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Friday, June 20, 2025
The 21st Century "Fireside Chat": Governor Andy Beshear's Podcast
Sunday, December 8, 2024
"How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them" by Jason Stanley and What You Can Do To Prevent Fascism In America!
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On November 3, 2024, just two days before our recent disastrous national election, I wrote an earlier blog post about this book, "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them" by Jason Stanley. In the last few weeks preceding that election, I was posting as much as I could write on this blog about the imminent danger that TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate present to America. I was working on reading, and still am today, a large shelf of "To Be Read" books about Fascism, Threats To Democracy, and the current politics of the United States. In most of those blog posts, I also stated that I was writing about a book or books which I had not fully read at that time. I was skimming the books for quotes which were applicable to the danger we were in. I would search the indices of the those books for the appropriate words, read those brief sections, and, if they were worthy of repeating, I would write a blog post about that books brief sections which I had read. While I might have hoped, or fantasized, that the American electorate would do the right thing and elect Kamala Harris as president, I was also aware that just as he had in 2021, TRAITOR Trump would wage a war against America and American Democracy if he was once again defeated as he always had been before. I knew that if Kamala Harris was elected TRAITOR Trump would stage another insurrection just as he had on January 6. In fact, one of my blog posts before the election was written on September 23, 2024, and entitled "The Upcoming Second Insurrection". Sadly, that insurrection will now be conducted from the White House. So, the most important question for all of us to answer in our heart of hearts is "What am I going to do to help prevent the death of American Democracy? The first thing you can and should do is to educate yourself on a daily basis about the danger to America and American Democracy which TRAITOR Trump represents. One of the best ways to begin that self-education is to read this book "How Fascism Works..." by Jason Stanley. Learn how Fascism works, how Fascism creeps into a country and destroys its political soul. Most importantly learn what you as one individual can do to help prevent Fascism, the Fascism of TRAITOR Trump can and should be resisted, defeated, and wiped out of the blood stream of American Democracy. Then, secondly, become involved on a personal, face to face level with other dedicated citizens who are involved in the fight against TRAITOR Trump and his Fascism. Don't con yourself into believing that sitting at home reading the news on the internet and engaging in social media is enough. Develop personal friendships with others who are involved in the fight. Join the politically focused organizations that are in the fight such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and others. Don't just join them and read their literature. Support their work to the degree that you can based on your income, free time, and personal commitments. Read every book you can find about the danger to America and how to prevent the loss of American Democracy. So now let's get to the point of this blog post and discuss the book, "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them" by Jason Stanley.
Throughout the book, Stanley, who is a professor of philosophy at Yale University in an endowed chair, documents and discusses actions, speeches, and threats by TRAITOR Trump which are clearly Fascist in nature. While this book was reissued in 2020, recent statements by several American generals who have worked closely with TRAITOR Trump about his fascist tendencies fully support what Stanley has to say about him and his danger to the country. In Bob Woodward's new book, "War",which I will discuss fully as soon as I can finish it, he tells a story of meeting General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a party:
“We have got to stop him!” Milley said. “You have got to stop him!” By “you” he meant the press broadly. “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.” His eyes darted around the room filled with 200 guests of the Cohen Group, a global business consulting firm headed by former defense secretary William Cohen. Cohen and former defense secretary James Mattis spoke at the reception. “A fascist to the core!” Milley repeated to me. I will never forget the intensity of his worry." (The Atlantic, October 16, 2024, "The General's Warning". https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/10/the-generals-warning/680279/ )
In the book, Stanley writes in chapters which are descriptive of the key elements of fascist thinking and acts and labels those elements of Fascism as The Mythic Past, Propaganda, Anti-intellectual, Unreality, Hierarchy, Victimhood, Law and Order, Sexual Anxiety, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Arbeit Macht Frei which is translated as "Work Sets You Free" and was utilized by the Nazis in concentration camps to help them control the prisoners. In the 2003 issue of "Free Inquiry Magazine, Lawrence Britt discussed key elements of fascism under slightly different titles and I have written about that examination of fascism at this link six years ago. The fascism of TRAITOR Trump is not a new thing just because several American generals and other staff members who worked under him have suddenly begun to use the word "Fascist" about him in public. It has been existent many years and many of us who have been aware of it have also been making frequent studious attempts to educate the rest of the world about his fascism. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright actually published a book "Fascism A Warning" in 2018 and I wrote about her book that same year. Television personality Rachel Maddow, who also happens to be Dr. Rachel Maddow since she holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of Oxford wrote a book in 2023 entitled "Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism" which I have written about at this link. It is also worthwhile to find Maddow's interview with Stormy Daniels on Youtube and watch the entiree interview. In that interview, the two women actually read Stormy Daniels' testimony in her civil trial against TRAITOR Trump with Daniels playing herself and Maddow reading the parts of the several attorneys. It is an enlightening show and was the first opportunity the general public had to actually see the testimony from the "Hush Money Trial" since it was held without television cameras present. Let me suggest that you watch that interview after you have learned at least the basics of fascism which will make TRAITOR Trump's actions toward Daniels much more clearly understood for what they are: Fascism In Action. I have made reference to all these discussions of Fascism to help the reader understand that TRAITOR Trump's devotion to and practice of Fascism is nothing new. Jason Stanley and I are not the only people working diligently to make all of America aware of the problem it presents on a daily basis to the country and the world.
In the epilogue to his book, Jason Stanley refers to the work of Yale professors Joshua Knobe and Adam Bear by saying that in a New York Times article they have found that "...Trump's continuing behavior-- actions and speech that used to be considered remarkable--have real and disturbing consequences: "These actions are not simply coming to be regarded as more typical; they are coming to be seen as more normal. As a result, they will come to be seen as less bad and hence less worthy of outrage." (Jason Stanley, "How Fascism Works...", Page188.)
Read This Book! Get Involved In The Fight! Do Your Part To Help Save America And American Democracy!
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
"Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness And The Mind Of Donald Trump", edited by John Gartner, Steven Buser, and Leonard Cruz,
This book was published in 2018, and edited by John Gartner, Steven Buser, and Leonard Cruz. It is just as important, perhaps even more important, today as it was was on the day the first copy rolled off the presses. I will repeat myself from an earlier post about a book called "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. As any intelligent, well read, politically aware American knows instinctively, this book would not have been written if TRAITOR Trump had never occupied the White House. I have to admit that I have not read the entire book but have read key chapters and independent, unbiased reviews of the book. This has been necessary due to both the speed with which we are approaching the most important election in American History again, just as we have been in the two previous election cycles and, because I have far too many books to important books to read and write about before the date of the election on November 5, 2024.
This is a unique book because it was written in separate but existentially connected chapters by the authors, a cross section of mental health professionals and nuclear weapons and military experts. This method of having several chapters written by different experts on the topic at hand was also utilized by Dr. Bandy X. Lee, M. D.; M. Div. when she edited the very important book, "The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump". These could not be more important books at any time other than today with the 2024 presidential election coming just six days from now. Any well written and well reviewed which attempts to warn the American electorate of the dangers presented by TRAITOR Trump, his owner Vladimir Putin, and those who support his TREASON, is an important book today. I am certain that there are several others which I have not been able to read and write about and, perhaps, even some of which I have not learned which are equally important if they share these authors' common goals of warning the electorate, protecting the country, and educating the reader about the dangers TRAITOR Trump presents every day he walks free.
John Gartner is a doctoral level psychologist who previously taught at Johns Hopkins University. Leonard Cruz, M. D. is the co-founder of the Asheville Jung Center and a practicing psychiatrist. The third co-editor, Steven Buser, M. D., is also a co-founder of the Asheville Jung Center and a practicing psychiatrist They pulled together a fine group of military and psychiatric experts to co-author the book. Major General (Ret.) William L. Enyart, a former Illinois congressman, and a graduate of the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. Gordon Humphrey was a United States Senator from 1979 to 1990. He served on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. These individuals are just a few of the more than two dozen highly qualified authors of the chapters/articles in the book. Collectively and individually, they are people whose opinions should be sought at times of potential nuclear crisis in America and the world.
Now, let's look at just a few examples of what they have to say about the danger TRAITOR Trump presents to the country and the world. Chapter 4 of the book is written by David Reiss, M. D., and entitled "If Trump Were a Policeman I Would Have to Take Away His Gun". The second sentence of his article tells you nearly everything you need to know about TRAITOR Trump which the anxiety producing title does not. "If I were being asked to evalute Trump's fitness for duty as commander in chief there are behaviors that would trouble me." But Dr. Reiss goes even further when he says this: "If Donald Trump were a police officer who had been referred to me for a Fitness-for-Duty evaluation...my recommendation would be removal of the officer from any position of responsibility pending a complete evaluation."
Chapter 5 from Major General (Ret.) Enyart is just as blunt in its title: "If Trump was entering the Military, he would not recieve a Security Clearance." He is even more blunt in the article in which he discusses the possibility that TRAITOR Trump could be or could have been the target of a Russian "honey pot trap", an offer of free sex from a beautiful woman who would be working with or for Russian intelligence agents, a common practice in their tool box. I quote from the article: "President Trump has shown a remarkable lack of judgment." I quote further: "Knowing Trump's well-publicized sexual behavior, it seems unlikely that he could refuse such a tantalizing offer [an offer of sex, a honey pot trap]. "...if Donald Trump were undergoing a standard security clearance investigation, any credible suspicion of such kompromat would be enough to sink his application. Period."
Chapter 17, written by Bard Larsen, has an equally provocative title, "Is Donald Trump A Fascist?". It concludes with this sentence "...America will have to reinforce the democratic institutions and repair the divided society and broken public discourse Trump has sought to destroy." While Larsen does not flly answer the key question he presents in his title, he also did not have the amount of information on his topic in 2018 when the book was published. Bard Larsen had never heard former Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley say in a recorded interview with Bob Woodward that “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump. Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”
This book is a bit dated. TRAITOR Trump had not said and done many of the things at the time the book was published that he has said and done in the intervening six years. He had not been convicted of 34 felonies or indicted, but yet untried, for 60 more. He had not ordered police to tear gas non-violent protestors in front of the White House. He had not stated publicly that he "would only be a dictator on the first day". Yet, the group of outstanding psychiatric and military personnel who wrote this book had already found enough evidence to say in print that TRAITOR Trump was unfit to hold any position of responsibility, not an acceptable candidate for a security clearance and, definitely, not a fit candidate to be the commander in chief. Read the book no matter what happens on November 5, 2024. Regardless of what happens in the election, TRAITOR Trump will always be a threat to America, American Democracy, and the entire world so long as he walks free. And, God forbid, if he wins that election, no one in the world will be safe until he is held responsible for both the crimes he has committed in the past, and for any crimes he will commit in the future.
Thursday, September 26, 2024
My Plan From Now Until November 5, 2024!
There are only 41 days from now, September 26, 2024, until November 5, 2024, the date of the 2024 US Presidential Election. I have a plan for what I will attempt to accomplish between now and then which will include several goals, all of which are individual steps in my plan to do everything I can as a single human citizen of the greatest country on earth to help ensure that Kamala Harris will be elected as the next President of The United States, and to ensure that TRAITOR Trump is never again allowed anywhere near the White House. I hope that each of you who reads this has a similar plan and will do everything in your power to carry that out to its fully justified and righteous completion. Listed below are some of the steps in that plan, hopefully not the full list of steps since I will be thinking everyday until November 5, 2024, is there one more thing I can do to ensure that America is safe from TRAITOR Trump. Among the things I will be doing is reading as much as I can of the list of books below, and each day adding on this blog a post discussing what I have found in these books. Some of the books on this list are nearly fresh off the press. Some are several years old and were either published prior to and because of the 2016 election or as a result of the horrible outcomes of that stolen election. Every one of these books is a very important book. I have read and written about several of them on this blog in the past. Others I have not read but ordered over the last few weeks because of the potential outcomes of this election, potentially wonderful if all goes well, potentially the death of American Democracy if all goes wrong and TRAITOR Trump is allowed to return to the White House after having already been indicted for 94 felonies and convicted of 34, after his having created, fomented, and caused the worst insurrection against the duly constituted government of the United States since the Civil War, and after the many evidences of his decades long deep, dangerous connections to Russia and Putin. The list of books is appended to the bottom of this post and other, more easily completed tasks will be listed and discussed briefly before the book list. I beseech each of you to do as many of these tasks as you possibly can. This is literally the most important election in the history of the United States just as the previous two were. One of those elections, 2020, turned out in the best interests of the country and for almost four years we have reaped the rewards of that election. The other of the two previous elections ended in the worst possible way and we have paid horrible prices for that outcome over the intervening four years. Sadly, we are not, and will not for some unforeseeable time in the future, done with suffering the outrageous costs of the 2016 election, and will not be done for many years to come. It will take at least fifty years for this country to overcome the incredible moral and ethical damage which TRAITOR Trump has already done to this country. We will never be able to overcome the increased ethical, moral, governmental damage which TRAITOR Trump would do to the country in four more years of his work to destroy America and American Democracy. Do all you can to help the country avoid that outcome!
!) Every day from now until the next election I will be doing everything I can to convince other Americans to do the right thing and elect Kamala Harris to the presidency. I will confront the ignorance and TREASON which attempts to justify the election of TRAITOR Trump, anywhere, anytime, from anybody.
2) I will VOTE FOR KAMALA HARRIS and so should you. I will do all I can to convince every person I discuss this election with to do the same. If I am needed, I will haul voters to the polls, I will spend my time, gasoline, and effort to ensure the best turnout possible for Kamala Harris in this election. If necessary, I will stop traffic at a polling place and help little old ladies and gentlemen across the street to vote if I see the need.
3) I will use every form of communication available to me between now and the election to spread the truth about both Kamala Harris and TRAITOR Trump. This election is literally between Good and Evil. No more dangerous human on earth exists today who could be placed in the White House. Tell everyone you know the truth. Use your personal communication skills in face to face talks with others. Use social media if you use it. Use your telephone to call others and urge them to vote for Kamala Harris and the entire Democratic ticket wherever they live in the US. Volunteer for phone call duty with your state Democratic party. Put up a yard sign at your property and, if you live in a community which prohibits that, tell you HOA to Kiss Your Ass and appeal their decisions against you to the highest arbiters possible at least until November 5. If you have the money, hire a small plane to fly a banner over the local high school football game on Friday night. If you belong to some form of club, fraternity, sorority, or other group activity speak out before and after their meetings. If it allowed, speak out during those meetings when the most people will hear the truth. Do all you can in any way possible to help Kamala Harris win this election. America and American Democracy literally depend on the outcome of this election.
4) Now let's talk about this list of books. All of them are important but I will list some of the shorter, new, arguably more important books first and the older books last. But remember this, every one of these books contains truths about TRAITOR Trump and the danger he presents to the country.
A) "On Freedom" by Timothy Snyder has just come off the press and my copy has just hit my mail box literally as I have been writing this post. It will be the next book I read cover to cover after I complete the current Timothy Snyder book which I am about two thirds of the way through. That book is "The Road To Unfreedom". I cannot list enough superlatives about Timothy Snyder and his books. "The Road To Unfreedome" is described in this manner on his website: Freedom is the great American commitment, but as Snyder argues, we have lost sight of what it means—and this is leading us into crisis. According to Snyder, the goal of the book is to allow us to design a government in which we and future generations can flourish. I assure you we cannot design such a government with TRAITOR Trump and his cult anywhere near the White House.
B) "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder is a wonderful book and I am currently waiting for my third purchased copy to arrive. One previous copy I passed on to cousin who is like a brother to me and joins all of us in resisting TRAITOR Trump and his TREASON. A second purchased copy was accidentally left on a toilet paper dispenser in a restroom at the Kentucky Clinic. I only hope that it fell into hands of someone who was open to its ideas, read and understood the truths it contains. Snyder's website describes the book in this manner: On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come. I have written about resistance on this blog in the past and read more than one book on political resistance in response to the terrible damage which TRAITOR Trump has caused this country over the last ten years. One of the books I read in that vein is "A Nation Defiant: Poland's Resistance To The German Occupation Of Poland" by Richard S. Fuegner which I wrote about in this blog post in February 2017. In January of 2017, I also constructed a list of books to be read by those who understand that it is the most patriotic act possible to resist a destructive government such as the Nazi and Fascists of WWII and a possible Fascist government to be constructed by TRAITOR Trump if this election goes awry as 2016 did. Every book on that list is well worth reading in today's times but should be read only after you have read the books on this blog post.
C) "The Road To Unfreedom" by Timothy Snyder is the third of his books which I am adding at the front of this list, and I realize that some of you are already wondering if I should add so many books by the same author. Timothy Snyder is the professor at Yale University who holds the endowed Richard C. Levin Chair in History and is perhaps the greatest living historian in America in addition to being the best author of history, especially about current politics in America, World War II, and The Holocaust. This book is about the rise of Fascism in Russia and other parts of Europe, Vladimir Putin and his well publicized plan to create what he likes to call Eurasia which he has stated will stretch from Vladivostok to Lisbon, literally putting Russia and Putin in control of nearly all of Eastern Europe and a large portion of Asia. It details Putin's fascination with the deceased Russian political philosopher Ivan Ilyin.
D) Now we move away from the works of Timothy Snyder but not away from Yale University. The book "How Fascism Works" by Jason Stanley is exactly what the title says. It is great description of how Fascists rise to power in susceptible countries, gain control of governments in such countries, and move on to destroy those countries. Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky professor of philosophy at Yale. His works are not as voluminous or publicly popular as Snyder's but they are equally important for the person who understands just how dangerous these times have become in American politics because of TRAITOR Trump and his cult.
E) The next book on this list is "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. It is about exactly what the title says, the death of democracies. Steven Levitsky is a professor political science at Harvard University. Daniel Ziblatt is Director of Harvard University's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies where he is also Eaton Professor of Government. Their book is described as being about how elected leaders can gradually subvert the democratic process to increase their power. The book also offers stark warnings about the impact of the Republican Party and Donald Trump on U.S. democracy. Are you beginning to understand that I am not the only writer in America who understands that TRAITOR Trump is the greatest present danger to Democracy and the United States?
F) This next book is one of the most important to come out of the stolen 2016 election and I wrote about it several years ago on another list of books I was recommending at that time. It is "The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump", edited by Dr. Bandy X. Lee, M. D., a professor of psychiatry and the law at Harvard University. She went to Harvard after having taught at Yale for 17 years. The book is written in a series of articles by 27 of the most respected, most experienced, and most honest psychiatrists in America. Each article details and explains the seriously dangerous nature of TRAITOR Trump's mental illness. It was a massive best seller when it was published in 2017. It will be an important book so long as TRAITOR Trump lives outside a federal prison cell.
G) "Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness And The Mind Of Donald Trump" was edited by John Gartner, Steven Buser, and Leonard Cruz and is also written in separate articles as the Lee edited book is. But these national experts are discussing the unfitness of TRAITOR Trump to be in charge of the American nuclear arsenal. Each of the writers in this book are experts in the field of nuclear weaponry and/or nuclear war. Several of these authors are retired American military officers who worked in the area of nuclear weaponry during their military careers. Others were journalists who specialized in the military field.
H) I have not read a word of this next book yet. But you can bet that I will, at least, have read the concluding section and written about it before the election. The book in question? "On Call: A Doctor's Journey In Public Service" by Anthony Fauci, M. D. One chapter in that section is entitled "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" and without a doubt that chapter is about Fauci's horribly demeaning treatment by TRAITOR Trump during the Covid crisis when Fauci and many other researchers at the National Institutes of Health were working day and night trying to find a successful treatment and intervention program to curtail the Covid epidemic, and were being belittled, resisted, mistreated, minimized, and publicly abused by a TRAITOR who proved on a daily basis that he knew less about Covid and epidemic management than he knew about any other subject on earth. I should also say here that I am very familiar with NIH, ,having traveled there regularly for about five years in the 1990's due to my wife suffering from an incredibly rare and undiagnosed genetic anomaly which has placed her in a wheelchair for the past 25 years. We traveled to NIH about 3 times a year for a week at a time for their team in the National Institute for Diabetes and Kidney Disease. During that time, we never met Dr. Fauci, but we did meet the Director of the NIDKD, Dr. Simeon Taylor, M. D. along with hundreds of other NIH employees in most departments at all levels of responsibility. For the rest of my life, I will be a fan a defender of NIH and all its employees who are many of the finest humans I have ever met in my life.
It is possible that I might add a few other excellent books to this list before election day. I realize full well that most of us could not hope to read them all in the next 41 days. I am asking you to choose a few from the list to read before the election. And, regardless of the outcome of the election, please read them all when you can. They will give you a very good education about American Democracy, the dangers TRAITOR Trump always has and always will present to this country and to every one of its citizens so long as he walks the earth a free man. He must not be allowed to live in the White House again. He must not be allowed to destroy this country and democracy. He must be convicted of his crimes against America, American Democracy, the entire civilized world, and the planet itself. GO VOTE!
Monday, July 29, 2024
Immoral and Amoral, Two Very Different Words
I have to admit that using a photograph of the cover of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as the header photograph for this blog post might have been a fine way to run off potential readers. But it is a far better thing to do than to begin this post with a photograph of either of the two people whose actions have merited their mention in this larger discussion of two related, but very different words: IMMORAL and AMORAL. Or if we use their noun forms instead of the adjectival forms: IMMORALITY and AMORALITY. If we refer to the "Concise Oxford English Dictionary", which I do frequently, we find that IMMORAL means "not conforming to accepted forms of morality". AMORAL means "lacking a moral sense; unconcerned whether something is right or wrong". Now you ask, what on earth could he be thinking to write a blog post about just two words in the vast English language which has always required 26 volumes for the complete Oxford English Dictionary. This is not the first time I have written a blog post about the differences between two words. This blog post about "Practicing" and "Professing" came up for the very same reason this one has, because our country and our democracy are under threat today by some of the most dangerous enemies this country has ever had, enemies who falsely claim to be devoted to this country and the values on which it has been built and which have made it the world's greatest representative democracy. AMORAL and IMMORAL are very closely related and come from the same root word, and they both refer to deficiencies in morals in a human, or more appropriately, in a human soul. IMMORAL refers to a person who lacks sufficient moral values or moral fiber, if you prefer, to meet the customary minimum standards of a civilized society. But the IMMORAL person has one unique quality which the AMORAL person does not. The IMMORAL person has the capacity to change, learn, improve, and to develop sufficient morals in order to become a socially acceptable person who is worthy of trust, respect, and, in some cases, admiration. The AMORAL person is not built the same way psychologically as the IMMORAL person. The AMORAL person lacks the ability to change, learn, improve and to develop morally to become a better human being who is worthy of trust, respect, or even admiration. Psychologically, the AMORAL person is a very different breed of animal and, even more to be distrusted, disrespected, and guarded against in all forms of human interaction. They have no internal controls or moderating factors to make them capable of successful, productive, and humane interactions with the human race. Some examples of people who were AMORAL instead of IMMORAL would include Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Benito Mussolini, and Sadaam Hussein.
We are facing the most momentous presidential election in the history of this nation which is almost 250 years old. Even the presidential election of 1860 was not as potentially consequential as the presidential election of 2024. If the 1860 election had gone wrong and Abraham Lincoln had not been elected, the United States would have simply split into two separate countries and both might well still be in existence today. If the presidential election of 2024 goes wrong, the most likely outcome would be that while the title of United States of America might remain in use for an extended period of time, the United States of America would cease to exist in practice, not just as the most powerful democracy in the world, but as a democracy at all. Fascism and Democracy are the real opponents in this presidential election with Democracy, as it has existed for almost 250 years, being represented by Vice President Kamala Harris and whomever she chooses as her running mate ; and with TRAITOR Trump and J. D. Vance representing the future Fascist and oppressive entity which might continue to exist under the name United States of America but would almost instantly become a government devoted to the destruction of nearly all individual rights, and totally uncommitted to defending our mutual interests jointly with our long term fellow democracies. This election is literally a contest between Good and Evil, Democracy and Fascism, Liberty and Totalitarianism, AMORALITY and MORALITY. TRAITOR Trump and J. D. Vance both represent everything that is evil, destructive, dangerous, unethical, and AMORAL in the world today. There is no crime which either of these men will not commit if it will further their momentary gains. We, as loyal Americans, must ensure that MORALITY wins in this election. We must not allow two men who belittle anyone different from them, and seek to destroy anything human, animal, mineral, or vegetable which stands between them and their short term desires. As Americans at the voting booth, we must support Democracy, Humanity, Fealty, Decency, Patriotism, and above all MORALITY. We must not allow our country to follow in the historically malevolent footsteps of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist Cambodia, or any other nation which allowed itself, in the course of human history, to become the slave of a dictator and that dictator's evil.
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Will This Be Our Last Real Independence Day?
Today is July 3, 2024, and the United States is facing the most grave danger of being destroyed as a nation at least since Pearl Harbor. What is even worse about this impending disaster is that the grave danger is within our own borders, centered in the 6 justices on the US Supreme Court who voted to give a convicted felon, Russian Agent, TRAITOR, serial sex offender, tax cheat, career criminal, pathological liar, and idiot a free pass on having incited the greatest insurrection in the history of our nation, having stolen and attempted to retain hundreds of classified documents which are clearly the property of the US government and no one else. It is also centered in and led by that very same convicted felon, Russian Agent, TRAITOR, serial sex offender, tax cheat, career criminal, pathological liar, and idiot. We are living the prediction of Nikita Kruschev when he said " We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within." That dire prediction from the former Russian leader is being personified in the Russian Agent this country allowed to live illegally in the White House for 4 years after having committed TREASON with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Just a few days ago one of this country's greatest historians and writers, Timothy Snyder posted a list of "50 Reasons..." why TRAITOR Trump owes a debt to Putin and Russia. And, according to Snyder, every one of those fifty acts is documented in the public record. That list of events which Snyder has provided includes occasions on both sides when money has changed hands between TRAITOR Trump and Russian people, probable intelligence agents, and entities, occasions when TRAITOR Trump has done political favors for Russia including the time shortly after he was allowed to enter the White House that he turned and brought the Russian Ambassador and a Russian (Translation: FSB, Russian Intelligence Agents) into the Oval Office. Those Russian agents were the only videographers and sound technicians in the Oval Office during that visit. What do you think they were doing? It also includes the deal for useless real estate in Florida for which a Russian paid nearly $100Million dollars, an amount vastly greater than the land's worth. There is also a great deal of credible intelligence that TRAITOR Trump has laundered an untold amount of Russian money through his companies. Many Russian citizens also have bought units in the many condominium buildings he has built. Timothy Snyder has been warning the US and our citizens about TRAITOR Trump for several years and his excellent little book, "On Tyranny", is one of the best examples of his many warnings. But that book and read it closely! It is small but it is a very important book in today's world.
Monday, February 5, 2024
Reflections On Reading "The River of Doubt" by Candice Millard
Fairly frequently, I go to Goodwill Stores, Salvation Army Surplus Stores, and other less well known discount stores specifically to buy used books. I have on one or two occasions found rare books of considerable value and on many occasions I have found books which I have read and loved for 50 cents or a dollar. A few weeks ago I hit the reading jackpot in Paintsville, Kentucky, at the Goodwill Store there when I found "The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey" by Candice Millard. My wife Candice and I had recently read David Grann's book "The Lost City of Z" about the Amazon explorations and disappearance of British explorer Percy Fawcett, which had made fleeting references to former President Theodore Roosevelt's expedition into the Amazon with Brazilian explorer and Army officer Candido Rondon during which they had traveled the length of the River of Doubt and been the first explorers to do so.
I had no idea who Candice Millard was but picked the book up at the Goodwill Store as soon as I saw the title. Millard is a former National Geographic writer and was an excellent person to choose to write about Roosevelt's trip since she has traveled the remote parts of the world on many assignments. It is a rare kind of book, one that won't let you put it down, that keeps you rooting for the protagonists, and is backed by impeccable and immense research. The book is based largely on the journals of four of the men on the expedition: former President Theodore Roosevelt who had traveled to remote parts of the world previously for both military assignments and hunting trips; Colonel Candido Rondon, the original discoverer of The River of Doubt and a world famous explorer in his own right who had been the director of the Brazilian attempts to run telegraph lines into the remote Amazon; the American naturalist George Cherrie who had progressed from being a child laborer in a sawmill at age 12 to becoming one of the most famous naturalists who ever lived having had 6 species of animals and birds named for him; and Millard also depended heavily on the journals of President Roosevelt's son Kermit who had been building roads and bridges in the remote portions of Brazil prior to the expedition. Millard artfully weaves her own meticulous research work and excerpts from the first person journals of the men on the expedition into a wonderful book about one of the most interesting and riveting stories and one of the world's most dangerous and difficult trips ever taken in the early twentieth century. The photo below is of T. Roosevelt in the American west.
During the roughly 3 month trip, Theodore Roosevelt nearly died due to his past history of having been shot in an assassination attempt combined with other health problems, the incredible physical challenges of the trip, and the myriad insect borne diseases of the Amazon jungle. By the time the trip ended, Roosevelt was literally near death and had lost over 20% of his body weight. He had been a man all his life who actively sought out physical challenges of an extreme nature while also being an intellectual. Roosevelt was equally matched in those attributes by Rondon and Cherrie. Kermit Roosevelt had been raised by his father to accept and master similar challenges virtually from the cradle and was nearly a match for the other men in those capacities. Rondon also had a native Brazilian right hand man who was similar in physical qualities with a lifetime of experience in Amazon survival. They also had a sizeable contingent of laborers from among the more civilized Amazon tribes who with one exception worked tirelessly to carry the heavy labors of the trip and support the success of the expedition. The one exception was a native Brazilian who was both lazy and dangerous and eventually murdered Rondon's top assistant. The men were able to make brief contact once with that man after he disappeared into the jungle following the murder. They responded by abandoning him in the jungle and he is believed to have either starved to death, been murdered by local tribes of Stone Age natives, or possibly been killed by the native wildlife. The photo below is of T. Roosevelt & C. Rondon.
This book is an amazing story of survival, a portrait of a former American president who was actually capable of taking on the challenges of a world into which almost none of the other presidents in this or any other country would have dared to go, and a story of tremendous achievement by a team of roughly 20 men who could not have been handpicked better to have accomplished the nearly impossible. If you love real history about success against great odds this is the book you should read. The photo below if of George Cherrie.
Thursday, July 20, 2023
A Wonderful, Early, Unintended Political Birthday Present!
Yesterday, July 19, 2023, we spent most of the day in the general area of Morehead, Kentucky, and got home late, about 5pm after I had hiked for an hour and ten minutes at the Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery which sits just below the spillway of Cave Run Lake; then we went to Wal Mart and Kroger to stock up on groceries, etc. I had already had a good day for several reasons. I had spent time with my wife, Candice, and I had hiked to the hatchery from the spillway area in the company of the man who supervises the transportation of the fish they raise there to about half the state of Kentucky. We had a good talk and hike on his way to work and my way to hike. He answered several of my perpetual questions about the operations of the hatchery including telling me that they raise a lot of gold fish to feed the muskellunge they breed for stocking lakes. I had previously seen goldfish in some concrete holding tanks on the property but had never understood exactly why they had them there. I had thought that since they are a form of carp they might have been keeping them to help keep tanks clean. But actually, they are just another version of the fattening hog for the muskellunge. Then I hiked on around several of the 84 growing ponds the hatchery uses to finish the fish they produce. I saw a lot of bird during that time which I don't always see there because I am hiking constantly and not paying attention to the tree lines and sometimes flush birds before I can clearly identify them. I saw a flock of about 24 Canada Geese, about 18 American Crows, 6 Killdeer which are actually one of my favorite birds, and I was able to identify my first Green Heron.
Then when I got home, I found a small envelope in my mail box with the return address of Betty Lynn on it which I had known was coming in some form or other since Betty had told me on Facebook that she was sending me something she had found in her large collection of memorabilia from a long career at Berea College where she worked as a secretary for many years. I opened the envelope and quickly realized that Betty knows me well and had chosen to give me a perfect birthday gift. It was a single sheet of aged, yellowed, frazzled paper with a poem written on it in blue mimeograph ink and the letterhead of Berea College on the other side. It is a rhyming poem of 7 stanza each composed of 2 rhyming couplets by an unknown author who was most likely an employee of Berea College in the 1950's when it was written. I will include it at the bottom of this blog post but let me say in advance it if funny and well located at this time in American History because it puts our current political problems in a good perspective and shows us that while the Republican party never had the best intentions in mind for the majority of our citizens they were surely not the absolute criminals in 1952 that they are today. The man who is the primary topic of this poem was definitely not anywhere near the level of pond scum that TRAITOR Trump is and always has been.
Here is the poem in its entirety:
THE REPUBLICANS
The Republican's seed sprouted and grew,
In the simple minds of quite a few.
Some are nuts about whom they like
And made up their minds to vote for Ike.
They've promised a lot and they'll promise more
Let's look and see what they did before.
Twenty years have passed, and yet,
Those Hoover Days I'll never forget.
When Hoover was in I lived on the farm.
A dollar bill looked as long as my arm.
I never saw a ten dollar bill,
And, if Ike is elected, I doubt if I will.
When Hoover was in, things were really tight.
The rabbits were scarce and the fish wouldn't bite.
The men too ragged to go anywhere,
And the women wore flour sack underwear.
Remember me when you cast your vote.
If you vote for Ike, you'll cut your throat.
Would you rather have a life of ease
Or water gravy and black-eyed peas?
Since nineteen hundred and thirty-two
The Republican party has been in a stew.
They've called the Democrats nasty names,
But the banks stay open just the same.
If Ike is elected, I'll move to the farm.
I'll plant some taters behind the barn;
I'll steal my neighbor's roasting ears,
I'll try to get by for four more years.
Author Unknown, Berea College, 1952
While this might not be great poetry, it is above average political doggerel and it points out the very clear differences between the Republican Party of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican Party of TREASON, hatred, criminality, and disgust it has become since 1952. While Eisenhower was not anywhere near the best, or even one of the best, presidents we ever had, he was a patriot, was a major player in winning World War II and was elected twice. His most important achievement was beginning what became the interstate highway system which he envisioned while fighting across Europe against Adolf Hitler. No, Eisenhower was not perfect. But he was also not perfectly imperfect as TRAITOR Trump proves on a daily basis that he is. While the country did not prosper as it should have during the administration of Eisenhower, it was never in mortal peril as it has been every day since TRAITOR Trump listened to his Russian master Vladimir Putin and consented to be the TREASONOUS beneficiary of as stolen US election. While Eisenhower accomplished little in the White House other than the interstate highway system's birth, he never engaged in the kind of crime spree his vice president Richard Nixon did you just a few short years later. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a man of honor, a general of great military achievements, a man who could have been trusted to be in a room alone with a teenage girl. TRAITOR Trump can not point to any actual achievements other than having become the greatest TRAITOR in the history of the world. America must realize that there is some truth in the little poem above. But the most valuable thing in that poem is a chance to compare the last decent Republican in America to the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world, TRAITOR Trump. We must learn from the comparison and we must send that TRAITOR to federal prison for his crimes against America, the American people, and the world.
Friday, June 30, 2023
America's Ongoing Flirtation And Toleration Of Unfit Presidential Candidates
For many years, virtually since the beginning of this country, we have had a long list of totally unfit candidates run for the highest office in the land, guardian of the free world, President of The United States, and this year, heading into the 2024 presidential election cycle is no exception. In 1856, just prior to the Civil War, when the issues which led to the war were building in the country, Millard Filmore who had ascended to the White House on the death of Zachary Taylor and proved himself to be totally unfit ran on the American Party ticket. Filmore held office as a member of the Whig Party, their last leader, and then became the candidate of the American Party, known fondly as the Know Nothing Party, perhaps the most appropriately named political party in the history of the world, and pushed their anti-immigration platform. Thankfully, Filmore lost and it is likely the history of America regarding both slavery and the Civil War turned out in far better hands in the long run.
In 1924, Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin ran on the Progressive Party ticket and garned about 16 percent of the vote in an election which was won by Calvin Coolidge who never amounted to much himself. We will never know if the country could have been better off and, perhaps, have avoided the Great Depression which resulted because Herbert Hoover and the Republicans won the next election in 1928. It is likely that, if LaFollette had served two terms, the country might not have been worse off than having Hoover serve one with it's resultant economic collapse, Hoovervilles, Hoover Boxes, and starving citizens all across the country.
In 1948, South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond running on a segregationist platform received about 2% of the total vote and America chose to retain Harry S. Truman as president after he had finally ended World War II by dropping the atomic bombs on China after succeeding FDR. There is little doubt that Thurmond was far less qualified than Truman.
In 1968, Alabama Governor George Wallace took up the segregationist banner after the US Supreme Court forced the racial integration of public schools across the country with the Brown vs. Board of Education case which still today is one of the most important and necessary cases ever heard by the Supreme Court.
In 2000, it is highly likely that the candidacy of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader diverted enough votes from Vice President Al Gore to allow George Bush to win the White House. Nader, who might have been very good for the country and its conservation policies had absolutely no foreign policy experience and was a far less qualified candidate than either Gore or Bush. But his 2.8 million votes, which statistically seem to have come primarily from self-described Democrat voters allowed Bush to benefit from the highly suspect recount in Florida which set up the reprehensible Gore vs. Bush decision by the US Supreme Court which allowed Bush to ascend to the White House.
In 2008, the Radical Right Wing Repugnican Congressman Ron Paul ran for the White House on a platform which could have set social justice back a hundred years and lost soundly to President Barack Obama who led the country in eight of the most progressive years in the history of the country. Sadly, today, the poorly qualified son of Ron Paul, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul holds a seat in the US Senate and still espouses many of the asinine idea of his father and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican Party.
Since that election in 2008, nearly every presidential election has been loaded with Right Wing Radical Repugnican candidates who are grossly unfit to hold any position of public trust at any level including a second successful run by Ron Paul against Mitt Romney who can arguably be said to have been the last sane Republican to run for president.
The 2016 presidential election was a total disaster for the country due to the fact that the Right Wing Radical Repugnican TRAITOR Donald Trump was able to illegally occupy the White House after being strongly aided by his Russian Owner Vladimir Putin whose computer hackers were able to steal about 80,000 votes total in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and literally steal a US election. Today, he is already under indictment for having stolen a treasure trove of classified documents from the US government and is facing much more serious indictments in his unsuccessful insurrection of January 6th 2021, after he soundly lost his second consecutive election against President Joe Biden. It appears higly likely that he will turn out to have been the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world.
And, yet, the perpetual flock of unqualified, misled, and often larcenously motivated candidates continues to crop up. The Right Wing Radical Repugnican Party has a long list of candidate headed toward 2024 who range from the mildly dangerous to absolute lunatics such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The only arguably qualifed among their long list of candidates is former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson whose politics is just as far to the right of center as any of the others. The only good thing that can be said about this list of volatile candidates is that none of them has been indicted for crimes against the US government as their front runner TRAITOR Trump has.
Yet, the Democratic Party is also sporting their own resident lunatic, Robert Kennedy, Jr. who is a rabid anti-vaccine ranter whose own relatives regularly speak out against his ignorance and insanity along with the great majority of Americans.
Someday, perhaps, the US will find a way to legally and appropriately prevent lunatics, Russian spies, common criminals, and even TRAITORS from being able to run for the highest office in the land. Until that day comes, all we can do is vote consistently for the party which has had the lowest number of unqualified candidates in history, the Democratic Party. But we must also realize that this year and Robert Kennedy, Jr. prove that even the Democratic Party is not immune from having a resident nut.
Friday, March 31, 2023
"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century" by Timothy Snyder--Reflections On A Book And Current Events
Thursday, December 3, 2020
The 78 Most Dangerous Days In America...
The full title to this blog post is actuallyThe 78 Most Dangerous Days In American History Since Pearl Harbor and we are currently in the middle of those 78 days which means that I should have posted this piece on November 4, 2020, as soon it was apparent to all rational Americans that Joe Biden was the winner of the election held the day before. I had actually been predicting the serious levels of danger to America which would arise after a Biden win as early as July or August in 2020 as soon as the majority of polls began to show that Joe Biden was amassing an insurmountable lead in public opinion. To anyone with any level of psychological or psychiatric training, it has always been apparent that TRAITOR Trump was a very dangerous, criminal, and totally self-serving person. So the question for those of us with such knowledge immediately became how will this man who is a malignant narcissist at best and an antisocial personality disordered individual at worst respond to the loss of the power which he had gained by virtue of his TREASON with Russia and Vladimir Putin. It has always been readily apparent to all such trained people that TRAITOR Trump would respond as he always does to differences of opinion with his own mistaken beliefs that he would become increasingly more dangerous, more unhinged, and begin a steadily escalating series of attacks on anyone he believed had been responsible for his defeat and on America, American Democracy, and the entire free world as he draws nearer and nearer to the day on January 20, 2021, when he will be removed from the scene of his four year crime spree and be in imminent danger of federal prosecution for those crimes up to and including TREASON with Russia and Vladimir Putin.
On a daily basis since November 3, 2020, we have seen TRAITOR Trump commit a series of steadily worsening acts against all the targets of his self-serving and virulent ire. He has steadily refused to acknowledge his defeat, refused to concede the election (actually his second lost election), daily used his favorite tool of stochastic terrorism to further incite the menagerie of Right Wing Radicals who blindly support him, attacked state officials in every state which Joe Biden won, and induced his lawyers to file a long string of unjustified and unsuccessful law suits against those states and those officials. He has also issued a steady stream of highly questionable and likely unconstitutional executive orders to alter and damage the American government, encouraged the head of the General Services Administration who is known to be one of his loyal minions, to refuse to acknowledge Joe Biden as the president elect and to give him and his incoming administration access to the federal government, fired numerous federal officials who would not blindly support his fantasy that he had actually won an American election, and ceased to do anything except play golf at government expense and work to support his effort to cling to the power which he and Vladimir Putin stole four years ago.
As I said above, as much as five or six months ago, I began to predict a series of dangerous actions I could foresee TRAITOR Trump taking after he was defeated in an American election for the second time. That list of potential threats to America included 1) a long series of highly questionable and likely unconstitutional executive orders which we have been seeing carried out; 2) a series of pardons of his key conspirators which has begun with the pardon of Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn who is one of the direct connections between TRAITOR Trump and Vladimir Putin, the discussion of an attempt to even pardon his children and himself, and discussion of possible pardons for several more of his co-conspirators; 3) further stochastic terrorism and incitement of the Radical Right which he has been doing on a daily basis since November 3,2020; 4) further efforts to destroy the government and weaken various agencies whose missions are in conflict with his criminal interests and this has been occurring with the firing of several federal employees who have disagreed with TRAITOR Trump and this has resulted in the firing of the head of election security who refused to support his claims of election fraud; 5) further looting of the federal treasury which we cannot prove has been ongoing until Joe Biden is actually inaugurated and investigations of TRAITOR Trump's crimes can begin. Nearly all of these crimes which I foresaw are happening on a daily basis since the election on November 3, 2020, and they will continue and actually escalate until the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021. These are the 78 most dangerous days in American History since Pearl Harbor and, at this point, we have no idea how much further damage will be done between now and inauguration day.
If all this disaster should end today, this country will still suffer from the TREASON of TRAITOR Trump for decades to come. The damage to the federal judiciary, especially the US Supreme Court, will last for as much as a half century based on the age of the appointees TRAITOR Trump and his co-conspirators have been able to place in judicial positions. Numerous federal agencies such as the State Department have been deeply damaged with an exodus of experienced employees and the unwarranted firings of others. We cannot rule out the possibility that TRAITOR Trump can still manage to start an unjustified war somewhere in the world, most likely against Iran. We cannot rule rule out further outright TREASON with Vladimir Putin and Russia including the passing on of voluminous state secrets, identities of American intelligence agents and non-citizen intelligence assets around the world which could result in the deaths and neutralization of numerous agents, double agents, and cooperationg foreign citizens. We cannot bet that America will ever be safe again because for four years we have allowed a Russian Agent and American TRAITOR to claim to be the President of The United States.












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