Outrage Directed by Compassion Can Save Us: How Do We Recognize and Call Out the Hate and Blindness that Others Carry Without Letting It Turn Us to Blindly Hate?

Sometimes lately, I worry I’m losing empathy, losing an ability to see myself in others. And this scares me. It can lead me to feel I’m losing the heart of who I am.

 

I was listening to a program on NPR hosted by Tonya Mosley. She was interviewing Jia Tolentino, a staff writer for the New Yorker, on an article she wrote called Our Plastic Surgery Nightmare. The program went into totally unanticipated topics that I previously thought had little to do with plastic surgery.

 

Or maybe I should say plastic surgery has had unanticipated consequences. The technology has become so precise as to be practically undetectable. So, what’s the problem? With such advances, it’s easy to feel even more pressure to work to maximize our appearance and make it conform to what we think other people consider beautiful. And when every face can be “optimized,” it becomes less a window into character and emotion, and more another field of artificiality. It becomes something to buy, not to live our way into. No longer will we see smile and tension lines, or other signs of character and the realities of a lived experience. A dimension of the face as a vehicle of communication will be lost. Instead, another vehicle to hide ourselves from others and from ourselves will be born.

 

What Tolentino found is that the images people are using to model their appearance on are AI generated. And these images are predominantly of people who are white, young, and based on one idea of what’s beautiful. They are also very much alike one another. The face is being separated from the person, the person from their humanity or soul.

 

The program then went on to talk about “Looks Maxxers,” a purported self-improvement or men’s rights movement I never heard of before and had trouble understanding. It largely began around 2010, during the “Me-too” movement and the Presidency of Barack Obama. It was a reaction against a perceived rise in prominence of feminism and maybe of African Americans, and diminution of strong white men. A large segment of this group blames women for their problems building romantic relationships. This perception tipped these young men into a reactive, hateful belief that women are less than men, more superficial, who do not deserve equal rights.

 

According to Tolentino, it’s also an attempt to discover and classify the bodily characteristics of successful men to imitate those characteristics. In the “manosphere,” an influencer named Braden Peters became famous for striking his jaw with a hammer, as well as using softer methods like work outs, peptides, supplements, etc. to make his body and face more rugged, more “masculine,” and in his eyes more attractive.

 

But all these efforts to be attractive are not for sex or even happiness. These men are purportedly heterosexual but show little or no desire to get closer to women. Their purpose is to attract women to display power and dominance over them, and to be seen by a virtual, disembodied audience. She called this “eroticized attention;” it’s also attention that could be used to make money from internet forums.

 

Tolentino’s article and my emotional response to it alerted me to how much I feel the human world is severely straining my ability to understand it and is close to spinning out of control. We might be facing an array of threats way beyond what was faced by any other generation I can think of. The philosopher Noam Chomsky warned that humanity is approaching [or is now in] the most dangerous and critical moment in history. We have a climate emergency, an economy that doesn’t serve most of the people, as well as too many unjustifiable, unbelievably destructive wars. We even have a fairly new technology, AI, that some reputable experts warn has at least a 10% chance of causing the extinction of all humans in the next decade.

 

And we have a president specializing in undermining every aspect of our lives as part of a human community. I hope I’m not pushing an analogy too far, but I think this administration is causing many of us to feel what’s been called moral injury. I first heard the term used in describing, along with PTSD, part of what many soldiers experience from serving in a war. According to the Moral Injury Project at Syracuse, University, the injury entails damage to one’s conscience from perpetuating, witnessing, or failing to prevent acts that violate one’s conscience. Many feel harmed by a betrayal of core values, of justice, fairness, and loyalty, by our leaders, by other members of our community, or by our own actions or inaction. We know that many of our leaders have failed not only to protect us but even care about us. We feel our very humanity is being threatened.

 

Even more than ever, and as much as we individually can, we can ask ourselves several questions. Maybe the most important is how can we hold compassion in the face of hate? Instead of sacrificing our empathy, as the “Looks Maxxers” seem to be doing, how do we instead protect and act in accord with it?

 

Does every generation of people feel an inability to understand or feel empathy for those born in different decades? It certainly seems true here, in the US. When I was a teenager, I felt my parent’s generation didn’t understand me. They couldn’t understand the reality of life for my cohorts and myself and kept wanting me to conform to their images of success and reality, not mine. Is my trouble feeling empathy for or understanding the “Looks Maxxers” anything like what my parents experienced with me?

 

And for those of us older people, what might it be like to be part of a generation that grew up with social media and the increasing climate and other previously mentioned threats dominating their world?…

 

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

Changing the Climate in this Country and World: Stopping the Malignant Madness

It’s raining this morning, but it doesn’t feel like a “normal” rain. The sky is so dark and ominous, and the rain hits the roof and windows like stones, like pellets. It grabs my attention so deeply it doesn’t feel like any other rain. It can’t be ignored. It falls like fear, like power. Like life itself.

 

The thunder and lightning shake my home. They shake the earth and seem to split open the sky. I hope it won’t split open my roof.

 

And the rain and thunder are not over there someplace; they’re not at any distance. They’re right here, speaking in words the size of the universe.

 

It’s raining as I think of Nepal. The flood that we now know killed over 1,114 people, that sent over 4,000 missing; and the pets, animals, all killed, homes, gardens destroyed, washed away, except for memories, except for the grief of loved ones. That flood was right out of my nightmares. Did you see the videos of it? When I was younger, I used to have nightmares of floods and of being totally overwhelmed. Of forces way beyond me.

 

And then there’s the flood in the Grand Canyon that killed 2, 1 still missing. 80 needing evacuation. Nothing like Nepal but so much closer to home. Floods all over the world this year. And to think we had a part in it? That climate change, human caused climate change played a big part in it? And that our present government and leader are actively pursuing policies that make the situation worse, that make such floods more likely and intense, deadly? That hurts.

 

And the rain and thunder send images of other sorts of rain and thunder to my mind. Like the thunder and lightning of the wars in Iran, Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Israel, etc., etc. According to the Peace Research Institute Oslo, over the last ten years interstate conflicts have increased sharply. They show the world right now is facing more violent conflicts than any time since World War II. And although no one nation or leader is responsible, but rather a whole shift in international relations, our president is greatly contributing to the violence and undermining efforts to reduce it.

 

He’s ended what some have called the “Pax Americana,” undermined our diplomatic and “soft power,” which used to be one of our primary ways to exercise influence in the world. He’s done this by drastically cutting our diplomatic corps, our foreign aid, Voice of America, etc.

 

He’s done this by his clueless negotiation strategies. His “art of the deal,” or his “calculated unpredictability,” his public appearance as a “Mad King” crazy or greedy enough to do anything, might have worked at some point in his personal business operations to get what he wanted. But it’s not working now with international relations. As Andrew Roth wrote for the Guardian, his vague and contradictory comments, claims, and actions have failed to bring peace. His foreign policy has “fully passed through the looking glass.” He’s risked undermining the world economy and the lives of millions on a whim.

 

And he’s totally clueless about how to end what he’s begun. According to Congressman Adam Smith, his rhetoric has strengthened the hardliners in Iran and is designed to drive our allies away. What he’s succeeded in doing is increasingly isolating us and undermining our credibility in the world.

 

According to columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, “[DT]’s mind has gone.” Maybe his “Mad King Strategy” is not a strategy at all but a description of the reality of his mind….

 

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

We Are Dancing to Oppose a Dictator and Possibly Save Our Lives: The Price We’ll Pay If We Don’t, and the Wondrous Benefits to So Many If We Do

Imagine being in a room outlined with gray clouds and not clearly delineated walls. And inside, so many people, either in black tuxedos and white shirts, or pastel-colored dresses. A few, however, stood out with slightly sharper but still muted colors, some red and blue, others orange, like a sunrise, or purple like dusk. It felt a bit like a dance competition on a fantasy world.

 

But there was a challenge and a threat in the air. How much opposition would we show in the uniqueness or individuality of our dance steps? How much would we say to our partners or shout to the room?

 

The opposition was, of course, to DT and his regime. But nowhere was HIS name spoken or did HIS image appear. It was all unstated, forbidden, but everyone knew what was going on. We were dancing to oppose a dictator and possibly save our lives, despite at the same time knowing that anyone who stood out too much, anyone who seemed too “different,” and especially anyone who took the role of leader could be “disappeared.”

 

I was standing a bit on the sidelines, occasionally talking with people, mostly watching; and looking much younger than I am now. One person I was watching was this older person, in their 80s or 90s, dressed in what traditionally was a woman’s clothes, yet in a sharper red. And they were dancing like a pro, with moves so individual they were shockingly in opposition to conforming and surrendering one’s freedom. I began to wonder if she would soon collapse and be taken out on a stretcher or just disappeared. And crazily, unbelievably, I was beginning to imagine letting loose like that, and dancing in ways I’ve never danced before. Would I then be disappeared? Would my health deteriorate? Or maybe, it was exactly dancing that made me feel young?

 

It’s remarkable that I had this dream the night after deciding to write a blog about a president that is so crazily, dangerously set on building displays to his ego. Tolerating any opposition to his ideas or any differences at all, or any policy that benefited the nation but not his own power and financial situation, was unthinkable, forbidden.

 

ABC News recently published a list of people attacked for defying him. It includes Democrats, Republicans, his former cabinet members, etc. The article could also include all the election workers, victims of Epstein’s crimes, tv hosts and entertainers, reporters, judges, and so many others who spoke out against him; or women alleging sexual misconduct, former employees suing him for nonpayment of wages, etc..

 

And his war against Iran– when DT claims he has brilliantly brought it to a conclusion, remember that he started it to begin with for no clearly justifiable reason.  Did he start it imagining he’d be glorified and thinking he would bring regime change to Iran as quickly as he subdued Venezuela? Did he start it to destroy Iran’s missile stockpile, end their nuclear capacity, or to help his friend Netanyahu? Or maybe he did it to reap profits from the war? Maybe it was a crazed whim? Or maybe, as some have alleged, it was to distract the nation from the persistent, increasing reports about his possible participation in Jeffrey Epstein abuses and crimes? His rationalizations kept changing.

 

His treaty or memorandum of understanding to end the war, is just an agreement to search for an agreement. And does it improve the situation in the Middle East? In an article in the Atlantic, national security scholar Tom Nichols wrote, “it is clear that Trump has failed to achieve every one of the goals he put forward for this war of choice, and now he is determined to deliver America’s capitulation as quickly as possible.” Historian Heather Cox Richardson agrees with Nichols. Iran is battered but stronger while we are strategically worse off than before the war.

 

Although the fighting will hopefully stop, Iran is now under an even more extremist regime than before, even more strongly in the grip of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Strait of Hormuz will hopefully, sometime be opened– but it will be administered by Iran and they can shut it down at any time. They still have the capacity to sponsor terrorism– and we have spent billions, depleted weapons supplies, disrupted alliances, and lives have been lost not only of our soldiers but civilians in the Middle East. NPR reported the war has increased ‘disquiet’ in the military and worsened our ability to retain troops. Moody’s has calculated the war cost taxpayers $100 billion & counting.

 

In terms of Iran’s nuclear capacity, Iran promises not to develop nuclear weapons. Promises promises. But clearly, we are worse off than before 2018. It was in 2018 that DT tore up President Obama’s treaty of 2015, which had been successfully working to limit Iran. Even now, Iran is nowhere near developing the bomb.

 

Senator Cassidy, Republican from Louisiana, called the war the “Worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”…

 

*To read the ending of the post, please go to The Good Men Project. Thank you.

How Deep Does this Now Go into That Later? Firing Colbert on The Late Show and Stealing Our Freedoms from Us

May 21st was the last night of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on CBS. The show was terminated due to pressure on CBS by DT. The reason: in the words of the Guardian, Colbert had a unique ability to “provide a nightly antidote for millions of viewers discombobulated at the end of another day in DT’s dystopia.” He directly mocked the president, using humor to relieve viewer’s anxiety and bring clarity when the world seemed too cruel and insane for many of us to pay attention. And DT is too insecure to allow anyone to criticize let alone mock him. This final act in the not-so funny drama of Colbert’s hosting the Late Show began on July 14, 2025.

 

In 2024, an interview of then Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris was aired on 60 Minutes. DT then sued CBS over the interview, claiming they had edited it to unfairly enhance how the Vice President sounded. And this editing supposedly caused the President to suffer “mental anguish.” CBS settled with him, agreeing to pay $16 million to his presidential library fund, despite the fact the suit was, according to even DT defenders like Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, likely unfounded. Others, that it lacked any substance, and raised grave concerns over press freedom. The network later claimed it fired Colbert not to satisfy DT but for “financial reasons.”

 

CBS is owned by Paramount, which starting in early 2024 was trying to merge with another production company, Skydance. For the merger to go ahead, it would need approval by the FCC, which was controlled by DT. The bribe worked; the merger was allowed to proceed. The settlement by CBS with DT was announced on July, 2, 2025. And on July 14th, 2025, a day that has proven courageous but also ominous and fateful, Colbert mocked the $16 million settlement. He called it a bribe, and that was the beginning of the end.

 

CBS News President and CEO Wendy McMahon and 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens both opposed the settlement and later resigned over it. Critics like Jon Stewart and David Letterman also called the settlement a bribe or an attempt at appeasement.

 

This wasn’t the only example of appeasement of the would-be dictator by the media, law firms, GOP Congressmembers, etc. and I hope it works out better than allied appeasement of Mr. Hitler before World War II. The examples of appeasement of DT are numerous. CBS lawyers bowed to DT by blocking an appearance on the Late Show by Texas State Rep. James Talarico, who was then running in the Democratic Texas Senate primary. And ABC News also paid $15 million to DT and his lawyers, to settle a defamation claim against news anchor George Stephanopoulos for statements he made about the civil judgment against DT for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll.

 

An article in USA Today reported the Chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, a DT sycophant, told a conservative gathering that the President is winning the battle [presumably to stop freedom of speech]. “Look at the results. PBS defunded. NPR defunded. Joy Reid gone from MSNBC… Chuck Todd, Jim Acosta… John Dickerson gone. Colbert is leaving…”

 

And lately, DT’s been ever more furiously editing the Republican party…

 

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

One Step: The Fight We’ve Been Given

For some reason, or maybe thousands of reasons, the actions of Louisiana governor Jeff Landry were just too much for me. He suspended an election. He stopped Congressional primary elections in his state from going forward, even though thousands had already voted. Why? So, he could redraw maps of election districts and prevent the interests of Black people, and Democrats, from being represented. He wants no more Black majority districts. White majority and Republican districts, yes. But Black, no. He stops an election solely to stop democracy. This is too much.

 

And there’s the GOP in Tennessee eliminating the one majority Black and Democratic House District in the state. They’re disenfranchising black voters and trying to give DT and his party an additional seat in the House. And it’s being done right in our face. Obvious. Blatant.

 

This racist, autocratic manipulation was made possible by the recent Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v Callais which further undermined the Voting Rights Act’s ability to counter discrimination in the construction of election districts. DT’s Republican Party is flat out doing all it can to stop a fair election in 2026 and forever afterwards. They fear us voters. They fear democracy. They fear they will lose badly unless they do everything possible to control the election outcome beforehand.

 

And I can’t help but think Landry’s action is just a practice run for November. It’s what DT is possibly planning if or when his party loses the House and Senate. During an interview with Reuters News Service back in January, he hinted at it out loud. According to Reuters: “He boasted that he had accomplished so much that ‘when you think about it, we shouldn’t even have an election.’” In the previous week, he briefly mentioned “cancelling” the 2026 elections to House Republicans.

 

Propublica published a report exposing several efforts DT is using to prepare to overturn the will of the voters in the midterms and dictate future election results. One notable example is he fired 75 federal officials in the DHS and DOJ tasked in 2020 and before that with safeguarding elections. Then he fired the professionals and replaced them with people loyal only to him, not the constitution. Ten of those appointees had worked to overturn the 2020 election. He also gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency which worked to counter false claims about the election being hacked.

 

I don’t know what will happen. No one does. All we have is right now, what we see and know in this moment, and our plans and intentions for the next. Now, we have a chance. There are millions in this with us. The No Kings marches mobilized 8 million people. 15-20 million people took part in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2020. Other countries had mass demonstrations to fight for freedom and justice. In June 1987 there was the Democracy Struggle in South Korea; in 2004, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine protested election fraud, forced a re-vote, and ushered in democratic reforms.

 

John Pavlovitz wrote an article published on April 4th by the Good Men Project asking if Americans were too lazy to stop a dictatorship. Are we too distracted, too lost in phone screens, and running so much on autopilot we lack the patience to maintain a struggle, even one to save our own freedom? To save our nation and planet? Or so we might mistakenly think. Despite the world being on fire, for too many of us everything looks perfectly normal– pickleball courts are full, weekend parties in full swing. We need to look deeper at our world and ourselves in order to better discern what’s here and what’s possible 

 

I shuddered reading Pavlovitz’s article, with both fear and a sense of self-questioning, despite recently writing two blogs expressing similar warnings and analysis as his. Do I personally have the determination and courage, the attention span to continue the struggle?…

 

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

To Better Understand the Echoes of What We Do and Say: What Would Happen If We Felt the Rivers of the Earth as the Veins of Our Body?

In a book titled In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty, the author, Francis Weller, says “we can no longer divide the inside from the outside.” Maybe the pandemic, the climate emergency, regional wars, economic instability, and I’d add, this new administration, have made that illusory division uncomfortable and too painful to live with.

 

Weller thinks we’ve begun to feel there’s no “ordinary” anymore. He describes a felt sense that the continuity of history and our participation in it have altered. Increasingly, we “register in our souls” the sorrows of the world. The sorrow of others, of our planet, is our sorrow. As climate change stresses forests, oceans, the fabric of natural life, social bonds also fray, and clarity of thought diminishes. The world, or at least human civilization, seems to be teetering on an edge. Yet the fate of the world’s climate and history runs right through us. What an unbearable but necessary burden.

 

I hope he’s correct, but I don’t know. How many of “us” now fit Weller’s analysis? Polls show increasing concern about the environment and climate. They show disapproval of the DT administration’s wars, economic policies, and cuts to healthcare. Most of my community of friends, family, and neighbors fit his analysis, but certainly not others. Certainly not the sycophants or supporters of the administration. But will enough of us wake up in time?

 

Dividing up the world, analyzing and breaking down situations and problems, is often necessary and useful, but it yields only partial truths. It can create problems even as it solves others. But dividing ourselves emotionally from the world— never. We need to develop a better awareness of our entanglement with everything around us so we can better understand the echoes of what we do and say.

 

To counter the illusion of a divisive self, Weller recommends we increase our tolerance and ability to descend into the dark mythic underworld, the world of dreams, the unknown. We so often fear or resist the uncertain. We need to allow ourselves to do what we can in this unbearable situation; to let go of much of the life we’ve known so we can step into the unknown. So, we reach into the darkness to find the inspiration and resources to build something new, in harmony with the natural world, and I think just.

 

Weller recommends 5 disciplines to explore and strengthen in ourselves so we can better face the depths of what’s happening.

  1. Deep listening: to sit quietly and listen for the truth spoken and lived by others and the trees, hills, water, around us. Hear what needs to be heard.
  2. Restraint: take a moment before acting to pause, breathe, and reflect.
  3. Humility: look around and become sensitive to how we depend on one another, how enmeshed we all are in each other. And I’d add, realize that we’re all prone to think our view is right and true; so, in order not to be wrong, we must recognize the “right/s” of others.
  4. Embrace not-knowing. Acknowledge we never know what’s going to happen. We don’t even know all that’s really happening right here in front of us. But by acknowledging this, and living it, we can be more open, vulnerable, and humble. We can take in more than possible otherwise.
  5. Let go: Everything is impermanent, always changing. But we can better change in harmony with the world when we no longer try to control all that happens in it.

 

But descending into what Weller calls the dark is, I think, also entering what is always right here, now. It’s just that we don’t look at it or see it. In every perception, there’s not just us and what we look at; there’s the looking, or the awareness itself. When we are aware of awareness, we can be so present. It almost seems unnecessary or repetitive to say it, but when we see another human being, what we experience is not just the person but our awareness of them. That tree, that artwork, has ourselves in it. We are never not of this world. It’s our home. And when we feel this, it can be startling and beautiful. It can awaken the energy needed to dare, to care, to create, and to act.

 

Years ago, I hitch-hiked to the west coast and took a side trip to the Grand Canyon. I stood at the edge of the Canyon, staring into its depths; the strata of soil, stone, and colors seemed to extend forever. Deep at the bottom, a barely perceived blue river. Then a family of 5 parked and exited their car. The woman in the group was maybe 40 years old and totally wrapped up corralling her 3 kids. When she reached the edge near me, her attempt at controlling her children, her focus on anything other than the canyon, was totally forgotten. All she had, or all she was, was an awareness of what was seen and felt. She just looked out at the canyon and it seemed she felt the utter incomprehensibility of everything in front of her. And all she could say was, “Oh, my God. Oh my God.”

 

We need these “Oh, my God” moments, moments of awareness of a reality so startlingly real. And it might not be obvious, but demonstrating with thousands of others for a political cause while thinking with a perspective larger than ourselves alone— acting to save our democracy, healthcare, and planet— ”Oh, my God.”

 

When I was parking my car near a friend’s home several blocks from the location of the last No Kings demonstration, the size and atmosphere of the event became clear. There were so many cars, so many people. It was like a river of people flowing together, a powerful, even joyous river…

 

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

Being Seen and Being Ready for A Revelation: Healthcare USA, 2026

It took 16 months before I could get an appointment with a specialist that I needed for a complex and unusual medical condition. 16 months of increasing symptoms and of not-knowing– or of knowing there’s something living inside me whose face I could not see. 8 months to get the test I needed. Then 8 more months before I could see the doctor to explain the results and formulate treatment plans. Is this an example of a humane and well-functioning health care system in the supposedly richest nation in the world?

 

And there are so many inequities. I have good insurance. I am white and middle class. What might others who are not so privileged face? And so much paperwork, steps to slough through, high insurance payments.

 

The clinic I went to, the Cleveland Clinic, was wonderful. Like the care people report at the Mayo Clinic, the Langone Center at New York University, UCLA Medical Center, or Massachusetts General Hospital, these places are associated with teaching institutions; the doctors see a wide variety of patients and get to learn from a wide variety of fellow practitioners. Each doctor I saw showed not only care but competence. They were also wonderful human beings. Many local doctors are also tremendously compassionate, but they didn’t know what to do with me. As some said, I was a mystery. I did not fit in any of the usual categories. It’s good to stand out, they said, but not this way.

 

And what we can’t understand, we often reject or hide from. When I never got better from any treatments the local doctors offered; and after test after test revealed only peripheral problems, but never the core, some acted as if I, my personality maybe, was the problem. These doctors could think, and think well, but they were limited by their training and experience to only a narrow area of concern. Instead of doing everything they could to truly explore the symptoms wherever they led, many focused on simply checking off a checklist. And they often recognized this. They asked that when I did get a diagnosis, I should share it with them.

 

I know many people complain about doctors and dread going to see them, which I deeply understand. They feel vulnerable, in pain, and don’t like it. But for me, even after all the disappointments, I was still ready for a revelation. Going to the doctor meant there was a possibility of insight and a reduction of pain. So, for each appointment, I was excited. I prepared; I tried to make the visit count. I researched symptoms and possible treatments, wrote out questions and a list of medications. Before entering the office, I focused on my breath, the feel of my feet on the ground, or on the quality of my awareness right then. And finally, at the Clinic, one doctor said he had seen other people with what I had. I had a diagnosis. I felt redeemed.

 

Yet even at the Cleveland and the other Clinics, problems are increasing. They used to employ a multidisciplinary team approach to treating complex illnesses. No longer; they just don’t have the staff. And here, after being hospitalized last year, a local doctor promised they’d form a team to work to diagnose and treat my condition. Never happened.

 

What we in the U. S. are now facing under DT is the seemingly intentional undermining of healthcare. This administration is not only attacking MEDICAID and the Affordable Care Act or any federal health insurance assistance. They’re also attacking our healthcare from multiple directions. For example, there just aren’t enough doctors. This shortage has been getting worse for years, with the pandemic accentuating the problem. Yet DT has cut funding for universities, including medical training. Over a quarter of our doctors are now from other countries, many “third world” countries. Two of the five doctors I saw at the clinic were not born in the U. S.

 

Much of our health care, not only doctors but nurses, technicians, etc. is by immigrants….

 

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

Are We Seeing What Happens When the 7 Deadly Sins Rule a Government? Are they Fighting a War Mostly to Distract from Epstein Revelations?

Would anyone be so self-centered they’d start a war, de-stabilize international relations and the world economy, and kill thousands mainly to distract from potentially devastating revelations and raise his poll numbers? Is that what DT is doing in Iran? And before in Venezuela? And maybe soon with Cuba? Greenland? Is this Greed? Envy? Wrath? Is it self-Indulgence, trying to appear strong, superior to cover a fear of being inferior? Certainly, it’s creating Discord. Are the Seven Deadly Sins aiming to rule America?

 

Others have written about this before me: DT acts as if he was taught the deadly sins as his catechism. I was a little unclear on the history and religious doctrine, so I looked it up. According to Wikipedia, the early version listed the sins as: Lust, Idolatry, Avarice, Discord, Indulgence, Wrath, and Pride. In 590 AD, Pope Gregory I changed this to: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Wrath, and Pride.

 

The changes are interesting. Greed for Avarice, Sloth for Indulgence—easy to understand.

But Gluttony for Idolatry, and Envy for Indulgence are more complex. Of course, a growing church would be interested in stopping idolatry, or the worshipping of false gods, idols of power instead of the one true God, or truth, maybe? Or today, worshipping the idols of cherished beliefs, easy answers, social media rumors instead of science, or reliable facts?

 

So, I’d add ignorance to the list, willfully ig-noring or not seeing what’s there in front of us? And Envy? The Lust for what others possess; the anger over what others have and we do not? The rage for vengeance.

 

And Lust: Have too many of bus forgotten that just months ago, it was reported that DT’s DOJ was scrubbing all the Epstein files to destroy links to the President? Then, after the scrub was mostly lost in the shock and chaos of headlines, news outlets reported there was no evidence in the files of malfeasance on DT’s part, except for bad judgment befriending a pedophile and child trafficker.

 

For months in 2025, DT claimed the Epstein Files were a hoax perpetuated by Democrats and there was nothing worth our attention in the material. He ordered his followers to stop being weaklings and wasting time on the files. But thanks in large part to the courage and persistence of a group of survivors of the crimes, the testimony and other evidence of possible participation by DT and other powerful men in Epstein’s crimes are now being revealed. According to reporting by the New York Times,  DT’s name was mentioned more than 38,000 times in 5,300 of the files. A woman gave testimony saying when she was 13, DT tried to force her to have sex. She wasn’t the only woman to make such claims.

 

In November, Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act which aimed to force the release of all the files. But recently NPR came out with a report showing the DOJ is still withholding evidence. The DOJ claimed to only redact and withhold files to protect the survivors, as directed in the legislation. But victims’ names and personal information were left available to the public while the names of the rich and powerful who made use of Epstein and Maxwell’s services were hidden.

 

And back on May 7, 2024 Stormy Daniels’ gave testimony about having sex with the married DT and his payment to her to be quiet about it. We remember an earlier conviction of DT on charges of defamation and sexual assault of the writer E. Jean Carroll. We might remember Judge Lewis A. Kaplan later clarifying that although the jury did not convict DT of rape according to NY State Penal Law, the trial did show that as people commonly understand the word, he did indeed rape her.

 

And there’s Greed, lots of it. And maybe Envy of what others have? Selfishness. Narcissism? The New York Times reports he has monetized the presidency to a degree never seen before. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, he has taken in at least 3 billion dollars over the last year from linking government policy to his business profits, real estate and microchip deals, selling pardons to drug criminals, etc. Gluttony is not just about food.

 

For Wrath there’s his vindictive attacks, his DOJ going after anyone who opposes, or speaks out against him.

 

And then, the wars. Venezuela and Iran, especially. Certainly, we have here the sowing of Discord. He started a war with no plan or consistent justification….

 

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

The Example of Minneapolis; Our Needs are Only One Line in a Song of Everyone’s Needs

The world, and not just the human world, looks so threatened right now. One thing that gives me hope when hope seems impossible or seems like more of a blindfold than a clear viewing, is the response of the people of Minneapolis to the violent attack on them by our own federal government.

 

Every day in this country, we experience the supposed leader of the “free world” causing new threats, new horrors and shocks. So many lives are being upended and destroyed. This is what DT brings to us. Yet, to change this and survive the assault, I think we must look to what’s happening in Minneapolis. There, in eye-scorching detail, is the affliction– and the cure.

 

The affliction: we see it daily. So many injured and arrested. Two innocent, caring people dead. The US government invading an American city, attacking its own citizens, and lying about what they’re doing and why. 3000 members of DT’s personal army roaming the city streets, obstructing the lives of people, not arresting supposed criminals but anyone brown, black, or anyone who gets in their way. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the US. ICE is ripping people from cars, schools, hospitals, places of work and worship. Acting as if the rule of law never existed or didn’t apply to them. These actions cannot be forgotten or excused just because the DT administration has finally announced they will soon end the ICE invasion in Minnesota.

 

The murders of ICU nurse for the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Alex Pretti, and poet and loving mother of 3, Renee Nicole Good, wake us up to the danger every one of us now faces. Every one of us. But reading about the response by the people of Minneapolis to such violence gives me hope and direction; it rescues me and could possibly rescue all of us from the fear and depression DT seems to purposefully instigate. This is the cure. The people of Minnesota are our neighbors. By nonviolently standing up, in a disciplined and caring manner, to oppose this government ordered violence and destruction, they are standing with all of us. But they aren’t just protesting in the streets.

 

A mother of a newborn baby and a 16 year old girl was picked up by ICE on her way to work, leaving 2 children at home, uncared for by any government agency. The 16 year old did her best, but her sibling was used to being breast fed. She called a neighbor, who was breast-feeding her own child, for assistance. The neighbor stepped in, helping the children with food and sharing her own breast milk with the baby.

 

Despite the raids by ICE interfering with business, ripping shop owners and workers from their stores and homes, several individuals and businesses have been doing what they can to help their neighbors. A family was seized by ICE and held in a facility in Texas. Upon their release, a Minnesota bookstore raised $6,000 to help the family return to their lives. A café in Minneapolis has been offering their neighbors free food until ICE is gone from the state. Doctors are making home visits to those needing medical assistance and who fear exposing themselves to ICE on the streets.

 

As the BBC points out, “Operation Metro Surge,” DT’s invasion of Minnesota began after his racist rant against Somali immigrants. He called them “garbage,” said their country is “no good for a reason.”  The political purpose of his comments and the invasion that followed are revealed by his vicious attacks on Somali Democrat and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, an outspoken critic of DT. DT divides and divides, setting one against another. No community can exist peacefully inside a wall of hate….

 

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

A Dream of a Revitalized Democracy: An Image of a Conformist State and a Vast Cemetery of Buried Selves

Can you imagine living in a nation where oppression and conformity rules? Where no diversity of thought is accepted? Where people are persecuted and prosecuted for thinking differently than the ruler?

 

This is the DT nation. We are at a critical point right now, or maybe each moment of this administration has been critical, or maniacal, malignant. For years, he’s been threatening anyone who opposes or disagrees with him. Now, it’s clear to most that he’s more focused on revenge and persecution than protecting our nation, more focused on his own greed than the well-being of Americans.

 

Just recently, DT’s DOJ started a criminal investigation of the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, who was appointed by DT himself in 2017. Powell’s “crime”⎼ defending the Federal Reserve’s legal independence from the President. Powell dared to refuse to bow down to DT’s command to lower interest rates quickly and cease caring about the long-term effects on the economy and the American people. The DOJ recently initiated an investigation into a modest overrun in a Federal Reserve construction project as a pretext to frighten Powell into compliance. The threats did not work; Powell has clearly and forcefully spoken out about the true nature of DT’s investigation.

 

At the same time, the cost of DT’s own ego-project of illegally tearing down the East Wing of the White House to construct a palatial ballroom has doubled. The project is largely funded with bribes from corporations.

 

As he promised during his campaign for president, DT has also gone after other political and legal figures like Letitia James, Lisa Cook, James Comey, John Bolton, John Brennan, Jack Smith, Adam Schiff, Elissa Slotkin; and recently, his cronies took aim at Hillary and Bill Clinton. He’s attacked, and often worked to fire entertainers like Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Bruce Sprinstein. He defunded independent media like the Public Broadcasting Company, inserted himself into mergers, and/or eliminated government permits to force media sources to pull stories that oppose or expose DT’s wrongdoing. He’s attacked universities and  the independence of educational institutions, defunded research and other programs, persecuted student activists. The list goes on and on.

 

And now he’s sent 1,000 additional ice agents to join the already deployed 2,000 agents in Minneapolis and other cities in Minnesota. The mission: to attack those protesting the murder of Renee Nicole Good by ICE and the arrest and deportation of brown immigrants, many of whom are citizens. The supposed purpose was to arrest illegal immigrants. They are also citing, without clear evidence, fraud by some Somali immigrants in their running of daycare centers.

The presence of all these masked agents, using tear gas, pepper spray, beatings, shootings, and forceful arrest tactics against protestors has inflamed the situation. Is he purposefully trying to incite the citizens of this democratic-voting state into a violent response so he could invoke the insurrection act, deploy the military on US soil, and further disrupt, hurt, and deprive citizens even further of their rights? According to several sources including The Washington Post, this is exactly his plan. He appears to be laying the groundwork for this in his verbal attacks on the political leaders and protestors in Minnesota.

 

In the same week, DT threatened Iran with some form of intervention for its violent response to demonstrators. According to CBS, possibly 12,000 people were killed in Iran over two weeks of protest. Considering what DT’s doing in Minneapolis and other cities, his claim to care about the fate of protestors is ridiculous.

 

In 2016, campaigning in Iowa, he joked or bragged he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” The shooting of Renee Good might be such a crime committed to serve his interests….

 

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