Category Archives: Culture

The Difference Between Muslim Extremists And Many Christian Evangelicals.

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Spoiler alert: There is almost none!

Muslim extremists in the mold of ISIL and al-Qaeda are willing to martyr themselves to kill non-believers based on the bizarre notion that they will be greeted in the land of milk and honey by 72 virgins. On the other hand, extreme Christian evangelicals are willing to incite war in the Middle East by financing settlements in the West Bank based on their belief that establishing Israeli control of the “promised land” will lead to the return of their “Messiah.” As the story goes, that will prompt God to destroy the Earth while lifting true believers into heaven with the promise of everlasting life. For the same reason, many evangelical Christians deny that humans are contributing to climate change despite all of the scientific evidence that their inaction will lead to the extinction of more than a million species, the death of virtually all ocean life and rising sea levels that will displace or kill much of the Earth’s human population.

To these evangelicals, how the Earth is destroyed is of little concern. They are convinced the destruction will lead to their “rapture” one way or another.

Both types of extremists yearn to live under a theocracy based on the laws of their faiths. Both are contemptuous of other faiths. Both believe in the subservience of women. While Muslim extremists believe that women should cover themselves in public, many evangelical Christians view women as mere conveyances for children. Indeed, they are willing to impose the death penalty on any woman who dares to have an abortion for any reason, even in the case of rape or incest or threat to the life of the woman. They also believe that contraception is in defiance of God’s will.

Both groups believe they are persecuted. In fact, that is one of their primary tools for recruitment. Both refuse to accept that some of their accepted beliefs are the result of faulty translations of the scriptures. Both ignore the many contradictions in their gospels as well as the historical context in which they were written. And both groups are immune to conflicting information. They offer no room for discussion, debate or compromise. Indeed, they believe that doing so would be a betrayal of their faith.

Additionally, the extremists in both groups are masters of hypocrisy. We learned that some of the Muslim terrorists watched porn and visited strip clubs before committing their terrorist acts. Members of ISIL and Boko Haram have used rape as a weapon of war and have taken young women as slaves to bear their children. Meanwhile, many evangelicals live and preach “prosperity gospel” in complete contrast to the teachings of the man they claim to follow. Their leaders live in lavish mansions, are transported about in private jets, and some have been found to have engaged in embezzlement and other forms of financial fraud. And all of them enjoy the tax-free status of their religions.

Some of the evangelicals who are most outspoken against gays have been found to have gay lovers. Others have engaged in extramarital affairs. Some have even been found to have paid their mistresses to have abortions. And, recently, we learned that Jerry Falwell, Jr’s endorsement of Donald Trump came only after Trump’s “fixer” helped extort someone from releasing Falwell’s “embarrassing” photos.

Of course, there are extremists within virtually every religion. Yet, somehow, only one group of extremists is almost universally condemned by the majority population of the US. One really must ask why.

Is The GOP A Political Party? Or A Crime Syndicate?

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For those of you who think the two major political parties in the US are different in name only, I would like to correct the perception. True, both parties are far too friendly with lobbyists and large corporations. Both rely on billionaires to fund their political campaigns. Both have voted to dole out billions in corporate welfare. But that’s where the comparisons end. Today’s GOP would be unrecognizable to Republicans such as Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen GOP Sen. Joseph McCarthy create rampant fear of communists around every corner resulting in false accusations and black lists that ruined the lives of political opponents and innocents alike.

We saw GOP presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon treasonously interfere in the Vietnam peace talks for political advantage. As president, he divided the nation. Then, in his re-election campaign, he created a dirty tricks squad to torment his opponents. He was forced from office when it was discovered that he ordered a break-in of Democratic offices and used his position to cover it up. His VP, his Attorney General, his White House lawyer and others went to prison. And, during the Watergate hearings, he was found to have committed tax fraud. But, thanks to a pardon by his Republican successor, he was spared prison even as his tax lawyer was convicted and sentenced.

Similarly, we learned that Ronald Reagan secretly, and treasonously, negotiated with the Iranians to prevent the release of US hostages until after the presidential election. Then, during his second term, it was discovered that he had illegally ordered the sale of arms to Iran in order to fund an illegal war in Central America. At least a dozen members of his administration were indicted while Reagan was allowed to ride off into the sunset. Yet few of the culprits served real consequences since Reagan’s GOP successor, George H.W. Bush, ordered his Attorney General (William Barr) to pardon them.

Under false pretenses, Bush later led a war against Iraq over Kuwaiti oil. And following his “victory” Bush sent the nation’s economy into a deep recession by closing dozens of military bases in the US.

Following in his father’s footsteps, George W. Bush ignored warnings that al-Qaeda was set to attack the US resulting in 9/11. He then took us to war in Afghanistan (our longest-running war) and lied our nation into going to war in Iraq resulting in the squandering of trillions of dollars and the complete destabilization of the Middle East the consequences of which will be felt for many generations. Bush also oversaw the continued de-regulation of our financial sector leading to the collapse of our stock markets and the Great Recession.

Now we have the boss of a crime family occupying our White House – Donald J. Trump – who ascended to power as the beneficiary of substantial election interference by Russia, information stolen from Democratic databases, election fraud, illegal campaign contributions, and more than $70 million from the NRA. He has not only refused to acknowledge Russian interference, he has obstructed investigations into that interference. Only because of an inane judgment by the DOJ has he avoided charges. Meanwhile, his personal lawyer and members of his campaign committee have either pleaded guilty or have been convicted of crimes leading to prison sentences.

And that’s not even the worst of his presidency. He has led the plundering of our treasury to enrich his family, his friends and large corporations. He has gutted regulations designed to prevent another market crash and to protect our environment. He has engaged in ill-conceived trade wars. He has implemented racist policies. He has further divided our nation by empowering white nationalists. And he has undermined the truth, the press and most of our institutions.

All of this has been enabled by compliant GOP congressional representatives who are re-elected only as the result of extreme gerrymandering, union busting and a variety of voter suppression techniques designed to prevent people of color and the working poor from voting for their opponents.

By comparison, the last three Democratic administrations have been guilty of balancing the budget, rescuing our economy from financial collapse, giving millions of Americans access to affordable health care, and twenty years relatively free from scandal…except for that blow job and those emails. You know, THOSE emails.

The Real Tragedy Of Notre Dame de Paris.

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In the 24 hours following the fire that partially burned the Notre Dame cathedral, donors have already pledged more than $1 billion for its repair. Certainly it was a tragedy for Parisians, for France, for Catholics and for the lovers of history and art. But consider what else could be done with that money. Imagine if the Vatican, an organization that holds approximately $1.6 billion in stockholdings, paid for the reconstruction of Notre Dame itself and the donors’ money was used to address far more serious tragedies elsewhere in the world. Imagine how much human suffering could be alleviated if corporations and the wealthy cared as much about people facing real hardships.

For example, $1 billion could provide approximately 3 billion meals for the Yeminis who are starving as the result of the US-backed war on Yemen by the Saudis. $1 billion could go a long way to address the tragic conditions faced by Central American refugees in their own countries. And what if we added the billions the Trump administration is squandering on a wall to feed the ego of the orange sociopath in the White House?

If the corporations and the wealthy so traumatized by seeing a Parisian landmark burn were equally concerned about human beings, they could solve most of the poverty in the world. They could improve conditions for most of people suffering as the result of war, climate change or the greed of brutal dictators. However, they only seem to care about the things that affect them directly or that have captured their imaginations.

Perhaps they’re merely influenced by media coverage.

As Notre Dame burned, many of the TV networks were transfixed, devoting virtually all of their time to scenes of the fire and of onlookers mourning. But on the same day, a fire broke out at the al-Asqa Mosque in Jerusalem. Where was their coverage of that fire? Where was their coverage of the three black churches in Louisiana that were burned by a white nationalist?

There are many serious tragedies in the world. Most go relatively unnoticed and unfunded. The fire at Notre Dame was not one of them.

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!

A Powerful Voice For Social Democracy.

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Rutger Bregman, Dutch historian and author of Utopia For Realists recently spoke to some of the world’s wealthiest people at Davos, Switzerland in which he said, “I hear people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance and of the rich just not paying their fair share. I mean it feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water. We’ve got to be talking about taxes! That’s it. Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion.”

His speech went viral.

Following that event, he appeared on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, where he was asked to address the current debate over socialism in the US. “To me, it seems a bewildering discussion,” he replied. “Because what we’re actually talking about are policies that are hugely popular among the vast majority of Americans. 67 percent want guaranteed paid maternity leave. 70 percent want Medicare for all. 81 percent is enthusiastic about the New Green Deal. 75 percent want higher taxes on the rich. These are hugely popular policies that work really well in the countries that tried them. So it has nothing to do with socialism or communism or whatever.”

“Actually, capitalism and the welfare state need each other. So something like a guaranteed basic income that I’ve been arguing for would actually be venture capital for the people. So that everyone can start a new company or move to a different job or a different city, which will make the economy much more dynamic. Now if we look at the history of innovation – take the Iphone, for example – every sliver of the fundamental technology of the Iphone was invented by researchers on the government payroll….all these breakthrough technologies are financed by the government. Capitalism and the government – they need each other.”

Asked how Democratic candidates should handle this in the campaign, he responded, “You’re just being a realist, right? Basically advocating the ideas that the majority of Americans want. We need a massive transformation of the economy when we talk about issues like climate change or inequality. It’s really the so-called moderates…the centrists…I think that’s the real radical fringe. It’s really a crazy radical idea of sticking to the status quo right now. The challenges are huge right now. We have to halt emissions on a global scale by 2050. So we need that huge transformation of the economy. So then if you say, ‘I’m a moderate, we should tinker around the edges’ that’s a pretty crazy proposition if you ask me.”

Exploitation Of The American Dream.

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The American Dream is a belief firmly rooted in our culture that anyone – regardless of race, gender, or circumstances of birth – can achieve prosperity through determination and hard work. That belief has led to our nation’s success and made it a beacon for people the world over.

Unfortunately, in recent years, the American Dream has been exploited by the wealthy and the powerful to serve their own self-interests. By encouraging you to believe that their success is the result of hard work, they have convinced you that you, too, can be a billionaires or, at very least, a multi-millionaire. All you have to do is work hard and vote to protect their wealth from extraordinary taxes.

But the reality is that most billionaires like Donald Trump achieved their wealth through a combination of luck, unethical or illegal activities, and by inheriting it their families. Indeed, very few Americans will become billionaires. The vast majority will struggle just to make ends meet. Nevertheless, the idea that you, too, can be obscenely rich is persuasive. So many Americans continue to vote against their self-interest by voting for those who propose tax cuts that benefit only the powerful and the wealthy.

Want to know why we can’t afford to rebuild our infrastructure? Why your child can’t afford the tuition of a college or university? Why your children are likely to be worse off than you? It’s because you’ve been conned into supporting tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy.

While you struggle to pay your taxes, the people you admire pay a much smaller tax rate than you. And many don’t pay any taxes at all. Many have hired skilled tax lawyers who help them hide their wealth in shell corporations in places like Bermuda, the Caymans, Luxembourg and Panama. Some of the wealthy don’t even have to go to those lengths. They simply invest in shell corporations located in the on-shore tax havens of Delaware, South Dakota and Nevada. Didn’t know those tax havens exist? That’s because you don’t have the resources to take advantage of them.

And those multinational corporations that promised to create more jobs if only you cut their tax rate? They used the money saved from their lower tax rates to buy back their stock and pay their already wealthy executives bigger bonuses. Some are still stashing their international profits off shore until they can con you into supporting even larger tax cuts.

Don’t be angry at them. The wealthy and the corporations are just doing what they always do – finding ways to make more money. Instead, be angry at yourself. It is your own greed – the idea that someday you, too, will be obscenely wealthy that has led to the current situation. After all, you’re smart. And you’re willing to work hard. But the reality is that you have a better chance of winning the lottery – 175 million to one – than becoming a billionaire by creating a Microsoft or a Facebook.

In other words, you’re being played for a sucker. If you really want to succeed, look to the example of the greatest generation – the generation that survived the Great Depression and World War Following the war, the soldiers then came home to build the American middle class. They taxed the wealthy in order to build roads and all of the things we take for granted today. Executives were content to take a modest salary in order to make their corporations stronger. Unlike today’s generations, they didn’t consider themselves exceptional. They weren’t given Cs for just showing up in class. Most were proud to refer to themselves as just an average Joe or an average Jill. They didn’t expect to become wealthy. They just wanted to work hard, earn a good wage, live comfortably and make things better for their kids than themselves.

For them, that was the American Dream. I believe it should be enough.

“If You’re Explaining, You’re Losing.”

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That is the “wisdom” voiced by a number of political reporters when discussing the latest GOP accusations that Social Democracy and Socialism are one in the same…a perfect example of the flaws with today’s headline-driven, sensation-seeking journalism. Those reporters and their editors seem to believe that the American people are incapable of understanding complexity and context. But how would they know? They have seldom tried.

Certainly, local radio and TV newsrooms lack the time, resources and will to analyze complex issues and report them objectively. But the same can’t be said of cable TV networks.

Cable TV networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have both the resources and the time to provide insight and details for complex issues – to help viewers understand social democracy, climate change, immigration, federal deficits, racial disparity and most other issues of our time. Instead, it seems they would rather focus on headlines and details. (One notable exception is Rachel Maddow who often uses her entire hour-long show to accurately explore the details of a single story. At the other extreme is Fox News, which like many talk radio shows, prefers to serve as a cheerleader and propagandist for the Republican Party.)

Want to know the difference between social democracy and socialism? You’d have better success asking a political science professor than watching a newscast. In reality, the only people who are likely to be asked to define social democracy on television or radio are its Republican opponents who will confuse it with communism. They will want to scare the bejeezus out of you to prevent you from voting for programs that might actually benefit you as opposed to their tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations. For the record, most of the nations in the advanced world are successful social democracies. They have universal health care, free education, free daycare and pensions, all paid for by taxes. Instead, the US has gone in another direction. Thanks to sustained GOP tax cuts, the US is now recognized as an oligarchy – a government dominated by the very rich and powerful. But have you seen or heard any broadcast news organization question that? Have you seen GOP politicians and strategists asked to explain and defend the policies that led to oligarchy?

That should tell you everything you need to know about cable TV’s journalistic bias.

Want to know the details and consequences of the two parties’ budget proposals? You’ll have to sort through dozens and dozens of newspaper, magazine and online articles in order to piece together a scant understanding. Want to know the true consequences of unabated carbon emissions on our planet? You’ll need to read detailed reports and studies from the world’s climate scientists. Want to really understand the Green New Deal? You’ll have to wait for an interview with its sponsor. And you’re more likely to find that on a late night TV talk show than in a newscast.

What passes for fairness in television journalism these days is this: The news host presents a news headline or encapsulated story. Then the host brings on pundits or officials from each party to provide their viewpoints on the story. The viewer is then expected to reach their own conclusions. There is no attempt to drill down to the truth. The hosts are more interested in providing equal time.

That’s not journalism! It’s infotainment.

When I attended journalism school, we were taught to search for the facts and truth. Opinions needed to be labeled as such. Equal time was only considered in terms of political campaigns. We were taught that there are not two sides to the truth. There is only the truth. That’s why network news reporters were once ranked as some of the most credible people in the world. They reported the truth without concern for providing time for opposing viewpoints. As Walter Cronkite famously said, “My job is not to tell you what you want to know. My job is to tell you what you need to know.”

No one understands the reality of today’s journalism standards better than reality TV star, Donald J. Trump. During the 2016 election, as Hillary and other Democrats proposed detailed solutions for our nation’s most pressing problems, Trump offered simplistic proposals (“Mexico will pay for the wall”) and sensational attacks against his opponent (“Lock her up”). Not surprisingly, the television news shows ignored substance and, instead, fawned over Trump, giving him endless hours of coverage. Even when he was exposed as a sexual assaulter, racist, fraud and liar, the media continued to host him at every opportunity. In industry parlance, Trump was “good copy.”

Even today, Trump dominates the airwaves. Whether it’s news of the Russia investigation, the corruption of his administration, the criminality of his family and his associates, or his avalanche of lies, the cable TV news channels are virtually all Trump all the time. As a result, the reality of his crimes and corruption are diminished – lost in a sea of stories and commentary by politicians and pundits on both sides.

Of course, there are still many diligent, hardworking reporters writing in newspapers, magazines and online outlets. And, in fairness, there are also many working for television news organizations. But their work is often overshadowed by the TV hosts, the pundits, the political strategists, the fear-mongers and the conspiracy theorists.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” We all need to work at educating ourselves. We can’t rely on TV news hosts, radio instigators, and social media platforms populated by Russian trolls to do the job for us. We need to do our own research; to seek out serious journalists; to read academic and scientific studies; to find the purveyors of truth.

It requires effort. But that’s what the nation’s founders would have expected of us.

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.

Where Are Those Patriots Now?

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For many years, conservatives have portrayed themselves as some sort of super-patriots. They have displayed the flag and images of the flag at every opportunity – in front of their homes, on their cars, in the rear window of their trucks, on their hats and on their shirts. They have made a show out of saying the Pledge of Allegiance before every meeting. Like robots, they have recited “Thank you for your service” to every military veteran they meet. Without trying to understand the underlying cause, they have expressed their outrage at black football players who protested the treatment of African-Americans by kneeling for the national anthem. And they have told anyone who questions the decisions of our nation’s leaders, “If you don’t like it, leave.” (That is, except for when President Obama was in office.)

They have talked of American Exceptionalism as if the US has some divine right to rule the world. They have seemed to resent any foreigners who have crossed our country’s borders, especially if they are people of color or speak anything but English. And they have seemed all too willing to go to war with any nation that, in their view, doesn’t bow to our economic and military magnificence.

Most especially, these super-patriots despised the Soviet Union and totalitarianism echoing Ronald Reagan’s sentiment that its leaders “are the focus of evil in the modern world.”

My how things have changed.

We now have a so-called conservative in the White House who was put there with the help of Russian interference in our election. Since taking office, Donald Trump hasn’t even bothered to hide his affection and admiration for the Russian president – a former KGB member – who ordered that interference. And we have learned that Trump’s son, Don Jr., met with an Israeli company that presented a plan to use the interference of a foreign government to sway the election. As a result, it seems clear that the Trump campaign followed that plan in coordination with Russia.

In addition, it is known that members of the Trump campaign had at least 101 contacts with Russian officials during the campaign – several of them with the intent to set up a private back channel of communications between Trump and the Russian government. It is known that many of the campaign officials lied to Congress and the FBI about those contacts. And it is known that seven Trump campaign officials have been indicted or pleaded guilty.

It is known that Trump ushered Russian leaders and the Russian press into the Oval Office giving them classified information. It has been well documented that Trump has had multiple private meetings with Vladimir Putin. After the meetings, he collected the translator’s notes to keep the discussions secret. Moreover, Trump and his campaign staff are not the only Republicans with mysterious connections to Russia. It is alleged that some of Trump’s most ardent congressional supporters received campaign funds from Russian oligarchs which were apparently funneled through the NRA.

All of this is in addition to the many known financial connections between the Trump organization and Russian oligarchs.

It begs the questions: Why are those super-patriots not outraged by the Russian interference and Trump’s obvious obstruction of justice? Why are they not calling for Trump’s impeachment? Why do they even refuse to support any investigations into the apparent Trump-Russian conspiracy?

Obviously, Trump is pandering to them by giving them many of the things they have long wanted. They are thrilled with Trump’s nomination of ultra-conservative judges. They are pleased with his repeal of environmental regulations. They are happy to see Trump dismantle our federal government. And they are excited to see his hard-line response to his critics, the media, and people of color – most especially the immigrants seeking asylum from violence and crushing poverty in their own countries. But at what cost? Is any of that worth the damage to our electoral system? To our Constitution?

It’s time these self-described super-patriots consider the consequence of supporting a president who so openly cozies up to Vladimir Putin, a ruthless dictator who is obsessed with returning Russia to its former glory under the Soviet Union. They would do well to remember that Putin’s Soviet Union was our avowed enemy. A fact best expressed by former Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who once said, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!”

Given current developments, I fear he may have been right.