Trump and Nuclear War

I am worried that Charles M. Blow is a Cassandra.  He speaks the truth but nobody believes his warnings of doom. See Charles M. Blow, “Are You Not Alarmed”.  See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/opinion/are-you-not-alarmed.html

I left the following comment, but as far as I know, it was not approved.

After a nuclear war, will Donald Trump have become the last President of the United States? Sad!

Ode to Obama

"Great ode! It's too bad that the Dixiecrats couldn't tolerate a ‘black' man being President. Let's just hope that what goes around comes around and that Trump is soon replaced by an articulate president who considers all legitimate views."

Comment to Charles M. Blow, "Ode to Obama", New York Times, 2017-01-11

What I didn’t explain to younger readers was that Dixiecrats were Southern politicians who were in the Democratic Party because that was not the party of Lincoln.  They hobbled the Democrats on many issues.  Then Richard Nixon played his Southern Strategy and its been into the swamp for Republicans ever since. 

I thought  the last sitting great Republican was Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.  But alas, she is far from being an independent thinker.

See “Susan Collins Just Disgraced Herself at Jess Sessions’s Confirmation Hearing: The senator proved once and for all that she’s no moderate.”

- John Nichols, The Nation, 2017-01-10

Shall we call him “President” Trump?

"You have scorned our intelligence agencies — you tweet “intelligence” in quotes the same way that we should eventually use quotes around the word “president” when it precedes your name — and you have continued your assault on the press.”

See “Donald Trump and the Tainted Presidency”, Charles M. Blow,
New York Times, 2017-01-09.

Charles M. Blow on the fall of democracies

Charles Blow is deeply worried about Trump’s presidency and what it will do to American democracy.  See “The Anti-Inauguration”, New York Times, 2017-01-05.

"Spend part of the day reading about the rise and fall of empires and how it always seems far-fetched and inconceivable until it actually happens. There are many books that address this topic, but if you want something shorter, try Andrew Sullivan’s 'Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic,' a counterintuitive meditation on how tyranny can spring from populism, or my colleague Paul Krugman’s 'How Republics End.’"

These two articles do take time to read, but if you care about a democracy for the many as opposed to a kleptocracy for the few you will be rewarded with some thoughts for protecting and enhancing democracy.

Quote of the day: Hillary Clinton beating men

"Clinton is a woman beating men at their own game. Deal with it."
Charles M. Blow, "Clinton's Specter of Illegitimacy", New York Times, 2016-10-24, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/opinion/clintons-specter-of-illegitimacy.html.

Quote on violence

"The moment any person comes to accept as justifiable an act of violence upon another — whether physical, spiritual or otherwise — that person has already lost the moral battle, even if he is currently winning the somatic one."

Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 2016-07-10
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/opinion/a-week-from-hell.html

My comment: Several years ago I gave a ski lesson to a retired English policeman.  He told me that in over twenty years he never drew his gun.

What kind of society are we that police in any given U.S. city draw their guns more often than this Brit did in twenty years as a municipal police officer.

Quote of the day: an assault on assault

“[T]here is still no reason for a citizen to own an assault rifle unless he is planning an assault.”

“Omar Mateen, American Monster”, Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 2016-06-16, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/opinion/omar-mateen-american-monster.html

Quote of the Day: On Violence

"...but violence only strengthens your enemies and weakens your cause."

- Charles M, Blow, "Violence Is Never the Answer", NYT 2016-05-26, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/opinion/violence-is-never-the-answer.html.

Must reading for those who believe in democracy

"The time for complaining is at an end. Action must be taken. Accountability must be demanded. Muscle must be flexed. Power must be exercised.

"Ballots must be cast."

–”Lions to the Ballot Box”, Charles Blow, NYT, 2014-04-24

My email to Blow:

"I hope your column on voter turnout is reprinted in every paper across the country. And I hope it is reprinted just before the 2014 elections.

"Big turnout trumps big money every time. Think Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.

"I have been cajoling people to vote in my little obscure blog and in my column in Duluth weekly for going on fifteen years.

"I hope your bigger platform has many orders of magnitude of influence than my little Don Quixote tilting at political windbags."

My favorite comment:

I have a bumper sticker : "If the 47% vote the 1% won't matter".

Facebook comment on Charles M. Blow's editorial on MLK and leadership

I posted a link to Charles M. Blow's New York Times editorial "The Most Dangerous Negro" on my Facebook page with the comment:

"I won't remonstrate if you don't demonstrate,
but I will if you don't put down the remote and vote!"

This was considering that demonstrations sometimes have a better turnout than the elections.

In other words, demonstrate if you will, don't demonstrate if choose not to, but be sure to vote if you demonstrated for a cause.  My take on voting turnout in state after state is that many will sign petitions or show up at a demonstration, but their number too often far exceeds the votes actually cast in support of that cause.

Quote of the day – violence

"And that speculation leads me to wonder about acts of violence against innocent victims cloaked in the language either of religion or nationalism, of Islam or the perceived national interests of the USA, or even of revenge. We 'know' that violence begets violence, yet some/many, of us persist in acting as if planting another bomb (or dropping just one more from a drone) would break the endless cycle."

Comment left by JO to "The Mind of a Terror Suspect", Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 2013-04-19.

Blow's column is a description of the morphing of a "nice kid" into someone with a bigger and bigger chip on his shoulder.

Quote of the day

Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt.

- Charles M. Blow, "Health Care Hullabaloo", New York Times, 2009-08-07