Author: Philo

human

Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest

There is an anti-intellectual trend in America but the reasons are interesting.  Donald Trump’s first cabinet, while not the cause, certainly sealed the deal.  The turning point was not when it was clear that Donald Trump as a blatant liar, that was expected of most politicians although Trump took this to new and pathetic levels.  The turning point happened with Kelly Ann Conway’s remark.  When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why [Sean] Spicer would “utter a provable falsehood”, Conway stated that Spicer was giving “alternative facts”.  

This was the invitation for every rightwing conspiracy and opinion to consider itself on equal grounds with logic, rationally thought-out speech, science, and intellectual expectations.  Every opinion became an “alternative fact”.  In other words, if the facts didn’t fit your ideology, it was the facts that needed to change.  This, of course, opened the door to the religious right as well.

Anti-intellectualism is nothing new in America, being centuries old, but the expectation by Donald Trump and his minions to be respected intellectually as equals no matter what the facts are, is.  They stand toe to toe with Christian nationalism for this reason perhaps?  Donald Trump the Republican party, and its cronies offers simple, ignorant answers to complex problems: “I know best” replaces the more sound “I don’t know”.  And “I am right” trumps objective reality.

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Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: Too Miserable to Laugh

In 2016 Donald Trump became the president of the United States to the dismay of the majority of citizens in his country.  He was supported by the Republican congressmen and women as well as the Republican senators in his nomination as their presidential candidate and continues to be supported by most of them years into his fallacious presidency. 

There were most likely many players in putting Trump in office, but it was not only the minority of citizens who voted for him.  Those who actually put him in office paid for his presidency and they wanted returns on their investment. 

The conservative movement is defined by something that has been referred to as shareholder capitalism, the idea that a corporation is only responsible for increasing shareholder value no matter the cost to society, the environment, the idea of a working democracy, or what they refer to as external costs.

For all intent purposes, the United States is a plutocracy.  Trump and his administration do not stand for or work towards fair job creation for those people that are truly left behind by corporate economic decisions, they are the highway upon which such decisions run their course. They will and are being paved over for profit.  

As the conservative movement continues to dismantle any and all governmental policies directed at protecting the public’s interest, Trump will continue being the clown.  That is what he is paid to do by those who put him in office. But such a game is dangerous and could cost us all a lot more than just a thin profit margin.

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Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: Criminal Use of the Law

When Donald Trump became president many of his previous immoral acts were called into question.  His answer was that he had done nothing illegal, he just knew how to game the system.  Unfortunately, he was correct. The Trump administration is often applauded for its dismissal of political, social, and cultural norms and traditions by his supporters, but this is a dangerous precedence because law is supposed to be based upon and acceptance of political normalcy.

With Trump and other wealthy individuals, law is a weapon wielded to undermine these norms that have been put into place to protect the public in order to open avenues for corporate profits. These profits are nothing more than legal thievery plain and simple; public monies given to corporations through subsidies and even bailouts for corporations that have done nothing but cheat their way to the profligate profits that they pay their executives and their shareholders, and now the politicians that they support.  The reliance upon public funding through subsidies and tax breaks has a long, sordid history and one that has been for the most part, hidden from the public eye but has, over time, been made legal.

The conservative movement, now headed by Donald Trump and his administrative cronies, are much more than a political movement.  They are a plutocratic movement whose sole motivation is authoritarian politics put into place to destroy the very thing that they claim to stand for: a fair free market economic system and the government that was put into place to create laws in order to protect people and not plutocrats. 

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Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: The Role of Money

The conservative movement, controlled by major corporations are the main, if not sole reason that the traditional ideals of America are being threatened and undermined, not only in the USA but in numerous countries.  The conservative movement that placed Trump and his administration into office is motivated by money, but money does not sell, ironically enough.  What does sell is unwarranted ideology. 

Patriotism, a popular/populist ideal, often signifies a love of country, but under the guise of the conservative movement and its religious affiliations, patriotism becomes less a love of country and more a fanatical support of one’s own country as defined by a particular ideology, in this case Christianity.

Nationalism is another useful ideology to the conservative movement.  Nationalism lowers the categorical criteria for making others your enemy.  The conservative party’s goal is, simply put, to create a corporatocracy using nationalistic overtones and religious ideologies to bolster the idea, much in the same way that Hitler did in Germany, making promises to a continually more desperate population made so by the very movement the population came to support. 

All of this seems to point to a particular attitude of apathy and even loathing towards the American public by corporations and their stockholders as well as the conservative movement.  The legitimacy of the Trump administration and the conservative movement that supports it hinges upon nothing more than empty, twisted laws.  The emperor has no clothes, but it is becoming against the law to point this out.

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Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: A Fascist is a Fascist

Since Trump’s taking office in 2016 there has been a slide into fear and loathing by rational, thinking people.  This fear and loathing is not unwarranted, as any thinking person can realize that his taking office signifies a dangerous trend in this country.  It is fair to say that the Trump administration has fascist tendencies if the traditional definition of fascism is used. 

The use of and belief in certain ideologies, especially political and religious, is the cornerstone of what was once considered radical conservative thinking but is now the norm for the conservative movement.  Unfortunately, the conservative movement is based upon a platform which empowers ignorance, creates fear, and will most likely, if left unchecked, lead to a corporate-fascist government if all is taken into consideration.

Trump has shown that he is more than willing to resort to more than just the symbols of violence, invoking violence against political rivals, the news media, his implied and direct support of white-supremist groups, and invoking the military against legal protesters.  

The goals of the conservative movement seem clear.  First, to dismantle the system of government as put forth by the constitution and replace it with a corporatocracy, and secondly, to destroy any opposition to the first goal.  If Grover Norquist’s claim to want to drown the government in the bathtub is true[i], then his attitude begs the question: what will the government of the United States be replaced with if not with fascism?  If fascism is the future of the United States, let’s at least call it what it is.

 

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Freedom

What is choice but an intent on not being determined? We are all set on a a path, evolutionarily. We do not choose who we are for we are nothing but an end product. That is, until we choose to be curious and create our freewill.

It is (at first) a creation of our imagination. But imagination is laid to rest by evolution.

We are enslaved by natural drive, lack of intellect, lack of curiosity, and we waste our time in the delusion that we are free without even knowing what the word means, what the concept is. Often we call ourselves free never knowing that we are lying and deceiving ourselves.

It is only our capacity for intellect that can save us from the illusion of freewill.

It is only through thinking that we make a choice. We must think ourselves free.

Note: coming up Excerpts from The Trump Diaries

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If

If you can’t be content, be happy. If you can’t be happy, be well. If you can’t be well, be funny. If you can’t be funny, be adamant.

If you can’t be adamant, be curious and if you can’t be curious, be accepting. If you can’t be accepting, be quiet. If you can’t be quiet, be nice.

If you can’t be nice, be helpful. If you can’t be helpful, be mindful. If you can’t be mindful, be useful. If you can’t be useful, be willing.

If you can’t be willing, be honest and if you can’t be honest, be alone. If you can’t be alone then do and say nothing for that is all you are good for.

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Useful

Be useful in the face of uselessness. Utilize any chance to make your world a better place, make your environment one worthy of living. Do not sit idly by, but work towards an ultimate goal, not just simple cash reward but success and happiness. Do what you must to make yourself what you believe you can be.

Be careful in the world. Be skeptical of those empty smiles and thieves and bandits of empathy. Call a spade a spade but don’t lose yourself in the cynical mistrust. Guard that which is most important: your integrity, your character, your trustworthiness. always know that to a salesman you are a dollar bill, to a friend you are one that is to be trusted, to a woman a partner, and to a man a home.

Above all be yourself and do not apologize for what you have honestly come by.

Happy

I once believed that it took a lifetime to find happiness. But now I realize that it does not exist as a state, but as a process. Like most processes happiness has troughs and hills, valleys and mountains. This is why so many of us are so unhappy: we search for the perfect happiness. But the act of searching in some meaningful way for happiness is important. In fact, it is key…key to a happy life.

I’ve written that happiness is overrated and I believe that to be true. But I believe it is only so because of how we view it. The struggle innate in the process of searching for happiness is what counts.

To not struggle to be happy is the ultimate goal This is why the struggle is key. The process of life moves in time and we part of it. Happiness itself is fleeting but the process is ongoing; it is how we live while we choose (or not) to ask why be happy. And if or when we do there will only be one answer and that is that happiness is a good in itself.

We are both lucky and unfortunate enough to desire something as unfathomable and impossible as happiness.