Tag Archives: fear

Mr. Trump – His Accidencey – The Republic at Risk

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms – lost to Americans?

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms – lost to Americans?

Mr. Donald Trump is obsessed with fear of immigration in a nation of immigrants.

Mr. Trump would ban the religions he finds offensive and isolate us from the world with a wall – a symbol of his contempt and hate.

Mr. Trump calls troops to our southern border – as if we are under siege from a foreign force – when the true enemy is within and spends his days in the West Wing.

Mr. Trump suffers from a too sensitive egg-shell-thin temperament, of anorexic character, that motivates his itchy thumbs to tweet lies and slander on those who would object to his incompetent and corrupt stewardship of this still young nation.

Mr. Trump rattles sabers he’d turn on Iran, even as he threatens to withdraw from the mid-East, and, as this comment is drafted, he scurries off to embarrass our nation in another meeting with a North Korean despot who ate his lunch in their last tete a tete.

Mr. Trump is an immoral man. Continue reading

Homeland insecurity

concordmilitiaWe have changed our definition of what’s freedom.

I stand in court rooms in defense of the Accused and invoke the presumption we are all innocent including those charged.

Our government treats us, however, as if we are all presumed guilty, that we must prove otherwise, and we are all treated as suspect for the commission of some unstated possible terrorist act – without any evidence whatsoever.

We have become accustomed to being searched and radiated at airports and public buildings, though we comply reluctantly.

For years now the government, “our” government, has also been collecting every bit of information it can about who we are, what we do, what we say, where we go, what we write, our financial holdings, and with whom we associate.

Our personal information is being inhaled into the government’s mammoth data banks at the cost of our expectation and right to be let alone.

Yet, we brag our freedom is the envy of the world.

The fear of those who would govern this nation is compromising the freedom of the governed.

When 9-11 occurred, I was ashamed of the members of Congress.  Little has changed since. Continue reading

Not like any other election year

donaldtrumpThere is a disconnect on a rational and emotional level with this last Republican Convention as compared to past Republican Conventions.

I’m not talking about the “not ready for prime time” gaffes, nor Melania’s plagiarism on opening night, nor the misty “Apollo Creed” convention entrance of nominee Trump, the arm-twisting rules decisions “to move things along,” nor Senator Ted Cruz’ thinly veiled pitch to the delegates to turn to Cruz himself as the Republican’s nominee in 2020 after “the Donald” crashes and burns this November.

In my life, when the Republicans chose past candidates, every one of them, even President Richard Nixon, I could see it, understand it, the Republican choice, that is, even as I disagreed with their party’s standards for choosing the nominees.

I was a kid when Dwight Eisenhower was the Republican presidential nominee. True, he hadn’t ever run for elected office, like Mr. Trump, but, besides heading up Columbia University as President, where I served time undergrad and at the law school (long after “Ike” had moved on), President Eisenhower had been a five star general in the Army and was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, heading up invasions into North Africa, France and Germany. Both parties had sought to have Eisenhower head up their ticket. Donald Trump is no Dwight Eisenhower.

Ronald Reagan may have been the consummate show man but he had to be more than that to position himself for a presidential nomination. He had been the head of the Screen Actors Guild, the voice of GE, the Governor of California, and ran for President in ’68 and ’76 before sealing the deal, and winning the presidential nomination and election in 1980.

Blemishes and past disagreements aside, I have never seen a worse nominee than Donald Trump so ill-prepared to lead this nation. Continue reading

The sweet scent

Blossoms_bloomingWhile running on a dirt road, up a slight hill, the Kelly green of the forest floor nearby, a soft breeze washed over me and there was the sweetest scent, I imagined, from the fruit trees nearby.  Ah, finally, the sweet smell of spring, an antidote for the sickness of mind that is modern society.

We’ve heard the metaphor in politics, invoking “spring,” the network herd of media mimics murmuring thoughtlessly the word “spring,” repeating it again and again as if it were true, misapplying this glorious time of year to mid-East street protests, armed conflict, American air strikes, AK-47s fired in the air, blood leaking through the dirt, improvised bombs, cries of pain, and needless death.

Such dystrophic destructive events cannot be compared — however you may stretch and pull a poetic metaphor — with spring’s awakening of that renewable life dormant through the cold and hard seasons until the moment when the sweet scent drifts in the air anew.

Of course, much of our public dialogue is imprecise, unfocused and misleading if not a lying whopper to lull the mind to sleep or to misdirect our attention from what really matters to what we can fear or hate.  It is this sickness of mind we must cure.

When I was young, I played a Seabee in South Pacific, and heard over and over in rehearsal the lyric how you have to be taught, carefully taught, how to hate and fear.

Much of our public dialogue is about hate and fear. Continue reading