Dick Bernard: The Eighth Day

Other related posts here.
from Fred: This Dutch film about The Donald is hilarious. Check it out. You need to have a Facebook account to open it. It is subtitled in English.
And this, via Joyce, is on a more serious side.
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Friday was the eighth day of the new administration in Washington. The biblical seven days of creation come to mind…which literalists believe were 24 hours each; while the overwhelming majority, including my own Catholic Church, have long ago accepted reason and science over belief in the literal words of Genesis.
(click to enlarge)

If you watch the news, you’ve gotten an eye, and ear, full this first week. It has been a bit like being struck by a tornado. You know you’ve been hit, and you’ll be seeing lots of damage, but you need to figure out what needs to be done, first.
The new god is in the white house, and has spent the week smiting those of us who didn’t come around to proper thinking. We’re losers, we lost. Get over it. But he doesn’t look very chipper…there is a certain lack of confidence and enthusiasm which shows, already. And it’s just the start of a four year sentence at hard labor.
Being President isn’t easy.
Rogues in the people’s government who might deviate from the official company line are being silenced (there will be lots of favorites, here’s one that just surfaced). Whole classes of people – and countries – are being singled out to be watched and and their immigrants excluded. But it’s not easy to manage 325,000,000 people, much less 7 billion.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we’re basically good, decent people: Spectator001
For the time being, “alternative facts” (and media) have become ascendant. The traditional media has become the enemy, and is spending its time trying to decide how best to deal with this. When a national administration adopts as “fact” what we used to see as humorous satire like the “newspaper” the Onion provided, and boatloads of people believe the fiction, society itself is at risk.
Yesterday we subscribed for the first time ever to the New York Times on-line. It is an investment, not a cost.
We have long subscribed to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, whose editorial policy for the last number of years has become what I would characterize as moderate right.
It is the newspaper delivered to our door every day, and will continue to be so. I used to be published there once in awhile in columns, or letters, sometimes letter of the day, but it has seemed foolish to even submit opinions there any more. I don’t fit their formula.
Granted, large, even small, newspapers have to be selective – they can’t publish everything. But if you watch them over time, through changes in ownership, as I have, they lean like trees in a wind though, unlike trees, they can pick which “wind” direction they prefer.
I can’t say for sure exactly how large a constituency this new bunch which has temporarily taken control of our country really represents.
Mostly, it would appear that one out of four of those who actually voted on Nov. 8 are the relatively hard core “base”, and most of them resonated to one or more of the over-the-top themes of the new rulers campaign rhetoric.
This new guy would slay abortion; he has decreed that not one single terrorist will cross our borders (apparently we have plenty of our own bad people in our own country, in our own white Christian skins.)
Henceforth the world, it seems, must become second fiddle to our own even more exceptional country. We will build that wall, and the Mexicans will pay…. And on and on and on.
Climate Change…? Belief trumps facts, it seems. Fossil Fuels? When will we learn?
Be watchful and very, very wary.
If my reading of the data is even close to correct, three of four of us are not on the same page as the new ruler and his minions, and the single person who admired his every promise is not very vocal (and is unsure about the wisdom of his or her vote).
Most of his followers voted for him because of his promise on their one single issue, or because they believed the false narrative about his opponent, and very few are in solidarity with him on every promise that he made to them in his blitzkrieg to the white house.
We can’t be silent, now, in our own ways, and in our own places.
The solution is every one of us, daily, in some way outside of our comfort zones. What we do matters, and it doesn’t have to be dramatic.
For me, ending this day, I suggest rereading WWII German Rev. Martin Niemoeller who after the war often said, in sometimes different specific ways:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
COMMENTS:
from Bob: Dick, thanks for writing and sharing your perspective. You are fresh air in this newly polluted country. Keep me on your mailing list.
I wish the media would be more to the point on some issues. Trump wants to “build a wall”. But in fact he is merely finishing a wall, started by Bush, 700 miles of it done, and parts done more than once. And no matter what the cost or who pays for it, it is as much a waste of money as any bomb dropped anywhere. It does not touch on the root causes for wanting a wall, it does not advance humanity, it speaks loudly of hate instead of friendship and cooperation amongst cultures.
And as for a trade deficit, that is not Mexico’s doing. It is the greed of Americans who are wealthy enough, or who easily borrow money so they can “own” three cars, four TV’s, cell phones, iPads, drink too much expensive liquor, and cry foul when the price of milk goes up 10 cents a gallon. Check out today’s Strib editorial by a reader explaining who is responsible for the trade deficit with Mexico.
from Sandy: [We are] headed for Mexcio Zijuatenjeo here for two weeks and I hope we can get back in the country because perhaps the wall will be built while we are gone (what an idiot he is and my dad would be so upset right now with Donald Trump in office.)
from Paul: Thanks, Dick. I especially appreciated the Spectator article. It gives me hope.