Gaffing, Again

APPARENTLY, IT REALLY HAPPENED. Apparently, he really said it. President Trump, in front of God, world, and millions of Americans, celebrated American independence by saying that during the revolutionary war, the continental army seized control of airports, which theretofore had presumably been in British hands. Implied is that by so doing, the British were deprived of refueling stations for their bombers, which saved the towns of colonial America from constant bombardment. It could have been worse. It could always be worse, though often its hard to imagine how. He could have turned the holiday celebration into another one of his tiresome, grotesque campaign style rallies, laden with insult slinging and outlandish distortions of fact, angry chanting faces wearing MAGA ball caps. Instead, yielding to immense public pressure, he kept it patriotic, with the airport remark thrown in for good measure. The president, it seems, is, as usual, quite confused, unaware of basic historical facts. His excuse is that it was raining, and the teleprompter did him an injustice. Trump and his gangsterish minions used to carp at Obama for having the audacity to use a teleprompter at all. At least nobody in his gang has accused the liberal elite, or China, of conspiring to abuse the teleprompter by feeding it misinformation or fake news. Exactly how the rain and the teleprompter prevented the president from knowing what words were coming out of his mouth and effectively aborting their emergence nobody is explaining. Amid speculation that Trump truly believes that aviation science was extant in the eighteenth century, we are reminded that this wasn't the first time. When the president suggested that windmills cause cancer, he offered no retraction later, made no attempt to blame it on the weather, or malfunctioning electronic equipment. Evidently, to this day, he still maintains his belief in the carcinogenic qualities of windmills. then there was the one in which Trump declared that his father, Fred Trump the slum lord, was born in Germany. Either he had his father confused with his grandfather, or just wanted to portray himself as the scion of an immigrant from a country which is not a shit hole, or just doesn't give a shit The total number of outright lies told as president has now nearly reached eleven thousand, all well documented, all widely witnessed. There appears to be no exact accounting of the merely outrageously stupid remarks. Saying things like American revolutionary war forces seized control of airports in the seventeen seventies cannot be counted as "lies", so much as outbursts of latent schizophrenia. The best strategy for Trump supporters will be their usual one; to just ignore the remark, ignore the ridicule engendered by it, and pretend it didn't happen, and go about their merry, angry, racist, misogynistic, self proclaimed Christian devilish ways. And this is exactly what they will do, while the rest of us, the astonished majority, fairly and appropriately incessantly ridicule their seriously mentally ill leader. It must become embarrassing to be a Trump supporter, even if the embarrassment is neatly hidden beneath misinformation, deflected blame, and insults hurled at people whose actions are irrelevant. I've given up travelling abroad; it has long since become embarrassing being an American.

Declaring Independence

JOHN ADAMS, who later became vice president in the Washington administration and then served one term as president, was largely responsible for the fact that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. He kept hurrying the young thirty three year old Jefferson along, knowing how talented he was, and in late June Adams predicted that the document would be presented, formally adopted the the continental congress, and issued to the world on the first of July, 1776. Adams wrote that for generations co come, July the first would be celebrated as the greatest holiday in the United States. Considering our inability to predict the future, Adams was really not that far off. Jefferson had no interest in writing the later to George III,, and had to be coerced by extreme peer pressure into doing it. he was by far the youngest man in the room, and the committee appointed to draft the document, which included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston, were not Jefferson's peers they were his social superiors. but they were not his intellectual superiors, or even equals. When young Thomas basically protested 'why me?", he asked Adams; :why don't you write it"? Adams was ready. "Because, young man, you are ten times more intelligent than I, ten times the better writer, and whereas i am abrasive and unpopular, you are pleasant and well liked." Franklin, seventy years old but still six four two forty, loomed over the skinny six foot two Jefferson and glowered at him, Benjamin had run out of patience. he said:"young man, I can assure you that you shall do your duty for your country." Out manned and outvoted, ganged up upon, reluctantly, Jefferson acceded. They gave him paper and pen, locked him in a vacant room, and said 'go get 'em tiger". Franklin was in charge of editing. he worked over Jefferson's work extensively, so much so that Jefferson's work was barely recognizable in language. Franklin knew, however, that the young man had basically produced a masterpiece, and his changes were purely cosmetic, without disturbing the substance of the text. One major change. The document is essentially a long list of complaints against the treatment of the Americans by the British government. It begins by stating our intent to become independent of British rule, lists the reasons why, the many complaints, and concludes by proclaiming "we really mean it". Among the complaints Jefferson, who was a slave owner, lists is that the British allowed the Americans to own slaves, and did nothing to stop slavery. Everyone agreed that this particular complaint must not be included in the final draft, for several reasons, all of them obvious. Here, Jefferson's tendency towards complexity of personality and hypocrisy was "self evident". Jefferson was at first not pleased with Franklin's alternations; writers naturally resist being edited, but Franklin explained them all so well that Thomas came around. Jefferson had written "we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable". Franklin thought the passages sounded too religious, to much like a preacher, and after all, they wanted a document replete with scientific reason, not religious fervor. So he replaced the term 'sacred and undeniable' with "self evident", after the fashion of a scientific proof. Jefferson was proud enough pf his work that on his tombstone he claims authorship of it, and well as mentioning his service as ambassador to France, and as founder of the University of Virginia. his tombstone does not mention that he served as president of the United States, of which Jefferson was not proud. he thought his two terms in the white house, consumed in political turmoil, were largely a failure, nothing but inefficient political conflict, and described the American presidency as "splendid misery". Everyone should read the Declaration of Independence, for its dramatic, linguistic beauty, and magnanimous, courageous tone. Everyone who had anything to do with its composition and issuance was putting his their in dire peril. They were, after all, traitors.

Disagreeing Fundamentally, Morally

THE WORLD his long since become painfully familiar with the pathological dishonesty, the cruelty, and the twisted reasoning of Donald Trump and the millions of Americans who approve of his behavior by supporting him. More disconcerting than Trump's words and actions is the widespread support they engender among people who would otherwise have been thought to be at least morally decent, if not politically correct. Anyone who dismisses the well documented brutality and cruelty with which people are being treated in what are essentially concentration camps on the American border with mexico by dismissively reminding us that the people being detained are in the country illegally does not have a political policy disagreement with people of good character, but instead has a fundamental moral disagreement. The lame argument that previous administrations, especially the Obama administration, pursued the same policies of family separation and detainment is, quite simply, a lie, and a reprehensible attempt to justify and tacitly support pure evil. Under Obama, there was never a policy of kidnapping children from their parents, and to either lose them, or send them to foster homes, never to see their parents again. Trump supporters act as if by lying about what Obama did, they can justify or excuse what Trump is doing. The obvious antidote to this perverted thinking is that Obama is no longer president, and no matter what he did, Trump is president now, we are dealing with issues in the present, and Trump is under no circumstances constrained to emulate Obama's policies. Obama is irrelevant to the present situation. Even had Obama behaved like trump is behaving now, which he by no means did, one does not justify bad behavior by pointing to someone else's bad behavior, one does not justify cruelty by pointing to past cruelty. Trump's cruelty towards asylum seekers, who are not for the most part entering the country illegally but instead are seeking asylum legally, in accordance with American and international law, is nothing other than a direct manifestation of the racist, xenophobic, anti-immigration attitudes of Trump, his administration, and his conservative, evangelical Christian gangster like supporters.The conservative movement, the Republican party, and the evangelical christian community, by supporting rather than condemning the behavior of the Trump administration and its policies towards not only asylum seekers but human beings and the natural world in general, have clearly revealed their moral bankruptcy, and the fundamental evil of their twisted ideology. Few if anyone favors completely open borders. Even the staunchest pro immigration people - and we are all either immigrants or descendants of immigrants, as has been repeatedly pointed out - are in favor of an organized approach to immigration, and agree that every nation has not only the right but an obligation to its own people to monitor an defend its own national borders. The American border should and must be monitored and defended. the most logical way to do this would be to install a military presence, a massive massive, at all points along all borders. What else is any military designed to do, but to defend a nation's borders? But the military can be a welcoming force, rather than a violent one. The American army and national guard could provide the type of comprehensive, systematic organization required to identify and meet the immediate needs of everyone who approaches the border of the United States. the military is perfectly capable of treating people fairly, humanely, compassionately, while organizing them and preparing them for either entry into the country, or other arrangements. Today the reprobate president tweeted that if the migrants do not like the conditions under which they are living, they should stay home. Problem solved. If the United States under Trump is unable or unwilling to provide decent treatment for people desperate for basic assistance, the best alternative would be to simply close the detention-concentration camps, and to turn them all the asylum seekers loose to enter the country and fend for themselves. That would, if nothing else, exonerate Trump and his supporters of the crime of torture, of which they are currently most assuredly guilty. it would do nothing, however, to improve their moral character.

Admiring and Despising

THOMAS JEFFERSON was born on April 2, 1743, but because the western world switched from the old Julian calendar to the modern Gregorian calendar during his childhood, in 1752, his birth date was changed to April 13, 1743. Different calendars were in use in various places in the world, but in the British empire, 1752 was the year of the great calendar transition. On Jefferson's tombstone, his birth day is listed as April 2, although since the new calendar took effect history books have listed the revised date, and to this day we acknowledge it as the true Jefferson birthday. April 13 in the new system is the same as April 2 in the old system, so, take your pick. We all consider our birthday to be special; it must have seemed strange when suddenly everyone alive in the middle of the eighteenth century had to adjust to having a new and improved date of birth. Many folks simply refused to make the switch; they cooperated with the new calendar - they really had no choice - but stubbornly clung to their original birthdays. The birth and death dates of the dead were left alone, although the dates of historical events were updated, causing confusion which took decades to completely abate. For many, both the old and the new dates were held dear to the heart throughout the rest of their lives. Across America there are many Jeffersonian admiration historical societies. For the most part, they all agree that Jefferson's birthday, the new one, ought to be a national holiday. If it were ever so honored, it would undoubtedly be squeezed into "President's Day", which occurs on a Monday every February, in honor of our American craving for three days weekends, and has surprisingly gained traction in American culture. Surprisingly, because nobody knows exactly what "President's Day" is intended to celebrate. Originally it was established as a combination of the birthday's of George Washington, February 22, and Abraham Lincoln, February 12, but since it is called "President's Day", many people assume that the holiday is designed to celebrate the lives of everybody who has served as president of the United States, all 44 of them. (Grover Cleveland served two non consecutive terms, therefore we have had 45 presidents, but only 44 different presidents). It would be strange indeed to celebrate someone born in April in February, only adding to the confusion, so, by necessity, Jefferson might have to be kept separate. The easiest thing to do might be to merely refrain from elevating Jefferson's birthday to the status of a national holiday, and that is the most likely outcome. Complicating the issue is the fact that we, in our modern political correct view of history, no longer necessarily consider Thomas Jefferson, or George Washington for that matter, worthy of celebrating. They owned slaves. Abraham Lincoln, who in his younger days did a bit of whoring around, didn't own people, but was far less the strident abolitionist than one might like to think; he in fact would have been perfectly willing to allow slavery to continue in the south, which makes the secession of the southern states upon his election somewhat ironic. What Lincoln actually opposed was the extension of slavery into newly formed western states. The upshot is, we have no idea how to treat our dead presidents, (nor anyone else, including each other), whether to venerate or denounce them. Therefore we tend to do both. The situation is comparable to Donald Trump's attitude about john McCain, and the attitude of everybody else. The most appropriate point of view is probably to accept the reality that life, and therefor history is inextricably complicated, and that we must, for the sake of honesty and accuracy, both admire and dislike everyone, including each other, including our past presidents, particularly since not only can we not decide whether they were great people or scoundrels, but we cannot even decide when they were born, what they did, and when they died.

Trying To Explain: Freedom of Speech Is Not Freedom of Preach

AMONG THE BEST VENUES available in America for the absorption of jaw droppingly inexplicably bizarre words and deeds is ye olde small town senior center, especially deep in the conservative Christian south. Smilingly I recall the extreme right wing extremely devout evangelical Christian MAGA-man saying: "a true Christian must vote for Trump". This same person, an eighty year old from Minnesota, who should therefore know better, expressed his opinion that the Democratic party is so anti-Semitic that it is "pushing for", as he put it, a new holocaust. (yes, I really heard him say that.) This is a man who proudly boasts of having traveled to eastern Europe for the purpose of trying to turn Eastern Europeans into Christians, "witnessing", as they like to say. That most eastern Europeans are already Christians, and probably don't need any American role model witnesses doubtless has never occurred to the old goat. The most reprehensible aspect of America's conservative evangelical community, other than its devotion to the decidedly un-Christian Trump, is their delusional belief that they are mandated by God to change other people's religions, and that the only correct religion is the one to which the evangelical is devoted. These right wing evangelicals are not spreading the word of God; they are presuming themselves to be God. Sometimes, they step over the line among their devout brethren and sistern. One can over preach to the point of bullying. So it was with our octogenarian zealot. At long last his membership in the senior center was suspended, temporarily, for doing more Christian bullying than witnessing. When he threatened people with eternity in hell for not accepting Christ, he was out, if only refreshingly briefly. He didn't go easily. he went with a bang, proclaiming all the way to the door his right of free speech, and his intent to exercise it fully and completely upon his return. he was dead wrong, of course. I wanted to, and may yet try to explain to the self sainted Bible spouting bully that, no, in the senior center he has no "free speech". He, and millions of other Americans, do not understand the first amendment. it says that congress shall pass no law abridging free speech. It says nothing else. The sacred document says nothing about parents, teacher, employers, and senior center directors. One can arguable extend the word "congress" to mean "government", but that's about as far as it goes. Any parent can tell any offspring to shut the hell up. any teacher can tell any student to be silent. Any employer can tell any employee...but you get the point, assuming you are not a right wing Christian Trump loving maniac. When I was teaching high school I got into it with the principle, which I often did, and tried to argue that since the school received federal funding, my freedom of speech inside the building was intact. I think I was was wrong. Good try though. It is important, particularly so for extreme right wing Trumper christian fanatics to understand that free speech is not absolute, and that it protects us only from Congress, and from nobody else. if the old bastard ever comes knocking at my front door, he'll learn that vital lesson in one hell of a hurry. At eh senior, center, I'll play the part of prudence, and let the director explain it, assuming she understands it.

Communicating

AMONG LIVE'S MOST FULFILLING experiences is meaningful communication. Meaningful communication with another sentient being, human or otherwise, with whom, for whatever reason meaningful communication is desirable. To finally feel the thrill of letting that feral cat or fox letting you get close to it. The first formal words spoken between new neighbors. A former friend from long ago, with whom you have been long estranged, finally sharing a pleasant word or two with you, even if you know it will never happen again. Thus must President Trump and North Korean supreme leader Un have experienced, must have felt something like this a few days ago when they shook hands at the border between North and south Korea, then walked a few feet into North Korean territory, and a few feet back into South Korean territory, making this the first time an American president has ever set foot inside North Korea. At least, we can hope they both felt that way; of the exhilaration of unexpected, successful communication, at long last consummated. For this, they both deserve credit. Even if the moment was purely staged, purely symbolic, purely theatrical, they both deserve credit, if noting else, for having done it, for having been there. It was enough to give the rest of us momentary hope, enough hope to hope that there might be mope, and the pensive wish that there had been more, sooner, between he two, with each other, and with many others, including us. Mr. Trump especially is well known for his normally ineffective communication, for his habit of slandering and insulting people, of engaging in barrages of verbal conflict with much of the rest of humanity, for his broken grammar, poorly constructed non sentences, and for his juvenile sounding phraseology. For him to simply shake hands with an adversarial world leader and to exchange a few civil sentences seems like a small step for one man, a giant leap for international diplomacy. The moment was fleeting, less than an hour, likely won't be repeated or enhanced, and, most obviously of all, entirely without substance. the truth is that Trump has accomplished very little with the North Koreans, let we lose sight, among all the smiles and handshakes, that the purpose is to convince Un to dismantle his nuclear arsenal, the ultimate purpose is to convince all nations to dismantle and destroy all their nuclear arsenals. Mr. Trump has come far, in a sense. He has come from hurling insults and threats at the North Korean leader to praising him as a person o whom he can talk, a person he likes. And might be much less than it seem.s Trump seems to have acquired the habit of destroying relationships, then repairing them, then giving himself credit for the repair work. What that means is that after all the bluster and fuss, he comes full circle, right back to where he was and should have been; with an opportunity for progress, but no real progress to show for it. Trump is no closer to disarming North Korea, nor anybody else in the world, than he was when he took office, no closer than Obama, Clinton, or any other American president ever was. What he has accomplished so far is nothing but symbolic bluster, with no tangible results. But who knows? maybe, just maybe, out of all the sound and fury, when all the hot air has finally died down, Trump will have accomplished the noble cause of making the world a tiny bit more peaceful and safer. At this point such a prospect seems little closer than ever, and indeed seems highly doubtful. but, who knows?

Asking Bob About Bob

I DISLIKE AMENITIES. There must have been a time when I was civilized, but that time is lost in the distant mists of memory, buried beneath decades of encroaching cynicism. Amenities are of the utmost importance, and, as the late great author Mr. Robert Heinlein pointed out, a sure indication of civilized society. When amenities vanish, so goes civilization, just as clean public restrooms become dirty as civilization declines, as Heinlein pointed out. I still refer to everyone, even children, as "ma'am" and "sir". I say "please", "thank you", and all the rest assiduously, and am assiduously courteous. I have great difficulty calling anyone older than I by his or her first name, preferring "mister" and "missus", even when people, as most people do, object to it, because I was raised that way. Most men seem to resent being referred to as "sir", although the ladies in general do not seem to object to being mammed. Were I to address my extreme elders, few though they are and becoming fewer, by their first names, my mother and father would strike me down from heaven, so I am caught, as it were, 'twixt a rock and a very difficult place. So maybe I shouldn't say that I do not like amenities, but I should say that I often do not ask people how they are, especially the people I see every day. If I see you every day, I am sure as hell not going to ask you how are you today every day. In that sense, I do not like amenities, probably because exchanging inquiries concerning mutual welfare on a daily basis seems to me...superfluous, insincere, shallow. Usually it seems to me that people asking me how I am are merely complying with social etiquette or trying to think of something to say rather than expressing a sincere interest in my well being. Of course, I'm wrong. More precisely, my pet peeve concerns the manner of their asking. During the past few years, it has become, I'm sure you have noticed even if you don't realize it, fashionable, faddish to inquire into people's well being in the third person. So powerful is faddish behavior in America, so imitative are humans generally, that the behavior has swept across the land, or at least across my part of the state, like proverbial wildfire. My name is "Bob". (Hi, my name is Bob! What's your name!?!). Ninety percent of the time nowadays, when someone approaches me and asks how I am, instead of saying "how are you?", he or she says "How's Bob?", speaking to me in the third person as if I weren't there, as if the person were asking someone else about me. It has come to the point where I always respond smart assily. I usually say: "I have no idea. I haven't spoken to him." Often I say "Why don't you ask him?". You wanna talk to me as if I am not present, I'll talk to you as if I aint present. The people who seem to think they are quite clever in inquiring about someone else in the third person never seem to think my third person responses are clever, particularly when, in a particularly clever state of mind, I say something like "I have no idea how Bob is. I never talk to the son of a bitch." People usually rephrase the question, in the second person, peevishly. Well, fuck 'em. Sometimes I explain to people that language is a very limited, inadequate means of communication, fraught with vagueness, inaccuracy, all manner of confusion, but that its the only game in town, and that therefore it is absolutely essential to have rules of language, and to have an agreed upon proper way of using the language, any language. If you're one of these people who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're", and most people are, or one of these people who uses the word "don't" when one should use the word "doesn't" - and most people are - then you have no business trying to become clever when asking me how I am doing. And indeed there is a direct correlation between people who don't know shit from shinola about proper grammar asking how are you in the clever third person. Inevitably, they are the same people. If "your" one of them, consider this: First, learn the basics, then become clever. And the next time you see me, just ask me how I'm doing, even if you don't care, and leave the "How's Bob" crap in the corner of your clever mind, with all the other linguistic nonsense and ignorance.

Inventing Religion

I AM FORTUNATE to have been parented as I was. Both my grandmothers were born in the late nineteenth century, both were devout Christians, both wore dresses to their wrists and ankles every day, under all circumstances. They both, had they had the opportunity, would have tried to force the Christian religion upon my sister and me, I am certain. I can't prove it, but I strongly suspect that my parents strongly admonished them that they were not, under any circumstances, to ever attempt to influence my or my sister's religiosity. They never did, and for that, I am grateful. Every human being should be allowed to invent his or her own religion, unhindered by external coercion. There are ample opportunities for role models and guidance. Any devout christian who wants children to be raise as Christians undoubtedly has faith that the lord and Christ will make it happen, without human help. Any parent who tries to force children to be Christians, or to be any other religion in particular can be justifiably accused of child abuse. Goethe said it best: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." When I was twenty eight years old, under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, I started believing in God. To this day, I still do. My religion is best summed up by a quote from Einstein: "My religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation. Morality is of the highest importance, for mankind, not for God". I have never encountered a more beautiful statement of religious faith, a more sublime religious creed. When I was young, I absorbed through society the notion that to be a Christian made a person superior to people who were not Christians. I finally, as I grew older, realized that this is not true, that there is no reason to believe that it is, that the quality of a person's character was unconnected to a person's religious beliefs. actually, studies indicate that in general atheists and agnostics tend to be better people, morally, that deeply religious people. Recent studies also indicate that extreme religious fervor is a from of brain damage, damage to the frontal cerebral cortex, causing cognitive impairment, resulting in abnormally rigid and lack of creative thinking. My personal experience tends to make me agree with both these theories. Religion is associated with reverence for authority figures and deeply entrenched systems of thought, social organization, and patterns of behavior. Religions, all organized religions, tend to be rigid, unaccepting of change, and tend to resist new knowledge. At one time the Christian religion refused to accept that the world is a sphere. then it tended to resist teh notion that the Earth revolves around the sun. Even today it tends to resist the fact that human beings evolved from other forms of life, preferring to believe that a creator formed people out of dirt. this pattern of behavior causes me to believe that devout Christian are not my intellectual equal, but rather, are inferior. Any system of thought which refuse to accept reality must of necessity be considered inferior. Fundamental, evangelical Christians are even now revealing their moral and intellectual bankruptcy by their widespread support of an American president who is almost certainly a sexual predator, and is beyond dispute a pathological liar, a cruel man who hordes personal wealth and exhibits nothing but contempt and hatred towards anyone who fails to show admiration for him, and towards people who have the temerity to disagree with him.Anyone who has read the entire bible cannot fail to notice the barbaric, psychotic behavior of the Biblical deity. Their poor judgment may therefore be attributed to the fact that they have been influenced by too many poor role models, and not enough good ones.

Accepting Supporting Trump

IT CAN BE ARGUED rather easily and convincingly that Donald Trump is a traitor, guilty of treason. The argument would be predicated upon his refusal to acknowledge, let alone take action against climate change, which according to the Department of Defense is the greatest threat to the United States. Another argument would involve Trump's tacit collusion with Russian operatives during the presidential campaign of 2016. Arguments in favor of Trump's impeachment are too numerous to mention here, and are well known to everyone. The various manifestations of Trump's criminal behavior, and of his immorality, are so numerous, and have been described so many times, and with so little effect on both his supporters and detractors that they hardly seem relevant. By this time, those who support Trump do so with such fervor, in an almost cult like fashion, that it is almost impossible to imagine any revelation of information which might dissuade them from their loyalty. Trump put it best when he said that he could shoot someone down in cold blood on fifth avenue without losing the support of his base. Trump is no idiot; by making such astute comments he displays a rather deep understanding of basic human nature, deeper than most of his political enemies, and this understanding has allowed him to speak and behave in exactly the way necessary to retain the support of his supporters. If anything, the support of his supporters has deepened during his presidency. One Trump supporter recently said that no matter how often he lies, she will continue to support him, and that says it all. Trying to persuade people to abandon their leader is useless, as all who despise Trump must at some point come to accept. Nor need anyone continue to be shocked and outraged by the fact that an overwhelming percentage of American's devout Christians form Trump's core constituency. Trump's political enemies must take solace in the apparent fact that a majority of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, do not support Trump, and that there is a large segment of the American electorate which is independent, does not have strong feelings either way, and can still be convinced to join forces in opposition to the MAGA agenda. If someone truly believes the nonsense that America had fallen from greatness before Trump was elected, but has snow become great again - as his supporters do - during his presidency, they are beyond the reach of reason; their loyalty is a visceral emotional response, and cannot be altered. All that remains to the anti-Trump crowd is to not lose hope, and to keep hammering away at the facts. One fact is that thousands of children are being imprisoned under miserable, inhumane conditions in the United States. Another fact is that when Trump became president, America was at peace with Iran, and now war seems imminent. North Korea is no closer to ridding itself of its atomic bombs than it was when Trump took office. More facts adhere. Trump inherited a strong economy from Obama, and there is no sound economic statistical evidence that it has measurably improved further under Trump. All over the world, governments and citizens of other nations despise Trump, and do not hesitate to say so. Trump, by openly disdaining international cooperation in favor of American independent policies, has driven a wedge between America and most of her closest allies. These facts are irrefutable, and they are not desirable. And perhaps the most salient fact of all; those who support Trump now are morally complicit in his behavior, and, like Trump himself, will have to live with the effects of their actions, just as we all must. For this, they are not to be envied.

Punishing Children

BEFORE WORLD WAR TWO, the border between Mexico and the United States was essentially open. There was no mass migration between the two countries, no fear of Mexico sending rapists and murderers north, and drug trafficking was of little concern, since there was no evidence of any great demand in the U.S. for illicit drugs of Mexican manufacture. The border was maintained quietly, and it was relatively easy for people to move back and froth between the two countries. World War Two changed all that. The fear was that the Germans might try to infiltrate the United States with paramilitary operatives, who could potentially do great damage. The Zimmerman telegram of world War One was still quite recent, in which World War One Germany had attempted to enlist mexico to instigate a war against the United States, but failed. Meanwhile, the United States, beginning under President Theodore Roosevelt, undertook a foreign policy in which it claimed the right, based partly upon the Monroe doctrine, to "police" Latin American countries, which in reality meant to economically exploit them. The twentieth century thus became a series of revolutions staged by American operatives throughout the region, in which duly elected socialist governments were replaced with dictatorships amenable to American corporate investment and exploitation. "The Tragedy of American Diplomacy", a seminal 1959 monograph by Wm. A. Williams, is still relevant. By 2007, there were actually more people crossing into Mexico from the United States than crossing into the U.S. from mexico, but the great recession of 2008 intensified northward refugee migration, as economic conditions worsened in Latin America even more than they did in the United States. There have been periodic mass deportations of illegal Mexican migrants from the united States. One, in the nineteen thirties under FDR, another in the nineteen fifties under Eisenhower, and most recently, under Obama, in which approximately two and a half million people were deported. The most drastic change in recent years has been under Trump, under whom the "zero tolerance" policy included the most inhumane treatment of asylum seekers yet: the separation of children from their parents at the border. Under extreme pressure, Trump finally signed an executive order eliminating this brutal practice, but the paperwork was sloppy, and to this day there are reportedly thousands of children who have yet to be reunited with their families, and thousands more being detained under cruel and inhumane conditions in detention centers. Recently the Trump administration argued in federal court that such children do not require basic hygienic necessities, such as blankets, proper nutrition, and blankets. Among the many false claims made by the Trump administration is that the practice of separating children from their families was begun under Obama. In fact, under Obama, children who sought asylum were detained only if they appeared at the border alone; they could hardly be allowed to roam freely in the United States, without care or supervision. Under Obama, families were not torn apart. Many Americans have seen the heart breaking videos of children, torn by trauma, screaming and crying for their parents. No decent person could possibly be unmoved by these images. Of all the arguably inhumane practices and policies of the Trump administration, and there are many, this is perhaps the most egregious. Every American should be ashamed that this has taken place in this country. Most of the "illegal immigrants' were merely seeking to be free from the grinding pervasive poverty in their own countries, and properly approached ports of entry, seeking asylum from conditions created, ironically, by the economically predatory practices perpetrated throughout Latin America by the United States, referenced above. A further irony is that president Trump's strongest base of support comes from the evangelical Christian community, which largely supports Trump's policies, and which seems to have forgotten to read the Bible, and to assimilate the teachings of Jesus into their personal belief systems.

Trading Places

PRESIDENT TRUMP was cocked, half cocked, fully loaded, ready to go. Then, within ten minutes of launching an airstrike he had already ordered, he decided to inquire into the likely number of fatalities which would be inflicted by said attack. The number came back, one hundred and fifty, sir. Off was called the airstrike, and Iranian missile launching and radar installations were spared. One must, after all, behave "proportionately". The airstrike is on, the airstrike is off, like some sort of board game. The unanswered white elephant in the room is: why didn't the president simply make the likely casualty inquiry before ordering the military action in the first place? Could it be that our president is capable of behaving impetuously? Is it possible that our leader fails to adequately consult his military advisers before taking action, then reversing the action? When one considers that the United States currently has no Secretary of Defense, it becomes possible. The previous Secretary of Defense, acting, as nearly all of Trump's cabinet level positions are filled by actors, left town the other day amid accusations that he demonstrated an alarming pattern of launching aggressive strikes against his oft assaulted wife. For a president who has bragged that he can treat a woman any way he chooses because he is rich and famous, an assault oriented Defense Secretary would seem appropriate. When a nation elects a person as its president who was previously a high rolling real estate gambler, that nation might expect its president to behave in unpredictable, precipitous, vacillating ways. Suppose that a foreign country maintained a network of over eight hundred military bases around the world, launched and engaged in a never ending series of foreign wars of aggression for the stated purpose of promoting liberty, virtue, and democracy, but for the actual purpose of plundering the resources of other nations and making those countries safe for foreign corporate investment, and regularly flew spy planes within a few miles of the borders and shore of this, the United states of America. Further suppose that this foreign power had substantial military assets stationed within a few miles of the United States, had recently withdrawn from an international treaty which limited and eliminated nuclear weaponry of the United states, and was imposing crushing economic sanctions on the U.S. Then suppose that on at least one occasion this foreign power had facilitated the overthrow and replacement of the United States government, and its replacement with an American government specifically chosen for its amenability to the foreign exploitation of its mineral resources. You might possibly expect not only the American people but the American government to be a wee bit resentful towards this foreign power, and irresistibly tempted to shoot down a drone or two. Suppose you are given a choice between believing what the Iranian government says about the location of the drone which was shot down, and the version emanating from the Trump administration. This is not a hypothetical. You have a such a choice; between the Iranians, or believing Donald Trump. Dare you ask which of the two has the greater tendency to prevaricate, early and often? When one often yells "fire!" in a crowded theater, but the theater never burns down, one might expect that the time will come when the yelling will be ignored, and the yeller will no longer be believed, under any circumstances. Of this we may be certain: Trump did not call off the attack because he has compassion for Iranians who would die from it; he did so because someone, perhaps Vladimir Putin, had the good sense to remind him that a war with Iran would isolate the United States completely from the civilized world, and that Trump has no support from America's former allies. Also, the military would normally have given Trump as estimate of probable casualties before the airstrike was ordered. On this occasion either this did not happen, or Trump ignored what he was told. Either way, his story does not add up. As a former mayor of New York City once said: I wouldn't believe a word Donald Trump says if he had his tongue notarized.

Discerning Patterns

THE FACTS in the case are well known. In April, 1989 a young woman was brutally raped while jogging in Central park. Aside from the fact that it is not wise to jog, or to do anything else in Central park at night, it was a night during which numerous people were assaulted. Half a dozen young men of color were arrested, tried, and convicted for the crime, having confessed under interrogations, then later recanting the confessions. Upon appeal, the convictions were upheld, and they all spent several years in prison. During their trials, middle aged real estate wheeler dealer Donald Trump, whose own dubious behavior towards women would later come to light, took out a full page ad in the new York Times which proclaimed the young men guilty, and demanded justice. In 2002, a serial rapist, from prison, confessed to having committed the crime, and his confession proved true due to a perfect match between his DNA and the semen found in and near the rape victim. The wrongfully convicted men, having already served time, were released from prison, and later sued both the city and the state of New York, and won large sums of compensatory damages. In the event you are waiting to read that Donald Trump took out another full page ad in the Times expressing egret for his first full page ad, don't bother. It never happened. Such behavior is not part of Trump's character, and can never be expected from him. Eventually Trump became president, and said that not only was he not sorry for having jumped to conclusions, but that he still believes the "central park five" as they came to be called, were guilty. This, in spite of indisputable DNA proof to the contrary. Patterns become apparent. Donald Trump refuses to accept the findings of science, even when such findings are irrefutably proven, when they do not mesh with his personal opinions and prejudices. Donald Trump refuses to admit mistakes on his part. Donald Trump lives in his own reality, quite apart from anything remotely objective. No matter how cruel, unjust, and harmful to others the behavior of Donald Trump, he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge even the slightest hint of error, instead exhibiting a pettiness so great that it boggles the minds of decent people. Patterns emerge early in life. Most of what we are, we are by the age of five. After that, our personalities are fairly well established. Donald Trump has been lying, harming people, and doing so with no trace of self doubt for decades. As a former mayor of New York City once said: "I wouldn't believe a word Donald Trump says if he had his tongue notarized". Trump's time as president has been a ceaseless cascade of pathological dishonesty, vicious insults hurled at good people, and behavior no proper gentleman could possibly condone, let alone engage in. Not only is Trump not a proper gentleman, he is not a decent human being, and this assessment is based not on personal animus towards him, but rather, on rock solid, verifiable fact. That after over than two years as president he still enjoys a considerable degree of support among the American people says a great deal about the American people, and it is not good. The life and presidency of Donald Trump will eventually come to be regarded as one of the great tragedies of American history, along with slavery, and the genocidal extermination of an existing civilization, along with persistent, widespread poverty in a nation of abundant wealth, along with a history of wars of aggression instigated on false pretenses for nothing other that the conquest of foreign nations and the plundering of foreign resources. The amount of arrogance and pride the United States has in itself is one of the great miracles of human history, considering all that, considering the truth, considering the enduring popularity of Donald Trump among a significant percentage of the tragically misguided American people.

Explaining Things to My Guatemalan Neighbor

I HAVE A FRIEND who lives across the street from me who is from Guatemala. He came here several years ago, and is a naturalized citizen, legal papers and all. I mention this only to assuage the rising anger of conservative evangelical Trump supporting Christians, who seem inclined to "welcome the stranger" only if the stranger is a person of light skin pigmentation from Norway, which is apparently Donald J. Trump's favorite foreign country. Never mind that most of the western half of the United States rightfully belongs to Mexico, from which it was stolen in 1846, the first of America's blatantly trumped up wars of aggression for the sake of territorial expansion, but certainly not the last. In a nutshell, the "illegal" immigrants pouring across the border from mexico can accurately be said to merely be reclaiming what they might call "the occupied territories". Only, they aren't pouring across the border. More folks are heading south than north, as Americans flee into Mexico for sundry reasons, among them drugs, bargains, and reprieve. America, alas, is a stolen country. My Guatemalan neighbor asked me whether it is true that President Trump and his vast hordes of supporters wish to deport millions of people who are living in the U.S. undocumentedly, and I said, yes, they so wish. Even as he launches his reelection campaign, which he actually launched the day after he was inaugurated, his orangeness has explicitly expressed his determination to so do, notwithstanding the impossible logistics involved. I didn't stop talking. I explained to my friend Jose exactly why he came to America, as if he didn't know. I explained that Guatemala is a country immersed in turmoil and poverty today for one, and only one reason; the United States of America. I talked about the year 1954, President Arbenz, the United Fruit Company, John Foster Dulles, IKE, the CIA, and the rest, as they say, is history. As Casey Stengel, the eminent historian and philosopher once said: "you could look it up". Never question the power or the willingness of the American corporate oligarchy to seize wealth from the teeming poor of other nations. I didn't want to talk about James Madison, but felt I had to. Little Jemmy, who stood five four and dressed in all black every day, which means he would have fit in well with the nineteen nineties, never for a moment intended to design a democracy, which anyone who bothers to read his document can readily see. My Jose, you see, thought that when he left Guatemala he was leaving behind a third world country wherein a charismatic strong man of a petty tyrant can come to power, with the blessing of the masses of men who lead lives of quiet desperation. He confided that he has since discovered that he was dead wrong. Donald J. Trump, he continued, reminds him precisely of a petty Latin American dictator, one such as might rule Guatemala. I jokingly remarked that considering what he got himself into by coming here, he may as well have stayed put in Central America, but that, on the whole, I am quite glad he didn't, because, after all, he is not wealthy, and the greater the number of non wealthy people in America, the greater the chances of there occurring a revolution of the sort Thomas Jefferson suggested would be necessary once every generation to procure and retain the blessings of liberty, such as they are here in the fun house that is our purely cosmetic in appearance only American democracy.

Protesting

I WAS RAISED by conservative parents to be a member of the establishment. That didn't work out. In the first grade I became a Yankee fan, and never recovered. In western movies i rooted for the Indians. As the Viet Nam war dragged on and on, I got the impression that it would never end, would be with me my entire life, and that I had therefore learn something about it, and form an opinion about it. After the big North Vietnamese offensive in early 1968 Walter Cronkite convinced me what I had already begun to suspect: that there would never be an american victory. By then I had already decided that the hippies and college students protesting the war on television every night were correct, and that those disparaging them for "unpatriotism" were wolves dressed as sheep. I wanted to join a protest, but understood that it was no place for a thirteen year old. I kept my opinions to myself. For over twenty years I wondered whether I would ever get another chance to protest an unjust american war, with conflicting feelings. I got my chance in 1991, when President George bush the first invited Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait, then, when Saddam did exactly that, responded with feigned indignant outrage, military force, and death. Five hundred of us walked through a college town - I was an instructor at the university - and one of my students saved my life by getting between me and some super patriotic red neck who called me a "traitor". I was carrying a flag and a hand made sign which said "no war for oil". Like the Viet Nam protesters, we were on the right side of history, and humanity. Now I'm starting to wonder whether I might yet get another chance. America, under the criminal trump, is at it again. if there is a military strike against Iran, I'll be back out on the street, even if the street is in front of my house in my quiet middle class neighborhood. I would need to secure another flag, and decided what my sign would say. Dump Trump? We Are the Bad guys? First, Trump reneged on an america commitment, a perfectly good international treaty with Iran, reimposed sanctions, and inflamed the conditions for war. who know who attacked the oil tankers? The united States deliberately provoked war in 1846 and lied about it. The United States deliberately provoked war in 1898, and lied about it. the united States deliberately provoked war in 1964, and lied about it. The United States deliberately provoked war in 1990, and lied about it, then again in 2003. Everyone except the United States says that the evidence that the oil tankers were attacked by Iran is dubious at best, non existent as worst. Its time to start looking for bargains on flags, cardboard, and magic markers. I suspect that, if push comes to shove, fellow travelers will not be hard to find.

Bringing Out The Good

A BUS LOAD of senior centerians, on its way back from a farmer's market excursion, I'm there to help watch over an eighty six year old in poor health but still able to shuffle around the square. In the seat in front of me, an eighty eight year old is talking to an eighty year old, about the holocaust. the eighty year old, an evangelical right wind extremist, of of those, says to his elder, I swear: "It could happen happen here to. The democrats are pushing it." I swear that's what he said. For a moment I wondered whether I had dropped acid before breakfast, then forgotten about it, or losing my hearing, and having auditory hallucinations. Then I almost started hoping for either option. I slowly accepted the reality that this sort of insane notion is exactly what one of these extreme evangelical right wing nut cases would actually believe, or pretend to, or try to. Then there's the lost cause southern sympathizer at the center who said that FDR and Lincoln were the two "sorriest" as he put it presidents ever. I have to put up with a lot of that, but, so does America. These people seem to have no idea how low they have sunk, how deranged they are, and how horribly wrong to proclaim themselves "Christians' while fully supporting Trump, and either embracing, agreeing with, or ignoring all his horrible nonsense. Donald J Trump, as president and as a person, is the antithesis of Jesus, his teachings, and behavior, and all these extremely zealous tongue speaking fanatic Christians know it, unless they are severely mentally challenged, which some of them must, according to statistical reality, be. Extreme religious zealotry and extreme conservatism are forms of, caused by brain damage, new research seems to indicate. They do not really believe that the Democratic party wants an American holocaust, or that all the investigation of an questions about Trump are "witch hunts", or nothing but fabricated accusations, or that Trump is innocent of any wrongdoing. No reasonably intelligent, honest, sane person could believe any of those crazy right wing fantasies. But the followers and supporters of Trump, like Trump himself, do not like reality, so they fabricate their own version, without any regard whatsoever to the verifiable, objective reality all around them. Trump supporters have long since revealed their dishonesty, and inability to accept and form rational opinions about reality. We are left with the horrifying conclusion that as much as forty percent of the American people are criminally insane, or at the very least seriously mentally ill. The fear and anger among them is palpable. So are the arrogance and narcissism. Its like we've been told: Trump isn't the cause; he's a symptom, a symptom of the condition of American society and culture, of the american people. Our best hope is our knowledge is that people are complicated. Somewhere inside these self made deplorables are the qualities we seek from within everyone: intelligence, honesty, and reason. Our task is to find ways of bringing them out.