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.

Stripping the Border of Agents Is Not the Way to Stop the Drug Trade: A Performance that Threatens the Reality

I was driving home listening to MSNOW. The Attorney General of Arizona, Kris Mayes, was talking with MSNOW newscaster Katy Tur about how DT’s policies were increasing the influx of fentanyl and human trafficking along our southern border. Even though I should be used to such disturbing information, I still get shocked by it.

 

Arizona is at the heart of the drug trade, said Mayes. Yet, DT has moved so many ICE and border patrol agents from the Sothern border to other parts of the nation to carry out cruel and possibly illegal raids and arrests that now border stations lie empty. One of the biggest fentanyl drug corridors into our nation runs on Arizona State Route 82, but it’s now unguarded. Yet, ICE raids in the north and elsewhere net many more carpenters, farm workers, even military veterans than criminals. Mayes said she asked AG Pam Bondi for 50 more agents for the southern border. Instead, Bondi took even more away. Meanwhile, the importation of fentanyl is up 10%. And who knows who’s gaining entry to our country.

 

Unless something is done, this situation will continue to get worse. Mayes commented that DT is apparently more interested in political theatre then in protecting us from fentanyl or other dangerous drugs, or dangerous criminals.

 

And while DT opens the southern border to drug traffickers, he pardons those who have already been tried and convicted in US courts. He gave a full pardon to “Cocaine Juan,”  the convicted former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez. Hernandez, known for  bragging about stuffing “the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” was convicted in 2024 of drug trafficking. He was responsible for helping import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the US, accepting bribes and protecting violent drug cartel leaders from prosecution. DT also commuted the sentence of Larry Hoover, the alleged founder of the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples street gang and Garnett Gibert Smith, a Baltimore drug kingpin. And the list goes on. This is incredible corruption and behavior way beyond irresponsible.

 

The same holds true with DT’s apparent race to war on Venezuela. He has not only destroyed small boats but ordered the blockade of the nation, seizing an oil tanker while claiming their oil is ours. Such a war might somehow serve DT’s personal interests but never serve the stated goal of stopping the drug trade or terrorist operations. Venezuela is only a minor player in the drug trade. According to a 2020 US DEA report, almost three quarters of the cocaine, for example, is trafficked through the Pacific and Mexico. Yet, DT says he’s stopping the drug trade by attacking boats in the Caribbean.

 

Nick Turse in The Intercept published a detailed article on this situation. 20 vessels in the Caribbean Sea were destroyed by Special Operations on DT’s orders. He’s responsible for the summary execution of about 90 people he deemed members of a Venezuelan narco-terrorist organization, yet no evidence has been presented, no legal processes engaged. This operation is a performance, an attempt to appear like he’s competently doing something when he’s actually undermining our nation’s standing and making the drug situation worse.

 

Turse’s article reveals DT has also verbally attacked political organizations and threatened members of Congress and the media with arrest or execution, for the sole crime of speaking out against him. DT called Democratic lawmakers seditious, traitors to be locked up or executed, for the offense of reminding members of the military they’re required by law to not obey illegal orders. DT tweeted, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!” In the past, he called for executions of the former chair of the joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Miley, former Rep. Liz Cheney, and demonstrators protesting the killing of George Floyd….

 

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

Opening Doors in Time and Mind: The Bookstore Resistance

It was such a comforting moment. I was reading a book where the main character, a bookseller, was watching a customer reading the classic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo. The man was old and seated in a cushioned chair, at a table, sipping coffee. Books were scattered everywhere, not just on the wood shelves. There was mismatched artwork on the somewhat peeling walls. Lights hung from the ceiling creating areas of clarity amidst the soft darkness. Snow increasingly falling outside as the world turned dark. Yet inside, it was warm. A fire was going in the woodstove. Such a comforting moment.

 

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown is part urban fantasy, part mystery and adventure, part romance⎼ and partly an examination of the psychological effects of pain and grief. Shortly after the book begins, the main character inherits a magical book that allows them to travel from any unlocked door to any other they can clearly imagine. There are all sorts of magic books in the story⎼ a book of shadows, for example, enabling the holder to disappear and become a mere shadow passing through any space. There’s a book of Illusions, one of luck, destruction, etc.

 

We never know what a book might reveal. They’re all around us or used to be. Like doors. Like places in the mind, or in our homes, schools, or workplace; memories, ignored bits of reality. Places we can step through to taste or digest; or to dwell fully and beautifully. Some with a hidden power.

 

When I was 18 or 19, I walked through an open door into the old Barnes & Noble Bookstore in the Village, on 8th Street & 6th Avenue, in downtown New York City. Back then, it was a smaller, more intimate store, not like the chain stores of today. I was just wandering the aisles, hoping to find a treasure, when I noticed a man and woman, maybe in their 70s, in the philosophy section in the back of the store. They were discussing the French activist and philosopher, J. P. Sartre and his concept of authenticity. They were both dressed in old but expensive clothing. The woman looked sort of regal, the man very professorial. They intrigued me but I respected their privacy and felt too embarrassed to get close enough to listen in on their conversation. So, I moved on.

 

I ran into them 2 more times. One time was at a lecture on Thoreau in an upper middle-class neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan. Someone at the lecture told me they had escaped from the Nazis in Austria. I don’t know the truth of this, but supposedly she was from a noble family, and he was a professor, but I don’t remember in what field. And later, back downtown on 6th Avenue, I was surprised to see the woman alone on the street, begging for money, and aggressively berating those who pretended not to see her.

 

Another doorway, in a recent dream. I entered what at first appeared to be the home I grew up in, where my parents lived for almost 30 years after I moved out. But in the dream my parents had sold that house. The dream home was slightly different, and in bad shape. The bathroom was not working. I had to sleep on the couch in the living room, not my old bedroom.

 

And my parents were very old. Someone said my mom was near death. My dad was in only slightly better shape. All at once, several people I didn’t know, mostly younger, in their twenties or thirties, came out from the back of the house, talking loudly amongst themselves and crowding the living room. Outside, through a window, I saw someone park, get off a motorcycle, and walk away. One of the younger people claimed the bike had been stolen and now returned. My dad, who had never in his life been on a motorcycle let alone driven one, put on a leather jacket and helmet, climbed on the bike, and tore off. Maybe he had stepped through a doorway to a younger self, as he looked so much younger, with his back straighter than it had been in years…

 

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

 

Caring for the One and Only World We Inhabit: A Community of Hope and Action

When we’re attacked, or the material supports of our lives are threatened, we might turn inward. We might do this not to bring light to our inner life but to shield our whole being. To hide from the attacker. To distance us from fear and pain.

 

We all need to turn inward sometimes for this, for self-reflection, to be present, to find peace. And to put aside memories, hurts, and traumas. But a fear and threat festers when left for too long inside us. When the time is right, taking action to break that impulse to hide, and instead to reach out to others, to learn more and fight back feels vivifying. It enriches. It might also save our lives. When we act to right a wrong, act to diminish pain and suffering, this can strengthen us, change us.

 

Saturday, 10/18/25, was such an action. The NO KINGS RALLY was a day to remember. One of the largest single days of protest in American history. Not just because almost 7 million of us in 2,600 locations, cities, towns spoke out against this administration’s outright corruption, suppression of the law, brazen infliction of cruelty and inhumanity. But because we the people acted on this day in a manner in stark contrast to DT and his Congressional sycophants. We acted peacefully. We acted lawfully. We acted joyfully. We acted patriotically, to protect the nation from a would-be King, Dictator. We spoke the truth.

 

They lied and said we hated America. But the rally showed something very different: exorbitant love. For the constitution. For the laws that DT blatantly ignores and undermines. For many brown and black Americans and so many others that DT and his ICE agents are abusing, detaining, jailing, deporting. For this earth that makes our life possible. For each other. As reported, with a bit of irony, in the internet news source The Feed, nothing says we hate America more than defending the constitution and exercising first Amendment rights. “No Kings” is literally the founding principle of this nation.

 

My wife and I were a few minutes late. As we walked to the rally site there were so many people on the sidewalk with us, with signs, and going in the same direction as we were. A few were turning toward a main road to share their signs with motorists. When we arrived, we listened to speakers talk about abuses of power, military and para-military agents turned against their own fellow citizens⎼ acts many in the military say they did not sign up for and deplore.  We heard talks about the impacts of firing of thousands of government workers. Heard the facts about how DT’s tariffs, and destroying the lives of working immigrants are raising the costs of living for all of us.  Heard how his super awful legislation is undermining our health. Heard how money approved by Congress for MEDICAID, for medical and scientific research is now going to the super-rich.

 

The people around us were neighbors and friends. Coworkers. Former students. Shopkeepers. A carpenter who worked on our house. A doctor who treated us. People smiled at us. We enjoyed the clever creativity of the signs people held. We felt empathy for the hurt that so many here and elsewhere have experienced at the hands of DT’s administration of cruelty. This is our home.

 

DT inflicts fear on the nation, hate and vengeance against anyone who speaks against him.  He attempts to make us feel isolated and powerless, that we have no future but the nightmare he’s creating….

 

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

If We don’t Exercise It, We Lose it: No Kings and Protecting Our Right to Speak Truthfully

Is there any end to DT ‘s malignant corruption? We have a government shutdown. It’s lasted almost three weeks. Instead of negotiating and talking with Democrats and Independents, he attacks. He tries to hold us, hold our nation hostage. He says, you won’t go along with my taking money from your healthcare, undermining Medicaid, Medicare, hospitals, health insurance for millions? Raising your cost of living? So, I’ll undermine your healthcare even more. I’ll fire government workers who look out for your (our) well-being.

 

For example, DT fired workers from the Health and Human Services and the Education Departments. He fired employees at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. He fired workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who respond to infectious disease outbreaks, who help those with chronic diseases and pain, help those with awful injuries. He also fired workers from Homeland Security and Energy.

 

And he doesn’t hide his power-hungry intent. He says the lay-offs will be “Democrat-oriented,” meaning aimed at Democrats. This isn’t politics as usual, or politics as an occupation created to serve us, we the people. Instead, he’s attacking all of us, trying to manipulate the news so we blame Democrats. But it’s clear to see DT is the villain here. He’s even pressured the GOP Speaker, Mike Johnson, to refuse to bring the House of Representatives back to legislative session and work to end the shutdown. The House GOP aren’t even pretending to do their jobs.

 

When we can stand it, and we hear the latest news⎼ when we hear about this and other outrages, hear about a president invading American cities that elected Democrat mayors, hear about DT trying to punish us for opposing him by firing those who protect us from forest fires, help us recover from floods, research how to cure illnesses, and enforce the rule of law, or rule of the constitution. So many of us, millions, are fed up.

 

So, what can we do? Well, let’s start with the October 18 No Kings rally. March. Speak. Join others. Some think marches do nothing. But they get us energized for more targeted actions later. They connect us, help wipe out a sense of isolation. Get us ready to first protect and then work to get out the vote in 2026. Assert our commitment that there be No Kings in this nation! No dictators.

 

And this rally is scaring DT and his enablers in the GOP, because it gets right at the heart of what we the people are struggling for and he wants to stop⎼ our right to speak freely, our right to be heard and for our lives to be valued. Our right to speak the truth. Our right to mobilize the vote. DT is trying to criminalize dissent and the truth. This is clear in so many ways, like his pressuring networks to cancel Stephen Colbet and Jimmy Kimmel. And then there’s his investigations and indictments against the DOJ officials, former members of his cabinet, prosecutors, politicians, etc. who spoke out against or prosecuted him for his crimes:  Letisha James, Jack Smith, James Comey, John Bolton, Adam Schiff, Mayor Ras Baraka,  etc.

 

The Brennan Center for Justice said that DT “authorizes punishments for even tenuous connections to speech he doesn’t like….

 

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

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.