Stephen Altschuler

thoughts on environment, politics, health, life issues

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Breakable News returns with more forgettable scoops

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Yes, Breakable News returns after a highly welcomed hiatus to offer its latest scooperdoopers from our ace reporter, I.M. Nobody. Following our strict policy of never fact checking our ace reporters, here’s the latest. No responses please, including death threats. We’re very sensitive people here.

* The new film Tehran will be filmed at Mar a Lago and downtown Cleveland and star Mike Pompeio and Roger Stone in a cameo role. Female lead is Marjorie Taylor Greene playing an Iatoldyouso.

* Mike Pence has given life to a new book called How Dare You. He’s telling all potential buyers they have no choice but to buy it.

* Donald Trump has let go of his social media failure Truth to one called Blah, Blah, Blah, featuring…well… the title does say it, doesn’t it.

* Johnny Depp and Amber Heard will be headlining a ten round fight tonight in Vegas. Depp will be wearing gold bling…only; while Amber will be…crying, probably.

* Oprah’s talked about interview with Queen Elizabeth is postponed and will follow an interview with Merrick Garland which has also been postponed with Garland’s spokesperson claiming needing more time to examine its questionable optics. Instead Oprah has nailed an interview with Prince Louie, 25th in line to the throne. She’s really got the buzz going, calling it Something’s Screwy with Louie who just turned six according to Royal watchers.

* Tiger Woods’ most recent accident came when he apparently fell asleep on a zip line crossing a huge crevasse in Denali National Park. He broke all his ribs and most of his organs relocated to distant parts of his body, and his doctors will not reveal where his brain is, but, we understand, Tiger will be back in action for the PGA later this month.

* In a surprise move, Dr. Fauci has gone into hiding in the Ukraine, tweeting that he feels safer there than in America where he gets more death threats than mosquitoes in New Hampshire.

* Grand Poopoop of the KKK, William Hammerhead, on the strength of a prized endorsement from Donald Trump, is running for the Senate in Georgia and is expected to run away…with it or from it, we’re not sure. Trump says he was only joking. He checked a map and thought it was for the country of Georgia.

* The Supreme Court of the U.S. has become so well defended with electrified fences, guard dogs, and white supremacist security teams, along with a front gate that only opens with an encrypted password, that at least five of the nine justices were seen outside the gate unable to remember the password. Crowds were closing in on them as we approached our publishing deadline. Story to be continued…….

* And finally, the Proud Boys, under investigation by the DOJ, have changed their name to Proud to be Boys. DOJ, satisfied that they’ve mended their ways, has dropped the case.

That’s it for now, dear readers. We hope you spread the word about Breakable News, the most reliably unreliable news source in America, and, other than Russia, the world. Housebroken cats and puppies are among our most devoted followers.

Ta, ta, and have a lovely Mother’s Day. It’s the one thing all of us on this planet, including lions, tigers, mosquitoes, whales and duckies, have in common: Mothers.

Ukraine vs. Russia: New Rules

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David Milliband, a former UK foreign secretary, said on Fareed Zakaria’s show Sunday that the world needs established rules to guarantee peace and harmony–rules that Russia is obviously not following under its strongman president Vladimir Putin. And because of this, the present conflict has a much broader scope. And that is an Armageddon-like struggle between the West and Putin.

But the first immediate factor in this conflict is what is happening now in Ukraine to the infrastructure of the country and to the terror being endured by its courageous people. Because of longstanding and irrational resentments of Russia towards Ukraine, there cannot and will not be a diplomatic solution unless Ukraine defeats Russia on the battlefield. In light of that, the West must continue to arm Ukraine with state of the art weapons, defensive and offensive, administrative, communicative, and digital.

Amazingly, Ukraine is now winning this war, and consequently, despite sanctions, Putin is continuing to pour in troops and heavy weaponry into Eastern parts of Ukraine with the goal of subduing the population and taking control of that part of the country. President Zelensky, forever a hero of democracy to his country and to the West, has offered to negotiate and even give certain security assurances to Russia in return for peace. Putin will have none of it. He is acting more and more like a 19th century Czar or a 20th century Stalin, the difference being he has direct access to chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and has threatened to use them.

Which brings me to my next recommendations concerning the call for new rules for a peaceful world order. Putin only seems to respond to power and force, just as Krushchev responded only to Kennedy’s threat of retaliation if Russian ICBMs were not withdrawn from Cuba in 1962. Those of us who were around then, myself included, thought nuclear war was immanent. But Krushchev backed down and pulled the missiles out in exchange for the U.S. pulling out some missiles in Turkey, close to Russia’s border.

Now, Joe Biden, possibly unilaterally, must say to Putin, if you use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine, the U.S. will respond likewise against Russia. Ideally NATO would be part of this deal, but if not, the U.S. should go it alone. We have the fire power to do so. At the same time we should offer Russia the kind of security reassurances they are looking for, such as neither Ukraine nor other countries that border Russia would be permitted entry into NATO–the EU, yes, but not NATO. We could also include an initiative for a treaty to further reduce nuclear weapons. This would be accomplished through direct high level talks between the U.S. and Russia. And if Russia pulled its troops out of Ukraine and did not attack any other neighboring countries, all sanctions against Russia would be ended, and normal trade, including gas and oil to Europe, would be resumed.

I’ll leave the rest of the negotiation details to the experts, as I am not one of those. I am just a citizen of a still democratic country who has ideas that could lead to a diminution of human suffering and a return to peace and harmony in this old world, tired of conflict and war and war crimes. Our Declaration of Independence holds “these truths to be self-evident, that all men (people) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” I suggest our Declaration apply to any citizen of Earth, and the above rules presented to Putin could apply wherever weapons of mass destruction are used, or being planned to use, to subdue, subjugate, or conquer innocent citizens and countries.

To borrow Emerson’s words, I would call it a Doctrine of Compensation, or if that wasn’t clear enough, a Doctrine of Retaliation, or using history as a touchstone, the Kennedy Doctrine. Its purpose, of course, is preventative, causing dictators and demagogues to blink and pull back.

Our Age of Disinformation

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This age of disinformation certainly hasn’t started with Trump and the Republican Party, although they’ve done yeoman’s work to perpetuate it. When Jesus was crucified, his followers had to blame someone so they first took it out on Judas Iscariot, then extended it to all Jews. Only thing was that Jesus himself was Jewish, as was Judas, and, with the exception of Romans, so was everyone else in Jerusalem at the time. I’m puzzled why the Romans aren’t now blamed for the death of Jesus, since, well, they tried, sentenced, and put him to death on the cross. Then came the Middle Ages and the Crusades, when word was that Jews along the route were killing Christian babies and drinking their blood. This of course was not true, but, the Crusaders believed it and murdered as many Jews along the way to the Holy Land as they could find. So far, those two myths, along with the Aryan crap advanced by Hitler and his Nazis, persist today with the help of Neo Nazis and, well, many Republican white nationalists. Then in the mid 19th century, white slaveholders in the American South contended that people were unequal with the White race entitled to enslave the Black race and do with “their property”, i.e. their slaves, (including breeding them as they would with any animal!), as they wished. They even fought a Civil War over this disinformation and sacrificed the lives of over 800,000 people over it. We, i.e. the Republican Party, are still, in effect, fighting that war, with disinformation today whitewashed and scrubbed as something other than the racist tropes of 1861.

All was relatively quiet on this Western Front until Donald Trump took power in 2016 when the engines of disinformation really got going via social media and particularly Twitter. QAnon, White Supremacist groups, and other fringe far right radio and TV networks, all got the go-aheads they were looking for in a president that openly supported such disinformation, and gladly retweeted it and even cooked up quite a bit of his own brazen lies, culminating in his biggest whopper that the election of 2020 was stolen from him via election fraud. Of course when you think about it, how could there have been fraud when he was defeated but many Republicans down ballot were elected in the disputed battleground states. Of course, cult members don’t think for themselves so they wholeheartedly swallowed the lies, culminating in the the most virulent attack on democracy since the Civil War: the attack on our very way of government on January 6, 2021 by Trump supporters who even carried Confederate flags into the breached Capitol building with the entire roster of Congressional officeholders present at the time gathered to verify the election of the legitimate elected president, Joseph R. Biden.

Now, after a year and a half of Trump continuing to peddle his rubbish, he is threatening to run again in 2024, something that is looking like a continuation of the coup he started on 1/6/21. Remember, Hitler was jailed after his failed putsch, only to come back in a few years to assume the chancellorship of Germany. As with Hitler (and now Putin, I might add), Trump never ceased spewing his vile and incendiary oratory to a duped and dispirited populace with the intent of casting aside democracy in favor of autocracy and the Fascism that usually follows. He just can’t resist himself, as his father’s voice echos in his head like a blast of tankfire. Of course he also has the support of Fox “News” with their chief morons Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham leading a battalion of conservative disinformationalists, all in line behind their chief marketer of greed, Rupert Murdock; and the leadership and frontline of the Republican Party speaking in lockstep with their “dear Leader”, as they do in North Korea.

In that regard, it’s not much different here as it is in Russia right now with Putin duping his people into believing in his inhumane massacre in Ukraine. Thankfully we do have a sane leader in Joe Biden to help unify the world against the lies of Putin, and encourage the material and moral support of Zalensky and his Ukraine. Biden is the world’s champion of liberal Democracy while Putin and China’s Xi are its foe.

Am I too harsh? Am I just a rabble-rouser, a fearmonger, a liberal, a proud democratic Democrat, or some hysterical bigmouth? I will not defend against any label you wish to put upon me. I am who I am: an American citizen who is alarmed to see our nation slip into the jaws of fascism.

What about you? Where do you stand? What do you think?

***

BTW: Happy Spring, and may peace come soon to Ukraine, restoring its esteemed position among the democratic countries of the world.

Ticking Time

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We are a society rather obsessed with time. We run out of it. We see it fly by. We don’t know where it went. We watch it flow through the hourglass. We cheer it as a ball drops in “Time Square.” In summary, we say, “It’s about time.” Yes, indeed, it is certainly about time. And yes, we are running out of it in relation to the 2022 election. Merrick Garland may be thinking, “I’ve got all the time in the world,” but he’d be dead wrong, for “there’s never enough time.” And Joe Biden’s hoping “a stitch in time saves nine”, wondering how he salvages his legislative agenda after the GOP, along with Manchin and Sinema, scuttled it. Donald Trump is right on Joe’s heels, stalking his shadow, like he once did with Hillary, “biding his time,” and never missing “a beat in time” to vilify his opponents and/or his friends. And Trump Republicans wish “to go back in time” when white Christians were in the majority and and it was “time out” for Blacks and women and Moslems and Jews and Asians, whose “time was over”, when they stayed in their places, and voters wouldn’t “waste their time” reading up on the candidates and make informed choices. The exception is Mike Pence who finally came out and told Trump “times up,” you’re wrong, bud!

Buddhists and other meditators know there’s “no time like the present.” While evangelicals obsess on the “End Times.” And the 1/6 insurrectionists tried to capture “time in a bottle,” but they dropped that bottle and it shattered all over the Capitol tiles leading to their arrests and prosecutions and “jail time.”

Then there’s white supremacists, anti-vaxers, anti-maskers, QAnon-ers, and pro-lifers, and Trump-appointed SCOTUS jokers who are still riding on Teflon Don’s coattails screaming “our time is now.” They live in a Back to the Future world where they’re “running out of time,” like history fading into “the annals of time.”

Well, as I “race against time”, having gotten out of bed way too late this weekend morning, I’ll end this “time-limited” screed and bid you a “see you next time.” It’s “high time” I move on to Saturday errands and such, complying with my wife’s “time-honored” honey-do’s, and thus blithely continue with “the time of my life.”

“Time to beat a hasty retreat,” lest the “time that waits for no man” is like the airplane within which “time flies.”

I know. I know. “Time to get the hell outta here!” “Time to get with it and get off that place where the sun don’t shine!”

And finally From Pink Floyd’s song, “Time”:

“Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say”

***

One of the times of my life happened when I took time out and lived in a remote cabin in the northern woods for almost four years. You can read all about my adventures and my love affair with nature and getting around mostly on my own two legs, “most of the time”, in my recent memoir Into the Woods…and Beyond, available via Amazon. I think you’ll “have a good time” enjoying it. OK, now I’m serious: Time’s Up!

The War Against Democracy is On!

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The war against democracy in the country that has most championed it is now being waged as definitively as when Germany invaded Poland in ’39 or Japan invaded Pearl Harbor in ’41, specifically now by Republicans in Congress and some 19 Republican-led State legislatures, along with two turncoat Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, and, Oh yes, still Whiner in Chief, Donald John Trump. That’s a long sentence for a short headline, I know, but anything shorter and I might have lost your attention. And at this point, what with the pandemic inall, lost attention might result in a critical lost battle which Republicans would certainly seize upon to their strategic advantage.

And in a time of war, unity is only an issue if either side is disunited in their resolve to win. The Republicans, Trumpian to their rotten core, are indeed united. They could care less about democracy, a form of government that is anathema to their basic values of power, fear, greed, and intimidation. Those are values inherent in authoritarianism, in dictatorship, in oligarchies, in fascism. Democrats, excepting for the two previously mentioned, are for democracy, in full. Its values are governance by, for, and of the people–all the people, equally. They are in favor of a federal government using its financial resources to benefit the people via external and internal infrastructures. They are in favor of an open and healthy unobstructed debate of the issues of the day, hoping, even insisting, to come to consensus–that paragon of democracy that holds a country together, no matter how diverse its population. For without democracy, a country, as we have seen time after time, will lapse into the dregs of one-party rule which leads to dictatorship. And the world has rarely seen a benign and righteous dictator.

A time of war is a tense time, one of uncertainty as to how the outcome will manifest. Who will win? And what changes will unfold? And will the country survive as we’ve known it? It is a political war, yes, but it happens during a war on a lethal worldwide pandemic that should have drawn this world together but that has a further divided it. And to further complicate things, we are also at war with a rapidly changing climate that, because of human intransigence, ignorance, and greed, is rearing its head like the Buddhist realm of the hungry ghost with its figurative huge belly and an impossibly rope-thin neck that can never satisfy that chronically huge stomach. Forever starving; never satiated.

With all these rampant, out of control hungry ghosts, the prognosis for the health of humanity and the health of our Mother Earth is guarded, to say the very least.

In this political war, which, in a sense, is the keystone for the fighting of the other wars, we will see how resilient our democracy is. We are witnessing a kind of D-Day where the forces for democracy–the Commission to Investigate the January 6 insurrection, President Biden, the Attorney General, Stacy Abrams and her Fair Fight, most of the Democratic Party including its legislators and its voters, liberals, along with many anti-Trump Republicans and Independents–are massing its forces on the front lines to challenge the forces of fascism, or the governance by the few at the expense of the many. The fascist forces, which include Trump Republican legislators and election officials on local, state, and national levels, white supremacy gangs, QAnon crazies, anti-vaxers, anti-maskers, anti-mandaters, anti-Semites, anti-Moslems, our highly partisan Supreme Court, many white Christian evangelicals, and cult Trumpsters throughout the country, have fortified their armies with misinformation, conspiracy theories, ancient phony myths, Trump lies, false rationalizations, using social media, Fox “News”, extremist right wing radio shows, and Trump appointed federal judges.

Truth be known, the leading fascists are adept at manipulating facts to support their cause. They recruit their gullible minions then brainwash them to the point of their readiness to drink the proverbial Kool Aid. That’s when the minions get radical, as they are now, trained to threaten those they perceive as against their view of reality. It’s been happening like that for centuries. And the false thinking and intimidating behaviors from the time of Jesus when a Jew who preached peace and love for all was falsely accused and put to death, to the bloody and cultist middle ages when the end of times, called Armageddon, believed and feared by millions, was actually predicted to take place September 1, 1492, to present times when evangelicals still believe in the coming Armageddon when their Christ will return to Jerusalem, hence the only reason the Jews of Israel are at all tolerated, and lead the faithful to heaven while others who fail to convert, like Jews and Moslems, will burn in hell. Things really haven’t changed much.

So I say to fascists who forever pop up their heads like wack a mole puppets, I predict democracy will win this war. It won’t be easy but our motivation is extremely high. We have fought off attacks previously in our history: The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, World Wars I and II, The Depression, McCarthyism, and the Donald Trump presidency and its ugly aftermath. But the pandemic may be our most formidable enemy and we only have the Democrats fighting that. Unvaccinated mostly Republicans are, like cult members, apparently willing to die to make Joe Biden look bad. Very sad and very deplorable, indeed.

We still have time to mount that D-Day, though time is running out. The Commission on Jan. 6, Garland and the DOJ, cases against Trump are all moving along but at a snail’s pace. The 2022 elections and its Republican promise of voter suppression, gerrymandered districts, and partisan vote counting will ultimately tell the tale as to where we are headed as a democracy. And as I stand on the edge of the cliff looking out at a broad expansive sea, I have only a hope and a prayer that the country will do the right thing increasing Democrat majorities in both Houses of Congress thus allowing President Biden to continue making the progress he has already made.

Requiem for Ashling Murphy

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For my Irish brothers and sisters who are in deep grief over the murder of their beautiful native daughter Ashling Murphy:

Requiem for Ashling Murphy
by Stephen Altschuler

I hope to see Ashling in heaven
to hear her play and to sing
I hope to see Ashling in heaven and be
Soothed as the bells of the angels do ring.

My soul it does grieve for Ashling
And my eyes they do sadden and cry
But I know she’ll be back with her smile intact
In the wake of an Irish lullaby.

Oh play us a tune Aoife Ashling
As you taught us to live our lives full
You will live in our dreams as a bird on the wing
As a shawl made with soft winter wool.

The angels all sing Hallelujah
As you play your fiddle and dance
They radiate love from around and above
Putting me in a transcendent trance.

copyright Stephen Altschuler 2022

Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

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In 1864, East Tennessee native Admiral David Farragut shouted those words as his ships were stalled in Mobile Bay by Confederate torpedoes. Here’s how Ned Jilton II of the Times News described the dramatic and critical battle in a feature piece on 8/13/20.

“Early on the morning of Aug. 5, 1864, Farragut’s fleet began to advance. The monitors and the forts started to exchange fire. To better evaluate the battle, the admiral climbed up into the rigging of his flagship as officers and sailors took up positions to relay his orders to the crew.

As the fleet entered the bay, the lead monitor, the USS Tecumseh, began to turn to engage the CSS Tennessee when an explosion ripped through its hull. The monitor had struck a torpedo and quickly sank with most of her crew.

The ships behind Tecumseh, fearing more torpedoes, slowed and nearly stopped as the vessel sank, forcing the ships behind them to slow. The fleet bunched up, giving the big guns of the forts easy, slow moving targets. The admiral’s plan was quickly falling apart.

Farragut shouted through a trumpet to the USS Brooklyn ahead, “What’s the trouble?” To which he received the reply, “Torpedoes.”

Farragut gave the legendary reply, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

Spurred on by those words, the fleet began to move forward again and into the bay. There they attacked the Rebel fleet until the only ship left fighting was the CSS Tennessee. Farragut’s fleet converged on the mighty Confederate ironclad and pounded it with cannons and then resorted to repeatedly ramming the vessel before it finally surrendered.”

So why do I bring this up at this time? News reports these days are full of scary predictions of how Republicans will more than likely retake the House and possibly the Senate in the ’22 midterm elections. Despite every sign, every indication that Trump-led Republicans have become the party of No, of obstruction, of blocking all Democratic initiatives despite their obvious benefit to ordinary Americans struggling with the realities of a deadly pandemic and its effect on employment, the world economy, action against the climate crisis, and of supporting a megalomaniac autocrat who instigated, and possibly organized, a coup against our government, voters are still ready and poised to turn the Congress over to this party of do-nothings and death threats. It’s discouraging, to say the least, and causes me to lose hope in the efficacy, wisdom, common sense, and even sanity of our country.

My only hope is the battle cry of Admiral Farragut, which I’ll paraphrase here: Damn the predictions. Full speed ahead! Often in our country when we hear a prediction of a sure-thing defeat, the underdogs get inspired and show the pundits a thing or three. We’ve seen it in sports many times, witness the ’69 Mets, witness Jack Fleck beating Ben Hogan in the U.S Open in ’55, witness the “Miracle on Ice” when the men’s U.S. hockey team beat the Soviets at Lake Placid in the gold medal game in 1980. And we’ve seen it in politics. Witness Lincoln beating Douglas in 1860, witness Truman beating Dewey in ’48, witness Kennedy beating Nixon in ’60, witness Clinton beating Bush in ’92, witness Obama beating McCain in ’08, witness Biden beating Trump in ’20, and witness two unknown Democrats beating shoe-in incumbent Republicans in the crucial Georgia U.S. Senate races in ’21.

What happens in both sports and politics is that people get inspired, and when people get inspired all bets are off. It’s Katy bar the door! And I think that could well happen in 2022. The constant barrage of media prognostications of Republican victories will scare the pants off Democratic voters nationwide, not only retaining the Democrats’ control of Congress but widening the party’s majorities, giving Joe Biden a tremendous victory and restoring the country’s forward movement under his leadership. The case against Trump’s seditious acts will continue, leading to a ruling that, if not landing him in prison, will deny him the opportunity of ever running for public office again, from dog catcher to president.

How about it Dems? Isn’t that enough to get you out of your pandemic malaise and get to the polls this November? Let’s show the bastards something they never figured: a Democratic landslide significantly increasing Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. That’ll put the nail in the political coffins of such spineless cowards and traitors as McCarthy, McConnell, Hawley, Taylor Greene, Jordan, Cawthorne, Brooks, and, yes, Donald Trump. It also relegates DINO’s Manchin and Sinema to the back benches where they belong. It lets Joe Biden proceed with an agenda that will reenergize this country in ways we haven’t seen since FDR got us on the path out of the Great Depression, or JFK had us believing in Camelot for the coming 60s.

All because Dems came out in droves and voted in such numbers in 2022 that no amount of Republican voter suppression or partisan Trump-infused election officials or even the toxified Trump Supreme Court could reverse. It’s all in your hands, my hands, our hands.

Just do it as Admiral Farragut did it, and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

***

Two new books of mine will give you further insight into my thinking and may inspire you further in dealing with the challenges our present world presents. They are Into the Woods…and Beyond, and The Valley Spirit, both available at Amazon. Thank you.

The “All About Me” Years

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The 1920s were the Roaring 20s. The 30s were the We’re all in this together years. The 40s were the Uncle Sam Needs You Years. The 50s were the I Like Ike Years. The 60s, after JFK’s murder, were the Ask What Your Country Did to You Years. The 70s were the Me Decade. And now, jumping to the 2020s, it’s the “All About Me” Years, on steroids via social media and Donald Trumpoids. As the rollicking and over the top vodka commercial says, “Sometimes you just gotta give the people what they want!” And what about half the population wants is no masks, no vaccines, no shutdowns, no facts, no science, no reality, and well, apparently, no democracy, which includes very little government intervention even when faced with a worldwide pandemic. What’s next? No traffic lights, smoking allowed everywhere, cell phones and video games allowed when driving, relieving oneself anywhere and anytime, resisting police guarding our government buildings like our U.S Capitol, and, yelling fire in a movie theater even when there is no fire, and many other examples of a no holds barred freedom of speech that some 1/6 rioters are using as their absurd defense. No restrictions. Total freedom to do anything an individual wants and chooses to do. No mandates and…well, no laws because aren’t laws just more mandates? Guns? Sure, anytime, anywhere. Even kids can bring them into schools because well, to forbid it would be a mandate that would restrict a kid’s freedom. Kids could also curse out their teachers, bully other kids, and spout out lies and falsehoods when answering questions, just as they hear their country’s leader, Donald Trump, do on Truth, his social media platform, where anything but Truth will be presented. And rampant death threats on anyone and anytime? Sure. Why not. There are no consequences. Politicians rarely speak out against them. So good people resign from important job to save them themselves and their family against this tyranny. It’s all despicable and unconscionable.

Democracy? “We don’t need no stinkin’ democracy!” Trump and the All About Me-rs, scream. That’s just something the Democrats invented to steal elections and keep Trump out of power. Voting? Just more government bullshit! We don’t need no stinkin’ voting. And one party, the Republican one, will do just fine. In the All About Me years, people do what they damn well want to do, fuc*k the consequences because there are no consequences. White power? Sounds good, like in the old days, say the Trumpsters on the street, in the bars, in the stadiums, in the diners, and on the roads.

That’s the America we saw on January 6, 2021 at our nation’s Capitol building, with its writing continuing to be on the wall, as the saying goes. Trump, Carlson, Hannity, McConnell, Cruz, Taylor Greene, and the cult followers have continued to lay the groundwork of their own fascist infrastructure since the reign of Donald the Small. Battleground states have established new voting procedures where traditional Democrat voters–Blacks, urban poor, students, youth–will have a harder time casting their ballots; voting districts have been gerrymandered to rig elections in favor of Republican candidates; and those tallying and approving vote counts will be partisans loyal to Donald Trump and company. All signed, sealed, collected and delivered, to the governors of 19 states controlled by their Republican legislatures. Merrick Garland says there’s really nothing much he can do about it until the Congress enacts the two voting rights bills. But Congress is stymied because no Republican senators will have the courage and wisdom to vote for the bills, including Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, and two Democratic senators, Manchin from West Virginia and Sinema from Arizona refuse to back a carving out of the filibuster to get those bills to the floor (as McConnell did to push through three ultra-conservative Trump nominees to the Supreme Court).

So there you have it, America. The GOP, after years of searching, has finally found its Viking leader who will figuratively rape and pillage the U.S. Constitution to drop this pesky Democracy and opt for a Trumpian strongman government where White Christian super rich men rule, where lies are labeled truths, profit is holy, and the climate crisis is a hoax fading into the fog of memory. The American experiment with “all men are created equal” will be over, along with one person, one vote, due process, and “give me your tired, your poor.”

If you want a model for how it will all pan out, that’s easy: Just look at Xi Jinping and China today; and Putin’s Russia; and Belarus, Hungry, Syria, Turkey, and other authoritarian one-party regimes. Is this what we want for our country?

So you choose, America. In 1861, a war was fought to save our Union. Lincoln and many Americans stood up to Southern slaveholding secessionists and the duped country boys who fought for them. Democracy won that time, at great cost to human life and limb. What now? Will we stand up to Trump and his “All About Me” Viking hordes as we did in the 1860s and 1960s for civil rights and the principles of equality this country stood, and still stands, for?

I hope so. I truly hope so.

***

For a break with politics, pandemics, and pets on FB, check out my latest book, The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life, available at Amazon. It gives some vital guidance on finding balance in life during these troubled times. Thank you.