DESTRUCTIVE FIRES ARE BURNING EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK!

     There is no escaping the fires of destruction.  So often we hear analysts and commentators, politicians, and professors – along with ordinary citizens –claim that America is strong, resilient, and innovative and that we will overcome all challenges thrown at us.  Or we hear that there are no real challenges, “everything is fine” – in fact, we are at record levels of growth and development; and, that the Corona virus will “magically disappear.”  Or we hear from Big Lie adherents that what we see and hear is not true – that everything that happens to question the truth spoken by The Leader (Fuhrer) is a “hoax.” OR, we are led down imaginary paths by conspiracy theorists who are unequaled in their ability to fabricate situations by which “some outside force” is to blame for everything that happens to have a negative impact.

No matter what is said by any of us, the fires are burning and incinerating.  And, in this case, by “fires” I mean a long list of destructive forces burning us up, down, over and out.  We are at the mercy of these fiery forces and we are not extinguishing them.  Instead. we are watching helplessly as responders are fighting in vain to stop the devastation that threatens so much we care about, including property, heritage, accoutrements, infrastructure, neighbors, relatives, children’s future and adult lives and livelihoods.  Dare I try to list some of those growing wildfires for fear of being vilified, ignored, or made into some sort of dunce or devil?  Such reactions from the unchecked arsonists are of little concern because they too are in the path of one or more of these fires or their deadly smoke creeping up on unsuspecting victims.  

    Here are some examples to contemplate:
1.      a scorcher of a viral pandemic that is out-of-control
2.      wildfires in the Western USA
3.      deadly smoke spreading East
4.      hurricane blasts in the Gulf coast area with r  ecord rainfall
5.       a conflagration of corruption and authoritarianism in our federal government
6.      the burning down of the mission and purposes of certain parts of our national (and State) government
7.      a destructive flame applied to the reputations, personalities, skills, courageousness and lives of people who act to undo the corruption, the de-construction and the institutionalization of racism, favoritism, privilege and elitism that keep us from realizing our ideals and our democratic goals
8.      the hidden fires that eventually consume the institutions we have cherished and nurtured for centuries, including public education, separation of church and state, scientifically-based offices like the CDC the NIH, the EPA; the development and protection of workers with union rights and benefits
9.      the fires of ideologizing and politicizing are attacking benefits of government like public healthcare, social security and Medicare that protects elder citizens from being singed by inadequacies; safety nets for food, housing, and wages; consumer protection from unsafe goods or services; middle class advancement, along with protection and advocacy for the vulnerable like the poor and those challenged both mentally and physically.  Consuming fires of caste divisions, favoritism for the richest class and the slogans of laissez-faire capitalism run amuck rarely confronted with progressive and prolonged assertive measures.
10. The Judiciary is being burned to a crisp as hundreds of unqualified judges -- qualified solely on the basis of their ideology and their loyalty and fealty to a despotic leader --are appointed to the federal courts including the Supreme Court
11. a leader who admires and emulates despots from authoritarian countries is burning through our alliances and allowing, even inviting, the destructive hot winds of oligarchs to fan the flames of foreign interference in our lives
12. it is, perhaps above all, the fire of personal desire to be King that is driving the destructive fires of voter suppression, oppression, and nullification that can only result in the destruction of our democratic system.  The fire that burns perhaps with the greatest intensity is the all-consuming fire of narcissism and personal victory that leads someone like Donald Trump to undo the guardrails that hold an entire election system within reasonable and effective boundaries.  The attacks on the voter franchise is burning our democracy to the ground. Inviting foreign intervention, disrupting  the delivery of ballots by mail; closing down polling places; using federal troops or agents to intimidate voters, hiring loyalists to ‘watch’ the polls, and declaring that voting is already ‘fixed’ are destructive flames that we cannot tolerate.  It is a warning to every voter that Trump is out to make your vote go away like the last smoldering embers of a campfire
13. There are more fires of devastation that could be mentioned, like destruction of consumer groups, attacks on immigrants, protestors, and Black Lives Matter participants falsely painted as insurrectionists and looters.  There is the devastating fire of police brutality visited upon men of color that speaks to the arson of neglect and cover-up that burns with the intensity of racism, prejudice and disunity.  There is the fire of attacks on immigrants, on soldiers who fought in foreign wars, on women who still lack basic rights granted to men; on LBGQT members who get little mention and less respect; on children who are being left behind by lack of school funding, lack of health care, lack of adequate food and shelter, and lack of a head start in early education classes. There is the fire of gun violence stoked and promulgated more and more in the outward display of militaristic weapons by Far-Right extremist militias at demonstrations that they oppose or at gatherings they initiate.  As “The Trace” reports it goes even further as such paramilitary groups: “force their way into a statehouse, threaten public health officials over coronavirus measures; intimidate Black Lives Matter marchers, and shoot law enforcement agents and demonstrators for racial justice” and soon to be stationed near polling places to intimidate voters!   

But, there is only so much we can bring to immediate attention in this short piece.  As I said at the beginning: fires of destruction are burning everywhere, and we have failed to extinguish those fires.  Like Republican Senators, many lack the will, the incentive, and the courage to finally extinguish those fires.  They would rather emulate the arsonist in the White House and burn it all to the ground, calling it by the term: “de-construction.”  They, and their ilk, would rather see people die from the burns of those fires, even though they could easily – with strong bi-partisan action – save thousands of lives.  It is as though the sacrifice of lives of our people is of less concern to them than the opening of businesses, of sporting events, of places to eat than is doing the hard work of using the public and private sectors to put out all these fires and to put enough resources into all areas of need to come out of the destruction with new ideas, new concepts, new systems, new institutions, new rules, new processes that can contribute to a nation that is demonstrating the reality of its Ideals. 

However, this cannot be done with the systems of the status quo.  Too much of that status quo is itself in danger of burning in the fires we have allowed to start and flourish.  Republicans don’t have any good answers – they are too busy  believing that the fires of neglect can be extinguished by coddling the rich with special breaks and privileges and letting their success and money trickle down to the rest of the groups on their hierarchical ladder.  It is not working now and hasn’t for at least a century.  The GOP - which might now be called Trumpissants -- has nothing to offer --absolutely nothing!  What about the Democrats?  They are at times found wallowing in progressive soup without taking stock of the underlying causes of that bowl and its contents or how it got to where it is.  The Democratic Party must awaken from its slumber and begin to deal with systemic change and reform, rather than obsess with the microcosmic issues of the day. 

For example:  Medicare-for-all is not the complete answer to healthcare for all because our healthcare system is flawed even as it meets the needs of many seniors. It is currently flawed by the same underlying principles that start these fires in the first place.
1.      we do not have enough nurses and we do not pay them enough when we do
2.      medical training is not the best we can do because it is too often evaluated by insiders rather than neutral resources
3.      hospitals are woefully understaffed and poorly conceived in terms of mission and process; rural hospitals are sometimes non-existent or isolated
4.      medicines and drugs cost way too much 
5.      the public health system is geared to administration more than to health service delivery
6.      it is run by and for the wrong people, just like most of our institutions – and that’s the biggest flaw of all that Dems and GOP rarely address.

Democrats would rather deal with the issue of minimum wage than to investigate why nurses are underpaid.  GOP would rather give extra money to successful and large corporate drug chains or private hospital health service providers than to deal with who is and who is not making the decisions about healthcare needs and services.  There’s the rub, my friends.

  When we dig under the cause of most of these raging fires, we find some questions that most officeholders are reluctant to ask, like:
·      how many nurses or patients serve on the boards of hospitals? who does serve and how are they chosen?
·      why are politicians only talking to Big Pharm lobbyists when they talk about drug prices?
·      what services do people most need from our public health system? – who other than professionals and administrators give out answers? – any potential patients from the immediate neighborhood being heard?  Doubtful…
·      how come drug conglomerate CEOs make enormous salaries with benefits, but drug prices continue to rise sky-high for seniors?

We probably need more representatives like Katy Porter and AOC who are not afraid to question administrators and CEOs at the deepest levels as to what their systems are doing to people. If we believe an authority and professor like Robert Reich (“The System”), here is the key to change:

  “Don’t confuse attractive policy proposals with changes in the system as a whole.  Solving those systemic problems requires altering the allocation of power.  Most important, you will need to understand the nature of power – who possesses it and why, how it is wielded and for what purposes.  Power is the ability to direct or influence the behavior of others.  On a large scale, power is the ability to set the public agenda – to frame big choices, to influence legislators, and to get laws enacted or prevent them from being enacted, to assert one’s will on the world.  It is the most subterranean force.

“Power is exercised through institutions – big Wall Street banks, global corporations, the executive and legislative branches of government, the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court, the military, elite universities, and the media (including social media).  In the system we now have, power and wealth are inseparable.  The first step in changing the system is to understand it and then change it for the better.”

What does that mean in today’s world that is burning down around us?  How do we strongly address climate change for instance?
·      by making laws that severely affect the fossil fuel conglomerates in terms of profits, size, monopolistic status, and their excessive welfare payments made to themselves from a federal tax structure that they helped to create
·      Prohibit paid lobbying. 
·      Don’t put fossil fuel CEOs into government;
·      require profit-sharing with workers and communities in which they are located; 
·      Impose harsh penalties that will negatively affect corporations and businesses that do not meet strict environmental standards against polluting water, air and earth.  Small fines and short incarcerations of scapegoats are not effective

It will never be enough to save certain animals, to call for conservation measures, to make more solar panels.  This is literally a battle for power – the power of who makes decisions, who receives or doesn’t receive government help, and who has the ability to influence laws and regulations.  To make change, the system that supports these arsonists must be drastically altered.  And those same principles must be applied to other problems as well.  It is a question of wealth and power, not of polar bears, melting icebergs and how fires start in the forests of the Western states.

Look behind the candidates for office.  Who supports them?  Where are their campaign funds coming from?  How are their decisions made – with input from ordinary citizens or almost entirely based on input from sponsors and special interests?  What kinds of legislation do they propose to co—sponsor or author?  What systemic changes have they brought about, or advocated, in terms of major exploding fires of discontent and loss of voice? Stop electing people based on Party and ideology.  Elect only those who promise to shift the locus of power and wealth from oligarchs to normal citizens.  Playing politics and approving inadequate measures for combatting the issues of the status quo will not solve problems of control and oversight by the few who see themselves as elitists not subject to the rules that they insist be applied to everyone else. 

Destructive fires are burning everywhere, and we cannot extinguish them until we insist on taking back the power surrendered to those who have caused them. 

 

ADDENDUM

      NOTE 09/22/2020: The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has not only left us with heavy hearts, but has ignited a maelstrom  of  unfortunate rhetoric and behavior related to the empty seat on that Court.  The battle over that seat will ignite one more destructive fire that could produce effects that last for decades.  The indomitable and gracious spirit of Justice Ginsburg will be a necessity for many to emulate in an unrelenting effort to maintain the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court and of the entire judicial system.  May her spirit be a source of strength for many and may she abide in the peaceful reward of a life well-lived.

The "LAW and ORDER" Euphemism Returns

Good old LAW & ORDER always makes conservatives and those who see themselves as the Silent Majority, Tea Party advocates or Minute Men feel good or at least better than most!

It is particularly important to understand what Law and Order really means to Right-wingers.  What they want others to understand differs from its covert but true meaning.  They want people to equate Law & Order with “respect for and obedience to the rules of society”, with synonyms like lawfulness, peacefulness, and harmony as preferred concepts to convey to people. But hidden within its actual practice are meanings and consequences that often reveal its true intent. 

Perhaps some glaring examples of Law & Order “campaigns” will help to illustrate more clearly its basis and intent.

1)      NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s  “Stop-Question-Frisk” was a supposed crime control technique that was “a New York City Police Department practice of temporarily detaining, questioning, and at times searching civilians and suspects on the street for weapons and other contraband. The rules for the policy are contained in the state's criminal procedure law section 140.50 and based on the decision of the US Supreme Court in the case of Terry v. Ohio,“  hence why the stops are also referred to as Terry stops.

Until those decisions, a police officer could search only someone who had been arrested, unless a search warrant had been obtained. In the cases of Terry v. Ohio, Sibron v. New York, and Peters v. New York, the Supreme Court granted limited approval in 1968 to frisks conducted by officers lacking probable cause for an arrest in order to search for weapons if the officer suspects the subject to be armed and presently dangerous. The Court's decision made suspicion of danger to an officer grounds for a "reasonable search."

The "frisk" part of the equation did not come into play except in two circumstances:

·      if possession of a weapon was suspected, or

·      reasonable suspicion of a possible crime escalated to probable cause to arrest for an actual crime based on facts developed after the initial stop-and-question. 

Advocates for the policy strongly endorsed the idea that crime was being widely affected and reduced because of this policing technique.  (On average, from 2002 to 2013, the number of individuals stopped without any convictions was 87.6%).   According to the Washington Post fact-checker, the claim that stop-and-frisk contributed to a decline in the crime rate is unsubstantiated.”

One of the things that did become substantiated was the unfairness of the system that was applied disproportionately to African Americans and Latinos. A 2007 study in the Journal of the American Statistical Association found that under the stop-and-frisk policy, "persons of African and Hispanic descent were stopped more frequently than whites, even after controlling for precinct variability and race-specific estimates of crime participation."

But there were other incriminating pieces of evidence that emerged to question the real intent of the policy:

·      New York police officer Adrian Schoolcraft made extensive recordings in 2008 and 2009, which documented orders from NYPD officials to search and arrest black people in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

·       In early July 2012, stop-question-and-frisk protesters who videotaped police stops in New York City were targeted by police for their activism.

·      In October 2012, The Nation published an obscenity-filled audio recording that revealed two NYPD officers conducting a hostile and racially charged stop-and-frisk of an innocent teenager from Harlem. The recording triggered outrage and "shed unprecedented light" on the practice of stop-and-frisk

·      The NYC Bar Association cast doubt on whether police were applying the "reasonable suspicion" rule when making stops: "The sheer volume of stops that result in no determination of wrongdoing raise the question of whether police officers are consistently adhering to the constitutional requirement for reasonable suspicion for stops and frisks."

·      In February 2020, an audio recording surfaced of Michael Bloomberg defending the program at a February 2015 Aspen Institute event. In the speech, Bloomberg said:

“Ninety-five percent of murders- murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. They are male, minorities, 16-25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city…. people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them”

2)      In June 1971, Nixon officially declared a “War on Drugs,” stating that drug abuse was “public enemy number one.” Drug use and abuse has been around since the early days of our Republic.  A history of the “Drug War” Is found on www.history.com and I have used it to summarize a rather long and complicated story:

“The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today. Over the years, people have had mixed reactions to the campaign, ranging from full-on support to claims that it has racist and political objectives.”

As part of the War on Drugs initiative, Nixon increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and proposed strict measures, such as mandatory prison sentencing, for drug crimes. He also announced the creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP).

Nixon went on to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973. This agency is a special police force committed to targeting illegal drug use and smuggling in the United States.  At the start, the DEA was given 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Today, the agency has nearly 5,000 agents and a budget of $2.03 billion.

During a 1994 interview, President Nixon’s domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, provided inside information suggesting that the War on Drugs campaign had ulterior motives, which mainly involved helping Nixon keep his job. 

In the interview, conducted by journalist Dan Baum and published in Harper magazine, Ehrlichman explained that the Nixon campaign had two enemies: “the antiwar left and black people.” His comments led many to question Nixon’s intentions in advocating for drug reform and whether racism played a role.  “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”

3)    Reagan’s “War on Drugs” was seen by supporters as a war on crime, and thus a program that would bring Law and Order to a society hell-bent on anarchy, permissiveness, and non-adherence to norms of conduct

In the mid-1970s, the War on Drugs took a slight hiatus. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan reinforced and expanded many of Nixon’s War on Drugs policies. In 1984, his wife Nancy Reagan launched the “Just Say No” campaign, which was intended to highlight the dangers of drug use.

President Reagan’s refocus on drugs and the passing of severe penalties for drug-related crimes in Congress and state legislatures led to a massive increase in incarcerations for nonviolent drug crimes. In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which established mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug offenses. This law was later heavily criticized as having racist ramifications because it allocated longer prison sentences for offenses involving the same amount of crack cocaine (used more often by black Americans) as powder cocaine (used more often by white Americans). Five grams of crack triggered an automatic five-year sentence, while it took 500 grams of powder cocaine to merit the same sentence.

Critics also pointed to data showing that people of color were targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use at higher rates than whites. Overall, the policies led to a rapid rise in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. In 2014, nearly half of the 186,000 people serving time in federal prisons in the United States had been incarcerated on drug-related charges, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Public support for the war on drugs has waned in recent decades. Some Americans and policymakers feel the campaign has been ineffective or has led to racial divide. Between 2009 and 2013, some 40 states took steps to soften their drug laws, lowering penalties and shortening mandatory minimum sentences, according to the Pew Research Center.  In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine offenses from 100:1 to 18:1.  The recent legalization of marijuana in several states and the District of Columbia has also led to a more tolerant political view on recreational drug use.  Technically, the War on Drugs is still being fought, but with less intensity and publicity than in its early years.”

4)      So why is the Drug War and Law and Order being resurrected in the Trump Campaign?  Precisely because it is meant to target certain groups that are not particularly friendly to Trump and Trumpism – like young protestors, many of them college students; African Americans, and to a lesser extent, Hispanic Americans, and Democrats.  He lumps them all together as anarchists and socialists, attempting to make them into a mob to be feared above all. 

By these examples, we can begin to ferret out the real meanings behind the euphemism of “Law and Order”:

·      keeping others under control so the privileged may feel safe and secure;

·      keeping certain people in-line with what is seen as their assigned role in society by those in control

·       maintaining a system that controls all those of lesser standing who might threaten them and/or that system;

·      making sure that those at the top of the hierarchical Pyramid are accorded special treatment, exemptions and privileges that apply to them as society’s creator class but not to any of the ‘underclasses’ who are most often viewed as destructive

·      unreviewable and minimally regulated police given greater freedom to take actions that will restrain, restrict, and prevent certain potentially criminal acts and actors; with exemption from blame for out-of-bounds behavior

·      definitions of charges and punishment (sentence lengths) that will discourage those who are members of the under-groups

Law and Order has never applied equally to rich and poor; to white people and people of color; to acceptable groups and scapegoats; to ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ people.  Why?  Society is naturally divided into hierarchies and predetermined statuses (like families, tribes, clans, parties, nations, etc.) but further divisions are often created by those who have wrested control or power over the others, and want to maintain or gain additional power and control.  And those human beings who have never cared to see similarities quite as easily as they see or sense differences and threats in others, go along with the fabricated divisions, so that their standing in the order of things will be secure. 

That is why a Republic that idealizes equal justice under Law must emphasize the latter, because “under Law” is the only criterion on which equality of justice can be fairly established.  Law and Order depends upon division and control, not on unity and equality under law like justice does.  It is a metaphor for ‘taking charge’ for ‘being in charge’ and for deciding ‘charges.’

CONTROL is not an acceptable criterion for equal justice because it is inherently dependent not only on exploiting differences but on acquiring greater power able to control those who may seem to be destructive, intent on criminal conduct  or who may be made to seem as though they are destroyers of what those above them cherish.  For example, Donald J. Trump has worked long and hard to make African Americans, Mexican immigrants, Muslims, strong women, and Democrats look like destroyers of American ideals and virtues.  Why is that? Politics, of course.  But could it be that he is afraid of their potential to rise above the station that he believes they hold, and therefore needs to prevent them from gaining any power, status or position that might detract from his? Certainly, a question that needs to be answered by every potential voter in this next election, and by every citizen who cherishes the democratic ideals of “liberty and justice for all.”

I leave you with some additional questions that arise from our exploitation by the questionable concept of Law and Order:

·      Have we as a people been shaped more by dominance over others than by a common cause of seeking freedom and justice on an equal basis for all? 

·      Are we more concerned about control of others by rule of law than promoting equal justice under Law?

·      Are we so weighed down by a past of enslavement, punishment, and separation that we have essentially allowed a caste system to overrun our ideals of a united nation with equal rights and equal justice for all? 

·      Are we entrenched in a caste system that is so hierarchical that we feel we must control others lest they gain control over us?

·      Are we trying desperately to keep ‘suspicious’ people and groups in ‘their place’ (below us) while we seek security and privilege for a dominant group (in which we can at least claim closeness if not membership)?

I recommend for your reading,  a book that attempts to deal with most of these questions, and which may awaken you (as it did me) to a deeper understanding of our society, government, politics and social strata.  It is titled by one word –” CASTE” by Isabel Wilkerson (Pulitzer Prize winner) – and it explores the similarities of caste systems of India, Nazi Germany, and America.  If you have already read it, perhaps you have found such quotes as the following to be as jarring as I did:

“The tranny of caste is that we are judged on the very things we cannot change: a chemical in the epiderma, the shape of one’s facial features, gender and ancestry – superficial differences that have nothing to do with who we are inside.”

“The caste system in America is four hundred years old and will not be dismantled by a single law or any one person, no matter how powerful; laws like the Voting Rights Act of 1965 can be weakened if there is not the collective will to maintain them.  A caste system persists in part because…each and every one of us, allows it to exist…in our everyday actions, in how we elevate or demean, embrace or exclude, on the basis of the meaning attached to people’s physical traits.  If enough people buy into the lie of hierarchy then it becomes the truth or is assumed to be.”

“…all of us can sharpen our powers of discernment to see past the external and to value the character of a person rather than demean those who are already marginalized, or worship those born to false pedestals. We need not bristle when those deemed subordinate break free, but rejoice that here may be one more human being who can add their true strengths to humanity”

“The fact is that the bottom caste, which bears much of the burden of the hierarchy, did not create the caste system, and the bottom caste alone cannot fix it.  The challenge has long been that many in the dominant caste, who are in a better position to fix caste inequity, have often been least likely to want to.”

” With our current ruptures it is not enough to not be racist or sexist.  Our times call for being pro-African American, pro-woman, pro-Latino, pro-Asian, pro-indigenous, pro-humanity in all its manifestations.  Every spiritual tradition says love your neighbor as yourself, not tolerate them.”

“Caste is a disease, and none of us is immune.  It is like a cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened.  Thus, regardless of who prevails in any given election, the country still labors under the divisions that a caste system creates, and the fears and resentments of a dominant caste that is too often in opposition to the yearnings of those deemed beneath them.  It is a danger to the species and to the planet to have this depth of unexamined grievance and discontent in the most powerful nation in the world…if we haven’t dealt with the structure that created the imbalance in the first place.”

False concepts and structures like Law and Order help create that imbalance and deter us from the reality of equal justice under law!  Please – read the book if you haven’t already done so!

====================**********==================

(Once again, a promised addendum of behaviors we must not forget emanated from Donald J. Trump):

RECENT BEHAVIORS BELIE TRUMP’S COMMITMENT TO EITHER LAW OR ORDER

1)      Trump’s newly appointed Postmaster General is “slowing the mail” by confiscating Post Office boxes off the streets in districts where Democrat votes might be diminished; destroying ultra-fast mail sorters that would help to process ballots quickly; ordering slow-down in mail delivery and the abandonment of certain mail products; firing of many senior employees and replacing them with Trump loyalists who will do as the Leader (Fuhrer) directs in order to win re-election.

2)      Breaking several provisions of the Hatch Act which were put in place to give greater order and fairness to the separation of the political process from governmental processes and structures by using government property for political purposes and self-aggrandizement on the political front.  The use of the White House as a prop for a political convention finale and to allow government employees to render political speeches (and a background of politicized fireworks) on that same property was a smack in the eye of every person who worked to ban such intermingling of resources.  It should have repulsed anyone who ever worked as a government employee (as I have) and was required to keep political influence at a measurable distance.  Such Ignoring of the Hatch Act is called “flaunting of the law.”

3)      Trump’s latest excusing of ultra-right violence is beyond belief.  He has done this consistently without regard to the signal of approval this delivers to every white supremacist, Nazi sympathizer and hate group member.  He followed his precedent set at Charlottesville where he claimed there were “good people on both sides.”  This time he sought to excuse the admitted Trump supporter who carried a semi-automatic gun into the protest march in Wisconsin.  Although this young man killed two young peaceful protestors, Trump did not condemn his actions, and the police did not detain or question him as he followed their trucks in the streets.

Trump may have outdone himself as he tried to excuse the police officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times by telling his interviewer that it was just the officer’s uptight nervousness like a golfer choking on a three-foot putt in an important golf tournament.  

4)      Instead of promoting order in relation to the issues and problems of the day, Trump has reverted to vile demagoguery and disorderly response in every instance.  After perpetrating chaos and disorder during the worst first few months of the corona virus attack -- resulting in the deaths of over 185,000 persons so far -- Trump decided to double down on the chaos by asserting lies about effective steps he never took, medicines he never took and promises he can’t keep.  Perhaps his greatest failure was not utilizing the vast resources of the central government to enforce a national plan and norms for a united approach to the virus.  His eventual withdrawal from the fight; his devolvement to the state governors of national responsibilities, and his blaming of everyone and everything for his miserable failures, he has brought us closer than ever to national anarchy and ruin.

5)      Trump followed through on bold threats and dispatched a secretive federal force of agents to Portland several weeks after that city’s most unruly demonstrations had mellowed out. His intention was ostensibly to defend a federal courthouse that had been vandalized by dissidents (and to show himself as a strongman who will not tolerate lawlessness or harmful disorder). Reports from the Washington Post suggest that his real goal was terror and bedlam: to create an environment of heightened tension and violence that he could attribute to Democratic misrule and then portray himself as having quelled it. Agents in fatigues, bearing no identifying insignia or name badges, snatched protesters off the streets and threw them into unmarked vans in full camera view.  Others guarded the federal courthouse and engaged in brutal nightly showdowns with demonstrators that caused the protests not only to grow but to spread to other cities as well. Trump ran for president in 2016 while evoking Nixonian calls for “law and order” and casting himself as a foil to the Black Lives Matter movement and its attendant protests. This type of brutal intervention by secret agents to squelch human rights helps cement Trump’s role as a Fascist-type autocrat.

6)      Trump is putting children and adults at mortal risk that will result in greater illness and death because the virus is lying in wait for all those returning to schools and colleges, several of which institutions are re-closing already because of the rise in reported cases that threaten everyone involved. This is an avoidable increase in viral attacks, but Trump’s inability to separate winning from caring has placed innumerable bodies in the fatal path of the virus. 

The reality  is that going back to school, to work, and opening all businesses without adequate safeguards is nothing short of the use of our sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers for the personal aims of one man – Donald J. Trump.  He is risking the lives of many more people in his abusive, disorderly, and murderous campaign to win four more years of authoritarian disorder and unlawfulness in the White House.  ‘Law and Order’ is just one more tool in his tool kit for use against certain voters and to put fear into the hearts of those who are bamboozled by his fabricated conspiracies and self-serving lies.

7)      And just now, in complete violation of his office and his constitutional duty -- that says he “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”--Trump has urged North Carolinians voting by mailed ballots to “vote twice” (once at the polls and once by mailed ballot) as a “test” to make sure their votes are counted.  As North Carolina’s Attorney General reminded this “Law and Order President” such action would be illegal, and that he is promoting an illegal act.