Cheap Jibes to Perpetuate the Great American Myth

 

I am very definitely not a supporter of jingoistic nationalism, the waving of the flag or my country right or wrong. I am suspicious of all things military and abhor violence of any kind or any mindless worship of battles and "heroes". An old friend said many years ago (she was about 80 at the time) when our TV screens and news broadcasts were filled with one of the many anniversary "celebrations" of the end World War 2: "Why are we still fighting this war 50 years after it ended". Betty was not wrong. When nations choose to go to war it means that reason, humanity and common decency have failed and we should all be ashamed.

However, Trump's latest outburst stating that soldiers from NATO were not in the front line during the campaigns in Afghanistan cannot and must not go unchallenged. I know nothing about the tactics of war or "the front line" that Trump refers to but having been around for 80 years I do know a cheap jibe when I hear it and I can usually spot a dodgy snake oil salesman, a dishonest charlatan, a bullying "wannabe" when I cross their path. As a teacher I've seen lots of them on the school playground - the school bullies, demanding an audience and craving misplaced "respect" from the rest of the children. Trump is just another immature playground bully, craving respect through fear and aggression rather than through any positive, worthwhile or even decent personal qualities and his offensive comments say more about him than they do about brave troops of any nation. Of course, he is, in many ways just regurgitating, spurting out (in Trump's case I think the word vomiting is more appropriate) the usual repetitive and tired Hollywood version of reality, a reality where history, events, people and actions are rewritten to fit the American narrative that America is the shining citadel on the hill and saves the world from itself, again and again and again.

If we are going to engage in cheap jibes in the Trump fashion how about this one? On 9/11 New York was hit by a dreadful terrorist attack and the world held its breath and rightly mourned for America. But I often wonder what America would have done if it had been faced with years of blitz of the kind we in the UK suffered in the last war, or that the Ukraine is suffering now or that the people of Gaza have suffered? To put it bluntly we would never have heard the end of it, the beating of American breasts and the uncontrolled weeping, wailing and wallowing would drown out all else. I wonder where Donald Trump would have hung out in such a scenario? Would he have been alongside John Wayne, Arnie Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise and the rest of the faux American heroes, saving his Trump Tower from obliteration and rescuing the planet yet again - and then spending the rest of eternity retelling the great American myth, blowing the American trumpet? I suspect a more likely scenario is that he would be deep in his bunker, counting his gold, making a pact with the devil and making another deal to make money out of the dead and homeless - and having done his deals he would emerge into the wrecked world and boast that he had stopped another war. If you think that's a bit over the top then remember he proposed buying up ruined Gaza for "real estate", expelling the Palestinians and building a holiday theme park, the "Palestine Riviera"; the man is morally bankrupt and inhuman with absolutely no saving graces . No, there would be no front line for him or any of the other plastic "all American superheroes" - they'd be in their fox holes, cowering, all aggression and false bravery spent. In fact, just like the school bully standing in the Headmaster's Office blubbering, saying "It's not my fault, they told me to do it, I was only joking, please don't tell my mummy.....…"

I would humbly suggest (and going against all my pacifist principles!) that Trump "discusses" his view of NATO's front line involvement and the contribution of troops from the UK, France, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Italy etc. with people who know what they're talking about when it comes to Afghanistan, Iraq and other war torn areas. This discussion should be behind locked doors in the White House and involve Trump and a couple of war weary and battle hardened NATO squaddies who were in Afghanistan fighting, putting their lives on the line, sustaining terrible injuries and losing old comrades in what was, after all part of American President George Bush's "War on Terror" following 9/11. I'm sure that the two squaddies could and would, in true Don Corleone fashion, make Trump an offer he couldn't refuse. And, like the school bully when confronted with reality, he would squirm and bellow, sob and scream, have another tantrum but in the end be quite easily convinced when raw power explained it all to him and he would be keen to agree that he had "misspoke". He is essentially a coward, brave only when he is not challenged; he would beg forgiveness as the two squaddies towered over him and be anxious to apologise. And, hopefully, when he emerged from the Oval Office he would have the bruises to prove the depth of the "discussion" with the squaddies! Whether he would learn anything, however, is doubtful - he is beyond learning or redemption.

The man is an offensive and dangerous fool. Shame on America and Americans for giving him the power and the air to breath and vomit out his mindless and offensive ranting in 2016 and then again in 2024. And even more shame on them for not now removing him as unfit for public office. It says much about America and Americans - none of it good. All nations get the politicians and leaders they deserve and those leaders reflect the electorate and its culture. Over seventy years ago in his seminal work on 1950s America, "On The Road", an indictment of his country's rampant consumerism and the shallowness of the American dream, novelist Jack Kerouac, searching for meaning in life,  asked “Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” His question was never answered and that same shallowness and rampant consumerism has brought us to where we  are today. Trump cannot be viewed in isolation, he is what America is and always has been; a nation that should be ashamed of what they are and what they have spawned.

"Resist the piping pedlar....... Choose to hold on tight to your humanity......."

Pamela Ireland's poignant, perceptive and pertinent poem “Choose” was written in 2018 at the height of the first Trump Presidency and the UK’s own deep social and political divisions over Brexit. It is powerful and prophetic commentary upon our times, even more relevant today, perhaps, than it was in 2018 as the world tumbles into a new dark age: Gaza, Ukraine, Putin, Netanyahu, Trump - evil and unstable mad men and each in charge of frightening power. In recent days the world has watched in various states of fascination and horror at the events in Venezuela: bombings, kidnapping, piracy on the high seas; a mad American President contemplating "buying" or invading and "stealing" another country (Greenland); an American President plumbing the depths of morality and demeaning that Great Office of State by justifying the common and shameless murder of a young woman on the streets of Minneapolis..... and today that same President advises us that “I don’t need international law” and that his power is only limited by his “own morality, my own mind.”  That explains a lot. His idea of right and wrong is wholly subjective. He is his own ethical and legal adviser, his own priest and confessor. He is a church of one. Trump lies to himself as well as everyone else. And the resulting damage is pernicious. It costs lives, harms democracy and destroys trust between nations. And yet, and tellingly, few across the world or in power raise their voices in protest. It is time, as Pamela's poem pleads, for the world to choose which path it takes:

Choose

What maggot eats

a human heart

that it would follow

willingly

a sly pied piper

peddling old lies

who wears the flag

like a cheap salesman’s smile?

What dark music

draws so many of us on

cheering and chanting

in an insane dance

towards a truthless land

where fear and hatred

are the people’s daily bread?

Already unseen hands

tap out orders

as behind the wire

faceless guards

take children

from their mothers.

Who perpetrates

such acts of separation

from their own humanity?

It could be any one of us

when the only choice

is guard or prisoner.

Choose.

Choose now

before the gates close.

Choose to defend

the hard won freedoms

that are every human’s right

before law dances to the piper’s tune

and fear trumps justice

and betrays the just.

Choose to resist

the piping pedlar

for he is the reaper

in disguise.

Choose to hold on tight

to your humanity

and wear it like a hazard suit

around your heart

for you will need it.

Those who would claim

to buy their freedom

with the suffering of innocents

sell everything

a human heart holds dear.

Pamela Ireland Duffy 29.06.2018

The greatest of the First World War poets, Wilfred Owen said that the role of all poets and writers is to speak the truth and Pamela Ireland’s poem does just that, it forces us to choose the world and the morals that we want and need. It puts to the test the unforgivable shame of swathes of the American electorate, American politicians, and our own UK Prime Minister and government, who will not choose to speak the truth, who sit on their hands, silent, afraid or unwilling to say what must and should be said and do what should be done. Their message to Donald Trump should be simple and unequivocal: "This shall not and will not be”; it must be said to state the importance of right over wrong, good over evil. As the great political commentator oft regarded as the father of the Conservative Party Edmund Burke reminded us in the 18th century "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". If we and our elected representatives do not speak the truth then we become complicit in those deeds committed by those intent upon evil - in this case the malefic perpetrators in Washington who are supported by millions across America in the name of shallow pragmatism, failed economics, irresponsible might and untrammelled greed.

The world no longer pays heed to the wisdom found in Shakespeare's King Lear: in the final lines of this tragic tale of desolation and misrule Edgar warns that there are times when we must "Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say". In the terrible aftermath of the First World War which had wiped out a whole generation, as Russia descended into revolutionary and communist chaos, and as fascism rose in Europe William Butler Yeats told the truth and said what he felt in his poem “The Second Coming”. Yeats' words were prophetic for his time - and now ours, but this time the beast has risen in Washington’s White House not in Nazi Germany and it is spreading its tentacles across the world:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

These dark cold days of January, the start of the year, are a frightening metaphor for the dark age into which we are descending. Bright Spring might bloom in a few weeks as the seasons change, but mankind is tumbling into darker times, a cold winter it will be for us all which even gentle yellow daffodils, bright golden sun or the early morning blackbird's sweet song will be unable to brighten or cure. As Yeats foretold “….things are falling apart, anarchy is upon the world, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned”. The words in Pamela’s poem and Yeats’ warning from a century ago are profound and articulate wake up calls; it is time for us all to choose, to follow Edgar's advice and "say what we ought to say". The rough beast is upon and within us; its hour come on the streets of Minneapolis, on the streets of wider America - and it is slouching towards our own streets and to the corridors of power across the world; a sly presidential pied piper peddling again the old lies while wearing "the flag like a cheap salesman’s smile", the beast's Presidential "gaze blank and pitiless as the sun", demanding obedience and that knees be bent in servile homage as it snuffs out mankind's Spiritus Mundi. And America and we stand and stare, wring our hands, weep crocodile tears, confess our rage, betray our heritage, betray our fathers and grandfathers, and do nothing, and the beast leers and howls its victory cry.

Thank you Pamela for sharing not just your poem but your wisdom and foresight.

Donald Trump: a latter day Don Corleone or Al Capone. A President who bombs and kidnaps others rather than clearing up the mess in his own back yard.

 

So, the President of the USA tells us that on his orders American planes have bombed the capital city of another nation, Venezuela. He further tells us that the elected President (and his wife) of Venezuela has been "captured" (a euphemism for "kidnapped") and taken to an unspecified destination. And, in a breathtaking piece of arrogance he says that America is going to "run Venezuela" until a new government (presumably favourable to Donald Trump) is installed. If previous similar US actions during my lifetime (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan et al) are anything to go by this will not end well - for anyone. It is prime example of what Einstein suggested was idiocy - namely doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. Clearly, the numbskulls of the current Washington White House have not learned the lessons of their own history. But then again, this is Donald Trump and his sycophantic wannabes, individuals known for their rank stupidity, lack of reason and, all too often, criminal intent. We should not be surprised.

The justification for these actions is that "Venezuelan drug cartels" are responsible for importing vast amounts of drugs into the USA and the Venezuelan President is himself corrupt, hated by the Venezuelan population, and won't or can't do anything about this. Or so Donald Trump informs us.

Mmmm! Maybe all this is true and maybe a majority of Venezuelans want rid of their thoroughly disreputable President - but that can never, ever justify what America and Trump have done, attacked another nation. It is reminiscent of the "gun law" of the old West where might equals right. We do not want or need a world where "might" justifies action; it only ends in one way - badly. And, I might add, I am not comfortable with the most powerful man in the world, a man who has consistently displayed his erratic and irrational personality, operating as if he thinks he is Marshal Wyatt Earp or a latter day John Wayne or Clint Eastwood using his guns and his might to keep the world in whatever order he desires and willing to bow their knees to do his bidding.

But there is another more fundamental issue which Trump's actions do not address. The illegal supply of drugs depends entirely upon the demand for them. Drug dealers, dreadful though they are, are merely satisfying a demand; they would not run the vast risks they do if they were not certain of being able to sell their produce. It is the most basic law of economics that supply grows to meet demand; if there is no demand (i.e. people not wanting to buy a product) then businesses, shops and, yes, even drug dealers go out of business or go elsewhere to sell their goods.

So, it seems to me that Trump (and any other national leader) would be far better ensuring that the population of his own country were not minded to desire/purchase the drugs - thus creating a demand - in the first place; no buyers, no suppliers, it's as simple as that.

America is the biggest consumer of illegal narcotics, prescription drugs and opioids in the world by a considerable margin (16.9% - almost 47 million - of Americans aged over 12 years in 2024 and rising at a rate of 1.9% per year compared with 8.8% of the population in the UK, 11% of the French population, 6% in Norway and a European average of 6.8%) which illustrates clearly America’s problem, its increasing akrasia, its entropic decline and the drift into nihilism in its politics, its society and its culture. This, culminating in the election of Trump, indicates with great clarity a society in terminal decline, increasingly unable or unwilling to save itself from its own excesses, unaware or uncaring of its inherent and rising shallowness, its immaturity and its rising tide of violence on its streets, in its schools and shopping malls, and now towards other nations. So, maybe, Trump should concentrate on putting his own house in order before bombing and kidnapping the citizens of another country. And, further, perhaps the American electorate should be ensuring that their President is (like the President of Venezuela) held and charged for being unable or unwilling to do anything about his own citizens actively participating in the illegal use of drugs, for it is them, the millions of American drug users who are creating the demand and thus the eventual supply of illegal narcotics into the USA. But, as always - and certainly with Trump - it's easier to blame someone else (Venezuela) and bomb them rather than clean up the mess in his own back yard.

And one thing we all know is that America and its back yard are the mother and father of all messes; a mixed up society unable to moderate its own behaviour. If it were not so they would not have mass shootings, and out of control drug problems or ingrained racist division, nor would they have defied all logic, common sense and political wisdom by electing a convicted felon and common racketeer as their President. Over a century ago Oscar Wilde famously said that "America is the only country that has gone from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between". He was not wrong then and his words hold even more true today. Trump himself in his manner, his views, his life style and his moral bankruptcy personifies that decadence. His actions this weekend are all about blaming America's contemporary self imposed decadence and chaotic social climate on others - in this case Venezuela. America has elected, and shamelessly continues to tolerate, this modern day Don Corleone or Al Capone figure. America prides itself, they often tell us that they are the great democracy - indeed they have a track record of trying to impose this on other nations - and yet, and despite their famed "democracy" and the crocodile tears from millions of Americans they complain, beat their breasts, write critical tweets but do nothing; they fail the test of democracy to remove a leader who brings shame, discredit and disaster upon the nation - and Trump is allowed to continue unopposed; ultimately, they do not care and in being so they have shown, and continue to show, America's contemporary lack of moral fibre and compass.

Roosevelt, Kennedy, Obama must weep, and so should we - and we should worry. Venezuela is being bombed today, but which country, I wonder, will it be tomorrow? Which of us will suffer the madness and criminal intentions of America and its President. And, I wonder, will Trump simply use the language and rhetoric of his friend and mentor Vladimir Putin and say that this was not an act of war but simply a "Special Military Operation".