Politics – Wrongdoing – education and deconstruction.com

Totally Unofficial

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Totally Unofficial, the Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin” edited by Donna-Lee Frieze, published in 2013.

Born in 1900 in territory that was alternately Lithuania and eastern Poland, Lemkin was raised among four peasant-farming families who grew clover and rye, and herded sheep and goats. He enjoyed an idyllic early childhood of nature and horseback-riding.

After earning a law degree, he worked for the government in Poland, obtaining higher and higher fancy titles. Even so, he was strangely obedient when, in early September, 1939, the (German occupied) government ordered all able-bodied men to leave Warsaw immediately. He got on a train, which was bombed. He walked to the forest in the countryside.

Later on, Lemkin did use his connections, however, to emigrate to a less dangerous place. In Vilnius in Lithuania, in autumn 1939, he spoke with a Russian soldier whose mentality was: The Western (Britain and France) Allies would fight the German military until they destroyed one another. Then the Russians would come and take over. Americans would sell arms to the Allies so that the Allies would have more resources than the Germans.

The German mentality was: Only the land of any territory Germany occupied, not the people, could be Germanized. So in October 1939, it (along with Russia) proceeded to deport all the Poles from Poland. This plan was written in Hitler’s 1924 book, Mein Kampf. The reason it took so long for the civil Europeans and Americans with sufficient power to head off the danger, was that they didn’t believe anyone could be so barbaric.

Earlier international agreements set out rules of engagement with regard to war. In general, destroying enemies’ military and fighting-infrastructure was believed to be justified. Nevertheless, the documents failed to mention persecuting and killing of civilians of a specific group. Lemkin felt this instance which he called genocide, needed to be codified, because early in the war, he had witnessed it in his native land. In summer 1942, he was unable to convince FDR of the urgency of making genocide an international crime.

Finally, in November 1946, Lemkin spoke with all kinds of diplomats when the world was ready to sit down at the bargaining table and form the United Nations. Panama, Cuba, India and global women’s organizations initially agreed to sign his resolution, by then called the Genocide Convention.

Still, there were years of arguments over every word, resistance and the usual political shenanigans. For, postwar, some arrogant government officials (such as French intellectuals and the British attorney general) were angry that their country had been taken down a notch in world status, so they argued that a Genocide Convention wasn’t necessary. The Nuremberg judgment had already outlawed war crimes, during times of war.

Lemkin explained that even in peacetime, human nature would dictate that a handful of evil people would acquire significant power to hate on others; thus, the need for a reminder in writing that the international community should put the kibosh on such behavior.

Read the book to learn much more about the trials and tribulations Lemkin experienced in trying to get the world to understand and commit to his ideology.

Our Gang

The Book of the Week is “Our Gang (Starring Tricky Dick and His Friends)” by Philip Roth, published in 1971.

A satire of the Nixon administration, this was also a book-long rant. Major aspects of the then-political situation are so familiar now. There was an inflammatory passage of Nixon’s dim view of wounded veterans. Trump has taken a dim view of prisoners-of-war. The author wrote what Nixon was really thinking, about various crises he either exacerbated, or brought on himself.

Of all the presidents, Nixon and Reagan were the ones from whom Trump has copied the most. The author claimed Nixon said, “We’ve had foul language, we’ve had the cynicism, we’ve had the masochism and the breast-beating– maybe a big dose of innocence is just what this country needs to be great again.”

No American leader has been innocent, but Carter came close. Nixon’s war crimes were many times more evil than the repeated financial and more-likely-than-not sex crimes Trump has committed.

Deaths directly caused by Nixon’s war criminality cannot be reversed. Trump’s breakage of the American legal system can be reversed, over the next few decades.

But the repetition of Trump’s protestations of innocence have: 1) played a part in convincing some Americans that he’s the victim of witch hunts, and 2) desensitized others into acceptance of reality– quiet desperation over his overwhelming power and influence until his name fades from public memory.

Nevertheless, the author harps on Nixon’s thoughts regarding the anti-war protesters on his enemies list. Nixon called the protesters, “Boy Scouts” (perhaps for irony) but Trump spares no expletives in his labeling of anti-ICE protesters.

The author described Nixon’s method. The president received advice from a legal coach, a highbrow coach, and a military coach– on the three major crimes allegedly committed by the Boy Scouts: inciting to riot, tampering with the morals of minors, and corrupting the youth of the nation.

Then the gang came up with a short-list of people and groups to blame for the unrest: Hanoi, The Berrigans (religious brothers who influenced others to practice pacifism), The Black Panthers, Jane Fonda, and Curt Flood (a baseball player who sued MLB for racial discrimination). Trump has also smeared and retaliated against an endless number of scapegoats in his political career.

Nixon explained how he distracted Americans from his avoidance of addressing the nation’s serious problems. “It never fails– every time they start marching on Washington, I’m the one who has to leave town. Now does that make any sense to you? I’m the President…” Trump does the same thing, and furthers his profiteering, too.

Read the book to learn much more about Nixon’s take on previous administrations, and other dirty tricks in his play book.

Far From Home

The Book of the Week is “Far From Home, An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C.” by Lisa Murkowski with Charles Wohlforth, published in 2025.

Murkowski was born in 1957 in Alaska. Since the federal government owns more than thirty percent of Alaska, its policies play a large role in the state’s economy and well-being. More than a quarter of the land is owned by the state government; a little more than a tenth—by corporations owned by Native Americans, who comprise about seventeen percent of Alaska’s population.

Alaska has more than two hundred rural villages, and, as of the book’s writing, some still had the living standards of a Third-World country—no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no paved roads. It is quite cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive for politicians to make campaign visits to those villages, via a few different planes, boats or cars. Murkowski, a moderate Republican U.S. senator who votes pursuant to her conscience, not the Party line, takes the time and trouble to meet her fellow residents, because she passionately cares about them.

“White people in Washington were a substantial minority but they had created a kind of bubble of affluence, an apartheid in which they didn’t have to interact with people of color and could willfully ignore their own prejudice.” Murkowski (who is herself white) found that out when her sons (also white) were on a Virginia soccer team with diverse members. White parents cheering on their kids, spewed the most offensive slurs, but they didn’t consider themselves detestable creatures. They still considered themselves good people.

Other adults behaved badly, too. In the single-digit 2000’s, in Washington, D.C., prosecutors in the Justice Department put oil-industry lobbyist Bill Allen on trial for corruption, but suppressed evidence that allowed Allen to go free, and at the same time, ruined the reputation of the wrongly accused late Senator Ted Stevens, Republican from Alaska. The moral of the story can be summed up in two cliches, “A man is known by the company he keeps” and “When you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.” Stevens knew that Allen was “bad news” but allied with him, anyway.

In the early single-digit 2000’s, when Murkowski was running for reelection, she lost the primary to yet another sleazy piece-of-work of an alleged grownup. However, her father impressed upon her the fact that, as his daughter, she should never give up! So she continued her campaign as a write-in candidate. Her victory would thus be extremely unlikely. Nonetheless, Murkowski’s cousin took particular delight in posting the opposing candidate’s sordid, hypocritical history on social media, and journalists picked up on it. An opposition research firm gave her free publicity by also doing the same.

Read the book to learn much more about Murkowski’s life experiences that led her to end up in the U.S. Senate, and the trials, tribulations and triumphs in her career.

Where Tyranny Begins

WARNING: VERY LONG POST

The Book of the Week is “Where Tyranny Begins, The Justice Department, the FBI and the War on Democracy” by David Rohde, published in 2024.

In this hodgepodge of a volume (which frequently contains the word “being” in the middle of sentences– awkward writing), the author described president Trump’s first-term shenanigans, that completely bucked established democratic order through making a mockery of the American justice system. The consequence has been that people now have total distrust of their government. On the other hand, there has been “creative destruction” that might be cause for optimism.

Interestingly, American voters have shifted from electing war-hero presidents (the last was George H.W. Bush in 1988) to electing draft-dodger presidents (except for Obama). And although the internet spreads disinformation of politicians’ cover-ups and denials, it also allows the sharing of stories among families and friends who experience genocide and atrocities.

There is actually more free speech than ever, as anyone can put in their two cents on the internet, in all different ways. The Nixon administration was suppressing free speech through the FCC’s power to license all kinds of broadcasting outlets, before cable TV was widespread. Yes, there were many more newspapers and magazines then, but ordinary Americans had to write “letters to the editor” and get them published, or call in to a radio or television show, if they wanted their voices to be heard.

In nations that have free and fair elections, initially, disinformation helps get a leader elected. Eventually, if he becomes a dictator, dissatisfaction among the people will reach critical mass, and the pendulum will swing the other way.

Many people think they’re learning history from sound bites and trivia awkwardly written by AI. But the library’s history section contains entire books that are likely to be more contextually comprehensive, written by actual people (yes, some of whom are myth-makers). And yes, depressingly, so much of substantive human history has been about war. It’s still worth reading lots of books on all kinds of history to understand the big picture, even though there might currently be doom and gloom, and one might feel powerless to stop it.

Obviously, no matter how much people learn how devastating and expensive war is, a few people keep instigating it!

So how are these instigators (recently consisting of the unbloodied elite, chicken-hawks and profiteers) allowed to make war, considering there’s a majority against the war?

This is how the cycle goes, in the United States:

Careers in media, entertainment, sports, the licensed professions and academia have been politicized. Nowadays, it seems most jobs might be highly lucrative in the short term, but they’re fiercely competitive and stressful. Job security is uncertain, given cancel culture and an uncertain economy.

Young job-seekers who can’t afford an education, or whose prospects are poor for other reasons, join a federal-law enforcement outfit, or the military– where they are ordered by the instigators to go to war.

Bottom line: There are sufficient people who owe their jobs to the instigators of war!

Trump has not yet not sent American troops in great numbers to foreign shores, but he has exacerbated home-grown hostility, in terms of hyper-partisanship, conspiracy theories and mistrust and distrust of American institutions.

A number of cliches apply to the second half of the twentieth century, into the first quarter of the twenty-first; among them, “The people gets the government it deserves” and “There is nothing new under the sun.” It might be recalled that the 1960’s were a tumultuous decade. There was violence in the streets of certain cities and on college campuses. Journalist P.J. O’Rourke wrote, “The Baby Boomers threw a decade-long temper tantrum.”

Over decades, that rebellion has actually resulted in more societal tolerance for divorce, re-marriages, interfaith marriages, and various arrangements of people of different sexual orientations. Societal pressure has eased on getting married and having children.

Now Americans can stay single, live together, give birth to or adopt children, or not– and not be socially ostracized. Interestingly, Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism upon marrying, for the purpose of increasing her family’s power in their social circles. Even she had to conform to the tenor of the times.

At the dawn of the 1970’s, Americans were gob-smacked by the crimes of the Nixon administration. Part of the wrongdoing was war crimes. Nixon finished what LBJ started: contamination and devastation of the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And Nixon’s secrecy only exacerbated the mistrust and distrust of Americans in their government.

The Nixon Era ushered in a whole host of cultural changes. Since then, two generations of the social manipulative boys who entered politics have learned that if they stick together, they can evade punishment (or even be rewarded!) for behaving disrespectfully toward people of different walks of life. At the very least, they immediately have a leg up in society having been born white and male.

This trend began with younger male Baby Boomers who didn’t serve in the military. A few circumstances have contributed to their continued domination. They:

didn’t have their lives interrupted or willingly risk their lives while the government supervised their every move for two or more years.
missed the life-or-death situations in war zones and the exposure to different cultures, religions and class differences that military service would have imposed on them.
came of age among their own kind; at private school, boarding school, and fraternities, but have still be been able to take advantage of the “old boy network” to advance their careers because they still experienced the military-service environment of the abusive hierarchy which leads to male bonding.

The 1990’s saw various franchises (TV and movies) featuring two fictional male friends who exhibited some aspects of this teenage boy culture; among them: Beavis and Butthead, Wayne’s World, Bill and Ted’s, and Clerks.

Donald Trump has taken this trend to its logical extreme, to run the country. This nation has been brainwashed into saying, “Boys will be boys.” Now, the boys have nowhere to go but down.

The author briefly described how independent counsel Ken Starr launched an overzealous witch hunt into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s activities. The sordid episode began in 1995, when their enemies investigated a land-deal called Whitewater. The Clintons themselves were deemed not to have broken the law, so their enemies desperately sought additional sources of dirt.

As is well known, Bill Clinton was eventually caught lying under oath about having an extra-marital affair on company time. BUT, that affair was with a consenting adult.

Which is the worst:

war crimes,
financial crimes, such as tax evasion, accounting fraud, bribery or racketeering (that are NOT victimless; they hurt society by [excuse the cliche] making the rich richer and the poor, poorer), or
lying under oath about having committed adultery???

So, Americans entertained or disgusted by Bill Clinton’s story might have concluded that the investigators were extremely incompetent, desperate for blood, or that there was a backroom deal not to break the story until after Clinton was reelected. When someone is dishonest about one thing, there is trust erosion in other things they might say or do. Regardless of real motives, this stupidity is one more reason to mistrust and distrust the American government.

As an aside, an inconceivably large amount of taxpayer dollars was wasted on frivolous investigations on the Clintons. Not coincidentally, people who pay little or no income tax, also don’t have their money wasted on that kind of nonsense.

At least Clinton complied with the rule of law. Trump dictatorially broke tradition by bypassing the Justice Department entirely when he signed an Executive Order to impose a travel ban on all Muslims from several countries. His philosophy was (pursuant to Moses’ line in the movie, The Ten Commandments): “So it shall be written, so it shall be done.” His thinking was, why should he need to fool around with pesky rule of law? He was the new sheriff (or rather, outlaw) in town, and his whole life, had always got his own way by bullying his opponents into submission.

Going into the 2024 presidential election, American voters knew what they were getting into. Obviously, they would rather have a brain-dead male dictator, than a woman president.

In any case, read the book to learn about Trump’s trials and tribulations in his first term, and the characters involved, such as Bill Barr– who became a hyper-partisan cheerleader for Trump, and a hypocritical crybaby to the media.

ENDNOTE: Speaking of politicization of employers, here’s a little ditty that explains the situation.

POLITICAL BOSS

sung to the tune of “Party Doll” with apologies to the Estate of Buddy Knox and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Everyone has got to have a political boss,

to punish you when he’s feeling cross,

to be involved in honest graft,

to run sweetheart contracts, like for aircraft.

No one wants a political boss,

no one wants a political boss,

but if you’re loyal, he’ll support you, help you.

If you’re loyal, he’ll help you.

Everyone’s got to have a political boss,

to choose candidates,

make you pay his costs,

to use media to spread-smears unfair,

to have lawyers on hand with tactics that scare.

No one wants a political boss,

no one wants a political boss,

but if you’re loyal, he’ll support you, help you.

If you’re loyal, he’ll help you.

Everyone’s got to have a political boss,

so when scandal hits,

you’ll take the loss,

to hand out jobs and to raise funds,

to add to his base, train daughters and sons,

train daughters and sons.

No one wants a political boss,

no one wants a political boss,

but if you’re loyal, he’ll support you, help you.

If you’re loyal, he’ll help you.

No one wants a political boss,

no one wants a political boss,

but if you’re loyal, he’ll support you, help you.

If you’re loyal, he’ll help you.

All the Worst Humans

The Book of the Week is “All the Worst Humans, How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians” by Phil Elwood, published in 2024. This short volume was authored by an alcoholic adrenaline-junkie and occasional drug addict who was happiest when he was afforded opportunities to use his creativity to help his clients weasel out of image-trouble, burnish their image, or launch a smear campaign.

Born around 1980, Elwood began to acquire valuable contacts in Washington, D.C. when he did a summer internship in the U.S. Senate. Elwood was pleasantly surprised that, after ruining his own reputation, one such contact wrote a recommendation letter on his behalf to help him get accepted to a different college.

Most of the time, the following publications are the major influencers on breaking news: Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, Politico, Axios, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. The last three have a paywall– users must subscribe to them, and pay to read their articles. As is well known, in the last several decades, elected officials and their staffs in Washington, D.C., the media, the entertainment industry, Silicon Valley, professional sports and Wall Street have all incestuously melded together to create one big gossip circle. Readers who are no longer willing to pay for news, miss out on the gossip.

The author commented that there are currently a few tens of thousands of people who call themselves “journalists” while there are a few hundreds of thousands of people employed in the public relations industry. Very nearly all (except for this blog!) global communications are now sponsored-opinions, after so many decades of changes to information-sharing. Four of many milestones that set shameful precedents include:

In 1963, a journalist broke the taboo against prying into the personal lives of professional athletes when he revealed that Sandy Koufax was adopted. After that, privacy invasion became the norm.
In 1982, the New York Times eliminated the firewall between its editorial and advertising departments. Sports Illustrated did the same in the late 1980’s.
The year 1984 saw Republicans launch a fishing expedition of, and vicious smear campaign against Democrat vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro’s husband. Even for modern times, the high level of nastiness was extreme– and Republicans have continued such behavior to date, more than the Democrats.
Beginning in the 1980’s, the FCC relaxed its antitrust laws, allowing Rupert Murdoch to create a monster-sized multimedia empire (by purchasing the New York Post newspaper, Twentieth Century Fox, HarperCollins and the Wall Street Journal, to name a few propaganda outlets) with its attendant extremely large concentration of resources that allowed for infinite conflicts of interest that afforded him and his cronies the kinds of growth opportunities that free-market competitors couldn’t possibly hope to match.

To get additional information on how money, power and political hacks have corrupted every aspect of how people find out what’s going on in the world, feel free to read all the posts in this blog’s category “Publishing Industry Including Newspapering.”

Anyway, the author planted the following naive passage in his writing: “Salaries in some newsrooms are going up. Private equity is buying up media companies left and right. Foreign nations are investing heavily, too. Lines of ethics are blurring.” Newsflash: all these trends are decades-old!

Nonetheless, read the book to learn of the author’s adventures in image-management.

Along these lines, here’s a song about yet another downfall of someone once-rich and powerful (brought to you by Elwood-style PR.). This is what the Democrats are singing to the American president, whose name rhymes with “rump” and “dump.”

MIDTERMS-KARMA

sung to the tune of “Instant Karma” (1970 version) with apologies to the Estate of John Lennon and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Midterms-karma is gonna get you.

Gonna flip the states that are Red.

You’ll try to give yourself a pardon.

No one will shut up and take your bread.

All the world has had enough,

laughing behind your back,

all over the earth you’re a TACO.

They know you go low, yeah, low.

Midterms-karma is gonna get you.

A man like you is once-and-always.

Even the “new” Nixon wasn’t the “new” Nixon.

Yours is an open and shut case.

Your sins, the whole world is gonna see.

You’ll be blasting the fools in your GOP.

Everyone on earth knows who you are. A has-been tsar.

Far Right you are.

Well, we all pile on.

Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.

Well, we all pile on. Everyone. Come on.

Midterms-karma is gonna get you.

You lay down with dogs, you got fleas.

You know a man is known by,

the company he keeps.

Everyone knows you’re outa here.

You’ve made so many live in pain and fear.

Why are you there, when you should be nowhere?

You got more than your share.

Well, we all pile on.

Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.

Well, we all pile on.

Gone and gone and gone, gone and gone.

Yeah, yeah, alright, uh-huh, uh.

Well, we all pile on.

Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.

Well, we all pile on.

Gone and gone and gone, gone and gone.

Well, we all pile on.

Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.

Well, we all pile on.

Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.

Well, we all pile on.

Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone…

Kristi Scandals – BONUS POST

As is well known, Kristi Noem is the United States Secretary of Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Here’s a little song about her.

KRISTI SCANDALS

sung to the tune of “Sixteen Candles” with apologies to The Crests, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

[Having a bad day. Having a bad day, indeed.] Oh. I hate you so.

Kristi scandals

scream, “might makes right”

all to the delight, of the xenophobic whites.

She outs her-own scandals, makes her power-plays come true.

And she’ll be fishing, for dirt on YOU. [for dirt on YOU.]

The ends-justify the means. There’ve been brutal scenes.

She’s the most-ruthless, huffy-est DHS-chief, I’ve ever seen. [I’ve ever seen.]

Kristi scandals. Deportations will grow, until deaths and lawsuits

end her reality show, end her reality show.

The ends-justify the means. But there’ve been brutal scenes.

Oh, she’s the most-ruthless, huffy-est DHS-chief, I’ve ever seen. [I’ve ever seen.]

Kristi scandals. Deportations will grow, until deaths and lawsuits

end her reality show, end her reality show.

Trotsky in New York 1917

The Book of the Week is “Trotsky in New York 1917, A Radical on the Eve of Revolution” by Kenneth D. Ackerman, published in 2016. This volume had a misleading title, in that it described not only Trotsky’s activities, but those of his contemporaries and their times. There were backstories and flashbacks– insulting the intelligence of a reader who desired to read the book from cover to cover, rather than use it as a reference book. It repeated itself as history does; “When war [WWI] hysteria hit, people began to look for scapegoats, traitors, and spies. And the first accused of disloyalty were always the same: immigrants and socialists.”

Anyway, in January 1917, the man latterly known as Leon Trotsky, his second wife and their two sons arrived in New York City by boat. He and his wife confidently lied to immigration officials who had visited them personally in their cabin. They were able to bypass the Ellis Island third-degree inquisition because they were first-class passengers. The Spanish government paid the extra cost of upgrading them from second class because it was so eager to exile them.

Trotsky worked in the East Village office of Novy Mir (“New World”), a Russian socialist newspaper with a circulation of eight thousand. He had numerous intellectual and political friends in high places. Trotsky was a spellbinding speaker and prolific writer on socialist ideology. He doubted the elitist president Woodrow Wilson could help make peace in Europe because America was capitalist and ruled by its moneyed class. That class wanted to maintain the status quo of the gravy train of great profits derived from weapons contractors. Trotsky thought similiarly of the American Socialist Party leader– Morris Hillquit, who, as a lawyer, charged big bucks to represent labor and radical political activists and wasn’t opposed to using violence to get candidates elected.

In March 1917, after the tsar in Russia was deposed, Trotsky was on the move again, as he was a member of the Russian revolutionary organization. He and his family acquired proper identity papers and booked passage on a boat back to Russia. However, he was detained in a prison west of Halifax by Canadian authorities (ultimately ruled by Britain) for fear his native Russia would ally with Germany to defeat the French and British. He prepared several telegrams to inform various parties of what was happening with him; one of which was actually sent. This spawned letters, demonstrations, telegrams and newspaper articles in America, Canada, Britain and Russia that put pressure on officials to allow him to return to Russia.

By late 1917, Trotsky and the gang were well on their way to forming a dictatorship in Russia– breaking their previous campaign promises. Via violence, they eliminated free speech and all political activity except their own. Trotsky made the excuse that such measures were necessary to head off a French-Revolution-style peasant-uprising. However, in order to stay in power as the top leader, Vladimir Lenin scaled back the brutality by instituting the New Economic Policy. Because the common people were starving, he actually allowed them to engage in capitalist initiatives in agriculture. Of course there was corruption. Hilarity did NOT ensue.

As is well known, hilarity is associated with the American sitcom, a bygone era. Trotsky’s scene was more like a modern-day reality show– whose viewers vicariously release their rage along with the overpaid noisemakers on the idiot box. Here are the sentiments of some other Americans.

TRIPE

sung to the tune of “Escape” with apologies to Rupert Holmes and whomever else the rights may concern.

I’m tired of the president.
He’s been in office too long.
He’s a worn out recording of a boatload of wrongs.
So while he’s hiding and golfing, he’s trying to clear his head.
And his personal consultants, keep the media fed.

I don’t like this queen’s drama.
He’s GOT mush for brains.
All the negative emotions, and the race to defame.
I don’t like his fluff night AFTER night, the views, and the hype.
It’s not fluff I voted for.
I TUNE out the tripe.

I don’t think about the president.
He’s always so mean.
He and his media slaves,
require a staged and scripted routine.
It should be in all the papers– his mind is going bad.
GOP doesn’t want to SHOW it. GOP is power-mad.

I don’t like this queen’s drama.
He’s GOT mush for brains.
I don’t like the xenophobia, the greed campaign.
I hope Vance steps up soon,
and cuts through all this red tape, via the 25th Amendment,
and changes the leadership landscape.

The prez can’t TALK off the cuff.
He’s in an embarrassing place.
It’s another Reagan instance.
Billionaire boys set the pace.

Vance MUST be less shady.
He’s a Millennial coup.
You can laugh for a moment.
But he’s dangerous, too.

I don’t like this queen’s drama.
He’s GOT mush for brains.
I’m into sane healthcare, NOT the greed campaign.
I don’t like his fluff night AFTER night, the views, and the hype.
It’s not fluff I voted for.
I TUNE out the tripe.

I don’t like this queen’s drama.
He’s GOT mush for brains…

==================

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about Trotsky’s life and political career.

Ivan’s War

The Book of the Week is “Ivan’s War, Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945” by Catherine Merridale, published in 2006.

As is well known, by the mid-1920’s, Stalin had taken over Russia, in which there had been a revolution to turn the country Communist. Beginning in 1929, Stalin forced peasant-farmers to merge their land into collectives and adopt wrong-headed agricultural methods, resulting in millions and millions of deaths from famine. Elite schools in the cities were training the upper class (and a few poor boys) for leadership.

In spring 1937, Stalin ordered many top leaders in his government and military to be fired or tortured or killed, or a combination thereof. The younger soldiers had been brainwashed from birth to be anti-Fascist and therefore to hate the Germans, so they were confused when Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in August 1939. Nevertheless, when WWII came, the Russian military incited the educated young men to lead the fight to protect mother Russia. Back home, their families were still starving.

In June 1940, the Soviet military was unpleasantly surprised by an attack on their Slavic lands by the German Luftwaffe. The now-enemy had knocked out a lot of military resources and Soviet troops had been disorganized and poorly equipped previously. Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s right-hand man, used the occasion to inspire patriotism and incite additional hatred against the Germans.

Propaganda literally flew back and forth hot and heavy. German planes flying over Ukraine dropped leaflets that said Moscow had fallen and Stalin was dead. Turnover in the Red Army was extremely high due to: desertions, deaths from NKVD executions for desertions, and deaths from disease and enemy fire and bombardments.

In spring 1944, Soviet soldiers invaded Romania. They began to see peasants there and in Germany, Poland, France, Holland, Belgium and other capitalist places, who were living way better than they themselves had been, in their civilian lives. The young Soviet military men began to question how Communism was so great if they had been so economically poor.

Instead of setting fire to Romanian villages as they and the Germans had done to so many other battlegrounds as they were leaving, they looted corpses and appropriated farm animals, alcohol and material possessions for themselves. Black markets flourished.

When they finally marched into East Prussia and Budapest, the Soviets’ frenzy of hatred involved raping females, too. Peer pressure caused otherwise ethical men to become barbarians, and drunkenness made it easier to misbehave the way they did.

The Russian propaganda outlet “Pravda” portrayed the Soviets as victims of the Nazis, and called for revenge and reparations. It conveniently neglected to mention the atrocities they committed.

Stalin deflected blame from himself for millions and millions of Soviet deaths through the decades of his rule, by claiming he was suffering along with his people. He believed that Western capitalist cultures were a bad influence, so he demobilized the Russian Army from Germany in 1945– making them sign nondisclosure agreements. He also appeased them with a monetary bonus and (low quality) consumer goods. However, they were spied on by his intelligence service 24/7.

Stalin cast aspersions on the Jews during and after the war. One of numerous myths spread was that during the war, Jews held office jobs instead of fighting on the front lines. In 1945, Ukrainians in Kiev launched a pogrom.

The ravages of the war gave rise to adrenaline junkies with PTSD. After the war, they didn’t know what to do with themselves, and they continued to lead violent, empty lives. “Instead of aspiring to freedom, patriots would henceforth– wittingly or not– become complicit in the repression of the minorities, large-scale arrests, and a bleak and deadly dogma that had almost nothing in common with the libertarian promises that had drawn such crowds to Palace Square in the revolutionary months of 1917.”

After official histories of the war were published, Soviet censors prohibited the publishing of any additional war-related information. No one was allowed to see the archives. They were classified. Top secret.

Read the book to learn much more on the history of the Soviets’ experiences before, during and after WWII.

ENDNOTE: Speaking of non-disclosure and keeping up appearances, here’s a little ditty that describes Trump’s latest marital status.

FIRST LADY MELANIA

sung to the tune of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” with apologies to The Beatles, their estates and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Donald had a victory in the political race.

Melania is, standing by her man.

Donald said to Melania,

“You’ll help me save face. We’ll sign an agreement to maintain the Trump brand.”

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

Donald has a radical agenda in store.

Melania, must obey her king.

She’s stiff and aloof and doesn’t care anymore.

She knows she’s not allowed to say a thing.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

For all of their years, their marriage is a BUS-iness act.

With previous kids, their family’re reality show stars…

of Donald’s and Melania’s contracts.

Donald’s the big winner in the transactional race.

Donald lets the children lend a hand.

Melania stays at home and does her pretty face,

and at events she’s loyally standing by her man.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

For all of their years, their marriage is a BUS-iness act.

With previous kids, their family’re reality show stars…

of Donald’s and Melania’s contracts.

Donald’s the big winner in the transactional race.

Donald lets the children lend a hand.

Melania stays at home and does her pretty face,

and at events she’s loyally standing by her man.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

For Donald it’s FUN.

But for Melania, it’s NOT!

Crossing Lines – BONUS POST

Here’s a little ditty on the current situation in the American government.

CROSSING LINES

sung to the tune of “Borderline” with apologies to Madonna and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Backroom deals are SHOWing criminality.
Trump didn’t want to be a prisoner so his sycophants set him free.
It’s his usual history.
It’s no mystery.
Both parties let us down.
Election year is done.
The bad guys have won.
THEY’RE back to fooling around.

They’re, just undermining our land.
They get away with all they can.
Trump’s sycophants set him free.

Crossing lines.
The justice system lost its mind.
Just like when Ford pardoned Nixon.
They are crossing lines.

Crossing lines.
The justice system lost its mind.
Just like when Ford pardoned Nixon.
They are crossing lines. Crossing lines.

Backroom deals are SHOWing criminality.
When someone’s power is so great,
they defy reality.
Both parties let us down.
THEY’RE fooling around.
The truth just can’t be found.

The hypocrisy’s so rife.
You can cut it with a knife.
[The original lyrics are so bad. That’s life.]

They’re, just undermining our land.
They get away with all they can.
Trump’s sycophants set him free.

Crossing lines.
The justice system lost its mind.
Just like when Ford pardoned Nixon.
They are crossing lines.

Crossing lines.
The justice system lost its mind.
Just like when Ford pardoned Nixon.
They are crossing lines. Crossing lines.

When Ford pardoned,
when Ford pardoned,
when Ford pardoned Nixon…

CRIMinality.
CRIMinal-government.

No punishments.

duh duh duh duh
duh duh duh duh

This Is What America Looks Like

The Book of the Week is “This Is What America Looks Like, My Journey From Refugee to Congresswoman” by Ilhan Omar, published in 2020.

Omar was born in the early 1980’s in Mogadishu, Somalia. When she was about ten years old, her mother passed away of malaria, so her aunt served as a surrogate parent.

In 1991, her family suffered many hardships when they fled their homeland’s anarchy. She eventually launched her political career in Minneapolis, beginning with volunteering for the Democratic party, and then working for a City Council candidate.

In October 2013, her boss was subjected to smearing: “That’s when we were blindsided by these blogs he had written when he was an adolescent about such subjects as his drug and pornography use, cutting himself, and making rockets with explosive chemicals. It was bad.” When she showed up at a caucus despite receiving a menacing warning that she shouldn’t, she herself suffered a concussion in violence against HER.

In summer 2019, Donald Trump held a Greenville, North Carolina rally at which Omar-haters chanted, “Send her back [to Somalia]!” Xenophobia, racism and misogyny– among other abominations of angry human beings– have waxed and waned in American history.

Luckily, thus far, courageous, influential anti-haters have risked their lives to counter those immature people. Unluckily, America has reached another point in its evolution whereby the people have elected a PRESIDENT who embodies a hybrid of dictatorial behaviors, that includes such hatred, plus demagoguery, and excessive litigation as a plaintiff.

Luckily, his brain function is in decline, so his public appearances are waning, as is his influence!

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about Omar’s life and political career.