Stephen Altschuler

thoughts on environment, politics, health, life issues

Events

The Erosion of Trust: The Infrastructure for the establishment of fascism is underway

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When trust is gone so is a romantic relationship, a job, a friendship, a teacher, a spiritual or religious path, and a democracy. At this moment in the history of our country, it is the latter than is of most concern to me, for with the erosion and dissolution of democracy comes fascism, and with fascism, as we have seen repeatedly throughout history, comes terror, destruction, racism, civil war, dictatorship, injustice, one party rule, intolerance, and, yes, genocide.

How does trust erode? It comes from putting doubt in people’s mind about what is the truth. Orwell’s 1984 spelled it out clearly as the fascist government in charge assigned a new language called Newspeak for all to follow and adhere to. The Republican Party, under the influence of Donald Trump, along with evangelical white Christians who think Trump is a divine intervention sent by God, is currently engaged in doing just that, and a large percentage of our population is swallowing the bait hook, line, and sinker.

As examples, they’ve derisively labeled the House Commission Investigating the Insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 “a kangaroo court” and a witch hunt, despite the fact that almost all the witnesses testifying before it were and are loyal Republicans, even former Trump Republicans. They’ve labeled the adjudicated rioters and insurrectionists “patriots.” They call all Democrats “liberals” and “Communists.” They even target their own Party members as RINOs, Republicans in Name Only and have peppered them with death threats and primary challenges with Trump loyalists. They have stacked our Supreme Court with “originalists” whose aimed is to tear down the separation of church and state, hoping to establish a White Christian Nation overseen by one party enforced by white nationalist militias. They have waged various culture wars weaponizing innocent language, whipping their death threatening mobs into a bloodthirsty frenzy using Fox “News” as more-than-willing media goons. They call Joe Biden “malevolent”, blaming him for tearing down the fabric of our nation.

And what is this fabric, these violent Republicans think our country is made of? We’d have to go back to about 1870 to answer that. Back then, in practice, some citizens had more rights than others. Women were not permitted to vote, not able to choose much of anything about their lives, and relegated only to the kitchen and child bearing and rearing. Black Americans, recently emancipated by the Federal Government, were intimidated, threatened, murdered, and rendered politically, socially, vocationally, and culturally emasculated in much of the country. Jews and other minorities were discriminated against to such a degree that they were denied access to the basic rights of “life, liberty, and happiness” enjoyed by their white Christian counterparts. Black Christians were duly ostracized from a society that did not consider them equal citizens, let alone full human beings! And this wasn’t just in the South, although the ignominious practice of lynching was a particular past-time of the Deep South and its KKK.

So the MAGA Trump Republican, White Christian Evangelical Nationalist of today want a Christian mono-culture, beholden to one ruling party, led by an autocratic dictator wielding an iron hand of submission of a populace forbidden to protest or demonstrate, denied due process, and subject to arrest for violation of its rules, however arcane and arbitrary.

Not sure what that will look like in reality? Think present day Russia under Putin. Think present day China under Xi Jinping. Think present day North Korea under Kim Jong Un. Think present day Iran under the Ayatollas. Think present day Hungary under Orban. Think present day Syria under Assad. Think present day Cuba under Castro. Think present day Brazil under Bolsonaro. Think any country where the people do not consent to the present government, and are not permitted to voice their disagreements without threat of arrest or harassment.

America is on a razor’s edge of being such a country if we continue down this Trump Republican/white Christian Nationalist road to perdition. The erosion of trust, the redefinition of truth, even a call to arms: The infrastructure for the establishment of fascism is underway.

This is a Mayday call. We need all hands on deck to vote for Democratic candidates this November, enmass. Our democracy and your freedoms are at stake.

Thanks for you attention. If you are simpatico, please spread the word by sharing this post.

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If sleeping has been a problem, may I recommend my latest book, Beating Insomnia: A No-Nonsense Way to Natural Sleep. It gets to the point quickly, something needed when sleep is concerned, but sorely lacking in most such books. Available as ebook or paperback.

Sad to Say…and angry as well

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Sad to say, but it doesn’t matter how the vote turns out in the next election:
Trump-infused Republicans will win either way. If the vote shows they’ve lost, they will challenge it pathologically as they have done for the 2020 Biden victory. And if they win, they will continue to put in place the building blocks for an enduring fascist autocracy frosted with a culture of denunciation, as Timothy Snyder put it in his excellent book “On Tyranny.” That will amount to rule by one party regardless of what the broad electorate voted for or wanted. So we are currently caught between a rock and a hard place, firmly behind the eight ball, exactly where the extreme right wing (which is virtually all Trump Republicans) want us.

Now many may not think that a particularly big deal, but they would be wrong. Of course, those many may not think at all, and I suspect that to be the case. As was true of Hitler in the Germany of the 30’s, and Stalin in the 30’s and 40’s, and Putin from 2014 and since then, and Trump since 2016, voters who allowed these despots power were mesmerized by them, hypnotized really by their slick talk of Germany or Russia or America first. Slick talk of how they alone could solve their problems. Slick talk of how immigrants and foreigners and Muslims and Jews and Blacks and gypsies were the cause of all the problems. And slick talk of “getting rid” of these interlopers who were out to “replace” white Christians.

We’ve seen their tactics first hand now in the United States. That culture of denunciation that Trump and his allies have used to smear the reputations of their opponents as much as McCarthy did in the early 50’s. It’s scurrilous, to say the least, but it’s a tactic that works in America, sticking in the brains of gullible people, only to be spit out in gossip and misinformation passed on to their friends, relatives, and even children. Extreme right wing lawmakers and TV personalities perpetuate these lies, adding credibility to such toxic conspiracy theories such as QAnon, Replacement Theory, and the Big Election Lie bandied about since 2020.

Republican leaders have made sport of denouncing Joe Biden and his program to bring the country back from the ravages of the Trump era. They started with Bill Clinton, went on, via Mitch McConnell, to disparage Obama mercilessly, and then attack Biden without missing a beat. Let’s go, Brandon is a slanderous dogwhistle never heard before for a sitting President!

At the same time, they’ve set in place an infrastructure of suppression: via gerrymandering, voting restrictions, culture wars, books that need burning, strict guidelines as to what teachers can teach, and even stacking ballots with election officials with the power to reverse the decisions of the electorate, if need be. If you read a history of Germany in the 30’s and 40’s, it’s all been done before right after the Reichstag burned.

Now the figurative guillotine seemingly draws closer to Trump’s head. But will it drop? Trump senses danger so has lined up all his lawyers, all his cult members, all his loyal legislators, all his lackeys in a phalanx of suppression, innuendo, and a continued avalanche of lies. One of the Capitol police officers battered by the Trump legions thinks he will get away with all his crimes against the state. Teflon Don has a way of getting away with things, all the way back to his bullying childhood days. His father taught him well. We know that from Mary Trump’s depictions of her uncle.

So, sure, go ahead and vote. Go ahead and send in your hard earned money. Go ahead and write stuff like I do. Go ahead and rant and rave to your sympathetic friends and relatives and avoid your Trumpster relatives like the Covid plague. But I believe the die is cast. The coup is well plotted. January 6 was just the first salvo in a larger battle. That was just to get the saliva flowing from the bellies of the beasts.

I am sad, yes, but more so, angry. Enraged even. Our great democratic experiment is crumbling. And it doesn’t have to be that way. If we’ve learned anything from the past, it is one glaring fact: the Napoleans, the Alexanders, the Caligulas, the Attilas, the Hitlers, the Salazars, the Mussolinis, the Stalins, the Bolsonaros, the American white supremacists, the Xis, the Francos, the Uns, the Putins, and…the Trumps must be nipped in the bud and stopped cold in their tracks before they can dig their claws into their bid for eternal power–power fueled by their chronic hunger for greed, hatred, and delusion.

When the Fox is guarding the henhouse

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So one of the cops on the scene of the Uvalde school massacre told Anderson Cooper that the cops chose not to enter the classroom when the shooter was in there because “they didn’t want to get shot at and get killed.” So the fox–the shooter–was guarding the henhouse while law enforcement cowered outside actively not doing their jobs. You see, the fox was shooting at the cops with weapons even the cops apparently didn’t have so the cops retreated, busying themselves handcuffing, pepper spraying and tasing the parents who wanted to go inside and save their kids from oblivion, then blamed the parents for resisting them for their inability to enter the building and kill the shooter (one mother actually did break away from the cops and did indeed dash inside, saving her two daughters from certain death!). These are the “armed good guys” that the Republicans–apparently just about all Republicans–claim are the solution to the mass murders that are rife in this country. The problem is the guys not the guns is their favorite catch slogan.

What absolute bullshit! What an abnegation and dereliction of duty! What ignorance! Allowing the the foxes to guard the henhouse and kill as many hens, aka innocent children, as possible while the cowards cower outside arresting panicky parents. Please Uvelde parents, please, sue the pants off these cops right up to the governor of Texas who so righteously praised them. And after you sue them, fire their asses, and hire some competent people for their police force. There are competent cops out there, believe me.

This whole miserable episode is representative of how sick this society has become. It started with Reagan and the GOP cancer has spread from him. I know about cancer. I’m recovering from stage four. It takes strong medicine to stop its spread. It took courage and wisdom for my oncologist to prescribe that medicine. She was a petite Chinese American woman who used words like “hit it hard” and R-CHOP. Strong action to knock out the poison.

Now we are needing just as strong political medicine to subdue this poison that has invaded our system of government. The Republican Party will not enter the henhouse to rid it of foxes, and that must change to allow civil rights to flourish. Of course, they’ve learned to use dog-whistle words like socialism and liberals and communists and immigrants and Mexicans and Moslems to scare a sufficient number of citizens, mostly white citizens, to go along with their cowardice, to hang back and let the foxes of opposition and obstruction create the Party of No, making it impossible to realize the principles of the Declaration of Independence that set our country apart from all others in the world at that time and even now. They took the Constitution and Bill of Rights and cherrypicked them to irrelevance much like Southern Baptist ministers do the Bible.

And we do have the right medicine to stop this poison. In our democracy, it’s called voting. One citizen of proper age: One vote. But like my Chinese American oncologist, we need our voters to have wisdom and courage. We need them to stop and consider the power of that vote and what that vote could potentially produce. Unfortunately, that wisdom and courage is absent in a large percentage of those voters.

These days, all you have to do is examine the voting records in your State Houses and in the U.S. House and Senate. What has each party, each candidate, proposed and accomplished for We, the People? From what I see, Republicans mainly obstruct whatever Democrats propose. This is not what our Founders wanted in a well functioning democracy. There can be disagreements, certainly, but there must also be common goals towards the commonwealth. When all is said and done, it’s the needs of citizens that take precedent, not the careers of politicians. Not sure what I mean? Imagine the car salesman who seems more concerned with his own bottom line than your needs around a car. I walk away from such salesmen and go to an agency that asks me about my needs in buying a car.

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Reporters these days don’t ask enough relevant questions. I understand Gen Z and Millennial workers are quite burnt out. Some major ones I have are as follows:

* AK 47 assault rifles cost anywhere from 600 to 1600 bucks. Ammunition is about 38 cents per round. The killer in Uvalde had two such rifles and fired some 1600 rounds during his assault on the kids and their teachers. My question, which reporters so far haven’t asked: Where did an 18 year old boy, unemployed and in his last year of high school get the money to buy all that weaponry and bullets to pull off a mission that was able to repel an army of police for over an hour? And if he didn’t have the money, who bought this weaponry for him? Who taught him how to shoot it? Where did he learn to shoot it? This is not plug and play machinery. It kills innocent people as we have just seen.
* Where was the arsenal bought from? Did the boy buy it himself? Did he use cash or credit? If credit, how did he get a credit card?
* Did the arsenal belong to a relative? His grandmother? His grandfather? His mother? A friend? If so, did they give it to him? Did he take the guns from an unlocked box? How did an 18 year old get such an arsenal?

OK, I have more questions not asked by reporters who seem more like infants being spoon-fed instead of adult consumers, but that’s enough for now.

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Finally, let me say that my heart is sore over these most recent mass killings in Buffalo and Uvalde. Unlike Trump’s cruel and misrepresented characterizations of Hispanics in 2016 and Blacks in 2020, the Hispanic Americans in Uvalde are hard working, family-loving, honest citizens just living their lives as any of us. The Black folks of Buffalo are the same: good, caring people, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, students living daily lives and doing harm to no one. They deserved better. They deserved better. I wish the families and friends of the victims my deepest sympathy and to somehow heal and continue forth in living their lives with some semblance of peace of mind.

Pro Life? Who are the real criminals here?

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Nineteen fourth graders plus two of their teachers were murdered in a Texas elementary school by an 18 year old crazed man who was able to purchase an AK-47 automatic rifle without a background check a few days after his 18th birthday before the shooting as a birthday present to himself. Meanwhile, 50 U.S. Republican senators have steadfastly refused to even consider a bill that was passed by the House to require such background checks. So these “pro-life” senators were anything but pro-life. Quite the opposite: They are pro-murder and have contributed to the death of innocent children in our public schools.

The background check bill does not take guns away from anyone, as the NRA fears, but only prevents someone with a serious mental illness or a felony on his or her record from obtaining a gun. Ninety percent of the American public agree with the bill, including 78% of NRA members. That would expose the senators to a completely pecuniary motive for their obstruction strategy. For example, the NRA gave 30 million dollars to Trump’s 2016 election, more than any other group. So the entire caucus of Republican U.S. Senators is trading the lives of citizens who are murdered by mass killers who are able to easily obtain assault weapons for NRA dollars that are helping to keep them in office.

Pro Llfe? Far from it.

And what of the voters who vote these Senators into office? Pro life? They may use the euphemism but no, they are not pro life. They delude themselves into somehow thinking they are pro life, but when you stratch the surface just a bit you see the rot beneath the veneer. They offer their “thoughts and prayers” after each massacre, assuaging their own consciousnesses and returning to their own empty lives, full of empty rationales, and empty excuses, and empty memes and slogans.

So yes, the senators are scoundrels but the people who vote them in and absolve them of responsibility are scoundrels as well. Maybe more so. A representative democracy is only as representative or as democratic as the people who permit the representatives to act against their interests. In this case, it’s as obvious as a fox in the henhouse.

The young killer in Texas was lonely, bitter, angry, and vengeful from years of being bullied and taunted because of his stuttering. He was a shy, sensitive boy who had a drug-addled mother whom he fought with constantly. He did poorly in school and complained that he didn’t want to be there because of the constant harassment by other students. He was not scheduled to graduate with his class as a result and did not participate in the traditional parade of the graduates at the elementary school the day before the shooting. He had posted pictures of his rifles on Instagram, expressing pride in showing them off. No one alerted no-one as to his postings. He had received no mental health treatment during any of his childhood bullying, nor were there any apparent actions by the school to allay such bullying.

On the morning of the school shooting, he first shot his grandmother in the face causing serious injury. The grandmother apparently was able to call police but the die was cast. The killer headed to the elementary school in the small Texas town in which he lived and where he himself had attended elementary school, entered a classroom and shot and killed 19 kids along with two teachers. Police arrived and killed the killer after breaking into the classroom.

Why? We will never know, but a look at his history and you can put the puzzle together. It’s difficult to stop bullying. It’s difficult to identify mental illness and provide the right treatment. It’s difficult to intervene in domestic disputes and turmoil. It’s difficult to provide adequate security at schools, including the ridiculous right wing solution of arming teachers. But it is entirely reasonable to have enforceable laws on the books to make it difficult for those who should not legally own guns to not legally own guns.

Anything less is actually criminal, at least in my eyes. Yes, the 50 Republican Senators in the U.S Senate are acting criminally. The NRA hierarchy is acting criminally. The Supreme Court is acting criminally. And the voter who votes for politicians who acts criminally is acting criminally, not to mention unethically, hypocritically, cruelly, and immorally.

How will you vote in the next election?

It’s Time to Stop Putin, Cold!

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I’ve just seen the bodies of four members of a Ukrainian family, a father, a mother, and their two children, who were bombed into eternity as they attempted to flee their city which is under siege by Russian forces directed by their president Vladimir Putin. This was a deliberate attack by barbarians who target civilians indiscriminately and without cause as they were evacuating. This entire operation against a country that did not provoke such an invasion is an abomination against all decent, peace-loving people in this fragile world of ours. Barbarians in earlier centuries waged such war, ravaging and razing cities while murdering people just to acquire more territory and wealth and, yes, slaves. I thought we were done with such warring nations. But we obviously are not.

Putin must be stopped and stopped cold as he attempts to destroy a country, its people, and its culture. Ukraine’s President Zalensky calls on the West to establish a no-fly zone to challenge Russian war planes from bombing civilian targets. That is a good first step. But it is not enough. This is the time to directly challenge Putin and put an end to his warmongering. We failed to do this with Hitler, and we all know what followed: one of the worst genocides in history and a World War that destroyed the lives and cities of millions. I know the threat and even the possiblity of nuclear confrontation is real, making this different from war in the 1940s.

But, I’m sorry to say, it must be done. Nuclear bombs and missiles have been a deterence to world war up to now, and, I believe, will continue to deter competing nations from using them. Putin is mentally off the rails, but I don’t think he is that insane. His talk of putting his nuclear forces on high alert is a strategic ruse, and only that. I wrote a post a short while ago advocating for a Democracy Doctrine, and this seems to be an ideal time to put that doctrine into action. Why not! Russia is in the process of decimating the Democratic country of Ukraine. To see innocents being slaughtered is intolerable.

The West has the will and the way and the means to stop it, and stop it cold. Yes, it will widen the war, not into a world war, I believe, for there is not enough support from other countries to come to Russia’s aid as allies. Tactical nuclear weapons may or may not be employed by Russia in an act of desperation. And that will be met with a reciprocal response from the West. But the advantages of such a confrontation far outweigh the dangers. For if we do not stop Putin now, we will have a much harder time stopping him in the future when he regains economic stability and gathers military allies.

I am just one small voice, without expert credentials or experience in foreign affairs or a university professorship or chairmanship of an influential government committee. But I know, as I’m sure you do, wanton barbarianism when I see it. And I know, though I am a pacifist by nature, that the only thing that will stop such atrocities is brute force and the courage of a Lincoln, or an FDR, or a Churchill, and, yes, a Zelensky, a fellow Jewish landsman of the country of my grandparents.

Long live Ukraine! Long live Democracy! Let’s do what needs to be done to rid the world of another Attila the Hun, of another Osama bin Laden, of another Stalin, of another Hitler. It’s as if we’re back in the year 800 when the invading hordes from the north ravaged a peaceful world. What now do we do? What now do we do? Sanctions alone? Or damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

I say, Onward! Stop this son of a bitch!

Righting Wrongs

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Most of us learned how to read via simple books of Dick, Jane, and Spot. We take it for granted that our society values education right from the start and provides us with free public school. But there was a time in our history, which a majority of Republicans now want to hide, deny, and ignore, when Black slaves were shot, whipped, raped, even lynched if they were caught trying to learn to read. A basic education we now take for granted of reading, writing, and arithmetic was forbidden for a Black slave for generations while they labored for rich slaveholders in the South, North, East, and the West of the United States (that’s right: though on a spectrum of cruelty, the entire country).

Yes, things have changed for the better, but even though Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, and gave them the same rights bestowed upon any citizen of this nation, he wondered and even doubted whether freed Black folk would ever be able to live in harmony with Whites. I’m afraid he has been proven correct, for today, despite all the gains in civil rights, a majority of Whites remain distrustful and suspicious of Blacks, which still results in discrimination in housing, employment, health care, police protection, the legal system, and many other aspects of our society that Whites needn’t worry about or consider. White privilege is the rule not the exception. When a Black man enters a 7/11 throughout this country he is regarded with suspicion, as George Floyd was in Minneapolis that fateful day he was murdered by police.

Out of this embarrassing history of ours, has grown the cancer of white supremacy. The Donald Trumps, the Steve Bannons, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Ron DeSantis’s, the Ron Johnsons, the Paul Gosarts, the McCarthys, the Bouberts, the Hawleys, the Manaforts, the Flynns, the McConnells, the Roger Stones, the Neo-Nazi Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Patriot Prayers, the QAnons and a host of others are the tumors that have grown relatively unchecked and unrestrained by a public that has largely ignored these dark entities, extended them a visa into the mainstream, and even continually votes them in and back into office time after time. Trump brought the venom to the surface and the puss has leaked into other countries where authoritarians are challenging liberal democracies. I’m afraid the average American is so beaten down and burnt out by the pandemic, yes, but also by Trumpian lies and disinformation, he, she, or they are numb and apathetic, and simply just don’t care anymore. It saddens me greatly. It angers me even more–anger to the point of distress.

My father was an optimist who was always confident his ship was about to come into port. Some of that rubbed off on me so, in spite of our largely catatonic populace, I believe there is a glimmer of hope that we as a society will see the light and right the wrongs. People can be kind and helpful. I see that almost everyday. People can be friendly. I see that almost everyday. People can be trustworthy. I see that almost everyday. And people can be loving. I see that almost everyday, personally, and in the media. The reaction almost equally by Democrats and Republicans against the war crimes of Putin in Ukraine has been mostly unified (except for Trump and a few other radicals from the alt right) and in favor of more support for the brave democratic Ukrainian president Zelensky and more harsh sanctions against the dictator Putin and his cronies. Well Putin and Trump are practically blood brothers, so the cult followers of their “dear Leader” Trump, if they ever stop to think about it, may abandon their love of their crazed leader and his racist Republican Party and vote for Democrats in the next election. How’s that for optimism? Problem is Trump’s cult followers don’t think. Cult followers rarely do. They just keep drinking the proverbial Kool Aid until their brains are fully addled.

So now what? Last night during my evening walk, I was greeted cheerfully by others in my apartment complex. What if I was Black? Would their faces have been so welcoming and friendly? No, of course not. Their first thought would have been, Oh, no, trouble! Where can I retreat to before he robs or rapes me? He must be up to no good, this Black man. Or what if they knew I was Jewish? A Jew. What’s he doing here in our complex? Is he the one who owns the place and ups our rent every year? Damn Jews! Or a Muslim woman wearing a head scarf? What is she doing in this neighborhood? There’s nothing to blow up here. I wish she would just go away. Or Hispanic? How could he afford to live here? And that broken down car? Probably his. What’s he doing here? There’s no agriculture in this area.

We live in a country of stereotypes where just the color of one’s skin, or the slant of her eyes, or the head covering, or the crook of one’s nose triggers a hate-filled response from a racist. And then white Republican politicians use that to scare other Whites even more, hoping that fear steers another vote their way. And demagogue leaders like Trump take that fear to another level, drawing out the poison that has collected under the White veneer for decades, eras, even centuries, until they intoxicate a national cult of followers to their own private Guyana.

Last night in Biden’s state of the union speech, much was made of fascist Russia’s attack on democracy, and rightly so. But nothing was said of the fascists in our country, the white supremacists, the Trump cultists and enablers in the Republican Party, and Trump himself, and their internal attack on our democracy. Biden doesn’t see it because he doesn’t want to see and acknowledge such a domestic attack. Nor does he see the necessity of stopping Trump cold before he rises again. Biden is enamored in a politics of the past, unable to fathom the changes and responses needed now to face and put down an insurrection designed to transform this country into a right wing dictatorship in the style of Trump ally Putin. It’s probably too fantastic a notion for Joe Biden, and perhaps his closest advisors, to comprehend. It’s probably too fantastic for you, my readers, to accept and comprehend. This is America, afterall, “land of the free, home of the brave.” But as conservative commentator David Brooks so astutely pointed out a few days ago in his column, democracy cannot operate without the full cooperation and effort of its people. It takes hard work, he wrote, and he questioned whether we were up to the task. I too pose that question.

If our president neglects to bring up white supremacy, systemic racism, violence against Asian American women who have experienced an alarming increase in hate crimes and harassment, Pacific Island Americans, Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, Moslem Americans, Native Americans, Any People of Color Americans, or the burning of books or the mere mentioning of Critical Race Theory in schools or the suicide incidents among children who are bullied via social media and in person in schools, and, and, and, and, ad infinitum. If he neglects to mention any of these and other denigrations in our society, then his bully pulpit will be for naught and these stains on our culture will continue and spread like the cancer they are. Republicans don’t give a damn about any of the above and are determined to drag this country, kicking and screaming, back to a time when racism and injustice were the norm, sanctioned by top leaders and courts and cops on the beat and the apathy of the general public.

Blacks, of course, take the brunt of this abuse because since we dragged them over here in chains, with guns and bullwhips, and then subjected them to one of the worse genocides in history, we continue to isolate and dehumanize them as no others, labeling them not as victims but as the perpetrators of their lot. Is lynching next if Trump Republicans retake power? Lynchings and cross burnings and swastikas on synagogues and attacks on all the minorities mentioned above? Is that where we’re headed? Back to a country where racist whites can intimidate minorities with impunity and without restraint as was the case when Trump was president and the DOJ his lackey?

Sometime when the stain is too deep, you’ve got to throw away the garment and replace it with new threads. Perhaps we need to surrender like the alcoholic at his first AA meeting. Perhaps we need to admit that we have a serious problem and can’t solve it on our own. Perhaps we need to give up our will to a higher, and wiser, power. Perhaps, like the alcoholic or drug addict, we need to take a serious and sincere inventory and make amends where amends are warranted. Perhaps we need to stop fooling ourselves and understand how others are suffering due to our ignorance and self aggrandizement.

Where do we go from here, dear readers? Where do we go from here?

America’s Moral Compass

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Everyone’s got a moral compass, though everyone may not realize it. From the Christian evangelical to Ron Reagan’s atheism everyone adheres to a moral code in some way or another. Even the prisoners I used to counsel at Walpole Prison in Massachusetts had such a compass, though the glass broke from time to time. One even took meticulous care of all the stray cats in nearby Norfolk Prison. And the suspected Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, whom I met, made jewelry which he sold in the prison store under the label Chokers by the Boston Stranger, revealing, I suppose, his own moral compass, tinged with a sense of humor (BTW, Albert was never convicted of being the Strangler, and to this day, to my knowledge, the case remains unsolved. He was murdered in prison in a drug deal gone wrong.).

Abraham Lincoln had a moral compass, and thank goodness he did, for it helped him win a Civil War that seemed hopeless at times. Lincoln got his bearings from the Declaration of Independence ironically written by Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and slaveholder from Virginia, one of the states that seceded from the Union. “All men are created equal,’ wrote Jefferson, “entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was a relatively new and revolutionary concept at the time and became the basis of a form of government, of, by, and for the people, called democracy. And to this day, until recently at least, it remains the basis of our country’s moral compass and the legacy of Jefferson and Lincoln.

Distressingly, this moral compass is now under serious attack by the likes of Donald Trump and his supporters. Thankfully, that attack is being resisted by those who uphold the sacrifices that Lincoln and millions of soldiers in many wars paid in defending democracy from authoritarian regimes over the decades. In our country the fight continues against the bloviated extremists on the far right who are intent to push their fascist and racist ideas onto the entire country and change our moral compass to an immoral one.

Now we are faced with yet another foreign leader also intent on attacking the basic values of democracy and the right of an independent country to choose its own way. Vladimir Putin of Russia is, as I write, waging an invasion of neighboring Ukraine for no valid reason except to protect Russia from unsubstantiated threats from this much smaller country. He knows he can act with relative impunity since Ukraine is not aligned to NATO and so has no treaty assurances that other democratic countries in Europe will come to their assistance militarily. And Putin continues to pummel innocent, peace-loving people with missiles, bombs, tanks, and about 190,000 soldiers in an effort to bring this country to its knees, “demilitarizing and denazificationing” it, as Putin puts it. But, like his ally Trump, it’s Putin who is displacing what is needed to himself onto others.

I propose the U.S., now under the leadership of Joe Biden, change its essentially non-interventionist policy, to one that is more in line with Lincoln’s moral compass, which was to protect the viability and sanctity of democracy wherever it may be. And precedents for this change are already in place. The U.S. is not sending troops into Ukraine because it is not a NATO nation. But the U.S. has and will defend other countries in the world not protected by treaty such as Taiwan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and perhaps Finland and Sweden who are not in NATO, but could be attacked by a Hitler-infused Putin.

It’s too late to defend Ukraine militarily (although air support could still be considered, as they have requested of the EU), but perhaps Biden should consider a Democracy Doctrine where the U.S. will defend militarily any democratic country from attack by another expansionist-minded country. This would give potential invaders cause to reconsider their intentions and pull back. The Doctrine would of course contain operational and conditional details and would make it clear that actions, such as the present unwarranted invasion of Ukraine would well be met with military intervention by the United States and other willing allies. If such a doctrine had been in effect in 1939, Hitler’s invasion of Poland which started WWII could have been averted, possibly saving millions of lives.

Of course, my proposal will be opposed as the decision to fight Germany was opposed by ultra-conservatives in the U.S. Congress at that time. These were similar to the America Firsters around today–isolationists who wanted to keep America out of any foreign fights. But in this highly complicated and dangerous world of today, such a doctrine would be a strong deterrent against any potential Hitler, as Putin now represents. Ours is a world seeing an alarming rise of authoritarian leaders who have solidified their power through fear, intimidation, violence, and apathy. This includes Putin, of course, but also Xi, Un, Erdigan, Orban, Lukashenko, Castro, Bolsonaro, Duarte, the military junta in Myanmar, Palestinian Hamas, and the ayatollahs of Iran, among others in Africa and South and Central America.

Such a Democracy Doctrine, backed by the world’s most powerful military, would establish the United States as the unquestioned champion of Democracy, which we have been until the Republican Party turned into a bunch of racist, insurrectionist sycophants. Bipartisanship has been tried by Biden and, once again, rejected by, ironically, the former party of Lincoln. It’s time for President Biden to take a significant tack against the winds of authoritarianism both here and abroad.

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I’ve recently written and published three books (I’ve been productive during the pandemic’s sheltering in place!) which may be of interest to you. They are Into the Woods…and Beyond, The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life, and Golf 360: For Current Players and Those Considering the Game. You can read reviews of each at my website, stephenaltschuler.com. They are all available at online sources, including Amazon. Thanks.

Another Civil War in America? Possibly but not Probably

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Civil War in America in the 2020s? Well…We’re not talking about a North versus South like war in the 1860s. There’s no chance of that, for sure. But we are talking about–and Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger has warned us about a current national emergency to that effect in his interview with CNNs Wolf Blitzer–a series of violent episodes in a number of cities instigated by certain conservative leaders and billionaires as a kind of race war to scare suburbanites into voting Republican in the next election so as to return Republican majorities to the House and Senate thereby paving the way for Trump to run again in 2024. These race riots are indeed possible but, I believe, not probable. Why? Because we are a consumer society, so dependent upon the ability to shop that we base our very existence–soulless as it may be–on buying things, whether they be necessities or luxuries. And the pandemic has made this even more so, which has led to union-less Amazon growing into one of the most profitable companies of all time. So imagine if political violence in our streets led to the suspension of Amazon vans making deliveries to our doorsteps. Imagine if FedEx were faced with the same delays. And the USPS was unable to meet daily deliveries of mail with its social security checks, IRS rebates, business licenses and such, days, weeks, even months behind schedule.

There would still be the same political polarities as now but violence in the streets would not be tolerated by any of us–Trumpsters or liberals, QAnon-ers or pro vaxers–if we were not able to consume the way we are used to consuming. Like babies at their mother’s breast, we are happily addicted to such consumption and will not allow civil war violence in the streets to obstruct the engines of consumption, Trump or no Trump, Biden or no Biden, Pence or no Pence, Pelosi or no Pelosi, Cheney or no Cheney. All of those folks become irrelevant in the face of collective consumption, the one aspect of our society that binds us all together, that solidifies our needs and desires, that makes us one United States. Black, white, red, yellow, Jew, Christian, Moslem, young, old, middle aged, rich, poor, middle class, yes, even white supremacists: We all to a person consume every day of our lives. We eat. We play. We rest. And…we buy. And none of us can do without buying. It’s too ingrained in our heritage, our history, our national psyche.

The pandemic led to many jobs being lost. So why is it that we’ve set a new record for jobs gained? The reason is clear. People, all people, need money to buy things for their personal comfort, happiness, contentment, security, and survival. They may collect unemployment for a time but usually it’s not enough to fulfill our needs and wants. They may be making minimum wage for a time but often they decide they want and need more, so they get more schooling or training or self employment: anything to make more to get more. Buying a home or living in a nice apartment in a nice neighborhood? You can’t get those on unemployment or working at lousy wages with lousy benefits for a lousy boss who treats you like you know what.

So who’s going to tolerate or support rampant and indiscriminate violence breaking out in the streets, spawned by anti vax mandaters, or the Trump lie of a stolen election, or a mask mandate for school children? Trump Republicans? Progressives? Truckers in Canada? Youth? Aged? Blacks? Whites? Who? Such violence and what it will mean for ordinary citizens and their daily lives will hit home quickly as they see the economy grind to a halt, and all the delivery trucks come to a stop and brick and mortar companies close down.

Then perhaps the civil warriors will be exposed on the streets, like the king with no clothes, and rounded up, arrested, prosecuted, and jailed, along with those in authority who managed, encouraged, organized, and instigated them (as on January 6 in D.C.). Perhaps then some good might come from such civil disturbances, and we can finally wipe the slate clean of such destructive elements of our society, cleaning out the entire pipeline instead of just the muck in the drain.