I had a wonderful
dinner that evening with my daughter Melanie, my only child living here in DC.
Here’s something about Honduras regarding the migrant caravan. Who really are the “very bad hombres” whom Trump has referred
to in relation to the migrants? I’ve been asking folks in Honduras about this
allegation. "Caravan Refugees Fled
Honduras —Where the President's Brother is an Alleged Cartel Kingpin" https://thebea.st/2ztINaX?via=ios
Central American migrants
being sprayed with tear gas reminded me of my own experience. While tear gas may be less harmful than
bullets, it is hardly benign. I was caught with a crowd demonstrating against Pinochet
while an election observer in Chile in 1988. We all experienced eye irritation
and searing of our throats and lungs, all of us gasping and choking as we fled.
On Thanksgiving, the Donald, quite typically, gave
thanks for himself for being such an outstanding president. Was he joking or just
acting out a parody of himself? GW Bush,
under the spell of Cheney and other wayward advisers, did some very dumb and
harmful things, but also did, or at least tried to do, a few good things, like
immigration reform (unsuccessfully). But it’s hard to say anything good at all
about Trump so far, two years in. Of course, “good” and “bad” are subjective
categories about which there will always be disagreement. However, in a
democracy, the definition of such terms should rest with the majority, while
under Trump, only a minority really consider him a “good” president and a
majority consider him decidedly “bad”. He’s had enough time and opportunity to
show his good side, if he has one. We like to think that humankind is making
progress, but under Trump, the world has been backsliding. Even US life
expectancy has fallen slightly. So now the task is to get rid of Trump and start
to undo the damage.
Today is World AIDS Day, which I used to celebrate
in Honduras with the aid of young people marching along with an AIDS banner
that we had made and putting on outdoor skits about avoiding sex or using
condoms or getting tested if they were pregnant (a teenage girl with a pillow
under her shirt).
Yet, I agree with
House Democrats who want to go slow in opposing and investigating Trump to
avoid arousing his supporters, both in Congress and among the public, and to tamp
down the already fierce partisan divide. They should offer an olive branch and try
to find areas of agreement with Trump, even as he remains in fighting mode. How
about building a very short section of “The
Wall” just to give him something to brag about and stand next to for photo-ops?
Trump is vulnerable to manipulation by
actors both foreign and domestic, even within his inner circle, especially if
they seem to praise him.
Thanksgiving just past has put me in mind of Thanksgiving
holidays that I have celebrated in other
countries, including in Colombia as a teenager, in Romania on a mission on
behalf of institutionalized children, and later as Peace Corps volunteer in
Honduras. Of course, Thanksgiving is not
a holiday elsewhere, except in Canada at an earlier date, nor are turkeys
normally eaten elsewhere, being an American bird. So it’s always a special task
to find a Thanksgiving turkey in other countries and, in my experience, they are
usually tough and boney and forget about cranberry sauce. Still, there is a
special camaraderie in celebrating the holiday with just a few kindred souls
and in making the effort to try to duplicate the holiday back home.
December is a bittersweet month for our family. My older son, Andrew, died at age 27 on
December 19 in 1994, a date that is also my daughter Melanie’s birthday. This year, she turns 50, which I
simply have trouble believing. Has it really been 50 years since I first held
that little dark-haired baby in arms? Lots of water under the bridge since
then.
After the
terrible Camp Fire in northern
California, I suspect a few folks who had wanted to skip out on their families
and start a new life will now do so, since it has been predicted that not all bodies
of the disappeared will be found.
Donald Trump, misspeaking as usual, referred to the
fire-ravaged town of Paradise as “Pleasure.” Nor has he commented much on his
daughter Ivanka’s use of private
e-mail for government business, something that he considered a mortal sin when
done by Hillary, requiring “lock her
up.” It’s not like Ivanka didn’t know that was a no-no. The Trump offspring
have been pretty quiet lately, laying low. And Donald has basically exonerated
the Saudi Crown Prince in the Khashoggi murder. Of course, GW Bush also ignored the Saudi role in 9/11.
Singer Rufus Wainright is right-on, warning that “the fox is in the henhouse.” Trump’s
ascendancy to the presidency, after acquiring the support of only a minority of
Americans, gives the majority the experience of living under a dictatorship
where everything is decreed by the dictator and enforced by the minority who
support him. Trump has certainly acted like a dictator, firing people
willy-nilly, aligning himself with foreign dictators, and trying to silence the
media. While the minority who voted for Trump might have felt disregarded
before and empowered now, is it better that they overrule the majority? In a
dictatorship, a minority always supports the ruler as he cannot act alone and
must rely on his faithful to carry out orders. When Trump’s appointees fail to
carry out his mandates, he fires them. Will we remember Trump when he is out of
office, as is bound to happen, hopefully sooner rather than later? Then the analysis
of what went wrong will go on ad infinitum. But at the moment, the Tea Party is
still going strong, at least on line, drumming up conspiracy theories.
This article in the NYTimes
warns that projections of the US becoming a “minority-majority” country, that
is, with native-born whites in the minority, has become a rallying cry for
Trump and other white racists. So might it be best to play down those
predictions? The article points out that the definition of “whiteness” is
pretty fluid and that people with some minority inheritance may actually become
absorbed into the “white category, since
race is a social construct, not something objective and immutable.
Definitions change, Is the offspring of a parent with northern European
heritage and another parent of another ethnicity “white”? If that offspring
married someone of European heritage, then what? Are Jewish people “white”? What
about a blond, blue-eyed Hispanic? There
have been two cases recently of black men shot and killed while trying to defend
against a shooter. The NRA’s “a good guy with a gun” refers only to white guys?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/us/white-americans-minority-population.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=US
The pattern for
Trump appointees seems to get fired (like on The Apprentice) or being pressed to resign, then to write a book.
US diplomats in
Havana are not the only ones injured by mysterious sonic attacks that also
targeted Canadian diplomats. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadas-brain-injured-cuba-diplomats-speak-out-about-ottawas-silence/
It’s great that Honduran migrants are being offered jobs in Tijuana, where they not
only don’t have to worry about being deported, but also speak the same language
as everyone else. Some locals have protested their arrival, but they seem to be
a minority.
While my sympathies are with refugees and migrants to the US, who enrich
our culture, help fill our worker shortage, and offset the aging of the
population, nonetheless, there are limits as to how many new people can be
absorbed, something Canada, Australia, and Europe are also grappling with. But
we can admit higher numbers than are now being permitted.
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