Consistently Disappointing

The more things change…….

        It seems to never end and never change. The scenario is always some version of this: An individual takes offense at some political (statement, cartoon, meme) which casts Trump in an unfavorable light. The response is typically not, unfortunately, to respond with a defense listing specifics about the man which are exemplary of good decisions, actions, or programs but rather, in some bizzarro world approach, to attack either the writer, Trump opponents or, in the oddest cases, Barack Obama, three years out of office.

        In a recent slight twist on the story, the response was not any defense of Trump (No surprise here) but to question how I (we) were “worse off” because of him. Realize that this plumbs the depths of “lame.” Ask a (Christian, Buddhist, Beatles, Orioles, Lady Gaga) supporter why they feel as they do, and you will generally get a litany of reasons. One may disagree, but there will be reasons. Ask a Trump supporter, and I have, many times, and while you may get the odd generalization, you will rarely get any specific response which logically supports such fan girl or boy worship. Moreover, such reasons, when they are proffered at all, are almost always based on either flawed logic, ignorance, or simply demonstrable untruths. One suspects other reasons the fan is hesitant to share, perhaps?   

        Recently, the question was the “How are “you” (we) worse off because of Trump?” Without too much repetitious detail, my response alluded to the fact that as a society, we are all part of the whole. I might have simply chosen the Biblical, “In as much as you have done it to the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.” (also, a Buddhist and Confucian sentiment predating Christ by hundreds of years). Unfortunately, many, if not most, Trump supporters don’t see the world that way, even though many stridently proclaim their muscular Christianity while ignoring their leader's precepts, a blindingly blatant contradiction in terms. As a beginning point, and to ensure understanding, realize that Trumpists see American society as Us and Them.

        In any event my response was an inclusive listing of economic bad decisions, and the expenditure of our tax dollars to pay for them, the grave erosion of foreign relations with most of Europe (except, of course, Russia), stigmatization of minorities in various ways, etc.

        Having provided the documented specifics requested, it still came as no surprise that the response made absolutely no effort to refute or even defend any of them. What, you ask was the response? Well, it began with a gross mischaracterization of where I live (“Hoity toity” …really? Who even uses that phrase in the 21^st century?) Apparently, living in a retirement community which encompasses all levels of homes from manufactured homes to 1200 square foot villas to 3500 square foot site-built houses, disqualifies me from having a social conscience. Of course, the individual also is blatantly unaware that The Villages is a bastion of Trump supporters, the majority middle class retirees. We then progressed to inferring that somehow, I have been insulated from a diversity of ethnic origins, ignoring 26 years of naval service with all ethnicities involved, or 20 years of inner-city public-school service. It then turned to questioning our personal charitable activities.

         See where we’re going here?  If only one side of a discussion is willing or prepared to engage in said discourse with fact or reasoned opinion, then the conversation is impossible. In the past three years, only once has anyone responded to a plea for reasoned conversation with any measured thoughtful response to the issues, vice personal attacks or finger pointing, and in that case, they had such huge and documented gaps in their argument that the point was moot.

       When Trump’s much ballyhooed personal choice for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, finally having had enough, resigned, characterizing Trump as “a moron,” that should have bothered his supporters, but it didn’t. As of today, 18 of Trump’s personal picks for “A” team (inner circle/cabinet/national security) jobs have been replaced at least twice since the original appointment, some three times. Were they all bad people?

        The alternative answer is the one Trumpist grassroots supporters don’t want to consider. Their emperor is “bare assed nekkid!”

How Has he "Hurt me?" Let Me Count the Ways.

        Became aware of a recent interchange on Facebook. Was going to leave It alone, but as I reflected on it, I realized that it was precisely exemplary of the odd affection payed Trump by some otherwise very bright folks.

        A meme was posted which was uncomplimentary of Trump. Yeah, I know - so? Another individual complained that it was rude, stating that they hadn’t cared for Obama (I think it was a pigment thing), but that they respected the office of the President. Fair enough, I thought, until the conversation turned to (re: Trump) words to the effect of “Name three things he’s done which have any negative effect on you.”

       This then brings us to one of the differences between Trump supporters and others. There is an axiom, actually a variation on a quote from John Donne, which goes something like: “That which diminishes any of us, diminishes all of us.” I am a strong believer in that philosophy which, apparently for Trump supporters is either too complex, too Christian (or any moral belief system), or too inconvenient to believe.

       Shootings in any school demean (and should sadden) us all, yet there is relatively little Trump response, for fear of offending the NRA, a huge contributor.  Farmers who once sold soybeans to China are in big trouble because Trump’s ignorance of economics and refusal to listen to those who know better prompted a childish tariff war. Again, I’m no farmer, but I hurt for them. We all do, since “Sonny” Perdue, SecAg just got a $16 billion farm relief package to aid the farmers Trump has hurt. Our tax dollars, our “hurt”, too!

       During the Obama last two years, (and yes, Obama deported more illegals then Trump! Fact!) trial pilot programs were put in place which allowed families seeking asylum to remain together and be placed on their own recognizance to appear for hearings. According to The Associated Press, it cost the government $36 per day per family. And it worked! Trump said this, “And we say, 'Please show up to court in a couple of months.' You know what the chances of getting him to court are? Like zero. Ok? It’s crazy,” Trump told Fox News in June. But wait, was that true? Not by any metric. In fact, according to the Inspector General report, overall compliance in the cities where the pilot was launched was 99 percent for ICE check-ins and appointments, and 100 percent for attendance in court hearings. Just 2 percent of participants absconded during the process.

        So, what is Trump’s “better idea?”  It now costs about $775 per person per night to keep the newly separated children of families who cross the U.S. border illegally in “tent cities.”  The per-person cost at certain detention centers that would keep families together is $298 per night, according to an agency estimate. That's $13,000 per month! This is the new normal, 3300% higher than the $36 per-day family of four figure of the last Obama years. Isn’t that strange in a year with a record deficit while the president brags about “his” booming economy? And, yeah, it’s all our tax dollars, so it affects me directly.

        We are paying more for some agricultural products due to lack of migrant pickers in the Pacific Northwest, We are paying more for products from such various manufacturers as Black and Decker, Ford, 3M and a slew of others because of the Trump tariffs, an effect which any high school economics student could have predicted.    

        Having just returned from Europe and the company of many Asians, Aussies, New Zealanders and Canadians, educated and enlightened folks all. I can assure you that the standing of POTUS and to some degree all of us, has been diminished by Trump’s lack of tact, class, and knowledge of the reality of the post nuclear world. If one recalls, the Obamas were invited and accepted the invitation to spend the night in Windsor castle after dining with the Queen. On the other hand, Queen Elizabeth had a look for the brief period the Trumps were there as if she’d just stepped in dog shit. So how does that hurt me? It means that a multitude of things too numerous to mention which depend on decent foreign relations are less sanguine today than 4 years ago.

        Of course, if one has no concern about such things and just wants a POTUS who speaks in rambling and almost always false non-sequiturs, then he’s your guy. If you think making fun of those less fortunate, or handicapped or brown, or poor is ok, then you got it. If you think the environment is disposable you got that too.  If you think banks should be deregulated so we can have another Housing “bubble” collapse and recession, By gum, he’s your man.

         The great mystery is why so many of those who adore Trump also profess to adore Jesus Christ and his precepts. Every single aspect of Jesus’ ministry and mission is the diametric opposite of Trump except one I can think of. Jesus was criticized, according to one Gospel telling, for dining with a woman of dubious reputation. Trump outdid Jesus by sleeping with one while his wife was carrying his child.

What a guy.  

Religiobabble in the Name of Patriotism

       Sometimes you see or  hear (or both) something so wrong, ill intended, or ignorant that instead of responding immediately, you let it stew until you finally have to stand up and scream, “That’s bullshit, and here’s why!” It happened yesterday, and after a day of reflection, I decided I need to vent.

        The occasion was the annual (here in veterans and retirement central) 4th of July church service replete with patriotic music and chest thumping about the nation, most of it deserved, some….well? The music was great, especially a superb rendition of my favorite patriotic song composed by a Jewish Immigrant  (Irving Berlin, born Israel Beilin, in Siberia) - God Bless America.

        Things were fine until the sermon, delivered by a large bloviating associate pastor, a Baptist by birth and ordination, but hired by the local United Methodist congregation. He rarely preaches, which is good, but he resonates with many (too many) of the more conservative parishioners.

        As is the norm for guys like him, he started with the usual assertions that all things American are all things Christian, and that “fixing” societal ills is simply a matter of prayer, not just in the name of a Deity, but in the name of “Jeeesussah.” In attempting to use historical references to prove his thesis he went so far off the rails that he almost disappeared. Examples follow.

        The first big lie was that the first Europeans came to the New World for religious freedom. By stating it the way he did, he included of course the Spanish. Need I say more about the "Black Legend?" He then continued referring to the continent of North America as “this country” when he alleged that the Pilgrims were the first English settlers (Roanoke, Jamestown, anyone?) and that they were, and he was correct in this specific case, religious immigrants. What he omitted, of course, was that Indians were almost immediately either forced to convert and live in "Praying towns" or were at risk. Within 14 years, these noble Christians, in alliance with the equally Christian Dutch from the west in New Amsterdam, committed genocidal war on the Pequots, whose only sin was control of the Connecticut coast wampum trade.

        He then sort of generalized that by the “early 1700s” slavery was introduced, implying that it was a reason for the Great Awakening. So, what’s wrong with that? For starters, the first slaves in North America were brought to Jamestown, in Virginia, of whose establishment in 1607 and commercial greed driven origins he is apparently unaware, in 1619, 100 plus years before the religious revival. Other English “Christians” settled in Barbados and instituted slavery there in 1627.

        Then in another trip into the ditch, he lauds Great Awakening preachers, including a Wesley friend and co-religionist, George Whitefield. Whitefield was undoubtedly a great preacher of the time, but the bumpkin in question also cites his high moral standards in almost the same sentence as he “sort of” condemns slavery. So what? So here’s the rest of the story on Whitefield: Whitefield saw the "legalization of slavery as part personal victory and part divine will." Whitefield argued a scriptural justification for slavery. He increased his number of slaves, using his preaching to raise money to purchase them after he split with the Wesleys and returned to the colonies in 1739. Hypocrite? Just a bit!

        As many Christians do, he also referred to the writings of several founding fathers who allude to some higher power when speaking of human rights and responsibilities. This includes Jefferson's "all men are created equal" verbage in the Declaration of independence. I can imagine TJ's slaves muttering about "equal this, m****r f****r." What he omits is that Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, Adams, (Deists all) never speak of “Jesus.”  Why do I make that distinction? Simply because as enlightenment era literate men (largely self- taught in Washington’s case) they would have been educated in the concept of “natural law.”  According to natural law moral theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human beings and the nature of the world. This concept precedes Jesus by centuries, was mentioned by the Greeks and others and has parallels in Asian religions as well, but don’t tell him; his head will explode.  

        To this ignorant preacher, belief in any higher intelligence in the universe apparently only means belief in the Christian version of God and, by inclusion - especially and specifically, a divine Jesus. Thomas Jefferson’s Bible, constructed by cutting, pasting and excluding some parts, tells a different story.  Jefferson's condensed composition excludes all miracles by Jesus and mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection and other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as divine.

        In like fashion, while Washington regularly attended church while in residence at Mount Vernon, his pastor acknowledged after his death that he never, ever,  remained for communion, choosing to leave instead.  Why? Deist, that’s why. The same thread holds true for all the others (Madison, Adams, Franklin) which the North Carolina hill-billy mentioned. Since the Ten commandments were common knowledge and mentioned in parallel language and intent in numerous non-Christian cultures, they were good tools for construction of a civil law code - then. A law code based on Buddhist principles would have been equally acceptable as a civil code, but they went with what they and those about to be governed, knew.   

        There’s more, but I’ll finish with focus on just three more topics. The first, while correctly mentioning that we have issues with racism in America, he actually said, “I thought we’d settled that.” I was hard pressed to remain seated vice standing and asking him just when he thought we had done so. Was it before the Civil War? Did the Civil War wipe out racism? The Klan and numerous lynchings show the lie in that case. Was it through the Jim Crow era? Has it happened yet? all these are answerable with a resounding “no!”

       Then he went to abortion, specifically late term procedures. His referral to infanticide (he called it “infancide”, but then he’s semi-literate) was what left my wife fuming through the rest of the day. Here is her verbatim reaction:

“ When I glanced at the order of service in my church bulletin this morning, I knew we were in for another tirade from our token Southern Ba(b)tist pastor. Seems he gets the July 4th 'Merica sermon every year. Thankfully, he doesn't get many other chances to preach.

He started with declaring that 'Merica was founded as a "Christian" country, totally ignoring many facts which I will not elaborate on. Toward the end, he described the abyss of current day backsliding, speaking "eloquently" about "late term" abortion, describing it in almost the same ignorant words that Trump uses. He evidently thinks what he parrotted is what actually happens. Nevertheless, this topic is one that should be clarified and documented before dispersing to a church full of people.

       Having been employed for over thirty years in a job where I daily observed birth of both premature and full term infants, and occasionally had to deal with the post birth death of a newborn, I can affirm that most late term terminations were not undertaken lightly, and no child, unless born with a defect incompatible with life, was "made comfortable" and then doctor and parents decided whether the child would live or die. In most cases, the much loved and wanted child was mourned, and if viable was cared for as any other newborn would be. I cared for children who were born much too early, and sat with parents who had found out a matter of days prior to birth, that a child would not survive. Termination of a healthy child on a mothers whim, does not take place. I have wept with women who have to carry a stillborn child until they go into labor. I have held a mothers’ hand as she holds her dying child, and says a final goodbye. I have sat with a family as they come to terms with the fact that their severely genetically damaged child has survived birth when they thought she would not, and are unprepared for what will be the prospect of taking home(and loving) a child who will die at 21 days of age. Don't ever try to convince me that this form of "termination" is done on a whim.

I know abortion is a sore spot. I know some people are able to be blase' about having one. I am not that person. But I also believe it is not the job of government or religious institutions to make decisions about a woman's RIGHT to make her own decisions about her body.”  She is eloquent and right!

       Finally, he did the “The problem isn’t too many guns” speech.” Apparently, the proliferation of banana clip assault weapons is cool as long as there is a fish symbol on the stock.

What an asshole.

Some Things I Learned on Vacation

So…what have we learned after 17 days from Nice to Amsterdam?

        Most recently we learned that much of Europe cannot stand any prolonged high temperatures, since A/C isn’t nearly as common as in the United States. We have a friend who lives at 3,000 ft elevation in Switzerland. Temperatures soared above 100. In France, people have died. Not specifically ascribing all this to global warming, but it is troubling.

        While in Amsterdam, just as the heat wave started, we went to a site with several working windmills. Along the way there were sheep who would normally be grazing in a small field along the path. They were trembling and panting in the heat. Again, because this is so strange, there was no fresh water available and the small canal running through the field was green. I would be willing to bet that several have since died.

        Our first boat had a passenger list with many Aussies, New Zealanders, Canadians, and some Americans, but Americans were in the minority. I learned than the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has very few friends in the rest of the world. This includes China, and Taiwan as well. We had numerous common interests and wonderful conversations with many people from essentially all the nationalities on board. It was a sort of odd feeling, sensing that they were unsure of our political leanings, and they seemed relieved to find that our nausea with the current administration mirrored their own, as caution turned to sympathy.

        I reaffirmed something I already was fairly sure of, that being that the fact that simply because someone has held a fairly high military rank carries no guarantee of reasoning ability. Neither of us, nor most people in fact, would even think to broach a politically sensitive subject at dinner, especially with people one has just met. We had, by day three, met and frequently dined with several couples, Canadian, Taiwanese living in the Philippines and New Zealanders.  One evening at a table for eight, another couple we had met and opted not to be any closer to dined with us. He – a retired Army colonel, she a proudly proclaimed 30-year DOD employee with “seventeen broken bones in my back.”  You can see this coming, huh?

        Sometime and for no reason I can recall, the conversation turned to real estate prices in various areas.  Think it was the Canadian man who mentioned the housing bubble collapse as having less impact in Canada than in the US. Out of the blue, "the Colonel" said something like, “Well it was Obama telling poor people they should be able to buy houses they couldn’t afford.”

       You’d have been proud of me because I didn’t stand up and point out to the moron that the housing bubble collapse, beginning in late 2006 and coming to fruition in early 2008 happened before Barack Obama was even inaugurated, or that it was Texas Republican Senator Phil Gramm, called by some economists “the father of the collapse”  who pushed two pieces of legislation very much responsible for the free for all that ensued. I didn’t tell him that the both the legislation to allow commercial banks to merge with invest banks, coupled with the legalization of adjustable rate mortgages were Phil Gramm initiatives aimed at undermining the post Great Depression restrictions on bank shenanigans imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act. While these things coursed through my mind, I think I settled for “It’s not that simple.” Not content to let it go, the wife proceeded to blame Obama for the Clinton era legislation of ten years earlier, regarding forcing banks to stop “red-lining” (simply refusing to provide mortgage loans based on color and neighborhood vice ability to pay). Our Canadian and New Zealand friends were non-plussed. From that night on, Katerina, the Slovak wife of the New Zealand anesthesiologist, made sure we had a table for six and filled it up.      

        I mention this because it stands in such stark contrast to the river cruise of several years ago during which strangers would broach the subject of their admiration for Barack Obama. French, Brits, Aussies, no matter. All admired the man.

        I also reinforced my opinion that Australians and New Zealanders really know how to vacation! I could walk into the lounge and quietly say Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, and immediately hear Oy, Oy, Oy in return. It’s a silly thing, but it’s fun. The couple from the Philippines, Nancy (Han Chinese) and Lawrence (Taiwanese) were charming and just as disgusted with Der Trumpf. Successful co-owners of a financial services company, they were just as sickened as we are by the lack of civility in the man. If dumping a passenger overboard weren’t a crime…….

        I also learned that France is gorgeous but has no corner on the ability to produce good wines. We went to four separate tastings in Châteauneuf du pape, Beaujolais, Burgundy, and Alsace. Of the 13 wines we were offered, one at more than 35 Euros/bottle (about $40 US), none were so good that I couldn’t do better at my local wine vendor. That means better wine at a better price. We sort of knew this several decades ago when American wines began winning international gold medals, but I have seen first-hand now. Again, the dirty little secret is that almost all French vines were replanted after phylloxera all but wiped out grapes in France. What were they replanted on? American rootstock. Nearly all French wine, including expensive French wine, comes from vines grafted onto American roots.”  

I learned a lot more but that’s enough for now.

News musings, June 5th, 2019

Thoughts on the news, 6/5/2019

As I watch the continued unfolding of the traveling circus that  the Trump British trip has become, I can’t  help but reflect, especially on this day, of another American leader and future Republican president facing a real crisis rather than one of his own design on this same date, 75 years ago. Rather than insults and poorly fitting clothes, Dwight D. Eisenhower was concerned with the possibility that, regardless of all the planning, materiel preparations and deception, the next day’s landings on the French coast might well fail and the allies be repulsed.

        As a real leader does and few are willing to do today, especially not President Bone Spur, Ike drafted a letter on the evening of the 5^th of June. 1944, taking full responsibility for such failure in case it should it occur. The text is as follows: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."  Sort of makes you wonder what happened to that sort of ethical leadership, doesn’t it?

        Today is Kenny “G”’s birthday. Who gives a shit?

        In a tragedy locally, a young man and well-respected athlete who had just graduated high school a week earlier, was a passenger and was fatally injured in what the paper initially described only as a “single car accident”, but which, on reading further, mentioned the vehicle leaving the road, striking a tree and killing both the driver and the young man in question. Any one besides me think just maybe alcohol was involved?  In instances like this, there seems to be some sort of sense of, “Let’s not sully the kid’s name by mentioning the  (drugs, booze, whatever)”  What gets missed here is that examples that strike close to home are often the most effective deterrents to peers. We may never know why the young man died, or whether he or the driver were even drinking, but if alcohol was a factor, other teens need to know that.  

        The Trump administration has issued an edict, immediately praised by Florida senator and sugar whore, Marco Rubio, banning any further travel to Cuba by cruise ships departing US ports.  This, of course, is Trumpism at its “Undo everything Obama did”, worst. In fact, the first four months of Obama era relaxed tensions brought almost 150,000 tourists to Cuba and last year saw a 300% increase over that figure. This also resulted in tourist dollars stimulating a hurting Cuban economy.

        Trump Administration hawk in residence, John Bolton, refers to the Troika of Tyranny (Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela) as if they were one cabal plotting the overthrow of the US, although in the case of Venezuela and Cuba, having difficulties just feeding their people. Apparently, the lesson of Vietnam and China has blown right past Bolton, who is, make no mistake about it, since he has the ear of an imbecile, a real threat to hemispheric stability.  

        Millions died in Southeast Asia because, in 1947, Harry Truman was unable, largely due to Congressional Republican driven pressure, to just leave Ho Chi Minh to run Vietnam as the election results would have dictated. Instead, Truman gave the French everything short of troops in their 8 years' failed effort to subjugate a people who only wanted to be self governing.  Dwight Eisenhower later said that, had we allowed the (Geneva convention mandated) nationwide election to take place without US interference, Ho would have garnered 80% of the vote. Alas, the US, bastion of freedom and self determination that we profess ourselves to be, overturned the election and accelerated a war which would result in millions of deaths, civilian and military. 

       Where would that have left us? Well, about where we are today, actually, trading with a nominally Communist nation where our dollars and tourism are welcome. The Vietnamese are a remarkably forgiving people, unlike us. If we truly believe in the superiority of our economic system, then its advantages must be self-evident to struggling Communist/Socialist nations, but only if they are able to interact with our economy and our people. There’s a reason North Korea keeps most Americans out, and it isn’t really fear of espionage, but fear of their own system being exposed by contrast and personal interaction.    

        Cuba is much the same. Castro succeeded because a US supported corrupt dictator (the Batista regime) propped up by Big Sugar interests, had a stranglehold on the economy and the population. As the situation eased, and had continued to ease with Fidel gone, poor Cubans were generally better off than under Batista. While Marco Rubio professes to hate Cuba as it is, it cannot possibly be from personal experience, since he was born in Miami, 12 years after Castro toppled the corrupt Cuban government in what was a people’s revolution. He cannot possibly speak first-hand about the situation, since he was a grade schooler in Miami when it happened.

       So, just how wonderful was Cuba pre-Castro? In truth it was wonderful only for the moneyed classes.  Grabbing power and receiving significant financial, military, and logistical support from the United States government, Fulgencio Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. (does this sentiment sound strangely familiar?) In fact, many of Cuba’s poor who labored for pennies a day in sugar fields were as bad off as their grandparents had been under Spanish rule.

        Eventually it reached the point where most of the sugar industry was in U.S. hands, and foreigners owned 70% of the arable land. Think about the implication of that for Cuba’s underclasses! Batista's repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with both the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large U.S.-based multinational companies who were awarded lucrative contracts. 

         So, any notion that an average Cubano would have been better off during the “good old days” (pre-Castro) is ludicrous. US anti-Cuban sentiments among ex-Cubans have been fanned by those who lost their ill-gotten financial gain under Batista. They continue now, by feeding lies to the offspring of Cuban emigres (like Marco Rubio) who have no real idea whereof they speak.

         Now here’s the odd part: Little Marco’s parents were Cubans who immigrated to the United States in 1956, prior to the rise of Fidel Castro in January 1959. They weren’t fleeing Castro but fleeing a shitty economy (under a US supported dictatorship) and seeking work in the US. His mother made at least four return trips to Cuba after Castro's takeover, including a month-long trip in 1961. His maternal grandfather, Pedro Victor Garcia, immigrated to the U.S. legally in 1956, but returned to Cuba to find work in 1959. Understand this, Grandpa went back after Castro was in power to find work.  

       So why does Rubio hate Cuba? Probably the same reason as millions of ignorant Americans with no sense of either History or Economics – they’ve been told to. (And because it gets votes in South Florida)  Since the McCarthy era we’d been fed a steady diet of propaganda – not just that Communism was “bad,” but that the best way to deal with it was to make enemies of people who were either by choice, chance or subjugation, living under Communist governments.

        After a reasoned overture to Cuba by The Obama administration which has been beneficial to Americans and Cubans alike, Bolton and his Pillsbury Doughboy have reset the clock to the early 1960s. How long until the Russians get involved?  

        And on a final, lighter, but equally scary note: Taylor Forte and her fiancé had planned an intimate picnic at Lake Alice, near Gainesville, Fl, and things were going swimmingly until the picnic crasher arrived. The guest, an alligator, sprinted up from the water’s edge, scarfed a bowl full of guacamole (including the bowl) after consuming a block of cheese, salami, half a watermelon and a pound of grapes. It then waddled back to the water, apparently to sleep of the spoils of its gluttony. What, no big Mac? 

Even More Musings

Various musings

        I thought "Hints from Heloise" couldn’t get any more inane than yesterday's startling revelation that ice could be used to cool a hot drink. I was wrong. You can’t make this shit up: “My husband and I refuse to eat sausage with the casings on, and I have tried numerous ways to take them off, which end up with a mess, until I tried using a vegetable peeler, which works better than other measures we’ve tried.”  That’s the letter! I would offer as an alternative that perhaps this couple should switch to bacon which comes already peeled. Alternatively buy any of the multitude of sausage patties on the market. “Peeling” sausage? Really?

        With all the incredibly politicized garbage and bad legislation being floated by several states regarding late term (in fact, almost any) abortions, one candidate has managed to deliver, in a couple of paragraphs the most cogent and well stated opinion I have seen regarding this contentious issue.

       “So, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in that situation. If it’s that late in your pregnancy, that means almost by definition you’ve been expecting to carry it to term,” he said.  

“We’re talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name, women who have purchased a crib — families who then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice. The bottom line is, as horrible as that choice is, that woman, that family, may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance, but that decision isn’t going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made.”

"Mayor Pete" has distilled all the Bible thumping and vote pandering right wing bullshit down to the intensely personal and medical consideration that it really is in just one brief response to a Fox News Town Hall meeting question. Compare this to all the Donald Trump, et all, bloviating, vote pandering, rhetoric. Sad, huh?  

       At the Scripps National Spelling Bee recently, the judges finally called it quits and awarded an 8-way tie for first place. As an aside, 6 of the eight winners were Asian Indian. Damned immigrants, taking all the good jobs from “’Murrican” spellers. (note, for those who don’t know me, the previous is sarcasm as a form of humor)

       Finally (for today, anyway) Clarence Thomas (you remember the USSC Justice who says little and does less, other than watch porno?) has opined that abortion and birth control are plots by Eugenicists to limit….something - what he doesn’t actually say.   At this point, as an exemplar of his true mediocrity, he never actually mentions what I suppose we’re expected to glean from his 

20-page polemic which, one supposes, is that Eugenicists would seek to limit Black births, a canard of the highest order,  and statistically false, especially since he lumps birth control and abortion together.

        So, what does he get wrong? The first and most obvious example is that if birth control was meant to limit Black births, it has failed for the following reasons:

·       Eighty-three percent of black women at risk of unintended pregnancy are currently using a contraceptive method, compared with 91% of their Hispanic and white peers, and 90% of their Asian peers. Yeah, that’s the opposite of what Thomas implies.

·       Among women at risk of unintended pregnancy, 92% of those with an income of at least 300% of the federal poverty level and 89% of those living at 0–149% of poverty are currently using a contraceptive method. Yep, you read it right, lower income, less use of contraception.

       So, here’s where it gets even murkier. Because he’s an ignorant man, Thomas is apparently unaware that those who were identified with the Eugenics movement in America, including such luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt and Margaret Sanger,  while favoring birth control, generally violently opposed abortion. A horde of historians, Black and White have illuminated this embarrassing fact and described Thomas’s drivel thus:

·       “ignorant and prejudiced when it comes to birth control and wholly inappropriate when it comes to abortion, vis-à-vis eugenics.”

·       “Thomas is guilty of a gross misuse of historical facts, and especially in the U.S. context,”

·       “historically incoherent.”

·       “The American Eugenics Society regarded it (abortion) as murder"

·       “Eugenicists were initially hostile even to birth control because they knew that the women who would use it were the type of women they would want to encourage to reproduce, so-called ‘better’ women — upper-middle-class women,”

·       “This has been part of the sensationalist rhetoric of antiabortion activists for a long time. What is striking about this is that this is now in an opinion by a Supreme Court justice.”

It would seem that even when Justice Thomas does do something and issue an opinion, he’s wrong.  

Memorial Day Musings

Memorial Day and service-related thoughts.

        Every year at the end of May, we appropriately commemorate the ultimate sacrifice represented by those who died in armed conflict in the service of America. For the most part these were Americans who were doing their best to honor a commitment made, some voluntarily, many more involuntarily, to what they believed was service in the cause of freedom. A very large number of these individuals died in what historians sometimes refer to “Just,” (or morally justified) wars. The validity of that appellation can be and has been debated for centuries.

        One example of this definition difficulty is that “Just” is frequently highly subjective. As an example, we might consider the US Seventh Cavalry, highly decorated and engaged in both Korea and Vietnam. Reflecting historically on all the ways the Seventh has been tasked, however also yields the facts that their most famous (notorious?) battle was against the Lakota at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, at which its commander, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and 211 men died. The regiment also committed the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, which effectively ended the Indian wars. For heroism in these two engagements, 41 members of the regiment received the Medal of Honor. I believe (I hope) that today it would be difficult for most of us to justify awarding the nation’s highest military honor to troops engaged in genocidal actions, which Wounded Knee certainly was, which today would probably have them declared war criminals.  

        It can be generally agreed upon by the vast majority of us that US involvements in World Wars I and II were Just Wars by almost any definition. Korea, is only a bit less certain, since there was no real threat to the United States, but the freedom of a people who were under attack by a totalitarian regime was at stake, and they (South Koreans) fought bravely in their own defense. Following that, as we move into the modern it becomes murkier. While Korea was not a “declared” war, per the Constitution, it was a US commitment to the ideals of the newly formed United Nations, in that other nations besides the US were represented there. None of this, of course,  in any way diminishes the sacrifices of those who volunteered or were drafted and were killed in action during that or subsequent undeclared military actions.

        What I would like us to recall, on this day, is that none of the persons involved in committing US military personnel to the fighting in Viet Nam and all subsequent non declared wars actually had to fight or die there. Events in Viet Nam represented no threat to US national security but was based on John Foster Dulles’ fatally flawed “domino theory” fiction which he sold to Eisenhower and a majority of Post WW II US politicians. In retrospect, one of the harshest critics of Viet Nam was the war's principal architect himself, LBJ’s SecDef, Robert McNamara, who wrote in a 1995 memoir that his own behavior in shaping the war was “wrong, terribly wrong.” 

        A later 2003 Academy Award winning documentary, “The Fog of War”, based on many hours of interviews with an older, redemption seeking, McNamara gives us several observations which seem to be both too little, too late, and ignored in the main. Several points in the film are worth mentioning: With respect to the Tonkin Gulf incident, used as LBJ’s pretext for massive escalation: "We see what we want to believe." (ed: or as  in the Tonkin Gulf incident, invent it).  Also" If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we better reexamine our reasoning.” McNamara also talks about how he believes the responsibility for the Vietnam War is on the president and says that if Kennedy had lived, the situation would have been better. The second Gulf War and beyond show the truth inherent in this view, re Presidential roles.  

        So, what did we learn from that? Not a lot, or at least not enough. We did fight another (for the most part) “Just” skirmish in Operation Desert Storm. GHW Bush believed freeing Kuwait from Iraqi domination was justified and was advised by then SecDef Dick Cheney NOT to advance to Baghdad or depose Saddam Hussein. He listened. Some years later, his son, getting the opposite advice (forcing Iraqi regime change) from now Vice President Cheney, would condemn thousands more Americans and millions more Arabs to death by destabilizing Iraq and opening the door to ISIS and widespread Sunni/Shiite conflict, as yet unresolved. Of course, “Bush 43’s” desert adventure stemmed from the (perhaps intentional) misreading and massive mischaracterization of the 9/11 attacks perpetrated and funded, not by Iraq or Iran, but by the Saudi born and financed Osama Bin Laden, based in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, today, we continue making excuses for Saudi lawlessness and funneling money to Pakistan, whose (de facto) Islamist government continues a cozy relationship with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

        The lives of those who have died in the several Middle East undeclared wars are no less precious than those who climbed Mount Suribachi, waded ashore at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal, froze at Chosin Reservoir or were sunk by depth charges in the Sea of Japan. I would hope, however, that on Memorial Day, while we respectfully reflect on the sacrifices of those who gave all, we also reflect on why and how our leaders chose, and still choose, to place our military in harm’s way.

       As familiar and overused as this old adage has become, it has never been more apropos: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  George Santayana