___________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/22/donald-trump-churches-mosques-synagogues-reopen
This is pure politics. It's a play for the evangelicals, many of whom have been ignoring the law and are cramming their churches anyway. Of course. Their concept of religion focusses on one thing - getting themselves into heaven while the rest of us roast in hell. In their viewew, the only point of religion is getting into heaven and to hell with the rest of us.
Does Trump go to any church at all? (very rarely. But he is, litterally their God.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One boring night, I watched a film on TV. It was a western movie, largely set in a tavern where cowboys stood and sat around, all wearing two guns, and occasionally shooting into the roof or into each other.
It was a perfect symbol of all the myths of U.S. history.
Cowboys did not run around with two guns shooting each other up. And they most certainly were not allowed into taverns with guns. In fact, any cowboy going into a town had to turn his gun in at the sheriff's office. Those celebrated shoot-outs never happened. Indeed, it was far more dangerous to walk down a street in an eastern city like New York than in a western cowtown.
And unlike the movies image, a large minority of cowboys were black. Of course. They were cheap labour. But you don't see many of them in those western movies and almost never in those gun-totin' scenes in taverns.
But our image of the west remains one of heavily armed cowboys and quick draws.
In the same way, our idea of much of the history of the U.S. and Canada is an illusion.
I'm a Canadian historian. I've read a good deal of our military history. It's heavy on the valour and the glory, much less so on what our wars have really been about. In the same way, much of the popular understanding of American history is bunk.
But Americans and Canadians (and many other nations) live in a bunk world of who we are and who we have been. For a start, the U.S. did not enter World War Two to help Britain. It enered to plunder the British Empire. The U.S. has murdered and plundered all over Latin America for 120 years. That was not glorious. It was murderous, as cruel as anything Hitler did, and it still goes on.
But we still make decisions on the basis of what we think we are and what we think we did.
__________________________________________________________________
Trump's mental illness makes him a man of dangerous judgement.
_________________________________________________________________
It is a part of Trump's mental illness that he makes judgements not on the basis of what is needed, but on the appeal of such judgements to his devoted followers.
__________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Climate change is happening. Oil is a major cause of this. The Canadian government has agreed with this. But it refuses to take action against an Alberta that has allowed itself to become the servant of oil even as it's oil resources are dying. Worse, the Canadian government has made the rest of us pay billions of dollars (to American billionaires) to keep it's outdated oil industry to survive even as we watch it dying. (And, of course, those billlions go into the pockets of American billionaires.
__________________________________________________________________
The President of Brazil is one of the world's most destructive and anti-democracy leaders. He's also a special buddy to wealthy Americans and Canadians - also, of course, to American and Canadian governments.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
Oh, incidentally, semitic is not a racial definition. A semite is any person that speaks a semitic language. That means arabs as well as Jews are semites.
_______________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
And a surprise.
_________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Get used to it.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Canada will, as always since 1945, do what the U.S. tells it to do.
_________________________________________________________________
Canada - the puppet.
Would the Conservatives be more intelligent? Get real.
__________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Despite all the myths, capitalism has never benefited the rest of us, just the very rich.
________________________________________________________________
Yes, the austere and concerned premier Ford who daily tells us on TV what he's doing in our virus crisis also, more quietly, continues the great damage he has been doing to our environment.
__________________________________________________________________
Henry Ford was a notorious hater of Jews, and a great admirer of Hitler. Years ago when the world and I were young, Jewish friends told me a joke about Ford.
Ford lived in a great mansion. One day, a Jew bought the land next door. He then built a mansion that was a perfect copy of Ford's. One day Ford said,"you've really hit the big time. Your place is just as nice as mine."
"Oh, no", said the Jew.."Mine is much nicer than yours"
"Nonsense, it's just like mine."
"Oh no",said the Jew. "mine is much better. I don't have a Jew living next door to me."
________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
Trump is in no way a Christian person. But a great deal of his followers are evangelical Christians. I know them well. Unlike the regular Christian churches (that are dying), evangelicals are thriving.
What is their appeal? For one, they specialize in preachers who convey happiness and joy at the prospect of dying. (They are much less interested in the teaching of Jesus because it was about life on earth - and that's Yuki-poo.) Their primary interest is in dying and going to heaven, there to stand on clouds among millions of other evangelicals to sing the praises of God for - oh forever - millions and millions of years doing nothing but praising God.
(You will notice some pictures of them in which they are touching Trump's arms and shoulders. That is because they believe in him as either Jesus (or God) come to save ONLY them.)
Yes. These people are real nutbars.
I once attended many of their services. Cheerful sermons were a rule. Smiling congregations were a rule. Faked line-ups were common, pumping up the faithful (with eyes closed) to walk up to the altar. "Yes. Bless you madam. Come this way sir." Early in this, there was no movement, just a congregation with it's eyes closed. But, eventually, some would line up to be blessed. And then they will all be allowed to open their eyes.)
It was all entertainment (the preacher crawling up the aisle with a sack on his shoulder - carrying his sins.) It was all cheery.
Yes. Evangelicals are nutbars, and Trump is a religious fraud. But they are a large part of the U.S population.
It is very possible that after the next election, whether a win or lose for Trump, that the nutbars will trigger serious violence in much of the U.S. - perhaps with the very active cooperation of groups like the gun lobby.
Alas! we also have nutbars in Canada.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
The U.S. is, by far, the world's biggest salesman of weapons to peace-loving allies like Saudi Arabia. And, even as Americans die in hunger and homelessness, the U.S. leades the world in it's production of weapons so it can shoot millions who, in most of the world, can't shoot back. Why, it is quite possible that some will go to American shoulders to shoot American people. This is a system heading for a crash.
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
In a cutest way it is called free enterprise. That sounds nice -free and enterprise.
Iin a coarser way, it is called capitalism. Those who benefit from it say that it's a system that creates prosperity.
In fact, though, it's simply the old system of the Roman Empire. Yhr emporor dolled out rewards to his aristocrasy and with lots and lots just for the emperor.
And the people of Rome?
They got nothing. In their desperation and hunger the people of Rome would select members of the moneyed class to gather pennies for errands for them.
And when when a member of this class died, he or she was simply dumped into a monster pit where thousaands of the dead turned into a sort of gel.
The kings and queens of Europe were much the same. And, despite all it's foofaraw, capitalism is really much the same.
It makes us rich? No. In recent months. American capitalists have pocketed some 360 billions of dollars even as millions of us peasantry struggle to survive on low salaries or no salaries at all. In the U.S., capitalist have deprived most people of the ability to get medical care.
As well, Canadian and American capitalists, in the guise of patriotism, use their "Roman mob" to fight and die to make capitalists richer. (The rest us peasantry of course have to pay the cost of those wars because the super rich pay little to no taxes.)
Free enterprise or capitalism, call it what you will, has been the world's most destructive force for thousands of years. And it never benefits us because that's not what it's designed to do.
In the western world, this situation could well create massive suffering and violence. (In rhe U.S., it may be more likely to take the form of severe violence, varying in different parts of the country. (Americans are suffering now. But it could soon be very violent in a nation that has no general or united sense of direction. Nor will it be useful violence since it will give status to the most violent and destructive - the gun nuts, the racists, and, yes, the evangelicals.
And the only possible sources of government are two political parties, both of them owned by the very rich - under a president who is very dangerously mentally ill with an opponent to him who is corrupt and stupid.
We could be in for very dangerous times.
