Stephen Altschuler

thoughts on environment, politics, health, life issues

Human nature

Trump’s Running Again? Bring it On!

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The only way we’re going to put the nails in a coffin that keeps opening from within is to defeat Trump and all of the Trump endorsed candidates at the polls. Unless Trump is indicted, which he should be, he has a right to run for office. If he does run as he is threatening, he will continue to spout whatever lies he figures will dupe and defraud the electorate. That’s fine. That’s Trump being Trump. That’s how Trump, the snake oil salesman, extorts money from his sheep. The only thing that will stop him, as it did in 2020, is a defeat at the polls. Of course even defeat will not shut him up completely, but it will go a long way in disempowering him and his supporters, especially if those supporters too can be defeated.

His running for reelection will enliven a Democratic majority that is, sorry to say, downtrodden, deadened, and slightly depressed from the events of the past two years. On Facebook, people respond more to puzzles and pets than politics. On Twitter, there’s a lot of nastiness in general. Same with Instagram. With Trump leading the way over the past four years, social media has become a cesspool of human disparagement. The country is deeply divided. Latest polls show that at least half of people who voted for Trump in 2020 are unvaccinated, with many of those making up the majority of those down with Covid and quickly filling up ICU hospital beds in hotbed red states. In essence, many people will chance death rather than appear they are against Donald Trump. This is insanity’s colloquial definition (usually attributed to Albert Einstein): “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Similar divisions around slavery led to the Civil War. It’s unlikely that such a war will repeat itself, but there could be increased incidents of violence as we saw on January 6 at the Capitol. There’s been a spike in the purchase of guns. The rhetoric is getting more virulent. There’s been an increase in hate crimes and incidents. Trump even praised Robert E. Lee and criticized the removal of his statue in Richmond, Virginia. That kind of toxicity from a former president will embolden white supremacist groups as his actions encouraged the attack on 1/6. Republicans in Congress are blocking all Democratic legislation, continuing their lockstep support of Trump. They’re even calling on Biden to resign, claiming that he botched a withdrawal from Afghanistan which Trump laid the groundwork for. Even the Democrats in Congress are divided, possibly leading to the failure of key infrastructure and voting rights bills, a failure that would be disastrous for the country and could eventually lead to a collapse of our democratic system.

Amidst this disarray and chaos, the 2022 midterm election looms like a dark figure emerging from a dense nighttime forest.. Some 13 Republican-controlled states have enacted legislation restricting the right to vote, legislation blatantly aimed at African American Democrats. This will almost assuredly return the House of Representatives to Republican control and effectively block Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda for two critical years. Again, this will embolden Trump even more to make another run in 2024.

Our only hope lies with the vote and the determination of Democrats to vote regardless of any roadblocks Republicans erect, as they just did in California. This will take redirected anger, grit, and perseverance. It will take courage. It will take vigilance. It will take a rededication to the values our country was built upon. It will take staying awake on all levels of our humanity. It will take suspending the opiate of social media and focusing on a political process that, at its core, gives power to the people–if only the people know it and exercise that power.

Trump and his cronies and puppets are running again, and his cult members are willing to take the Covid Kool Aid for him? I’ve never seen a cult that doesn’t eventually dissolve. In America, political extremism eventually falters and fails. We’re not stupid. Bring it on!

All Countries Reap What They Sow

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A farm reaps what it sows. So does a country. So does Afghanistan. And so does the United States. The direction a country takes comes from past roots, and, as with a plant, if those roots have not been nourished and tended properly, a country can grow sick, weak, and often die. We’ve seen it happen with many countries and cultures throughout history. Greece, Rome, Nazi Germany, Czarist and Communist Russia, Vietnam, China, Fascist Spain, Italy, Portugal, and, Trump America.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have finally pulled out of Afghanistan. The Taliban have reconquered the country and are once again in charge. It is not the fault of any country except Afghanistan for that happening. President Obama poured 300,000 troops into that country in an attempt to bolster its military and its government in a monumental effort to strengthen and stabilize Afghanistan. Ultimately that effort failed, but Barack gets an A for trying. Even Trump gets a high mark for attempting to negotiate with the Taliban to bring some semblance of order to this chaotic country. And no one can blame Biden for wanting to exit this “forever war.” It was none of these presidents’ fault for the Taliban taking back control. The root causes lie in the history of this war-torn nation, which goes back to 1880 as a nation, but marks its origins to the Bronze Age some 5000 years ago. It was once known as central Asia’s roundabout, for its diverse trade routes leading in various directions. For that reason it was strategically important, and, so, fought over by many cultural groups for thousands of years. In the modern age, the Russians were the first foreign power to try and muscle its way into control of the many cultural groups that made up this country. They failed and were followed by the Brits who also failed, followed by the Americans in 2002, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in an attempt to root out Osama bin Laden and his al Queda terrorists who were responsible for 9/11. That invasion failed when bin Laden escaped, but for some reasons, the Americans stayed. But rather than concentrate on building a strong Afghanistan, President Bush took his eyes off the prize by shifting most of his efforts to his ill fated war on Iraq in 2003.

Are you still with me? It is complicated, isn’t it? But you can see how the radical-Islamic Taliban filled numerous vacuums over the years, and with financing from foreign interests like Iran were able to build a formidable military force and recruit thousands. And remember, the Taliban are Afghans, mostly from rural areas, and not some foreign power so they have much support within the country. Despite their brutal reputation for fundamentalist extremism, their consistent argument about driving foreigners out of their country is a powerful one.

Now, we and the rest of the “civilized” world look at that war weary country, lament its fate, and hold our collective heads in our collective hands, fearing the worst. The Taliban, with its harsh, medieval Sharia Law, has proven to be quite cruel after taking power in the past. But given its history, and the history of central Asia, that should be no surprise. What I can fault is the lack of planning for a calm transition/evacuation after allied troops were pulled out. Both Trump and Biden received poor advice and intelligence around the strength and intent of the Taliban once U.S. troops were removed. It took them all of nine days to conquer the entire country, throwing the populace into a panic. This showed a lack of competence and empathy on both presidents’ part–much expected of Trump but certainty not of Joe Biden. He should have known better and planned for a more orderly and timely evacuation.

Afghanistan now is sowing what it has reaped, and there isn’t much, other than weak words and ineffective economic sanctions the West can do about it. Its fate is in the hands of its people alone, as history has shown. And history has certainly shown how people can and do rise up and overthrow a government that is not acting in the country’s best interest.

Joe’s Got His Hands Full

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Between anti-vaxxers, Trump Republicans, white supremacist militias, his own Democrat Progressives, Russian election saboteurs, Iran, China, and a resurgent and very militant Taliban, President Biden’s got his hands full. I figured as much even well before the election. I mean, thank God it’s him and not Trump, but I’m starting to wonder if Joe is up to the task. I’m thinking a Truman-like Democratic President would be better; or even a Johnson clone. But that’s not to be. Joe’s a good guy. He’s smart. He’s capable. But can he effectively deal with evil, for it’s evil forces that are plotting his demise, and a possible return of a Trump or Trump facsimile to the fascist throne. These are forces that will gladly sacrifice thousands of people to the coronavirus for the sake of regaining power. These are forces that will willingly impede the ability of huge numbers of people to vote…in a country most linked with democracy. These are forces that will use any means, any means, to accomplish their nefarious ends.

Biden wants bipartisanship, negotiation, and cooperation, expecting these forces to come around to his gentle beckon call. I suspect a harder-nosed approach is needed. Folksy speeches, soft, pleading tones, and veiled admonitions just won’t completely cut it in this cauldron pot atmosphere of take-no-prisoners.

On the other hand, he’s done a good job so far. He’s tread a left of center political path on a treacherous razor’s edge. He is no Truman or Johnson, and that may be a good thing. He is Joe Biden, a guy who knows his way around Washington, and the world. So, yes, I’d suggest a bit more fire in his presentation, but just a little higher flame on the burner.

Who Are We? What is this society and what can it be?

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Hopefully, we are…

  • a society that believes that each human being who lives here deserves the chance to be healthy, happy, and educated.
  • a society of democratic values, such as the right to vote and have that vote counted as was voted.
  • a society where individuals can practice whatever religion they choose, or no religion at all, as long as that religion does not preach harm to its practitioners or to others in our society or the world at large.
  • a society of laws–laws that keep us healthy, laws that protect us against crime, laws that protect our environment, laws that keep us safe as determined by our representatives in local, state, and federal government, laws that may at times be anathema to individual members of society but that have been enacted by our legislatures and approved by our courts (for example, laws that mandate masks, vaccines, stoplights and stop signs, seatbelts, drinking and driving, helmets and motorcycling, vehicle licenses and registration and smog control, noise control, sanitation regulations, and open admission to public facilities.
  • a society that respects differences and honors diversity.
  • a society that attends to the wellbeing of our fellow human beings no matter their color or economic status or immigration status.
  • a society that is generous in kind and spirit, willing to help those less fortunate.
  • a society that treats all sentient beings with compassion and respect, including even the seemingly lowest in class and status such as prisoners, the disabled, the poor and destitute, the homeless, the sick, the fragile elderly, the hungry.
  • a society that follows the Golden Rule which is Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
  • a society where individuals take responsibility for their actions, and consider the effects of their actions on the lives of others, whether people, other animals, or plants.
  • a society that prides itself on its livability, its clean water and air, its sustainable practices, its wise and sensible land use, its clean and alternative energy resources, its happy and content populace.
  • a society of good roads, safe bridges, universal broadband, universal child care and early childhood education, free education for those unable to afford it, trade schools for those who desire it, and quality health care for all.
  • a society that has the courage to take an honest look at its history, face up to its failures and atone for them, smiles at its successes and honors them, and avoids changing history to suit its collective ego.
  • a society that trusts legitimate science and the scientific method it employs.
  • a society that cooperates with other countries, finding commonalities and interests it can agree upon, resulting in positive results for the planet.
  • a society that chooses peace over war, honing the art of negotiation and diplomacy, resorting to war only when it or a treaty ally is directly attacked.
  • a society that works, along with other countries, to disarm, especially nuclear weapons that can easily destroy the planet if unleashed.
  • a society that sets a good example of democracy for the rest of the world to emulate–an example that includes one person/one vote, counted fairly and squarely, that includes a presidential election decided by popular vote and not an antiquated system that creates doubt in the outcome, that includes a true representative democracy that deletes schemes like gerrymandering and filibustering, and a fringe third party that can sway an election unfairly.
  • a society where all eligible voters can and do vote.
  • a society that can provide decent jobs and a living wage for its workers.
  • a society that honors women with equal pay for equal work, that acknowledges the freedom of choosing how to manage their own bodies in regards to reproduction, health care, and birth control, and that has sufficient child care resources to allow them to pursue whatever career or job they wish.
  • a society that understands that one can be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time, and end this toxic polarity between the two factions.
  • a society that honors multi-culturalism.
  • a society that rejects false conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, white supremacy, the Big Lie (s) of Donald Trump and his surrogates, the spittle of Tucker Carlson and Fox “News”, and vaccine misinformation.
  • a society where civil discourse is the rule not the exception.

Can we be such a society?

Who is a Patriot?

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I was subject to the draft during the Vietnam War, complied and went for my physical, but was turned down for medical reasons. Am I a patriot? If I’d been accepted, I would have gone to Vietnam if ordered to do so. But few would believe I’m a patriot after being rejected.

Some believe the insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol…

To continue reading this post, please go to breakablenews.substack.com.

Thank you.

Flim Flam Don and His Big Lies

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What strikes me most about Trump is what he doesn’t say. For example, and perhaps mostly glaringly, he hasn’t said a word encouraging people to take the Covid vaccine. If he cared about the welfare of the people of this country and the world, he would be out on the hustings, shouting from the rooftops, to take the jab. But no, not a word from him on this vital subject. Why? All I can figure is that he doesn’t want President Biden to benefit from the end of the pandemic, a pandemic that he, Trump, perpetuated and accelerated through his ineptitude and narcissism. Another reason is that he doesn’t want to antagonize his followers who are against vaccines–like QAnon wackos, Christian evangelicals, white supremacists, and slavery and Jim Crow apologists.

The sad truth is that Trump doesn’t care. About Americans, about democracy, about the economy (except his own business), about immigrant families, about crime on the streets and hyper-availability of guns, about equal justice for all, about Blacks or Browns or Yellows or Reds, about Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Atheists, about scientists, scholars, educators. Nor does he care about valid, democratically-run elections, like the one he lost so decisively in November 2020.

By hanging on to the Big Lie, like a monkey hangs on to the grub of food in the trap hunters have set for them, Trump reveals an addiction that is bringing him further down a rabbit hole of destruction, and dragging along with him all his Republican minions who are duped by his lies.

The answer for those of us who see through his lies, is not to keep harping on Trump. He, himself, is a lost cause, and unresponsive to any criticism, sanctions, censures, even lawsuits at this point. His cult followers will merely brush aside any of those attempts at vilification and label him a martyr. No, the answer lies in the election of 2022, perhaps one of the most critical elections in the history of our democratic republic.

2022. It’s just around the corner. And the outcome will test the influence, if any, that Trump has on our electorate. Will Trump-loyal Republicans regain control of the House and/or the Senate? Or will the Democrats further solidify their hold on these Houses of Congress and make Joe Manchin irrelevant? And what of voting? Will Republican efforts to suppress the vote prove successful? Or will voters find a way around these scurrilous laws to vote enmass? Or will Republican laws actually reverse the results of elections they deem not in their interests, namely those that put Democrats in power?

It will all be laid out before us quite graphically, in the results of the 2022 election. And it’s all up to you and I, the voters. For despite the new Republican voter suppression laws, where there’s a will to vote, there’s a way to vote. So no matter what the obstacles, I deeply hope you will vote. And if the GOP tries to reverse the outcome of the election, I hope the courts will respond as they did when Trump tried to reverse the vote of the 2020 election, and prevent Republican-controlled states from doing so.

Otherwise, if either fails, you can kiss our democracy and the country we love goodbye!

The New American Armageddon

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Joe Biden says we are in danger of losing our democracy, and I totally agree with him. For we have in one camp those, like Biden and myself, who believe strongly in democracy; and in the other camp (and there are only two camps), those who are in favor of autocracy and authoritarianism. These include all Trump Republicans, QAnon believers, white supremacists, most conspiracy theorists, anyone who still thinks Trump won the election, which of course includes Trump himself and his immediate family (with the exception of Mary Trump): a significant portion of the population.

Democracy, or the principle that all human beings are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, is anathema to this Trump group. On the contrary, they believe white Christians are more equal than anyone else and are entitled to more rights such as the right to vote, the right to bear arms without any regulations, the blending of religion and government, providing its the Christian religion, specifically most Protestant forms of Christianity.

This group is increasingly in favor of a military coup to reinstate Trump to the presidency, as what recently occurred in Myanmar. Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Louis Gommert have just advocated for this. A violent insurrection such as what we saw on January 6, 2021, an insurrection that apparently most of the Republicans in Congress were implicated in since they voted against a bipartisan commission to investigate this worst attack on our democratic form of government since the Civil War.

So the lines are clearly drawn. Republicans in many red states have passed legislation that restricts voting rights, aimed at anyone they perceive will vote Democratic, most alarmingly allowing the vote to be overturned by election officials who deem the vote to be fraudulent, and, as for a presidential election, can be tossed to a (they hope) Republican dominated House of Representatives for reversal if the results are not to their liking.

That of course is a strategy of dictators, oligarchs, and authoritarians, ala Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko, Erdogan, Assad, and whatever Ayatollah is leading Iran at the moment. Their leaders in Congress like McConnell and McCarthy keep spouting off about the Socialist Democrats, but they actually go a step further than Socialism and dabble in the muck of Fascism.

Although this anti-democracy crowd has begun to clamor for armed insurgency, most are still sticking to a political coup of sorts trying to limit voting and registration to vote. If that doesn’t work–a good possibility given the energy and efforts of frontline Democratic workers like Stacey Abrams–they may call upon white supremacy groups to actively take up arms, hoping that the military–which has its share of white nationalists–will follow suit, and, like Myanmar’s military did with its democracy, assume control of the government and reinstate their own private emperor, Donald Trump.

All of us democracy advocates need to be concerned, for this gang of millions are fanatical and determined enough to pull this off. Continue on Facebook with the cat and puppy videos and reports of how our gardens are doing, and where we went for vacations, but get back to the vigilance we exhibited before the 2020 election–an election that helped save our country and the world from the ogre Donald J. Trump.

This is not a time for complacency. Yes, the pandemic is loosening its grip and we want to get out and enjoy the summer. That’s fine. But it’s not either, or. We can enjoy ourselves and, at the same time, up our political awareness to previous levels. The anti-democracy gang will take full advantage of any complacency in the democracy crowd, much as Hitler did. Jews in Eastern Europe didn’t think he and his authoritarian hooligans would amount to much. Those few who did, left, and their offspring are now alive and well in the West. The masses who stayed died horrible deaths, leaving few ancestors to carry on.

I am not saying that concentration camps will dot the American landscape. But an America without democracy will be similar to a Brazil between 1964 and 1988. My wife lived there through those years and describes a regime under military rule, without due process, without justice for all, with McCarthyist tactics where her own father was detained and interrogated but refused to give up the names of his progressive colleagues. It was a harsh regime, without a free press or freedom of speech, with dissidents imprisoned and tortured, with informants everywhere, with only state TV and press, and with voting restrictions that guaranteed the election of those generals in power. Is that what we want in our democratic America? A Trump Republican Party not unlike today’s North Korea with pictures of “our dear leader” Trump, the Narcissist in Chief, and his subsequent family successors, plastered on billboards everywhere.

Impossible, you say. Think it through. It is quite possible, and given the polarities and insanities spreading throughout our country today, increasingly probable…unless we act and act decisively.

Scammers, Scams, and the Scammed (like me)!

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As I’m sure some of you have experienced, I’ve been hit by scammers during the pandemic, which is a form of insult to injury. They are skilled at manipulation and subterfuge. They know how to impersonate, to deceive, to falsify. They know how to get you to believe in what they are saying. They know all the keywords and trigger points and, like good salesmen, all the rebuttals to victim objections. They’ve been trained well to mine as much personal data as possible in a potentially short period of time. And even if they often don’t succeed, they know they’ll eventually find a person who takes the bait and swallows the hook. I was such a person, and I’m here to warn you so you will not be a victim to these predators.

The first example was an email from Amazon stating that an iPhone I’d ordered for almost $1000 was on the way and had been paid for. Only problem was the name of the customer was not mine. I ignored the email but the same one came again the next day, so I figured I’d better pursue this possible expensive error. I should have checked the address of the email, but foolishly didn’t. Instead, I went for the bait, and called the phone number on the email in case of questions or problems with the invoice. That’s when the skilled scammer entered my personal space.

To make a proverbial long story short, he proceeded to bilk me out of personal information that caused me to cancel my debit card, along with automatic payment information according to the new card, an inconvenience I truly could have done without. Even worse, I lost some precious hours of sleep, worrying over the implications of this breech of my personal identity. All I had to do to prevent this was to check the email source of the original email to find out it wasn’t from Amazon at all but some foreign source.

When I discovered the scam, and called the man with the foreign accent on it, and cursed him, he cursed me back, and I knew instantly that I was right. I hung up, relieved it had not gone beyond a point where it could not be rectified.

And then just a few days ago, another scammer attacked my defenses. This time it was someone who called himself The Crowdsourcing Ninja, promising to assist me in meeting my Kickstarter goal for a project related to my last book, Into the Woods…and Beyond. He claimed to have extensive online social media contacts, and for a $250 fee to work daily for two weeks in putting the word out to those thousands of contacts promoting my project. Every day, I’d get an email progress report of what he did that day–the same wording each day–with a caveat that it took time for people to get the message and donate to such a project. He guaranteed his work saying that if my goal was not met, he would refund my fee.

Well, my goal was met but only from donors whom I knew and contacted myself. There were none as a result of the Crowdfunding Ninja’s (aka Ryan West) efforts. When I questioned him about this, he admitted that he hadn’t done everything he said he’d done, only spending two days of the two weeks he’d promised contacting people. I asked for a refund, to which he agreed, but have never seen that refund, to date. I’ve sent three emails about this with no response, and so I am exposing this charlatan to you, my dear readers, and warning you to avoid this “Ninja”.

Of course, I’d be remiss not to mention the most toxic scammer of all: Donald J. Trump (and his enablers), milking as much money as he can from his cult followers who believe his Big Lie that the election was fraudulent and really won by him. He scammed all of us, too, on the pandemic, actions that led to the deaths of over half a million Americans. He will go down as the absolute most notorious political scammer in American history. If you are presently allowing Trump to continue scamming you, please, give it up.

I’m sure some of you have your own stories to tell. I hope the above helps in avoiding future scams through a higher sense of awareness and good, healthy skepticism.

Have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!

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