Trump Throws His Weight Behind White Supremacists & Nazi Supporters

On Tuesday the world watched in sheer abhorrence as the US president, speaking at length for himself and without a teleprompter, unequivocally laid equal blame on the protests against racism and bigotry—which he called the alt-left—and the KKK, white supremacists and Nazi supporters gathered in Charlottesville.  

In the largest gathering in decades, and as if the Civil Rights Era had never happened, white supremacists descended at night on the University town of Charlottesville, Virginia with burning torches, confederate flags, nazi symbols and rifles, chanting "You will not replace us / Jews will not replace us". They surrounded a small group of non-violent counter protestors gathered at the statue of Thomas Jefferson.  Shock and horror rippled throughout the country and beyond its borders.

“I cannot believe in my heart what I am witnessing today in America. I wanted to think not only as an elected official, but as a human being that we had made more progress. It troubles me a great deal.” Rep. John Lewis.

But not, apparently, in the White House, which was mute. The next day, white supremacists, itching for a fight, attacked those protesting against them in ugly violence which culminated in a Nazi supporter gunning his car into a peaceful gathering of protestors, injuring 19 and killing Heather Heyer, a courageous young woman who had dedicated her life to fighting bigotry and hate.

Donald Trump, the man who can't control his Twitter compulsion, waited until late in the day to even comment. His repugnant refusal to name and shame the KKK, Nazi supporters and white supremacists drew immediate bi-partisan fire, Democrats not afraid to directly criticize the president. Some Republicans joined them.   

The next day, in a strangely surreal mini-speech, Trump, newly coiffed and made up, did as he had obviously been told to. He read clumsily from a teleprompter words that had been patently written by somebody else. Words that he was very uncomfortable with. Anybody who was fooled hasn't been paying attention for a very long time. Those of us who have, weren't surprised when he broke out and said what he really wanted to say on Tuesday at a "press conference" that was mean to be about infrastructure.

It didn't take Trump long to dump the script and lash out at length at the counter protesters, calling them the alt-left, blaming them for their violence and for attacking the white supremacists and fascists, giving them an unequivocal boost.

General Kelly stood behind Trump, severely troubled. Did he really think he could control this terrible excuse for a man? Kudos to him for being bothered, but he should have been severely horrified long ago, enough to refuse the job and publicly condemn Trump and his administration.

Other Republicans also reacted immediately, except for Mike Pence of course, who praised Trump for meaning what he says and saying what he means. Hard to understand the logic of that, given his teleprompted little speech the previous day. There is only one way for Republicans to illustrate that they have any integrity at all. Unequivocally condemn Trump, get rid of him, and clean out his administration. Any Republican who doesn't do that? Their words of protest now are meaningless.

America has a white supremacist supporter, a bigot, a serial sexual abuser, a snake oil salesman, a liar, a cheat and a very stupid man with severe personality disorders for a president, and too many Republicans have been fine with it. They may criticize him but they don't care enough to protect their country from him. And that's the truth.

Fortunately, the majority of America do care. Even Trump's base is dwindling. Ultimately all he'll be left with will be the KKK, neo-nazis and white supremacists. The toxic dregs of American society.

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Democrats care a great deal. They have lashed out at Trump in no uncertain terms. Stalwart of integrity, Civil Rights pioneer and icon Congressman John Lewis, who has courageously and unerringly devoted his life to defending Civil Rights and said in January that he didn't consider Trump to be a legitimate president, spoke out at a town hall meeting in East Point Georgia.

"It troubles me a great deal… Speak up, speak out, get in the way, get in trouble - good trouble and necessary trouble. We have to tell our people to get out and participate in the democratic process."

And while all of this is going on, the Russia investigation is ramping up. To date, analysts have had little faith in the likelihood of impeachment, which would need a Republican Congress to act. Recently, as Trump has gotten more and more out of control, more Republicans are either speaking out clearly against him, or drifting away. Suddenly, impeachment is starting to look like a real option, because if the GOP lets Trump stay he'll take them all down with him.

It's been obvious from the start but they haven't wanted to face it. It's becoming harder and harder to ignore. America will be rid of this scourge. The world will breathe a sigh of relief. Until he goes, a Washington Post editorial says it all. The nation can only weep.

That car in Charlottesville did not kill or wound just the 20 bodies it struck. It damaged the nation. Mr. Trump not only failed to help the country heal; he made the wound wider and deeper.

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."-Wiesel

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) August 15, 2017

Can Democracy Withstand the Trump Administration Onslaught?

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Democracy. In the West we take it for granted that once established, the power of its values and laws intrinsically protect society from corrupt governments forming and stripping people of their rights. The Donald Trump administration has proven us wrong.

Value systems have always collided. In the West the ugly stuff was protected by legislation and social mores that gave power and freedom of expression to racists, sexists, bigots, homophobes, xenophobes, cultural persecutors, and deprived the targets of a platform if not the right to express their frustration, anger, hurt and outrage and work towards gaining equality. Gradually, though, the underdog in every sector of society has gained power. Those who were open to enlightenment embraced the concept of human rights, and legislated to protect them.

But you can't legislate what people think, what they want, what they read. Laws can't control the racism and bigotry that lurks under the surface, building momentum, lying in wait for an authority figure to grant permission to come out into the open, be vented and acted upon.

Spiteful, mean-spirited, greedy for power, panting for the right to be cruel without facing punishment and consequence.

You can't openly legislate for how those who need protection choose to vote, but you can introduce laws that make it difficult or impossible for them to even get to the polling stations. You can gerrymander districts so that those who can vote to protect decent human values don't, effectively, have a voice. You can use the written media, TV, radio stations, the church, to manipulate minds that are already leaning that way anyway, distorting truth until it's unrecognizable. Exploiting fear of change, fear of dark skins, fear of the other.

You can target those who don't have resources, who, if they could, would vote for representatives whose aim is to enfranchise everybody, create a fair society where equality and equal opportunity are the main principles of every branch of government.

In a so-called free society, even in the strongest democracies, much of the principle of do unto others has to be left to the conscience of the individual. It's constantly evolving for many, as it should. If that many isn't the majority, or the minority gets the power, society has a problem. In the West we're used to seeing corrupt leaders in  countries with no functioning democracy. We're accustomed to watching them destroy economies, commit genocide, imprison, torture and murder opposition to the government, prohibit freedom of speech.

We've believed that America was above that. It had long been the leader of the free world. Free and fair elections, freedom of speech, protection of the press, the importance of equality at least valued by one major political party which had an equal shot at gaining the power to improve society at all levels.

But now? Freedom of the press is under threat, hate crimes are on the rise alarmingly. Truth, equality and equal opportunity are not valued by the government, nor are a clean environment or international co-operation. Greed and destruction prevail in every sector of the administration, out-picturing the mind of its dysfunctional, mentally unstable leader. As for elections, was 2016 free and fair? How is possible that a man who lost the popular vote by close to 3 million votes—more than any president in history—could become president? The point is made ad nauseam that Russian interference did not affect the actual vote tally. That's not accurate; it affected the minds of far left and far right voters very successfully. It's not hard evidence, but lack of evidence doesn't equate in reality to absence of truth.

Liberals tend to believe that the search for enlightenment in every aspect of life is innate to the human race, or at least to the vast majority, that do unto others makes sense to most of us and dictates how we relate to each other.

   

But in our everyday lives, why then are reality shows that thrive on humiliation,  emotional and physical punishment so popular? What about Mad Men? It depicted the sexism, feminism, homophobia, antisemitism and racism of 1960's America. Yet it was widely acclaimed as being the greatest TV show ever. Did the majority watch to be outraged and celebrate that we've moved on? I doubt it. Was it Roman-type lust for watching Christians being thrown to the lions and torn apart? Possibly. Most likely, in the light of the 2016 election result, it was a hankering after an era where social conscience was a dinosaur.

Now a vulgarian who epitomizes that dinosaur is president of what was once unquestioningly the most powerful democracy on the planet.

The biggest mistake we make in the West is believing that democracy automatically delivers what's best for everybody. It doesn't. It doesn't even deliver what's best for the majority, when the voting system has been so eroded that a racist, bigot, con artist, arch manipulator, sexual abuser, ignoramus and compulsive liar can win an election on a minority vote, with the assistance of a foreign power whose primary objective is to undermine western democracies.

The words the American people are bandied about a lot by the current Administration. Which American people would that be? Those who support the government and the President are in the minority. Donald Trump has exploited the fears and lusts of his base and successfully controlled the narrative for them. There's no doubt in reality that he is an abuser who uses whoever he can, tossing them aside like so much detritus when they no longer serve him. Yet they mindlessly endorse his abusive behaviour, his dysfunction as a president, when the policies he pushes threaten their own lives. They believe anything he says, even when he directly contradicts himself. Blind loyalty to an abuser? It's a kind of variation on Stockholm Syndrome.

The liberal press and Democratic politicians have striven valiantly to keep truth alive and democracy functioning, but in the face of Trump's monumental lies and his determination to thwart democracy, everybody is exhausted. 

For democracy to function as a force for good in society, truth must be valued. When it's under siege and the minority has power, it spells trouble. It always has. It always will. Ultimately it seems to be true, looking at the big picture, that good triumphs over evil. That's not much consolation to the lives that are destroyed in the process. It's no consolation to the Muslim, Jewish, Latino or African American children who are targeted at school, with the upsurge in hate crimes since Donald Trump's campaigning. Whose lives will never be the same again. It's no consolation to the parents who can't protect them.

It'll be no consolation to any of us if the values that keep society intact are eroded beyond recognition and democracy rendered impotent in the country that is supposed to be leading the free world. 

Goodbye to Dignity in the White House

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President Obama & the First Lady at the 2016 CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

President Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama at CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

It's a daunting prospect, four long years without an American president and first lady who have been a joy in every way and a constant reminder of the true nature of integrity, dignity, compassion, understanding, courage, sanity, coherence, brilliance of mind.

First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to OprahWinfrey in June this year about the next generation of women. When Oprah asked what single piece of advice she could give to young women, Michelle Obama's response, and she included young men, was that "We can never be complacent... The work always continues…We have seen in recent times how quickly things get taken away from us if we aren't vigilant."

Indeed. And that was in June. From then on the nightmare has just gotten darker and darker, as every decent human value has been assaulted by Trump and his cohorts.

Do we even know how to be vigilant enough anymore? Did we ever? Conservatives are very good at vigilance because they're often driven by anger and fear, which are the most powerful motivators to action. Liberals aren't so good at the kind of vigilance that's necessary to stop sociopaths from getting into power. Too often they try to see the best in everybody, which is good as an overarching philosophy, but not if it blinds you to the reality of what people's anger and fear will drive them to. And it's not much of a motivator. Let's all try to get along. If somebody is abusing your child, do you try to get along with them?

Don't sweat the small stuff. People say it a lot, but the small stuff is the early warning signal, it's the hairline crack. Small cracks never go away, they always widen, and if you catch them early, not much damage is done. The more you ignore them, the less sensitive you become to them until you only wake up when your house has collapsed.

Throughout the lead-up to the election, every intelligent person and journalist with a conscience and the capacity to separate media-driven hysteria and fake news from reality was shouting warnings about Trump. But it was too little too late.

Where has everybody been during Obama's terms, where the GOP has done everything it could to obstruct him and not do its job? Where was the liberal media outrage at Obama's unpopularity when he was doing a sterling job despite the obstructions? Where was our outrage at the vicious racism that was directed at him and the First Lady and at the up-swelling of racism and white fear of losing status quo that led to a burgeoning of white supremacist groups?

That's not where it all started, but it's where it could have been stopped. The GOP got away with not doing its job. It got away with the gerrymandering, with targeting minority voters, making it harder for them to vote. Those were some pretty sizable cracks.

It was small step from there to a candidate who would campaign on enabling hatred and assault on human decency in every aspect and encourage Russian interference in a presidential election and was too stupid to understand how that would imperil American democracy. A small step to millions believing fake news and to the main social media platform through which it was disseminated not identifying it until it was too late. The mainstream media didn't identify it either. From there it was easy for an FBI director to 'innocently' release a statement that would sway the election and hand it to a sociopath.  

Yesterday, apropos apparently of Putin's speech to his military leadership that Russia needed to upgrade its nuclear capacity allegedly so that it could penetrate sophisticated defense systems, Trump tweeted that the US needs to increase its nuclear capacity until people come to their senses about nukes. When I saw the news last night my blood ran cold. So best buddies Putin and Trump are in stand-off already.

Two out-of-control narcissists, hungry for control and desperate for affirmation, and both with the power to set off another world war. The alarming thing is that Putin is a terrible man but he's intelligent. The same can't be said of Trump, who is frighteningly gullible and manipulable. 

This is what happens when an over-enabled cheat, obsessive liar, a racist, a sexist and a bigot with an over-sized ego is elected with the help of a partisan FBI director and Russian intervention.

From the Obama Administration to this. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Vigilance; we need to upgrade our idea of what it entails. I've seen a huge outpouring of frustration on Twitter and Facebook from people who were vigilant, and who did speak their mind, over and over. Who turned out for the vote. But it was too little too late. Even as a non US citizen, I could have done more. A whole lot more.

Because this isn't just America's problem. It affects all of us. The racist bigot who is about to take over the White House has enabled white supremacy in the US, which has a ripple effect around the world. He will happily screw up international trade agreements and relationships and create massive uncertainty in the global economy. It would thrill him to increase nuclear capacity and give the order to bomb the shit out of a country at three in the morning because somebody in that country told the truth about him, or because he read something on a fake news site, or because he realized that the hair he has left is thin and straggly.

Before the election, I went to a lecture given in Cape Town by a visiting US professor, a passionate Democrat, unequivocally damning of the GOP and Trump. He said that up until recently his only involvement in politics has been to vote, but it's not enough anymore. It's not enough for any of us.

How did America go from the best to the worst? While we were sleeping. We thought we were awake but we were dreaming. Now we've woken up to a nightmare. What's left to do?

#goodtrouble

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) November 11, 2016

A Warning From Time Magazine 2016 Person of the Year

Scrolling through Hillary Clinton's Twitter feed, looking for respite from the relentlessly depressing news, I found the above.

Pretty appropriate, given Trump's latest ranting and raving about China. I don't know what's more irritating; the stupidity of the man or how many people endlessly debate what he's done or said as if he were a sentient being when in fact most of the time there's nobody home. Evidenced by his tweet that he won by a landslide because the elections were rigged and millions voted illegally but he tried to stop the recount instigated by Jill Stein.

Time Magazine named him 2016 Person of the Year, opting for a portrait of Trump in a remarkably similar pose to that of Hitler when he won the dubious honor. The magazine had this to say about their choice: 

"It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur—never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own—now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously. Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse."

William Saletan, writing for Slate, said of Donald Trump that he's "virtually lobotomized".

I agree. I believe that Trump is literally too stupid to understand what an average toddler can. It could explain his avoidance of intelligence briefings.

Trump ran his campaign on emotive issues which needed the intelligence of a pea-brain to see through. He's massively entitled, has a kind of lizard-brain ability to con people, and doesn't care about consequences because he's always been able to slither away from them himself and make other people pay.

Astonishingly, TV anchors, panels, some journalists, are still talking about him as if he's a normal human being, 'giving him a chance'.

You give peace a chance. You don't give a serial predator one. And it's dangerous to interpret Trump's stupidity as meaning he's ultimately harmless. He's not. His need for wealth, power and attention is the craving of an addict. He'll sacrifice the country and feed his supporters what they want to hear so they take the poison he's feeding them. He and his lovely family of mindless, soul-less daddy-clones will make a killing and when the economy tanks and the middle class disappears they'll blame Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Trump won't care. He has already broken all his campaign promises and his fans don't seem to realize it, perhaps because the reporting of it comes from the snobby elitist liberal media.

For the next four years Trump will play Republican politicians off against each other, and capitalize on their desire to have positions of power. He's already doing that. Look how he yanked Mitt Romney's chain, meeting him for dinner and getting together for talks then adding to his list of potentials for the position. As if he understood the first thing about what's needed in a Secretary of State.

Or how to govern, come to think of it. Or how to finish a sentence articulately. How to start it. How to hold a decent conversation. Or how to run a business without breaking laws, screwing decent people's lives up and going spectacularly bankrupt, there's that.

His whole life this nasty piece of work has abused people and manipulated their greed. He's also created chaos around himself so nobody gets power over him. He mindlessly hurls accusations at whomever he feels like whenever he feels like it. He'll try to do the latter with foreign leaders, as he has with China, his latest stunt, of which there are so many it's hard to keep up. He'll destroy international trade agreements that benefit everybody, put his weight behind leaders guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity, incentivize and legitimize white supremacy, sexism, inequality, injustice, bigotry and lies.

America's governing business will be conducted by denizens of the swamp. 2017 will march in a new pre-Civil Rights era. The Administration and the way that the president operates will promote stupidity as an admirable trait and fake news as a mainstream source of information. Progress on climate change will be incinerated. Scorched earth policy will come to have new meaning. 

And truth? The real meaning of it and its importance to how we live our lives is already so frayed at the edges that it wouldn't be a surprise to find in four years time that it's a forgotten concept. In conclusion to their piece about the 2016 person of the year choice, Time had this to say:

"For reminding America that demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year."  

Hardly an accolade. A warning, more like. But we're not so good, as a race, at heeding warnings are we?

I’ve marched, protested, been beaten and arrested--all for the right to vote. Friends of mine gave their lives. Honor their sacrifice. Vote. pic.twitter.com/1lYp99RaOe

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) November 3, 2016

Missing Hillary Clinton and Mourning the Lost Opportunity

I think I'm never going to get over it, that Hillary Clinton lost to a bigot, a fraud, a man of whom the worst description you can think of wouldn't be strong or comprehensive enough. I miss everything about her and her campaign with Tim Kaine. I miss how I felt, believing that my values would be protected, that the world would be moving forward, with the US taking a stand against bigotry, racism, injustice, inequality and sexism at a time when the far right is gaining momentum everywhere.

Taking a stand for coherence, the importance of truth and unity. I saw #StrongerTogether in continual action through a wide spectrum of communities, across race, gender and economic status. I saw people caring, outraged at the same things that assault me.

I saw tremendous triumph through adversity in Hillary Clinton herself, and I saw how many people liked, admired, and loved her. And I had faith that Barack Obama's incredible legacy would live on, that he and Michelle Obama would be honored for the dignity, grace, wisdom and sheer exuberance they've brought to the White House. 

There was everything to look forward to. The US going from strength to strength, a bastion against the far-right that's gaining ground everywhere.

I looked forward to opening up the New York Times every day for breakfast, and also reading the New Yorker, Politico, Mother Jones, Salon, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Huffpost as the transition took place, and then as the next four years unfolded. I even hoped that inroads would be made into GOP power in Congress and that Obama's pick for the Supreme Court would go through. I knew Hillary Clinton would be in for a tough fight against Republicans but I had faith that she'd prevail, as Obama has.

I craved an end to the mindless, relentless exposure of a stupid man. I never found him entertaining, I couldn't stand him from the minute I first saw him years ago on his horrible reality show. He's a nasty piece of work through and through. Revolting to look at, revolting inside and out. How I looked forward to the day he was out of the limelight. Gone!

I saw Oprah interview Maya Angelou once, and ask if the pain of her child's death had gotten any easier with time. Maya said why would I want it to? I could relate to that. I gave my beautiful son up for adoption when I was in my twenties and it was the hardest and most awful thing I've ever done. The most painful, definitely. I don't want to let go of the pain. Why would I? So I can feel better? I wouldn't be feeling better, I'd be numb.

This isn't like that, of course. Nothing will ever be like that. But there are some things that are similar. I don't want to move on. I don't want to try and find some good in what's happened. Because there is nothing good. I revile the man who won, and the means by which he did. My intelligence and my soul are assaulted every day by him, as he turns America into a banana republic.

I mourn Hillary Clinton's loss and what it means for the Obamas, for the President's legacy. For the world, for my world. As I said, I don't see myself feeling any better any time soon.

Dark Days As US Democracy Sinks Into The Swamp

Photo and Art by Jennifer Stewart

It’s nearly a month since the world feel apart for me and millions like me in a presidential election of allegedly the greatest democracy on earth.

Where the odds stacked against Hillary Clinton went from massive double standards, Russian interference and Julian Assange  gimmicks— is there any difference? — to an FBI director, to fake news, to a populace that sucks up any misinformation so long as it creates a justification for their bigotry, sexism, racism, you name it, to GOP policies skewed towards disenfranchising minorities.

In hindsight, it seems clear that Clinton never stood a chance of winning playing by the rules. Although those recounts are happening...

Every day I read of new travesties, and watch how the liberal media also sinks deeper and deeper into the swamp, either selectively reporting or flat out misconstruing what’s been said by the president-elect and his crew. Normalizing him and them in ways that make a mockery of the word liberal.

Every day I scour that media, desperately searching for the clarion call, for the voice of pure outrage. I seldom find it.

I think we’ve been here before. How long did it take the liberal media to get off the fence and take a stand to unequivocally endorse Hillary Clinton? I and I presume all NYT subscribers received an email asking what we wanted to read. My response was that I wanted to see unequivocal condemnation of Trump and for the NYT to be the leader in it. I presume I was one of many, because the NYT gave us what we wanted. Too late to be the leader of the liberal media, though. And it was too little too late to save the election.

Then as soon as the election results were called, Hillary Clinton disappeared off everybody’s radar and every single damn headline was about the president-elect. But was it, is it, real investigative reporting? Not all of it, no. Some of it was bland comment often, or writing about him as if he was a normal human being, or taking what he or one of his right wing minions said out of context.

It’s all very civilized. The excuse I hear everywhere is that the liberal media is facing extinction and can’t afford real investigative journalism.

I don’t buy it. Real investigation into what was wrong with this election, passionate reporting and continued unequivocal condemnation of Trump would draw readers, including Trump supporters.

Because it’s dramatic and that’s what people lust for. Charles M. Blow, NYT columnist, dashed off a piece in response to Trump’s meeting with the NYT, entitled “No Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along”. It’s outright condemnatory of Trump and received 2310 comments, which collectively got about 80,000 likes.

Every waking moment I have to fight against a wave of helplessness and hopelessness that washes over me as the US moves inexorably towards a government characterized by the worst in humanity, led back to pre Civil Rights Movement days by a con-man who has the animal instincts of a serial predator but no real intelligence, no intellectual capacity.

A fool utterly devoid of ethic. So pathetically needy that anybody can suck up to him and he’ll give them a position of power.

These are dark days.

Fifty Years After the Civil Rights Era, Evil Prevails Again

Civil rights demonstrator attacked by a police dog on May 3, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama

Stephanie McCurry, Professor of History at Columbia University, taught History of the Slave South on Coursera a few years ago. In her conclusion she said: 

"The Confederate States of America was transformed by war, and the Confederate political project was undone … when the 4 million African Americans born enslaved in the United States seized the opening history offered.

When they rose on the plantations. When they grabbed up their children and poured into Union lines. When they insisted that the Union reformulate policy to account for their historic mission of emancipation. When men, women, and children alike, risked all to turn the war in the right direction. When they made slaveholders ask for the first time, what do the slaves want? …

And given the pro slavery, white supremacist and anti democratic aspirations of that nation, there was a certain justice, I think, in that."   

A certain justice, but not enough to exorcise the racism ingrained in so many that less than 50 years after the Civil Rights era, white supremacists are on the ascendancy again and the alt-right has dictated the next American president, who is now choosing racists, bigots and warmongers for his crew. Salon.com has an excellent piece on Senator Sessions, Trump's choice for AG. And as Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) said of him:

"If you have nostalgia for the days when blacks kept quiet, gays were in the closet, immigrants were invisible and women stayed in the kitchen, Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is your man. No Senator has fought harder against the hopes and aspirations of Latinos, immigrants, and people of color than Sen. Sessions... He ran for the Senate because he was deemed by the Senate Judiciary Committee as too racist to serve as a federal judge. He is the kind of person who will set back law enforcement, civil rights, the courts, and increase America’s mass incarceration industry and erase 50 years of progress."

Divisions in American society run terribly deep, and hard as people have tried to believe that America, with all its diversity is at heart homogeneous in spirit, it's wishful thinking, and usually on the part of liberals.

Abusers, in politics and even in relationships, get away with a lot as their generous-spirited victims give them chance after chance after chance, desperately holding onto the belief that everybody is intrinsically good if you just give them understanding. Finally there comes a point when the victims face reality. Understanding sometimes does nothing more than enable more abuse.

And so abusive spouses face divorce, abusive friends find themselves friendless, revolutions get rid of dictators. But still, even as history teaches us at a personal and societal level that early warning signals, if ignored, always lead to dangerous eruptions, liberals try to make peace with bigots and racists in the name of democracy and inclusiveness. But liberalism is intrinsically about ensuring that everybody has equal rights. When those who oppose that idea act out their beliefs and in doing so strip others of their rights, they give up some of their own. Basic human rights come with moral accountability. 

It's how society operates and stays moderately functional. So when millions of people vote in a deeply racist demagogue who has whipped up hatred and fomented intolerance until manifestations of it start returning America to pre-Civil Rights days, the last thing liberals need is to try and make peace with those voters.

The alt-right rationale is that their anger has its roots in being excluded. Have they been excluded? No they haven't. They got a superlative president who, more than any Republican president before him, truly believed in his heart of hearts that his presidential responsibility was to everybody, not just those who voted for him. But he wasn't white and those conservatives voted in a GOP Congress who made it impossible for the president to help them in the way that he wanted to.

So no, I don't buy the idea that middle America has been excluded. Middle America has excluded itself. If you want to be part of the human race dialogue and you want to benefit from others' desire for equality, you have to want it yourself and fight against that which thwarts it, not vote it into office.

When good people do nothing, evil prevails. Trying to make friends with supporters of Donald Trump is the equivalent of doing nothing. And we need to face it; evil is prevailing right now. It's not something that might happen next month or next week. It's happening now. And anybody who does anything other than help to strengthen Democrats in this time of crisis is adding to the problem.

The Worst of Times: America's Dark Days, From a Superlative President to an Abhorrence

As a whole lot of TV news anchors and hosts with their panels crawl like flies over a pile of horseshit, backtracking from positions they almost took about Trump or even actually did, I stare in horror. What happened? Was there suddenly a discount on lobotomies? Have one and get one free for a colleague?  

As David Remnick said on Fareed Zakaria's GPS, "I think I'm hallucinating".

You'd never know from any of it that Trump is a conspiracy theory nut, the man who in 2011, when he was mulling over running for president, launched his birther conspiracy theory persecution against Obama and didn't drop it even when Obama produced his certificate. Who then did, glibly drop the story and accuse Hillary Clinton of starting it all. [She didn't.]

A clod who can't finish sentences, who talks about penises in the presidential primaries, whose own campaign people had to take his Twitter account away from him to stop him being an abusive idiot at 3 in the morning.

A businessman who vastly overestimates his wealth, avoids taxes, who has gone bankrupt with properties countless times and with some casinos made a profit through the bankruptcy whilst the small businesses who built the buildings went broke. An employer who cheats and stiffs his workers. A fraud who is facing a big lawsuit over his fraudulent 'university, a demagogue who has shady dealings with and something of a crush on Putin. Whose own business life started with a small million dollar loan from his father—and that would be the guy who made a fortune in Stalin's Russia—which he squandered and went on to several bankruptcies. A fool who wants to dismantle NATO and bomb the hell out of the Middle East. Yeah!

A man who mocked the disabled at a rally, insulted the parents of a Gold Star Muslim soldier who died in action, who lies anything from a score to 70 times a day, calls women pigs, calls Mexicans rapists and murderers and promotes hate against Muslims and Jews.

Who is celebrated by the KKK and white supremacists. Who talked in sexual terms about his baby daughter and later, when she was all grown up, said that she was so hot he would date her if she wasn't his daughter. Who was caught on tape acknowledging that he gropes women and loves the entitlement he has to do it. Who has threatened to destroy the women he abused and who had the courage to finally tell the truth. A serial abuser who is facing a lawsuit for child rape and who wants to close Planned Parenthood and punish women for having abortions.

A greedy, corrupt wanna-be mogul who paid off Scottish local politicians and the police so he could destroy a community and vast tracts of pristine and ecologically precious land in Scotland for his golf course. Who said of the poorer people who lived in houses that his guests would be able to see from his golf course hotel that they were disgusting. "Who lives like that?" Trump said, his face twisted grotesquely. He wanted to get rid of them.

That's the guy who will be sworn in as America's next president. I keep trying to hit replay and edit; it's beyond belief. I experience shock and grief a thousand times a day.

Hillary Clinton, introduced in a moving attribute to her and her campaign by her running mate Tim Kaine, gave a graceful and dignified concession speech, in which she said, "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power." Yes indeed, and the rest of her speech was a rousing call to action, to not let bigotry prevail. Understandably, her Twitter account has gone silent for a while, as has her daughter's and husband's.

But I miss them and Tim Kaine. I miss their optimism, their grace and intelligence, their decency, their message of preserving everything that's good, of unity and the importance of equality and tolerance.

I miss the hope I had, the faith that good prevails and it's all going to be okay. I miss knowing that Obama's legacy will be honored. I miss the ads!

Barack Obama met with Trump in the White House. It was an assault to see the man of such tremendous stature sitting with the stinking bigot, although I got a savage satisfaction from seeing how Mr. White guy the racist had to sit between an African American president and the bust of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Obama said they had an excellent meeting, and that "My number one priority in the next two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful." He did it because he's a responsible guy and it comes with the job.

It doesn't mean that he suddenly thinks Trump has changed or that he wants everybody to forgive and forget although he's been quoted by the slavering media as if he did. Representative John Lewis tweeted what the President can't, yet. Not until he's out of the Oval Office, anyway.

What a terrible blow. It's bad enough to see the end of an era that was too short, to say goodbye to a President and First Lady who have led America out of the gates of hell, who have not a single tiny teeny blemish on them, who truly madly deeply care, who have worked diligently to improve equality and lay the foundation for a healthy society. Who have gained the respect of everybody around the world, and even that impossible to please American public, who have moved us, inspired us, led us, even entertained us. Certainly touched our hearts and souls in ways that we'll never forget.

Yes, it's hard enough to see them go; my world feels empty at the thought of it. But to have them followed by this. It's a travesty. Of epic proportions.

Van Jones Speaks for Millions on the Aftermath of America's 2016 Elections

"People have talked about a miracle. I'm hearing about a nightmare. It's hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids 'don't be a bully.' You tell your kids 'don't be a bigot.' You tell your kids 'do your homework and be prepared.'

And then you have this outcome. And you have people putting children to bed tonight and they're afraid of breakfast. They're afraid of 'how do I explain this to my children?' I have families of immigrants who are terrified tonight. This was many things... We've talked everything but race tonight. This was a white lash against a changing country. A white lash against a black president, in part. And that's where the pain comes."

Yesterday I was afraid that the election would be close, but mostly optimistic that America consisted mostly of people like Van Jones. Decent, sane, intelligent people who don't buy into conspiracy theories, who can distinguish between truth and lies, who don't blame politicians for their own personal challenges, who can recognize the dangers of media-driven hyperbole and innuendo, who care deeply about inequality, racism, sexual abuse, bigotry in all its disgusting manifestations and not just when it hits the headlines.

That would be because most Americans I know are like that. I was so sure that the land of the free and the home of the brave still described the main part of the country.

Today I have to live with the truth. And worse, the reality that some of the people I called friends voted directly for bigotry. Or took great pride in their independence of mind and voted Gary Johnson. Who siphoned off Hillary Clinton's winning edge in Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and handed the Presidency to Trump. Recklessly visiting disaster on millions, in America and round the world, adding terrifying weight to a growing body of white supremacists, enabling men who think it's okay to abuse those with disabilities, anybody who isn't white, women; empowering businessmen who think it's okay to cheat and steal and stiff your workers; disabling the middle class, giving renewed vigor to the NRA, the military industrial complex and a GOP committed to trickle-up economics, where the poor feed the wealthy.

My heart breaks for Hillary Clinton and her family. And for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama - great Gods, what a terrible thing for them. And for Joe Biden, and Tim Kaine, and all the Democrat groups and politicians who have worked so hard to uphold values, not just during the Hillary Clinton campaign, but for their whole careers and especially during Barack Obama's presidency, fighting against an intractable Republican Party. For the great minds and great journalists who had the courage to call Trump for what he is.

My heart breaks for every wonderful, courageous Democrat who poured their life into the campaign and who took the trouble to vote and who just got bludgeoned; whose uphill battle against slavish ignorance, prejudice, discrimination, injustice, racism, sexism, inequality, a tilted Supreme Court just became a cliff-face.

I had to ask the question that millions are asking: is America still the land of the free and the home of the brave? 

The answer is an unqualified yes, of course it still is and it always will be. The free and the brave are still in the majority - Hillary Clinton won the popular vote - but they are a threatened group now, so much so that they're almost a minority. One thing we all know about American minorities: they fight through unimaginable obstacles and they never give up. 

US Crossroads: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? Or land of the Paranoid Bigot?

Paranoia about and cruelty towards immigrants among a certain sector of the US is nothing new. Fred Packer drew the above cartoon in 1939.

On May 13 of that year, the SS St. Louis had sailed from Hamburg for Havana. There were over 900 passengers, most of whom were fleeing the Third Reich. Many were women and children. They had applied for US visas and were planning to stay in Cuba until the visas were granted. They left Hamburg believing they were on a vacation cruise to freedom. Can you imagine the relief, the celebration? What must it have felt like for parents with young children?

They were planning to stay in Cuba until their US visas came through. They were denied entry at Havana and the US visas were never granted. Allegedly a letter they sent to US President Roosevelt begging for refuge was ignored.

The ship hovered off the coast of Florida but eventually had to make its way back. There were protests and many attempts made to save the passengers from the worst fate imaginable. A few passengers got into Cuba and some into safe European countries and the UK. But many were sent back, and of course ended up in concentration camps. Imagine being a parent trying to explain that to your child.

The land of the free, the home of the brave? There's nothing free about rationalizing your fear and cruelty. And there's nothing brave about promoting the kind of hatred and bigotry that supports your rationalization.

America is the land where some people are free and many are tremendously brave. It's not the whole picture, though. It never was. The outcome of this Presidential race will show whether it's the bigger picture or not. It's a time where the free and the brave do as much as they can to preserve decency and humanity, and cling like hell to hope that they're in the majority. #ImWithHer.

Join me on Twitter @JenniferJS_ 

#GOPConvention, Trump, Bigotry and Independence of Mind

One of the most alarming things Brexit and the US election and Donald Trump's popularity has lit up for me a la Broadway neon is the extent to which so many now have no capacity to think for themselves at all in. In a western culture that prides itself on independence of mind.

Leaving the UK and its bigoted Brexit/Grove & Johnson fiasco aside and focusing on the US, the thing is done. Trump is the official nominee. It didn't turn out the way he planned it, and there were a lot of empty seats, but if the polls are to be believed, a sector of America thinks he's entertaining—and the liberal media still insists on giving him that description—and is their savior. From? Take your pick, so long as it's non-white and pro-tolerance of human rights. The truth of Trump is that he's a liar, a bigot, a misogynist, a racist, a narcissist. Most of all he's a predator, whose primary skills are capacity to recognize mental weakness, to hone in on it and exploit it.

And another sector of America has spread so much hatred and misinformation about Hillary Clinton that they've convinced themselves they've been telling the truth. Now they're bragging about her unpopularity and how Bernie Sanders does better against Trump. Of course he does, they helped him along. Independence of mind? I don't think so. It's terrifying.

Burying your head in the sand now won't protect either the die-hard Sanders or the Trump supporters, or the rest of America and even the world from the consequences of their own recklessness. It's their choice.

And how many of Hillary Clinton's detractors are willing to pick apart the stories about her with open minds to see how much truth there is? Rhetorical question.

The people who consistently trash never have more than a few very skeletal ideas which they keep repeating over and over. There's some kind of addictive thing happening. They get their momentary fix, which lasts for a while, then they need another and they go for the same thing that got them high before. Because it works. They spew categorical and simplistic statements generated originally by the far right GOP and now illustrated with memes that can be disproved in seconds. It's mindless! These are the people who would control everybody's destiny? I hope not.

Liberal media such as the NYT call for the GOP to wake up to changed demographics but it's wasted breath and effort. In 2008 the GOP said they needed to change. In 2012 they said the same thing but instead of changing they gave Ted Cruz power in Congress and did more of what has made them unpopular with their own base—they didn't do their job. They're still not doing it.

Now they've endorsed a bigoted sociopath detested by the entire sane world. They're going in one direction and that's backwards. These guys are obviously not bright enough to understand that going backwards socially doesn't mean the demographics will follow them. The GOP won't change, because they're narcissists. Narcissists are detached from reality. I'm glad of it. I don't want them to change. I want them to disintegrate within themselves. America and the world will be a far better place for it.

It's strange; in other countries the far right is frighteningly well-organized. In the US it's a mess, and for that I'm supremely grateful. It's the ultimate irony. Because if the US falls totally into the hands of people who are essentially white supremacists we're done for. We won't just have one Hitler in one country to deal with.

Connect with me on Twitter: @JenniferJS_

Image from Wiki: Storm in the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt 1632

Petition to Ban Donald Trump From the UK Gains Momentum

Good versus evil. David versus Goliath. Tolerance versus Bigotry. Suzanne Kelly versus Donald Trump. 

Kelly's petition to ban Trump from the UK hit the international headlines yesterday as the number of signatures rose from 42,000 to over 250,000 in one day. That number has reached over 400,000 and is still climbing.

Around the world people have expressed revulsion at Trump’s unashamed bigotry and pathological addiction to untruth. One of his favorite expressions is “I don’t know if it’s true or not but it sounds like it’s true,” but he draws absolution conclusions from the premise that it (whatever the subject of the day is) is true.

Harmless when you’re exaggerating your wealth, but a tremendous danger to society when you’re fabricating lies about people on the basis of their religion or nationality, which is Trump’s trademark these days.

And a danger to himself when he lies about cities like London, saying there are parts that  have such entrenched radicalism that the police fear for their lives. London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson, said the only reason he wouldn’t go to parts of New York was the very real risk of meeting Donald Trump.

Sarah Wollaston, MP, tweeted “Do we get to ban Donald Trump?” on December 8, the day Suzanne Kelly started her online petition to the UK Government to do just that.

Per the UK Independent Prime Minister David Cameron was dead serious when he called Trump’s bigotry “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.” And Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader, was more to the point, saying Trump’s comments were an “affront to humanity”. He called for people to unite against racism. Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said “For someone trying to be president of America it frankly shows why he is utterly unsuited for the role.” Master of the understatement.

Sunder Katwala, Director of the nonpartisan think-tank British Future, wrote on their website that “...It is important that the UK Government makes very clear that [Donald Trump’s] extreme view is rejected and repudiated in the strongest possible terms.

“The UK Home Office has set out clear guidelines which have led to the exclusion of preachers of hate from the UK.  Theresa May has excluded extreme Islamists on these grounds, and also kept out those who have fanned extreme anti-Muslim prejudice, such as the bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Trump’s statements are more extreme than theirs.

“Unless and until Trump were to retract these highly prejudiced comments, there is a good case for making clear that he would be refused entry to the UK by the Home Secretary.”

JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, said that Trump was worse than the evil Lord Voldemort of her novels.

And over 400,000 British citizens and residents despise him enough to want to make sure he can’t taint their country with his obnoxious presence.

In Scotland, Ronald Gordon University, which had bestowed an honorary degree on him, withdrew it yesterday after a petition to do so garnered over 7,500 votes. Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish First Minister, fired Trump from the position of Business Ambassador. She said his comments “are obnoxious and offensive, and have rightly been condemned by people across the political spectrum.”

In the US on Tuesday the White House issued a statement urging the Republican Party to denounce  Donald Trump, stating that his inflammatory proposal disqualifies him from the Presidency.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, said: “Donald Trump sounds more like the leader of a lynch mob than of a great nation like ours.”

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter wants to ban Donald Trump from the city, St. Petersburg Fla Mayor Rick Kriseman tweeted that Trump should be banned from his city, and Portland, Oregon, city council will vote next week to formally denounce Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims.

Hillary Clinton said that the GOP candidate traffics “in prejudice and paranoia. It is not only shameful. It’s dangerous.” Bernie Sanders, speaking to Jimmy Fallon on Tonight’s Show, called him a demagogue, one who, a few months ago, was telling Americans to hate Mexicans. “Now he wants us to hate Muslims. That crap won’t work in America.”

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls tweeted "Trump, like others, stokes hatred and conflations: our ONLY enemy is radical Islamism."

Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German daily newspaper, ran an editorial with the headline, “How Donald Trump is betraying America.”

Evil versus Good. Donald Trump is execrable, his bigotry offensive. But we’re seeing what amounts to an international, grass roots movement to counter it. And that is something to behold. 

Ban Donald Trump from the UK and St. Petersburg Florida

Like many around the world, I’m stirred by people fighting for what’s meaningful for them. When a country is engaged in a battle to preserve all that is good, as America is now, it’s usually pretty moving. But when that battle is against transparent inanity it’s more depressing than anything else.

The subject for the day is Donald Trump, aka DT, which I think is by far the best name for him. Punch drunk on his own bloated ego. All the media coverage of him has been enough to drive anybody nuts.

But look at it this way; his popularity soared but so did the revulsion. I have to remind myself that not getting exposed to the revulsion as frequently as the popularity skews your perception of what’s actually happening overall. So this NYT article was a relief to read, with its comments from sane Americans and foreigners. I’m glad the latter don’t see Trump as representative of America. He's everything that the world loathed about the US before President Obama, thanks to whom foreigners see America in a different light now. Well, some do. It's a start.

Any of the Republican candidates will destroy that fragile momentum but Trump would do it the most effectively, as he would the economic and social momentum that are the result of Obama’s leadership.

He would destroy America in every conceivable way and contribute substantially to decimating the whole world. ‘World peace’ would be a phrase devoid of meaning. Fortunately Trump is already losing ground. And he’s made sure that the beady eye of the world’s media will be on him as it happens! There will be rejoicing in my house when he goes down, that’s for sure.

People are definitely becoming more vocal in their disgust. Rick Kriseman, Democrat Mayor of St. Petersburg in Florida, has this pinned to his Twitter page. 

On a more serious and potentially impactful note, a petition has been started in England to ban Trump from entering the UK because of his hate speech. 10,000 signatures are needed for the government to consider the petition and 100,000 for it to get Parliament’s attention. At 08:30 GMT today about 42,252 had added their names. In three and a half hours In two hours that figure was over 100,000 and increasing at a rate of about 280 per minute. By the end of the day the rate was 400 a minute and total number of signatures was over 370,000. That's a lot of revulsion and a lot of people willing to do something about it.  

The petition, started by Suzanne Kelly from Scotland who is very vocal in her condemnation of this American bigot, states:

The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK. 

If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the 'unacceptable behaviour' criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.

Click here to sign the petition if you're a UK citizen or resident, and/or to share.

In 2013 Pamela Geller was barred from entering the UK because of her anti-Islam activism and this year the rapper Tyler the Creator was banned for his violent lyrics and had to cancel four concerts. So the petition to block Trump could succeed. With the UK being such a big US ally it would put the Republican Party in an embarrassing spot. And what would Trump do? Behave like Robert Mugabe and rail against colonial powers, perhaps.

Or he could buy an island somewhere and offer all his bigoted adulants a free ticket and a job—building a wall to keep out Mexicans and Muslims. He could take Fox News with him. America would be so much better without them all.

Seriously, my bet is that DT will find a [transparently dumb] justification for giving up his candidacy. Then TC, BC, J!B et al can have their moment in the sun. Great Gods. 

Update: The UK petition has 376,076 signatures, with people still adding theirs. SkyNews, BBC World News and CNN are all giving coverage. Robert Gordon  University in Scotland, which gave Trump an honorary degree, has stripped him of it. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has withdrawn Trumps's status as Business Ambassador to Scotland.

Gratitude and Sorrow

I woke up this morning, stumbled out of bed. Opened the blinds. I looked out on a silent, peaceful world. A slight breeze rustled the stalks of lavender flowers in the garden.

I had nothing threatening me. I don't have a palace or a mansion or even own a house but I rent an apartment with lots of space and light that looks onto a garden I don't have to maintain and an ocean that changes every minute of every day.

I have challenges and fears that keep me awake at night. But nobody hates me because of my religious beliefs or my nationality. Nobody believes I don't have any rights, or if they do I don’t have to pay attention to them. They have no power over me.

The country I live in is run by a corrupt lunatic but we still to a large extent have free speech. Citizens aren't imprisoned and tortured. He doesn't unleash chemical weapons and others of mass destruction on us. My village wasn't overrun by a sect composed of the most twisted of psychopath serial killers who hate women and who get off on torturing and executing anybody who disagrees with them. The women and children weren't raped and taken as sex slaves, or else killed.

I haven’t had to watch in terror as bombs rained down all around me, killing friends and family and razing the buildings until my town and my life was ravaged beyond repair. I haven’t had to risk a long and very unsafe boat journey to get away from the land and the home that in my heart I love, just so that I and my children could stay alive.

I haven’t had to witness my own child drowning and know that leaving home was for nothing after all and be in a strange land where I’m not welcome and I don’t know how long I can stay alive.

I haven’t had to walk for hundreds and hundreds of miles with nothing, through inhospitable territory, with winter coming on. I haven’t had to watch people erect barbed wire fences to keep me out as if I was some kind of rabid dog. I haven't had to explain that to my child.

I’m not the target of bigotry and prejudice from conservative citizens and politicians who hate me even though they’ve never met me. Who prop up their prejudice and fear with lies and don’t care about the truth. Who don’t care whether I or my children have food and warm clothing and shelter. Whether we find safety and even a bit of happiness or weep through day and night in despair. Whether we live or die.

Who in fact would rather we did all die so we wouldn’t be an inconvenience. For whom we have not an atom of value.

Harry Bernstein, Modern Day Hero

The photo is of Harry and Ruby Bernstein, married for 67 years. Bernstein, a man who never gave up as a writer, has a mind-bending story. He wrote 40 books and destroyed most of the manuscripts as they were rejected, as all of them were. When he was 93 Ruby died and the pain was so intense that he wrote a memoir to help him cope with his grief.

He took three years to finish the book which he called The Invisible Wall. It’s about his bleak early childhood years, growing up in the Cheshire/Lancashire mill town of Stockport in the early 1900s.

Harry’s parents had fled persecution in the Pale of Settlement (created in Russia by Catherine the Great in 1791), seeking a refuge in England. They settled in the dead-end East Street in a very poor part of town, Daw Bank, where Jews lived on one side and Christians on the other. Harry was born in 1910. He had six siblings, an alcoholic, abusive brute of a father and a long-suffering mother who took the abuse and tried to take care of her children. She would grovel under fruit stands looking for food. Harry remembers often being hungry and tortured by delicious smells of food being baked.

He also often had to run from kids who wanted to beat him up. Neighbours stood on their verandahs and yelled abuse at the Jews, ranting about them killing Christ. But the bigotry was mutual. Harry’s parents would spit when they passed the Catholic church. That mutual bigotry, the stench and humiliation of poverty formed the world Harry grew up in.

The 1914 war forged something of a bond between Christians and Jews but after the armistice the bigotry took hold again.

The Invisible Wall is also about a classic Romeo and Juliet love story. When his older sister fell in love with a Christian boy Harry’s mother sat shiva  for her, declaring her dead. And neither the poverty nor the abuse crushed Harry’s spirit. When he was 11 years old he started a newspaper The Gossip. There was one copy and it circulated among the community.

Harry’s memoire is raw, gritty, passionate and poetic. He submitted it to  a whole lot of New York publishing houses who all rejected it. But this time he didn’t destroy the manuscript. He persevered, sending it to the London branch of Random House. Even then it sat on the shelves along with other unsolicited manuscripts for a year until editor Kate Elton read it and couldn’t put it down. She later remarked on how well it was written and that it hardly needed any editing. It was published in 2007.

Harry wasn’t done. He wrote three more books about other aspects of his life, The Dream, The Golden Willow, and What Happened to Rose. The last was published posthumously; Harry died in 2011 at the age of 101. While he was writing he said that these years were the most productive of his life. Is there a Nobel prize for perseverance and gutzpah? 

Faith, courage and persistence. People who hold onto their own ideas about their life and keep on working at what moves them until the day they die are our everyday heroes. Harry Bernstein, thank you. Standing ovation stuff.

House Republicans Show the Senate the Middle Finger on Immigration Reform

The message from Republicans in Congress just gets louder and louder. No compromise, no matter what. If the Senate likes it, we hate it. The latest missive is about immigration reform. On Wednesday House Republicans met in the basement of the Capitol to work out amongst themselves a response to the Senate measure passed last month re an overhaul of immigration laws that includes the road to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US and tougher border controls.

The conclusion they came to was that they would take their sweet time, that they wouldn’t approve anything that smelled remotely of amnesty – for those who have been contributing to the US economy in no small measure and been treated shockingly for it, mind. There were mutterings that they might approve the tougher border controls, though, and possibly pass a few bills before August.

Definitely they’re going to do it piecemeal, and immigration reform isn’t high on their priority list. So they showed the middle finger again. 

Clearly they still believe they have all the power in the world, and can do what they want with it, and never have to face any consequences. Like being voted out of power by the people they think they don’t have to pay any attention to. Women. Gays. Hispanics. African Americans. Reasonable Americans. Smart Americans. Americans with a heart. Americans with a soul.

It’s tragic that America, the most progressive country on earth for so long, is being held to ransom by a group of mean-spirited conservatives who are capable only of very short term vision. Where do these men come from? They seem almost like a kind of a throwback to the early days when it was dog eat dog. Take what you want. If somebody gets in your way, kick them down, rape them, shoot them, burn them. 

Perhaps it’s a kind of mutant gene. Barely human. Maybe it's all a science fiction nightmare.