Changing the Climate, From the Top Down

I WAS BORN POOR (as, technically, nearly everyone is), and raised poor. The word "poor" might be a bit misleading. My older sister and I were raised by a single mother, who worked as a registered nurse. In those days, the 1950s and sixties, nurses were not nearly as well paid, comparatively, as now, and she worked the night shift,party because it paid a bit better, partly because the patients, being asleep, were easier to deal with. We lived in a small frame house, got a good education, and had friendly neighbors with enough children in the neighborhood to work up a good whiffle ball game on those long, halcyon summer days of yore, when kids played outside, unsupervised, drinking out of garden hoses and coming home only when called home for supper and the street lights came on. When darkness fell, hide and go seek took over. But you didn't have to go far to see neighborhoods with much larger, prettier houses and more cars in the garage. We didn't care. We never felt any envy, sense of deprivation, or lack. In fact, in those days there was a tendency for America's middle and lower middle class not to envy the very wealthy, but to admire them. (how things have changed!) We vacationed every summer,usually to a big city for major league baseball. Nobody but a few pointy headed scientists knew anything about climate change, though it was as real then as it is now. The idea that there existed a wealthy class whose members were disproportionately responsible for the impending destruction of the planetary ecosystem would have seemed alien to me. And yet, there was, they were, and they still are. In an illumating new book by Dario Kenner, "Carbon Inequality: The Role of the Richest In Climate Change", we learn the details. Author Kenner is currently a researcher at Sussex University in Great Britain, the author of several books of the sociology of climate change, and the editor of a periodical on the same topic. "Carbon Inequality" focuses on the wealthiest contributors to carbon pollution in the United States and Great Britian, with a familiar theme. Just as the wealthiest nations are much more responsible for global warming through industrialization than most of the world's developing countries, and yet less impacted by its disastrous effects,so the super wealthy class has more per capita responsibility for atmospheric carbon pollution than the teeming mass of the world's poor majority, while being far more insulated against its harmful impact. Much of the material he uses is not new. The billionaires are the primary shareholders in fossil fuel companies. Just as eighty percent of all corporate stock is held by less than twenty percent of investors, so a disproportionate number of fossil fuel shares are owned by billionaires, who manage the companies. The decades old public relations campaign to deny and deflect climate responsibility from the mega corporations may be placed squarely at the feet of their billionaire share holders, who occupy the board rooms and make corporate policy. Private jets, helicopters, and fleets of luxury automobiles, as well as fuel consuming "second homes", mansions spread out all over the world, combine to render the super wealthy "guilty" of excessive wealth, and thus, of excessive carbon consumption. The solution is not to elevate the rest of us to a higer level of affluence and consumption; the solution is to bring the uber wealthy down to our level, or at least, to a more restrained, reasonable standared of living. And that, as we say, is the rub, the fly in the ointment. Consumer capitalism is not an economic system which invites material restraint. In a culture which espouses the virtues of upward mobility through hard work,and in which most poor folks envision themselves as potentially future affluent,voluntary restraint in consumption is not popular.It may be that the most urgent requirement for fighting climate change involves not only change in the consumer habits of the wealthy, but also, in the attitudes harbored by all of us.

Evolving the Language, Evangelically

FACEBOOK, the "go to" source for irreverant humor aimed at religion, has given me another new twist. Introducing the newest word in the lexicon of blasphemy: "evangenitals". Defined as "One with an inordinate interest on the part of conservative evangelical Christians concerning the precise sexual content of another person's underwear", this more one millionth word in the much hybrid English language well might, ultimately, take its place in Webster's unabridged along with other recent add ons such as "aint", and "irregardless". One must bear in mind that a word becomes a word when someone invents it, uses it, other people learn to like it, begin using it prolifically, and, wala!, it gets printed up, fomally, after a vote taken among a highly secretive group of grammarian guardians somewhere high in the mountains of Switzerland, so go the conspiracy theories. My high school English teacher, now eighty, whom I adored fifty years ago and still do, posted on Facebook a list of oft misused and abused words. Among them he included "irregardless", insisting that the proper word is "regardless". Well, maybe so. But, maybe not. Lookit; I have heard the word "irregardless" uttered so often that, at some point,it must surely gain admittance, if only by virtue of its frequent, redundant use among the masses. That, in a nutshell, is how its done. A language, any language except French, evolves slowly but steadily over the centuries by the way people choose to use it. Language, any language except French, which is an art museum, is a tool. A hammer becomes a hammer when it hammers. What I intend to do is to use the word "evangenital" so often and blashphemously, with or without help, that it too insinuates itself into the million member English language officially approved word list. You know that thing that comes out long about every Christmas in which we are told what the "new word of the year" is? Well, "evangenitals" is, if nothing else,is standing in line, if a bit far back. There it abides, patiently waiting, lurking, awaiting the turning of a few more grammatically evolving pages. AS LGBTQ and transgender people will readily attest, our conservative evangelical Cristian brethern and sistern, perhaps in keeping with their apparent worship of the god of sexual predation, Donald J. Trump, are, like their molester-in-chief icon, perversely obsessed with the contents of other's undergarments. Their obsession furher extends to how genitalia are used, when, where, and under what contractual obligations. Only born and bred heterosexuals make their virtuous way into the kingdom of God, on Earth, or in heaven. Gay people need not apply, they need only repent, and undergo a ritual of brainwashing torture, "conversion therapy". For eight long months in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, the ancestors to our modern saved Christians drowned or burned twenty four accused witches, then, upon further reflection, realized that they may have made a mistake. Our modern religious zealots have more subtle ways of doling out torture. Laws, television mega-ministries,etc. There is no indication that their own version of enlightenment in born again reason and compassion is imminent. Likely it never will manifest. The best we can do is to treasure and relish their sole perceptible contribution to human culture; the minting of a brand new word.

Immolating, By Fire, For Cause

"IMMOLATION" is defined as a ritual sacrifice, usually but not necessarily by burning, usually for religious purposes, usually to appease the appetite of a presumed meat eating god. Ancient Chinese kings immolated untold numbers of animals. The pre Columbian civilizations of central and south America immolated animals and human female virgins atop pyramidal pyres in deference to the perceived preferences of their numerous and various gods. Some they burned, others they hacked to death. The hacking provided a more tangible display of blood letting, more satisfying to the masters of immolation, possibly preferred by meat eating gods, including the biblical Judeo-Christian deity. The hungry anthropomopphic Judeo-christian God, a being of prodigious appetite, demanded and consumed no fewer than fifteen thousand immolated animals of various sorts, with a special taste for sheep, in the Old Testament alone. (His own only begotten son served essentially the same purpsoe in the revised edition "New Tetament" addition). When one douses one's self with a highly flammable liquid, gasoline or other, by pouring it on one's head, sets one's self aflame, one has "self-immolated". To satisfy the precise definition of self immmolation, the act must be performed out of political protest or for religious based reasons. After the fact, after the fire, the living swoop in like intellectual vultures,giving opinions. The message has been sent, and received. Those who agree with the noble underlying cause describe the act of martyrdom as heroic.They often insist that the same purpose could have and maybe should been accomplished by different, less self destructive means. They have a point. Those who do not embrace the noble cause causing the immolation ascribe it to mental illness, or misguidance. Perhaps there is truth in both interpretations. As always, personal perspective and opinion prevail. The young American airman who self immolated in public in Washingotn D.C. reportedly shouted "free Palestine!" as he met his self inflicted demise. He made his underlying cause quite clear, as self immolaters almost invariably do. And,as is usually the case with self inflicted martyrs, the young man had a point shared by many others. This is also almost always the case. The point is that the Israeli response to the October terrorist attack by Hamas has been and continues, arguably, to be overly harsh, overly brutal, often being described as "genocide". If indeed it is genocide it has not proceeded very far, yet. Of the roughly two point four million non Jewish Palestinians, approximately thirty thousand of them have been killed, and counting, by the Israeli "defense forces". That's a start, but, at least numerically, not an impressive one. Genocide requires complete elimination of an ethnic or racial group to satisfy its definition. Another, perhaps even more fundamentally salient point merits mention. It is this:that the modern nstate of Israel was established under such haphazard, chaotic, poorly planned circumstances, and so spontaneously violently, that its peaceful emergence was doomed from the beginning,destined to result in decades of unending confrontation,violence, and wars. Zionism was well underway in Europe by the eighteen seventies. Jews were flocking to the "holy land" from all across Europe.Thus, many of the "original" Hebrew inhabitants of Palestine were westerners. Modern Israel was born as an act of western imperialism, a last breath of a dying British empire. The "Balfour declaration", in which the British government formally expressed support for the establishment of a Jewish national homeland, was issued in November of 1917, expediently, just as the shrinking Ottoman Empire was surrendering, by force, its control of Palestine. The declaration was vague, and mentioned vaguely that the political and religious safety and rights of the non Jewish Palestian people must be safeguarded. But it included no specific arrangements for the establishment of a Palestinian homeland,a formally recognized nation. Surely, between 1870 and 1948 there had been ample time to do this. This, considering that prior to the violent, unplanned, chaotic establishment of the nation of Israel Jews and non Jews had for decades lived in relative peace and harmony in what both considered to be their natural, God given homeland. Maybe it should have remained that way.

Being Angry, About Capitalism, Duly

BERNIE SANDERS has for decades been among my favorite American political leaders, indeed, my favorite. He achieved that status in 1991 when he steadfastly opposed the American led war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, a fabricated war,deliberately contrived by the Bush administration, predicated on the false pretense that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was entirely of Saddam's making. In fact,the United States engineered the entire episode,having previously given Saddam a green light for his invasion, then rescinding it when Saddam cashed the blank check. (See: April Gladspie)...Since then, I have placed Sanders above Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt in my personal hierarchy of greatness. (Arguably, both Lincoln and Roosevelt fabricated their own wars; FDR by luring the Japanese into attacking Pearl harbor, Lincoln by having the audacity to get elected president.) My admiration of Senator Sanders is based largely upon economics, but politics as well. (He taught me to refer to myself as a "Democratc socialist"). In his seminal new work, "Its Ok To Be Angry About Capitalism",he takes on the billionaire class,just as he has done for decades, first in the U.S. House of Representatives, and now in the United States Senate. He asks why we the American people have allowed the billionaire class to take complete control of our political and economic systems. (Gore Vidal used to call them "our corporate masters"). How can it be that three billionaires have more wealth than the combined wealth of the bottom half of the American people? The current economic system, in which less than one percent owns and controls more than forty percent of the American economy, Sanders disparages as "Uber capitalism". Like most economists and historians, Sanders traces the sharp rise in wealth disparity to the neo-liberal policies put in place in the late seventies and early eighties, in which tax rates for the wealthy were lowered, and the middle class began to shrink under the burden of shrinking wages and wildly inflated corporte profits. Gone were the halcyon days of the immmediate post Worle War Two era in which a single wage earner could support a family of four, and relative economic equality characterized the American economy. He saves his sharpest attacks for the fossil fuel industry. Like nearly all other sectors of the American economy, the fossil fuel industry is basically a monopoly, with monopolistic power. Thus has it perpetuated the myth that climate change is a myth, and that, even if it weren't, its cause has nothing to do with the burning of carbon based energy sources. From the beginning, it knew better. Corporate executives and managers are paid outrageous salaries while the working class struggles to survive; why are they not held accountable for their actions, actions which distort and twhart economic growth and prosperity for the many, and threaten the very existence of all life on Earth? Only because they own the politicians, who take their money and do their bidding,effectively preventing meaningful, fundamental political change and action to mitigate climate change. What is needed,asserts Sanders, is nothing short of a political revolution, globally, and in America. We the people have the power to make this happen. But, as Jefferson said: "If the people become innatentive to the affairs of government, the legislators and magistrates shall divide society into two classes; wolves, and sheep." We the people have long lain dormant, have long become innatentive, and thus, arguably deserving of our status, as sheep.

Playing For Very High Pay

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS has a new quarterback of the future, already on campus, but he hasn't played yet. He was a millionaire before he set foot on university soil, and he didn't bring the money with him. It was handed to him by a UT administrator, who had collected it from a single wealthy donar, or perhaps several less wealthy ones. On the campus of the University of Georgia,a young football star, also a budding star quarterback, has been seen driving around campus in a three hundred thousand dollor sports car of Italian manufacture. Meanwhile, the offensive linemen who can either make quarterbacking highly lucrative or disastrous at the college level, you somehow suspect, are being paid far less, despite their indispensable contributions. Only the very best of the big men get well paid. Name, image, and likeness. Financial chaos. Hope that the sports car quarterack doesn't kill anybody with his car, receives no speeding tickets, and puts no dents, dingers, or total damage to his beauty. Good luck with that. This is the era of the wild, wild west in college athletics, especially football, the cash cow on campus... This is the era before regulation steps in, and restores sanity. Eventually, if sanity is restored, presumably, eventually the colleges and universities will pay their players directly, pro rated, according to skill level. Perish the thought that economic equality might come to campus. There is little to no value to the names, images, or likenesses of college athletes, other than an occasional endorsement of a local business. The money comes from groups of fans, affluent and otherwise, oranized in "combines", non profit entities which only collect money and redistribute it to the deserving few, the select star athletes who can bring fame,fortune, and wins to their universities' athletic programs. Small contributions are always welcome. The young lady who recently set the all time scoring record for NCAA women's basketball will probably stay in school next year, rather than turning pro. She can make much more money by so doing. Profesional sports has become even crazier. Multi year multi million dollar contracts are now the norm. Most exceed tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars. The players know that hey have it good, maybe too good, and are deferential and respectful towards all media personell, knowing full well where their bread is buttered. You get a bad public relations rep, and you might be at risk of being traded or cut. Major league baseball teams have payrolls in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The New York Yankees will let you watch batting practice, live streamed, for a price. Gone are the days when merely showing up at the stadium an hour or so before game time would be sufficient to watch the big boys swatting balls over the fence for free, practice home runs. Not mentioned is whether big strong left handed pull hitters command a surcharge, payable by debit or credit card. For only five thousand dollars a game, you can rent a luxury box at Yankee stadium, which can accomodate as many as twenty four people, packed in like sardines. There is an extra charge for alcoholic beverages; hot dogs and pretzels are complimentary. You can buy tickets for games on the Yankees website,for either single games or packages. There is a "promotion" every day. The actual ticket prices are not mentioned until you get to the part where you click to buy. A first row seat behind the dugout will go for about twelve hundred bucks. Come game time, many of these seats are empty, although paid for. The wealthy have money to burn, plenty of free time and a beautiful stadium to roam. If the game is good enough, they will eventually come down and sit down, among and below the plebes, who pay a little less. The best advice is to stay away from the concseesion stand. Restroom privileges,however, are still free, at least for the time being.

Burning Books

MUCH HAS BEEN MADE of late in the states about the issue of books, how to treat them, what to do with them, other than reading them. In far flung places like Florida and Texas, where conservatism extremism presently holds sway, books are being removed from school and public libraries, at the behest of right wing ideologues who not only fail to see their value, but regard them, fatuously, as harmful to the human mind. The term "banning books" has been used, which is perhaps a slight misnomer.The books can be found on the internet and in book stores. But when a fictional work of the highest value, such as "To Kill A Mockingbird", is removed from school shelves because some fear that it might make students feel "unomfortable", the book has effectively been banned. Indeed, the purpose of Harper Lee's classic novel is precisely that: to make folks feel uncomfortable, with racism, a dicsomfort which yields far more value than the avoidance of it. While in high school the book "The Catcher In the Rye" was banned in our school. Every student I know had a clandestine copy in is or her locker. Its always happened, like everything else. In ancient Iraq,Assyrian tablets with controversial content were smasked into fragments. The ancient library of Alexandria was burned to the ground, costing history a treasure trove of information. Troughout the middle ages, the "dark ages",(a not altogether innacurate term) the Catholic church maintained its now infamous "Index of Forbidden Books". If it was not aChristian "Apology" (defense of the one true faith), it had to go in the garbage. In more modern times, places like Sarajevo and NAZI Germany succumbed to the book burning disease. Immigration records have been destroyed in modern times. Poet Bertolt Brecht wrote a poem about "the paper hanger" Hitler and hhis book burning frenzy. Brecht screamed at Hitler, not becuase his books were being banned and burned, but because they were not. His reasoning was that since only good books were being burned, his should be included."Burn me!", he furiously exhorted. A more comprehensive description of this nightmarish nonsense was published in twenty twenty by a librarian-historian at Oxford University, Richard Ovenden: "Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge". On this topic Ovenden is clearly a polemicist; he attacks the book burners with nothing short of manic fervor. Everyone seems to like his scholarship and agrees that the expostion is well written and insightful. There are, however, "outliers", as we say today. Some scholars think the title is misleading, that is it more concerned with the history of libraries than the selective destruction of their contents. More properly, Ovenden seems to be dealing less with the actual torching of books, or with their physical destruction by all other means, including shredding and burying, and more concerned with the general suppression of knowledge. Ultimately, it amounts to the same thing. Although, as Goethe said, books are at best only designed to give names to human mistakes, the mistakes are enumerated most convincingly and frequently in books themselves. Ovenden reminds us that the suppression of knowledge, while indefensible, is never permanent. Reality adheres,the truth will win out. Light illiminates the night.

Aliens, and Bears, Lurking In the Woods

FEW ACTIVITIES surpass for pleasure and health benefit a nice long hike along a wooded trail deep into a forested area. I am fortunate to live in a part of the country where access to such areas is easy.I learned that fully fifty six percent of the land area of the state in which I live is indeed forested, although none of it, I am told, is virgin timber. No matter.It stands as a living monument to the possibility of reforestation, which, I also read in the book "Not the End of the World", by Hanna Ritchie, that deforestation world wide reached its peak in the nineteen eighties, and that now, refreshingly, the world has begun to replant its trees. May this trend continue, unabashedly. The world once had about seven trillion trees; that number has gone down to about half that amount since the advent of neolithic homo sapien sapiens. Even if we replace the missing three trillion, climate change will continue; we cannot plant and grow our way out of global warming. One alarming trend I seem to notice is that many of the trees in my area appear to be less than wholly healthy. Twisted, scraggly branches attest to years of repeated droughts and ice storms. The forest floors here are mostly littered heavily with dead branches. Fodder for future forest fires, brought on by severe droughts and climate change. Our hike that day was especially pleasant. Our resident scientist led the way, and did most of the talking. He finally, mercifully disengaged from micro biological narratives, and turned his attention to one of my favorite topics; UFOs. He went on a bit, but I followed along and listened intently, staying a few yards behind him to avoid any possibility of a mid stride rear end collision. I cannot recall the specific details of his remarks. The usual material, as I recall,reams of anecdotal evidence, not good enough for me. He had borrowed a large, juicy looking paperbook book on the subject, and was enager to share, but not to loan me the actual book. I began to get the impression that my empirical science friend was fast becoming a true believer. I remain a skeptical agnostic, despite his ostensibly persuasive recitation of evidence, still, entirely anecdotal. "Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence", spoke the late great Carl Sagan". "I am willing to believe anything, no matter how seemingly unlikely", echoed Isaac Asimov, "but it must be accompanied by convincing evidence". "Amen", to borrow a quote. The guy walking behind me, an early colonial American history savant, had had enough, and exploded. He hadn't come all the way out here into the wilderness, where hibernating black bears sleep lightly, to listen to a lecture about the fascination of unidentified flying objects, of alien origin or not. And yes, he made the pedestrian point that anyting aloft which we cannot identify is an "unidentified flying object". Ho hum. Why risk waking up the black bears? And why bother to discuss something which is purely speculative, without tangible, demonstrated value? Shouldn't we be discussing world hunger, or something of equally pressing,immediate importance? He was virtually yelling, and I began, reluctantly, to accede. I considered pointing out that there seems to me nothing inherently flawed about engaging in speculation, idle or otherwise, but I held my tongue. The bears might be listening. All UfO talk stopped. My potential annoyance at his rudeness was partially assauged by the reality that by the time I was in high scool, I had already covered this ground, and, in any event, there seems to have been little added to it in the past five decades. The hike had become for me a little less pleasant. My consolation was that the trees and trial were still beautiful,the bears were still asleep,and, as a bonus, I learned a bit more about Jonathan Ewdards, preaching to the choir, and the state of modern American politics.

Baselessly Basing On the Bible

"God, now they're saying that frozen embryos are children", opined the Facebook post. The word order seemed to imply a negative opinion, disapproval. That seems warranted. Shortly, some excessively imperceptive evangelical Christian will doubtless respond that it is indeed God saying it, or who said it, thousands, millions of years ago, in a book. The "they're" is the Supreme Court of the great but perhaps benighted state of alabama. Somebody in Alabama removed a few frozen human embryos from cold storage, dropped them, and ended several lives in waiting. A great misfortune, beyond question, one which invites regret and overreaction. Now, murder charges are possible. The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos are human beings, specifically, children. The baseles basis of this state high court rendering was presented, quite predictably, as "biblical". All life is formed in the image of God, from the first biological molecule, and therefore, to destroy frozen children, whether by intent or accident, is "effacing God". It was not stipulated preciesly how God is thereby effaced, by whom, or perhaps most importantly, whtether it is even remotely possible to "efface" the lord, here on this speck of mote dust floating along on the outskirts of a remote spiral arm of a perfectly ordinary galaxy. To "efface", according to the dictionary, means to delierately remove something, usually, from someone, often, a cervix from a woman. Not stipulated in the ruling was exactly what is being removed from God, nor when fetal molecules are considered embryos, and not children. Also, the presumption impies that God may in fact be female, a concept likely untenable to the conservative Alabama Supreme Court justices. In the Judeo-Christian scripture there is no mention of embryos, frozen, thawed, or unbothered in the womb, and there is no mention of abortion. Early in the Pentateuch there is a passage saying that life begins not at the moment of conception, not at the formation of an embryo, but, sensibly, at the moment the infant takes his or her first breath. When you least expect it, the bible comes through with a bit of common sense. People who disparage the bible by mentioning specific passages are often accused of "cherry picking." Now, it seems the Alabama court is doing its own bit of cherry harvesting. excluding from the one which George Washington is alleged to have chopped down. Washington himself lived in an era in which abortion was considered normal, natural, acceptable. Washington's friend Benjamin Franklin even prepared a lenghty treatise on how to accomplish it. We've come far, possibly in the wrong direction. Abortion is not desirable to anyone. Arguably, it is murder. It is pure expediency, desperation, a last resort. The solution is obviously effective, affordable, accessible birth control, without violence done against "Planned Parenthood". We can and must maintain the faith that there is, somewhere in the hearts and minds of human beings, an aceptble definition of precisely when life begins, when it ends, and at what point in early pregnancy it is morally, legally acceptable terminate life, and by whose authority we should arrive at these decisions. But we are not likley to find adequate moral or legal authority in either the Alabama or United States Supreme Court, and most certainly not in the Christian bible, which, as Goethe said, is, like all other books written exclusively by human beings, at best designed only to give names to our mistakes.

Groveling At the Feet of Tyranny

THOSE FAMILIAR with the Trump presidency and post presidency, aside from having become expert observers of chaotic government, cannot help but have noticed Trump's consistent displayed admiration of brutal, far right wing dictators. (But, not necessarily only right wing tyrants). The image of President Trump stepping three feet across the border into North Korea, and joining their dictator for a quick hand shake before quickly retreating back into the comfort of an American ally. The American president seated next to Vladimir Putin, and, in a joking, half hearted manner, admonishing the Tsar to stop meddling in American elections, an admonition Putin quite obviously took as a joke, as was intended. The obvious fascination of not only Trump but of the netire Republican party with Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban. The list of examples grows. Trump and the modern right wing extremist Republican party did not invent this trend. Far from from it, as is clearly delineated in a fascinating new book by journalist and student of the American right wing Jacob Heilbrunn in his seminal monograph: "America Last: The Right's Century Long Romance With foreign Dictators". As early as before World War One, American conservatives displayed an admmration for German Kaiser (king, Caesar) William II, and when war broke out, urged that the U.S. side with Germany, and when America did not, then proceeded to root openly for German victory, until America entered the war. Following the "war to end all wars" Mussolini and Hitler enter the scene, with right wing American applause. The German-American "bund" arose, and huge pro German pro Hitler rallies filled Madison Square Garden with the far right. No left wingers were in attendance. After the second war, conservatives did not turn to Jjoseph Stalin or later to Fidel Castro for comfort and inspiration. As champions of communism, socialm, and stated mandated economic and social equality, those two were somewhat off limtis as icons of the right, being as they were on the left of the political spectrum of tyranny. Instead, Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet became the recipients of the admmiration of the right. The lengthy Spanish Civil war, which brought Francisco Franco to power, was closely watched by all Americans; the man of the right won the contest, as he had won the heearts and minds of American conservatives. When Salvador Allende was duly elected the first duly elected socialst president of Chile, up stepped the Americans, who, led by far right former Hitler supporter Henry Kissinger, prevailed upon the Nixon administration to make things right by replacing the socilist with the dictator Pinochet in a coup orchestrated aided and abetted by the CIA, satisfying Nixon supporters. Heilbrunn points out that that foreign policy considerations play no part in this pattern of dictatorial admiration. Rather, American conservatives just plain old do not like all things liberal, which they percieve as weak, compromising, anti-capitalistic,and thus, uncceptable. The evil specter of liberal society always lurks... Rest assured that any big talking demagogue who rises to oppose and stifle the forces of liberal government always does and will continue to receive the fanship and support of the American conservative commnunity. Donald J. Trump comes to mind, readily and immediately.

Living On, In Spirit

THERE IS A SERIES of science fiction novels by James Blish collectively titled "Cities In Flight", in which entire cites are being launched into space to escape a dying planet Earth. The first of the series is titled "They Shall Have Stars". In its concluding paragraph, a martyr ro freedom, Bliss Waggoner, is put to death. The last line says: "Later that day, a Senator, Machinery, announced, "Bliss Waggoner is dead". Then, the author finishes with: "As usual, Machinery was wrong". Although I read the series more than fifty years ago, I have always remembered that inspiring conclusion, a tribute to the enduring influence beyond the grave of great people martyred for their goodness, their fight for freedom. I think, when I read this around 1970, my mind was focused on the Kennedys, and MLK. Perhaps, so was James Blish. Then, my thoughts turned to Alexei Navalny. On Facebook I posted, in all caps, "THE TYRANT SAYS THAT NAVALNY IS DEAD. AS USUAL, THE TYRANT IS DEAD WRONG". I made this post more than once, but each time it vanished, and I have not seen it since. I have not been notified that it "goes against community standards", and have not been sent to "Facebook jail", as we call it. Have I been censored by the immutable Mr. Zuckerberg or his employees? Am I too, in my own small, shallow way, another martyr to freedom? No matter, he cannot touch me here. Navalny knew very well that his long tenure in prison would never end, that he would indeed die while incarcerated. He probably knew that his death would be be a murder, ordered by Putin, and that it would be presented to the world as an "accident" or "incurable illness", or "suddden illness", as indeed it ultimately was. And he knew it would be a lie, and that his death would be a sacrifce of freedom to the great demonic god of Russian tyrany. He knew it, and everyone else knew it. Tyrany has always been the condition under which the Russian people have suffered, from the advent of the expading Muscovite state in the tenth century, to the present, with but two brief respites during which Russian democracy weakly tried to flourish. The first was a six month period in 1917, after the fall of Tsar Nicholas II, and the rise of Leninist communism, the "Kerensky era". The second began in 1990, when the weakened communist state was supplanted by attempted democracy, which never had a chance. Soon the oligarchs arrived, and, propping up their puppet Vladimir Putin, proceeded to return Russian government and society to their perpetual dark age of suppression. The puppet, it seems, became a living, breathing tyrant in his own right, beyond the reach and control of the tyrannical billionaire oligrachs who put him in place, assuming he would do their bidding. The oligarchs swept up the wealth and power of Russia for themselves, but lost control of the man they contrived to be their figurehead. Freedom always has its martyrs, because humans are, as Jefferson said, much more inclined to suffer under the burden of despotism than to fight for their own freedom, and because humans are by nature inclined to erect despotic forms of government for their own perceived saftey and proection. Its the easy, convenient way, and we humans, above all else, incline towards convenience and ease. Freedom and self governance require effort. But again I say, and will say again, "Alexei Navalny is not dead". Not only does he remain far superior in death and spirit to his oppressors and murderers, he will, assuming justice in the universe, outlive them all.

Blasting Away, At Anything That Moves

WE AS A SOCIETY have long since reached and passed the point of being surprised whenever somebody with an automatic assault rifle shows up in a public place, and starts killing randomly. One also suspects that we have long since arrvied at the point at which we as individuals are, if not outright reluctant to become part of a crowd, are at least harboring a mild, vague sense of forboding and anxiety at the thought of joining the crowds. We become cautious in deciding where to go, what to attend, which crowd to join. Entering a restaurant in a conceal carry state, you select a seat in a corner or near the front door, wondering which if any of your fellow diners are carrying, and with what intention. Who is packing heat while enjoying salsa and chips for appetizers, if any, or if all. I recall listening to a talk radio program in which the questioner asked the listener what his reaction would be were he to walk into a fast food restaurant, say, Mickey Dee's, to discover that thirty of forty people were sitting there chomping on a Big Mac, armed with holsters and pistols hanging from their belts, with perhaps ammo belts strapped across their shoulders. I recall that the listener said he would be perfectly fine with it, would, in fact, prefer it. After all, a room of heat packing "good people" is of no concern, is actually comforting; plenty of "good guys" to stop the one bad apple who might, at any monent, cut loose. Safety in numbers. A room full of pistol packing peeps, all, presumably, good guys. As for me, I would be scared and nervous as hell. How would I know, as I stood at the counter waiting for my burger, which among the well armed throng was good, and which bad, well armed with evil intent? We must presume the "good guy" part, for in fact, we simply do not know, and, well, why not assume the best? And that, my fellow first and second amendment worshippers, is precisely the point. One simply cannot tell the good from the bad by looking at someone, just as one cannot discern a Muslim by stye of dress or speech. Actions speak louder than personal appearance. Were I a Kansas City Chiefs fan who lived in or near Kansas City, I would not have attended the million member celebration rally. Not for fear of potential gun violence, but because of an aversion to excsively large crowds. An actual football game with eighty thousand people seated and relatively motionless ensconced screamers, all pulling in the same direction I can handle; a massive mob of more thana million milling hyped up overly ebullient Super Bowl celebrants packed together in swarmng,inchoate motion for me is another matter. Everybody was surprised at what happened in Kansas City; arguably, nobody should have been. Nobody seems to have suspected even the possibility; argaubly we all should all have. Hundreds of police officers had doubtless been briefed; they too were no doubt taken quite by surprise, despite thir preparation and training. A friend of mine said that he was watching live on TV when he suddenly saw people scurrying in all directions, but that he did not hear the shots in living color. What would have happened had the more than a million good guys all brought their guns to the party? A war zone, with citizen heroes pulling pieces and blazng away at presumed killers? There was no well prepared mass murderer at the party. It was a couple of pistol packing teenagers having an argument. A few other bystanders just happened to get in the way. If only all the other million man army of good guys had had access to crime stopping guns in their eager to help hands.One can scarecly iagine the potential mutual mass murdering carnage among the good citizens elebrating the Super Bowl.

Lovin' On Russia

AH, DISTINCTLY I REMEMBER, as E. A. Poe once said, when it was the left wingers of America who were afflicted with the love of Russia. That was in the old days, when Russia was still the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the infamous USSR, the "evil empire", as the Gipper put it. Before the big break up of 1990, when President Yeltsin was for a few awkward moments held virtually at gunpoint in his own office by insurrectionists. Before the fifteen satellite proto-countries fled the communist coop, and became Georgia, BelaRus, and all the rest, countries in their own right. What the American left idolized was of course nothing other than mandated economic and social equality, an ideal which, lofty though it may have been, never really existed in reality. Arguably, it never can. But, whatever, that was then, as we say, and this is now. Now, it is the turn of the American right wing to admire all things Russian. It comes to mind that a couple of years ago, at the semi-annual gathering together of CPAC (conservative political action committee), the audience struck up the chant: "Rush- ah! Rush-ah!". We now know that all it takes to turn the American right around, to inspire admiration in what they once despised, is to convert from communism to oligarchial, top heavy, capitalism, concentrated heavily. But really it isn't the conversion to convoluted "capitalism" which throbs the hearts of our far right in the U.S.. In any event, to describe the current economic paradigm as "capitalism" is no more accurate than to use the same descriptor for the American economy. Capitalism, after all, at least in Adam Smithian theory, involves some competition in the free market place, something other than mere monopolies. What American conservatives like about Russia doesn't exist either;it is a fantasy. American conservatives have somehow gotten the crazy notion that Russia is a lilly white Christian country. American conservatives live in a country of multi-ethnic diversity and encroaching secularism. That, they do not like. A huge majority of immigrants entering their Christian dominion are poor people "of color". Like Donald Trup openly stated, it would be better if more people came to the Uited States from Norway, rather than, as he put it, "shit hole" countries. The irony is in the demographics. Fact: Russia is a far more ethnically diverse society than America, with a much larger Islamic population, people of all shades of skin color,many languages, many religions, religions other than the one true one. If the conservative Christian kingdom of God in the U.S. would do a few minutes of research, they would become aware of this. But that would be expecting too much, expecting the American political right to become fact based. And, so what? for a segment of society which indulges itself in fantasies generally, believing Russia to be something other than what it actually it is really not so extreme. These, after all, are the people who tell us that a pesidential election was stolen, that something they call a "deep state" quietly runs things from behind the scenes, and that there is only one true religion. What will they think of next?

Supporting Trump, Compartmentally

DONALD TRUMP never fails to amuse,amaze, and entertain, almost as if he craves attention more than respect (which, by all appearances, he cares nothing about), and realizes; the more outladish his behavior, the more the attention. That may be part of the reason Nikki Haley is still running for president; with nearly nine months until the election, there would appear, to any normal, reasonable person, to be an excellent chance that at some point, sooner or later, Trump will finally, at long last, say something so outlandish, so egregious in the minds of so many people that his candidacy will come crashing to an end, and the quickest to the kill will pick up the pieces. Haley, if nothing else, is poised to do preciesly that. Haley could beat Biden, would do much better than Trump, and for the G.O.P. to dump Trump and replace him with her would be their most intelligent option, meaning, in all probability, that they will not utilize it. Trump's latest outlandish remark was to the effect that he would esssentially encourage and welcome the Russians to attack any Nato member who has not spent enough money to support NATO, which several have not. The "pushback", to use a popular expression, was immediate, including from Republicans, His entire political career, now spanning nearly a decade, Trump has disparaged our NATO allies, and shown a shocking tendency to kiss Vladimir Putin's butt, and to refuse to condemn Putin's Hitler-esque behavior, which he evidently admires, or at least certainly seems to. When Donald Trump declaed his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015 I was immediately on board, believe it or not. New blood, an infusion of ideals from other than a career politician. Fresh ideas. That lasted about two weeks. By the time election day came around, November, 2016, I told people that anybody who voted for Trump had lost my respect. I meant it. I still feel basically the same. I thought the Access Hollywood incident soon thereafter would kill Trump's candidacy. Since then, on at least ten occasions, I have been convinced that Trump's political career was over. Imagine that, in America; a little old insurrrection against the federal government ending somebody's political career. Not in America. Only in America. As always, the people who matter are sharply rebuking Trump for his latest idiotic, childish outburst, and they will rebuke a bit more, then forget all about it, and act as if nothing happened. They will go on tolerating or supporting Trump. Trump will, as a result, either retain or possibly slightly increase his support among America's angry right wing. The people who support Trump are angry, and although I have spent nearly a decade disparaging them, as traitors, as morally bereft and intellectually bankrupt, I have, recently, deveoped a new approach. My new approach consists, quite simply, in my accepting the notion that politics and religion are only one part of a person's personality, a person's character, of whom the person is in his or her entirety. We compartmentalize. People do that. The evangelical Christians who support Trump the evil criminal find it easy to simply set their mmorals aside, embrace and support Trump not in spite of Trump's evil and criminality, but because of it, and put their morality back on when the subject turns away from Trump. Their bigotry, their hatred, can thereby be indulged, can be given full expression, but, cleverly disguised as patriotism and piety.

SCOTUS, Punting Again

THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, known affectionately, cleverly, and acronymically these days as "SCOTUS" spent about two hours yesterday hearing oral arguments in a case it had already decided long before. Thus, the oral arguments were a mere formality, a "dog and pony show" as we say, a waste of time, a sad sample of misguided, biased, twisted justice. There was never any chance under heaven, on God's green Earth, or in hell that this group of far right wing extremist ideologues, chosen for appointment to the court for precisely that reason, were going to issue a ruling that Donald Trump, because he engaged in insurrection, would hereby be removed by SCOTUS decree, from the ballot in every state in these United States for the November presidential election. Simply, no freaking way. The ruling has not actually been issued yet; it will be soon. Trump, despite the fact that he indeed did engage in insurrection in his atttempt to overthrow the United States government violently, will, almost certainly, remain on the ballot. The rulings by the respective state Supreme Courts of Colorado and Maine, both of which correctly ruled that Trump's insurrrection disqualifies him for any furher elective office, will be overruled. The vast right wing American conspiracy to flood the justice system with far right wing conservative magistrates to remake the country in the image of right wing extremists is, at least in this case, working splendidly. You wonder how different it would have been if Barack Obama had sent thousands of African-American men to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to ransack the place and reverse election results? For one thing, they would have been shot dead. For another, Barack Obama would be in prison by now, if not already executed for treason and insurrection. An astute analyst pointed out that no matter what happens from now on, much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and possibly political violence seems, at this point, nearly inevitable. If the high court shockingly rules that Trump is indeed ineligible to be president again, can you even remotely imagine how angry and violent MAGA nation will become? Such a ruling can be imagined as the spark which starts the great civil war of twenty twenty four. The civil war in the streets of America, disenfranchised Trumpers versus Americans for democracy. If, on teh other hand, Trump runs, which seems certain at this point, either he wins, or he loses. If he loses, do we have to endure another election denial by Trump and half of America, and another violent mob insurrrection at the Capitol? And if he wins, heaven forbid, do we have to endure one day, and maybe more, of a Trump dictatorship? Comments made by several of the far right wing justices clearly revealed just how desperately they are twisting and turning and bending over backwards to keep Trump on the ballot, in direct contravention of the constitution they claim to hold oh so dear. "Shouldn't the candidates and elections be determined by the voters, rather than by the court?"...."Should the entire country be led by Colorado?".. Utter drivel, judicial inanity.You expect better from supposedly erudite legal scholars....Yes, mister justice, the voters, not the courts, should decide elections, and they should be able to decide from among as many qualified candidates as possible, but only from among qualified candidates. The voters should definitely not have the option of electing someone who is not qualified to hold office, someone like donald Trump, who engaged in insurrection, quite obviously, and should be prosecuted and probably incarcerated eventually, instead of elected president. We now know, if nothing else, that the current United States Supreme Court is as willing as the Republican party to elect a proven criminal to the presidency.

My Changing Climate

LAST FALL I noticed, once again, that the leaves on my trees remained green longer into the autumn than ever, that they turned colors and fell from said trees later in the season than ever, something approaching Thanksgiving. I can remember when the trees in my area were brightly colored in fall colors of red, yellow, and orange by October first, every year. Fondly I remember a long cross country run I took with a friend through the woods on October 1, 1996, in which we were surrounded by trees bursting with brilliant fall colors at their peak, which was not abnormal. No more. Over the last ten or fifteen years, in my area, October has become, basically, a summer month, with daily temperatures usually above eighty, often eighty five, through Halloween...Several days ago, I walked outside and noticed, to my shock, that no fewer than two of my maple trees are budding out, the tiny leaves are starting to bloom, that all the other trees in my yard, more than twenty, are developing large buds, many of them which they actually developed late last fall, and kept all winter. The entire winter, I have been surprised at the buds on the trees, as if the trees want to grow leaves, soon.....Not only that, but the Iris patch by the fence, the green stalks are already out of the ground, about an inch tall, and poised to grow fast and large over the next couple of weeks. Also, unless I'm dreaming, which I am sure I am not, the grass is stargtng to grow, in patches, all over the yard. Clover is coming up out of the leaf covered ground. All this, the first week of February. In short, I am shocked, amazed, and, I confess, a bit horrified. Now I am starting to think about next summer, the imminent summer of twenty twenty four, and the inevitable drought. There will of course be at least one drought, and maybe two, maybe more. Last year we had one brief rainy period. sqeezed in between two severe droughts. Then too, how many days next summer will the temperature reach one hundred degrees? That happens more often every year, it seems. Indeed, every year is hotter than the previous, every year sets new records for heat. There is no reason to expect that will change in the future. Thus, our apparent future in which every year is hotter than the previous. Every year, the hottest on record. When will it eventuate that there is no winter at all in my area, that winter as a sason vanishes, replaced by perpetual summer? What I am thinking and talking about, what I am living, is climate change, human made, happening here and now, and getting worse, fast. The thought becomes frightening. I live in an area of rolling hills, a lot of streams, rivers, and lakes, and dense deciduous forests. Our annuaal rainfall has always been about forty five inches. We seem to get less rain every year. I can easily envision a future in which the forests have disappeared in my region, and have been replaced by prairie grassland. As I cruise down rural highways and roads around where I live, I see more and more trees which to me look unhealthy, scrawny, stooped, as if not getting enough annual nutrition. In large parts of the United States last summer, there were heat waves in which the daily temperature exceeded one hundred degrees for days on end, even weeks. That happened at my house. It seems almsot inevitable that it will happen every year, everywhere, in the near future. Our massive wildfires of the future will most likely break out all over the country and will burn thousands, millions of acres of forest all the way to the east coast. California is now enduring alternating severe droughts and massive, destructive flooding. That too appears something we can expect more of; extreme weather, extreme climate.

Connecting the Dots

WITH AMERICA"S IMMMIGRATION crisis and chaos dominating the national conversation in recent years, it is not surprising that a veritable flurry of books are appearing dealing with the issue, some by credible journalists, historians, and sociologists, some by fanatic ideologues and intellectual frauds. The trick is to tell the difference. Perhaps the single most valuable - factually, intellectually, analytically - immigration monograph to emerge amid the flurry is "Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis", by well respected journalist Jonathan Blitzer, who has won numerous accolades and awards for his work, and writes for "The New Yorker" magazine. Amid all the hand wringing, noise, bickering and yelling about immigration and American border security (of lack thereof) coming from all sides and sources, a salient fact seems all too often to get lost; that there is a direct, demonstrable irrefutable, causal connection between decades and even centuries of American foreign policy towards and treatment of Latin America, and the current immigration chaos. The United States of America is esentially a European type country; a western democracy with advanced economy and technology, industrial production, and military might. And, like most powerful European countries, the U.S. has traditionally, historically been an imperialist country, always growing and expanding, agressively pushing is influence around the world, especially in Latin America, for its own political, economic, and military gain. As early as 1823, the United Staes declared its intention to treat Latin America as it chose to, like its personal possession (The "Monroe Doctrine"), and to prohibit all other nations, i.e. European colonial powers, from becoming involved in the region. This overreaching declaration of national policy was from the beginning unenforcable, and unenforced. But it did not preclude massive, sustained American economic and military intervention in Latin America, particularly after 1898. It is accepted as historical and econoimc fact that European colonialism in Africa and Asia had the effect of delaying economic (industrial) development and growth in those countries. India, for example, had built a thriving industrial economy in the mid eighteenth century, which was devastated by design after Great Britian took control of the sub continent from 1763 to 1947. It was simply unacceptable to their British overlords for India to emerge as serious economic competition for Great Britian. Much the same is true of Latin America, under the influence of American foreign and economic policy. Throughout the twentieth century, the trend was for duly, democratically elected socialist governments in Latin America to be overthrown with U.S. encouragement and assistance, and replaced with right wing, pro corporate, pro capitalst dictators amenable to American corporate colonialism, as long as they got their fair share of the pie. When corpoate profits made in Latin America with Latin American labor and resources end up in Manhattan sky scrapers rather than the pockets of Hispanic workers, farmers, and peasants, the seeds have been sown for societal instability, political upheavals, gang violence, mass poverty, and mass migration legal or otherwise, to the place where it all started, these United States of Avarice. This is exactly what is happening. The chickens, so to speak, are coming home to roost, and many more are on their way. We Americans are, in real spaceandtime, reaping that which we have sown.

Calling the MAGA Bluff

AND SO WE HAVE a bright new shiny immigration bill, passed by the Senate, ready for the president's signature, which he promises to provide. All that is lacking is the vote by the House of Reps, with enough Republicans on board to pass it. In steps Trump, who orders his MAGA Representatives to kill the bill, and who promptly killed it because If the Democrats steal Republican tuhunder and claim credit for solving the immigration crises, what issue will Trump run on to become president? Only a few short weeks ago the Republicans were insisting on exactly the tyeof bill just passed by the Senate, refusing to consider morIt may wel bee military aid for Ukaraine without tough new immigration laws. The Democrats called their bluff, and they backed away, putting politics over border security. If the Democrats are smart, they'll go straight to Republican Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, and invite him to write another version of the bill which will attract House MAGA Republcians, who falsely claim that the reason for their withdraw of support for the bill which Lankford wrote and Democrats agreed to is insufficiently strict. Again, call their bluff, the phony bastards. The current bill Ttump would sign and embrace in a heartbeat were he president, then he would doubtless take total credit for it. If a new bill presents Trump with an offer he couldn't refuse, he'll have to refuse it anyway, or risk losing his biggest campaign argument. If Trump refuses to endorse an immigration bill no matter how satisfactory to Republicans it is, he will have positioned himself, suddenly, as the presidential candidate who is opposed to border security - unless he is president, and can get credit for it. Trump thus reveals his true motive; he is perfectly willing to allow the border crises to continue for many needless months, all because of politics and personal gain. Thousands of undocumnted immigrants, flooding into the country, unorganized, anonymous, unable to get the help, documentation, and frest start they so desperately need, creating all the many social problems Republicans, until now, have been so terribly concerned about. Senator Lankford, in an interview, explained Trump's behavior by saying that he and Trump have different priorities; the Senator wants to end the crises at the border, Trump wants to get elected president, again. In other words, the Senator is agreeing that Trump's priority is personal political success, not the protection and defense of the country. The fact that the current bill is acceptable to most Republians, in the absence of Trump's influence, clearly proves that it would, if enacted, be adequately strong. As the presidential campaign continues, Trump will doubtless keep claiming that the Democrats are weak on border security. Biden and the Demmocrats can respond that they passed an effective border bill which Trump killed, and that therefore they, rather than he, are working for border security, while Trump is deliberately prolonging a national crisis for personal gain. It may be that the Democrats have now or will soon steal the republicans thunder and become the party of border security, while the Republican claims to that status begin to ring hollow, and false. Today's Republicans seem to have a habit of doing just that; making false claims.

Pushing the Panic Button

THE LATEST POLLS have Trump ahead, forty seven to forty two. This invites a few obvious observations. One, eleven percent of the American peole either are unaware of the forthcoming election, unconcerned with it, or have not yet decided. One can hope that the latter is the reason; the first two options seem to indicate low intelligence, and hence, probably support for Trump. Several weeks ago when I mentioned to a friend that Trump was ahead in the polls he reminded me that the polls mean nothing at this early stage. now, several weeks later, Trump has expanded his lead, and the election is several weeks closer. At some point, the polls begin to matter. Several months ago I mentioned to somebody that there is indeed a possibility that Trump will be reelected and once again become president. The person, a conservative, looked shocked and horrified, and said: "Trump? President? This country?" Anyone who is facing ninety one felony charges has no business running for president, nor anything else. Criminal defense of that magnitude requires one's full attention. Trump supporters are obviously buying Trump's argument that he is being persecuted, that all the felony charges against him are the result of the weaponization of the Department of justice by Joe Biden. Believing this blatant lie, this false nonsense is, in retrospect, no more evil and insane than embracing Trump's original election lie. The evangelical Christian community is by nature heavily invested in a "persecution complex", according to which they, as true Christians, God's chosen people, are, like Christ himself, the victims of massive mistreatment and persecution throughout society, as is their political leader, Donald Trump, whose political leadership of America is ordained by Christ and God. They, America's amoral minority, will ride their chosen, preferred but false status as noble, virtuous victims of abuse by evil people (Democrats, progressives) all the way to political power, all the way to the White house - if we the remaining sane people of America allow them to. It happened in Germany; the German people elected Hitler. Trump and his movement more resemble Hitler and the NAZI movement by the hour. If trump is elected in November it will be on the wings of sheer fantasy, of a mythological version of reality, past and present, like Hitler. To contend against this fantasy, the Democrats must, if they are to have a chance, respond by hitting the American people over the head, constantly, with facts. Perhaps, if they hammer home the facts sith sufficient force and freqeuency, they will, as we say, "sink in". It is becomong evident that the academic legal community, the professors of law of America, tend to agree that, accordign to the fourteenth amendment, Trump should not be on the ballot, that Trump and his actions have created precisely the situation that the amendment's authors were addressing when they adopted it. We already know that teh United States Supreme Court will do whatever it take to find a way of rulign that Trump can be on the ballot for president, in direct violation of the constitution they claim to hold so dear. Those God fearing, law abiding conservative Christian Republicans, falling all over themselves to elect a confirmed criminal to the presidency. Who would have imagined?

Playing Politics Over Progress

TODAY, or tomorrow at the latest, the United States Senate will pass and reveal to the world a brand new reformed bi-partisan immigration bill, one which will greatly strengthen American immigration control, providing meaningful organization and support for reasonable, organized, healthy immigration, instead of our current chaos at the border. President Biden has long since indicated his intent to sign it. Hell, President Biden, behind in the polls in this election year, has pretty much indicated that he would be happy to sign anything at this point..of course he would....All that is need is agreement and approval of the bill in the House of Reps, controlled by Republicans, and therefore very pro immigration reform, or so one might think. However, Donald Trump is proving once again that he is not quite the imbecile that his detractors like to believe he is, and is telling House Republicans to oppose the bill, because passing it would probably enhance President Biden's approval ratings, and might help get him reelected.He is of course quite correct in this thinking. Enough House Republicans seem to be listening to Trump to derail the bill. We'll soon see. The MAGA Republicans cannot win in tis situation. If the bill becomes law, Democrats can honestly claim as much credit as Republicans for immigration reform, and it if doesn't pass because of a MAGA revolt on the hill, Democrats can accurately blame Republicans, especially Trump Republicans, for its failure. Biden, champion of immigration reform and enforcement - Trump, the one who stopped it. How can Trump benefit from that narrative? - the precise narrative which will be repeated by Democrats during the campaign, over and over, and supported by facts. If the bill becomes law, immigration becomes a non issue going into November, and that is intolerable to Republicans, since they have so few actual issues and arguments to make other than the need for immigration reform. They certainly can't go into the campaign complaining about immigration chaos when they prevented its solution. Nobody wants out of control, chaotic, mass immigration, just as nobody wants commonplace abortion, disease, or war. But the Trump-Republican solution, which consists mostly of a wall and of systematic mistreatment of immigrants, simply...will....not...work. Like General Patton said: "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man." Let's put people on the border, preferrably peoplle organized in a military fashion, even, oh shockingly, the military itself, since it is already on the payrol, and will not cost another penny. Maybe some of the guys from all those little military bases the United States seems to strangely have in countries like Jordan, and Lebanon,the ones which keep getting attacked, (as if it is unbelievable that an American military base in the middle east would be attacked, for any reason), could be redeployed to the actual American border, to actually defend America, crazy as that may sound. Imagine that, the American military, monitoring, defending, organizing the nation's border. Who is better at organizing than the military? And, please bear in mind, military organizations can be welcoming and helpful as well as defensive, aggressive, and harmful. Let's ask Trump and his supporters if they would rather wait another year, until after the election, to do anything at all about immigration and the border. Their answer should reveal their true priorities quite accurately.

Contextualizing Immigration

THE PROBLEM BEGINS, or began, with "manifest diestny". This phrase was invented in the early nineteenth century to justify and glorify genocidal conquest, of the native population by European invaders. From the earliest times in colonial American history, it was obvious that the European settlers in the immigration which began in 1607 and 1620 were not going to be confined to the east coast, but were going to multiply and expand westward. It would amount to an invasion and conquest, and indeed, genocide. Glorifying it, as was done in school when I was growing up, completely disguised the brutality of it. Mexico was in the way as much as native Amerian "Indians". To expidite its invitable, God ordained expansion to the Pacific Ocean, the United States expediently provoked a war with Mexico, quickly won the war, and stole the northern half of Mexico by extortion, including today's Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, among other areas. Thus millions of Hispanic people became citizens of the United States. It was inevitable that over the years, there would be a great deal of commerce at the Rio Grande, including a constant flow of thousands of people back and forth across the river for various reasons, often economic. Throughout most of ensuing American history, nineteenth and twentieth centuty, this constant, vigorous influx and egress of people was largely tolerated, accepted as normal, and generally ignored by the United States and the American people. Then too, there have always been issues, issues with what goods and services, including guns and drugs and stolen money, were being brought into the country, and what ones were leaving it. There have been times, recent times, when the number of Mexicans leaving the United States and returning to Mexico was greater than the number entering the U.S... Large scale deportations occurred during the Franklin Roosevelt administration, and again during the Eisenhower administration. To date, the absolute king of deportation is none oher than Barack Hussein Obama, who kicked roughly two point five million people out of the country. Although there is no accurate record keeping, one of the greatest surges in history of Hispanics illegally entering the United States is happening at the present time. Hence all the fuss, and the sense of urgency about immigration policy reform in the U.S.. It is worth noting that the current great surge in mass migration is happening all over the world, not merely across the Rio Grande. Millions of Asians and Africans ave been flooding into western Europe in the past couple of years, escaping poverty and famine, much of it related to drought and climate change. Humans are currently mass migrating more than at any time since World War Two. Just as the mass migration of desperate people has reached crisis proportions in North America, so it is a crisis world wide. Climate change will continue to drive mass migration over the next few decades, as rising sea levels force about half the human race to retreat from their beloved beach front life. Humans are nomadic by nature; we stop moving and settle down because we can get richer that way. The mass relocations of the near future will be staggering in extent, costly, and disruptive. To survive the coming chaos, large scale cooperative will be vital.