TRUMP’S INHUMANITY AND IGNORANCE ON CLEAR DISPLAY

I know, I promised to refrain from posting anything about Donald Trump.  After all, what can be said that hasn't already about the lying, malignant narcissist?  Besides, the last thing he needs is more attention. The following commentary by NY Times columnist Roger Cohen, however, has moved me to make an exception.  In a few short, revealing words, Cohen paints a  spot-on picture  of Trump the man. It got my blood boiling.

Several less than perfect persons have occupied the White House.  Ours is an imperfect system; a few bad apples are inevitable.  But I will venture to say that the American presidency has never been so dishonored as it has been by Donald Trump.  It's not just that the self-absorbed dirtbag is an embarrassment to everything America is supposed to stand for, after all we've been led by a number of presidents who have strayed from our ideals, but it's hard to reach back in history and find a president whose deceit and downright evilness has caused so much damage to our values, our democracy, and to so much of humanity, at home and abroad. We've endured evildoer presidents in the past (Nixon comes to mind), and have managed to transcend the damage, but I'm sorry to say I'm not sure we will ever recover from the Trump presidency, especially if he wins  reelection, which is shockingly possible, if not likely.

I know Americans are a resilient people, we've overcome many hardships and adversities, and risen to  great challenges.  I'm encouraged by the empowerment of women, young people, and progressive energies alive at the grassroots, but I'm not sure this will be enough to overcome the Trump effect.  (Apologies for my cynicism; I hope you have not become similarly afflicted.)  Donald Trump is a product of a white nationalist, fact-adverse populism that has been brewing for decades.  It is now deeply entrenched in our political institutions and a large segment of our national culture.  This means progressive-thinking people need to overcome not just the man, but the roots that produced, and continue to sustain, his ignominious rule, a Herculean task, indeed.

If you value humanity, I trust the following Cohen commentary will summon raw emotions similar to mine.  If you're a Trump supporter, or one of his shameless Republican congressional lapdogs, I suspect you'll see nothing wrong with the president's frank indifference to Nadia Murad's story-- or, for that matter, to his general lack of empathy for human suffering.  Hell, you might even celebrate it.  Such is as it is in the Trump's world. 

I hope the Cohen post inspires a dialogue, and hopefully a personal response.

Ronald T. Fox

JUNE 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Fellow Military Hawks. Senator Cruz joined the hawk bandwagon in calling for the creation of a Space Force, except Cruz one-upped them all in offering an ignominious line of reasoning. To get the full effect of the Cruz absurdity, you need to experience it with the full pomposity with which Republican he brought this dire warning to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Since the ancient Greeks first put to sea,” said Cruz, “nations have recognized the necessity of naval forces and maintaining a superior capability to protect waterborne travel and commerce from bad actors. Pirates threaten the open seas, and the same is possible in space.”

No. No, it is not possible. Poor Somalis, living in chaos and an economic system that runs on bullets, may board rubber dinghies to assault tankers off their coast. No one, no one, is or will be cobbling together a backyard rocket to buckle their swash in space.

Cruz went on: “In this same way,” he said, “I believe we too must now recognize the necessity of a Space Force to defend the nation and to protect space commerce and civil space exploration.”

At other points in Cruz’s complete speech, he discusses how a Space Force may be needed to protect America in “asteroid mining in which a small asteroid could contain rare materials such as platinum worth billions.” Which seems to overlook a few things.

First, we’re not doing any asteroid mining. We’re not going to be doing any asteroid mining for decades, at best. Second, anyone with the technology to be a pirate against asteroid miners could just mine their own asteroid. Third, the material from asteroids only has value if there is somewhere to sell it; you can’t, shockingly, smuggle an asteroid back to Earth for easy sale at the local bodega.

But hey, screw facts. Ted Cruz is on the floor of the Senate, demanding billions to fight space pirates. That is where we are.

Not only is a Space Force an unneeded boondoggle, it promises to bring consequences that will prove costly to our national and domestic security. It will add fuel to interservice rivalries, bloat the defense budget, impose mind-boggling bureaucratic hurdles, undermine the capacity of our military forces to operate with any sense of coordination, and compromise domestic spending priorities which will bear the burden of expanded defense spending. Been there done that. Think back when the Air Force split off from the Army Air Corp after World War II. How did that work out? Each service developed their own priorities, which don’t always square well with combat effectiveness. Think of the low priority the Air Force attaches to close ground support for our troops—not something they relish, as our troops, as well as advocates for the highly effective A-10 Warthog, have sadly learned.

But wait, another independent service will mean more defense spending, which should make the military-industrial complex salivate. Therein lies the crux.

Cruz points out that nations such as China have developed satellite-killing technology, but those are essentially missiles launched from the Earth. We have them as well. It’s not clear how any “space force” would help with this situation in any way. You can’t sneak up on someone in space. You can’t dash out from the nearest shoreline, make a quick hit, and return.

There are no space pirates. Unfortunately, there is a Ted Cruz.

MAY 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

The forced-birthers are picking up steam. With God on their side, how can they lose? Here’s a couple samplings:

1. Michigan State Senator Kim LaSata. Everyone knows that God hates women who get abortions. In fact, one of the earliest books in the Hebrew Bible—Numbers—has a “pleasant” story about God’s priests giving women a special “potion” that would induce an abortion. According to the Bible, it was a punishment for adultery. So, abortion is OK if God wants it done to punish women.

Michigan state Sen. LaSata doesn’t read those kinds of bibles. She reads her own special bible and has big thoughts and feelings about what God wants. She and other forced-birther zealots in the Michigan state legislature have been trying to get their own abortion ban through.

With Alabama’s decision to outlaw abortions in virtually all cases, forced-birther types like Sen. LaSata want everyone to know that they are overjoyed by their victory in protecting the “sanctity of life.” The Detroit Free Press explains that during examination of medical experts, LaSata became angry after testimony that by banning standard second-trimester procedures for abortion, the Michigan legislature would be putting women into painful and dangerous scenarios. Sen. LaSata’s response was the kind of Jesus-empathizing you might expect from a good Christian like herself:

“Of course, it should be hard! And the procedure should be painful! And you should allow God to take over!! And you should deliver that baby!"

LaSata has talked about her own personal abortion story, where she attempted to get an abortion, it didn’t work, and she ended up giving birth to a stillborn baby. She called the experience an intervention by God, forcing her to go through with what must have been a truly emotional and physically brutal experience.

It seems that what LaSata wants is for other women to experience, regardless of the situation, the trauma she experienced. In her mind, based on her words, she thinks that God did that to her so other women should get to experience God’s work in the same way. Bring on the pain.

APRIL 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. The Texas State Legislature. The Texas secretary of state’s recent effort to target non-citizens for voting illegally was a giant mess—of 95,000 names flagged as non-citizens who had registered to vote, it turned out that thousands had become citizens before registering, and were doing absolutely nothing wrong. The state faces lawsuits over the effort to demonize immigrants, but that’s not stopping Texas Republicans from doubling down. Two bills in the Texas state Senate would force local voter registrars to strip their voting rolls of everyone who had at any point said they weren’t a citizen.

Under the Republican bills, people who had recently become citizens and registered to vote—as is their right—would have that right taken away without being notified so that they could set things straight. And voter registrars who failed to kick a group of mostly legal voters off the rolls would face penalties and possible removal from office.

Not that we needed any further evidence of how much Republicans want to suppress voting, but wow. Immediately after a list of supposed illegal voters was shown to be overwhelmingly a list of legal voters, Republicans are moving to use the same standard to disenfranchise voters without warning or recourse. They’re evil, they’re desperate … and they might prevent a lot of people from voting.

FEBRUARY 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABUSRDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham is suddenly very concerned about due process and how suspects are taken into custody by law enforcement. That’s why he’s now demanding answers from the FBI about the arrest of former Trump political adviser Roger Stone. The South Carolina senator is leading a one-man pity party for Stone, insisting the agency address why it was necessary to have so many agents arrest Stone at his home in the early morning hours on Friday, Jan. 25.

In a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray dated Jan. 30, Graham asks (among other things) why Stone was simply not permitted to surrender himself voluntarily. He also asks if anyone at the FBI, Department of Justice, or the special counsel’s office alerted the media, specifically CNN. This is all because Stone’s arrest was caught on video and the incredible image of FBI agents knocking on the door of an adviser to the American president won’t soon be forgotten.

Republicans are trying their best to make this some kind of conspiracy where Stone is the victim of an out-of-control investigation by Democrats who just want to oust Trump. But facts are facts: No one made Roger Stone get involved in criminal activity on behalf of a corrupt and unfit president. He’s being charged with seven federal counts, which range from witness tampering to obstruction of justice. This is serious business, and none of us should feel bad for the way his arrest went down.

He got treated just like the millions of regular people across the country when they get arrested and don’t have money, power, and political influence. In a nation where inequality increases daily and money allows people to do whatever they want, consequences be damned, there is something a little bit democratic about the way Stone got nailed by an FBI SWAT team while he was still in his pajamas.

Where’s Graham’s outrage for the many people who are arrested or killed without due process? What about Walter Scott, Graham’s fellow South Carolinian, who was gunned down in 2015 by a North Charleston police officer, shot in the back as he was running away after a traffic stop? What about all the unarmed black and brown people who don’t receive just treatment by police? Did Graham demand answers from the Cleveland Police when they shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice within two seconds of arriving to a park because he was playing with a toy gun? It seems as if Graham’s passion for justice only emerges when rich friends of his president are in big legal trouble.

Just a reminder: Even though the charges against him are serious, Roger Stone was released on bail the very same day he was arrested. He was not allowed to surrender himself to the FBI because investigators were concerned that he would tamper with evidence. But he was still released on a $250,000 bond (that’s it!) and made the conservative media rounds later that day to proclaim his innocence. Even though Graham and Republicans want us to believe that the FBI was needlessly inappropriate and harsh with Stone, his arrest and release point out one thing quite clearly: If you have to get arrested at all, it’s you better be a rich, old, white dude.

MARCH 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDIRTY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Senator Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota). Say what? According to Rounds, Donald Trump having an affair with Stormy Daniels—shortly after his youngest child was born—and then paying her hush money to keep the story under wraps before the election, is okay in his book because it just proves that Trump really, really loves his family:

“I honestly think this president loves his family … I think it has as much to do with trying not to have public discussions about something that is, for him, a private matter … and I don’t think he wanted his family to go through this.”

Some might suggest that Trump could have better proven his love of family by not having an affair with a porn star—again, shortly after his youngest child was born—but hey, who can argue with a family values guy like Mike Rounds? Of course, one does wonder if Mrs. Rounds is somewhere thinking, “If Mike loves me that much, I’ll kill him.”

MY SOCIAL AND POLITICAL AWAKENING: A SPECIAL THANKS TO SYDNEY VERBA AND BIRCH BAYH

By Ronald T. Fox

 

My Social and Political Awakening

I read in the March 18 New York Times that two men who were importantly responsible for my political awakening and the development of my thinking about government and politics had passed away. One was political scientist Sydney Verba and the other Indiana Senator Birch Bayh. Their passing moved me to reminisce about their roles in my intellectual and political maturation.