Today's papers are filled with the news of more flooding even as we are thankful that it was not worse. We read that the Republican Party is falling apart, ripped apart by its ostensible head, Trump. We read of their people resigning and unfortunately these are mainly the moderate ones, leaving the extremists in office. Those are the same people who will stand and tsk, tsk about Houston and Miami and Jacksonville, and then deny climate change, deny the harm that people have done to the earth and to our future existence. These are the same people who cheer on that imbecile Trump as he signs away programs set up to build infrastructure able to withstand these monster storms, as he signs away any and all environmental protection laws, as he denies the facts of science.
With some people we are back to the denying of any science that does not fit in without a crack into our religious beliefs. In fact, we have many who will push their own faith and its tenets on us and those who will come up with out of the box reasons for these storms, but certainly not global warming. So Ann Coulter blames Houston's Harvey on the fact that they elected a gay mayor. Evidently she has the powers to control the weather!!! Another, Zinke, a Secretary, says yesterday that the statues of Confederate generals are the same as the memorials to those who fell on 9/11. Excuse me while I choke and throw up.
This idiot states that basically they are equivocal. How? And how can they say this with a straight face. Worse, they go on to say that if we take down all these monuments we will be going into worse days even as we are doing so now for we have taken down all the statues of Jesus and are not obeying the precepts of our faith. Well, excuse me, but these generals no more represent me than the statues of Jesus for those belong in churches and not on public grounds. One can be an atheist, one can be a non Christian and still be a wonderful person. Where are these thoughts coming from? Why? And what to expect in the future. Frightening.
But Breitbart rips those who did not carry an even more militaristic tone yesterday. Instead of mourning, instead of promises to seek peace amongst the nations of the world so that this does not happen again, instead of saying we need to do better, all mankind needs to do better, speakers were taken to task for not using trigger words. Well, I, for one, am glad they did not for we are already too close to a nuclear holocaust as the game of chicken between the two lunatics continues. Who will be the first to blink and will that blink be as the button is pushed? Only these two characters know and I am not even sure about that.
Meanwhile, Trump and family are even more entangled in a web of their own making. Trump participated in deals with Moscow even as he ran for office. His kids are ensnared in similar messes. They are in over their heads in politics and the country and we are the ones who suffer as a result. Will Trump throw Jared under the bus? What about Ivanka, who by the way, is totally useless, even dangerous in her ignorance and mistaken thinking and opinion that she knows it all.
And meanwhile around the world we continue to slaughter each other. Sects of Islam wage homicide on each other for it is worse than war. They attempt ethnic cleansing on their own Moslem fellows. In the jungles of the Amazon the lust for gold leads miners to slaughter innocents, uncontacted tribes and then boast about it. Palestinian children are still taught to hate the Yahud and yet another family was beaten up in France, with their attackers calling them Jews. Well, yes, they are, but does that mean they deserve to be beaten?
Charles Blow wrote yesterday in the Times of the despair he has at what is happening, at the harm Trump is causing and planning even more. Yet he remembers the faith of his mother who told him that we can move on to a better time, just have faith. But the despair of those who see Trump and his damage, who cannot figure out why otherwise rational people voted for him or did not vote at all, - this despair is real and deep.
He takes hope that for sure he will not get a second term. He takes hope in the possibility that we can limit his damaging effects of his first term and even better, perhaps his first term can be shortened. But it is hard. Very hard. I know, for I am among those who cannot understand how he got in office and highly suspect that it was thru chicanery, lies, hacking and interference by his business buddies.
Where is America today and where will it be tomorrow. We saw yesterday with its memorials and tears. Do we need more? Do we need to be in a 16 year war with no end in sight? Do we need to talk of more war? Do we need to present all our weapons from knives to nuclear and talk bully talk, play chicken? Kids in school actually know how much better it is to talk and reason so where did the supposed adults lose their way?
Faith. Hope. Despair. Even worse.
We must choose and we must act.
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