Tag Archives: timothy snyder

April 23, 2018 · 00:05

The Past is a Foreign Country: they do Things Differently There”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

British novelist L.P. Hartley wrote, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there…”

That is true. When we look at or study history it is often hard for us in our time to comprehend how others committed or allowed acts that we find reprehensibly criminal and evil. Since my primary areas of expertise include the American Civil War, including the ante-bellum period and Reconstruction, as Germany from about 1848 through 1945, including Weimar and the Nazi era, I find that I am confronted with these questions almost daily.

One of the hard things for any of us, even historians who want to present a relatively objective view of events, is to try to avoid the assumption that the people who made those decisions operated under our world-view; to assume that they should have known what we know now. But that is not the case.

The historian Richard Evans wrote in his book The Coming of the Third Reich:

“People make their own history, as Karl Marx once memorably observed, but not under conditions of their own choosing. These conditions included not only the historical context in which they lived, but also the way in which they thought, the assumptions they acted upon, and the principles and beliefs that informed their behavior.”

Yet the fact is that these contexts don’t make their history correct. Quite a few people, especially those who subordinate history to ideology and thus pretend to have a key to understanding history. Hannah Arendt noted:

“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.” 

Such is also our contemporary problem, and future historians and lay-people alike will ask the same questions about us, just as we ask them about those who went before us.

Dr. Timothy Snyder discusses how mythologized history leads to dangerous understandings of politics, which posit theories of inevitability or eternity. According to Snyder inevitability assumes “a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done.” Such was the view of many Americans and Western Europeans when Communism fell.

Snyder wrote:

“Whereas inevitability promises a better future for everyone, eternity places one nation at the centre of a cyclical story of victimhood. Time is no longer a line into the future, but a circle that endlessly returns the same threats from the past. Within inevitability, no one is responsible because we all know that the details will sort themselves out for the better; within eternity, no one is responsible because we all know that the enemy is coming no matter what we do. Eternity politicians spread the conviction that government cannot aid society as a whole, but can only guard against threats. Progress gives way to doom.”

That is what makes the past so different, and it is why that when I read, study, and write that I try to understand the world-view of those that I study. I try to discover what made them who they were; to see the good and the bad, and attempt to be as fair as possible without falling into the trap of writing history as either inevitable or eternal. I try to emulate Barbara Tuchman who noted:

“What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement.”

Even so I exercise a fair amount of caution when researching and writing about the past, because it truly is a different country.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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April 22, 2018 · 11:33

If You Don’t Have Time to Read You don’t Have the Time or Tools to Lead

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

During the first week of March I took about a week off of regular writing and commended a new campaign of reading. This was not because I don’t read, I am always reading, but sometimes I don’t read enough, so that week I began to catch up on some reading. Since then I have read, and read, even as I began to write again, not that I ever really stopped. I fully subscribe to the words of American satirist Will Rogers who noted: “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

Honestly I prefer to learn by reading or observing, and reading has been part of my life since I was a child and I cannot imagine trying to write a single sentence without reading, as Stephen King noted: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” I would extend King’s observation to say that if you don’t have time to read you don’t have time or the tools to lead. Sadly the American President and many of his most devoted followers never challenge themselves by reading.

So tonight I wanted to take a few minutes and catch you up on the newest additions to my reading rainbow. I finished reading German historian Paul Carrel’s Unternehmen Barbarossa im Bild (Operation Barbarossa in Pictures) in which the text is in German and Max Boot’s The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale an the American Tragedy in Vietnam. 

I took on Carrel’s book because I had read many of his histories of the German Army in the Second World War in English and I wanted to use this large German volume to improve my German vocabulary. It’s an excellent volume first published in 1976 but unless you have a moderate familiarity of German it I don’t recommend it despite the vast number of photos that I have not seen elsewhere and his honest commentary and reflections on the moral, social, and political disaster that was Operation Barbarossa.

I also finished Max Boot’s outstanding volume of the life of General Edward Lansdale. This is really a good account of U.S. involvement in the Philippines and Vietnam from 1945 until 1975. Lansdale was deeply involved in one of the few successful counter-insurgencies of the 20th Century, that against the Communist supported Huks in the Philippines  by Lansdale who worked closely with political reformers and sought to understand and win over insurgents without engaging in massive military sweeps. However successful he was he was distrusted by much of the CIA and military establishment and his efforts in Vietnam were undercut by them. Boot treats Lansdale’s story well without attempting to hide his many flaws. Lansdale has been referred to as an American T. E. Lawrence and Boot gives an excellent account of his life in the context of the CIA, American actions in Indochina, and American politics in the from the mid 1950s until the early 1970s. The book is well worth the read.

On the Vietnam front I read the late Michael Herr’s Dispatches, his classic account of his time serving as a war correspondent in Vietnam at Hue, Khe San, and other battles over the course of 18 months. Having been to war I highly recommend it.

On the more contemporary American political situation I read conservative and former Bush Administration advisor, David Frum’s book on the Trump Era, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic. It is well worth the read for anyone but I highly recommend that conservatives read it. I don’t always agree with some of Frum’s political positions, but his take on the corrosive effects of Donald Trump on the United States and how Republicans have aided and abetted him.

Continuing down that road I read Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s masterpiece of investigative journalism Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. Trump loyalists will hate this book because their work continues to be verified by every new discovery about the Russians and their role in the 2016 elections. It gives the reader a superb understanding of the key players  in this drama and help the reader to put in context the daily revelations of the investigation being conducted by Special Prosecutor Robert Muller and the actions of the President’s words, actions, and policies toward Russia and Putin as well as when he melts down on Twitter. In time it might be ranked with All the President’s Men. 

As a matter of contextualizing the present I read the late historian Tony Judt’s Ill Fares the Land which was written following the collapse of 2008. Judt discusses how we have not learned the lessons of the Twentieth Century and the problems related to the failures of both the right and left to learn those lessons. It is well worth the read but it is not a book designed or written to comfort partisans on any side of the political spectrum.

Going back to look at history I took the time to read Walter Lord’s sequel to his classic book on the sinking of the Titanic, A Night to Remember by reading his book The Night Lives On: The Untold Stories and Secrets of the “Unsinkable” Ship – Titanic. The second volume was published some three decades after Lord’s first volume which I think is the best account of the event ever written.  To follow it up I ordered and watched the film A Night To Remember which was also well worth watching. While not as technically accurate nor filled with “A list” stars the film captures the the tragedy of the ship in a way I don’t think that James Cameron’s masterpiece Titanic really gets.

I re-read Lord’s book on the integration of Ol’e Miss The Past that Would Not Die which though it recounts events of 1962 seems amazingly relevant in the present day.  The account of the admission of Air Force veteran James Howard Meredith in the face of the political opposition of Mississippi’s Governor and Legislature, armed White Supremacists against Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and civil rights activists. The event was a crisis that brought to the present the memories and ideology of secession and revolt against the Federal Government and Constitution in the name of preserving a history of white supremacism. Likewise I also re-read British historian and military theorist B. H. Liddell Hart’s little book Why Don’t We Learn from History? 

I took up Jason Stanley’s excellent How Propaganda Works. This is an excellent book for academics but I do not recommend it for the casual reader because it presupposes a knowledge of political philosophy and history that most people don’t have. It was a long and tiring read for me and I liked it. It provides a lot of insights into the mechanics of propaganda. For me it gave me a different level of understanding of the propaganda being used by the Russians agains the United States and the machinations of the American President to discredit opponents through both official government pronouncements and the official unofficial White House propaganda network, Fox News.

I am currently reading a number of books. I am about a quarter of the way through John Dower’s The Bloody American Century, about a third of the way through Timothy Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, and have just started Tony Judt’s Thinking the Twentieth Century and Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant.

So anyway. Have a great night and see you tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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April 10, 2018 · 00:01

Never Again? Holocaust Days of Remembrance 2018

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

April 8th to 15th are the Holocaust Days of Remembrance in the United States. I am glad we do this but sadly I don’t think that the vast majority of Americans really care about the Holocaust or its eternal precedent because frankly we live in an age where history, unless it is being bastardized to fit the propaganda message of political ideologues matters not a wit.

Historian Timothy Snyder refers to the current trend of history being cherry picked and perverted in support of ideology as the  politics of eternity. Over the past two decades this concept has replaced the politics of inevitability  which defined the immediate ear after the Cold War. Inevitability presumed that no-matter what happened that the future would unfold in a manner that ultimately benefited everyone.

That understanding lasted until the disastrous American war against Iraq, the collapse of the banking system, and the politics of inequity that by 2010 made most Americans feel that they were being shortchanged. The social contract that had buttressed society has given way much in the way that it had in Europe following the First World War. Many, regardless of where they lay on the political spectrum feel victimized and angry. Their victimhood and anger require scapegoats who in turn become victims and many times the scapegoats are those who were traditionally exploited and persecuted based on race or religion, or new immigrants who have taken the place of the previously persecuted peoples that now embrace the very ideologies used to persecute their ancestors.

Snyder noted that the politics of “eternity places one nation at the centre of a cyclical story of victimhood. Time is no longer a line into the future, but a circle that endlessly returns the same threats from the past. Within inevitability, no one is responsible because we all know that the details will sort themselves out for the better; within eternity, no one is responsible because we all know that the enemy is coming no matter what we do. Eternity politicians spread the conviction that government cannot aid society as a whole, but can only guard against threats. Progress gives way to doom.”

To those that practice the politics of eternity, no matter what nation they hail from the precedent of the Holocaust looms large.

Snyder correctly observed that “The world is now changing, reviving fears that were familiar in Hitler’s time, and to which Hitler responded. The history of the Holocaust is not over. Its precedent is eternal, and its lessons have not yet been learned.”

That is something that we must never forget lest the would be architects of annihilation of our day; the politicians, preachers, propagandists, and profiteers, who demonize the Jews, Muslims, dark skinned immigrants, LTBTQ people and other inconvenient elements and prepare people to do evil or ignore it: the ordinary men who just obey orders. Primo Levi wrote:Primo Levi wrote, “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” 

Levi was right, the common men, those that don’t think but simply follow orders or turn their heads and ignore the evil who are the most dangerous.

But of all of the people victimized by the politics of eternity it has to be the Jewish people  who have suffered the greatest from often disparate enemies. Anti-Semitism knows few boundaries and is not just one prejudice among many, even though the purveyors of it often persecute and massacre others. Christopher Hitchens noted about the Nazi crimes in Eastern Europe which were often aided by local militias: “We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many.” 

That is one major reason why I fear the surge in the politics of eternity in the United States, Europe, and other nations. I fear that the Jews will again be a sacrificial victim especially because a part of the American electorate which allegedly supports Israel, Evangelical Christians only do so because their theology requires the sacrifice of the Jews and Israel at the hand of the Anti-Christ during Christ’s Second Coming.  Sadly, these are the same people who unabashedly support a President that mocks their faith and Christ in word and deed, and whose often disparaging tone toward American Jews is well known. As such I cannot help but think that it could indeed happen here. If this is what it means to make America Great again then we are deep trouble. Snyder wrote: “When exactly was the “again” in the president’s slogan “Make America great again”? Hint: It is the same “again” that we find in “Never again.”

Milton Mayer wrote in his book They Thought They Were Free about a German colleague during the 1950s that had lived through the Hitler years as an academic. The man tried to explain how changes were so gradual that people like him who should have known better did not take action, if they did at all until it was too late. The man asked Mayer:

“How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.”

With what is happening on the border of Israel in Syria I am very much afraid that there will be a backlash against American Jews, as well as American Muslims from both the political left and right. The precedent of the Holocaust is indeed eternal and it is incumbent on us to ensure that it does not happen again. That being said if it does and some of us have the courage to resist and even risk martyrdom it will not be the martyrdom of the innocent. Sadly, most of us regardless of our ideological or political point of view have contributed to the situation that we see today. Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke these words as the Nazi Party became the largest and most powerful in Germany before Hitler was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg:

“the blood of martyrs might once again be demanded, but this blood, if we really have the courage and loyalty to shed it, will not be innocent, shining like that of the first witnesses for the faith. On our blood lies heavy guilt, the guilt of the unprofitable servant who is cast into outer darkness” 

I am one of those unprofitable servants because for some thirty years I supported the party and policies that brought about Trump and turned a blind eye toward the consequences until I saw the terrible results of the polices that I supported when I went to Iraq in 2007 and 2008.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 21, 2018 · 07:00

“My Oath did not Expire When I took off the Uniform” Ralph Peters Resigns from Fox News

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have called Fox News and many of its hosts a propaganda network for some time. At one time, back in the late 1990s and up until I went to Iraq in July of 2007 I watched Fox nearly nonstop along with my daily diet of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio. It took a number of years of their listening incessantly to their propaganda before I became revulsed by it while serving in Iraq.

Sitting in a dining facility late one evening after coming back from an intensive mission I saw some Fox News talking heads discussing the war on a television. What they were discussing was pure propaganda and had no relationship to what was going on in that country. At that point I made up my mind that what I had tried to believe was true was all lies; lies spun by the Bush administration and aided by the supposedly “Fair and Balanced” team at Fox News. When I returned home in 2008 every time I heard a Fox pundit or saw them on the news I became very angry. To this day I cannot watch them and when I see the lies and propaganda that they spread today I can only compare many of their hosts to the propagandists of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, except neither the Nazis or the Soviets claimed to be ‘fair and balanced.”

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find out that retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters quit his post as a commentator for Fox. I met him in 1999 not long after I had transferred from the Army to the Navy and was serving at Camp LeJeuene with the Second Marine Division. Peters was doing a book tour for his first non-fiction title Fighting for the Future, and I got to meet and talk to him at the bookstore in the Main Exchange. He had enlisted in the Army five years before me and was commissioned three years before me. Both of us had served tours in Germany. He was an Intelligence officer with a specialization on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. I was a history major who in the wisdom of the Army assignment gods had been branched as a Medical Service Corps officer. Peters retired in 1998 as I was preparing to leave the Army for the Navy.

He certainly, like many military officers is very conservative but at the same time a realist. While initially supporting the war in Iraq he would become a critic by 2006 and in 2009 recommend pulling out of Afghanistan. He recently stated that assault weapons should be banned, something that is anathema to Fox and most of its loyal viewers.

Peters thought that President Obama was too soft on Putin and Russia, and despite being a big supporter of President Obama I had to agree with him. I think that while President Obama was in a no-win situation had he confronted and opposed Putin in 2016, he could have done more in 2015, and despite being in a no-win situation politically in 2016 that he should have hammered Putin and exposed the Russian attempts to undermine the country and elect Trump in 2016. His actions were too little and too late.

In his resignation from Fox, Peters showed something that is seldom seen in the media. He demonstrated courage and honor over personal gain. He had a good following on Fox and certainly could have stayed at the network and continued to make good money. But he finally hit the point with them that I hit in 2007, his honor and his commitment to his office would not allow him to stay.

His resignation latter was published by Buzzfeed on Tuesday. It is one of the most remarkable resignation letters I have ever read. It was an indictment of Fox and many of its hosts and commentators as pure propagandists “for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration.” I heartily agree with him. I have posted his letter in its entirety below.

On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold:

First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you’ve shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don’t often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.

Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin’s agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the “nothing-burger” has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.

I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece–some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You’re the grown-ups.

Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business..

So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president’s favorite world leader would say, “Das vidanya.”

The various oaths that I have sworn to the Constitution, first as an enlisted man and then as a Commissioned Officer in the Army, the Army National Guard, the Army Reserve, and the Navy are foundational to my life. I have served under six Presidents. I have agreed and disagreed with the various policies and positions of the first five, but never did I think that any of them were truly a threat to the Constitution and the foundation of the country as I believe that President Trump and his administration are such a threat.

It is my adherence to the Constitution; the radical proposition of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I could add the Gettysburg Address in which Abraham Lincoln gave new life to the propositions of the Declaration and the preamble of the Constitution. Now is the time for every American to be as recommit themselves to those ideals or lose them forever.

The President and his propagandists at Fox News are not patriots. One can place a thousand flags behind them or adorn the lapels of their suit jackets with American flag pins, but that does not mean that they are patriots. Patriots stand for those principles, and the Constitution; all of it, not just the parts that they agree with while working to undermine the protections of the Constitution to those who they may hate or disapprove.

In his book On Tyranny Dr Timothy Snyder wrote:

“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,” wrote Orwell, tends to be “uninterested in what happens in the real world.” Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism “has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.” A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.” 

Ralph Peters is a patriot whether you agree or disagree with him on various issues. He did the right thing for the right reason. Some may think that it took him too long to do so, but just how many others in the Fox News and Right Wing media vortex or the Republican Party have stated the truth as Lieutenant Colonel Peters did? Even those who publicly disagree with the President, with nothing to lose, often equivocate and show that they are cowards when after they say that they will stand against him, simply slink away until the next time.

So until the next time,

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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March 19, 2018 · 00:44

A Sense of Foreboding: Trump, Fox News Propaganda and the Danger to the Republic

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I go to bed tonight with a sense of foreboding for our country and the world.

Hannah Arendt wrote: “When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse.

She was right. We are seeing a populist appeal that is embracing evil and it is happening before our very eyes.

I cannot shake the deep sense of foreboding I have regarding the country and the world as President Trump’s continues to attack the character of all that oppose him or simply want to ferret out the truth plethora of allegations concerning what appears to be treasonous activities by his closest advisers and his apparent attempts quashed with the acquiescence of a large number of Republican members of Congress.  There is something very wrong going on and it almost feels that I can see the disaster unfolding before it happens.

I am not the only one to notice, leading conservative writers, foreign policy experts, and constitutional scholars have pointed out the same things that I have been saying for over a year. I do try to be positive and to believe that things will work out for the best, but the more I observe the more my confidence in our leaders and for that purpose many of our people to do the right thing is diminished.

That being said I do not give in to the feelings of foreboding or intend give up without a fight. I want my country to live up to its ideals and I am concerned about the real world, our alliances, our environment, and especially the real threat to freedom posed by the unrestrained words and actions of our 45th President. He has proven that he has no regard for the Constitution, our laws, or simple human decency. With every tweet and remark he demonstrates that he believes that he is above the law. He demonstrates every trait of a sociopath incapable of empathy and capable of the greatest evil.

Since he had Attorney General Sessions fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe barely a day before he would have been able to retire, Mr. Trump has been on a rampage. In light of President’s twitter onslaught against Robert Muller and those appointed to investigate the likely treasonous activities of the President and his associates before and after his election, and the comments of his personal lawyer I am more convinced than ever that Mr. Trump will find a way to seize power. This may come in a Reichstag Fire moment where he, during a “national emergency” uses the powers given to the executive through standing Executive Orders, or legislated in the Patriot Act. Conversely he might do it with the help of his current GOP majority in Congress, even if it means that they doom themselves to irrelevance as a co-equal branch of government.

This itself is dangerous, but even worse is the poisonous and corrosive aspect of the President’s repeated lies, distortions, falsifications, and attacks on the Constitution, our laws, institutions, the free press, and individuals. The President not only uses his spokespeople and twitter account to do this, he uses the pundits of Fox News to do so. As such Fox has become nothing more than Trump’s personal propaganda ministry indoctrinating millions of gullible and desperate people to do his bidding. Arendt wrote about such behavior and its effect on people:

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

I believe in a particular universal ideal enunciated in the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence that All men are created equal. Likewise I believe the words of the Constitution matter and that it is all of our obligation to labor to build “a more perfect union.” As such that I must continually stand for what is right, what is true, and what is enduring for that is the oath that I swore and have re-affirmed for over 36 years of military service.

I am more worried than ever about our democracy and I agree with Timothy Snyder who wrote:

“Democracy failed in Europe in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, and it is failing not only in much of Europe but in many parts of the world today. It is that history and experience that reveals to us the dark range of our possible futures. A nationalist will say that “it can’t happen here,” which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.”  

We Americans do not like to think that what has happened to so many other countries can happen here; and in fact I never used to believe that it could. I believed that our system of checks and balances and the nature of our institutions could weather any threat. Today I question if they will hold. I agree with Russian exile and Chess Grand Master Gary Kasparov who wrote:

“First of all, people here should understand that nothing is for granted. There were many warnings in the past, you know, but every time, Americans and Europeans—they believe that it’s like bad weather. It comes and goes. But the danger is real. I always want to quote Ronald Reagan, who said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Now, probably, it’s not even one generation. Things can happen very quickly, because there’s so much power that comes in the hands of people who have very little affection for the values that make up the core of liberal democracy and the free world.” 

Because of that I believe that we must stand for principle and work for a new birth of freedom even as it seems that freedom itself is in danger due to the actions of the American President. We must stand or we will lose everything that generations of Americans as well as others have fought so hard to preserve, but it is difficult. As Max Boot wrote on Saturday:

“Trump is sucking a substantial portion of America into his Orwellian universe. The rest of us have to struggle simply to remember that war isn’t peace, freedom isn’t slavery, ignorance isn’t strength.”

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 2, 2018 · 00:02

Watershed Moments: Trump, Hope Hicks and the Problem of Truth

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

A watershed moment in the Trump administration occurred a few days ago. Longtime advisor and White House Communications Director Hope Hicks admitted telling “white lies” to protect the President to a Congressional committee. Shortly after she either voluntarily resigned or was forced to resign by an infuriated President. I have read accounts that indicate both. I lean to the latter, but I cannot say that without absolute certainty.

Over 1800 years ago the Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote:

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

When it came out last year I wrote a review of Timothy Snyder’s book  On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century and today I wanted to follow up on one of the key points made by Dr. Snyder in that work.

Snyder wrote: “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis to do so. If nothing is truth, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”  I have been worried about that since the 2016 election campaign where Snyder noted that seventy-eight percent of the claims and statements made by President Trump on the election trail were demonstrably false. Sadly, that has not changed, in his first year in office, as of the anniversary of Mr. Trump’s inauguration he had told over 2000 verifiable lies and distortions, that’s a rate of about six a day.

As Snyder noted the falsehoods during the election campaign came so fast that they were overwhelming, and they still are today. The assertions were presented as if they were the truth, as if they were fact, creating as Kellyanne Conway said, a world of “alternate facts” and “alternative truths.” Of course there are no such thing as “alternative facts” or “alternative truths” when it comes to the reality that we know. There may be arguments about things that we cannot fully observe or understand, such as the ultimate issues of whether there is a God or not, and if so what is true about him, her, or it; likewise there are things that change the way that we see the world such as when scientists make new discoveries.

But in neither case do these examples posit that there are alternative truth, there are things like God that cannot be proven, and there is a universe that we do not fully understand, but those have nothing to do with people who flagrantly lie about things that are commonly known and claim that the lies are the truth. Such claims are cynical and designed to ensure that those in power cannot be challenged, and when deployed by demagogues in a society in which fear has become an overriding factor, can be frighteningly effective. Thus when the President says “I alone can fix it” or “I am your voice” those who have lost the ability to think critically and who have surrendered to the unending mantras of the demagogue do not question them, they are not matters of reason, they are matters of faith.

Throughout the campaign Trump and his campaign surrogates not only twisted truth, but lied so many times that fact checkers could hardly keep up with their untruths. After the election, Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes told Diane Rehm of NRP: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, of facts,” she continued, “Mr. Trump’s tweet, amongst a certain crowd, a large — a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some — in his — amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies, and there’s no facts to back it up.” The biggest problem in this interview was that Ms. Hughes lied and twisted what happened to fit the Trump campaign narrative that truth did not matter. The fact was that then candidate Trump’s tweets were devoid of fact and the criticism of them was based on fact.

I have written about how some people and parties present myths as truth, twisting history to meet their craven desire for power and control. This appeal to myth was the genus of the President’s campaign slogan “Make America great again.” Such slogans are the instruments by which demagogues in every place and time have used to not only gain power, but to convince people to do things that in normal times they would never consider doing.

Such propaganda campaigns are distortions of history that blind their followers to real truth, even worse, they compel people to never learn history and thus accept the lies as truth with all too often fatal consequences. Snyder calls this “the politics of eternity” which “performs a masquerade of history… It is concerned with the past, but in a self-absorbed way, free of any real concern with facts. Its mood is a longing for past moments that never really happened during epochs that were, in fact, disastrous.”

To the politicians who like the President rely on them, the past is “a vast misty courtyard of illegible monuments to national victimhood, all of them equally distant from the present, all of them equally accessible for manipulation. Every reference to the past seems to involve an attack by some mortal enemy upon the purity of the nation.” These are the basis for things like the Myth of the Lost Cause, and the Noble South, and the Stab in the Back.

This is dangerous distortion of history. George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But I think that Howard Zinn said it the best:

“History can come in handy. If you were born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, you might easily accept whatever the government tells you. But knowing a bit of history–while it would not absolutely prove the government was lying in a given instance–might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth.”

I cannot help but think that the rapidity of the lies, the incessant attacks on the institutions of our country’s democracy, and the rights established in the Constitution by the President, people in his administration, and his supporters, especially those in the Breitbart universe of alternative media, are nothing but an attempt to delegitimize those institutions in order to gain total control and establish some kind of authoritarian and totalitarian state.

The deluge of lies and distortions practiced by this administration and so many others who have taken power after being legally elected or appointed is designed to ensure that people no longer believe in truth. Hannah Arendt wrote: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction ( i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false ( i.e ., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

That is the very danger that we face today because many people, especially the President’s most stalwart and sometime violent defenders, as well as his enablers in Congress do not care, and others are so confused and distracted by the tactics of denial and deflection coming from the administration that they are growing weary. Polls show that many people are quite alright with limiting freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the role of the courts and other institutions designed to check executive power, and have no problem with limiting the rights of groups that they have identified as their enemy, and even limitations placed on their own freedom if it serves to absolve them of responsibility for things that they are too uncomfortable to deal with. The British military historian and theorist B.H. Liddell-Hart observed:

“We learn from history that in every age and every clime the majority of people have resented what seems in retrospect to have been purely matter-of-fact comment on their institutions. We learn too that nothing has aided the persistence of falsehood, and the evils resulting from it, more than the unwillingness of good people to admit the truth when it was disturbing to their comfortable assurance. Always the tendency continues to be shocked by natural comment and to hold certain things too “sacred” to think about.”

Believe me I desperately want to be wrong about this, but my study of history tells me that I am not. Thus I believe that every claim of the President and the administration must be questioned and its veracity determined, before it is accepted as truth. The time has come when we cannot simply wait to see what happens and give this administration the benefit of the doubt. Immediately after the election I was prepared to do that, but the actions of the President and his advisors have demonstrated to me that this is no longer an option. I will of course remain true to my oath under the Constitution, I will still respect the office of the Presidency, but I will always stand for the Constitution and defend those rights, and the institutions that are established by it.

Truth: historical, scientific, and verifiable is not our enemy. However, lies, and distortions, and the trampling of truth under the guise of “alternative truth,” “alternative fact,” and “alternative history” is the moral enemy of our republic and its democratic institutions. Thus truth must be upheld and fought for at all costs, because once you have sacrificed truth on the altar of political expediency you pave the way for freedom to be sacrificed.

Marcus Aurelius was right. The truth is not harmful but those who persist in self deception and ignorance can not escape harm. Hope Hicks placed her faith in Donald Trump, even being willing and able to lie for him, now she is firmly in the eye of the Muller investigation and will forever have her reputation tarnished by her work and support for President Trump. Sadly, there will be more.

So until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 1, 2018 · 01:31

The Fragility of Human Behavior in the Crisis: When Civil Liberties End, Tyranny Begins

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In 1989 Donald Trump wrote in a full page advertisement in the New York Daily News:  “civil liberties end when an attack on our safety begins.” He said that in relation to the Central Park Five, five teenagers who were falsely accused and convicted of the rape of a jogger in Central Park. In 2002 after the real assailant confessed and his crime verified by DNA evidence. Despite the reality Mr. Trump has continued to speak to that issue and claim that the five falsely convicted and imprisoned men are guilty.

Mr Trump repeated expressed his anger that they did not receive the death penalty, something that by the way is not part of the law in any state. Since becoming President the Mr Trump has suggested all sorts of extrajudicial and unconstitutional remedies to crime. Today he suggested doing that to gun owners who could be considered potential mass murderers. He told a group of Congressmen and Senators, as well as his own Vice President Mike Pence: “You could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”

Now personally I don’t think that’s such a bad idea, but it still is unconstitutional. Earlier in the week the President proposed the death penalty to all convicted drug dealers. Again, no love for drug dealers but the President doesn’t get to impose sentences, but the President praised the extermination methods that Philippine President Duterte uses not just to kill suspected drug dealers but political opponents and members of the press. Of course the President has long suggested the political opponents should be jailed and the Press is an “an enemy of the people.” 

As I have written over the past few days in discussing the Reichstag Fire I am very concerned that as the walls close in on the Trump Presidency, that as the Muller investigation implicates more and more of his advisors and quite possibly family members, that as members of his administration like Hope Hicks admit that they lied for him, that the danger to our Republic only rises. I am afraid that there will be a Reichstag Fire moment that will allow the President to through already existing Executive orders and laws to scrap constitutional liberties and establish an authoritarian state. It’s not so much that he has to be popular to do so, the fact is that under threat of attack that most Americans will surrender liberty for the illusion of security. That was demonstrated in 2002 when the Patriot Act, an act so revoltingly un-American and totalitarian in its implications was passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress with hardly any resistance.

That is what concerns me. Should a war break out, should there be a major terrorist attack, or anything that severely disrupts the country the mechanisms are in place for the President to declare the situation extraordinary and to take power. The thing is that no President has acted in such a way, but President Trump has repeatedly suggested violating the Constitution and praised foreign leaders like Dutarte, Putin, and Erdogan, men who all use such circumstances and laws to their advantage.

Timothy Snyder wrote:

“For tyrants, the lesson of the Reichstag fire is that one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission. For us, the lesson is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions. Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so. After the Reichstag fire, Hannah Arendt wrote that “I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.”

Of course Mr Trump has a hard core of loyal supporters who in his words would remain loyal to him “even if he shot someone on 5th Avenue.” Some are actually quite frightening, but in truth I am more frightened by the vast number of people in this country of every part of the political spectrum cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction or true and false, people how simply go along with the flow, especially in times of crisis.  Hannah Arendt, who saw the Nazi takeover of Germany in the beginning wrote:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

In a world such as the one that we live today it is those who simply go with the flow or are easily persuaded into accepting what in normal times they would not accept because the times are exceptional, or in a crisis believe what they are told and regardless of what happens to fellow citizens or neighbors turn their backs on injustice. Most are totally ordinary and unremarkable and are no different than so many others who committed terrible crimes against humanity and too part in genocide.

British Historian Laurence Rees wrote:

“human behavior is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave, it’s just that for many people the situation is the key determinate in that choice.” 

When people feel that a crisis makes a situation exceptional to the point that normal codes of conduct, social mores, laws, and ethics are Christopher Browning wrote in his book Ordinary Men:

“I fear that we live in a world in which war and racism are ubiquitous, in which the powers of government mobilization and legitimization are powerful and increasing, in which a sense of personal responsibility is increasingly attenuated by specialization and bureaucratization, and in which the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. In such a world, I fear, modern governments that wish to commit mass murder will seldom fail in their efforts for being unable to induce “ordinary men” to become their “willing executioners.” 

My question is: when the crisis finally comes, what will Americans do?

I want to be hopeful. I am not a fatalist. I believe that we can all given the opportunity rise to greatness and defend our Constitution, civil liberties, and embody the principles of the Declaration of Independence. It has happened before. But that being said human history, especially the history of the past century shows us that more often than not that most people do not rise to the occasion. Snyder wrote:

“The European history of the twentieth century shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands. It would serve us well today to understand why.”

In our time that is the most important consideration.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 26, 2018 · 00:01

A Worrisome Anniversary: The Reichstag Fire at 85 and it’s Relevance Today

 

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

There are times that is terrifying to be a historian who has specialized in the study of tyrannical regimes especially on the anniversaries of significant events that changed the course of nations. One of those was the Reichstag Fire the 85th anniversary of which is tomorrow, February 27th. The fire was set by Marinus (Rinus) van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist who was acting alone. Hitler, backed by the aging and doddering President Paul Von Hindenburg was given power to suspend constitutional rights indefinitely by acting under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution through the Order of the President of the Reich for the Protection of People and State. I will discuss that tomorrow.

Ever since my undergraduate study working under Dr. Helmut Huessler at California State University Northridge I have studied the transition of society from democracy to dictatorship. While my studies then and ever since focused on the rise of National Socialism in Germany, the fact is that what happened in Germany was not unique, it is a part of the human condition and the people of any country can find themselves under the foot of a dictatorship if the conditions are right. I believe that conditions in the United States have never been more ripe for the establishment of an authoritarian regime, possibly even a dictatorship, than they are today.

When I read through the text of President Trump’s speech at CPAC and the response of the NRA to the massacre in Parkland Florida shuddered.  They were the words that an autocrat would use, and the vehemence of the CPAC crowd, which just a few years ago prided itself as being the intellectual bastion of conservatism. Speakers and panel members who dared to question the movement were heckled, jeered, and threatened. Mona Charen, a long time conservative who had worked for both William Buckley and Ronald Reagan, had to be escorted out by security officers concerned for her safety.

I realize that despite chaos that is engulfing the House of Trump; despite more and more of his advisors being indicted by the Muller investigation of the Trump campaign and family connections to Russia, the more I become more concerned that the unthinkable will happen and something will occur that will allow the President to seize power under the pretext of national security; most likely a war, or a major terrorist attack, using existing National Security Executive Orders dealing with the continuity of government functions as a result of catastrophic emergency. The latest of which is National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive (National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20) of 4 May 2007 which defines a catastrophic emergency as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”

I believe that if or when one or the other happen that the Trump regime will use it to suspend civil rights and liberties and maybe even suspend Congress and the courts in the name of security and under existing provisions. Sadly, I think that in such a case that very few people would resist such a takeover. Of course the 35% or so of people that would support him as he said, even if he shot someone on 5th Avenue would be at the forefront probably even using extrajudicial means to apprehend, persecute, or kill anyone suspected of disloyalty. But I also believe that many other people would follow all because they are afraid and desire security more than freedom.

Now the psychological preparation for such an event is not all Trump’s doing; for the last three decades many of those that now support him, especially the leaders of the Religious Right, Fox News, and radio and internet demagogues have prepared the ground for his rise.

Dr. Timothy Snyder, the historian from Yale has warned us in his book On Tyranny. He noted:

“Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of political parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. DO NOT FALL FOR IT.”

Human beings are the one constant in history, and human nature is very consistent when it comes to how we respond when under attack. One only has to think of the fear that followed the 9-11 attacks and the willingness of people to give the government vast new powers. Those included The Patriot Act and an authorization for the use of military force against Al Qaida which has not been updated or supplemented since 2001, and which has been used for operations around the world which are completely unconnected to the initial authorization.

I believe that the chances of such an event occurring have gone up exponentially.  Part of this is because the President and the Executive branch have not filled many critical ambassadorships, as well as thousands of key billets in the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security.

This is a very dangerous time and every day I wake up wondering if this will be the day that our Republic as we knew it dies. I do not know if this will be the result of a war a major terror attack, or even an unexpected financial crisis, but as things spiral out of control I cannot shake the feeling that we are going to have our Reichstag Fire moment, and that we will not rise to the challenge. Instead I think that most Americans will give up freedom in the name of security simply because that is human nature and has been demonstrated throughout history on every continent. James Madison noted:

“The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”

Now is a time that we must all be awake and aware of what is going on in our country and the world. The storm clouds are building and we most be cognizant of the times or be engulfed and overwhelmed when the unthinkable arrives. That may not be pleasant to contemplate, but it is necessary.

I would like to believe that I will be proven wrong and honestly I want to be proven wrong because I do not want our nation to have to endure war, terrorism, or the rule of a tyrannical despot backed by fanatical and heavily armed followers.

So, until tomorrow I wish you a good day,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 8, 2018 · 00:40

“We’re Going to Have to Try to Top It” Trump’s Need for a Parade

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

It was revealed yesterday that President Trump has ordered the military to conduct a military parade in Washington D.C. It was reported in the Washington Post on Tuesday and a military official noted:

“The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” said a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the planning discussions are supposed to remain confidential. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”

In the same article White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted:

“President Trump is incredibly supportive of America’s great service members who risk their lives every day to keep our country safe,” Sanders said. “He has asked the Department of Defense to explore a celebration at which all Americans can show their appreciation.”

The President who conspicuously avoided military service in Vietnam with five deferments, compared avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in 1980s New York to combat in Vietnam, called men like John McCain and others who were wounded or captured in Vietnam “losers”, combat veterans with PTSD “weak”, and that he knew more about ISIS war and strategy than American military leaders has wanted to display the instruments of American military power since he was elected. He requested such a display for his inauguration but the request was turned down and prior to the inauguration he told a reporter Karen Tumult when she asked how Americans would know that he had made America Great Again:

“We’re going to display our military. We’re going to display it. That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we’re going to be showing our military.”

But there is no lack of love, respect or appreciation from the military in the United States. The military is one of the most trusted and respected institutions in the country. In an era where trust most public and private institutions is collapsing the military, trust in the military, despite some erosion since the election of President Trump is still very high, some 72% of Americans have a high amount of trust in the military and its leadership. Trump’s politicization of the military is hurting it, but respect and trust for the military still remains high, and even those who do not trust military leadership still tend to appreciate and honor the troops. So I think that the argument by Ms. Sanders that we need an event were Americans can show their appreciation for the military is misplaced. We already have three days; Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, and Veteran’s Day; two of them which are national holidays where we honor military personnel, veterans, and those who gave their lives in service of the country.

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley noted:

“I don’t think there’s a lack of love and respect for our armed forces in the United States,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “What are they going to do, stand there while Donald Trump waves at them? It smacks of something you see in a totalitarian country — unless there’s a genuine, earnest reason to be doing it.”

But despite the official pronunciations of Ms. Sanders I think the President’s need for a parade and demonstration of America’s military power is more like Penis Envy based on his visit to Europe last year where he viewed the French Bastille Day Parade. After that event the President remarked:

“It was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen… It was two hours on the button, and it was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France… We’re going to have to try to top it.”

The President seems to be jealous that the French President gets to preside over a military parade. But there is a difference between such displays in France and the United States.

The French parade coincides with Bastille Day the French equivalent of our Independence Day marking an event that was the tipping point of the French Revolution. Though it had been held since the revolution the annual parade began in 1880 about a decade after France was defeated by Prussia in the Franco Prussian War. It is closely connected to French independence and has become much less nationalistic over the past few decades. For many years the french have invited contingents from old allies, former colonies, and former enemies like Germany to participate. Likewise, French troops have marched under the banner of the European Union on a number of occasions.

The American experience is not at all similar. Military parades down Pennsylvania avenue are quite rare and with the exception of the inaugural parades of Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy which were held at points of high tension during the Cold War, almost every other parade has commemorated a military victory such as the Civil War, World War Two, and Operation Desert Storm, which should better be called the First Iraq War. There really is no precedent for such a parade when the nation is still engaged in war without end and when the real possibility for at least one major new war, possibly a nuclear war exists.

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But that being said there are real, pragmatic considerations for opposing such a parade and almost all of them deal with national security and the costs. Unlike France in which most of the units involved in the parade are stationed between 50 and 100 miles of Paris, the units needed to fulfill the President’s parade fantasy have to be moved hundreds of miles to get there and doing so would disrupt badly needed training cycles, deployment preparation, and cost tens of millions of dollars, even before the costs to the District of Columbia are added in, and let me remind you all of those costs come from Federal taxes. The last major victory parade, that after Operation Desert Storm cost over 12 million dollars which is close to 22 million now; but the problem is that the actual costs would probably be far more than that in an time when resources are much more constrained in which costs have gone up. In 1991 many of the troops involved were being demobilized and the armed forces being reduced in strength following the end of the Cold War; today’s military is stretched to the breaking point and if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula anytime soon such a parade will mark a tragedy even if we win.

Since almost all of my life has some association with military service as a Navy dependent, Navy Junior ROTC Cadet, Army National Guard Enlisted Soldier, active duty, Army National Guard, Army Reserve Officer, and for the last 19 years as a Naval Officer I appreciate the support of the American people. But I would rather see that support shown by increased funding of the V.A., increased support to service members and their families, including health care. If the President wanted to honor veterans he could authorize the military to award the Cold War Service Medal or the Iraq Medal of Commitment through an executive order. The costs of doing one or both would be chump change in comparison to the rest of the military budget and as Napoleon Bonaparte noted: “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”

While he never served himself and has mocked combat veterans the President is a nationalist and authoritarian. Nationalists and authoritarians tend to wrap themselves around the military as a way of showing the strength that inwardly they don’t have.

Timothy Snyder wrote:

“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,” wrote Orwell, tends to be “uninterested in what happens in the real world.” Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism “has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.” A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.” 

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 2, 2018 · 00:01

The Everlasting Groundhog Day that is Trump’s America

groundhog day clock

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today is Groundhog Day, but in this strange new world of the United States of Trump I always feel like I am waking up to Groundhog Day. A President and administration that has been the subject of numerous real scandals, a President who has told over 2000 verifiable lies and counting barely a year into office, and a Congress, especially the GOP majority in the House of Representatives that has bound themselves to those scandals, lies, and possible treason by their actions that appear to be assisting in the obstruction of justice.

I could go into all of that but there is so much going on. The biggest event will happen today Congressman Devin Nunes releases a secret report with the approval of the  President  attacking the veracity and integrity of the investigation of Special Prosecutor  Robert Muller  of potentially illegal and maybe even treasonous actions by numerous members of the Trump Campaign staff.  Including some who became members of the administration like the Bungee-National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. As a former Republican I never in a million years expected Republicans to so shamelessly discredit the FBI, other intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice. So much for all that I believed about Republicans respecting the Rule of Law.

Then there is the mutual admiration society that White Supremacists and neo-Nazis like former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke , Richard Spencer and the publisher of the neo-Nazi The Stormer  Andrew Anglin  seen to have with the President.

But that’s not all, we have a Republican Paul Nehlen running to oppose Paul Ryan in Michigan who is so anti-Semitic that he divides his critics into two categories; Jews and non-Jews. We have the leader of the GOP controlled Pennsylvania State House who is refusing to implement the order of the State Supreme Court to redraw gerrymandered congressional districts before the 2018 mid-term elections.  In Missouri there is a GOP State Representative named  Rick Brattin who has stated that human beings are different than LTBTQ people.

Even after the defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama there are two Federally convicted felons running for the Senate, Joe Arapaio in Arizona, and Don Blankenship, former Chairman & CEO of Massey Energy in West Virginia. Arapaio was convicted of civil rights violations as Sheriff of Maricopa County and pardoned by President Trump. Blankenship was convicted for conspiracy to violate mandatory federal mine safety and health standards, conspiracy to impede federal mine safety officials, making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as securities fraud after 29 coal miners were killed in Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.

Then there is the GOP Congressman Scott DeJarlais  from Tennessee who paid a mistress to have an abortion despite the fact that he is a married supposedly “pro-life” Evangelical Christian. He wasn’t alone Congressman Tim Murphy , another pro-life Republican did the same. But that doesn’t matter because Christian preachers like   Tony Perkins and  Franklin Graham are willing to give the President a “gimme” for an affair with a porn star after his third wife and now First Lady Melania had given birth to his son, and that he has been a serial adulterer cheating on all of his wives.

If all of these events were were isolated instances or aberrations one might be able to shrug their shoulders and sigh, but they are just a few of many more that could be named.

Thus today when I think of Groundhog Day I realize that I and yes you too are doomed to endure it for I think will be a minimum of three more years, and by that time the damage to the very fabric of our Republic will surely last for the rest of my lifetime, if not far longer.

I wish that things were different, but as Timothy Snyder noted, it only takes about a year for an authoritarian to take over or fundamentally change a country.

It’s been a year and the President’s attacks on the Constitution, the legal system, the judiciary, Federal Law Enforcement, the free press, African American sports figures, America’s allies, as well as any opponent while backed by his party and a third of the electorate mean that this is not going to end anytime soon.

I am not optimistic and wonder when the President will be afforded the chance for his own Reichstag Fire event, something that he seems to  have its upsides.  Let’s not even talk about the coming war with North Korea tonight.

So anyway, until tomorrow, Happy Groundhog Day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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