Category Archives: Civil Rights

Whatever Happened To The Golden Rule?

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The idea that we should treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves is a bedrock principle of many religions and cultures. Indeed, it was one of the first things I was taught in my middle American Christian church.

Given its importance to most faiths, one must wonder how today’s Christian evangelicals could have strayed so far from it. Despite their Bible stating that they have an obligation to treat strangers in their land with dignity and hospitality, the Christian evangelicals who support Trump in large numbers have simply ignored or denied the inhumane treatment of refugees seeking asylum. Confronted by the horrifying image of a young father and his daughter lying face down in a river having drowned in their attempt to find refuge, those same evangelicals simply turned away blaming the father for their deaths. And after viewing a cage filled with immigrants forced to live for weeks on concrete floors without ready access to water or even enough room to lie down, our holier-than-thou Vice-President seemed pleased.

What is wrong with these people? Did they not read their Bible? Did they miss that their religion was once based on compassion and kindness? Did they forget that the man they supposedly worship reached out to the poor and the oppressed with kindness? Did they forget that he gave the needy food and even knelt to wash their feet? Have they never read Matthew 25:40 in which Jesus is reported to have said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”?

How can the people like Pence, who wear their religion on their sleeves and profess piety, turn their backs on the needy and the displaced? How can they tolerate seeing children ripped away from their parents, caged for months without beds and basic toiletries then lost in the system and turned over to foster parents after their parents have been deported? How can they accept women being held in horrible conditions and told to drink out of toilets? How can they accept a single death of a child in our custody? How can they support a man who would order this treatment; who has bragged about sexual assault – even of children; who routinely threatens those who oppose him; whose every statement is a lie; who basks in his own racism, greed and cruelty?

If this is their religion, and I am certain it is, I want nothing to do with it. Neither should anyone else. There is no need for evangelists of hatred and greed. There are already more than enough of those people to go around.

A Primer On Freedom For Trump Supporters.

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Following our annual celebration of freedom known as Independence Day, and given recent events, it has become clear that some of you – including our president – are unclear as to what freedom actually means. So I’ll attempt to clear that up for you.

Wikipedia defines freedom as “…having the ability to act or change without constraint. Something is “free” if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and religion, it is associated with having free will and being without undue or unjust constraints, or enslavement, and is an idea closely related to the concept of liberty. A person has the freedom to do things that will not, in theory or in practice, be prevented by other forces.”

Those “other forces” are, by necessity, laws. In order for all those within a given society to enjoy a large degree of freedom, there must be limits. Without them, freedom would quickly devolve into anarchy.

Though not themselves perfect, our Founders hoped to usher in an Age of Enlightenment. Through the Constitution, they hoped to create a nation that would serve as a model for the world in which its inhabitants were free from tyranny…even tyranny of the majority. That’s why the Constitution created a framework of laws. Why it forbade the establishment of an official religion. It’s why the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the rights of assembly. It’s why it guarantees the right of citizens to petition the government. It’s why it created a government elected by the people and a court system in which the people could address grievances. And, to ensure equality, Article IV states, “The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. (In other words, all states.)

That stated, perhaps the best way to define the liberty that our Founding Fathers gave us is to look at what it is not.

For example, dear Trump supporters, you and your hero do not have the freedom to proclaim the United States a Christian nation. Nor do you have the freedom to deny rights to those who practice a religion different than yours or to those who practice no religion at all – no matter how much that may offend you. Freedom does not give you the right to impose your religious beliefs on others. Freedom does not give you the right to harass, bully, assault or threaten those who look different, worship differently, love differently or vote differently than you. And it certainly doesn’t mean that you are free to cage, torture and detain indefinitely those who speak a different language than you just because they crossed our borders seeking refuge.

It does not give individuals and corporations the freedom to cheat, steal or cause harm to others. It doesn’t mean that you are free to pollute the air and water that we all need to survive. Or to steal our natural resources. It doesn’t give you the right to deny medical care and needed pharmaceuticals to others if doing so is against your perverted faith. It does not give you the right to deny other citizens the opportunity to vote even if you disagree with their choices. It does not give your president and his family the right to enrich themselves by pillaging our nation’s coffers. It does not give your Mango Mussolini and his wealthy friends the right to move their profits offshore in order to avoid taxes thereby forcing the rest of us to pick up their share.

And it sure as hell doesn’t give your politicians the right to seek and use the assistance of a foreign adversary in order to defeat their opponents!

Why I Won’t Be Celebrating This Fourth Of July.

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On the eve of the Fourth of July and our wannabe dictator’s MAGA tribute to himself, we should pause and consider how patriotism has been commandeered by his political party to divide rather than to unite; to celebrate military might over the ideals of our founders; to benefit the greed of a few over the needs of the many; to use power to exact cruelty upon those less fortunate; to ignore human rights and the will of the majority; to deny civil rights to those who have a darker skin, who worship or love differently.

Once a celebration of our freedom from tyranny, Trump has turned the July 4th celebration in our nation’s capitol into a for-profit celebration of his power. He and the RNC have sold seats in a VIP section for his wealthy followers and lobbyists. He has filled his hotel with those seeking access to his office at the cost of $964 to $4,200 a night. He has redirected millions intended for defense in favor of military flyovers and a display of tanks. He has redirected millions in admission fees from national parks intended for maintenance and improvements to pay for his crass political rally.

His celebration should be met with outrage and derision.

Yet Trump is only a symptom of the political party and philosophy he represents. For many years now, members of the GOP have claimed to be the only true patriots – our country right or wrong. And more often than not, they have been on the wrong side of history – fighting against Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Civil Rights Acts, leading us into unnecessary wars, passing tax cuts for the wealthy, pushing us further into debt, and leading us into economic calamities.

That’s why I’ll be ignoring tomorrow’s spectacle in Washington and it’s why I’ll be flying the battle flag of the republic upside-down.

How can we celebrate narcissism and contempt for norms? How can we celebrate perpetual war over the control of oil resulting in the deaths of the brave? How can we celebrate our government’s mass cruelty toward those seeking refuge in the land of the free? How can we celebrate greed? How can we celebrate a government led by someone who failed to win a majority of votes and was put in power only with the help of a foreign rival? How can we celebrate alongside a president who embraces dictators while shunning our allies? Who shows contempt for all those who voted against him? Who separates families at our southern border and incarcerates children in worse conditions than the terrorists who attacked our country?

Instead of watching our Dear Leader’s celebration on the national mall, we should read the Declaration of Independence as we dine on our hot dogs. We should read the Constitution over a good beer. We should read the many writings of the founders in order to better understand their intent and the age of enlightenment. We should read a civics textbook as we enjoy a slice of apple pie. Better yet, we should read the Mueller Report.

Then we should ask ourselves: How did we get here? How did everything go so wrong? How can we accept our nation’s many faults and try to make amends for the fact that it stole the land from the original inhabitants through genocide and built much of its wealth on the backs of slaves? How can we live up to the ideals of our founders and not their personal failures? How can we better stand up to those who would take us down the wrong path? How can we help the USA to become a better nation?

How can we end the senseless gun violence – the slaughter of children? How can we give all of our residents equal access to quality health care? How can we better provide our citizens education and equal opportunity? How can we better encourage and utilize their unique talents? How can we make certain that all of our citizens have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote? How can we improve our justice system to make it truly blind to color, religion or sexual orientation? How can we better help and welcome those seeking asylum from tyranny as our ancestors were welcomed? How can we be a better example for others in the world? How can we help others enjoy our freedoms? How can we end war? How can we address the growing threat of climate change? How can we make the planet we share with more than a hundred other nations better?

To me, that is what true patriotism means. Not some display of military might in honor of a sociopath who is an illegitimate occupier of our nation’s highest office.

Make No Mistake. Today’s GOP Is Racist.

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Given Trump’s unrestrained spending, the GOP can no longer claim to be the party of financial responsibility. Given Trump’s boorish behavior, his history of extramarital affairs and sexual assaults, his administration’s forced separation of refugee families and its torturous incarceration of young children, the party can no longer claim to be the party of family values. Given Trump’s lack of a foreign policy, his embrace of murderous dictators and his acceptance of Russian interference, it can no longer claim to be strong on defense.

Given Trump’s disdain for the FBI and his obstruction of justice, it cannot claim to be the party of law and order. Given his tariffs, it cannot claim to be the party of free trade. Given the party’s efforts to suppress voting, to gerrymander, to bury opponents in an avalanche of dirty money, and to steal elections, it most certainly cannot claim that it cares about democracy. Given the party’s determination to cut Social Security, Medicare and other safety net programs such as Meals on Wheels, it cannot claim to care about seniors. And, given its cuts to veteran’s benefits, it cannot claim that it cares for veterans.

What the today’s GOP can reasonably claim to be is a party of xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists, racists and fascists.

Once the party of emancipators and proponents of conservative fiscal policies, the GOP began its evolution following Brown v Board of Education – the Supreme Court ruling that forced the desegregation of public schools. In the wake of that decision, James M. Buchanan formulated a plan to allow the white elite to retain its power over the majority. His ideas were embraced by libertarians, in particular the billionaire Charles Koch, and southern conservatives. Then, following the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, which were signed into law by a Democratic president (Lyndon B. Johnson), the GOP committed to Lee Atwater’s Southern strategy by reaching out to southern Democrats (the so-called Dixiecrats). Within a few years, the Old South was bright red.

Then, under the guidance of Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell and others, the party began the culture wars by embracing Christian fundamentalist anti-abortion and anti-gay views. It pandered to evangelicals, most especially those in the southern Baptist church.

The transformation from the party of Lincoln was complete.

In many ways, Trump is a symptom of nearly seventy years of change. His demagoguery merely gave the movement a celebrity and gave members permission to unleash their true feelings. He and his followers railed against our nation’s first black president questioning his citizenship. He fomented hate against refugees and immigrants from so-called shithole (non-white) countries. And he decried political correctness (aka politeness) which allowed the majority of Republicans to pull off their masks to reveal their true colors…er…color…white.

Trump and his advisors, Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, even pandered to neo-Nazis and white supremacists (those “very nice people” on the other side of civil rights protestors) encouraging them to crawl out of their hidey holes and light their torches. All the while, Trump and his followers have feigned outrage over being called racists. After all, according to them, they all have a black friend or they work with people of color.

While the GOP rank and file are focused on putting African-Americans, Latinos, the LGBTQ community and “libtards” in their place, the real swamp monsters in the administration are freeing multinational corporations to pollute our environment and fleece consumers. They have given them billions in tax breaks and packed the courts with corporatists, racists and religious fanatics to protect their interests for a generation. Meanwhile the crime-boss-in-chief and his family are filling their very large pockets with taxpayer money, destroying international alliances, threatening our neighbors, the free press and our most valued institutions.

Trump’s supporters voted for him as a way of figuratively throwing a live grenade into Washington. He has done that. He is undoing the very fabric and principles that have held our nation together. And, though his supporters may not yet realize it, he is also eliminating most of the regulations that protect them from predatory financial institutions, health insurance companies, big pharma, corporate polluters and a variety of other greedy scoundrels.

Once his job is complete, and he has finished carrying out the wishes of his billionaire sponsors and friends, not even his followers’ Bibles and guns will be able to protect them.

Ignore His Tweets and Taunts. Pay Attention To His Actions.

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While Democrats and the media have focused on the Tweets and the taunts and the name-calling, many of the worst activities of the Trump administration have gone unnoticed. That’s because the administration seems to have borrowed a strategy from sports – especially NHL hockey. The idea is that, if you can’t win on the merits, you resort to cheating and bullying. You commit as many fouls as possible based on the theory that the referees won’t/can’t call all of them. The referees are then faced with two options: To make the game unwatchable from the constant stoppages and penalties. Or to call only the most egregious fouls.

Likewise, by burying the media, the public and Congress under an avalanche of executive orders, policy changes, unqualified presidential appointments, unjustified pardons, blatant corruption, obstruction and criminal actions, the administration seems to believe that the public will tire of the outrage and buy into the notion that the president is the victim of negative and partisan reporting.

Whatever else you can say about Donald Trump, you must admit that he is a master of the con and self-promotion. He knows how to manipulate his base and the media. Indeed, every time I see him speak, I see the narcissism of Benito Mussolini combined with the limited vocabulary and taunting of Vince McMahon and his WWE bullies. (I am quite certain that is the result of study and hours of practice in front of Trump’s favorite item – the mirror.)

Repulsed by the cartoon-like show, the majority of Americans often miss or ignore the things that are taking place behind the scenes – things that could prove fatal to our democracy.

Every single day, the administration commits more harmful and anti-democratic actions. Career public servants are replaced by unqualified family members, toadies and demagogues from the Trump propaganda network, aka Fox News. Highly partisan and unqualified judges are confirmed as a result of Mitch McConnell’s disregard for long-standing traditions and regular order. Refugees from all over the world are sent back to the dangers they tried to escape. (There are even plans to deport refugees who came here immediately following the Vietnam War.)

The constitutional protections from unreasonable search and seizures have been suspended within 100 miles of our borders – all of our borders. International laws and norms are ignored. Refugee children are traumatized by being ripped from their parents. Pollution is increased as the result of environmental deregulation. Increasingly, our lives are placed at risk by uncontrolled gun violence encouraged by Trump supporters in the NRA. Our economy and consumers are also placed at risk by the dismantling of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regulations and the Dodd-Frank bill that was designed to prevent another financial collapse. And more people will go bankrupt or die because of the administration’s undermining of the Affordable Care Act.

Each day, the administration borrows more money from China to prop up our economy and to squander on unneeded, and often flawed, weapons systems. At the same time, it has imposed tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods leading to a trade war and higher prices for American consumers. Diplomacy has been replaced by outright bullying and brinksmanship. Trump and his administration have threatened NATO members and turned their backs on trusted allies while embracing some of the world’s worst dictators.

The administration encourages violent racism and intentionally sews division to improve Trump’s chances of being reelected. Sacred Native American lands and public lands are being sold off to extraction industries. American citizens are displaced and their lives disrupted in order to build a senseless wall. Public schools, food stamps, veterans programs, fair trade, access to safe abortions, the constitutional separation of church and state, and so-called entitlements are all under attack. So, too, are our most important institutions like the press, the FBI and our Intelligence agencies.

The president and his mouthpieces commit daily assaults on the truth. The administration has forced a constitutional crisis by announcing that it will refuse to be burdened by congressional oversight. Meanwhile, the crime family in charge enriches itself with taxpayer money as it refuses to reveal its tax returns.

If the orange diKKKtator could accomplish all this while under investigation for conspiring with Russia during the 2016 election, imagine the harm he can cause now that he and his supporters falsely claim “total exoneration?” Even more frightening are the potential consequences of his re-election and the possibility of Congress being retaken by his stooges and sycophants.

Thankfully, you have the power to prevent that grim and dystopian future. Write or call your congressional representatives and demand that impeachment hearings begin immediately. Even more important, VOTE!

Trumpism: Revenge Of The Misfits.

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There has long been a phenomenon relating to those who have difficulty fitting in with polite society – people who look different than others; who are darker, bigger, taller, shorter, fatter, clumsier, or poorer. After being ostracized, bullied and left out, once they find others who have suffered from the same issues and band together, they, too, become bullies. And often they become more ruthless than those who have abused them.

I believe that phenomenon, combined with the anonymity of the Internet, is at the root of the rise of hate groups.

The Internet has become the sanctuary and gathering place to haters of a great variety. Most of these are people who have some sort of grievance: Young men who are unable to establish a relationship with a woman, those who despise the government and the so-called coastal elites, those who are jealous of people who are more educated and socially adept, those who fear different customs or different religions, and those who blame all of their problems on black and brown people, immigrants and refugees. The Internet affords these people a place to connect with the similarly aggrieved. It’s especially useful to white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

The anger of all of these haters has been mainstreamed by media such as Breitbart, right-wing radio and Fox News Channel. Moreover, Trump’s disdain for political correctness (i.e., polite and civil discourse) has given the haters a license to say and do whatever they feel.

We saw this in Charlottesville at the gathering of the “alt-right,” in Charleston at the Emanuel African-American Episcopal Church, in Pittsburg at the Tree of Life Synagogue and, most recently, in Christchurch, New Zealand at the Muslim mosques. These atrocities were all committed by people inspired by Trump’s attacks on Mexicans, Latinos, Muslims, people of color and Democrats – attacks that have been amplified by his most ardent followers on underground racist websites such as 4Chan and 8Chan.

Trump is the reason the number of active hate groups soared to an all-time high in 2018. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center that monitors such things, at the end of 2018, there were 1,020 active hate groups – white nationalist, neo-Nazi, anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim groups whose members are willing to commit crimes. And these groups don’t even include the less organized “sovereign citizens” like Cliven Bundy and those who aimed their guns at government BLM employees and commandeered a nature preserve in Oregon. And they don’t include the Republican Party, which has become a hate group in its own right determined to punish opponents, suppress votes and deny civil rights to people of color, the LGBTQ community and Muslims.

Worse, thanks to Trump and his sycophants, these hateful ideologies are spreading around the globe. Indeed, Steve Bannon, Trump’s former Chief Strategist has been traveling Europe to spread his message of hate and fear financed by the billionaire Mercer family. At a recent European rally, Bannon told his audience that he wears the term racist as a badge of honor.

The goal is to unite the extreme far right to take over political control of western Europe. To what end we can only speculate. But it seems the intent is to destabilize western governments for the benefit of the oligarchs and autocrats. And, based on resentment of Syrian refugees and some long-standing grievances, they have had some success in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, even Sweden.

Unless our traditional political institutions are able to figuratively and literally disarm this movement, we can probably expect to see many more episodes similar to what we just witnessed in New Zealand.

Are Baby Boomers Really At Fault For Today’s Problems?

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The Millennial generation seems to believe that all of the national and world problems are the fault of the Baby Boomer generation’s unabated greed in accepting Social Security and Medicare. Really? Do we not get credit for paying into these insurance programs for our entire working careers?

Ignoring that unwarranted attack, consider the world the Boomer generation inherited – a nuclear-tipped Cold War, the consequences of imperial expansion and cultural genocide, the destruction of a highly-efficient rail system in favor of cars, the depletion of forests and other precious resources, as well as the near-extinction of the American Bison, Bald Eagles and other wildlife species.

Like generations before us, rather than accept the world we inherited, many of us have tried hard to improve it. It was the Boomer generation that was responsible for the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the fight for LGBTQ rights. We fought for the disabled to create the American Disabilities Act. And many of us rebelled against our own government to end the brutal and unnecessary war in Vietnam.

Our generation created human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many participated in the Peace Corps to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

The Baby Boomer generation fought for zero population growth and access to contraceptives in order to end over-population and the resultant stress on our planet’s limited resources. We helped create the Environmental Protection Agency to end the widespread dumping of chemicals into our water and air – a practice so prevalent the Cuyahoga River actually caught fire thirteen times! We fought for anti-littering laws. We fought to expose the dangers of cigarettes, trans fatty acids, asbestos, DDT and other dangerous products. We created recycling programs. And, once we were made aware of the problem, many of us have fought to replace fossil fuels in order to reduce our population’s impact on the climate.

We popularized health and fitness awareness. We fought for product labeling to list the ingredients in processed foods. Led by Ralph Nader, we created the National Transportation Safety Board to make our cars safer. Indeed, we created safety standards for most of the products sold in the US. We fought against the clear-cutting of forests; against the hunting of endangered wildlife.

As a boomer, I’m proud of our many successes…even many of our failures. Because I believe time will show that many of us were on the right side of history. Could we have done better? Of course. And not all of us have been willing to fight the good fights. We are, after all, the generation that includes Donald Trump.

For that, I am truly sorry!

What If You Just Came Here From Another Planet? A Philosophy.

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For many years, I’ve looked at the world around me through the lens “What if I just arrived on Earth from Mars? Does (place anything you want here) make any freaking sense? You often realize that the answer is clearly “No.”

For example, take climate change. Scientists are in almost unanimous agreement that human activity is killing the planet. Yet the issue has become politicized, so we refuse to take serious action to mitigate the damage even when doing so would transform the economy by creating millions of high-paying jobs and dramatically modernize our failing infrastructure. But one political party has convinced enough people to vote to deny that climate change is a serious threat and to maintain the status quo so that a few people in the fossil fuel industry can continue to extract billions from our economy.

Does that make any freaking sense?

Does it make any sense that our government can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a failed weapons system, but we “can’t afford” to give all of our citizens access to health care? Does it make sense that we spend far more on health care than it would cost to offer our citizens universal care?

And the philosophy is useful for far more than political issues. Take our societal bans on nudity. Men can freely show their chests. But women must keep theirs partially covered. They can show their backs, their bellies their side boobs, their under boobs, their upper boobs, but they must not dare to expose their nipples in public! Why? Their nipples are little different than those of men. And they are necessary to provide nourishment for their babies.

Does that make any freaking sense?

How about our shipping container-based global trade? Scottish fishermen catch cod in the North Atlantic then bring them back to Scottish ports. But instead of processing the fish there, they load them into refrigerated containers and ship them to Asia where they are processed, frozen and shipped back to Europe for distribution.

Does that make any freaking sense?

Or what about commercial sea-going fish factories that sweep the oceans of all sea life, processing the species they want and killing those they don’t? The short-term benefit is cheap seafood. But the long-term consequence is the destruction of our ecosystem.
Does that make any freaking sense?

Or what about the clear-cutting of forests to make cheap, semi-disposable furniture? Or the destruction of rainforests and wildlife habitat to raise palm oil or cattle we don’t really need? Or using caravans of semi-trailers to haul merchandise coast-to-coast instead of more efficient trains? Or denying basic human rights to people based on a 2,000-year-old collection of writings of unknown origin? Or taking children from parents seeking asylum in our nation? Or by treating people differently based on their choice of religion, their language of the color of their skin?

Does any of that make any freaking sense?

When you strip away the traditions, the political labels, the myths and the prejudices, you quickly realize that much of what we do and believe makes no sense. No sense at all! Continuing to do something just because it’s something we’ve always done will only continue to perpetuate our problems. It’s time for change. Time to look at our actions and beliefs from an objective viewpoint – as if we just came here from another planet.

The very future of our civilization, indeed our species, may depend on it.

Suborning Perjury? That’s Where You Finally Draw The Line?

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After learning that Trump ordered his personal attorney to lie to Congress about his continued attempts to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow, members of Congress are suddenly willing to speak of impeachment.

Seriously, that’s what finally caused you to grow a spine?

It wasn’t enough that Trump, his entire administration and his congressional supporters have lied to the American public on a daily basis? It wasn’t enough that he stole the election with the help of Russia? It wasn’t enough that Trump embraced dictators and thugs around the world? It wasn’t enough that leaders of his campaign had more than 101 known contacts with Russians during the campaign and accepted illegal campaign contributions from Russians? It wasn’t enough that members of his campaign have been convicted and pleaded guilty of illegal activities?

It wasn’t enough that he appointed a man operating as an unregistered foreign agent as his director of national security?!!!

It wasn’t enough that Trump bragged on tape that he has committed sexual assault? And that it is known that he paid hush money to cover up illicit affairs with a porn star and a centerfold model? It wasn’t enough that Trump has damaged all of our most reliable and necessary institutions, such as the FBI, the CIA and the EPA? It wasn’t enough that he regularly refers to the news media as enemies of the people? It wasn’t enough that Trump appointed a group of sycophants and unqualified toadies to positions of authority? It wasn’t enough that Trump and his cabinet squandered tens of millions on vacations and private interests? It wasn’t enough that his administration sold public and tribal lands to the highest bidders?

It wasn’t enough that Trump undermined NATO and our international relationships with our strongest and most loyal allies – that his administration has broken international laws and treaties? It wasn’t enough that he manufactured an international crisis at our southern border – that he separated thousands of refugee children from their families? It wasn’t enough that his administration’s actions resulted in the deaths of two young children who had survived a thousand mile trek from Central America?

It wasn’t enough that Trump and his supporters have supported racists and Nazis – that they excused racist violence and the death of an innocent young woman? It wasn’t enough that they gave billions in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy while denying the basic needs of the poor as an extreme act of cruelty? It wasn’t enough that those unnecessary tax cuts ran up approximately $2 trillion in additional debt?

It wasn’t enough that his administration pandered to the victims of disasters in Texas and the southeastern US, while turning their backs on the American citizens of Puerto Rico? It wasn’t enough that Trump blamed the victims of California wildfires for losing their homes and their lives as a result of the climate change he denies? It wasn’t enough that he created trade wars causing Americans to lose markets for their products? It wasn’t enough that he shut down the federal government in a childish temper tantrum?

It isn’t enough that there is abundant evidence that he engaged in treason in plain sight?!!!

But ordering his attorney to lie to you? THAT? That’s where you draw the line?

Confronting Racism Wherever And Whenever You Encounter It.

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Though I’m generally reluctant to write about personal experiences, I feel that a recent confrontation might help to illuminate the seriousness of racism in America. Having been invited to Christmas dinner at a friend’s house, I was warned in advance that one of the other guests was a conservative. So I vowed to avoid politics. But as we sat down to eat, this white personal injury attorney announced that while working in a parking lot during his college years, he had been robbed by black men. He went on to state that most crimes are committed by black men. He said he has the statistics to prove it concluding that committing crimes is part of the black culture.

Where to begin? Do you confront such overt racism? Or, not wanting to disrupt a pleasant evening, do you simply let it slide? Before I detail my response to the situation, I should explain a bit about my background.

I am a white male who was raised in a nearly all-white region of the country surrounded by family and friends who often shared racist jokes at gatherings. In addition, my father often vehemently expressed his distaste for African-Americans – in particular Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders of the time. I don’t want to make excuses for these people, but I believe their comments simply showed a lack of knowledge and understanding.

As a young boy, I came to believe such behavior to be normal. But after attending a large university and making friends with people of diverse backgrounds, races, and nationalities, I realized that I could never again sit silent as someone made racist comments or told racist jokes.

Over time, I have witnessed rogue cops commit crimes and blame them on black activists. In my mixed race neighborhood, I saw a cop chain his attack-trained dog so that it could cross the sidewalk and bite any unsuspecting passersby. I learned of the practice of redlining in large cities to prevent black families from buying homes in white areas. I read studies showing that children of color routinely received more severe punishment in school than their white counterparts for the same offenses.

I read reports of corporations refusing to interview job applicants who had black sounding names. I heard my African-American friends tell of police harassment. And I personally witnessed six police officers take turns to brutally beat a black man who was handcuffed and lying on his belly in the snow and ice. (When I took my story to the Assistant Chief, I was told there were no arrests reported in the area on that day. I regret not pursuing the matter farther.)

Despite what many other white people believe, racism didn’t end with the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. Nor did it end when we elected our first black president. One need only read the Department of Justice report following the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Or watch the many videos of black harassment posted online. Or watch the video of the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia. Or watch “President” Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. Or watch the videos of kids in cages at our southern border.

So, yes, I confronted my friend’s dinner guest. I politely explained the racism I have witnessed. I detailed the harassment suffered by my black friends. I patiently explained that we are only a few generations removed from the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves. (I personally met veterans of that war.) I explained that, following emancipation, the slaves had nothing. And that it would take many more generations for black people to achieve financial equality with their white peers.

What was the dinner guest’s reaction? He told me – rather he yelled at me – that racism no longer exists then stomped out.

Call me the Grinch who ruined Christmas, but I believe that failing to confront racism at every opportunity only serves to perpetuate it. I may have ruined a Christmas dinner and caused my friends some grief. But that pales in comparison to what many people of color face on a daily basis. And I vow to do more to confront it.