Words matter AND they can do damage

By George Smith

“Send her back!”

Three words. Eleven letters.

Just three little words. But words that should strike a note of … what, exactly?

If you a traditional American (you know, a citizen with ancestors that came to this country looking for a new start, to escape persecution or famine or war), chances are you should either be chagrined, angry or sad at those followers of Donald Trump who used those three words at his recent rally in North Carolina.

If your emotional response was a shrug or a “whatever” thought, you are Trump-conditioned, an anomaly of the past three years that affect those that have to look down on someone for some reason, or who believe this is what we have and what we deserve for the 2016 election.

The president’s verbal, extremely personal attacks on U. S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, an American citizen from Minnesota, created an environment of raucous hatred disguised as crowd-mass frivolity at a recent Trump rally.

Call it was it is: A personal attack on an immigrant /refugee who is not a a what is thought of as a traditional U.S. faith, and a person of color who dresses like few, if any, of our neighbors. The rally goer’s response to Trump’s earlier “Love it or leave” edict to the congresswoman was wrapped in a transparent veil of abject racism.

When confronted with the ugly result and severe backlash from his white nationalist-like statements about the four female progressives, three of whom were born in this country, Trump reverted to his most comfortable political tactic: He lied.

The day after the rally, after, reports indicated, his daughter ivanka and wife Melania, took him behind the proverbial barn for a revelation meeting, he said he tried to stop the chanting by “speaking quickly.” Big lie, that, and easy to ferret out the truth. He stood at the rally podium, trademark smirk in place, basking the the waves of “Send her back!” for 13 seconds.

Here’s where you go: “One Mississippi, two Miss….” And during of the chanting regimen, he moved his head side to side in rhythm of the words.

By any measurement, he enjoyed the new rendition of “Lock her up!”, his legion’s tribute and rallying cry to Hillary Clinton prior to and even after the 2016 election.

In his most recent rally, Trump got the response he wanted from his minions in COT (Cult of Trump): Adoration in the form of mimicking his thoughts and actions, of picking up on his scattered stray thoughts turned loose from his verbal Mixmaster of words often found on eighth grade spelling tests.

On one level, Trump is a genius. He excels at creating fictional bugaboos and will o’ the wisps that manufacture myriad fears in the very souls of those with a heart susceptible to hate and who have a deep need to belong to…something.

Those that hated Clinton (and politicians in general) were looking for a non-politician who would take up the banner of the tired, the poor, the fearful. Those make up a majority of the 35-40 percent of Americans who avidly and blindly follow the person with a national stage and message of exclusion.

Trump knows what he is doing. He plays every decision to his base via tweet storms and televised rants and through belligerent, bombastic interviews. And, millions absorb every word as if it was a new form of the gospel.

Wait. Trump knows what he is doing? Does he really?

What if one of his edge-of-fringe followers decided to take action to please his master and tried to do harm to one of the four congresswomen who Trump has labeled as not American enough to exist in his country? What would he do then?

He’d surely follow his pattern after a major misstep, like he did after the white nationalist killed a woman with a car in North Carolina, he would deny anything he said had anything to do with the dastardly deed. And the army of COT would nod and applaud him for whatever it is they think he has done that is good for the country.

This is where we are now. And it’s a sad, sad place in the history of this country.

“If you think he’s a racist, that’s up to you. I don’t!” — Lindsey Graham, just now

“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot.” — Lindsey Graham, 2015

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FIGHT DIRTY

I am actively working on becoming a political consultant for the Democratic party. I know I can do a great job!

I had wanted to work for my President as a political consultant, but he has not responded to my letter/resume for over 6 months. I must assume that all the key Republican positions are filled.

If some of you are thinking, “why is he qualified to be a political consultant?” let me explain.

I have always considered myself an amoral person and I know all political consultants are amoral, so it appears to be a good fit. I have always been willing to do anything for a buck. Political consultants march to that same drummer.

I have references that demonstrate that I have spent most of my life trying to “screw” people. Political consultants spend all their time trying to “screw” with people’s minds. Another close match.

It should be clear by now I have all the characteristics needed to be a pc. Oh, and did I mention I am a good-looking, stable genus like you know who?

So, if the money is as good as I think it will be, I am ready to devote my life to the Democratic Party, except for an occasional fishing trip.

If anyone needs my help it is the Democratic Party – a political party that is headed for extinction at lighting speed.

In the past I have thought of Democrat’s as a bunch of wimps. I have changed my opinion. I now consider them a bunch of clueless wimps who don’t have the faintest idea of how to win an election.

Fortunately, assuming I can get hooked up with some wanna-be Democrat big shot the party would have a stable genus on their team and things would change.

For starters the Dems must forget a few things. Michell Obama coined the phrase, “When they go low, we go high.”

That is OUT! The Dems new slogan is, “When they go low, we go lower and grab them by the balls”. Assume there are still some Republicans, other than Trump, who still have balls; this would be a very effective technique.

The first thing that Dems need to do is make “gerrymandering” their friend. The Supreme Court has said that gerrymandering is bad, but it is legal. This means that the Dems need to out gerrymander the Gerrymanders. For year the states with Republican legislatures, have been drawn district maps that gave big advantages to the Republicans. The states with Democratic legislatures have appointed the independent commissions to draw “fair” maps.

Those days are over. To hell with fair maps. Throw out independent commissions. The Democrats must realize that days when being fair was the right thing to do are long done. The Republicans have demonstrated being unfair wins you seats and in today’s politics that is all that is important.

Fortunately for the Democrats, they can out gerrymander the Republicans if they play dirty. The reason that a cut-throat Democratic party can out-gerrymander the Republicans is that the states with Republican held legislatures are low-population states and the states with Democratic held legislatures are high-population states. So, these states have more elected federal representatives, therefore these states can do a more effective job of gerrymandering.

For example, let’s look at California that has a Democratic governor and both house of the legislature. The state has an independent commission to draw “fair” maps. As a result, there is a significant number of Republican congressmen from California. If California uses “Texas-style” gerrymandering most of those Republican seats can be eliminated and the Democrats can deliver one big boat load of Congress persons to the U.S. House for Representatives.

Democrats, you don’t have to be the political party that died. All you need to do is hire me and FIGHT DIRTY!

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Communication is an art

By George Smith

Communication is an art, like, well, art, you know, painting, acting, sculpting or chain-sawing a realistic bear from a stump. Playing a sport at the highest level is an art, as is being able to maneuver a car in Dallas rush hour traffic or winning the eternal battle of having a happy marriage through sticktoitiveness and expressing love through actions and words.

Words matter. They define who we would like to be, who we are.

“(Homelessness) a phenomenon that started two years ago. It’s disgraceful. I’m going to, maybe—and I’m looking into it very seriously – we’re doing some other things that you probably noticed like some of th4 very important things that we’re doing now. But we’re looking at it very seriously, because you can’t do that.”

It may be hard to believe that this is not a line from the movie “One Flew Over the Cockoo’s Nest.” It’s not. It’s one of the more quizzical quotes by the U.S. Communicator in Chief, President Donald Trump.

It is hard to imagine the word salad above came out of the mouth of the nation’s leader; it did, trust me. Or look it up.

How smart people can be born-again members of a cult that follows a leader who makes statements that either: 1. Make no sense; 2. Start and end with obvious lies, or; 3. Refers to himself in the third person or gives himself verbal pats on the back for his intellect, handsomeness or business acumen, eludes me.

Examples of his hair-raising statements in news conference gaggles, speeches and as Twitter fodder:

(The action was taken) “despite the negative press covfefe.”

The media: “The media is – really, the word, I think one of the greatest terms I’ve come up with – is fake.”

2016 election: “If Abe Lincoln came back to life, he would lose New York and he would lose California.’

On immigration: “Why are we having all these people from s—thole countries come here?”

On immigration: We’re roundin’ ‘em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice, But not everything is nice,”

Women’s rights: “I will be phenomenal to the women. I mean, I want to help women.”

Terrorism: “When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.”

Climate change: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Hillary Clinton: “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”

Intelligence: “Sorry, losers and haters but my IQ is one of the highest, and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure. It’s not your fault.”

On First Daughter: “(Ivanka) does have a very nice figure…If she weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

On Trump: “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well-documented, are various other parts of my body.”

Voters: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated!”

Media and women: “You know, it really doesn’t matter what (members of the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of a–!”

War: This is the Trump theory on war: But I’m good at war. I’ve had a lot of wars of my own. I’m really good at war. I love war in a certain way. But only when we win.” (Note: He received five draft deferments due to “bone spurs.”)

War: “Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”

And, finally:

Border wall: “I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”

Words matter…until an individual decides they don’t. And in the case of Trump, millions of Americans have decided the president’s words and actions don’t matter, that they will wallow in his message of hate and exclusion and bullyboy tactics and accept them as their own.

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They too were children when …

By George Smith

“They too were children when they were rounded up and incarcerated in an ‘internment’ camp on U.S. soil.

“In their 70s and 80s now, a group of former Japanese American detainees rallied outside a military base in Oklahoma in June, urging federal
officials not to repeat America’s shameful history of forcing children behind bars and fences.

“We need to be the allies for vulnerable communities today that Japanese Americans didn’t have in 1942,” Seattle-based historian Tom Ikeda told the Los Angeles Times. He was joined by about two dozen of the World War II detainees and their descendants outside Fort Sill.

“We are here today to protest the repetition of history,” said Satsuki Ina, 75, of San Francisco, among 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned during World War II for their background.

“It’s not easy to stand up for others and risk arrest. These protesters, many elderly, were met by uniformed military police, one of whom shoute, ‘You need to move right now! What don’t you understand? It’s English: Get out.’”

On July 3rd I contacted my federal representative and senators and reminding them this country was founded and turned into the greatest country on Earth by immigrants.

We should all look at what is happening through the eyes of immigrants …or better yet, through the eyes of our ancestors, the ones who first set foot on American soil simply looking for a better, safer life.

Really, is that too much to ask?

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Remember What You Did?

By George Smith

Remember when you were a kid and you got into a dust-up with your best friend. For whatever reason your feelings were hurt. Remember what you did?

If you were like 98.987 percent of children (SWAG, Inc. figure), you went through these steps:

Your ran home, probably shed a few tears, hid away and pouted and damned your “friend” to hell.
After thinking about it for a while, you lashed out, vowing ‘friend” was never your friend, that “friend” was just playing games to win your favor because you were the best friend ever!
Then you got on the phone and told all your other friends that you broke off your friendship and that “friend” was cut out of your life forever for being unfair and not being nice to you.

Fox News recently cut away from a speech being delivered by President Donald Trump shortly after he complained that the network isn’t treating him as fairly as it should.

While talking before the Faith & Freedom Coalition, Trump mentioned that he was watching his “favorite network” recently — and then he went off on a tangent on how this network needed to do a better job of being nice to him.

This is the behavior of a malcontent seventh grader going through the rigors of puberty, not the actions of the President of the United States of America.

Barak Obama was wrung through the news media ringer for his entire eight years in office; not a single day went by that he or members of his family or administration were unapologetically ridiculed, every single misstep blown up to gargantuan proportions, every decision questioned. You know, like President Trump, only the media roles of the news channels were reversed.

President Obama endured the constant onslaught with style, elegance and grace and Trump damns those throwing barbs to hell via Twitter and frequent rants of disconnected topics he finds personally offensive.

Due of the last three years of Trump’s Tweetapocalypse, one would assume that the current president is the Twitter champion of the Earth, having more followers than even Taylor Swift or the Kardashians. Actually the president is 12th on the list, following seven singers, YouTube, a talk show host, a soccer player and a politician.

It is to Trump’s credit that his personal account has accumulated more followers than Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears and Upside Down Bikini, all of whom include poses in bikinis the size of handkerchiefs. He is five spaces ahead in the Twitter cavalcade of posts of CNN, nine ahead of Bill Gates, 12 in front of the ‘fake news’ New York Times, 13ahead of the “other” Chosen One, LeBron James and 50, 51 and 52 places respectively of Kendall Jenner, Adele and Kylie Jenner.

As Yoda would say, “Impressed, I am.”

The fact that his White House Twitter moniker is 69^th on the overall list is also impressive; both accounts are way ahead of Hillary Clinton, who stands at No. 76 with 24,737,768 followers.

The fact that only three politicians in the world are in the Top 100 list is impressive indeed…one from India and another one in the United States.

For the record, Trump has 61,519,682 followers; No. 20 on the list is Narendra Modi, India prime minister, has 48,302,819.

No. 1, with 107,612,796 followers is singer Katy Perry. Second on the list is another politician – Barack Obama, with 106,808,055 followers.

Barack Obama? Yes, that Barack Obama.

In the retweeting category, Obama has three of the Top 30; Trump is not in the Top 50. The single tweet with the most “likes” with over three million is a tweet by Obama was about racism in American following the violence in Charlottesville. Additionally, in 2017, Obama had four tweets in the Top 10 in the category of “likes”; Trump’s total: 0.

In the never-ending tweet storm by politicians, there is one Twitter King – former President Barak Obama.

*Note: Tweet followers, likes and retweets totals change daily. These figures from January, 2019.

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The big question for Trump is “WHY?”

By George Smith

WHY?

It’s the start of a question psychologists will tell you not to ask unless you want to put the person to whom the question is directed into a defensive posture.

Fair enough.

But, president Donald J. Trump and members of his administration have taken actions for the past two-plus years that require…no, demand!…the “Why?” question.

WHY:

Did Trump promise to drain the swamp then appoint unqualified ultra-wealthy people and industry lobbyists (all who donated generously to his campaign) to cabinet positions?
Has the president not released his tax records as every other president has done for the past several decades? (And it has nothing to do with any pending audits, as clarified by the Internal Revenue Service.)
Is the administration so gung-ho to supply Saudi Arabia with nuclear technology and weapons after that country brutally killed two resident Americans?
Did the president’s son-in-law use a common smartphone app in violation of federal regulations to have backdoor conversations with the brutal Saudi prince directly connected to those murders?
Does the president stoop to name-calling and shape-shaming rather than conduct himself as a global diplomat and leader of a major global power?
Does he engage in the seemingly constant habit of making undeveloped and often hair-brained ideas public and official via tweet that affects government officials and agencies and millions of Americans?
Has this administration had more turnover in key positions, from White House staff to cabinet posts, in 29 months than any president has in four years, and most presidents have in two terms?
Is the president so enamored with dictators and despots, calling leaders of Russia and China “strong” when those regimes are on record as participating in inhumane treatment of opponents and journalists, including imprisonment and murder?
Does the president lie daily, knowing his every word is chronicled and can be easily checked?
Are his followers so easily duped by his persona, buying his lies like they come from the lips of a god, rather than from a flim-flam man with a long history of embellishments and falsehoods in business and in life?
Do evangelicals praise him a man of faith when he is not religious in the slightest, believes in money and power over all things, has lived a life that is stark contrast to biblical teachings, is a philanderer, adulterer, cheat, fraud…add your own descriptive phases here.
Does the president turn his head when one of his chosen cabinet members misuse public money to create an empirical environment for themselves and then blows up when anyone disagrees with him on any decision?
Make a pretense of being a hard-working president when he spends more time in “executive time” (watching TV and watching more TV) and playing golf than any president, including Obama, who Trump berated for playing too much golf.
Are millions of tax dollars used to enable Trump’s golfing habits and public money spent at Trump-owned resorts and golf clubs around the country and in Europe?
Would Trump embarrass himself and the nation by calling American Meghan Markle, newest member of the royal family, “nasty” at the beginning of the official visit to England, and then deny saying it even it was recorded?
Is the president so anti-immigrant? He is a second-generation immigrant; he has married two immigrants; he recently had his in-laws brought to America via the “chain migration” policy, which he is on record as thinking it “abhorrent.”
Has the president never commented at length on the separation of families of immigrants seeking asylum in the United States?
Did the administration recently announced an end to legal aid and English classes for migrant children in U.S. detention centers?
Did the president campaign on lowering the deficit and then advocate programs that immediately increased the debt by $2 trillion?
Would a tax cut the president promoted as “costing the wealthy a lot of money” do exactly the opposite and save the nation’s biggest companies and richest one percent of Americans billions in taxes overall with no explanation from the administration?
Would the president excuse his bone spurs deferment during the Vietnam War by saying in his official capacity he is bolstering the military through funding increases?
Are there no penalties for the fraud charges which resulted in the shuttering of Trump University and Trump Foundation (which was used as a personal piggy bank by Trump)?
Did the president end federal fetal tissue research when the material is collected mainly from the umbilical cord, and the research has shown amazingly positive results that could have helped thousands of citizens?

WHY?

There are many more questions and virtually no viable and believable answers have come from the administration.

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A NATION IN DECLINE

By Ron Munden — 6 June 2019

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
— President Abraham Lincoln

For the last 30 years I have said that the United States is a country in decline. I thought that within 100 years that the U.S. would drop to a second-tier nation status like France and Italy. I predicted the decline would happen because of our failing education system, the country always focusing on the short term rather than addressing long term problems. Also, the decline in the moral fiber and the courage of our people. I think my generation did not match up to “the greatest generation” and those generations that followed my generation have done no better. Finally, the United States has become a nation driven by greed.

Let me carve out one group of Americans – our military personnel are the exception to the characteristics that I described above. Unfortunately, the military is only about 10% of our population. Not enough to carry the rest of us free loaders.

In the past couple of years, I have revised my outlook. I think Abraham Lincoln’s prediction is correct and I think the country is on a 25-year fight plan to losing the freedoms we know today. We might touch down sooner.

Several factors have accelerated the nations race to the bottom. First the rapid increase in income inequality is increasing discontent and government leaders actively work to divide our citizens, not unite them. The nation’s lack of interest in climate change will introduce major stressors and instability throughout the world.

Recently in an interview one historical writer said the United States is in a war and the war is a civil war. That comment is validated every time I take a look at social media or read anything that echoes how people feel. Increasingly I find myself being drawn on the battlefield even though I know that it is a battle that no one will win.

We are quickly becoming a nation of hate and discontent.

At some point those in charge will have to make a decision:

Let the nation disintegrate and break into parts or
Institute a totalitarian form of government — taking away many of the freedoms we know today in order to preserve order.

What will Happen?

In my opinion, the direction is clear. The “money people” will not want to lose what they have and they will welcome a totalitarian form of government that preserves order.

It has been a good run for the country but things are about to change. In the future the United States will move from a true democracy to a totalitarian body dressed in democratic outerwear. The United States we know today will be gone.

This will happen weather you believe in global warming or not. Not addressing climate change will just accelerate the rate of decline.

Footnote 1: While I do believe that Mr. T has wet dreams at night about becoming that totalitarian leader. It will not happen. He was born 15 or 20 years to early.

Footnote 2: My son and I are the only remaining living members of my family. He is in bad health and most likely I will outlive him. The Munden clan will not be here in 20 years. I’m glad.

Footnote 3: Even though some other nations are beginning to spend money and other resources on addressing the world’s most pressing problem, the United States is not. Since the United States is not being proactive, its failures will impact all nations so in 25 years every nation may find itself in decline.

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Pedantic

By George Smith

That’s a word that describes Vice President Mike Pence perfectly and his view of what a Christian should be.

Well, that is just one word and one way of looking at America’s No. 2. A couple more would be “punctilious” and even “fussy.”

Pence is a walking, talking contradiction: He’s a relatively quiet man who seems content to literally stay in Trump’s shadow, but in an instant he chameleons into a showy, know-it-all when it comes to showcasing his individual brand of Christianity.

His personal religious brand is a subdued, mis-directed version of the money-grubbing, televangelists: He doesn’t ask for money, he demands you believe the way he does about religion or your opinion does not count.

Pence appears to professes he is at a level of Christian belief that has risen above the fight of good vs. evil we mortals face daily. Yet he gives his unconditional loyalty to a man who is a serial adulterer, an admitted sex addict, an obnoxious, lying bully and who proudly confessed to be an abuser of women.

Pence, a self-described “man of God,” puts his pious self forefront on the dais of self-righteouness; he pulpit pounds his beliefs into those that are baptized in the tweeted fire and brimstone of the right-wing doctrine of The Honorable Donald J. Trump.

Pence wants folks to think of him as the conscientious adult in the administration. However, his desire is severely compromised by his obsession with pleasing Trump and garnering praises the president’s base (which he idolizes and shares his gilded feelings for his lord and master’s every belittling, demeaning, juvenile, policy-changing, official-firing, economic- or warfare-threatening tweet).

Pence’s kowtowing to Trump’s every mind-numbing whim is like a third grader fawning over a charismatic but horribly unprepared teacher. In this case, however, the “teacher” is in the second grade.

What is Pence thinking? What keeps him from projective vomiting when he has to smile at Trump’s half-baked edicts and asinine executive orders which have no basis in reality or in the rule of law?

Is Pence automatically assuming that when Trump is no longer president, he will be the de facto leader of the Republican Party? If that is his thought process, he is committing political hari kari.

Win or lose in 2020, Trump is not going anywhere. If he wins, he will be free to go from half-cocked on issues to three-quarters cocked. And by the end of his second term, voters will be so tired of the vaudevillian horseplay and slapdash policy-making they would assuredly vote for anyone but a Trump accolyte.

If Trump loses next year, and that is certainly possible, he will not just ride into the sunset. The taste of enormous power handed to him by virtue of the office he holds has unleashed a Stephen King-caliber monster in this president and he will do whatever takes to stay in power and continue mining the l thought control tunnel he has dug into his base of millions.

Mark this down after this November 2020 headline appears: “Trump Loses Re-election Bid Bigly”: As ex-president he will buy a cable channel (DJT-TV) with news by, for, and with Donald J. Trump, 24/7.

He will continue to run the Republican Party from outside the party…you know, like he does now.

And Pence and Graham and other boot-licking GOPers will have to be content to make appearances on the by-then-almost-defunct Fox News Channel and get one-minute interviews on the Rush Limbaugh Jr. radio show.

This era of American politics is not over and it won’t be until the fat man goes toe’s- up.

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And open letter to my conservative GOP friends and relatives

By George Smith

The conservative political persuasion of 2019 is not the same as it was 40 or so years ago.

In the early ‘70s there was a growing tide of opposition to another president and with many less indictments, guilty pleas and convictions in that administration, that president was forced from office before he was impeached and convicted by a bipartisan Congress.

The majority of congressional leaders from both parties in both houses of government put country first before politics, put the good of the nation before party labels, placed a much higher standard for ethical behavior by government officials than is now being experienced.

Ideology – political and personal — has ramped up since Richard M. Nixon was flat-out told by members of every congressional faction, and especially from his own party members, to resign or be the first president to be impeached, convicted and removed from office. Back in 1973-‘74, our leaders were proud to put country before partisan political thought-speak and election results that too often take a backseat to rule of law.

Plain and simple…those politicians were patriots, not toady posterior kissers looking for a favorable nod from a sycophantic egoist with a style of governing akin to Capt. Bligh barking orders on the best way to herd gerbils.

Back then, unlike now, it was a case of folks with common sense and a love of country selecting justice over personal and party political power.

It’s not too late for those who back President Trump, despite overwhelming evidence of his incompetence in key areas of operating a government in an even-handed, logical factions, taking into account past lessons and future expectations and needs to say “bah-bye” to his amateurish governmental meddling and obsessive need for affirmation from underlings and his unwavering base.

The S.S. Trump is not a ship on which one needs to hang his or her future. That ship is already in troubled and turbulent waters; its hull is ruptured in many places; the engines are stuck on “Full Speed Ahead and Damn the Reef”; its captain Twitter-addled and cannot find his moral or ethical compass he lost decades ago.

Your leader does not care about the future of the world, nor of this country’s place in it. “Personal gratification” is the only thing on his to-do list…and his millions of supporters are co-signers on his plans for the future of the United States.

Open letter to my liberal and independent friends, etc.:

This is not the time to gloat or scream to the rooftops, “I TOLD YOU SO!”

Take this time to contemplate what future you believe will best serve your children, grandchildren and future generations and convey those thoughts to those you love and respect turn positive thoughts to social media accounts that promote fairness in thought and words; write to the letters to the editor section of area newspapers.

Despite your personal feelings about the goings-on in government, it’s time for all to put animosity feelings aside and do what is right…for you, your family, friends, county and the world.

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Impermanence-Impermanence

By George Smith

Impermanence.

It’s a word seldom used in situations involving conversations, but one which would give comfort to millions of Americans if they would tie it to specific events in their lives, from societal expectations to mind-numbing relationships to, yes, politics.

I have started mumbling and even doodling this word on occasion when I become despondent about the state of political affairs in the U.S., about the incredible philosophical abyss brought to citizens, courtesy of the candidacy and presidency of Donald J. Trump.

(Don’t hold back, George. Say it straight out!)

The man is a virus that infects the brilliant and the ignorant alike; like an Old Testament preacher breaths fire and brimstone, Trump exhales massive amounts of nonsensical pasture pancakes and it becomes mental manna for millions.

I cannot understand – and probably never will – the Trump attraction to anyone with a college degree or those who has navigated life’s obstacle to become contented and who have at least the basis of independent thought. Trump is selling himself and a special brand of hate and illusions of success and millions are buying his shameful product.

Impermanence.

There is hope out there; at some point the era of Trump will end, but it has to take the form of an uprising of a majority of citizens in key states – young and old, people of color, those who believe that voting does no good because nothing ever changes except the faces – to create the end of the reign of Trump.

Will that end come in less that two years or will the war of wills, the tweetstorms and the battle for ethical souls lasts another five-plus years?

Many are finally seeing that Emperor Trump’s new clothes are see-through and there are many sights that eyes (young, old, one patch (two?), with cataracts or glaucoma) should not see. The president, by any “ohhhh-meter” one can conjure, comes up lacking. Yes, the economy is rocking along nicely, for now, but that is the continuation of the upward trend started in 2009. It is a fact unemployment is low, but it also a fact you will not hear Fox News declare the percentage of white to black/Hispanic workers is unchanged.

Yes, Trump appears to be a rough-and-tumble negotiator (except when negotiating with countries with dictators or despots); his talks with North Korea, Russia and Iran has been abysmal failures.

North Korea is back to shooting off missiles intended to scare the slapdoodles out of South Korea and U.S. soldiers stationed there.
Iran, after Trump pulled the nuclear arms treaty against every intelligence agency in the U.S. and by allies, has geared up its dormant nuclear program and must be considered, once again, a nuclear threat.
Russia holds the best hand in the game, with Trump being his talking hand-puppet. Russia cyber-trolls are messing with elections around the world, from Africa to Venezuela and Trump is saying “Putin assured me he was not interfering in (insert country’s name here).”

It will take two things to change the face and force of the administration in 2020 – a reasonable alternative and an uprising by millions that normally don’t vote.

If the prospect of another four years under this befuddled, addled-brained, abysmal knee-jerk reactionary and self-ordained Christian leader isn’t enough to switch voters to ABT (Anybody But Trump), then there is nothing but continued threats to allies, shrieks of bigotry, blatant misogynistic actions, cyber-bullying and kowtowing to Putin and Company…plus ignoring the sections of the Constitution that deal with separation of powers and obstruction od justice.

If that comes to pass, the United States will get what it deserves.

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