOULD SEEM,if we didn't know better, that humanity, collectively and individually has a death wish, a proclivity for self destruction. Maybe, knowing that we must die, try to hasten to process, to get it over with. For two hundred years it has been known that burning coal releases carbon into the atmosphere, and that the atmospheric carbon absorbs heat. For at least thirty five years global warming has been a confirmed fact. for more than one hundred years cigarette smokers have died from lung cancer. For nearly sixty years we have been repeatedly warned about the dangers of cigarette smoking, inundated with warnings.on America's beaches, from the Jersey shore to south Florida, tens of thousands of people ignore Covid 19 and closely congregate, spreading disease and death. And all this, as we like to say, is but the tip of the iceberg. My own self destructive tendencies began early in life. I think I drank more alcohol in high school than I have in all the forty seven years since. We humans are playful little creatures who like to have fun, and to do so are very willing to postpone indefinitely consideration the consequences, immediate and long term. It would seem that we have been having a bit too much fun on this planet, for a bit too long. We all want to possess as much personal material wealth as we possible can wealth which must be manufactured by processes long known to be harmful to the environment. And yet, addicted to our personal wealth, we lack the willingness to change our destructive behavior. One of my family members made the comment that she is entirely unconcerned about what happens beyond her inevitable death. To hell with this quaint philosophy of thinking about the welfare of people seven generations into the future, from native American culture. Therein lies the crux of our problem, and of our seemingly inevitable self destruction.

Publicly and Privately Punting

U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION BETSY DEVOSS, who shows signs of having spent her life within the cloistered confines of a plastic Amway billionaire bubble, and who seems opposed to public education, made a comment even more astonishing than normal for her. To wit: there is no data indicating that fully opening America's public schools to class room instruction this fall would put children as risk. She actually said this even as a deadly epidemic of a highly contagious virus, for which there is no known treatment or cure or vaccine, rages out of control throughout the country, which has already killed nearly a hundred and fifty thousands people, many of them children, and will doubtless kill tens of thousands more, soon. So proceeds the insane saga of the American response to Covid 19, public and private. President called the epidemic a hoax, suggested several snake oil solutions such as hydroxychloroquine and bleach, then stipulated that the virus would voluntarily vanish come warm weather. Millions of Americans gathered together without common sense safety precautions Memorial Day weekend, then again on Independence Day. Most of the country resumed normal social and economic intercourse for the purpose of economic prosperity much too soon, with the approval of misguided political leaders at all levels of government. it almost seems as if we the American people have a national death wish. A thirty year old man was infected by and died of teh virus while and after attending a "Covid party"; he apparently thought the epidemic was a hoax, and that presumably the tens of thousands of confirmed dead people were impostors. Perhaps he paid too much attention to the president. most amazing of all is that everywhere in teh United States local governments are trying to decide whether to require mask wearing in public, rather than simply issuing an order requiring it. Supposedly sand citizens, mostly conservative anti-government libertarian types, are reacting as if thier fundamental constitutional freedoms are being destroyed by face masks. meanwhile,Americans continue to die at a rate far more prodigious than anywhere else in the world. Do we wonder why? If you didn't know better, you might almost think that we deserve all this, Trump, the epidemic, the economic melt down, the whole bit.

Conducting Diplomacy, Religiously

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA has something called the "Ambassador of religious Freedom", or perhaps its the "Ambassador for Religious Freedom", and maybe it doesn't make any difference. The current office holder is Sam Brownback, a conservative politician from the great state of Kansas who, if memory serves, served as governor and in the United States Senate. As I recall hs is a well educated man, and quite right wing and religious, the right wing and religious parts fitting together nicely, the well educated characteristic not so much. The question is: precisely what is his job? To promote religious freedom around the world, in the United Stats, both, or to serve as an ambassador pf the Christian faith, to which, if memory serves, he is quite devoted? Should this position actually be called the "Minister of Christian propaganda and Indoctrination? One key point' the ambassador has quite recently been ordered by the Chines to stay the hell out of china, along with esteemed conservative deeply religious Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Arguably, if the Chinese are gong to kick and keep Americans out of their country, they picked a pretty good threesome with which to begin. The next logical step would be to preclude Donald Trump all Republicans, and all conservative Republican evangelical Christian Trump supporters, if the Chinese know what's good for them. Five'll get you ten that the American Ambassador For Religious Freedom cares not a fig about promoting freedom from religion, or freedom to be agnostic or atheist, but is concerned principally with promoting the freedom to be a Christian in countries in which such things as Christianity are frowned upon, or are simply not popular by popular choice. Do we smell a federally subsidized evangelical witnessing program here? Christianity, like Islam, has a long history of trying to force itself down the throats of unbelievers. That is indisputable.  Disputable is whether it is a good idea to invade another country in which the people already have their own religious views, and to try to talk them into accepting someone else's, such as yours. Arguably, it is not. But that is a separate issue. What is not disputable is that the Chinese, like most ancient civilizations, do not exactly relish the idea of a bunch of fervent American religious zealots entering their country and trying to turn China into a Christian country. And really, who, other than the religiously fanatic, can blame them?

Figuring Out Evangelicals

IN HER NEW BOOK "Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Alter of Donald Trump", researcher Sarah Posner, who has spent fifteen years studying the tangled intersection of American religion and politics, attempts to elucidate a phenomenon more inscrutable than the psychology of alien abduction. Most admirable about her work is her strict refusal to simply gravitate to the answer which seems obvious: that white right wing American evangelical Christians are quite simply morally and intellectually bankrupt reprobates whose piety thinly conceals incipient criminal mentality. Instead, she delves into the modern history of evangelical participation in politics. Jimmy carter, though born again, was a disappointment to the politically awakening religious right, for his lack of hard right public policy. His leadership philosophy was somewhat tooo compassionate, kind, and gentle for their tastes. Evangelicals care for for religious dogma than human rights, carter's pet project. the Christian crusaders elected reformed wonanizer and new dealer Ronald Reagan, and have never looked back. They saw Reagan's neo liberal economic policies as a vast improvement over tax and spend on social programs under Democratic leadership. Render unto Caesar and give unto the lethargic poor simply didn't cut it. The redistributionist policies of Clinton and Obama appalled the pious, who prefer that everyone, rich and poor, work for their money, and their rewards would naturally be in keeping with God's will, The Bush family had the redeeming quality of bombing the hell out of infidel Moslems, but also showed a bit too much compassion for the poor. Trump was a sinner, simple minded in his harmless lies but his hatred of immigrants and liberals made him redeemable and useful to the evangelicals. Besides, anything was better than Hillary Clinton, another one of those do good libs, and a woman to boot. Or something like that. Ms. Posner goes to considerable trouble to coax a reasonable, coherent explanation from mere facts, but you sense that she ultimately surrenders to the only unavoidable explanation for evangelical behavior. that it is irrational, and contradictory. That America's conservative christian community finds Trump appealing because he is a perfect mirror image of themselves, a frightened, vindictive bully, afraid of competition culturally, without intellectual substance whose only true personality is a relentless, vicious desire to dominate others utterly.

Going Without A mask, Freely

I LIVE IN a small town in a small confederate states in which the confederate flag is flown often and the nearby university town is the only interruption of an intellectual wasteland. An "intellectual wasteland" is defined as any geographic area in which a majority of the inhabitants are Republicans, support Donald Trump, and do  not believe in evolution nor climate change, because neither is mentioned in the bible. That settled, the current pressing concern is whether to enact a city ordinance requiring wearing face masks in public. An easy decision, you might think, in the middle of an out of control viral epidemic. A public hearing to discuss the matter at which attendees were required to wear masks and to sit six feet apart produced quite an uproar, mostly against the proposed ordinance.The comments were mostly against common sense and public safety, and in favor of the freedom of the individual to spread disease. From behind their mandated "Trump 2020" face gear came the banal, predictable slogans. "I can't breathe" was the most repulsive, "My Face, My choice" the most creative, among those etched on hand made placards. Are all these right wing reprobates unaware that their freedom ends where public safety begins, that the unwitting assault with a deadly virus is assault? There is no other country on this planet nor any other planet in which wearing a face mask is an issue, in which some alleged freedom to not wear one in the midst of a viral epidemic is a political issue. Only in these United States of Amnesia is such a thing even possible. In other countries they understand that wearing a face mask saves lives, their government tells them to, so they do.Not coincidentally, there is no other country on this or any other planet in which the Covid 19 epidemic is totally out of control, as much as it is in these United States of Arrogance. Brazil has their own insane right wing demagogue president, but are still a distant second. All across America's viral inundated fruited plain angry arrogant Americans gather together mask-less, in large numbers, to celebrate their freedom to destroy each other. The motion to pass a city ordinance requiring wearing a mask in public was tabled after three hours of insipid debate, only a recommendation was issued, leaving we the people free to return and debate it again another day, those who are able to get out of bed.

Hip Hopping Hamilton

ALEXANDER HAMILTON has never been one of my favorite founders. I reckon its right wrong to participate in a duel, petty, vindictive, childish, deadly, ostentatious. there is always a better way, and he and Aaron Burr, through a complex extended serious of negotiations, could have found the better way, but refused. Pride prevailed. Had Hamilton won, burr would now be celebrated hip hoppingly. Instead, he was an outcast in his time, and by history. Hamilton's cogently reasoned Federalist papers, and visionary design of the new nation's economy, combined with his martyrdom, enshrine him on the ten, and now, on Broadway. It is impossible to imagine our modern economy without a strong centralized banking system, a national currency, and a treasury department, all Hamiltonian ideals. I'm a bit off put by the way Hamilton sucked up to George Washington, the king of cold pomposity. Following the General around like a little dog moved Hamilton right up the ladder, a man who knew on which side his bread was buttered. Even though he was the father of numerous children and an adulterer, his wife, for forty three years after his death, opined that she wanted to go and be with her Hamilton. Charismatic cuss, obviously. When I became aware of the hip hop musical, I cringed. Hamilton was a contemporary of Mozart. Wouldn't string quartets be more apropos? But I am told it works, anachronisms and all. My question is:why? Is it the history, the hip hop, or some mysterious synthesis compelling the rampant word of mouth recommendation, like a virus? usually it takes an act of God or congress to get anyone in the United States under teh age of forty interested in American history anything other then the Kennedy assassination, or the wars World War Two and Civil. Whether Alexander Hamilton would forever remain but a pretty face on the ten dollar bill without a helping hip hopping libretto and musical score is a question which can now never be answsered, and one which frustrates the historical heart and soul, but, as we like to say, whatever works.

Trump, Denying the Truth, As Usual

ASSUMING, as the president maintains, that every word in his niece's book is false, president Trump emerges not as an emotionally retarded narcissist, as she claims, a pathological prevaricator, as we teh American people have witnessed, and an emotionally fragile bully, as we have also seen, but instead as the savior of America, an America ridden with disease, economic collapse an racial strife, but a savior nonetheless, as he has long claimed to be. Mary Trump's new book "Too Much and Never Enough" is the latest in a pattern in which someone who knows Donald Trump well writes an apparently valid but unflattering book about him, and he and his circle of defenders dismiss it a malicious libel, intended only for monetary and political gain by the author. With regard to the book's  scathing contents; once again the shoo fits, the details add up. Since becoming president Trump has clearly and persistently displayed the personality traits alluded to by the president's niece, the persistent symptoms of mental and emotional pathology, the characteristics of a person who was raised by a high functioning sociopath, as she put it. In the Trump family, starting with the president's grandfather and his father Fred, cheaing was a way of life, lying a virtue for success. Mary Trump has a doctorate in psychology to support her existing credentials a an insider, a family member very familiar with the president and the rest of his family. This time it will be somewhat more difficult for Trump to claim to be the victim of a political conspiracy, as he invariably does. The book clearly demonstrates that it has as its only motive the revelation of truth about a member of her family shoe obviously despises, because she sees him not only as being harmful to her family, but to her country. Now we brace ourselves for the usual laughable, pathetic claims by from Trump and his self deluded supporters that the mainstream liberal media, the Democratic party, the c Chinese, or disgruntled former republican losers have formed a conspiratorial consortium whose purpose is to destroy trump is the latest in a long list of such accusations by an administration which is trying to destroy itself, without knowing it. You hardly know whom to pity and loathe more; trump, or his debauched enabling supporters.

Demagoguing

FOR THE FIRST HALF of the nineteen fifties, Senator Joseph McCarthy, (R Wisc) was the political star of America, second in popularity only to President Eisenhower. His crusade against communism in the early part of the Cold War was purely opportunistic, a ply to enhance his power and prestige politically McCarthy accused thousands of good loyal American citizens of being communists, and he knew his accusations were false. A gullible public, imbued with post war anti-communist fervor stoked by America's ruling corporate oligarchy, was more than ready to blindly follow a deluded demagogue for nearly five years, until McCarthy's crusade became so deranged, his bullying so cruel, the number of ruined lives so numerous, that finally the American public regained its senses, and discarded McCarthyism. It was too late to save hundreds of imprisoned people and thousands of ruined careers. All this is detailed in Larry Tye's new monograph "Demagogue", the most incisive exposure of McCarthy yet written. The next great American demagogue was Newt Gingrich, whose rise to power and fall is described in an excellent study "Burning Down the House".It was Gingrich who was responsible for much of our current great national political divide, for Gingrich deliberately launched super aggressive attacks against the Democrats, using highly partisan politics, in the nineteen eighties. The style was adopted by others, and is much in evidence today. Enter Donald Trump, whose adviser in early adulthood was Roy Cohn, McCarthy's assistant and point man. Cohn taught Trump that lyins is perfectly acceptable; the end justifies the means, to never surrender, to never admit fault, and to always hit back against critics twice as hard. Admit no mistakes, and never, ever apologize. To do so is weakness. Trump, quite simply, is our modern day McCarthy, our modern day Gingrich, a demagogue for the ages. he, like the other two, is a mentally unbalanced bully who ascended to the presidency like Hitler, with the support of an angry, ignorant mob of disenchanted white people who falsely believed that the system had betrayed them. Hitler's scapegoat were teh communists, the socialists, and the Jews, Trump prefers to pick on immigrants, among others. his sycophantic gang like followers, people of little moral credibility, follow him all the more eagerly the more depraved he becomes. America has a never ending love affair with gangsters and bullies, from Al Capone to John Gotti, McCarthy, Gingrich, and now Trump. America's only redemption is that Gotti and Capone ended up iin prison, McCarthy ended up out cast, and, if justice prevails, and the evangelical conservative community regains it sanity and morality, so will Donald Trump.

Pledging and Praying

AT THE SENIOR CENTER, it was I who led the pledge of allegiance every day at lunch, because it was my idea that we start reciting it as a group. First we prayed, then we pledged. Or did we pledge first? We have done neither since mid March, and memory fades. I often recited the prayer too, improvising as i went, but only when nobody else volunteered. My point is, my patriotic and spiritual credentials are quite well intact. However, of all the people I despise, there are two types in particular for which I reserve special despising. The profoundly patriotic, and the deeply religious, because thy tend to be the most unrelentingly dogmatic and intolerant of those who do not share their fervor. If you hate people who do not stand for the national anthem, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses or protesters against systemic racism, your hatred is a sham, a fraud, and so are you. shocking though it may seem, other people are not required to share your beliefs nor behavior. I stand, but see no reason to resent those who do not. Actually, I admire them, and I repeat; those who kneel are not disrespecting the national anthem, they are disrespecting American culture and society. arguably, systemic racism merits disrespect, and protests. Patriotic and religious zealots almost invariably feel justified imposing their personal beliefs on others, and shunning or harassing those they cannot intimidate. Patriotic and religious zealotry, and extreme conservatism, rooted in a love of tradition, seem to usually manifest in th same people. These traits come bundled together, as if by intellectual default. Also observable is that many if not most of them support Donald Trump, revealing their true low moral and intellectual character, for Donald Trump has clearly revealed himself to be a traitor who place more importance on his own self interests than the welfare of the nation, and who rarely if ever behaves like a Christian.patriotism corrupts history by motivating irrational behavior, making patriots and nations aggressive.Religious zealotry is the world's single greatest cause of intolerance, hatred, and violence. The excessively zealous are inferior morally, not superior, as they would have us believe. Concealed within all zealots is a scoundrel, concealing nefarious intent, cloaked in a thin veneer of virtuous piety. The intent is to assert superiority by displaying virtue ostentatiously, in a culture in which such behavior is considered a public virtue. Always suspect the motives of the piously patriotic.

Doing Taxes

ALTHOUGH FEW AMERICANS know it, anyone who makes less than sixty nine thousand dollars a year, which most of us do, is entitled by law to have state and local income taxes done for free, at government, expense, with government assistance. Itis a service not much publicized, and seldom utilized by those qualified. There was a time when a taxpayer could get free help at the local library, among other places, but in recent years the I.R.S. has experienced budget cuts. Bush forty three tried tosimplify matters by installing a system in which the government simply told people how much they owe, or were owed, but vigorous tax accountant lobbying intervened. Doing taxes for other people, at great expense, is a lucrative business, and tax preparers are not required to inform customers about their right to free tax preparation, I've never made as much as sixty nine thousand dollars in one year, and because I'm too lazy and incompetent to prepare my own tax returns, I always pay good money for a professional to do them for me. Only recently did I learn that I have spent untold thousands of dollars needlessly, hiring others to do what I could and should have had done free of charge. I ca n recal having had several interesting conversations with a lady who did my taxes several years in a row; she assured me that she intended to start taking social security when she reached the minimum age to receive it, because she could see no way that it would remain solvent long, and she thought she had better get it while the getting was good. I followed her advice, but, as of now, the system seems intact, and destined to carry on, somehow. Another one of her stories involved her doing taxes for someone because the Lord jesus Christ had led the customer to her, and she , inspired by her love of Christ, had completed teh tax return with particular enthusiasm and efficiency.  can't recall whether it involved creative deductions and write offs.Looking back, I rather wish that Christ had moved within her to tell me that it was not necessary for me to pay anyone to do my taxes,, but, alas, the Lord works in mysterious ways, and, evidently, even Jesus Christ sets limits on how much help he is willing to render to us moderns, and unto whom he shall render it. I distinctly recall his having said, however, that we should all render unto Caesar, by which he surely meant Uncle Sam.

Accepting Responsibility

IF YOU DO NOT WANT your intellectual property to be stolen, do not allow it to be stolen. either safeguard it effectively, or distribute it according to terms acceptable to you. If you do not wish to be victimized by unfair trade agreements, do not willingly engage in under trade agreements which victimize you. If you do not wish your jobs to go overseas, do not send them there. This advice is given pro bono to the American corporate community. If you happen to support Black Lives Matter, ro to be a member, or African-American, and you happen to notice some right wing reprobate wearing a confederate flag and an MAGA cap, ignore the idiot. Initiate no confrontation. His right to individual self expression is far more important than your outrage, no matter how justified your outrage. All across the land of freedom the confederate flag is coming down legally, according to proper jurisdiction of state and local governments. Be content with that progress. Your side is winning. You can address the situation at the ballot box or in the editorial pages, without resorting to personal confrontations with reactionary reprobates adorned in racist, traitorous attire. You have far bigger fish to fry, so to speak. This advice is given free of charge, from a fellow progressive. And for those of you who have given yourselves to Christ, who fear for the souls of and disparage thoe who have not, and who complain about an alleged "war on Christianity",her is some good advice, given gratis. Do not worry about whether anyone else is a Christian, and do not allow your fears of our constitutionally secular country delude you into imagining that some vague entity is conducting a war against you or your beliefs. It just aint hap'nin. There is no such war. There is in America only religious freedom and diversity, and a shrinking percentage of the population embracing traditional religion. so, accept it, and get over it. You are and shall always be able to practice your religion, at least in your heart and mind, whether or not some future tyrannical government criminalizes it. Your best behavior would be to stop trying to intimidate others into abandoning their chosen beliefs.

Trump, Attacking Children

THROUGHOUT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, the president has demonstrated a perverse tendency to sink to new moral depths on an almost daily basis, well documented. Once again, the pattern repeats. As the great American epidemic becomes worse by the day, due largely to Trump's dismissive, incompetent, chaotic leadership, This monstrous person is threatening to expel all foreign students from the country who attend universities which conduce classes only online this fall. What have these students done to deserve this, is the obvious question. We invite hundreds of thousands of scholars from all over the world to come to America to study, then we kick them out, in the midst of their studies. Foreign students who study in America are notoriously superior to American students. They work hard, make better grades. Many of them remain in the U.S. after graduation to pursue successful careers in the professions, contributing immensely to America's culture, economy, and diversity. Harvard and M.I.T.., fully aware of this, are fighting back on their behalf, having filed lawsuits against the United States government, aka Trump, alleging accurately that the government is trying to force them to open their campuses under unsafe conditions. The lawsuits do not go far enough. They should become class action suits, including as plaintiffs every college and university in  freedom's land, and every public school system. The lawsuit should be aimed directly at President Trump personally, accusing teh president of fraud and malicious abuse of power, asking the court to not only convict Trump of these crimes, but to issue a court order confining him to a mental institution for psychiatric evaluation and treatment, for his own protection, and for the welfare and safety of the entire country..Obviously, universities having classes online is a reasonable way to stop the spread of the virus. Online education is not as good as in person classroom instruction, for many reasons, but its much better than nothing, and, under current circumstances, called for. Compounding his perversity, the president insists that American public schools all open for classroom instruction in the fall as if the demagogue has any say in the matter, which of course is entirely the decision of state and local authorities. But event his isn't the worst of it. Trump is accusing anyone of resisting opening schools of doing so for political reasons, as if the only motive were to make him look bad, to discredit the leadership pf his administration, as if the virus didn't exist, rather than the reality, that it is ravaging the country more severely every day, due to Trump's inept leadership. It must be difficult to believe that anyone would care to protect children from death and disease, since he himself has no interest in doing so. In fact, every move Trump makes is calculated only to enhance his personal popularity and reelection chances, every decision and statement this gangster makes is intended only to serve his own political purpose, and to pretend that the virus is not dangerous when in fact it is killing tens of thousands of Americans is quite in keeping with Trump's mentally ill personality. It would have been nearly impossible to believe only a few short years ago that such a monstrous person of Hitlerian characteristics could ever have been elected president in the United States. And of course, to blame are his supporters, who are no better than he, and , in a very real sense, far worse.

Progress, Strengthening

NASCAR banned the confederate flag, that laughable, defeated emblem of traitors and racists. The NFL reversed course, and decided that NFL players protesting systemic racism in America should be heard, not shunned. George Floyd matters. He has already changed the world for the better far more than most of us can ever hope to do, in death. George Floyd will always matter. Black lives matter now enjoys the support of a vast majority of the American people, who understand that mouthing meaningless platitudes like "all lives matter' can easily conceal latent racism, just as superficial, strident displays of patriotic fervor can conveniently conceal and yet reveal xenophobic and other forms of resistance to progress. Despite the many desperate, pathetic measures undertaken by the right wing white evangelical Christian community through the Republican party, including the illegitimate election of Donald Trump, and voter suppression of various kinds, progress towards human equality, racial, economic, social, and gender continues and strengthens. the voter suppression is of particular concern to everyone who supports democracy. it often involves establishing barriers to voting, such as requiring new forms of identification hard to obtain for rural poor people, severely limiting the number of polling places in under served areas of high poverty rates, limiting teh amount of time and hours for poling places to be open, limiting the ways in which a person can vote, such as mail in ballots and computer and absentee voting, and making it difficult to run for office financially by imposing fees upon candidates, reducing the oportunity for poor people to participate in the political system. The Republican party, the party of white, wealthy Christians, does not want everyone to vote, wants to strictly limit the franchise wo people likely to vote for politicians and policies favoring conservative ideals. If every person over the age of eighteen in America voted, no Republican would ever be elected to office, and there would be not only a dominant Democratic party, but socialist and green parties as well, and they would win elections. Polls consistently show that the United States is a majority liberal country, with progressive beliefs on every issue. that's why Democrats try to expand voter participation, and Republicans try to reduce it. That is why, as its name implies, the Republicans want Democracy by indirect representation, while Democrats prefer democracy by direct citizen control. The current conservative trend is towards government by demagogue, and it msut be stopped by the will of the people, all of the people.

Trump, Conquering by Dividing

PRESIDENT TRUMP, to use the term "president" loosely, was elected with three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, with the assistance of foreign operatives who poured millions of dollars into a propaganda campaign on his behalf, by conducting a campaign based on divisive hatred. Now he is probably convinced that the same crude tactics will work again, and that he will be reelected no matter how few his supporters are in number. he seems to think that he only needs to retain the loyalty of hsi white blue collar evangelical angry red neck base. But that base has not grown, if anything, it has shrunk during the past four years, and is shrinking rapidly because of the virus, the economic decline, and the racial unrest. Trump never mentions the name "George Floyd", but instead refers to protesters of systemic racism as anarchists and looters. meanwhile, most of the country supports "Black Lives matter", and much prefer to heal the divided country around true racial and human equality. The banning of the confederate flag by NASCAR also has the support of most of the country, although a minority of right wing reactionaries oppose it, for reasons they have not made clear. they mumble platitudes about freedom, which mean nothing. Trump, meanwhile, twitter tweets verbal attacks on all progressive actin, including that taken by NASCAR, even going so far as to demand an apology from African-American driver Bubba Wallace, for some crime he cannot name. Trump is running his reelection campaign as if he were challenging an incumbent who has done a terrible job, which in a sense he is.

Resisting Progress, religiously

THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE AGES, roughly 500-1500 A.D., the Roman catholic church, in its dominance of Europe, forbade translating the Bible from Latin. Only clerics were allowed to be literate in Latin. The church effectively held a monopoly on biblical as well as various secular forms of authority. By discouraging learning, the church retained power, and control over society. The church intimidated Copernicus into withholding knowledge (1543), and persecuted Galileo for sharing it. (1608). Protestantism (1517) allowed biblical translations, but also reacted adversely to any facts which contradicted scripture, which most facts do. The Christian church has always been adverse to non biblical knowledge, which nearly all knowledge is, and remains so today. To deny evolutionary science in favor of mud made mankind because mud made men are biblical is to deny reality in favor of fantasy. Damnable that Christianity is in regard to science, its performance is far worse in its promotion, or lack thereof, of social progress. The Bible condones slavery, and admonishes slaves to respect and obey their masters. Likewise Jesus, who never uttered a word of disapproval for slavery. The Lord liberated his chosen people from hard bondage, using questionable methods, including mass murder by drowning,  while all other enslaved people God allowed to languish  in forced servitude, evidently unchosen. In modern times, slavery was justified and defended  by American slave owners by quoting scripture. Christian ministers cris crossed the country proclaiming the enslavement of inferior races as fulfillment of God's will. In still more modern times homosexuals have been criminalized, persecuted, and marginalized in the name of Christian law. This process is ongoing despite social progress through secular intervention and application of secular law. Science is self improving, , it promotes  social progress, while religion never seeks truth, since it claims to already possess it.

The Wealthy, Getting Wealthier

NOT ONLY is Jeff Bezos the world's wealthiest person, he is far and away that, leaving such trillionaires as Buffet and Gates in the dust. Had he not been somewhat subdivided due to a recent divorce, his net worth, it is estimated, would by now be around two hundred and ten billion, with a "B". Just goes to show; even the world's greatest private fortune cannot buy marital bliss, or maybe the money got in the way. Even more striking, the wealthy, already doing quite well before the Covid era, are doing much better in the midst of it, and figure to do even better if and when we ever emerge from it. Besos, for instance, who is strictly a hands off government leave me and my money alone libertarian who does not seem to enjoy giving much of anything to anybody, seems to have profited greatly from the social distancing regime in which retail brick and mortar business are suffering and dying daily. his Amazon dot com business is perfectly suited to purchasing from a distance, since that it what its for, and during an epidemic, is what we all want to do. Several factors contribute to the spike in billionaire wealth. The great government handout, in which the average American received twelve hundred dollars as a lifeline to help stave off pandemic and economic melt down starvation, also included some hidden ut tasty morsels for the very rich, having to do with tax write offs. than too, who can fail to recall the famous Trump-Republican tax cut for the corporate wealthy, from thirty six to twenty one percent, which went into effect several years ago, has yet to be repealed by a saner government, and has been enriching the rich quite well. The way things are going, eventually a single person will own all the world's wealth, and Jeff Bezos is off to a good start, the leading candidate to soak up all the money. Supreme Court Chief Justice Louis Brandeis said that we can have a democracy, or we can have economic inequality, but we cannot have both. We seem to have chosen the latter.