Trump’s Further Reductionism: It Really Is Strange

One might think that having alienated the vast majority of the American electorate during his first term, Donald Trump would figure out the basic math of democracies: the person with the most votes wins. Unless you’re talking about the election of the President of the United States, and then it’s the person with the most electoral college votes wins. That’s very weird, and needs to end.

This essay is a revision and an evolution of a previous essay on this site titled “Reductionism, and the Strange Politics of Donald Trump.” It is updated from the original essay published in 2020 to account for events that have occurred since then. You know, indictments, insurrections, convictions and a host of strange actions and decisions made by a politician who wishes to succeed.

One of the most basic tenets of politics in the age of democracies is that politicians will generally try, as best they can, to appeal to as broad a base as possible.  This is not to say that all politicians do this at the expense of the things in which they believe, but that they moderate their stance on these beliefs, realizing that compromise is the hallmark of a functioning democracy…and adulthood.

Donald Trump is evidently trying a different approach.  Mr. Trump seems determined to reduce his constituency to the absolute smallest number possible, and hope that this will win him a victory in November, 2024.  Over the space of his entire political existence, Donald Trump has sought to insult, degrade, and alienate every group of people in this country not solidly behind his political aspirations.  It does not matter whether that group is identified by their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, political views, or any other characteristic.  If they are not within his base, his hatred and complete contempt for them is proudly brandished every day.

Who are these people who make up Trump’s political base?  They are primarily members of three basic groups: conservative christian evangelicals, white nationalists, and gun toters.  Make no mistake, together, they make up a significant portion of the electorate, but they also overlap to a great extent, sharing several common characteristics which limits their percentage of the overall electorate. Many, if not most of them, are actually gun toting white nationalist christian evangelicals.

Specifically, they are politically unsophisticated, with little or no perception of what comprises a republic and its mechanisms of operation through the democratic process.  They have little or no concept of the art of compromise, and how this purely adult form of conflict resolution serves to preserve and perpetuate any republic that functions on said democratic processes.

For the most part, they are poorly or under-educated and rarely have any college experience.  Those who do lack a unified, holistic, and egalitarian view of the world outside of what is told to them by the governors of the Southern Baptist Convention (the religious teachings of which are essentially bigoted, exclusionary, nationalistic, and imperial), Fox News, Newsmax, and various other right wing mass media propaganda outlets.

They do not seek the truth. Rather, they are willing slaves to the algorithms that take them farther and farther down the rabbit hole of their racist comfort. If they sought truth, they would be in a different place altogether, and really, different people.

Encompassing the three groups mentioned above, Trump’s base consists almost solely of white people who live in a continuous cycle of fear, perpetuated by the propaganda outlets above, of non-white, non-heterosexual, non-conforming people.  This fear cycle peaks when these groups demand equal justice under the law, and equal legal rights and treatment within society as a whole. When a member of the neoconservative right wing in this country argues against the ‘gay agenda,” remind them that this agenda consists of being treated with love, compassion, and basic respect afforded cis-gender, heterosexual white males in this country. Everybody should have this agenda…everybody.

The inherent problem with Trump’s strategy in 2020, and resumed unabated in 2024, is that people either on the fringes of this base, or who simply, for whatever reason, did not want to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 are gone.  They had four years of the carnival show that was the Trump presidency to completely alienate them from Trump and his personal brand of American fascism.  Added to his time in the white house, they now see his flagrant threats to elected officials (“Mitch McConnell must have a death wish.”), multiple indictments for blatant criminal activity whether in office or out, vows to pardon insurrectionists who attempted to overthrow the will of the American people on January 6, 2021, and more to come.

His purposeful alienation of the portion of our electorate that looks critically at candidates for public office with little preference for party affiliation reflects the true manner in which Trump has decided to practice this strange reductionism.  He has enthusiastically and horrifically driven from him every rational and truly patriotic American who does not worship him, as does his base, but who may have considered supporting him in previous elections.

What, then, could his overall strategy be?  It must be this: Donald Trump previously banked on the chaos and destruction that his core base would bring upon America when he lost the election in 2020.  He promised, and to some extent delivered on January 6, 2021, the chaos he promised when asked what his strategy for reelection would be earlier in the cycle. His candidacy in 2024 looks to be more of the same.

When he rightfully lost the 2020 presidential election he issued his call to arms, claiming that the liberals had stolen the election, that they are out to destroy America, and that he would save them if only they would go out and kill, maim, and burn America to the ground in his name and for his sole benefit. He has said many times: “I am the only person who can save America,” and I will tell you this right now; when someone says something like that, and you don’t immediately flush your support for them straight down the toilet, you have no business living outside of a facility for the criminally insane, let alone voting. If you continue to support them, you have no business calling yourself an American.

The bloody and murderous insurrection of January 6, 2021 — which, if you’ll pardon the colloquial speech, really was some pathetic punk-ass bullshit. I mean, if you pin your hopes for revolution on a couple of thousand stupid, hillbilly jackasses with some pepper spray and no plan, you’re just an amateur, stupid jerk-off — is testament to what a person like Donald Trump can do to people who are intellectually akin to rudderless vessels drifting through space and heading for a black hole. As he said in an interview in the 1990s “If I ever go into politics, I’ll probably do so as a republican. Those people will believe anything you tell them.” He was right. Those people who make up his ever shrinking base will believe anything he tells them. But that’s okay, he had a television show.

If he somehow wins the republican nomination, and afterwards, of course, loses the general election in November, 2024, I think he will be surprised at how few people will actually be willing to go out and destroy America on his behalf.  It will happen in small, sporadic events, make no mistake, but we must be willing to absorb this spasm of violence of his core base and continue, as one nation, dedicated to the propositions laid out in our Declaration of Independence, and codified in our ever evolving Constitution. 

Eventually, Donald Trump will fade into history as a sickening footnote of what can happen to any nation when the people do not actively participate in its democratic procedures and allow religious fanatics to gut their education system.

When asked what type of government he and the other framers of the Constitution had designed, Benjamin Franklin is rumored to have said the following: “A republic, if you can keep it.”  Today, Donald Trump is the greatest testament since Adolf Hitler, that we must rededicate ourselves to keeping it.

Related to Mr. Franklin’s attributed statement above is the following: “All it takes for evil to prevail, is for good people to do nothing.” We must, as a nation, in every peaceful and constitutionally protected manner possible, repudiate in the strongest possible terms, the toxic, racist politics of Donald Trump and make certain that his political aspirations die in 2024. We must then rededicate ourselves to keeping the republic that Franklin warned us would be constantly under attack from enemies both outside and within our own country.  If we do not, then believe me, evil people like Donald Trump and his white nationalist, gun toting evangelical followers will prevail.

Peace and Love to All

Christoph Niemand, Citizen X

The Rendezvous

There is a place

A place far, far from us, but closer than our fears would ever want

In this place there walks a creature indistinguishable from any human man

But he is distinguished from us, for he lives an immortal life

Our time, in our place, from birth to old age and death, is but a breath for him.

He walks through this place; so far, but too close, never knowing what we call love

And he loves

Or he wishes to, but knows not how

He longs, but knows that his longing is in vain

Time passed not for this immortal creature, and as our time passed he became more and more that which we all fear

He became fear itself

Then

Then he saw her

And he knew he was slain

She looked frail, and yet he saw through her veil of frailty to the strength that slept within her

The shrouded giant that would crush his world

And in that moment he knew love for the first time in all of his centuries upon centuries of existence

He fell to his knees and wept uncontrollably as this unknown feeling swept through his very essence

Like a tsunami sweeping over a lonely atoll

Her voice: “Mister, are you okay?”

A song never before heard in his universe of darkness

He hid his face, shrank from her and managed only a timid “Yes, now please go away”

She did not move

She did not speak

As time did not pass, he eventually looked up at her.  When he did so, she smiled at him

And extended her delicate hand to help him to his feet

He accepted her hand

And he rose

And for the first time in his immortal life, he did not know what to say, or do

He looked away and down, and spied a single flower

He reached away and down and robbed it from the plant that gave it life

When he did so, he assured it of its rapid death

And, in a way, his own

He presented it to her

The smile that beset her face at this simple gift was so pure and so beautiful that his face, struggling as it was to resist, bore a smile too

He accidentally spoke aloud: “I cannot recall that I have ever smiled before.”

He thought of his centuries without love, torn to shreds by her simple smile, and began to cry again 

But gently this time

He stood before her, wishing with everything he had ever known, that she would leave

And yet his entire life was begging her to stay with him forever

Forever

She could never know the forever in which he lives

This immortal existence, which he had cherished for so long, now became a burden unbearable

As he gently wept, she placed her free hand which held her flower and his death upon his cheek

For she was still holding his hand with her other

This was too much

He needed to flee

Flee to the caressing safety of the fear and darkness he had become

But he couldn’t

He couldn’t

He didn’t want to

His life was no longer his, but hers

He had just not formally presented it to her yet

She looked at him and said

“There’s something strange about you.  Can you tell me what it is?”

“Over time.  Over time, my beautiful flower, if you will allow me”

“Yes, I think I will.  I want to”

He gently removed her hand from his face and placed a gentle kiss upon it

She smiled ever more

He smiled

“I am Heinrich.  I am at you service.  Whatever you wish in this world I shall be honored to make it happen”

“I am Alexandra.  I am honored to make your acquaintance, Heinrich, but for now I must go.  May I meet you here tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow at this same time?  I shall be here”

“I, too.  Until then.”

She gently placed one finger over his lips, took a deep breath of her flower, and gazed deeply into his eyes

After a few moments of love and curiosity growing between them, she slowly turned from him

He stood there, unable to speak or even move as she walked away

As she walked away, she turned once and smiled at him

Then she turned away and continued walking, leaving him standing there, in love

As she walked, she gave an almost inaudible hiss, opened her mouth and grew two long, razor sharp fangs

She ran her tongue gently and sensually over them as if in anticipation of a feast yet to come, then retracted them

She strode purposefully away from him.  She would wait until tomorrow

© 2020, Christopher A. Hollrah

A Pillar of Republicanism: Freedom of Conscience

Some of the most important things I try to illuminate for the people who read my essays, and perhaps also watch the related videos on my YouTube channel, artlife enterprises, are the whole set of concepts that are essential to the republican form of government.  To be clear, I am not talking about government by the republican party, but modern, liberal republicanism as a form of government; what I often refer to as “a republic that functions on the democratic process.”  This piece is dedicated to what I believe is one of the most, if not the most,  important foundational principles of modern republicanism, Freedom of Conscience.

It is worth noting that the principles which form the basis of modern liberal republicanism were developed during the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries in both Europe and America. Simply stated, my definition of Freedom of Conscience is the following: 

The Individual must always, at all times, and under all circumstances be free to think whatever they want.  Likewise, the individual must also always, at all times, and under all circumstances, be free to believe whatever they want.

This is freedom of conscience, and it lies at the very center of what is known as liberal republicanism as a form of government.  It shares this central place with secularism and presumption of innocence before the law, which I shall discuss in other essays.

I know that many conservatives who are reading this essay just cringed at the mention of the word “liberal,” but just as “republican form of government” has nothing to do with the republican party, so use of the term “liberal” here has nothing to do with the democratic party.

So, freedom of conscience is what I stated above, and it is essential to the survival of any republic that these freedoms of thought and belief, no matter how righteous, divine, perverse, good or evil are never regulated or limited in any manner, at any time.  A person’s freedom of conscience must be completely unregulated, for as soon as the state assumes the right to regulate what a person thinks or believes, the republic is no more, and the individual and the nation as a whole have been rendered powerless in the face of the state.

However, freedom of conscience must be limited to thought and belief.  Freedom of Conscience can never translate directly to freedom of action.  The actions of the individual must always be regulated to some extent, for thought and belief exist solely within the vacuum of the individual, but action always exists within the world outside the individual.  Actions always have the potential to affect others, and because of this, they must always be subject to some form of regulation.

Most of our actions seem as if they are unregulated, but this is because our actions generally exist within the accepted parameters of social norms, and/or legal restraints, but the necessary regulation is there.  Whether the regulation is transparent or opaque, all actions of the individual, whether alone, or in concert with others are rightfully regulated within society.  Even those actions to which we are guaranteed the right by our Constitution are regulated in some manner.

One of the most important practical manifestations of  the concept of freedom of conscience is that the state does not have the right to tell any individual who that individual’s enemies are, whether they be foreign or domestic.  This is something that the individual must always have the right to decide within the confines of their own conscience. All of us must have the right to make the decision as to who is and is not our enemy.

The state has the right inform the individual of those groups, both foreign and domestic, that the state feels work counter to the interests of the state and/or the nation, and hence the individual, but that is all it has the right to do.  The state does not have the right to say to anyone; “These people are your enemies, or these people are your friends.”  Alas just as in other matters, the mark of the state, of caesar, so to speak, is to try and take what is not his.  So rest assured, this right of freedom of conscience will come under siege at some point in the life of this nation.

There is also a very practical manifestation to the point of this essay, which I have just laid out, and it is a discussion of the application of the separateness freedom of conscience and lack of freedom of action as it applies to the intertwined fascist, neo-nazi, and white supremacist movements in America.

The very existence of the right of freedom of conscience means, by default, that fascism and white supremacy in America have every right to exist.  Every single individual who thinks fascist and white supremacist thoughts, and holds their core beliefs has the right to do so.  They even have the right to freely and peaceably associate with each other.  Furthermore, as part of the political process, the fascist, white supremacist movement has the right to put up candidates for elected office.

I need to digress from my central focus for just a second, and tell you of what I have seen in American society.  Like all children who suffered thirteen years in the public school system in America, I was taught that America is a place where freedom of conscience exists. However, I saw in my American history classes that in America, in the Post-World War II era, people who held communist beliefs were being arrested, harassed, beaten, and if not being beaten, harassed, and arrested, they were denied, as much as possible, any opportunity to participate in the economy.  I never understood this insanely blatant application of a double standard, that Freedom of Conscience exists in America for everyone, except…

Not only that, but America had just fought the most high-intensity conflict the world had ever seen, World War II, against fascism, and five years later we were arresting communists.  To be honest, I don’t ever remember a lesson plan in school, that included images or references to any fascists being subjected to violent treatment on a society-wide level throughout the 1950s.  I don’t think it happened.  Maybe that’s because fascists and white supremacists are, in the end, corporate friendly.

I apologize for that digression, but I thought it was relevant to any discussion of American socio-political philosophy and history.  So let us return to to our focus, the current fascist / white supremacist movement in America and how it relates to the freedom of Conscience / Freedom of Action dichotomy.  As I have stated, since we live in a secular republic, in which Freedom of Conscience is rumored to exist, fascists and white supremacists have every right to exist, and fascism and white supremacy, as an allied, if not unified political belief, have the right to be part of our political system.  This is the marketplace of ideas which is essential, if we are to succeed in our march toward a more perfect union..

Like republicans, democrats, libertarians, democratic socialists, the green party, whomever, fascists and white supremacists have the right to function peacefully within the democratic system.  They have the right to put candidates forward for office, and they can advertise in those media outlets that will take their money and conduct business with them.  Fascists and white supremacists, like everyone else, have the right to think and believe whatever that want, but their actions to fulfill their designs to amass political power based upon those thoughts and beliefs are, and must be, regulated.  As part of that, however, they should be regulated no more and no less than any other political viewpoint.

Fascists and white supremacists have the right to function peacefully and respectfully within the democratic system.  

Peacefully and respectfully.

Peacefully and respectfully.

What they do not have the right to do, is bring violence into our political system.  Of course, neither does the left, but violence from the left is generally sporadic, impromptu, and narrowly targeted.  As such, it is not well funded, or very well organized; hence the actual ‘non-existence’ existence of AntiFa.  The violence from the right is not that.  The violence of the right, emulating in large measure, from the ultra conservative, fascist / white supremacist movement in America is constant, planned, broadly targeted, well funded, and well organized.  

Violence, in varying degrees, has been a constant theme and a characteristic property of fascism and white supremacy throughout their histories.  Today, in the United States of America, they are harassing school board members, threatening the lives of electoral system staff members and their families, threatening the lives of elected officials and their families, creating propaganda campaigns to raise doubts about the very validity of our electoral systems, and yes, staging a failed coup d’état.  Fascism, white supremacy, neo-nazism and violence all go hand in hand.  

To be sure, the actions cited in the last paragraph are an accurate description of what the far right is doing on a daily basis in America right now. This cannot be allowed.  Their introduction of violence into the American political environment poses the greatest threat to our republic to date, and these groups have used the rise of trumpism to announce their entrance into the body politic’s visible spectrum.

Violence is one of the primary tools used by fascist movements in their effort to secure power, and it is used freely by white supremacist forces to retain what they see as their power, or at least their station of white privilege.  Regardless, the neo-conservative, fascist, white supremacist movement not only employs organized violence as a political tool in our republic, but what is even more dangerous, is that they also possess a political party, the republican party, that seeks to normalize this violence, to make it so frequent, that it becomes accepted political behavior…in a republic that operates on the democratic system.

The question that must be answered is how do we stand against the forces that are bringing violence into America’s political culture?  I suggest two means.  First, of course, vote.  Vote in every election.  More importantly, vote for candidates who will stand beside the core principles of liberal republicanism, even if you disagree with them on policy.  A politician can always be swayed somewhat on policy, for compromise by adults is how republicanism works and survives.  Conversely, politicians can hopefully not be swayed to any degree on the sanctity of this republic and the liberal, foundational principles which gave it birth.

Second, engage in political discourse…like adults.  I am convinced that one of the main reasons we find ourselves in a situation in which we actually have an active and growing fascist political movement in this country stems primarily from the right’s forty-five year old war on education.  If we are to keep this republic, we must find a way to transform ourselves into a nation that talks everyday civics.

Our right to any meaningful degree of Freedom of Conscience will pass away if we allow the forces of fascism and white supremacy to gain a foothold in our political system through their methods of violence.  Not only can we not allow it, but we are the only people who can stop it.  Let fascism and white supremacy exist; they have that right.  Let them honestly place their beliefs and policy goals out in the marketplace of ideas; they have a right to that also.  However, we cannot allow anyone, regardless of what they think or believe, to sweep aside the freedoms that make republicanism as a form of government what it is and can be, in exchange for their dreams of despotism.

© 2021 all rights reserved

Niemand

To Some Clown At AMMO.Com

To: Ammo.com

Re: The Difference Between Nationalism and Patriotism, and Why It Matters, by Sam Jacobs

Before I begin this reply to your article on nationalism and patriotism, I think I should tell you a little about me.

First, I did not write the article which your email was sent to address, but I am a person who checks the Joe’s Addiction email frequently.  I saw your message to the author, and so I read both articles.

I found Mr. Zumwalt’s article exploring the elasticity “American evangelical Christianity’s” application of the title of antichrist quite satisfactory in both its content, and exploration of the issue.  I would have used different language at times, but that’s merely a stylistic preference, and has no bearing on the merits of this article.  Just please know that I read it.

Second, I identify as white, and my pronouns are he/him.  My father’s family is German (I love it when you refer to European familial bloodlines as “stock.”  That’s good stuff.) and my mother’s family is mainly Scottish with, believe it or not, some Lebanese/Syrian branches of the family tree.  What all of this makes me is a white guy with a love of Middle Eastern music.

Enough about me, Let us turn to you article.

First, who is this “we,” of whom you speak in your introductory paragraph?  Who are “we?”  Please answer that question, first.  

Once you’ve done that, we can move on.  You wrote the following paragraph:

“NGOs are largely how George Soros exercises power over the political process of countries, which has led to them being expelled from Hungary and Myanmar. They tend to have generic names like “United We Dream” or “International Rescues Committee.” Thus, they are difficult to attack on their face – are you opposed to dreams and rescues?”

This is where you begin to really sell your package: The nationalist package.

I hate to do this, but I apparently need to do so.  First, I want to thank you for your characterization of NGOs, especially Amnesty International, as part of some sinister conspiracy to promote policies with which you disagree.

Abortion rights, and gay marriage are issues of women’s health care, and equal rights, not some assault on civilization.  Unless, of course, that particular vision of a good and just civilization is one in which women do not have control over their bodies; this control having been taken by groups of elderly white men, and those of the LGBTQ+ community are forced back into some massive, invisible closet from which they are to be thankful for the scraps of human dignity you and the aforementioned elderly white men choose to give them.  Amnesty International looks to defend the basic human rights of people on a global scale, not just ‘prisoners of conscience,’ and that is a good thing.

Allow me to give you an example of the major activities of one of your ‘conservative’ NGOs.  Let us examine the case of “The Family Research Council.”  This, as I am certain your are aware, is one of America’s most prominent conservative Christian NGOs with global operations in service to Christ.  That is all well and good, but as someone much smarter than me once said, “the proof is in the pudding.”  Now I’m not sure exactly what that means, since all pudding today is perfect in five minutes, but that’s beside the point.  What it means for our purposes here, is that we need to take a close look at what The Family Research Council does with the vast amounts of money the faithful send it.  I want you to looks this up, because this is a good one.

This group spends millions upon millions of dollars trying to influence legislation in foreign countries, especially in Africa, to make homosexuality a capital offense.  That’s right, Mr. Jacobs, one of the jewels of the right’s “well organized militia” of NGOs (a christian one, at that!) spends a majority of its money and labor trying to make sure that people can be put to death for being gay.  I don’t really know if the Christ would go for that.

Regarding NGO’s financed in large part by George Soros being expelled from Hungary and Myanmar…Are you serious?  You tried to show how evil an organization is by telling people that they’ve been expelled from Hungary; a state that has assumed a place as the bastion of a white Europe?  The country in which Steve Bannon is setting up schools to train a sort of multi-national, modern-day SS to wage war against immigrants and refugees in Europe?  A state that has, for all intents and purposes, destroyed the fledgling democracy the good people of Hungary tried to build after the fall of the Warsaw Pact?  If I were George Soros, I would consider such expulsion to be an honor!

Myanmar, Really?  A state ruled by a murderous military which swept aside the democratically elected government, so that it could once again exercise complete control of the country?  Really, Mr. Jacobs, are these two places your examples of states that do not want the humanitarian work of groups associated with George Soros present in their countries?  Believe me, it is not George Soros and his money that they don’t want in their countries, it’s the humanitarian work of dedicated and courageous people who may shed light on their nefarious and corrupt operations that they don’t want ion their countries.  Humanitarian organizations tend to raise the spectre of accountability for the actions of all governments, and oppressive regimes like those of Hungary and Myanmar have no need of that, and that is what they don’t want in their countries.

Really, again, I want to know who the “we” is of which you count yourself a gear cog.

Next paragraph for rebuttal, please…thank you.

Globalism is marked by both its global orientation and hostility toward the nation state, but also its view that democracy is a means to an end. When the democratic process fails to provide the “correct” result, this is taken as prima facie something has gone wrong and needs to be corrected. This can be seen in the liberal-globalist response to the election of President Trump in 2016, but also the whole attitude of globalists toward nations like Poland and Hungary, whose democracies consistently oppose liberalism in toto at the ballot box.

Part one:

This paragraph is really the stupidest set of statements I’ve read in a long time.  See discussion of Hungary above, and count Poland as moving headlong in the same direction.  Your characterization of Poland and Hungary as states that choose their governments through the democratic process, is almost as ridiculous as stating that Russia chooses its president through a healthy, free, and fair democratic process.

I hope you understand that the politicians in Eastern European countries that are moving to their countries to the hard right work for Vladimir Putin.  You understand that, don’t you, Mr. Jacobs?

Part two (purely for your benefit):

Globalism: Globalism is the universe in which the ultra-wealthy live.  These people live without need of the nation-state in any way, shape, or form.  Their investments are global, their wealth is global, and and their political power is global.  The rest of us, even those of us on the left must, like you, live within the confines of the concept of the nation-state.  They scream nationalism at you and me, as we’re screaming at each other, they’re fucking everybody on a global scale.

Personally, I, like most of my colleagues on the left, am a globalist in the sense that I see global cooperation, and the actions and policies produced therefrom, especially between the world’s democracies, to be of immeasurable benefit to the world as a whole.  The policies borne of this cooperation are not always altruistic, or devised to insure that all people ate treated equitably, but in a broader, theoretical sense, many of these policies are of general benefit to humanity and the planet as a whole.  True and active cooperation and diplomacy can be seen as one of the great pillars of peace in this world.  Military force, on the other hand; even its use as a threat to other nation-states keeps the world a very dangerous place.

But let us move on.  You know, as in MoveOn.org.

Next, please.

“…until the left started denigrating American history.”

Ah, yes, I must confess that I loved the world most when you wrote: “until the left started denigrating American history.”  There you go, Mr. Jacobs!  Why don’t you just go ahead and strip it all away, discard the shroud of intellect you tried to use to cover your purpose, and bare everything so that the audience you seek can see what your true motive is.

Let me tell you what the left sees in American history.  We see the truth of America.  We see the intentional whitewash of our history designed to hide the crimes against humanity committed by the white race in America.

Really, this effort of ours to confront the sins of our fathers and mothers is for the benefit of all peoples, both in America and abroad.  I realize that this all seems very wrong to white supremacists, white nationalists (for people who consider the term “white supremacist” to be just a little too ‘out front), and your average boot-licking denizen of trumpism, but the truth, as painful as it may be for us all, at times, is really the only option that will allow any of us to someday enter the kingdom of heaven.  You do want to go to heaven, don’t you, Mr. Jacobs?

I will close with the following overall review of your article.  Your sense of justice on issues of human worth is incredibly biased, and immediately strips away the veil of intellectual neutrality you seem to have tried to create.  You should know this, Mr. Jacobs, that any person with even a moderately above average IQ is not fooled by your diversions.

You move between discussing peripheral topics that have nothing to do with the point of your diatribe, and insulting what you call “the left” when defending your precious nationalism.  The language that marks the discussion of peripheral topics is all very neutral, both in meaning and connotation, and this is meant to hide your true purpose, but I think you can count this article among the rest of the “epic fails” of your life.  Your purpose is clearly to sell white supremacy, trumpism and a sick form of nationalism to an unsuspecting and witless audience.

I’m sorry,  Mr. Jacobs, but you are as transparent as a plate glass window, and you have proven yourself completely unable to conceal the purpose of your unnaturally long propaganda poster.  Believe me, I’m not the only person who was glad when it was finally over.

I await your reply.

This letter to you will be posted on my blog site, overwhelmingweirdness.com, so please reply via a comment there.  Of course, I invite you to read some of my other essays on that site, if you feel so inclined.  In fact, I think you should read them all.  You may learn something.

Peace and Love to All,

Niemand

Finding A Balance / Concession 1.0

Finding A Balance:

I have, of late, been recording and publishing short, monologue videos on my YouTube channel, Artlife Enterprises. They’ve all been political in nature, although various parts of some venture outside of that framework.

I enjoy making them, and I decided at the start of the series, that I would keep them pretty raw. I don’t really do any prep work for them, except that I speak about an issue that has been occupying my mind over the last day or so prior to sitting down to record. This insures that each monologue is, essentially, a focused stream of consciousness as I explore the issue. I don’t edit them at all. I publish them complete, as they were recorded.

I have published one video that was of me reading a piece I had written in September, 2020, titled “An Open Letter to My Fellow Progressives.” I’m not sure what I think about that endeavor. I looked at the paper more than I had initially thought I would, and that really distracted me from focusing on the camera in order to accentuate the effect of the spoken word.

There’s another piece I wrote that I’d like to place on video, primarily because I believe it lends itself more to the universe of the dramatic recitation than does An Open Letter. This other piece is titled “Conversation 1: The Evangelical Virus.” I’m not going to say any more about it, because I think It’s a damn good read. You can find it on my blog site: http://www.overwhelmingweirdness.com. Oh, yeah, if you’re reading this, then you’re already there.

The problem I’m trying to avoid is of allowing the convenience of speaking a piece and posting it, to completely marginalize my writing. This is a real issue for me and, I’m fairly certain, other writers in this crazy 21st Century. What I have to remember is that writing is an art like speaking can never be, just as speaking is an art that writing can never be. It is the same, and yet it is different, and the painting of images for a reader is an incredibly rewarding accomplishment. Writing offers the writer an immense level of freedom of influence over what the audience experiences, because there is no visual stimulus to distract from the words. The writers palette has letters and punctuation instead of a spectrum of colors, and the brush strokes of the words are as varied as those of all of the artists ever to have wielded a brush.

Long story short, I think I should write out what will inevitably be a variation on the piece I recorded and published on November 10th, 2020. The YouTube piece is titled: Monolugue 7: Concession. Here is my written interpretation of the issue:

Concession 1.0:

The point of this short essay is the very real possibility, no, probability, that donald trump will not concede this election. He will not concede it today, tomorrow, next week, or probably ever. That, my dear readers, is a very serious matter. This country has the longest history of any country on planet earth of peaceful transfers of power from one administration to the next, but donald trump plans to upset that history by throwing the aberration of his toxic presidency into the fold of this most precious tradition.

What makes this situation even worse, is that we all know why trump refuses to recognize the fact that the American people fired him. He is scrambling to hold on to the presidency, not for some higher purpose of moving this country toward the ever-elusive more perfect union, but for his own self-aggrandizement. His daughter said, when asked about contacts with Russian Security Service personnel by the trump campaign in 2016, “We trumps play to win.” It doesn’t matter to the trumps what the trumps do to other people when they “play to win,” but it matters to us.

Planet Earth to trump: when you invite the assistance of this country’s primary adversary to help you gain power in this country, and when you demonstrate such an insane level of selfishness in the face of a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of American citizens in a short six months, and when you prove yourself, every day, to be one of the most morally depraved of all human beings, we’re going to fire your ass.

Hey, trump, you’re fired.

Several weeks ago, in early October, 2020, I was engaged in a discussion about trump with one of his supporters, and I made the point that he has to know that trump doesn’t give a damn about anybody in this world, but himself. To my amazement, he replied that yes, he knew that. I was stunned, flabbergasted, and said rather loudly and quite forcefully: “We cannot have someone like that in the White House! Don’t you understand that? We cannot have someone occupying the office of president of the United States [by this time I’m yelling] that doesn’t give a shit about anybody but himself! What The Fuck!!!!!!!???????” Luckily, we were on a golf course, so anyone other than our group of four was at least a hundred yards away

So here is a pretty succinct synopsis of our situation: We have one of the most loathsome human beings ever to exist, who has been masquerading as the president of the United States for almost four years, lose an election, badly. However, he refuses to concede the election he lost, and now sets about to do the following: He fires major members of his cabinet — specifically, the one who is tied like no other to the US military — for reasons we are yet to find out, and threatens anyone working in the White House that if he finds out that they’re looking for another job, he’ll fire that person immediately, effective immediately. He also instructs his Ernst Roehm, William Barr, to issue a memo asserting federal prerogative where it does not exist; investigating assertions of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. This issue lies with the states until, and only until, such time as federal intervention is warranted, and that decision, too, lies with the states.

This may very well be the most dangerous time in the history of this country. All you have to do is reread the paragraph above to understand where we are today. The danger is not that donald trump’s fantastical attempt to hold on to the presidency will succeed, it won’t.

“Sorry, “the donald,” we know that when you were a ‘private’ citizen, you could run businesses into the ground over and over, and over again, and the American taxpayers would bail you out through the bankruptcy process, but you can only go bankrupt once as president. After that, well, we just won’t allow you to be that unbelievably selfish and incompetent and hope to not be fired at the first possible moment. Oh, yeah, and in case you didn’t get the memo, that moment came on November 3rd, 2020. Hey trump, you’re fired! Now clean out your desk and get out! Oh yeah, you’re going to have to leave that computer with all of your secret Putin shit on it. That’s probably going to be exhibit A, B, or C at your trial.”

The real danger at this point is what this situation will do to the government of this country. The only thing donald trump as left to ruin, before he is removed from the presidency, is the government…and here he goes. He has already set about doing that in any possible manner he can.

donald trump’s refusal to accept the fair and equitable results of this election means, since we are all familiar with his complete lack of character, that he will eventually result to extra-legal means to retain power. I once heard the following: “There is nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose, nothing to live for, and nothing to prove.” We are witnessing the truth of that statement in donald trump’s actions regarding his defeat by, in the end, the thing he hates the most: the ballot box.

In addition to this, I believe he is considering an “only count the votes for me” tour of rallies around the country. What can you say about something like that? Nothing. All you have to do is take a step back for a second and look at the complete disregard for the boundaries of truth trump would maintain when he was still campaigning, to imagine what he will do or say now that he has lost the election. I physically shudder when I think of the depths of moral desolation to which trump will hurry in order to hold onto power he does not own.

Folks, this is deadly serious, it really is, and how we handle it will say all that will ever need to be said about the character of this country. How will we absorb this spasm of insufferably poor governance and selfishness into the larger framework of this nation’s quest for a more perfect union? That, in the end, is the most important question which this episode in American history will ever require us to answer.

The effects of the trump administration on our republic are impossible to foresee at the moment, but they will have long-term impacts on the social and political landscape of this country for decades, if not generations, to come. Believe it or not, I believe that its effects will be, for the most part, positive. The presidency of donald trump will stand forever as a testament to the horrific things that can happen to any democracy when people do not participate in the governing process.

A break in time:

Let me mention that I started writing this piece four days ago, but my work schedule has placed a damper on the time I’ve had to my sit at the computer to finish the piece.

Within this four days, we have heard nothing from president trump…about anything. Think about that: Aside from firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper (in order, as it appears, to place his loyalists in top positions in the Department of Defense), and appearing like a god to further incite his supporters at their “Million MAGA March” in Washington, D.C. today, we have heard almost nothing from donald trump. We’ve heard nothing about the corona virus and its mounting toll of human life and labor across this country and, indeed, the world. We’ve heard nothing about the election, and the absolutely humiliating, and embarrassing rebuke he suffered at the hands of the American People. We’ve heard nothing about a hundred other news stories of both large and petty corruptions that make up both donald trump’s administration, and his character.

I have to add how insanely telling it is that these people at their Million MAGA March today were out there literally fighting for him in the streets, and he has his motorcade pass them so that he can wave at them as he rides off to a flight to play a round of golf at one of his private clubs. He didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself and they know it, but they don’t care, because they worship him.

That’s just weird.

My dear readers, this is very serious, and we cannot, as a nation, tolerate this level of mental instability in the president of the United States. I’m going to repeat that: “We cannot, as a nation, tolerate this level of mental instability in the president of the United States.” We can’t have it.

All of that being said, I have to admit that this silence of donald trump has become a special time of joy that we haven’t had for almost four years. Think about that, we’re almost at ten days after November 3rd, and the silence from donald trump brings a sense of elation to everyone. I’ll bet even a large number of his hard-core devotees are kind of like: “Wo, I feel like I’ve been under a spell!” This means, of course, that we’re going to hear from him soon, in order to keep the spice flowing. “The spice must flow.”

However, aside from all of the side-show joy this silence has provided us, we have to focus on the damage donald trump is trying inflict on our republic. That may be the worst part. donald trump is trying to inflict as much damage as he can upon this republic, and American society in general, before he is removed from office. We also have to remember that donald trump is plotting and planning every second he’s not sulking, so realistically, about two thirds of his waking hours are spent plotting.

To paraphrase what I stated earlier in this piece; How we absorb the effects of the plot, my fellow people who live under the constitutional protections of this republic, will say all that will ever need to be said about the character of America and Americans in general.

Prepare in peace, and with a sense of love for all people. The test is almost upon us.

Peace and love to all,

Niemand

It’s Not About Policy Anymore

This essay is the result of more than three and a half years of corruption, incompetence, and most of all, a betrayal of the American ideal; the likes of which this country has never seen.  I remember my reaction the day donald trump announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.  I said to myself: “What, does he think he’s going to do, waltz into the White House and be CEO of the United States?”  That answer, as we all know now, is “yes,” that’s exactly what donald trump thinks he should be able to do.

I recently had a short conversation with a good friend about the plans for this essay, and her reaction was that her concern is not so much for the preservation of this republic, but for the damage being done to mankind’s hope for building a world called for by God and His Christ, and for, as Jesus taught us to pray, bringing the kingdom of heaven here.  This was proper, because she is, I feel, at the core of her soul, a godly, spiritual creature.  I, on the other hand, am, at my core, a political creature, and my concern is for the preservation and survival of this republic, and the chance to realize what this great American experiment in self-governance can be; not only to America, but to the world.

The American republic, my dear readers, is under attack and we, as citizens of this republic, are secretly sworn at birth to “defend it and the constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.”  We all know that there are foreign enemies of the United States, but the most dangerous enemy, and the one that is the greatest threat to our republic now is the president of the United States. 

Spreading Our Legs

In the summer of 2018 Donald Trump traveled to Helsinki, Finland to meet with the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin.  This meeting was, essentially, the event that laid before the American people exactly how unsophisticated and uninformed Donald Trump really is concerning the complex nature of international relations.  This is particularly true regarding the ends which Putin seeks for both the United States and the world.

I find it difficult to fathom what Donald Trump could have possibly hoped to have accomplished in his two hour and ten minute, one-on-one, unrecorded meeting with Putin, other than compromising an entire treasure trove of classified US intelligence on a host of subjects.  Thankfully, most of the facts uncovered by the highly sophisticated and informed US intelligence and law enforcement communities regarding Russia’s successful operation to secure victory for donald trump in the 2016 American presidential election are not known to Donald Trump, as they are part of an investigation into his criminal collusion with a foreign power to secure political office in the United States.

As payment for Russia’s assistance, the trump administration refuses to act upon the evidence laid before it regarding Russia’s attacks on the American republic.  They refuse to assist in securing future elections against foreign interference and, in fact, have threatened to remove the security clearances from those within the intelligence community that have been the most vocal critics of the administration’s lack of willingness to protect the American people and their democratic institutions from the likes of Putin and his gangsters in the Kremlin.

Donald Trump is spreading our legs before the insatiable sexual-political appetite of Vladimir Putin, and his cowardly enablers in the republican party refuse to step in and put a stop to it.  As cover for their collective cowardice, they claim to see the issue as one of policy and not the survival of the republic. They are also, for some ungodly reason, scared of donald trump..

In March of 2018 the Department of Homeland Security and The FBI issued an alert with the following title: “Alert TA18- 074A: “Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting Energy and other Critical Infrastructure Sectors.”  The message of this document is that the Russian Government continues to target strategic American infrastructure (this includes our oil and electrical systems, and nuclear facilities), as well as both governmental and non-governmental institutional and organizations. 

Neither the republican-controlled Senate, nor the White House has acted on this information.  Why is this?  The only answer can be because the republican party is now no longer the party of fiscal conservatism, but the party of trump and his ‘they’re stupid, so say anything’ populism.   Republicans the country over are now somehow beholden to him and his base.  They feel they are beholden to trump as we know trump is beholden to Putin.  trump and Putin are the same; each of them cares only for themselves.

I realize that many Trump supporters and apologists will be offended by my last statement, but the evidence is too compelling.  Aside from Trump’s subservient and borderline traitorous performance in Helsinki, the following incidents lay Trump’s pro-Russian–anti-American agenda bare before the American people and the world.

However, before I outline these incidents, I want to offer a few bare, numerical statistics which are very relevant to the situation in which we now find ourselves. The numbers below are pre-pandemic:

  • The US annual GDP is approximately twenty-two trillion dollars (US) in goods and services produced.
  • The EU annual GDP is approximately nineteen trillion dollars in goods and services produced.
  • The Russian Federation’s annual GDP is approximately one point three trillion dollars in goods and services produced.

What these numbers make clear, in a nutshell, is that Russia has absolutely nothing that the United States needs or wants; they produce no products that can compete in our domestic marketplace, and they have no domestic consumer marketplace for American products.  The European Union, on the other hand, not only has goods and services which the American consumer both needs and wants, but it also has the domestic consumer marketplace that desires American products in vast quantities.

Now I shall review several incidents introduced prior to that information:

First, before, during, and after, trump’s important meeting with our European allies, which preceded his personal humiliation in Finland, he continually harangued and insulted our closest allies and largest trading partners in the world.  He actually went so far as to call our closest European allies our “foes” in an official statement delivered through his Twitter account. All of this was done to please Putin, who needs a fractured and dysfunctional NATO alliance if he is to realize his plans of reabsorbing large portions of Russia’s western frontier back into a post-Soviet greater Russian Federation.

Most experts in these matters believe that his first targets will be the Baltic States of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. The Russian Federation has all the land it could ever want. What it needs (as it has always needed) are western ports, and vast buffer spaces against Western militaries.

Second, before this rancourous display at the NATO summit, President trump publicly called for the re-admittance of Russia back into the G7, once more making it the G8. Russia was expelled from this group of the world’s largest economies in retribution for their invasion of the Ukraine and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Of course, with an annual GDP of only 1.3 trillion dollars, they don’t really belong there, anyway.

Of course, no one in the US government had any idea that President Trump would make such a ludicrous suggestion and state, publicly, a complete reversal of a core American foreign policy developed over decades of cooperation with our sister states in Europe. Not only does this reversal possess no benefit at all to the United States, but it actually creates a more dangerous global environment for the United States and its allies. It is, of course, of great benefit to Vladimir Putin.

Third, both during and after transition from the Obama Administration to the trump administration, the State Department was given the directive of finding ways to lift economic sanctions on Russia, return diplomatic compounds, and ease tensions with Moscow.

Fourth, In May of 2018 the Trump Administration, under orders from new National Security Advisor, John Bolton, eliminated the position of Cyber Security Coordinator from the National Security Council.  It is well known within the various wings of our national security apparatus that John Bolton has virtually no cyber-security knowledge or experience, and now this country has no single coordinator of the most relevant and immediate threat to our national security to assist him in advising the President.

The reasoning given for this move was to help streamline the government’s response to cyber-based threats emanating from our adversaries in the world.  However, you don’t have to be a political scientist to realize that when you disperse responsibilities in this manner, you act against the very concept of streamlining.  The United State’s cyber-security functions will now be coordinated by two individuals with differing responsibilities.

Fifth, to date, after three and a half year in office, the trump administration, to the chagrin of Congress and the American electorate as a whole, has neither devised, submitted, nor, apparently, even considered any plan to protect the American democratic electoral system from foreign cyber attacks.  It is obvious that they have no intention of either developing any such plan, submitting any such plan to Congress and the people, or even enacting any sort of ad hoc plan to protect our sacred democratic processes from foreign interference.

Instead, they intend to spread our legs before the greatest adversary of the United States; Vladimir Putin.  This intent to undermine American democracy by the trump administration extends beyond the aspects above, they are also pursuing it in a backdoor manner such as the incidents below:

First, on the same day the the indictment against Russian national, Marina Butina, was unsealed, charging her with, among other things, using the NRA to funnel Russian money to republican candidates and conservative causes in the United States, the US Treasury Department, under orders from the trump administration, announced that the NRA and other similar entities will no longer have to reveal to the IRS the identity of their donors.

Second, during the Transition process from The Barak Obama Administration to the donald trump Administration, Jared Kushner held a secret meeting with the head of a Kremlin-linked Russian Bank currently the target of US and other international sanctions.  The president of this bank has personal ties to the Russian Federal Security Service and Vladimir Putin.

This list of offenses against the American republic could go on almost indefinitely, but I must end them in order to move to the next section of this essay.

The Man who Would be King

Donald Trump admires the strong man, the autocrat, the dictator who can have people murdered with a wisp of his breath.  Men who are above the law in their countries.  Unfortunately for him, he is in the United States, and will never realize his dreams of being able to rule by decree — okay, so that may not be entirely true, since the republican controlled senate is unwilling to operate as part of a separate and equal branch of government.  So let me rephrase — Unfortunately, he is in the United States, and there are limits on the point to which he can rule by decree.

This is no secret.  It is why he praises them above those weak presidents and prime ministers of Europe who respect that cumbersome and unnecessary rule of law. Trump has no idea why they seem to relish the restrictions put upon them by their nations’ laws, history, constitutions, and the basic precepts of democracy.  It is why he is drawn to monsters like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.  It is also why, while he attended the NATO summit, he spent a great deal of time associating with President Erdogan of Turkey; a man who was not only almost overthrown by a coup d’état in 2016 after having himself declared “president for life,” but has also moved his country so far from the democratic principles of the European states with which it is aligned, that Turkey is in danger of being expelled from NATO, and sanctioned by the European Union.

It is why, when Erdogan was reelected in a non-contested presidential race — his most competent and vocal opponents were in prison — in which he essentially had himself named president for life, that trump called him personally to congratulate him on his electoral victory.  I should mention that he did this over the strong objections of his foreign policy advisors.  He also called Vladimir Putin after he was “reelected” in 2018 in one of the most corrupt presidential campaigns in history, again, over the strong objections of his foreign policy advisors.

Donald Trump wants to be a dictator and feels slighted by an unfair world because he is not.  Kim Jon Un can have his own uncle accused of treason and then taken out and shot!  Why can’t Trump do that with Mueller?  This democracy thing is nothing more than a nuisance!

Trump loves and admires the dictators of the world so much that he will do almost anything to curry their favor. In March, 2018 in Singapore, president trump agreed to cancel joint military exercises with our close ally, South Korea.  Believe me, that was one big gift to his new dictator friend.  However, neither South Korea nor our other major ally in the region, Japan, nor even critical actors within the foreign policy sections of the American government were aware that such a concession was even being considered by the White House until it was announced at the end of the meeting.

The US Secretary of Defense had no idea that such a dramatic change in US National Security policy was even being considered. No one with any expertise, or position of responsibility in the complicated world of international relations was consulted. No one, that is, except donald trump’s boss, and the man whose interests donald trump serves; Vladimir Putin.

In the aftermath of president Trump’s many and still unknown concessions to North Korea in his private meeting with Kim Jong Un, it has come to light that in 2017 Vladimir Putin, in a private call between him and president trump, suggested that the US-South Korean joint exercises should be cancelled, indicating that such a move would be a good way to ameliorate Kim Jong Un’s aggressive rhetoric. Such an act would also, of course, drive another wedge between the greater global alliance among the world’s democracies, which Putin needs to be fractured in order to realize his greater plans.

Perhaps Putin was right.  Since the Trump/Un summit the North Korean dictator’s public bravado has been a great deal more, shall we say, ameliorated, but his regime continues to develop nuclear weapons, and the United States’ intelligence community has just released a report detailing the facts that North Korea’s nuclear program has continued unabated.  In fact, according to the NSA, they are now developing a new generation of intercontinental delivery vehicles capable of striking any target in the continental United States.  The response of the Trump administration to this new research was, and I quote: “North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat to the United States.” That was their entire response.  This, of course, is the “Art of the Deal” at work: bankrupt six times over.

UnAmerican Activities…There Ought To Be a Committee

For what, exactly, does the United States of America stand in this world?  This is not a rhetorical question, for the answer points to the heart of what America is; not only to its own citizens and the non-citizens who have emigrated here, but to the people of the world as a whole.  The United States, more than any other country on this planet is a symbol, and in that sense it is supposed to be a symbol of what can be achieved by humanity if the whole of the planet comes together to work on a project dedicated to lifting the human spirit.

Corruption and cronyism are part and parcel of human politics.  They always have been and they always will be, for that is the nature of human, coercive power over another.  It is, in many respects, the water that nourishes a politician’s tree of power.  This, however, does not mean that we should or must accept its presence in our political system.  After all, maybe the greatest prospect of a republic is its innate ability, if acted upon, to minimize, if not defeat corruption.

The corruption emanating from the White House under the direction of donald trump is like nothing ever seen in American history.  What is remarkable is that the president doesn’t care, because he knows that his base of uneducated white men with racist views don’t care.  As far as they are concerned, as long as they can watch football, drink beer, and use the word “nigger” when among their other uneducated, white friends, trump can do whatever he wants.

The rest of us are not so simple, and we see that the corruption of the trump Administration is in its greater part a threat to America’s place in this world as a symbol of humanity’s common goal.  I agree that we are a nation of laws, but since we are the United States of America, we must always first be a nation of compassion.  When the law and compassion collide, the law must be circumvented or loosely interpreted in some manner that will allow our natural sense of compassion to win the day.   Without this prerogative, we cease to be anything more than just another country.

Family Separation

This country continues to suffer through one of the most horrible episodes in its history.  It does not not, of course, compare in any way to the genocide to which the white, European interlopers subjected the indigenous peoples of this continent, nor to the horrors of forced enslavement of millions of African hostages and their children, nor to the Holocaust, but it is, to contemporary America, no less humiliating.  This stated policy of the trump administration is one of the cruelest things any state could do to a family; forcibly take the children away from their parents mere moments after the family has appealed for that which must separate America from all other countries: mercy.

Try, if you can, to place yourself in the shoes of these people for just a moment.  You have uprooted your family from their home, and all they know and hold dear, because of conditions that make it impossible to stay.  You are poor, uneducated, have no idea at all how to navigate the bureaucratic matrix where you are, so you and your spouse decide that if only you and your children can make it to America, you can make a better life…and so you set out on this journey into the unknown.

That, my dear readers, is absolutely appalling, and perhaps the most unAmerican thing any administration could do, short of mass slaughter.  Please remember that this was not the actions of some small group of bigoted zealots acting without authorization from their superiors.  This forced family separation was the stated policy of the trump administration and it carried out bu agents of the United States Government.  When asked by a reporter about the solution to this open hatred at the White House, Trump said, and I quote: “You want a solution? Don’t come to our country illegally!”  Our Embarrassment-in-Chief never fails to live down to the world’s expectations of him.

The Muslim Ban

Bigotry has many roots in a person’s heart, and every one of us knows that it simmers just beneath the surface in all of us.  Most of us, however, are able to see this innate human bigotry, recognize its darkness, and keep it confined, like a genie in a bottle, deep in the core of our existence; minimized and marginalized as it should be.

Unfortunately, in recent decades there have come the voices of men and women of the Christian and political far right who have sought to loose this evil genie that rages against its confinement in us all.  After years and years of preaching to those weakest souls among us who were susceptible to fringe principles, they finally found the fool who could rub the lamp in the hearts of so many who have had their souls distorted by the human racism menace; the fool’s name is donald trump.

One of the most prominent and characteristic properties of both Mr. trump and his base is a basic lack of knowledge of history.  I have never met a person who possesses a deep and abiding knowledge of, or love of, history to have been as openly bigoted as those who’s voices are so loud today in American politics.  It doesn’t happen because people with a knowledge of history possess a consciousness of the suffering that bigotry and fear causes in a nation.

Also, another aspect of this insanity of the “Muslim Ban” is that it is not borne out by the statistics associated with it.  The fact that the only terrorist attack by foreigners who came into our country for that sole purpose was on September 11th, 2001.  Since that day, the number of people killed in terror attacks by people of the Muslim faith in the United States number only sixty-four. That’s nineteen years.

Note: Since 2007, a minimum of 283 people, including 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School have been killed in mass shooting terror attacks by whites (280 by men, 3 by a woman) in the United States.  Hundreds of others were wounded in these attacks.

Each of these Muslim perpetrators was a legal resident of the United States who lived peaceably among his and her neighbors for years; until, of course, people of the Muslim faith and Islam in general began to become vilified by American society as a whole.  These ordinary people found themselves living in a society which, under the auspices of the right-wing press, no longer allowed them to be just people, but labeled them as terrorists, one and all.  Eventually, there will be those among them who become susceptible the message of groups like ISIL, or Al-Qaeda.  Of these people, a small percentage will look for a way to strike back at those who have marginalized them and hated them simply because they are not white, evangelical christians.

Closing

This essay could go on until trump is either voted out or forcibly removed from office, but I must end it.  I will close by stating clearly that donald trump is the greatest threat to the American Republic since England’s King George III.  This man, of course, was King of England during the American war of independence.  He had not only the means, but also the desire and the will to destroy the United States of America.  Hitler posed no such threat.  The Japanese Imperial war government of the 1930s and 1940s posed no such threat.  Donald Trump poses such a threat.

As Americans; a nation to whom this world looks for leadership in the cause of freedom, we must reject the trajectory on which we now find our country, and realign ourselves with the western democracies with which we have so much in common.

We must, each of us, go to the polls when called.

Conversation 1: The Evangelical Virus

I had this conversation recently, and really, I guess, it was more of an argument, and it was about trump.

My antagonist stated that “they’re not gonna get the virus because they’re christians.”  I hesitated, thought about it for a moment, and then said: “I don’t think that’s what you’re really saying.  I think that what you’re saying, I mean really saying, is that you and your friends won’t get sick from this virus because you’re white, conservative, evangelical, christians.”  They hesitated, almost as if they wanted to argue that my statement was untrue, but then just kind of shrugged, as if to say: “Yeah, well, okay.”  As you can imagine, my brain was whispering “Oh My God!” to my soul over and over again.  Needless to say, I was pretty appalled by such an admission.  

No matter, I knew I had to continue, so I gathered myself and said: “I don’t think I understand.  Are you saying that Putin created a virus that attacks an organism based upon its political beliefs?”  Of course, they immediately stated back rather angrily: “Its a Chinese virus!”

I said: “Well, I think that’s open to debate, but we’ll get back to that in a minute.  Right now, I want to explore this physio-political virus you imagine.  What I believe you’ve stated is that there is a virus that will demonstrate its worst symptoms, including death, primarily in people whose politics are left-leaning, or who hold progressive political philosophies.”

“I don’t know about that.  That would mean that there is a physiological, and I mean anatomical dimension associated with any set of political views or thoughts, and that somebody has found the means to isolate those physical traits associated with very specific thought patterns, and then develop a virus that can reliably carry its ‘attack’ data through thousands of generations of reproduction through mitosis, because each virus cell has a rather short life-span. They then engineered the cells to attack only a specific group of human beings with certain political beliefs.  I don’t think the science exists to do that.  I don’t think it can be done.”

They replied, quite quickly, and surprisingly matter-of-factly: “God could do it.”

Right then and there, almost before they finished the statement, I knew I was done, beaten.  The strange logic of superstition will always, to use the most grotesque terms possible, ‘trump’ knowledge.  You cannot argue with superstition, because superstition is based upon, and exists within, a non-argumentative reality.  There is no doubting of the superstation, it is just accepted.

We all know that it’s impossible for a large, furry, bloodthirsty creature with an insatiable appetite for human flesh to live in the cellar of a single-family house in suburban America, yet the superstition persists, doesn’t it?  “I don’t know what could have happened to Johnny, he was playing right there in front of the cellar door…well, yeah, it was open this time, when it’s usually closed…”  You can’t argue with that. Johnny’s toys are still there, but he’s gone without a trace, and we all know “The Thing In the Cellar” got him.

Anyway, it took me about a second and a half to regain myself after their expert parry of my conclusion, and in the next seven seconds after that, I fought one of the greatest battles of all time within my consciousness.  Half of me wanted to lean forward, with a furrowing of my brow, and a look that never tried to hide my utter disdain for what I had just heard, and say: “What the fuck did you just say?”  The other half was telling me: “No, let’s hold onto that card for a while.  I mean, why yell “Bingo!” now, when you can yell “Blackout!” later?”

I had to respond to that statement eventually, so after about twenty seconds of pensive reflection, I leaned forward, gave a small tilt of my head that was meant to convey a sort of perplexed surrender, took a sip of my coffee, and said: “Well, I agree, I guess. I mean, God could construct such a virus and unleash it into the world to kill people like me.  That’s okay, I can deal with the statistical possibility that God could do that.  If we accept that proposition, then the question really is; would he?”

“I mean, I don’t think God does things for his own amusement, I believe he does things to try to get us to learn lessons about love and compassion, and about caring for each other, and the poor, and things like that.  I really hope you agree with me when I say that God would have no interest in wiping out all those damned libs, as some people call them.  Unless, of course, God is now in Heaven doing your bidding.  I mean, shit, that would be the bomb of all bombs, wouldn’t it?  All that prayer really paid off, huh?”

They didn’t respond.  I think they were really angry.

I decided then that I was going to go on an all out offensive to either make them leave, make them cry, or, preferably, make them leave crying.  So I waited a few seconds, then continued:

“So, let’s check out this virus thing. I mean, I know God could do it, but we need to also look at other possibilities, if it was, as you seem to suggest, manufactured.  So if it’s not made by God, who would have an interest in making it, and throwing it out into the world to wreak absolute havoc with civilization.”

“Check this out.  I’m gonna give you some numbers here, but not a lot.  They’re really important numbers, so I need you to pay attention.  The last reliable, pre-virus, number for the US annual GDP is approximately 22 trillion dollars (US).  The approximate annual GDP of the EU countries is 19.5 trillion dollars (US).  The approximate annual GDP of the People’s Republic of China is 13.5 trillion dollars (US).  The approximate annual GDP of the Russian Federation is 1.3 trillion dollars (US).”

“Numbers are great, I love them…in moderation.  Numbers are just numbers, nothing more, but like everybody else, they have a story to tell, and these numbers tell this story:  The US and the EU have large, well developed, consumer segments of their economies.  The Chinese are primarily a manufacture/export economy.  They have a growing consumer class, but they’re still ‘manufacture/export.’  The Russians…well, the Russian people are ratting each other out to Putin’s security services in order to get their hands on a wood burning stove.”

“What it also says is that China has absolutely no interest in the chaos caused by this virus.  The Chinese Government depends on healthy consumer segments of the western economies in order to keep their own economy afloat.  I mean, where do you think all of those exports go, Russia?  Not likely.  If the Western consumerist economies go in the tank, China’s economy goes with them.”

“Putin on the other hand, has every interest in the chaos and disruption caused by this novel coronavirus.  If the other major economies of the planet go to hell in a hand-basket, that helps Russia’s power position in the world and, as a bonus, Putin’s reputation at home.  Now, of course, all of this is only good if Putin can keep the curve pretty flat in Russia, and so far, he appears to have fucked that part up.  But that’s another story, which is especially troubling, because Putin doesn’t really care.”

“Also, the Russians and the Chinese share over 2,600 miles of border.  Do you think it would be difficult for the Ruskies to sneak that virus over the border and release it in a city like, I don’t know, Wuhan, maybe?  Not really.”

“Now get this, and this important, because this is where the entire scenario changes.  In May of 2019 the Pentagon published a “white paper” titled, now get this: “Russian Strategic Intentions: A Strategic, Multilayer Assessment.”  Pretty to the point, wouldn’t you say?  Anyway, one of the key findings of the almost thirty experts from a broad range of fields who contributed to this paper was that Putin, and thereby the Russian State, considers itself to be at war with the United States, and the West in general.”

“Part of the problem for the West is that the US and the Russians have completely differing views of the very nature of warfare.  The US seems to think that war is a zero-sum game: you are either at war with somebody, or you are not at war with them, and war encompasses a very distinct set of mutually aggressive actions; namely, the movement of armies.  The Russians see warfare completely differently, and really, much more maturely.  In their view, if you see another country as a competitor, then every aspect of your relationship, is organized to contribute to your clandestine war effort.”

“If there was any SOB on the planet who would even try to develop and release this virus, thereby sending the planet into chaos by killing off vast numbers of those damned libs, it would be Putin.  Either that, or, according to your logic, God is doing this either for personal amusement, or, once again, to kill off vast numbers of those damned libs, including me.”

“Of course, there is another possibility that we haven’t explored.  It is that this virus has actually been around for thousands of years, at least, and just existed in the deepest, darkest recesses of this planet.  It existed in places we were never meant to go, but we did, and when we did, we came into contact with it, and our bodies, since it’s a “novel” virus to humans, have no defense against it.”

“Now, I know that such a convoluted set of circumstances sounds rather scientific, but that’s because it’s a scientific explanation for the pandemic.  Science, and scientific explanations for events and, well, viruses, we all know, are to be held immediately suspect.  I think you’ll agree with me that this is due to science’s bias toward evidence and method, and its complete rejection of opinion and conjecture.  I mean who who would trust a bunch of scientists, experts and, hell, educated people in general, right?  They have an end-game in there somewhere, I guarantee it.”

“Why trust them, when trump knows the truth, when trump is the truth? Anyway, in the end, the point of all this is that Donald Trump is a complete dick.”

And that pissed them off.

Peace and Love to All,

Niemand

An Open Letter To My Fellow Progressives

The point of this letter is unmistakeable, the reasons are just as recognizable, and both are as important as anything this republic has ever faced.  The point of this very brief letter to my fellow progressives is this: Get behind Joe Biden, and use your organizational networks to their fullest capacity to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  It’s as simple as that.

Why?  Here’s why.  In January of 2018, I published an essay on my blog-site,  overwhelmingweirdness.com (which I highly suggest for insightful essays on Politics, Society, and a host of other subjects,  There’s also a nice selection of my short fiction).  Anyway, enough about that.  The title of the essay is “It’s not About Policy Anymore.”  I wrote and published that essay a couple of days after donald trump stood next to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, and demonstrated in both word and deed, that he would do anything to please Putin, including denouncing this country’s entire intelligence community, because Putin supposedly “strongly denied” having meddled in the 2016 presidential election, when supposedly asked about the matter by donald trump during their hour-long, non-recorded meeting.  Trump made it clear, in that absolutely humiliating display in Finland, who’s interests he would pursue in the world: Putin’s.

The point of that essay was that even though I have had disagreements with conservatives all of my adult life, all of us wanted the same thing, a better America, and we have been able to discuss our differences on various issues like adults.  We continue to want the same thing, but we differ on what is the best path to the “more perfect union” spoken of in the preamble of the Constitution of the United States.

This is no longer the case, and it’s not about policy anymore.  It’s about the survival of this republic, and the very clear and present threat donald trump’s political career poses to it.  The situation with donald trump was bad when he stood next to his boss in Finland, now it is an incredibly real threat to our republic that not only serves the interests of Vladimir Putin, but also supports and encourages vigilante violence by his supporters to not only subdue dissent in this country, but to simply eliminate calls for changes to aspects of American culture that really shouldn’t concern him.

That’s the truth of the matter.  As progressive citizens, we all want the Democratic Party to be further to the left.  I, personally, want a Biden/Harris Administration to support and pursue: single-payer health care, a massive increase in funding for our educational systems, an immediate 30% reduction in the military budget, the annihilation of “qualified immunity” for police officers who shoot people, the adoption of a green energy initiative for the country that is in line with, and supports, the efforts of our European allies, the reestablishment of our alliances before 2017, true liberty and true justice for the true all in this country, and a host of other policies.

Maybe a Biden/Harris Administration will pursue these policies, and maybe they won’t, but we have to play the long game, here.  If we must wait, then we must wait, and as we wait, we must build our strength, and our organizational foundations and networks.  However, let me be crystal clear, we have to set our policy squabbles with the centrist forces in the Democratic Party aside for right now, and fight the fight that must be fought in order to rid this country of donald trump.

In very real terms, if you have been fooled into disbelieving donald trump’s very basic, very real, and very active evil, because he acts, at times, like a complete imbecile, then you are, well, a fool.  Donald trump is playing a very real, and very violent game with our democracy, and we must all unite to put a stop to it.  Know this, the Republican Party’s voter suppression efforts of the last thirty years are nothing compared to what donald trump has planned for the United States if he can pull it off.

We must unite, as citizens: with the center of the Democratic Party, and all actual patriotic Americans of what used to be the Republican Party who stand against the tumor that has taken what they loved from them, and rid this country of any influence from the trump family.  We can resume our debates with these other groups later, but right now, the survival of this country, and all for which it has hoped to stand is at stake.

We must not fail.

Christoph Niemand

Reductionism and the Strange Politics of Donald Trump

One of the most basic tenets of politics in the age of democracies and republics is that politicians will generally try, as best they can, to appeal to as broad a base as possible.  This is not to say that all politicians try to do this at the expense of the things in which they believe, but that they moderate their stance on these beliefs, realizing that compromise is the hallmark of a functioning democracy…and adulthood.

Donald Trump is evidently trying a different approach.  Mr. Trump seems determined to reduce his constituency to the absolute smallest number possible, and hope that this will win him a victory in November.  Over the space of his entire political existence, Donald Trump has sought to insult, degrade, and alienate every group of people in this country not solidly behind is presidency.  It doesn’t matter whether that group is identified by their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political views, or any other characteristic.  If they are not within his base, his hatred and/or complete contempt for them is proudly brandished every day.

Who are these people who make up Trump’s ‘base?’  They are primarily members of three basic groups: conservative christian evangelicals, white nationalists, and gun toters.  Make no mistake, together, they make up a significant portion of the electorate, but they also overlap to a great extent, sharing some common characteristics.

Specifically, they are politically unsophisticated with little or no perception of what comprises a republic and its mechanisms of operation through the democratic process.  They have little or no concept of the art of compromise, and how this purely ‘adult’ form of conflict resolution serves to preserve and perpetuate a republic.  They are poorly or under-educated, and rarely have any college experience.  Those who do, lack a unified, holistic, and egalitarian view of the world outside of what is told to them by the governors of the Southern Baptist Convention.  The political and religious teachings of this group are, essentially, bigoted, exclusionary, nationalistic, and imperial.  Lastly, they are white people who live in a continuous cycle of fear of non-white, non-heterosexual, non-conforming people.  This fear cycle peaks when these groups demand equal justice under the law, and equal rights and treatment within society as a whole.

The inherent problem with Trump’s strategy is that in 2016, people either on the fringes of this base, or who simply, for whatever reason, did not want to vote for Hillary Clinton and voted for him, are gone.  They have three and a half years of the Trump presidency to completely alienate them from Trump and his personal brand of American fascism.  This portion of the electorate reflects the true manner in which Trump has decided to practice this strange reductionism.  He has enthusiastically and horrifically driven from him every rational and truly patriotic American who does not worship him, as does his base, but who may have considered supporting him in 2020.

What, then, is the overall strategy?  It must be this: Donald Trump is banking on the chaos and destruction that his core base will bring upon America when he loses the election.  He will promise and, to some extent, deliver the chaos he promised some months ago when asked what his strategy for reelection would be.  He will issue his call to arms; claiming that the liberals stole the election, that they are out to destroy America, and that he will save them if only they will go out and kill, and maim, and burn America to the ground in his name.

I think he will be surprised at how few people will actually be willing to do so on his behalf.  It will happen, make no mistake, but we must be willing to absorb this spasm of violence of his core base and continue, as one nation, dedicated to the propositions laid out in our Declaration of Independence, and codified in our ever evolving Constitution.  Eventually, Donald Trump will fade into history as a sickening footnote to what can happen to any nation, if the people do not actively participate in its democratic procedures.

When asked what type of government he and the other framers of the Constitution had designed, Benjamin Franklin is rumored to have said the following: “A republic, if you can keep it.”  Today, Donald Trump is the greatest testament since Adolf Hitler, that we must rededicate ourselves to keeping it. Related to Mr. Franklin’s attributed statement above is the following: “All it takes for evil to prevail, is for good people to do nothing.” We must, as a nation, in every peaceful and constitutionally protected manner possible, repudiate in the strongest possible terms, the toxic presidency of Donald Trump. We must rededicate ourselves to keeping the republic that Franklin warned us would be constantly under attack from enemies both outside and within our own country.  If we do not, evil will triumph.

Peace and Love to All

Christoph Niemand, Citizen X

George Floyd: 3 Factors

This essay was initially going to contain two factors that contributed to George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis police department, but another came to mind, and felt I needed to expand the scope of the treatise to include it. The three factors I will explore are: Racism, The Deal, and Our Endless wars. These, of course are only three of many factors that helped to bring us to our current state of crisis, but I am limiting my observations to these three. I will then offer a few concluding remarks. To be clear; when I use the term crisis, I do not mean the massive protests sweeping across this country. The crisis is the wanton murder of American citizens by a bloated and viciously violent police force.

Racism:

Racism is not and American phenomenon. Racism is a human phenomenon. It is, I believe, endemic to our species, and may even be written into our genome. Consider this, we are an animal species that congregates in packs and herds. We call them societies and communities, but when we boil this down to its constituent elements, that is what our groupings are; packs and herds. Other mammals that congregate in such a manner always shun and act against the intrusion of an outsider. Humans are no different.

Humanity has spent a lot of energy throughout its existence trying to overcome this scourge and, barring that, at least minimize its effect on how we conduct our lives. We will never completely eliminate racism from human society, but it is one of the most worthwhile endeavors we, as a species and as individuals, could ever undertake. The human world has made great strides and continuous progress in this effort to be inclusive of each other. Many of our sister countries in Europe continue to do so, even under the pressure of right-wing groups that seek to undermine this effort.

Others are moving forward, but the United States of America is moving backward, and we are moving backward at an alarming rate of speed. We are so far back in time on issues of race, now, that black Americans are murdered in white-initiated hate crimes at an insanely high rate. The murder of Ahmaud Arbery is just the latest example.

Many have said that Arbery shouldn’t have resisted, when confronted by two white men carrying guns. There may have been a time in the American South when that was true [okay, stop laughing]…There has never been such a time. So, consider this, A black teenager is jogging through a mainly white area in the American South, two white guys confront him by pointing guns at him. He knows that the only way he will survive the confrontation is to, if possible, wrest one of these guns from one of the white guys and defend himself on somewhat equal footing. Short of that, he knows that they’re going to kill him; for the sport of it if nothing else.

The worst part of the issue of race in America is that we now have a president who stands firmly with the two white guys in the scenario above. The president of the United States depends upon the solid voting block of southern, Christian, “white power” racists. These people make up a large portion of his base constituency, and he is as faithful to them as Mary was to Jesus.

Racism in America today is propelled by not only what seems to be its endemic, natural part of the human species, but now it is also supported and bolstered by the highest office of the executive branch of the US government.

The Deal:

Long ago, America made a deal. That deal was that it is okay for cops to kill people. The origins of this deal are shrouded in mystery, because the deal isn’t written down anywhere. It’s not quantified, or codified in any recognizable manner, but it is there. We all, as Americans, know that it is there. Not all societies, especially Western societies have made such a deal, but America has, and this is the main reason why we live in the most violent society humanity has ever known.

It has been propelled in many ways, and not the least of which is Hollywood. American television and film is rife with with cops killing people. Most people the cops kill in television and film, are “bad guys,” but there is, occasionally the collateral damage, average person, who just happens to take a cop’s bullet. Either way, it always ends up a ‘righteous kill.’

When I consider this issue of The Deal being propelled by Hollywood, I have the image from the end of the movie “48 Hours.” Particularly, the scene in which our main bad guy is charging at Nick Nolte’s character, and Nick Nolte stands there, expressionless, and starts shooting the guy. He doesn’t hit the guy center-mass once, but stands there firing round after round at him, and he doesn’t miss once, He unloads somewhere around six bullets into the guy, and afterwards, everything’s cool. Yeah, everything is cool, and he goes home and has a good night’s rest; it’s been a tough case.

On top of this basic problem of our entertainment industries glorifying the killing of people by cops, you have also the glorification of killing in general. Take any number of series from American television, and the glorification of killing is at the core of it. All of your westerns, almost all of your police shows (except Barney Miller), and many others. How do we solve problems in America? With a bullet…or six.

Regarding cops and their relationship to The Deal, the problem is this; once you tell cops that it’s okay for them to kill people, they’re going to start killing people. Eventually, they will not only kill people, but they will begin to kill people with impunity. This is because The Deal, in order to actually be a deal, and not an aspiration, has to be backed up by government policy, and supported by the court system. These are the two pillars that gave rise to “qualified immunity.” If cops don’t have qualified immunity, then there is no Deal. There can be no deal if cops spend one day in the county jail, or even worse, “life in prison without the possibility of parole” for killing people…you know, like you and me.

Our Endless Wars:

George Floyd may very well have been murdered, not so much by the cop who kneeled on his neck until he was dead, as much as he was by America’s endless wars. This ‘rogue state’ situation in which America now finds itself began with the Reagan Administration and has continued, almost unabated, since then. It was during the Reagan years that the efforts by conservatives to de-fund education and over-fund our military machine began to occur in earnest.

Once the United States began to shift its international priorities from collective, diplomatic engagement, and leadership in multilateral organizations like the United Nations, to a unilateral and adventurist foreign policy based upon military might, the era of endless war became inevitable. How then, does this affect the murder of George Floyd? The age of endless wars murdered George Floyd through its creation of the militarized police force.

I believe that may be the most significant factor in his death. We have vast numbers of people coming out of combat-driven military service every day. These people need to find employment when they discharge back into society. These people, and all of us, would like to find employment in a field in which we feel comfortable. Your basic military veteran feels comfortable carrying a gun. There is only one profession in America, outside of the military, in which members carry guns, and that is the domestic police force. This is one of the major factors in the militarization of our domestic police forces.

The core problem here is training. Domestic police forces should enter any situation with the following thought process at the center of their training: “We have citizens here in a conflict, how can I best diffuse the tensions here, and serve the proposition of domestic tranquility, using arrest tactics only if absolutely necessary, and deadly force only as a last resort to save people’s lives.” When a philosophy like that is at the core of police training, peace will reign in your society. There will always be violence in any society, but a domestic police force that operates on the principles in the statement above will be a factor in minimizing incidents of violence.

Military forces are not trained that way. Military forces are trained, very simply, to identify and neutralize enemies. When you bring that philosophy into the realm of domestic policing, your society is in big trouble, because not only will the police see themselves as a separated cadre of former soldiers, but they will bring the philosophy of ‘identify and neutralize’ the enemies here to their policing practices. This is the core problem of the militarization of police forces. George Floyd was identified and neutralized.

What do we do?:

Let me start with this: We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all people are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator, by God, with certain unalienable rights that can never be taken from them by any person or people. That among these rights are life…yes, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, people create government, and these governments derive their just powers only from the consent of the people. Also, that whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter, or completely sweep aside that government, and to form a new one; laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to secure their future safety and happiness.

The rebellion must not stop. The people have to realize that unless they press their knee down onto the neck of this government, no change will happen. The politicians will pay lip service to the plight of black Americans’ being subjected to state-sponsored terrorism at the hands of the police, just as they pay lip service to the thousands of people killed in this country by gun violence every year, but lip service is all it will be.

The majority of our politicians are members of the wealthy, shareholder class. Let me say this as an aside: just because you own a couple of stocks here and there, and play a little in the market, doesn’t make you a member of the shareholder class. The shareholder class is made up of the wealthy; the top 10%. The corporate CEO’s who, in the name of their money, have stolen our government. Therefore, we must understand, that unless we confront them and their police with ever increasing numbers and determination which they cannot match, nothing will happen.

This is what we must do. It is not easy, and the government will resist. They have had the American people on the defensive for too long. It is time to turn the tables on them and make them defend what they have done. We should take heart, though, because your average politician is a coward, and just a small amount of courage and discipline on our part, will take us a long way towards a “new government” in which the words of Thomas Jefferson paraphrased above can have true meaning.

Peace,

Niemand