America v. Америка (Repost)

Diogenes is on his way back. Here's another repost from his greatest hits.

There was a time when "America" was synonymous with strength, justice, freedom, opportunity, enlightenment, peace, cooperation, fairness, and understanding.

Other nations looked to us for leadership, for assistance, for intervention, for friendship, for alliances.

Now we are shunned by many other countries. We have become an outlier, indeed a pariah of the community of nations where we were once a major player.

Once when we spoke, nations listened; now they snicker.

This downfall of America's reputation has been brought about single-handedly by the ill-begotten president, Donald Trump. Tyrannis Trump has spent his term trying to change America into what he thinks it should be.

The unpresident's psychopathy dictates that the world has to be Trumpcentric. Whether he'll manage to make the world in his own image is doubtful, but he's been working hard to transform this nation into something he may have seen in a dream.

Trump's ultimate delusional goal is an America for Americans only, by which he means white English-speaking non-Catholic Christians. There is no place in his philosophy for people of any color or ethnicity, including the indigenous nations who were here long before Europeans arrived.

He was elected on a platform of racism, xenophobia, and paranoia. His only clearly stated plan was to build a wall to keep Mexicans out. By May 2020, only 3 miles out of 194 miles of wall constructed or replaced under the Trump administration was new fencing. The border is 1,954 miles long.

After almost 4 years of boasting about the wall and its progress the Bricklayer-in-Chief has only managed to add one-tenth of one percent to what already stood before he was elected. And everything that stands is only 10 percent of the length of the border.

He has steadily worked to isolate the United States from the rest of the world. He has used flimsy and nonsensical reasons to remove the U.S. from several organizations and agreements, including:

• The Paris Climate Agreement
• The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bloc
• UNESCO, the UN's culture and education body
• The UN Human Rights Council, responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe
• The UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees in the Near East
• The Iran nuclear accord
• The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty required the U. S. and the Soviet Union to eliminate all nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers
• The Open Skies Treaty allows member nations to overfly other members' territory to collect data on military forces and activities
• and others, including a possible withdrawal from the World Health Organization; he has threatened to withdraw but not carried through

 

Two trends are clear: (1) The Divider-in-Chief is taking the U.S. out of organizations and treaties that involve helping or dealing with ethnicities or races he doesn't like; (2) He is trying to control foreign nuclear weapon expansion while removing hindrances on American weapons development.

The Bumbler-in-Chief has never set out any coherent plan or policy, but the actions above reveal a sort of stream-of-consciousness approach to distancing the United States from the general community of nations.

Isolationism has never worked for the United States. Had Trump ever looked at the history of his own country, he might have come across Thomas Jefferson's 1801 inaugural address, in which he described his vision of American isolationism: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none…”¹

American presidents have never been able to avoid those entangling alliances. Whether coming to the defense of fellow republics or defending America's own interests, presidents and Congresses have become entangled, usually because it was the right thing to do.

That is a foreign concept to Trump. Everything he does is for his own personal gain and interest, and if anyone else can decipher what that is, they're not talking.

Isolationism is impossible when every citizen has access to worldwide communication. Citizens of the isolationist countries North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, among others, don't have this access.

Don't let the Isolator-in-Chief add the United States of America to that list.


--- Diogenes, 8/23/2020   (Reposted 10/11/2020)

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¹ Robert Longley, "The Evolution of American Isolationism," https://www.thoughtco.com/the-evolution-of-american-isolationism-4123832

Cowards, Cretins, and Fools (Repost)

Diogenes is on TDY. In his absence we're reposting some of his more popular pieces.

 

435 Representatives
100 Senators
15 Cabinet members
1 Vice-president

And not a scruple of conscience among them. Not a whiff of courage to call out dishonesty and injustice. Not a shred of evidence that each one of them once swore to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Every day these 551 individuals plus a host of staff watch the alleged leader of the free world lie, scheme, cheat and swindle his bumbling way through life and not one raises their voice to call him out.

Only the press, in their Constitutional position as government watchdog, call him out regularly. The 551 should be listening. There was a time when the editorial boards of major newspapers had the ear of Congress. Now the portion of Congress that isn't deaf listens only to its own voice crying for attention in a masturbatory maelstrom of fear and self-loathing.

Donald John Trump is not special. He is a man, not a superbeing. He is not unstoppable. He puts his pants on one leg at a time. He belches, farts, and picks his nose. He is nobody's Chosen One. He has such little self respect that when he cannot gain praise from others he invents it himself.

His Twitter handle is @realDonaldTrump, but there is nothing real about him. He is a creature of his own imagining, cobbled together from whole cloth into a simulacrum of a leader, but lacking any knowledge or talent for the role. He is material but lacks substance. He is false from the hair on his head and the complexion of his face to the emptiness of his heart. He is the living embodiment of the emperor's new clothes.

The 551 know this but cannot admit it. They are politicians, hacks, and wonks so entrapped by the system they have built for themselves to ensure a continuing spot at the trough of public money that they can understand nothing else. They are cowards, cretins, and fools who will continue to be accomplices to the crimes and misdeeds of the Poser-in-Chief who squats atop the house of cards they have built. They disagree superficially but know they are totally interdependent, so not one will say "Enough! Stop!" Not one. Not. one. They are beyond shame.

Meanwhile the Traitor-in-Chief who has not betrayed his oath because he never intended to follow it attacks genuine patriots. He defends murderers and domestic terrorists like Kyle Rittenhouse, and the mouth-breathing, tattooed lowlifes who drove into peaceful demonstrators in Portland, Oregon.

Speaking to the National Republican Club in February 1938, Vermont Governor George Aiken said Abraham Lincoln "would be ashamed of his party's leadership today."¹ A plaque with that quote should hang in every Congressional Republican's office to remind them of their responsibility to be a check on executive actions.

Government functionaries don't fear the Bully-in-Chief; they fear the power he wields. That is a small but significant distinction. There is nothing to be feared from Trump the man. He is a small, insignificant entity whose personal power over others is limited to insults and epithets. But he holds the presidency, and with that can cause irreparable damage, if not destruction, of careers. He holds it over his minions like Damocles' sword, threatening them with the worst possible fate: expulsion from a government job and the loss of their place at the trough.

Elected officials are beyond his reach, but cower nonetheless because even after four years he remains a phenomenon foreign to their culture. They fear the unknown and therefore bow before it.

There are 551 of them and not one will stand up. The refusal of every one of them to stand and announce their opposition to the Cretin-in-Chief is disgraceful and cowardly. Bullies respond to being pushed back, but we Americans and our Constitution have no one to push for us.

In a post several weeks ago I said I would not condone assassination as a means of removing Tyrant Trump.

I have reconsidered that position.


--- Diogenes, 9/1/2020    Reposted 10/10/2020


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¹ D. Gregory Sanford, "You Can't Get There From Here: The Presidential Boomlet for Governor George D. Aiken, 1937-1939," Vermont History, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Fall, 1981), p. 204.


 

Putting The Hate On Trump (Repost)

(Diogenes is temporarily involved in other pursuits. In his absence we will be reposting some of his more popular pieces.) ---RB

 

I hate Donald Trump because he makes me want to do violence.

I have held to a nonviolent philosophy for my entire adult life. I have never aimed a weapon at anything more threatening than a field target; I was last drawn into a fistfight when I was 17; I have no wish to harm anyone.

And I want to punch Trump's lights out.

I have dreams of throttling him, my hands around his neck, beating his head against the wall while he sings The Beatles' song "I'm A Loser." I want to rip that orange obscenity from his head and shred it with my teeth. I want to throw him into a pool full of crocodiles. I want to wash his lying, profane mouth out with lye soap. I want to tie him to a chair, tape his eyes open, and force him to watch a video loop of President Obama scolding, "Donny, you've been a bad boy." I want the Statue of Liberty to spank him, and the ghosts of Lincoln and Jefferson to haunt him forever. I want a personification of the COVID-19 virus to chase him naked through the streets of Manhattan. I want him to know himself for the fraud and freak show he is, no more worthy to sit in the Oval Office than slime mold. I want him reincarnated to a place where he is the only white person and the rulers are violent, misanthropic women. I want him to know the bone-chilling, knee-collapsing, bladder-emptying fear of authority felt by the oppressed, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized. I want a hundred afarit to drag him into the earth. I want him to know exactly what Putin, Xi Jinping, and Erdoğan actually say about him. I want him tarred and feathered and ridden out of DC on a rail.  I want to tattoo 666 on his ass. I want him to know his biography is full of blank pages. I want him afflicted with boils and unscratchable itches. I want the unspeakable beasts of Chthulu to find him. I want the Holy Bible to burn his blaspheming hands. I want his libelous tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth. I want him placed among the traitors in the mouth of Satan in the deepest pit of Hell. I want him mute. I want his image expunged from every public place and his portrait never placed in the Gallery of Presidents. I want him forgotten. I want his legacy to be shame. I want him to know just how much he is hated. I want him to be bullied and intimidated. I want him ostracized. I want him humiliated. I want him to cry.

During the Thug-in-Chief's first campaign I sometimes asked rhetorically, "Will someone take this bastard out and shoot him?" I was advised by cooler heads to tone it down, and I did. No more. There are not enough denunciatory, damning, condemnatory, insulting, judgmental, censorious, reproaching, disparaging, derogatory words in all the English language sufficiently to describe him, nor any punishment he does not deserve.

He has defiled, flouted, soiled, profaned, fouled, besmirched, sullied and dishonored the office of President, the laws of this country, the Constitution, the legacy of the Framers, and the idea of democracy itself.

He is a cancer and a plague on freedom and on our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

He must be stopped, deposed, and extirpated.


--- Diogenes, 7/6/2020   Reposted 10/9/2020

 

Knowing

"Know your enemy."

Almost everyone has heard that maxim from Sun-Tzū's The Art Of War. But it's only half the equation. Here's the rest:"“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

For Sun-Tzū self-knowledge was as important as knowing the enemy. You may know down to the last bullet the magnitude of the enemy's arms and the number of his soldiers; but unless you know your own strengths, weaknesses and abilities you will always be at risk of defeat.

So who do we think we are, and who do we think the enemy is? The following unscientific profiles are based on information drawn from several sources and opinions, and refer to "foot soldier" types--not party or government workers or high-level professionals. 

That said, let's consider how both sides might react to certain words and phrases:

(First paragraph is "us," second is "them")

Liberal:

How we define ourselves politically, holding to the classic Liberal tenets: liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law. We champion democracy, universal human and civil rights, and equality. We defend the Constitution, believing it has helped America accomplish the Founders' intent "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

Usually prefaced with "ultra," as if there's no such thing as just a plain liberal, and almost always coupled with "agenda," providing a sinister aspect. Liberals are suspect because they want to change the established order and make everyone serve them. They believe they are better than everyone else. They belong to secret elite societies that shut out common people. Their worldwide conspiracy would do away with religion and gun rights. They believe in birth control, abortion, and human engineering.

Conservative:

People of limited imagination who are stuck in the past. They resist change of any kind, preferring the status quo. Many are hostile to people who are different from them; racism and xenophobia are not uncommon in their ranks. They resist universal rights and equality. They believe the Second Amendment allows universal and untrammeled gun ownership. Their social philosophy tends to be patriarchal with Old Testament overtones. They believe that women should be subordinate to men.

Conservatives believe that change should be evolutionary, developing naturally over a period of time according to what they think of as "the natural order of things." They believe in personal freedom and strict property rights. They would support a confederacy with primary authority resting with individual states. They favor immigration quotas and trade tariffs.

The Constitution:

The founding document and framework of the American system of government.

A set of rules that doesn't allow the president to rule like he should be able to. It says we can speak our minds, attend the church of our choice, and own guns. The rest is just so many words.

Law and Order:

The normal condition of a civil and well governed society. Order occurs naturally when all are equal. A police force should be maintained for community defense and to control those who break the law.

Using all available force to keep troublemakers, i.e. anyone who disagrees with us, in line.

Education:

Most of us have graduated from high school and have one or two years of college. A significant number have graduate degrees. We tend to pursue professional careers.

Trump followers typically have only a high school education and tend to work in "blue collar" jobs. A high percentage are active or ex-military. They believe foreigners have taken all the good jobs.

Science: 

Because we are educated and curious we accept the work of our scientist peers. We acknowledge that scientific research and exploration reveal the truth about our world and the universe. 

Disinformation meant to frighten the population about things like "climate change."

Protest:

Speaking out and demonstrating against the government, exercising our rights to speak openly, assemble peacefully, and seek redress of wrongs.

Using outside groups to incite crowds to demonstrate violently against the government. A criminal act that has to be beaten down by any means necessary.

The president:

A person elected by the people to lead the country for a maximum of two four-year terms.

Donald Trump.

 

--- Diogenes, 10/4/2020

  

Emphasis on Waiting but Not Recanting Yet

I may have to recant a post I published earlier today titled "Watching and Waiting." Now that I've calmed down from the exciting news of Trump having COVID-19 I'm going to say let's watch very closely and wait for proof--preferably a second or third medical opinion.

I would not put it past the Liar-in-Chief to fabricate this story to get out of the second debate and/or to play for sympathy. Or to claim the disease had no effect on him.

Independent opinions are definitely called for. And who and where is Hope Hicks?

--- Diogenes

Watching And Waiting

I'm back, and God forgive me, I'm basking in schadenfreude. 

The news that the unpresident has COVID-19 raised my spirits exponentially. I had hoped for a thunderbolt, but there's no way I'm going to criticize God for the way She decided to smite the unbelieving idiot.

Nor will I apologize for wishing for and reveling in another's misfortune. As a result of his arrogance, ignorance and self importance, 200,000 Americans have died, and 7 million have been sickened. He deserves neither concern nor sympathy.

It is possible that his will be a mild case and that he will recover quickly. If that is the case he will no doubt try to spin it somehow to his advantage, either downplaying the seriousness of the infection or boasting of his "great, terrific, beautiful" vitality, or both.

Whatever he says, he can no longer deny the reality of the pandemic. A lot of the Liar-in-Chief's misdeeds are coming home to roost right now: A slew of books detailing his bad behavior as a person, businessman and president; the release of his tax returns, proving what we all knew, that he is a cheat and a fraud extraordinaire; the exposure of his lack of self control and inability to focus in the first presidential debate; and his recklessness and disdain for others demonstrated by his attendance at campaign events even after he was aware of being infected.

We all can only watch and wait, and hope for him to be laid very low.

--- Diogenes, 10/2/2020

Temporarily Closed

Vox Populi is going dark for a bit to mourn the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 200,000th American victim of COVID-19, Mitt Romney's ethical compass, and the soul of the Supreme Court.

--- Diogenes, 9/23/2020

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933-2020; RIP

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or RBG as she was known to her fans, may well precipitate the nastiest judicial battle in living memory. 

It shouldn't, if anyone in government had the common decency to honor her final wish that her seat not be filled by a Trump nominee.

Republicans and Conservatives of all stripes can barely hide their glee at her passing. Those are some sick people. The always-disgusting Asshole-in-Chief, rather than posting anything even resembling a eulogy, put out an absurd tweet about Republican power and prestige, saying that the vacancy must be filled "without delay." 

Right. Tell that to Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama's proposed replacement for Antonin Scalia, whom Archdemon Mitch McConnell totally ignored for 293 days, and, flaming racist that he is, shamefully disrespected Obama in the process.

The Senate Democrats, in honor of the memory of RBG, and to provide some comeuppance to McConnell on Obama's behalf, must block any and all moves the unpresident makes to fill the vacancy. 

The election is forty-five days away--a reasonable time for officially mourning a person of RBG's stature. Trump and the Republicans can damn well wait that long. They blocked Garland for the better part of a year. The Idiot Child-in-Chief will then lapse into lame duck status, and no one will pay attention to him and his ridiculous tweets.

I urge you all, if you haven't already, to contact your senators and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate Democratic Leader, to express your support for blocking any attempt by Trump to fill RBG's seat. That honor is rightfully the next president's.

It's the Democrats' time to hoist the battle standard of justice and democracy.

 

--- Diogenes, 9/19/2020

 

Is This The End, My Friends?

I've not been writing because I've spent the past couple of days keeping my ear to the ground listening for end-days chatter, and it's not easy to use a keyboard in that position.

But seriously, I'm just waiting for the Armageddon folks to start making noise; they might as well--crazies of every other type are out there.

The Western states continue to burn--the smoke has reached us here in the upper Southeast, making the sky hazy, and there's a slew of hurricanes and storms taking aim at us. Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica are melting away, and COVID-19 is raging in the Plains and popping up again around Europe. And, oh, yeah, the government and Congress are full of demons and imps.

Can you say apocalyptic?

So what say you? Should we be looking for signs in the heavens?

I don't think so. DJTrump is far too incompetent at everything to be the Antichrist. If I had to name a good candidate for that office it would be Archdemon Mitch "Moscow" McConnell. But getting right down to it, my personal opinion is that the concurrence of natural disasters, the man-made variety, and the impending collapse of the U. S. government is coincidence.

I'll be listening for sounds of The End a while longer, but will be back with the usual fare shortly.

--- Diogenes, 9/18/2020

Who Should We Fear? Part 2

I put the question: Should we fear those who follow Trump?

Yes and no, I think. We should fear every person who intends to cast a vote for the unpresident and strive to change their minds if possible. Every vote that goes to Trump is one that doesn't go to Biden, and we need to work hard to keep those votes to a minimum.

Apart from their ability to cast dangerous votes, is this entire group fearsome? No. It contains friends and family members, whose choices I respect even though I haven't a clue why they've gone to the dark side. They're intelligent, usually reasonable people, but they've become misguided

Fear is one of Trump's primary weapons. He tries to conjure it out of the air with rumors of war and disease, with pronouncements on the impossibility of casting a secure vote, with predictions that our neighborhoods will soon be overrun with "undesirables" i.e. people who are not like us.

If we begin to believe the baseless and ridiculous threats Trump broadcasts, we will have lost. His strength is in the credulity of his followers. Somehow he finds a way to make the impossible and implausible seem real to them.

To give an example, a colleague was recently informed by a college student that COVID-19 is a hoax. He said this in all seriousness. Imagine a hoax that would involve the public health agencies of virtually every country in the world, millions of healthcare workers, the heads of state of all the major nations, NGOs, international aid agencies, and some 930,000 people worldwide willing to die for the cause. I think I might be frightened that someone could actually believe such a thing.

Some of Trump's followers are loud and boisterous and very visible in the news when there is a rally or a trouble spot somewhere. The crowd wearing the red MAGA shirt has become a "big they." Because they were in Portland doesn't mean they will be in Louisville; the fact that they were in Kenosha doesn't mean they'll be in Topeka. They are mot ubiquitous. Still, a friend of mine said recently that she wouldn't put a Biden sign out because "they" would vandalize it. Fear won that day.

Trump is a terrorist. He rules by spreading fear, rumors and uncertainty. His followers mindlessly spread it further, retweeting or sharing his words and ideas without thinking about them. 

It is the disease of false rumors and lies we must fear, not those who spread them. We must work to keep the truth alive, the lies tamped down, and the rumormongers muzzled.

FDR said it: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

 

--- Diogenes, 9/15/2020