Tag Archives: American Politics

Gun Rights

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To the Editor:
Sigmund Freud is not the most popular voice of reason in today’s psycho-chemical approach to controlling mental illness but it is undeniable that his psychosexual theories of sublimation and extension of elemental sexual anxiety can be applied to America’s fascination with guns, dating even back to the passage of the 2nd Amendment and the taming of the frontier, essentially Mother Earth.  Applied to Donald Trump, with his succession of trophy wives, his long red ties, his sexual braggadocio, his quest for adulation, and fascination with wealth and glamour,  Freud’s insights shine a light on his concern about the size of his hands.  It is more than a bit disconcerting that those same hands do command America’s military might and that his finger hovers above the nuclear trigger.  Hopefully his fiery rhetoric is just that, only rhetoric.

                Robert Porath

The QB Who Kicked the Hornets Nest

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To the Editor:

As someone coming of age in the times of the Civil Rights struggle, Viet Nam, Kent State, and the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy, I have frequently  wondered just what does it mean to be a “loyal American”?  What is it to “respect the Flag”?  What does “patriotism” entail?  In asking and addressing these same questions, Colin Kaepernick has become the Quarterback Who Kicked the Hornets Nest.  Any number of NFL teams could immediately use his skills, but the reason he is not playing is not a football decision.  It is a socio-political-economic decision based on the fear of teams and the league losing fan and advertising support.  Both Kaepernick and the owners have valid concerns, but the overriding question still is what does it mean to be an American? Or, for that matter, what is it to be a valid person in a still racially divided society?  In inserting himself into the fray, Donald Trump is that guy standing in a crowd surrounding what appears to be a fight about to break out who is yelling for the fighting to begin.  This is for his fan base, but it is utterly irresponsible behavior.

Robert Porath

Tierra Nueva

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05500010

Tierra Nueva

In this random pick-up-sticks, double helix

Melting pot amalgam and gene pool diaspora

Of multiracial physiognomy, skin color,

And multilingual saga, rhythm, and song

Of European, African, Asian, Semitic,

And Native Peoples world and voice

That is La Tierra Nueva, Las Americas,

What is it, here today, to be a person,

To be, certifiably, a human being,

And can we, that being, intervene

Upon our predisposed tribal fears,

Prejudice, and self judgement of value

And humanity based on heritage,

Wealth, gender, and skin tone?

Can or can’t we?  Are we, the People,

This mixed breed, capable or culpable?

Female Statuary

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To the Editor:
A not entirely trivial bit of the history of female statuary is John Ashcroft’s covering of the breasts of the blindfolded, scale holding symbols of Justice during his tenure as Attorney General.  If Harriet Tubman is not a proper replacement for Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, perhaps the Venus de Milo or Rodin’s The Kiss might serve to better reflect feminine beauty and mystery and deflect our tendencies to military engagement.  Similarly, lest the reality of Art upstage the surreality of ambition and war, the copy of Picasso’s “Guernica” portraying the anguish and suffering of a village being bombed and strafed during the Spanish Civil War was covered with a tarp as our intention to attack Iraq was being announced from the steps of the UN building in New York.  It seems we have but a tenuous grip on the realities of justice and life.
Robert Porath

Fake, fake, fake!

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Donald Trump made the first splash in his campaign for President with a “fake news” story that Obama was not born in America. Now he and his supporters cry, “Fake News!” at any reporting not favorable to him or his message, particularly in regard to the Russian involvement in his campaign. Looking past the tacit racism underlying the questioning of Obama’s “Americaness”, the claim of fake news has become a political tool to confound and confuse public perception of what may or may not be factual. A truthful evaluation of the Republican effort to Repeal and Replace Obama’s Affordable Care Act would term it the Fake Health Care Act in its denial of quality health care for those less fortunate, which also exposes the Fake Christianity of Republican politicians who choose to ignore the teachings of the Beatitudes. Through it all, it reveals that Donald Trump is a truly Fake Savior of America’s Greatness.

Robert Porath

A Guiding Thread

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To the Editor:
If there is a guiding thread through the maze of incoherence and distraction created by the ascendency of Donald Trump to the Presidency, it points to a plan that America be governed not on democratic principles but as an autocratic fascist oligarchy.  With a Cabinet filled with retired generals, CEOs, and billionaires, it is no wonder the President so admires Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs.  Further, the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United cleared the way for the unlimited power of wealth to influence American politics, which sits well with the Libertarian/Republican desire for a limited, deregulated “small government”.  This is a government not of the People but one by and for a wealthy elite.
Robert Porath

The Dung Beetle Congress

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To the Editor:
The Republican Party’s Repeal and Replace Obamacare efforts are rooted firmly in Social Darwinism, aka, the survival of only the fittest, as well as the Calvinist belief that being wealthy implied being in God’s favor, and the economic elitism of Ayn Rand. If you are poor, disabled, or otherwise unfortunate in life, your medical care is of no concern to the powers that be. Watching the slow determined slog of their attempts to push a bill to fruition through the halls of Congress brings to mind the image of a dung beetle resolutely rolling a ball of dung to its nesting place. One has to admire the dedicated and seemingly cheerful labor it applies to its task. That its prized possession has value to no one but itself is clearly not the beetle’s concern.
Robert Porath

The Power of the Gun

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To the Editor:

    Again following a mass shooting, gun sales are on the rise.  As a warning it should be noted that the death of Vincent Van Gogh, long thought to be a suicide, could be considered an accidental shooting, that he carried along a gun hoping to frighten away a group of children who were harassing him as he tried to paint in the fields around Arles, and that in a scuffle he was shot in the stomach, certainly not a likely target in suicide.  In either case, the simple presence of a gun had a fatal consequence.  This negative potential should never be underestimated.  The tragedy of Van Gogh is that at the peak of his artistic powers, creating paintings that are still so vibrant and alive today, his life was ended by the power of a gun.  The tragedy of America is that the power of the gun is so accepted as positive.

– RP

Double Think

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To the Editor:
    Considering the ease and frequency with which the Romney/Ryan ticket is able to tell bald-faced lies, one has to wonder at their level of self-awareness that they are openly lying.  With Paul Ryan, there is a sense that he tends to be a compulsive liar and that his level of Double-Think, his ability to hold equally in mind totally opposing ideas, is fairly impenetrable.  On the other hand, Mitt Romney seems fully aware of his lies and that he is committed to say whatever he has to in order to achieve his aims, essentially that his ends justify his means, not a bad way to become a multi-millionaire.  I suppose one could puzzle a bit over which form of lying is worse.  Double-Think runs strong through today’s American psyche, but, in Romney’s case, it should be pointed out that one’s means generally become one’s ends.
RP

Capitalism Is Not A System of Government

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To the Editor:
    Given the nature of human nature, history shows that the so-called “freedom” of unregulated, free-market capitalism simply does not work.  Further, “capitalism” is merely an economic system that allows wealth to be made from wealth.  It is not a system of government and is not, by its nature, automatically conducive to democracy and, in fact, seems increasingly a corrupting influence on our representative democracy. The joke about the Golden Rule, that those with the gold make the rules, demonstrates just how far from being democratically governed we are today in America.
    Important also to note here is that we are not dealing with absolutes.  Neither capitalism nor democracy is, of its own, intrinsically good or bad.  What seems lacking is a morality of discipline and self-government with a watchful eye toward a common good.  Edith Hamilton’s claim that Athenian Greece invented the freedom of self-government, rose to glory, then fell by succumbing to the lure of unlimited freedom and power should stand as a warning to all Americans that conscience is still an integral part of any social contract.
RP