Who Were the Heroes?

        This January, as every January, there will be a reenactment of the “Dade Massacre” near Bushnell, Florida, approximately 60 miles north and east of Tampa. The Villages Daily Sun will, as usual, run a page and a half with photos of fat old guys in vintage ca 1840s army uniforms commemorating the fallen "heroes" of this event in the Second Seminole war. It will spin events as if the brave patriots were, without provocation,  ambushed by the savages. It will do so without any background whatsoever. In this case background is essential to understanding the events which ensued.  

        In 1829, gold was discovered on Cherokee lands in Georgia. At the time, the Five “civilized” Tribes (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek (also known as the Muskogee) and Seminoles) lived in portions of the South, most farming, some even owning slaves. Most of these indigenous peoples were descendants of what is now called the Mississippian culture. It was an agrarian culture that grew crops of corn and beans, with hereditary religious and political elites. (sound familiar?) Substitute “cotton and tobacco for corn and beans and it could have been any Southern state’s white population, except, it was far more egalitarian and generally peaceful.  

        The Mississippian Culture had flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500. Before European contact these tribes were generally matrilineal societies, which mirrored the Six Nations Tribes of the Iroquois Confederation (Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora) farther north. Agriculture was the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in organized and planned towns, some of which were fairly large, covering hundreds of acres and populated with thousands of people. These communities regulated their space with planned streets, subdivided into residential and public areas. Their system of government was hereditary. Chiefdoms were of varying size and complexity, with high levels of military organization.

        When gold was discovered on Cherokee lands (and would later be also found in western North Carolina), white prospectors flooded over the border onto their lands, and the state of Georgia used this as a pretext for declaring all treaties with Indian nations to be null and void. This happened elsewhere, as well, but the Georgia cases would become the stuff of USSC/POTUS history.

  

       This, as other later state actions would be, was a unilateral abrogation of agreements entered into previously between State/Federal governments and the various tribal groups. While gold would trigger the events which led to the Seminole wars, there had been jealousy and envy of Indian lands by whites for decades, even though the Cherokee, and others had intermarried during that period as well. Famously, Sam Houston, named “Raven” by the Cherokee with whom he lived for several years, was married to Tiana Rogers, a young mixed-race Cherokee herself. Landless Scots/Irish  traders, unlike the English planter class who initially settled the flat lands and turned to the profitable market crops of tobacco and cotton, were far more likely to intermarry. In fact, at the time when the Cherokee “left’ North Carolina, Principal Tribal Chief John Ross (from 1828-1866), only about 1/8 Cherokee, was one of the wealthier men in the state, owning herds of cattle and farming with slave labor.  The story of the Cherokee alone is interesting, but too long for this forum.

       The culmination of tensions between the Cherokee and various states, including Georgia, led to the forced migration of Native Americans, later known as the Trail of Tears. This was the act of an autocratic President, directly contravening a USSC decision, and should sound familiar to many in the current xenophobic situation in which we find ourselves mired. The sole difference is that instead of attempting to keep “the others” from coming in, this was a case of forcing them out.

         President Andrew Jackson authorized the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which would allow a take-over of the gold mining areas among other places as well as Georgia. The Cherokee Nation, a nation of laws themselves, turned to the U.S. federal court system to avoid being forced off their ancestral lands. The Supreme Court first ruled in favor of the State of Georgia in the 1831 case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, but the following year, in Worcester v. Georgia reversed this decision to recognize the Cherokee as a sovereign nation. Blatantly rejecting this decision and realizing that most Americans simply didn’t give a shit what happened to persons many of them had been taught to regard as social and racial inferiors, Jackson proceeded with removal of remaining Cherokee from the North Georgia gold fields, Supreme Court be damned.

       The Philadelphia Mint received over half a million dollars in gold from Georgia in 1832. The state of Georgia held what came to be known as the “Gold Lottery” of 1832 and awarded land, which had been owned by the Cherokee, to the winners in 40-acre tracts. The Philadelphia Mint received $1,098,900 in gold from Georgia between 1830 and 1837.    By 1838, the Dahlonega Mint had been established by Congress, as a branch of the United States Mint. This reflected the amount of gold being produced in Georgia. The establishment of the Dahlonega Mint seemed to validate (to whites) the state's actions in the early part of the century to seize Cherokee lands.

        The previously mentioned Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized relocation, "by force if necessary" of all Indians east of the Mississippi (principally those five "civilized" tribes with large traditional tribal lands) to Oklahoma. In 1832, Andrew Jackson essentially ignoring the USSC decision in Worcester vs Georgia) ordered the act enforced regardless of the intervening court decision regarding Indian rights, and the forced exodus began in earnest. This is known historically as the Trail of Tears, not only for the loss of ancestral lands, but for the relatively high rate of death by starvation, illness and drownings on the way to Oklahoma, Some, primarily Florida’s Seminoles, actually had the nerve to object. The Army's purpose, then, became to find, round up and forcibly relocate them. 

        The Seminole nation came into existence in the 18th century as a sort of conglomerate of others of the Five Tribes and was composed of renegade and outcast Native Americans from Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, most significantly the Creek Nation, as well as African Americans who escaped from slavery in South Carolina and Georgia. While roughly 3,000 Seminoles were forced west of the Mississippi River, approximately 300 to 500 Seminoles stayed and fought in and around the Everglades of South Florida.

         Jackson and later presidents, having decided that this resistance and small presence in Florida could not be tolerated, engaged the US Army as well as various militias in what came to be known as the Seminole Wars, of which there were three, although skirmishes occurred throughout the period of 1816 to 1858. The earliest Seminole US conflict stems from the hubris and Indian hatred of Jackson, then a militia Colonel, in the War of 1812. The Creeks had sided with the British, principally because, in their estimation, the British were far less likely to seize their (Creeks’) lands, should they defeat the Americans.

        During the Creek War (1813–1814), Jackson became a national hero after his victory over the Creek Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. After his victory, Jackson forced the Treaty of Fort Jackson on the Creeks, seized much formerly Creek territory in what is today southern Georgia and central and southern Alabama. As a result, many Creek left Alabama and Georgia, and moved to Spanish West Florida. The Creek refugees joined the Seminole of Florida.

        In 1814, Britain was still at war with the United States, and began recruiting Indian allies. In May 1814, a British force entered the mouth of the Apalachicola River, and distributed arms to the Seminole and Creek warriors, and fugitive slaves. Again, the Indians were faced with choosing the lesser of two evils – The British who had shown little interest in occupying or taking Indian lands, or the United States which had made the opposite aims apparent. Two months later, the British and their Indian allies were beaten back from an attack on Fort Bowyer near Mobile, and a US force led by General Jackson drove the British out of Pensacola, and back to the Apalachicola River.

       When the War of 1812 ended, all British forces left the Gulf of Mexico except for a token force in (neutral) Spanish West Florida. The word “neutral need be remembered here. A small fort was provisioned at Prospect Bluff with several cannon, muskets, and ammunition. The British commander told the Indians that the Treaty of Ghent (the British /US treaty which ended the War of 1812) “guaranteed the return of all Indian lands lost during the War of 1812, including the Creek lands in Georgia and Alabama.” As the Seminole were unconcerned with in holding a fort, they returned to their villages.

       Before the British command staff left in the spring of 1815, they turned the fort over to the fugitive slaves and Seminoles who had been originally recruited for possible incursions into U.S. territory during the war. As word spread in the American Southeast about the fort, whites called it the "Negro Fort." The Americans worried that it would inspire their slaves to escape to Florida or revolt.

       Typical of the semi-literate but headstrong Jackson, and without the orders or permission of President Monroe or Secretary of War Calhoun, Jackson went rogue. While acknowledging that it was in Spanish territory, in April 1816, Jackson informed the Spanish Governor of West Florida that if the Spanish did not eliminate the fort, he would. The governor replied that he did not have the forces to take the fort.

        Without orders (or permission) from Washington, Jackson assigned Brigadier General Edmund Pendleton Gaines to take control of the fort. Gaines directed Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch to build a fort on the Flint River just north of the Florida border. Gaines then announced that he intended to supply Fort Scott from New Orleans via the Apalachicola River. Since this would necessitate passing through Spanish territory and past the Negro Fort, it would allow the U.S. Army to keep an eye on the Seminole and the Negro Fort. If the fort fired on the supply boats, the Americans would have an excuse to destroy it.

       In July 1816, a small supply squadron of relatively lightly armed vessels directed to supply Fort Scott reached the Apalachicola River. In an overland march, Clinch took a force of more than 100 American soldiers and about 150 (friendly) Lower Creek warriors, to protect their passage. The supply fleet met Clinch at the Negro Fort, and its two gunboats took positions across the river from the fort. The African Americans in the fort fired their cannon at the white U.S. soldiers and the Creek but had no training in aiming the weapon. The white Americans fired back. The gunboats' ninth shot, a "hot shot" (a cannonball heated to a red glow), landed in the fort's powder magazine. The huge explosion leveled the fort and was allegedly heard more than 100 miles away in Pensacola! (overkill?) It has been called "the single deadliest cannon shot in American history." Of 320 persons known to be in the fort, including women and children, more than 250 died instantly, and many more died from their injuries soon after. Once the US Army destroyed the fort, it withdrew from Spanish Florida.

        With the Army gone, however, American squatters and outlaws began raiding the Seminole, killing villagers and stealing their cattle. Seminole resentment grew, and they retaliated by “stealing back” their own cattle. Some of these retaliatory raids, met with White resistance resulted in the deaths of Americans squatting in Spanish Florida. As raids back and forth across the Georgia and Alabama borders increased in frequency, The US began negotiations with Spain for the purchase of Florida, while also sending Jackson, the Indian hater into the Spanish territory. In a series of actions which involved both Seminole and American deaths, but, notably, a significant number of Indian women and children, Jackson eventually seized Florida and hanged two British citizens, a trader and a military attaché to the Spanish governor, as spies. While most Americans supported Jackson, some worried that Jackson could become a "man on horseback", a Napoleon, and transform the United States into a military dictatorship. In December 1818, resolutions were introduced in Congress condemning Jackson's actions. Jackson was too popular, however, and the resolutions failed, but the hot headed and definitely extra-legal execution of British citizens on Spanish soil left a stain on his reputation for the rest of his life, although not enough to keep him from becoming President.

        Following US acquisition of Florida (Adams-Onis treaty 1819, if you’re keeping score) and its eventual statehood the “Seminole question” lingered. As in Georgia, most whites saw the Indians as simply in the way of progress, which meant the illegal seizing of their lands by whites. The Seminole saw it differently. The Seminoles were also still an administrative problem for the new government. In early 1822, an estimate was prepared of the number of Indians in Florida. The report cited about 22,000 Indians, and 5,000 slaves held by Indians. The estimate described about two-thirds of them as “refugees” from the Creek War, with no valid claim (in the U.S. view) to Florida. These refugees had fled to Florida while it was yet Spanish soil. Indian settlements were in the areas around the Apalachicola River, along the Suwannee River, in Northwest Florida from there south-eastwards to the Alachua Prairie, near present day Gainesville and then south-westward to a little north of Tampa Bay.

        Officials in Florida were concerned from the beginning about the situation with the Seminoles. Until a treaty was signed establishing a reservation, the Indians were not sure of where they could plant crops and expect to be able to harvest them, and they had to contend with white squatters moving into land they occupied. Additionally, there was no system for licensing traders, and unlicensed traders were supplying the Seminoles with liquor. Because of the limited presence and frequent turnover of territorial officials, meetings with the Seminoles were canceled, postponed, or sometimes held merely to set a time and place for a new meeting. Meanwhile white encroachment and land appropriation escalated.

        This then is the background for the second and third Seminole wars, as the US and State governments attempted to reservate the tribe and it resisted, being pushed, in the process, ever southward and away from the best arable lands. The only relatively safe haven eventually was the Everglades, mainly because whites couldn’t live there easily.  A series of military actions were taken as the Army pushed in response to Seminole raids against the appropriators of their former lands and the Seminole pushed back.

        The “Dade Massacre,” mention of which opened this post was simply one of many skirmishes along the way, but it resulted in a major Seminole victory, due to the relative ineptitude of the US commander. On December 23, 1835, two U.S. companies of 110 under Major Francis Dade departed from Fort Brooke near present-day Tampa, heading up the military road just inland from the coast, on a resupply and reinforce mission to Fort King near present-day Ocala. The Seminoles had grown increasingly furious at U.S. Army efforts to forcefully relocate them out of the state (and their homes) to Indian Territory (Oklahoma).  

       Major Dade knew the Seminoles were shadowing his men, but believed that if an attack were to occur, it would occur during one of the river crossings or in the thicker woods to the south. Like Custer in 1876, his hubris was to be his downfall. Having passed the denser woods and in order that the command could move faster, Dade recalled his flanking scouts. Bad idea! Several Seminole chiefs with their warriors assembled secretly at points along the march. Scouts were easily able to watch and track the troops in their sky-blue uniforms at every foot of the route and sent reports back to chiefs. The troops marched for five quiet days until December 28, when they were just south of the present-day city of Bushnell.

        The Seminoles did not refrain from attacking in the other places because they thought they could achieve better surprise later, but because they were waiting for Osceola to join them, although his presence was not essential, as we shall see. They finally gave up waiting and attacked without him. The "ambush," as whites called it, was an attack carefully planned by Chief Micanopy, whose first shot killed Major Dade. This first Seminole fusillade brought down not only Major Dade but also half his men. As it turned out, in the late afternoon on that day, 180 Seminoles had lain wait approximately 25 miles south of Fort King (Present day Ocala). The Seminoles had terrain and the element of surprise in their favor. Major Dade, who was on horseback, was killed by the Seminoles' very first shot fired personally by Chief Micanopy, which by pre-arranged plan began the attack. Many of the soldiers, in two single file lines, were also quickly killed. Only a few managed to even get their flintlock muskets from underneath their heavy winter coats.

       Two years later, Osceola, deceitfully captured under a flag of truce, died at Fort Marion. There would be another 4 years of fighting. After a third Seminole War ended in 1858 about 200 Seminole survived in the far south of Florida. In a series of United States wars against the Seminoles in Florida, about 1,500 U.S. soldiers died. The Seminoles never surrendered to the US government, and consequently the Seminole of Florida call themselves the "Unconquered People".   Truth told, American forces in 1836 Florida were in about the same situation as German soldiers in 1939, rounding up Czech Jews for deportation. Making fallen heroes of Dade and his men simply doesn’t pass the “smell test” from my point of view. The heroes here were the Seminole, fighting for their homes.

      Another "takeaway" here is that the story of American southeastern Indians is, to great extent  a large part of the semi-mythical story of Andrew Jackson, a crude racist who, earlier while a General, ignored his president and secretary of state and would later ignore a Supreme Court decision to do as he damned well pleased. Sound a bit familiar?   

Think About It: Recommendations for a slipping grasp on reality

                     Again, the blog for today writes itself:

This is a verbatim post from a former shipmate:

“I offer no apology for what I am posting for this is truly how I feel. Please know this is my opinion and not open for debate. If you don't agree that's your prerogative but I will not be responding to any or all comments. I have lived through six United States Presidents prior to our current President Trump. In my lifetime, I have never seen or heard of a President being scrutinized over every word he speaks, demeaned by the public to the point of disgrace, slandered, ridiculed, insulted, lied to, threatened with death, threatened by some to rape our First Lady, and have his children also insulted and humiliated.

I am truly ashamed of the people of MY country. I am ashamed of the ruthless, insufferable, cruel, Trump haters who have no morals, ethics or values and the irresponsibility of the reporters who feel they have the right to deliver personal opinions just to sway their audiences in a negative direction even if there is no truth in their message. After every other President was elected and took the oath of office, they were allowed to try to serve this country without constant negative scrutiny from our news sources. ALWAYS BEING PRESSURED while news sources search only for negative results from our President will not serve the people of our country. Nor will it create informed Americans. ENOUGH is ENOUGH is ENOUGH.”

“If you disagree, ignore this message. If you agree, copy and paste this to your timeline and put your name under the last name:” (my note: As if that will somehow shift the great sidereal drift of the Universe!”)

(What followed was a list of persons who agreed with the screed)

I was going to ignore this, but you all know me better than that. What stood out to me was the apparent amnesia exhibited by apparently forgetting the massive anti-Nixon anti-war fervor of the early 70s, the earlier anti LBJ demonstrations which resulted in his 1968 decision not to run. Even more perplexing is the assertion that Trump alone has been subjected to personal slanders involving his children, all adult, save one who has never been slandered, since most of us simply feel sorry for him. 

        Barack Obama’s vicious treatment by Republicans, primarily heaped upon him with zero provocation other than his racial background, however, gives the lie to that allegation as well: He was been accused of being a "secret Muslim" and born in Kenya, of being complicit with the Muslim Brotherhood, of wearing a ring bearing a secret verse from the Quran, of having once been a Black Panther, of refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, of taking the oath of office on the Quran, of seeking to confiscate all guns, of lying about just about everything he has ever said, ranging from Benghazi to the Affordable Care Act to immigration, of faking Osama bin Laden's death and of funding his campaigns with drug money. 

       More recently, even though Obama was out of office, a supporter of Florida Governor elect DeSantis, Steven M. Alembik, a Republican activist and donor who has contributed more than $20,000 to DeSantis’ campaigns, recently referred to former President Obama as a “FUCKING MUSLIM NIGGER” on Twitter!

There is a long list of Republicans and conservative figures who get caught out for staggeringly crass racial comments around Obama. To name a few:

The head of the college Republicans at University of Texas who tweeted: "My president is black, he snorts a lot of crack. Holla."

Or the blogger for the conservative John Locke Foundation who posted a picture of Obama in drag with a bucket of fried chicken on the group's website.

Or the Orange County Republican official who circulated an email that featured Obama as the child of chimpanzees.

Or the Republican city mayor in California who circulated an email with a picture of the White House lawn turned into a watermelon patch.

And since we’re in the holidays, Obama’s White House never stopped referring to the “White House Christmas Tree” as just that. The zombie claims about the White House “holiday tree” was first proved wrong in 2009 but has circulated online annually during the holiday season.

       This is just a sampling, really, of the bogus claims that have been made up about Obama over eight years. He also didn’t create the “Obamaphone,” call for a “new world order,” criminalize free speech, create a “private army,” or attempt to declare martial law.

       But what about Melania Trump’s whining that she’s been “bullied?”  The fact that she has knowingly stayed with a man who schtupped a porn star and paid her to be quiet, speaks volumes in itself, but much of what has been leveled at her, some admittedly unfairly, is a result of things her husband has said and done, excepting the red White House Christmas trees. Imagine if Michelle Obama had made that choice! Anyway, when it comes to personal slurs, it isn’t even close. Here are but a few of verbatim slurs levelled at Michelle Obama as First Lady:

She’s “strikingly ungracious.” (Jim Geraghty, writing for National Review)

 She doesn’t look like a first lady (and she did push-ups). (Virginia voter Bobbie Lussier)

 “She weighs too much to care about health: “The problem is — and dare I say this — it doesn’t look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritional, dietary advice. And then we hear that she’s out eating ribs at 1,500 calories a serving with 141 grams of fat per serving, yeah it does — what do you mean, what do I mean?” (Rush Limbaugh) As an example of how incredibly f***ed up this one is, at 5’11” and top weight of 169, Michelle Obama has always been well within the “normal” body mass index range, while the 222 lb. 5’9” Limbaugh is “clinically obese.”

She “needs to drop a few” pounds before she can be taken seriously on the issue of nutrition. (Keith Ablow, prominent member of the Fox News “Medical A-Team”)

She eats too much, as demonstrated by a cartoon of a chubby Michelle chowing down on a burger and fries, telling a skinny Barack to “shut up and pass the bacon!” (Big Government)

She “didn’t support dessert enough”, and she “cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children.” (Sarah Palin, wow, just wow.)

She “forced children in day care to be weighed”. (Urban legend, debunked by Snopes)

She has “no business being involved” in what people eat. (New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who knows some shit about eating)

She’s a “feminist nightmare” for focusing on her family. (Michelle Cottle, writing in Politico)

She is “actually a man, and she murdered Joan Rivers to cover it up.”  (Alex Jones)

She’s not classy enough and is an “atrocity” as first lady: “She makes a fool of herself — every time she comes on TV, I have to turn it off. Laura Bush was so classy, and that’s what we really need again.” (Laurie Boilard, quoted by Bloomberg Politics at a party for a Republican candidate’s wife)

She dared to talk about the enslaved people who built the White House.

She is an “ape in heels.” (Pamela Ramsey Taylor, director of Clay County Development Corp. who later swore she was “not racist.”)

She has a “gorilla face.” (Patrick Rushing, mayor of Airway Heights, Wash.)

She is a “poor gorilla” who “needs to focus on getting a total makeover (especially the hair), instead of planning vacations.”

“She put her left elbow on a table once.” (Salon)

 She ‘voluntarily surrendered’ her law license in 1993. after a Federal Judge gave her the choice between surrendering her license or standing trial for Insurance fraud!” (fraudulent chain email)

“She’s President Obama’s “baby mama.” (Fox News)

She wore shorts. (oh my Gawd!)

Wow, and this guy thinks Melania has it bad?

But, what of the Obama daughters, surely, they can’t have been criticized, right? Well, no, not right. Here are some samples from various sources, some of them call ins to Fox News:

"I wonder if she applied as a muDslime..or a foreign student..or just a Ni@@er." (on Malia’s Harvard acceptance)

"Hopefully she gets cancer/aids or one of those colored diseases."

"Another academically challenged affirmative-action parasite steals a place from a qualified White or Asian student."

"I'm sure she's (Sasha) being fed a stem of celery with two grain muffins for lunch as accorded by her man-thing mother, Sasquatch."

"Probably staying out for a year so she can help her parents carry out the furniture and dinnerware when they leave the White House," 

A satirical op-ed that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, "Malia Obama's suspicious gap year," poked fun at the conservatives who are slamming the young woman for taking a year off between high school and college and are saying she didn't earn her spot at the prestigious university: In fact, if family data has any meaning, her father’s  ACT score is higher than the published results for George Bush, Bill Clinton and LBJ, so take your best guess.

"It's a well-established fact that Malia is the first child of a president to ever get into Harvard, a clear-cut sign that the fix is in." (NO, actually, it isn’t either established or a fact) Factually, (remember facts?) 22 presidential children have attended Harvard, but c'mon, are you going to trust facts or disaffected bloggers?)"

"Malia will have her Harvard transcripts buried, just like Chewbacca and the WH Muslim. As for the gap year, my guess is she will get some heavy tutoring to try to match up at Harvard. If she looks like she won't cut it, Malia goes somewhere outside the US to hide her further. Gap year, sure. 

By the way, ever hear either daughter ever talk? Can they?" one user wrote.

"Doesn't have the grades, can't do the work, needs extensive tutoring to have a chance at ANY college, unless Affirmative Action and sealing her transcripts can be arranged (very likely!) Phony Birth Certificate, sealed transcripts from Harvard AND Columbia, 'gap year', see a pattern?" questioned another.

This is not the first time the conservative media has attacked Malia Obama. Three years ago, when she was just 14, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros called into question her sex life after Obama stated he supported providing Plan B to girls as young as 15. "Are they gonna put her on birth control?" Tantaros questioned. "Because he's very concerned with contraceptives and pharmaceuticals that are going in the mouths of everybody else's 15-year-old daughter."

"I don't think you would have ever seen the Bush daughters in dresses that short," one article wrote. (these are the same “Bush girls” who slipped their security detail and were nabbed drinking in DC with fake ID, but darn those short dresses!)

"Class is completely absent from this White House." 

Malia Obama has faced backlash from the media since her father first took office. 

At just 11 years old, she was called "a typical street whore" and "ghetto street trash" after wearing a shirt with a peace sign on it. Note this is worse than anything levelled at Mrs. Trump, and this was an 11-year-old.

Malia and Sasha Obama have both been the subject of multiple fake news stories, including that Malia was "among 10 arrested in racist Antifa attack" and that she was expelled from Harvard, and that Sasha drove an expensive car into a lake.

In all fairness the Obama family is not the first Democratic family in the White House to face harsh words from the (RE)public(ans).  Rush Limbaugh previously called Chelsea Clinton "a dog" when she was just 12 years old and described Amy Carter as "the most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of this country". However, the Obamas have faced an unprecedented slew of racism thrown their way in addition to simply a mean-spirited media.

Hopefully this will put to bed the bullshit about all the undeserved criticism of Trump and his trophy family. Can you even imagine if Obama had put any family member, no matter how competent or remote on the Payroll, never mind two?

Mindful of space and time requirements as well as the demonstrably limited attention span of the original poster, here is what I wrote in FB

“And, XXXX, I have lived through 12 Presidents and counting. Barack Obama was slandered for simply being President. His wife was caricatured as evilly as anyone ever, his birth questioned and yet...he never hit back, never slandered others, just did his job. See any difference? The issue here is that what Trump gets he deserves because he sets himself up for it. The mystery is why those who seem to adore him will never call him on it. The recent lies re: military pay increases are classic examples. His supporters will just overlook the lies. 

       Had Obama said exactly the same things word for word, the Right would have been all over him. Anyone who's not blind, deaf and dumb in their heart of hearts knows that's true. I understand why some folks. primarily those with too little knowledge of US history and geopolitics, might have voted for Trump based on the things he cleverly used as campaign issues, such as implicit support of white supremacists (Steve Bannon?), fear mongering about a "Threat " from immigrants (unfounded in every real study ever done), claiming to be a business genius (obviously untrue, based on his multiple bankruptcies (His father had none!),  Denying a pro-choice stance but having urged his first trophy wife to abort the child who was Tiffany, Shamelessly sucking up to Evangelicals while rarely having been in a church other than his three marriages, the last of which he "fouled" by cheating with a porn star while wife #3 was pregnant, and the list goes on.

       Any or all of these “transgressions” would have had the Right in arms had Barack Obama done them, but instead he raised his kids, loved and respected his wife and did his job. So, XXXX if you are capable of any degree whatsoever of objectivity, ask yourself why you still support Trump. Your side slandered Obama with absolutely zero factual support. Hell, people spent millions doing it and failed. Trump on the other hand is being held accountable for things he has actually done, is doing and lying about it, and will do. 

       What would your side have done if Obama had sucked up to Putin or the Saudis? Don't bother to answer, I don't want or need any more lies. Nixon was a flawed man, so was Kennedy, but Trump has taken it to a new level - lying and daring his base to hold him accountable. Any ex-military person should hang their head if they support him, and to answer the first implication of your post, yeah, FDR and his wife took every bit as much flack during the early days of the New Deal, and all he was doing was trying to dig the US out of a crippling depression. This is why we teach American History in high school. 

       Unfortunately, as George Santayana famously said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Finally, Santayana also said something which is absolutely and precisely applicable to Trump worshippers: "Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." Think about it!  

Let it Go?

Sometimes these things almost write themselves!

      This initially relates to an individual with whom I served briefly (he did 4 Navy years, qualified in Submarines and then, leaving the USN, did 10 Army years and then mysteriously left the military 6 years short of retirement! I have no idea who or what may have prompted this action, but it is a relatively odd sequence of events. He reacted to the Anti-Shumer meme above (produced by a group styling themselves the “USA For Christ” by describing a “flood of illegals, ruining our country” and that it was the “President’s job to keep our borders safe.” (conflating the relatively small number of illegals  coming across the Mexican border with, supposedly all immigrants. It seemed to allege that these were a threat to the Nation’s security. I would print his post verbatim here, but I won’t use names and I blocked him.    

I responded with: "Yes, XXXX,  and almost no borders are walls. Travel and learn something. Are the Canada, Gulf Coast  and Atlantic and Pacific Coast "walls" the next big fight? Six states account for 58% of unauthorized immigrants: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. You should note that four of these states don't border Mexico. There are those pesky facts again, huh? But individual states have experienced different trends. From 2007 to 2016, the unauthorized immigrant population decreased in a dozen states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Oregon. In three states, the unauthorized immigrant population rose over the same period: Louisiana, Maryland and Massachusetts none of which abut Mexico! Since the Great Recession, more illegal, undocumented immigrants have left the United States than have entered it, and illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels they have been in decades. Goodness, you people are ignorant! About 40% of illegals come by air, more by sea, and many more are visa overstays or persons who entered legally and became illegal.

What you don't know and refuse to learn makes you support a hideous man who wouldn't piss on you if you were in flames. The meme above comes from a group named USA for Christ. Do you really think Jesus was a wall builder? You can't be a Christian and believe that he was, but you can be a hypocrite and pretend to believe both. Everything we think we know about Jesus flies in the face of everything Trump has ever done. Wake up.  He's not a Christian, the biggest threat to our nation is not the "flood (which isn't a flood) of illegals. In fact, Obama sent far more of them back than Trump has; so did Bush 43. The job of the President as you decided it to be is nowhere in the US Constitution. I'm sorry for whatever has happened to you."

At this point I blocked the original poster since we were never going to have a reasonable discussion (do we ever on FB?) Then I was presented with this, by another person, unknown to me, also, as I later determined, an ex navy guy, who also quit short of retirement. Below is his post, verbatim:

"Dorman you are one ignorant bastard! You are a Trump hater and you just can't keep your fucking mouth shut when you should!!! I can see you are one of the weak little Liberals that want to change my country from what it was built to be into a socialist giveaway Nation! Screw you asshole!!"

I know, I know I should have been the adult and ignored this, but sometimes you just can’t, as Elsa famously said, “Let it Go.” So…..

" Actually XXXX, I'm a 26 year retired Master Chief Petty Officer, Submariner Nuclear Power designated,who then taught high school for another 20 years. I am many things - proud navy retiree, average golfer, father, husband of 54 years, and incurable punster but I am not ignorant. In fact, I hold an advanced degree in several areas, because, apparently unlike you, I took advantage of educational opportunities the Navy offered. I politely declined the offer a MCPON (Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy) nomination to go teach school. What I can do is specifically list the things I dislike about Trump, starting with he's a serial philanderer and almost pathological liar (10% pay raise?) (6 new steel mills?) the list is endless.

What I can't do is understand the people like you, apparently, who refuse to see that he doesn't give a shit about people like us, except as votes. He has convinced you that immigration from Mexico is a threat, although I'd bet you have never been affected by it. He has sucked up to the same Russia we both saw as the potential bad guys while in ACDU. 

So exactly what is it about him you like? Is it the loudmouthed insults (I’m betting it is, based on your post)? Why not just watch the WWE? Is it the white supremacist undertone he fosters while publicly bullshitting Blacks that he's their bud? Did you jerk off seeing him with Kanye West? Is it the schtupping porn stars which elevates him in your eyes? Sadly, based on much of what I see of his supporters, it’s principally his outspoken brash and poorly parsed tirades against things which bother him. Those would be anything which calls his miserable behavior or bad judgement into question. 

I think this resonates with them (and you) because you have by whatever circumstance reached a point where you have the same anger issues but no outlet. The diametric difference, of course, is that everything Trump says is either self-aggrandizing or in support of  the elite in America who are, actually, a principal source of those things which anger you. 

Tragically, you probably lack the discernment to realize that last fact. You bemoan the high cost of health care while supporting politicians who are waist deep in the pockets of Big Pharma. You parrot the “They’re taking our jobs,” mantra, regarding illegals, when those jobs have gone overseas. Meanwhile immigrants continue doing jobs you’re “too good” to do. Has Trump shifted his (or his daughter’s) clothing sources to domestic producers? (cue the “Crickets”)

Truthfully, though, I'm not sure that it's just those things. In reality, Trump, a reality TV star much like Duck Dynasty, Honey Boo Boo, and the Kardashians, plays to his audience of disaffected deplorables, many of whom, apparently, having been disappointed with the way their lives turned out, are simply eager to blame their shortcomings and misfortunes on others, based on race, color, religion, sexual identity, political beliefs etc.  So, XXXX, if what you want is an actual reasoned  discussion of issues, I'm your guy. If what you want is to trade insults, you are punching far, far above your weight class. Be safe and have a great New Year!" 

At this point I dropped the mike (figuratively) and got another cup of Joe.   

Priorities?

New Years’ resolution:  There are some things so peculiarly American in nature that we as a country seem sometimes to define ourselves by them.  Not all of these are as great as, say The Marshall Plan, or The Broadway Stage; in fact, some are downright embarrassing. Be it resolved that some of these should be banned.

          Only in America:

          Is there such a glut of non-staple, sugar laden, fat loaded food available that we actually use the word "fun" in conjunction with ingesting it - turning a bodily process necessary for survival into  “recreation?”

         We now have "Fun Sized" candy bars (you know the ones that kids get for Halloween because the full-sized ones are too expensive these days) and numerous fast food and dine-in restaurants use "fun" in either their advertising, their logo, or their name, or all three.  It almost makes me wonder if Og and Zog, upon spying a baby mammoth, said, “uuuh ! fun sized!" Do Indian street urchins view food in terms of "fun" - most assuredly not, many never view enough!  The poor child eating mac and government cheese for the fourth night in a row probably doesn't either. A "Fun Sized" Snickers would push a Syrian or Ethiopian famine victim into sugar shock.  We are, by numerous accounts, a nation with diabetes and obesity epidemics. Sound like "fun"? I didn't think so either.

             Only in America:

        Would a man like Texas Governor Rick Perry have had a career involving any responsibility, let alone a state governorship or an executive branch cabinet post?  We survived one semi-literate ("I'm not a reader", "Is our children learning?") Texas Governor, only to be bitch slapped with the specter of another, dumber, even more retrograde one, when Perry ran, albeit briefly, for his party’s nomination.

        Unfortunately, there was an even less qualified and more malevolent candidate and he did win. Not to worry, he (Trump) then anointed Perry as Secretary of Energy. Whereas Barack Obama had 3 energy secretaries - two physicists and a Harvard grad, Trump has Big Energy’s bitch in place.  Evolution is not only in trouble in Texas' schools, but actually, like a time warp, runs slower.  "W" just "wasn't sure" about evolution (or much of anything else, for that matter) , but ol' Rick rejects it. He also apparently believes, all data to the contrary notwithstanding, that the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf was not due to the malfeasance of BP and its subcontractors, as every subsequent  investigation has shown , but rather  “From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented.” Isn’t it great?  Apparently in Texas, God hates sea life, like he hates school children in South Florida. (too soon?).  It was Perry, slamming Obama in 2012 who said that we (the US) had sent a lot of money aimed at solar research to “That country, Solyndra.” (Think about that for a moment.)

       I could go on, but let's just finish with a few of the most egregious Rick Perry dumb assed statements: "I trust those independent school districts to make those decisions better than eight (there are nine) unelected and, frankly, unaccountable judges." – getting the number of Supreme Court justices wrong. This also means he would have trusted Southern school districts to remain segregated, by the way. "George W. Bush did a (sic) incredible job in the presidency, defending us from freedom."  "Those of you that will be 21 by November the 12th, I ask for your support and your vote." He got both election day and the voting age wrong. I wonder how many Texans showed up late?

            Only in America:

          Can more persons identify Young Jeezy than Jonas Salk. We are a nation of “sell”ebrity (my new word, for the older readers) whores. We tend to idolize the inconsequential and ignore the true heroes of our Society.  Most Americans can't identify either Christiaan Barnard or Norman Shumway. They can, however, remember the nicknames of the entire Duck Dynasty swamp dwelling, redneck, too-shallow gene pool family, but the men who pioneered heart transplants are a cipher. Dr. Charles R. Drew remains relatively unknown to most Americans, while every living Kardashian, with (collectively and individually) no perceptible positive attribute is easily recognized. Dr. Drew, an African American, first separated blood into its components and developed the process of central blood banking. 

       Everyone breathing can identify Donald Trump (and the wombat which resides on his head) on sight, yet the name of Norman Borlaug draws blank stares. Trump, to date has done nothing to benefit society and remains one of the most pathetically self-centered humans on the planet. Norman Borlaug, an American agronomist, is responsible for an agricultural revolution that saved billions of people from starvation by developing high-yield, disease-resistant wheat. Throughout the 20th century, Borlaug introduced this method of wheat production to Mexico, Pakistan and India, doubling food production and decreasing the rates of starvation in these countries. This came to be known as the Green Revolution.  

        Many Americans know all the stars of whichever brand of phony (they all are) "rasslin" show they watch yet would have little comprehension of the heroism or significance of the late Sen. Dan Inouye. It makes your head hurt.

             Only in America:

          Are we apparently impressionable enough (and sufficiently adman driven) to make the leap between a wonderful fantasy tale and a stack of pancakes? Ladies and gents, I remind you of Denny's "Build your own Hobbit Breakfast."  Really? A Hobbit slam? How about "Frodo, your feet are huge and hairy?!" Actual menu delights included the “Hobbit Hole Breakfast,” (sounds disgusting, huh?) “Frodo’s Pot Roast Skillet” and “Build Your Own Hobbit Slam,” holiday favorites such as “Pumpkin Patch Pancakes,” “Shire Sausage,” and “Seed Cake French Toast” were also available.  Add in   “Gandalf’s Gobble Melt”, “The Ring” Burger, “Bilbo’s Berry Smoothies”, and “Radagast’s Red Velvet Pancake Puppies.” (Made from real puppies, too, I hear.)

        In retrospect, I feel many opportunities may have been missed in this “spinning off food from movies” endeavor. Burger King is a British company (which goes a long way towards explaining the shitty fries!), so why not a Braveheart/BK combo pack? Of course, Haggis, that Scottish fave, would be there someplace. (The hard part is getting people on board with fast food haggis. You could put in on the menu in several ways: Robert the Bruce's Haggis Whopper, Fried Haggis Bites, and Wee Willy Winkey’s Haggis Fingers. Add to that, The Drawn and Quartered Pounder. Like I said, a natural.           

        What next? "Shindler's Bisque?", "40 Year Old Virgin Olive Oil"?, "American History Chex" (think about it), The new Energy Vitamin C drink -"Clockwork Orange", “Bohemian Frappe Sody,” Friendly's "Any Given Sundae", "Lolita Lollypops" (you know you want to lick one), How about Red Lobster's "Prawn of the Dead?".  All these might work, but I'm afraid popular opinion would jinx the success of the "My Little Pony burger” and “Warhorse Half Pounder" (both made with real horsemeat) and, of course, the Black Swan Tuna Taco is simply a non-starter.

Mad Cow or Bad Cow?

    This from the brilliant, if more than a tad strange, David Cross, circa 2012:

       "I’m assuming that cows, like people and dogs, have varying degrees of intelligence. So, at some point there was a cow of superior advanced intelligence running around a slaughterhouse somewhere that had figured out what was going on, that death was imminent, and all their masters were not benevolent nurturers but rather evil murderers luring them to their deaths. But he couldn’t communicate this to the other cows because all the other cows were of average cow intelligence—i.e., stupid. Maybe even the cow was smart enough to know that he was just a cow and would never be able to impart the sense of urgency needed to escape because cows are stupid. Must’ve been maddening. Also, I wonder if we’d be less prone to eating beef if the noise a cow makes sounded less like “moo” and more like “help.” Probably not. They’re delicious."

        Ignoring the last sentence, added for comedic value, doesn’t it almost seem as if Cross had presciently anticipated the Trump administration? The bovine of superior intelligence could well be Rex Tillerson who, recognizing almost immediately that the path the herd was travelling  led to disaster, and the herd bull mentally challenged, escaped with reputation and conscience relatively unscathed.   

       The Mattises, Haleys, and Comeys are the “smart(ish)” bovines who would eventually sense the reality and the implication of multiple poor decisions and try to stave it off, while the Boltons, Giulianis, Huckabee-Sanders and the rest of the cast of deplorables continue inexorably plodding blindly into the abattoir, hoping to get more (hay?) or whatever motivational factor drives them. 

       The mentally challenged Betsy Devos, Mike Pence, and Kellyanne Conway,  apparently the poster girls for Mad Cow, simply blunder mindlessly back and forth into the ever narrowing walls. In fact, it seems many are simply following the herd bull, large, loud, overfed, unfortunately never castrated, and far too ignorant to recognize a bad decision, especially when it’s been made by him.

       What they almost certainly fail to appreciate is that, once far enough down the chute, there is no turning back and the only thing waiting at the end is the captive bolt stun gun which, sadly, will have little impact on their mental acuity but will definitely remove them from the gene pool.    

The Real Reason(s) For The Season

Written 6 years ago, and fine tuned today for clarity, conciseness and readability. Still valid today!

      As usual, we’re seeing the usual proliferation of yard signs and bumper stickers conveying some version of "Jesus is the Reason for the Season", which is quite possibly true for those who place the signs. Oddly enough, however, is the fact that the choice of the date near the Winter Solstice is not considered by any reputable Biblical scholars as the actual birth date of Jesus. The eventual choice of December 25, made perhaps as early as 273, reflects a convergence of Origen's (of Alexandria, an early Christian writer) concern about pagan gods and the church's identification of God's son with the actual celestial sun. December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: “Natalis Solis Invictus” (the Roman "birth of the unconquered sun"), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian "Sun of Righteousness" whose worship was popular with several groups of Roman Legionnaires. The winter solstice, another celebration of the sun, fell just a few days earlier.

      The earliest attempt, and still the only actually “reasoned” one to date, to pin down Jesus' birth was made by Clement of Alexandria who gives a date using the Egyptian calendar that converts to May 14, 6 BC in the Gregorian calendars. He “retrofit” the date consistent with background material described in Luke, including the fact that shepherds would have been in the wilderness of Judah, not in the fields surrounding Bethlehem, since this was the season when the wheat and barley were growing. After that harvest in April/May the sheep are put into these fields to eat the stubble and fertilize for the next growing season. Even the conservative Associates for Biblical Research affirm that in all their efforts, the is nothing found in the Bible which supports any linkage to December 25. It seems rather more likely that, seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the “true” deity, church leaders decided to commandeer the date and introduce a new festival to supplant the old ones which were popular among many pagan peoples.

       At this point I should point out that an entire book could be written regarding the numerous appropriations of non-Christian traditions which now populate the “Christmas tradition” landscape. In the interest of brevity (never my forte) I’ll try to be brief:

So, let's see what they looked like: 

       "Yule" is the name for 'infant' or 'little child.' In the ancient, as in pre-Christian, Middle East, the 25th of December was known as Yule day or the birth of the promised child day. This was the day of the birth of the incarnate God, limned as a baby child sent to redeem a world bound in darkness. It was a core tenet of their religious system that their God was the chief god in a polytheistic system. The "promised child" was also worshipped as the god incarnate, or promised baby son of God, who was to be the Savior of the world. Sound familiar? It should, since it parallels but significantly predates Christian belief about Yahweh and Jesus. Stemming from centuries earlier. "Yule" is Chaldean, in origin, the baby whose coming was celebrated was Tammuz, son of Baal (The God of the Sun, the principal God of Babylon). The Christ-mass tree and the Yule log used today were first used to celebrate the birth of Tammuz, in what became an annual religious festival in ancient pagan Babylon. Oddly, enough, Babylonian paganism, in many interpretations, including the Torah, was fostered by Nimrod, Noah's great grandson.!

 
 Other Pagan Yule practices are interesting as well:

       It was ancient custom that when sacrifice was to be made, all farmers were to come to the temple and bring along with them the food they needed while the feast lasted. The narrative continues that toasts were to be drunk. The first was drunk to God “for victory and power to the king", the second "for good harvests and for peace", and thirdly a beaker was to be drunk to the king himself. In addition, toasts were drunk to the memory of departed kinsfolk. These were called "minni [memorial toast]". Yule feast still had a function in the cult of the dead and in the veneration of the ancestors, a function which the mid-winter sacrifice certainly held for the West European Stone and Bronze Ages. "Yule" or "Yuletide" is a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples. Scholars have connected Yule observances to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht. The traditions of the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar (described in multiple Icelandic Sagas) are still reflected in the Christmas ham, Yule singing, and others stemming from Yule customs, and customs which indicate the significance of the feast in pre-Christian times. These customs, like the Babylonian Yule, are pre-Christian, that is post-Jesus, but centuries before Christianity reached their practitioners, the early Proto-Germanic tribes. The "God” was Odin, the toast for harvest and peace were drunk to Njoror, and Freyr and probably whoever else Stan Lee would later immortalize in film.

       In the Heathen tradition of Urglaawe, the Yuletide begins at sundown on December 20 and ends at sundown on January 1. Broken down and translated, "der Urglaawe" literally means "the original faith" in the Pennsylvania German language. The focus is on the pre-Christian religious and cultural undertones that still flow through the Pennsylvania German culture. The term “Pennsylvania Dutch” derives from the ignorance of colonial English speakers who confused "Ich Bin Deutsche" as meaning " I am Dutch" Although the Pennsylvania Germans did not exist as a distinct ethnic group during the pre-Christian era, their ancestors brought with them many Heathen practices that continued to flourish here after the German "diaspora" into the Americas. Urglaawe worshippers' purpose is to weave the cultural experiences of the Pennsylvania Germans into the Heathen tapestry. Practices such as Braucherei and Hexerei as well as folklore and folk medicine lend more insight regarding the way their ancestors practiced the original faith.

       The name Braucherei comes from the book “Pow-wows”, or, “The Long-Lost Friend”, written by John George Hohman and first published in German as Der Lange Verborgene Freund in 1820. Despite the use of "pow-wow", taken from an Algonquian Native American word for a gathering of medicine men, the collection is actually a very traditional collection of European magic spells, recipes, and folk remedies. These formulas/spells mix prayers, magic words, and simple rituals to cure simple domestic ailments and rural troubles. Curiously enough, they blend Christian and pagan terms and prayers. Hexerei would most likely be described as "White Witches" in today's parlance. Their tools included hex signs such as those seen on some Amish barns today, spells, and protective "charms." Many Germans who came to America as Hessian mercenaries in the Revolution (such as my several greats grandfather) carried papers with safety hexes written on them as protection.

       The Yuletide includes observances that are part of the Urglaawe faith or the wider Deitsch culture. Belsnickeling, which is the original Deitsch tricks-or-treats, takes place on December 21 or 22. There are many parallels between Belskickel and Santa/St. Nicholas. Visitations from men dressed as Belsnickel, who is the Urglaawe equivalent to interaction with men and seeker aspects of the god Wudan, may occur throughout the Yuletide. The linking of St. Nicholas to Santa is, without question, an attempt to distance Christian Christmas tradition from the pagan Belskickel. The Berchtaslaaf, or the Progression of the goddess Berchta, is celebrated on December 31 and includes Berchta's commanded meal of herring and gruel (double yuck!). The Yuletide ends on January 1, with the Feast of Frey. This traditional feast includes pork and sauerkraut, both of which are held as sacred to Frey, so, "Please pass the sacred sauerkraut?" In our Dorman family tradition (Pa. Deutsch/Bavarian on both sides) this is a traditional New Years' Dinner! (Sauerkraut is the reason for the season?”)

       The Sigillaria on December 23 was a Roman day of gift-giving. This is almost certainly the origin of the "Christmas present" idea, linked by the Church to St. Nicholas to displace Belskickel. Children received toys as gifts. In his many poems about the Saturnalia, Martial cited both expensive and quite cheap gifts, including writing tablets, dice, moneyboxes, toothpicks, a hunting knife, an axe, various lamps, perfumes, pipes, a sausage, a parrot, tables, cups, items of clothing, statues, masks, books, and pets. Gifts might be costly, but Martial suggested that token gifts of low intrinsic value inversely measure the high quality of a friendship. In a practice that may presage modern greeting cards, verses sometimes accompanied the gifts. Catullus received a book of bad poems by "the worst poet of all time" as a joke from a friend.

       So, why spend all this time on this topic? First of all, I have that kind of time. Furthermore, I'm sick of people bitching about other persons personally celebrating (or not) whatever version of this holiday they choose to follow. I violently agree that it's inappropriate to force a Jewish child to play baby Jesus in a Nativity scene, since Jesus was Jewish, his name (in Aramaic or Hebrew) would have been Yeshua bar Yussef, and he definitely wouldn’t have looked like the fair haired, Nordic, “Sven Christ” pictured in churches across the world. I am fine with the Christian owner of a store piping in Christmas carols, or “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” or whatever they wish. We all need to lighten up, tolerance wise, about whichever festival we're celebrating, since there are aspects of Ancient Sumerian history, Christianity and Paganism in essentially all of them and the one sure thing is that the timing of Christmas was selected to coincide with them.

       By the same token, I adamantly endorse the logic behind not spending tax dollars provided by all citizens, regardless of tradition, to commemorate one specific group's religious celebration. Bill O’Reilly notwithstanding, it isn’t a “war on Christmas,” simply fiscal fair play. Consider the uproar if tax dollars were used to fund celebrations of Diwali, Eid al-Adha, Nagar Kirtan, Visakah Puja (Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist if you're keeping track).

       There are many reasons for this season, including the physical fact that after the Winter Solstice, we begin to see the sun longer; so lighten up, be happy for your friends and neighbors who celebrate for whatever reason and, as The Buddha, Confucius, Mithras , Jesus, atheists, Bill and Ted, and so many others have said over the ages, love each other. And I do believe that's all I have to say about that (today).

A Pathetic Little Man

       I recently read a statement from Dinesh D’Souza criticizing one of Michelle Obama’s comments.  Mrs. Obama was in a televised discussion with Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie when she claimed that some of the most powerful people in the world are 'not as smart' as they seem. Below is the section of the dialogue to which I am referring:

“I have worked at nonprofits, I have been at foundations, I have worked in corporations, served on corporate boards, I have been at G-summits, I have sat in at the UN. They are not that smart.'

       The comment came as Mrs. Obama, speaking to a sold-out crowd of 2,000 people, admitted she still had 'a little [bit of] impostor syndrome'. 'It never goes away, that you're actually listening to me,' she said. 'It never goes away, that feeling that you shouldn't take me that seriously. What do I know?' 'I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what power is.'" 

       This might seem harmless in and of itself.  In fact, anyone who lived through the Bush 43 years might further add that, “Many of the world’s most powerful people aren’t even as smart as they’re supposed to be or should be to hold such positions of influence.” Almost immediately, convicted campaign fraud cheat and beneficiary of a Trump pardon, Dinesh D’Souza, opined: “Anyone who has read Michelle's college thesis - a document so illiterate and incoherent that it was written, as Christopher Hitchens put it, in "no known language" - will chuckle heartily at this one.”

       Off the top: I’ve read the thesis in question, and while I admired Hitchens’ attitudes related to religion and its intrusion into government, I find these characterizations more than a little skewed. Hitchens was a strong critic of The Obama administration until his death in 2011, and his comments re: Michelle Obama’s thesis, written at Princeton are, let’s just say grossly overblown, uncharitable and inaccurate.

        The document in question is about what one would expect as an undergraduate effort considering the topic, which was an attempt to quantify difficulties faced by Black students at predominately White upper tier colleges. Is it great literature? Nope. Is it “unintelligible”? Absolutely not. If one answers that with a yes, then the critic’s own education must be questioned. Of course, Mr. D’Souza has his reasons, which while not stated by him are easy to fathom. He has been, since college, where his entire educational career consisted of obtaining a BA in English, a critic of all things Democratic Party, and a vehement Trump supporter.

        Now, here’s my thesis: if you support and defend a person who, while spouting almost daily streams of self-aggrandizing commentary on his own “genius”, “high intelligence,” “great brain” etc., ad nauseum, yet whose “tweets” reveal almost a fourth-grade command of the language, perhaps you’re not really suited for literary criticism.

        So, just who is Dinesh D’Souza, and why should his opinion count? D’Souza is an Indian born, former Catholic, convert to fundamentalist Christianity. How fundamentalist? His second marriage (to a woman he became engaged to while still married to his first wife of 20 years!) was officiated by Ted Cruz’s semi psychotic father! He (D’Souza) is a naturalized citizen who jumped on the conservative bandwagon at about the same time as Ann Coulter. He exhibits roughly the same degree of honesty and objectivity as well. He has made a reputation for himself largely by semi-slanderous books and motion pictures with one constant conservative message, that being his belief that the US is anti-religion, Slavery wasn’t so bad, Democrats are the “real” fascists, and every single Democratic politician is the anti-Christ. He professes belief in “intelligent design,” the fraudulent nature of global warming claims, and the litany goes on and on.

        His books and films resonate with the Far-Right fringe who espouse the same conspiracy theories as D’Souza himself. In 1995, his first book, oddly titled The End of Racism, was published. A sentient individual with critical thinking skills and two functioning eyes, on reading this should have immediately vowed to erase D’Souza’s name from their memory. Critics, liberal and conservative, panned it. Quotes from the book include this gem: "The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well." (not all that surprising, considering D’Souza’s birth and upbringing in an upper-class Indian family in a caste ridden society. D’Souza has even been an apologist for colonialism in general. Critical response to the book included one reviewer for The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education who responded by posting a list of sixteen recent racist incidents against black people. Michael Bérubé, in a lengthy review article, referred to the book as "encyclopedic pseudoscience", calling it illogical and saying some of the book's policy recommendations are fascist; it is "so egregious an affront to human decency as to set a new and sorry standard for 'intellectual'". Another noted that the book is "like a parody of scholarship, where selected 'facts' are pulled out of any recognizable context and used to support a particular viewpoint". (ed. note, Trump may have latched onto this tactic, that is if he had ever taken time to read a book, including those ghost-written for him.)

        Other D'Souza books have been well received by the lowest stratum of Far Rightists, while many other “true” conservatives have scrambled to distance themselves from him. A conservative reviewer said, of another opus, "The worst nonfiction book about terrorism published by a major house since 9/11" and "a national disgrace.” In “The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left," Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat criticized the book, saying it was a "plea-for-attention" by D'Souza, and that the author had "become a hack". Douthat further stated, "Because D'Souza has become a professional deceiver, what he adds are extraordinary elisions, sweeping calumnies and laughable leaps." Daniel Larson, writing in The American Conservative, said: "Dinesh D'Souza has authored what may possibly be the most ridiculous piece of Obama analysis yet written ... All in all, D'Souza's article reads like a bad conspiracy theory.”

        His movies have fared little better among reviewers other than the Trump sycophant base. Peter Sobczynski wrote, “‘Hillary's America’ may well be the single dumbest documentary that I have ever seen in my life.” A July 2016 review in Variety characterized D'Souza as "a right-wing conspiracy wingnut, the kind of "thinker" who takes off from Barack Obama birther theories and just keeps going, spinning out a web of comic-book liberal evil.”

        In February 2018, D'Souza was widely criticized for a series of tweets which mocked the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.  There is little conceivable justification for his comments in response to a photo of survivors reacting to Florida lawmakers voting down a proposed ban on assault weapons in the aftermath of the shooting. D'Souza tweeted "worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs".  D'Souza's comments were condemned by both liberal and conservative commentators. Jonathan M. Katz wrote, "Let it never be said that Dinesh does not actively root for the death of children." Others accused D'Souza of "trolling kids". D'Souza was also denounced by Conservative Political Action Conference, which removed him from the roster of speakers, and called his comments "indefensible".

        In August 2010, apparently in gratitude for his vigorous defense of Evangelical Christianity, D'Souza was named president of The King's College, a Christian liberal arts college then housed in the Empire State Building in Manhattan. Mind you, his credentials consist of a bachelor’s degree in English. Period. Never heard of The King’s College? You’re not alone. This “institution,” formerly housed entirely in the Empire State building as mentioned above is ranked in the lowest ¼ of US liberal arts colleges. Despite its relatively poor ranking, a year at Kings will cost you $53,290, just slightly less than Harvard, unless you can live in a broom closet and eat pigeons.  On October 18, 2012, D'Souza resigned his post at The King's College following the revelation that he—despite being married—had shared a hotel room at a Christian conference with another woman and introduced her to others as his fiancée.

        So… in his private life, D’Souza has been equally reprehensible, openly parading his fiancée while yet married, physically abusing his first wife and forging her name to illegal documents donating to another woman candidate he was sleeping with (at the time). This was prior to the “fiancée.”   

       Summarizing, one asks, “Why would this little man decide to belittle Michelle Obama?” That’s simple. He, a prideful man, has a simple BA, while she has a Juris Doctorate. Moreover, Dinesh D’Souza, in a writing career spanning more than 25 years has not, and never will, achieve anything close to the success of Mrs. Obama’s first book, her sole effort to date. 
      
       “Becoming,” in less than five weeks since its publishing, has sold more than 3 million copies and the count isn’t slowing! The book is entirely her own writing. In this short time, “Becoming” has already hugely out-sold “The Art of The Deal” a Trump (largely ghost written) effort which has been available for 31 years! It’s almost too delicious for words – Trump and D’Souza almost invisible in the shade of an accomplished, warm and personable woman of character, ability and who,much to their anguish, I’m sure, won’t even mention either one of them.  

        If this sounds as if I hold Michelle Obama in unconditionally high regard, it’s simply because I do.