Another Depressing Presidential Campaign is Underway

“Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.”

“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.”

- Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)


Recently, some thoughtful friends of mine have been writing about how the personalities of Presidential candidates and their individual world view are not really crucial to the process of how they manage the economy. These friends equate the economy with all the reasons to elect a candidate. I suppose this is a rationalization of how to support a Texas top gun like Rick Perry or a crazy woman like Michelle Bachmann whose primitive social instincts are fantastically out of touch with the 21st century. The economy is important, of course, but there are other issues that trouble people, including a woman’s right to choose, birth control, education, a safety net for our citizens, and the government’s ability to create infrastructure and an environment in which people can live in safety.


Of course, economic policy is an adjunct to this, but it is not the sole thing. 


I guess my perspective is different: I believe that the socio-religious-anti-science zealotry of some of the candidates, especially on the Republican side of the aisle that unctuously panders to the religious right is a disingenuous manifestation of a hypocritical vote solicitation-at-any-cost mantra. And when President Obama also does the same thing, “may God bless the United States of America,” at the end of every speech, he is no less obsequious.  Earlier presidents did not need to wear flag pins or make ubiquitous and gratuitous religious references in order to please the voting public. Abraham Lincoln’s references to God were not done as a matter of course at the end of every speech. And certainly Thomas Jefferson did not do so.


I understand the perhaps human genetic need to believe in a supernatural force to provide social cohesion and an ability to war against other tribes, but why must it be a prerequisite to garner votes? Why must every speech be an appeal to piety? Are not Muslim fundamentalists the same as Jewish fundamentalists or the Catholic Church in their a priori discounting of other faiths, claiming their faith is the exclusive path to salvation?


At least the Catholic Church is somewhat consistent: no birth control, no capital punishment, and no abortion. But its hypocritical and certainly not biblical 16th century calls to celibacy among priests so that the church could perpetuate its property and estates are no indication of godliness. And there is a cogent argument that the celibacy requirement attracts sexually abusive individuals to its ranks.  The Catholic religious hierarchy continues to mystify me.


Why is the American public so ostensibly pious? Europeans have already moved away from state religions, but in the United States, there is an almost secular state religion, an unintended consequence stemming from the tolerance set forth in the Constitution. The entire fringe religious fundamentalism in this country has a cult-like tenor to it, an irrationality that is almost indecipherable yet understandable at the same time. I think the candidates should be extensively questioned about whether they expect to govern by divine revelation. Michelle Bachmann has been particularly adept at dodging that question.  George W. Bush, born again, took us into two wars costing trillions of dollars, which history has borne out to be unnecessary, given recent events in the Middle East. 


I still remember the Republican debate in 2008 when the candidates were asked if they believe in the theory of evolution and all raised their hands in the negative. That question should be put to the candidates again.


At the same time, the ideological, proto-religious aspect of the economic arguments presented today is undeniable. On the right are the zealots who want to remove government from the economic process, yet wish to include it in the social agenda.  Do not abort the child, but once it is born unwanted, abandoned, and neglected, let it inhabit the lower depths of a Dickensian untervelt of deprivation, ignorance and poverty. 


America must find a rational alternative to this mind numbing debate: Moving beyond piety in its political dialogue, whether it be a religious or dogmatic view of economic solutions or its misappropriated social creed of imposing religious education and its anti science dogma in the public schools.


Focusing on the solutions to our social problems through ideology is neither productive nor encouraging of solutions.

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Why the West is allowing Ukrainians to Bleed and Die

November 21, 2025
During his “wilderness years,” Churchill understood Adolf Hitler’s ambitions, presciently shouting to a deaf world the dangers ahead. The Rhineland. Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia gobbled up while appeasers twiddled. England and France could have sent Hitler packing. Instead, they gave him three more years to arm. It was too late. Fifty million died. Stalin, double-crossed by his former Poland-dividing German friend, decided too late that he had to fight. Millions of Soviets soldiers and civilians died because of his dithering. FDR had to contend with America Firsters and could have entered the war sooner; he had third term political considerations in in 1940; but he knew he had to fight, too. Eventually. WE RELIVE THE MISTAKES OF HISTORY AT OUR OWN PERIL, LIKE WILEY CAYOTE CHASING THE ROAD RUNNER. PUTIN INVADED A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY. STOP HIM, GERMANS. STOP HIM, FRENCHMEN. STOP HIM, NATO. STOP HIM, AMERICA. UKRAINIAN CHILDREN ARE FREEZING AND STARVING. PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR LIVES TO A RUSSIAN BLOODTHIRSTY PYROMANIAC, A HANNIBAL LECTER. Here’s the rub: using time as his weapon, like Hitler, Putin is conscripting, propagandizing, and gradually conscripting massive manpower—constructing his war machine, gaslighting his people, building support, slowly, craftily, cunningly, odiously. Russians believe his lies about Ukraine as a Nazi haven, a virtual pizza parlor filled with basement dwelling pedophiles, or in this case, jackbooted storm troopers. Despite President Zelensky’s Churchillian appearance before congress, we must move swiftly, because time is on Putin’s side. A war of attrition is not on Ukraine’s side. Even with US Ordinance, rockets, drones, artillery. Western fear is Putin’s ally. Time is Putin’s ally. Wars start slowly but inevitably spiral out of control; aid the west provides the Ukrainians resembles aid the US gave to England in 1940, followed by exponential materiel increase from the great American “arsenal of democracy.” It was not enough. Not in 1940 and not enough in 2022; it will not be enough in 2023, 2024, 2025 as this war drags on. Too many Russians, too much manpower. Too much time. Victory requires a credible threat of NATO mobilization—an army ready to do battle. And an ultimatum. But that will not happen, I fear. Billions of dollars for weapons in a proxy war with Ukrainians fighting Russians has been impactful. Americans can watch Netflix war movies while Ukrainians bleed. They can watch Tom Hanks storm the beach at Normandy. Much less dangerous. Let’s just ship some more rockets to Ukraine instead. Yellowstone is on. Even so, it was heartening to see the bipartisan support for Ukraine in the Congress. Military planners in the Pentagon and in Western European capitals should be preparing for a wider war. It would be malfeasant for them not to do. We just don’t realize it yet. NATO is obliged to tell Putin to get out of Ukraine or face an allied army to evict him. Putin must be given an ultimatum to get out or face military force. Germans and French, British and American, Canadian and Australian. Putin understands naked power. The west must mobilize. He does not understand anything else. Lenin said, “push forward the bayonet. If you find soft flesh, push. If you find steel, retreat.” Putin learned Lenin in school; Lenin is in his DNA. He learned it in the KGB. He learned it in Mother Russia. He wants it all. He is Czar Nicholas, Comrade Stalin, Comrade Lenin all rolled into a painting in the Hermitage, his hometown museum, where he went as a schoolboy, where his parents took him, where he learned of the greatness of Russia. Where the Czar had palaces. Russians never had democratic traditions. Ask Nicholas II and his family, brutally executed by Bolsheviks. Ask the millions starved by Stalin in the Ukraine during his communized agriculture plan. Ask the people sent to the Gulag, or the Hungarians who dared to revolt against the Soviet hammer and sickle. Ask the subjugated Poles carved up by Stalin and Hitler. Ask all of the subjugated and terrorized people who suffered behind the iron curtain. Ask Alexi Navalny, a political prisoner, poisoned once, and now jailed in a Russian gulag. A delusional revanchist KGB agent in the Kremlin tries to raise the Soviet corpse by terrorizing a sovereign nation. A nation which had its own history before Lenin and his desciples created a dark Bolshevik empire. NATO, led by Germany and France and then the United States, face the eventual inevitability of mobilizing an army to kick Putin out of Ukraine and Crimea. The alternative is too grim to contemplate. Trench warfare. Stalemate. Ukrainians under siege. Massive Russian armies. Possibly being defeated. World economic disruption. Continued war crimes. A war of attrition, cold and misery. I hope I am wrong about this.  Western ambitions about this outrageous war ending through negotiation are delusional. If Putin sees that we are serious about the sovereignty of nations, he must face a serious military threat-- mobilization of NATO forces. Only then he will likely back down. Until then brave Ukrainians will bleed, freeze and die bearing the brunt of our fear.

Thank Goodness the Election is Over

November 21, 2025
This is my first blog entry, and a fine time it is for it, if I must say so myself. Florida has now elected an ethically challenged Republican governor, who essentially flooded the airwaves with negative ads about Alex Sink, the democratic candidate. People who have voted for him will not be surprised if he disappoints by trying to shut the door to the courthouse to "protect" businesses which despoil the environment, drill for oil in pristine seas off the coast, or manufacture harmful products. On the national scene, people are amazed that tea partiers have gained so many seats in the House of Representatives, by mouthing standard platitudes of how they are going to slash spending. But where? They do not say. Elected to the United States Senate is Marco Rubio, a 39 year old tea party conservative, who has railed against a woman's right to choose, waffled on global warming, and thinks that America is moving in the wrong direction. He expects to cure this problem by slashing the budget and making "hard choices," but has failed to specify which choices. Not social security because his 80 something mother is a beneficiary, but more likely because he fears the wrath of Florida's seniors. He is supposedly a rising star in the Republican party and since the other tea partiers are pretty crazy, he probably won't be around for his full term, unless he keeps his seat while running for higher office a la Joe Lieberman. The selling of candidates like bars of soap continues, and the insulting, demeaning ads are over, but the consequences of the electorate not having to think too much about the candidates or listen seriously to debates about complex issues should be troublesome to any thoughtful person. People in Florida should not be discouraged, however. Now that the GOP has some power, they will be held responsible by the punditry, including yours truly in the next election.

George Bush has His New Book Out.....

November 21, 2025
George Bush has his new book out. I have not yet read it, but I have heard him interviewed on TV and have read reviews of the book. This frat boy, this pious peddler of religious virtue, this hypocrite now wants to sell his writing (if he wrote it at all) as though he would be regarded kindly by history. He will not. He lacks no chutzpah. Ignorance surely is bliss. His absence of remorse for sending our young service men and women to fight and die or have a leg or an arm blown off, is an exemplar of hubris and rationalization with which history will be able to evaluate his Presidency for its true worthlessness. Claiming to "protect Americans," he invaded a country that did not present an existential threat to our national security, violating his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. Arguably he is a war criminal, having authorized torture and assuming responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of thousands of American youths, as well as around 100,000 innocent civilian Iraqis. Speaking of audacity, the current occupant of the White House could use some. His potential compromise of the Bush tax cuts, favoring the richest of Americans threatens to perpetuate a growing disparity between the super rich and the rest of us. Imposing taxes to implement social policy, despite Republican protestations, is not a new phenomenon. Seems that the American people have been fed and are voraciously consuming the malarkey of the conservatives who, despite evidence to the contrary, still believe that these rich folk are benefactors who create more jobs when they fail to pay their fair share of taxes. These are the same people who spent two trillion dollars on two wars and insist that we need a fleet of warplanes and billion dollar aircraft carriers to fight an amorphous band of illiterate religious fundamentalist terrorist thugs who have to smuggle explosive-laden printer cartridges onto airplanes or fill a truck with explosives to attack us. Now we need to get spending under control, they say. No present day politician, Republican, Democrat or Tea Partier seems to have the courage to tell us exactly what they will cut. Social Security? The defense budget? Veterans Benefits? Medicare? The truth be told, no one dares. It must be the fault of the lawyers