Donald Trump, USA President, Today

From former NPR reporter Jacki Lyden today, from her Facebook page.

What did you do with your morning?

Kiss the kids, hug the spouse, walk the dog, pour coffee for the friend, chat to the neighbor?

Phone abroad, pull a weed?

In some way, be glad you were alive?

The leader of the free world (I’m fairly certain) did none of that.

In a 15-tweet-tweetstorm, the day before a UN roll-out, amid N Korea threats and Prez Taunts (now we’re down to taunts like Rocket Man) and post-Irma & Harvey, he woke up with tweet indigestion.

He put misogyny into the mix, re-tweeting from an anti-Semitic account fantasizing that this oaf could possibly swing a golf club hard enough to Hillary Clinton in the back, without getting a hernia. The meme splices in a clip of Clinton visiting Yemen.

Jealousy over Clinton's book reception likely triggered it (as well as raging jealousy over her accomplishments as a female Secretary of State-- (heaven help Ivanka) but -- racism and misogyny and paternalism/white supremacy are absolutely at the core of Donald Trump's id. (I would never reflect on the state of his soul. That remains to be developed.)

Every single day, Americans who worry about the myriad obliques and angles threatening modern life, must additionally worry that this unstable man will further undermine what remains of our democracy, society, and civility.

Every hour.

Columnists write columns about their rising blood pressure (see Dana Milbank, "Trump is Killing Me).

The best antidote, of course, is to prevail with those principles Trump cannot affect -- morality, civility, decency, and courage. It's not about "moving past" Trump's latest outrage -- it's burned into our psyches already. Short of removing this completely unfit human from public office, we must do all we can to hang on to our own characters, which are, of course, already going to be tested by the ungrateful kid, horrid neighbor, food poisoning and dog that bites. 

My point being that life is a series of intended and unintended feints and parries, an equilibrium forever poised on the precipice of eclipse, but with this president we can count on poison and only on poison. 

There are no legislative political accomplishments, and of course, he is politically impotent. 

And knows it. 

Remember we need health care, mental health parity, community need, a fight against ethnic cleansing, fairness for the the frail amongst us, an environment and planet health we must improve. 

Perhaps the test for us is that in addition to never overlooking his sickness--for he is a sick man, very sick--we must expand our empathy gene in direct opposition to Trump’s failure to affect anything except hatred. 

We must speak out. 

That to me is indeed but one good reason to get up in the morning and carry on-- because someone this sick and desperate can make everyone a little more sick and desperate and would revel in doing so if it made him feel powerful. 

There is no moral compass there, just an id. 

So onward friends, in the engagement of your best self, best talents, best friends, best heart. We struggle, but at least, we struggle together.

Links:

Jacki Lyden

President Trump is killing me. Really

FDR's "2nd Bill of Rights"

After watching Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" yesterday, I learned President Franklin Roosevelt actually proposed a "2nd Bill of Rights" in 1944, a year before his death. Would that we would have gotten these things. It was a brief speech but here's what he called for. You can either click on the link below or go watch and listen to the speech online, of course, but he basically laid out a plan calling for 8 "rights" we should all have, as Americans. They were: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education. He ended by saying this: For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world." FDR was brilliant on so many issues and situations. He wasn't perfect or flawless by any means but he was correct about the Great Depression and what we needed to do in most cases and he was certainly, absolutely correct on this. And we'll apparently never have them. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights

From a distance the world looks blue and green,
and the snow-capped mountains white.
From a distance the ocean meets the stream,
and the eagle takes to flight.

From a distance, there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace,
it's the voice of every man.

From a distance we all have enough,
and no one is in need.
And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease,
no hungry mouths to feed.

From a distance we are instruments
marching in a common band.
Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace.
They're the songs of every man.

God is watching us. God is watching us.
God is watching us from a distance.
From a distance you look like my friend,
even though we are at war.

From a distance I just cannot comprehend
what all this fighting is for.
From a distance there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.

And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves,
it's the heart of every man.
It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves.
This is the song of every man.

And God is watching us, God is watching us,
God is watching us from a distance.
Oh, God is watching us, God is watching.
God is watching us from a distance

Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.  Keep warm.

Insane imbalances

I've been convinced that some of the worst things humankind ever did involved creating the nuclear bomb--of course--the automobile and the television, not necessarily in that order.

These things have created a great deal of our problems--the nuclear blast, pollution, I can't even think of what TV has done to us but it hasn't been good.

But I recently came across what I think is one of the number one things humankind has created that has caused so many problems and unfairness and inequality over time.

Ironically, I learned of the formal name for it on my first ocean cruise, last March. While on this cruise, I read a bit of a book about Central America and what had happened to it. It was then and there I learned the term and siituation.

Mankind's "downfall", if we can call it that here, is is "the monopolization of land."

It's the monopolization of land that inflicts the huge, gross inequality between "have" and "have not" people and groups.

Think of it.

Abotiginal groups--be it in Australia or in the United States with the indigenous, native Americans (that term doesn't seem appropriate, frankly), all functioned as one people, all utilizing what they had and all of virtually equal material status.

Very natural. Very fair. Very equal.

Then, the white, "New world" people came in to whatever area they were occupying, be it Australia or some portion of America or wherever, and divided areas up into "yours" vs. "mine".

Instead of all sharing all the resources, it was divided up into people's individual interests, resulting in some with a great deal of resources and wealth and others with less, little or not much at all.

Later, then, this could and did feed into the corporation and its ability to own items and people and productivity, distorting wealth even further.

This is the way you create people with outrageous amounts of wealth (google images of the Cote d'Azur) vs. poverty, starvation and other degradations of imbalance and unfairness.

It has been happening down through humankind's time. It's happening now in Nigeria, with their new discoveries of oil, for instance.

Most people, sadly, won't understand what I'm even saying here.

The land and earth should be and should have been for all of us--not just some small, self-selected few, be they some "royalty" or oil firm or what- or whomever.

Food, clothing, healthcare and a good, basic, healthy way of living should be for all of us, not just some small few.