Keep Fighting

If you watched the debate last night, you probably didn't learn anything new, except that it really is possible for Trump to remain silent for several minutes at a time. The unpresident stuck to the same tired old rhetoric that he's been spewing ad nauseam since February, plus some fake charges that Biden has accepted foreign money.

For his part, Biden displayed the poise I expected, never rising to Trump's bait. He spoke well and with authority, and finally said to Trump's face that he has no business being president.

Biden outlined programs and policies he expects to put in place if elected, while the Idiot Child-in-Chief had only his three I's: insults, indirection, and innuendo.

But no resting on laurels, please. It ain't over 'til it's over, to quote the sainted Yogi. And it's likely not to be over for a while after Nov. 3, depending on how adept this nation's election workers are at counting ballots.

So hang in there for the long term. There are fights yet to be fought. 

And for God's sake, contact your senators and any you might know from other states and tell them in clear language to vote down Amy Coney Barrett. The loathsome Lindsey Graham broke his own rules to get her election pushed forward. We need to push back hard.

--- Diogenes, 10/23/2020

Time For A Break

Thanks to all who expressed concerns about my welfare during my absence. The simple fact is that life intrudes everywhere, even in Parnassus.

I've recently been asked why I continue trashing Trump. It seems a foregone conclusion that he's going to lose the election, I'm told. But ah-ah-ah: remember 2016, and how we all got fooled. 

We must keep the sentiment of "Won't Get Fooled Again," the great protest song by The Who, in front of us, and not let our guard drop for an instant.

But really, my interlocutors continue, why not write something positive about Joe Biden?

Well, really--what else could one write about Joe Biden? He is a good person of sterling character, supremely ethical, a loyal family man and public servant. He served the state of Delaware as a senator for 36 years, sponsoring or co-sponsoring 162 bills, all of which passed into law. He held several important committee positions, including Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that role he oversaw and helped to defeat the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. 

What is Joe Biden not? He is not a tyrannical self-server, nor a bully, nor a foolish buffoon, nor an existential threat to the United States of America. 

Donald Trump is all those things, which is one reason why I will continue speaking against him. The other reason is that I have so much vitriol against him accumulated that I have a strong need to express it. That won't necessarily be here, however.

With this post I am declaring a hiatus for Vox Populi. I've written 173 posts in 2020, and I want to take the next two critical weeks working locally. I may drop in with something from time to time, or repost a piece that seems germane to current circumstances, but my online presence until Election Day will be minimal.

Thanks to all of you for tuning in and sharing your comments. Get out and vote, and keep up the good fight.

La lutte continue!

 

Diogenes --- 10/20/2020

 

Too Stupid To Live (Repost)

I know--we're running past Diogenes posts the way broadcast TV used to do summer reruns. Just hang on a bit longer, please, and enjoy these if you missed them first time.

Today's title is the favorite saying of a former workmate. It's harsh, but there are some cases in which it seems apt.

To wit: People who blindly follow Donald Trump.

Near the top of the long list of things I do not understand is why anyone would follow Trump for any reason. I think they actually don't follow, because he has proven himself not to be a leader. Perhaps a better word would be adherents: they are drawn to him unconsciously, and just sort of clump around him.

Having thought about this for a while I've decided Trump's human conglomeration can be divided into four groups, as follows:

Toadies and minions

These are people who are in some way beholden to the unpresident or feel a strong attraction to him. The group includes his staff, the Cabinet, associate Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and probably most Congressional Republicans.

For many politicians, bureaucrats, and functionaries, D. C. is Nirvana, the Promised Land, and El Dorado. Most of them are power junkies who prize being near the center of power above all. The closer they can bind themselves to the chief executive, the more power adheres to them. Many of this group don't care who the president is. All they want is to keep hanging on to a job that keeps them near the Omphalos of government, and they will do anything the incumbent asks of them to stay in it.

The Party Faithful

There is some overlap between this group and the toadies and minions, but it isn't huge. By and large these people have been staunch Republicans all their lives, and are likely the children of Republicans. A good number of them have been in office far too long. They still wistfully refer to the Grand Old Party, but deep down they know the Republican Party is broken. The president is nominally Republican, but they can't go to him to fix it, because they now know he's the one who broke it. Nonetheless, when November 3 rolls around they will hold their noses and vote for him, because, by God, they're Republicans, and they vote for Republicans, period.

The Mob

I don't know if The Mob is the largest of these four groups, but they are the ones who are most visible and make the most noise. I equate them with British yobs, who can turn any soccer match into a bar brawl.

They're not political. They come out for the action, to confront protesters and/or cops, to strut around shirtless waving Trump flags, to pointedly defy rules (e.g. wearing masks), and to shout slogans about foreigners and minorities. If they have a goal it is to show the Dumbass-in-Chief that they are men, too, and they identify with his anger and his displeasure with anyone who doesn't agree with him or isn't like him. (I'm sorry for all the masculine pronouns, but this group is testosterone fueled.)

The Fringe

This is the group I was thinking of when I decided on the title. The fringe is the group that gets their news from social media and takes as Gospel anything uttered by their ultra-right authority figure du jour, be it the Idiot Child-in-Chief, Archdemon Mitch McConnell, the faceless Q of Qanon, Sean Hannity, or their foreman at work.

They propagate and embroider conspiracy theories with such outrageous premises that any reasonable (not to say sane) person would reject them out of hand. Yet they hold to these beliefs like religion because someone they believe to be in authority said it was so. It's easy to dismiss them as gullible fools and paranoiacs, but we would do so at our peril.

Because these people so desperately need something to follow or to believe in, they will believe virtually anything. They become easy to manipulate, and the darker corners of the Web where they like to hang out are perfect places to recruit and persuade them to a cause. If all this sounds just too "out there," I recommend this:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/ 

Don't read it before bed.


--- Diogenes, 8/13/2020     Reposted 10/14/2020

Please share widely.

 

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)

Please share widely


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


Please share


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