I'm not sure of what to think

Does adding a second bible add any substance, legitimacy or truth to what Trump swore to on Inauguration Day?  I doubt it.  It only serves to create an image of false piety for a man from whose mouth only comes lies - including the words "And" and "The".

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As I write this entry, less than two weeks have expired since Trump took office, and we're already seeing chaos in the land. Previously approved refugees, legal residents/green card holders, and other vetted people are being denied entry to the USA, because of Trump's latest executive order. How does this make us any safer? How does this make us appear to the rest of the world?  To me, it only gives nations such as Iran a propaganda advantage, as they will not reject previously approved holders of American passports from visiting their country. And to make things worse, the 3 Arabic speaking countries which are exempt from Trump's executive order (Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia) are those in which Trump has business interests.  Two of these countries (Saudi Arabia and the UAE) are countries that supplied the 19 hijackers that commandeered the planes on 9/11/01, killing almost 3,000 Americans.

An op-ed piece in the Huffington Post is already.talking about the inevitability of impeachment. But is that what a Democrat should be looking for?  Each day that Trump is in office, he tarnishes the GOP brand and helps to mobilize more potential Democratic voters - people who could be very useful in 2018 and 2020. When the Women's March gathered 3 times on the National Mall as many people as Trump's inauguration, one has a potential movement.  But when one takes into account the other 1,500,000 people protesting around the world, it's easy to see that a raw nerve has been touched.  We have to make sure that the reaction gets us the results we want.

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It is no accident that ALL of Trump's appointments have been to the extreme political right. His deal with Pence is likely the same he offered to John Kasich: You run both foreign and domestic affairs, while I make America great again.  Kasich has some ethics, Pence does not. He is a religious wingnut, someone more dangerous to us than Trump - something that I found hard to believe at first.  If we are stuck with a President Pence, he will follow the GOP policy with no compromises allowed. This is different from Trump, as he can easily be manipulated with flattery.  

The Huffington Post piece noted that Trump suffers from Malignant Narcissism.  Otto Kernberg characterizes it by an absence of conscience, a pathological grandiosity and quest for power, and a sadistic joy in cruelty. And everything said about Trump indicates a diagnosis of Malignant Narcissism would be one of the things high on the list of possibilities. Can we afford this in a national leader?

It is possible to manipulate someone like Trump.  It has often been said about him, that if you are the last to give him an opinion, he will often lean your way - as long as he feels in charge and feels that he is the strongest alpha male in the room.  However, it is much harder to manipulate someone like Pence, as his currency is power. Pence is smart enough to wait around until someone self destructs. And that's what Trump seems to be doing, seeing how much work and thought goes into being president.

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But I go back to the title of this entry, as it raises an important question: Is it in our best interest to help get Trump out of office, taking an immediate gain? Or, is it better to help Trump stay in office until the 2018 elections, preventing a potential President Pence from serving more than 6 years as President in his own right?  Can we afford the damage that Trump will do to this country in a little under than 720 days?  

I've already accepted that Trump will destroy as many external checks and balances as he can, regarding those we have on large businesses.  I've already accepted that Trump will be a disaster for the environment, given his belief that Global Warming is a Hoax.  And I've already accepted that he will be a disaster for human rights. Do we know ALL the risks of removing him from office either via impeachment or via the 25th amendment to the constitution?  I don't think so.  And that worries me.

The Iran Deal.... What the average political hack misses.

This is a picture I dare not blow up any further (pun intended) - it is of "Fat Man", the plutonium based bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.  And it is a little knowledge of the Manhattan Project and Nobel Prize winning scientist Glenn Seaborg that is needed to understand what is "in between the lines" of the deal recently cut with Iran.

According to nonuclear.se, Plutonium is a man-made nuclear explosive; it is created inside all nuclear reactors when uranium is bombarded with neutrons. Some uranium atoms can absorb a neutron without fissioning; when that happens, they are transmuted into plutonium atoms. Plutonium has become the nuclear explosive of choice in the world’s nuclear arsenals. Therefore, the goal of this deal had to be to stop Iran from developing a Plutonium based nuclear arsenal - Iran still could tell its hard-liners that they can produce a bomb.  The P5+1 (The permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) gets to be able to tell its hard-liners that Iran will not be able to produce Plutonium based bombs, explaining why this is so important in private.

No deal is perfect.  But this deal allows both sides to save face.  If anyone is worried about what will happen to Israel, they shouldn't be - the history of the US and the USSR shows how Mutual Assured Destruction helped prevent World War 3. (Or, I should say, that this war was fought via proxies and with money - a much safer form of warfare for all sides.) The Iranians may be crazy, but they are not insane.  The last thing they want to do is provoke the Israelis into exploding 1 of their estimated 100-200 warheads over Tehran.

If one looks at the size of a ball that represents the amount of fissile Plutonium needed for a bomb, it's easy to see that one could easily transport that much material anywhere on the globe.  Years ago, my high school had some non weapons grade "Yellowcake" (Uranium) - and I expect that 64 Kilos of the stuff would be much larger than the ball above.  In short, Iran has signed off on a deal which prevents its fissile material from being used by non-state operatives.  (That means: No Uranium or Plutonium in the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah.)

I'm not sure if Iran will live up to the letter of this deal.  But I expect that there will be many people interested in keeping everyone honest - and I'd bet that the Iranians are serious, if only because they prefer not to ignite an arms race between it, the Saudis and Egypt....

Iran - Again

What many of us often forget is that the people of Iran are human beings just like us.  Yet, a letter from the op-ed page of the New York Times stated that the only way to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons would be to bomb the country into submission.  This offends me. Iran and the USA may have been participating in a cold war against each other, but we have not been bombing each other's cities, nor have the two nations been in direct ground conflict with each other. Shouldn't diplomacy be given a chance before we see more American man and women come home in body bags?

In 1979-1980, I would have advocated blasting Iran off the map during the "Hostage Crisis". But as official US documents (carefully pieced together after having been shred) show, we were about to attempt to overthrow their democratically elected government. How could they trust any peace overture that could have been made? (especially when none were made for years.)  And yet, our current president overcame 35 years of hostilities to work with 5 other nations AND Iran to cut a deal that reduces the risk of nuclear war in the Middle East.

The following text was in an article written by Bill Moyers: 

"In its refinement of uranium, Iran has not progressed toward the level required for a nuclear weapon since its 2013 interim agreement with the global powers known as “the p-5 plus one” – for the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Instead, Iran has dialed back the level of refinement to below 5 percent (what’s needed for generating electricity) from its earlier level of 20 percent (needed for medical research) — compared with the 90-plus percent purity to build a nuclear weapon." 

This makes me wonder - Is Iran really the threat our media has made the country out to be? I doubt it.  But, if Iran were to restart Uranium refinement, it could trigger a Middle East arms race, as noted in the New York Times op-ed piece:

Ironically perhaps, Israel’s nuclear weapons have not triggered an arms race. Other states in the region understood — even if they couldn’t admit it publicly — that Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.

Iran is a different story. Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal its ambitions. Saudi, Egyptian and Turkish interests are complex and conflicting, but faced with Iran’s threat, all have concluded that nuclear weapons are essential.

If one ignores the bellicose position of the op-ed piece's author, John R. Bolton, one sees that the Saudis, Egyptians, and Turks have been considering going nuclear in response to Iran's position. Yet, the Iranians are willing to ratchet down their nuclear technology and use it (for now?) for peace. Currently, the Saudis and Iranians are on opposite sides of a war being fought in Yemen. Could you imagine what would happen if either (or both) nations had nuclear weapons at its disposal? Could you imagine what would happen (and I believe it would) if any of this material would make it out of the labs and into unauthorized hands?

To Israel, any but the most restrictive and emasculating deal is unacceptable - Iran is an existential threat to the Jewish state. But is this deal unacceptable to America's long term interests? Israel pays us no taxes. Israel does not vote in our elections. And Israel is not necessarily an ally we can trust. If the Prime Minister of Israel can destroy the hope for a two-state peace solution for Israel and Palestine in a reelection bid, can we trust him to act in other ways that benefit the United States?

Yes, gradual normalization of relations with Iran is a risk. But it is the only path that makes sense. As I see it, there will be three regional players jockeying for influence in the Middle East - Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. And it is America's interest to make sure that none of these powers becomes a hegemon - especially when the world is still addicted to Middle East Oil. America needs to disentangle itself from the Middle East, and a deal with Iran may be our ticket to leave the region. Given our headaches in the region since 1980, this may be the only time we can use that ticket and go home.  If the Chinese need that oil, let them get stuck in the regional quagmire!

The more things change, the more they stay the same - in the South

Years ago, scenes such as this were common through the states that rebelled against the Union in 1861. Although Slavery was eliminated by 1865, the South created "Jim Crow" and "Separate but Equal" as tools to keep Blacks disenfranchised. Making Blacks use separate facilities (if they existed) for basic needs (such as getting a drink of ice water, as in the photo above) was a way of telling Blacks that they were valued little more than cattle on the farm. Today, these signs are long gone. Yet, the South (with other conservative states) are creating a new class of third class citizen by use of laws that discriminate against a very small number of people - Transgenders. 

It shocked America when the former George Jorgensen came back to the United States in 1951 as Christine Jorgensen. She was looked on as a form of oddity then, as there were only a handful of people who had undergone a sex change operation. Even Louis Farrakhan (in his pre-Muslim Brotherhood days) wrote a song about her - "Is she is, or is she ain't?" Yet, I can't recall anyone trying to deny her the rights to go about as a woman in society. (I can't say whether she had an amended birth certificate or other ID that identified her as female, but she was treated as such by most people she met.)

However things have changed. We now know that transgenders are at least 1/3000th of our nation's population, and maybe more. And as more and more transgenders decide to live in the gender other than that assigned at birth, we're seeing conservative elements in society attempting to bring back obstacles that are intended to let transgenders know that they are considered not worthy of having basic rights.

The author of this blog entry (Wingnuts and the political machine) notes that the bigots are attacking basic human needs, such as the right of the transgenders to go to the bathroom. Since it doesn't make sense to provide separate facilities (there is no "Separate but Equal" requirement for transgenders) for such a small population, the laws that ban transgenders from using appropriate bathrooms mean that there is no place for these people to go.

Why does the sight of a transgender person worry a certain class of conservatives so much? I think that the idea of transgenders provide a proof that the gender binary that has been indoctrinated into some people since childhood is at risk. And they would rather destroy any facts that challenge their understanding of the world.  Could you imagine what these people would feel if they were to see one permanent exhibit at NYC's Museum of Sex? The exhibit I note has examples of animals which change their sex, animals which have both male and female sex organs, and animals that do not reproduce sexually. This certainly does not agree with the biblical account of creation.

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You'll notice that I started with an issue that affects a small percentage of the population. But it gets worse from there. America is a nation of immigrants. Yet, narrow minded people are "suggesting" that people change their names when they come to America to reduce the effort that the "natives" need to expend to learn their new neighbors' names. 

Time and time again, I see postings trying to stir up hatred of Islam from some of my more conservative friends. There is legitimate fear of extremists - these friends see evidence of what happens when radical Islamists get control of countries, and they are right to be worried. But they don't see that their imposition of a fundamentalist form of Christianity is almost as bad as what they fear. Yet, they do make some good points, when they note how the imposition of fundamentalist Islam has affected several countries.

 Iran - Before and After

 Egypt - Before and After

And this problem even infects a "Christian" country when a large number of fundamentalist Muslims immigrate there.....

The Netherlands -

Before and After

What I find interesting is that Christian fundamentalists who fear change can be just as extreme as Muslim fundamentalists. Both believe in forcing others to live their way - even if it means destroying anything which challenges their world view. And in the United States, it is our South that tends to put the most social restrictions on individual liberty. 

I hope that over time, it will become impossible to hold people down using religion and god as excuses to justify mistreatment of individuals. To see this day, forward thinking people will need to gain control of the media and broadcast their messages louder and more often than the opposition. As long as backward thinking people control the messages heard by the general public, we have a great risk of moving backward - as illustrated by the above pictures of Iran, Egypt and The Netherlands.  It will mean that we protect people that we don't really understand, such as Transgenders. But by protecting small minorities first, we prevent the back sliding that would put larger groups (such as Blacks) at greater risk....

Persia, Iran, no matter what one calls this nation, we must deal with it.

I can still remember that in my lifetime, the United States once considered Iran as one of its closest allies. And there is no reason not to do so today, save for a 35 year pissing match that was triggered by the Embassy Hostage Crisis and the United States getting exposed as preparing to overthrow the duly elected government of Iran.

This conflict between nations should not only be examined from the American side (we have just complaints), but from the Iranian side as well (where they also have just complaints). What would be the key issue getting in the way of normalizing relations between the two countries after a generation and a half, if Israel was not given a veto over our actions in the Middle East?  Both countries want to crush ISIS. Both countries want stability in the region. And both countries have legitimate concerns about the balance of power in the region.

Looking at the above map, one can easily see the regional importance of Iran - it borders part of the former USSR, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and shares the Persian Gulf with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, The U.A.E. and Oman. This country could either cause a lot of mischief, or be a valuable power for peace. But without normal diplomatic and trade relations, we have no direct way to influence them to work with us. (I must note that American soldiers are reported to being ferried over Iranian airspace to Afghanistan via foreign flagged aircraft, with the tacit approval of the Iranians. So there is something going on behind the scenes that few people want to talk about in a loud voice.) So it only makes sense to find ways to openly work with this country, if only because they hold a strategically important position in the region.

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When I started writing this entry, the P5+1 (5 Permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany - a major Iran trading partner) negotiations are taking place to resolve the West's issues with Iran's stated plans to develop nuclear technology for peaceful uses. These negotiations have been extended for several months because both sides realized the importance of cutting a deal everyone could live with. 

As it was 35+ years ago, both sides have legitimate issues. From our perspective in the West, it's easy to understand our goal - this world does not need another nation with the capability of making nuclear weapons. When India and Pakistan developed their bombs, it took a lot of diplomacy to develop deals that preserved most of the pre-bomb status quo, and allowed both countries to save face while not getting into a nuclear arms race as the USA and USSR did after WW2. But Iran has a legitimate issue that we in the West don't think of - Tehran is one of the most polluted cities on Earth. Iran's leadership knows that it must lead the country out of the fossil fuel age, and sees nuclear energy as the best short term way to bridge the gap from a fossil fuel age and a renewable fuel age. They simply want to control their destiny - and this is very understandable.

When the Israeli PM, Bibi Netanyahu, was invited to speak to Congress, it was a slap in our president's face, and a violation of protocol. Congress does not make foreign policy. That power is solely invested in the executive branch of government. When Bibi spoke, he was against a deal with Iran, considering that nation's policies to be an existential threat to his country. And most in the GOP support Israel with unquestioned loyalty - as if they want to accelerate the "Second Coming" via support of Israel's bellicose policies. Bibi had no alternative to negotiations - and it appeared that he wanted the USA to fight a war against Iran that his country couldn't win alone.

Luckily, Obama is more cerebral in his thought patterns. He knows that we have a once in a generation chance to gradually shift Iran into a partner for peace. With the exceptions of Egypt and Jordan, no Middle East Muslim country has relations with Israel. Officially, they all call for Israel's destruction, while working very quietly with Israel on the side. This is what we would likely see several years after a deal with Iran. But it will take time to get there.

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Sadly, 47 US Senators wrote a letter to Iran attempting to undercut Obama's ability to work with the Iranians in negotiating a nuclear technology treaty. The NY Daily News labeled these Senators as traitors on its front page. And the Washington Post simply considers the actions of these senators irresponsible. Luckily, the Iranian leadership recognizes this as a Propaganda Ploy and responded accordingly, enlightening these Senators about what our Constitution and International Law say about the subject. And in an article in the Daily Kos, they note that Al Jazeera got it right - The Iran deal will be a Security Council Non-Proliferation Treaty Resolution, and likely be covered by a previous treaty ratified by our Legislative branch of government. I'll bet that these Senators now wish they had tried to make their point with softer words and actions....

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As I said in this entry's title - Iran is a country that must be dealt with. And it only makes sense for us to deal with Iran from a position of mutual respect, as only with respect will we be able to resolve our differences.....