American Twilight

         A couple of things are pretty certain. The US would not be ruptured were it not for social media and the propaganda networks. Truth, even reliable facts, are hard to find there. Millions have been radicalized and brain washed. MAGA nation, a septic tank of deceit, hate, and lunacy, stirred by con men, is evidentiary case in point-the nation is broken.

technology in the vines

            Most of us are addicted by the brain wiring gadgetry and satisfaction of our screens. All drugs have cost and side effects; the technologies of convenience and communication are destroying civil society.

            These ideas may sound heretical coming from a media/journalism lifer and a first amendment absolutist. The adherence to the canons of old have been dashed, as has almost every tradition, and norm. Once, when newspapers, radio and television were the agents of information, people worked, played and lived harmoniously, often oblivious to political differences. Even in heated campaign years, folks could back opposing candidates and parties and still play golf, go to church, live next door and even be friends. If you were not white, however, your narrative was largely ignored or it was ghettoized. On a lot of things, we had our heads in the sand.

            Mostly people avoided talking about politics and religion in any general social context. They were personal matters, left for discussion with like-minded thinkers and souls.

            Partisan media, and the unhinged platforms where anything is said, despite lack of veracity or civility, bludgeons us with cultural wedges and sledgehammers of sheer ignorance and loud stupidity. We live with the brainwashed. Even the brainwashed get to vote.

      Will a woman’s right to choose, and a defense of democracy produce more votes than personal interests in short term economies, or the ginned-up concern about “crime” and a “stolen election?” Will a wave of reaction to the reversal of Roe generate a voting block? 18-34 year olds are telling pollsters they are worried about the threat to our form of government and almost despondent over climate issues. Will they vote and by what margins? Will the polls be mistaken, again? Do people tell the truth to pollsters?

        We tend to be reactive, perhaps too much so now.

There's been a recent spate of depravity, cruelty and barbarism by brutes like Putin and Republicans who did not speak out against the attack on the Speaker's husband, or who joked about it.  Maybe that will spark some reaction of decency and humanity. 

        There’s a lot of doomsaying about a predicted election of election deniers. 

     Having reported my first election in 1968, I’ve watched as party power rises and falls and as issues come and go. I learned to trust what we used to call the common sense of the American electorate. But that was when people read newspapers and watched responsible television news and listed to authoritative radio news. That was before talk radio, social media, and propaganda networks. It was a time when people could and would think for themselves. That was before politics of division, a time when some things were considered sacred, even as democracy was taken for granted.  

 

        We'll see if common sense is resilient?

    See you down the trail. 

Revanche of America's Soul?

 

     The once resolute American nation needs a tune up and a new MO.

      In these last weeks we've been living a Shakespearean derangement, a hell scape, tossed between a twilight of madness and a dawn, where we have bet our hopes.

       Two Presidents of divergent character, different visions and from separate worlds.

        Peter Wehner, who worked for Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, say's Donald Trump's enduring legacy is "a nihilistic political culture, one that is tribalistic, distrustful and sometimes delusional, swimming in conspiracy theories."

         We are wounded, cut to our aspirational soul.

    In the previous post we explored the founding principle of this American republic, and how far we have strayed. 

    Now we examine how it is time for telling the truth. 

the truth liberates

    President elect Joe Biden is assembling a team of experienced, competent professionals. The levers and controls of government will be handled by people of substance and knowledge.

    President Donald Trump undermines the credibility of our very system, erodes confidence in America, and proliferates his destructive lies and conspiracy. He is a despot, out of time, trapped in a bunker, and determined to destroy everything around him.

deadly delays

    Biden has been denied access to critical defense and covid information. That is dangerous and un-American.

    The transition of power is being forced upon the swindler and his behavior these last weeks will mark his legacy. 

     America's future is the first priority of Joe Biden. Donald Trump's priority is, and always was, Donald Trump.

"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those 

who issue oppressive decrees, who deprive 

the poor of their rights and who withhold justice

from the oppressed."*

  truth and cowardice 

    What does it say about a political party and their members in the House and Senate when they are afraid of Trump? It is true they are cowards. They will not speak up for American ways. They placate a man who undermines the legitimacy of our government and seeks to overturn and invalidate the majority of US citizens. They are co-conspirators engaged in an attempt to violate us.

    We are in a war with authoritarianism. It is a rising tide.

    It will take time to fight authoritarianism. Our public knowledge base has been poisoned by unchecked deception. True believers have been brainwashed. 

    The healing required for this "experiment of a democratic republic" to survive, needs to begin immediately.

agitate against the algorithms 

     A good place to begin is on social media. It is a land of festering animosity, full of distortion, verbal war and invective.

    Individually we can avoid the trolling and comments. Division reigns there. Minds are not changed and it is fertile ground for those who seek to divide and destroy.

     As users we can demand more stringent protection against falsehoods and distortions. Imagine the impact if Facebook or Twitter users were to stage a strike, that is to stay off social media for a day, or a designated time. The algorithms would sleep and the tech billionaire overlords would see how ephemeral is their power to command data and sell it for fortunes. If no one is using the platform, it is worthless. 

    Want to end the hate and lies? Use your power as a user.  

arming with knowledge

    The path to a more tranquil America will require lots of public education.

    Knowledge of history, understanding how our system works, and simply demanding the truth will be a light that cleanses. 

            Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is 

bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the 

community. 

Andrew Carnegie

        Imagine how Koch, Bezos, Steyer, Bloomberg, and Soros money could fuel a dynamic social media, educational and entertainment blitz to awaken a distracted nation! 

    Old fashioned media taught us the danger of smoking, the wisdom of seatbelts, the folly of littering, the crime of child abuse.

     Over the last months I've been engaged in interviews with intelligence, national security, defense and diplomatic officials. While the US has been obsessed with the artful deception of flash and trash and shiny object distractions of an emotionally stunted and morally compromised would be dictator, fault lines have shifted and the world is more dangerous but we have not been paying attention.

    A major takeaway is the degradation of the US, in the eyes of the world, in leadership capacity, in the ability to be trusted and in the stability and credibility of our own belief in ourselves. 

    At this very minute, acting like a mob boss, Trump is bludgeoning a coalition of cultists from the House and a now perverted Republican claque in last stand efforts to defraud 240 years of principle and tradition.

    The nihilistic, tribal and delusional culture of the Trump reign of carnage is bound for the history books as a low point in US presidential behavior. But the people who bought into the lies, were brought to their seething anger, and hatred by his five year attempt to divide. Despite the facts, the truth, which they were told to deny, they believe Trump won. Still, they are no better off. Now they have become a shadow nation that believes in fantasy and fraud.

the "dangerous class"

     University of Texas professor Clyde Barrow is out with a new book that is getting deserved attention. The DANGEROUS CLASS is a take on what is called the Lumpenproletariat. 

    Barrow and other analysts say Trump was good at reaching them, promising them the sky. He has failed to deliver and those angry, hurting, discontented folks continue in their spiral. Since they do not read widely, do not view much more than Fox News propaganda or right wing media, they are stuck in a vortex of fantasy and anger. 

    These people need our help and understanding, as contemptible as they may appear when they begin their frequently camo and weapon bedecked rage, insane Q assertions or support of fraudulent Trump claims. 

    Barrow says the Lumpenproletariat are victims of an economy that passed them by. They are among the populace for which there are no jobs. Too many people, not enough work. At best they try to make it in a gig economy, hard work, low pay and no benefits. They see the rich get richer. They are the poor than gets poorer. They live day to day. They build resentment. That resentment was harnessed by Trump and directed toward others, those with education, people of different origin or race. They find themselves in league with racists, and the poorly educated in a movement of grievances. Anger is the outlet. Trump chums them, stirs their discontent and seems to offer them a way to fight back. Increasingly they are detached from the rest of the culture and they are a danger, to themselves and to everyone else. 

    The nation must find a way to feed them the truth. Strategies are needed to counter the lunacy of conspiracy theories Trump has fostered. 

    Joe Biden must find a way to reach them, to communicate his understanding of their plight, and to explain how they were used and abused.

   we are in this together

    

    As we look for a way back to a functioning nation it would be good to remember not all republicans have become lock stop members of the Trump party. Secretaries of state, and state officials around the nation have stood toe to toe with the Trump Gestapo. America matters more than loyalty to Trump.

    Some of the most bitter attacks on Trump have come from now former Republicans, who look to someday reclaim their party from insanity and cowardice.

    As citizens, all of us, even the Trump nation, worry about the grade drops and devaluation of education the pandemic has produced. We all have a better understanding of how important are teachers and professional educators.

    We are amazed by the vast advance in medical science and the historic research and break throughs that will impact all of our lives and well being. 

    We've begun to gain a new appreciation of friends, family and our church, or temple, or mosque. 

    We miss social contact, dinner parties, family gatherings, travel, theatre, movies, being able to hug or shake hands. 

    All Americans have been victims, even those poor sad souls who still deny the virus is real. They've been victimized twice.

    We've always had "flat-earthers," gullible,  ill informed and easily manipulated folks. Racists and haters have always been with us. It has been over a century since they had a leader. 

    We have to wonder that as this whiny, despicable, fraudster and liar no longer has power if some of those who supported him will not begin to see the truth and the light? Some, not all.

    As we watch an administration of professionals, veterans and competent people wrestle with the staggering issues before us, might we not settle into a level of confidence that will be undeniable to even the most strident?

    Seeing a President, act Presidential, with dignity and honor certainly must be a welcome change.  

    It will good for this nation to see the Republican party return to their traditional form, if they can. That will be a fight.

    What influence might Trump try to parlay? Or will he be enjoined by legal battles that will bury him?

    

   Despite what may come, the majority of this nation must commit to fight against the vestige of authoritarianism. 

    The Trump departure and the Biden arrival is important, but it is only the first step of reviving America's soul.

*   I would bet Joe Biden and a vast majority of his 81 million voters not only know the source of this passage, but believe it.

    I would bet Donald Trump does not. I can't think many of his supporters know or understand it.

    Stay well. Take care of each other.

    See you down the trail.

A Nation Endowed...

              As the United States seeks to repair a sense of nation, bridging division, and return to living into our aspirations we must examine what has happened to our Creator?

        From the first bloom of the republic we've walked with our progenitor, our parent. 

        What has this nation done to God? Where have we put her/him/them? This is a question for those of you with a faith or spiritual life and for those of you who choose to think otherwise. 

            “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men 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.”  Preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

            An observation-the men who signed the declaration were certainly not feminists and some of them were lukewarm to God, personally, though there She/He is, in the first sentence of the first act to declare a free nation.

            From the beginning this nation has abided people of faith and those who eschew it. Isn't that how it should be? Tolerant. Though in our more enlightened self, we've come to recognize the sins of our founding. 

            We would be more free, more just, and better in all ways if we would have started differently with native citizens and their beliefs, and if we had not permitted Africans to be made slaves. 

            At a time, and in a world that was cruel and classist, imperfect though we were, we sought a more perfect union.

     

  birth of a notion

    

            No one is required to practice a faith, but the freedom to exercise a belief is essential to a free society. It is a principle this nation was built upon. 

            A droll and dear friend, a retired Judge, who presided over the process of American justice and who is a student of philosophy, tells people he is a Frisbeterian. He says when a Frisbeterian passes, their soul goes into a frisbee stuck on a roof some place.  

            From the beginning we've had divisions but despite the differences, our Providential parent was put at the foundation.

            The constitution, the very bones of our republic,  is signed under the sentence 

            “...the 17^th of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred eighty seven….”

            This is not an exposition on belief, faith or religion. This is to serve as an understanding that an active allegiance to a Divine power is a keystone to our system of government and it has implications as to how we are as a nation. 

        My use of the word God in this post is code for the sacred beliefs of all, however it is said or left unspoken, imagined, known, practiced or worshipped. It is the human equivalence of an understanding of the Divine intelligence to which humans have fidelity and devotion. 

There is, nor ever was, a unanimity. While Europeans came to these shores for religious freedom, they had different ideas. 

Puritans who made Massachusetts Bay their home set up religious communities based on their view of the Bible. They were, however, not friendly to anyone who had a different view.

At the same time Rhode Island was established for the very purpose of religious freedom. In fact Rhode Island welcomed everyone, faith or no faith and it didn’t matter. Quakers and Jews, who had a hard time elsewhere, were free to practice faith as they wished. People with my judge friend's sense of whimsey would not have burned at a stake in Rhode Island. 

Coexistence, cooperation, and mutual respect, work.

 Just to make sure there was no doubt that our Divine parent was in the midst of everything, the first amendment to the new constitution came just four years later and established that congress could “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” it also gurantees freedom of speech, the press, the right of the people to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances-that is to protest peacefully.

            Bringing this back to the premise, the nation has been built by diversity of people and beliefs, indeed! But always there was a central principle; what we do, how we live, how we treat each other is based on the idea we live in accordance with how God would expect. “…one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” We swear to tell the truth, “so help us God.” The oath of office is sworn on a Bible. 

a kind of secular sacredness

          Over the centuries, the common center of our experiment in democratic republic has been the power we know by many names, according to varied faiths and beliefs. 

          We have become more diverse, multi-cultural and our understanding has more flavor and a diversity of accents.

        While people have been free not to practice a faith, we all have lived according to our constitutional belief in the source of faith, and the even more ancient texts that are at the core of the belief of the major religious groups. 

        Jews, Christians and Muslims share the Ten Commandments that are the foundation of law and principles of behavior. Freedom, justice, equality, divinely ordained if you will, for believers and those who are not. Everyone is to be treated the same.

            So how are we doing? What happened to our Divine guardian in the last four years or so?  Or in the last 50 years? Did someone mug him/her? Did God get fed up with us? 

            Or, have we abandoned the nexus of our nation? Do we merely purport the faith? Do we walk the talk or merely talk it?

            Even those who are agnostic or who claim to be atheist are free to think as such, thanks to our faith in government and the founding document that propounds the importance of living a good life by the measure of a higher standard than merely the doings of we human bipeds.

            As a nation do we put those values first? Or have we turned "God" into an ideological or political tool? 

            I heard a good preacher say, "God is not swayed by our rhetoric or political speechifying?" The principle of strength upon which we premise our right to be a nation, and the guide for the manner in which we will live, has to do with a higher order of things, a power that is just and that knows our intentions. 

        This is not an exercise in esoterica. The last four years have been brutal. The minority president used every opportunity to divide and to destabilize. That most who voted for him believe his lies of election fraud not only marks that we are tribes who draw our succor and knowledge from different places, it demonstrates we have lost our ability to draw to the center. It is evidence of different standards for fact, truth and reality.

        We've always had differences of opinion, but until recently we were able to agree on fact. Donald Trump has spent his life using deception about almost everything. Today millions, most victimized by the distortions of his and their favorite network, believe those lies. That presents a dangerous problem.

        In the early days of the republic James Madison had an idea of public support of churches so a government under the sway of a populist or a mass movement would not be able to restrict or control religious practices and churches. George Washington, a president vastly different from Donald Trump wrote:

“No man’s sentiments are more opposed to any kind of restraint upon religious principles than mine are; yet I must confess, that I am not amongst the number of those who are so much alarmed at the thoughts of making people pay towards the support of that which they profess, if of the denominations of Christians; or declare themselves Jews, Mahomitans or otherwise, & thereby obtain proper relief.” 1784

        We have been able to work it out, to compromise, to act with honor and most of all in the interest of everyone, even with those who hold different personal beliefs. 

    The last 4 years have fanned division, disputed fact, distorted or ignored truth, seen an attempt to discredit the press, despite the provisions of the first amendment. Families, friends, even religions have been victimized, disunited and set at odds. It was intentional, deliberate and unAmerican.

implications 

       The competence and mature assurance of the Biden transition has begun to restore and polish our democratic republic, but sabotage, landmines, and carnage left by the irrational and demented Trump years present implications. This is especially so for those who take seriously the bedrock fealty to Divine Providence found in our constitution and governance.

•       What is a nation with a Divine heritage to make of people who do not believe the Covid virus is real?
•        Or who flaunt precautions that protect others, including those most at risk?
•         Or who do not believe the election results?
•         What does a Godly people think of children pulled away from parents, and forced to sleep on aluminum blankets in cages?
•         Or of those who approve of political behavior that causes harm, fosters division and hate?
•        How can a government vested in a Holy Creator fail to legislate assistance to millions who are unemployed, or the 1 in 4 American children who are food insecure, or people who must decide between food, or rent, or medicine?
•         How is a nation under God to react to a man who desecrates honor, tradition, peaceful transfer of power, undermines belief in our system, perpetuates credibility destroying mass lies? And what are to do about those adore him and believe those lies?

a nation endowed

       A people who call down a God of the ages, who invoke that divine claim, who swear allegiance, and who promise to navigate by virtues of a holy benefaction must answer true- how are we going to rehabilitate? How are we going to bridge the divide? How do we find a truth or settle on fact?

        Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation is a start.

 He suggested Americans do "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience...and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union."

      Healing the wounds of the nation will be hard and challenging, but it is noble and honorable work. It is something every citizen can and should do. 

      In future posts we'll take a closer look.

        In our previous age of division, Lincoln drew strength from the hymn Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. There are lines in the second verse that push us to be honest about our commitment to truth and justice

       "God has sounded for the trumpet that shall never call retreat and is sifting out all human hearts before the judgement seat..."

        Truth matters. Justice will prevail. It is in the nations DNA.We are the agents.  

      Stay well. See you down the trail.

            

        

 

America Convoluted

shades of gray

    If anyone knows how the next couple of months of political drama/trauma will resolve, they are a seer. We are in a perfect storm of political discord. It would not be so serious if the President was not a rogue, and delusional.

    No one can say with certainty where this is headed. These days are full of intrigue, consequence, and intricate to the degree everything is a shade of gray. We are convoluted.

   It is not unlike the central California shoreline. Time and natural forces record the combination of elements that make reality. The closer you look, the more you see. 

    Clean lines do not exist. Nothing is smooth. There is no purity of single element. What we have is a composite, a forced assimilation of geology, an amalgamation of time, nature, and material. Is that not so in 2020?

    Where in nature we can read the forces and effect of  pressure in the lines, it is the same for this nation.

     As founder Benjamin Franklin said after the arduous and combative work of creating the Constitution when he was asked "what kind of government have you given us?" "A republic if you can keep it."

     For the last 233 years we have kept it. We have played by rules. We have seen generations of leaders come and go and abide by defining principles and transitions of power. Compromise and the common good rose above strident party loyalty, or worse, personal avarice, desire and ego. The song lines are in our history. 

   Even if Donald Trump was a great man, a person of the majority, in favor with most Americans, still his behavior would be sordid and unAmerican. That he is the deplorable reprobate tin horn dictator he is, makes his behavior dangerous. 

do we deserve trump?

       It is a hard and unpopular question. But we must ask if we have so abused our system of government and politics with money and greed, and have we so failed at education to teach civics, government and critical reasoning and have we become such a self indulgent consumer society that we have failed to keep a Republic?

rebellion

    You can't look at the aftermath of earth making and not see the presence of storms of force, uplift, shifts and breaking away and more.

    As founder and third President Thomas Jefferson wrote to founder and fourth President James Madison "...a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

the death rattle

   The under representation of the majority and the over representation of the minority is, unless it is fixed, a death rattle for this democratic republic. It is a rebellion past due.

    I come down on the side that we respect the bones of the constitution, but we adjust to make it viable in our age. We have done this from the origin, first Bill of Rights, and later only after struggle, by extending full citizenship to African Americans, to women, to ending repression and oppression, and even to hemming in the indulgent excesses of the money classes. We have evolved and shifted.

    Traditionally Republicans have been all about protecting property value, wealth and individual rights. Democrats have opted for the common good, extending rights and protection against the abuse of corporations and government and using government power to fix social wrongs. But Trump has lobotomized  the Republican ethic and disemboweled its previously vigorous policy on national security. 

      Democrats gave the Republicans in Congress a chance to rid themselves of the Trump menace, but they failed to seize the moment and made their alliance with the fraudulent. They could be smug about giving the wealthy another tax break, and filling the courts with conservatives, some who are zealots and inexperienced. They sold their soul, such as it was.

     The Supreme Court appointment replacing RGB will come back to haunt the Republicans, should Biden win and should the Democrats flip the Senate.   

what about the trump nation?

     Excluding the courts, most of the Trump damage can be amended and changed. Environmental roll backs, dozens of regulations, rejoining climate pacts, reasserting traditional international leadership and dignity in diplomacy, putting professionals back to work at the State Department and in national security, even reestablishing national healthcare, should the conservative court strike it down. Some in the Democrat party push for use of muscle, perhaps even to increase the size of the Supreme Court to make up for the shameful Republican packing. A legislative tough love, an eye for an eye.

    But what about those most belligerent Trump supporters, who sadly congregate largely in ignorance of truth. Trump does not speak it, and Fox News is a propaganda mill, by acknowledgement of those who work there and even some of the ownership.

nests attached to bluffs along the pacific coast near cayucos

   The US is divided, some say as bad as it has been since the 1860s, the verge of the Civil War. Here are some facts:

•     Trump is alone among all Presidents since polling began 80 years ago to have never received approval from a majority of voters.

•  Pew Research finds that 9 in 10 Trump supporters are White-Democrats; 6 in 10 are White
•  3 out of 5 Biden supporters say Whites have an advantage---only 5% of Trump supporters think that.
•   Biden supporters think Fox News, OANN and evangelical pastors have duped or "brain washed" Trump supporters.
•  Trump supporters think Biden supporters have been duped by mainstream media, newspapers, professors and Hollywood

     Previous research has found that conservatives in general and Trump supporters even more so, live with more fear, dislike outsiders, and are believers of conspiracy theories no matter how absurd or fictionalized.

      America is indeed divided. There are wide gaps on race, gender, and immigration. Trump has fanned fears, and refused to be a President for all people. As they say, he plays to the base, only. 

      His base is a minority, mostly white, with less education, and increasingly inclined to give credibility to the belief that Trump is doing battle with occult worshiping, pedophiles who are embedded deep in the government. They also believe that John F. Kennedy is still alive and living in Pittsburgh. How is a nation supposed to deal with people like that?

     It is as though we've gone insane. 4 years of Trump's insanity has made this a sick and divided nation. For years Bill Maher has been asking what will we do when he refuses to leave office. Now it is a serious national discussion. It's a shame no sitting Republicans will do what droves of those who have left the party have done, and that is to say aloud, Trump is a maniac, let alone unfit and unqualified and he is now a clear and present danger to the nation.

     Though it appears there is nothing that can persuade the Trump base to consider the truth, history and to be objective.

The more I study the Trump base and see and hear them the more I am reminded of people I saw when doing investigative reporting on cults. Sadly this only affirms my fears, noted here 4 years ago, that Trump's core is reminiscent of the 1922 brownshirts of Hitler. Then their street politics helped Hitler build an occult based police state and party that was one of the most diabolical in human history. We have been watching a slow moving coup and systematic dismantling of American excellence and respect. 

      Those marginal voters who tilt conservative and appreciate the court packing, or who benefit from tax breaks, business loans, or who applaud less government oversight of water, air and business practices are accomplices as much as the racists, xenophobes, one issue zealots and belligerent ignorant who are the minority presidents, minority base. Unless and until the republic fixes the problem of under representation of the majority and over representation of the minority, all we can tell Dr. Franklin is, we couldn't keep it.

     The first step of rebellion is flip the senate and win the White House. It is time to change the American political landscape with seismic shifts and a relentless pursuit of the thugs who mugged, raped and tried to kill our republic.  

            Vigilance in every step of the voting and vote count.

An historic get out the vote effort and response. And we must be prepared to rise up to demand honesty, fairness and a lawful process and hopefully transition of power. We may have to put our bodies in the street. We may have to be willing to sacrifice to preserve and keep the Republic.

        Stay well.

         See you down the trail.