America First? America Alone.

Here's another thought-provoker from D.W., the Old Philosopher.  Thanks, D.W.!

Will America remain a figure of global respect or influence, or will the rest of the world simply leave us behind?
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America has been separating itself from reason and the rational world since Dubya's "shock and aw-shucks: No WMD's?"  " You're with us or against us," and freedom fries.  Denial of science and xenophobia --flowing from the "top" -- are defining our national character and policies.

Now it is not a question of whether the "checks and balances" in our system will save us, but rather will the checks and balances of a new world order leave the US on the outside. 

Der Spiegel has started the discussion:

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/10/514566952/german-magazine-calls-for-international-coalition-to-counter-trump

This Is Not America

There are some 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in America.  Many have been here for decades.  They raise families here and they contribute to our society.  Most pay taxes.

Reasonable people, both liberal and conservative, long ago concluded that it's not only logistically impossible to deport all these people, it's not really in our best financial interests either.  Any genuinely dangerous criminals among them should go, of course, but the average undocumented person is shopping at WalMart right beside you and me.

Our new president is not a reasonable person.  He's decided to show his pique at having his travel ban shot down by the courts by instigating a vindictive and worthless round-up of "illegals with criminal records," focusing on fish-in-a-barrel "high-density" areas in the southwest.

His goon squads are raiding apartment buildings and trailer parks, looking for brown people to deport.  But it's not the targeted enforcement of previous administrations.  Trump's net is wide, cruel and arbitrary.  He's not snagging "bad hombres," he's deporting people with unpaid parking tickets.

It's appalling and reminiscent of some the worst episodes of the not-too-distant past.  We should all be ashamed.  Resist.  Fight back.  #NotMyPresident.







 

Back To The Future

Fool-Aid: Served To The Public Daily

The Age Of Fear; Or, Don't Be A Sucker

From The Age of Fear, by Neil Strauss, 10/20/16, rollingstone.com
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Trump's rhetoric served only to fan the flames:  "They're bringing drugs.  They're bringing crime.  They're rapists."  "It's only getting worse."  "You walk down the street, you get shot!"  Build a wall.  Ban the Muslims.  Obama founded ISIS.  Hillary is the devil.  Death, destruction, violence, poverty, weakness.  And I alone can make America safe again.

But just how unsafe is America today?

According to Barry Glassner, president of Lewis & Clark College, a leading sociologist and author of The Culture of Fear, "Most Americans are living in the safest place on earth at the safest time in history."

"But we are also living in the most fearmongering time in human history.  And the main reason for this is that there's a lot of power and money available to individuals and organizations who can perpetuate these fears."

For mass media, insurance companies, Big Pharma, advocacy groups, lawyers, politicians and so many more, your fear is worth billions.  And fortunately for them, your fear is also very easy to manipulate.  Humans are wired to respond to it above everything else. 
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So don't be a sucker, dear readers.  (Happily, most of Buster's readers are the opposite of suckers.)  And always consider the source.

I'll leave you with these two factoids:

• For each of us, the odds of a fatal terror attack by a refugee in the U.S. is 1 in 3.6 billion per year.

• 280,000 Americans were killed guns in the past 10 years.  Zero Americans were killed by refugees in the past 10 years.

An Argument For Drunkenness

The fact that Donald Trump does not drink at all is the greatest argument for drunkenness there is.

Nixon To Trump: How Far We've Fallen

Nixon was the defining monster of an earlier era.  We've now found ours in Donald Trump, a human consumption machine with no attention span, no self-control, no beliefs and no hobbies outside of sex, spending, eating, and talking about himself.  Nixon at least played the piano and read classics.  He was an intellectual with a pig's heart.  Trump is just the pig part.  The distance between them represents how far we've fallen in the past 40 years. 

-- Matt Taibbi, journalist and author of the new book, Insane Clown President.