Category Archives: 2024 Trip to South West United States

Scamland USA

2024 Trip to South West United States, Death of Truth, The Sleep of Reason

 

By and large Canada is not that different than America.  It’s just that everything in the US is in high def. Everything is magnified in America.

There are many things that are interesting when travelling in the US. It must be the most interesting place in the world. Crazies are certainly one of them. They abound here.

Take scammers for example. The latest and greatest scammer is the disgraced Congressman George Santos who was recently turfed out of office by his confrerés. First, you have to be pretty bad to warrant ejection, especially by your own side. Take a look at some of their members in good standing if you doubt that.

Here is how New York magazine summed up his short life so far:

“Most often, it’s best to assume what the Republican from Long Island has said about his life is bogus.”

 

Lately it has been revealed that his scams and lies and have gone into the realm of alleged serious malfeasance, but until then many of his lies were so ludicrous they were funny. For example, he claimed to have been such a serious volleyball star for his college team he actually had to have knee surgery on both knees because of his exuberant jumping. It turns out he never played for the volleyball team.

Lies like that though tend to find a congenial home in the modern FantasyLand.  We must get used to this. I will continue. That much is inevitable when truth is no longer valued.

Cooper’s Collar

2024 Trip to South West United States, Domestic Terrorism, Right-wing Extremism

 

After the motives of Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma bombing became clear, William Cooper who had inspired McVeigh became uncomfortable. He knew some people were pointing fingers at his organization.  But Cooper admitted nothing. Instead, he doubled down. He said, “They are in the process of attempting to propagandize the American people to believe that patriots bombed the building in Oklahoma City. No patriots would ever attack this nation. That’s what the word “patriot” means.”

Just like Donald Trump and his Trumpsters said after the attacks on the American capitol on January 6th 2021.  Those could not have been patriots they said.  Even though the rioters talked like Trump’s patriots, walked like Trump patriots and looked like Trump patriots presumably they were different.

He did not just say his movement was innocent, he claimed that the government was guilty. The government did it to discredit patriots, he said. He also called it a “sting operation to suck patriots into conducting an illegal act.” It was all part of a conspiracy to bring about a one world socialist government. Does this not all sound very familiar?

Again, the same attempt to deflect people from the truth was made by Trumpsters after January 6th when they said the government was responsible. They called it a false flag operation, suggesting that the government or Antifa was actually behind the riot. Later they even denied there was a riot.  Just a bunch of rambunctious tourists they said.

All of this is crazy, but what continues to amaze, is how Trump supporters believe this junk. In FantasyLand that is possible quite easily. When you live in FantasyLand, no belief is too crazy to be believed.

The Oklahoma City Massacre: Where Right-wing Hatred Ran Deep

2024 Trip to South West United States, 2024 Trip to Southwest USA, American Fascism, Domestic Terrorism, Political Violence, Right-wing Extremism

 

On April 19, 1995, just after 9  in the morning, another very important incident occurred in Oklahoma City.  It was the second anniversary of the Waco massacre. A rush of people was moving into the Alfred P. Murrah federal building at that time. Many of them were children. There was a day care in the building.

Timothy McVeigh wanted people to remember what had happened at Waco 2 years earlier. He wanted people to remember what happened there for a thousand years. Sort of like the proposed 1,000-year reign of the Nazis in Germany.  I suspect both episodes might  be remembered for a thousand years. Heinous crimes have a habit of staying in memory. Good deeds rarely get such sustained attention.

McVeigh had 5,000 pounds of explosive ammonium nitrate and nitro methane in the back of his rental truck. He lit a 2 minute fuse under the day care centre in the federal building. Think about that: he parked the truck, locked it, immediately under a day care center filled with kids. McVey walked away to a get-away vehicle.  The explosion killed 168 people including 19 children. It was called, “the worst act of terrorism in American history.” And it was home grown.

I remember when I heard about it that day. My immediate reaction was that it must have been initiated by some radical Islamic terrorists. A lot of Americans had the same presumption. We were wrong. It was set by radical domestic right-wing terrorists! This was home grown terrorism.

As Justin Ling said, “Oklahoma City followed years of apocalyptic declarations and incitement from the fringes of right-wing radio.”  This is what president Bill Clinton said at the time in response: “They leave the impression by their very words that violence is acceptable. You ought to see some of the things that are regularly said over the airwaves in American today.  Clinton ought to know. He and his wife Hillary were subjected to hate on the airwaves of America for years. they still are.  Perhaps no one in America has been more hated by the American right-wing than the two of them. They were frequently accused of hideous crimes such as accusations that they killed and ate—yes ate—hundreds of children. These were the wildest untrue and hateful accusations that could a have been hurled in America. This too went on for years.

Hatred runs deep in the American right-wing.

And of course, these wild accusations were made, as always, without any evidence to back them up.  The American right-wing does not need evidence to set them off. All they need is unsubstantiated claims and hate which are enough to light the fuse to the hate.

Yet Rush Limbaugh challenged Clinton the very next day on his radio show:

“Talk is not a crime and talk is not the culprit here. Talk didn’t buy the fertilizer, and the fuel oil. Talk didn’t drive the van and talk didn’t rent the van. A person did. A lunatic did.”

Yes, but talk ignited the flame that lit the fuse! Hateful talk can do that. Years of hateful talk can have an effect. The German Nazis proved that in Germany, as did the fascist Hutus in Rwanda, as did Donald Trump in America.

Talk is cheap, but hateful talk is costly.

Timothy McVeigh: Disciple of William Cooper

2024 Trip to South West United States, Extremism, guns, Right-wing Extremism

 

Timothy McVeigh, it turns out, was listening to William Cooper on his radio talk show  talking about Waco Texas and was struck by what he heard. He caught the sickness. He was inflamed like so many in the right-wing movement. He was lapped by the flames. He believed what he heard. It radicalized him.

Like to many other conservative Americans, Timothy McVeigh  always loved guns,. After High School though he became obsessed with guns. He read Soldier of Fortune magazine as if it was holy writ. He became a vocal proponent of gun rights. McVeigh was no dummy. He joined the army and graduated at the top of his class.

 

He was disciplined for buying a White Power shirt at a KKK rally. He was bathed in White Supremacist ideology. McVeigh was transformed by his role in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. Even though he won medals for his job as sniper, he was traumatized by the war.  His attitude underwent a sea change while he was there. He began to wonder what right he had to go to Iraq and tell Iraqis what to do in their own country but he was actually told to hurt them for not doing it his way!

 

He was considered for Special Forces work but failed because of his physical condition.  This humiliated McVeigh. He began to blame the US military rather than the people of Iraq. He saw the army as part of the socialist takeover of America. And in 1993 he was at the Waco siege hawking bumper stickers. He was the young man radically affected by what he saw at Waco. After that he roamed the country attending gun shows wherever he could. He was also awash with theories by William Cooper. He bought a video on Waco made by Cooper.  As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast series, “Flamethrowers”, he was listening to “the Big Lie.” That is an interesting expression in the history of extremism. It became even more interesting years later.

 Cooper in his tapes asked his listeners if they would stand up like a real man and a real woman? McVeigh heard Cooper say the time was near when everyone, including himself was going to have to make a decision. It was time to be counted and McVeigh was ready. Cooper asked, on the tape, “how  many more people are you going to allow to be jailed, persecuted, burned to death, murdered, because you are a coward.”

Later evidence  makes it clear that McVeigh took this message to heart. He was brave enough for the task at hand that brought him to Oklahoma City.

Wacky Waco

2024 Trip to South West United States, Domestic Terrorism, Extremism, guns, Right-wing Extremism

 

One of the most important incidents in the history of the whacky right-wing movement in the US, occurred, appropriately near a city called Waco Texas. That incident ignited the right-wing  talk-radio hosts around the country.

On April 19, 1993 there was a tense standoff near the Mount Carmel in Waco Texas between a small Christian sect known as the Branch Davidians and nearly 900 federal agents including the FBI, Customs, the National Guard and the Texas Rangers. To many it appeared like an epic struggle between Christians and government. Of course, the   government agents brought massive amounts of fire power with them.  Nothing but overwhelming force would do against this small Christian sect. This included a dozen tanks. Inside the fortified building there are about 100 Branch Davidians that included 20 children. About half the adults were women. It didn’t look like a fair fight. But should it be a fair fight? If Antifa is rioting in the streets of Seattle or Portland should they be met with equal force?  What if the rioters are a motor cycle gang. Do the authorities have to fight them fairly? Or should we allow them to bring overwhelming force?

The Christian sect had a leader David Koresh, after whom the group was named. They were not lambs led to the slaughter.  As Justin Ling explained on his CBC podcast, “They’ve got a 50-caliber cannon, machine guns, and more than a million rounds of ammunition. They are prepared for a holy war.”        This was a very well-armed sect of Christians.

Modern Christians like to be well-armed. No lily-livered pacifism for them. They don’t turn the other cheek; they turn the other AR-15.

 One of the officers on the site said the agents had walked into “a hail-storm in reverse.” I don’t know what that means but it doesn’t sound good to me.

The initial fire fight led to the deaths of 4 officers and 5 Branch Davidians. Since then, there was a very tense stand-off. The line from the Clinton administration was about saving the children inside the compound.  But why did they need saving? There was a very different version of the events on short-wave radio.

One broadcaster from Arizona said “this was the beginning of the end for Christian America.”  The Christians believed that no one in the church was compelled to go there. Everyone was there as a result of exercising their own free will or their parents exercising their own free will. As a result, according to this view, the attack on the site was an extreme example of government over reach and tyranny—i.e. government interfering with the freedom of the people. One of those people upset with the government and who espoused this view was radio talk-show host William Cooper. Cooper said,

“The U.S government is training this massive military force on Americans who are just exercising their religious freedom. For Cooper this siege vindicated the dire predictions he had been making for years—that the socialist, liberal government is about to take away your freedom. And you might be next!”

The fears were being stoked. And once again, paranoia was bringing bad decision making in its wake.

As one right-wing pundit said,

“The siege continues in Waco Texas. A small group of men and women trapped under siege by government forces. They are fighting the second battle of the Second American Revolution. Make no mistake about it folks—we are at war.”

 

Many Americans believed exactly that.  America was at war with its own government. As a result of Waco, the American survivalist and militia movement was born. This was the group that later included domestic terrorists such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and many others. The events of January 6th 2021 were a direct descendant of Waco.

 There was a young boy who came to see the action in Waco Texas. He was selling bumper sticker such as this: “Fear the government that fears your gun.” “Banning guns make the streets safe for a government takeover.” That young kid later made a lot of noise in the right-wing movement when he got a little older. His name was Timothy McVeigh.

Exposed as a Bully

2024 Trip to South West United States, Extremism

 

Shortly after we arrived in Arizona,  the author E.J. Carroll won a big damage award from a jury as compensation for defamatory remarks made about her  by the former President Donald Trump. She actually successfully sued him twice! The second jury awarded her $83 million after the second trial. Immediately after the first trial, Trump defamed her again, eliciting a second trial, and second multi-million-dollar award for damages.

Shortly after the second trial was over, she was interviewed by Rachel Maddow on television together with her two female attorneys. This must have driven Trump nuts to be bested by 3 women!

Carroll is an 80-year-old author who had been sexually abused by Donald Trump. That was determined by the jury in a private tort trial. It was not a criminal trial. The government’s Department of Justice did not start the claim. This was not a case of the “deep state” nor “started by Biden’s “corrupt Department of Justice” as Trump has so quick to claim as a result of other hearings. This was a case of 2 independent juries, and not biased Democrats, or liberal media,  deciding that Trump had sexually abused this woman and then told lies about what he had done.  And they were so disappointed with what he had done and said that they awarded her $83 million as compensation for his bad behaviour.

Carroll admitted she was terrified before the trial. She was so scared she lost her voice and could not speak.  But she had been sexually abused by Donald Trump and did not want to let him get away with it. This took tremendous courage because Trump is a significant foe. But as Carroll said triumphantly on the Rachel Maddow show “We’ve planted our flag.  We’ve stood up to the man…He is not there…He is like a rhino snorting.”

 

At the trial Carroll and everyone who watched it quickly realized Trump was a bully, and like so many bullies “he was nothing. We don’t need to be afraid of him.”  Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said after the verdict had been rendered, “We can stand up to the US’s biggest bully. We are not afraid of him.” The other lawyer for Carroll, Shawn Crowley who gave the summation to the jury asked them to consider “How much does he have to pay in order to stop him.” The first verdict was $5 million in the first case.  That was not enough to stop him. But Trump could not keep quiet and defamed her a second time right after the first verdict. He just refused to follow the rules. Crowley said about the jury, “They just saw it with their own eyes.”

Roberta Kaplan, the other lawyer for Carroll, said,

“Our thesis in this case was that Donald Trump was a bully who is incapable of following the rules. Then during the trial he acted like a bully and showed that he was incapable of following the rules. We almost didn’t need to say anything. The jury just watched him.”

 

I wish the Trumpsters had seen him. The case exposed the former president as a weak bully!

I know some Americans like bullies. They want a bully as President. They want a strong man, but I really think a majority don’t like bullies. Let’s wait and see. The election will tell that story.

 

Yearning for a Strongman Government

2024 Trip to South West United States, Death of Democracy, Populism, Right-wing Extremism, Trumpism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Recently, I watched the Rachel Maddow show on television. She is an unrelenting liberal so I don’t watch the show very often, figuring I get enough of that already. After watching the show though, I might change my mind. I just watched a small part of the show and it was very interesting.

First, she showed brief interviews with Trumpsters who had each been asked one simple question:  “If you had a choice of 4 more years of Joe Biden or 4 more years of Donald Trump as a dictator what would you choose?”

The answers were shocking. Each one chose Trump!  One said, “This country needs a dictator. I hate to say it, but it’s true.” He looked sheepish but he said it.  Another said, “Sometimes in life we need a good paddling from the principal to set our life on the right path. And this country needs a little of that.”  A young woman said, “I’d pick Trump all the way.” She also had a sheepish grin, but again, said it.  A number of them said “Trump” with enthusiasm.  They seemed to want a dictator.

Is it really true that Americans want a dictator? Dictatorship seems to have a lot of appeal in the US. Why is that?  Rachel Maddow said, many Americans want a strong man government and think that is what Trump will give them.

Hate Speech from both sides Now

2024 Trip to South West United States, Free Speech, Hate, racism

 

Unfortunately, in the United States where we are now staying for 3 months, like Canada where we live permanently , hate speech is on the rise. The War between Israel and Hamas has helped to spike the numbers. Hamas leaders and even North American supporters have been heard echoing the phrase “From the river to the Sea Palestine will be free.” It sound innocuous. but is this hate speech? Many in Canada and the US have used this to generate hate against Jews. Many Jews consider it anti-Semitism. It is often interpreted as a wish by members of Hamas, or their supporters  to wipe Israel off the face of the map. That surely would certainly be anti-Semitism.

The original 1977 party platform of Likud one of Israel’s major political parties, stated that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” The party has always emphasized the right of Jews to settle in this area, no matter what the declaration of the State of Israel said.  This has been a major influence on Zionist exclusionist policies.  Is this hate speech? How is it different from what Hamas or anti-Semite say? Palestinians see it the same way.

Here are my views: what is meant by such statements is a matter of context. To that extent, I agree with the statements made by the university presidents who were criticized for their feckless response to questioning by Republicans in the House of Representatives. Whether or not a statement is racist or antisemitic or not depends on what the person making the statement is really saying and really insinuating. It depends on who is saying it and what does he or she actually mean by saying it? Context is important.  On the other hand, sometimes such statements merely enunciate a political position which all of us are entitled to do. But such statements can be racist. Such statements can be hate.

With apologies to Joni Mitchell, I’ve looked at hate speech from both sides now and it’s just illusions I recall. All I know, is that hate speech is complicated and filled with illusions.

Absolute Presidential Immunity

2024 Trip to South West United States, Corruption, Trump, Trumpism

 

Living in the USA as we are currently doing, we quickly learn that here everything is about Donald Trump. The universe revolves around Trump. He loves that of course. There is no doubt in my mind that he is the most famous person the world has ever known. And again, he loves that too.

While we were in Arizona during our first week, former President Donald Trump, through his lawyers, and in response to a specific question from one of the Appeal Court judges, argued in court that as president he could order the assassination of his political rival and be immune from prosecution. He also argued he could sell state military secrets to a foreign power, and again, be immune from prosecution. In other words, there is nothing a president could do in his official capacity as president that would expose him to criminal prosecution, no matter how corrupt!.  This may have been the most radical proposal ever made in a court of law in the United States.  And Donald Trump took a day off from campaigning to hear his lawyers make exactly this this argument. If elected this could be very valuable to him.

I am astonished that this is even a possibility. But in the FantasyLand in which we currently live, this is a real possibility. We eagerly wait to hear what the court will decide.

This is a question I have for his millions of supporters. Is this what you are prepared to work for? This is what Trump says, but I really wonder what his supporters want. is this what they want?

School Shootings in the US are pretty Ho hum

2024 Trip to South West United States, guns

 

 

Another school shooting was in the news in the US soon after we arrived in Arizona. Ho hum. I learned an interesting thing about the US when we arrived. According to the World Population review the total number of school shootings per country from 2009 to 2018 are telling. They tell us a lot about the United States.  The US leads globally in school shootings by a very wide margin.  It had 288 during that time. Its nearest competitor in this dubious category is Mexico at 8 per year. The US has 36 times as many as Mexico, commonly perceived as a very violent country.  South Africa comes in third at 6 per year, Nigeria and Pakistan both at 4 and Brazil, Canada and France each at 2.  Canada has more than most but is far behind the US. Azerbaijan, China, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kenya, Russia and Turkey each average 1. No other country averages more than 1.

I have heard people say this means Americans  love their guns more than their children.

Yet, things seem to be getting worse. I learned that 2021, 2022, and 2023 were the three years with the highest number of school shootings in the US.

What does this tell us about the United States? I think it tells us a lot and none of it is very pleasant.