Thursday, October 13, 2016

MIDNIGHT AND MOURNING IN AMERICA



I voted yesterday. Terrible choices, but ultimately I could not vote for Trump because: 

(1) The post-midnight tweets about a beauty contestant demonstrate an utter lack of seriousness. Really - with so much at stake, what fills this man’s mind???


(2) Trump’s fixation on jailing Hillary [as much as I dislike her] is entirely un-American, and suggests a Stalin-like Gulag mentality, not to mention his oft-repeated praise for Putin.



(3) Trump has created a cynical and nihilistic new mode of politics where the idea is to always make 3 contradictory statements, knowing his emotional followers will cling to the version they want to remember, without regard to the contradictions. That way he can always rebut a critic by pulling out the ‘right’ card, however false the reality.


 (4) Trump has consistently demonstrated the temperament of a spoiled child, or at best a very immature adolescent. Such a man cannot possibly govern, and his out-size failures will cause far more harm than we can now imagine.


(5) He has no respect whatsoever for people; rather, he goes far out of his way to gratuitously mock and demean anyone within sight. Our 300 million+ people are not one bully’s playground, and we need a president who knows this.


(6) Really, I blame the Democrats. Hillary has learned nothing in the past 24 years, yet the party coronated her without any debate except from a lone socialist who almost beat her!


(7) Still, Trump is the most unacceptable candidate America has ever seen. Better luck next time.



And finally, do you imagine I voted for Hillary, Bernie, or someone else? May you ever wonder! But harbor no such question about Trump – he would have to water-board me for that vote, and I have no doubt he would like to!


Post-election results note:

I am and have been conflicted throughout. The working  class has been exploited and abused for 36 years (since Reagan), and demonized in this election. The social fabric will (I hope) improve now that they believe they have a champion, and in any case will be more civil than if left alone with their trumped-up and understandable frustrations and hatreds.

Yet I must expect that Trump's many and deep flaws will damn the nation just as 
much, with one critical difference:

Were Hillary elected the strife would continue, but maybe not forever - the right leader might ultimately appear... though I expect the damage Trump will do might make for a hard recovery.



Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Cyber-Politics: A World Where Everyone Knows Everything (but nothing is true)


Publisher: Faux Books

This is my satiric metaphor of the 2016 US election campaign and the alternate reality it has spawned.

The “publisher” Faux Books [faux meaning “fake”] is surely the largest in the world! Everything you hear or read these days is either a lie or is hyped to such a degree that the only truth is that everything is fake (including this "book") !

Then note the spelling of Demockracy on the cover page. Indeed, what a mockery of democracy our nation has become.

The term “Cyberclops” is my take-off on the Cyclops that devoured Odysseus’ men in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, now re-imagined as “Cyberclops” devouring our present--day consciousness.

Finally, there is the forward by Dr. Armand G. Eddon, a fictitious name suggesting the Armageddon at hand if we persist in such folly.

So in one sense this really is a book… One page long and pregnant with more truth than a 100 US Senators, 435 Representatives, and the babbling millions who know everything that is not true!