Category Archives: News and current events

November 15, 2020 · 01:43

“We Are Marshal!” A Plane Crash, a Devastating Loss, and Memories that Remain

 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today was one of those weird days to me. It was a day with a really emotional connection because of something that happened fifty years ago this evening. Fifty years ago Southern Airlines Flight 932 carrying most of the Marshall University football team, staff, media, alumni and supporters crashed on its approach to Huntington Tri-State Airport, in Kenova West Virginia.

For me it is and remains a touchstone in my life. Not long before the crash my mom brother and I were living with my grandparents just across the street from Fairfield Stadium where Marshall played its games while my dad looked for suitable housing in Long Beach California where he had been transferred. While we lived there the stadium was rebuilt to include a new AstroTurf field and other modernizations. This made Charleston Avenue where my grandparents lived a busy thoroughfare for construction vehicles.

My brother Jeff was four years old and would go help the police direct traffic where the construction vehicles entered and left the sight. The cops and the drivers loved him doing it and I think once when the police officer had to take a break actually prevented a collision. The drivers had gotten used to him being there and whether or not they thought he was serious they played the game and it kept a crash from happening.

I remember coming home from school during the spring and watching the team practice during their spring drills. I think that any young boy would have dreams of playing football. I did, but as I grew up reality set in as I was neither high enough or fast enough to be really good enough to play at more than a junior Varsity Level. But as a kid you never think that athletes, a whole team can be killed, wiped out in a matter of minutes in a horrendous plane crash. But it does provide a sobering look at life that leaves a lasting imprint on a your life.

In the summer, once my dad found us a suitable place to live in Long Beach California we left Huntington. We had been in Long Beach about five months When the crash occurred I never will forget that night. A local news anchor interrupted his broadcast with the report of the crash. It hit us like a thunderclap. It shattered my mother as she had grown up and went to school with a number of people on the flight, and now having experienced a lot more personal tragedy, I really understand why it hit her so hard. Although I didn’t know anyone on the flight it seemed more personal than I can describe now. I had gone to school in Huntington with kids who lost parents in the crash. Then I was too young to comprehend what they were going through but now I understand

The crash devastated the city my parents were born and to which I had, and still have a strong attachment. The University was, and still is the heartbeat of Huntington. The loss was more than devastating, and it took many years for the University, the city, and the people to really recover.

I wasn’t born in Huntington and am basically a California and West Coast person despite not living there since I was commissioned as an Army Second Lieutenant in 1983 until now. No matter what I did in the Army or Navy I was never able to get stationed back on the West Coast. Instead apart from my overseas tours we have been stationed in the South and Mid-Atlantic since 1987.

One of the places we ended up living when I was serving in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve was Huntington, where I had my first post-seminary Hospital Chaplain Job at Cabell-Huntington Hospital in January 1995. At the time my paternal and maternal grandmothers were still alive and we felt at home, especially Judy. She got to know my grandmothers and other relatives better than me because of my work and National Guard/Reserve obligations including my mobilization and deployment to support the Bosnia Operation in 1996-1997.

Because I was in a contact position when mobilized, my contract With the hospital was terminated, and I ended up taking other active duty for special work assignments with the Army Reserve until there were no more available. So in October 1998 we moved back to Huntington where jobs were scarce, and even though I repeated tried to find work I was unsuccessful in finding post hat I was overqualified for, and was considered overqualified for most jobs.  In December 2018 I was offered the chance to go on active duty in the Navy and on 9 February 1999 with Judy and my paternal Grandmother present put aside my Gold Oakleaf as an Army Reserve Major and donned Navy Khakis and the double silver bars of a Navy Lieutenant.

But even leaving Huntington, and the pain that my former employers caused remained because Huntington had become home. Likewise, Huntington and the crash that killed the Marshall University football team and so many Huntington notables, including men and women my mom grew up with still resonated with me. When I worked at Cable-Huntington Hospital the intensity of those feelings grew. When the film We Are Marshall came out in 2006 it made an impact. It took me back to a time and place all to familiar to me.

Anytime I go back to Huntington I visit the memorial fountain at Marshall University and other places significant to me and my family. Judy just reminded my that my maternal grandmother Christine died on 14 November 1996 when I was deployed for the Bosnia mission. She died 26 years to the day that many of her friends died in that crash. Every year on the anniversary of the crash people gather at the fountain for a memorial service  and it is turned off and a symbolic reminder of the crash.

Today Huntington is a shell of what it was in 1970, the population has declined  by half, the economy  is a shambles, and it is still ground zero of the Opioid Epidemic. I do love my ancestral home but there is nothing for us there, other than a few distant relatives and our dear friend Patty, but I miss it in many ways.

While I never attended Marshall University I feel like I could have given the right circumstances. I think had we stayed I probably would have gotten an advanced degree and maybe gone on to teach there. Somehow I find a mystical bond between the University, the football team and me; especially when I close my eyes and watch the team that died in the crash. Those players remain forever remain young and full of life in my mind, though only one and one of the coaches due to individual twists of fate kept them off of that aircraft fifty years ago. Likewise, Fairfield Stadium is gone, torn down to expand Cabell-Huntington Hospital and the Marshall University Medical School clinics and complex.

When I think of my life and the moments that sometimes separated me from death at the hands of terrorists, insurgents, or home grown criminal murderers I appreciate how much life means. So, in memory of those who died, that night, their survivors, and those who carry on their memory and tradition, please know that you are not forgotten.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

2 Comments

Filed under History, News and current events, shipmates and veterans

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 9, 2020 · 19:08

Burning Down the Country to Save Himself: the Götterdämmerung of Trump’s Final Days

 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

President-Elect Biden is continuing to prepare to assume the office he has been elected while President Trump refuses to concede and endangering national security, our economy, our lives, and our entire system of government in a desperate effort to retain power.

Today he “terminated” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper who refused to allow Trump to use Federal Troops under the Insurrection Act to attack demonstrators following the murder of George Floyd, and supports renaming Army Forts named after Confederate leaders.

Trump continues to utter falsehoods about the election process in order to undermine it and our faith in that process, sending out teams to create chaos in ever state that flipped to Biden.

He continues to flaunt the reality of the Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, and even with nearly a quarter of a million Americans dead from it holds parties and rallies, and conducts business so slovenly that many of his own closest supporters, cabinet members and staff are becoming infected.

In this campaign to burn down the United States in order to save himself he is being supported by Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and a host of other elected Republicans and his cult like army of illegal militias, White Nationalist paramilitary groups, Christian theocrats, the QAnon cult, and more than likely with the help  Russian agents.

Vigilance is the watchword today for Trump’s Götterdämmerung, his Twilight of the Gods is upon us. Volker Ullrich in his second volume of his biography of Adolf Hitler wrote:

“I know the war is lost,” admitted a deeply depressed Hitler in early January 1945. “The [enemies’] superiority is too great…I would like to put a bullet in my head.” But he immediately pulled himself together: “We will not surrender, never ever. We may go down but we will take a world with us.”

Today Trump aide Jason Miller said “The word concede is not in our dictionary.” I think that they will hold onto that as long as they can. It is possible that eventually Trump will issue a grudging concession, but then it is possible that in his last days he will do everything he can to destroy the country on his way out.

Anyway, as another reminder, something I wrote on 18 May 2017 about Trump, his followers, and enablers in the GOP. It was originally given the title Trump’s True Believers: Why Removing Trump will be Harder than it Seems. 

On to working on the book,

Until next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Trump’s True Believers: Why Removing Trump will be Harder than it Seems 18 May 2017 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

For those rejoicing in the continued revelations of President Trump’s malfeasance and incompetence hoping that this will soon trigger his removal either by impeachment or the use of the 25th Amendment be assured that unless something totally unexpected occurs that this will not end soon, nor well.

Dona;d Trump is a unique creature in American politics, he has succeeded in establishing himself as the center of a political cult that has taken over the Republican Party. Despite his overall approval ratings consistently being below 40% with terrible numbers pertaining to his basic character and trustworthiness, well over 80% of Republicans in every poll continue to support him. They reject any fact that is contrary to what they believe about their leader, and they tend to support the most unconstitutional aspects of his ill-defined political ideology, which more resembles the Nazi Fuhrerprinzip than anything from the American political tradition. They abhor those who raise objections of any kind based on fact so much that they have gone resorted to repeating what they sometimes refer to as alternative facts or alternative truths.

Guided by an uncompromising propaganda network of talk radio and television hosts as well as internet based organizations they have little loyalty to anyone but the President. This mass movement supported by such propaganda is well described by the great American philosopher Eric Hoffer who wrote:

“All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.”

This is the world of alternative facts, and the prelude to dictatorship if the trend is allowed to continue. Likewise the true believers, those who follow the President as if he were some sort of Messiah intent on destroying the old order and establishing a new will not stand easily aside. Their support for the President is much deeper than normal political attachment, he is an extension of them who gives voice to their innermost fears, passions, and insecurity. They are defiant in their stand against those that he is against. Historian Timothy Snyder wrote of how the language of their leader and his propaganda works in the minds of the followers:

“Victor Klemperer, a literary scholar of Jewish origin, turned his philological training against Nazi propaganda. He noticed how Hitler’s language rejected legitimate opposition: The people always meant some people and not others (the president uses the word in this way), encounters were always struggles (the president says winning), and any attempt by free people to understand the world in a different way was defamation of the leader (or, as the president puts it, libel).”  

513917024-people-raise-their-arms-as-republican-presidential_1_jpg_CROP_promo-xlarge2

Thus they cannot be convinced by normal argument or fact. Hoffer noted:

“The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment damned up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breath-taking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages a world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action.”

Even when everything comes apart around them and their leader collapses they cannot admit that he was deceiving them. At the end of the war a German soldier told Victor Klemperer that “Hitler has never lied, I believe the Fuhrer.” Snyder writes: “The final mode is misplaced faith. It involves the sort of self-deifying claims the president made when he said that “I alone can solve it” or “I am your voice.” When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience. What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant.”

With that kind of following in the GOP it will take a while before this is finished as most GOP leaders, even those who distrust or oppose Trump on some issues are too afraid of the Trump supporters who now control their party to attempt to remove him unless those supporters turn on him. This is unlikely at least in the near future, and there is always the possibility that early some morning Trump will tweet them into committing acts of violence to crush dissent, even against Republican leaders who have the courage to jump ship and turn on the President.

The man is not normal, he is not stable, and he knows nothing but conflict. His followers believe in him almost as a Messiah figure who cannot be wrong and must be defended to the last and experience has shown us that some of would resort to violence to silence his critics.

Like Hitler and his most loyal followers, he sees this as a fight to the finish which Trump which he must win or be defeated. It is a zero sum conflict, and I do not expect it to end well, even if Trump is eventually removed by impeachment or the 25th Amendment.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

6 Comments

Filed under authoritarian government, civil rights, Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, crimes against humanity, ethics, History, leadership, Military, national security, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism, Religion, White nationalism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 8, 2020 · 23:59

Trump’s Watershed Impact on American Politics: My Article from 10 December 2015

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

This is what I wrote in December 2015. Another chilling prediction of what would happen if Trump became the GOP nominee in 2016 and went on to win the election. The article which you can find on this site is named: The Mob Determined the Theme.

I had readers who did not understand the title and thought I was talking about organized crime, but I was talking about a political mob, as in mob of people not driven by reason but purely motivated by primal hatreds and passions. Think about the Nazi thugs of the 1920s and early 1930s. Back in 2015 I realized what the GOP had become, a den or racist thugs in the thrall of uneducated ideologues like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, pseudo-intellectuals, and unscrupulous young bloggers and propagandists. Meanwhile, the formerly reputable, even if you disagreed with them, bastions of conservative journalism, papers, magazines and journals were now controlled by ruthless ideologues masquerading as journalists. Of course there were the powerful Evangelical Christian Preachers especially those commanding mega-churches, most of which became MAGA-Churches overnight. In 2016 and this year they were a majority of Trump’s support.

We have seen what transpired between when I wrote this article and what we are witnessing today. I saw this coming in 2008 when I left the GOP, during the rise of the Tea Party, and the actions of the GOP between the election of President Obama and the election of Donald Trump. During that time, but beginning in the 1970s the GOP was transformed into the ghoulish party that it is today. It is the cradle of a Fascist and Racist Mass Movement, whose true believers are committed to overthrowing our system of government to establish a dictatorship. Why do you think that all through the campaign they have been calling Democrats “Communists?” It is because the GOP base is basically composed of White Nationalists, Christian theocrats, and people who believe in the exultation of a superior race, and the subordination of all others, including women, and anyone that opposes them. They are a Fascist party.

Trump’s election was the watershed. They cannot step back, and I would encourage my readers not to take them lightly in the run up to President Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

They are capably of anything. Do not let your guard down. This is what I wrote in December 2015.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Borowitz-Trump-Vietnam-1200

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

When Albert Speer discussed the ability of Adolf Hitler to captivate the German people he noted something important. He discussed how Hitler and his minions played to them set by the disgruntled and angry German population. Speer wrote, “The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery and license. The personal unhappiness caused by the breakdown of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded victims. By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions.”

Hitler played to that misery, insecurity and the obsessions of the politically and economically disaffected “conservative base” that no longer trusted the party establishments of the old-line conservative parties. He also played to the deep-rooted racism and anti-Semitism of those people. Hitler was an outsider, he was not indebted to any traditional party hierarchy and as such was able to throw away convention and play to the fear and anger of many Germans.

Donald Trump is doing today and he is running circles around the traditional politicians of the Republican Party. Every time trump says something that would have gotten himself blown out of the race twenty years ago had he said such things, today his poll numbers keep going up. He is now trending around 35% in most polls of GOP voters and my guess is that those numbers are low, as some supporters may not be willing to tell a pollster that they are for Trump, at least yet. My guess is that Trump’s support in the GOP is probably higher than 40% and won’t go down much. The party hierarchy and most of Trump’s primary rivals consistently criticize Trump, but most say that they will back him if he is the nominee. I cannot imagine that being the case twenty years ago when both the party establishment and the voters would have dumped him in a New York minute.

Aug. 21. 2015 Mobile, AL, Trump supporters at his campaign pep rally in Ladd Peebles Stadium. These women are all party of the Republican Party and plan to vote for Trump. Over 20 thousand came to the Ladd-Peebles Stadium to attend Trumps campaign pep rally. 40,000 were expected to come.

Trump understands the mood of much of the traditionally conservative public better than his Republican establishment competitors. Trump is not stupid, unlike Hitler who actually believed in his message, Trump is not a radical, he cannot be, he has too much invested in the system. Instead, he is a street smart and pragmatic businessman who is exploiting the situation on the ground to his advantage. His opponents and the GOP establishment are frightened, but like the hidebound conservatives of the Weimar Republic who either dismissed or Hitler or thought that they could contain him are not willing to make a stand. As a result, Trump is able to play to the mood of the base and to coin a phrase, to “trump the establishment” by channeling the deepest anger, fear, hatred, xenophobia, and racism that the GOP establishment refuses to acknowledge. When there is a push back by the establishment it further angers the base, and Trump, quite adroitly threatens to leave the party; something which would doom the GOP in the 2016 general election, and possibly shatter the party.

Trump’s GOP opponents should not underestimate him and neither should establishment Democrats. Trump is using his celebrity bombast and the democratic process to take control of a major political party, and he is a lot smarter than most political analysts give him credit. As such, as a non-establishment outsider, Trump has a chance at taking over a major political party, something that has never before happened in the United States.

If he succeeds in his takeover bid, it will forever change American politics, especially if he is able to ride the fear, hatred, and fear to the White House. I don’t think the latter will happen, but I would not exclude it from the realm of the possible. To paraphrase Speer’s words about Hitler and Goebbels: By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Muslims and immigrants, Trump gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions of a disaffected GOP base.

Peace

Padre Steve

 

1 Comment

Filed under civil rights, culture, History, leadership, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism, White nationalism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 6, 2020 · 01:06

Lies, Lawsuits, Threat of Domestic Terrorism and the 25th Amendment: Vice President Pence, Have You no Decency?

Trump, Bannon, Gosar, and the absent Pence

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

If Vice President Mike Pence had any decency, sense of right or wrong, or any hint that he was a Christian other than going to church and occasionally speaking in pious platitudes, he would invoke the 25th Amendment and with a majority of the Cabinet remove President Trump from office. It is the only way left for him to salvage any honor he has left and maybe save the country from bloodshed in the process. Unfortunately, I do not think that he has the moral courage to do so.

I say that because of the immense destructive potential remaining in Donald Trump. In addition to unleashing unsubstantiated lawsuits in states where the vote count is not yet final, he conducted a Press Conference in which he uttered so many lies and demonstrated falsehoods about the election that it was unreal. During it he also appeared to be urging his followers to violence.

Adding to that was his former 2016 campaign advisor and former White House Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon calling for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray, followed by putting their heads on pikes for public display. Bannon’s allegation was that they were traitors and deserved it.

Added to that was another conspiracy theory promoted by Trump, that of “Sharpiegate” which sent a mob to the Maricopa County vote counting center in Phoenix. Leading the charge was a Republican Arizona Congressman, Paul Goslar.

I am sorry but all of this is criminal behavior that President Trump is actively engaging.

When a President engages in such behavior it is an impeachable offense. Of course that will not happen right now, but Mitch McConnell and others need to push Vice President Pence to fulfill his duties under the Constitution. President Trump is incapable of leading the country in any crisis, and is leading the country to disaster. Today we had another 118,000 new infections of COVID-19 and over 1,100 deaths, we are close to 10 million infections, while many states are running out of ICU beds, hospital beds in general, and the doctors, nurses, clinicians and technicians. As for the President he ignores it, urges people to act in contradictory ways than anything that would protect them and speaks as if the virus will mysteriously just disappear. He is responsible for the deaths of 240,000 Americans. That my friends is criminal negligence or worse, I think crimes against humanity would be appropriate.

But enough is enough. It is time for this malfeasance to end. Right now Vice President Pence has it in his power to make it end. He is the only person who could legally do that right now. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the moral courage to do it, nor does he have the character to do it.

So until whenever,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 Comments

Filed under Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, COVID19, crimes against humanity, Diseases Epidemics and Pandemics, faith, leadership, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary, US Presidents

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 1, 2020 · 23:18

Revisiting Donald Trump, the Toxic Venomous Vulgarian, Four Years Later

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Tonight my toothache continues unabated but in the morning I will be going to the Dental Clinic at Little Creek to have it worked on. I think there may be a nerve abscess on one of my left bottom molars. I could be wrong as I am no dentist but I have been through this when I was 20 and when I was 50. But enough about me, however between German beer, Australian wine, and wonder Single Malt Scotch, the pain meds take away much of the pain.

However, tonight I am following up my post from last night which was my prediction of what Trump’s followers would be like if elected. That was from October 12th 2016. This is an article from October 21st 2016. This article like the last is reposted in its unedited form. When I wrote it I spoke of Trump’s toxic vulgarity and aspects of his character, the evil that he had normalized, and the effects that would remain “after he had been defeated.”

I was wrong about that last part because like most people I was shocked to see him win. However, what I wrote about his long lasting toxic effects on our society were correct, and have been made much worse since he was elected. Now he is threatening to contest the election and continues to urge violence against anyone who opposes him.

Trump may be ignorant of many things, but that does not mean that he is stupid. I think that most of us assume that he is. He does what he does for specific reasons. His bankruptcies, divorces, fraudulent business dealings, and everything else he has done in life have been to enrich himself at the expense of others or feed his megalomania, and desire for absolute power. What he has done throughout his Presidency is proof of that: his cooperation with Russia to win election in 2016, his attempts to destroy our alliances and to undermine allies on the border of Putin’s Russia, his wanton destruction of the guardrails of our republic, his trampling of the Constitution, and his willingness to sacrifice the lives of Americans during the Coronavirus 19 Pandemic are all proof of his lack of character and the evil in his heart, are not proof of his stupidity; but proof of his ruthlessness and cold blooded cunning to make people underestimate him. Yes, when it comes to basic knowledge of our Constitution, history, science, philosophy, religion, economics, foreign policy, literature or anything else that has enriched Western Civilization, the President is an ignoramus of astounding proportions.

However, when it comes to the art of manipulating people and getting them to do things and support polices that harm them he is probably in the league of Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao. His image is based on a fictionalization of his “successful businessman” persona that he played on “The Apprentice.” It is all fiction, but he plays to the basest beliefs of his base. He knows them better than they know themselves. 

If he finds a way to remain in power, he will exploit it even at the cost of the lives of his opponents, but also his supporters; especially the latter, because they believe his lies as much as they believe the Gospel. They will willing sacrifice themselves to keep him in power. The fact is that his only loyalty is to himself.

That being said, let me take you back to my post of October 21st 2016, which was entitled “The Venomous Vulgarian: the Lasting Toxic Legacy of Donald Trump.”

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

What follows is the original post.

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

As I watched and listened to Donald Trump before and after the third and thankfully final debate of the 2016 Presidential election, I was struck with just how viscous, vulgar, and venomous this man is. I cannot remember anyone in American politics at the national level, Republican or Democrat, or for that matter even Whig, who ever managed to immerse himself so deeply into the amoral, unethical, and undemocratic sewer that Trump has bathed himself, the Republican Party and this nation.

Trump’s toxicity is unparalleled in American politics. Everything and everyone who has ever had anything to do with him is poisoned by his touch. Wives, business partners, contractors, employees, political advisors, and supporters have all been stained by the Mustard Gas that Trump emits on a minute to minute basis. Maybe the most stained are the Evangelical Christian church leaders who have not only endorsed and defended Trump, but  who positively described his character as Christian and said nothing about Trump’s words and actions, which if an opponent had uttered, or had been accused, they would have excoriated with a particularly “Christian” self-righteousness.  Their actions have stained the witness of the church for at least the next generation and it is no wonder that young people are fleeing the church. I specifically use the imagery of Mustard Gas, not just because of its toxicity, but because of its persistence. The battlefields of World War One France and Belgium are still contaminated by it, and the toxic residue still injures people today.

That my friends is the poisonous and corrosive effect of Donald Trump on this country.  He is a toxic and persistent threat to everyone, even his most devout followers. Race baiting, misogynistic, narcissistic, vulgar, and ignorant, Trump spews his vile venom of conspiracy theories wrapped in fiction, and coated in lies, and buttressed with near pornograpic misogyny in every direction. He has given his supporters in the heavily armed Alt-Right, the neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and White Supremacists the boldness to come out of hiding because he has normalized their hate, something that no Western statesman or politician has done since before the verdicts at Nuremberg.

I have long felt that Trump reminded me of Nazi leaders, but frankly most of them, while every bit as toxic as Trump were both more intelligent and were better able to cover the darkness of their amoral souls with a modicum of respectability, with the exception of one; the publisher of the infamous newspaper Der Sturmer, and Gauleiter of Nuremberg, Julius Streicher.

Robert Jackson, the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court who served as the Chief American Prosecutor at Nuremberg referred to Streicher in his summation:

“Streicher, the venomous vulgarian, manufactured and distributed obscene racial libels which incited the populace to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of “race purification.” 

Is that not exactly what Trump has done during his seventeen month campaign to stir up race hatred against Mexicans and Arabs, not to mention Asians and Blacks? Of course it is, which is exactly why the leaders of the Alt-Right claim him as their candidate, the man who in their perverted minds has made them respectable again and ready to assume their place in Trump’s new order. Anti-Semitism and racism runs rampant in the words of his closest collaborators such as the Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, as well as Alt-Right Neo-Nazi and KKK leaders like David Duke, Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, and Peter Brimalow.

My friends, what you see in Trump is what you get. Unlike Hitler and Goering, but much like Streicher, Trump has no capability of maintaining any sort of respectability. He has been stoking the fires of violence by claiming that the election is rigged and pumping up his followers for violence if he loses.

Donald Trump is dangerous and will remain an enemy of the American experiment long after he is defeated on November 8th.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under anti-semitism, authoritarian government, civil rights, Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, ethics, faith, Foreign Policy, History, leadership, national security, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism, televsion, US Presidents

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 1, 2020 · 00:03

A Warning Then, Reality Now: Trump’s Radical and Violent Supporters in 2016 and 2020

1-_bgnufl7adzwkz99mhydma

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I wrote this on October 12th 2016. I saw what was coming and it is now here. Back then even many Democrats did not believe that fellow Americans would continue to behave this way, even if Trump somehow won the election. Many thought is was a passing moment, an anomaly that would not be repeated.

I wish I was wrong but it is being repeated day after day during the 2020 campaign. Heavily armed White Supremacists attempt to intimidate voters at polls. Today a caravan of Trump supporters tried to drive a Biden-Harris campaign bus off the road between San Antonio and Austin, threatening the lives of the people on the bus with no law enforcement intervention, while police in North Carolina attacked a column of mostly Black men and women holding a peaceful protest while marching from a church to the polls to cast their ballots, arresting more than a dozen of them after attacking them with peeper spray and truncheons. There are so many of these incidents that they are almost overwhelming, but to see the President use his rallies and twitter to praise them is unheard of in American politics.

I knew better because I had been a Republican for 32 years. I campaigned for Gerald Ford before I could vote. Forty years ago I cast my first vote in a Presidential Election for Ronald Reagan. I finally left the GOP when I heard Republican politicians and the Right Wing radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh who I had listened to and even defended for years repeating Birther conspiracy theories, and using racist terminology and dog whistles constantly during the 2008 campaign. I had supported John McCain up until that point, but I realized that he and men like him were no longer in control of the Republican base which had been radicalized by men like Limbaugh for decades. The base was now made up by people who supported in increasing numbers openly racist politicians, like the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Master, David Duke, and radical Evangelical Christian extremists who preached a gospel of hate, including someone I knew well from church, anti-abortion leader Randall Terry. Terry once urged his followers:

“Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…. If a Christian voted for Clinton, he sinned against God. It’s that simple…. Our goal is a Christian Nation… we have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want Pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I’ve got a hot flash. God rules.”  [Randall Terry, Head of Operation Rescue, from The News Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Aug 15, 1993]

On the day I cracked I was driving between my military unit’s facilities on two different bases while listening to Limbaugh. I had to pull to the side of the road and cry. This was about three months after returning from a combat tour in Iraq and dealing with PTSD that had not yet been diagnosed. I cried because I realized how mistaken I had been about the GOP for all of those years. I felt deceived and lied to, and I began to see the race hatred in the words and on the faces of Republicans I had known for years. I saw what was underneath the veneer of respectability shown by Republican leaders and knew that if I did not leave at that moment that I would be responsible for what came after as the scales had been lifted from my eyes.

Tonight with the fate of our republic on the line, I repeat my original warning and unequivocally state that their violent revolution is happening before our eyes. Trump is no longer simply a candidate, but the President. He has destroyed the guardrails that prevented tyrants from seizing power, the kind of man envisioned by those who wrote the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. He is a tyrant and a would be dictator whose supporters are devoted to that end. He is using all the powers of government and the courts to ensure that he remains in power. Alexander Hamilton warned us of a leader like Trump in the Federalist Papers:

“the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty … that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the mask of zeal for rights of the people than under the appearance of zeal for firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying court to the people, commencing as demagogues and ending up tyrants.”

So anyway, most of last night and today I have been battling a severe toothache. I went to the Naval Medical Center only to be told that the on call dentists no longer came in for “routine” issues. I was given pain meds and antibiotics and told to go to dental sick call on Monday morning.

What follows is that post from October 12th 2016. The original post is titled:“Trump and His Supporters Real Threats of Revolution and Violence.”  It is posted in its original form and has not been edited.

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The great American philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote:

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self, makes him oblivious of his weal and future, frees him of jealousies and self-seeking. He becomes an anonymous particle quivering with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into one flaming mass.” 

I have been seeing questions asked about why so many of Donald Trump’s supporters are doubling down on their support of him as he melts down and declares war on his own the Republican Party. I think that too many people simply ascribe this to frustration with the status quo but I think that there is more to it than that. Quite frankly Trump has appealed to the basest instincts of many of his supporters: he appeals to their fear, their racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-Gay feelings, their feelings of powerlessness against real and imagined elites, and the fantasy world of conspiracy theories that have been promoted by right wing talkers, preachers, and media outlets for over two decades. He promises to make them important again, to make their twisted version of the Christian faith the law of the land, to bring retribution to their “enemies” to deport those not like them, and to ban others from coming into the country. He appeals to their desire for an authoritarian leader who will solve their problems without the niceties of acting in accordance with the Constitution or law.

Donald Trump supporter Birgitt Peterson of Yorkville, Ill., argues with protesters outside the UIC Pavilion after the cancelled rally for the Republican presidential candidate in Chicago on Friday, March 11, 2016. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images)

His message is quite simply, to use these factors to stoke anger, hatred and rage against real and imagined devils. Hoffer noted: “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.” For many Trump supporters that “devil” is Hillary Clinton, Trump actually called her that during debate on Sunday night and claimed that she had a “very dark heart.” For some of his other followers it is Barak Obama, and to a growing number of his followers, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders who have denounced Trump or who have failed to endorse him. Hoffer wrote:

“It seems that, like the ideal deity, the ideal devil is one. We have it from Hitler—the foremost authority on devils—that the genius of a great leader consists in concentrating all hatred on a single foe, making “even adversaries far removed from one another seem to belong to a single category.” When Hitler picked the Jew as his devil, he peopled practically the whole world outside Germany with Jews or those who worked for them. “Behind England stands Israel, and behind France, and behind the United States.”

In place of any detailed policy, instead of a message of hope to Trump threatens and cajoles and his supporters, of whom he said during the Iowa Caucus campaign “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

Richard Evans in his book The Coming of the Third Reich discussed one of Hitler’s first speeches after coming to power.

“As so often in his career, Hitler, beginning slowly and quietly so as to secure the rapt attention of his enormous audience, went over the history of the Nazi Party and the alleged crimes of the Weimar Republic since 1919—the inflation, the impoverishment of the peasantry, the rise of unemployment, the ruin of the nation. What would his government do to change this parlous situation? His answer avoided any specific commitments at all. He said grandly that he was not going to make any ‘cheap promises’. Instead, he declared that his programme was to rebuild the German nation without foreign aid, ‘according to eternal laws valid for all time’, on the basis of the people and the soil, not according to ideas of class. Once more, he held up the intoxicating vision of a Germany united in a new society that would overcome the divisions of class and creed that had racked it over the past fourteen years. The workers, he declared, would be freed from the alien ideology of Marxism and led back to the national community of the entire German race. This was a ‘programme of national resurrection in all areas of life.’” 

1-rtx211ir

One thing you can say about Trump is that he understands his hard core supporters. Time and time again he has said and done things that would have left a normal candidate in a normal campaign sitting out the election at home, but instead his hardcore supporters, the people who now proudly call themselves “the Deplorables” respond to his threats to jail Hillary Clinton, to abandon and overthrow the GOP leadership, and his other invectives with an eagerness not seen in an electorate since Adolf Hitler’s mesmerized supporters screamed “Sieg Heil!” at Nazi Party rallies. The cult like devotion of his base is unlike anything ever seen in American politics. After two of his supporters beat a homeless man with a metal pole and urinated on him following a speech in which Trump called Mexicans “Rapists and drug dealers” Trump responded: “I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country, they want this country to be great again.”  

milogun

When his supporters roughed up opponents at Trump rallies he said: “Knock the crap out of them, would you?” and “In the good ol’ days, they’d have knocked him out of his seat so fast,” and offered to pay their legal fees. He encourages supporters to shout down the media at his events, calls out people who might be different than his supporters as he did when he asked non-Christians to identify themselves at a rally and asked his supporters if they should be allowed to stay in the room. This week he suggested that his followers go to heavily minority and Democratic precincts to “monitor” the vote. In open carry states that could well lead to his armed supporters loitering near polling places intimidating voters just as Hitler’s Brownshirts policed polling places in the elections leading to Hitler’s accession to power and the few votes held until he abolished opposition parties. Below is an image of armed S.A. Brownshirts outside a polling station on March 5th 1933, the final election for the Reichstag.

160718-trump-supporters-guns-11

This monster is something that will not go away even if Trump loses. Some of his supporters call for violent revolution if Clinton wins, but they wouldn’t be the first. Trump himself used twitter to call for revolution when President Obama defeated Mitt Romney on November 7th 2012. These calls for revolution and the blessing of extrajudicial violence against political enemies and minority groups have to be taken for real, especially with the rise of heavily armed so-called militia groups, as well as neo-Nazi, KKK, and other White Nationalist groups which live in a cloud-cuckoo land of conspiracy laden paranoia, and dualism.

This my friends is not normal or rational behavior for any Presidential candidate or campaign. I don’t think that I’m overly dramatic at this point. We have not seen the worst of this campaign.

Have a good night. Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

7 Comments

Filed under civil rights, civil war, crime, faith, History, holocaust, Immigration and immigrants, leadership, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism, terrorism, White nationalism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 31, 2020 · 02:12

Lying and Dying: President Trump’s Responsibility for the Coronavirus Debacle

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

On February 7th President Trump was being interviewed by Bob Woodward for his upcoming book. The interview was done by telephone and Woodward recorded it. At that point Coronavirus 19 was ravaging the Chinese city of Wuhan and its surrounding province. Not long before Trump had spoken to China’s President Xi and said of Xi:  “I think he is going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation. It goes through air, Bob,” … “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” Trump said.

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

At this point Woodward did not know that the President had been briefed by his National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien had told Trump in January 28th that “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency.” He was backed by his deputy, Matt Pottinger, was a China expert whose reports on China’s previous responses and lack of transparency on the 2003 SARS epidemic, and the factors that made this new virus worse than it, warning the President that he needed to think in terms of the 1918-1920 Great Influenza pandemic. The President was briefed by Alex Azar, Dr.Robert Redfield, and Dr. Tony Fauci about what he needed to do, everyone recommended shutting down travel to and from China and imposing a 14 day quarantine for Americans returning from China. This happened on January 31st and is something that the President has since claimed that he did despite the opposition of everyone else in the room. It was a lie, like almost everything the President says and does.

Three days after his interview with Woodward the President said at the White House, in a television interview, and in a campaign rally in New Hampshire, said “When it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away… I think it’s going to work out good. We only have 11 cases and they are all getting better.”

In the following months the President consistently undermined those who had warning him about the danger, and despite knowing the danger admitted that “he was being a cheerleader” and “trying to present an image of strength.” At the same time he repeated false information about the virus and the need for passive protection; masks, hand washing and social distancing.

It is now nine months since President Trump learned of how deadly the virus would be, and still claims that it is not a big deal and that he “defeated” it on the day that the nation recorded its highest number of infections, which has since been surpassed, yesterday there were over 101,000 newly diagnosed cases.

Today’s COVID-19 body count:

New Diagnosed Infections: 101,461
New Deaths: 988
Number of Active Cases: 3,056,626
Total Cases: 9,316,297
Total Number of Deaths: 235,159

Let us put these numbers in perspective. The United States has roughly four percent of the World’s population, but we have roughly 20% of the total cases worldwide, just under 27% of active cases, and just under 20% of total deaths. For a country as advanced as ours this is a debacle created by a President who though he knew the truth, went against all of his experts in infectious diseases, and national security advisors. Additionally he works every day with the GOP Senate, and his Supreme Court to deny healthcare coverage to Americans, guaranteeing that those who need healthcare, especially those with President-existing conditions, which anyone who survived COVID will be certain to have.

Additionally,  as I have said many times, behind every number is a name, a face, a man or woman, a father or mother, husband or wife, child or sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend, neighbor, or coworker. Every person infected or killed by this disease is or was a flesh and blood human being, not just a statistic.

His son, Donald Junior, openly mocks those infected and the dead by dismissing the virus as “no big deal,” even as the President continues to deride those who promote sensible public health policies that would save lives.

The President’s actions during this crisis did not reflect incompetence, he knew exactly what he was doing, he was playing to his re-election above all else. Instead they were actions of criminal malfeasance, and a direct violation of his Oath as President. He failed to meet the minimum obligations of his office by lying to the country about the virus and how deadly it would be, and by undermining the nation’s response to it, something he continues to do, even four days before an election that he is promising to undermine if he loses, including telling unconstitutional right wing And white nationalist  “militias” which are nothing more than terrorist groups with more in common to the Ku Klux Klan, the Red Shirts, White Leagues, White Liners, and Nazi Brownshirts than they have in common with actual patriots.

It is going to be a very dark Fall and Winter. ICU admissions are filling up the small hospitals in most of the states with the highest infection rates. Hospital admissions are rising, and unlike the Spring and Summer waves which were relatively localized, which made it possible shift medical resources to the danger zones, it is blowing up everywhere. There are no reserves to throw into the battle, soon there will be no room in the ICUs or the hospitals. Doctors are going to have to chose who gets treatment and who doesn’t. The spike in deaths is just down the road a bit. We are staking our hopes on vaccines that are yet unproven, and will likely not be available in significant numbers until next Summer or Fall. By all means I want them to be effective, safe, and given in enough quantities to stop this horrendous virus, but even the most promising vaccines are still problematic, some clinical trials have been halted because of unexpected complications. Likewise, we don’t know their efficacy, and we don’t know when they will be available.

But it didn’t have to be this way. Had President Trump told the truth to the American people and been like Winston Churchill when Britain stood alone, told the British people:

“In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war…”

But he did not. He could have been a hero, an iconic figure who told the truth and used every resource of the nation and our allies to defeat a global pandemic of which kind has not been seen in history. Had he done those things he could have gone down in history as a hero despite all his other failings as President. I could have lived with that. But he didn’t, and by Election Day there will be approximately 240,000 COVID-19 deaths. Some models say that by Inauguration Day that number might double.

I wish there were some good news to report, sometimes telling the truth is not a job filled with warm fuzzy thoughts.

So until next time, stay safe, protect yourselves, make sure you vote, and look out for your neighbors.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

5 Comments

Filed under Coronavirus, Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, COVID19, Diseases Epidemics and Pandemics, ethics, Foreign Policy, healthcare, History, laws and legislation, leadership, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 6, 2020 · 03:02

No Sympathy for a President with No Empathy or Tose Who Follow Him Into the COVID19 Abyss


President Trump Defiantly Taking off His Mask after Returning to the White House Knowing his is Still Infectious 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I did not get online until couple of hours ago. I was a work, and then went to get gel injections in my knees and a steroid shot in my hip. I’m getting closer to Dr. House every day. That being said I spend most of this evening trying to trim down my Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! manuscript to the 100,000 words for my publisher desires without cutting meat and not fat. I only have about 17,000 words left to get to the goal and then I can pick my photos from what is in the public domain or allowed with attribution by their authors, and then work on my index. In the meantime I am working on my retirement physical, waiting for the VA to decide my disability rating,  looking for a job for post retirement, and stressing out about preparing our townhouse for sale and getting ready to find a new home without stairs, unless it has an elevator. 

That being said I didn’t see any news except for pop up notifications on my iPad until a couple of hours ago. I was aghast at President Trump’s actions leaving Walter Reed, knowing that he is contagious and his life is at risk, and then immediately unmasked when he got to the claim that COVID19 was not to be feared at the White House angered me because of the lack of concern for His staff, those who volunteered to serve in his administration or those assigned by DOD, the Justice Department, the Secret Service, DIA, NSA, CIA, FBI, or any other department that assigned career personnel to the White House.

My God, Trump has friends like Herman Cain who died of COVID19 after attending one of his rallies unmasked. Now 11 people, including his wife are infected who travelled with or attended events with him. Some like Kellyanne Conway have infected family members. How many others have passed it to their family members and friends?

Even Hitler allowed friends, advisors, and officials to leave his bunker as he prepared for Götterdämmerung in Berlin, even as he left the majority of Germans to death, dislocation, destruction, and his military to Soviet POW Camps, from which few returned. Trump makes Hitler look good by comparison.

Gustave Gilbert, an American Army Psychologist who tended to the major Nazi War Criminals at Nuremberg said:

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

When I think of all the blood on Trumps hands due to his early knowledge of COVID19’s deadliness before the first reported case in our country and did nothing to stop it. He actively hindered the  CDC, FDA, and NIH; ignored the intelligence of the NSA, CIA and the head of his National Security Counsel about the national security risks; undermined public health officials at every turn by advocating for unsafe practices and proven testing and contact tracing methods.

As of yesterday his actions and inactions  have cost the lives of over 215,000 Americans as of yesterday, with 7.67 million infected, and 2.5 million current infections, with numbers going up in almost every state on a daily basis.

In doing so he doesn’t care if he kills all of us. I have lost any sense of personal sympathy or empathy for him, that being said I don’t want him to die, but be effectively leaving Walter Reed while still infected with his medical team shipping that he is not out of danger is irresponsible and needs to be condemned publicly by anyone with a grain of decency left in their soul.

To say he is not responsible, as he says himself is to say no one has died, and no one is guilty. Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who prosecuted the Nazis Gilbert watched over said in his closing argument at Nuremberg:

“They stand before the record of this trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain King. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: “Say I slew them not.” And the Queen replied, “Then say they were not slain. But dead they are ….” If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”

Trump claims no responsibility for the death and infections, just before his super-spreader event, he was asked about them, and said “It is what it is.” If any claims that Trump is not guilty of these death, then they are no better than those that defended the Nazi crimes. Likewise, if one person launches an ad hominem attack on me for this post, it will be their last here, and I will do my best to find them and shame them publicly, because they are willing accomplices in those deaths and infections.

Sophie Scholl, the 22 year old University of Munich Student leader of the White Rose Resistance against Hitler said:

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes – crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure – reach the light of day.”

I cannot imagine any honest American being ashamed of Trump and his clique’s actions during the COVID19 Pandemic. 

Finally, if you dear reader are a COVID19 Denier, refuse to were a mask properly, physically distance, do not wash your hands, or exhibit symptoms and willingly expose others you are guilty, just as Hitler’s followers who obeyed what they knew were illegal, immoral, and criminal orders and you deserve whatever happens to you. God help your families, friends, coworkers and associates, and may God or anyone save us from this madman. 

Thus ends the lesson,

Peace, if you can find it,

Padre Steve+ 

12 Comments

Filed under Coronavirus, Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, COVID19, crimes against humanity, faith, History, leadership, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary, war crimes, war crimes trials

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 2, 2020 · 03:22

Trump’s Debate Debacle and the Irony and Karma of COVID-19 as Trump Tests Positive

President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I started this post on Tuesday night after the debate. My anger was palpable. I found out a few minutes ago that he and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19. The irony is so rich. The man who knew about how bad the virus is and how he did nothing to stop it, who took few personal precautions, exposed his followers in rallies where masks were not required and social distancing was ignored. He set himself up to get it by so casually denying the advice and attacking the experts who gave it. I hate to say it, but anyone who conducted himself in such a manner served to be infected, and due to him being high risk in that he is old, morbidly obese, and must have unreported medical conditions that he has ordered his doctors to lie about, including an  unplanned and rushed visit to Walter Reed, but I digress. I expect that he will have a very bad time of this, and may end up incubated in an ICU in the next few weeks. So please read on to my debate commentary. 

I hate bullies and liars. I always have. Donald Trump has always been a bully, and a liar and this was on full display tonight. I have never seen a President disgrace his office more and demonstrate his unfitness for office than President Trump did in the first Presidential debate tonight. He was far ruder and disrespectful than any American President than I have ever have seen. Trump broke every ground rule of the debate, and ended with him saying that the election didn’t matter and that he should remain in office, even encouraging Right Wing Militias like the Proud Boys to be stand by after the election. I felt assaulted as an American citizen, by his display of hatred for our political system, institutional, and Constitutional norms. It was as if only he mattered, and the rest of the country, even his supporters be damned.

Like Adolf Hitler, President Trump shouted down his opponent and the debate moderator through the entire debate. I was overwhelmed by his anger, invective, lies and incredible lack of empathy for the victims of COVID-19, or even Joe Biden’s dead son Beau who served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumor.

I cannot believe what I saw, the number already disproved lies that that he blasted all night long on every issue, repeating QAnon conspiracy theories as if they were the Gospel and sowing discord that could destroy our country. He refused to condemn White Supremacist ideology, lying about his responsibility in the Coronavirus Pandemic, for 210,000 deaths and over seven million infected by it, many of who will never fully recover.

However, like everything else he touches, tonight he destroyed another American institution, that of a neutrally moderated debate. Instead he abused the moderator, Chris Wallace of the Fox News Network, his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, and everyone who watched, of course since his followers are fine with abuse and being abused they won’t raise an eyelash in criticism.

What the President did tonight was to destroy any respect for the office of the Presidency and the reputation of the United States around the world. I was so embarrassed.

Because of the Hatch Act I cannot urge anyone to support or vote for any candidate, nor can I say who I will vote for in the election. I have served in the military for over 39 years, obey my oath and have been able to serve under six Presidents, almost eight since I enlisted shortly after President Carter left office and won’t be on active duty if Joe Biden becomes President. In my service to the nation I never have believed that any American of any belief was not a person that I was not obligated to defend.

Donald Trump will never change, his documented lies, falsehoods, and distortions of the truth since he entered office number in the tens of thousands, respects no-one or nothing, During the debate he showed to the nation and the world that he only considers his power as the ultimate end. That is what a dictator does. After his election I gave him a chance, but in the past 3 1/2 years he has proved that he, the the Constitution, not our institutions, cannot be trusted. When he told the Neo-Nazi Proud Boys to Stand Back and Stand By it was a clarion call against our Republic. It showed that the President demonstrates that he does not uphold his oath to the Constitution, and only cares about his political power and the protection his offers him from his creditors.

My thought is that Trump has destroyed everything that used to be considered conservatism in the country and that the Republican Party once stood. I know because for 32 years I was a conservative Republican. Now I can only say, I can only repeat the words of  General Ludwig Beck: who said:

“Final decisions about the nation’s existence are at stake here; history  will incriminate these leaders with bloodguilt if they do not act in accordance with their specialist political knowledge and conscience. Their soldierly obedience reaches its limit when their knowledge, their conscience, and their responsibility forbid carrying out an order.”

Beck was correct. Final decisions about our Republic are at stake. My time in the military is almost over, but even so I will maintain my oath of office, my vows as a Priest, and my honesty as a historian who gets many threats, including death threats  on this blog because of President Trump’s calls to violence. The Proud Boys just issued a new patch for their hateful, fascist and violent movement using Trump’s words, Stand Back and Stand By. I will fight them if need be. I have been threatened by them for over a decade and I won’t take it.

I have turned my cheeks so many time that I have callousness on all four of them because of it. No longer. I will fight for our Constitution and Republic.

To quote John Paul Jones:  “It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.”

I say that I will take the risk and if fate says I lose, I will have my honor and integrity intact. To quote Major General Henning Von Tresckow who died in the attempt to kill Hitler and overthrow Nazi rule: “I cannot understand how people can still call themselves Christians and not be furious adversaries of Hitler’s regime.” I think the same of anyone who calls themself a Christian who is willing to follow Trump into the abyss.

To this end in response to last nights shit show of a debate presented by a President who broke every rule, disrespected and dishonored one of the last remaining  bulwarks of the American experiment, the right to watch the candidates tell the truth about themselves, their positions and how they defend the Constitution and Republic, I remain will continue to support legal orders, but I will be damned to Hell if in my last 90 days of active duty I will a pawn of a President who has bulldozed the Constitution and Poisoned our instructions. As Democrat Senator Stephen A. Douglas said of President James Buchanan, a man of his political party:

“God forbid,” I said “that I ever surrender my right to differ from a President of the United States for my own choice. I am not a tool of any President!” 

And I also quote Theodore Roosevelt who responded to attacks on his patriotism by members of Woodrow Wilson’s administration: 

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”

As I have always said, I will tell the truth.

I would rather stand in the shoes of Stephen A. Douglas, or Theodore Roosevelt, than in the shoes of President Trump. I still have to obey his legal orders and respect his office, but disobeying unlawful and unconstitutional orders issued by any President who tramples the Constitution and Civil Liberties at every opportunity is something that I cannot do for humor any other President regardless of their political party, or ideology.

I have to remind people time and time again that for 32 years, from 1976 to 2008 I was a loyal Republican, but by bearing first hand witness to the propagandists of the Iraq War, damaged by PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury, and finding that with the exception of their I support the Troops bumper stickers that the lies that brought on the war and it’s victims, including Americans really didn’t matter, to that Party.

My beliefs hadn’t changed, but theirs did, and 12 years later most remaining Evangelical Christian Republicans support a man who only uses them as a stepping stone to absolute power, and because he appoints judges sympathetic to their ideological, political, and social beliefs, even  though they no longer represent most Americans.

As far as that goes those people are heretics and isolators, who sold out their faith for that of a Golden Calf.

Now Trump and his wife Melania are infected with the Coronavirus 19. As I said up front, Trump himself is in a high risk group: Morbidly obese, old, and probably suffering from medical conditions that he has ordered his doctors to lie about for year to maintain the lie of his great health. I figure at best he has a long and painful ICU stay ahead of him, if he doesn’t die from it.

By the way as of publication there were 7,494,671 total infections, 212,660 deaths, 2,545,390 current infections, 47,389 which were reported yesterday before the President’s announcement. Worldwide over a million people have died. 

How this effects any future debate is on me, but that now is probably the least of his concerns, and his political opponents are going to have a field day with it. Biden will be gracious but others will go for the jugular.

If it either happens I can only quote his words when asked about his feelings about 200,000 dead Americans, “It is what it is,” as he praised his response to the virus. That being said I don’t wish death on him, “just a fate worse than a fate worse than death.” (Gratuitous Black Adder Quote)

So, until whenever,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

10 Comments

Filed under Coronavirus, Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, History, national security, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 1, 2020 · 15:53

When You Lose Your Citizenship You Lose Everything: Another Post on the Nuremberg Laws from the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial

www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/blog/remembering-the-nuremberg-laws-the-true-meaning-of-citizenship

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Another post from the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial on the effects of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, this one about how Jews lost everything including their citizenship before the Holocaust even began. Once they lost their citizenship, they were beyond all but clandestine help from people putting their lives at risk. This is the plight of all stateless people. Never Forget.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under History, holocaust, Immigration and immigrants, laws and legislation, Loose thoughts and musings, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as ,