I am writing this on December 7th 2017, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a military blunder that has gone down in history as one of the biggest mistakes any nation ever made because it was the catalyst for our country’s entry into WWII. As a consequence it would crush Japan as a nation and lead to the destruction of two of its major cities and a million casualties. But our entry into the war would also change the world and formulate circumstances that would eventually lead to the world we live in today.
Before WWII we were basically an isolationist nation and before Pearl Harbor, despite the pleas of Winston Churchill we were getting more isolationist by the day. The Japanese forced us to join a war initiated by Nazi Germany; win it and change the way the whole world was structured. WWII marked the United States as the greatest nation in the world. It placed this nation firmly at he top of the world structure in both military and financial terms. 76 years later it led to us being alone at the pinnacle of world powers.
When during ne campaign, Trump raved about making America great again, the idea behind that slogan was that America was at that point, not great. This, according to Trump, was due to failures by Barak Obama. He claimed he would improve things. In fact that was just another of Trump’s plethora of lies. You can’t even chalk it up to stupidity because he knew that we were the greatest country in the world and he just chose to lie about it to get a good slogan. He knew America was already the largest economy with the strongest military in the world and that everyone looked to us for leadership.
Now Trump, because he is an egomaniacal sociopath bent on some Bannon inspired isolationist strategy, is busy giving up world leadership. Almost everything he has done internationally, has belittled our country and made it less effective in dealing with the world in general. In breaking our treaties and trade deals be has destroyed the rest of the world’s ability to rely on our word as a nation and crippled our position in the international financial world.
Trump along with the bloodsucking tic, Steve Bannon, who remains firmly attached to his ass, is trying to destroy this country. The concept of isolationism that they are promoting is no longer viable in the modern world. Hell, it wasn’t viable in the world of 1941 as proved by our failure to maintain it in a world with Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. It’s an even more idiotic concept in today’s world with life ending weapons proliferating all over the globe, with instant communication available to all, and with changing alliances proliferating across the planet.
We are faced with the problem of a lazy, egomaniacal, liar who has displayed neither the intelligence to solve the problems he sought, nor an interest in finding out how to deal with them.
Donald Trump sees himself as a dictator. He displays no understanding of how to do his job and his ego prevents any attempt to seek enlightenment in a miasma of chaos that has grown to proportions far beyond his ability to control it. What’s even worse is that all new evidence seems to be pointing to the fact that the office, he never thought he would win is providing him and his associates with opportunities to enlarge his own personal wealth at the expense of the nation.
New evidence has emerged that eleven minutes into Trump’s inaugural speech, Mike Flynn, his Director of National Security, was emailing a business associate named Copson about how much money they were going to make by the Trump administration’s lifting of sanctions so they could partner with the Russians in creating nuclear power plants in the Middle East. Trump was always about skinning the suckers. He still is, but now the suckers extend to all the American people.
But what kind of lunacy, you may ask is involved in creating nuclear reactors in the Middle East? Copson explained, in the presence of the whistleblower, that this would provide us with an excuse to provide military forces to protect the nuclear facilities and thereby allow us get our troops into every country that had them. It seemed, according to the whistleblower quoting Copson, that this would eventually give us the opportunity to re-colonize the Middle East, an idea that seems to fit right in with Trump’s dictatorial ambitions. Remember this conversation took place even as Trump was making giving his inaugural speech. He was barely in office and already he was working on ways to make money off the Presidency.
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In the same vein, Trump’s latest stupidity, the recognition of the Israeli capital as Jerusalem makes no international sense whatsoever. What does make sense, if one is willing to accept that Trump has no interest in helping anyone but himself, is that his idiotic move was done to appease big Jewish donors like Sheldon Addelson and his buddies.
But still Trump tries to lie his way through what is obviously a self-aggrandizing decision by speaking to the idea that this will lead to peace in that region. Really? So why is every Muslim in the world chanting for the death of America? At least 17 countries, including all of our most important allies have condemned the move because they realize that this will make peace in the region impossible.
Trump and his buddies, Addelson and Netanyahu don’t want peace, mainly because the only way to get peace is to give back a big hunk of the West Bank to the Palestinians. They want the continuance of the status quo, which is an uneasy calm that can erupt into war at any second.
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This week Jackson, Mississippi opened a Museum dedicated to the Civil Rights movement. John Lewis who was almost beaten to death on the bridge to Selma was not there. Neither were many other heroes of the Civil Rights movement. But the Bigot-in-Chief was there. The nation’s top racist made a hollow and heartless speech. How could it be otherwise considering his racist blabbering after Charlotte?
Trump was invited by the governor of Mississippi and his presence was responsible for keeping many of the men and women who were honored in that museum from attending a ceremony that would give this racist President a photo op he certainly doesn’t deserve.
I am a big fan of John Lewis with whom, despite my admiration, I have sometimes disagreed. I think he missed the boat on this one. I understand why he was a no-show but I think that Lewis, like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker needed to stay in the game and not quit but to carry the fight to the ramparts. Just think what a speech by Lewis pointing out all the ways that this bigot President had failed in trying to heal the rift between the races would have gone over.
Don’t forget, this is the same President who is endorsing, a twice-fired judge who is believably accused of pedophilia and who just the other day stated openly and shamelessly that this was a better country when we had slavery. And he’s running in a state only 95 miles from Jackson.
The point here is, that walking away or just not showing up isn’t the answer to fighting those that have no shame, no values and no morals. If we are going to beat these guys we have to show up at the campaign stops and the polls. But most of all we have to show up at any opportunity to denounce and unfrock them.
There is no bigger vote that the Democrats must get out in a low vote election like this one than the black vote. The white vote that favors Moore says, sure he’s a child molester and a failed judge but he thinks like us. He wants what we want. He’s against gays and abortion and he’s an Evangelist Christian. So the black voters of Alabama must say the same thing. He’s a child molester, he’s a failed judge and he believes in slavery and will vote for all the Republican bills that will hurt us.
That’s the message that must be sold to the black voters of Alabama or Roy Moore, child molester, racist, disbarred judge will add to the rotting sludge currently drowning the US Senate.
Martha Radatz on This Week asked a very significant question of Terri Sewell the only black congresswoman from Alabama. Radatz pointed out that Doug Jones had come out for a woman’s right to get an abortion despite the fact that 58% of Alabamans had indicated that they were against any kind of abortion. Radatz asked if the congresswoman thought Jones was wrong in stating his position on controversial subjects. It’s a question that goes right to the heart of what we want from our legislators.
Probably the biggest problem we have with politicians in general is, politicians don’t tell the truth,a politician will fudge a controversial position rather than saying; yes this is what I believe but my opponent will not tell you the truth about what he believes. A politician will only tell you want you want to hear and if you put him in office he will then do as he pleases regardless of what you want or what he has previously said.. This is what the voters of Alabama are facing today. It’s what the voters of this nation faced on Election Day, 2016. They chose a liar and a degenerate. Will they do the same now? Forget Roy Moore’s sexual predilections. Look only at what he has done in his previous political career. Roy is very good at getting elected but very bad at doing any kind of job for the people who elect him. He was twice elected as a judge and both times his traitorous inability to understand or follow the Constitution of the United States got him kicked out of his judgeships. While we shouldn’t forget that Roy Moore likes to fondle little girls, we need to concentrate on the fact that he has been a miserable failure at every previous job to which he’s been elected. There’s no conjecture about that. That’s provable fact. Despite all their obfuscations, it’s clear that Moore’s backers want to keep his inability to keep it in his pants front and center because that can’t be proven. What can be proven is that he was a rotten judge- twice, and that he was fired from judgeships – twice! He will be a rotten Senator if elected because he’s a rotten human being. And by the way, maybe you don’t believe the women because you are a misogynist, but what about the men who include a former cop who have told us that Moore was banned from a mall for chasing after under age girls? It appears that all those Holy Roller Evangelical Christians have to decide what’s more important to them; a liberal who may not feel the way they do about gay marriage or a pervert who wants a piece of their underage daughters.
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Chuck Todd made a significant statement on his Meet the Press show this Sunday. He stated that if Doug Jones said he was pro-life he would win this election in a landslide. He’s right, dead right and therein lies a huge problem. The white Christian Evangelicals of Alabama and a good part of the south are so involved with single, religionist driven issues that they cannot see the forest of other, far more important, issues that are all part of the political spectrum.
The Evangelical movement, both Catholic and Christian has, over the years, sold itself on the basis of its belief in the confirmation of certain moral values. Many in the movement have managed to maintain these values even as the movement’s leadership, preaching from huge venues to thousands of sheep ripe for the fleecing, abandoned Jesus Christ for the gold found in their temples.
Now, that failed leadership has abandoned any moral stance in favor of political power in the form of Donald Trump and his valueless Presidency. This is currently seen in Alabama, a stronghold of the Evangelical Movement, where that movement seems to have completely abandoned all moral values in the backing of a candidate backed by a President who promises to fulfill one or two of their needs while ignoring or opposing the things that will most help them and their families. But in order to gain those one or two significant goals, they must ignore the basis of their beliefs, must abandon any morals or Christian values and vote for a man who molests little girls, who failed twice as a judge because of his discarding of the constitution and who speaks as a bigot and a racist. And they must do it at the behest of a president to speaks openly of his ability to molest women just because of his celebrity and who has posted a resume of dishonest and morally reprehensible behavior that should see him condemned by anyone with any personal morals. It will be interesting to see on Tuesday, where these ardent followers of Jesus Christ really stand.