FROM HOPE TO HOPELESS?
My father was 23 years old in 1941. He was well aware of the terror occurring in the world and the need for it to be stopped. He enlisted in the US Army on November 29, 1941, as America learned of barbaric acts of terror and brutality by the Imperial Army of Japan, such as the Rape of Nanking. He knew that a hardline militarism, nationalism and totalitarianism represented a real threat to the freedom of people everywhere. He was well aware of the loud, racist and hateful rhetoric and continued lies and conquest of Europe’s countries by Adolf Hitler.
He was aware of Mussolini in North Africa and how the world turned its back on the League of Nations. The world did not listen as Haile Selassie, the leader of Ethiopia, requested aid as Mussolini marched on his country. The Luftwaffe carpet-bombed London, and in Spain to help Franco. America and the world knew of the many other horrors occurring daily and some only to be detailed later, like the concentration camps and the Holocaust. He knew all thoughts of freedom and justice had no role to play under the oppressive and murderous arms of fascist rule. The world war that ensued on September 1, 1939, caused a total estimation of 15,000,000 military deaths, 45,000,000 civilian deaths and 25,000,000 wounded.
We have a president-elect who seems to openly admire despotic rulers like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar Al-Assad, Kim Jung Un, and most of all V. Putin. He has phone conversations with people like Recep Erdogan of Turkey and Duarte of the Philippines, also evil despots. He says such dictators are great leaders compared to our leader in Washington. What would Trump have said of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo in WW2? Would we really have gone to war to help save the world from the fascist representatives with their voracious taste for innocent blood and perpetrators of absolute evil?
Would the USA stop fascism from engulfing the world? I do not believe so since his words and actions speak otherwise. To talk and act as he does is a grievous insult to all the men and women who sacrificed their lives and to all living people of all nations who fought to stop world tyranny in WWII. It is inconceivable to me that such a person got to this game point.
My father would have clearly seen what kind of person our president elect is. He is a “wannabe” dictator with a desire for absolute ruling. He really believes that he alone can solve all our problems, and that he is more intelligent than the generals. He alone knows more than all our intelligence agencies. He lies as do all dictators. False propaganda is the rule in a police state. Any criticism of it by even speaking the truth is a seriously punishable offence and in many places is punishable by torture, imprisonment or death.
For critics, Mr. Trump unleashes a barrage of tweets and vocal outbursts. He calls journalists “liars”. There goes our freedom of speech and the press and the right to assembly. Why is it that everything the evil dictator or regime blames on and says the “others” do, is what they themselves do. The truth and facts are always the enemy of the dictator. To speak or act against them is an act of heresy.
Mr. Trump’s praise of Putin is especially frightening. Not only does he praises him but denies all charges of cyber espionage on Putin’s part in the attempt to influence the election for president. He listens to the comments of Assuage of Wiki-leaks. We should worry about what is happening, and how our Constitutional Republican democracy is slowly being undermined and destroyed by this would-be dictator. There are many clues as to what is going on. Steve Bannon is his right-hand man and a brain cell for Trump. Bannon, former head of Breitbart, a very far right paper that writes for and caters to racist and neo-nazi groups, sees himself as a representative of the Alt Right, a group of people that consider our Constitution passe and of little use. These far-right groups are becoming popular in Europe. They are not what America wants to sacrifice all its values to.
Another in the same role is Michael Flynn, a retired general with very strong and un-subtle and reprehensible racist comments towards Muslims. The choice for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, is an avowed racist. He lies about his racist past. All of Trump’s sycophant speakers act without a moral conscience.
Exxon Mobile CEO and Chairman, Rex Tillerson, is Trump’s choice for Secretary of State. Mr. Tillerson says he will dissolve any relations with Exxon Mobile, a company he has been with for over 30 years. However, there is the 500 billion-dollar-oil deal at stake between the company with Russia and with Putin. If confirmed and Russia gets the sanctions lifted by a Secretary of State it helps Russia, and Putin most of all It also means that no sanctions are to be imposed on Russia and Putin for the cyber espionage of Mr. Putin, or his war crimes in the Ukraine and in Syria. It goes hand in hand with Trump’s calling all our intelligence sources liars and incompetent when it comes to their calling out Putin for cyber espionage. Mr. Tillerson’s very close ties with Mr. Putin are too dangerous.
Mr. Trump’s childish attempts to tear down the credibility of our intelligence agencies is far too scary to contemplate. What do you, the reader, really think of someone who demeans the free press and the intelligence agencies? It is not logical or clear thinking to really call out the most reliable sources of Truth and attempt to destroy them. Truth is at stake here. To sacrifice truth is to throw away the Constitution and the checks and balances upon which it is based.
Trump does love power, but most of all he worships money. If you like that he is a businessman, please keep in mind how much he lies and scams and cheats and creates conspiracy theories to throw people off. For him money is a god and people are only a means to acquire more money and power. We have before us a very frightening prospect. This is not the role of a president elect and soon to be leader of the free world.
We have before us the whispers of what could happen as the gates of Hell open wider with every stupid daily tweet. Starting an arms race with thermonuclear weapons is pure madness, given that he would be the one person in the country with absolute control for their use. Those bombs are now thousands of times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those were fission bombs. Now with combined fission and fusion bombs, we could see the very end of civilization.
His deregulation plans for coal and other industries that produce toxic waste are a health and environmental issue with disastrous consequences for us and the whole world. He is impulsive and quick to anger. He is a self-centered man-child who cannot be controlled by anyone no matter what they think. We better wake up as he proposes to take on USA and the world on the worst journey ever. The US Constitution and we-the-people will be tested. Get ready. Join together and stand your ground. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.