Morals

27 VIII 2018: If it acts like a Nazi …

I am struck by the parallels between the Nazi purges of undesirables and the Trump regime’s treatment of immigrants. Immigrants of color have been the traditional scape-goats of the Republican party who have long aroused the ignorant against immigrants. Trump continues this and has set in motion a program of ethnic cleansing. To carry out his ethnic cleansing he has turned ICE into an American SS, agents who hunt down immigrants of color, imprison them in concentration camps called “detention centers,” or as surreptitiously as possible expel them from the United States.

As with the Nazis, Trump is supported in this by a remarkably large number of people who demand a return an “authentic America” that is white, protestant, and patriarchal. Trump’s gross demagoguery encourages their delusions. Delusions, because white supremacy, state religion, and patriarchy are all falling away, as the urgent intensity of current attempts to reassert them make quite clear.

12 VII 2018: Contempt FOR Congress

“Contempt of Congress” is used to threaten those who can’t or won’t answer captious questions and cooperate with unalloyed stupidity. But I’m free, so far, to feel and express my contempt for Congress. I watched some of the interrogation of Agent Peter Strzok on TV. The Republicans were sweating and straining to force reality to appear as they wanted it to appear, but Mr. Strzok’s tough and dexterous answers thwarted them at every turn. So three cheers for Strzok! – three raspberries for the Republican marionettes on the committee! I feel annoyed by the silliness of congressmen, as always. But their kissing up to the Trump, the American Nero, makes me feel ashamed.

9 VI 2018: “malignant narcissism”

I came upon something that amounts to a description of some of the America’s leaders:

“To unconstrained egos any limit placed on their freedom of action is intolerable, and aggressive individuals will indeed perceive deterrence as an imminent attack – because that is what they would do if the roles were reversed. Rational people are always at a disadvantage when dealing with such people, because compromise is impossible. Concessions are taken as no more than their due and as a sign of weakness, therefore requiring no quid pro quo. It is a psychopathic condition known as malignant narcissism – and the only cure for it is death.”

These are the words of a British author, Hugh Bicheno, from his work Blood Royal: The Wars of the Roses: 1462-1485 (N.Y., London: Pegasus Books 2017) 84-5, that describe the kind of personality that brought about and prolonged England’s civil war of the 15th century.

10 V 2018: Enthusiasm for torture

The process of confirmation of Gina Haspel has re-opened the issue of the use of torture by the government of the United States. We failed to deal severely with this issue back when John Yoo, now a professor of law at Berkeley, and Jay S. Bybee, now a judge in the federal appellate court, were cooking up the so-called “Torture Memos.” 9/11 made the people of America pee in their pants and surrender their rights, morals, and dignity to those who claimed they could keep us safe. We were and ought to be ashamed of ourselves. But what we have now? An antinomian president who is a torture booster, with some of the old crew of torture-enthusiasts to cheer him on. Nomination of a veteran of the torture era to the directorship of the C.I.A. has summoned up a number of demons from Hell. That amoral ghoul, Dick Cheney, has appeared singing again his old “hurt ’em bad” song by way of claiming yet again that he was right all along. And Lt. General Thomas McInerny, making his pitch for torture on the Fox Channel, uttered some gratuitous insults against Senator John McCain for which the General deserves to be horse-whipped.

I will repeat now what I said back in 2002-2003, aged advocates of torture ought to volunteer themselves as laboratory subjects for the development and refinement of torture techniques.

2 V 2018: Sleaze and contagion

So Trump has a new mouthpiece, a man hailed as “a veteran white collar defense attorney.” Now Emmet Flood can’t have agreed to work for Trump because he needs money. I cannot even imagine the vast income of someone in his line of work, who defends the sort of people he represents. Maybe he accepted the job because of the staggering challenge of defending Trump, a client far more irresponsible and garrulous than any Flood usually represents. Will Flood succeed where all others have failed? Will he stop Trump’s mouthing off? Will he take away his Twitter account? Will he cajole Trump into concentrating on something?

Mr. Flood will have developed a strong stomach from dealing with wholly unprincipled and sleazy people in his legal practice, but he is sure to be retching for the first few days of his service in the Trump Gang. He will be nauseated, but he will be lucky if that is all the sickness he suffers. Mendacity, contempt for law, utter selfishness, and disdain for all that is decent are diseases that are cultivated in the Trump world, and Mr. Flood will be lucky if he is not infected.

28 IV 2018: The King of Tarts

We’ve now seen what I’m sure is only the tip of the iceberg of Trump’s bought and paid for love affairs. Some Trumpites from the mega-churches assert that Trump has been born again and has been forgiven all his past sins. I cannot imagine how they know. But whatever the state of his soul, more and more evidence of Trump’s serial polygamy is coming to light and fleshing out what we already know of this weak, impulsive, and mendacious character. Forgiven or not, Trump’s fundamental character remains unchanged and renders him unfit to hold the office or President. If he truly has had a change of heart, he should follow Richard Nixon’s example and put himself where he will no longer be a danger to others.

19 X 2017: Unlimited free speech

Read about racist Richard Spencer’s attempts to make himself heard at the University of Florida. In a piece from the Associated Press that reported estimated cost of security for the event at $600,000, it was said that public universities “are compelled by the First Amendment to provide a speaking forum.” This is news to me. I believe the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but it surely does not guarantee an audience. State universities must restrict access to some who demand to speak on campus. Otherwise they would have to accommodate speakers who assert the moon is made of green cheese, that the earth is flat, and that there is no human-caused climate change. University of Florida was silly to be suckered in by an appeal to free speech.

Once Spencer was there and given a venue, he was prevented from speaking by the hecklers who made up a majority of the audience. These were suckers also, for I’m sure Mr. Spencer gets a lot more points with his base by being shouted down than by actually speaking.

Right-wing nutcases and publicity hounds should not be allowed to speak on university campuses. “But if the students invite them ….” The students are students. They are not adults and show that they are not with some regularity.

“Oh, but we are trying to have a diverse campus.” We really ought to get rid of diverse and diversity. These terms have no commonly agreed upon meaning in political discourse. If diversity is truly insisted upon, and any group of students can invite any speaker, the number of abusers of women, liars, egomaniacs, adulterers, cheats, and frauds on campus will increase, and in addition to this familiar group of reprobates, absolute diversity would require that a place be made for sadists, cannibals, and pederasts if a student group invites them.

Will common sense and moral authority ever return to America’s universities?

17 X 2017: “Thy banners make tyranny tremble”

This is a line from the first verse of the old patriotic song “O Columbia, Gem of the Ocean.” The entire verse is as follows:

O Columbia! the gem of the ocean,
The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine of each patriot’s devotion,
A world offers homage to thee;
Thy mandates make heroes assemble,
When Liberty’s form stands in view;
Thy banners make tyranny tremble,
When borne by the red, white, and blue.
When borne by the red, white, and blue,
When borne by the red, white, and blue,
Thy banners make tyranny tremble,
When borne by the red, white and blue.

This is rather frothy stuff, but still it would have been a better national anthem than the impossible “O say, can you see.”

What I’ve been thinking about is the line: “Thy banners make tyranny tremble.” The United States of America is forsaking its role of leadership of the free world, reneging on its promises and treaties, and colluding with tyrants of every type. Pretenses to “Moral Leadership,” already called into question by torture of prisoners and “collateral damage,” are made truly ridiculous by our President’s expressions of admiration for and uncritical association with tyrants world-wide. Who is it trembles at our banners now? The upright, I would say, the idealistic, those who collaborate in service of justice and peace. They are the ones now afraid of the United States.

3 X 2017: The Las Vegas slaughter, wholly predictable. Get over it.

The surprising thing about the shooting in Las Vegas is not that it occurred, but that such outrages do not occur far more frequently. Could anyone lead an active, half-way observant life in the U.S. without realizing how many crazies there are out there? Get out on the road, go to a football game, go to a Trump rally, go to a white supremacist or survivalist gathering, visit a  local gunshow, and you will see crazies “as thick as hasty pudding.” I’m not talking about your foam-at-the-mouth, hatchet-swinging crazies. I’m talking about your road-ragers and your internet trolls, about the crowd that wants to make the USA all white and all Christian again, about the willfully ignorant and subrational, about the multitudes that blame their own errors and deficiencies on the imagined malice of others. And firearms circulate freely in this this mental institution of a nation in incalculable numbers. We are addicted to firearms, and crave more guns and bigger guns, really ugly ones! Go to a gun show, go to a gun shop. You will not find graceful fowling pieces, single-shot target rifles, or weapons suited to the defense of house and home. You will find military grade firearms whose only real purpose is slaughter, although, thank goodness, they are more often used only to enhance b-movie inspired masturbatory fantasies. No, Vegas should be no surprise.

And yet, events like that in Vegas, thanks to our astounding capacity for denial, afford us days of 24-hour coverage of shock and surprise, hand-wringing, thrilling emotional catharsis, and political posturing, none of which ever does anything about the national maladies that create this atmosphere so conducive to mass shootings.

America has grown pathetically soft. At the time of 9-11, when we were treated to a nation-wide orgy of grief, terror, and mindless rage, I was studying at an institute that hosted a number of Israeli scholars. These Israelis offered America their condolences, up to a point. But they stopped when they saw us refuse to get over it and get on with responsible living. They observed that if Israelis went into such a paroxysm after every terrorist attack, the community and state would collapse altogether.

Whether the shooting in Las Vegas was “an act of pure evil,” or an act of mixed evil, or an exercise in self-indulgent and cowardly lunacy, we had better get past the emotional posturing and honestly confront our national sickness, hoping to prepare for future generations a more honest and rational community.

29 IX 2017: Sixties Re-enactors in Saint Louis

Read in the Saint Louis Post Disaptch about a so-called “town hall meeting” called by such broadly based groups as the Saint Louis Action Council, ArchCity Defenders. and Organization for Black Struggle. The were very upset that Mayor Krewson did not attend. Good for her! They only invited her to abuse her and shout her down. No, they can call this a “town hall meeting” if they like, but this was not a community event.

They flashed on a screen, the report says, a list of twelve demands. This reminds me of the sixties when students played at being political and used to issue lists of “non-negotiable demands.” But I’m sure this is only the beginning. Mayor Krewson could fire the Chief, resign herself and it would make no difference at all. The current “unrest” in Saint Louis is being stage managed by a group of young black political aspirants. So they will compete by upping the demands.

I have to wonder whether civil disobedience figures in the thinking of the agitators and the agitated. They go into ecstasies of rage when there are arrests at their “disruptions.” But do they think they can engage in civil disobedience without breaking the law? And do they think they, and not others, should be allowed to break the law with impunity? I think they do. But the rule of law is the rule of law, and it should apply both to the police and to the disrupters.