GUEST POST BY DAVE MILLER

 

This is America!

 

In a recent discussion on reparations, a Jesus-loving Christian posted the following:

“Our Constitution provides for reimbursement when people’s property is taken. The republic took property (freed slaves) at the point of a rifle. They were never compensated. If any reparations are due, it’s to those who were dispossessed of their property.”

Stop for a moment and think about this statement. There was no pushback, no disagreement. Perhaps people simply didn’t want to alienate a friend or criticize his or her views.

But this is how racism continues to reside and fester in the United States.

I’ve asked my conservative friends many times to name specific viewpoints or actions from conservative or MAGA supporters that they would consider “extreme.”

To date, I’ve never received a response.

Not to statements like the one above. Not to cartoons depicting President Obama tending watermelon gardens at the White House. Not to caricatures portraying a former president and first lady as apes.

Apparently, none of these rise to the level of “extreme” for many on the right or among MAGA supporters. There seems to be either an inability or an unwillingness to critically address the proverbial bad apples within their own circles.

I’ve seen this before.

Today, many on the right are critical of former President George W. Bush for U.S. involvement in the Iraq War. But at the time, voicing criticism of that war often resulted in being labeled un-American. Just look at what happened to the Dixie Chicks.

Sound familiar?

I even had friends who were privately critical of the war explain their reluctance to speak publicly, saying they didn’t want to give the “left” fodder to criticize the president. I’ve heard similar sentiments more recently in relation to President Trump.

Progressives and other Democrats, by contrast, have often been willing to publicly criticize their own leaders. Many Democrats spoke out against President Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Others questioned President Obama’s focus on the Affordable Care Act during his first term. Still others criticized the Afghanistan withdrawal and the handling of border issues during President Biden’s administration.

For some reason, the GOP, its MAGA base, and many conservatives seem reluctant to call out extremism, racism, Nazi support and more within their own ranks. Unless and until this group steps up and does so, it is hard to imagine America being able to move forward anytime soon.

IN MEMORIAM

I lost my sister and best friend, Jo, today.

Here we are in the late 1990s.

She was everything to me.

P.E. will be down for a while.

Me on the left, and Jo

 

This is the Hour of Lead – 

Remembered, if outlived, 

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – 

First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go – 

--Emily Dickenson

The birds they sang At the break of day 

Start again I heard them say 

Don't dwell on what has passed away 

Or what is yet to be 

Ah, the wars they will be fought again 

The holy dove, she will be caught again 

Bought and sold, and bought again 

The dove is never free 

Ring the bells that still can ring 

Forget your perfect offering 

There is a crack, a crack in everything 

That's how the light gets in  

--Leonard Cohen

 

Trump's War

 

"The chairman of the American Conservative Union is defending lethal airstrikes that killed scores of Iranian schoolgirls over the weekend, acknowledging they would still be alive if the U.S. and Israel had not attacked Iran — but arguing they would “be alive in a burqa.” 

Matt Schlapp made the staggering comment during Wednesday’s episode of “Piers Morgan: Uncensored,” where discussion of the now-ongoing Iran war eventually turned to the airstrikes on a girls school that killed up to 175 people Saturday, mostly children under 12."

And this witheringly vapid press secretary:

Reporter: "On the Iranian school, why did President Trump say yesterday that Iran may have tomahawk missiles when there are only three US allies, plus the US, that have those missiles?"

 Leavitt: "The president has a right to share his opinions with the American public…"

(Opinions are not facts. Trump often doesn't know what he's talking about -- hardly the sort of person a country would want while waging war against a Middle East country.)

Thomas Friedman, NYTimes:

"Trump has been all over the map when talking about the morning after in Iran — and saying truly ridiculous and often contradictory things that reveal a commander in chief who is just making it up as he goes along. 

One day it’s regime change, one day not; one day he doesn’t care about Iran’s future, the next day he will have a say in choosing the country’s next leader; one day he’s open to negotiations, the next day he is demanding “unconditional surrender.” 

 I thought the Middle East analyst Hussein Ibish summed up the Trump strategy in Iran concisely when he wrote: 'It goes like this: The U.S. and Israel bomb and destroy assets. Then (fill in the blank) Iranians will secure (fill in the blank) political change that will achieve (fill in the blank) U.S. war aims.' ” 

 Would you invest in a company whose leader, without warning, embarked on a radically new business strategy and then, in the next week, described its goals in five different ways? That is a flashing red light."

***************************

Trump mocked Gold Star families and dishonored the late Senator John McCain for having been taken prisoner in Viet Nam, and he called soldiers who were maimed or killed "losers and suckers." That's the CiC conducting this war. He wore his idiotic gold and white baseball cap during a dignified transfer and demonstrated how clueless and undignified he is. 

This is a POTUS who picked a troop of unqualified cabinet members and who has accusations about him of pedophilia -- protecting a pedo, Maxwell, and engaging in such acts himself. What could possibly go wrong? 

Not only is there no endgame, there is no understanding of who we are attacking. Trump won't be able to lie his way out of this because the economic aftershocks are going to be real.

TRUMP ON TRUTH SOCIAL, AUGUST 2024