Get Out! Now!

We should have seen this coming. Donald J. Trump, criminal sociopath, was inevitably going to do something beyond the pale, beyond any acceptable norms of human civilization. Of course, it could be argued that everything Trump does is beyond the pale, but some pales are more beyond than others.

Still, I find it a bit puzzling that there is so much outrage about Trump’s border security locking up children. Where was the outrage about the children maimed and killed in our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? Where was the outrage when the resulting insurgencies led to so many civilian deaths, including thousands of children? Where was the outrage when the further resulting ISIS was kidnapping, raping and murdering people wantonly, including many children? Where was the outrage when American military and CIA personnel were torturing prisoners, some of them to death?

There was some outrage, but not like what we are experiencing now. I wonder if it would be as great if it were someone other than Trump. If George W. Bush – or George H.W. Bush – were president, would the outrage be as intense? To me, both Bushes are pretty revolting, but not by a long shot are they as revolting as Trump. The estimated number of children that died under Bill Clinton's sanctions against Iraq is 227,000, far less than those killed by his successor, but Clinton was also a terrible president. He deserves special condemnation for his phony and ruthless eight years in office. His wife would likely have been no better, and maybe even worse.

Proximity might explain the outrage. The children being imprisoned by Trump are at our southern border, much closer than Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Guantanamo, our main torture site, is close, but the torture was (and presumably is) done in secret, behind closed doors. Out of sight, out of mind.

Maybe that’s it. The atrocities of starving and murdered children in Yemen – done with American weapons, logistics and intelligence aid – have elicited little outrage here. Trump could cease his support for the imposed kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the purveyor of the violence, instantly. Revolting, ghoulish Trump. Not much chance of relief for the people of Yemen. Not much outrage here. Too far away.

There is another explanation. Immigration and border security is an inflamed issue in the U.S. these days. Trump is the same criminal sociopath in regard to immigrants as he is to starving children in Yemen. A sociopath couldn’t care less about the suffering of anyone other than himself – not even his own children. As the Mueller Investigation closes in on him, none of us will be surprised when he sells out his offspring to save himself. Not even his “base” will be surprised. They are full partners in Trump’s perfidy.

Trump is who he is. He will be gone soon enough. Then what? As a people we have had a long descent, covering approximately my lifetime, now 73 years. Since I have been alive we have dropped atomic bombs on two foreign cities – killing many children. We firebombed Tokyo and Dresden, killing thousands, including many children. We have engaged in five wars of aggression in distant places around the planet, against one country - Iraq - twice. A much smaller and poorer country, Vietnam, defeated us. We should have learned something from that defeat. Millions of Vietnamese died in that war, many thousands of them children.

What did we learn? Wait a while. We can invade someone else in a few years. Meanwhile, we can assassinate a democratic leader or two, overthrow a few governments, and prop-up dictators around the planet. Most particularly, in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where the refugees at our southern border emanate from. Had we minded our own business - and had our corporate parasites minded, hmm, domestic business, none of this crisis would be happening. The root of the refugee crisis lies in the criminal policies that have been devised in Washington, D.C. for the past one-hundred-or-so years.

So the outrage about the detention of children, though justified, is a bit disingenuous. It is selective outrage. There is more outrage about Trump’s cruelty to refugees at the border than there is about the cruelty millions of minority children in America are experiencing every day, including violence, hunger, homelessness, inferior education and lack of opportunity. For children of conquered Americans – the Native peoples – it is even worse. Where’s the outrage?

Maybe some good will come of this. The country is getting an education. About Trump and his henchpersons, for sure. About "Republicans" as well. They are climbing over each other, grandstanding about the detained children, but they are almost to a man or woman, criminal sociopaths just like Trump. The "Democrats," by and large, are only slightly better. Some of them are decent human beings, but most are money and power-grubbing sociopaths just like their “Republican” counterparts.

How about the rest of us, the "voters?" These sociopathic politicians didn’t come from the Moon. They come from us. They are us. We can blame them all we want, but they are not discontinuous from the public they came from and represent. They are us. It is we who commit such violence against children around the world. We are child abusers. When we see on the news that some ordinary person is arrested for possession of child pornography we shouldn’t be surprised. He (almost always) is only marginally different from the rest of us.

What we might be able to learn from all this is that we have a fundamentally flawed and disintegrating social order. We need to form the intention to reverse this decline while we still can. We can start by getting rid of Trump. He has had his chance, and he blew it. He only does harm, and he has already done way too much of it. It is time for him to go.

How about a march on the White House? A "Get Out!" march. Millions carrying signs that say "Get Out! Now!" On a Wednesday, not on a Saturday, when Trump is at his golf resort Mar-a-Lago. Sunup to sundown. Or until he leaves. It is time for him to go.
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Here's a song. Arlo Guthrie and Hoyt Axton. Here's another. Tom Petty. Iris DeMent. John Prine. Jackson Browne. Steve Miller. Odetta. For Trump. Another for Trump. Here's Trump's new theme song, along with this. And this. John Trudell. Another from John Trudell. Michael Murphey.

Here's a song just for the heck of it, something worth hearing. And this. This too. One more.

Jack White and Pearl Jam.

In 1935 Marine Major General Smedley Butler, a two-time Medal of Honor winner, gave a speech and wrote a book with the title "War is a Racket." He had been involved in U.S. incursions in Central America, as well as other places around the planet. War is still a racket.

Some background on Trump's mental state. It is against the self-declared official narrative of the corporate and quasi-corporate (PBS, NPR) media to question Trump's mental health or his character. They will only raise factual questions about his "policies." The reason they self-limit in this way is that their careers and pundity depend on creating elaborate intellectual discussions of what Trump "thinks" and what he "believes," as if he were a normal person. Which raises a question. Are these people "normal?"

Some might think I am being hyperbolic or rhetorical when I say that Trump (and virtually ALL "Republicans") is a  criminal sociopath, but this summary of sociopathic behaviors should resonate.

Here's something curious. Trump voters live in areas of the country that have the highest rates of opioid addiction. Maybe Trump is like methadone, a milder form of dope that can substitute for harder drugs. Or maybe people take both Trump and opioids for a more intense high.

Some further reading from The Nation. And this, about how corporations are profiting from Trump's immigration "policy." Some history about our cold-hearted immigration actions.

Here's a brief history of U.S. meddling in Central America.

This history of United Fruit Company's (Chiquita Banana) bloody history in Central America is deeply interwoven with U.S. military intervention.

Ralph Nader asks a pertinent question.

I made a few hashtags:  #YesCollusion #GoneByThe4thOfJuly #ItIsTimeToRemoveTrumpFromOffice.

Given that everything relates to everything else, the behavior of Americans in other spheres than war and immigration can be seen as holographic. Such as in the bicycle racing culture. I wrote about one aspect of this culture earlier this month.

Separating migrant families is as American as apple pie.
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Update, June 28: Here's an interesting development.

The sheer incompetence and malice of the Trump regime is evidenced in this interview with New Yorker writer Jonathan Blitzer. Here's his article on the subject in the June 21 edition of the New Yorker.
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Update, July 14: I'm not the only person questioning the integrity of the "Democrats." Here's another view.

A few posts ago I said Trump's election is illegitimate. I don't need to take credit for being the first to say this, but I'm glad someone else agrees.

Here's reason enough for writing this blog.