It is depressing to look into the future of this country. The closer we come to the election the less confident I am that this great nation of ours is going to be able to work its way out of the pandemic and this depression and to find the way forward with 37 million people plus unemployed.
How will we ever find the confidence to reenter the world when we do not even have the simplest plan?
It may not be a totally secure system but produce and provide thermometers to test the temperature of each and every person entering a building. Every building.
At least then, one would have some sense of security on any given day that the people with whom you work in the same building, are free of the virus.
Certainly it should not be that difficult to get enough thermometers made and distributed. However, we couldn’t even get life saving protective body covering and masks made for our front line workers.
It is clear that what was really needed early on was for the federal government to order the people who manufacture sleep masks, to make safety masks instead.
The government should have instantly ordered the garment industry to manufacture life saving protective garments for the front line workers. It should not have been a very complicated conversion.
Although they are not in the garment business, theater actors in NYC have been volunteering since the beginning of the virus to cut protective fabric and the wardrobe departments of the theaters have been sewing the garments and then distributing them to the hospitals.
I remember that during WW II there were many problems that needed immediate solutions. One that I particularly remember was that in 1942, America had entered the war and the Bazooka had just been invented. This was the first portable rocket launcher. It was essential to immediately find the material with which to make the barrels. The president locked his brain trust into a room until they solved the problem.
The problem was solved immediately. They took the pipes from closed down oil drilling equipment and converted those pipes into the barrels of the bazookas.
Today we couldn’t even manufacture face masks.
Actually we could have. We could have manufactured face masks right at the beginning of the pandemic and we could have manufactured protective garments that would have saved lives. But we didn’t.
Today we have virtually no government to mandate the solutions.
In fact we have no government at all. What we have instead is a narcissistic family running this country as if we were all chattel, here only to enrich and aggrandize them.
The Trump family does not need to wear masks or protective garments. Only we their slaves, need to wear masks and gloves to protect them from us.
Is this our way back?
Hit the streets, rise up, rebel, before it’s too late.
Several years back, I said that I lived through and still remember the 1930s with the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, which ultimately propelled us into WWII. I said then, and I say it now; Trump is a clone of Hitler.
To my amazement, a friend of mine recently sent me this article listing 20 ways Trump is mirroring Hitler’s early policies and rhetoric, corroborating my thoughts on the subject. I am posting these in the hope that everyone will read it. It’s long and takes a bit of time, but please, please read this and understand that this man, Trump, will lead America down the path to its own destruction.
I don’t know how to reach his unsuspecting supporters, but I think it is vital to the survival of the United States of America that everyone must recognize the similarities between Germany in the 1930’s and the United States today with Trump as president.
This is not Republican versus Democrat. This is not Right versus Left. This is the single issue of the rise of a dictator who, if re-elected into office, will never leave, and will totally destroy America, just as Hitler destroyed Germany and almost the world.
I want you to read this article by Steven Rosenfeld, containing excerpts from a book called “When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic” by Burt Neuborne, who is one of America’s top civil liberties lawyers.
1.Neither was elected by a majority.
Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes, receiving votes by 25.3 percent of all eligible American voters.
“That’s just a little less than the percentage of the German electorate that turned to the Nazi Party in 1932–33,” Neuborne writes. “Unlike the low turnouts in the United States, turnout in Weimar Germany averaged just over 80 percent of eligible voters.”
He continues, “Once installed as a minority chancellor in January 1933, Hitler set about demonizing his political opponents, and no one — not the vaunted, intellectually brilliant German judiciary; not the respected, well-trained German police; not the revered, aristocratic German military; not the widely admired, efficient German government bureaucracy; not the wealthy, immensely powerful leaders of German industry; and not the powerful center-right political leaders of the Reichstag — mounted a serious effort to stop him.”
2.Both Hitler and Trump found direct communication channels to their base.
By the 1936 Olympics, Nazi narratives dominated German cultural and political life.
“How on earth did Hitler pull it off? What satanic magic did Trump find in Hitler’s speeches?” Neuborne asks. (It is allegedly rumored by his first wife, Ivana, that he kept a copy of Mein Kampf on his nighttable.)
He addresses Hitler’s extreme rhetoric soon enough, but notes that Hitler found a direct communication pathway—the Nazi Party gave out radios with only one channel, tuned to Hitler’s voice, bypassing Germany’s news media. Trump has an online equivalent.
“Donald Trump’s tweets, often delivered between midnight and dawn, are the twenty-first century’s technological embodiment of Hitler’s free plastic radios,” Neuborne says. “Trump’s Twitter account, like Hitler’s radios, enables a charismatic leader to establish and maintain a personal, unfiltered line of communication with an adoring political base of about 30–40 percent of the population, many (but not all) of whom are only too willing, even anxious, to swallow Trump’s witches’ brew of falsehoods, half-truths, personal invective, threats, xenophobia, national security scares, religious bigotry, white racism, exploitation of economic insecurity, and a never ending-search for scapegoats.”
3.Both blame others and divide on racial lines.
As Neuborne notes, “Hitler used his single-frequency radios to wax hysterical to his adoring base about his pathological racial and religious fantasies glorifying Aryans and demonizing Jews, blaming Jews (among other racial and religious scapegoats) for German society’s ills.”
That is comparable to “Trump’s tweets and public statements, whether dealing with black-led demonstrations against police violence, white-led racist mob violence, threats posed by undocumented aliens, immigration policy generally, protests by black and white professional athletes, college admission policies, hate speech, even response to hurricane damage in Puerto Rico.”
Again and again, Trump uses “racially tinged messages calculated to divide whites from people of color.”
4. Both relentlessly demonize opponents.
“Hitler’s radio harangues demonized his domestic political opponents, calling them parasites, criminals, cockroaches, and various categories of leftist scum.”
“Trump’s tweets and speeches similarly demonize his political opponents. Trump talks about the country being ‘infested’ with dangerous aliens of color. He fantasizes about jailing Hillary Clinton, calls Mexicans rapists, refers to ‘shithole countries,’ degrades anyone who disagrees with him, and dreams of uprooting thousands of allegedly disloyal bureaucrats in the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI, and the CIA, who he calls ‘the deep state’ and who, he claims, are sabotaging American greatness.”
5. They unceasingly attack objective truth.
“Both Trump and Hitler maintained a relentless assault on the very idea of objective truth,” he continues. “Each began the assault by seeking to delegitimize the mainstream press. Hitler quickly coined the epithet Lügenpresse (literally ‘lying press’) to denigrate the mainstream press.
Trump uses a paraphrase of Hitler’s lying press epithet—‘fake news’—cribbed, no doubt, from one of Hitler’s speeches. For Trump, the mainstream press is a ‘lying press’ that publishes ‘fake news.’”
Hitler attacked his opponents as spreading false information to undermine his positions, Neuborne says, just as Trump has attacked “elites” for disseminating false news, “especially his possible links to the Kremlin.”
6. They relentlessly attack mainstream media.
Trump’s assaults on the media echo Hitler’s, Neuborne says, noting that he “repeatedly attacks the ‘failing New York Times,’ leads crowds in chanting ‘CNN sucks,’ [and] is personally hostile to most reporters.”
He cites the White House’s refusal to fly the flag at half-mast after the murder of five journalists in Annapolis in June 2018, Trump’s efforts to punish CNN by blocking a merger of its corporate parent, and trying to revoke federal Postal Service contracts held by Amazon, which was founded by Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.
7. Their attacks on truth include science.
Neuborne notes, “Both Trump and Hitler intensified their assault on objective truth by deriding scientific experts, especially academics who question Hitler’s views on race or Trump’s views on climate change, immigration, or economics.
For both Trump and Hitler, the goal is (and was) to eviscerate the very idea of objective truth, turning everything into grist for a populist jury subject to manipulation by a master puppeteer.
In both Trump’s and Hitler’s worlds, public opinion ultimately defines what is true and what is false.”
8. Their lies blur reality—and supporters spread them.
“Trump’s pathological penchant for repeatedly lying about his behavior can only succeed in a world where his supporters feel free to embrace Trump’s ‘alternative facts’ and treat his hyperbolic exaggerations as the gospel truth,” Neuborne says.
“Once Hitler had delegitimized the mainstream media by a series of systematic attacks on its integrity, he constructed a fawning alternative mass media designed to reinforce his direct radio messages and enhance his personal power.
“Trump is following the same path, simultaneously launching bitter attacks on the mainstream press while embracing the so-called alt-right media, co-opting both Sinclair Broadcasting and the Rupert Murdoch–owned Fox Broadcasting Company as, essentially, a Trump Broadcasting Network.”
9. Both orchestrated mass rallies to show status.
“Once Hitler had cemented his personal communications link with his base via free radios and a fawning media and had badly eroded the idea of objective truth, he reinforced his emotional bond with his base by holding a series of carefully orchestrated mass meetings dedicated to cementing his status as a charismatic leader, or Führer,” Neuborne writes.
“The powerful personal bonds nurtured by Trump’s tweets and Fox’s fawning are also systematically reinforced by periodic, carefully orchestrated mass rallies (even going so far as to co-opt a Boy Scout Jamboree in 2017), reinforcing Trump’s insatiable narcissism and his status as a charismatic leader.”
10. They embrace extreme nationalism.
“Hitler’s strident appeals to the base invoked an extreme version of German nationalism, extolling a brilliant German past and promising to restore Germany to its rightful place as a preeminent nation,” Neuborne says.
“Trump echoes Hitler’s jingoistic appeal to ultranationalist fervor, extolling American exceptionalism right down to the slogan ‘Make America Great Again,’ a paraphrase of Hitler’s promise to restore German greatness.”
11. Both made closing borders a centerpiece.
“Hitler all but closed Germany’s borders, freezing non-Aryan migration into the country and rendering it impossible for Germans to escape without official permission. Like Hitler, Trump has also made closed borders a centerpiece of his administration,” Neuborne continues.
“Hitler barred Jews. Trump bars Muslims and seekers of sanctuary from Central America.
“When the lower courts blocked Trump’s Muslim travel ban, he unilaterally issued executive orders replacing it with a thinly disguised substitute that ultimately narrowly won Supreme Court approval under a theory of extreme deference to the president.”
12. They embraced mass detention and deportations.
“Hitler promised to make Germany free from Jews and Slavs. Trump promises to slow, stop, and even reverse the flow of non-white immigrants, substituting Muslims, Africans, Mexicans, and Central Americans of color for Jews and Slavs as scapegoats for the nation’s ills.
“Trump’s efforts to cast dragnets to arrest undocumented aliens where they work, live, and worship, followed by mass deportation… echo Hitler’s promise to defend Germany’s racial identity,”
He also notes that Trump has “stooped to tearing children from their parents [as Nazis in World War II would do] to punish desperate efforts by migrants to find a better life.”
13. Both used borders to protect selected industries.
“Like Hitler, Trump seeks to use national borders to protect his favored national interests, threatening to ignite protectionist trade wars with Europe, China, and Japan similar to the trade wars that, in earlier incarnations, helped to ignite World War I and World War II.”
“Like Hitler, Trump aggressively uses our nation’s political and economic power to favor selected American corporate interests at the expense of foreign competitors and the environment, even at the price of international conflict, massive inefficiency, and irreversible pollution [climate change].”
14.They cemented their rule by enriching elites.
“Hitler’s version of fascism shifted immense power—both political and financial—to the leaders of German industry. In fact, Hitler governed Germany largely through corporate executives,” he continues.
“Trump has also presided over a massive empowerment—and enrichment—of corporate America. Under Trump, large corporations exercise immense political power while receiving huge economic windfalls and freedom from regulations designed to protect consumers and the labor force.
“Hitler despised the German labor movement, eventually destroying it and imprisoning its leaders.
“Trump also detests strong unions, seeking to undermine any effort to interfere with the prerogatives of management.”
15. Both rejected international norms.
“Hitler’s foreign policy rejected international cooperation in favor of military and economic coercion, culminating in the annexation of the Sudetenland, the phony Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the horrors of global war.”
“Like Hitler, Trump is deeply hostile to multinational cooperation, withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the nuclear agreement with Iran, threatening to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria, and even going so far as to question the value of NATO, our post-World War II military alliance with European democracies against Soviet expansionism.”
16. They attack domestic democratic processes.
“Hitler attacked the legitimacy of democracy itself, purging the voting rolls, challenging the integrity of the electoral process, and questioning the ability of democratic government to solve Germany’s problems,”
“Trump has also attacked the democratic process, declining to agree to be bound by the outcome of the 2016 elections when he thought he might lose, supporting the massive purge of the voting rolls allegedly designed to avoid (nonexistent) fraud, championing measures that make it harder to vote, tolerating—if not fomenting—massive Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, encouraging mob violence at rallies, darkly hinting at violence if Democrats hold power, and constantly casting doubt on the legitimacy of elections unless he wins.”
17. Both attack the judiciary and rule of law.
“Hitler politicized and eventually destroyed the vaunted German justice system. Trump also seeks to turn the American justice system into his personal playground,”
“Like Hitler, Trump threatens the judicially enforced rule of law, bitterly attacking American judges who rule against him, slyly praising Andrew Jackson for defying the Supreme Court, and abusing the pardon power by pardoning an Arizona sheriff found guilty of criminal contempt of court for disobeying federal court orders to cease violating the Constitution.”
18.Both glorify the military and demand loyalty oaths.
“Like Hitler, Trump glorifies the military, staffing his administration with layers of retired generals (who eventually were fired or resigned), relaxing control over the use of lethal force by the military and the police, and demanding a massive increase in military spending,”
Just as Hitler “imposed an oath of personal loyalty on all German judges” and demanded courts defer to him, “Trump’s already gotten enough deference from five Republican [Supreme Court] justices to uphold a largely Muslim travel ban that is the epitome of racial and religious bigotry.”
Trump has also demanded loyalty oaths. “He fired James Comey, a Republican appointed in 2013 as FBI director by President Obama, for refusing to swear an oath of personal loyalty to the president.
“[He] excoriated and then sacked Jeff Sessions, his handpicked attorney general, for failing to suppress the criminal investigation into… Trump’s possible collusion with Russia in influencing the 2016 elections.
“[He] repeatedly threatened to dismiss Robert Mueller, the special counsel carrying out the investigation.
“[He] called again and again for the jailing of Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent, leading crowds in chants of ‘lock her up.’” A new chant, “send her back,” has since emerged at Trump rallies directed at non-white Democratic congresswomen.
19.They proclaim unchecked power.
“Like Hitler, Trump has intensified a disturbing trend that predated his administration of governing unilaterally, largely through executive orders or proclamations,” Neuborne says, citing:
The Muslim travel ban
Trade tariffs
Unraveling of health and environmental safety nets
Ban on transgender military service
Efforts to end President Obama’s protection for Dreamers
“Like Hitler, Trump claims the power to overrule Congress and govern all by himself. In 1933, Hitler used the pretext of the Reichstag fire to declare a national emergency and seize the power to govern unilaterally. The German judiciary did nothing to stop him. German democracy never recovered.”
“When Congress refused to give Trump funds for his border wall even after he threw a tantrum and shut down the government, Trump, like Hitler, declared a phony national emergency and claimed the power to ignore Congress.”
“Don’t count on the Supreme Court to stop him. Five justices gave the game away on the President’s unilateral travel ban. They just might do the same thing on the border wall.” It did in late July, ruling that Trump could divert congressionally appropriated funds from the Pentagon budget—undermining constitutional separation of powers.
20.Both relegate women to subordinate roles.
“Hitler propounded a misogynistic, stereotypical view of women, valuing them exclusively as wives and mothers while excluding them from full participation in German political and economic life.
Trump may be the most openly misogynist figure ever to hold high public office in the United States, crassly treating women as sexual objects, using nondisclosure agreements and violating campaign finance laws to shield his sexual misbehavior from public knowledge, attacking women who come forward to accuse men of abusive behavior, undermining reproductive freedom, and opposing efforts by women to achieve economic equality.”
If you are interested in reading more, here is the link to the full article:
I personally do not differentiate amongst my friends as to the color of their skin or the slant of their eyes. I do not like all white people and I do not dislike all black people. I only like some white people and I only like some black people, some Asian people and some muslim people. I like those people who are my friends.
I wonder if the endless talk about race is not counter productive. It seems to me that the real story and the real problem is “people not race”.
All white people are not the same and all black people are not the same nor are all Chinese or muslim people the same.
What about the doctors and the nurses of all races who put their lives at risk as did the Assemblywoman Karines Reyes who used to work as a nurse and gave up the safety of her life to work in a hospital on the frontlines of the coronavirus battle? These are all people multiracial who are dedicated to helping other people.
The hospitals are filled with people of all races. The coronavirus, if it has any meaning at all in the passage of time, it is that epidemics affect all people regardless of race, color or religion.
If some people are poor and have underlying health conditions due to malnutrition, inadequate health care, poverty or a myriad of other problems, they may be more vulnerable than some other people are.
As America emerges from the devastation of this pandemic, my hope for this country, for us as a nation is that we will look upon and see all Americans as PEOPLE.
If some people need more help than other people it should be the obligation of all citizens to see that these conditions are alleviated.
It becomes clearer as time passes that our obligation to ourselves and to this nation of ours is to improve our medical systems for everyone, to improve our educational systems for everyone and to see that all people receive their fair share for their contribution towards the wealth of corporate American.
No matter what the worker race may be, what matters is that all people are recognized as individuals and judged accordingly.
Everything happening in the Senate and White House requires daily attention from all of us. President Trump, in his State of the Union address, gave a great speech. If everything that he said in his speech would have been true, one could have concluded that he is truly a great president.
However, the truth is that everything he said was a lie. When Nancy Pelosi tore up the copy of his speech, all she was saying was that this speech has no worth for the United States. It is a package of lies, presented as truth.
He has reduced Medicare and the costs have gone up. He has reduced coverage for pre-existing conditions. He has not dealt with the pharmaceutical companies, and he will not, so the price of pharmaceuticals is out of reach for most people. He has not dealt with education except to further destroy the education system in America by appointing someone who has no experience in education and has never held any relevant positions in her life.
It’s true that the wealthiest Americans are benefitting from unnecessary tax cuts while the rest of the country is basically struggling for survival. It may be that there is little unemployment – not to say that this is a bad thing – but it is a bad thing when two members of the family are employed full time and still can’t pay for school, rent, medical expenses, and have no fallback or savings for an emergency.
And in the meanwhile, we have a Republican Senate locked in the grip of a dictator. Instead of acting as the individuals representing their individual sectors, or doing what is right for the country, all that they are doing is supporting and enabling a lying, untruthful president.
It has brought me to the conclusion that we must have a constitutional amendment to change the status of the Senate. This cannot be a lifetime career with a lifetime pension. If their seats were not lifetime, then they wouldn’t be so afraid of losing their seats. There must be limits on the number of terms they may serve.
It should be an honor to serve, at a decent salary while you serve. I also do not think that people should serve for more than two terms at the most. They would be more likely to want to take their place in history and do what is really truly best for the country. That would protect the country from exactly the kind of dictatorship condition that we are in right now.
History will remember Mitt Romney as a man of courage and decency. The rest of the Republican party, faced with clear evidence against the president, would not even allow witnesses or evidence to be brought to bear. Obviously, they were afraid to allow the truth to be brought to light. But only Romney had the courage to deny Trump that unanimous Republican support.
This failure on the part of the Republican senate is such a clear and evident crime against our Democratic state and the American people.
And if this is allowed to persist further, and if Trump remains president for another 4 years, this country and all of its values and everything that has made America great will be totally destroyed and will never be able to be rebuilt again. It will never recover.
The impossible will have happened. Donald Trump is not only incapable of integrity, honesty, empathy, or humanity; he is a total destroyer and dictator, and his language on television is absolutely despicable. It is embarrassing for a nation to be represented by an illiterate person, whose use of four letter words on national public broadcasting is despicable, vulgar, and unacceptable beyond description.
The Republican Party is no longer the Republican party. It has allowed itself to become the destructive arm of Donald Trump and his supporters.
This is not a question of Republicans versus Democrats, or Democrats versus Republicans. And if the Republicans had a grain or an ounce of decency they would put up another candidate. They would back another candidate. There is no law that says the party HAS to support an unqualified, undesirable, unethical, delusional dictator.
Pay attention, America. Please pay attention. Please go and hit the streets. Get the vote out. Whether a Republican or a Democrat is elected in 2020, IT MUST NOT BE TRUMP.
Two years ago, I wrote a blog about immigration in the United States and the lack of an immigration policy. I am reposting this here for you to read today because I think it still applies, and absolutely nothing has been done to change the conditions under which people come to find safety in the United States.
Instead, we seem to have taken a step backwards, and for the second time in American history, we are shamefully isolating and imprisoning people who have the misfortune of having to leave their homes and uproot their lives to seek asylum.
Nobody does this for pleasure.
I cannot believe that two years later, we still have not dealt with the immigration problems at our borders. We as a nation should not be repeating the shameful behavior of America during WWII, when we imprisoned and isolated the Japanese-Americans and other nationalities. This even included people from Finland whose homeland had been invaded by Russia and were trying to escape to America. They were arrested at sea and sent to the immigration camps.
This was not America’s shining hour, and neither is our lack of policy today at the borders.
Reposted from 7/14/2018
Today there are more displaced people in the world than there have ever been at any time in history. According to the United Nations, 67 million people are desperately seeking refuge somewhere. This vast displacement of people has caused a major crisis, and a growing crisis, to every nation in the developed world.
Huge numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers are being forced to live under unacceptable conditions while they desperately try to gain legal admission to any country that will accept them. The current systems are not solving the problem of massive immigration. It is incumbent upon the governments of all nations, the United Nations, the European community, and even the World Economic Forum to redefine immigration programs. It is also imperative that all of us, worldwide, find ways to aid refugees facing extraordinary challenges.
There is a sense of destabilization that occurs when a large population of different races, religions, and customs overwhelm an existing culture. As The United States does not have any viable immigration plan, these fears have empowered this administration and its tyrannical zero immigration policy. This policy has led to cruel and inhumane treatment of desperate people.
The present anti-immigration policies of The United States, such as the deportation of people who have lived here for many years and the separation of children from their parents at the border, is absolutely not acceptable. It is not in any way a plan or solution to the massive refugee problem, nor is it a solution to immigration. It is tyrannical, unacceptable and totally short-sided for The United States.
America should welcome immigrants. We have almost full employment and we are an aging population with an historically low birth-rate. This confluence of circumstances can bring development and growth to a halt in The United States. Immigration is an important way of reversing the tide. In order to grow the economy we will need skilled workers to fill future jobs in farming, building infrastructure, and other trades.
It is often costly and usually takes an inordinately long time for people to apply and gain legal entry into The United States. There should be more entry ports and consulates so that this process could be shortened, and so that asylum-seekers could be dealt with more quickly and humanely.
Legal entry into The United States should have certain requirements. Obviously no criminal record, but also English should be required. Instead of having internment camps at the border, there should be English language schools.
No one should be allowed a green-card until they have a working knowledge of English. After all, English is the language of the country and it is what binds Americans together along with the social contract, the laws of the land, and the culture. English must be the primary language. Without it we lose the ability to take on jobs, assimilate, or feel a sense of patriotic love of country.
We as a nation have lost our moral compass. We must re-establish our own social and moral values in order to be able to impart them with impunity to the new arrivals. This should be done even as they are learning to speak English.
Another problem facing host countries receiving an overwhelmingly large number of refugees is that these people tend to seek their own kind. In turn they set up their own enclaves within the existing communities. Unless immigrants have families to go to, it would make sense to spread them out and direct them to areas of the country where they are needed and would be welcomed. For a period of years, their choice of settlement should be restricted. This would prevent them from forming separate and often dissonant communities.
Most communities have activities for all age-groups in which everybody can participate regardless of race, creed, or religion. It is simply easier and less threatening for communities to accept newcomers if they arrive as individuals.
It is abundantly clear that The United States nor other nations of the world can any longer run immigration systems with antiquated methodologies and concepts. This seems to be a time when America has to redefine itself just as we did at the time of the American Revolution and again during the Civil War.
White supremacists and religious fanatics cannot be allowed to shape the world in their own image. We, as Americans, must not allow it. These extremists are only a small part of our country, but they are powerful and have taken over the Republican party.
Our values are not, should not, and must not be so narrowly defined as they would have them be.
For the first time in my life I wake up every morning feeling a sense of shame at being an American.
What has happened to this country? What has happened to American values, to American compassion and generosity? How can we live without compassion for people living in the most dire conditions, deprived of safety, of food, and even their very lives? Why have we as a Nation done nothing to help people who are living below the equator who are suffering beyond belief? And then, having done nothing to help him, why do we turn them away when they come here in desperation?
Trump has exacerbated this neglect. He did not cause it. The US is not alone in failing to attend to obvious problems; the responsibility clearly lies within the entire developed world, most of whom are above the equator.
Every place I look these days, I see nothing but greed. Money, money, money. Money is buying – or has bought – our political system. Money has bought our elections. Money has bought the Republican Senate and this presidency.
We have allowed the Congress to vote themselves a pension for life. No doubt the members care more for their seat in the Congress or the Senate than they do for the good of the country, or for the nation from which they have sprung.
Why in the world should these congresspeople or senators be paid for life? Is it not an honor enough to serve the governing body of the Nation? That is the quintessential center of the Democracy, under which we live. Is it not an honor to stand as the gatekeepers of our Democratic way of life? They seem to only be dedicated to it’s destruction.
Ever since the Vietnam war, this country has been engaged in questionable military action. Ever since the Vietnam war, this country has had no draft, no public service; no one has had to serve this nation in any capacity. Before Senator Jack Javits died, he told me that he had come to agree with me that we should reinstitute public service for 18 months between high school and university. Senior Senator from Connecticut Abe Rubicoff felt the same way, as he too told me before he passed away. It was too late for either of them to take any action.
Every single person (man and woman) should serve. Even people with heel spurs and other disabilities should serve in some capacity. People should be able to choose between the military, the army, the navy, the marines, the air force, medical, or community service. There is nothing in this world that can replace the experience of boot training, shared commitment and service, codependence, fellowship, and the sense of belonging.
No one has ever suffered for learning to fold their clothes neatly, make their bed, and properly polish their shoes. This shared training experience puts service to the country before personal ambition. I believe America needs this.
We need to believe in each other again. We need to understand each other. We need to see and know the people of this nation, and we need to know more about the world. We should know who are ill paid and badly educated. We need to know when people are inadequately fed and when children are starving. We must address these problems as they are dividing the Nation as never before.
We all are suffering from the greed that prevents us from moving forward to correct the glaring inequities in our society and the consequential problems. We all need to become more aware and to take action before these divisions destroy us.
I have been incredibly lucky to have lived such a long and happy life. Until now there was never a day in my life that I didn’t wake up looking ahead and believing that the future would be even brighter. This is no longer true. Every day I wake up thinking that this Nation has taken another step into the abyss. This is merely the symptom of where we are. A Nation divided by racial hatred, wealth, greed, and poverty.
Trump has accelerated the decay. He has and continues to ride the tide of wealth vs poverty, success vs failure, rich vs poor. To some extent, this probably has always been true in America, but it was always balanced by the prospect of upward mobility. However, what we are seeing today is that it was not true for everyone. And it seems to have been stalled since. We are seeing this more clearly today than ever before. We are seeing that our system is broken. There is no will or desire at the top to support the prospect of upward mobility.
I do believe that almost every President from Roosevelt onward did make efforts to improve the conditions for people struggling to survive. Certainly Rosevelt introduced the WPA a Federal work program in his New Deal. Truman introduced the Fair Deal which part of it was the guarantee of a minimum wage. And Lyndon B. Jonson lunched the Great Society in order to wage war on poverty.
These Democratic Presidents did not destroy capitalism they enhanced it.
If this Nation is to survive – if tomorrow is ever going to look bright again for the United States of America – TRUMP must go. Not because he’s a Republican or a Democrat, but rather because he is a threat to the future of this nation. He serves only himself and the very wealthy. He will destroy this country if he is not stopped. But it’s not just Trump. Mitch McConnell and the lemmings who call themselves the present members of the Republican party must be taken out of office.
Actually, the best thing that could happen for this country at this time would be if the Republicans came up with a really viable Republican candidate to run against Trump. For his own party to reject him. The best thing for the Republican party would be for them to clean house and again become a party of Check and Balance, so that there could be real discussion on issues between Democrats and Republicans.
This should not be the mantra of a few; this should be an issue upon which the honorable Democrats and Republicans can agree. This is an issue to save this country and save our human values, and to improve the conditions for everyone.
Even during the great depression of the 30s there was hope that things would be better tomorrow. We must make tomorrow again brighter than it is today. This is called hope.
Religion has historically been a two-sided issue. On the one side, it is about belief in a God, a higher power, and hopefully that God is a guiding force toward tempering the human character. That God requires human kindness to strangers, and it requires human beings to help others carry their burdens in times of need. That God requires each person to take moral responsibility toward other human beings. On the other side of this issue is the application of religion to totally dominate the body and soul of human beings who inhabit the same world and space as the oppressor.
The existence of this dichotomy is particularly noticeable in this administration. The Senate, as the governing body, is supposed to represent the core values of our nation. Our government is not exercising its moral responsibility; instead, it is exercising its religious prerogative when it suits their political ambitions.
They self-righteously deny the rights of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. This nation is in grave danger of losing its moral compass. Every citizen who cares about the United States should be seriously concerned about the direction to which we and this country are being driven by the present administration.
This Senate is ruled by oligarchs of the extreme right-wing, by Mitch McConnell, by Lindsey Graham, and by conservative born-again Christians. Their avowed Christianity and religious orthodoxy is in direct conflict with the basic tenets of the Constitution of the United States. Our forefathers, who saw the dangers of religious domination in government, made it very clear to all and sundry that this country was not to be dominated by a coalition of Church and State. They were two distinctly separate entities.
Clearly, clearly, this administration, with the acquiescence of Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and the Senate, is allowing and encouraging the imposition of their religious beliefs into the governing process. The line between Church and State is being blurred.
2Do they completely abandon their religion, or does their religion completely abandon
them, when they have to deal with complicated issues such as immigration? Is their religion totally unrelated to the question of human rights?
Of course illegal immigration is a huge problem and this country has never created a proper immigration policy. But, does their religion shelter them and the president from inhumanity, to turn our government into a body with no sense of humanity, without Godliness, and without respect for human rights? This is what our government stands for today.
What kind of religion do these people observe? Certainly not the kind that demands that they be kind to strangers and love their neighbors.
When a nation loses its sense of righteous indignation, compassion, decency, and morality, when it denies people freedom of speech, when it strips people of their basic human rights, it is no longer a great nation.
America is not great when it retreats behind its borders and fails to recognize and observe its own constitution.
America is not great when it fails to maintain the separation between Church and State, and America is not great when it allows fear, ignorance, prejudice and greed to diminish the values of the nation.
America is not great when its governing body aligns itself with the most oppressive governments in the world, and isolates itself from those who have joined together to make a peaceful world their central issue.
We the people must take a stand to preserve our Constitution, and to deny rights and privileges to the perpetrators against humanity, represented by our government today.
I am continuously upset with the born-again Christians who seem to have gained enormous power in this country, and especially with the present administration. They, like their Führer Trump, are without compassion, without brains, and, worst of all, without any sense of rationality.
They believe that they alone should have the right to live above the law or even to change it in order to suit themselves. Take the case of Roe vs. Wade.
They rant and they rave about the growing overpopulation of the world, the endless line of people asking for handouts. And at the same time, by fighting to outlaw abortions, they reserve themselves the right to increase that population as they wish.
These people are trying to take this country back into the dim dark days when abortion was illegal throughout the nation. Women had to resort to illegal abortions, international trips, wire coat hangers, self-harm, and any other means they could find to end unintended or unwanted pregnancies.
Then the Supreme Court passed Roe vs. Wade, which gave women the right to take control of their own bodies. I have never in my long life ever known a woman who wanted an abortion. But women should have the right to decide whether to take a pregnancy to term, whether they are carrying child who has a terminal prenatal diagnosis or debilitating deformities, or if they have been violated and raoed raped, or molested and impregnated by a family member, or if they already have more children they can afford. They may be too young for the financial and emotional burden of parenthood, or any one of a thousand reasons for having an abortion.
These lawmakers are trying to put all of the responsibility on the women for these pregnancies. It is THEY who don’t want to take care of the child; they want to the woman to carry the pregnancy to term without any responsibility on their part. And then complain about the overpopulation, and do nothing to take care of them or provide financial assistance or support.
These right-to-lifers support the death penalty, support wars, support gun lobbies that are killing people all over America; the only life they support is women’s pregnancies for which they take no responsibility.
Historically, men have considered it their right to control women. Banning abortions is just one way of them taking no responsibility for unwanted pregnancies. The fact of the matter is that it takes two to tango – so it is critical that men are included in these conversations around abortion. It seems that the last time they were was in 1992, when the Supreme Court overturned a law that required a woman to prove that she had the permission of her husband before she could have an abortion. It seems as though men want all of the control in the decision-making process, but none of the responsibility after the baby is born.
To make sure they take that responsibility, here is my solution. Every boy at the age of 12 should undergo a vasectomy. This would only be reversed after he has reached a certain age, has been married legally for a period of time, and is now ready, willing, and able to have a child for whom HE will take responsibility for their entire childhood. If he does not want to take responsibility at all, he can have a clinical castration. This would put an end to the problem of teenage pregnancies, as well as other unwanted pregnancies and pregnancies from rape. It would largely solve the problem of abortion.
What right do a group of male politicians have to rule the lives of women? This is the last developed nation in the world that does not give women the right or access to safe, medically processed legal abortions.
Italy and France (both Catholic countries) show more humanity and compassion toward women than do the so-called religious fanatics of this country, the pro-lifers of America. How can America ever again be great as long as we are under the rule of neanderthal men?
I grew up in a family of boys, two of my own brothers and two adopted. I have two sons and two grandsons. None of them have the demeaning attitude toward women that is evidenced by this Republican congress which is totally dominated by the born-again Christian missionaries who have bought their way into the congress of the United States.
I say shame on a nation that allows its values to be corrupted by their own lawmakers. These people care more about a seat in the Senate than they do for the integrity of the Republican party, or the benefit of the nation. Shame on the Republican party for having capitulated, and for their failure to act as individual members. They have surrendered their independence and moral standards to allow religion and prejudice to control their duty as the governing body of the USA.
Hit the streets, people. Stand up, vote them out. Every last one of them. Make your voice heard. Call your senator. Call your congressperson. Let it be known, by one and all, that you will not allow your country to be taken over by irresponsible, uncaring, unpatriotic self-seekers, whose agenda does not serve our nation.
