Feeling Stuck in Someone Else’s Nightmare: The Dangers of a Would-Be Leader at War with Himself, and Us

Lately, I often feel like I’m stuck in DT’s mind and can’t find a way out. It’s horrifyingly unpleasant, a daytime nightmare. Then I step back and breathe, momentarily at peace again.

 

We all create a world in our mind. Our world. Each person’s perception is slightly different from anyone else’s⎼ the depth of color, what we focus on and ignore, what we listen to and hear, what we respond to or bury. What a scene calls to in our memory.

 

We all, to varying degrees, shape the physical and social world around us to fit our way of perceiving it. In a way, whatever we see is us. We perceive and experience what our senses and brain make possible for us to sense.  We never see or hear exactly what another person sees or hears; or what a dog or a bat sees and hears.

 

And the moment-by-moment play-by-play that most of us hear in our minds is unique to us yet shares so much with the experience of others. But we can learn to step away from the recording. We can enjoy and be fascinated by, maybe even love, what eludes our play-by-play; we can welcome what is bigger or other than what we’ve ever perceived before.

 

But not DT. He seems to be one of the very few who feel they must control, manipulate, fabricate everyone and everything until other people only walk, talk, and appear as they would dress them. Only a very few feel they can’t feel secure, maybe can’t breathe unless there’s no one or nothing but themselves in their world shaping it. They’re just too ignorant about controlling themselves they try to make up for it by controlling others.

 

For example, look at DT’s response to the killing of Charlie Kirk. In a way, this murder was both awful and a perfect opportunity for him and his sycophants. It provided a chance to fertilize the delusion, hate, and division they’ve been growing for years, for lying about and demonizing “the left,” which in their definition is anyone who opposes their lust to turn this nation into a racist dictatorship they control.

 

Charlie Kirk was an outspoken conservative activist. Oliver Willis, writing for Daily Kos, said it seems many have been forgotten that he was also “a bigot, misogynist, and a racist who regularly excused the very sort of gun violence that ended his life.” Kirk said, in 2023, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment.” Did he mean to excuse 47,000 killed by guns in 2023 alone? How about 27 killed in 2012 in Sandy Hook Elementary School or 19 killed in Robb Elementary School in 2022? What about 47 school shootings so far this year?

 

Kirk’s killer, Tyler Robinson, comes from a Republican, Mormon, church-going family. He has no criminal record. He turned himself in to police after being encouraged to do so by his parents and a retired police officer who knew his family through their church. He even took responsibility for the vile murder on his social media platform, saying “im sorry for all of this.” He was dating his roommate, a transgender person, and the revelation of this relationship set up a tsunami of speculations, lies, and distortions led by DT himself.

 

Instead of using this awful event to bring people together in the face of violent death, DT used it to manipulate a violent reaction against Democrats, LGBTQ+, immigrants, and his opponents. “The radicals on the right are radical because they don’t want to see crime…” he said. This ignores the fact that for the last 40 years especially, most politically motivated violence came from the right. “The radicals on the left are the problem – they want men in in women’s sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders…”

 

He said…

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

When We Turn Reality into Myth: Supposed Mythical Beings Now Walk the Streets and Stop to Stare Us in the Face

In the past, it seemed that the mythical meanings of events were more subtle and hidden, but no more. They walk the streets with us and often stop to stare us in the face. Myth can mean a traditional, sacred, or universal story, a story of heroes and heroines, creator beings and destroyers⎼ a story revealing a more intuitive way of viewing life, an invisible realm that parallels our usual one. And it can also mean an untruth or false belief.

 

And today, our president illustrates both meanings. He has taken lies, corruption, a lust for power and vindictiveness against opponents to such historic levels he has created for himself an image of a being larger than human. Many recognize his behavior as that of a wannabe deity, a destroyer being walking the halls of our capital. But for too many others who follow him blindly, he’s an angel of vengeance.

 

But instead of this mythical being living only in story and legend, he’s very human and all too real. And what we, the rest of us, are called to do can feel like something only a hero could accomplish. But usually we don’t feel heroic; we feel like ordinary beings facing a reality that is extraordinarily unbelievable, frightening, and despicable.

 

For example, the DT administration is planning to destroy or abandon satellites that collect information about pollution and carbon build up in the atmosphere, as well as terminate the collection of weather data that collects vital information on hurricanes.

 

And why such enmity for something as basic as weather information? Why terminate the satellites unless the goal is to end scientific research into⎼ and proof of⎼ human-caused climate change? He’s blocking the availability of information that can be used to protect the environment and sustain human life on this planet. And instead, he’s empowering private entities and corporations to abuse the environment our lives depend on.

 

Politico reports that DT has stopped information from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program from being distributed to users. This includes data on hurricanes that has been crucial in protecting people who live on the coast from dangerous weather conditions. Weather collection has greatly improved since Katrina, but DT’s actions can put that at risk, and put lives at risk. Will free weather reports and all regular weather satellites be destroyed next?

 

When I was teaching high school, students wanted me to not use the word ignorance. They disliked anything that sounded like bullying, abuse, being unfair; and calling someone ignorant can do just that. And I loved that concern by students. But ignorance can also serve a powerful descriptive purpose. The root ig means not, opposite of. And nore comes from the Latin gnarus, meaning aware or to know. Ignorance is not knowing, not-seeing what’s right there to see and know. It has a connotation of willful not-knowing.

 

In the past, ignorance was considered a detriment, even dangerous for a politician. Now, we have a president working to create a reign of ignorance, particularly about who he is. He’s pushing ignorance and greed over accurate knowledge and favoring the advancement of a few wealthy and politically powerful individuals over protecting the health and safety of all of us on this planet.

 

Unbelievably, instead of protecting our health, he’s directly undermining it….

 

*To read the whole piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

We’re All Both Teachers and Leaders: Self-Governance Means More Than Voting Biannually

I recently saw Robert Reich’s film, The Last Class, and was totally engaged throughout the 72 minutes I was in the theatre. Part of this was because the film talked about issues at the center of my life now and in the past, on education, retirement, and aging, on equality, democracy, and freedom. He asked questions that reached right inside my mind and heart. Less than a year ago we had an election where only 34% of voters thought democracy was the primary concern. And although many recognized DT as a threat to democracy, how many of us truly believed he would immediately act to strip our constitutional rights and protections from us?

 

Reich asked, what is democracy? We talk about democracy as self-governance. But what does it mean to govern ourselves? Is self-governance just that we as a people, not some other nation, choose the person who leads us?

 

He asked, “who are the teachers,” and “who are the leaders?” Or maybe who will be the teachers and leaders? Who will awaken generations to the necessity to stand up for others, for equality, for our environment, for our right to an honest and evocative public education? And who will the leaders be? Especially, who will lead us with courage, sincerity, and compassion? We assume leaders need to have the backing of formal institutions. But Reich pointed out that some of the most striking and powerful had no formal position. Think of Mahatma Gandhi, and Rev. Martin Luther King.

 

In a democracy, all of us play both roles. We’re teachers not just in the classroom and in the home, but in the streets, the workplace, the playground. We teach by the example of our actions and character. And we also lead by example, as well as through what and how we speak, what we do and how we do it.

 

To live in a democracy is a demanding endeavor. It requires that “we the people” take responsibility for what the government does in our name and supposedly in our interest. In 5th Century Athens, possibly the first democracy, all citizens (which only included free men) were legally required to participate in government decision-making and could be fined if they did not. But it has taken me a good part of my life and DT’s threats to the nation to realize just how demanding it should be. For many years, too many of us took democracy for granted. We were selfish and didn’t want to take time from our personal lives to give to the collective. When I was younger, many of us thought of the government as a foreign body we had to resist. We didn’t realize how much we could lose by non-participation.

 

Thomas Jefferson said, “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” Democracy and self-government require we treat our life as citizens as a sort of continuing education or practice, and government as an extension of ourselves, not just a biannual obligation. Self-governance means governing our voices, our votes, our actions, our thoughts, to deeply and comprehensively understand our world. And doing this as a practice means we do it kindly, mindfully aware of how governing fits in the totality of our lives. This is too easily forgotten. And DT, in his own despicable way, is doing all he can to undermine any belief that government is us and exists to serve and protect us.

 

Maybe this is why some people voted for a president who said he’d be a ruler more than a leader; a dictator, who promised to take our voice, our formal power away from any of us who might speak out against him….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

When we Run Too Long from the Truth, We Become Imprisoned by Our Attempt to Escape: The War on Truth

How long can anyone actively ignore the truth before the truth comes back at them? Certainly, anyone who was or is being abused and traumatized carries an extremely difficult reality as a burden, and need compassion and support to face it. But for those who want revenge, who strike out to disappear not only a truth they didn’t like yet heard spoken, but the person who voiced it⎼ there’s something very wrong. Attacking someone because they say something that opposes their way of thinking is simply wrong. Eventually, the reality must break through. Like in a dream, if we run from a nightmare image it pursues us even more vehemently; running from the truth can imprisons us.

 

This is DT. I don’t know if he’s just emotionally incapable of acknowledging any reality other than one he’s fashioned; or if he’s so unstable, so on edge he gets vindictive if he’s challenged. Or maybe he just uses edginess as a strategy to frighten others into giving him what he wants. No matter what, his power and actions have been scary and dangerous for so many of us.

 

Even before first taking office in 2017, he showed a repugnance for speaking, perceiving, or even allowing the truth to be spoken in his presence. The number of distortions and lies he’s uttered is incredible. And he’s attacked, spread ridiculous lies and dangerous threats against those who oppose or speak against him, so much so that now no one in the GOP will reign him in. Many of those who follow him believe he’s the very voice of truth.

 

But if no one will challenge a would-be emperor, how will he know he’s naked? The case of the Epstein Files might be one step in the truth catching him. DT continuously fueled conspiracy theories about prominent people, mostly Democrats, using Jeffrey Epstein’s services to engage in sex crimes with minors. DT promised his supporters he would release the “Epstein client list.” He promised prosecutions, to name names and reveal evidence. He promised transparency. Instead, he had the DOJ redact his name from Epstein files.

 

And for his supporters, the issue of stopping child sexual abuse and sex trafficking is deeply important and emotional; they believed DT would champion their concerns and expose the crimes. Why they would expect a person convicted of sexual abuse with a long history of twisting the truth to honestly champion their call for honesty and transparency is beyond me; but this is what occurred.

 

What will happen when the reality of DT’s actions concerning Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-predator, hits more people? Maxwell is a convicted sex trafficker, who not only recruited young girls for commercial sex but participated in their abuse, and constantly lied about it. DT had Todd Blanche talk with her instead of her victims, and then ordered her moved to a low security, resort prison. What deals did he work out with her in terms of possible future testimony?

 

So now, DT is in trouble. His own supporters can’t believe him when he and his DOJ say there is no list, or the Democrats created the list, or the issue is not worth his time⎼ and those who waste his time pushing for release of the records he promised to reveal are “weaklings,” “idiots.”

 

DT is at war with truth and with reality itself. He’s at war with anyone who reveals facts or speaks truths or shares useful information.

 

He’s at war with any news media that reveals truths, reveals the reality that opposes his fiction….

 

*To read the whole piece, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

Can We Utilize Fear Instead of Fearing It? – When It’s So Real It Feels Unreal

This time in history we’re going through is not only scary and disturbing, but so difficult to understand and accept as real. Part of that difficulty comes from the almost all-pervasive reach of the threat. Part of it comes from wanting so much to know what will happen⎼ want to know “we will be all right” ⎼ but we’re in a different universe from knowing that. Part of it comes from perceiving that so much we value, that we feel is crucial to our lives is being taken away step by step. And this is so real it feels unreal.

 

Just last week, DT threatened to withhold support for or attack lawmakers who go against his wish to wipe out the independent free press in this country, including defunding NPR and PBS. And then his sycophants in Congress defunded NPR and PBS.

 

He sued the Wall Street Journal for billions for publishing a letter purportedly from DT to Jeffrey Epstein that included a lewd drawing, and apparently providing evidence that DT and Epstein were not just casual acquaintances.

 

Stephen Colbert, who was often critical of the president in his monologues, saw his contract for his late-night show terminated by CBS. This looks suspiciously like CBS acting in fear of being attacked by DT. As Steven Harper, in Common Dreams asked, was Colbert’s termination part of an implicit or explicit deal to get Federal Communications Commission approval for a merger between Paramount (parent company of CBS) and Skydance Media?

 

And was the termination of Colbert’s contract a continuation of Paramounmt’s bowing down to DT that they started earlier in the year, when they agreed to pay the President $16 million to settle a suit that he had almost no chance of winning? The suit was not just frivolous but a direct attack by DT on CBS for daring to share, during the election, an interview with DT’s opponent, Kamala Harris.

 

And these are just a small sampling of his attacks on the press. He threatened legal action against CNN for reporting on an app that warns people when ICE agents are nearby. He threatened Disney, which owns ABC News, with a suit because George Stephanopoulos, a top news anchor, shared a description of the president’s assault on writer E. Jean Carroll⎼ and Disney capitulated, paid $16 million to DT, despite the fact DT was found guilty by a court, for this case of sexual abuse.

 

And on and on. DT is quickly moving to secure the power of a dictator. He’s trying to rip away our right to free speech and to eliminate all the vehicles we could use to exercise that right. Back in 2017, during his first administration, he received criticism for calling the media, the free press, the “enemy of the people.” Now, he’s straight out attacking any media or anyone that shares views other than his own. He’s doing anything he can to shut it, or us, up.

 

We don’t know what will come of this. We don’t know if enough people will protest, or enough politicians will say “we’ve had it with him.” And then there’s the Jeffrey Epstein rebellion against DT.

 

There’s a large segment of MAGA supporters who voted for DT because he promised to reveal a list complied by Jeffrey Epstein of prominent men who utilized Epstein’s connections to engage in child sexual predation. And now DT’s saying the opposite⎼ saying, there was no list. There is nothing there. And any of you that waste my time on this are weaklings, stupid people. Will the Jeffrey Epstein rebellion against DT’s refusal to come clean build in strength and undermine his power base?

 

DT has also been showing increasing signs of cognitive decline, although there have been warnings of him being reality-challenged for years….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

DT Has One Great Ability, to Manipulate and Destroy: If He Had Set Out to Purposely Hurt Our Nation, His Actions Couldn’t Be More Destructive

In 1919, at the closing edge of the first world war, and when the waves of the flu pandemic were beginning to spread and kill millions, the poet William Butler Yeats wrote: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the land…” A time of political, social, and moral breakdown seemed at hand. The old values, old ways of thinking, were dying.

 

And today, we’re clearly facing our own time of pandemics, political, social, and moral breakdown, of old ways, maybe once reliable ways of understanding the world being ripped from us, plunging us into depths of unknowing.

 

Judd Legum wrote an article called “Making Measles Great Again.” In it he described how DT and his health secretary, Robert Kennedy, Jr, instead of making our nation great are making the measles threat great. They’re making us greatly more vulnerable to future pandemics.

 

Measles is extremely contagious. About 92% of unvaccinated people exposed to it get infected. But by the year 2000, the WHO declared the disease eradicated in the US, due to an extensive vaccination program. In 2000, there were 86 cases reported in the US. Halfway through 2025, there were already 1274 cases, 155 hospitalizations, and 3 deaths, marking the first time in a decade with a death from the illness.

 

And the cause? Increasing distrust of science itself, of reliable information. People like RFK, Jr. spreading misinformation. Despite the fact that almost all the spread of the illness is amongst the unvaccinated, RFK claimed that the vaccine caused the deaths, the illness.

 

RFK is doing the same with the deadly bird flu, saying we should let it run wild, while cancelling research into vaccines and other methods of ending its spread. The magazine Science published an article from virologists, veterinarians, and health safety experts on the inanity of this approach: “Essentially, the longer you allow a virus that has shown to be effective in infecting multiple hosts survive in an environment, the greater the chance you give it to spread, to mutate, and to try its luck at adaptation,”  said Erin Sorrell, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “Worst case scenario, the virus adapts and expands its host range to become transmissible in humans … Now we have a pandemic.”

 

Undermining public health institutions is one deadly way to unravel the core of a nation and “loose the blood-dimmed tide,”  and “mere anarchy upon the world.” DT’s big beautiful/ugly bill passed just a week ago could undermine the core program that keeps our hospitals and healthcare system functioning. Although the worst effects of the bill were purposefully delayed until after the 2026 midterms, the bill could kick up to 16 million people off MEDICAID and health insurance. Yet DT and his GOP continue to lie about or try to distort how devastating these effects could be.

 

In Texas, at least 109 people have died, 173 remain missing due to the extreme floods. Concerns have arisen that cuts by DOGE in the Weather Service, and the GOP assault on climate science might have contributed to the disastrous situation there. According to Jake Johnson, writing for Common Dreams, “Though local National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters did issue warnings in the lead-up to Friday’s flooding—which killed at least 82 people, including dozens of children—key roles were reportedly vacant ahead of the downpour, prompting scrutiny of the Trump administration’s mass firings and budget cuts, in addition to years of neglect and failures by Republicans at the state level.”

 

It’s unclear how much staffing shortages at the NWS undermined the efficacy of the response, of warnings and preparations by officials in Texas. However, it’s certainly clear that climate warming is making such events more common and fearsome. What the DT administration and the GOP are doing will only assure that such tragedies continue to occur, even grow in frequency, by undermining research into climate science and by hiding information needed to mitigate the harmful effects of climate instability. The Big Ugly bill terminates many federal investments into alternative wind and solar energy thusly increasing the threat of carbon pollution and climate warming.

 

DT even plans to cut FEMA and turn disaster response to states or run the federal responses right out of the White House. Is this another way to enforce obedience to him, as he’s done in the past, by withholding aid to states that do not bend a knee to him?….

 

*To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.

Stop the King of Lies and Rip-offs from Being the King of US: What Can I Do? Is Not an Assumption of Hopelessness but A Driver of Reflection and Action

This morning, the sky was partly cloudy, after one of the wettest springs in history, with a grey haze from Canadian fires. Still, a cardinal and a vireo were singing. Outside my office, the rhododendron flowers had turned brown and were falling off the bush, but the roses were very alive with a deep red color.

 

But in our human realm, news reports set a very threatening tone to the day. This began at a news conference earlier in the week, when Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat from California, tried to ask a question of DT’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. As he tried to take a step forward to be heard, identifying himself as a US Senator (the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee on Immigration), Noem’s security detail stopped him, shoved him to the ground, where he was handcuffed and forcibly taken from the room.

 

Later, the Senator explained he had repeatedly asked DHS for information on their increasingly extreme actions against immigrants but had not received answers. He said, “If this is how this administration… the DHS responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country.”

 

Since June 6, mostly nonviolent protests continued in LA, after having been met not only with police but soldiers, National Guard troops sent in by DT against the explicit direction of California Governor Newsom. This was an even more unrestrained repeat of DT’s militarized response in 2020  to protests against the killing of George Floyd. And, as in 2020, the possibly illegal deployment of troops only served to inflame the situation further.

 

And on the morning of Saturday, June 14th, in their Minnesota home, Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state representative and her husband were assassinated, in a politically targeted killing. The assailant also shot a second Democratic lawmaker and his wife multiple times, but they both thankfully remain alive as of now.  When DT was asked by a reporter if he would call Minnesota Governor Walz, he responded with more spite than any semblance of truly caring. “Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor,” ABC News reported Trump said. “I think he’s a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too.” As of Sunday, he hadn’t called the Governor.

 

Starting Saturday morning, a “Celebration” in Washington D.C., with a military parade in the evening, honoring the 250th anniversary of the US Army⎼ and the birthday of the King of Lies. But across 200 cities covering most of the country, a NO KINGS demonstration at 1:00. Also later in the day, a Gay Pride event and a Juneteenth remembrance.

 

The events presented a dramatic contrast. The military parade celebrated not only the courage and sacrifice of soldiers, but the ego and self-centeredness of DT. In anticipation and messaging, it was frightening; but it turned out to be a sad and not well attended event.

 

The NO KINGS protests were attended by millions. They were both serious and fun, concerned for the rights and future for all of us⎼ compassionate yet defiant of DT’s attempts to destroy democracy, to mistreat and remove immigrants of color, and undermine any government agencies and policies that protect the well-being of the mass of citizens, like healthcare, Social Security, SNAP, and education.

 

The protests were peaceful yet energizing.

 

*To tread the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

It’s Not When, But If: Will 2025 Be the Last Memorial Day Honoring and Mourning Those Who Died Fighting for Democracy?

This past week I wondered: will this be the last Memorial Day? With all the assaults on democracy by DT and his authoritarian party, will this be the last year the holiday is commemorated to remember and honor those who gave their lives defending democracy?

 

When he first won the election less than one year or one eternity ago, DT controlled all 3 branches of government. And many of us who opposed him said “wait until the midterms. We’ll win control of the House and maybe Senate and resurrect democracy.” But few who’re looking realistically now at recent events are still saying that. Many realize our time to act is not in a year, but now. DT is doing all he can to destroy the possibility of meaningful midterm elections. As the song says, “It’s now or [possibly] never.”

 

For example, I’ve been reading about the hidden contents of the House Reconciliation bill, or what DT calls “a big beautiful bill” and others call the Big Ugly. DT calls it “beautiful” because it gives him what no law should ever give a president in a democracy. It gives him not only more economic means to rule unopposed, to be the boss, King, Dictator, the absolute word on everything by gifting him tax cuts on the rich. And as it’s clearly developed in Project 2025, it also gives him the political power to make his dreams come true.

 

On May 22, Robert Reich wrote an article revealing details of what is hidden from most news discussions. He describes how DT has been working for years to neuter the courts. For example, several lower court justices and then the Supreme Court told  him to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of this country, illegally deported to a cruel prison in El Salvador. But DT wouldn’t comply with the orders. A federal judge ruled that the DT regime willfully disregarded a court order restraining them from such deportations. He also tries to intimidate judges with attacks on them and their families in language that could and has led to violence.

 

Courts have only one power to make their orders stick—to hold a politician or anyone in contempt. But the Big Ugly Bill has a hidden agenda. There’s a provision which says, “No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction was issued…” Translation: this provision would stop courts from enforcing contempt citations and end any power they had over DT.

 

An article in the Campaign Legal Center for Advancing Democracy Through Law news outlet, by Eric Kashdan not only gives more details on the provision described by Reich, but provides other hidden anti-democratic material in the 1000 page bill.

 

For example, in section 43201(c) is buried a provision imposing a ban of ten years on enforcing any state or local law that would regulate AI, including laws controlling its use in political campaigns and elections. This means its use to fabricate images and spread disinformation. It actually stops the enforcement of laws passed by any government bodies other than DT’s Congress, preventing any lawmakers outside Congress from protecting us, their constituents.

 

Kasdan spells out this could⎼ and would⎼ mean giving free reign to the spread of lies and disinformation that undermine our ability to make informed decisions. It would create an even more dangerous situation than what we have now, one that further debilitates any trust in the existence of truth or trust in our elections. It takes us right through the doors of the Ministry of Truth/Disinformation George Orwell described in his novel 1984.

 

This is only one part of the DT GOP assault on “we the people” of the U. S….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

Science & Democracy: Anaximander and Opening the Mind Replacing a Myth of What Was with Expanding Our Understanding of What Could Be

A few years ago, I wrote an article asking Is Uncertainty A Blessing or a Curse, Or Both? It was based on a book by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. As a result of the article, Dr. Rovelli’s publisher sent me a copy of his new book, Anaximander and the Birth of Science. This new book is as well written and intriguing as the first one I read years ago. It’s also as relevant as the older book was to this frightening moment in history that we are facing.

 

Rovelli defines science, in the introduction, as “the passionate search for ever newer ways to conceive the world.” Its strength is thus based not in what we’re certain of, but in a “radical awareness” of our ignorance, of recognizing that what we don’t know is vast. Thus, it’s fluid and constantly pushes us to learn more and more. And it constantly moves to overthrow the old ways that we ordered our world and move us into something new, something ever deeper and more comprehensive.

 

And one aspect of the threat we face today is the emphasis on certainty. To emphasize certainty in the face of a universe that’s continually changing and evolving is to deny and even hide reality. It’s to cling to the ideas, images, illusions we held of the past in order to pretend we can manufacture a future that fits those created illusions. It means to undermine learning itself in favor of indoctrination. It’s to fight for dominance for one person or group over the many; to fight for total centralized control of information, resources, and power instead of a de-centralized, interdependent, democratic sharing of perspectives, information, resources, and power. In other words, science and democracy are linked together.

 

Anaximander lived in a place and time where both political and mental realms were opening up, where gaps were emerging in the sources and institutions of both political power and intellectual ideas and belief. He was born in Miletus, a Greek city-state on the Ionian or Turkish coast, in 610 BCE. Athens was just beginning to grow in power. The Odyssey and The Iliad had been composed two centuries earlier.  Solon, the creator of the first constitution to incorporate democratic ideas, had just been born. And about 200 years later, we have Sophocles, Sappho, and Plato and the Golden Age of Greece.

 

Miletus was close to Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Black Sea, and traded with a good portion of the rest of the world. The city thrived from the introduction of ideas and products from all these different areas. Rovelli discusses how civilizations flourish when they mingle; they decline in isolation. So called cultural “purity’ closes off new ideas and understandings.

 

His was a time of secularization, where the religious or spiritual realms were not controlled by a church or religious institution. Where the ideas of the ancients, of the past, were not given divine and unquestioned status. The Homeric gods were neither fully credible nor majestic, but full of faults as well as powers. Miletus itself was an independent city-state in a league of cities where no one entity dominated the others. It was called the Ionian League, and it met in a Parliament, maybe the first in history.

 

Writing was no longer the exclusive domain of the religious elite and rulers, or to scribes, priests, and aristocrats. It was possibly the first time in history written accumulated knowledge and study were accessible to many, both to learn⎼ and to question, criticize, and debate. A large class of citizens could discuss not only intellectual issues but how to apportion power and make decisions critical to the lives of the community. And it was assumed that knowledge and truth best emerge from allowing criticism⎼ of established ideas as well as new understandings. And where open discussion replaced absolute belief. The same held true in social and political matters. Democracy in intellect and belief mirrored democracy in politics.

 

Of course, this didn’t last….

 

*To read the whole piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

Who Are They Coming After Next? If We Didn’t Believe It Before, We’ll Believe It Now

The volume of birdcalls increases as night slowly transforms into day. It’s spring; my wife’s flowers are painting the yard beautiful colors. The air smells sweet to breathe. On a day like this, how can we believe it can all end? How can we believe our savings can be stolen or depleted, the protections on air quality ended, so the air will no longer smell so sweet or be safely breathed. Bird habitats dangerously threatened. The safety of my home and property ended. And all by the DT government. How do we see the ferocity of such a beast when so much of what was, and so much beauty remains?

 

The Washington Post recently revealed that DT is having plans written up to weaken the independence of the nuclear safety regulators and relax rules that protect us from radiation exposure. Why? To fast track the resurrection of the nuclear power industry.

 

According to Reuters, on May 11 FEMA announced that, to align themselves with DT’s intentions, they are sharply reducing training for state and local weather and other emergency managers. This would leave all storm-prone communities more vulnerable, less prepared to handle the often-devastating effects of hurricanes and other catastrophic weather events, all of which have been happening more frequently with global warming. And they’re doing this just a few weeks before the June 1 beginning of hurricane season, a hurricane season predicted to be busier than normal this year.

 

Why? They claim their aim is to reduce waste and save money. But it’s difficult to understand how paying the people who help us prepare for storms and rebuild afterwards is wasteful—unless you’re a billionaire and think your money makes you immune from needing their services.

 

And this is happening in every aspect of government, affecting every aspect of our lives, from weakening rules that protect our water from highly dangerous, forever chemicals, firing those who fight forest fires, firing inspectors who provide food safety, healthcare, to stealing our retirement savings, habeas corpus, and even our right to speak out and vote.

 

And if that isn’t enough, this really scared me⎼ The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was recently arrested by DHS agents and charged with trespass at an ICE detention facility. This was a private detention facility, opened despite a law prohibiting such, and without allowing legally required inspections by the state. The mayor was there in support of a congressional delegation aiming to inspect the site and was not on private land but public property. The mayor said he had been standing there for over an hour when arrested and had not been warned to move.

 

The following day, a DHS spokesperson said they were considering also arresting the 3 member Democratic Congressional delegation that was at the facility with the mayor. They accused the Democrats of assaulting ICE agents.

 

One member of the Democratic delegation, Representative Rob Menendez, said: “As Members of Congress, we have a legal right to conduct oversight at any DHS facility without prior notice, as we have already done twice this year. Throughout every step of this visit, ICE attempted to intimidate everyone involved and impede our ability to conduct oversight.” Menendez added, “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I am shocked and disturbed that something like this happened in our community.”

 

Another member of the delegation, Representative LaMonica McIver added that the lawmakers were met with “contempt, disrespect, and aggression from ICE.” So⎼ who is violating the law here?

 

And this comes just a few weeks after DT’s Department of Justice arrested Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan…

 

*To read the entire piece, please go to The Good Men Project.