Preparing For the Worst

 DONALD TRUMP hosted a group of  Republican politicians and donors at Mara Lago last weekend, which tells us that he isn't done, or doesn't think he is, by a long shot. He still controls the fascist party, despite substantial opposition from within it from powerful politicians, who see him leading it to ultimate destruction. The great reprobate spent the entire weekend lambasting his enemies; Republicans! Amazing that an "unsavvy" politicians could remain popular in a party he seems intent on dividing. This reminds you of his first two weeks as a candidate in 2015, when he called Ted Cruz a liar more than fifty times. That was enough to turn me off. If that's how he treats his fellow Republicans, how would he treat the rest of us? Well, we found out.. The populist is popular, remains popular among the minion masses. The country is filled with tens of millions of little tin soldier fascist followers, Trump lovin' intellectually inferior folk, moral reprobates, traitors to America all. May they all rot or burn in hell, your choice .Everyone else, America's moral sane, must conspire, openly, to defeat the fascist MAGA mob. Remember, Hitler failed to take over Germany illegally in 1920, but succeeded thirteen years later, electorally. The situation hasn't really changed. America is now, like Germany was in the nineteen twenties, full of xenophobic ultra right wing angry, violent thugs. As always, the real problem isn't Hitler or Trump, both of whom were and are blow hard pathological liars.  Trump is a punk, a thug, a garden variety criminal, and ha proven it his entire life, before and all during his presidency. But he's a charismatic leader, and the problem, as always, is the multi million mass of morons which continues to support him, even after he was defeated by a landslide for reelection, refused to accept his defeat and refused to leave office peacefully, and organized and incited a violent mob to attempt to overthrow the United States government. Trump's post election behavior proves that he is a fascist, and teh continued support of his criminal traitorous base after January 6 clearly demonstrates that so are those who support him. Tens of millions of white Christian American blindly devoted to a fascist dictator wannabe, all because of their intense xenophobic racist hatred of Mexicans and Muslims. Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes in America watching the great American freak show fun house in action begins to realize that in America practically anything can and will happen. Hence the oft repeated phrase: "only in America". It is therefore not at all beyond the realm of possibility that Donald Trump will be elected president in 2024.  Remember Grover Cleveland. And bear in mind that contrary to what many believe, a convicted felon as Donald Trump may become before 2024, is not ineligible to run for and become president White conservative Christian America will continue its war on America, with voter suppression attempts and attacks against minorities, and will strive to keep Donald Trump politically powerful and relevant. The MAGA mob monster still lives, and must, like a dragon, be slain.

Waiting For Justice

THE FACEBOOK POST, in big bold letters, said: "He gave the order on January 6. Why has nothing been done"? What the post meant was obvious, a question many are asking. The person who posted it is on my "friends" list, ans usually chimes in with offbeat comical posts, so I knew she meant business. Good for her. Good citizenship. I have been wondering the same thing myself. My first thought is that its still too soon. Several civil suits have been filed against Trump,w ho is now out of office and thus fully exposed to litigation, at least one police officer who was injured in the insurrection has filed one, and presumably there are many many more to follow. Six people lost their lives on January 6, and they all have families.But what about the big one, the criminal indictment lovers of justice anticipate and expect will eventually be handed down by the Department of Justice? Biden so far seems to be making good on his promise to let the Attorney General work independently, as he is supposed to and Merrick Garland is known for his fair and equal approach to justice, and he can't be much of a Donald Trump fan. But the wheels of justice turn slowly, as well they should. slowly, and dispassionately. Garland hasn't had time to fully consider his options, so busy has he been settling in to his new prodigious tasks. And, he hasn't time to conduct and complete a thorough investigation of the events surrounding the insurrection at the nation's Capitol building on January 6, 2021. We can most likely safely assume that before the end of this calendar year, much more will be publicly known ab ut the proceedings involving Donald J. Trump. And there will be many proceedings. Trump is already involved in thousands of law suits, of various kinds, enough to overflow a docket the size of his his toupee, with more on the way, having to do with his assorted criminal activities, alleged, while in office. My personal opinion is that Trump should be charged with treason, insurrection,convicted, and placed in front of a firing squad. That is neither an unreasoble nor a purely partisan attitude. When the president of the United States refuses to accept defeat in a reelection, refuses to acknowledge any intent to peacefully leave office, then summons a violent mob and orders them to "go to the capitol and fight like hell", and they do exactly that, and very nearly overthrow the government by attacking and killing member of congress and the vice president, you have grounds for legal action. We'll wait and see, as Trump would say.

Gold, Lasting

 T.S. ELIOT called April "the cruelest month" because it forces nature to awaken to the harsh reality of the world, after winter's long peaceful slumber. Robert Frost took another approach. Focusing on the transience of the first bloom of spring, the budding of tree leaves, he noted how rapidly the golden hue of a forest exploded into verdant leafy green. Nothing gold can last. Spring and fall are everyone's favorite seasons, maybe because we are consumed with birth and death, and their seemingly endless cycle, reminding us of our ultimate immortality. The spring of 2021 is unfolding more naturally slowly than any other in my sixty six years, fitting, as we struggle slowly to re emerge form our year long pandemic hibernation. I remember past springs which seemed to last a single day, a day of perfect weather lodged between cold winter and hot summer. With accelerating climate change, spring begins ever earlier, and recent spring seem to linger gladly longer, a gradual steady emergence from early March through April and into late May, when the heat arrives. Mid April and the redbuds in my yard and everywhere else have remained purple pink red for weeks. They needn't  hurry into green for me, nor, I suspect for anyone else. I love them just as they are. The maples are keeping their helicopter seeds as if reluctant to part with them, the tiny leaves reluctant to finally abandon early childhood and grow up. the tall purple which normally spring forth from the soil suddenly in early March are usually gone by April, replaced by dandelions. This year, the purple is still here in mid April, and the dandelions, unwilling to wait longer, have joined them. By now only the hardest of the hard core deniers still refuse to accept to obvious reality of climate change, and we know that future seasons will be far different from those present, for we already see them changing, hotter summers, milder winters, violent weather. We are beginning our efforts to reverse climate change to late to stop it. whether humanity ever deals effectively with climate change my generation will not live long enough to know. I am content, and must be content, to have lived long enough to dwell joyously in this perfect spring in the autumn of my life.

Going Out of Style and Fading Away

 THE WHITE CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE party, usually called the "Republican" party, is overwhelming all of the above, any even the most cursory glance at one of their gatherings reveals. Black and brown people and non Christians are absent, as are, one suspects, gays and transgender people. Minorities are rare in the Republican party. Republicans tend to be Christian, capitalistic, heterosexual.But why? Their agenda, their politics, perhaps? Why would black or brown folks be attracted to a political party which denies or downplays racism, seems to believe that racism only exists when liberals invent it by mentioning it, and that only hard work matters, for anyone and everyone? The modern Republican  Attrition by lack of interest.cultural, ethnic, religious diversity inclusion, and acceptance. That is why white Christian conservatives have been for a long time angry, and behaving as if their panties are all bunched up, and sitting on a corncob. That is why they claim that there is some sort of "war" against Christianity and conservatism, because they are going out of style, as a smaller portion of the population embraces them. Attrition by lack of interest. Behold the angry, screeching MAGA rallies, where the grimacing audience eagerly watched trump attacking everybody and everything.Voter suppression. Attacks on gays and transgenders from the pulpit and elsewhere, including Republican majority state legislatures.Tradition and conformity are the twin pillars of conservatism everywhere. In America, that means social and economic Darwinism, a ceaseless, unrelenting competition for wealth, power, prestige.Cooperation and communal planning ar enemies, as are reform and forward progress. The actual American economy is mixed, with strong elements of socialism. Its racial, ethnic, and religious diversity is growing greater,and will continue to do so, contrary to conservative desires.People and groups of people threatened with extinction, such as white supremacist conservatives, resort to violence, and we see that happening now on the far religious right. The violence will get worse before it finally burns itself out, and we are left with its smoldering remains as a reminder of its evil, of its former domination of American society, and as a reminder that it must never be allowed to renew its awful strength and harm us again.

Dreaming, Part Two

 I HAVE A DREAM. Or rather, I had one, a good one, before awakening as usual to harsh reality. In my beautiful dream, a typical American conservative Republican Trump supporter was speaking, perhaps to me, or to a crowd, or to a priest in a confessional, perhaps under the influence of sodium pentathal. He or she - I can't remember which, and it doesn't matter - was addressing climate change. "Obviously climate change is happening, the science is clear. Most of my conservative colleagues and I have long denied it because accepting it would mean that our capitalistic corporate industrial economy must be fundamentally transformed, which means government involvement,  and which means fast change, and that the liberals were right all along - it means many things abhorrent and unacceptable to conservatives. Many of my long held cherished conservative notions are of course false, such as America being a "Christian" country rather than a country of religious freedom, diversity, and tolerance, and about free market capitalism being the only economic system which works well. We like to say that socialism has never worked anywhere in the world, and that we must keep socialism out of America, when in fact socialism works quite well in Europe, Democratic socialism of the sort they have in Denmark, and when in fact government regulation of capitalism,laws such an bankruptcy, patents, and incorporation, all mandated by government intervention in the free market, are necessary to keep the free market economy functioning. When science tells us that homosexuality is cause by a genetic predisposition and that it occurs throughout nature, we tend to ignore this reality because it offends us, and our traditional morality, according to which gay people are sinners by being gay.  We might be better off to just honestly assert that we do not like homosexuality because we are not homosexual, but that if we were, our moral objections to it would disappear, rapidly. We conservatives might do better to simply state our opinions and preferences without trying to use facts or logic to defend and sustain them. We like capitalism because we prefer having the opportunity to become wealthy, and we do not like socialism because socialism forces us to share our wealth with others, and because it limits how much wealth we can personally accumulate. We condemn homosexuality because we are heterosexual.And yes,deep down we want a traditional,it christian America, a patriarchy without other religions in sight, because they make us realize that our religion might not be the only one which has merit." Don't hold your breath waiting for them to say these things.

Dreaming

 I  HAVE A DREAM. Actually, I have many, every night, all weird, ever since I quit smoking pot. In one of the weirdest but most pleasant dreams, a fundamentalist evangelical Christian is talking, maybe to me, maybe to an audience. "I love my christian faith. My relationship with Christ gives me comfort and inspiration. It sustains me through all life's difficulties. I am saved! And I know that billions of other people, people who embrace many different religions, feel the same way. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, all part of the great human family whose members all approach the Almighty, the divine, the inscrutable in their own separate ways, everyone receiving comfort and inspiration from his or her own special truth, special relationship with the universe. That goes for everybody, for all our gay, lesbian, and transgender brothers and sisters, all beloved in the eyes of God, just as they are, all perfect and beautiful in the eyes of God, or nature, however you choose to express it.We fundamentalist evangelical Christians love everybody and judge no one, regardless of religious beliefs or sexual orientation, and wish to change no one. All religious faiths are of equal, infinite value. We look forward to spending an eternity in heaven with our maker and with all people of all faiths and beliefs." The problem with this dream is that, like all good dreams, not only must one awaken from it, it is destined to never come true. We tragically live in a corrupt and vile world in which the exact opposite is true, in which our evangelical Christian "friends" say and belief approximately the exact opposite of my beautiful dream. They say ad believe horrible things about Muslims, Hindus, gays, transgenders, and even liberal Democrats and pro choice politicians such as;"they are unsaved, and they are destined for an eternity of suffering in the flaming pits of hell, because they have not been cleanses of sine by being bathed in the holy blood of the lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ". The evangelicals are never shy about making it all sound very, very dramatic, and gruesome and bloody, and they make references to "the blood of the lamb", and grizzly metaphors which server to reveal the barbarity of their primitive barbaric religion, as well as their intolerance of all religions other than their own. In the real world, these people think and speak more like gangsters and fascists than enlightened children of God, any god. they are clever about the way they express their hateful viciousness. "All we can do is to pray and try our best to help save these lost souls, and to bring them to Christ. We must pray they they abandon their cults and their sodomy and begin living clean lives devoted to the true God and Christ, and abandon their filthy debauchery and stop following Satan" so smug, so condescending, so certain of their twisted, judgmental selves. They, not the atheists and gay folks, are the real problem, the real threat to civilization.

Revealing

 TERRI GROSS, on her excellent NPR interview program "Fresh Air" was interviewing a lady whose knowledge of Donald Trump is quite up close and personal. Terri, the best in her business, was listening in stunned silence along with her several millions of listeners as the lady, paraphrased, said: "I'm an old crow (crone?) now, seventy five years old. butt forty five years ago I was quite a looker, tall, slender, curvy, with a pretty face, and let me tell you, I dressed to kill. Mini skirts, tight low cut tops, sleeves dresses, heels, you name it, the whole nine yards. I had the attention of men, and I loved it. It helped my career in advertising. I flew a lot. One day I got on the plane and headed for the back, as usual,  regular folks section. We called them "stewardesses" back then, and one of them came up to me, and said that a gentleman sitting in first class front row was inviting me to join him, that he had an extra seat. How could I reject that offer? I walked up front and sat down to, it turned out, a thirty year old Donald Trump, in suit and tie. He introduced introduced himself, we began chatting, he turned on the charm, and soon he got showed me a picture of his mansion, his yacht, and his private jet. Then he showed me his erection, the real deal, not a picture. Next thin I knew, he had his tongue in my mouth and his hands up my skirt, heading for my privates. I struggled free, got up, and went back to my original seat."......Terri asked question, including the obvious one. No, she said, i didn't say anything about it, to anyone. I didn't file a complaint with the airline or the police.  just told a few of my friends. This was the nineteen seventies,and things were different back then. Back then woman did not generally report mashers and sexual predators, unless they got raped, and even then, not necessarily. It was understood that that was just the way things were, that that's just the way some men were, and it part of life, part of what you had to deal with if you were a woman, like getting less pay and obeying your husband. If you spoke up you were risking not being believed, or retaliation, or public shame and ridicule. So she kept quiet, lived her life, pursued her career, and only when Trump became president and the others started coming forward did she decide to join them in revealing the true Trump to the world, so disgusted was she with the thought of a sexual predator in the white House. and of course, she is not along. She is among at least two dozen women with similar tales to tell,; there is no conspiracy to defame Trump, all the accounts have an eerily similar narrative, they all corroborate.  And still, Trump is a free man, for the time being. And once again, as with so many other aspects of Trump's behavior, you just have to shake your head and wonder at the thinking and the morality of people who still support him, even after all these years and all the garbage he brings to the table. Worst of all, he isn't done yet.

Checking Up On the Reprobates

 HAS ANYBODY heard anything more lately about the stolen election of 2020? I anybody still talking about it? Hello? No? I didn't think so.how can anybody talk about it anymore? what is there left to say? Certainly nothing new or different, just the same ole whiny crap from the same old Trump loving idiots.By now teh vast abundant avalanche of incriminating evidence they promised us so long ago should be at least beginning to trickle in, but, nary a nugget. Nothing, not a single shred. This, of course was predictable from the start.Loud mouthed bullies are invariably liars, who cannot back up what they rant.There was never any stolen election, no evidence for it,  and no matter how long we keep waiting, there never will be, All good American citizens knew that, as did all Trump supporters, bad citizens.so teh big uproar from the roughly seventy million big mouthed conspiracy theorists has died down to a whisper and a whimper,as was inevitable.There is nothing left but lingering amazement and disbelief that so many Americans previously assumed to be intelligent and moral could ever have been so corrupt and dishonest.I have believed from the beginning of Trump's candidacy that he and his supporters are both intellectually and morally inferior, and this proves it, as it has been proven time and time again. The loud mouthed big talking Trump supporters have gone silent, their lies exposed, their integrity and honor and credibility in tatters. They will fade into history as yet another American joke in teh land of hype and illusion, a twisted tragic comedy and joke they tried to play on the country, but only played on themselves.Its ironic to consider that all they had to do was what decent people do after a tennis match, a football game, or an election; shake hands, congratulate the winner, promise to keep in touch, and move on together into a productive future. They lacked the decency for that, of course. But it makes sense that people who would support and elect a criminal reprobate to the presidency would be no better than he, and would sink to such depths morally. I have former friends who still support Trump even after the insurrection of January 6, people who by their behavior shocked and disappointed me, people I am ashamed to have ever called a "friend".As the years pass I will wonder whether any of them redeemed himself or herself by admitting the truth, coming clean, and regaining decency and honor. On the other hand, maybe it doesn't really matter.

Lovin' On the Corporate Oligarchy

 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, Coca Cola, and Delta Airlines are indisputably, corporate juggernauts, all three, of the all American kind. They also have in common that they are not bastions of left wing radical activism, sponsors of Antifa, controlled by the Democratic Party, antithetical to capitalism, Christianity, nor conservatism, nor part of some deep state conspiracy working in concert with the mainstream liberal media to destroy traditional American values and replace the American democratic electoral system with godless, atheistic, totalitarian communism. That, please take on faith, if nothing else.They are all three, in short, about as American as America can get.Currently they also have in common that they are speaking out vociferously and vehemently in strong opposition against the great state of Georgia's new and insidious election laws, laws insidiously presented and disguised as being intended to eliminate voter fraud, which does not exist, and to expand voter rights, which the new laws do not, instead being nefarious, furtively intended to do the exact opposite. the new laws are nefariously, furtively intended to make it more difficult to vote, and to thus reduce the number of people from poor and minority communities who vote. everyone, including the people who promulgated the nefarious laws, knows this. All three above mentioned corporate heavyweights are either headquartered in Georgia or vary active business-wise in the state,  and so what they say and do matters, both to themselves and to the economy and people of Georgia.Their political position in this matter is purely public relations oriented, because, being PR savvy and sensitive, these corporations are well aware that a large majority of Georgians and Americans are progressive,  pro-voter, and against these new voter suppression measures. Most Americans are indeed opposed to the ongoing Republican coup taking place all across freedom's land according to which the grand ole white Christian conservative party is attempting to  secular diverse democracy with white Christian conservative governance. In other words, to "make America great again", great white, Christian, conservative, and Trumpist. Trump and the G.O.P. lost Georgia, or these new laws would never have been enacted. Trump and the two Republican Senators lost, and Georgia Republicans lost their minds and their morality, such as they ever had them. PR savvy corporate America rose up in protest, if only for the purpose of public relations and profit, and is doing the right thing, for once. This is a one time only offer, but God bless the American corporate oligarchy!

Going Down Into the Sea, to Save It

 HENRI LeMer grew up on the north shore of the Mediterranean, watching Jaques Cousteau documentaries and staring out at the blue infinity in wonder. He learned to scuba dive at eighteen, and pursued a career in academia, studying and teaching oceanography. he discovered firsthand that the Mediterranean he so loved was barren beneath the waves, bereft of all life in large sections of . he had learned from Cousteau that this ought not to be, and wouldn't be were it not for human profligacy. Increasingly alarmed over the years, he at last realized that he was spending his time teaching the obituary of the world's oceans, and resolved to start doing something  instead of just talking about it. He resigned the academy, joined National Geographic, and began work on the Pristine Ocean Project. That's when his education, both learning and teaching, really began. the pristine ocean project, he found out, is the greatest thing since the slicing of bread. It persuaded the Mexican government, for example, to turn a large of ocean off its coast into a wildlife sanctuary, free from all human interaction. The region, long over fished and devoid of life, a wasteland,  suddenly left alone, rebounded and became flourishing area of abundant life within an amazingly short time, which shocked and amazed scientists. This game plan, because of its immense success, is rapidly gaining popularity as many nations are doing similar projects, but the projects are gaining momentum too slowly; as of now only about seven percent of the ocean area of the world is similarly protected wilderness. We need much more than that. Henri LeMer is happier now that he is helping to save the planet rather than talking about is destruction, and the rest of us would be too, he assures us. I still feel a sense of accomplishment at having planted twenty saplings when i bought a vacant lot and built a small house on i sixteen years ago.t. they are now huge forty foot trees. I feel I've made a small but meaningful contribution. Maybe it would have been better to have planted even more trees and omitted the house, but, better than nothing. In each of us in an Henri LeMer ,a good person dedicates to saving the oceans, the land, and ourselves. If we can do it in the oceans, we can do it on land, because the land has shown us that it can and will heal equally fast, if only we allow it.

Enhancing Fertility, Religiously

 HUNTING EASTER EGGS,which has recently been outlawed in republican states as a form of gambling and cruelty to the unborn, was among my favorite recreations until, oh, third grade. The activity was provided for me as fun by by mother, and inseminated into the early Christian church because the egg embodies and symbolizes fertility, and the Christian religion is a fertility cult on steroids. In ancient times, when newly neolithic humanity became dependent on agriculture and animal husbandry, fertility cults emerged around the world, independently. Offer a blood sacrifice, human or animal, to the hungry gods, who control everything, and they, appreciatively, grow better crops. Among the wonders of the early twenty first century is that such primitive religions, invented millennia ago and embracing fantastically false realities,  continue to flourish amid the rising tide of science. That they do so is a testament to humankind's inherent conservative nature. A brown wooden cross with a brown crown of thorns served as a backdrop prop for an Easter service I saw. Nothing abnormal or special about this. Crosses on display everywhere, including necklaces and lapel pins. The fact that I seem to be the only living person appalled, disgusted, and  horrified by an instrument of torture and death employed as a sacred religious symbol dampens not my revulsion. No, I'm not "missing the point". Neither are the cross worshipers. we merely have different points of view. I have always, since early childhood, found the image of the cross, with or without the bloody Jesus in agony  nailed to it repulsive, horrifying, despite the fact that i am supposed to see it as a symbol of beautiful sacrifice, resurrection,atonement, salvation, and love. Call me crazy. I call the others crazy. For me the perfect symbol of the resurrection of  Christ is not the instrument with which he was tortured to death, but rather, the manner in which he was born again. Let the symbol of the Christian faith be the mouth of a cave, with a huge Boulder only partially blocking it Picture a golden rod, in the shape of a horseshoe, upside down, for good luck.. Next to it stands a solid circular golden coin shape, the boulder. the edge of the boulder intersects the horseshoe edge, and just barely passes through it. Now hang it up in church, on steeples, on lapel pins, a symbol not of tortorous death, but of the actual circumstances of the resurrection of Christ. Crazy? No, just unfamiliar. You the cross wearer are the crazy one, no disrespect intended. I am willing to apologize for having unorthodox views on religion, if that's what it takes to bring peace. but I shouldn't have to. My views should be respected. I am unwilling to change them, other than from within, with God's assistance and guidance. My religiosity consists of humble admiration, not worship, of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself, in what we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality, to quote Einstein. the best I can do is to let the christian cross inspire me to hope and belief that humanity is on the verge of outgrowing primitive, barbaric religions, and replacing them with sublime comprehension of the wonder of existence.

Choosing Whether To Value, Or Devalue Children

 EVERY CHILD, accompanied or otherwise, who through bad judgment seeks entry, legal or otherwise, into the United States of Animosity, is a precious cargo of infinitely valuable worth, skin color notwithstanding.This assertion is predicated upon the universally accepted eternal verity of the Christian faith, among others, that all human lief is precious and priceless. Accordingly, its inherently infinite value is not diminished by circumstances such as childhood, poverty, or legal status as an immigrant. Therefore, it is arguable that to separate immigrant children from their parents is an act of cruelty, and that any Christian who votes for and supports a national president who institutes this policy is acting contrary to the precepts of the Christian faith, one of which was, according to scripture, spoken by Jesus Christ, when he said "welcome the stranger". He did not qualify which strangers to welcome according to immigrant legal  status or skin color. And yet, it is the evangelical Christian community which most ardently supports Donald Trump, and which is most stridently opposed to the United States of A. receiving and accepting into society illegal immigrants, adult or children. arguably, each child is a future source of great prosperity for the United States, a person who will grow up and earn more than a million dollars over the course of a lifetime, who will produce millions of dollars of prosperity and wealth for society, including him or her self.and will pay  hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to society. the United States has a low birth rate and an aging population, with a diminishing work force and a growing community of retired and elderly people, people whose welfare, to one extent or another, will be the responsibility and burden of the working community.When Social Security was started in 1935, each retiree was supported by thirty three working tax paying people. Over the decades, the workforce has not maintained the rate of growth as the retired community, and now fewer than three workers supports each retiree. The Social Security trust fund, and many other forms of wealth, public and private, re suffering similar declines as the number of working age people becomes increasingly insufficient to support a growing, population of elderly people who are no longer producing wealth, but instead living off of previously accumulated wealth. In short, what America needs is an infusion of very young people, from any source available, to ensure a future or prosperity production. skin color, ethnicity is less important than future productivity and economic viability. Whatever the skin color and language spoken, whether the future workers are produced domestically or by foreigners does not alter these facts.From the Christian, capitalistic point of view, these thousands of children chowing up at America's southern border are a pearl of great price a priceless gift. the trick now is to convince the native born white skinned conservative evangelical Christians of this rather basic, easy to understand reality, a reality accessible to anyone of reasonable intelligence and moral character,the sort of folks which seem to be in very short supply among the conservative Christian community in these United States of Animosity. 

Denying Reality, Conservatively

 A "REPROBATE STATE" can be defined as any of these united states which is currently governed by ultra conservative republican evangelical Christian Trump supporter types, with the approval of a majority of the electorate. As Davy Crockett would say I "arter" know, I live in one. Here's proof of reprobate statehood: currently under consideration in the state legislature is a bill which would require public school employees, teachers, administrators, custodians, and cafeteria cooks included, to address transgender students by the sex and name listed on his or her birth certificate, rather than by the name and sex by which said transgender student identifies him or her self. For example: a child is born male, named "Butch" , becomes transgender, changes her name to "Sissy", and enrolls in public school. School employees would by law be required to address Sissy as "butch", and as "he", rather then "she", even though Sissy wears a mini skirt, pantyhose, make up, lipstick, Cher hair, and calls herself "Sissy", as do her parents, family, and friends. It may eventuate, if this inane bill becomes law, which it likely will in this reprobate state, that com-compliers will be terminated, of job, liberty, or even life, considering the extremity of the reprobationary tendencies within the state. These moronic monsters mean business. The ostensible purpose is to eliminate transgender people by simply denying their existence, much like right wing reprobates tend to deny the existence of such obvious realities as climate change, science, evolution by natural selection, racism, economic inequality,hereditary homosexuality, change, progress, socialism in America, their own barbaric lunacy, religious mythology, among many other obvious manifestations of reality.Apparently these mentally ill monsters believe that by attempting to enact legislation pertaining to transgender people which denies their existence, they are actually acknowledging their existence.Denial and reinvention of reality is indeed a human proclivity, but we Americans and the subgroup within of conservative Christianity have elevated it to surpassing heights.Many primitive cultures, such as ours, have since prehistoric times, for instance, ritually tortured people ar other animals to death, strangely believing that so doing appeases some powerful god whose control over weather, agricultural production, or human affairs in general can be made more benevolent by so doing, by virtue of feeling honored, with meat eating appetite sated by the attempted bribery. The belief that a certain person of great compassion and wisdom is the sacrifice which, if worshiped, provides eternal salvation of some sort for the worshiper is an extreme form of this barbarity. Why not torture transgender people to death? They don't exist anyway.

Actualizing

 BRITNEY SPEARS says she hasn't watched the popular documentary about her, "Framing Britney", but that from what she has seen of it, it made her cry for two weeks. So she must've caught a fairly good glimpse, or maybe a bad one. Britney, as everyone who reads scandal sheets or watches celebrity television knows,has had it rough. A few too many romantic entanglements of the volatile kind, maybe a few to many mind altering substances, and just maybe a bit too much of the proverbial overbearing parents. The "Free Britney" movement, to liberate her from custodial guardianship, is tinged with a tad of irony. We should all be so fortunate as to be fighting for the freedom to do what we choose with fifty million dollars.Britney may have been a victim of the Judy Garland Michael Jackson malady:too much parental pressure too early in life to work hard and succeed, too much rehearsal time and not enough down time.The rest of the equation is too much fame and fortune at too early an emotional age.Elvis Presley belongs in a different but similar category. He didn't have the parental pressure to succeed in entertainment business and to become famous and wealthy, he was successfully driving a truck as an eighteen year old. It was a job he arguably should have kept. What ruined Elvis was what seemingly ruined the other three, the fame and fortune itself.I had a friend from China who moved to my university town from shanghai, and immediately figured out America. "You Americans are the loneliest people in the world. You care more about your dogs and cats than each other".How true, I thought. Guilty as charged. But we like it that way. In the United States of Alienation we chase fame and money because we cannot imagine that there is anything better available. When a very few of us obtain these commodities, those who have them realize that they are not worth all the trouble and stress it took to get them, and, thinking them liquid, try to exchange them for for love or drugs. That doesn't work either.Genuine relationships with ourselves if no one else, and a connection to the greater community through productive enterprise has always worked, and still does. Britney, it turns out, is a great dancing teacher and much beloved by her students, little girls, while Elvis drove a pretty mean tractor trailer.

Riden' With Biden

 JOE BIDEN has not yet made a mistake, other than perhaps inserting a high strung German shepherd into a millieu of strangers. Otherwise, he's the greatest president, so far, in the history of the United States, the best since the worst, his predecessor. Nor has one single solitary republican congressperson contributed a single iota of productive bipartisanship, especially stimulus wise. We can much much the same, infrastructurally. The Republicans, who suddenly, mysteriously become quite concerned with fiscal responsibility and public (government) debt when the Democrats are in charge, will refuse to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans . Biden will propose to pay for repairs to the nation's crumbling infrastructure, the Republicans will prefer to bestow the burden upon future generations, as usual. If there are any valid criticisms to be made about the breakdown of the infrastructure bill, it is that only a hundred billion dollars will be allocated to the repair of roads and bridges, while an equal amount will be used to upgrade broadband internet.Arguably, the roads and bridges are a much greater emergency priority. Point out teh obvious that the republicans are beholden to their wealthy campaign contributors, the response will be: so are the Democrats. That may well be. There is, however, a huge difference: Democrats almost uniformly vote for tax increases on the wealthiest Americans, Republicans almost always vote against such tax raises. If both parties are obligated to billionaires and millionaires, the Republicans do a much better job of fulfilling their obligations.Just as every congressional republican voted against the recent stimulus package, so every Republican is likely to vote against the infrastructure bill, a bill which under Trump they failed to even consider their own version of.Both pieces of legislation will probably come to be seen as seminal in bringing the American economy back to prosperity after its disastrous collapse brought about by the pandemic and the Trump administration's failure to take the decisive action needed to control the spread of Covid 19. However, in defense of Trump and the republicans, during the Trump administration they were preoccupied with lowering tax rates for billionaires and gathering together by the thousands at MAGA rallies, for the ostensible purpose of spreading all manner of disease, viral, mental, socio-economic and political.