Trump

Uncomfortable Truths

Uncomfortable truths are more times than not just truths.

-If one is a capitalist in today’s world, then that person is morally unconscionable.

-If one turns a blind eye to evil and wrong-doing, then one is the problem and the cause of our destruction.

-Conventional economics is a form of brain damage- David Suzuki

-If someone defends an economy over all else then that person is a liar and a psychopath.

-Progress at any cost is not progress at all but a blind, slow, torturous and un-needed death.

-Consumption as a way of life is not life at all but death of all things.

-If the answer is always more then the question is rhetorical, meaningless and dangerously misleading.

-Human beings do not have technological, social, cultural or political problems. We have ethical problems.

Why?

Why do Americans support an obviously fascist regime such as Donald Trump’s Republicans? This question is one that is asked more and more both by Americans and to me as an American in Europe.

“The Answer is complex.” I answer. “It is important to remember that American can be defined in large part by the drive for profit, personal benefit, and fear. There are no safety nets in America and America is in large part a theocratic society. Religion and money. One makes empty promises and the other gives false hope. And so what is left is fear because deep down Americans know that what they believe, whether it is religious or social, is not, in fact, true.”

“Add to that,” I continue, “Americans want to be, they strive to be independent in the true sense of the word. The American story is based upon rough and ready independence. But the fact is that such independence is and always has been a fantasy. So why do any Americans support Donald Trump? Because he offers easy answers based on empty promises, false hope and fantasy.”

Donald Trump and his minions are cheap. Truth is expensive.

Normal

Over a beer; at a bar or in a living room, we’ve had those conversations where the word “normal” comes up. Inevitably someone exclaims: “What is ‘normal’ anyway?!” Usually, it is a dead-end comment. Other platitudes follow. Such as “I know ‘normal’ when I see it…”

In today’s America ‘normal’ is no longer a platitude because what is going on in America today is not normal. No matter what the Trump sycophants may espouse. Donald Trump’s America is not ‘normal’ in the sense that normality implies a healthy and happy society.

A normal society is not led by those who undermine the good that normal societies offer. A normal society is not one in which the military is turned upon the citizens of that society, or where massive percentages of wealth go only to a minutia of people. A normal society is not militarized, fanatical, driven by greed and narcissism.

If it is actually true that we can “know ‘normal'” when we “see it” then it must be obvious that Donald Trump’s America is far from.

Values

It was easy to think of the ways to fight and administration wrought with corruption, defined by greed, and blinded by a twisted ideology. But read history. In its annals one will find pages of fights documented of the same people fighting the same enemy time and time again.

It becomes clear that the fight that needs to be addressed is not only a political one, but a personal one as well. It becomes obvious that the horrors of history, of human-brought destruction, evil, greed, and violence are the symptoms, and not the causes of dictators, profiteers, and authoritarians. The cause of our killing the world and ourselves is, in fact, the values that we hold.

Wendell Berry said it best when he wrote: “We are familiar enough with the nature of American salesmanship to know that it will be done in the name of the starving millions, in the name of liberty, justice, democracy, and brotherhood, and to free the world from communism.”*

If what we value is consumption and ease, and only those things, then we can wish for nothing other than the world we live in and the continued fight against rank stupidity. It is the values that we hold that have gotten us here. We have to change what we value, and why we value the things that we do to end the cycle of a history filled with horror and disillusion.

Guns, God and Greed: Excerpt

“Is that legal?” the Leader asked.

“Legal?!” the assistant answered, looking surprised. Surprised that the Leader was asking a question rather than bleating out his “facts”. He was also surprised at the naivete of the question.

“Law is for those who can’t afford anything else. And besides, we make law. We interpret law. Do you think that having automatic weapons available to every half-wit dumbass in this country ought to be legal?

The Leader had a grim look on his face.

“NO!” the assistant answered, “No fucking way! But they are and that’s the law.”

Now he was on a roll.

“Law is a useful weapon, though. It’s a gun that can be pointed at our enemies.

The advisor interjected, “There you go again with your useless analogies…”

“Metaphors” the assistant corrected.

The advisor shook his head in disgust and smiled at the now sulking Leader. He was confused into silence. He didn’t like feeling stupid. He would have to make someone else’s life a little worse, a little more miserable. That was his gun.

Guns, God, and Greed Excerpt:

The whole thing had become so corrupt that it no longer mattered. The public was no long flabbergasted at the blatant autocracy that had, for the past fifty years, defined the government. They had heard all the phrases and terms: the “revolving door”, the lobbyists, “money in politics”, graft, greed. Nothing was new.

And so when the Leader, a gruff narcissist, bloated from a continuous silver-spoon in his mouth, was put into place and his “administration” was “chosen” there were some that turned in disgust and protested. But they were few and they were tired. And those that reveled in his selfishness and longed for revenge from spite and desperation, and the desire for revenge for invisible enemies, cheered him on.

It was not so much a dismantling of the government as much as it was a natural step in a chain of events started long ago, even before the modern equivalent of Cicero in the eighties. So many philosophers had written about justice and freedom but so few had ever read them. And now those concepts were being twisted and contorted and no one knew the difference.

Bertrand Russell: On Population and Marriage

“What is regrettable at present is not the decline of the birthrate in itself, but the fact that the decline is greatest in the best elements of the population.”

As many quip-we are living in an idiocracy. The worst “elements” have taken the reins of the great machine and are driving it into its final and fiery finish, and to what end? They themselves are not aware perhaps, of the consequences of their actions if for no other reason than the idiocy that they worship.

The world, then, will not be brought down by satan or a cruel god, but by the lack of intelligence and wit. But who are “we” that are not unconsciously burdened by stupidity and consciously fighting such perspicuous lack of intelligence?

“We” are those that recalculate our brains from entertainment and information to rationality and wisdom. “We” are those that read and write rather than watch and react. And alas we will become rare and in the end extinct, barreled over by the mass overwhelm of blank stares and empty minds.

Bertrand Russell: The State

“Thinking ill of others is not in itself a good reason for thinking well of ourselves.”

The destruction of other nations, allies or not, were of no concern. Only the continued well-being of America’s richest mattered. It was where they were and as long as their state was a stronghold the rest of the world was of no import.

At the end of the day it was a competition and the good was on their side; it was manifest destiny! Those that surrounded him always reminded him that God was an American God, and America was destined by God to rule “His Kingdom”.

He knew who they were talking about but also knew that it would be him doing the ruling. Competition was heating up but he had a plan-he and his small group of hand-picked cohorts. The Fathers of Freedom (FOF) were happy as long as he gave them their moral superiority on a plate.

But soon they wouldn’t be a problem either. They were stupid and easily subdued. They loved what he loved, as all Christians did: money and more importantly: power.

Commodity

It’s important to remember that they are misguided fools.  They will believe that the scribblings and rantings of our psychopath, and hold the contradictory thought that he cannot change the world, our world.  We have violence on our side.  Our followers are ravenous and bloodthirsty.  They will soak up these empty ramblings of a madman.

We can’t believe in quick and efficient change from peace and prosperity to chaos and poverty because it will not happen to us.  Just let those bleeding liberals preach piously of peace and talk of rights and justice.  They’ll do so long after these things are just fading memories.  Remember, naïve expectations of normalcy outlive their usefulness like and old, old man.

“We have to realize that this is a ‘now’ era.  It’s important to realize this or be relegated to the past instantly.  No longer can we pretend to stand for anything other than what sells.  That’s what counts.” 

He paused, not expecting anyone to say anything, but just to make sure that his last sentence sunk in.  The minions sat staring as if at their cellphones. 

“We must market sales and that will become easier as Truth disintegrates.  Mass marketing, and everything can be mass-marketed, is what counts.  Everything is a commodity.  Remember that.”

Pride

It was strange to watch a traffic accident.  Everything seemed to slow down.  It was the same with the slow death of our country.  It started with a quiet ritual, a pageantry of sorts, as if nothing had changed.  But it had changed and everyone knew it.

Those that supported this change radiated with spite and revenge in their eyes, or with subtle hope-for-what-I-can’t-comprehend.  Others saw the coming change as one might watch a large asteroid hurdling towards earth: with awe and disbelief; aware that something had not started as much as it has ended.

There was a desire to protect just as there was a desire to explain to the blind what color was or to the deaf what music was.  And so we stood back and hoped there was something left when the atrocity was over, which it always and inevitably would be.  But we all knew one thing:  Human idiocy was only overshadowed by the pride we had in being so.