Considering Donald Trump and the American Empire

Why I’m Voting for Donald Trump: McPherson’s 6th Stage of Grief (Gallows Humor)

by Joe Dellatore, a lifelong tree-hugger who also wanted to earn a lot of money (ergo, his employment as a business adviser, currently with IBM). Joe learned the foolishness of the monetary path about seven years ago and has been changing his route since then, and is now a practicing Buddhist. He is a grateful father of 3 young children, ages 7, 4, and 4.

Nature Bats Last,

11 March, 2016

As we move through another endless presidential campaign cycle in the United States, it occurred to me that I’ve broken through the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief and now find myself on the other side. Much to my surprise, gallows humor seems a perfectly fitting moniker for this state — kind of a snarky form of acceptance. ��

It’s funny how I’ve been unaware of my progress through the stages. Although I suspect any observant outsider could have identified each step along the way. To me, looking out from behind my own eyes, it appeared as though only other people could be categorized so easily. I am more enlightened than that. I am fully aware of the stages and therefore couldn’t fall prey to them unwittingly. And yet, as I reflect from my perch this morning, I clearly see my willingness to have children several years ago as denial. I see my covert interest in subversive acts as anger. I see my embrace of renewables as bargaining. I see my walking away from it all as depression. And I see my renewed interest in living life fully as acceptance.

But now I’ve come to another step. The forest is still rotten. A cleansing fire is still needed to raze it to the ground and allow for a new cycle of life. This is not the fire of angry protest. The fire is neither destructive nor evil. Rather this is the fire of renewal; the fire of rebirth. This is Shiva as destroyer and guarantor of life. It is the compassion of Buddha without attachment to means.

And so, as I sip my cup of coffee and enjoy the sounds of the birds coming to life with a VERY early spring, I see that Donald Trump is another manifestation of the cleansing fire. He seems to represent everything that is wrong with modern American culture and as such, he has secured my vote to quicken the demise — sparking the flame.

If you are one of those folks going through an earlier stage of grief and still finding it hard to accept our fate, let me remind you that atmospheric methane peaked well above 3000 ppb a few days ago for the first time in recorded history — blowing through the previous all-time high. Even if things pull back for a few years between 2017 and 2020 as we shift back to La Nina, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the jig is up and time is short.

In context, my goals for today include being kind to someone, smiling at a stranger, and calling a few friends to convince them to vote for The Donald.

Cheers.

This is more from the point-of-view of the Rest of the World

Trump vs neocons

When running for the presidency of the United States, candidates are often asked what kind of foreign policy leader they would be.

In this election cycle, being a foreign policy hawk is very much in vogue. Donald Trump is singled out as being a dangerous loose cannon.

On this edition of CrossTalk, we have a look at who really supports the Party of War

CrossTalking with Gilbert Doctorow and Vladimir Golstein

Another view

VOTE FOR TRUMP NOW!!!

a fun Trump image found on Pinterest

Brooklyn Culture Jammers,

11 March, 2016

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’ve posted multiple pro-Bernie Sanders items over the past few months. I’m not a fan of Hillary and I’m not a fan of The Donald (or any of his GOP rivals). I need to explain that I’m posting pro-Bernie information out of a sense of fair play. The piece that people are missing is that I’m pretty sure that electing the ‘right person’ cannot get us out of our current dilemma.

This was the message of one of the first posts I did about the election. Entitled DONE WITH HILLARY, DONE WITH THE WHOLE MESS, I laid out a case for Sanders being the nominee. But Bernie fans didn’t read the uncomfortable parts of that post. I don’t expect Sanders to be able to fix anything that’s fundamentally broken about our country (though I give him props for trying). The status quo is broken, and there will be no ‘return to normal’ if by normal you mean the way ‘Muricans lived before the Great Stagflation of the late 1970’s.

sums it up nicely, I think.

On healthcare, Obama and the ACA have effectively killed the prospect of single-payer by giving the healthcare networks, big pharma and the insurance co’s a PERMANENT seat at the table when debating the subject. It would take an amazing run of the tables to change Citizens United (it won’t happen with the next Congress, and probably won’t for a generation).

Then there’s climate collapse. In the seven months since I posted that article, it has become apparent that the climate is getting worse. Again, it was revealed that February 2016 was by far the hottest month ever recorded, with temperatures spiking up to 1.7 degrees C above normal baseline. For some perspective, that’s ABOVE the adjusted target of 1.5 C  maximum temperature increase desired by participants in COP21 in Paris less than four months ago. And (misquoting Ralph Waldo Emerson yet again), events are in the saddle and ride mankind.

So vote for TRUMP?

My friends in the NTHE movement are getting impatient. Though some scientists are now predicting human extinction-level temperatures by 2020 (and no later than 2030), there’s a move to demand ‘game on’ sooner. Listen to Michael C. Ruppert, the writer who was talking about all this in 2014 just before he ended it all (note–unless you want to be on suicide watch, cut out after 01.46). He was tired of waiting around (as I point out here) But this article you’re reading now was sparked by a  guest column by Joe Dellatore appearing today on Guy McPherson’s website. Juicy bits:

And so, as I sip my cup of coffee and enjoy the sounds of the birds coming to life with a VERY early spring, I see that Donald Trump is another manifestation of the cleansing fire. He seems to represent everything that is wrong with modern American culture and as such, he has secured my vote to quicken the demise — sparking the flame.

The fact that we even have Donald Trump to kick around (not just as a candidate, but a front-runner in the race for the most powerful office on this planet and all the other planets we know of) says we need to speed this process up. Go ahead, Donald! Make My DAY!!!.

/satire maybe

Non-satire: it will come down to someone telling us the awful truth about our predicament at some point. I’m personally doing everything I can, but the word will have to come from someone in power. Why should we saddle poor Bernie with being the bearer of the worst bad news EVAH? Don’t we all get a sense of schadenfreude from the idea that a denialist like Trump or Cruz will have to eat massive crow and tell us the party’s over?