DONALD TRUMP: DOG WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD

At last count, 55 Jewish Community Centers receive 70 bomb threats. In Missouri, vandals overturn 150 gravestones in a Jewish cemetery. What accounts for the national pandemic?

Anti-Semitism has always lurked in the shadows of Western civilization, a constant menace made permissible by fear-mongering and demagoguery. In part, Trump’s embrace of extremism, nativism and reckless rhetoric account for the latest resurgence.

“I don't have time for political correctness” — incendiary words from a presidential contender. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose voters” — arrogant words pitched to an angry rabble summoning them from darkness. Steve Bannon and Mike Flynn — the president fills high profile cabinet posts with self-avowed bigots.

In a press conference last week, the president dodged questions from an Israel reporter — ordering him to “sit down.” Trolls from neo-Nazi websites applaud the snub.

President 45 finally denounces the scourge. “The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible,” he admits grudgingly.

For an egotist who turns every public stage into an “I” for an “I”, his torpid appeal is a day late and a dollar short. The Anne Frank Center of New York condemns his words as “a pathetic asterisk of condescension.”

In short order, this is how Donald Trump unleashed a wave of anti-Semitism unseen since the 1930s.

FEAR AND VICTIMHOOD IN THE HOKEY POTUS AGE

In the opinion pages of our local newspaper, one letter writer fabricates a claim of victimhood:

“The word I keep hearing over and over from liberal Democrats as they protest everything is ‘fear.’ My fear is that if I wear my “Make America Great Again” hat in public I may be assaulted. If I am overheard saying that I supported Trump I may be verbally assaulted. That is what I call ‘real’ fear. True Trump supporters are generally a quiet, hard-working, taxpaying, respectful group of people. We need a little more conversation and a little less confrontation,” she writes.

If this letter were an honest appeal for “conversation,” I would have no argument. However this is not an invitation to hold a conversation but an argument built of straw. How many people wear their partisan hats when venturing outside their homes? Are quiet, hard-working, taxpaying Hillary voters just as likely to be harassed by a rabid Trump voter?

Misplaced attribution has turned our public life into a bully pulpit of exaggerations and fabrications. Real news records real events; not the falsehoods of a demagogue who weaves self-serving narratives to mislead the public. Here are examples of real news in recent weeks:

In Quebec City, a gunman kills 6 people at a local mosque. Authorities arrest a Canadian national whose Facebook page reveals an admiration for Donald Trump (Toronto Star).

Two Texas mosques are destroyed by fire in one month, one within hours after the president signs his Muslim travel ban (Texas Tribune).

CNN reports a wave of bomb threats that close 54 Jewish Community Centers. In the face of pandemic anti-Semitism, the president dodges questions from an Israel reporter — ordering him to “sit down.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center documents a sharp rise in hate crimes since the election. These reports correlate with slogans and remarks made by candidate Trump during the campaign.

Over 1,000 incidents committed by rabid Trump supporters, but how many are attributable to a liberal Democrat? Imagined fear is the province of children. Playing the victim card is a dishonest and disingenuous argument at best.

There is no excuse for willful self-delusion. Those who voted for the candidate ignored his defects of character: His appeals to bigotry and racism; his admitted misogyny; his bullying of a disabled reporter; his predatory conduct; his litany of cheats, deceits, nativism, and narcissism.

When voters deny such defects of character and turn mirrors to the wall, they are refusing to see their own reflections and to hold themselves accountable.

THE HOCUS POCUS POTUS

“A landslide,” he claims.  Let's fact check the feckless claims and vainglorious grandstanding.  In Electoral College votes alone, the man ranks near the bottom. In terms of popular vote, the picture is far worse.  A simple pie chart shows the certified election result, raw data as follows:

Eligible Voters — 231.6 million

Eligible voters not voting — 92.7 million (40%)

Raw Vote Total — 138.9 million

Clinton Vote — 65.8 million (29%)

Trump Vote — 63 million (27%)

Other (third parties) — 7.8 million (3%)

Clinton plurality over Trump — 2.8 million

As you can see, only 27% of eligible voters decided the election. Almost three (3) voters in four (4) did not vote for the troll in the hole — hardly a landslide (or mandate) as claimed.

Yet the man-child in the White House and his minions cling to a falsehood. Let’s recall an old adage: “Figures don’t lie but liars figure.” Which is why I prefer to call him by his real title: BOGUS POTUS #45.

What the Hell Just Happened?

The unthinkable happened. Because the American electorate revelled in their unthinking. We saw it unfold in microcosm right here in the venerated blogosphere. Asked who they would vote for, uncaring millennials said something like, "Oh, I dunno. I'll probably vote for Jill Stein." Bernie Bots openly flouted their hatred of Hillary Clinton whilst claiming true liberal cred out of the other side of their mouths. When asked if their boy lost the primary, would they cast their votes for HRC? "We won't!" they proudly proclaimed.
What just happened? Who are the good guys? Who can we trust? We thought Jill Stein was a crunchy progressive?

Turns out she actually campaigned on the concept of principled collaboration with Russia, spouting the pseudo-liberal line of bullshit, "The United States is now embarking on a $1 trillion program to update its nuclear weaponry while we are slashing programs to fight hunger, address homelessness, and provide economic security for our people,"

And the full-on crock-of-shit, "Solutions to problems such as jihadi terrorism will require Russia and the United States to work together, shedding outdated cold war attitudes that prevented collaboration on problems facing both nations."

And even the reprehensible, "The Obama Administration's obsession with toppling the government in Damascus is fundamentally inconsistent with winning the fight against ISIS," Stein asserted. "US pursuit of regime change in Libya, Iraq, and Syria created the chaos that promotes power grabs by extremist militias. Many of the weapons we are sending into Syria to arm anti-government militias are winding up in the hands of ISIS. This isn't a clever foreign policy - it's disastrous militarism."

On another topic, I'm sure you were as dumbfounded as I was when Rand Paul said it was time to get busy repealing Obamacare instead of investigating. They trying to pull young minds into the abyss.

Pahokee

Not so long ago in a neglected 1974 Ford Galaxie not so far away and parked toward the back of Donny’s Mira-Lago motors in Pahokee, Florida, Donald Trumbow finished off the last roach in the tin Altoids box with little more than ashes left in it, slid it back in his pocket and his oversized self back into the seat and sighed. A  four door ’74 with the base 351 certainly wasn’t going to attract the resto-mod builder who might have a marginal interest in something like a ’68 with the 427 and a four speed or even a 2 door ’72 with the 429, and besides it needed much more  work than it was worth in mint condition. He could see gravel through the floor.  The guy in the Gas Monkey T shirt had taken about a minute to look it over and walk away before Donny had even begun the story of how many people were lined up for this car if he didn’t take it fast. He didn’t have the energy to pursue him.

Trumbow, or Dumbo as his wife called him behind his back, was going to need some cash right away. Some wise-ass with a paintbrush had changed the L in Lago to a C last night.  Mira-Lago had been his wife’s idea and was supposed to mean ‘Lake View’ if you could trust Google Translator, and that might, she thought, give the seedy enterprise a more impressive air, at least with the non Spanish speakers, which they both would have preferred. But Mira was her name and Mira-lago said the cheap looking sign  -- until now.

Mira Cago, he was pretty sure meant “looks like Shit.”  It would really look like shit if he tried to fix the sign himself and to get anyone to do it, he was going to need cash, things being as they were. Nothing was selling and the last person he could ask for a loan (and the only one he hadn’t lately) was Mira herself, although her Tarot and fortune telling business was making money and taking up a good part of their double-wide up by J&J fish camp.  It had no more of a view of the lake than the car lot did, but only of the Hoover dike keeping the Southern end of Okeechobee a lake and not a swamp, and the ditch that surrounds it. Mira had begun to appear double-wide herself in recent years, but that didn’t noticeably interfere with her accurate predictions of 10 minutes of oral sex following the transfer of 20 bucks to the ornate box she kept the cards in.

Donny closed the squeaky door gingerly, the door skin on the ancient Ford being barely attached, and went over to the trailer “office.”  It was starting to get hot. “Looks like shit” he said to himself, thinking of his life.

WHAT’S IN A NAME? GEORGE SOROS AND RESURGENT ANTI-SEMITISM

The name George Soros is often a target of derision and scorn in right wing circles. Whatever fringe groups think of George Soros as a person is beside the point; the name no longer refers to the man. Through semantic substitution, the name has morphed into a reflexive epithet that has no bearing upon his character.

I refer to the use of code words as disguised bigotry. Since it is considered "verboten" (German for "forbidden") to use the K-word or the N-word when referring to certain ethnic groups, the idea is to disguise hate speech under cover of substitution — a form of bigotry by proxy. Code words avoid the outward appearance of bias, racism, or anti-Semitism — leaving room for plausible deniability.

Another convention is the triple parens to highlight the ethnic identity of a person, as in (((George Soros))). This convention identifies persons of Jewish heritage. In avoiding direct use of the K-word, this convention sends a clear message under cover of punctuation.

Why single out George Soros for special derision? As investor and hedge fund trader, Soros is one of the highest profile men in the world with an estimated net worth of $25 billion. Like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, his philanthropies support numerous humanitarian causes. Yet, unlike Gates or Buffett, Soros is singled out for special scorn. Why?

Symbolically, the name George Soros has become synonymous with “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a forged hate screed first published in Russia, circa 1903. The Protocols allege a worldwide conspiracy of Jews whose goal is to subvert Christianity and dominate global economies. The Protocols gained wide circulation in the 1920s — inciting pogroms against Jews in Russia and justifying the Holocaust in Germany. Despite a dark and discredited past, the Protocols remain in worldwide circulation today via the Internet.

These historical reference points account for the special hatred of George Soros, both as a man and as a symbol. As Jew, Holocaust survivor, hedge fund investor, philanthropist, and supporter of progressive causes, right wing hate groups regard George Soros as an Elder of the Protocols.

Whenever you hear or see the name George Soros, keep these historical reference points in mind. Those who wield his name in scorn reveal a hidden and sinister purpose: Resurgent anti-Semitism under the banner of Breitbart and Bannon.

POST HASTE CUT & PASTE

By Jeffrey Berger

Earlier today, FaceBook friend Ken Karstens shared this warning message: “It looks like you’re doing a lot on Facebook. Please try again later ..."

Confirmed! Sometimes I have received the same message. Why? Often, I will copy/paste the same comment under multiple posts in quick succession, my daily missive shared among friends. Apparently, an algorithm catches me in the act. Are there other FaceBook frustrations? Yes! Some citations are inaccessible, and not all notifications link to the original source.

In the financial pages of newspapers, I read of record-breaking subscribers using FaceBook. Of course, the simplest and most plausible explanation is that Facebook’s servers are slammed.

Nevertheless, I share Kevin Karsten’s concern — because we have reason to fear the new Mammon in town. Steve Bannon is now titular head of National Security (his recent appointment slipped suspiciously under the radar of full Senate confirmation). In his new role, Sleaze Bannon will see all and know all:

He's making a list and checking it twice. 

Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.

So you better watch out, you better nor cry.

Better not pout, I’m telling you why:

Fascism is comin’ to town.

Rogue POTUS Defies Courts, Has Blood on his Hands

SIX DEAD, EIGHT WOUNDED IN QUEBEC CITY:  Yesterday, a gunman opened fire on an Islamic Cultural Center in Quebec City, killing six worshippers and wounding eight. The shooting occurred days after an unconstitutional order signed by the 'unpresidented' banned travelers from specifically named Muslim countries.

MORE BAD NEWS: The president defies court orders. On Saturday, federal judges in Massachusetts, New York, and the state of Washington issued temporary restraining orders to stop the deportations. In Virginia, another court ordered access to legal counsel for detainees. In response, a White House official replied: “All stopped visas will remain stopped. All halted admissions will remain halted. All restricted travel will remain prohibited.” Meanwhile, administration officials continue to stonewall and CBP agents continue to defy the courts, constitutional and contract law, plus all international conventions and treaties.

Abner Greene, a law professor at Fordham University, said: “Obedience to specific court orders is what keeps us from being a banana republic or fascist dictatorship.” According to Michael Dorf of Cornell University: “Outright defiance can only be deemed disrespect for the rule of law.”

'A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS,' writes Congressman Don Beyer on his Twitter account. No doubt, appeals to bigotry and reckless rhetoric meet the definition of incitement as assuredly as if the president had pulled the trigger himself.

Even more disturbing, the travel ban is predicted on bogus evidence. In 40 years, no traveler from the list of banned nations committed even one act of terrorism. Not one! Alternate facts are merely falsehoods and fascist rhetoric, as this chart explains:

So, What's True?

Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

We’re hearing a great deal about alternative facts, fake news, that the media is the opposition party, as well as a steady stream of hyperbole and platitudes casting the other side as the side that a engages in undesirable and unethical behavior.  In fact neither the conservative or liberal media, conservative or liberal politicians are immune from bias.

 Bias is something all people are prone to. An individual’s environment, his upbringing, education, career path, and indeed the total of one’s life experiences shapes their biases. As a person ages and gains experience their biases can change.  Bias is a powerful driver on how we view reality and the world.

Another factor that often works in forming a person’s bias is their own self-interest. It is this writer’s contention that politicians are heavily affected by their own personal self-interests and as a result fail to serve their constituency honestly as they should.

To expect journalists as well as others in the media to be immune from bias is naïve. However, good journalists and newscasters are acutely aware of their own bias and are able to separate facts from bias and emotion. They fully understand their role is to honestly report facts that are supported by verifiable evidence.

Unfortunately not every journalist and newscaster, or news organization for that matter, holds themselves to the highest journalistic standards. For whatever reason (usually money or political agenda) they make the decision to play to their own biases as well as those of the American people and allow themselves to compromise the truth.

The graphics below illustrates the above I think. Truth is generally found at the center (middle) or somewhere near the center. The further you move from center in journalism and politics the more bias is at play. Extreme political ideologies are supported my extremely biased journalists and reporters and more often than not there is little truth in what either write or say.

Pay attention to both the X and Y axis.

A HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE

By Jeffrey Berger

Seventy-two years have passed since the liberation of Auschwitz. On this anniversary, we commemorate innocent victims of persecution whose life possibilities were cut mercilessly short. We remember missing persons of a family tree whose fates may never be known. On this day, I honor a forebear whom I never met.

The exact death toll at Auschwitz remains elusive. Many inmates were undocumented, and large amounts of incriminating evidence were destroyed in the final weeks of war. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum sets the official record: 1.1 million total victims including 960,000 Jews, 75,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Romani, 15,000 Soviet POWs, and 15,000 disabled persons, among others.

The Red Army liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Only 7,500 emaciated inmates were found alive among 600 corpses, 370,000 men's suits, 837,000 women's garments, and 8.5 tons of human hair. Among the survivors who recovered and resumed full and productive lives:

Elie Wiesel (awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986), Simone Veil (served as President of the European Parliament), Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler (escapees who saved an estimated 120,000 to 200,000 inmates), Imre Kertesz (writer and Nobel Laureate in Literature), and the parents of American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, as examples.

Little is known of my great grandfather. He was an author, philosopher, and college professor living in Prague when the Nazi army occupied Czechoslovakia. No letters or literary works survive apart from anecdotal accounts handed down by word of mouth – until the trial of Adolph Eichmann in 1961 revealed his fate.

In 1961, I recall my mother and grandmother watching the trial on national television, and their stunned silence when the fate of our forbear was finally was revealed. According to trial testimony, Eichmann ordered the SS to stop a deportation train headed for Auschwitz and execute by firing squad a prominent human rights dissident onboard. The condemned man was my maternal great-grandfather.

Are some people more predisposed to obedience than others and willing to follow even the most heinous orders? Yale University research psychologist Stanley Milgram tested this hypothesis with disturbing results:

The percentage of test subjects willing to inflict pain on command was constant across all population groups – ranging from 61 to 66 percent regardless of ethnicity, gender, nationality, or circumstance.

Milgram’s experiment reveals a grim truth about human nature: Everywhere in the world are people innately capable of unspeakable savagery. Genocide did not end with World War II. It happened again in Tibet (1959-1966), in Cambodia (1975-1979), in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995), and in Rwanda (1994). Even today, atrocities continue unabated in Syria and Yemen. The record of human history is grim:

Vainglorious wars of aggression and oppression. Centuries of persecutions and pogroms. True believers torment and condemn infidels. Whites enslave blacks. Nazis murder Jews. Hutus slaughter Tutsis. Butchery and bloodshed begin with dehumanizing words.

Yet, there are deniers and historical revisionists who still dispute the indisputable, and madmen who still target innocent civilians. Are some atrocities worse than others?  Does the tormented history of one people overshadow the tragic history of another?  Every account is deserving of validation and remembrance.

Arbeit macht frei. Work sets you free. Perversely cynical words meant to exterminate, not liberate. Words more aptly inscribed above the Gates of Hell: 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’

Consider the diversity of life on Earth evolving over eons of time. Here is a single species united in time but divided in culture, language, customs, and tribe. ‘Ecce homo.’  Behold the human condition.

Will humanity ever find peace?  Shall we forget the tragic voyage of the MS St. Louis whose 900 passengers were refused sanctuary and condemned to death?  Shall we separate people behind borders and walls and stop the free exchange of commerce, creativity and invention?  Or shall we learn how to tolerate, integrate, and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of all humankind?

There will be no peace, no hope, no freedom from tyranny and war until people come to terms with their darkest impulses.