Benedict Donald

A letter I wrote to my government representatives in Washington, DC; Jared Polis, Cory Booker and Michael F. Bennet.

'As your constituent, I strongly recommend an article you should read and then act upon; David Corn's article of exasperation re: the Russian hacking and interference in US elections - in 2016 and on-going by the Congressional testimony of the NSA, CIA and other various US intel agencies.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/while-america-sleeps-trumps-treachery-and-the-russia-scandal/

Mr Corn's concerns are bolstered and verified by all the intelligence apparatus of the USA. Yet POTUS dismisses all of it as sheer fabrication without any substantive evidence to back his preposterous assertion.

In the mean time, Mr Trump goes to NATO - our closest, most trusted allies - and rails nonsense about energy dependency and chastises member states for 'delinquency' as if he were a slum-lord in Queens again.

Then, after spitting in the communal well, he goes off to Helsinki for a secret meeting with the former KGB general and ruthless despot of the Russian Federation, of whom he has said "Putin is fine. He’s fine. We’re all fine. We’re people.” As if that makes a lick of sense at all.

 
Pol Pot, Sukarno, Idi Amin, Papa Doc Duvalier; they were all 'people'. they were most demonstrably not 'fine' people, no more than the alt/right fascists of Charlottesville were 'very fine people'. The Nazis at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen were all 'people'. Murderous, debased, banal and evil people for whom no excuse or rationale suffices to exonerate or absolve them of their horrific crimes.

Act to defend our Republic, our fragile democracy, from enemies both foreign and domestic. One such enemy of our system of government is Vladimir Putin. Another now resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump is acting as an agent of a hostile, contentious foreign power - sowing discord and disunion amongst our staunchest, most trusted and proven allies; Great Britain, France, Canada, and so on. Trump's campaign to deconstruct the NATO alliance and cozy up to the dictators of North Korea and the Russian Federation must be thwarted.

Protect the Mueller investigation.
Move to impeach the president.'

Rhinoceros

Last Saturday, I saw the Eugene Ionesco play, 'Rhinoceros'. I'd never actually seen the entire play before. As I watched, though, I remembered that the 'rhinoceros' was a metaphor for fascism. I took the opportunity between acts to share that reading with my theater-party of actors and writers. From then on, seen through the lens of historical reference, the play became even more disturbing and terrifying. 

Slowly, the fright and disruption of the appearance of the rhinoceros in the small French village became 'normalized'. Intellectuals - the talking-head commentators of the day - rationalized the events, dissecting every aspect, atomizing its elements and boiling down the phenomena into a palatable, if bitter, stew for public consumption. 

The towns-folk, who had been stricken with fear and confusion at the impossibility of rhinos thundering through the town harming, wounding and killing those who crossed their destructive path, began changing into rhinos. Normal people, up-right people of rational temperament and traditional up-bringing became rhinoceroses - became fascists. 

The thundering confusion and altercations of the growing stampede of metaphorical ungulates passes from being exceptional and outrageous and becomes everyday. The destructive presence of the rhino herd is accepted as a simple, unavoidable fact of life; justified and rationalized. Then, reconciliation and accedence follows with one lone hold-out, Berenger, questioning his own sanity and the verisimilitude of his life, even lamenting his inability to morph into a rhino/fascist himself before reaffirming his humanity at the play's end.

The reality of 'Rhinoceros' is what played out so murderously in the mid-twentieth century and lead the world to war and conflagration. 'Rhinoceros' is the plague of monsters which was defeated, denounced, de-fanged and disemboweled at the Nuremberg Trials. 'Never Again' - was the watch-word; the cry of defiance.

Never Again!

But... here we are again. AGAIN! Stunned to witness Charlottesville. Shocked by the election of Drumpf and his less flamboyant counterparts in Europe and Asia who clamor for authoritarianism, using racism, xenophobia and hatred to inflame everyday, normal people to morph into the mindless rampaging beasts of destruction represented by Ionesco's rhinos.

We cannot allow this to happen. Not again. Never Again! 

We must not allow ourselves and our social partners to acquiesce to the herd mentality. We must be ever on-guard and vigilant in a righteous struggle to preserve our humanity; that ethos of social beneficence which has developed over the course of human history. 

Rhino/fascists must never be allowed to ravage our society.

Never Again...

The Long Dark Psychotic Break of the American Electorate

Like many of the oh-my-fricking-god-how-is-he-still-POTUS contingent, I've been trying to figure out how 25% of the electorate voted for an infamous, notorious con-man, fraud, liar... (you know the drill - fill in the blanks with your own favorite ). 

A bit like trying to figure out how the magician made the Abrams Tank disappear.
 
Since the election (ugh), I've held out hope that once the Orange Meringue    

Mussolini had screwed the pooch enough times and blathered enough idiocies, bald-faced lies, parapraxis, Freudian slips, Malapropisms and out-right grammatical and syntactic errors, (as he was sure to do) a portion of the mob would come to their senses. 

Call me an optimist. 

However, the vast majority of people who identify themselves as 'Republicans' still support the Mango Madman despite his monstrous policies towards children and young people (e.g. cancelling DACA, stealing children from their pitiable parents,

de-funding meal programs, etc) and despite the wholly appalling actions of his Cabinet officials; Devos, Pruitt, Carson, Zinke - wrecking-balls all - whose sole apparent intention is to ruin and undermine every agency of government, particularly their own.

We've all heard the rambling insanities of Steve King, Jim Jordan, Stephen Miller, the various squawking heads on TV spinning the latest insanity as 'business as usual' with a Trump-twist.  Their rhetoric is detached from rational thought and reality. Their demeanor is that of a gerbil facing a cobra. Crazy people, out in public, amped up on adrenaline, fearful of everything, spouting bull-shit rote-learned from their favorite propaganda program.

Yet, these mannerisms were symptoms rather than the cause, certainly. There was an element missing from my understanding of what has been described by even Republicans as a cult-like mentality.

Then, a minor epiphany.

It occurred to me that what we've had to deal with is a protracted psychotic episode on a large scale. A group psychotic break; a fugue state shared by millions via social and mass media.

Suddenly, Steve King's demented stream of semi-consciousness reminded me of the days of talking down a person having a 'bad trip'. The tripper was no longer sharing a 'common' reality.  Their hallucinations had supplanted that 'common' reality. Imaginary monsters were threatening them just out of sight. Ice was hot and fire was cold. The world was seen through the wrong end of a telescope-turned-kaleidoscope with demons dancing at the far end.

Put on some soothing music, brew some chamomile tea and ride it out.

I contend that's what the majority of people are experiencing these days ; 40% of Americans are experiencing a psychotic break. On the other hand, 60% of Americans view Drumpfen-dork unfavorably (to put it mildly) and don't buy into the Cult of the Orange Gee-Zus. If one factors in those of other nations (Canada, France, the UK, Germany, Japan, China, etc) who see Drumpf as an abhorrent aberration, a deranged malefactor or simply a bumbling buffoon, the odds look much better for us.

Unlike, those inner-astronauts who took the brown acid, unfortunately, there's no chemically determinable end to the delusions of the Cultists about Drumpf being a beneficial - even beatified - entity.  

It has been suggested that the pervasive opioids pandemic might lie at the root of this psychotic break. More study needs to be done, but given the demographics of Drumpf Cult members, it seems plausible. Toss in a few meth-heads in MAGA T-shirts and the picture comes into sharper focus.

For utter wack-jobs like Steve King, though, the bad trip might never end. 

50mg of Thorazine over here, nurse. STAT!

Our Moral Imbecile

'“Moral imbeciles” - that's what those of Trump's amoral, unethical ilk were called in the 19th Century. '
(Read Gene Lyon's article in the Chicago Sun-Times.)

https://chicago.suntimes.com/?post_type=cst_article&p=1195618

Trump's actions are determined by his own personal, self-serving interests and need to feed his over-blown, overweening ego.

His is not the kind of rational temperament that is best suited for the position of POTUS. That is more than evident if one has paid the least attention to the nefarious, corrupt actions of his EPA head, Scott Pruitt.

The argument that 'the people have chosen' is not applicable in this case. It was Russian interference in under-mining and poisoning our electoral process which determined - at least in part - the result of the 2016 election. The very fact that Trump is NOT heeding the strongly worded advise of reputable men such as Admiral Rogers and James Clapper who warn that the Russian efforts to thwart our democratic process are real, verifiable and on-going and real should be taken as an indication that Trump cares not for the good of the nation but only for his own aggrandizement.

It's too late to change the election of 2016. It is not too late to act in the defense of the Republic. Donald J. Trump is a palpable and obvious threat to the US Constitution and to the sustainability of the Republic itself