Once We Break the Bonds Committing Us to Truth, All the Beasts of the Human Mind Can Be Released: The Shot that Rang Out from the Golf Course

I was unnerved, so very disturbed by the shot that rang out yesterday (9/15) from a Florida golf course.

 

And it wasn’t only because the shooter seems to have intended to aim at, and kill a fellow human being, and a presidential candidate, but was thankfully thwarted by a Secret Service agent. That intention is despicable enough. But the whole context was shocking, the timing, the election. Just when a shift in people’s perception of DT was being reported, from the polls, and the debate⎼ just when so many more people had been coming to recognize the craziness he spreads to all of us, the threat, and then this happened.

 

And now, this newest example of intended gun violence is sharing the media news cycle with how DT would lie, say or do almost anything to get his way, no matter who he might hurt. How he used racist lies about Haitian immigrants to rile up his base, to shock and destabilize our nation and spread anger, hate, and the sense of continuous threat. And the result of his comments? Bomb threats and other violence are being aimed at those he maligned and hurt, and the city they live in. He and his VP were just beginning to be held accountable in many media sources when the Secret Service agent’s shot rang out.

 

But the mere attempt to kill a political leader in this country is shocking.

 

DT has continuously, from 2016 to today, viewed our nation through a dark lens, describing us as a crime-ridden, failed, “third world” country. He talks about not being able to go out for a loaf of bread without being raped, mugged, or shot at. Most of us go out every week without getting mugged or raped or shot at. Despite FBI statistics showing a historic 26.4 reduction in murders and similar reductions in rape, robberies, and crime overall in 2024, we might still fear violence due to the anger, hate, and sense of grievance DT stirs up. He helps create the division and violence he describes and attributes to others.

 

For example, his violent rhetoric has helped turn compromise into a dirty word, helped  turn people who have different viewpoints into enemies. He undermines political cooperation by turning discussion from a way to share viewpoints and create a greater understanding, to a way to destroy opposition. He thus undermines democracy itself.

 

In a specious manner, he makes claims that the violence he incited was caused by those who have revealed his role in said violence. For example, he said President Biden was trying to overthrow the United States by saying DT was a threat to democracy. Meanwhile, on Jan. 6 it was DT who actually tried to overthrow the constitution and the will of the American people (and then continued to lie about it ever since). His statements misrepresent the facts and the blame is his own.

 

His constant lying undermines not only the specific facts he distorts, but a general sense of truth, or reality. Once we break any commitment to truth, all the dark, imagined, feared beasts lying dormant in our minds can be released….

 

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

Just Listen to What He Says. Listen: Many Report on the Drip of Normalcy and Neglect the Flood of Offensive Nonsense

If we doubt that much of the corporate media is helping DT with the way they cover him, just listen to what he actually says. We just need to listen, carefully, if we can stand it.

 

Even I, when I read the text of his statements, find myself normalizing him. I read or listen and look for a drop of normalcy, or for how his followers would hear him. I subconsciously do the work he wouldn’t do and look for meaning or critical thinking amidst all the gibberish, and then dismiss the gibberish. But right there on the page, right there on the screen where he stands, his words are often nonsense, and offensive, frightening nonsense.

 

The major reason he’s still in this race, and not being laughed off the stage, is because so many of those who support him are locked behind a wall of disinformation or bias and fictionalize him, and those who report on him are either afraid of him and told to normalize him by corporate higher-ups, or are inured to his weirdness and self-absorption. Many see the drip of normalcy and neglect the flood of incoherent, belligerent, and offensive inanity. We must not allow ourselves to get so used to him to the point that he uses us.

 

The recent debate provided a good example of his belligerent inanity. I almost felt sorry for him a couple of times because he was so out of his depth, so lost and out of control. He had no facts to show he cared about issues and people, and often pushed beyond the debate agreements of 2 minute comments to aggressively ramble on with conspiratorial lies.

 

And the simplistic, malignant nature of these lies almost surprised me. I didn’t expect him to so blatantly repeat on national tv the weird crazies he repeats on smaller stages. For example, his old debunked refrain about millions coming across the border to steal and rape, even repeating racist disinformation about Haitians stealing pets to eat them. He ignored the fact that most Haitians in the city were here legally, and immigrants in general are less likely to commit crimes then other U. S. residents, certainly less likely than DT himself.

 

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” said Trump. The police and other city officials have repeatedly said there were no such reports, but DT claimed it was true because he saw it somewhere on tv.

 

Of course, when asked directly at the debate if he wanted the Ukrainians to win the war to defeat Russian invaders, or if he would veto a national abortion ban, he showed his true values and that, maybe his ramblings serve a purpose all his own, and refused to answer the actual question asked.

 

Recently, at a Fox “News” town hall, he was asked about the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia that led to four deaths and multiple injuries. DT avoided the question to talk about the support he received from Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, the same autocrat he mentioned at the debate as a foreign ruler who respects him.

 

“’It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons…’ Trump said. ‘And we’re going to make it better, you know, Viktor Orban made a statement, he said, ‘bring Trump back and we won’t have any problems.’ He was very strong about that.’” Never a comment about gun safety, or a sliver of compassion for the victims and their families….

 

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

Biden v DT: What is the REAL Debate? Only Action by All or Enough of Us Can Save Us

Even before a word was uttered, it was difficult to believe what we saw. So much hype. So many emotions. So many watching. So much on the line.

 

When he first emerged, I couldn’t quite read DT. He seemed a bit unsteady but determined. President Biden looked stiff, like he was fighting something internally.  With the first question, he hesitated, couldn’t get his words out clearly. With his stumbling, it seemed, at first, that I was witnessing the destruction of our future.

 

At the end, a commentator on MSNBC, as well as former Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe, called it “kind of a Defcon 1 moment.” The fate of democracy, this election, had reached a threat level of DEFCON 1. Some called for Biden to step aside.

 

Meanwhile, columnist Scott Dworkin said Biden won the debate by a landslide and DT should’ve stayed home. He had good reasons to say so, but a landslide? No, or at least not at first look.

 

While Biden was giving his first, halting, almost indecipherable response, looking like he had a cold or the flu, DT seemed to be smirking. Like he had caught the opponent he had long dreamed of. Like he had his enemy in a trap and was salivating at the thought of attack. And attack he did. That was all he did all night. Attack. He showed he was good at attacking. But we all knew that.

 

He showed that he was just familiar enough with truth to know how to fashion the most outrageous lies. He knew he was a criminal, so he called President Biden a criminal. He knew he was an incompetent President, so he accused Biden of being one. He knew he disparaged soldiers and the military as “suckers and losers”; he knew he had said of Senator John McCain, a captured war hero, “He’s not a war hero…I like people who weren’t captured.” So, at the debate he denied calling soldiers “suckers and losers,” and attacked Biden’s use of the military.

 

In contrast with Biden, who shows empathy and concern for others, DT cares almost nothing about anyone but himself. So, in the debate he said he had a gigantic heart. Come on. He knew he struggled with mental acuity, so he claimed he had passed competency tests. Look at me, the genius. The genius who avoided more questions than he answered. A genius who had sacrificed millions to COVID through his malignant incompetence and lies.

 

A genius who used lines modeled on or borrowed from Hitler. A genius who pushed tax cuts to the rich, calling them a tax cut for all. But it resulted in a tremendous increase in the debt, and a tremendous shift of wealth and power to the rich, leaving the rest of us to pick up the bills. A genius at deception, at lies, yes.

 

In fact, the section of the debate on the economy was, according to Dworkin and others, one of Biden’s best moments. “There was no inflation when I became president,” Joe Biden said. “You know why? The economy was flat on its back. He decimated the economy. Absolutely decimated the economy. That is why there was no inflation at the time. There were no jobs.” Biden mentioned DT’s new tax plan for the rich which would, according to most economists, cripple our economy and raise the de facto tax burden for 99% of us up to $8300, while reducing the burden on the superrich….

 

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