Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Monday, January 30, 2017

TRICKLES TO TORRENTS

Photo from GOES-16  Courtesy of NOAA via Agency France-Presse

           As my friend Tom said when reviewing the recently released photo, "Spaceship earth still looks pretty good, despite all of the abuse." Indeed it does.
          But it confronts us with the challenge of protecting it and all of us from a dangerous man. We look at that in a moment, but first we celebrate.

forces of nature

    The rains of January have turned Santa Rosa Creek in Cambria into a river. These shots, where the creek meets the Pacific, show how a normally trickling creek has re-contoured the beach.
  It has moved with such force as to cut embankments and deposit drift wood in piles.




emergency signals
    First a word to readers, an apology. When I began Light/Breezes 7 years and more than 1,000 posts ago it was not my intention to fill this space with political analysis or rants. It still is not. However 42 years of journalism including investigative and political reporting and international documentary work has shaped and instructed my world view. I have devoted more words to politics in the last couple of years because of the reality we are living. 
    During my career I assiduously tried to remain non-partisan. In my personal life I have been bi-partisan. I have voted for Democrats, Republicans and Independents. But I tell no one who I vote for. I am a pragmatist and favor those candidates who tilt toward solutions. I distrust all politicians and especially those who are ideologues. I admire those who engage in realpolitik.
    Some readers, and some friends have responded that I have been unfair to Donald Trump and so that brings us to the realpolitik of this moment.
                    
dump trump
     Donald Trump is a danger to this Republic. He lacks the skill, temperament, ability to reason, finesse, character and intellect required of the President. He is a liar, tax cheat, shifty business hustler, sexual predator, narcissist and is not smart enough to know he is being used. I will give him this, he knew his reality television show audience would love him and he knew both parties had ignored some who had been damaged by the near depression and the changing nature of work in America. 
      It is not just that he has no mandate, a minority president behaving as if he'd won by a landslide, I think he lacks the mental balance to hold the office. I have posted all of this but everyday bears it out. 
      That is about Trump, a sick and deplorable cretin. More important is what this means to everyone else?
     I would not assail you were it not a great challenge to our future in several ways. You can read better analysts or ethicists but I would think it failure and cowardice should I not use this opportunity to engage your concern. 
   This is not merely sour grapes, or simply disagreeing with policy or politics. You win and you lose, that is life. No, this is to support the case Trump is unfit and a danger. 


where do they stand?
     What about the Republican Party? What about Trump voters? Before we wade any deeper there is an undeniable reality at work. He is acting, via executive orders, to do things the majority of American voters disapprove. It is fact most Americans don't want him in the office. They certainly don't want him doing what he is and threatening not only this nation but the planet. Presently most Trump supporters are in denial of that, even his serial lies. 
      It is important the Republican party leadership stand up to and even challenge Trump. Sadly, it appears, Mitch McConnell and even Paul Ryan would like to have it both ways. They want to use Trump for their own advantage. Unless they make a break they will be seen as cowards.
      Think I have overstated that? Consider this-from a man who served as counsel for Condi Rice when she was Secretary of State. This is a conservative Republican speaking to others of that stripe. The writer is Eliot A. Cohen in the Atlantic. 


"For the community of conservative thinkers and experts, and more importantly, conservative politicians, this is a testing time. Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist. Your reputation will never recover, nor should it."

      Mr. Cohen is director of the Strategic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins, an author and a highly regarded international analyst.  Consider this as he echoes what former Presidents, national security, intelligence and military leaders have said of Trump.  

     Precisely because the problem is one of temperament and character, it will not get better. It will get worse, as power intoxicates Trump and those around him. It will probably end in calamity—substantial domestic protest and violence, a breakdown of international economic relationships, the collapse of major alliances, or perhaps one or more new wars (even with China) on top of the ones we already have. It will not be surprising in the slightest if his term ends not in four or in eight years, but sooner, with impeachment or removal under the 25th Amendment. The sooner Americans get used to these likelihoods, the better.

     I believe this. History has shown us a precedent. So, I am sorry if you come to this blog for something else, that I intrude  with these passionate thoughts. I write this as a defense for my daughters and my granddaughter. When I am gone I will have, at least, left an honest effort to help motivate people to think about the seriousness of how we live and respond, especially now, in the face of this unprecedented menace. 
 a future
     I will seek to guide this blog with photos, reflections and thoughts that are indeed filled with light. Still I will use the energy I have to cast light where it may illuminate.

     Now is not the time to bury your head in the sand and that is especially true for those of you who provided the minority votes that were enough to put this threatening menace in office. How much do you need to see? Millions around the world take to the streets, experts by the score warn about him, mental health experts offer their advice, he's already begun to destabilize international relations, he's replaced a military chief from his top council and replaced him by a Neo Nazi malcontent as strategist, he lies and obsesses about the size of a crowd, he believes he is above the law. It is madness. No administration in history has begun like this. Already social order is being pushed. When enough of you come to your senses it will help to remove this man.

     See you down the trail.


19 comments:

  1. So, Tom, tell us what's really on your mind, eh?

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    1. Lock him up! or let Madame Defarge handle his personal appearance schedule.

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    2. Americans of intelligence hang their heads in shame while the yayhoos celebrate their victory. What have we come to?

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    3. What indeed? Here's a notion--we have become a nation that feasts on pop culture and celebrity gossip--learns very little history--of those who consume news, too many do so by choosing their "flavor"--while we have permitted politics to become a business and government to be commercialized.

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  2. Don't back down Tom. This is not a case of "you had your eight years; now it's our turn." Where I depart from Cohen is this: it is not simply a question of "temperament and character." Trump is mentally ill and mentally unstable. McConnell and Ryan are complete cowards. They may be successful in using Trump to their own ends, but they risk Trump doing something that has immediate, catastrophic and irreparable consequences to our country and the world. McCain and Graham seem to be standing up to Trump to a limited extent, but they too seem to be content to go down with the ship. We're in big trouble -- Bigly trouble!

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    1. Maybe I'm naive but I hope republican constituents pressure Ryan at least to act with responsibility. McConnell is not only a coward he is a jackass of the highest order.

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  3. You've done a magnificent job of articulating the disgust and fear many of us feel. Trump signs executive orders like he's a king, yet Obama was called a criminal and a despot for violating the Constitution.

    I'm starting to feel better after watching so many people take to the streets to protest Trump. We had over a hundred thousand people marching here in Portland. Still, we're all in for a bumpy ride and it's important we not get lazy or complacent defending our hard-fought liberties.

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    1. I heard Leon Panetta on our local NPR station today as he recounted how difficult it has been to advance the cause of liberty and freedom in this nation's history. This period and the need to dump trump is an historic passage. But I am perplexed by people who seem to be of reasonable intelligence still say "just give him time." Look at the frightening portent we have seen in such a short period.

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  4. Brilliant and painfully on target. I am nominating you for the Diogenes Award for 2017.
    It has become harder and harder to come up with ways to describe the chaos and confusion that Trump has created but you have risen to the occasion. Keep up the good work. Mencken, IF Stone and others would be proud.

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    1. Thanks Frank. Do you remember the old story Larry Conrad told about Diogenes going to Washington looking for an honest man. After a time someone found him disheveled, forlorn and sitting on the steps of the Capitol. Did you find an honest man? he was asked. At the White House they told me to look on Capitol Hill. But when I went into the Capitol building they not only beat me, they also stole my lamp!"

      I think the drama is just beginning.

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  5. It's been all said above, I agree with it all. I'd also encourage you and your readers to read this, if you haven't already: http://billinnebr.blogspot.com/

    On to the trivial. Does the creek have remaining a run of steelhead or silver (coho) salmon?

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  6. Steelhead. Groups like the non profit Greenspace and the DNR have worked hard to preserve and protect the steelhead. Of course some derided those efforts but they are probably the kind of people who continue to support the idiot vulgarian, King Narcissus.

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  7. From the New Yorker Magazine:

    SCIENTISTS BAFFLED BY MCCONNELL AND RYAN’S ABILITY TO STAND UPRIGHT WITHOUT SPINES
    By Andy Borowitz January 30, 2017

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  8. As usual, well said Tom. Thanks...

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  9. KARL MARX SAID SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT THAT THINGS NEED TO HIT BOTTOM BEFORE THE PEOPLE WILL RISE IN REVOLUTION. WE'RE ON OUR WAY.
    AS TO THE CONTENT OF YOUR POSTS, TOM, KEEP UP THE GOOD AND NECESSARY WORK.

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    1. Steve-certainly some of us "senior" observers are noting a shift among some of our contemporaries. I have been appreciative of how many Gen X and Millenials are are already motivated

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  10. I have never been a Trump fan, long before he became president I thought he was an arrogant buffoon who would stop at nothing to get his way. But I believed that respecting the office was important to preserve our society, I still think it is. That said the man who occupies it disrespects it in every way, we must all stand for our principles and ideals, mine tell me that Trump has got to be impeached. Allowing resignation is out of the question.

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    1. You nailed it.
      I agree he has no respect for the office-nor for that matter our history and our constitutional system. He must go!

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