Category: Donald Trump

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USA, Politics and Clearing up a Mess: The Trump Legacy

chessboard with pieces and hands moving one
In a democracy that is working – even if more or less – clearing up the mess of predecessors is a central part of the work.

The longer predecessors had time to mess it up, the longer the clearing can take. World politics these days are fraught with pain and fear, not altogether new, but at the time being, very central and basic again: Nuclear war?

Whom to blame?

The facts:

    • The two existing ‘superpowers’ – the Soviet Union/Russia and the US – have been constantly balancing their power and fighting all across the globe, including in diplomatic talks, since WWII.
    • The so-called ‘proxy wars’ in many countries in the past and present are signs of that.
    • Afghanistan is one of the most afflicted countries around the world, and has been for centuries:
        • In 18th and 19th century world politics, the wars between Britain and France and Russia partly were fought there; Afghanistan as ‘gate to India’ – a tool.
        • In the course of the 20th century numerous times, the Soviet Union and then Russia with the US fought there in proxy uprisings. Afghanistan a central region in several directions and seen as a gate yet again.
        • The civil war there raged for more than 30 years, leaving the country almost without any kind of infrastructure or healthy professions people could use to earn a living.
        • To leave it to self-destruct or leave it to those who would destroy it, would be bordering not only on the insane, but be basically a crime committed against its population whose majority is innocently suffering.
      • The USA under the Trump government terminated the INF-contracts that had been signed after, altogether, decades of negotiations in 1987 to finally end the Cold War after 40 years.
      • Trump had instated several supreme court justices of his own political believes.
        Let’s remember: In order to change the US-constitution the supreme court is crucial.
      • Trump had initiated the attack on the Capitol.
      • Putin and Trump were the best of political friends. The massive manipulation of elections from inside Russia in favour of Trump are proven without doubt.

These are some of the most important facts in regard to the situation we are facing now. Ukraine is, alas, one more country used as a proxy and recently put on the map again, because of that.

It pains me to write it – yet the only chance at peace we have – and ultimately survival, prevent a nuclear war, that is – is the reinstatement of contracts or agreements that make both of these ‘superpowers’ and their allies feel safe enough again.

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Democracy in Danger – The “Banality of Evil”

lady justice with books on table

Anyone who has followed the court of law sessions against the criminals responsible for war, torture and death of millions in Germany and Israel after the Third Reich of the Nazis had ended in 1945, knows this title:
it is the title of Hannah Arendt’s clear analysis of what can be so shockingly ‘mundane’. The evil that can be part of mankind, in the guise of everyday people with faces of bookkeepers, such as that of Adolf Eichmann.

Donald Trump these days when talking into the cameras seems dreadfully familiar in his ‘banal’ and complete denial of reality – or sense of responsibility for the community at large.

For many months I refused to write about him anymore, to take any official notice in order to reduce any public effect he craves for with such utter disregard of all that is good or beautiful – or human – or right.

His disregard for law and order in their good sense, for equality or goodness, for better chances for all, and in turn his love for public recognition at any price are shameful to watch in a country such as the USA, who for decades, if not centuries claimed to be saviour of democracy and watcher over the application of human rights around the world.

That Trump still dares to stand in public claiming without showing any remorse or shame that he refuses violence, is only true to  the ‘form’ he has shown ever since he started running for office.

In their Pledge of Allegiance among other things, the US have included the phrase “..and justice for all”.
Let justice be served with all the force the legal system has to offer in the US on Donald Trump, now. It is high time for this impeachment.

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Neo-Nazis, Politics, Media – and Responsibility!

Again, someone has gone and done it: Hanau, Germany, 19.02.2020: a crazed man kills 9 people who seemed ‘foreign’ and then his mother and himself.
And now, wailing and crying and gnashing of teeth can be heard everywhere, online…

It is important to loudly and clearly state: such deeds are criminal!

But at the same time all the politicians that now stand pompously or even truly sorrowful in front of cameras in Germany, have to ask themselves, as well as the media broadcasting these images and speeches:
why so late?
Why did the discussion go on publicly for years on end without any foresight of possible consequences?

Is it even the bible, book of lots of wisdom, if nothing else, where it says:
“Sow wind and you will reap storm”?

The problems visible now and for almost two decades now are European, and home made:

  • A public discussion for years on all available ‘channels’ of information, newspapers, TV shows, news, fora and talk shows, which spills over into the so-called ‘social media’.
  • This discussion started by a politician in the south of Germany who in the fall of 2016 called the refugees a ‘problem’ for the first time, this time around – and then gleefully taken on by the abovementioned channels, because:
  • News are goods to be sold as well!
  • The discussion continued endlessly, for more than 4 years! Again, on all public channels, trying to ‘find ways out of the crisis’, when there really was none!
  • On and and on droned the specialists and scientists and activists and journalists and political consultants and … everyone who hoped to make something out of this:
  • Over and over and over: ‘a problem, an issue, a crisis’.
  • Then the right wing politicians and other charlatans and up-starts and power-thirsty elements: they are just as bad as any of those that go and do the shooting as such!
  • Because without properly thinking twice, thinking it through, taking care of possible consequences, they take up the yarn and go on spinning it to make a good sound rope – to ultimately ‘hang’ people by?
  • For centuries, sensations, drama, is what draws crowds. For some reason or another.

Learn from history! Learn, learn, learn…!

Some of the lessons are hilariously easy if you care:

  • Condemning the ‘other’ is easy!
  • Send fear into humans with less insight by making them aware of imagined ‘strangeness’ is easy.
  • People, like the AfD in Germany these days – or people like Trump and his party and followers, ‘feed’ on the fact:
  • In ancient Rome the ‘recipe’ worked the same way: make it public – and the crowd, the sheep will go ‘baaahhh’.

So, do not condemn!
Do not call anything a problem, especially about other human beings, if it is not!
And, last but not at all least, also look for that most striking similarity:
the hungry masses, that feel abandoned by the few wealthy who abuse them for the sake of more power and more money:
they are the first to strike out at someone apparently weaker – because to have someone below oneself in the social strata provides some kind of pride to those that have lost even that.

But do not repeat those phrases! Do not pretend to listen to them for the sake of making them feel heard! And then abuse them again…

That was one of the most foolish – and damnable in its consequences – of tendencies a couple of years ago, in Germany, among others. That’s how the AfD got started.

That’s how political parties similar to it can gain power and ultimately throw us into the abyss of another world war, if we and you do not look out.

Because as the smart ones among my readers will know: those abusing wealth and power are not out for the good of the masses, even if they pretend to do so.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

Regardless of gender, creed and colour!

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Remember Cuba? Remember the Nazis? Iran, the US, War, Pride – Make Peace!

The cold war is behind us, so it seems, which was a stage laid out for two ‘super-powers’ in finance as well as weapons.
What is now going on is the same song and dance as it was and has been before, not only for the decades since WW II – but for time almost immemorial: finance and thus money and more money, deals, power over resources and thus wealth – and also: pride.

I have posted here already that in my opinion wounded pride has caused more rifts, arguments and wars than anything else in this world.

When the Nazi dictator was still a young man in his twenties, he tried to be admitted to the academy of arts in Munich, Germany, to become an artist – and study painting. They refused him.
So, he joined the ‘party’ and one might say that most of the rest of his life was dedicated to make up for the ultimate private humiliation by becoming famous some other way – and prove to the world…

In history, we may find things repeat themselves, true to Job’s age old adage in the bible, that ‘there was nothing new under the sun’.

Well, yes, technology has progressed. We, basically, can prove now there’s no ‘man in the moon’.
But otherwise, as Erich Kästner has it in one of his poems, too: ‘Einst haben die Kerls in den Bäumen gehockt…’ which translates into:
‘in ancient times they sat in trees….’ – ‘they still are the same’, only the surroundings are different.
At Kästner’s time, mail was sent via tubes in large cities between offices – these days it’s email.

But if someone’s pride is hurt he or she may react in all kinds of (predictable) ways. President Trump may be one of the candidates.
Although he is in fact part of the small group of extremely rich, who may even want more, then they could ever need, just to prove to their family, parents, the world, themselves that they are worth at least as much money in their accounts…

Ultimately, payback may well be at the root of the most striking actions he as president of the US has set in motion.
If you follow his biography more closely, it seems that his mind was made up to run for president when he had been publicly (felt) humiliated by the then holder of the office.

But whatever the cause, whatever the effect – is it really worth it, to endanger millions of innocent lives – for a payback?
Just revoking all the good that has been done – just so it’s being revoked?
Is not that what is done in sandbox games?
‘If you kick my castle, I will kick yours.’

Dignity can be important – but our own individual reactions always determine what manner and amount of dignity we retain.

At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962, negotiations were upheld to the culminating point, to the last possible moment, in order to prevent war.

And that should now be moot? Not true? Another ‘disgruntled’ person feeling small and blowing himself up in the face of the world, when anyone smart enough sees through that at a glance?

Why not do the really magnanimous thing? Retain dignity?
Refrain from payback!

Because the bible has that too, in so many words, quoted from memory:
‘and God speaks: what you have done to the least of my (millions of) brothers, you have done to me.’

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Trump, War, Weapons … Money

Although one might not think it right away: Trump all through his presidency has acted true to character. Driven by the need to make more and more money and prove himself to be the tough guy who will not – apparently – consider anyone else’s ideas or pleasure:

He really is the greedy creature he’s always been. A few corrections in his behaviour when cameras are around; some travels around the globe so he can create the image of the diplomatic and reliable person he should have been from day one, as an added ‘polish to the image’ – they cannot fool anyone who’s followed his ‘career’ just a little more closely:

With him and his ‘train’, who are rather the puppet masters in the background, it is not about anything, but gaining money, by hook or by crook, if necessary, by both.
A shame actually to think that such a pitiful excuse for a man who often is downright ridiculous, should get so much attention. But of course, with people such as him, that is the second weakness: the craving for attention. Any kind.

I still wonder how it was possible that North Korea so comparatively easily changed tune in such a short time… what funds were transferred from where to whom…

I hope and even pray that Iran for all it’s worth will keep it’s diplomatic cool and not be drawn into any of the antics Trump so far has used with other countries and which amount to what is again common in global politics:
bribery and extortion.

Hoping that Iran in politics will one day turn out to be a country where something like the Declaration and International Bill of Human Rights will be political principal inside as well as out, in accordance as well with age old traditions; I still do not believe for a moment in the rights the US have claimed at least since WWII around the world: do anything they can, literally any thing, to keep or expand their power over natural resources in any shape or form.

Do not let them fool you! Media, the best especially, are crucial for knowing about what is being said in front of cameras. But to know people and politics, look for the underlying principle and beware. Behind the cameras, a lot goes on that sometimes is only found out decades or even centuries later.

Know them by their deeds. Resist war and manipulation with all peaceful, nonviolent might.
Make peace, not war!

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Trump, Contracts, World Peace and the Principle of Cover-Up

History can teach us: what’s happening at the moment in US foreign affairs is really an ignominious yet often used method to cover up what goes wrong ‘at home’.

From ancient kings in the past to Hitler during the Third Reich this procedure has been apparently easy to use and quickly leads to the desired effects. On the surface hatred and abuse are called out, even screamed sometimes, from the speaker’s desk, and Hitler and Trump show uncanny similarities in their rhetoric.

But the underlying schemes and patterns are even more important to realize in order to get a grip on the recent US foreign policies, with apparently no consideration for anything but the immediate, even if pretended, hatred…?

It is quite clear that the Trump government hasn’t so far even come close to the promises made to its voters. The book recently published by an author as prominent and well-known, not to say famous, as Bob Woodward makes the situation even more poignant.

The incompetence and almost insane quality of the present government stand out like a boil. The promised thousands of jobs cannot be found, which for most people are the main reason for voting for one candidate or another, in many parts of the country.

What remains to be done, is what Trump is preparing now: he cancels armament contracts, partly long-standing ones that were made to protect the world from complete destruction, by mad and greedy dictators or any heads of government, kings or otherwise.

That way he paves the way for what is this procedure, this easy to use and fast working ‘medicine’ for all that need to make their people devotees and believers in their cause again: cover up your problems in home affairs by focusing on foreign ones.
Tell them that dreadful enemies are everywhere and therefore arms are necessities of the first order.
Start arming the country with lots and lots of tanks, guns and other even more destructive weapons, not to say ‘weapons of mass-destruction’ (term may ring a bell….), and the following goals will be reached:

  • Get a lot of government money into a dormant industry sector, producing those weapons on a large scale.
  • Create thousands of new jobs and a content population, who may one day soon then even swallow the more bitter medicine that war has to follow, again.

This way, no one will care to look twice at what was there before: high numbers of unemployed and disgruntled people. People with apparently no future who even now use the weapons already in the streets – while others are clamouring for stricter gun laws, potentially reducing profits of that industry sector even more.

Let’s not be fooled!
Let’s be aware – and say ‘No’ – to war – and to rearmament!

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Trump: Lies, Hate – Atomic War? – Remember Gandhi…!

Donald Trump has been a phenomenon from the first times he entered public record and awareness. He’s the worst version of a depraved and downright hateful human being you can probably imagine. I myself read about these types only in books – and in newspapers of course.

He’s perhaps not one of those you would outright suspect of murder – but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was secretly involved in such schemes.
What is public and confirmed knowledge though is this: he’s been involved in lies, shady business schemes and fraud to the ‘hilt’. He is so obviously lying almost any time he opens his mouth that it’s difficult to take him seriously.
The fact that he’s come all this way in terms of wealth is proof of an also comparatively commonly known concept: there always were and always will be a certain percentage of human beings on this earth who believe that money is a form of distinction in a man (or woman) to have acquired – the more the better.
If Trump wasn’t president of the USA, one could easily just have a good laugh at him – or two – and then dismiss him for the basically ridiculous person he is.
Unfortunately he is president of the US at the moment. My only hope is that an impeachment process will  be started against him after all. That there will be enough people around who still have some kind of reason at their hearts – and also realize that the respect for the USA outside of it is at a historic low – and no new war even be started by them – yet…
Well, in view of such trials we have to face in this life, the only comfort left to me are two things:

  • As a peaceful person at heart and of conviction you can always resort to Gandhi’s way of civil disobedience, if all else should fail.
  • Take comfort in the fact, that depravity always has been part of humanity – but that there are at least as many kind, smart and knowledgeable people around!
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