Brett Kavanaugh: A Judge by any Other Name

I wonder what kind of judge Brett Kavanaugh is?  I mean, he does understand that the legal system is set up to look for the truth, doesn’t he?  The Judge seems to think if he denies the allegations of sexual misconduct aimed at him that should be the end of the discussion.  And he calls himself a judge? 

By that line of reasoning we should go visit inmates in jail and ask them “Are you innocent or guilty?”  All those who say they never did anything wrong should be let go immediately based on their word.  Or is that why the legal-political system conducts investigations and establishes standards for evidence? 

Maybe the Judge is telling the truth and maybe he isn’t, but one thing is for sure: sweeping allegations under the rug won’t work.  When the allegations are serious, as these are, there must be an investigation.  When the accusers are credible, as these are, there must be an investigation.

The counter-accusation of a “vast left-wing conspiracy” is ridiculous and falls utterly flat, inviting disbelief at the inane ineptitude of it all.  Wanting to get to the truth should be reason enough to go forward.  Why is the Judge’s word any more believable than Dr. Ford’s? 

It is absurdly insulting to even hint that the woman must be making up her story but the man is not capable of lying about what happened!  Maybe a crazy woman who is mentally unbalanced with a long history of fraudulent acts, but a professor of psychology at Stanford?  Get real! 

And it’s not just one woman any longer; its “accusers” in the plural. 

The accusers have supporting witness testimony regarding the drunken parties attended by Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge in which an atmosphere was created that both tolerated and encouraged sexual assaults on the women present.  That truth is coming out slowly but surely. 

Kavanaugh missed an important lesson in our history; Americans are charitable and tend to forgive those who come clean but those who lie to cover up their misdeeds are not forgiven so readily.

In the past year or two we’ve seen captains of industry, entertainment, and politics trying to lie their way out of similar situations, only to resign, get fired, or criminally charged. 

“America’s dad”, Bill Cosby, is about to be sentenced to jail.  “Oh no”, he couldn’t possibly have drugged and raped all those women . . . but that’s apparently exactly what happened.  The “Me, Too” Movement is uncovering many examples of how rich and powerful men got away with sexual assaults for years.   

Of course they always all deny it for as long as they can . . . until too many women come forward or there is testimony and evidence produced to support the accusations.  Suspects routinely deny committing any crimes or immoral acts, don’t they? 

Men in expensive suits accused of sexual assault are no different.  They likewise will deny any assault, crime, or other immoral act . . . but the truth has a way of breaking through to the light, doesn’t it? 

It’s par for the course these days.  The Judge and his cronies in the GOP are trying to sweep the new accusations under the rug while they minimize and belittle the accusers.  That’s not a fair, objective, and impartial legal sense of fair play by any stretch of the imagination. 

As a Judge, Brett Kavanaugh should know better! 

If he didn’t have the moral rectitude to enter into a loving friendship with a woman when he was in high school, that should give us pause.  If he didn’t have the conscience or virtue to treat women with respect as his equal, that should give us pause as well. 

And if he still chooses to lie about what happened--which seems the most likely explanation--then we have to question his ability as a judge and his honesty as a human being.  How could we ever trust him to develop the insight and empathy on cases where understanding the human predicament is vital? 

How can such a man be trusted to rule fairly and intelligently on cases involving women if he comes from a male chauvinist background that objectified, sexualized, and mistreated women to gratify his own sexual impulses? 

If he couldn’t be an open and trusting friend to women in high school, his values were screwed up and immoral, if not to say criminal.  Given this background—drunk at frat-like parties and on the prowl for forceful sexual conquest—we must ask: what are his real values and beliefs today? 

Beneath the polite and well-rehearsed answers, what does Brett Kavanaugh really believe and feel? 

A man who can be accused of engaging in drunken and lewd behavior, including sexual assault, is not made of the right moral caliber to become a judge on the United States Supreme Court.  

Why? The American Cloud

Within the American atmosphere which rises above our heads—one layer atop another—there exists one special layer many people can’t see or prefer to ignore as though it never existed.  That is the layer we must call the American Cloud of Violence. 

Many Americans are dumbfounded by the amount of violence that is occurring so frequently in our country these days.  To top it all off, in recent months several mass shootings have occurred to greatly accentuate our sense of shock with its admixture of disbelief, horror, and sorrow. 

Perhaps the first and most challenging question to ask is “What is to be done?”  That’s a tough question, apparently, and one which I will not attempt to address here.  There is often a second question, equally troubling, that also escapes easy answer, which is “Why?” 

Even a quick glance at comparative statistics reveals that other nations do not suffer anywhere near the same number of murders as the United States.   I don’t have any magic answers for either of these questions but as regards the second, I’d like to offer a few thoughts.

Today when people and the press discuss violence, they generally are referring to the latest murder on the street or the latest mass shooting spree in a theater, school, or other crowded public venue.  Lone murders with a single victim are still reported, of course, but the nation’s attention only seems to be truly aroused and riveted by the stories of mass shootings. 

We know (or at least can surmise) that some of the shooters are troubled individuals.  They may have had a hard life, been victims of abuse themselves, or suffer from some sort of emotional and intellectual shortfall: mentally ill or otherwise warped personality. 

Of course, not all shooters are certifiably crazy, certainly not within the parameters of the legal system.  If they knew the difference between right and wrong at the time of their deadly actions, they can be found “sane”.

(This designation may befuddle those of us who can never think of murder and mass slaughter as the actions of a sane person but we must keep in mind that the legal definition of “sane” is more narrowly construed than the general public’s use of “crazy”).

I would suggest that there is another kind of violence to consider: that which permeates all of American history.  We like to flatter ourselves with our boasting of economic progress with a cutting-edge technology that is truly amazing, whether civilian or military.  And that’s all true—as far as it goes.

The fact is, such boasting is hardly honest self-reflection and seldom does justice to the larger picture.  When people ask “Why does America have so much more violence than other nations?” a good place to start would be with our own history.  Ask yourself which other countries can match us in this regard:

First and foremost, we have a long and bloody history when we consider how Europeans used violence to wrest land away from Native American nations and tribes.  It started in the early 1600’s and didn’t stop until the late 1800’s and in some aspects continues on even today. 

Second (as if that wasn’t bad enough) we have the long and bloody history of slavery.  It’s not easy to summarize the grotesque and psychotic nature of the violence of the slave system--perpetrated by American slave-owners and their overseers--other than to say it was as bad and persistent and cruel as one can imagine.    

People today hear the word “violence” and they think of a criminal, weapon in hand, breaking the law by robbing a store.  That’s a violent crime to be sure and we have a right to condemn and prosecute the offender. At the same time, we conveniently choose to forget that a great deal of American violence has previously been committed by people in positions of power who repeatedly and immorally gave themselves a free pass time after time. 

Indeed, there was hardly ever an act of aggression or oppression against Native Americans and Black slaves that could not be rationalized, no matter how cruel, petty, gratuitous, vindictive, or just plain malicious it was.

The story of the American nation itself—and its rise to prominence as a world power—is inextricably woven into this Cloud of Violence with all of its horrendous whippings, rapes, murders, and massacres once tolerated as “legal”, “normal” and “sane”.

I shall not attempt to go into all of the details of this relentless and merciless campaign of endless brutality against Native Americans and African-Americans.  The specifics are simply too gory and I do not have the time or space to do them justice; further, I do not wish to be accused of indulging in horror stories merely for the sake of their shock value.  Yet for a couple of centuries almost any kind of violence could be perpetrated against Indians and Blacks with little fear of arrest or prosecution. 

The wars of conquest against Native Americans were brutal campaigns of near-genocidal subjugation; they included horrific massacres: Pequot, Kingsley Cave, Sandy Creek, Wounded Knee, to name but a few.  This is not to speak of the unwonted violence wrought by settlers who murdered with impunity, knowing that no legal action would ever be taken against them.

As for slavery, what can one say of a system that attempts to strip an entire race of its essential humanity?  A system that would not treat Black slaves as human beings but as property, where bloody whippings were commonplace alongside other types of humiliating degradation and violent punishment?

If Americans are looking for the cause of today’s acts of violence, I suggest they start here with a truthful account of the “approved” and “legal” violence perpetrated against millions of Native Americans and African Americans over the last three centuries.

This long bloody and brutal record has never been equaled in modern times nor any worthy attempts made to atone for the worst of it: no apologies, no reparations, no programs to elevate their descendants into a position of opportunity and equality alongside other American families whose ancestors never suffered a similar fate. 

For Black Americans, their historical memories are saturated with a sad and violent truth.  Their ancestors were sold or kidnapped into slavery in Africa, followed by the horrific Middle Passage where many tens of thousands died before the crossing was even completed.  

Bodies were frantically thrown overboard when the situation warranted it, as in escaping British ships aiming to capture the slavers (“slave ships”) to help end to the slave trade. 

The gory and horrific Middle Passage was followed by slavery in the Americas with maiming, murder, rape, and whipping commonplace—to say nothing of the violence of the brutality of slave labor itself.  

The horrendous nightmares and screams, the despair and despondency, the whispered prayers for mercy and tearful pleas for compassion went unheeded time and time again. 

All of this and more rose into the living breathing atmosphere above our heads; all of this misery and suffering, pain and heartache rose into the American Cloud of Violence.  There is no wind or storm so strong that can ever dissipate this layer of violence that has become an indelible part of the story of America.

For Native Americans, the cruelties and sufferings could fill many books, each page soaked with the tears, sweat, and blood of men, women, and children who only wished to live in peace and continue their way of life. 

The racist myths that were developed to try and rationalize these aggressive land-grabbing acts are still with us today: the “heathen” and the “savage” populate our history books so the victors can offer a greatly distorted self-serving tale of what happened: a story that is essentially a lie from start to finish. 

In fact, many thousands of Indians were pushed off their lands, villages and crops were destroyed, women were raped, and their fighting braves killed by the mechanical trigger action provided by superior weapon technology.

European diseases ran rampant through the villages and on their death marches; whole tribes were forced into submission, the survivors relocated to the worst land no one else wanted.  On these poor reservations they were allowed to suffer and die from starvation and illness.  

All promises were broken and treaties disregarded as though they never existed—deceit and treachery of the most evil kind were constantly practiced until defrauding Native Americans became its own recognizable form of the brutal and greedy aggrandizement of wealth, aided and abetted by the arbitrary abuse of power. 

Much of this mistreatment will make a person ill if they dig deep enough and get down to the foundation facts.  The massacres committed by European-Americans are without reason, justice, or mercy; soldiers and armed civilians senselessly slaughtered innocent women and children.  Christianized Indians and peaceful Indians were murdered, to--just the same as those "hostiles" fighting to hold onto their land and way of life.  

And all of this violence, too, arose above our heads and remains within the American Cloud of Violence. The list goes on; there are many other groups of Americans who suffered legally sanctioned violence at the hands of their New American Masters. 

Indeed, nearly every colored minority, every working class stiff, every oppressed woman, every activist who ever protested for civil and constitutional rights against an unyielding dominant social structure, has faced violence. 

It is the American way not to allow any of these groups quick or easy access to their constitutional and human rights but to oppose with ferocious intensity all such attempts to achieve even the slightest degree of equality with the dominant social class.

All of this violence rises into the atmosphere above our heads, into the American Cloud of Violence.  I could go on but this blog is long enough as it is. 

The point is, the next time you or your friends or anyone else appears mystified by the amount of violence occurring in America today, just remember one thing: American history.

This is a history replete with brutally enforced oppression and subjugation of conquered or enslaved peoples.  You must remember American history truthfully with all of its violence perpetrated against Black people, Native Americans, women, colored minorities, workers, organizers, activists, and all the rest.

The violence today is not an anomaly, not some unexpected hiccup or unrecognizable phenomenon departing from an idealized (but falsified) American norm of peace and good will. 

Today’s violence includes acts that fit perfectly into the American continuum of death and destruction of innocent lives.  Today’s violence accurately reflects its own true history where every page of the nation’s story is blood-soaked with the injuries and deaths of tens of thousands of American lives.

To make matters worse, this one-sided and rationalized bloody story is reproduced endlessly in our movies and television shows, in our books and magazines, our newspapers and textbooks. 

The history of these bloody tales is so awful, so long, so constant, so unremitting—that it is hard for even a normal and sane American to keep his or her life in balance. 

That being true, what effect will the American Cloud of Violence have on the minds and emotions of less stable individuals coming from broken homes, from dysfunctional relationships of physical and emotional abuse, living lives all too often augmented by the demons of booze and drugs? 

What does the Cloud of Violence do to all those unfortunate individuals suffering from the mental ravages of delusion or rage at being bullied, ignored, taunted, and humiliated?  Just like the rest of us, they grew up in a world breathing in the fumes and noxious toxins emanating from this Cloud of Violence every day of their lives!

What do Americans expect is happening to their minds--our minds--when all forms of our cultural media show tens of thousands of pictures of guns and violent bloody scenes constantly, every hour of every day, year after year?

Listen America!  Did you think there would never be any consequences or repercussions for three centuries of brutal violence against minorities? 

Did you think we could continue to pretend forever that none of it ever happened and that somehow this foolish pretense would win the day against the legacy of reality?

The harsh truth of all this is not the frequency of violence being committed by murder and mass shootings that we are witnessing; the harsh truth is that we have no reason to be surprised by all the continuing violence.   

We have lived our whole lives under the American Cloud of Violence.  We have been breathing its poisonous vapors for years.  Surprised?  Hardly!  Violence begets violence.  If anyone should understand that basic fact, Americans should.

No matter how hard we whine or complain or wish life in American society could somehow be otherwise, the American violence of the past will not leave us alone.  We can pray and hope and plead but we cannot change or undo the past.

The next time you hear anyone discussing violence--trying to understand why other countries don’t experience as many murders and mass shootings as America does--I suggest you point them toward a path where they might one day find an answer by whispering three words: slavery and genocide.

Maybe when they’re ready they will even be able to understand what is meant by the American Cloud of Violence.  It may seem invisible above our heads; it may be that meteorologists have not yet recognized it as a legitimate meteorological phenomenon, but I tell you it exists and that it is there. 

"American history" is not the whole answer by any means to the two questions posed at the start of this blog, but it is at least part of the answer and must be recognized as such; to ignore our violent past or to pretend that it is not part of the answer to any degree, is to condemn ourselves and American society to an endless cycle of violence that can never be broken.

The first step is to admit the truth of our own violent history.  We must do so honestly and start to atone for our own nation’s sins, before we can find a meaningful way to take the next step, whatever and wherever that vital life-saving second step may turn out to be. 

And maybe someday, against all odds, that ever-present Cloud of Violence always floating above our heads will finally begin to dissipate, and "peace and tranquility" will return to earth once more.  

Trump's Seven Stages of Denial

Stage 1:

I didn’t do it, nothing happened, Fake News!

Stage 2:

Okay, maybe something happened but I wasn’t there and don’t know what it was.

Stage 3:

All right, could be something happened and I was there but I didn’t know what it was, nobody told me, and anyway somebody else did it, not me, someone who is no longer close. 

Stage 4:

Sure, something happened but whatever took place, it wasn’t illegal.  I give you my word and the word of my lawyer-fixer Michael Cohen.  Ask him.  (Has anyone seen Michael?)

Stage 5:

Come to think of it, perhaps I did do something trying to help others but whatever happened it was an accident. I’ll swear to it under oath. (Get that Bible away from me!)

Stage 6: There’s nothing wrong nobody can prove.  You know why?   Because somebody smarter than you gave out a lot of non-disclosure forms and paid a lot of hush money: what, me worry? (Don’t forget to pay Pecker and tell him to kill those stories!)

Stage 7:

If you have evidence contradicting my statements, bring it on! . . . if something did happen that I accidentally did (or maybe might have done) that was bad,  sure, I might have done it…but let’s forget about all that for just a minute—how would you like to be Secretary of _____________ ?

Trump seems to be of the opinion that he paid enough hush money through his fixer, Michael Cohen, to always keep him out of hot water.  People who know the truth are silenced through hush money and non-disclosure forms: that’s why he’s always so damn cocky. 

He knows how to silence would-be accusers before they have a chance to say anything.  He/she cannot talk about Trump’s alleged misbehavior because he/she signed a Non-Disclosure Form and accepted a bribe (er, I mean “hush money”). 

Trump says: You can’t impeach a president who tells lies, it’s in the (Russian) Constitution!

FAKE NEWS!  WITCH HUNT! 

From King James to King Donald

 As most of my friends know, I used to be a teacher.  I’ve corrected so many papers that it’s become second nature to me!  I’ve done so much proofreading in my time I can do it in my sleep.  Even when I read a real book by a real author, my mind never stops whirring about how the prose could be improved. 

Lately, of course, I’ve been writing about our president with the pen of criticism.  Sometimes it gets hard; it gets tiring; it gets demoralizing to try and find enough words to describe the president’s self-centered ineptitude and mean-spirited imbecility. 

Luckily, occasionally I come across another writer who has already done a good job of describing him.  Now, with the usual caution about avoiding plagiarism and such, I’d like to borrow three paragraphs from this fellow’s description of King James I and see if I can’t apply it to our own day and time. 

You will see these three paragraphs twice, the first version being the actual words from J. A. Williamson’s book and the second is my own reworking of his writing.  The words in red indicate the changes made; the rest remains the same! 

As regards James I (reigned 1603-1625):

“The tragedy was that he thought he had nothing to learn.  He had grown from infancy as King of Scotland and had acquired a sound knowledge of the politics of that country.  But Scotland was utterly different from England . . . . At the same time he had watched Elizabeth from afar enjoying power and respect such as he had never attained; and he had totally misinterpreted the conditions of her success.

“Thwarted in practice, he had formed a grand theory of the rightful status of a king, and he came prepared to apply it in a country of whose political habits he knew nothing— not even that it had any.  His theory was that a monarch was free, unbound by any human restraints.  He was accountable to God alone, and the dictates of his own thought and conscience were his sole guides.

“Before ever he reached London there occurred an act symbolic of Stuart kingship.  A pickpocket was caught in the crowd that thronged to greet the king, and was instantly hanged without trial on the royal command—five centuries of English law wiped out by the wave of a hand.  James probably thought he had made a good impression as a lion of justice.”

-J. A. Williamson, The Evolution of England (1931, 1946), p. 211.

And now to apply the same writing to our current president:

As regards Donald I (reigned 2016- ____ )

“The tragedy was that he thought he had nothing to learn.  He had grown from infancy as King of Money and had acquired a sound knowledge of the dollar sign of that country.  But Trump Tower was utterly different from America . . . . At the same time he had watched Obama from afar enjoying power and respect such as he had never attained; and he had totally misinterpreted the conditions of his success.

“Thwarted in practice, he had formed a grand theory of the rightful status of a president, and he came prepared to apply it in a country of whose political habits he knew nothing— not even that it had any.  His theory was that a president was free, unbound by any human restraints.  He was accountable to Money alone, and the dictates of his own narcissism and greed were his sole guides.

“Before ever he reached the White House there occurred an act symbolic of Trumpian kingship.  An honest man was caught in the crowd that thronged to greet the president, and was instantly hanged without trial on the royal command—two centuries of American law wiped out by the wave of a hand.  King Donald probably thought he had made a good impression as a jackass of justice.”

-R. E. Rosenberg, The Evolution of America (2018), p. 1

Based on Williamson’s description of King James I (at least I didn’t have to come up with any original writing of my own; it’s good to take a break once in a while!)

Witch Hunt? Or Impeachable Madman?

The president’s knowledge of American history is simply abysmal.  He throws around terms without knowing what they mean or understanding their proper historical context. 

The phrase “witch hunt” was last seen bandied about in the 1950’s under McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee.  The committee’s name tells you what you need to know about its purpose and tone. 

It was the right-wing of the Republican Party that supported fishing expeditions and witch-hunts, intimidating, slandering, and criminalizing people for their political beliefs. 

When World War II ended the GOP remembered how they had suffered for four terms under a Democratic president. 

They were ready to turn the hands of time back on the American clock, especially as regards domestic policies. 

The Republicans were anti-labor and they were not champions of equality for African-American and other minorities.   

This McCarthy Era included an up and coming young star of the GOP named Richard Nixon. 

(His resignation in shame and humiliation for having corrupted the presidency was more than twenty years in the future.)

Witch hunts are conducted by people in power against their enemies and politically weak groups they can scapegoat without fear of much push-back. 

Rulers, presidents, kings, queens, emperors, generals, dictators and tyrants are seldom the target of a witch hunt.

They are the ones who have the power to instigate a witch hunt to distract people from their social and economic hardships.  Feeding Christians to lions was entertainment in Roman times.

In this sense, scapegoating and witch-hunting are virtually indistinguishable; the two terms are often used inter-changeably.

Joe McCarthy scapegoating communists was not much different from Hitler scapegoating Jews. 

When McCarthy abused his investigative powers to include anyone who criticized him--or dared defend their right of free speech and assembly--that’s when his witch hunt became obsessive.   

For some insane reason (perhaps found deep in the bottom of a bottle) he thought he could question the patriotism of the Army and get away with it. 

A single individual was easy pickings for one of two charges—(typically perjury or “contempt of Congress”) but the Army was no 98 pound weakling; it was a well-established institution and no easy pushover. 

If you’ve ever seen the Army-Navy football game, you get a pretty good idea of the stubborn strength of those patriotic young men who make up the armed services. 

They are commanded by seasoned and battle-tempered officers, many of them richly decorated for distinguished service and heroism. 

One booze-hound Senator from Wisconsin had fatally erred; he picked on the wrong guy.    

The Senator had met his match and the tide began to turn.  Senator Symington hit home hard with his question “Senator, have you no shame?” 

The anti-communist hysteria finally peaked and Joe wasn’t able to revive his fear-mongering.  

Eventually he was censured by the U.S. Senate and stripped of his right to speak for having brought disgrace upon that historic chamber—an ironic if fitting outcome for a man who in his heyday made so many people afraid to speak.

In word association games today, if one historian says “witch hunt” the other is sure to say “Joe McCarthy”.  That’s how closely the two terms are intertwined! 

The 1950’s provide an apt model for comparing what President Trump is doing today with what McCarthy was doing way back then.  Trump is behaving like Senator Joe McCarthy. 

Is it merely coincidence that a lawyer named Roy Cohn first emerged during McCarthyism and later became a lawyer, advisor, and mentor of Trump’s? (The president openly attributes his blustery combative manner to lessons he learned from Cohn, who later in life was disbarred in New York State.)

Trump’s already scapegoated immigrants (whether Hispanic or Muslim) but now he claims that he is the victim, not the perpetrator, of witch-hunting tactics. 

It would be like Joe McCarthy saying he was the victim, not the instigator, of McCarthyism!

Like the true narcissist he is, nothing is ever Trump’s fault. 

He adamantly refuses to take responsibility for any of his actions when they backfire on him: if something doesn’t go well, it is always someone else’s fault and never his own. 

An egomaniac like that will say or do anything to wriggle off the hook and dodge the accusing finger.  He tells lies without compunction or conscience.

He contradicts himself frequently as he stumbles backward in his haste to get away from the facts.  He dodges questions that make him uncomfortable.

He blames others at an incredible pace; he appears incapable of understanding that at the root of his problems there is only one person to be held accountable: himself. 

When he lies, those are his lies and no one else’s!

Let us go farther back in time.  Let us re-visit the historical era when the term “witch hunt” referred to “witches”;  it had not yet added the connotation of modern political “scapegoating”. 

The two-word phrase meant exactly what it said: it was a time to hunt for witches. 

Who were these "witches"?  These were women allegedly able to cast spells on people. 

They were accused of making weird things happen; they were blamed for unfortunate or unusual occurrences in the lives of people, including natural catastrophes.

A woman accused of being a witch could be imprisoned, put on trial and condemned to be hanged or burned alive at the stake. 

The notion of “trial” is used loosely here, and gets even looser the farther back in time we travel.  

One method was to have the accused reach into a pot of boiling water to pluck out a stone.  If the skin healed well, she was innocent.

In the Witch Trials of Salem, Massachusetts the evidence presented included spectral evidence or spectral dreaming: to wit, if an accuser dreamed of the accused as being with the man in black or with a black cat (considered a “familiar” of the devil) this was evidence of her being guilty of witchcraft! 

Luckily for the future of America, this was the last series of trials to allow “spectral evidence”. 

The Massachusetts courts would prohibit it after these trials ended but not in time to save the lives of nineteen women and one man. 

Still, progress is relative; the death count could have gone much higher.  There were two hundred accused “witches” in jail at the time the trials were brought to an abrupt halt.

Luckily, someone not too bright made the miscalculation of accusing the Governor’s own wife! 

The Governor did not like that, apparently, and he abruptly shut down the proceedings. 

The remaining “witches” were released while “spectral evidence” was prohibited in future court proceedings.

We’re not sure of the exact reason but probably something about such testimony not really having an evidentiary foundation in physical reality. 

Decide for yourself whether the president is the victim of a witch-hunt or a crazy man flinging out wild accusations against his critics. 

His accusations grow more bizarrely unrelated to reality as he loses his way and forgets how to behave normally, sensibly, and reasonably. 

Donald Trump a witch?  Hardly.  But an impeachable madman?  Yes, possibly yes!

Unite the Right vs. Dis-unite the Right

“Unite the Right”

This is the current slogan of the extreme far right in America today.  Beware any slogan Adolf Hitler would have liked.   

Of course, a slogan like this is not the same as a program of ideas and policies.  Most extreme right positions are never going to succeed in a country like ours that protects human rights. 

Such right-wing jargon does not get far among people who cherish the Constitution and treasure our nation’s democratic institutions.

On the other hand, there are numerous examples of countries in the 20^th century who lost their freedom to fascist dictatorship even though the people believed “it could never happen here.” 

One should not become over-confident.  We must never under-estimate a slogan for what it reveals about beliefs and intentions—sometimes the simple slogan is the most dangerous of all. 

Obviously, this ultra-rightwing slogan is not based on an appeal to knowledge, philosophy, and science. 

It is an appeal to the ignorant and prejudiced, the alienated youth and displaced worker, the blind ideologue and deranged fanatic all too eager to resort to violence.

Let us never forget we must bear witness to the senseless killing of an unarmed and innocent woman named Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia by a white supremacist. 

The “extreme right” in this country includes racists, Nazis, and certain para-military groups. 

There is a documented history of violence among these white supremacists.  The history of violence perpetrated by fascists and the KKK is too well-known to be disputed here. 

It is always through the perpetration of violent acts that the Extreme Right tries to bury democracy and replace it with an ultra-nationalist movement ending in a brutal dictatorship.  

Whenever someone creates a rallying cry to try and unite these various hate groups, that surely threatens our society and its peaceful future!

We who are moderates, independents, liberals, and progressives, we understand we must stand guard: “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” as Thomas Jefferson wrote.

We have our own weaknesses.  Most of us prefer to respond to softer slogans, like “love, not hate” or “peace, not war.” 

We, too, can be caught up in the rhythm of a slogan and neglect the rigorous daily vigilance necessary to protect our liberties and keep them strong. 

If we were to go through some of our values, the list might look something like this:

Democracy, not dictatorship

Equality, not inequality

Freedom, not oppression

Justice, not injustice

Truth, not falsehood

A dividing line between us and the Far Right would reveal still more substantial differences.

Average, hard-working Americans have far more reason, knowledge, compassion, love, morals and true patriotism on their side: of that there can be no doubt.

The other side, the Far Right, has far more money, power, privilege, ruthlessness, deceit, and hypocrisy on theirs. 

They will resort to immoral, illegal, and violent acts when given half a chance.

One of our most successful strategies is to pour sunlight on the Far Right: who they are and what they represent.  They don’t do quite so well when exposed to sunlight.

Since the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the presidency this struggle seems to be intensifying—sometimes quietly, sometimes sporadically, but now and again breaking out into the open with real confrontation and tragic consequences, as the death of Heather Heyer bears witness. 

Do not take the slogan “Unite the Right” lightly.  It is yet another attempt by the Extreme Far Right to undermine and overthrow America’s democratic principles and institutions. 

We must stand guard and be prepared to speak out.  We must be ready to act on our beliefs to protect ourselves and our country. 

We must remember Jefferson’s adage “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance”. 

It may soon become incumbent upon us to pay that price once more.  Our country calls.