Seeing Steve Bannon go to prison for raising millions of dollars from the MAGA imbeciles to “Build That Wall!” and then putting that money into his pocket would break no one’s heart.
If anyone but a huge Trump donor did that, we’d be doing at least 10 years.
When I was in college in the 1970s, I knew a guy, the son of an extremely wealthy family in Vermont, who was furious that the white race in the United States was being polluted by interracial marriage. “Soon,” he said, “We’ll all have slanty eyes, flat noses, and thick lips. What’s the matter with preserving the White Race in America?”
That was more than 50 years ago, when thinking like that was associated with Neanderthals. Now, we have half of the electorate voting for the full-on racist Donald Trump. We can only live in astonishment as to how far into tribalism and ignorance we’ve fallen since.
There is no doubt that “sustainability” should be a core lesson in schools. But let’s put a little bit of thought behind the definition of “sustainability.” My favorite: The capacity for our society to satisfy its own need without destroying future generations’ capacity to satisfy theirs.
So, what are the main things we’re doing wrong?
It’s really not growing our own food. You’re reading the words of a guy who grew his own vegetables for many years. It was satisfying, and my tomatoes tasted great, but the resources I poured into carting around and composting organic waste, tilling the soil and adding in the compost, planting, irrigating, weeding, and harvesting a plot of ground that was perhaps 1/10th of an acre could hardly be described as “sustainable.”
There are two main arenas in which we’re going wrong as a civilization:
1) The consumption of fossil fuels.
2) The destruction of rainforests to make room for more beef cattle.
If we want to make a difference, we need to electrify the energy and transportation sectors and cut back on meat.
Let’s not think we’re making any material gain by growing our own corn, as tasty as it may be.
We also need to jettison the idea that we can add elements to our school curricula, e.g., gardening, without subtracting something else, e.g., math and science. If you want the coming generation not to be able to hold any careers that require academic training, replace core academic disciplines with agronomy.
This may mean more Trump supporters, but it will mean the end of all American doctors, teachers, lawyers, and scientists.
Barbra Streisand writes: Trump is too old, too unhinged, and too unstable for the most demanding job in the world.
We all wonder how history will regard Donald Trump after he’s gone.
To me the photo at left summarizes it nicely. It captures Trump at left and a man at right who has collapsed during a meeting in the Oval Office beneath a gaggle of actual human being who have come to his aid. What we are seeing is something we already knew: Trump couldn’t care less about anyone but himself.
What was going through his head? Call a doctor? An ambulance? Why?
The presidency of the United States has been marred throughout its history with selfish, cruel, and dishonest people. Frequently ranked as the worst are James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, and Warren G. Harding. Nobody sees too concerned about Andrew Jackson, the master butcherer of the Native Americans, or Richard Nixon, a complex and intelligent man, but garden slime nonetheless.
Yet none of these can touch Trump.
Keep in mind that the president knew pictures were being taken but couldn’t find a way to at least appear sympathetic.
He was born without that gene. Perhaps literally; he comes from a line of total assholes.
I know there are tens of millions of Americans who are thrilled about mass deportation, but, if you’re one of them, here’s a question for you: Has this improved your life in any way at all?
Are you wealthier or safer? Better prepared for retirement? Getting more and better sex? Traveling abroad more? Is your business doing better as a result? Has this lowered the prices of gasoline or groceries?
The only possible benefit this could provide is the knowledge that your country, at your behest, has inflicted more pain on the nation’s poorest, most miserable people.
Let that percolate through your soul.
Was there a specific thing, e.g., bulldozing the East Wing of the White House, that turned massive numbers of Trump supporters against the conman-in-chief?
It’s impossible to say, but his base of hateful morons do seem to be a bit shaken.
At this point, it appears that the American nightmare of extreme rightwing politics may have run its course, in a way not to dissimilar to what happened in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The insanity simply vanished, and no one knew why. A year later, there were townspeople who couldn’t remember that “witches” were being hanged in great numbers.
As we have seen recently, the white Christians who tried so hard to take over the school boards and ban books, prohibit any discussion of homosexuality, and whitewash U.S. history have gotten trounced at the polls.
Granted, neither Vance nor Rubio is criminally insane, and that will present an advantage compared with Trump. But again, it appears that the American people may have seen enough of extremist Republican politics.
There are a few reasons to back off of our country’s investment in renewable energy:
You, as an elected official, got elected and stay in office from the corrupt donations of the fossil fuel industry.
You’re indifferent to America’s competitiveness in the global marketplace.
You’re convinced, via propaganda, that climate change is a hoax, humankind is doing no appreciable harm to our natural environment, and that any effort on our part to change that is essentially woke communism.
He is defined by his cruelty.
Nothing like this could have ever been possible earlier in U.S. history, because Americans didn’t have the stomach for it. Now we eat it up with a spoon.
