Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The Crisis is Here and Now


We have an Article 2 president in the White House being given a green light by his majority in the House and - to a lesser degree - the Senate in the Article 1 Congress attacking the legitimacy of mutual defense and trade that have supported Western democratic nations and replaced the catastrophic world wars of the twentieth century with limited proxy and anti-terrorism wars.

We have an Article 2 president in the White House being given a green light by his majority in the House and - to a lesser degree - the Senate in the Article 1 Congress attacking the legitimacy of the civic foundation of the American democratic republic through assaults on a free press, a co-equal Article 3 judiciary, an independent Department of Justice, and the very notion that objective facts and true statements about facts even exist.

In their attacks on the Western democratic alliance and American democratic civil institutions, the leadership of the Republican party are wittingly or unwittingly in complete alignment with Russian military intelligence.

We are in a constitutional crisis RIGHT NOW, no matter WHAT the Mueller investigation determines - if it is even allowed to proceed to a conclusion at all.

I do not believe that the timing of American resistance in defense of our democracy through mass, hopefully peaceful, legal, demonstrations in the street is dependent on the crossing of any red line indicating that we've entered a crisis.

The crisis is here and now.

And thank God for those in our three branches of government and the professional, non-partisan civil service that supports them who are grimly resisting the Republican-led effort to undermine and politicize them.

The timing of American street resistance through the coalition of American civil institutions leading that effort is now, in my opinion, strategic and tactical decisions rather than substantive ones.

Because the crisis is here and now.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

A Special Saint's Day


Today is the anniversary of my brother's death. His "Saints Day" for those of us with some High Church Anglican sensibilities. 

As with the rest of my "normie" family, he loved me anyway. :-) 

He was a decent, principled conservative Republican and Roman Catholic. He was traditionalist enough to oppose gay marriage (as well as other social experimentation) yet humane enough to host gay couples who were friends at the family dinner table. 

He was no ideologue.

And from the days of his young adulthood as a volunteer fireman to his retirement service as President of the gated community in which he lived (dedicated, I used to say, to keeping people like me out :-) ), he understood the role civic duty plays in the maintenance of a democracy.

As one historian said, in ancient times the moral health of a people was dependent on the moral health of the sovereign.

But in a modern democracy, the people are sovereign and therefore it is THEIR moral health that is decisive.

And there always seems to be too few like him in the world - though, perhaps, more than one might expect unless one makes a point of looking for them.

Friday, January 12, 2018

BY THE POWER INVESTED IN ME...


BY THE POWER INVESTED IN ME... I hearby authorize unlimited indulgence in so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome as it is now quite clear who actually suffers from it: Trump and his 5th Avenue Club supporters.

Yesterday Donald Trump
  • tweeted against his own administration's national security policy before a crucial vote,
  • bragged about selling warplanes that only exist in "Call of Duty" to Norway (which he misspelled)
  • and used racist gutter language to disparage Haiti and the entire continent of Africa (where we have soldiers fighting side-by-side in counter-insurgency operations with African soldiers, putting their lives further at risk).
Delegitimizing Trump has gone from recreational pastime to patriotic duty in the absence of spine in the Republican party that nominated him, the Electoral College that certified him, and the Congress that - after a year of investigation - has suggested charges AGAINST THE ONLY PERSON who chose to warn the FBI that America was under attack rather than, as his family and campaign did, seek to exploit that foreign attack for there own good rather than the good of the nation.

A 13 year old kid has a few items on his shopping list

  A 13 year old kid has a few items on his shopping list: Beer ❌ Cigarettes ❌ Racy Magazines ❌ Lottery Tickets ❌ Gun — No Problem! Another ...