Well, it’s Memorial Day Weekend 2017.
There’s nothing better than a small-town parade on Memorial Day. Well, maybe there is — a big city Memorial Day parade, which has a lot more marching bands, floats, dignitaries riding exotic cars through the center of town, and maybe even some celebrities in the form of professional athletes or music industry and film stars.
Memorial Day: It’s a time that we honor our bravest and best, those who died fighting for this country in the United States Armed Forces. It’s not really even a day for those who served in wartime and came home and continued with their lives. No, Memorial Day is for those who fought in our wars who didn’t return home. They died in war.
There’s something about Old Glory waving in a spring breeze, carried on a pole by a proud soldier, sailor, or airman who these days may be a school teacher, a cop, a truck driver, a factory worker, or just an elderly retiree who’s a popular guy at the local VFW club.
Everyone loves a parade and Memorial Day is made for us. The free and the brave. Many times, towns and cities gather at a local cemetery for the ending ceremonies after a parade. Local dignitaries, including elected officials, give speeches that sometimes are a bit too longwinded, and afterwards, the audience visits the graves of family members who served in the United State Armed Forces and in particular, pay tribute to their loved ones who died overseas in wars. In the afternoon, there might be a brass quintet blaring their horns at a gazebo at town center or in bigger cities, a well-known performer might give a free concert for anyone interested to enjoy.
I get some mixed feelings about Memorial Day 2017, however, with a President and his political coterie seeming to be more devoted to the Sickle and Hammer than the Red, White, and Blue. And I cannot help but get a sick feeling in my stomach for all our war dead who died in sundry wars and how disgraceful the current political climate in this country is right now. Grown adults watch the news these days like kids watch horror movies. People are running scared — you can tell just by looking in their eyes.
And it all has to do with a certain resident who sometimes makes stops at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., a billionaire who refuses to release his tax returns and whose wealth is probably greatly exaggerated. He’s most likely a very poor rich man, relatively speaking, to other super-rich folks.
The latest: Mum’s the word at the White House about Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, who in the past couple days has come under scrutiny by the FBI — sources say Kushner wanted to set up back-channel communications with the Russians before last November’s election. Why am I not surprised by all of this? For a Presidential Administration so clandestine, secretive, and sinister, why am I not in a state of shock that the President is not asking for Kushner’s immediate resignation? Now, our President has returned home from a number of overseas visits. He said our NATO allies have increased payments “considerably” on defense. But he was iffy on the Paris Climate Agreement, making European leaders a bit queasy and reluctant. He might make a decision soon, he says, most likely in 140 characters or less. Oh, and he met with the Pope, and one of the big requests that Pope Francis asked of Trump was not to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement - but consider the source, Holy See, you were requesting this of a man who is gung-ho for mineral-extraction sludge and mining waste to be poured into U.S. waterways, all in the name of “economic progress” and jobs, jobs, and more jobs. You were requesting this bold climate-saving initiative of a man who has no qualms of laying pipelines underneath rivers that serve as water supplies for a plethora of communities downstream on sovereign First Nations lands.
Trump also recalled his “historic” Riyadh meeting later and called Saudi King Salman “a wise man.” While meeting with Saudi leaders, Trump signed a total of $110 billion in arms deals. Included in this is an agreement for precision-guided munitions. The Obama Administration quit selling the Arab county such weaponry because it was feared the Saudis would use precision-guided munitions to bomb Yemen. Probably other countries that Saudi Arabia makes enemies with in the future, too. Other aspects of this arms deal with Saudi Arabia includes ships, helicopters, tanks, missile defense systems, artillery, and cyber-military and cyber-security technology items.
“That was a tremendous day,” Trump said of his historic visit to Saudi Arabia, where he even partook in a sword dance with the desert country’s “Great and the Good” and held hands with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud while his wife Melania walked several feet behind them.
“Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs,” Trump boasted about his arms deal accomplishments, but the Miami Herald burst the Braggadocios One’s balloon by claiming these jobs will only be created for Saudis and by Saudis. The Herald goes as far to say that Trump’s deal will export these jobs from America to Saudi Arabia and this Middle Eastern death dragon of a country, now known for some of the most heinous of all human atrocities and crimes against humanity, could even come out of Trump’s wheeling and dealing by becoming a challenger of the United States in the area of manufacturing weapons of war, weapons of mass destruction, and the really big guns and explosives that lead to mass murder on a global scale.
Could this be considered “jobs, jobs, jobs,” or “blood, blood, blood”? Who knows who the Saudis will decide to sell their brand new war machines to, it’s hard to tell. You don’t give AK-47s to street gang members and expect good things to result and you don’t make arms deals with leaders who have no respect or regard for human life and not expect new rivers of blood to flow.
“It is ironic that this is happening under a president who has pledged to put America first yet is presiding over the export of jobs to Saudi Arabia beyond anything that has come before,” William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, a liberal Washington research center, was quoted in this newspaper.
It could be years before the real impact is known, since the deals still have to be finalized and be approved by Congress. Most of the deals in the package are non-binding letters of intent and memorandums of understanding, not firm agreements, and the number of them that materialize is likely to look very different, this article, titled “Trump’s historic arms deal is likely a jobs creator – in Saudi Arabia” by Vera Bergengruen adds.
I see nothing but wrong, even evil, with everything Donald J. Trump does — I think he’s trying to set up a tyrannical dictatorship right here in America. And even though many see him as a bumbling lamebrain who can’t speak proper English, who has all the couth of a strip-joint bouncer, and who is probably the most selfish and self-serving narcissist on the planet, he’s succeeding. His supporters love him so much that he could probably shoot one of them and they’d still love him, including the person he shot. The Republican legislators in control of Congress would probably allow this paranoid, maniacal lunatic to open up concentration camps and nothing would be done about it. His political views are as American as Marx and Engels (in a corporate communist sort of way) — although not nearly as politically esoteric; his intents seem to be to set up a dynasty for himself and his children; and he seems hell-bent on some sort of nefarious manifest destiny that includes none other than Vladimir Putin and Red, Red Russia.
So on this Memorial Day, for our bravest and boldest who died in sundry wars, I think the best thing this journalist can say is Donald Trump Will Never Be My President, Never Trump, and Impeachment and Possibly even Imprisonment of Donald Trump is a Good Solution to a Very Bad Problem — which is Donald Trump. Yes, he’s shred the Red, White, and Blue to smithereens and is responsible, even if it’s only in tangential ways, for family members who loved each other who now hate each other; for people afraid to talk to their neighbors, even on mundane and silly subjects far removed from national and international politics; and even some who will stay home today, miss the parades, graveside remembrances, and family and friend picnics out of fear of having some crazy argument or perhaps even a fist-fight that may evolve from something The Great Orange One said or did. With Trump, after all, finding a Gregorian middle ground to any argument is futile. By his very strategy and persona, he’s been a divisive and polarizing figure on the American political landscape. That’s a big part of his game plan. Steve Bannon likes things that way — through dividing and conquering the American populace to pit various groups against one another, all unity is lost and the people are easier to manipulate.
A young person recently told me “It’s Un-American for you to hate the President of the United States.” I just walked away from the kid, I didn’t want to argue with him, but I thought that it would be highly unpatriotic of me to support and like a sitting President who is as Un-American, crazy, and tyranical as Donald J. Trump. I don’t think it’s apropos for a Commander In Chief to have received four college deferments from serving in the Vietnam War, along with a medical deferment. Although some may disagree with me and call me too harsh, I consider Donald Trump to be a draft dodger. And I don’t think a Commander In Chief should be dissing war heroes like John McCain, who was a POW during the Vietnam War, by saying that war heroes “are not captured.” I can’t stand a President who has the unmitigated gall of saying that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City and shoot someone and that he would not lose any voters. I abhor a President who stays in campaign mode for as long as he did, and even today, slips back into this groove, and constantly challenges the fact that he had an overwhelming inaugural crowd to cheer him into the White House, when in actuality, the D.C. portion of Washington looked like a ghost town during his inauguration. And I detest this highest leader of the land, who is so evil he will send mothers of Latin American countries or fathers from Middle Eastern countries packing, leaving their children to fend for themselves, just because in his paranoid, delusional, sick mind he considers these good people a threat to our national security. Donald J. Trump, you are the biggest threat to our national security and as long as you are in power, this country is in great danger!
Yes, Donald Trump, just like Hillary Clinton said time and time again during campaign season, you are unfit to hold the highest position in the land, and in my estimation, you are truly insane. You have made a laughingstock out of our country with your crazy tweets, most of which appear to have been written by a functional illiterate. Yes, your government-official “Official Declaration” mechanism, all those 140-character meanderings that you have been rifling off at all hours of the day and night, would lead any member of the psychiatric community to write you off as certifiably bi-polar and dangerously antisocial and narcissistic, perhaps much worse. Who tweets crazy gibberish at 3 a.m.? Donald Trump does. Regularly. With vitriol, menacing, and sometimes even threatening intent. Your bully pulpit is your little cell phone, Oh Great Orange Crazy One.
So until Donald Trump and his minions take my First Amendment Right away, which they seem to have every intent of doing, if they are left unchecked (as they have been for 127 days that seem like 127 years), I will continue to call this Consummate Con-Man Bullshit Artist on his BS and filthy, outrageous lies. He’s turned this country upside down, has deported good people, good citizens, because of their race or religion, and he’s gotten away with it. He wants to cut our health insurance with some flimflam political concoction that will only give tax breaks to the rich, and he’s going to build that wall between Mexico and the United States, come hell or high water, dammit. Does he not realize that a spade shovel or a ladder is all that’s needed to attack that wall? Does he not realize that the next Democratic President is going to tear that hideous, ugly, monstrosity down?
This Memorial Day, let’s really try to get rid of the problem. There will be no solution whatsoever as long as Donald Trump remains as the President of the United States. We owe the men and women who died in America’s wars a better legacy than this — this selfish, self-aggrandizing, crazy man who’s so power hungry he plans to take over the world. This cannot be endowment to them — let’s be bold and brave ourselves and let our Republican and Democratic leaders know that Donald Trump needs to either be impeached or removed from office. There is no other alternative. The resistance is still very much alive and will prevail!
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