# 291 / Dancing On The Brink Of The World

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On Friday, May 3, 2024, I was in attendance at a ceremony honoring Peter and Celia Scott, who are pictured above. The photo, let me reveal, dates from an earlier time - though not nearly as early as the era that Peter talked about in his remarks. As you will see, if you read on, there is a reason that I have deferred reporting on that ceremony last May until this particular day in October!

The May 3rd ceremony, held at The Resource Center For Nonviolence, in Santa Cruz, California, was hosted by the Campaign For Sustainable Transportation, which recognized Peter and Celia for their decades of work on behalf of the natural environment, with special attention paid to their leadership role in fighting destructive big freeway projects in Santa Cruz County. Of course, as Peter was quick to make clear - and as is absolutely true - lots of people have figured in our past community efforts to protect the natural environment, and to preserve the character and quality of the community.   

After introductory remarks, letting those in attendance know exactly why Peter and Celia were being honored (and letting the audience know about others being honored, as well), Peter took the stage, accompanied by his banjo, and then led the crowd in singing "Dancing On The Brink Of The World." I have included the full lyrics to the song at the end of this blog posting. While there is not, unfortunately, any YouTube or comparable video of Peter and Celia singing the song, Peter has been kind enough to furnish me with a brief video excerpt, which will let readers get the flavor of the song. I am actually hoping that maybe Peter and Celia, and their musical friends, will do a recording, sometime, to make the entire song more "present" to those who love Santa Cruz, and the San Lorenzo River. It's a rather special song!

As already revealed, the song to which attendees were treated is titled, "Dancing On The Brink Of The World," but it is also known as "The River Song." The lyrics were mainly by Celia, and the song was more or less a campaign theme song during Celia's successful campaign for the Santa Cruz City Council, in 1994, a campaign which ended with Celia receiving more votes than any other candidate.

As Peter described the origins of the song, he noted the special place that October 17th (today's date) has had in Santa Cruz County history. The significance of the date has been demonstrated as recently as 1989, but October 17th has been important to Santa Cruz right from the very beginning. Here is a quick write-up by Peter:

In Don Clark’s Santa Cruz County Place Names, we discovered that Portola ́ first camped on the river on October 17, 1769, the very same day of the year that we experienced our most recent major earthquake—October 17, 1989. It was a magical coincidence. Cresp ́ı, in his diary recording the discovery in 1769, notes that in the bed of the river “...there is a thick growth of cottonwoods and alders...” and that “Besides the growth along the river there are many redwoods ...” and that “Not far from the stream, we found ... [a] variety of herbs and roses of Castile.”

Looking in Malcolm Margolin’s The Ohlone Way, we found the following: “There is an Ohlone song ... from which only one evocative line survives: 'Dancing on the brink of the World.'" We know nothing more about this song, just that one haunting line. Could this refer to earthquakes experienced by the Ohlones?

Celia and Peter's song sprang from the research that Peter has outlined above. The music springs from a love for this place, for the river and all the lands that surround it, those lands raised from beneath the Pacific Ocean to make a home for those of us privileged to live here, in Santa Cruz, now. 

As I point out rather frequently, we live, actually, in "Two Worlds," simultaneously. Most immediately, we live in a world of our own design, the product of our decisions and our actions. Ultimately, though, we live in the "Natural World," and that is the world that supports every human effort and endeavor. 

Let us never forget this. Let us never forget which of these two worlds is "primary." Our active and enterprising lives - and all the things we do, and create, our entire human civilization - are, indeed, a dance "on the brink of the world." 

May we always celebrate that World of Nature that makes all we do possible. 

May we never forget!

 

oooOOOooo

Dancing On The Brink Of The World

(Also Known As The River Song)

On the seventeenth of October,
In seventeen sixty-nine,
Don Gaspar de Portola ́Camped by the riverside
’Mid the alders and the cottonwoods
And roses of Castile,
Singin’ to the redwoods
Ran a river, wild and deep:

San Lorenzo, you’re the river,

Flowing down, from the mountains to the sea.

By the river, Santa Cruz:

You’re our home, and the place we want to be.

Long before Don Gaspar came,
Ohlones made their place here;
The river their companion
For at least five thousand years.
They made up their own language,
We know only seven words
Of a song: They sang of “...dancing
On the brink of the world...”

San Lorenzo, you’re the river,

Flowing down, from the mountains to the sea.

By the river, Santa Cruz:

You’re our home, and the place we want to be.

For sixty million years or so
The river has been flowing,
If we could ask her just one question,
Here’s what it would be:
When the mountains rose up from the sea,
Oh did you feel the shaking
Of Mother Earth as she gave birth
To all the lands we see?

San Lorenzo, you’re the river,

Flowing down, from the mountains to the sea.

By the river, Santa Cruz:

You’re our home, and the place we want to be.

In December nineteen fifty five
When the rains came pouring down,
You carried all that water
And you poured it o’er our town.
Then the engineers, the very next year,
They put you in a channel:
Our river, once so wild and free
Felt like an enemy.

San Lorenzo, you’re the river,

Flowing down, from the mountains to the sea.

By the river, Santa Cruz:

You’re our home, and the place we want to be.

On the seventeenth of October
In nineteen eighty nine,
Santa Cruz deep down was shaken
By nature’s design;
From the mountain tops to the ocean cliffs
There was a mighty roar
We found that we were “...dancing
On the brink of the world...”

San Lorenzo, you’re the river,

Flowing down, from the mountains to the sea.

By the river, Santa Cruz:

You’re our home, and the place we want to be.

In our vision for the future
There’s a river running clear,
Where the salmon and the steelhead
Raise their young ones every year;
’Mid the alders and the cottonwoods
And roses of Castile,
We shall all be “...dancing
On the brink of the world ...”

San Lorenzo, you’re the river,

Flowing down, from the mountains to the sea.

By the river, Santa Cruz:

You’re our home, and the place we want to be.

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://lookout.co/lets-celebrate-the-legacy-of-celia-and-peter-scotts-environmentalism-and-think-about-the-future-of-highway-1/

(2) - The San Lorenzo River, Gary Patton personal photo (10-15-24)

#290 / 2, 4, 6, 8 - Why Don't We All Speculate?

 

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As we get ever closer to our November 5, 2024, Election Day, let me draw your attention to an article in The Wall Street Journal's "10-Point," a daily newsletter that alerts subscribers to what The Journal thinks are the most important news items of the day. 

The item shown above, in a screenshot taken from my computer, was published on July 29, 2024. The link from the article, as shown above, won't do much for you if you click it, since it's just a screenshot. If you want to read about the bitcoin believers who loved what Donald Trump had to say about bitcoin, click right here. Of course, The Journal may well have imposed an impenetrable paywall, frustrating your efforts (if you are a non-subscriber). If that's true, my apologies, but I hope you'll blame The Journal, not me. 

I also want to provide you with one more link about candidate Trump's decision to throw his support to the bitcoin crowd. This link, too, may be protected by a paywall, but if it works for you, it will take you to an article titled, "Trump promises crypto bros he’ll set the creator of Silk Road free if elected. That’s a terrible idea." This one is from the San Farncisco Chronicle, published on Sunday, September 15, 2024.

Since our former president has now promised to invest taxpayer dollars in bitcoin, I thought I would remind you of my own views. Clicking this link will provide you with lots of references to arguments against what Mr. Trump is promising. You might note, as well, what The Washington Post says in an article from its August 3, 2024, edition, and in another article from August 8, 2024. The New York Times, in a column published on August 12, 2024, used the same word I am highlighting below.

Here's the key word from that August 3rd headline in The Washington Post (and from the headline in The Times, nine days later, in the hard copy version of the paper): 

Beware!

This is good advice for those who would like to protect the value of their money. And.... one more reason not to vote for Mr. Trump!

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Image Credit:

https://10point.cmail20.com/t/d-e-eduuln-ykihjulkhl-r/

#289 / Looking For A Leader

 

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I am not a big fan of Kimberley Strassel, who writes the "Potomac Watch" column for The Wall Street Journal. Her politics are definitely not my politics! 

I will say, though, that Strassel wrote a column on January 18, 2024, that did seem to be on target in its diagnosis of how Americans are feeling. She was writing, of course, at the start of what everyone knew would be a consequential election year, and her column was titled, "The Them-vs.-Us Election." The Journal's paywall permitting, you can click that link to read it online. Just in case The Journal's paywall does not permit you to click on through to Strassel's column, I am reproducing the entire column at the end of this blog posting. 

Strassel's column begins with Strassel quoting Jamie Dimon, who is the Chairperson of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., a global financial services firm with assets of $3.2 trillion. Dimon is definitely part of that "billionaire class" I have mentioned a time or two, which doesn't mean that his analysis of our existing economic, social, and political situation should be disregarded - or is necessarily wrong. Dimon's comment, as reproduced in the Strassel column, is as follows: 

The Democrats have done a pretty good job with the ‘deplorables’ hugging on to their bibles, and their beer and their guns. I mean, really? Could we just stop that stuff, and actually grow up, and treat other people with respect and listen to them a little bit?”

It is my opinion that Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential race to Donald Trump in significant part because she categorized as "deplorable" all those voters who found some merit in what Trump was saying. Her contempt for people with whom she had political disagreements (which she trumpted to the skies) was one very good reason to vote against her. The Strassel column, essentially, with support from Dimon, is making the point that if "the Democrats" want to make the same pitch, again, they are likely to experience the same result. 

As just indicated, I agree with that analysis. 

What captured my attention in the Strassel column, however, was not Dimon's commentary, which is where Strassel began. It was the last line of her column that made me want to write down my reaction, in today's blog post. Here is how Strassel wraps up her  January "Them-vs.-Us" column: 

The polling suggests that most Americans are looking for a leader who promises to return power to the people. They are looking for a freedom agenda. Anyone?

Looking for a leader? Strassel may be right; that may be what Americans are looking for, and if they are, Donald Trump has some advantage. He is definitely a "leader," in the sense that he refuses to conform to any commonly-accepted standard of decent behavior. He is a "leader." He will forge out ahead, and go his own way. 

The fact is, we are woefully mistaken if we start believing that our political system is supposed to help us select a "leader." If we understand, and truly believe in, "self-government," we know that we are not looking for someone to "lead" us - someone who will tell us what we should be thinking, and what we should be doing. We're looking for someone who can "represent" us, so that what the majority of the people would like to accomplish will be accomplished. "Leaders" will almost always betray our expectations. Self-government isn't about finding a "leader." It's about getting engaged, ourselves, in the practice of politics. 

Self-government means a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." 

Abraham Lincoln said that. 

If you don't get involved yourself, so the government is "by" the people, then some so-called "leader" is going to steal your self-government away, right from underneath your nose. 

I said that!

oooOOOooo

The Them-vs.-Us Election

Kimberley A. Strassel

Most Americans wouldn’t consider a banking titan a spokesman for the common man. But give JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon credit for putting his pinkie finger on the phenomenon—the divide—that best explains today’s unsettled political environment.

In an interview Wednesday with CNBC, Mr. Dimon took issue with a disconnected liberal elite that scorns “MAGA” voters. “The Democrats have done a pretty good job with the ‘deplorables’ hugging on to their bibles, and their beer and their guns. I mean, really? Could we just stop that stuff, and actually grow up, and treat other people with respect and listen to them a little bit?”

The powerful, the intellectual and the lazy have long said that the “divide” in this country is between rich and poor. They divvy up Americans along traditional lines related to wealth—college, no college, white-collar, blue-collar, income—then layer on other demographics. This framing has given us the “diploma divide” and the “new suburban voter” and “Hillbilly Elegy.” It’s sent the political class scrambling to understand Donald Trump’s “forgotten man”—again, defined economically. 

That framing fails to account for the country’s unsettled electorate. There’s a better description of the shifts both between and within the parties, a split that better explains changing voter demographics and growing populist sentiments. It’s the chasm between a disconnected elite and average Americans. This is becoming a them-vs.-us electorate and election. Political candidates, take heed.

This gulf is described by unique new polling from Scott Rasmussen’s RMG Research, conducted for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. Mr. Rasmussen says that for more than a year he’d been intrigued by consistent outlier data from a subset of Americans, which he later defined as those with a postgraduate degree, earning more than $150,000 a year, and living in a high-density area. Mr. Rasmussen in the fall conducted two surveys of these “elites” and compared their views to everyone else.

Talk about out of touch. Among the elite, 74% say their finances are getting better, compared with 20% of the rest of voters. (The share is 88% among elites who are Ivy League graduates.) The elite give President Biden an 84% approval rating, compared with 40% from non-elites. And their complete faith in fellow elites extends beyond Mr. Biden. Large majorities of them have a favorable view of university professors (89%), journalists (79%), lawyers and union leaders (78%) and even members of Congress (67%). Two-thirds say they’d prefer a candidate who said teachers and educational professionals, not parents, should decide what children are taught. 

More striking is the elite view on bedrock American principles, central to the biggest political fights of today. Nearly 50% of elites believe the U.S. provides “too much individual freedom”—compared with nearly 60% of voters who believe there is too much “government control.” Seventy-seven percent of elites support “strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity” to fight climate change, vs. 28% of everyone else. More than two-thirds of elite Ivy graduates favor banning things like gasoline-powered cars and stoves and inessential air travel in the name of the environment. More than 70% of average voters say they’d be unwilling to pay more than $100 a year in taxes or costs for climate—compared with 70% of elites who said they’d pay from $250 up to “whatever it takes.” 

This framing explains today’s politics better. While this elite is small, its members are prominent in every major institution of American power, from media to universities to government to Wall Street, and have become more intent on imposing their agenda from above. Many American voters feel helplessly under assault from policies that ignore their situation or values.

What unites “rich” and “poor” parents in the revolt against educational failings? A common rejection of disconnected teachers unions and ivory-tower academics. Why are growing numbers of minorities—across all incomes and education levels—rejecting Democrats? They no longer recognize a progressive movement that reflexively espouses that elite view. Why are voters on both sides—including “free market” conservatives—gravitating to politicians who bash “big business” and trade and are increasingly isolationist? They feel the system is rigged by elites that care more about the globe than them. And why the continued appeal of Mr. Trump? The man is a walking promise to stick it to the “establishment” (never mind that most of his party’s establishment has endorsed him).

This lack of trust and cultural divide are no healthier than the simpler rich-poor split, but they’re there. The challenge for Mr. Trump’s GOP opponents as they move past Iowa is to recognize the sense of alienation. That doesn’t mean calling to burn everything down (Vivek Ramaswamy tried that and freaked people out), but it does require a campaign that offers more than vague promises to “strengthen the cause of freedom” or run on “your issues.” The polling suggests that most Americans are looking for a leader who promises to return power to the people. They are looking for a freedom agenda. Anyone?

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Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-them-vs-us-election-elites-and-the-divide-in-american-politics-trump-db01d9e8 

#288 / That "American Century" Is All Over

 

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Above, you will see a picture of Tom Engelhardt. He may be familiar to some. You can click the link if you don't know who I am talking about.

I subscribe to Engelhardt's, Tom Dispatch, and I am commenting, today, on the bulletin that Engelhardt posted online on July 18, 2024. His column on that date was titled, "The Decline And Fall Of Presidential America." 

In that posting, from mid-July, Engelhardt begins with a commentary on the two candidates then vying for the presidency - both old! Engelhardt then turns to America itself, noting that Henry Luce, an American magazine magnate who founded Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated magazines, claimed that “The 20th Century is the American Century.”

Well, the 20th Century has now come and gone, hasn't it? If that "American Century" is all over, what's happening now?

Engelhardt doesn't really go into that very much, but he is ruthless in pointing out that the two candidates who were presumed, in July, to be fighting to lead the nation are "ancient," and that this is profoundly discouraging. 

THINGS HAVE CHANGED SINCE ENGELHARDT WROTE IN JULY. At the time he wrote, J.D. Vance had just appeared on the stage at the Republican National Convention. Vance wasn't even forty years old, yet. Trump - that "old guy" - was the official presidential candidate, but he had recruited "new blood" in the shape of that "Hillbilly" Senator. As for the nation's other major political party, an apparently decrepit Joe Biden was then the presumptive candidate of the Democratic Party. Engelhardt had little good to say about him. Again, THINGS HAVE CHANGED SINCE ENGELHARDT WROTE IN JULY. 

I, for one, am hopeful, and excited, and expectant that those changes - and specifically the candidacy of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz - will mean good things for the nation's future.

In fact, I would like to suggest that it would be most appropriate for us to focus on the "nation," as opposed to the "candidates." Whether the candidates are "old" or "young," the nation is definitely getting on in years, and that "American Century" is definitively over. Where do we all go from here?

Well, how about entertaining the thought - how about "celebrating" the thought - that the so-called "American Century" is, as I just said, definitively and decidedly over? Is is possible that the 21st Century will be the century in which everyone on earth recognizes our total interdependence, so that we attenuate national competition, and collectively address the REAL challenges that face us - challenges that we knew about in July (and that we have known about for a long time), and that we have ever greater reason to pay attention to now, in October. The United States can provide some leadership, to make sure that happens!

Global Warming is, in fact, "global" in its impacts. It is real. It is advancing at a rapid pace and is putting human civilization in peril. It makes planetary (or "international") cooperation a priority. People have been telling us this for years, but maybe this is the year that everyone on Planet Earth will have a more or less simultaneous realization that we are all in this together. 

Let us deal with the 21st Century with that truth in mind! Our "American Century" has come and gone, and I am suggesting, to young and old alike, that we should get ourselves current with the century in which we are actually living, right now, the "Century of Planet Earth."

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://americanempireproject.com/other-authors/tom-engelhardt/

(2) - https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/885/earth-from-space

#287 / Knowing What Must Be Done

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I have always liked what Franklin D. Roosevelt had to say about fear. I bet you know the quote: 

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself

It turns out that Rosa Parks, pictured, also had something rather profound to say about fear: 

Knowing What Must Be Done Does Away With Fear

"Must" is a pretty tough word. "Must" means that something is inevitable, that it has to happen, or that it has to be done, or that it is required. 

Think about it for a minute, though. While the laws that govern the "World of Nature," upon which we ultimately depend, do state "inevitabilities," we live most immediately in a "Human World." In that world, "possibility," not "inevitability," is  what we find, and the fact of our human freedom puts the lie to virtually every "must" that comes to us as a command from some external source. In the world in which we most immediately live - the world in which we either act, or don't act - there aren't any "inevitabilities." There aren't any absolute requirements. There isn't any binding "must." Whatever exists can be changed, and our "freedom" is something upon which we can rely. "Must" is our "choice." It is never an actual "requirement." 

Our boss may tell us that we "must" come into work on a holiday. No, we don't have to do that, though if we don't, we may lose our job. A teacher may tell us that we "must" get our paper submitted by the due date specified. No, we don't have to do that. Of course, if we don't, we may fail the course. 

The United States government may tell a young man that he must report for military service, and go off to war and kill the people whom the government says must be killed. Not really true. That young man doesn't have to do that. He can refuse. Take it from me. I know. 

In fact, think about Rosa Parks. The bus driver told her that she must move to the back of the bus. But she didn't do it. She refused. And you know what happened. Rosa Parks' decision to refuse to do what she was told that she "must" do helped change the world. 

Given what Rosa Parks actually did, in Montgomery, Alabama, how could she say that "knowing what must be done does away with fear"?

Well, I think it's pretty clear that Rosa Parks was talking about knowing, with certainty, and for oneself, what you, as an individual, with individual freedom, have decided you will do - or refuse to do, as the case may have it. When the "must" is not what someone else is telling you that you have to do, and when the "must" comes from your own determination and your own choice - that's when we conquer fear. 

We do have choices to make. Every day. Every hour. And there is no "must" that eliminates our human freedom, our ability to choose what we will do, or refuse to do. Doing what is "expected," what we are told by somebody else that we "must" do, may be a strategy that we hope will eliminate fear, but it's a failing strategy unless the choices we make - the choice to act, or not to act - is our own choice. 

Once we tell ourselves that we know, for ourselves, what "must be done," that is when fear is defeated. 

Roosevelt put it in a national perspective. All we really need to "fear" is the fear that is inevitable until we make a decision about what we will do - which means what we will try to do. 

Back in May, I cited Jessica Craven's claim that "fear" comes from "False Evidence Appearing Real." The "false evidence" that so often "appears real" is almost always a claim that says that we are NOT free, that something bad is inevitable, and that something bad will happen. If we ever think that something bad will happen, that it's "inevitable," that's when we are afraid. 

Once we have decided what "must be done," and when that statement means not that we have been told what must be done by someone else, but when we have made our own choice about that, and have decided what we will do...

That's when fear goes into the rearview, and all we see is what's ahead, and what we know that we "must" do - must try to do. That's what Roosevelt was talking about.

That's when we are fearless. 

Thinking about now... Facing what we face in the future (I'm talking socially, politically, economically) please let us learn what "must be done." We know what challenges and dangers we face. Let us discover what it will take for us to become fearless now!

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Image Credit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

#286 / Fear Not (One More Time)

 

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Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 

Isaiah 41:10

I think that the above advice, to "Fear Not," is very good advice. I would counsel you to take that advice, even if you're not one who likes to cite to God or the Bible as an authority. 

In fact, I have provided this exact same advice previously, in five earlier blog posts. I remembered this quote when I read a rather lengthy article in the October 2, 2024, hard copy edition of The New York Times. Here we go for the sixth time around with my "Fear Not" advisory. 

I am providing you with the entire article that stimulated this blog posting (emphasis added). I am doing that because I feel that what the article said about our former president was extraordinary, and because I think it is highly relevant to the upcoming presidential election. 

Former president Trump forecasts "doom" if he is not elected this November. The title of the recent article that delivered this message (and not for the first time, of course) is: "Trump’s Consistent Message Online and Onstage: Be Afraid." 

Obviously, Trump and God differ on this important matter. 

oooOOOooo

Below, I am providing the entirety of the article from The Times, outlining Trump's effort to persuade you to "Be Afraid." Again, I am advising the opposite. 

Trump’s Consistent Message Online and Onstage: Be Afraid

Donald Trump has long used fear as a tool to stir up his conservative base. He’s taking his doomsday approach to a new extreme, predicting World War III and other catastrophes.

By Michael Gold, October 1, 2024 

Former President Donald J. Trump swings wildly from topic to topic at his rallies, veering from tariffs to immigration policy to the problems with electric vehicles. But he tends to return to the same apocalyptic message.

“You won’t have a country anymore,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Las Vegas last month. “You’re pretty close to not having one. You better hope I get elected.”

It is a forecast Mr. Trump has made repeatedly over the last year in speeches and interviews and on social media as he campaigns to return to the White House. Although he has long used fear as a tool to stir up his conservative base and sway undecided voters, Mr. Trump has taken his doomsday prophesying to a new extreme, increasing both its frequency and scope.

He regularly predicts that if he loses to Vice President Kamala Harris in November, America will be ruined. World War III will break out, most likely prompting a global nuclear catastrophe. There will no longer be an America. Israel will cease to exist. Murderous immigrant gangs will overrun cities, small towns, the state of Colorado and the entire country. Factories will shutter. Farmers will lose their farms. The United States will face an economic “blood bath.”

During a speech on Saturday in Wisconsin, Mr. Trump declared that immigrants would “walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat” and that “your towns, your cities, your country is being destroyed.” He stopped about 20 minutes in to make light of his dire rhetoric.

“Isn’t this a wonderful and inspiring speech?” Mr. Trump said facetiously, as the crowd chuckled. “I got people sitting in the front row, they’re going, ‘Oh my God.’ They thought they’d be out there jumping up and down. ‘Make America great again.’ We’re going to do that. Don’t worry, we haven’t gotten to that part yet. I’m just saying. This is a dark — this is a dark speech.”

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, defended Mr. Trump’s language and said it reflected his view of the dire reality the country faces. Pointing to inflation, crime and the fentanyl crisis, Ms. Leavitt said Mr. Trump “recognizes the declining state of our country and offers an optimistic vision for the future to make America safe, secure and wealthy again.”

Mr. Trump has made fear an animating force throughout his political career. In 2016, he stoked tensions around immigration by branding Mexican immigrants as “murderers” and “rapists.” And during his 2020 campaign, he took the same tone as he stirred up concerns over urban crime to try to appeal to white suburban voters.

During his third run for the White House, Mr. Trump has revived his alarmist predictions and expanded them to the globe.

In nearly every speech, Mr. Trump cautions that the United States is on the verge of a global war that only he can prevent. Falsely claiming that he presided over an era of worldwide peace, Mr. Trump argues that continued Democratic leadership will prolong the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza to devastating effects.

Last week, he raised the specter of an American ground war, falsely telling hundreds of people in North Carolina that President Biden and Ms. Harris were “not going to be satisfied until they send American kids over to Ukraine” to “die across the ocean.” Mr. Biden has voiced opposition to doing so.

And at most rallies this year, Mr. Trump has warned that there will be a calamitous nuclear conflict if he does not win in the fall. “You’re going to end up in World War III,” he said at the Las Vegas rally. “You’re going to have a nuclear holocaust if we’re not careful. These people have no idea.”

Sarafina Chitika, a Harris campaign spokeswoman, accused Mr. Trump of hiding his lack of policy behind his rhetoric.

“Donald Trump is left with nothing to sell the American people but darkness and lies,” she said in a statement. “Instead of offering solutions, he peddles conspiracy theories and trashes our country.”

Mr. Trump continues to reserve his darkest predictions for discussing immigration. At several rallies this year, he has signaled that this is a strategic choice, seeming to blame his retreat from such language for hurting him in the 2020 election.

“I think in 2016, I won maybe because of the border,” he said in Tucson, Ariz. “And in 2020, I couldn’t talk about the border. My people would say, ‘Sir, you’re wasting your time talking about the border.’”

As he campaigns this year, Mr. Trump has seized on a surge in undocumented immigrants crossing the border during the Biden administration. Though that increase has dropped significantly in recent months, Mr. Trump continues to portray immigrants as an invading force bent on destroying America, often distorting facts or data as he conjures up a “migrant crime wave” that national statistics do not support.

Ignoring the substantial share of migrants who are made up of families with children, Mr. Trump broadly characterizes those crossing the border as violent criminals or mentally ill people. He has repeatedly likened undocumented immigrants to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibalistic serial killer from “The Silence of the Lambs,” and he has made baseless claims that other countries have deliberately emptied their prisons and “insane asylums” to send their populations to the United States.

More recently, screens at his rallies have displayed images with fearmongering captions as he speaks.

One, shown at several campaign events and shared by the Trump campaign on social media, appears to be a digitally generated depiction of a man with a knife stalking a woman in a dark alley with the caption, “No one is safe with Kamala’s open borders.” Another references his debunked claims that a Venezuelan gang has taken over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colo. It’s an image of tattooed Latino men with the caption, “Your new apartment managers if Kamala’s re-elected.”

In two recent speeches meant to appeal to Jewish voters, he predicted that Israel would cease to exist within two years if he lost in November. “If I don’t win, I believe Israel will be eradicated — and you can’t let that happen,” he said. Then he urged a rabbi in the room to “get everybody together, and you have to get them to vote.”

It was one of several speeches in which Mr. Trump tailored his dark vision to the specific groups he was speaking to. At a roundtable discussion about agriculture in rural Pennsylvania, he warned that a Harris victory would raise energy costs so much that farmers “won’t have a farm very long, I will tell you that.”

At times, he shifts to focus not on the future but on an alternate version of the present. At a manufacturing center in North Carolina last week, he defended the protectionist trade policies he adopted as president by insisting they had staved off precipitous economic collapse.

“You wouldn’t have anything left in this state if I didn’t do what I did,” Mr. Trump said. “This building would be now shuttered, closed, empty, no jobs. And now it’s thriving."

oooOOOooo

BACK TO MY OWN THOUGHTS:

As I say, I find the statements by our former president to be extraordinary. And unhelpful, considering the very real problems we face. 

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are campaigning on a "yes we can" platform. So, accuse me, if you wish, of optimism, but unless we emphasize "possibility," not "doom," then we will, indeed, end up in the grip of the kind of doom world scenarios that Donald J. Trump is, actually, promoting. 

Let's go back and consider my oft-used title, "Fear Not."

This blog is titled, "We Live In A Political World," and so this is a "political" piece. As with all things political, it's all about choice. "Fear?" Or "Fear Not?" 

Here is the bottom line: YOU DECIDE!

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Image Credit:

https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/fear-not-bible-verses-to-remind-us-god-is-in-control.html

#285 / Dreaming Of A Magic Bullet

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Timothy Messer-Kruse, an American historian who specializes in labor history, has written an article in Counterpunch. His purpose, he tells us, is to contradict what he calls "The Myth Of The Magic Bullet." 

That myth, as outlined by Messer-Kruse, begins with the idea that there are certain "Great Persons," or "Heroes" who are the ones who "make history," and who thus define our world. If that were true, as Messer-Kruse points out, then assassinating a presidential candidate could be world-altering:

While much remains unknown about the motives of the would-be assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania, one thing is certain. The man who attempted to kill Donald Trump believed his bullet would change the course of history for the better.

In fact, says Messer-Kruse, it is "we," in the plural, who "make history." To the extent we lose sight of that, and lose faith in our ability to make history ourselves, we cease to act. We become "spectators," who watch what these "Great Persons" do, and one result is the growth of fever dreams about how assassinations can bring back our lost power. Much more typically, this erroneous idea that others have all the power is our own, self-created, disempowerment. Turning to assassination, as a way to restore a sense of the power we think we have lost, is a misbegotten reaction - and a misbegotten plan. But failing to organize with friends, and others, and to engage in politics ourselves, is just as mistaken.

As an antidote to any feelings of powerlessness, I am recommending a quick reading of a recent blog posting by Jessica Craven, whose "Chop Wood, Carry Water" blog - specializing in politics - has some very motivating words of wisdom. She links to another motivating, fact-based analysis of our politics, too.

Plus, Craven throws in a little motivating graphic. Feel free to pass it on. (And get to work).

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/15/the-myth-of-the-magic-bullet/

(2) - https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com/p/chop-wood-carry-water-716-733

#284 / Want To Fight? Consider The Alternatives

 

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The picture featured above comes from an opinion column by Carlos Lozada, published in The New York Times on July 21, 2024. The main point of Lozada's column, as the picture makes clear, is that presidential candidate Donald J. Trump believes that our politics is best understood as a "fight." As I have noted in another one of my recent blog postings, this idea that "politics" is a "fight" can slip easily into the mistaken thought that the aim of of our politics - of our "democracy" - is actually "dictatorship." 

In a "fight," after all, the idea is to "knock your opponent out." If you can do that, then you will be free to do whatever you want to do - what you think is "right."  

My own idea of "politics" is rather different, and today's blog posting was actually stimulated not by the Lozada column but by another New York Times' article, published in that same, July 21, 2024, issue.

In her "Interview" in The New York Times Magazine," Lulu Garcia-Navarro spoke with Robert Putnam, an American political scientist, and the author, among other books and articles, of Bowling Alone. In that rather famous book, published originally as an essay, in 1995, Putnam argued that our nation has undergone an unprecedented collapse in civic, social, associational, and political life (social capital) since the 1960s, with serious negative consequences.

Structuring our politcs as a "fight" does not help us deal with this problem. To the contrary, it exacerbates it. Putnam's understanding of "social capital," the thing that is most needed to make our society function properly, is that there are actually two different "kinds" of social capital. Only one of them can help us overcome the social dysfunction that Putnam has documented. 

I certainly encourage anyone reading this blog posting to read the entirety of the Putnam interview with Garcia-Navarro. It is titled, "Robert Putnam Knows Why You’re Lonely." However, even though I have provided you the link - and have actually done that two different times - it might well be that The Times' paywall will not let non-subscribers read that conversation between Putnam and Garcia-Navarro. 

Given that possibility (probably verging on a certainty), I am providing you with the following excerpt, discussing those two different kinds of "social capital," so you will be able fully to understand Putnam's point: 

I want to understand a little bit about the terms that you use for how you describe this. You distinguish between two types of social capital, right? There’s bonding social capital and there’s bridging social capital. Ties that link you to people like yourself are called bonding social capital. So, my ties to other elderly, male, white, Jewish professors — that’s my bonding social capital. And bridging social capital is your ties to people unlike yourself. So my ties to people of a different generation or a different gender or a different religion or a different politic or whatever, that’s my bridging social capital. I’m not saying “bridging good, bonding bad,” because if you get sick, the people who bring you chicken soup are likely to reflect your bonding social capital. But I am saying that in a diverse society like ours, we need a lot of bridging social capital. And some forms of bonding social capital are really awful. The K.K.K. is pure social capital — bonding social capital can be very useful, but it can also be extremely dangerous. So far, so good, except that bridging social capital is harder to build than bonding social capital. That’s the challenge, as I see it, of America today.

Gearing up for a "fight," politically, is definitely putting the emphasis on building "bonding social capital," and as Putnam notes, that can be "extremely dangerous." 

What our former president is urging upon us - and there is no doubt about it - is "extremely dangerous." Look into Project 2025, if you haven't already investigated it, and if you need any convincing.

We are "in this together," and that is the truth of our political situation, and we're not talking about a boxing ring. Where our politics is concerned, we need to do the exact opposite of "fight to win." We are not supposed to be trying to knock out all those people who have different ideas. We are supposed to be trying to figure out how to live with them!

So, before you vote for the Trump-Vance ticket, consider the alternatives!

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Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/18/opinion/trump-rhetoric-fighting-words.html

#283 / Deplatformed

 

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As we get closer to our upcoming election day, let's remember something about the Republican National Convention. The picture above, taken during that convention, shows our former president with his emblematic bandage; it was published in The New York Times, online, on July 19, 2024. The article from which I took that image was titled, "How Trump Dominated His Own Party on a New G.O.P. Platform." If you click that link, but are not a subscriber to The Times, you will quite likely not be able to read the story. Here's the online subhead, to give you a quick synopsis of what the article reports:

Donald Trump and his team displayed a ruthless efficiency in the process of making a platform, confiscating delegates’ cellphones and stifling dissent and even debate.

As readers may remember, there has been some serious talk about how the Republican Party has shifted towards "dictatorship," as the model for what a democratic government should actually be trying to do. The link will take you to one of my earlier blog postings. And, presumably, everyone remembers that former president Trump has promised to take office as a "dictator," on his "day one" in office, should he be elected in November. 

What the July 19th article in The Times documents is a successful effort by Donald Trump to prevent any actual deliberation over what the Republican Party "Platform" should say. Those delegates to the Convention, who thought that they were going to help develop an explanation of what the Republican Party is trying to achieve, and why voters should vote for their candidates, were prevented from discussing or deliberating about the content of the "Platorm." 

The expression "deplatform" is usually employed to state how those who seek to express themselves on social media, on the internet, are deprived of their ability to do that: 

Deplatforming, (no-platforming), [is] a form of Internet censorship of an individual or group by preventing them from posting on the platforms they use to share their information/ideas. This typically involves suspension, outright bans, or reducing spread (shadow banning).

It looks to me like Donald Trump, and "his" Republican Party, are definitely committed to a "democracy" that essentially tells citizens this: "sit down; shut up; do what you're told." Trump, aided by his family members and followers, essentially "deplatformed" the delegates who came to the convention to "share their information/ideas."

If you don't think that approach to government and politics is what we need, then don't vote for candidates whose political party actually does think that "dictatorship" is the true object of "democracy." Click this link to read that earlier blog posting, because the stakes are really high!

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Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/18/us/politics/trump-gop-platform-convention.html

#282 / J.D. Vance For President?

  

Is This Guy On The Way Out?

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A pretty extraordinary article appeared in the online version of The New York Times that was published on October 6, 2024. If you click the following link, depending on your subscription status, you may be able to read an article with this headline: "Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age." 

This is a long article. I am not providing the entire text, but I do give you some choice parts of the article, below (with emphasis added). 

The Times' article raises the question - at least to me - whether voters who are planning to cast their ballot for the Trump-Vance ticket understand that they are probably voting to make J.D. Vance the next president of the United States. 

Having read what The Times' has reported, I think it's pretty clear that if Trump is elected in November he will, of necessity, and perhaps by design, be quickly replaced by Vance. I have seen news speculations, earlier, that indicate that this is exactly what Peter Thiel and his cohorts, who urged Trump to name Vance as his Vice Presidential running mate, have always expected and planned. 

J.D. Vance for President? 

If you don't think that's a good idea, then don't vote for former president Trump!

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Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age

With the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president’s speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years.

By Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman

Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there.

Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me”when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race....

A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past ....

He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone.

While elements of this are familiar, some who have known him for years say they notice a change. “He’s not competing at the level he was competing at eight years ago, no question about it,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump ally who has endorsed Ms. Harris. “He’s lost a step. He’s lost an ability to put powerful sentences together” ....

John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, was so convinced that Mr. Trump was psychologically unbalanced that he bought a book called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” written by 27 mental health professionals, to try to understand his boss better. As it was, Mr. Kelly came to refer to Mr. Trump’s White House as “Crazytown.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s cabinet secretaries had a running debate over whether the president was “crazy-crazy,” as one of them put it in an interview after leaving office, or merely someone who promoted “crazy ideas.” There were multiple conversations about whether the 25th Amendment disability clause should be invoked to remove him from office, although the idea never went far. His own estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote a book identifying disorders she believed he has. Mr. Trump bristled at such talk, insisting that he was “a very stable genius” ....

Some of what he says is inexplicable except to those who listen to him regularly and understand the shorthand. And he throws out assertions without any apparent regard for whether they are true or not. Lately, he has claimed that crowds Ms. Harris has drawn were not real but the creation of artificial intelligence, never mind the reporters and cameras on hand to record them.

He mispronounces names and places with some regularity — “Charlottestown” instead of “Charlottesville,” “Minnianapolis” instead of “Minneapolis,” the website “Snoops” instead of “Snopes,” “Leon” Musk instead of “Elon” ....

He considers himself the master of nearly every subject. He said Venezuelan gangs were armed “with MK-47s,” evidently meaning AK-47s, and then added, “I know that gun very well” because “I’ve become an expert on guns.” He claims to have been named “man of the year” in Michigan, although no such prize exists.

He is easily distracted. He halted in the middle of another extended monologue when he noticed a buzzing insect. “Oh, there’s a fly,” he said. “Oh. I wonder where the fly came from. See? Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer.”

But like some people approaching the end of their eighth decade, he is not open to correction. “Trump is never wrong,”  he said recently in Wisconsin. “I am never, ever wrong.”

oooOOOooo

Our Next President? 

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/politics/trump-speeches-age-cognitive-decline.html

(2) - https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2024/07/26/republican-vp-nominee-jd-vance--names