The Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama

I am glad to see that a very important memorial has been opened in Montgomery Alabama - The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. 

"The National Memorial for Peace and Justice commemorates 4,400 black people who were slain in lynchings and other racial killings between 1877 and 1950. Their names, where known, are engraved on 800 dark, rectangular steel columns, one for each U.S. county where lynchings occurred."  

Why do I think this is important?  Because it illuminates the lie that the South has a right to remember its history by erecting statues to Confederate generals and soldiers who fought in the Civil War.  Those statues do not honor the history of the Confederacy.  The Confederacy tried to break away from the United States in order to preserve its "peculiar institution" of slavery.  The South erected heroic statues of Confederate "heroes" in response to Civil Rights movements post Civil War.  

Then, and sadly, to some extent, now, the South is dedicated to the terrible and ridiculous idea of white supremacy.  Our current president is dumb enough to overtly pander to the "alt-right", neo-Nazis, KKK, and white supremacists of all labels as a political tactic to get elected, and perhaps re-elected.  

Trump has often overtly referred to his "good genes" or "superior genes" to account for his spectacular success - an overt message to white supremacists that he is one of them - and they respond with admiration and loyalty.

So, the Lynching Memorial is a fitting companion to statues of Confederate military glory.  The continuation of Jim Crow, including many forms of oppression and abuse designed to keep blacks "in their place" continued well beyond the end of the Civil War.  And it could well be that the giant prison industry today is little more than a continuation of Jim Crow into today's sad world.

Indeed, I would like to see statues of whipping posts, auction blocks, and slave women being raped put next to these Confederate statues so that everyone would see for themselves what the Confederate "heroes" were actually fighting for.

Enough of the nightmare, where is the dream?

I am tired of writing about Trump and the Republicans.

Let it be stipulated that I think Trump is a dangerous and childish nitwit.

Let it be stipulated that I think Republicans have turned into uncaring and often cruel ideologs.

Let is be stipulated that I think the Democrats are over-reacting to the Republican fierce independence by becoming fierce advocates of entitlement.

Let it be stipulated that I think the right wing nutcases have overtaken the Republican Party, much to the detriment of the Republican Party and our Republic.

Let is be stipulated that the left wing nutcases are threatening to overtake the Democratic Party and our Democracy, but are not yet in control of the Dems.

Let it be stipulated that an unfortunately large percentage of conservatives are in the thrall of the right wing propaganda bubble and have sadly turned their backs on actual news.

Let it be stipulated that even though I fully endorsed our military invasion of Iraq I now see it as the biggest mistake our country has made, even more than the disastrous war in Viet Nam, because we have increased, not decreased jihadist threats in the world by doing it.

Let it be stipulated that the country and the world is in an unprecedented state of upheaval and both the Republican and Democratic Parties are trotting out worn out dogmas that address times long gone by, not today's chaos.

I look at WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War and I am extraordinarily grateful that we do not have hundreds of thousands and millions of our children dying overseas.  

Let it be stipulated that pretty much everything I can think of to make the world a better place probably isn't going to work, because I keep thinking in terms of politics, but politics itself is broken and becoming useless in the face of today's chaos.

The world is in a crisis - a political crisis - an economic crisis - an intellectual crisis - but mostly a spiritual crisis.

I can understand why the Muslims and the Christians are trying to answer this spiritual crisis by retreating to fundamentalist teachings of their dogmas, the dogmas of the past, both of which are moves to harsh and punishing crack downs on the perceived sins of the modern world, and a return to an imagined glorious past of a world of purity and piousness. 

But... the future is not to be found in the past.  I wish I had a better handle on how to bring the brilliant and loving and caring and abundant future that I am certain is waiting for us into existence.  

So far, I have mostly only been able to illuminate the nightmarish mistakes that are relentlessly before us.

I do not despair.  I choose hope and trust that our nation wide and world wide spiritual crisis is moving toward emotional, intellectual, political, and spiritual resolutions - to a world that both the Right and the Left, that both Christians and Muslims, that both sophisticated and unsophisticated are dreaming of.   

It is being created as the old is being destroyed.  I hope I can start writing about the New rather than just register my disgust of the nightmare before us all.

Trump initiates and escalates a trade war

Our president, who seems to be willfully ignorant of the history of the link between protectionism, tariffs, and trade wars as triggers to the Great Depression, has decided to escalate the trade war he started by imposing more tariffs on China.

One of the terrible problems with a grandiose ego is that it is a bottomless pit that can never be filled.  I am sure that this little man can only see retaliatory tariffs imposed by China as some sort of challenge to his manhood, so he is compelled to escalate – playing a game of chicken – with the U.S. and world economy.

When he imposes tariffs on goods coming into the country, that is just a tax on those goods that we consumers pay for.  Republicans are so proud of their disastrous tax cut, and then their fearless leader adds taxes to goods in the form of tariffs.

Plus, of course, the tit for tat tariffs being placed by China on our exports will shrink those exports and hurt those industries – mostly those in the areas of the country that voted for Trump.

But, the Trumpster cult will support anything this guy does.  ???? 

Just another day in Trumpland.