14 VIII 2020: Doesn’t have to be Mt. Rushmore

Mr. Trump’s bid to have his face carved on Mt. Rushmore has encountered a lot of opposition. I’ve made my views on the matter known, so there’s no need to say more about it.

However, a brilliant idea has come to me. Let’s put Trump on Stone Mountain in Georgia along with Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and their horses. That monument was supported by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and by the newly-revived Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had its inaugural meeting on the top of Stone Mountain with flag, Bible, and 16-foot burning cross. 

What a good fit! The Stone Mountain monument is said to be the largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, the perfect site for megalomaniac Trump. It displays the constellation of segregationist heroes, so it would be fitting to put Trump, who ran on a segregationist platform, up there as well. Problem is, think what you may of them, Lee, Jackson, and Davis were men of education and refinement, and I reckon they would be unrecoverably embarrassed to have Trump in their midst. 

But if we cannot manage to get Trump onto Stone Mountain, I think we should have a look at some of the ancient bas-reliefs that display the savagery of Assyria’s kings, and see if there is a way to squeeze Trump onto one of them. The museums that preserve these sculptures might object, but we can’t please everyone. Indeed, even Trump will be unhappy at not having centerstage on the relief, but think how he will be thrilled to be in the company of those strongmen of absolute power and cruelty.

10 VIII 2020: Mt. Rushmore

I understand Mr. Trump thinks his face should be carved on Mt. Rushmore along with Washington, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt, and Lincoln. Why not? Mt. Rushmore is an eyesore anyway, that shows contempt for the beautiful countryside all around it, rather like the initials that people carve into scenic wonders or holy buildings. It is a garish display of America’s megalomania and political idolatry that can’t be hidden. The presidents on Mt. Rushmore, I understand, were chosen to represent the country’s birth, growth, development, and preservation. I cannot say anything against Mr. Lincoln. But one might view Washington as representing acceptance of slavery, Jefferson as representing the plundering of North America, and Roosevelt as representing jingoistic imperialism. What, then, would Trump’s face represent? Deceit, immorality, criminality, cruelty, racism, headlong self-aggrandizement, and utter indifference to the welfare of the people. But in fact, whatever their faults, the presidents on Mt. Rushmore were well-intentioned leaders who can be seen to represent generations of Americans of good will. America’s diversity could be asserted by adding Trump, for he can represent all that’s wrong about America. His face could also serve as a warning to future generations of what can happen when citizens vote with their fears and not with their minds.

4 VIII 2020: Can the United States be a democracy?

The Trump Era has brought to attention the extent of the willful ignorance, gullibility, and insanity that I had always feared were there, but tried to ignore. Trump has been like an ultra-violet light that reveals what is less evident under ordinary light.

The answer to the question “Can a government of the people, by the people, and for the people long endure?” would be “It depends on the people.” A viable democracy requires a people that is well-informed, that abhors deceit in private and public life, and that is duly suspicious of candidates’ use of fear tactics, whether xenophobia or any other kind of “scare,” red-scare, slave-rebellion scare, the Pope-taking-over scare, women-taking-over scare, science-scare, and simple fear of the other. The people must insist on unreserved obedience to the country’s laws. The people must place first the “general welfare,” must be zealous for the common good.

I do have to wonder if the U.S.A. has any hope of measuring up to this.

31 VII 2020: Republican Party Motto

The motto of the Republican Party was always unofficial, but now that Trump has completed the corruption of the Party, it is planned to make the motto official. The Republican Party exists to guarantee the prosperity, security, and immunity of America’s plutocrats. How can they be so successful in a democracy in which the vast majority of citizens are not plutocrats and whose best interests are not at well served by a plutocratic regime? The simple answer can be found in the Republican Party Motto which is:

There’s a sucker born every minute.      

27 VII 2020: Saving American History???

Senator Tom Cotton is emerging as a leading apologist for slavery which he called, renewing an earlier scandal, “a necessary evil.” He has introduced a bill, “The Saving American History Act of 2020,” to deny federal funding to any school that would adopt a program linked to the 1619 curriculum that examines the role of slavery in the founding of the United States.

Senator Cotton is from Arkansas, an unrepentant Confederate state, so we should not be surprised to see him stand up for “the way things were.” He mis-named, his bill to conceal its real intent, for its title should read: “The Saving the White Supremacist Version of American History Act.”

This country has two grave sins on its soul, sins for which it has yet to repent: Slavery of the Black People and Slaughter of the Indians. Yet we avoid talking about slavery except to repeat the fiction that the Civil War ended slavery. We boast of pioneers, 49ers, and homesteaders, and never think, let alone admit, that our westward expansion involved one crime against humanity after another.

I fear that Senator Cotton’s “American History” would only perpetuate the self-aggrandizement and falsifications.

24 VII 2020: Trump’s support of the pandemic; Law [sic] and Order [sic]; Never let ethics stand in your way.

1) Trump is not wholly to blame for Americans’ refusing to wear face masks, but he can and must be held responsible for the damage he has done by refusing to wear a mask and belittling the threat posed by COVID19. It occurred to me that his behavior is like that of a senior fraternity boy telling the freshmen “Real studs never use condoms.”

2) I find it paradoxical that our outlaw President, a number of whose close associates are in the clink or ought to be, and his shyster Attorney General are calling for law and order. I’m sure Trump and Barr have their fingers crossed behind their backs when they speak of law and order.

3) We read today that Trump’s ambassador to the U.K., Woody Johnson, has been caught out using abusive speech and trying, as requested by Trump, to persuade Britain to hold the British Open at one of Trump’s resorts. This is hardly surprising. I expect that most of Trump’s nominees use race- or gender-charged abusive language in private and that most of them are only too ready to work a deal for Donald. Anyone Trump selects is very likely to be a crook like him.

22 VII 2020: Trump wishes Ghislaine Maxwell well

To a question about Ghislaine Maxwell and possible involvement of Prince Andrew in Epstein’s misdeeds Pres. Trump replied: “I don’t know. I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach. I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well. Whatever it is. I don’t know the situation with Prince Andrew. Just don’t know. Not aware of it.” 

This is all very curious. A claim of “don’t know nuttin'” from a man who spends much of his time watching television. Trump has, of course, tried to distance himself from Epstein, but it’s obvious that they were best buds if not partners in crime.

And he wishes Maxwell well, she who ran Epstein’s string of victims. Well, he says he met her “numerous times,” so why shouldn’t he wish an acquaintance well? “I guess they lived in Palm Beach,” so he used to run into her sometimes at the supermarket and liquor store, in the better restaurants and bars. I think a little digging would reveal a much closer relationship than this.

Even if they were close friends, why should Trump make the impolitic statement that he wishes her well? Birds of a feather again! Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, and Roger Stone are all members of the semi-criminal sleaze community for whom the law is a mere inconvenience and the only real crime is getting caught.

20 VII 2020: Trump, the torturer John Yoo, and the return of Nazi rule

It has come out that Trump has been consulting John Yoo, the greatest disgrace to the legal profession in the United States. Why was he not disbarred because of his facilitation of torture in the last Bush administration? Why was he allowed to continue teaching law? He should have sought work with ISIS and others who love torture. But Yoo is probably on his way to becoming Trump’s “Roy Cohn.”

There is also a rumor that Trump is looking into ruling the country by decree. Of course that was the power given to Hitler after the Reichstag fire. That was his real start, and of course, he never gave up ruling by decree until he shot himself in his Bunker. And they say that Trump is unlikely to accept his defeat in the coming election, so I suppose he’ll want to go on ruling by decrees from his Bunker.

16 VII 2020: Barr keeping busy

Another convicted murderer was executed today by our Attorney General, Bill Barr, a noted Roman Catholic, at the behest, I’m sure, of that unbending zealot for justice and candidate for re-election, Donald Trump. Apparently, Wesley Purkey was pretty far gone with progressive dementia, schizophrenia, and severe mental illness, nonetheless justice, delayed since Purkey’s sentencing in 2004, had still to be done. 

Olivia Long, the stepmother of the child he killed, is quoted as saying: “It just took way too long, … We just shouldn’t have to wait this long.” But one Kerri Kupec, a spokesperson for the DOJ, concluded “… Purkey has finally faced justice.”

Could anything mitigate the life-destroying grief of the Long Family? What could calm society’s fears and vent its indignation at sociopathic behavior? So I have to ask: What were the Long Family awaiting for sixteen years? What is that “justice” the DOJ says Purkey finally faced? I would guess that the Long Family were waiting for closure, i.e., vengeance for the murder of their daughter, and the DOJ’s “justice” means simply the conclusion of a murder trial that will be satisfactory to the frightened, vindictive, and self-righteous. 

The DOJ and pseudo-christian enthusiasts for the death penalty will quote to us Exodus 21:23-25: “… thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth” etc. They will not quote the rescinding of this law in the Sermon on the Mount Mt 5:38-39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any strikes you on the right cheek ….” or in Romans 12:19: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

So the capital-punishment crowd choose the Old Law over the New and claim for themselves a divine prerogative. But we must challenge their use of the term “justice.” Human justice is too often the creation of limited minds confused by unrealized fears and of that ancient enemy, the libido dominandi, the desperate craving for dominance over other human beings. So let’s do an experiment and in our discourse substitute “revenge” for “justice.” I predict that we would be amazed at the number of instances in which “revenge” is clearly the correct term to use.