Another Pause to Remember

We are in Hispanic history month. We are remembering the 60’s civil rights marches; the infamy of 9/11; the death of Phyllis Schlafly of the don’t-call-me-Ms.-it-means-misery! fame; world mental health and much more.

The pause, most often not taken, to remember or to identify (for those not old enough to remember) symbolizes the tendentious key issues of the upcoming presidential election: Immigration reform, equal opportunity in employment and education, homeland security, and police”man”-of-the-world status, lives matter crusades, globalism -vs- America first, and on and on.

The issues are clear enough; the consequences of action, not.

Cooperation is obviously going to be necessary to stay in the race against time, and the candidates are polar opposites on almost everything. It is a bad time for the decision to be made on the same basis as the popularity of a media-promoted quiz show.

The use of the low bar being set by the media for Trump —  who is inconsistent and fairly ignorant of issues and more than inclined to rely on an inner compass (as was Hitler and Mussolini) versus the high bar being set for Clinton, who lacks charisma and crowd-tact  —  is a wretched way to set the course of U.S. and human history. If the unfairness persists into the

If the unfairness persists into the debates, the” best is yet to come” could well become “back to the future” or “none at all”. It might be well for us to

It might be well for us to look, closer than we are accustomed to, at the people advising the candidates, and their issues — payoffs for sexual abuse, indictment for fraud and perjury, conviction for jeopardizing national security, serving time for perjury, ties to foreign powers, etc.

Obama, the cerebral, sees China as the significant rival in the 21st Century and concentrates on an Asian pivot. In this worldview,  Russia, with its insistence on revitalizing cold war mentality and behavior, is a distraction in the present and not a risk for the future. This view does not take seriously enough the risk of not getting to the future because of misplaying the present. But this does not make Putin’s Russia a bosom buddy or eliminate the reality that short of nuclear war, not really quixotic China is our and the world’s best bet at containing an almost psychotic N. Korea. We can see the reasoning behind a Pan Pacific economic bloc of Asian countries fettering China economically.

Trump, the oaf, praises Putin and thinks Russia can be an ally (mostly militarily) and thinks America can go it alone economically.

Are these issues to be decided by the media and its quiz show behavior? Global warming cannot be

Global warming cannot be ignored nor toxic wastes, water shortage, cyber war, human trafficking, etc.

Is world cooperation necessary? How is it to be titered against American security and position of moral leadership in the world? I don’t like the prospect of the  Trumpeter and his allies dealing with these issues to the background chorus of

I don’t like the prospect of the Trumpeter and his allies dealing with these issues to the background chorus of isolationists, KKK leaders, the followers of Schlafly and a Congress no longer trustable to consistently govern.