by Michael DePaoli
1. Conservative Movement Is Over
Larry Kudlow advised Reagan and now he’s advising Trump
As reported last week in Huffington Post and Salon, the current 2017 GOP House Budget proposal includes an additional NINE TRILLION DOLLARS in Federal debt over the next decade. Nine Trillion More! Because of this GOP proposal, I am going to declare the so-called “conservative movement” to be over, because those people never did try to conserve anything. Instead, the conservative ideology is and always has been an excuse to be mean to people.
You see, the conservative fascination with austerity and cutting spending on social programs is only used to hurt people when times are bad, or when a Democrat is in the White House. For example, back in 2009, when President Obama was trying to create a massive stimulus package to help get the USA out of a bad recession that was caused by the GOP, the GOP reacted vehemently and squeezed tight and they objected to the economic stimulus. Indeed, according to The New York Times published on January 28, 2009, the House of Representatives passed the stimulus plan without a single GOP vote. The GOP fell back on their fake ideology of wanting to balance the budget, which ideology we now know is completely bogus. As soon as the GOP captures control (i.e. today) they want to ramp up our spending and increase our total debt.
Whatever the GOP might be, it is not conservative. This conclusion is consistent with history. According to White House budget archives, these are the facts: Debt under Republican President Reagan went from 900 million to 2.6 trillion; Debt under Republican President Bush went from 2.6 trillion to 4 trillion; Debt under Republican President Baby Bush went from 5.6 trillion to 9.9 trillion. The GOP is all about debt. The GOP is not conservative.
2. MOVIE REVIEW: MOONLIGHT
Why did Moonlight win Best Picture Drama at the Golden Globes? The movie is extraordinarily intelligent and exquisitely beautiful. The story presents the main character Chiron in three different stages of his life: grammar school, high school, and adulthood. The genius of the movie is in the way it uses Chiron to weave together the various aspects of our culture that act as roadblocks to living a happy life. Moonlight is not simply a movie about the violence, the ghetto, the poverty, the sexual identity, the bullying, nor the drugs. Instead, Moonlight is an intensely intimate story about delicate lives wherein the promise of something better can transcend through the grossly unfair circumstances of human existence.
Screenwriter and director Barry Jenkins has taken the source material from Tarell Alvin McCraney to create a masterpiece of dialogue, hope, and beauty. This is the type of movie that sinks into your brain because the fictional characters leap into your consciousness.
The actors in Moonlight are amazing. Naomie Harris is stunningly real. Janelle Monae electrifies the screen. Mahershala Ali’s internal conflict is palpable. Trevante Rhodes brilliantly straddles his role of being brutally tough and emotionally damaged. Andre Holland’s few short minutes on the screen are like an epiphany.
3. Answer to Susie B., Re: American Shame and Blame
I do not know Susie B but as a general rule I like her comments (Ed. Note: His first submission and he’s already sucking up). So, I am going to take the time to respond to what Susie B wrote as a comment to Medium Happy last week under the article entitled “Enigmatic.” To paraphrase, Susie B identifies the shame and “blame” that we shall all feel (assuming we might be alive fifty years from now) about the Trump inauguration and the “following reign of terror.”
My response: Why do we need Trump to feel shame for what our country has already done? Why do we not own up to our own bad acts that have already been committed? Indeed, perhaps it is our abject refusal to acknowledge our current shame that has allowed someone like Trump to come onto the scene and up the ante by doing more bad things.
Here is an abbreviated list of shameful acts committed by the USA: Slavery, The Wars Against Native Americans, The Civil War, Jim Crow Laws, Lynching, the Tuskegee Experiment, Shooting Unarmed People In The Streets, Largest Prison Population, Allowing Our Own Citizens To Die From Preventable Diseases (Ed. Note: Nobody’s perfect).
Our infrastructure is falling apart, our roads have potholes, our politicians are corrupt, there is no justice in our justice system, our reality television shows are scripted fiction, and the first thing we do to our kids is lie to them about Santa Claus.
All told, we have targeted and killed millions of innocent civilians, including the following places: Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, North Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. How many bombs have we sold around the world, and how many guns have we sold around the world, and how could it be possible to count all the innocent dead people killed by American weaponry that we have sold to just about anyone who wanted to kill someone else?
There are probably only a handful of American citizens who feel even an inkling of shame for the crimes we committed against the people of North Korea. The people of that small nation were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, they were nothing more than pawns in the global war of superpowers. But, despite their innocence, we bombed everything in sight in North Korea. We dropped firebombs on the people, and we blew up every road, dam, bridge, and power plant. It is difficult to know how many civilians we killed during the Korean War, but a fair estimate would be somewhere between one million and two million people. For those innocent human beings who survived, they faced economic sanctions, blockades, and starvation.
So, yes, Trump is a sociopathic menace and a pathological liar who brags about and laughs about molesting women. Oh, and he is our next President. But, fifty years from now, I am not certain very many people will feel any shame. We will treat the memory of Trump in the same way we treat the memory of the Korean War: “Meh, whatever.”
(Michael DePaoli is a licensed lawyer in Arizona and California. He is the author of the eBook: Movie Theatre Therapy; and he is the creator of videos on YouTube: Tachistoscope, and Tachistoscope Sunsets.)
Regarding No. 3: Is that the glass half empty or three-fourths empty point of view?
Hi Jacob. Thank you for your comment. I really do not know how to define the intentional targeting of civilians in warfare. It might be half empty, half full, more or less, I do not know. Yet, I am fairly certain that for all the innocent civilians who died, it was completely negative.
Dear Michael,
You’ve been removed from my nice list until further notice.
BELIEVE,
Santa Claus
Interesting. But if you think listing some of the other “shameful acts” committed by the peoples of this country throughout history will get me to back away from the edge (so to speak) & go “gee, I guess the election of this buffoon ain’t THAT bad”, well you could NOT BE MORE WRONG. I see the double tragic farce of the recent ‘election’ & upcoming inauguration of this egomaniacal SOCIOPATH as the beginning of the end of America. At least the America to which we are all to pledge allegiance. That stands for LIBERTY, FREEDOM, & EQUALITY. Ah, you say, how has our country EVER “stood” for those things when our history includes the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of human beings? That some of the men who helped create this nation & its government were themselves slave owners? Well, one could write a book on whether ‘America’ & our perception of it is an ideal or a myth & that extends way beyond the purview of this particular topic – whether the election of a Sociopath as President of the United States of America will be or should be a source of shame for ALL Americans today & 50 years from now. How can you say it isn’t?! Because the deaths of millions is worse? Because WAR is worse? Because genocide is worse? Because the Inquisition was worse? (Hey, why not throw the Catholics under the world shame bus too?) Because Hitler was worse? Because Stalin was worse? Stalin intentionally starved how many millions of his own people? How could Trump top that? Give him time, just give him time.
Yes, your list is horrific & shameful. I advocate the ‘election’ of this sociopath as the President of THIS country, the land seen as a source of hope & inspiration around the world for the past 250 years (give or take) belongs on your list of shame. (For gods’ sake jdubs, look at the people he is trying to put in positions of power!)
And I put single quote marks around the word ‘election’ as this election was the result of MASSIVE corruption & fraud. Its results should be nullified & the election done over. Since that does not appear likely, then a quick impeachment is the next goal. Before the cancerous reach of his selected ‘SS troops’ do too much damage.
Susie b – Partisan. Resistance fighter. V