Changing Country, Changing Color

AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN LADY from Brooklyn grew up in the projects, the tough way. She used her ambition and intelligence to improve her circumstances, gaining admission to an elite university and pursuing a career in corporate management with her law degree. her first visit to Paris was in 1975 while i college, and she returned twenty years later to to live permanently, working as a representative of an American company. She's been living there since,and has no intention of returning to the United States. She likes the way she's treated by the French. Back in Brooklyn, she grew up tough, acted tough, and surrounded by tough, became tough. She and her homie gangstah bitches ruled the fair sex side of the 'hood. They never had to wait in line for anything. The white babes backed off, every time. Every African-American knows what honkies deny in America: in America, white folks are afraid of black folks. Lingering vestige of hundreds years of ill treatment have inculcated within the white world a knowledge of the anger engendered within and ingrained throughout black America. We feel their pain, and their anger, and are afraid of possible repercussions, which we have so often seen and felt. It is the price we in America pay daily for being the most racist nation nation in human history. In France, she says she tried the same bullying tactics which worked so well in America, but instead of being met with capitulation, the French well dressed French babes in high heals were having none of that shit. She was promptly backed off, and told exactly where the end of the line was. white France earned her respect, and got it. She likes it better that way, likes respecting rather than shunning her peers of a different race. its refreshing not to be treated simultaneously as an outcast and an object of fear and loathing. The French respect cultured, educated people, regardless of skin color. Beginning in the nineteen twenties jazz age, artistic African-Americans have expatriated themselves to France in droves. Am american brain drain. The French love jazz, American music and art in general, and welcome the influx. richard Wright, author of "Black Boy" and the 1940 classic "native Son", about life in the Chicago ghetto, said that while living in the United States he felt as he were carrying a corpse on his back, no matter where he went. In France, the corpse was gone. No, France is not some color blind multi-cultural mecca of color blind virtue and tolerance. they have their own version of far right wing populist nationalist anti-immigrant activism, their own version of the Trump movement. Bu its only fifteen percent or so. In France, to be an immigrant is not to automatically be relegated to second class status. The french are indeed cultural elitist, culturally demanding. But if you bring intelligence and education into their country, you earn their respect, you have a chance. It is common among many American conservatives to assert that "we don't want America to be more like Europe than it already is". As is often the case, they are dead wrong.

Space Dreaming

I WAS BORN at a good time to dream about space flight. When I was six, Alan Shepherd ventured into space. Fascinated, I asked my mother what he had said about it, what it was like to be in space. She told me that Mr. Shepherd was reporting that it was very dark up there. John Glenn excited me by educating me to the fact that it was possible to orbit the Earth in an hour and a half, and to do so multiple times - he did it three times - without being killed. Then, I started reading a series of children's books called "Mike Mars", about a kid named Michael Albert Robert Sampson who in one book taught me how to make a rocket out of an empty pop bottle, some baking soda, and I forget what else. Put it on roller wheels, and it would propel horizontally along the sidewalk. I never actually performed the experiment, but I dreamed about it. Mike's great dream, like mine, was to walk on Mars. Each Mercury and Gemini mission was obviously getting us closer to going to the moon. On July 20, 1969, I, a fourteen year old between eighth and ninth grade, watched Armstrong walk on the moon with my mother and sister and billions of other people, on our boxy black and white, with Cronkite. That was the summer, the summer of sixty nine, when I had my first "real" telescope, a two point four inch refractor, and twice during that summer, on July 9 and again on August 9, I spent the night at a friend's house, and we observed the heavens all night. He was going into his senior year, and had a three inch telescope, appropriately larger than mine. We called that summer "the glorious summer", not because of baseball or golf, which I did curing the day, but because of those wonderful hot nights beneath the stars, insects humming, with our telescopes, watching and dreaming. That was also the summer I saw on the big screen what is still my favorite movie of all time: "2001:A Space Odyssey". I remember my joy that I actually understood the movie, and my pride at trying to explain it, perhaps unsuccessfully, to my mom and sis. Obviously it was a bit too ambitious in predicting humankind's future in space: maybe about a hundred years too ambitious. But, as they say; its the thought that counts. Unfortunately my astronomy friend died young, but I like to think his spirit is up there, among the stars. With each return to the moon, my interest was a bit diminished; by 1972, the last time humans walked on the moon, I was heading into my senior high school year, and had other matters, the usual ones, on my mind. At first I was quite interested in the space shuttle and Skylab, but soon lost interest. It was as if we were rehearsing for nothing. In 1969, I thought that by the year 2020 I would be going back and forth between the moon, Mars, and Earth as a passenger. I fancied moon and Mars bases, and expeditions beyond the solar system. So naturally, i become disappointed, like, I suspect, many people of my generation. All of the great science fiction writers I loved as a kid, especially Asimov, Clarke, and Silverberg, piqued my fascination with the human future in space. The Viet Nam war, and other wars, diverted funds, and after Apollo Eleven, it seems that we the people simply lost our focus, that we never had a concrete plan for continuing outward. We now know that the incredible expense and technical difficulties are far more daunting than we at first believed. Yet, there is hope. There is renewed interest in space exploration, travel, and colonization, and various projects; the Hubble telescope, the Mars rovers, deep space probes heading out beyond the solar system, have all greatly increased our knowledge of the universe, and re-inspired us to exploration. I still believe that humanity will do everything I wanted so badly for us to do fifty years ago, but, alas, it will all be done much later than I would have thought or hoped. I'll be long dead when we the human species take to the off Earth universe in earnest, but I comfort myself that maybe, just maybe, when it all happens, I will have joined my telescoping buddy as a spirit in the sky, looking down on it all, and smiling contentedly.

Criticizing It, Yet Loving It, and Staying

ITS BEEN MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS since the catchy little phrase "America: Love It Or Leave It" hit the streets, in connection with the Viet Nam war, as the hawks and doves battled it out in the great and ubiquitous arena of public opinion. The dirty little secret is that the dis United States is always divided, by one thing or another, to one degree or another, at many times far more so than even now, difficult that this may seem to believe. The civil war comes to mind. Back then I was a tried and true patriotic little brainwashed pro establishment teenager on the "Love It" end of the spectrum, though rapidly and inexorably evolving out of it. I always felt some vague sense of disquiet about the "Love It or Leave It" dichotomy, as if there were something contrived, some false equivalency about it. By the time I had reached my twenties, my radicalism had emerged full blown, and I knew the reason behind my disquiet. Once again I am confronted with this false choice, fifty years removed from the turbulent sixties, as a psychotic draft dodging president claims he would have enjoyed serving in Viet Nam, and resurrects the old cliche. My response, in the early seventies, and now, is this: How do you know I don't love it?...(Because you criticize it incessantly, all the time, you constantly point out negative things about it).....But that does not mean that I don't love it. It means I care enough about it to be honest about its shortcomings, and to seek ways of addressing them, and improving the country I care so much about.... And this is where I stand. At the senior center we recite the pledge of allegiance every day before we pray before we eat lunch. The pledge was my idea, and I lead it, every day. A lady said "I bet you really hate Colin Kaepernick". I said, "No, I love him. I personally would not kneel during the anthem, but I do not expect anyone to behave in accordance with my values, but instead, in accordance with their own." Then she started this is the greatest country on Earth crap, proud to be an American, Love it or leave it, and all that. My rejoinder was that I think it is a bad idea to be proud of anything, country, flag, personal accomplishments..anything. I prefer to be grateful and happy and pleased to be lucky enough to live in America, but not proud. Pride, all pride, is a form of arrogance, one of seven deadly sins. And to boast that ours is the greatest country in the world is nothing but sheer arrogance, and incapable of being proven. Greatest militarily? Culturally? In what way? Greatest in preserving peace? Definitely not. Other than grotesque economic inequality, child hunger, and a few other problems, American arrogance is among my greatest pet peeves. I tried to convince her that Kaepernick has the right and the moral authority to protest. She claimed that his upbringing had been privileged. Maybe so. She said he himself had said so. I asked her whether Cassius Clay, barred from white only drinking fountains, had any reason to be proud to be an American. She allowed as that he hadn't. Well, if he hadn't, how many others hadn't, and don't? Maybe Kaepernick was protesting not on behalf of himself, but on behalf of others, like Muhammad Ali. Of course, I had her, even though she didn't seem to know it, and probably wouldn't admit it even if she did.

Being Racist

WE ARE ALL RACISTS. Rather, most of us are. A "racist" is a person who accepts the concept of races as inherent to human beings, as real, a person who believes that the human species, or human "race", is naturally and really divided into discrete, identifiable, recognizable sub groups based on skin color, independent of whether we accept the divisions. Someone, anyone who understands that different races only exist because people choose to apply the concept to our species, and that the concept is a mere mental contrivance with no tangible manifestation independent of our imagination, is definitely not a racist. Race is a convenient device for purposes of classification and simplification, a device to help us simplify a world of infinite complexity and variety. Since our culture has accepted race as real, rather than purely conceptual, which it is, everyone is a racist in America, the most racist society in history. No matter your opinion of one race or another, if you believe in different races, you do so only because you choose to, not because they are real. If you compare the color of your skin to that of every other person in the world, you will never find a perfect match. In the real world, we all have different skin colors. Often, in fact usually, the difference is slight, barely noticeable. Obviously, if we didn't believe in races at all, we wouldn't form opinions concerning their relative merit. My skin color is different now than three months ago. My suntan has changed my race. Line up everyone in the world, according to height. Everyone is one millionth of an inch taller or shorter than the next person. At what point do we divide the tall people from the short people? When we choose to. Tall and short, like white and black, are choices, opinions, not facts. Once we choose to accept race as real, we invent racism, by forming opinions, making racism real. People who do not know history but think they do believe that racism has existed as long as people have. They are quite mistaken. Before the middle of the fifteenth century, there is not a single reference to racism in the entire body of human literature. That's because racism did not exist, until it was invented as a way to justify the enslavement of Africans. Racism first appears in a biography of the Portuguese explorer, Prince Henry the Navigator, in the fifteen forties. In the ancient and pre-modern world, us versus them was predicated on geography, language, religion, national identity. Our ancestors invented racism, and we modern people have long since decided the invention we inherited is evil, and universally we condemn it. We are quite correct in doing this. We cling to our imaginary concept of race, but condemn anyone who believes one race is superior to another. We are right to condemn Donald Trump for being a racist, for he is very obviously a racist. The fact that people who support Trump accept the false notion of the existence of different faces, but claim that he is not a racist, and that they are not racists, is nothing other than one of innumerable examples of human self deception, and human folly. We simply choose not to notice how widespread the human folly of racism is; it includes nearly all of us. In many ways, we do not really know much about ourselves. It is indeed quite possible to be a racist, and unaware of it. Recently former KKK leader David Duke stated that he and Donald Trump share the same message. One thing for certain; a confirmed, unapologetic racist recognizes a fellow racist when he sees one, even one who either is not aware of his own racism, or chooses to try to hide and deny it. Racism exists because we pretend that races exist, racism exists because of an abstraction, a concept. Concepts whose only existence are in the human mind often powerfully influence our minds. When others identify racists as racists, racists often respond by calling the person who identified the racist a racist, a clever attempt at "turning the tables". Therefore, when a president of the United States tells darkly pigmented people to leave the county, the best response might be, rather than accusing the president of being a racist, to accuse him of being hateful, for that is inarguably true.

Praising Trump From the Pulpit

CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN MINISTERS, some of whom achieve celebrity status by seducing sycophants in large numbers through the seductive power of charismatic personalty, snappy attire, and provocative proclamations, have been especially in evidence since the political advent of Donald Trump, in large part through their near unanimous support of him, but also because of the often extraordinary nature of their explanations for his ascent to the American presidency. It must be said, however, that explanations and proclamations issued from evangelical ministers often contain elements of the extraordinary, nearly always unverified and unverifiable. Carl Sagan said: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Extraordinary evidence is the key component invariably missing from extraordinary and provocative proclamations. Most folks are familiar with the standard issue. The AIDS epidemic is God's wrath being visited upon America for its tolerance of homosexuality. The lord has established the United States as his bastion of the Christian faith on earth. The righteous of this denomination or that denomination, at the end of days, shall be raptured into heaven, leaving everyone else in the dust,, or extreme heat, or worse. The usual bill of fare. These hyperbolic pronouncements have in common that they presume a considerable degree of knowledge of not not God's future behavior, but of the motivations behind it, they clearly delineate an "us against them' paradigm, in which "them"those who adhere to the proclaimer are the in group, the "us", safe ensconced within the fold of righteous, and the predictions inherently evince probably futures of apocalyptic proportions. And of course, they are shouted to all the world in stentorian style, complete with dramatic gesticulations by comparison to which nineteenth century stage actors would seem inert. lately our evangelical screamers have been outdoing even themselves for histrionics, and for the unverifiable extraordinary. The purveyors of percipience form the pulpit have been political in nature since the late nineteen seventies, when the moral majority inserted itself into the political arena, defying the wise admonition of true believer and esteemed academic C. S. Lewis that religion goes astray when it becomes entangled in political affairs. Having cast its lot with the repackaged pro life pro straight sex "good Christian" Donald J. Trump, the conservative evangelical community has no reason to go go half measure. according to Graham Jr., Falwell Jr., or both, Donald Trump has been anointed, by god, by GOD, to be the president of these United States, and is the most christian president in american history, notwithstanding Woodrow Wilson's ministerial bond fides, notwithstanding the tendency of nearly all nineteenth century presidents to begin the day on bent knee. Ever inclusive, conservative evangelical issuers of unprovable profundities include explanations of the motive of members of the Democratic party. why not? Accordingly, the Democrats have invented their own God, goes the gist of the gaslight. In truth, the Democrats have invented much, including social security, medicare, minimum wage and labor laws, and a safety net for the disadvantaged, ostensibly helpful, compassionate things widely considered blasphemous anathema throughout politically conservative evangelicaldom, which prefers a social Darwinistic approach, despite the evil falsehood of exhaustively verified evolutionary science. But no Democrat has ever been confirmed to have invented an imaginary God, but only to have described the christian one in terms more verifiably, scientifically compatible with observed reality. Any tendency towards a more compassionate, more sane deity more in keeping with observable nature quite naturally meets with the dismissive disapproval of the conservative Christian community, which much prefers to stick with the harsh god of the Biblical kind, the one who scares Abraham half to death by ordering him to execute his own son as proof of exclusive fidelity to the divine, and who strikes dead fifty thousand and seventy poor souls in retribution for breaching the privacy of a document in a box. What cannot be denied, and can be verified anecdotally, is that this ruthless, genocidal god of the Bible is far more compatible with the mentality and moral principles of Christian conservatism, and Trump MAGAism, than any watered down, toned down, rational deity ever invented by any damnable Democrat.

Letting The Word "Bullshit" Bear the Burden, but Being Blessed by a Presumptuous Evangelical

FINALLY, ON FACEBOOK, I had a long longed for direct exchange between me, and an evangelist. These are the folks who have aroused my ire by supporting Trump at a rate of eighty percent, despite Trump's demonstrably un-Christian behavior and policies. It began when a post appeared, listing Trump's alleged accomplishments. Among them was his removal of the United States from the Paris climate change agreement, which, I argued, was hardly an accomplishment, being insane by virtue of failing to address climate change. The self described evangelical told me that I need to learn the facts, and that the United States would have been 'screwed' as he indelicately put it, by remaining in the agreement. Instead of explaining that my disagreeing with him was not an indication of my being unaware of the facts, that two people can be aware of the same set of facts and reach different conclusions from them, I used the word "bullshit", and left it at that. Instead of pointing out that the purpose of having the United States in the Paris agreement was not to secure economic advantage for the U.S., or to avoid being "screwed" as he indelicately put it, by being economically disadvantaged, but rather, to begin meaningful worldwide cooperation to fight climate change, and that whatever economic loss accrued to the United sates fighting climate change was of secondary importance, and probably appropriate, since the United States is the leading cause of climate change, I failed to make this point. I failed to point out that if the entire world does not cooperate in fighting climate change, it really won't much matter whether the United States got screwed, or for that matter whether the united States was economically healthy at the precise moment when the world becomes uninhabitable by human beings. Instead, I allowed the word "bullshit" to bear the burden. These days, I have little inclination to say much more to evangelicals other than "bullshit", to put it indelicately, owing to their willful and undoubtedly sincere and well considered support for Donald J. Trump. His response to my indelicate use of the word "bullshit" was "god bless you anyway, you lost soul". I quickly responded: "god bless you too, you sanctimonious, presumptuous soul". He responded with an emoji, one depicting the shedding of a tear. That might be the last communicative exchange between the two of us, an emoji shedding tears. His sanctimony derives, upon further reflection, from his assuming that I am somehow a "lost soul" for using the word "bullshit", for disagreeing with him about the Paris climate change accord, or for whatever reason he assumed, presumptuously, that my soul is "lost'. In all fairness, that aint a whole lotta evidence upon which to assume loss of soul in somebody. God bless me "anyway"? WTF? An evangelical, qualifying a blessing? That's both sanctimonious and presumptuous. As if he can only bestow the lord's blessing upon me with reluctance, as if his so doing is an act of generosity, in spite of my being undeserving of it. Hence, his sanctimony. I hope the tear shedding emoji indicated his regret at being presumptuous and sanctimonious, but I rather doubt it does. Even now, he is probably weeping for my soul, which he sanctimoniously, presumptuously, and mistakenly presumes is lost. I can assure him that is isn't. God knows exactly where it is, even if he doesn't.

Going Ever Lower

DONALD TRUMP is indisputably a criminal, a reprobate, and arguably criminally insane. A cursory examination of his policies and behavior strongly suggests as much; a detailed examination verifies it. The facts are well known, and scarcely bear repeating. Defining a "criminal" as someone who breaks the law, defining a "crime" as both misdemeanors and felonies, Trump's words and actions qualify, clearly. Anyone who either supports this president's policies, fails to condemn his behavior, or both, is either lacking in moral character and decency, or has suspended good judgment and moral character for personal or political expediency. Treason is one of only three crimes mentioned in the constitution. For the president to fail to act or to even acknowledge the reality of the greatest threat to American national security, climate change, is clearly a crime against the United States and humanity. Further examples of his criminal activities are easily available. When Trump exposes his own extreme moral deficiency, he does so so humorously that it makes for good entertainment, which may partly explain why seem to tolerate it. Another partial explanation is that his view coincide with those of a high percentage of the American people, thus revealing their moral deficiency, if not complete moral bankruptcy. It is already being pointed out that the four members of congress singled out for vicious slander by Trump have in common that they are female, are "of color" in the popular parlance, have been highly critical of Trump, and are all citizens of the United States, three of them having been born in the United States. Trump attacked them verbally for being critical of America, and for having immigrant backgrounds. Trump also has an immigrant background, as is well known, although he himself evidently dos not know that it was his grandfather, not his father, whom migrated from Germany, having been kicked out of that country for unethical behavior, which seems to be hereditary. Trump to has been critical of America, the distinction being that his criticism are usually fabrications. He fails to understand that to criticize one's country by using provable fact to indicate areas of potential improvement is the patriotic duty of every good citizen. Throughout his presidency, and since long before hi became president, trump has revealed himself to be a racist, a misogynist, and a pathological liar. To cite these facts is not unfair nor slanderous; they can be proven, easily. Every slanderous remark about minorities and women, every outright lie trump has told, has been irrefutably documented, and is available to anyone to see. The fact that the American people chose a person of such low character as president is shocking. to have voted for Donald Trump may be forgiven as an error in judgment, a understandable human mistake. To support him at this point, or to fail to condemn his behavior and treatment of others is so reprehensible that anyone who does os can only be described a an accomplice to evil, and therefore, deeply immoral.

Passing the Homeless Buck

HALF THE HOMELESS people in California live in Los Angeles, partly because of its warm climate and the fact that the city tolerates them, and even offers some measure of assistance. The number may be more than a quarter million, as many as half a million, or more. More, probably, than in New York City, long known as a homeless hang out. In L.A., the homeless inhabit every neighborhood, sleep on every park bench, and establish tent cities all over the city, in the suburbs and downtown. The quality of the air in the city has improved considerably over the past few decades, while the number of homeless people has skyrocketed. As is always the case in discerning the reasons for a ubiquitous social problem, the reasons are many. There is a sever shortage of affordable housing in California, and nationwide. The average rent in l.A. is around two thousand dollars a month; it is possible for a worker to work full time, or to have several jobs, and yet to be unable to afford to live indoors. Mental illness plays a role> When Ronald Reagan turned tens of thousands of mentally ill people out of asylums in the nineteen eighties, he unleashed a torrent of troubled people onto the streets from which American society has never recovered and to which it has never responded. Reagan's legacy is not one of compassion. The standard American response to homelessness is to ignore it, and to place exclusive blame on the homeless, using the false accusations that they are lazy, irresponsible, and have made poor decisions the result of which is their being without a home. Par of the problem is pervasive poverty south of the Rio Grande. a significant percentage of America's homeless are Hispanic, people who became refugees from violence and poverty in Latin American countries, fled to the United States seeking asylum, or in desperation sneaking into the country, only to be met with the usual pervasive American racism and lack of opportunity. The American have a moral responsibility to help the homeless which we the people are blatantly refusing to act on. The usual means is to deny that any responsibility exist, to blame the homeless for their plight in a society which offers nothing but opportunity, and to excoriate and ridicule those who articulate the problem as liars and troublemakers. In fact, opportunities for people to improve their economic circumstances in the united States fall far short of nearly every European country, and far short of most of the worlds' countries. Despite anecdotal evidence often used as proof to the contrary, the United States is not a society which offers opportunity to the economically disadvantaged. The United States is not a welcoming, inclusive, helpful culture, despite all the anecdotal evidence presented to the contrary, charity in America lags far behind actual need, less fortunate people tend to contribute much more than wealthy Americans, and Americans with means have a tendency, born out by irrefutable statistical facts, to hoard rather than share their wealth. The United States is not the wealthiest nation in the world, despite that fact that many Americans claim that it is. bu tit is certainly wealthy enough to eliminate poverty and homeless within its own borders, merely by giving everyone access to the benefits of both capitalism and socialism. But for this to happen, we Americans must first begin to take the problem seriously, and do more than pay occasional lip service to it.

Going Around, Coming Around

THE UNITED STATES was from its beginning intent on becoming an empire, and an imperial power. Having defied its British overlords by migrating west of the Appalachian mountains, having evicted the British, the French, and the Spanish from their North American possessions, and having successfully exterminated the native inhabitants of the original thirteen colonies, the united States was full of itself, confident of its divinely ordained future. When Most countries in Latin American revolted and gained independence from Spain in the early eighteen twenties, the United States began to see itself as the new colonial power in North and South America, replacing the Europeans. Almost immediately the U.S. issued the "Monroe Doctrine", instructing all foreign powers, mainly the Europeans, that henceforth only the United states would wield power and influence throughout Latin America. The fact that the Doctrine was unenforceable and has never been enforced die nothing to deter american imperialistic aggression in the region. throughout the late nineteenth century, and all the way up to the present, the United States has been intimately involved in the internal affairs, the political and economic life of nearly every Latin American country, removing and installing governments by force and subversion, according to perceived American needs, managing national economies, reaping the benefits of resourced exploitation. All this has enriched America's corporations and their owners, and has impoverished the nations and people of every country upon which the heavy hand of American imperialism has descended. The United States is a nation, in a very real sense, built upon stolen resources, stolen lives, violence, and conquest. Since before World War Two the birds have been coming home to roost, as it were, as millions of Latino refugees from poverty have ascended northward and descended on the United States, many legally according to American immigration, many not, all seeking nothing but a better life of mere survival. they are, and have always been willing to work for their survival. Detailed research clearly shows that these millions of Latin American immigrants, mainly from mexico, have greatly enriched the United States, by providing labor, creating prosperity, and increasing the consumer and tax base in an expanding but not fully developed capitalistic economy bursting with growth potential , but desperately in need of cheap labor for corporate expansion and profit. Like Trump said, they bring crime and rape, but very little compared to the amount engendered internally by native born citizens of European ancestry. Like people from Africa, people from Latin America have truly not made America more culturally vibrant they have made it more prosperous, and indeed, they have made america possible. Mexican immigrants have filled up what Mexicans call the "occupied territories", a huge swath of land in the Southwest which the United States invaded and conquered under false pretenses and turned into states beginning in the eighteen forties. For a nation in which everyone not of Indian/native american ancestry is the ancestor of an arguably illegal foreign immigrant, for Latin American people to be told that they should not be here, illegally or otherwise makes no more sense than to tell African-Americans that they should "go back to Africa". Recent surveys indicate that only twenty five percent of conservative evangelical Christians believe that Latino immigrants should be offered assistance, while seventy five percent of atheists and people unaffiliated with any religion believe that America should "welcome the stranger". This statistic speaks for itself. It says much about the true nature of the American conservative Christian community, ans who actually follow the teachings of Christ, and who does not. It says much about the ignorance Americans have of their own sordid history, and their arrogance of ignorance. Upon reflection, none of it is at all surprising.

Expanding The Canon With Trump

SHELDON AND MIRIAM ADELSON own casinos, and billions of dollars. Their wealth, like that of Donald J. Trump, greatly exceeds any contributions they might have made to society. Like most wealthy people, they are quite conservative, politically, resistant to social change, quite content to retain the status quo, and quite willing to pay to do so. To this end they contribute lavishly to the campaigns of conservative politicians, including Donald Trump, even more than the Koch brothers, who are similarly inclined to contribute to conservative and libertarian politicians, but not to Donald Trump, whom, at last report, both Koch brothers thoroughly despise. The arrangement is lucrative for both the givers and the takers. Conservatives in Congress pass legislation reducing taxes on the wealthy, and people like the Koch brothers and the Adelsons (sons of Adel?)) help ensure the reelection of such politicians. So grateful is Mrs. Adelson, and so taken with Donald Trump, that she proposes adding to the Bible a "book of Trump". This is not fake news. She really means it. She seems to think that the new book would fit best into the old Testament, somewhere near the book of "Esther". The problem with this, of course, is that it would seemingly require the approval of the Judaic religion, as well as Christianity, whereas including the book of Trump in the New Testament would allow for the dispensing of Jewish approval, and would seemingly require only christian consent, which, considering Trump's popularity among American Christians, might fly in America, if nowhere else. Esther, you might recall, entails yet another of the many stories of ancient Hebrew captivity, this time in the hands of the Persians, in modern day Iran. The evil Persian king is bent on complete destruction of the Jewish people, but Esther, the heroine, comes to their rescue. It may be that Trump is widely seen among his supporters as a savior of Israel, he having moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to the great approval of Israel and the American conservative evangelical Trump support base, and the great consternation of most of the rest of the world. Then too, having torn up a peace treaty with Iran, and having turned a peace with that country into a condition of near war, Trump has pleased Irael and his domestic supporters, by demonstrating his ostensible fearlessness towards, contempt for, and willingness to destroy Israels's prime enemy. So, perhaps somewhere near Esther is where Trump properly belongs. Interestingly, although it is not widely known, as the Old testament proceeds, God, who is mentioned quite often in Genesis, is mentioned less and less as the Hebrew bible proceeds, less often in each book, and by the time we arrive at the book of Esther, quite late in the collection of thirty nine books making up the Hebrew bible, God is not mentioned at all - not once - in the entire book of Esther, which deals exclusively with human activity. This fact has been researched and discussed much in academic circles. There are books dealing with this interesting phenomenon. It might be argued that if indeed there is a place for Donald J.Trump in the Bible, it would be a place from which God is absent, and in the Bible, such places are few and far between.

Seeking Something We Call "Truth"

C.C.LEWIS was a passable science fiction writer until he became a fervent Christian relatively late in life. Then, he changed. His writing became more rigid, stilted, dogmatic, serious. Religions does that to many previously, already perfectly good people. It has often been noted that the people who become most intolerantly zealous are the late bloomers in religious belief. Lewis started writing about his new faith, and spewing dubious, often untenable assertions, again, often the product of rigid, dogmatic thinking. People who claim to know nothing are invariably more interesting than those who know the truth. Among his most memorable assertions is that, taking into consideration the totally of the message of Jesus Christ, that he was either a madman, or he was what he seemingly claimed to be; the only begotten son of the living god, come to earth to offer salvation to anyone who follows him, and accepts him as their lord and savior. That's a bluff many are willing to call; in this world, there are many more mentally ill men than saviors. Lewis conspicuously omits mention of many other possibilities. Among those possibilities is that the Bible is simply wrong about Jesus, and about who he was, what he said, and who he claimed to be. In fact, nowhere in the four gospels does Jesus say that he is God, or any part of God. That interpretation of his statements came about much later, mainly as an extension of the gospel most ardently supportive of the idea of Jesus as lord; the gospel of John. A little poem by Goethe accurately describes the situation: "Pure was Jesus in his passion, in his heart but one God serving. Who of him a God would fashion, from his sacred will is swerving". The four gospels all contradict each other at every turn. Each of the four gives Jesus a different personality. Each of the four describes different events, occurring at different times. This is best explained by the fact that none of the four was written by people who knew Jesus, or each other, and all were written decades after the death of Jesus, by unknown authors, using a disparity of sources now lost to us. Every beautiful teaching of Jesus can be found in earlier writings, by Confucius, or in other religious texts in Buddhism, Taoism, or Hinduism. The message Jesus hammered home most urgently was that the world would soon end, and god would soon come to Earth, in the form of the "son of Man" to bring about an entirely new world order, a world in which all the wickedness of this world would be replaced by God's grace and goodness. Jesus, in brief, was an apocalyptic preacher. Most of us are neither madmen nor divine beings. We are somewhere in the middle, suspended, between the sublime and the sordid. We are, in short, a bit of both. As Wallace Stevens said: "A poetic synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." C.S. Lewis, like the rest of us, sought truth. And like the rest of us, he never found it outside himself, but had to content himself to embrace only what he could discern from within. We live in a universe of relativity, in which the truth is dependent upon point of view. That may have been the only true message Jesus ever taught, handled and handed down to us so very clumsily by people who failed to fully understand him. The truth that Jesus gave us might well have been that the attainment of truth is only a matter of seeking, and the seeking only occurs within each of our very different selves, in our very different universes.

Biden, Backtracking

ALL POLITICIAN, and for that matter all humans, make statements they wish later they had never made. The rule is; think before you speak. Conversely, people seeking and holding elective office often fail to make statements they might rather wish they had made. Joe Biden has had such along career in politics that he has, like his political party, like his country, evolved considerably over the decades. In the nineteen seventies he was opposed to busing during a time when all good liberal democrats were in favor of it, and he worked closely with and compromised with southern conservative democrats when no good northern, eastern, or northeastern liberal democrat deigned to so do. Forty and fifty years ago there were still conservatives in the democratic party, and liberals in the republican party, and it was often difficult to tell the two parties apart, as it had been for much of their existence. Not so anymore, in our era of bipolarized political in which democrats are far to the left, republicans are far to the right, and never the twain shall meet. Now running for president, Biden has some 'splainin' to do. he says that he was always in favor of busing, as a social, educational equalizer, but that he was opposed to it being implemented through the heavy handed of the federal government, preferring a more localized approach. It sounded lame. It sounded remindful of confederate sympathizers and their lame appeals to stats rights. Here's a suggestion for candidate Joe Biden. do not pretend to be enthusiastic about busing, then or now. Say something like: "although I understand that busing is a noble attempt to equalize society, to mitigate the effects of racism, I always considered it, and still consider it, a wholly inadequate means of dealing with a pervasive, deeply rooted american problem, that of racism inequality and prejudice. Busing is a band aid applied to a gaping wound, which will never facilitate real healing. Real healing will occur when the hearts and minds of the American people, as reflected in American social patterns and American institutions, are changed, fundamentally. The answer, of course, is the only answer, the same answer as always, the answer which ultimately solves all problems: education. We must teach ourselves, and our children, and our children's children the sheer stupidity of racism, its history, its scientifically baseless illogic, the shallow, unreasoning impulses behind it, and we must remind ourselves that skin pigmentation is ultimately no more important a factor in human worth than hair color, height, weight, age, or gender." And with regard to his past cooperation with racist, segregationist united Senators within his own party, maybe he should try this: 'I strongly disagreed with them then, just as I strongly disagree with most republicans now, on most issues. That does not, however, mean that I cannot at least try to reach out to them, respect them, and work with them for compromise, in the hope that we as leaders of our nation can produce results through cooperation beneficial to us all and set an example for the american people that merely disagreeing strongly with someone need not prevent nor even impede mutual respect, communication, and the sacred spirit of compromise, which has been a hallmark of American history and progress since our founders molded our nation out of disparate interest, from compromise." It might produce more support for Biden than his chosen tactic of backtracking and showing regret and remorse, the tactic currently in style. then again, maybe not. Americans today seem to prefer a good gut wrenching mea culpa to someone standing behind their actions. Either we shed tears and show remorse, or we dig in and double down. Its a shame. Sometimes its best to merely stand behind what you say and do, without all the drama.

Compromising Our Morals, Ourselves

YOU'LL RECALL, unless you're a Trump supporter and prefer not to, that one month before Trump was elected, he revealed himself to be a serial sexual predator, and proud of it. It suddenly appeared that although Hillary Clinton was only slightly ahead in the polls, that her election was certain. How could Trump possibly win? Millions of Americans would refuse to vote, or switch their vote. In fact the Republican national committee wanted him to withdraw, but he refused. Amazingly, he was elected, largely because of the vicissitudes of the electoral college; Clinton got three million more votes than he. Trump's primary support base consisted, and still consists, of white evangelical Christians, and working class white men with limited educations. These same people would undoubtedly have lambasted a Clinton or an Obama under similar circumstances. A great deal of research has gone into figuring all this out. Angry, alienated people looking for an authority figure, a savior of sorts. The year of the outsider, in which Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump stole the show. America, moving in a progressive direction, with increasing cultural diversity, acceptance of gay and transgender people, and increasingly dissatisfied with corporate economic hegemony and grotesque inequality of wealth and income, spurring conservatives to long for and seek to revive a long gone America with white male patriarchy and Christian dominance. Maybe it all adds up, maybe it all makes sense, and yet, somehow, it doesn't. A man with three divorces, numerous extramarital affairs, and dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct, being elected by the support of the Christian community. It turns out that America's conservative Christian community has more than a selective memory; it has selective morality. Since the late nineteen seventies, when evangelical participation in politics became prominent, the two issues upon which politically active Christians have hung their hats have been abortion, and homosexuality, the twin sins of Christian conservatism. And on those accounts, Trump fills the bill, or at least pays lip service to it. Marital infidelity, divorce, and heterosexual misbehavior have taken a sinful back seat. Our right wing evangelical Christians place great emphasis upon those sins in which they have no personal interest, and show little or no concern for those in which they already have, or might be tempted in the future to indulge in themselves. If only Hillary had been stridently anti-choice. Even that might not have been sufficient to break the magic of Trump. White supremacy has a long history within American conservatism. Racism, after all, is a traditional American value, conservative, not liberal. The Christian American right is strongly pro capitalism; sharing wealth through government action is taboo for those who profess to follow a man who told us to render unto Caesar and give unto the poor. Mega churches and larger than life ministers spewing these values satisfy America's longing for celebrity. Trump, the glitzy celebrity with an angry, reactionary message of a better America lost to progress is the perfect match for religious, money seeking conservatives, what Gore Vidal called the "Jesus, guns, and money" crowd. As the baby boomers age out and the much more progressive millennials take over, this will change, but it hasn't yet, and until it does, we will be stuck with Trump, his followers, and all the unpleasantness inherent therein.

Messing With Iran

THE IRANIANS are deliberately violating the nuclear arms agreement they signed in 2015 with the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and China. They are enriching, rendering more potent, radioactive metal, uranium, from its normal five percent, roughly, the process which is necessary to render the metal sufficiently explosive to make weapons out of it. A considerable increase in explosive capacity is necessary, upwards of a ninety percent increase. The Trump administration, which precipitated the problem by removing the U.S. from a perfectly good nuclear arms treaty, and initiating what amounts to economic warfare with Iran, including trade sanctions and embargoes, has already and will doubtless continue to rant, rave, and complain vociferously. Phrases like "playing with fire" are already coming forth from the head of state who was recently confused about the origins of aviation. Most people already know all this. Most people also are aware that building nuclear weapons is a skill any graduate student in physics can explain. All that is necessary is the mechanical and technical infrastructure, which Iran, and many other countries have. What most Americans seem unaware of is the chaotic treatment of Iran by the United States over the past one hundred years. Early in the era of oil the U.S. and Great Britain gained access to Iranian oil fields, then lost access when an election in Iran brought to power a government which nationalized Iran's oil, and left the western powers high and dry. The western powers responded by removing Iran's government, and replacing it with one amenable to western exploitation, a standard mode of operation for the United States. For several decades the United States strongly encouraged Iran to become a nuclear power, welcoming Iranian nuclear physics students to American college campuses. Then, it didn't. When the Iranian revolution of 1979 again brought to power a government resistant to American imperialism, the empire abruptly changed course, and suddenly it became verboten for Persia (Iran) to have nukes. The United States, beginning early in its history, took it upon itself to decide which nations could do what, economically, politically, internationally. It is a heavy burden, that of empire, not without unintended consequences. The United States, in its unquenchable thirst for expanding markets, resources, and wealth, has always messed with other nations. the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which has always been unenforceable and still is, commanded that no nation other than the United States would be allowed to have influence in the affairs of any Latin American country. American foreign policy and practices can change, and always have changed with dizzying speed, depending on world events and the vicissitudes of American corporate demands and desires. When a world power initiates, engages in, and completes a treaty with several other nations, then abruptly abandons the treaty, the world power loses credibility. Under Trump, the United States has turned peace into approaching war, losing its credibility in so doing, and the most tragic aspect of this is that it isn't even the greatest crime so far committed by the Trump administration, and by the United States under it.

Loving the Yankees, For All the Right Reasons

I BECAME A YANKEE (American baseball team) fan, in 1961, when I was six. My parents hated them, my neighbors hated them, it seemed the whole world hated them, so, being the precocious little social protester do gooder that I was already emerging into, I decided "hey, this is my team". I felt sorry for them; the Yankees were obviously the underdog, and were getting no love. By the time I was old enough to learn the truth, it was too late. I've never been ashamed to be a Yankee fan, and in fact have enjoyed the animosity generated by it and by living in the Midwest. Baseball argument are the best. They're harmless, notwithstanding the occasional barroom brawl and gun fight, since everything is settled on the field, in plain sight. I have never been prouder of them than now. Just recently, in concert with the fiftieth anniversary of the famous "Stonewall" incident, in which a gay bar in New York was attacked by police and the publicity resulting therefrom is widely credited with having engendered the gay right movement, the Yankees, at Yankee stadium, with forty five thousand in attendance, honored the LGBTQ community. It was LGBTG night at the big ball park in the Bronx. I do not know the details. I do know that there were people on the filed before the game, standing in a row at home plate, shaking hands and holding commemorative plaques and trophies. All the talk was about the Stonewall event. The crowd seemed generally amenable to it all. New York, like almost all big American cities, is full of liberals, and one can presume that it was largely a liberal gathering at the stadium. Yankee fans, however, abound all across the fruited plain, and it can be surmised that quite a few sixty year old right wing extreme Trump supporter lifelong Yankee fans turned in their membership cards in disgust that night. fine, Screw them. For that matte, screw everyone who hates the Yankees because they have and spend a lot of money on their baseball team; so do all the other teams, just not quite as much. the Yankees are the third most valuable sports franchise on the free market, behind Manchester United soccer, and Dallas Cowboy football. America loves winners, and the word "Yankee' means "American", so, what's not to love? The ownership of the team, the Steinbrenner family, must have thought long and hard about honoring LGBTQ folks, and the fact that they decided to go ahead with it attests to our changing times, to the Yankees ownership brilliance, and to liberal New York. The event might not have flown in Atlanta. Whether our conservative evangelical Christian Trump people like it or not, and they don't, LGBTQ people are going to gain social equality in America, because they and their millions of friends are insisting on it Gay people, transgender people, and all other kinds of unusual people are not sick, they are not sinners, and they are not criminals, though until recently they were so categorized by the American justice system. But,as Thomas Jefferson is reputed to have said, though it does not appear in his writings: "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty". So, as far as justice is concerned, social justice, you right wing evangelical christian Trumper hypocritical moral and intellectual bankrupt reprobates can kiss some gay ass, and some bi-sexual ass to boot, which they would probably enjoy, and watch the Yankees win, while the ball club, with its forty thousand in house spectators per game paying exorbitant ticket prices laughs all the way to the bank, and to Stonewall and back to the Bronx.