Inhumane Humanity

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. --Herman Melville

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Truth and the Consequences of Ignoring it


In an extremely serious and autocratic move (something we’ve seem much of these days), Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, recently disconnected all Venezuela’s access to CNN’s Spanish feed.
The banishment was a result of the report generated by the CNN affiliate, after more than a year’s investigation conducted by CNN and Venezuela’s legal adviser to the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq, Misael Lopez.  Together, they exposed Venezuela’s Vice President’s links to selling fake passports at their embassy in Iraq; to people including Hezbollah.
Very troubling events paralleling Caracas and Washington DC lately; rather than becoming concerned about the serious allegations arising from the investigation, President Maduro blamed CNN instead.
And; the familiar bell-rings right here at home, where, rather than digging deeper into the traitorous connections between his campaign personnel and Russia, our very own autocrat has just blamed the “leakers” and damned the press who, in Trump’s narrow perspective, “always present a negative light” on Trump’s behavior.
Don’t get me wrong here; I would never suggest, either in a bigly way or a smally way, that Maduro and/or Trump have reason to kill the messengers.  I would never suggest that they’re trying to destroy the press in the eyes of the public.  And most importantly; I would never consider either man a serious danger to freedom of the press and to democracy.
Nope.  For; not just a suggestion, I am screaming the warning at the top of my lungs.
sagan
And now a word from the writer; “I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO”.
In Maduro’s response, one more country south of our border is telling the U.S., in no uncertain terms, to pound sand up our collective asses.
First Mexico, then the majority of Muslim nations, much of Europe, and now Venezuela.
The dominoes are falling, and are doing so in rapid succession.  Hell, even Russia is now pushing the Trump Clown buttons and for some “unexplained reason”, Trump’s not pushing back.  Rather; he continues to s
y “we should try to have good relations with Russia.” 
A very unstable man at the helm of the US nuclear arsenal, one has to wonder; will he?  And, the answer is a resolute; “Hell-fucking yes he will; in a heart beat”.  Among all the others concerns we have about him, we need to worry about both, Trump’s and Putin’s commonalities.
narcissists
Massively (even YUGELY) narcissistic, severely ignorant to most things outside their own ego-driven minds, and worst of all, insanely impulsive.
“America's nuclear force is based on the nuclear triad, a concept that baffled Trump when he was asked about it during the campaign. The "triad" means the three delivery systems — land-based, launched from silos; air-based, delivered by strategic bombers; and sea-based, launched from submarines…….
Once launched, these missiles cannot be recalled or diverted. The second worst danger is that they could be launched in response to a false alarm or a technological glitch. The worst danger is that they could be sent on their way by a president who, in the pre-dawn darkness, opts for the nuclear trigger over a tweet.” The Chicago Tribune
Now, my final thoughts on the past two days:
“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes@NBCNews@ABC@CBS@CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
Hell! The press is the ONLY thing standing between you/me and complete autocracy.  
Many, far more intelligent than Trump could even hope to be, have even referred to the media as “the fourth branch of the government.”
jefferson
Unfortunately, the dictator in the making (and his puppet, Trump) is quickly accomplishing what his intentions have been all along - to destroy confidence in the very thing that sets us apart from autocratic rule - freedom of the press.
There is no coincidence in the fact that one autocrat, President Maduro, ripped a giant hole in free speech and in the fact that another autocrat, Donald Trump, is in the process of doing the very same thing. 
roosevelt
This is a concern of epic proportions, for two reasons;
  1. El Salvador is, as I said, accustomed to perceiving the direction of their government and developing work-arounds to authoritarian rule.  They also stand up against what they see as corruption and authoritarian rule.
  2. The United States, on the other hand, is filled with naive, foolish, closed-minded xenophobes who, not only don’t care that the train is derailing, they happily support the equally foolish, closed-minded, xenophobe, Trump, in his efforts to destroy the rails upon which the train is traveling.  Trump is doing precisely what Maduro is; but on a much grander scale (and yes., a BIGLIER scale), by demonizing ALL the media outlets which inform us of the government’s behaviors, be they honorable or nefarious. 
If Trump’s followers continue their rage against all things different; their blind and completely unfounded hatred for all those they now call “snowflakes”; seeking some ill-conceived need for retribution learned at the behest of partisan politics, they will literally be aiding him in destroying the very values upon which this country was built, beginning with freedom of the press and speech.
lincoln
I can promise them; the trump apologists will fall much harder than those snowflakes, now among the millions of others who are different than they, and for whom they've suddenly developed unfound, venomous hate.  For, at least those snowflakes see it coming and can brace themselves for the impact.

6 comments:

  1. There are millions of us (aka, snowflakes all) who know who the real enemies of Americans are...it's damned sure not the press

    An aside (that may prove to be not just an aside) - What I find particularly frightening is the real power behind our fool of a pretend president, Steve Bannon is not only obsessed with apocalyptic war, but believes it is inevitable and that he is fulfilling God's word. HOLYFUCKINGSHIT!

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    1. The doesn't surprise me in the least bit; it would explain why trump is insisting that Russia and US increase ours and their nuclear weapons capabilities. And, why Trump's destroying our relationships with nations that were once our allies.

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  2. Anonymous12:52 PM

    The press destroyed its own believably and righteousness long before Trump came along. He's just using that to protect his lies. There isn't anything Trump has done, so far, that other presidents haven't done, even worse.
    Maybe we forget we stole Mexican land to create Texas. Maybe we forget the great liberal FDR interned American citizens of Japanese decent out of fear, which the great man said was all we had to fear. Maybe we forget the unconstitutional acts Lincoln did to reach his vision of America. Maybe we forget the genocide of the Native Americans and stealing of their land to reach the then white man's version of America. All of that supported by the American people and lauded as great progression for our country. And of course then there was the worshiped founding fathers who created a nation of slavery.
    Trump is the 21st century version of demagoguery that would supposedly make us a greater nation. We are a people of bigotry and violence who hold violent actions as part of our greatness. It doesn't surprise me at all that Americans voted for Trump. Isolationism, protectionism, and violence is natural to Americans. We finally learned the folly of that thinking after WW II, but as the saying goes, those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat it. Now we have been the imperial power of the world for 90 years just as England was for 100's of years. Military might made that possible for both countries. We fought against England's imperialism for our independence, so will many countries fight us for the same reason. Iran is a good example.

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    1. You have many very valid points, with which I agree completely.

      Indeed: Thanks to corporate ownership of media and their self-serving profit margins, the press is far from what it should be.

      However; despite that fact, it’s still the only means by which we have of knowing what our government is doing; the only real means we have of seeing what’s going on behind the curtain at Oz.

      I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the awesome newscasters we had in the 1950’s and 60’s. People like Edward R Murrow, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley, Tom Brokaw and my all time favorite, Dan Rather. As long as I can remember, I’ve been a news junky and, even as a kid, I loved listening to their reports - straight-talking, serious and factual. On the rare event, they editorialized, they always forewarned “the following is opinion.”

      Yes! The U.S. has been ruthless with everyone. We’ve treated the entire planet with utter disregard, just as all empires have done throughout history.

      However; there is one major and extremely dangerous aspect that our empire holds that those from history didn’t - nuclear weapons.

      And this is what concerns me the most. Trump's obvious mental instability and his access to these weapons that could create utter destruction of this planet. A mentally unstable person who obsesses with irrelevant issues, turning them from inconsequential to issues he perceives as worth destroying the planet. He’s proven his instability every time he speaks.

      Incapable of dealing with the fact that even one person didn’t vote for him, he’s a man with dangerous obsessions.

      The conman creates a circus act out of every public appearance, the most recent wherein he staged a man climbing over the fence to “come to the president’s aid”. Yet; under virtually every other public appearance, he has been absolutely intolerant. Hell, in all other public appearances he wouldn’t even tolerate a baby crying, people holding signs in protest, people asking questions he couldn’t answer, so he simply called them “fake news” and either ignored them or had them escorted out.

      Trump is the most illiterate, ignorant person we’ve ever had in the WH; hell in any government position. He’s an embarrassment to everyone in this country. Alvin Greene has more going intellectually than Trump. If you’ve never seen Alvin Greene, here’s an interview with him. Start at about 2:20 to skip past the fodder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8AJpB8K9Ho

      Despite his fortune, Trump has been an absolute failure in every venture he’s attempted, from making something of the millions given him by his father, to military school his father sent him to in hopes that would make something of the fuck-off.

      The only way he made his fortune is via his ripping millions of people off; through repeated bankruptcy, refusal to pay his vendors, and ripping people off with truly criminal behavior. Hell, an outright fraudulent rip off called “Trump University”, claiming all his products are made in America, when even talk show hosts point out his fraud, he simply shrugs and laughs Trump is nothing more than a glorified con-artist who has fooled millions of Americans with his lies and cons.

      Unfortunately, we are indeed a nation filled with bigots, racists, misogynists, extremists on both the right and extreme left; extreme nationalistic/exceptionalistic jackasses who think the “American way is the only way”. Very, very hate-filled people. But; I think there are still some good ones, such as yourself around who see the reality of how we, as a nation are, and that we need to change.

      I apologize for such a lengthy response, but the subject gets me going more than just about any other subject matter.

      Thank you very much for stopping by. It’s nice to have someone actually attempt to carry on a real conversation, rather than making some childish three word remark and run off.

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  3. Anonymous10:53 PM

    Out of all the garbage I've heard through this election I think the worst and most dangerous was when Chris Wallace said it was not his job to discern the truth, or not of the responses he got when asking a presidential candidate a question. His father must have been rolling in his grave.
    I understand the average American doesn't have the time (they should make the time-that's part of citizenship) to hear everything politicians say much less the ability to know if they are telling the truth. We must rely on good reporting to give us the true facts to base our decisions on. Wallace's comment was a spit in the face to good reporting and dangerous to allow information he probably knew was untrue to be broadcast to his audience. He seems to be practicing his FOX news bosses ad line - "We report, you decide." Of course that means nothing, especially if they are reporting falsehoods, and many times knowingly.
    It seems we won't get much help from elected Democrats (like Warren and Franken voting for Dr. Carson as head of HUD) so I'm glad to see these spontaneous protests popping up all over the country and putting Republicans on the spot. That won't change the votes of Republicans in the Congress, but it might change the public's vote in 2018. It would be great, if like Obama in 2010, Trump woke up in 2018 to find a Democratic majority in the Senate and even in the House.
    Of course you are correct, Trump is to unstable to have his fingers on such destructive power. It reminds me of how paranoid and unstable Nixon was. Nixon was Stalinist in his Saturday night massacre. It was ALMOST funny to listen to the right call Obama a Communist and Socialist given the history of the acts of their party's presidents.
    The press has an obligation to truthfully inform the American people, unfortunately, even when they do the American voter prove their ignorance. Voting for Bush the second time was a stroke of stupidity. So was voting for Nixon the second time (by a landslide) even though by then the White House was connected to Watergate.
    I blame the American people for being duped by a guy like Trump, but reporters have to take some responsibility for that, along with the voters being totally uninformed. It's really depressing to know how little a majority of Americans know about their government, or can even name their national leaders.
    Yes. I get going also. The stupidity and lack of common sense is astounding. Americans need sales resistance in our current society, especially when it comes to politicians. P.T. Barnum was correct (there is a sucker born every minute) and that was/is a truth about the American people.
    I didn't have to go back in history, Bush is a contemporary example and his lies cost the lives of 10's of thousands. He truly should have been impeached, but I guess he never had sex with his intern.
    I predict Trump will be impeached, if the Democrats have the stomach for it, which is not a given.

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    1. While I too hope the Democrats have that fortitude, I fear that, with very small few exceptions - Sanders, Franken, and Warren, they see their fight is just a fight for the survival of their partisan brand of politics; a fight for the existence of the party, not for the existence of the U.S. A fight in which they would have nothing to gain by attempting to butt heads against the vast majority of GOP in office. I believe they fear that fight will marginalize the “party” even more than it already is. A very misguided fight.

      I remember clearly the day I saw Chris Wallace on Fox News for the first time. I truly thought he was just making some cameo appearance, or it was some weird joke; "how could Mike's son put his family's name in the trash like this"?

      I have tried to analyze the stupidity of the American people and cannot come up with a viable reason for this, other than the fact that many of us, since we were old enough to talk, have been sold the line that "America is the land “God", created for the good and all things we do are righteous and correct.” It was what I heard in grammar school in the late 1950s, all the way through high school. It was damned near a required curriculum - “America, the Greatest.”

      THAT seems to be the common thread of our collective willing blindness to all things factual; engrained hegemony which defies all other perspectives or reality. It seems the one and only plausible connection to America's ignorance of the world outside our borders. Therefore; those who, like you and me and the billions of others around the world who see beyond the xenophobia and the extreme nationalism, are now the “unbelieved”; the enemy of the state.

      Until I graduated from high school and moved to California, I didn’t even know there were other perspectives on life. It was truly an awakening event for me for the rest of my life. (AND, I had never before seen such a massive body of beautiful blue water either, for the lakes and ponds in Oklahoma are red with mud :-). After 47 years, I’m still in awe of that moment and that there was something other than hate/bigotry-driven ideology.

      I seriously worry that we are heading down the very same path 1930s Germany did. We both see people using the name "Hitler" as a form of juvenile defamation against anyone with whom the users disagree, but in reading Ian Kershaw's works about Hitler, the parallels are glaring and very, very frightening.

      Thanks again for stopping by. I am enjoying the conversation

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