The Wall is Not a Thing

Most Americans don’t realize how many people actually work for the Federal Government.  The number is in the millions (2.7 million in 2014), and they represent a good portion of the middle class.  Right now, most of them are not being paid because of the government shutdown. They can’t pay their bills including mortgages, and are at risk of losing everything they’ve worked hard to buy.

Children whose parents rely on food stamps are also at risk.  So are farmers who rely on government loans to keep their farms viable. And what about the immigrant children who are being held in detention centers? The shutdown is catastrophic, not just for Democrats or liberals, but for millions of Americans, including a large number of Trump supporters. 

Two weeks ago, Trump held a meeting with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer.  Trump announced he would be happy to carry the mantle of the shutdown. He would take full responsibility for it. Senator Schumer ducked his head and smirked. He knew well that Trump was caught on tape once again saying outrageous things.  Of course, Trump changed his tune early into the shutdown. He now calls it Pelosi’s shutdown or the Democratic shutdown. He has always used bait and switch as one of his strategies for getting what he wants (or what the powerbrokers like Putin, who are driving his policy stances, want). I think even his most loyal base is tiring of the game. It is hitting them squarely in their pocketbooks.  Many GOP Senators, who are up for election in 2020, are starting to back away from Trump and his rhetoric. It’s already been proven that they are at risk of being voted out, in spite of gerrymandered districts and voter suppression efforts. We all have to ask ourselves, do Trump and the GOP really have the best interests of America in mind when they cheat to win? I don’t think so. They have the interests of an elite group of Americans in mind, so they have to cheat to win.

I want to recommend a film and a short documentary series to my readers.

The first is the film Vice. It is a fictional account about the rise of Dick Cheney, from a drunken loser, to the most powerful vice president in the history of our country. I admit this film has a liberal slant, but, seriously, facts really are facts, despite what Kellyann Conway says, and if you look at what this man orchestrated in his career in Washington, along with other powerbrokers such as Don Rumsfeld, it will give you pause. During the GW Bush administration, 22 million emails were lost – it boggles the mind when one remembers how enraged GOP elected officials were over 32,000 emails belonging to Hillary Clinton that had already been vetted for security risks and mostly were personal emails about Chelsea’s pregnancy and other mundane topics. The Bush administration also conducted email exchanges on networks that did not record them for prosperity, because they didn’t want them recorded. Meetings were held in rooms where auto-record devices were not installed, and they were held without the president and without his knowledge.  Cheney abused his position again and again, and he started his power abuse back in the Nixon administration. Although there were dozens of investigations into the Bush administration, one can only wonder why there weren’t more investigations launched into the inner workings of this administration that lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and also made the stockholders of Halliburton wealthy beyond their dreams. Corruption in our government is not new, but we may discover it is at levels in the Trump administration that even the most power-hungry official could not envision.

But the path to this level of corruption was laid out a long time ago, across the world. It seems mankind can’t help but feel drawn to power and the abuse of it.

I say this as an introduction to my next recommendation, a documentary series on the Smithsonian TV channel titled Apocalypse: The Second World War. Ronald and I binge-watched this six part series last night. It is a must-see for anyone sixteen and older. The documentary used over 600 hours of declassified government film and film from private citizens taken during the war, and it was devastating to watch. This war was responsible for more deaths of soldiers and civilians than any other war in the history of mankind, and the number is in the tens of millions, maybe as high as 80 million. Historians estimate it wiped out 3% of the world population. 

Jews were left to starve in concentration camps or they were gassed en masse in gas chambers. Before the “final solution” was implemented, Jews were forced to dig their own graves and were shot while standing in them (and this horrific genocide was captured on film) – this method of genocide, later considered inefficient, was known as the Bullet Holocaust. There were millions of others who did not fit into the “master race” Nazis defined, and they were put to death, too. They included gypsies, homosexuals, political dissidents, and resistors.

Photo: Lt. Arnold E. Samuelson/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

But the Germans weren’t the only ones who acted with depravity and without regard for human life. The Russians let 600,000 prisoners of war starve to death, rather than use food needed for troops. The Japanese were guilty of crimes against humanity for their treatment of prisoners of war and for civilians, particularly in China and the Philippines. Italy conscripted its army and forced young men to fight for a mad dictator. America interned Japanese Americans, many of whom had been US citizens for generations.

This war clearly demonstrated unchecked power is capable of the most depraved, horrific, and inhuman actions by mankind. After the war, trials were held, but many war criminals were given immunity and were allowed to start over. Many resettled in America. The United Nations and NATO were put in place to try to prevent another such war from ever happening.

But we are living in a time now where certain personalities are rising to power and they are at risk of abusing that power. Trump is one of them. He has often used the rhetoric used by Hitler and other demagogues and he has used hatred and fear to get his way.

He is saying he may invoke his power to call a national emergency and build the wall between the US and Mexico. It is a clear abuse of power. He has dehumanized people seeking asylum in the US by describing them as criminals, animals, vermin, and as individuals who would change America as we know it – not very different from the rhetoric Hitler used against the Jews. Horrific acts were committed based on that rhetoric and we should be alert to this fact and try not to repeat the past.

At least five attempts were made to assassinate Hitler as Germans in high positions realized the absolute decimation of humanity the implementation of such rhetoric caused. Such failed attempts only caused Hitler to believe more strongly that God had placed him in power and was protecting him.

When people are experiencing hard times and they feel helpless to change their circumstances, someone like Trump or Hitler can come along and take advantage of that fear.  They needle away at racial and ethnic biases and give desperate people someone to take out their frustration and hatred upon. 

We’ve seen this at Trump rallies and in videos shared on social media. People feel more emboldened to act out against “the enemy” because Trump told them they could. Slowly, more and more inhumane acts become acceptable, including children being snatched away from their parents and imprisoned in camps or people of color being policed by white citizens because the white citizens believe people of color have no right to be in public spaces.

We have to stop this. We can’t continue on this path of hatred and genocide. Two children dying at the hands of authority are two children too many. Their deaths are imprinted on our souls.  If Trump has his way, we will be the ones burdened by our own hand in this atrocity. 

The wall is not a thing. Roger Stone made it up as a sound bite to rile the base, and it worked. No one ever expected Mexico to pay for the wall, or even to use taxpayers’ money to build it. In fact, it appears Trump is the only one left thinking the wall must be built. The number of illegal immigrants crossing the borders has decreased steadily since 2010. The only people coming now are seeking asylum from danger and violence in their own countries. We ought to open our arms to them, not build a wall.

Not only this, but Trump has also tried to denigrate the United Nations and NATO. He may very well destroy the pacts between countries that have so far kept us from another war like World War II.

We need to understand that power is corrupting to certain personalities.  Trump is one such person.  If we don’t understand and acknowledge the past and stand against such corruption now, early in the process, we may not be able to stop it in the future. 

The wall is not a thing. 

Angry White People, Part II

The GOP campaign is getting ugly and violent. Donald Trump refuses to take responsibility, but he is responsible. He is responsible for using people’s fears and anger to incite them. He is responsible for using their hatred to ramp up their fervor.

There is no hiding it anymore. Our country is divided and both sides are angry, but only one side is fearful and that makes them dangerous.

I am not sure what makes them afraid. I have my theories and they have to do with race, privilege, and disenfranchisement.  What I do know is that protesters are being ousted from Trump rallies for exercising their First Amendment Rights. And Trump supporters, emboldened by Trump’s urging, are getting violent. One sucker punched a protestor in Fayetteville, NC. That supporter faced charges, but not until the video of the incident went viral. Later in an interview he said, "The next time we see him, we might have to kill him."

Mob mentality is a frightening occurrence. Suddenly people are no longer individuals, they are part of a happening, complicit in groupthink, and they feel a heightened sense of power. This sense of empowerment causes them to lose inhibition. It may cause them to be violent. Recall the lynch mobs in the Jim Crow South before the Civil Rights movement.

Ronald and I watched the canceled Trump rally last night, and I was terrified someone would be injured or killed. I saw Confederate flag symbols and the American flag draped over people’s shoulders. They pushed their faces in the faces of the protesters and some took swings. Protesters fought back. Chaos ensued.

Ronald explained how difficult it is to disperse a crowd like that. As a retired fire lieutenant, he received riot training.

I worried more as thousands were turned out into the streets.

Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.

Trump, of course, refused to take responsibility. Instead he has painted himself as the leader who took precautions so no one would get hurt.

But he is lying.

He did not speak to law enforcement as he claimed when speaking to Chris Matthews. In fact it is now believed his campaign advisors purposely chose inner Chicago on a liberal, diverse college campus hoping to create the very scene we witnessed.

He is using the ignorance, fear, and hatred of his supporters to lead them toward him and his authoritarian approach to leadership. “I make the best deals,” he tells them, along with making digs about the protestors, “Go get a job!”

Why is he assuming the protesters have no jobs, when thousands of his supporters are also attending the rallies? He isn’t. He knows it is coded language that incites his supporters. He is calculating, manipulative, and unapologetic, like when he said he used the bankruptcy laws to his advantage because he could or when he said, “In the old days, they’d [protesters] be carried out on a stretcher.”

I am watching another Trump rally about to begin in Cleveland. Already I see the incendiary signs, and they aren't being carried by protesters.

This is a photo from the Chicago rally

Rubio and Kasich are backing away from supporting Trump if he becomes the candidate.  Rubio was visibly upset when questioned about last night’s rally.  Cruz still claims he will support whoever the candidate is.

They lost all respect from me (not that Cruz ever had my respect) when they bowed their heads as if in shame and said at the last GOP debate they would support Trump if he became the GOP candidate.

Bad enough Chris Christie endorsed Trump in an obvious move to climb on the train to some type of cabinet position, but then Ben Carson climbed on – the black evangelical – suddenly supporting hatred against his own people. What has this country come to?

Why is seeking equality in our country so reviled by the extreme right? Because they still believe in white supremacy. Because they still believe this country is a country of, for, and by white people and that people of color are interlopers, even those whose families have been in this country for centuries. They blame President Obama and Secretary Clinton for all the ills of the country. They are uninformed and delusional, and Donald Trump is using their ignorance and delusion to rise to power.

I thought he was a joke months ago. I, like so much of the media, thought he would crash and burn well before the Iowa caucuses. We underestimated him. This is one more deal he is working to close, and he isn’t afraid to use an unfair advantage, his supporters’ fear, anger, and hatred, to close it.

Donald Trump is dangerous, and now his supporters are dangerous, too. Just as Germans flocked to the side of Hitler, just as they believed the Jews were the reason for the country’s ills, so have Trump’s supporters flocked to him and laid blame on anyone who doesn’t look or think as they do.

Trump is up on stage in Cleveland. He is saying “professional protesters” stopped the rally goers in Chicago from exercising their First Amendment Rights. He takes the truth and twists it to his advantage.

We need to make sure Trump doesn’t even get a sniff at the presidency.  The presidency carries critical responsibility as the leader of the USA and the free world.

Get out and vote.
After Note: At Trump's rally this evening in Kansas City, he upped his rhetoric about protesters. He called Thomas Dimassimo, the protester who rushed the stage at the Dayton rally, ISIS-related (he is a 22 year-old college student from GA). He called for protesters at the KC rally to be arrested as he yelled, "Get them out." He threatened to ruin their lives. He is maligning protesters as un-American. Very dangerous, incendiary rhetoric.

On Being a Creative Maladjusted

This week George Zimmerman was released on bail.  His family had to come up with about $15,000 to get him bonded out on $150,000, and he was responsible for his own security. He did not tell the court that he had over $200,000 in a Pay Pal account donated by supporters of his fatal action. I so wanted to believe this man was a good man who made a terrible, irrevocable error, even knowing that he continued to trail Trayvon Martin after the police told him not to. I wanted to believe he was truly remorseful when he publicly apologized in court to Trayvon’s parents. But sometimes I give people too much credit. Then the disappointment I wear like a shroud smothers me in reality.

Wake Forest University announced the 50^th anniversary of its integration on April 27, 1962. It was the first private Southern university to allow integration of students. Prior to the integration effort many (all white) Wake Forest students had joined a lunch counter protest, similar to the historically famous one staged in Greensboro, by students of the historic black college Winston Salem State University. The timing and the environment were right for university officials to open Wake Forest to integration before the federal government forced them to. Martin Luther King would deliver a speech on campus just months later on October 12^th, nine months before he organized the March on Washington in 1963, an event that propelled him to national prominence.

The Charlotte Observer published a short AP wire story on October 13, 1962.

“Maladjustment is Needed – King.” 

Rev. Martin Luther King, 35-year-old Negro integrationist, told 2,200 white and Negro persons here Thursday night that the biblical prophets, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Jesus were all “maladjusted to the evils around them.”  The Baptist minister said the hope of the world lies in the emergence of “a society of the creative maladjusted.”  King received a standing ovation after his talk in Wake Forest College’s Wait Chapel.

I was about to turn five in April 1962 in a suburb of Albany, NY, and I had no idea that there were places some people weren’t allowed to be. My father’s best friend, Harold VanZandt, was a black man, and I loved him and he me. I had no reason to think he would be treated differently than my father. It wouldn’t occur to me, that fall when I entered kindergarten, that there was not a single black child in my class. Nor would there be for my entire school career, although there were a few black children in the district – about forty in my high school of 3000 students. I also never had a black teacher. Was Wake Forest progressive and caring or were they simply bending under the tide of change?

I read a great post, A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism', by Lindy West on Jezebel.com. It’s over the top, comical, honest, well written, and a must read. I wish I could find my humor about this shit. But I can’t, not in public at any rate because I worry that the people who need to won’t get the joke. Besides, I’ve lived this, and most incidents weren’t funny; they were scary. In private is another story – we joke about it all the time.

I read about Peter Keller in the news, a survivalist who lives in the state of Washington and who killed his wife and daughter, set the house on fire to cover up the murders, and headed to the underground bunker he spent eight years constructing and stockpiling with food, supplies, and arms.  What is an American trying to survive? And why didn’t he include his wife and daughter? Perhaps it is the perceived war being waged against his socio-political beliefs and status as a white man. I find it confusing and irrational, since we are a country rich in resources, enough for everyone and more, if we were of a generous collective mind, a be like Jesus collective mind. In some ways it makes more sense for the have-nots to be in survivalist mode – but I guess they don’t stand to lose what the haves stand to lose – wealth, power, and the ability to oppress others. But survivalists often feel disenfranchised and excluded from the elite. It’s tough to be white and not feel the privilege that one expects will go with whiteness. Disenfranchisement creates angry white men, although those same men cannot understand the anger of disenfranchised minorities.

Amendment One is up for vote in North Carolina on May 8^th. If it passes it will change the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Same sex marriages are already illegal in this state, but this is a last holdout state in the South as far as amendment changes, and some people don’t care to be different about it. They want the power of the Bible in their constitution, to forget the necessary and legal separation of church and state, so they can say they’ve saved sinners from themselves. But we are all sinners and we could all use saving when you look at us from the Old Testament point of view, which is the section of the Bible many proponents of this amendment are quoting from. Forget the good news of the New Testament.

I remember my Catholic upbringing. I imagined my soul like a glass bottle of milk, white with dark spots like rot or cancer or the floaters that now obscure my vision sometimes when I awaken in the gray of dusk. Those spots represented the sins tarnishing my spiritual pureness. In the Catholic religion there are different kinds of sins.

Mortal sins are grave sins, they destroy a person’s charity, and they were listed as follows up until 2008: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. In 2008 Bishop Girotti redefined them as follows: polluting, genetic engineering, being obscenely rich, drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia, and social injustice.

For a sin to be considered mortal, three conditions must exist: it is a grave matter; it is committed with full knowledge that it is a mortal sin; and that it is committed with full consent.

Venial sins are less serious. While mortal sins destroy a person’s charity, venial sins merely weaken it. Both can be forgiven, as well as original sin (which is forgiven through Baptism), but not blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. That is considered an eternal sin.

Those that blaspheme the Holy Spirit, for example, by claiming God wants them to be elected or that they are speaking for God against others, are facing certain damnation. Legislate that.

This past week while Ronald and I were out, we saw a truck with its grill decorated with a Confederate flag and a car with a Confederate flag vanity plate just a few minutes later. A photograph of a lynching in Marion, IN, popularly used as a postcard in the 1930s, popped up on my computer screen as I was doing a search. The burned bodies of two black men hanging from a tree, surrounded by a mob of white men, women, and children, some of whom smile at the camera, inspired the poem and song Strange Fruit penned by Abel Meeropol and sung by Billie Holiday. Every time I see the photograph my stomach turns and my disappointment in humanity turns to horror.

Last night I watched a show on the history channel, Third Reich. The first world leader to use “the communist threat” to strike fear in the masses was Adolf Hitler in 1933. He systematically eradicated communists, then Jews (six million by the end of the war), from Germany. He ordered the involuntary sterilization of over 400,000 people in 1934 alone for reasons such as blindness, deafness, homosexuality, promiscuity, alcoholism, and physical deformity in the quest to eradicate genetically inferior humans. Aryan couples were encouraged to have as many children as possible. Germany needed “better Germans [and] more of them.” Teenage Aryan girls were placed in camps where they were impregnated. The unwed girls were known as “the Fuehrer’s brides.”

I learned the interesting fact that Hitler rose to power with only 37% of the people’s support of the Nazi party. Take note. Sounds like conservative right numbers here in America. The Moral Majority that is really the Moral Minority shouts louder and more vehemently to deliver its subliminal message of hate and oppression.

Within fifty-two days of Hitler coming to power, the government suspended freedom of the presses, tapped telephones, and opened and read mail. People supported the effort because they believed it was for the greater good, and they turned in neighbors and even family members in their vehemence to be accepted into the Reich. Time Magazine named Hitler Man of the Year in 1935. By 1938 he planned to conquer the world. Many people around the world, including many Americans, were philosophically in agreement with him. The US also engaged in involuntary sterilization and human subject experiments.

Today is my twin daughters’ birthday. I had hoped for a better world when I gave birth to them. Someone showed me a book soon after Ronald and I started dating in 1976 titled The Browning of America. I remember telling the person that showed it to me that Ron and I were doing our part. I thought that trend would stop racism and further the civil rights movement. I thought feminism would rid the world of gender oppression. But both movements have only brought out how very racist and misogynistic the fabric of our society is, and in many ways our progress has created a nasty backlash.

I realize I spend a lot of time feeling like I’m from some other planet, wishing for it, perhaps, as I witness this world that appears like a science experiment gone terribly wrong. In his speech at Wake Forest, King said he was maladjusted to “some things in our social order . . . and would hope that men of goodwill all over would be maladjusted to these things until the good society is realized.” I am one of the creative maladjusted.