Assaulting Sanity

 TEH REPUBLICAN LEGISLATIVE ASSAULT on sanity seems ceaseless. The most recent attacks started with Donald Trump's insanely dishonest claim that the election was stolen, and the even more insane agreement he received from tens of millions of self deluded supporters. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed, in courtrooms across the country, and in the offices of election commissioners. Not content to leave well enough alone, in states controlled by republican legislatures a flurry of laws were brought up for consideration intended to reduce the number of people who vote, efforts thinly, falsely disguised as intended to reduce voter fraud, which does not actually exist. The considerable national backlash against this, evidenced by corporate boycotts of Georgia, ma have the effect of slowing this insane movement down. Undeterred, the Republican right now turns its malign attentions towards America's transgender community, determined to marginalize more the already marginalized. The piece de resistance? Now several state legislatures are proposing bills which would make it extremely difficult for protest movements like the "Black Lives Matter" movement last summer to stage protests in pubic, by redefining disorderly conduct as essentially which blocks traffic or  causes an inconvenience to non protestors, such as, being there. Making it more difficult to vote by imposing more obstacles to voting will inevitably have the effect of reducing the number of voters, and this, as is well known, is the only chance the Republican party with its regressive, unpopular policies, will have to win future elections. the attacks on transgender people is nothing other than a religious impulse; strict conformity to traditional Christian morality being the objective. Most public protests over the decades and centuries are carried out by progressives; people insisting on changing systems of injustice. Right wing republicans tend to deny the very existence of systemic racism, notwithstanding its obvious existence, and they resent minorities posing a threat to their white patriarchy by demanding equal rights. Worth mentioning is all the furor about limiting the right to assemble and protest is that doing so is unconstitutional, an infringement on basic American rights, of assembly and speech. Also worth mentioning is that among the speeches given in state legislatures complaining about the rioting and looting which occurred at less than five percent of Black  Lives Matter protest last summer, not a single Republican legislator mentioned the insurrection on January 6th at the Capitol, the one in which President Donald Trump tried to reverse the election and overthrow the government, and killed five people. Evidently that one doesn't count as "disorderly".

Attracting Attention, Part II

 I RESERVE my greatest appreciation for everyone who reads these essays, and especially for my fellow senior citizens around the world, and in the United States. We are approaching the end of a long and  grand adventure, in parallel, if not together. To the American conservative community especially I am greatly indebted, for giving me support from an unexpected source, for helping make this website a success, sustaining me, making me feel important and productive. The remaining enduring mystery is why so many conservatives go to the trouble of purposely seeking out this website and to read it. Its contents invariably angers, indeed enrages conservatives to the point of irrational responses, with an undercurrent of violence. So, why do they bother? Their expressions of anger are irrational, purely emotional, lacking any substance. Do they simply enjoy the feeling of being self righteously outraged? Do they seek some special status in claiming, falsely, victimization? With more than one hundred million websites on the world wide web, nothing is easier than ignoring one among more than one hundred million. Simply refrain from typing in the site's title or URL, and you have successfully avoided material which to you is toxic. Obviously, many conservatives regard the contents of this essay website worthy of their scrutiny. But, why? Maybe they realize that the messages presented hear contain truth, but cannot bring themselves to admit it, because to do so would force them to amend their prejudices. People tend to despise challenges to their false beliefs, even as they perceive the truth in the challenges. Its almost as if they are seeking a confrontation, something to confront. Some have suggested that this website is a vehicle for its author to hide and throw bombs from behind, lacking the courage for direct confrontation. Like most other accusations from the right wing, this is laughable, ludicrous. I avoid conflict by giving people a chance to ignore what I say, rather than getting in people's faces, faces behind which lurk minds of questionable intelligence. When confronted, conservatives invariably lose their temper, become irrational, and abandon reason, to the extent that they ever had any. So why bother? The distinguishing feature of conservatives outraged by  material here is that they never, ever address the substance of it, they never respond with facts. Always, just the insults and accusations. People like that are unworthy of, incapable of intelligent debate. For facts, they would have to rely on fabrications and lies. So, why bother?

Religion Run Amok: Escaping the Children of God

 ONLY THE MOST spectacularly, violently destructive religious cults become famous, of the innumerable which inseminate, and then usually only when promiscuous sex and pedophilia are involved, or some flaming mass suicidal end, as is often the case. Jim Jones and David Koresh are among the first to come to mind, good Christians both, with respective harems of teenaged girls to prove it. The pattern is familiar. Smart charismatic pathologically narcissistic young man feels undervalued by mainstream society, commences quest for cult followers, moving around  the country recruiting through preaching loudly, emotionally sensational doctrines loosely based on Christian dogma, promising an extravagant  reward, perhaps in some future incarnation for those who join, doom for those who do not. those who do tend to be excessively insecure, lost, seeking...something. The usual targets are young women. They become bait for men. Lauren Hough was born into one such cult which flourished, like so many others, in the nineteen seventies and eighties. Its leader, a charismatic young man named Berg, preached to her hippie parents, who joined. They left, as many do, when she was a teenager. Her collection of essays about her experiences is entitled "Leaving Isn't the Hardest Part", which traces her involvement with "The children of God", which later called itself "the family of God", and then, just "The Family". Terri Gross interviewed miss Hough on her National Public radio program "Fresh Air". The cult had all the insane trimmings, liturgically. God lives on the moon, on which is also heaven, in the form of a pyramid. Lauren's suspicious arose when her budding math skills told her that this particular heaven would fill up and overflow. The Children of God embraced the usual lunatic Christian based dogma, the brainwashing, mind control in the name of serving Jesus, and the sexual exploitation, the great leader, in robes and sandals, knows all, and controlled all, except his personal sexual appetites. The cult of God deteriorated into a sex, as religious cults often do, not surprising, considering that the Christian religion itself began  to grow to monstrous proportions, lasing long enough to rewrite their own history to appear to serve the will of God, rather than base human desire. It is a wonder anyone ever survives this insanity, but surprisingly many do, and live to tell about their descent, through exploited vulnerability, into psychological, sociological hell. Those fortunate enough to escape understand that they were the tragic victims of ruthless exploitation of their personal vulnerability. All religions begin as upstart reviled cults populated by social outcasts. A tiny fraction of them, due to a complex perfect storm of societal and historical circumstance, endure long enough and become large enough to wreak their various unique forms of havoc upon the larger world. If for no other reason, we ought to consider ourselves fortunate that no more do than do, and that the vast majority of them, mercifully for all concerned, ignominiously die.

Attracting Attention

 I AM, or so I hope, a modest, humble person. Self confidence and humility are a healthy mix, I believe. In that spirit, I present my little essays for the world to peruse or ignore, as each individual prefers. Either way, in the end, I am content. My conversations I prefer in person, rather than on a computer. Most of the time, when I try to so engage one of my fellow Americans, the fellow America seems distracted, uninterested in what I have to say, as if they can't wait for me to stop talking about my views on issues of public concern such as climate change and poverty, so they can get right to the important matter of talking about themselves. They can barely wait for me to complete my current sentence, so they can talk over me, interrupt, or talk around me, and change the subject. We Americans, truth be told, are a self absorbed lot who can not resist the temptation to prattle on about ourselves. However, neither Americans nor people around the world completely ignore my little essays. They attract a certain, limited amount of attention. Even more amazingly, American conservatives do not always ignore them, and you would expect ignorance from them. Indeed, not only do our right wing brethren and sistern take sneak peaks at my little essays, they actually respond to them, if only behind my back. Locally, regionally, nationally, the howling wolves of the far right can be heard, crying out their injured discontent. It seems that many conservatives prefer, rather than to simply ignore my little essays, to read them and then express great discomfort and feigned outrage. From all across the fruited plain, from Bangor to Butte and all points in between, in the land of supposed free speech, the howling hordes are heard, often doing more than disapproving, often trying to find ways to attack and silence their tormentor. All it takes is a few inconvenient facts for the outrage to erupt. Facts like; one half of all Republicans have no intention of getting vaccinated, and this is a sad commentary on Republicans. Most conservatives pretend that climate change does not exist, which proves that most conservatives are delusional. Most conservatives still believe that Trump's assault on the American government at the U.S. Capitol building January 6th was a good idea, which proves that most conservatives are traitors. It is almost as if American conservatives are allergic to facts, and experience pain at their mere mention. It is both flattering and amusing. Flattering to not be ignored by normally ignorant people, amusing that the willfully ignorant would take such umbrage to an attempt to dispel their ignorance, and to replace ignorance with facts. One might hope that even conservatives would appreciate education rather than reject it, but one's hopes would be sadly dashed.

Dueling Religions

 ISLAM CND CHRISTIANITY, the two dominant religions on Earth, enjoy a combined following of nearly four billion souls. Of the two, Christianity has the slightly larger following, but with the next generation Islam will almost certainly surpass its rival, since Islam is growing and Christianity is not. In Europe and North America the Christian faith is actually declining in numbers as secularization accompanies modernization, and the non religious millennial generation comes of age. They share in common many fundamental characteristics, including the ultimate source of their origins. Many of the same fundamental tenets are enshrined within the scriptural dogma of both; these two Abrahamic traditions are far more similar then different. This makes what is doubtless their most dramatic, tragic, and destructive common characteristic all the more senseless and inexplicable; their mutual and extreme historical antipathy for each other, historical and contemporary. They more appropriately should consider each other as separate denominations of the same religion. In the Islamic scripture, Jesus is mentioned twenty seven times, each time as a great prophet. That alone should be sufficient to endear Islam to Christians. And yet, from the moment of Islam's genesis in the seventh century, the Christian world has responded to the younger faith with violent opposition, as a usurping upstart of which to be jealous and for which to have nothing but utter contempt. Thus confronted, Islam, which like Christianity embraces the dubious doctrine that all faiths but its own are heretical and false, was forced, in a sense, to respond in kind, to defend itself from Christian aggression. Their mutual enmity has never waned, and flourishes in the supposedly more civilized twenty first century. That neither perceives the reality that each is nothing other than one of many vastly imperfect systems of embracing creation's creator in a world in which thousands of such religions flourish is the greatest testament to the primitive barbarity of both. The mostly overlooked reality that no religion on Earth of the thousands extent offers in its dogma anything remotely resembling a reasonably accurate explanation for the existence of and description of nature by twenty first century standards, and indeed by seventeenth century standards, should be sufficient reason to discard them all, and to simply accept modern science as our best vehicle, though yet imperfect, for an elucidation and the admiration of the universe and its mysterious, unknown creator. If not, the senseless, vicious, never ending internecine violence assuredly is.

Serving Society, For Profit

 J.P. MORGAN CHASE is the largest financial services firm in the world, a monstrous corporate behemoth made of many mergers, which moves trillions of dollars all over the world on a daily basis. Its CEO, Jaimie Dimon, is a dude about my age with whom I an confident I could sit down, have a cold beer and a hot pizza, and a friendly, interesting conversation. I'll buy. Dimon, a good lifelong Democrat, likes to contrast his allegedly humble origins to the millions of dollars handed to Donald Trump by his father. In fact Dimon, like Trump, benefited from the hard work and accumulated family wealth of his immigrant grandfather, and his ambitious business savvy father. The best predictor of financial success in America is not education or hard work, but the amount of wealth one's family has as one is growing up. Politically and economically, Dimon talks a good liberal line. he almost sounds like a born again Bernie sanders, almost, but not quite.J.P. Morgan chase funds educational, job training, and affordable housing projects for the disadvantaged. It has a program of low interest lending to small businesses, and invests in economically depressed areas of inner cities. All good, as far as it goes.  It does not, however, go very fare, not in comparison with the actual national need for such programs. These projects are, however, good public relations and advertising of the virtues of corporate America. In recent times Fortune Five Hundred corporations and their CEOs have paid a lot of lip services to something called "corporate social responsibility". "Corporate social responsibility has become a popular meme wonderful sounding three words which connote the virtues of corporate capitalism and supposed benefits of the existing economic system for everyone and all. Nearly agrees that for large businesses to have a sense of responsibility to serve their communities and society at large is a wonderful concept. but what exactly does it mean, in real terms? Does it mean anything more than relatively small investments in the community ? what about living wages for all workers, environmental health, and a fair and reasonable distribution of wealth throughout society? These things it does not seem to mean.Despite all the hype about corporate social responsibility, millions of working Americans remain in poverty, millions lack health insurance, and corporate profits soar like never before even as their employees struggle to make ends meet.Society, corporate America, and the global corporate oligarchy will not be repaired - and all are seriously broken - without undergoing fundamental structural transformation. Repeating" high sounding phrases like "corporate social responsibility" is an ingenious way of distracting attention from the reality that a tiny fraction of the world's population has almost all the world's wealth and political aw well as economic power. In the modern world monetary wealth is teh same thing as political power.The corporate leaders can give teh image of a new breed of leadership wanting to give the world a new and kinder gentler form of corporate capitalism, while maintaining the status quo of wealth for the few, poverty for the many.

Policing A Nation of Criminals

THE REASON I truly believe that the the officer shot the gentleman mistakenly, "accidentally", assuming  that the service revolver in her hand was a taser, is that I have on at least one occasion pointed a cell pone at a television flat screen, pushed a button, and wondered why nothing happened. I suspect nobody is immune to moments of complete thoughtlessness, what we call "brain dead". this one happened at a particularly bad time; most of them seem to. Goethe said: "since everyone has erred, since even the greatest among us have made mistakes, we have no basis upon which to regard our own mistakes as inexcusable". He also said: "Only by errors which really irk us do we advance". That's probably why I tried to change channels with a cell phone more than once, absent mindedly. My silly brain dead thoughtless mistake didn't irk me. I was too busy laughing. The lady who tragically shot the young gentleman instead of tasering him has doubtless already learned from her horrible mistake, and advanced. May she forever advance, and share her new wisdom. the police need a more effective weapon, something less lethal than a revolver, but more disabling than a taser, something like a stun gun "phaser"from the old Star Trek series. And maybe police need less power. an officer in Washington D.C. demonstrated this by inviting journalists to ride with him as he drove his beat. his purpose was to demonstrate everyday policing power. As the officer drove around the city, he pointed to pedestrians and to cars in motion. he explained to his passengers that he could, if he chose, approach and detain every pedestrian and every motorist each on a specific, legal pretext. Every drive, he went on, commits several moving violations every time he or she gets behind the wheel. Amazingly, almost the same is true of pedestrians; from jaywalkers to gum droppers to juice spitters. So awash is our criminal law cod with technicalities, so pervasive are the powers of the police, that in America, everyone is vulnerable and exposed to police power, all the time. Not only are all motorists guilty of multi vehicular infractions, every adult citizen in the United states has almost certainly committed multiple felonies, research has shown. We are, alas, a nation of criminals, with a broken policing and criminal justice syste,. a system which has resulted in the highest incarceration rate in the world, many being incarcerated for crimes which should arguable not be crimes. Our culture is chaotic, ans w lack even the most basic idea on how to monitor and reasonably control our destructive behavior. when the republics was founded, there were a few million Americans, three federal crimes (treason, counter fitting, piracy) and no police. The situation is somewhat different today.

Vaccinating, Liberally

 WHETHER TO VACCINATE, like the decisions whether to mask up and social distance, surveys indicate, is largely determined by ideology and political party affiliation. This should not seem surprising. What isn't so determined these days? Conservative Republicans, by and large, are the refuseniks. Liberals, generally, comply with public health mandates. Forty percent of registered republican men have stated their intention to not get vaccinated against Covid 19. And so forth, across the board. Reasons give include the usual right wing tripe: defense of liberty and personal freedom against government mandates and tyranny, personal responsibility, that sort of tripe, with a healthy does of insane garbage thrown in having to do with "safely concerns"; vaccines cause autism, Bill Gates is implanting microchips in every dose to turn people into government controlled zombies. But now, to the point: To those self righteously indignant feigning outrage at the lack of bashfulness on this website in bashing conservatives, get a load of this: There are innumerable contexts in which contemporary american conservatism, and by extension its adherents, is idiotic and evil. the list is long, sufficiently long to fill the known universe with microchips, all microchips fully loaded with info bytes. But there is no single word which conveys evil sufficiently to describe the evil of people, liberal, moderate, or conservative, who on account of some false arrogant psychological need to express resentment of "government control" deliberately contribute, by their personal choices and  behavior, to the needless spread of an epidemic which has already killed nearly six hundred thousand Americans, and still is not finished killing. social distancing, mask wearing, and vaccinating, government or no government,  are all fundamental vital common sense measures during a deadly epidemic. To refuse to do these things is traitorous to one's country and fellow citizens. This is not a matter of personal liberty, but rather, social responsibility. the fact that refusing to comply is overwhelming a behavior within the conservative community is damning. Does the government, local, state, or federal, have the power to implement emergency measure in a time of national crisis? Hell yes. Should it? Damned straight it should, libertarian conservatism be damned. Are anti-government anti-vaccination people who object to this idiotic, traitorous, and in most cases conservative? Indisputably. The anti-government freedom fighting right winger doubtless considers himself virtuous, as does the fundamentalist Christian who refuses vaccination on the false and specious absurd reasoning that vaccines are manufactured with human embryos, which they are not. None of these people are virtuous, despite their illusions to the contrary. They are, in fact, quite the opposite.

Welcoming the Stranger, the Conservative Christian Way

THIS WEBSITE enjoys a worldwide following, especially in Russia and Italy, for some reason. I had assumed that our readers in the United States included only secular progressives. Oh, contrary! Now newly aware that our readership includes a surprisingly substantial conservative demographic, we resolve to temper our bemused amazement with a renewed determination to address issues which concern American conservatism with enhanced vigor and rigor. We begin with the charged topic of illegal immigration, the general tendency of which is that, the more strident the conservative Christian in professing conservative Christianity, the more zealously the professor loathes, condemns, despises, and advocates for the summary rejection of undocumented immigrants, especially those of color, and the  more staunchly aforementioned conservative Christian defends said loathing with false facts and for contrived and dishonest reasons and piously patriotic justifications. Welcome the stranger, indeed. several years ago the late Rush Limbaugh suggested that all undocumented immigrants, as unwelcomed strangers, be required to pay a fine of five thousand dollars before being provided a green card and a pathway to citizenship. American conservative Christiandom, known for its devotion to El Rushbo, seemingly willing to welcome the stranger only pecuniarily dearly, feel all over itself  in enraptured approval. In reality, an apparently foreign concept to the conservative community of Christ, the only way to fairly balance the monetary balance sheet with immigrants would be to pay each of them a healthy bonus when they break and enter into America. Undocumented immigrants are indeed guilty of an international version of breaking and entering, which is always a prelude to some form of behavior. Anyone who breaks and enters into my house, cleans the carpet, washes dishes, does laundry, feeds the cats, and leaves a sack of gold coins on my night stand before quietly leaving the premises and locking the door on the way out, I welcome. Rob me blind and mug me, you're done. What exactly do immigrants do after they enter the United States? That, to quote Hamlet, is the question. Do they cut in line and hog all the best tables at five star restaurants and exclusive country club memberships? Hardly. Actually, they mow lawns, clean offices, hammer nails, pick fruit, change diapers, pack meat , pluck poultry, and serve cheeseburgers. What they do with considerably less frequency than, say, conservative Christians, is rape, murder, and burglarize. this, according to extensive criminal court records. This is an inconvenient fact for the anti-immigrant conservative crowd. All immigrant labor is vital to, underpaid by, and exploited by America's wealthy classes. Undocumented immigrants annually pay an estimated seven billion more dollars into social security than they take out of it, and one point five billion more into Medicare then they use in Medicare services. Taxes paid by illegal immigrants far exceed the value of the public services used by them, according to the national Academy of sciences. Who, then are the true "illegals"? The Mexican lawn mowers, or the multi millionaire McMansion residents who stiff them out of their hard earned pay, knowing that the workers have no legal recourse, a tried and true Trump tactic? Exhaustive research, study after study shows that, on balance, illegal immigrants do not ow the united States money for coming here, the United States owes them money, a lot of money still unpaid, for being here.

Mocking and Bashing

 SIX YEARS AGO I suggested that we recite the pledge of allegiance every day at the senior center before lunch, right after we pray. It seemed appropriate to me, patriotic. My suggestion was turned down, flat.I waited a couple of years, and brought up the same suggestion for the new director. More open minded and patriotic, she said: "Fine. You lead the pledge and the prayer every day" I agreed, and I started leading the group pledge and prayer every day just before lunch. Fortunately for the senor center, somebody, I, was patriotic enough to initiate the pledge of allegiance. Nobody else was, among the conservatives. I only did the praying myself when nobody else volunteered. I improvised my own prayers, expressing my true feelings about giving thanks to God, and I received compliments for them. I considered a great honor to express my love of God and country with others, leading them. Two directors later I was notified that I was being relieved of my duties. The reason given is that some of the seniors felt uncomfortable with me leading the pledge and prayer because I "bash" conservatives on this website, and I "mock" God"..Poor sensitive little wall snowflakes. How horrible , their discomfort. As if only conservatives are patriotic, fit to lead the pledge. I'm sure none of them ever has anything unpleasant to say about liberalism.. It looked more like hatred than discomfort. Permit me to say that anyone, anywhere, anytime, who accuses me of "mocking God" is a liar,  and owes me an apology, but probably lacks the decency, integrity, and the courage to offer one. I believe in god, I love god, and i admire God, actually. I do not worship; I consider worship an extreme stat of mind, comparable to being madly in love or violently angry, irrational, a form of mental illness. and even if I were an atheist, what of it? religious belief and virtue are not the same thing. to be an atheist is perfectly acceptable in a nation of religious freedom and tolerance. I, however, believe in God. I have never in my life mocked God, nor would I ever, and I deeply resent any suggestion that I "mock" God. My religiosity, to quote Einstein, consists in humble admiration for the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in nature. Our conservative christian friends might benefit by being respectfully reminded that their faith has a monopoly on neither the concept of God, nor the believe therein. Concerning my alleged bashing of conservatives, I plead guilty, proudly so. To have been bestowed with the tile "conservative basher" is among the great honors of my life, and I pledge to live up to it. I bash conservatives for supporting Donald Trump,  for supporting him even after he incited an insurrection and attempted to violently overthrow the government, which I consider traitorous. I bash conservatives who refuse to accept the results of a fair and free election, thus undermining our democracy. The proper way to respond to an election is to congratulate the winner in this case Joe Biden. I bash conservatives who refuse to accept the reality of human made climate change, even though the Department of Defense identifies it as Americas greatest national security threat. To pretend that a grave threat to our country does not exist I consider treasonous. More than eighty percent of the evangelical christian community still supports Trump, and claims that the election was stolen from him; to me they are traitors, like Trump. When anyone, including Christians, contends that people of all other religions, and there are thousands or religions in the world, are following a false god and religion, and are doomed to damnation because of it, I believe that is is they who are mocking god, not I. All religions are attempts to seek God, and are true, for their believers. Those who complained about my leading the pledge are petty, and they should feel uncomfortable with their own pettiness, not with my valid objections to conservatism and to people of faith who are intolerant of the beliefs of others. The probably do. I am the patriotic one, and the one who loves God, and I am not the one  who mocks God. Despite their pettiness, I still love these people, and I assume they love me, assuming, of course, that they have read and understand the message of Jesus, and live by it, just like I do.

China Rising, America Declining

 CHINA, which was once the world's most powerful and wealthiest nation, is poised to become so again, despite the best efforts of the United States, which is in decline. Much has been made of late concerning China's intentions regarding both Taiwan and Hong Kong. The intentions are simple, and obvious; to control both of them, and to exploit their resources for inclusion in the greater Chinese economy as part of China's project to become the world's biggest economy and strongest military power. Both entities have historically been part of china, controlled by the central Chinese government. When Great Britain formally ceded independence to Hong Kong to Chinese suzerainty, it did so with a Chinese pledge that the end of Hong Kong's one hundred year inclusion in the British Empire would mean that Hong Kong would be integrated into Chinese control, but, economically and politically, would be a separate system, two systems within one country. That promise was from the beginning obviously hollow and pseudo, and any astute observer knew it. No power on earth will prevent China's eventual complete control and domination of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Even stranger than  this state of affairs is the history of western imperialism which precipitated it. In 1900 the western powers, including the United States and several European countries, essentially invaded china, carved out by mutual agreement spheres of influence in the "Open Door" system, and proceeded to engage in economic intercourse with China which exploited Chinese resources and impoverished many Chinese. For decades prior to this aggressive arrangement the British had used China as a dumping ground for opium grown in Britain's crown jewel subjugated colony, India. The British stifled India's previously strong industrial economy, fearing its competition, extracted resources from India by force, and made considerable profit by pushing opium in China, turning tens of thousands of Chinese into opium addicts, dependent upon their British suppliers. Queen Victoria has been correctly called the biggest drug dealer in human history. The long brutal history of western exploitation of China ended only with the communist revolution and takeover of 1949. Freed from western oppression, the Chinese are now rising, the United States and Europe powerless to prevent it. In this context constant complaints by the United States about human rights violations in china ring hollow, not only on account of America's history of mistreatment of china and Chinese, but also by virtue of its own poor record in this regard. China no longer has to beg its western exploiters for air, no longer has to whimper 'I can't breathe", but can with some credibility remind the Untied states that breathing is too often made difficult in the supposed self proclaimed land of the free.

Learning, Rather Than Repeating

 APPROXIMATELY EIGHT HUNDRED still alleged but soon to become convicted criminals attacked, invaded, and ransacked the U.S. Capitol bldg. on January 6th, and just over four hundred of them have been criminally charged. So far, so good, but in a more perfect world every last one of them would be rounded up, charged, tried, convicted, and incarcerated, at length. In an entirely perfect world Donald Trump would be summarily executed after being processed through the legal system, duly. So would everyone still claiming that the election was stolen from Trump, or at least deprived of citizenship and voting privileges. well meaning people of the anti-Trump variety now seem intent on wiping the insurrection, and Trump and his big lie about the stolen election form memory, and "moving on", since, after all, Trump is gone, ostensibly, and the nation has been saved from this unprecedented attack on democracy. The danger and inadvisability of this are two fold. First, Trump isn't gone. his behavior lately strongly indicates he plans to remain involved in politics, likely as a candidate for president in 2024. Contrary to widespread belief, no matter how many felony convictions a criminal accumulates, they do not disqualify the criminal from being president of the United States. By 2024 Trump is likely to be a convicted felon, appeals pending. that will not stop him. Nothing will, except the voters. Secondly, Lord Acton was quite correct; failure to learn the lessons of history requires their being learned anew, later. Normally it is considered inappropriate, even rude to repeat one's self, an insult to the comprehension capabilities of the listener. We Americans are an impatient lot, and poor listeners, always wanting to move on to something new, not always intent on learning. But some messages and lessons are so profoundly true and important, so central to who we are as moral beings, that they bear repeating, as often as necessary, to embed them indelibly into the consciousness. Attend this if you will: Donald Trump is a pathological lair and a traitor, especially after the election, and everyone who still supports him, especially after January the sixth is no better. They are traitors to the democratic electoral system, thus to democracy itself, which is the foundation of American civic life. This is no exaggeration, and cannot be overstated, nor stated too often. The election of 2020, and the traitorous response to it by the losing candidate and his supporters, constitutes the single greatest mass betrayal of the United States by Americans since the aftermath of the election of Abraham Lincoln and its disastrous consequences. There is no other way to describe it, and nobody should ever describe it differently.

Reopening

 THE SENIOR CENTER reopened, thirteen months after it closed. I took my sixty six year old body over, and was the first person to reenter, after hand sanitizing and face masking. Gradually the old regulars trickled in, and the eighty five year olds looked no different than they looked at eighty four, among the few blessings of advanced age. After six years at the center, the conservative evangelicals and I finally learned how to like each other, though it took time. I still follow the instructions my sixth grade teacher gave us; I never talk politics and religion with strangers. Still, people have a way of finding out where you stand, and my non religious left wing orientation appeals to only a handful of folks in my small southern town, and those handful are automatically my friends. I finally decided that I contribute to the center, culturally, intellectually. I have a litmus test for intelligence and sanity. If you deny climate change, if you believe that racism no longer is a problem in America, if you think you can identify an Islamic person merely by looking at him or her, which some at my senior center do, I consider you intellectually unfit for intelligent conversation. If you're a Trump supporter, especially after the insurrection, you're out. I'll have nothing to do with you. there are many of those at the center, poor fools. I find it shocking that a reasonably intelligent person can spend an entire lifetime as a supposed Christian and support Trump. But, alas, millions do. This business about God making use of less than perfect people I consider a cop out, fraudulent reasoning. God did not elect Trump. With regard to forgiving people their sins, fine, forgive Trump, but for heaven's sake, do not elect him president. Worst of all, if you claim that the election was stolen from Trump, as I'm sure many of my fellow senior centerers do, I consider you a traitor, to democracy. so, yes, I have ideological issues with the folks at the senior center, and I'm willing to confront them on any of them. But I never broach any of it.Who bother? Why should I? My side won the election, and I did my talking at the ballot box. Let the  losers talk. I'm getting to the point, six months after the election, at which anytime I hear some disgruntled Trump supporter mention the stolen election, I want to say: "I suggest you spend the rest of you life complaining about the stolen election, and wait to find out how much good it does you. With regard to Muslims and "non believers" going to hell, I am tempted to say, "I'll see you there". I'm a believer - a believer in what I believe, not what you believe. The worst are the people - mos  of the people at the center who believe that only Christians go to heaven, and all others go to hell. These folks think themselves virtuous, and I truly believe they have no idea how evil their hell fire condemnations are. But, they never will, and I am not the one to teach them any better.  For the time being we'll get along by talking about sports, and maybe, just maybe, I'll see them later. Basically, they're good folks.

Enhancing the Plague, Evangelically

 ALTHOUGH THERE ARE are an estimated forty one million evangelical Christians in America, it often seems like the actual number is in the billions. Predictably, a high percentage of them, maybe half, indicate that they no intention of getting vaccinated. Radio talk shows are being devoted to asking why, but they needn't be. the reason is simple; evangelicals believe that whether there is a pandemic, and whether somebody gets Covid 19 is determined entirely by God, and vaccines are needless and irrelevant. somehow, you have to respect that, whether you agree with it. Perhaps they have not heard the old joke about a man sitting on his rooftop waiting to be rescued from a flood, and declining offers from passing boats, telling them that he is waiting for God to save him, confident that HE will. The pattern is clear and well documented. the people who are refusing vaccination are the same people who refuse to wear masks, and who vehemently protest the closing of the economy and stay at home orders; right wingers,, notably Republicans, Trump supporters, and yes, evangelical Christians, all of whom tend to be the same people. The same people who have driven the domestic epidemic all along, who are disproportionately responsible for the nearly six hundred thousands dead by Covid Americans, the same people who elected Trump in the first place, and supported his policy of ignoring the epidemic from the beginning, thus precipitating it and causing its disastrous spread. The pandemic,  the American version thereof, is directly traceable to Trump and his supporters, and this is fact,not partisan slander.  Liberals tend to believe in science. the farther to the right one is, the less the tendency to accept modern science, the greater the tendency to replace it with religious superstition. The category can be generally described a "conservative Christian republican Trump supporters." perhaps you recall Trump's prescription of hydroxychloroquine, Lysol and bleach, ingested liberally, as the cure all for Covid. Perhaps you recall Trump proclaiming that the plague would be behind us by Easter, of 2020. Then too was the prevaricating president's famous proclamation that the virus would be on its way out with the advent of warm weather, in 2020. The fact that all along millions of right wing evangelical Trump supporters bought these crazy lies, hook,line and sinker, and probably still do is hardly surprising;  they believed, and still do, every single one of Trump's approximately thirty thousand lies as president, because, after all, he was God's president.

Uprising For Justice

 MY INTEREST in politics and elections started early, in 1964, when  Goldwater ran against LBJ. I was nine. JFK's assassination got me interested, for all the wrong reasons. I love elections, and I love voting. I inherited this from my attorney father, who said he loved voting so much he was willing to vote on anything. I agree. that's why I find Donald Trump's big lie so repugnant, and its embrace by tens of millions of Americans even more so. every political scientist will tell you that a democracy exists only with  free and fair elections, and that the only thing making them fair and free is a willing of the public to maintain faith in their fairness and freedom,  unless confronted with extraordinary, compelling evidence that they are not. No such evidence has even been presented nor exists that last November's election was anything other than honest, and that comes from the FBI from every state election board, and from very city, town, and precinct in America, where tens of thousands of Republican poll workers found nothing wrong. Pretty convincing, wouldn't you say? Their dishonest discredited clamor dying down for want of veracity, trump supporter and the Republican party are now resorting to voter suppression, disguised as fraud prevention. More treachery, more dishonesty. Only Georgia has passed such heinous legislation so far, but many other right states are on their way, and what may save us is that much of America, and in particular corporate America, which is more important, is rising up in justifiably righteous indignation. A Yale professor organized a zoom conference call which included a who's who among the powerful corporate elite. Travel, transportation, retail, industry; you name it, corporate America is on board with resisting voter constriction by making it harder to vote, the calculation evidently being that most Americans prefer expansive rather than restrictive voting. Its no secret that new restrictive voter laws, requiring voters to jump through more hoops to cast a ballot, will decrease minority turnout, not white conservative Republican turnout. Whether or not this should be the case, whether or not everybody should be equally able to navigate obstacles to voting is not the issue, the issue is the reality that voter suppression suppresses Democrats far more than Republicans. With Georgia beginning to suffer the economic sting of corporate boycotting, you can bet your bottom dollar that the rest of the states will think twice, at least. before following suit.