Category: Uncategorized

The reader is doubtless familiar with the violent and treasonous storming of the United States Capitol Building, January 6, 2021, by a mob of hate-motivated and Trump-inspired faithful. The insurrection took place admittedly in response to Trump’s publicly communicated, behest, following his prior unsuccessful and undemocratic attempts to overturn the results of the recent Presidential election. The uniform and dedicated battle cry of the insurgents, was an exact replication of Trump’s propagandic, mantra, “Stop the Steal.” The angry battle cry, in civilized English, meant, prevent by force, the day’s scheduled certification by the Electoral College of a fraudulently elected Candidate, Joseph Biden. In truth and in complete negation of Trump’s tactical employment of the Fascistic ploy, “The Big Lie,” the Election count was certified as accurate, by no less than three separate independent auditing firms. The context and occurrence of this unprecedented insurrection were in embarrassing contrast to America’s consistent, post-election, democratic history, of the peaceful transfer of power.

The large, virulently angry mob, visibly and noisily, composed of Trump-inspired miscreants, was inclusive of such bigoted and pernicious groups as, White Nationalists, “Oath keepers,” the “Proud Boys” and other unwholesome and pestilential gangs, joined by several hundreds of unaffiliated, angry individuals, demonstrably, in hypnotic sync with the other insurgents. All participants were zealously receptive to Trump’s egregious call to arms and supportive of his delusional and unamerican quest to overturn a free American election. When apprehended and questioned, the uniform response of the rioters was some nuanced version of “Trump invited me,” or a self-justified attempt at understandable mitigation, with reference to the “call” of Donald Trump, as if he were their irresistible, Pied Piper.

The ugly and unprecedented event resulted in five deaths, a great many injuries [some permanent],   destruction of property, damage to the building itself, spoilage of valuable historic treasures, smashed windows, ransacked offices and angrily scattered books, and records. We must not omit the publicized, National “black eye,” presumably celebrated by the rioters, but publicly and effectively, constituting an existential danger to our unique democracy. Many of the insurrectionists had weapons, carried Confederate and Donald Trump flags, and wore Trump imprinted shirts. Congressmen who were present in the building, their staffs, and Capital Building employees, testified to personal experiences of traumatic fear and urgent attempts to hide during the frightening pendency of the siege.

It is disturbingly ironic to us, even Kafkaesque, to consider the bizarre reality that the only incidents of voter irregularities, included those [as revealed at the extensive Mueller Commission Hearings] consisting of conspiratorial and improper behavior, between Russia’s autocratic leader, Putin, and Trump, in the earlier election, to advance Trump’s chances of victory. In the recent election, Trump [alone] committed voter fraud by [television witnessed] telephonic requests, to the Secretary of State and to the Governor of Georgia, to “find,” in Trump’s electoral interest, a determinative number of voters needed to reverse the Biden victory in that State. Additional misbehavior consisted of the many Trump- lobbied efforts to reduce or purge the voting lists of minorities. The perverse actions of this pathological liar, many indeed, televised to the public, were the only determined instances of election fraud. Notwithstanding the objectively shown facts, Trump, himself, unashamedly and insanely, cried foul [“Stop the steal”] falsely accusing [projecting onto] his opponent his inclination to acts of election fraud. It is beyond the pale of imagination that, as objectively shown by the bizarrely misrepresented circumstances, he [the defrauder] should perversely claim election fraud; and even worse, to observe that such irrational claims were religiously believed, by mobs of angry, disaffected individuals.

We are satisfied to learn from the media that the hundreds of felonious participants in the insurrection are being investigated and, as appropriate, will be criminally charged by the authorities. Yet, above all, we are ineluctably concerned that the authorities calcify their backbones, and, at long last, render fitting and appropriately harsh justice regarding the sociopathic Donald J. Trump. In addition to his previous four years of manifold criminal acts, he, incontrovertibly, was the despicable and toxic puppet master who premeditatively, and tactically, manipulated the January 6, responsive, “Manchurian Candidate” style, hypnotic puppets, who, in compliance with his malevolent summons, obediently wreaked lethal havoc on our Capital Building and, conceivably, on the institution of Democracy, itself.

-p.     

Full laden, she rocked the waves
Hull full with gems
Facet-less, but diamond-like
Many sized, divers sourced
From brown, from white from yellow—
Glitt’ring, shiny
Jewel Boxes full, treasure trove
Sea chests, much bestuffed
With tears—
Tears, most precious of man’s jewels
Ripped ready-refined
Pure, Holy

Tears of Expectation. Of joy
Some born of laughter, of weeping
Most precious- tears of love
Windswept tears
Tears of growing up, of getting old
Tears of longing
Meeting and parting tears
Missing you tears, tears of relief
Salt-bedecked, rich warm greeting tears
Little girl tears, delicately dropped
From her loving temples
Tears from blind eyes-like jewels
Got, from a mine of darkness

Onward it sailed
To the edge of the Earth
This magic ship
Could I but discover its destination
A velvet world of diamonds!

Leonard N. Shapiro. [1950, N.Y. on death of baby niece]

*Rededicated to those lost to the pandemic

We would fundamentally, pose two basic principles which, inarguably, have universally affirmative and undeniable acceptance among every American citizen, without exception.

First: Democracy is a system of government by which the ultimate power is vested in the people and exercised by them through a system of representatives selected by periodically free elections, and,

Second: The foundational principle of the election process, is that it must reflect the free expression of the will of all the people.

Additionally, incontrovertible is the fact that universal voting is declared and protected in the Constitution of the United States Constitution, Arts. 15^th,  19^th and 26^th which expressly mandate that the voting rights of any U.S. Citizen cannot be abridged on account of race, color, country of origin, sex, or age ( the latter, if over age 18). These vital and fundamental principles, unfortunately, by dint of empirical necessity have been reinforced in the Nation’s Voting Rights Act of 1925. Notably, the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren once again, clearly articulated the basic definitional, democratic principle of “one man, one vote.”

Yet,  it appears that most Republican political leaders and Congressmen, have been actively bent on challenging, or seeking to limit, the free and universal right to the voting franchise albeit, in obvious premeditative violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, with the affirmative endorsement of its supporters. This phenomenon exists, in bizarrely inconsistent fashion. despite their awareness and principled support of the foundational American principle that the franchise to vote was expressly intended to secure the reflection of the will of “all” the people.

Indeed, since the end of the disgraceful term of Donald J. Trump, the Nation has observed an increased impetus in many not-so-subtle efforts on the part of the Republican Party, as well as its sycophant followers, to conspiratorially and selectively, reduce votes by means of various nefarious anti-democratic artifices. The tactically, and visibly intended targets, are Americans of color since it appears that said Nation’s minority voters were an essential element included among the principled and numerical reasons for the loss of the Election by Trump and the elevation of Joseph Biden and Kamila Harris (the latter a black woman) to the Oval Office.

The Republican Party’s ungraceful and un-American response to the election loss has been expressed, atavistically and undemocratically, by various illegal and unconstitutional programs to limit the votes of minorities, as stated, especially, Americans of color. These repugnant tactics are shamelessly reminiscent of the former, institutionally, anti-black Southern Wing of the Democratic Party circa.  1948, (the “Dixiecrats”) which bolted from the Democratic Party, largely over the issue of segregation. 

This populist, Republican, undemocratic program was preceded by absurd propaganda in the reminiscent memory of the Fascist tactic of “the big lie,”  viz., falsely declaring the Biden victory to be a product of fraud and artifice;  notwithstanding the uniform conclusion of no less than three recognized, independent, and professionally qualified auditors, to the effect that the election was fairly conducted and accurately computed.

It would thus empirically appear, to be easier for the anti-democratic, Trump supporters to seek to invalidate a fair American election, than in fact to win it, fairly and legally. These ignorant tribal adherents, despite their frequent articulation of pretentions to (some perverted form of) “patriotism,” seem to be unconcerned that their attack upon the American vote possibly, might create an imminent crisis of existential danger to the fundamental cornerstone of American Republican Democracy.

Reportedly, two hundred and fifty proposed bills have been shamelessly filed throughout the Nation with the (express) intention of restricting the number of minority votes. Hours and access to voting centers have been tactically limited, tailored to the proponents’ perceptive experience of black voters, who work full time and attend religious services, that they are often among the poor of our country and have limited transportation facilities and  less ownership of items of electronic communication. These immoral and undemocratic, black-focused tactics also include limitation of mail-in or absentee ballots, limitation of the number and change in location of “drop-off” ballot boxes, purposeful shortening of the hours for voting, tactical misrepresentation, cynically targeted administrative roadblocks, and other un-American and reprehensibly pseudo-subtle strategies to materially hobble the minority vote.

Our suggested paradox is as follows. If one were to inquire of any one of these “modern-day Dixiecrats,” whether he sincerely believes in the basic two American principles, cited at the outset of this writing, our money is on an enthusiastic and ardently expressed affirmative. This phenomenon is unmistakably text-book cognitive dissonance.

We wonder whether pharmaceutical science would be willing to, in the public interest, apply its recently confirmed marvelous capability, to the pathology of schizophrenic political morality.

-p.

El Paso, Texas

 Dear Elviry:

It has only been a short time since Fred and I moved away from Wistful Vista, to El Paso, but we already miss you, Abel, and the girls plenty. I have not made my rhubarb-apple pie yet because I have been feeling a bit down. Fred does not like the other men at his new job, so he spends a whole lot of time, when he’s home just angrily rocking. If you recall, Fred has the very same rocker as Abel does and the sound is making me bananas.

The Texas Governor declared that no masks are necessary, but to be safe, I wear one, anyway, when I go outside. Fred wears a mask day and night, even during sleep, because he says he doesn’t want to take foolhardy chances with a tricky virus that might sneak up and descend on him during the nighttime. I feel that the Texas Governor must have decided that masks are not necessary, because in Texas, most men (and some women) wear very big, wide-brim cowboy hats, chew tobacco and spit, which makes legally required distancing rules, unnecessary. I am unhappy that Fred’s mask doesn’t lower the volume on his loud snoring. We bought a big new hound, named Elvis, who barks too much, and two chickens named Ms. Henrietta and Mr. Purvis who keep wandering off. We are still boiling our drinking water.

Fred’s usual heartburn is worse than ever. He always gasps and shifts around in his rocking chair like a man with mean hemorrhoids. I always tell him to lay off the chicken-fried steaks with barbeque sauce and the Tex-Mex chili, but he doesn’t listen and usually picks up that stuff for dinner at one or another, of the many neon-lighted drive-in Barbeque Restaurants, on the Texas State highway.

I do like the local Church and its Preacher, Reverend Zebulon Oxcart, but Fred says that sleeping Sunday mornings was far better at our old Church back in Wistful Vista. Also, this Church choir sounds more like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, or maybe Gene Autry, instead of true down-home religious. I was very disappointed that our new Church does not also have a geranium committee, but still, there are many pretty Texas Bluebonnets growing just outside the main Church entrance, up close to the oil rig.

The Church always holds regular monthly dances, even during the pandemic, but for now, only virtually. It is fun to see each couple plus the dance band (fiddler and squeeze-box player), in separate little boxes on the television screen. Fred could never do the Texas two-step due to his dependence on his cane.

Well, that is all for now. I miss you, Abel and the girls, so let’s keep writing.

Sincerely yours,

Pam 

It has been exactly one year, since the WHO declared the advent of Covid-19, a “Pandemic.” At newly elected President, Joseph Biden’s address to the Nation last evening, he took well-justified pride at the universal sighting of ”a light at the end of the tunnel” respecting this widespread, contagious,  and potentially mortal disease (more than 550, 000 American deaths in the year). The vision of the tunnel’s proverbial exit light was, in no small part, due to his, so far, brief, Administration’s efficient and empathic program of management of the viral disease outbreak, and his appropriate respect (unlike his incapable, ignorant predecessor) for medical and biological science. Programs of prophylactic caution, such as quarantine, distancing masking and effective handwashing, publicly encouraged by the new Administration and its knowledgeable and caring experts, where complied with, were rewarded by intended results.

Kudos are deservedly awarded for the brilliance and creativity of the American medical and pharmaceutical professions, for their demonstrated efficiency and unprecedented expedition in the development of (3) safe and effective vaccines; each capable of affording immunity from the scourge of the dangerous virus. As known, the Nation is presently involved in a governmental program of universal administration of covid vaccination, the efficient, complicated and nuanced logistics for which, is an additional occasion for the grant of well- deserved kudos; to the caring, sensitive, and empathic new Administration of Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris.

It may well be that the most profound honorable mention, in this instance, is to be reserved for our health-workers, most particularly, the overworked and under-protected, empathic nurses and nurse practitioners, many of whom actually died, while serving on the frontline of this dangerously infectious battle against the pandemic. Reports indicate that they continued to maintain their long tradition of generosity and heroism in their sincere and unstinting attempts to provide care and save lives; working long shifts, at patient beds and in crowded, dangerous, and nerve-wracking Intensive Care Units, often without a day off and at times, without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). Reportedly, despite such arduous conditions, the (only) common complaint, reportedly (and admirably) was that they were limited in their personal interaction with their patients and frustrated by what they wanted to do for their patients, compared with what they could not do, by reason of the infectious pathology. The latter, incapability in many morally unforgiveable instances, was due to irresponsible shortages in supplies of protective equipment. Florence Nightingale would have been immensely proud, (see: our very early essay, “Florence’s Lamp”).

It is hoped that society, newly rendered cognizant of the essential role of the professional nurse in our empirically vulnerable population, will robustly support adequately funded nursing schools, nursing education and appropriately recognize and adequately remunerate the practitioners of this supportive and existential pillar of human survival and existence.

-p.  

Wistful Vista, Ohio March 11, 2021

Dear Pamela:

Things have been awful quiet and lonely since you and Fred moved to El Paso on account of Fred’s job. Abel and the girls miss you all, especially your rhubarb-apple pie and Ed’s funny jokes. The winter snow  is melting fast, and it might well be that just about every house has a leaking roof. I am praying hard it will stop soon.

I like the new President. He smiles more than the last one and also because he says the words, ”Praise God” a lot, not like the other one. But his blonde hair wife looks to be a little chippy, but they do say that she is a schoolteacher. All villagers, at last, have now received their vaccinations after being threatened with exclusion from the Annual Square dance. I am hoping that the virus scare will be completely over son—the never-ending sound of Abel’s rocking chair is making me batty.

Things at the Village Church have taken a bad turn. Reverend Snarl has developed a fair case of painful hemorrhoids and his recent sermons have become more critical and less inspiring. Also, there were heated arguments about the counting of votes at the recent election for President of the Church Geranium Committee- finally settled by Reverend by appointing all seven members, co-Presidents. The toilet with the colored glass-stained window is still broken. Deacon Goodfellow sends his best regards.

Did you hear the foolishness about the beautiful black-American actress who got married to the English Prince? If they had asked me, I would have told them that there is always trouble after you marry, when you move in with the in-laws. Still, it is not as eventful, we hear, as living in El Paso, Texas.

Well, that’s about all for now,

Love and regards,

Elviry  

Idealistic people like ourselves, at times suffer from the inclination to be prematurely impulsive, in the  discernment of significant progress, or the prediction of long- range positive outcomes, from events which, at first blush, evince an appearance of tending in the direction of justice or moral rectitude; yet ultimately, suffer the pain of the revelation of less than expected, or disappointing, results [as in the above referenced novel, by Charles Dickens,*] from than had been assumed and anticipated.

As avid readers of the literature of Victorian England, we are reasonably familiar, not merely with that named, great author, but also with his period. The overwhelming political and military precedence of the English Crown (1815-1914) over other countries of the World, (140 million square miles of colonized territory, 150 million people, including, China, Siam, and Argentina). Untold riches were extracted in agricultural goods, slaves, lumber, cotton, rubber, silks, cottons, gunpowder, rum, opium, gold and other precious metals, tea, and too many to delineate. Such riches were exacted by the  British practice of cruel, slave- labor conditions throughout its dominated world. The classic boast, “The Sun never sets on the British Empire,” is expressive of its worldwide domination.

We are somewhat familiar as well, with the traditional Royal practices as well as the imperious  and imperial Victorian mindset, regarding the British sacred duty to “civilize” their “savage,” “unwashed,” ”godless” colonies, as then perceived and articulated as “White Man’s Burden.” Any  reading of authors, in the genre of Rudyard  Kipling for example, will readily reveal the British assumption of spiritual and anthropological superiority over the other “brutish” people in the World.

The World has changed considerably, after two costly World Wars, and England is no longer the arrogant leviathan it used to be; notably, after being saved on two historic occasions from utter destruction, by the military intervention of the United States.  In recent years, like America, England has been the recipient of substantial immigration, principally from its formerly dominated  colonies. Unfortunately, it has recently evinced analogous racial conflict and unrest as has occurred in the U.S.

The American Revolution, in the 18^th  Century, resulted in a new American Nation, politically independent of the British Empire; nevertheless, it is to be observed that a great many English institutions and practices, good and not so good, were imported and subscribed to, by the new Americans. These included  language, religion, the English Common Law, the bi-cameral legislature, and many folkways and traditional practices. Tragically, included in the shipping manifest of English importation, was the inhumane, and ultimately most damaging to our National ethic, institutional practice of Slavery. We can imagine no greater moral offense than the cruel, neck-shackled ownership of the franchise of life of other human beings. The break-up of the black family for the commercial convenience of sale and the pervasive cruel treatment of the black slaves in our Nation are shamelessly and painfully, well documented in our history and literature.

The  success of the Union Army, over the forces of the Confederate South, in the Civil War, resulted in the legal emancipation of the black slaves. Nevertheless, despite the relevant portions of the United States Constitution and the assurances of a plethora of statutory enactments of Federal State and local legislatures, universal citizen compliance with equality, as mandated in such Laws and Statutes,[ as well as legal case precedent] is yet, inarguably, not universal. We have made considerable  but, unfortunately slow-motion progress toward the attainment of universal de facto recognition of true equality. The many instances of brutality by the local police, the existence of deplorable White Supremacy organizations and their hateful like the official attempts at interference with the “Black Vote,” and a surreal act of insurrection against the Capital Building, January 6, 2021, are but some of the overt indications of an ignorance-based, systemic hatred for those born with other than “white” skin. We had been consistently disappointed at the extent of the National rancor but were [temporarily] rewarded with expanded hope on May 19, 2019.

The Royal English wedding, on that date, between a handsome Prince Harry, son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and 6^th in line for the Monarchy and his charming and beautiful African- American wife, Meghan Markle, (thereafter Duke and Duchess of Essex) was at the time, joyously perceived by us, as, no less than, a long-awaited triumphantly historic and philosophical occasion, appropriate for major celebration by every right-thinking individual in mankind. We had the impression, mindful of the British tradition, that its acceptance of an American commoner as Prince Harry’s wife, no less a Negro, was surely indicative of admirable progress in human moral advancement. We did not mind at all the thought that, Queen Victoria, if she could get word, would be churning, furiously in her, “white man’s burden,” bigoted, grave. In emotional contrast with the fiction concerning the regally interred, Queen Victoria, we were ecstatically celebratory. The missionary land of Kipling, of “White Man’s Burden,” of the term, ”Blackamoor,” seemed to have, at long last, seen the wholesome beam of enlightenment.

A black American woman, accepted as a married member of the inner English Royal Family, no doubt, would cause any American bigoted member of the underbelly of our Nation, who might, at some point, avail himself of the rare inclination to think, to suffer some doubt concerning his bigoted pretensions.

And then came the media reports of the Oprah Winfrey interview with Harry and Meghan. The same unhappily confirmed our opening observation concerning the pain, frequently caused by a disappointing result, despite optimistic predictions founded on a suggestively positive event. Just imagine our chagrin at the dissolution of our ecstatic assumption, that it took only 100 years, or so, after Victoria’s reign, for racial equity to be finally   [as subjectively evidenced by the marriage of a black woman to an English Royal Prince]. It was not our first disappointment, but we were devastated.

It was disturbing to learn that the lovely, charming, and sophisticated, Meghan Merkle was subjected to abuse from the English Royal Family, to the extent that, as revealed in the televised interview, she contemplated suicide. We were pleased that Harry, responsibly elected to be a loving husband and father, rather than a “Royal” and fled Buckingham Palace, with his harassed wife, bound for a normal life in California. Among the major issues, was a serious concern of the Royal Family, most especially, the eternally imperious, constipated- looking, Prince Charles (who stopped talking to Harry) and other members of the “royals” about the color of “Archie,” the couple’s young child. The English tabloid press,  aggravated matters by comments expressed in their customary tasteless and irresponsible reportage, on the estranged relationship between Buckingham Palace and the married couple.

We might request of the scientifically efficient American pharmaceutical laboratories when they have the time and opportunity to do so, for the development of an effective vaccine for chronic and disabling radical prejudice.

-p.
   

---

The Sun slides up, punctual as ever,
Casting woodland, snow-melting beams
Sending snow clumps on the tree branch
Dripping down to the inanimate surface
With sounds of splatt, splatter and splott.
Winter autonomy is being liquidated,
Kinder rule shall follow soon.

Do lie still in sublime attention,
Ear enduring cold, slushy topsoil,
Eyes shut in rapt attention and
Practicing a well invested patience.
You’ll attend the peeps and squeals,
Of this year’s awakened pups, their
Sibilant sucks of maternal feeding,
From yet unseen warm-bellied, moms,
Still sleeping their perennial winter.

Soon, attend the louder, chamber music,
Of nose-wrinkling, furry adult critters,
Scratching, rising, softly yelping,
Awakened by infiltrating drips of melted Winter,
To pay heed to the seasonal mandate,
“Arise, and do now begin, again.”

-p.
(Leonard N. Shapiro
New York, 3/6/21)

As we see it the Nation is noticeably in a bit of a quandary as to the fundamental motivation behind the violent insurrection at the Capitol Building, January 6, and consequently, of an appropriate, punitive, and deterrent response, to the observably dedicated participants.

There would appear to be a significant qualitative difference between the legislated and enumerated Crimes enunciated in our Criminal Codes and Statutes, viz., Murder, Robbery, Larceny, Assault, including the legal precedential treatment of the same, and, by contrast, the facts of the January 6^th  criminal insurrection, perceptively grounded in perverse conspiratorial paranoia, bizarrely complicated by the overt and express encouragement by a sitting President and by certain aberrant members of Congress.

The nuanced motivations of the hundreds of rioters may be every bit as diverse and multifaceted as the substantial number of ardent participants. Conceivably, the same may have a background in neurotic insecurity needing the redemptive recognition of acceptance by a group of recognized others, disappointment in aspirational goals and the projected displacement of blame, harsh and disappointing experiences in upbringing or in later life, inculcation in anti-social or unrealistic delusional beliefs, self-deprecation leading to an existential need for an elevated place in some pecking order or other (such as the perverse belief in the superiority of white, over other skin colors), or merely, reductive ignorance.

It may be contextually useful and logical, at this point in the writing, to examine the pathologically  related subjects of paranoia and chronic  perception of conspiracy.   

As revealed in our cursory readings, paranoia is an instinctive thought pattern, believed to be greatly influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the extent of irrational and delusional thinking. Paranoid thought, we read, typically induces persecutory beliefs which include beliefs in conspiracy concerning perceived threats, accusations, and a general all- pervasive distrust of other people. This biased abnormality includes the misperception of reality such as the existence of external control and manipulation, which at times, may be exacerbated by low socio-economic status. Especially relative to this writing is the fact that a percentage of the individuals characterized by paranoid delusion, often have the tendency to take affirmative or violent action, founded upon their delusional beliefs in the form of violent and criminal behavior. It is our unprofessional, but considered view that the insurrection is an instructive laboratory demonstration of this empirical observation.

Considering the reported scientific and medical fact that paranoia type personality disorder is among the most common personality disorders, is there any wonder that among our sizeable and diverse population, there was enough number of individuals vulnerably open to Donald Trump’s insistence on his delusional lie to the effect that the election was, conspiratorially, stolen from him? Let us focus on the fact that this is the same Donald J. Trump that must have certainly won the hearts of many paranoid personalities, by his constant denigration of truth by his tactical and defensive accusations of “false” facts” and “alternate truth.” Such a call to arms, from on high, and especially from a fellow eternal seeker of “the hidden ultimate truth”  would decidedly be inspirational, irresistible, and incite the undeniable, patriotic duty of those chosen watchmen of “conspiracy.” Ergo, we witnessed on television the “patriotic” insurrection heard around the World.

Although one responsibly, should comprehend the pathological etiology underlying the horrific and deadly insurrectionist activities of January 6, such rational understanding should not at all portend acceptance or undeserved forgiveness. In the interest of the preservation of our Nation and its rare and invaluable Republican Democracy, together with the continued existence and advancement of lawful and peaceful society, the imposition of meaningful and sufficient criminal penalties on all those responsible for and physically participating in this atavistic criminal event which featured insurrectionist murder, injuries, multiple aggravating assault, costly  damage to the Capitol Building; justly inclusive of the related and supportive crimes of incitement, planning, preparation, and participation in the terrifying Insurrection. These would be inclusive, for the World to see, every illegal participant, starting from the arrogant and tactically shrewd Donald Trump and the cadre of atavistic and bigoted Congressional supporters, down to all those, whose personality disorders confused anti-social and violent criminality with their skewed delusions of American patriotism.

-p.

Upon watching on television, the formal, ceremonial wheeling out of a gold bust of Donald Trump for public (Republican) adulation, our reactions can successively be described as initially, shock, loathing and lastly a profound sense one might fundamentally describe as a species of primal fear.

On a mundane level, it is astonishing, that an individual whose publicly known cornucopia, of shamefully miscreant, and immoral behaviors, include multiple acts of criminality, wrongdoing in office, blatant immorality, and bigotry, could rationally, warrant public recognition, let alone such apparent beatification and worship. On a more metaphysical level, such adoration and apparent obeisance were, to us, an ominous indication that far more than an uncomfortable sufferance, simply, of a politically divided Nation, we are confronted with a large cohort of people (almost half) who wittingly or, as a matter of sublime ignorance, would be content to see a reversal, or “U-Turn,” in the naturally ongoing universal progress of human civilization.

As memorialized in the (Bible’s) Old Testament “Exodus” and also, in the Second Chapter of the Quran, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he was greatly angered (threw down the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, cracking them) upon observing that his people were worshiping idols, most especially, a “Golden Calf.” He violently destroyed the pagan gold calf and thereafter directed the mandatory prohibition of idol worship and their referable cults.

The anachronistic appearance of a gold pagan deity-like statue, in the reverential likeness of Donald Trump, is a disappointing recognition that there are certain communities of people, largely, but not exclusively, under-educated and poorly informed, who have the atavistic inclination to prefer demagogic or messianic versions of reality to factual reality. The possible etiologic reasons may be limitless, such as discontent with the facts of one’s personal life, misperception of reality due to trauma, the limitations of emotional or mental illness, cynicism founded in failure of personal aspirations, limited experience combined with vulnerability to suggestion and demagogic influence, neurotic insecurity and consequent need for group acceptance and approval, or just,  run-of-the-mill uncomplicated, reductive ignorance.

We had, long ago, deduced that the loyal followers of Donald Trump, irrespective of his immoral and shameless personal behaviors and his demonstrated incapacity and dishonesty in Office, are properly identified as a “cult”; since It is empirically normal for citizens to avert their eyes from the sight of roadkill, and to condemn those who transgress against societal and professional norms. As a typical example, many avid supporters of Trump, such as the White Evangelical Church, whose unwavering mantra is to condemn all those they choose to subjectively determine to be sexually immoral, have continued to be his wholehearted supporters; this, despite his public boasts of societally improper assignations with prostitutes, aggravated by sub-rosa and false sources of money to buy their silence.

As additional evidence supporting the concept of a Trump “cult”, in addition to his egregiously immoral behavior, he has never evinced any credo or doctrinaire beliefs, on which to base loyal support. For these reasons we had identified in previous writings and in this essay, continue to classify his fervent supporters as his cultists. Their extreme loyalty and obedience to this golden Trump cult-deity were especially demonstrated, last January 6^th  by the sizeable, treasonous response to his call for a violent insurrection to be waged against the Capitol Building. As historically proven, loyalty to a cult, despot or golden deity is dangerous, viz, Hitler, Hirohito, Mussolini, Mao Tso Tung, Josef Stalin, Julius Caesar.

In common with other cases of loyalty to an autocratic leader, following their inculcation in the bogus belief that the true facts are being manipulated by the established authorities, the members of the cult become convinced that the demagogue’s perverted version of events is singularly true.  Such propaganda is relied upon by the misled followers who are encouraged by the cult-deity to believe that the objective and accurate facts are the tactical product of an evil, anti-cult conspiracy. The followers, thereafter, will customarily rely exclusively upon such (perverted)  “truth” as is enunciated by its Leader.

The experiences of witnessing the gothic and obscene presentation of a purportedly, reverential gold statue in the likeness of Donald Trump, for those people who venerate the Old Testament or the Quran, were predictably deemed, obscenely sacrilegious; we see it as especially dangerous and delusional.

In keeping with the vital goals of the preservation of our Democratic Republic, and the dictates of Reason and impartial Justice, the Government is morally and legally mandated to pursue the many confessed crimes of Donald Trump to conviction, and, for the existential necessity of societal protection, grant this “golden deity” a stiff jail sentence; it is well- deserved justice and would, importantly, serve as an official restatement of societal normative propriety, to his aberrant and deluded sycophants.

-p.

---