Sunday, March 11, 2018                                          12:53 PM

Offended By Trump   (2018Mar11)

I am offended by Trump, not because he is a criminal, a Russian mole, a nuclear threat, a racist, misogynist, or an Islamophobe, but because he does not respect our country. His patriotism is to himself and his money—period.

There is an order to civilization. In the end, it’s all about compromise—since compromise is the only alternative to strife. Trump, unfortunately, represents the forces of disorder and of strife—of ignorance and bluster.

Worse than Trump is his Congressional train of commodified Republicans—craven legislators with ‘the good of the people’ dead last on their priorities list—these are the weasels who blow with the fattest wind. They serve only themselves and, far from representing the people, serve instead those who place profit above community.

And they will pooh-pooh all of this as liberal whining—but they are either ignorant, or simply liars. Making accommodations for the underserved is simply good business. It costs less money to keep people in decent conditions than it costs to deal with all the aftereffects of extreme poverty. It is better economics to spend money on our children’s health and education than to have a generation of unhealthy, ignorant Americans. That’s not whining—that’s just common sense.

The American government, for a long time, served as a balance against the predatory aims of Capitalism—allowing the break-neck, cut-throat action of big business, without allowing it to enslave our society and rescind our human rights. We stand at a crossroads now—where either we can go on with the Hyper-Capitalistic fever-dream of those who shut their eyes to all but dollar signs, or we can start voting for candidates whose aim is to wrest our government back onto the side of the people.

The stock market is an excellent example of this blindness: when it goes up, it only makes rich people richer—but when it goes down, the poorest feel it the worst. Rich people ought to take into account the fact that they, as a group, keep shrinking down and down—and outside their mansions, the world becomes a less and less pleasant place to take a walk. I would think they’d want to have more friends—and nicer places to take walks. Maybe they live in such abject fear of change that they don’t even consider such things. Go figure.