You can dance, You can jive,
Having the time of your life.
Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene
Diggin’ the dancing queen.
– “Dancing Queen” (ABBA)
The dominant feature of the Trump administration is chaos. It is designed to entertain, to provoke, but primarily to keep everyone busy. And it is designed. Make no mistake about it, being a Drama Queen is a big part of the process of gaslighting.
There is no excuse for the current policy at the US border with Mexico. It was indeed changed by the current administration in April, regardless of how Trump tries do deny responsibility. His Attorney General and Homeland Security Secretary don’t run from it.
But while there is no excuse for this policy, it is important to note that it is not particularly different from the horrors that our immigration laws have inflicted for at least a generation, if not longer. It is indeed an attempt to fully enforce existing law, a series of laws never fully put into place because they do indeed violate basic human rights. Never enforced, that is, until now.
The current violations of decency and due process highlight a dance that the US has long had with human rights violations. When the music stops it is long past time for us to review not just this policy but every aspect of immigration and border control.
This piece is from 2011. Was I naive or prophetic?
According to author James Stewart, lying is a national crisis. This undermines “the ideals of fair play, integrity, and trust to which people of goodwill everywhere aspire,” according to the author, and he’s made a good career out of speaking on this topic. His book “Tangled Webs” is selling well.
But is lying worse than it ever has been, as Steward insists? I think so, but at a slightly different depth than he has plumbed.
This summer re-run is from six years ago. Way back then, I actually thought we could confront the narcissism that has been taking over our culture. Silly me.
The tidbits of popular inspiration roll through twitter and facebook in a nearly constant stream. You want your stuff retweeted or shared through the networks? Come up with a bit of folk enlightenment, maybe put it into a jpg pic as a “meme” (horrible mis-use of that word!). Keep it simple – a quick saying or maybe a set of “tips” devoid of heavy philosophy that could wear down a bizzy day. It could be a Bible verse or a simple admonishment to be a more decent person.
There’s nothing wrong with this sort of stuff, and it probably has been present throughout the history of human interaction. But the volume and popularity of these sorts of things leads me to wonder if there isn’t a hunger for spirituality and connection that is missing from the ordinary grind of the day. There appears to be a missing presence in the moment, a sense that ghosts float past our conscience whispering a calling to be a better part of the world.
When Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich Conference with Adolf Hitler in September 1938, he believed he had an answer to his primary question. “What does Mr. Hitler want?” was on the mind of the Prime Minister going into the meeting, and it colored all of the proceedings.
The perception was that Germany was wronged in the Versailles Treaty and that Hitler, as the leader, was simply acting in his own nation’s interest. Chamberlain completely neglected the growing body of evidence that Hitler was indeed a psychopath who had his own interests in mind and was simply using Germany as a tool.
Diplomacy is always complicated, but with such people it is even moreso. More than seeking the right answers, it often becomes critical to ask the right questions in the first place.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 