Brain Hacking / the New Dark Age

             The off-year election results make it clear what matters to inspired voters is not the same stuff the media obsesses about. Reproductive rights issues have now influenced another election though the topic is generally shoved out of news agendas by the obsession with candidate polls, a kind of idiot trail to irrelevance.

         James Fallows, an emeritus wisdom, American journalist, academic, and speech writer said last week it seems the media is more interested in predicting next year’s election than paying attention to the news. Amen!

         I’ve written here of my distress that editors and producers are being reckless in their obsession with dubious polls and the attendant horse race of presidential politics. I blame a generational irrationality. News content managers have come up in an age of click bait, social media streams and distraction. 

        There was a time when political journalism sought to examine record, policy ideas, penetrate campaign organizations and test suitability for office. It appears they now wait for the latest poll and then explain seven ways to Sunday who will win 12 months from now. There is no shortage of "experts" from the political industrial complex to help with the spin.

         Tuesday’s election results benefited those who understand most US voters are still livid about the Supreme Court’s extremist decisions, restrictive state legislatures and the rightwing loud mouth lunacy on school boards. Mom’s for Liberty got pummeled by moms with common sense and civility. 

        People are smarter than social media streams and media simplemindedness that is attracted to the loudest shouting match.

        Most of the preliminary coverage missed what was coming, because the media was too busy trying to predict winners, as Fallows observed on Washington Week

        He knows a thing or two having been a national correspondent for the Atlantic, written for the New York Times, New Yorker, was an editor of US News and World Report, authored several books including a National Book Award winner, has been an academic and a presidential speechwriter. 

         Good journalism, the kind that Fallows generation produced still exists, but you have to get past gaffes, a lack of proportionality, and the current propensity for gotcha. 

        The news media, like politics is more performative today. Less journalism occurs at a time when Americans are less well read and educated, know very little if any history, and they were not taught and so do not understand civics. 

        Many, many Americans have plenty of emotion, and a more than an ample supply of demagogues and simpletons both in politics and media. It is also an age of news and information deserts which only permits a further dumbing down. People let social media algorithms, disinformation and radicalization efforts create their reality and manipulate their behavior. It is an age of brainwashing and group think.

        Coverage of the Hamas barbarism and Israel's response and self defense is demonstrative of how far we have descended, how little critical reason is applied and how intellectually bankrupt we have become.

        Here is one tier of a deep and complicated conflict that samples public and media response:

            

        Criticizing Hamas is not anti Palestinian. 

        Criticizing Netanyahu and his war policy is not anti semitic and not even anti-Israeli. 

        Praising Hamas is anti semitic and is not automatically pro Palestinian.

        Being pro Palestinian is not automatically pro Hamas.

        Being broken hearted by the scenes of death and destruction is not a political position.

        Maybe that is self evident to you and maybe not. But such relatively simple analysis seems lost in most media coverage and certainly on campuses, in cities and social media.Those simple declarative statements above have become fighting words. We are divided, tribal, rancorous, ready to rage and not at all ready to reason.  And that's only the top of it.

        There is complexity, nuance, and detail in ancient adversarial relationships. The involvement of terrorism makes it even more complicated. 

        Yet American screens are filled with hatred and irrationality and very few seem to be interested in anything but expressing angry views, even if they are illegitimate. When they are thrown into the media mix reason has no chance. No one listens.

        War is an ultimate human failing. Warfare is anti human, anti life and irrational.

        I heard an interview today where a Palestinian woman described the ordeal of evacuating a hospital under orders. At no time did the interviewer ask her about the Hamas military operation that was being conducted out of the hospital, nor were there questions about the tunnels below the hospital. A listener who has not read further, heard other sources, or knew of the Hamas tactic of hiding behind civilians would have a takeaway impression that was born out of incomplete knowledge or ignorance, by another name. The interviewer, the media source was at fault for not applying scrutiny, the challenge of a neutral examination, an attempt at objective understanding. Confirm, verify, question.

        I've been to Gaza, the West Bank, into what was Palestinian "territory" and understand the historic anger and the depressed conditions.

        I sat in Jericho with former combatants, Arabs and Jews.

        I've been to a Kibbutz and spent time with man named Uzi, whose parents were original settlers of Israel. He remembers being a boy and having to lay flat on the floor as his home was shelled by enemies in the evening. 

        I met with diplomats from the Palestinian Authority and their counterparts from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. These men had spent years working on sharing roads, moving produce from one zone to another, easing border crossings, protecting water supplies, trying to manage the daily tasks of commerce and agriculture. They thought that by making business together they would not make war.

        I spent days with a Nobel Peace nominee, a Palestinian Christian who was an Israeli citizen. He build schools and a peace institute where Palestinian, Israeli, Muslim, Jew, Druze and Christian children lived and studied together.

        

        Leaders with agendas can wreck and stifle constructive progress. Zealots are dangerous leaders no matter how they pray.

        All of this is to say, what we seen on our screens is horrible, human failure, violence that is evil. War is hell. It has human allies. 

       What we see on screens from America is so often imprecise, without context, so brutally mis-understood and unquestioned. And too we see the way people far away from the hellish reality of Gaza and Israel shout slogans, carry banners, injure and harm other humans, invoke deep hatred and because of what?

        Ignorance, lack of knowledge, stupidity led actions are on a holiday feast in America. Intolerance, hatred, narrow-mindedness, zealotry are on the rampage. They are fed by politicians, media failures, and by people who do not think or do not reason. 

        There is a reason they are called ancient hatreds, but there was a time when journalists and analysts tried to lance the ignorance, or at least lend understanding. Now media exacerbates at worse, or wastes opportunity to bring light.

        I've used the example of the Gaza incursion response to terrorism. But modern political media shows itself to be frequently incompetent on a far less grievous though important matter, American presidential politics, where in their mind the campaign is never over.

        Rather than obsession with irrelevant political polls, that change weekly, and inside the beltway gossip, more time could be devoted to examination of policy options, deep dives into the complexity of the conflicts, the culture war, the threat of a government that cannot compromise, what to do about two set's of "truth", why has a political industrial complex turned our electoral system into a business? 

        Too often media, and it is particularly so these days and with a younger media cadre, is complicit because they are being "played" by a political industry that has learned how to manipulate and spin. Sometimes the old dogs in a news organization had the best sense of things. They'd been around.

        After nearly a half century of chasing deadlines and news I think a dose of old fashioned ethic, skepticism and standards are much needed. Cheers to the old boys and old girls who straddled the world's news from the end of a world war, through a cold war, got beaten and hosed and had dogs turned on them as they covered the struggle for civil rights, who's coverage of Asian wars shook the moorings and exposed the deceit, who investigated a corrupt presidency, challenged government foibles, tested candidates, exposed scandal, and took seriously the idea of being a watchdog of the public's right to know. 

        Edward R. Murrow, father of modern broadcast journalism said something about television that can be applied to all screens, phones and pads included and to the content we consume.

            

            "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference."

        See you down the trail.  

        

"...we thought we'd bring peace to the world..."

off-shore Cambria, CA

        It was buried in an Associated Press report from Colleville-Sur-Mer, France, an account of several dozen veterans in their 90's observing D-Day. About 4 paragraphs down it jumped off the page, one of those universal truths we recognize with a flash.

    The speaker is a 98 year old Penobscot Native American from Indian Island Maine who was participating in a sage-burning ceremony near the beach. Charles Shay was a 19 year old US Army Medic at Omaha Beach.

    "In 1944 I landed on these beaches and we thought we'd bring peace to the world. But it's not possible."

    It is not possible! Peace?

    Sage burning is a native ritual of cleansing and release and on this day in honor of fallen comrades. 

    "I have never forgotten them and know their spirits are here."

    The AP reports "He said he is especially sad to see war in Europe again. 

    'Ukraine is sad. I feel sorry for the people there and I don't know why this war had to come, but I think human beings like to, I think they like to fight, I don't know...'"

    98, a survivor of an historically bloody invasion tending to the fallen as a healer, a spiritual man who has seen the ways of the world for almost a century, and he cannot understand human beings. 

    It is no wonder then that I cannot. 

    Peace, the diadem of human faith, the elusive goal of religions and diplomacy, the thing that humankind values above all, even trying to find it in places, things, and states of mind. Peace, a state of no conflict, of no hostility, of no more war. It is not possible.

    Not possible. You can't get peace out violence. 

    Quickly I attempted to deconstruct the truth that Charles Shay spoke 78 years after he was part of massive effort to "bring peace." My mind ran to my father and his generation who fought in that war, to "win the peace." And then to my friends who "did their patriotic duty" in Viet Nam and then to all of the other conflicts, all over the globe. Why is it that we ask so much for a peace that is impossible. 

    It was ever such.

    The only good thing to be said of a war is when it ends. Though, does it ever? It only changes shape and decades. Peace, an idealistic aspiration is shredded by a read of history. 

    We stumble through life grazing for something that will resonate deeply as significant, a clarifying knowledge, an insight. We search, even as we're never sure what it is we're after. Until it smacks us. 

    Peace is impossible, because?

    As Mr. Shay said, "human beings like to, I think they like to fight."

    Despite the wisdom of this special man, and even in these later years of my life, I'm not giving up on peace, either as a diplomatic and geo political quest, and certainly not as a spiritual reality. 

    As a global status it may not be possible, no indeed, but the absence of trying for it is even more disturbing. 

    Some humans choose to live in peace, engaging our better likes. 

    Lana creates beauty. Here is evidence, a corner of our deck, benefiting from her affirmation of life by means of a green thumb.

    Even through the millennia of human history, from clubs and stones to assault weapons, killer drones and nuclear missiles, the force of life resurrects itself, nature shows us the path. For as long as we have told our histories particular humans have lifted our vision to what can be. Like Mr. Shay humans have knelt over the injured and dying and have comforted parents, friends and the grieving. Humans have told us there is a better way. It need not be our destiny "... to like to fight. 

    I think it is that which enables our survival.

    Peace.

    See you down the trail.

    

    

 

LIVING WITH PUTIN, OR NOT!

             Hoping to provide a least a momentary break by sharing images of where I've sought solace while ruminating about Putin and his evil and destructive arc. 

        Longtime readers may recall the December 2013 post "A Bullet for Putin?" It was another of the "tells" that I saw in his emerging philosophy and world view. He has been signaling his messianic intentions to change the world map and elevate himself to that of a czar and hero of the fatherland. 

        So how do we live in a world with Putin? How do we behave, upholding human civility and the sanctity of law, while a thug with no regard for life or territorial integrity invades and attacks, committing war crimes?

            To a straightforward mind it seems wrong not to be more aggressive and to intervene to stop the invasion and brutality. That has been the plea of the Ukrainian people and President Zelensky. However from the safety of not being bombed and invaded, the world's response has been to leverage war without escalating the violence, which could quickly lead to a World War. That is made more frightening by Putin's irrationality and his stance on nuclear weapons.

        The sanctions and diplomacy are important and have already begun to have a cratering impact on Russia. But if you are a Ukrainian it seems to be not enough.

        There are larger issues here. Putin must be stopped and must be made to pay a high price. If not, he will continue with his messianic vision and mad agenda. 

        If the west were to respond militarily, they could stop the invasion where it is and if inclined could seriously damage Russian military infrastructure. Punishing strikes on Russian bases might seem an effective response to such lawless and blatant aggression. But that takes the war to Russia and there would be dire consequences.

            The draconian sanctions are a way to degrade Russian power and perhaps force and incentivize the Russian military to stop Putin. 

        The Russian economy is in free fall. Increasingly Russia is being cut off from the world. The millions of Russian citizens are unwitting victims of Putin's war. He has moved the nation backwards. The war crimes being committed are being catalogued and investigated already. This will reach into the military and the bureaucracy. Sources in the West are communicating with sources in Russia with the objective of giving doubting Russians a path to depose Putin, or to circumvent his war plans.     

            That is the best hope, and it is only that. It may be that Russian citizens will be so hurt by a devastated and isolated "life as normal"  they will find a way, even in the face of arrest and jail for speaking against Putin and his war. There may be a common sense in the military command to reason that Putin is indeed mad, out of touch with the legacy impact of his actions and that he is just wrong. The only way forward for Putin is to pursue his own grandiose vision and the Generals know there are costs, and strategic disadvantages. Finally, most of them do not want to be tried for the war crimes. 

            When the Soviet Union collapsed it was Red Army Generals who made a secret trip to Washington to talk about the disposition of Soviet nuclear warheads on land, on submarines and on airplanes. Two heroic US Senators did what James Baker and George HW Bush did not, that was to meet with the Generals and to begin the process to secure the old Soviet war heads. 

            Republican Dick Lugar and Democrat Sam Nunn put themselves at risk by traveling, negotiating and working with former Soviet commanders to keep the war heads safe, off the black market and secure. It began as an emergency appropriation, became the Nunn-Lugar Act and eventually the Cooperative Threat Reduction program.

            Russian military leadership called a halt to the Russo Japanese conflict in 1905. Again in 1917 the Russian military just quit fighting, tried of World War I. US and Russian counterparts have communicated periodically in the last half of the 20th Century and in the 21st. Military leaders understand the risk of modern warfare to the future of life on the planet.

            The first KGB officer to rule was Yuri Andropov in the 1980's. It was during this reign that planning to stage and survive a nuclear exchange was undertaken. Even though Andropov increased military spending, creating hardship in his economy to lavish the Generals, it was the military who began to reach out the west to alert the world to how "hair trigger" the nuclear game had become. The Russian military and the KGB have different world views. 

        I expect as the war crimes and the brutality of the unprovoked war continue there will increasing debate in the west, among NATO and in the US about upping our response, getting more militarily involved. 

        There is truth in the historic comparisons and questions about "what if" Hitler's early invasions and lunatic aspirations were stopped. If Putin is able to succeed in changing the map, or even survive, he will be empowered and emboldened. In my view, there is no place in the modern world for people like Putin, other than in prison or dead and used as an example. 

        

        Putin is a demonstration of why there are alliances, why NATO is important. He is an example of why democracy is essential and why authoritarians are dangerous and should be permitted only in ancient history. 

        A final thought for now. As we watch history made be careful of what you see in public opinion polls. The media ballyhoos them. 

        They are positioned as an entre' into the public mind or a validation or repudiation of a policy or statement. After several decades in journalism I've come to think there is too much emphasis on the "take" or meaning of the polls. 

        Some questions surpass public knowledge or understanding. The polls only compound false assumptions or  misrepresentation. Too many people react based on emotion and feeling instead of facts or critical reasoning. Too many people are in their own confirming information silos and do not have a complete or broad understanding.  

        A terrible use is to pose a simplistic question like "Should the US use military force to support Ukraine?" or "Should the US do more...." Yes public policy needs public acceptance, but asking an increasingly ill informed, even misinformed social media fed public is as useful as me asking the shelled denizens of the tidal pool, can I walk on water. 

        BTW there is a self portrait of sorts in the first frame.

        Nothing is a simple as some will try to make you think it is. Nothing is more difficult than watching innocents suffer, unless it is finding a way to end the violence.

        I hope a truce can be struck, and that combatants will be separated by a UN resolution. The negotiations that I hope will come will be a challenge. It will be difficult for Putin to accept anything less than some gain, and in my view that is too much.

        Modern history tells us tyrants and power mad men like Putin need to be cut down, earlier rather than later. But it has to be done properly. 

        We are in a brutal time. We can counter a bit by our humane support for Ukrainians, those who are left behind, and those who seek refuge. Everyone can do something. 

        Remember to unplug occasionally, breath deeply and de-stress.

        Peace!  

        See you down the trail. 

        

    

WAR-The Mindset-The Risks

 

Nine Minutes Past Mid Night

brutality rising

    Human kind may be passing into a savage age. Markers are apparent; life upended by a virus, patterns of vicious and freak weather, social disorder, decline of civility, political degradation and now Russia's mad war of aggression in Europe. Any one is threatening, all of them could drag us out of the peaceful world our generations have enjoyed since the end of the second World War.

        We have lived in a rare interval of peace and well being in the span of a human history full of misery, suffering, darkness and brutality. 

        Within hours of Russia's invasion of Ukraine I sat in a briefing with six of the world's preeminent intelligence and security officers for a hard nosed assessment of where the new war finds us and what risks are ahead.

        The recent historic antecedent is Sudetenland in the late 30's. This is not about Ukraine and NATO, it is a manifestation of the Putin doctrine. It is an historic breaking of international law and rules, driven by man with a messianic complex who strives to change history to his shaping, remaking the map of Russia.

        The analysis from men who led Britain's MI 6, CIA, Canada's Security Intelligence Service, the British Foreign Office, and Homeland Security says Western response has been strong and united, but it will be tested by challenges, primarily economic costs. Western leadership is compromised by internal political division in the US, new leadership in Germany, Johnson's weak credibility in Britain, impatient domestic response and certitude. Taiwan looms over how this is resolved and they say it is likely to be a long process. 

        The invasion is a game changer, a disregard for law and is a piece of the rising authoritarian mindset that tramples, and seeks to destroy democratic structures and the rule of law and civil order. 

        There is a sense Putin is in an isolated state of mind as he demonstrates a messiah complex. He is in a dangerous state. He reads the West as being in a state of decay. The security veterans agree Putin must pay a heavy cost.

        The former senior CIA officer said we need to buckle up for a long ride, saying Putin's goals are beyond Ukraine, wanting to build the "Great Russia." Putin thinks "he can out suffer us, out last us and divide us."

        One of the men said we need to learn to deal with assertive and regressive leaders, that Putin is not alone. 

        They say this is an historic fight that can shape how succeeding generations will live, the degree to which law has value and meaning. Citizens should be informed of what is at risk and the cost. The costs will not be equally distributed. Gas and food costs will feed inflation in the US and elsewhere. 

        They warn of a possible spill over affect, perhaps by something as simple as a mistake. If any NATO nation is violated by cyber or military action, they say NATO must hit back with severity. 

fog in the valley, stars and moon 

        Repeatedly China was discussed. China will measure how resolved and lasting is the western response. Xi Jinping too thinks the West, especially the US is in decline and decay. He will calculate how we might respond to moves on Taiwan.

      They were quick to note the Russia-China alliance is not like the old Axis alliance of WWII. They say while China watches closely and shares a brutal resolve with Russia, it doesn't know how to be an ally. They will not make sacrifices for Russia. China will respect Putin as long as he does not get in the way or affect their agendas. 

        The China Belts and Roads initiative runs through the area of the conflict and neighboring nations. 

    

        Moments like this remind us of the interconnectedness of human endeavor and thought. In these closing paragraphs I seek to interpret the stark and hard-nosed assessment of men with years of real world knowledge, unknown to the majorities of the world.

        America has lost its way and is no longer the power that emerged from the end of WWII.

        How might this moment exist if Trump had not been subservient and a sycophant to Putin, taking Putin's word over the wisdom of his own national security apparatus?

        How might this moment look if Republicans had spotted in Trump the same authoritarian and reckless disregard for law and protocol as we see in Putin?

        How might this moment look if the Republican party stood up against the January 6th insurrection and all of the Trump effort to undermine an election and then attempt to overthrow the results? That was an invasion of our own sovereignty and dignity. And it followed the invasion of Putin's doctrine in our culture and politics.

        It is no wonder Putin and Xi look at us as in decay, and weak.

        The behavior of some elected office holders has been in my thinking traitorous. If I had my way they would be tried and if convicted they should be shot.

        I put in that number Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Elise Stefanik, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, John Kennedy.  I will not dignify what they have said but they have worked to undermine the US and the Western response to Putin's violation of international law. They are a pack of jackals in alliance with a Pariah.

       One of the British intelligence officers and a former Senior CIA officer said emphatically the Russian people must be made to pay, despite the pleas not to hurt the people because of Putin. The veteran's logic is, as long as their leader behaves as an international outlaw and Pariah, they too are culpable. They suggested yanking all Russian tourism visas, expelling Russians from international associations and sporting competitions, hitting them financially until they as a nation depose Putin or prevail at insisting the nation stop its illegal aggression.

    Until the US destroys the Republican Fifth Column we will indeed be weakened and it will encourage tyrants and assertive leaders such as Putin. Fox News personalities are amongst the anti American lobby and they have poisoned the minds of millions.

    Sad to say it, but those millions who think Trump won an election, or who elect fools like those named above, are also traitors to this nation and have contributed to the emboldening of a dictator. 

    Most of us have not lived through an event that is so precipitous. The best way forward is to adhere to principles of Westphalian Sovereignty, to listen to wisdom and experience, to remain true to our constitutional principles, think of the well being of all, reject emotion, propaganda and lies

and to be resolute and willing to pay the costs. To turn Putin on his own words, we must "out suffer, out last" him and not allow him to divide us any further.  It may take us into a brutal world, but we cannot relinquish our humanity or intelligence nor our will to prevail. 

   Stay strong.

   See you down the trail. 

American Beliefs at War

 

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.                                                                             Robert Heinlein                                                                        writer, aeronautical engineer  

    The norm shattering of the last four years, as much of an assault on American values as it has been, is coming now to its dark maturity. 

    Beginning with his inauguration he worked to divide America. Now Donald Trump prepares to take America to war.

    The examination ahead will be frank, and difficult to abide so before we begin with a few scenes from a recent walk on the shore. May they be pleasing and soothe our troubled hearts.

History is the only register of crimes and misfortunes.                                             Voltaire

    Trump's behavior since being rejected by a record number of Americans has been to sabotage the nation. People were shocked to learn he explored options for a war against Iraq after replacing top military command officials.

    He continues to violate the Presidential Records Act by destroying files and papers. Some staff have surreptitiously tried to tape and stash documents.

    His delay in transition will only worsen the pandemic he ignored and lied about. It puts our national security on uneven ground.

    Trying to leverage his bent for an authoritarian control of the government he's signaled his supporters to refuse to accept the legitimacy of the new government. His supporters march and violence follows. It is the type of thing we see in some nations and we have seen it in history. 

    The "Brown Shirts" and the Storm Division paramilitary supporters of populist demagogue and madman Adolf Hitler began with demonstrations and street fights in 1924. 

     They were "militias," supporters of a movement leader who demanded loyalty. The appeal was based on grievances, anger  and division.

    Fix in your mind how Trump took over the Republican party by bullying and grievance. Adolph Hitler went from outsider and built a non conventional base of the disaffected. His Nazi movement, a fringe element, gained enough power in the Conservative coalition,  that it could not rule without him. That was in 1932. By 1933 Hitler was elected Chancellor and he dismissed the Parliment.

        The Nazi Party established control of the courts and controlled the judges. Those who spoke against him were run through a mock judicial process. The free press was attacked, opposition groups were run over by Nazi paramilitary. The Dachau concentration camp was built in 1933, others followed and we know the history. The regime lied, repeatedly. 

    The Nazis were specialists at propaganda and image with the intent of brainwashing. They didn't need a Fox News they had Joesph Goebbels a government minister of propaganda.

     Most Fox News viewers fail to know its founder was also a propagandist. Roger Ailes was Richard Nixon's television producer and advisor. Later he worked for Ronald Reagan, to help with spin and party line. He advised the Bush campaigns. 

    Most news organizations evolved from a role of public service. Fox News began with a mission to spin, and to tilt right. That is to be a propaganda mill.

    A document found in the Richard Nixon library outlines the first draft of Fox News. Ailes authored "A Plan for Putting the GOP on Television." The idea was to put party doctrine over fair and balanced reporting over what Ailes said was the "bias" of journalism. Years later it was a cruel irony then,  when Ailes launched the conservative to right wing news network using "fair and balanced" as their moniker. I suspect his karma is still in deficit. 

    Ailes and Trump were a match. Ailes like Trump was thrice married and like Trump a sexual predator. In fact allegations of sexual harrassment by 23 women forced his resignation in disgrace. But he created a monster in America, a "news by flavor" outlet that in truth functions as a mouth piece, a propagandist for right wing Republican politics. But no more. Most traditional conservatives and Republicans have left the party to fight back with their own words and pictures. Fox News helped to kill the Republican party, helping turn it into a Trumpist party.

    Trump, an egoist, learned early he could use TV by breaking norms. People who have studied him, see similarities in his speaking manner to another "right wing crack pot."

    Trump often strikes poses similar to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

    Mussolini was also a narcissist. The pouting face, jutting jaw

   crossed arms and fist making hand gestures are frequent 

     Trump moves. History is always revealing.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Mark Twain

    

    The scene above, of a Nazi rally should be particularly chilling, especially to those who say it can't happen here.

    That image is Madison Square Garden, 1939.

     "Americanism" and America First were catch phrases of a far right wing to conservative sentiment.

    20 Thousand Americans filled the Garden that night to celebrate George Washington's birthday.

    At the next "Stop the Steal" or "Four More Years" rally, as people clearly ignore the facts, certified even by Trump apointees in government, you may feel a quick retraction of time.

    Street violence is a tool. Another attack on our belief in our system.

      History may indeed repeat, if we are ignorant of it. Ignorance is a fuel for populists. Ignorance is rampant in America now.

       Trump's refusal to cooperate with a transition is a belligerent personal act of narcissistic defiance, but it is also dangerous and undermining.

    He has been a divider for four years. He has worked since 2016 to erode the credibility of our electoral process and our American traditions and norms, which have been a standard for the world, a beacon of democracy. 

    It appears he plans to stay vocal. That serves him personally as he can continue to fund raise. It serves him to have a pulpit from which to spew, to prance and dance and bathe in the adoration of the ignorant. But it also divides this nation. It drives hatred into the heart of the body politic. It is a cancer to the sinews and muscle of the Republic that has held, except for the civil war. And there again the eyes of history are on us.

And so are other eyes.

    Generations of our children and grand children deserve better than what they see in us now. A democratic republic is hard work. But for most of two and half centuries we have observed norms, traditions, respected honesty, searched for fact and truth. Donald Trump does none of that and each day  he remains the toxic being he is, he moves us closer to the battle lines, in our own nation, and unless he is checked, perhaps in some war making effort abroad. 

    We've had our fill of mistaken foreign wars. We've survived a a civil war. Donald Trump is a fuse.

    There is no longer any decent explanation for supporting him, as a citizen or as a member of the Senate. He lost, fair and square. His law suites are without a cause. There is another reason he deserves no support, he is evil.

    Authoritarianism is growing. Trumpism is likely to survive, for a while at least. Fighting that is in our interest, but it will be a detailed process and it involves fellow citizens, abused humans. We'll look at that fight in future posts. 

    The past should be remembered, and the future should be honored. 

    Stay safe. Stay well. Be vigilant.

    See you down the trail.