Karen said, “Write something light.”

At a class reunion Pete Jones shared this.  I take minimal license in the retelling.

Harry was in hospital with a fractured skull.

Pal Ben came to visit.  “Hey buddy!  Cracked the ol’ bean?  What happened?”

“Well Benny,” the patient hesitated, “it’s kinda fuzzy.  I went to church like always.”

Ben nodded.

“The pews was all took up.  So Usher Jim told me go sit up front with Pastor Mike and Deacons,” Harry looked up, “Like when they ain’t enough seats?”

A second nod.

“I was right behind the pulpit,” his head shifted slowly side-to-side, “with that big Bible?”

“The big Bible!”

“After the prayer,” the patient hesitated, “Miss Philips stood up, right in front of me, to lead the hymn.”

Ben saluted, “Colonel Broad Bottom.”

Harry went on.  “She was .  .  .  a arms-length away.  And I seen where her skirt was, you know  .  .  .  tucked in?  She had this little wedgie.”

His friend’s expression shifted from amused to concerned. “Okay?”

The man in the bed looked up.  “Well  .  .  .  it looked .  .  .  you know, uncomfortable!  Pastor Mike and the Deacons seein’ it.  So I just,” his hand raised, “reached  .  .  .”

Ben’s gaze shot to the ceiling.  “No!”

“And pulled ‘er out.  Well Miss Philips looked around,” appearing astonished, “Benny, on the farm, three years in the Army, ain’t nobody ever look at me like that!”

Ben shook his head.

Harry continued.  “By the second verse a that hymn I got to thinkin’.  Maybe it’s supposed to be like that; maybe it’s the style,” his hand raised.

A more emphatic, “No!”

“So I just, you know, tucked ‘er back in?”  The patient looked up.  “Last I seen Benny, is that big ol’ Bible comin’ at my head.”

I’m puzzled and troubled by President Trump’s calling Congressman Elijah Cumming’s Baltimore district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”  Looking to shoot the President down, I Googled topics like violent crime, poverty and homelessness in Trump’s home town and Baltimore.  All those numbers made my head hurt—Why The Donald doesn’t bother with facts?  It appears, like New York, Chicago and L.A., Baltimore experiences it’s fair share of headaches and heartaches, sometimes more, sometimes less.

So what triggered this latest in Trump’s litany of insult and slander?  Of course, his egregious, un-called-for attack on Baltimore is not about rats or livability.  The Donald’s most recent temper tantrum arose from the taproot of anger, fear!

Perceived threat triggers the “flight or fight” response in our reptilian brain.  We run or attack.  Our back to the wall, we strike with any and all means available. When “civil” protocol precludes physical assault we insult, besmirch, and castigate; we attack our antagonizer’s character, appearance, home-town, whatever. Those most deranged or desperate shoot up synagogues, mosques, and shopping malls.

Without a “racist bone in (his) body,” despite attacks on one uppity black politician and four smart-assed, non-Caucasian Congresswomen—three native-born, one naturalized, told, “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”—Donald’s vitriol can’t be rooted in xenophobia.  With a third, glamorous young wife—requisite Rich-Old-Man’s “Arm Candy”—and numerous alleged and paid-off dalliances not misogyny either.

The truth is Elijah Cummings, Ilhan Omar, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Presley harbinger the exponentially growing fact that non-Caucasians and women are high-jacking Trump’s Good-Old-White-Boy’s Power Structure!

But why Congressman Cummings, why now?  As Chairperson of its Committee on Oversight and Reform, “one of the most influential and powerful panels in the House (Congressman Cummings) is one of only three in the House with the authority to issue subpoenas without a committee vote or consultation with the ranking member.”*  As sentiment for impeachment gains traction, Trump is terrified!

The Donald’s not alone.  Sensing their loss of power, a third of white Americans are desperate.  In The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump a white woman is succinct, “I want my country back!”—So would the folks who greeted Columbus sweetheart.

The Fundamentalist’s/Nationalist’s greatest fear is Change.  But it’s here folks.  Change!  Right here in River City!

World History is the history of change, of those holding power losing it: China, Attila the Hun, Ghengis Kahn, the Holy Roman Empire, the British Empire, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution.  Power never lasts!  Never!

If we think white male America can dodge the bullet look to our history.  In 1870, with the abolition of slavery, the Fifteenth Amendment codified “the right of citizens of the United States to vote .  .  .  (without regard to) race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  Ironically it took fifty years, exactly one century ago, before the Nineteenth Amendment prohibited “denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex.”  Today there’s the real possibility a non-Caucasian woman could become President of the United States of America.  Something the Founding Fathers, bless ‘em, never imagined.

The impetus for Donald Trump’s scurrilous, as usual ill-thought-out and curiously-framed attacks on Baltimore, its black Congressman, blacks as a whole, and non-Caucasian Congresswomen in particular is clear.  Driven by fear, ignoring protocols of civil discourse essential to civil pluralistic government, sensing his back to the wall, a frightened Sixth Grade Bully beats up on and insults individuals and millions down in the trenches, slugging it out day-to-day, doing their best to earn an honest living, raise decent kids, make a better life, city and America.

With burgeoning signs the Old-White-Male establishment is loosing its grip, Donald and cohort are scared, very scared.  Clinging to the greased pole of bigotry, desperately they call out to white racists, Neo-Nazis, and anti-Semitics.  But they can’t hold on, not for long, and not-so-deep inside, they know it.

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

Googling this I stumbled on Jimmy Fremgen’s, Aug. 1 USA Today Opinion: “Dear President Donald Trump, let me tell you about my ex-boss Elijah Cummings.”  Fremgen experienced the Maryland Congressman as a hard driving, intelligent, honest, ethical, kind man expending every ounce of his strength and strategy to keep his America great.

With rapid-fire firings and resignations, “Acting” bureau and department chiefs—few rational persons want to work for Trump—with reported confusion and chaos in the Oval Office, with bizarre Tweets catching staffers flat-footed, scrambling to cover the Boss’s ass, I wonder who on Donald’s team—beside poor, adoring Kellyann—would describe their President in as laudatory terms?

*Wikipedia

Mexico doesn’t appreciate its power over America.  If Mexico’s government ordered its citizens in America to come home and posted troops on the northern border to keep them there, it could guarantee that within weeks, if not days, the United States would be on its knees, pleading for fruit pickers, poultry and meat plant workers, gardeners, ditch diggers, dishwashers, and hotel maids to work at fair wages, with decent working conditions and health care, doing the essential tasks eighty percent of Americans can’t or won’t do.

I know little of world history.  Somewhere I picked up the impression that Rome’s downfall was triggered in part by lazy citizens relying on slave labor.  If I’m mistaken please correct me.  With Mexicans performing a significant part of the labor in our country and companies exporting jobs to sweatshops in China, Mexico and India, are we following in Rome’s footprints?

On viewing the National Rifle Association’s stubborn opposition to reasonable firearms control—which seventy percent of Americans want—as a significant factor behind the now-weekly church and shopping mall massacres, could some frightened, angry citizen grab his AK47, charge into NRA headquarters, and blaze away?

Happily it can’t happen because individuals who would perpetrate such carnage are gun totin’ folks who, even oblivious to the NRA, tacitly support and facilitate its beliefs.

1. U.S. Senators and Representatives sign a pledge not to accept money or gifts from the NRA or Assault Weapons and ammunition manufactures.
2. Establish a government program to buy Assault Weapons for twice their purchase price.  At half fair market value, sell them to recyclers pledged to disassemble, crush, and put the materials to useful purposes.
3. Ask your husband or wife to sell their Assault Weapons to the government’s program. The next massacre victim could be you or the seven-year-old sitting across the dinner table.
4. Arms and munitions plant workers, refuse to make parts for or assemble Assault Weapons.

Orkin Pest Control ranks Donald Trup’s home town as the third most rat-infested city in the U.S.  “Rat-infested” Balimore comes in ninth.

Will the man ever know or speak the truth?!

Definitions are instructive: “Fascism, a political philosophy, movement or regime, (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race over the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader.”*  From “Fasces  .  .  .  a bundle of rods bound about an ax with projecting blade, carried before ancient Roman magistrates as a symbol of authority; later the symbol of Italian fascism.”**  As bearers of the fasces, i.e. authority, Fascists commit, ethically, legally or otherwise, to impose their beliefs and policies on others.

Next, “smug” the look of a “highly self-satisfied” individual.**  While most smug persons are not clever enough to be Fascists, smug is the hallmark of a Fascist leader.  See photos of Hitler, Mussolini, and the fellow currently preening for red-capped believers.

A century back, on the heels of a brutish four-year War and equally brutish treaty of peace, Germany was on it’s knees.  Within two decades a Fascist stood before delirious hundreds-of-thousands, arms-extended “Sig Heil!”, and pledged to make Germany great again!

Three years back, fed up with government seemingly unable to get anything done, a minority of Americans sent to the White House a man promising, paradoxically, to break the status quo and bring us back together.  Today that man stands before mesmerized minions pledging to “Make America great again!”

Many, like me, ask, “When weren’t we?”  Despite the curse of firearms, making American the most homicidal culture on Earth, folks clamor for legal American citizenship, some swim the river or crawl through the fence while a multitude pleads for asylum.  Ironically, President Trump’s biggest headache is keeping folks out of a country which he views as no longer great.

Our American Democracy sputters along as democracies do, two steps forward, one back.  It can be damn maddening!  “Why don’t those jerks in Washington do the right thing?  Why can’t they do anything?  Be reasonable, do it my way!”

In a pluralistic system the laborious work of expressing opinions and negotiating opinions through civil debate is key to peace and progress.  I may vehemently disagree with “My Friend From Indiana,” but, as is said, I will defend to the death—well at least vigorously—her or his right to articulate politics and policies.

A Fascist dictator makes it simple.  Big Brother knows best.  Do as you’re told.
I hope and trust our Government of the People, by the People, for the People will never be dragged down that dead-end road.

* Webster’s New Word Dictionary of the American Language
** Merriam-Webster on-line Dictionary

“The Rule of Law” and “The Rule of Law Revisited” express my concerns around people entering and living in America illegally.  The current uproar over Immigration and Customs officers escorting some of these folks back to the border compels me visit the issue–again.

My position has nothing to do with Donald Trump’s politics, policies, ethics, and morals which, I’ve said before, I loathe across the board.  It has everything to do with “The Rule of Law.”  As I see it, without secure borders and enforced laws America can not preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and its citizens.

It comes down to a simple principle: Who is a citizen of the United States of America?  The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is clear:

All persons born or naturalized in the Unites States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State in which they reside.

If you were not born in America or naturalized, as many including our parents, grandparents or great-grandparents were, you are not a citizen, and not entitled to the rights, privileges and responsibilities attached thereto

Those who oppose sending illegal immigrants back home express concerned over the anxiety and fear experienced by folks who could be caught and deported.  Pardon me, so do shoplifters, embezzlers and bank robbers.  When you break the law you are a criminal, subject to prescribe penalties.

With perhaps a billion people worldwide yeaning to live in America, is it fair to coddle a those who swam the river or crawled under the fence?  In fairness we should open the door to everyone. “Come in.  Welcome.  Line 1 is for food, 2 housing, 3 clothing, 4A Emergency Medical, 4B Routine Medical, 5 Complaints.  How can we help?”

A related matter, I find it curious that people seeking asylum and did not entered country illegally should be provided decent accommodations and necessities until their plea is heard, while native-born Americans, many who fought for their country, sleep on sidewalks, under tarps, in tents and dumpster dive for a half-eaten sandwich or worn-out jacket, with no hope for a toothbrush, soap or shower.  Something’s wrong with this picture!

I hate seeming on the wrong side of the fence here; so I repeat, would someone out there explain what I’m missing here.  PLEASE!

________________________________

The Rule of Law
(From May 3, 2018)

Having expressed my disdain for President Trump’s wall, I should confess that despite being a longtime, hardcore Liberal I’m troubled and confused that millions of folks enter America illegally and remain here openly and notoriously–often for decades!  Some even thumb their nose at American, “Yada!  Yada!  Yada!  Can’t catch meee!”  On TV one actually flipped us the middle finger.

My position is simple: The Rule of Law.  Do the crime, do the time.  Fish without a license, don’t feed the parking meter, exceed the speed limit, you pay a fine.  If I break into your home and steal your laptop to sell to feed my kids and get arrested the judge says, “Go to jail.”  For armed robbery or murder it’s is prison or worse.  But sneak into American?  It’s just go home.  No hard feelings.  Just go back to your home.

What’s this with “Sanctuary” nonsense?  Cities and sates where do-gooders frustrate Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) agents, making our law officers, American citizens, not the lawbreakers the bad guys?  Is this crazy or what?

Kids illegally brought to America by parents (DACA) are victims.  Let ’em stay.  It pains me to say, but being fair to adults without children who crawled under the fence, their parents should be sent home.

Hundreds of millions, the “troubled masses yeaning to be free,” would love to be Americans but respect our borders and laws, and play by the rules.  They jump through the hoops: They fill out papers, wait–sometimes years–study our Constitution, laws, and history, are interviewed, pass a test, and pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America.  As we coddle a handful of criminals, what do you say to these folks?

A word to non-Mexicans who refuse to do it right: Scrape up airfare to Juarez or Nogales, crawl under the fence, lay low.  As things are, you may well enjoy the rights and privileges of real Americans the rest of your life.

If you don’t have borders and laws, laws you enforce, you don’t have a country.

*  *  *  *  *

 

After I wrote this Raelene and Karen had their front yards landscaped.  For the better part of a week, three or four Hispanics never stopped chopping, digging, cutting, hauling, carrying and planting.

While a majority of Americans bust our butts “earning a living,” my sense is, wither gainfully employed, on the dole, or sleeping under a tarp, very few Americas are willing to pick the oranges, pluck the chickens, gather the eggs, slaughter the hogs, dig the trenches, scrub the toilets, wash the windows, make the beds, flip the burgers, wash the dishes, cut the lawns, trim the shrubs, do the “back-breaking” tedious work crucial to our lifestyle.  Not to sell American workers in any way short, but without dirt-cheap and slave labor, within and without our borders, this country, corporate and consumer alike, would go belly-up like a carp in a dry streambed.

I hate seeming on the wrong side of the fence here.  I’ve asked before, someone out there please enlighten me!  What I’m missing here?  Seriously, someone please explain!

Socialism: Free enterprise with a conscience.

In April, after cherry-picking a few of “President Donald Trump’s Fabrications and Lies” I pointed out that a Google search on the subject brings up over seventy hits!  April 29 the Washington Post’s Fact Checker reported that since taking office the number of President Donald Trump’s fabrications and misleading claims had reached 10,000!

The latest—as of last evening—compels me to revisit the subject.  Concluding his recent Korean taxpayer-funded, campaign photo-op Trump claimed that the Obama Administration’s “begging for a meeting” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was rebuffed.  President Obama’s Special Representative for North Korea, Glyn Davies’s, 2013 testimony before the Senate Committee On Foreign Relations makes clear overtures toward North Korea were never even considered.  The Trumped-up allegation is a bald-faced lie!

What makes me crazy is, apart from enumerating Trump’s lies, no one, not Nancy’s Team, no Democrat, not the media, ever challenges him up close and personal, face-to-face, about his unconscionable, relentless assaults on truth!  Would someone please look the man in the eye and say, “Mr. President these repeated, outlandish claims have no basis in fact!  They are lies!”  If he know this—a Roy Cohn (Google him) protégé should—Trump’s lies are calculated and deliberate.  If he doesn’t, if our President believes his irrational horse-crap, a mad man is loose in the Oval Office!

I’m okay disagreeing across the board with President Trump’s politics.  What fascinates and alarms me is his seeming absolute inability to understand or appreciate basic ethics and morals, the foundations of civilized life and discourse.