U.S. foreign policy caused Central American refugee issue, Trump agenda worsens crisis

The caravan of refugees from Central America has dominated the headlines of newspapers and the discussion among talking heads on television as of late. Most have been focused on the physical brutality of military personnel, dispatched by President Donald Trump to the border, firing canisters of tear gas and rubber bullets into the caravan of mostly women and children and some men who were armed with nothing but rocks. However, understanding the root causes of the current crisis requires examining the decades of American interventionist policies in Central America on behalf of dictatorial, oppressive, human-rights abusing regimes. Unfortunately, Trump's response to the refugee crisis reveals his ignorance and cruelty and will only worsen the crisis, causing even more refugees to travel in future caravans to the U.S. searching for hope and dignity which Americans so easily take for granted.

Guatemala

In 1954, the U.S. assisted in implementing a coup against a democratically-elected government which supported land reform in order to benefit the mostly indigenous working class. This agenda of the legitimate Guatemalan government was a problem for various American economic and political interests, including the US-based United Fruit Company which profited off exploiting impoverished workers and bribing government officials for preferential treatment in all kinds of aspects. As a part of the illegal coup, CIA installed a military junta which the U.S. supported for decades despite ample evidence of human rights abuses.

El Salvador

During the 1980s the U.S.-backed authoritarian alliance of nations, elitist oligarchs and military generals had ruled El Salvador for decades, creating extreme poverty, leaving the population desperate for escape. The U.S. backed the oppressive right-wing Salvadoran regime against a leftist uprising. Over 75,000 Salvadorans died as a result of the civil war, most of them perishing at the hands of the military and its notorious death squads. Today, amidst soul-crushing poverty, inequality and a lack of opportunity, forensic experts are still unearthing corpses of women, children and elderly who were mercilessly murdered by the Salvadoran army on behalf of the irrational American right-wing battle against communism.

Honduras

In Honduras, during the 1980s, the U.S. government used the country as a pawn in its war against the imaginary threat of communism. The U.S.-backed Contras used Honduras as a staging ground to fight in the Nicaraguan civil war. The Contras, a far-right guerrilla group, was backed by the Reagan administration, despite the CIA having already been aware of the group's atrocious human rights abuses.

Power vacuum leads to organized crime and extreme violence

In the wake of U.S. interventionism in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, otherwise known as the Northern Triangle, organized criminal enterprises were allowed to thrive. Now, the Northern Triangle has the highest rates of female homicide in the world. Rape is rampant and children are taken from parents to be trafficked on behalf of criminal organizations. Innocent individuals and families face extortion and threats of death on a daily basis at the hands of the murderous criminal groups which were left empowered as a result of misguided American meddling in Central America. Nowadays, it is uncommon for even young children to have never witnessed a murder in the Northern Triangle. It is no wonder large numbers of refugees travel in caravans northward every year searching for a better life for their families.

Trump immigration policy worsens refugee crisis

Unfortunately, not only is Trump's policy agenda inhumane and cruel, it will also make the refugee crisis worst, causing even more caravans of asylum seekers in the future. In May 2018, the Trump administration announced it was canceling the protected status of approximately 300,000 immigrants, including 86,000 Hondurans who had been living and working in the United States for decades in order to send money back to their families in their home country. Remittances back home from immigrants working in the U.S. play a significant role in the economic development in Central American countries. In fact, remittances make up 18 percent of the Gross Domestic Product for Honduras and 17 percent for El Salvador. Therefore, the extreme poverty in Central America will worsen, inspiring even more people to make the dangerous trek northward in the next caravan.

Trump stance on guns increases violence in Central America

Along with Trump's immigration policy, his and the Republican Party's policy regarding gun control is also worsening the refugee crisis by creating more gun violence in Central America. Right-wing opposition to gun control, at the behest of the NRA, has made guns more plentiful, resulting in thousands of illicit firearms being smuggled into Mexico every day. Most of these guns end up in the possession of Mexican drug cartels. The guns then eventually end up in the hands of Central American criminal organizations who use the American-made guns to terrorize innocent people in the name of expanding their highly profitable drug empires via smuggling cocaine back into the U.S.

Those in America who have recently been echoing Trump's racist, fear-mongering rhetoric in response to the arrival of the most recent refugee caravan from Central America, should ask themselves what they would do if the roles were switched. What if their loved ones and children risked being murdered, raped and kidnapped on a daily basis with practically no opportunity to improve their quality of life? They would probably join a caravan to escape in search of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Remaining Trump supporters lost cause, base turnout essential for 2020

In the aftermath of the 2018 midterm elections, one thing became clear. At this point there is no such thing as a “moderate” or “sane” Republican. Perhaps there were some, suffering under the oppressive weight of capitalism, during the 2016 election cycle who were duped by the fake ring-wing populism espoused by Donald Trump. However, after two years of corporate giveaways at the cost of everyday people, unapologetic white nationalist pandering, brazen misogyny and unhinged attacks on the LGBTQ community, anybody who is still supportive of Trump and the complicit Republican Party are bigoted scum bags or conspiracy-brained, alt-right morons who obsess over decoding QAnon messages. These people cannot be saved within a two-year election cycle. The only way the left will win in the upcoming 2020 election is through turnout of the base via grassroots organizing.

Trump and GOP lean hard into culture war racism

During the recent midterm election Trump and the Republican Party summoned the most vile aspects of American society in order to cling to power. Trump, despite a strong American economy, campaigned on mostly fear-mongering about the asylum-seeking caravan of impoverished families traveling on foot. He described this group of brown-pigmented people as an “invasion” and even claimed there were “terrorists” within their midst, a claim he made without even the slightest shred of evidence. The only purpose this served was to galvanize the right-wing base through racial resentment and fear politics. Also, it was not just Trump who delved head first into the culture war messaging, many racist Republican candidates followed suit, exposing the GOP for what it has always been about at its ideological core: unbridled bigotry and hatred.

The left must utilize electoral infrastructure created during midterms

Given that remaining Trump supporters cannot be flipped at this point, the only thing left to do is turnout the moderate, liberal and progressive base through newly created electoral infrastructure. The current social upheaval caused by the Trump election has galvanized an unprecedented political awareness and broad-based activism. This has resulted in record numbers of people becoming involved in political campaigns on the left via organizing, canvassing, phone banking, text banking and other various activities. The culmination of this is electoral infrastructure which must be taken advantage of by Democrats and those on the political left during the 2020 election cycle.

Even for those elections which Democrats lost during the midterms, the newly formed electoral infrastructure, such as fully-trained and experienced campaign organizers, funding mechanisms and a base of now-experienced campaign volunteers, can provide the push for Democrats and those on the left to win those same seats in the next election cycle. One example of this is Georgia's 6^th congressional district. This historically safe Republican seat experienced an unprecedented Democratic challenge in a special election in 2017, fueled by outrage against Trump. Despite the Democratic candidate narrowly losing in the special election, the infrastructure and base enthusiasm created enabled the Democrats to capture the seat in the recent 2018 midterms.

Florida will be crucial in 2020, galvanizing base essential

Although it is important Democrats fight hard for all 50 states, Florida will be particularly important for achieving success at the ballot box. Florida, which has historically played a pivotal role in deciding presidential elections, is now legitimately a possible swing state with the closeness of the recent governor's race between Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis which has now been forced into a recount. Also, with the voting rights of those with felony convictions reinstated in Florida, the potential Democratic base has been greatly increased. Therefore, Florida organizers must begin outreach to this newly enfranchised population and register as many of them as possible to vote. However, this also means candidates on the left must present policy proposals which help empower this population of voters.

In closing, there is no time to tune out, the political left must not miss a beat and immediately begin strategizing campaigns on a grassroots level in all areas of the country. There were still millions of eligible left-leaning voters who did not go to the polls. These are the people grassroots activists must turn out in order to defeat Trump and the Republicans in 2020.

Post-Kavanaugh: All is not lost, struggle against patriarchy must continue immediately

In the wake of the recent vote by the Senate to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court many women and supporters of women's rights have been emotionally devastated and understandably angry. With President Donald Trump now gaining two conservative appointments to the Supreme Court women's rights are in serious jeopardy. It is widely believed that with a conservative majority the precedent of Roe v. Wade will be overturned, stripping the right of women to control their own bodies and denying them access to abortion. However, believe it or not, all is not lost and it is imperative that women and allies pick themselves up and continue the struggle against patriarchy immediately.

More damage needs to be mitigated

In the short-term the midterm elections are heating up and it is imperative that women and all those who support women's rights make it to the polls to politically punish Republicans for their vote on Kavanaugh. On the other hand, revenge is not the only reason it is important to vote in November. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not happen overnight. The conservatives will still have to take their anti-choice lawsuits through the court system and work their way to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime the GOP will try to outlaw abortion and infringe on the rights of women on the state and local level. It is up to women, liberals, progressives and all those who support women's rights to stop them. At least four states have already passed laws through their state legislatures which would automatically make abortion illegal if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Undoubtedly, the confirmation of Kavanaugh will encourage other conservatives in state legislatures to attempt to follow suit. Therefore, it is imperative that Democrats and those on the left side of the political spectrum control as many state legislative seats and governorships as possible. The only way to do this is at the ballot box in November.

Culture can change politics

Although electoral politics is essential to mitigate the oncoming damage to women's rights in the long-term culture needs to become a larger part of the left's theory of change. Cultural changes are what makes political change possible. Before Brown v. Board of Education, Jackie Robinson made his Major League Baseball debut seven years prior. Ellen Degeneres came out as homosexual on her television sitcom eight years before the first favorable court ruling addressing same-sex marriage. Culture is the seed which must be planted before progressive politics can bear fruit. Now in the midst of the Me Too Movement, believe it or not, the seed has been planted and despite the set back we have yet to bear the fruit.

This means we must continue the struggle on the cultural front. Artists, writers, musicians, creatives and propagators of culture must continue to tell the stories of women's struggles and triumphs in the face of patriarchy. Stories should be created and visions should be shown that portray women of strength, independence, intellect and conscience. Continue telling stories reflecting on how economic inequality is intertwined with women's rights and ultimately human rights. Convey the emotions of women facing the economic reality of an unexpected pregnancy while in soul-crushing poverty with the father not in the picture. Tell the story of the woman who had been impregnated by her rapist. Make her humanity undeniable to even the most hardened of conservatives, including those sitting on the Supreme Court right now.

Humans can change

This may understandably sound naive to many, but believe it or not, likely attempted rapist, and now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is also human. This means he and any other humans sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court are capable of change. Even hardcore neoconservative Dick Cheney had a change of heart regarding same-sex marriage when he was faced with the reality of how it affected his daughter's sense of humanity.

Never give up

Like Cheney and the rest of humanity, none of the justices on the Supreme Court are completely disconnected from society and culture. They all surf the Internet and read the news and watch television just like the rest of us. They too will be subject to the cultural messaging of both the right and the left. But, if the left wins the culture war it is possible when it comes time for Kavanaugh and the other conservative justices to pull the trigger, they may ultimately find room in their hearts to maintain the precedent set by Roe v. Wade.

Five ways the Trump agenda hurts the American consumer

Donald Trump is a threat to both the American people and American democracy. Consequently, it is no surprise that, by extension, Trump is also a huge threat to the regular American consumer. That is because his agenda for America is nothing more than his agenda for himself and Americans are going to pay.

Trump Tax Scam

Trump’s GOP congressional lackeys banded together in December last year to impose his endorsed tax plan – with “plan” used in the very loosest sense of the word.

Contrary to Trump’s pie-in-the-sky assertions that the majority of Americans will be better off as a result, the very same guy that managed to bankrupt a casino, has now overseen a tax cut that actually raises taxes for over 80 million Americans while simultaneously lowering taxes for the top 1% of richest Americans.

Unless you’re a billionaire, possibly with a solid gold toilet, this isn’t really the stuff that regular American consumer spending sprees are made of.

Pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal

The US withdrawing from the “Iran Nuclear Deal” has, unsurprisingly, spooked the oil markets. 

 

The Middle East, the world’s leading oil producing zone, needs more stability, not less, to ensure oil production costs remain in check. Of course, the stable genius that is Trump has now added tension to that geopolitical hotbed and consequently oil prices are on the rise. 

 

Trips to the gas station are an increasingly painful experience for American drivers and small businesses. Maybe the MAGA-crowd likes paying more at the pump to see Trump at one of his cow-shed rallies? Must be a MAGA thing.

Trump and Tariffs

Trump is gunning for a trade war. With his usual double whammy of both wanting to grab the headlines and show how much of a “tough guy” he is (oh how his father should have hugged him more as a child), Trump has implemented tariffs with trading friends and foes alike.

By imposing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Trump’s recklessness is going to drive up the cost of things like cars, trucks and canned goods for the American consumer.

Mick Mulvaney at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Mulvaney is to consumer protection as foxes are to hen houses. So Trump, naturally, made him acting Director of the CFPB in 2017.

In accordance with Trump’s obsession of repealing anything Obama-esque, Mulvaney is perfectly aligned with Trump’s slash and burn approach to regulation.

Mulvaney has a long history of acrimony towards the CFPB – an organization set up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to ensure that consumers had better protection from marauding financial institutions and their questionable business practices.

Prior to taking up the CFPB reins, Mulvaney made numerous references about its abolition. As acting Director, he has suspended CFPB recruitment and cancelled investigations, both pending and present, into suspected malfeasance by any number of financial institutions. The end result? The American consumer is at increased risk courtesy of a Trump endorsed henchman.

Net Neutrality No More

Net neutrality was repealed in June this year by the Republican leaning, Trump endorsed Federal Communications Commission. Net neutrality ensured that internet-service providers (ISP) treated all online internet data fairly and provided a level playing field to ensure that ISPs could not levy fees or slow down services for particular online content and websites.

That is no more with the repeal. The bigger ISPs now have the potential to introduce things like “fast-lane” internet services – where if you pay more, you get a better service. Kind of like cable TV, if you are prepared to pay more, you get better service and greater access to internet services – such as those you had previously taken for granted before.

Less internet choice beckons. The only good thing from that? 

 

Maybe you’ll get to see less of Trump’s puerile, offensive Tweets.

Why Thomas Paine would shoot Donald Trump if he were alive today (Part 3 of 3)

Written by Igor Goldkind

Continued from Part 2 of 3

Paine conceived of autonomous democratic nation-states forming alliances of mutual aid. Mikhail Gorbachev has said that we ought to have a balancing of interests, not a balancing of power on the global stage. Internationalization, with the primacy of nation-state alliances, is a major alternative to the trends of corporate economic globalization. In the myth of a "flat" world of economic globalization, where the world is made safe and frictionless for capital expansion, citizens and nations did not vote for the corporate-influenced governmental-military-industrial-media alliances and trade agreements which establish "the rules of the game," subtly conditioning the thinking of the masses. 

These are not ancient words. These are the principles America was founded on and without which we would have early on taken the road to the same form of despotism and autocracy that Donald Trump is trying to lead us into. Trump only wants power. Power to control what is true and what is not. Power to determine the fates and existence of as many people as he can. This is why he loves the idea of a wall, the decoration of undocumented long-term residents and the border checks at airports that targets people of the Muslim faith, as well as people that white people think look like Muslims!

In his own way, from his visionary perspective, Thomas Paine was what the right-wing calls a “globalist” or even more bizarrely a “statist.” Of course the founding fathers were statists, they constructed the blueprint for the United STATES of America.

Bernie Sanders was right. Trump isn't conservative or moderate, much less liberal; he's an autocrat who has no respect for the Constitution and has failed as commander-in-chief to protect this country from a foreign antagonist.

Back to the curb where Paine is holding Trump hostage to the imperatives of history and the gentle squeezing of Thomas’s trigger finger, because Donald Trump is a traitor to his state. He has been under the influence of a foreign antagonist, Vladimir Putin, since at least 2014, shortly after he first announced his attempts at the presidency. He needed money to run a campaign for President and he didn’t have any.  No bank would loan him money because Trump always welched on his debts. So he had to turn to Deutsche Bank, the same bank that Putin and his oligarchy use to make money disappear and reappear wherever is most expedient. In this case it was the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump. This will all become very shortly apparent as soon as the next wave of indictments are issued by the DOJ. Trump is in a jam that he can’t get out of. Mueller’s investigation on behalf of the federal Department of Justice is very far from being a witch hunt. Read the indictments, all the evidence is published there, enough to hold up in federal court. Mueller, if you recall, is a conservative Republican of impeccable integrity.

By the way, I don't detest conservatives; some are my best friends. But Trump isn't really a conservative, he's a conman playing the GOP for whatever he can get away with. I don't hate conservatives, I hate liars who shamelessly lie every day they open their mouths. I hate incompetents who can't even keep one national security advisor on board during his first year and whose family and campaign advisors were meeting with Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign.

At this point in the event, Donald Trump moves his head slightly. Thomas steadies his hand. Testing Thomas, Trump slowly turns his head enough to glimpse Thomas’s steely stare. As unflinching as Mueller’s investigation. Once again Trump pleads, begs for his life. “What do you want Mr. Paine?  I’ve got money tons of money. What about women? I can get you the most beautiful models in the world. What about an audience with the Queen of England, she’s easy.” Thomas pauses and for the first time speaks to Donald J. Trump:

“I want my country back. I want the nation myself and my brothers built out of reason, compassion and equality back. I want what this nation is meant to be, not what you have defiled it as.”

Trump knows his goose is cooked. He can’t repair the damage he’s caused. It will take others, long after he’s gone to rebuild our country. Others who are younger than a 70-year-old patriarch. Others who have grown accustomed to being one nation in a physically interconnected  world. Others who aspire to rise above the fumes of spiritual superstition to the level of what Paine called “our living awareness of the Infinite Presence” by means of reason, science, the arts, the cooperative nature of our fellow hairless apes.  The high school students who have stood up and proclaimed “enough is enough.” The women who no longer cover their mouths and stifle their words when being subject to interpersonal tyranny. These are the children of Thomas Paine. These are the people he fought for and wrote for.

As a species we survived and dominated this planet by virtue of our complex means of cooperation, not competition. That complex is what we refer to as a society and those who reject the notion are, well, just antisocial.

Donald Trump speaks to Thomas Paine one last time.

“Please Thomas, I promise to be better, I promise to live up to your virtues, I swear I’m a changed man.  Look in your heart Thomas, look in your heart, Please!….”

Thomas speaks his last four words:

“I have, you traitor,” and pulls the trigger.

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Why Thomas Paine would shoot Donald Trump if he were alive today (Part 2 of 3)

Written by Igor Goldkind

Continued from Part 1 of 3

But going back to the pistol Thomas Paine is holding against Donald Trump’s head; no, I didn’t forget my premise. Imagine it with me. There’s Thomas Paine, his hand steadily holding the cocked pistol, fully powdered and loaded with a small lead ball. Tiny, but big enough to leave a good sized hole at such close range. And there’s Donald Trump on his knees, shaking. He’s already wet the pants of his suit. He tries very hard to hold back his urging defecation and finally fails.

Now Donald Trump is soiled. Soiled with the same feces he’s been feeding to the American voters for years. Soiled by his indifference, his empathy deficit, his reckless, unfeeling impulses, his sociopathic disconnect from the human race. Remember, Donald, to say “I hear you.” It fools them every time and leaves plenty of time for self-gratification at the expense of others. Trump is soiled by his own inhumanity, his unbridled carnal greed to accumulate wealth, power and women. He assaults women not because he can get it up anymore but because they have power he wants to dominate.

Look at his wife. I haven’t seen such a blank dead look of a hostage to circumstance since Patty Hearst. It was the money that bought her and like some particularly gruesome episode of “Black Mirror,” she got exactly what she paid for, with her integrity, her self-respect and herself. Imagine the morning she awoke to the dawning denouement. Sure she could leave any time, with her child. But where would she go? What would she do? In the afterlife of existence everyone writes a book and sells it. When things go badly; when the world seems to be against me; when I lose; I always remind myself - it could always get worse and at least I don’t have to fuck Donald Trump.

The thought makes me feel better but my heart tears up when I think of her suffering. It is the suffering of the affluent. The ones who have accommodated everything they were told they needed to be happy. Everything they worked hard to acquire in lieu of happiness only to find that very object eluding them. That’s the horror of the denouement, you reach the summit of your life’s ambition and now the only thing left to do is jump off. Because happiness is not an object or an objective. It flits effortlessly in and out of our lives like a butterfly, briefly lingering on a flower and moving on. Ever try to chase a butterfly? Exactly.

Back to Donald Trump having shit and pissed himself while one of the fathers of our country held a pistol to his head. Perhaps at this point Donald would beg for his life like the scene in “Miller’s Crossing,” “Please, Thomas, Please. Look in your heart, look in your heart. You don’t want to do this. You’re not that kind of man. Look in your heart, for god's sake !”

God is a natural place to go. After all, the divisions we are now facing in our country are by no means recent. They’ve been brewing for decades. The divisions are not entirely geographic although the three states that assured Donald of his electoral victory do have a concentration of post-Calvinist evangelicals. Nor are they solely cultural; after all, Donald Trump is the epitome of the urban gangster. A smooth talking, wheeling dealing property developer soaking in the comfort of Manhattan luxury. He should be anathema to his base of supporters. But he’s not, instead he speaks their language; the language of PT Barnum and Charlie Chan both as fake as a wooden nickel but master showman to a 'T' (Only white actors played Charlie Chan which ironically was invented by Earl Derr Biggers as an alternative to Yellow Peril stereotypes and villains like Fu Manchu).

And Trump talks about God. He doesn’t so much talk about his beliefs (if he has any), but about the threat that nonbelievers and other religions pose for Christian evangelists, particularly targeting Islam. Trump runs his own circus of fear and the punters are more than happy to pay to be scared or at least have their irrational fears affirmed. Donald Trump should be played by the late Robert Mitchum (if he were still alive. Hey, we brought Thomas Paine from two centuries ago; a zombie Robert Mitchum should not pose too many difficulties). To be exact, Robert Mitchum in his role as the greed-laden preacher in the classic American Gothic “The Night of the Hunter” in which he plays a psychopathic man of the cloth bent on money and murder (in that order). He pursues two children who hold the secret to a hidden fortune down a river in the south, riding a donkey and singing hymns. A fake, a demon, a creature of merciless malice.

So is Thomas going to shoot Trump in the head for using religion to accumulate power? Of course not. Thomas was a believer but not in God, in reason. “It is by the exercise of reason that man can discover God. Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding anything.” The reason Thomas Paine is holding a cocked pistol against the back of Donald Trump’s head is not God; Trump hasn’t blasphemed against faith; he’s blasphemed against reason. Trump has spent his entire career disseminating the appearance of things, not the truth. Truth is the enemy of Donald Trump, because in truth, he is an insignificant man in the scheme of things just as we are all beholden to the significance we manufacture and some of us have made peace with that. Donald Trump has not. Like a “hungry ghost” in Chinese Buddhism, Donald is compelled by desire, call it lust, a lust for significance. This is why he builds towers, not to house offices or hotel rooms, but to prop up as high as he can his name: Trump.

At the start of this year we had a crisis in authority due to the steady lies being pumped from the White House by Trump. The first rule of autocracy is to shake people’s belief in authority, so that they only can believe in you. Donald Trump is attempting to destroy the pillars of the Fourth Estate. Now we’ve entered a period of crisis in competence. When the very ability to address real world problems by Trump and his stooges is dubious at best. 

Remember that the balance of powers in the Constitution is all beholden to having a free press in which people can report the truth and express their opinions of their government. That’s what Thomas Paine counted on in drafting our rights. Each right has a corresponding duty. Paine said our first duty is to be kind to others. Paine also said that a person's corresponding duty is to allow the same rights to others as we allow ourselves. From this basis we can use our abilities to promote mutual understanding. These expanding circles of reciprocal duties and rights weave a tapestry, built on democratic norms, of liberty in the context of societal interdependence. It’s called a society based on equality.

Did you know that Thomas Paine was the very first American abolitionist? In 1775 he wrote, "To Americans: That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of justice and humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.

Our traders in MEN (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of that SLAVE-TRADE, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts; and such as shun and stifle all these willfully sacrifice conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden idol."

Thomas Paine was like the first white citizen member of Black Lives Matter. He and his pal Thomas Jefferson originally included an amendment to the Constitution ending slavery. They wanted to create a revolutionary society in which ALL men are created equal. As usual, women would have to wait. Of course this amendment was vetoed by the southern slave owning states. The same states suspiciously from which Trump derives the concentration of his base support. But the point being that the Founding Fathers, if not all, enough, wanted to establish an egalitarian society in all respects. Paine referred to this, as did the other Framers, as ‘the common good,’ something the alt-right abhors because they understand it as: control by somebody that isn’t them. Nonetheless, contrary to Constitution literalists the "common good" involves a mental posture taken by citizens in their deliberations where they account for, yet transcend partial interests to look at the good for each and all in their decisions.

Even in business, Trump’s claimed turf, the right of commerce was seen as transforming the mindset of feudal, dependent relations between men and their government. It helped transform subjects into confident citizens. Trade was viewed not as laissez-faire, but in a web of social interdependence. It was seen as a major modality for individuals to use their reason (not faith), to develop better mutual understanding of others' interests in society. While aware that too much indulgence in commerce could lead to the decline of spirit and patriotism, making reason subservient to commercial interests, Paine felt that man would use his religion of reason to place commerce within a broader quest for lifelong education in the arts, sciences, engineering and philosophy in order to progress to a universal society and universal happiness.

Paine believed that man's highest spirit of reason is its motives and applications such that it does not have to be concentrated solely in pursuit of commercial interests. Art, science, and commercial enterprise can be placed in service to humanity and universal happiness. Moreover, each individual deserves minimal dignity and a minimal economic base to pursue their natural rights. Like Paine and Edward Bellamy advocated two hundred years ago, some form of guaranteed minimal annual income ought to be adopted for each citizen, regardless of wealth or other distinctions. Imagine what Thomas Paine would make of the modern day commercialized medical establishment!

Sounds like a socialist that Thomas Paine, don’t he? Not at all really, just your average post-Enlightenment philosopher and thinker. Or perhaps he's a socialist only as far as socialism is dedicated to the fairer distribution of resources so that everyone might enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness more equally. Paine wrote, “Some men and women, through greed or disproportionate natural or social advantages, will contribute to others being systematically impoverished in the imperfections of man-made civilization:

The earth is the common property of the human race; thus each human being is equally entitled to have dignity and minimal share of the earth's bounty, including clean water, air, and access or rents from land. Thus, men and women must discover those laws operating in society which will create a greater harmony of overall interests. Democratic communities will have to choose to redistribute some minimal baseline of societal resources to those at least most vulnerable not as charity, but as a right in the name of social harmony.”

Continued at Part 3 of 3

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Why Thomas Paine would shoot Donald Trump if he were alive today (Part 1 of 3)

Written by Igor Goldkind

Yes, indeed that’s a provocative title; but this ain’t click-bait my friends. This is the real deal. If Thomas Paine was alive today, he’d be in the nation’s capital with a pistol waiting for the #FakePresident. Of course, he’d be waiting a long time considering as far as he knew the capital of these United States was in Philadelphia. I have a vision of old globalist Thomas standing outside Ben Franklin’s door, knocking as hard as he could, shouting “Benjamin!  Benjamin! Come out, our nation’s in trouble and it's much worse than the British.” Kind of like the scene in “Street Car Named Desire” where Marlon Brando is standing outside Stella’s window in the pouring rain in his soaked white T-Shirt.

Marlon Brando would have made a good Thomas Paine in the film, the graphic novel and the computer game but this doesn't answer the question embedded in the title of this diatribe. Why would Thomas Paine if he were alive today, track down Donald Trump and put a bullet in the back of his head? In principle this would require Donald to be on his knees, facing away from Thomas with his tiny hands wrapped around the back of his head. I suppose you, dear reader, are ‘en-titled’ to an answer as to the why and the wherefore; but stay with me as we savor the moment. The ultimate retribution of history: to be shot in the back of  the head by one of the Founders of this revolutionary nation, ironically with a pistol no less. One that Thomas didn’t have to register or submit to a background check to acquire from the antique pistols and muskets booth at the gun show a couple blocks away.

So before Thomas pulls the trigger and the tiny lead ball propels from the pistol’s mouth through his dense skull and lodges somewhere in the soft tissue that Donald referred to as his “brain,” let’s pause and assess the situation. Let’s skip over the time travel details as to how Thomas Paine got from the late 18th century to the early 21st. We’ll leave it to the graphic novel to explain that bit; him jumping a little over two centuries in time. Although we really don’t have to figure out anything at all. Thomas Paine’s words, his ideas and his rebel spirit not only jumped but survived intact for more than two centuries within the soul of our national sovereignty. So if Thomas Paine were brought back from the dead by some mysterious force, it could only be due to his words, his ideas and the nation he fought for being under threat.

And that, my reader, is precisely the point being made by my title and the words you are reading now.  Today, not even two decades into the 21st century, the essential values that built this nation, this American experiment by a motley crew of post-enlightenment landowners, orators, tradesmen and inventors is at risk of being destroyed. Not by Trump himself, you realize. But by Us, by We the People in our impotent complacency to stop him. We are not revolutionaries, we are the revolution Thomas and his friends dreamt, drew the blueprints for, and built on top of the hot blood that soaked the green countryside of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Carolina, whose names are only possible because of the stubborn bravery of these idealists, these socialists, these men of vision that had the hubris to build a nation founded not by the right of kings or church or even the wealthy, but by the enlightenment values of liberty, justice and freedom. 

These values of course aren’t just American, although they are the foundation stones of our democracy.  Thomas Paine author of “Common Sense,” “The Age of Reason” and “The Rights of Man” whose titles alone reveal the nature of his philosophy: to build a nation on reason not religious superstition. It’s not that Thomas Paine didn’t believe in the divine, he just believed in reason more: “It is by the exercise of reason that man can discover God. Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding anything.”

Later, as a member of the French Senate, Paine would lend his hand to writing the Jean-Jacques Rousseau version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789, along with Thomas Jefferson. Rousseau’s Rights of Man became the basis of the UN Human Rights Charter as well as the EU Human Rights initiative. So next time you hear some jackass complaining about liberals going on and on about Human Rights you might want to mention that they’re disrespecting the  Founding Fathers, two of whom (Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine) contributed to the declaration.

In fact, Universal Human Rights is the soul not only of our Constitution, but the Declaration of Independence, the UN Charter and the adopted law of all members of the European Union. Human Rights is the one thing that Donald Trump can’t abide because he has dedicated his life to the accruement of power for its own sake. Trump really isn’t that bothered by actual money in spite of his public persona. What he is dedicated to is what money buys: people, power and governance; and this is exactly where we have gone astray from the origins of our nation. We have handed our own governance over to banks, corporate interests and the uber-affluent who can afford to buy a congressman or a president.   

Mueller’s investigation will very shortly reveal the origins of the money that bought Trump his presidency. We know already that the NRA contributed 30 million dollars early in his campaign. Do you remember that lie about how Trump said he was incorruptible because he could afford to fund his own campaign? I know, I know, it’s hard to remember all the lies Trump has spouted.

Do you know why the Truth is better than a lie?

Because it’s easier to remember.

Continue reading:  Part 2 of 3.

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