The Unclad Soul

(Note: This may be hard to take, but I think it's necessary. - TM) President Trump took his road show to Houston, Texas this week. He was there to support the Senate candidacy of Ted Cruz. However, he barely mentioned Cruz. Most of the speech was about, as usual, himself. One of the most disturbing things he said was a threat to send the military to the border to stop what he calls “the caravan” of refugees from Honduras and Guatemala from entering the U.S. First of all, he cannot legally do that. There is an Act that prohibits the military from engaging in civilian law enforcement outside of military bases (The Posse Comitatus Act). And secondly, really? Just ignore these desperate people? Without the slightest proof and with a desire to continue to scare his base, he claimed gangs, murderers, rapists, and terrorists are basically the people in the caravan. “We don’t want them,” he yelled to the crowd, who of course cheered and applauded. I don’t care to go on ab...

I am still bewildered by the actions of both Judge Brett Kavanaugh and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last Thursday. The anger, no, the rage in them was shocking. But it was their blatant partisanship that ended any respect I might have for either of them. Yes, Judge Kavanaugh was facing a humiliating time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, having to deny the allegations of sexual assault as a high school teenager. And of course, he would be angry about having his good name, his integrity questioned. After what, as far as we know, has been an exemplary life and an impressive career, it is natural he would be flustered by having all of that ignored because of things he may or may not have done in high school and college. And yet, as a nominee for the highest court in the nation, a position that requires, even demands, an even temperament and the ability to remain politically and religiously impartial and non-partisan, he ...

José Rizal, a physician, writer, and a peace advocate during the Spanish-American War wrote: “There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.” Merriam-Webster defines a tyrant as “an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution…an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power.” We normally think of tyrants as madmen, vicious and violent dictators who brutalize their people, often with beatings, imprisonment, and death. And there have been and still are leaders of countries with those characteristics. But tyrants can also be less than that. They can simply be those who lead by manipulation, deceit, and mocking rhetoric, who, as Merriam-Webster put it, rule “unrestrained by law or constitution.” But whatever stripe of tyrant one may be, they cannot stay in power, as Rizal said, “without slaves.” What does that mean? It means those who do as they are told. Those who follow without consideration of their own best interests or the interests of others....

Dear Conservative Friends, I’m torn. Some of you I have known for years. Some of you are close friends, people I love and admire and care about. So it makes it difficult for me to understand your politics sometimes and your devotion to president Trump, your tolerance of his divisive partisanship, your silence regarding his often hurtful comments, and your acceptance of his merry clan of White House associates and Congressional chums many of whom are clearly corrupt and many others who seem hell bent on making America one race (white of course), one religion (Fundamentalist Christian), one economy (for the wealthy), one issue (the 2 nd Amendment), and one truth (theirs). Now, I’m sure you can turn that all around and say something similar to me about Democrats or liberals or others you strenuously disagree with or dislike. Understood. But I’m honestly concerned about the way things seem to be going in the country. Yes, liberals and moderates have often been lousy at govern...

The election in Alabama yesterday to replace Senate Republican Jeff Sessions ended another high profile, tawdry political race, one that reminds us of how far our political system has fallen into disgrace. Roy Moore, a controversial evangelical firebrand, a man who had twice been removed from office as an Alabama Supreme Court justice, for blatantly ignoring federal laws, and who reportedly was banned from a mall for spooking teenage girls, and who was accused by various adult women of having made inappropriate advances toward them when they were teens, centered his campaign, unbelievably, on Christian principles. Moore made a career of using religion to bolster the support of Christians for his political ambitions. And for years it worked. But apparently many voters got tired of the hypocrisy and the manipulation and rejected him. Including a large number of Black voters who courageously stood up to Moore’s shoddy politics that were often prejudicial and intolerant of minorit...

“There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal as a human being to human beings; remember your humanity.”  ―   Bertrand Russell , Philosopher/Author

The good life was once a cozy, warm and safe existence. It stood against harsh words, mean acts, manipulation and violence. It was a world of benevolence where acts of fairness, compassion and love were incubated then birthed. But does it exist anymore? Is it in our day nothing but naïve blather; a way for losers to live? Most of us want a good life for our children. In preparation for that we want to guard them against the cruelties of life, against dishonesty and exploitation, against the jeers of the hateful and the trickery of the evil, against being hoaxed and suckered; to insulate them from heartlessness, brutality, mockery and spite. We want to teach them to live above this and be respectable citizens. But for some odious reason it seems that over and again that is a naïve approach to life for our children and for ourselves. The reality, we’re told, is to learn to fight, to mistrust people, to see through the lies that are always out there, to learn the ways of getting ...

Lee Atwater was the infamous Republican strategist for both President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Atwater made a career of dirty politics using highly effective but dishonorable skills to distort the positions of political opponents, smear their character, and basically humiliate and decimate them. He was not shy either about using racial and ethnic slurs and innuendos. Brash and often offensive he reveled in the political battles he created. At the height of his political career he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. A year later at age 40 he would be dead. The powerhouse bully, the supposedly brilliant political tactician, the guy who was feared by Democrats as well as Republicans, was reduced to the limits of a body and mind broken and dying. In the last months of his life he dropped all of the sneering hate and crippling abuse he had dished out to opponents. Humbled by the awareness of his own humanity and the stark reality of how fragile and momentary life can b...

The politics of our day is a deadening force. The angry divisiveness, the arrogant partisanship of it all, the refusal to cooperate with others, the obsession of winning at all costs even if it costs the nation its dignity and its worth, is a bitter reality. I’m unclear as to what brought us here. Why our politicians failed to evolve and became instead a crowd of petty, juvenile, angry, warped and one-sided tyrants is debatable but it discredits all of us. It is impossible to move the country forward if our chief lawmakers have no interest in anything but their own political careers; if they care about nothing but holding onto their elected offices even if it requires them to compromise themselves into some form of prostitution, the selling of themselves to corporate giants and the czars of finance. Which many if not most have already done. Our current presidential campaign is a humiliating display of defective candidates. The Republicans have paraded before us a crowd of ...

Domestic gun violence with mass murders of innocent unarmed people. Refusal to pass any meaningful immigration reform. Glaring unjust economic inequality. Unquestionable racial discrimination. Blatant disrespect for the office of president and the function of government. These are vital national issues Republicans perpetuate and will not face. Why do Republican candidates want to be president anyway? Why do Republicans in Congress want to serve? What is it Republican governors, mayors, and elected state officials want? Why are they there? I mean, what possible good do any of them want to do for the country? They refuse to cooperate with president Obama and Democrats. They demagogue. They patronize. They pontificate. They incite discord and often hate. They dismiss the constitution. If they dislike a law they just ignore it. They either distort the truth or outright lie about the economy, about immigration, about abortion, about Planned Parenthood and all the other social and moral i...

President Obama’s speech last night on temporary immigration reform was excellent. He was poised, determined and intelligent. He was our nation’s leader; the one many of us have been waiting for these last few years to show real courage. The executive action he will enact is compassionate, sensible, and humane. It does not go far enough for me, but at least, finally, something tangible is being done to address the millions of undocumented living and working in our country, many of them for years.  The Republican’s freak out over this is silly and so over the top it borders on cartoonish. They know they have royally messed up. In spite of their recent election victories they have failed and lost. For now and forevermore the Latino community in this country will be grateful to President Obama, and those Democrats who have supported him in this, for actually doing something to legitimately include them in our society. This nonsense from Republicans that the president’s action has “po...

I’m not sure I could be more disheartened about our political system. I feel sorrow and dismay, anger and disillusionment, and I do not know what the answers are to our corrupt and rotting national political apparatus. A character in N.K. Jemisin’s novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms , speaks for me, “…and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are my tears.” The Republicans are doing everything in their power to completely dismantle the orderly flow of Congressional procedures. Going on 6 years now they stubbornly and arrogantly refuse to cooperate with the President. They serve in their elected places of responsibility only to block his judicial appointments, to discredit and sabotage the Affordable Care Act with nothing to replace it, to defund public education, to bow down and kiss the feet of the wealthy, to interfere with any economic progress whatsoever because they are terrified a Democrat might get...

My friend Jennifer Ables reminded me the other day that not all Republicans are bad. And she is right. And the frustrations and anger I express on here toward Republicans and the Tea Party is not directed at my friends like Jennifer. Not at all. Although, as I said to her, I don’t really understand how some of my friends can vote for and support Republicans since the party seems totally controlled now by Tea Party extremists.  People like Ted Cruz who cynically uses and manipulates voters in order to elevate himself. What has he done for America? I can't think of anything positive. He and his small but noisy crowd of followers in Congress seemingly have no interest in serving our country or helping make it better for all of our citizens. They appear to only care about playing the game, beating their opponents, making lots of money, and doing everything they can to smear President Obama and keep him from leading the country. Now, after weeks of holding the nation in limbo, hurt...

It is time to face the facts in this country. We are dangerously divided. You can’t sugarcoat it by saying it’s always been this way between people and groups. You can’t dismiss it as just life in contemporary society. You can’t pretend there is any middle ground any longer. The evolutionary biologist and author, Richard Dawkins, has said, “When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.” How true. It’s not that the Democrats are a little right and the Republicans are, too. It’s no longer true that both sides share basically the same political ideals. They don’t. Maybe once, but not anymore. Democrats are not without their own hypocrisies, blunders, irritating passiveness, and cheap compromises. But there are clear differences in the crafting of traditional, well meaning, good for all of society political legislation, which they are still commit...

I spent last evening watching on C-Span the House Oversight Committee eviscerate the former commissioner of the IRS, Douglas Shulman. Both Republicans and Democrats took turns sanctimoniously judging Shulman and trying with all the drama of a courtroom trial of some grotesque murderer to humiliate and destroy the man. The Republicans of course love this kind of stuff.  Their questioning bordered on hysteria and orgasmic delight.  Most of it was complete buffoonery; as usual.  And the Democrats, who never miss a chance to hold hands with Republican fanatics and support them in their derangement, joined right in.  They always do this if they think doing so will impress someone out there in the voting public who thinks Democrats are passive sissies.  But of course no one is ever impressed by this display of phony outrage. Having a brain and being an intelligent, rational presence seems lost on all of those on this committee.  With the exception o...