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THE ART OF THE PURGE–FIRST STALIN, NOW TRUMP: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 12, 2025 at 12:13 am

Donald Trump made butchering the federal workforce a major issue during his 2024 campaign for President. And since taking office for the second time on January 20, he’s thoroughly made good on it—with relish.     

All of this was entirely predictable—long before Trump re-entered the White House.

And Part Two of my three-part series, “Love Thy Dictator,” published on August 21, 2024, did just that.  From that post: 

Under Project 2025:

  • The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
  • Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
  • States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California, has done. 
  • Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished. 
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.

  • Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
  • The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
  • Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
  • Abortion would be outlawed.
  • Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
  • Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
  • The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.  

Trump’s declaring all-out war on America’s cherished institutions—such as the Forest Service, Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Food and Drug Administration—is unprecedented in United States history.

It will also prove catastrophic for Trump’s constituencies—as well for those who totally oppose his reign. 

Even billionaires—the constituency Trump cares about most—need reliable weather reports before  setting out on their private jets or yachts.

Eliminating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will deprive them (as well as millions Trump doesn’t care about) of reliable information on approaching storms and other unsafe weather conditions.

Eliminating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will expose everyone—billionaires included—to the threats of widespread diseases such as Ebola and typhoid. 

And as of February 25, CBS and other reliable news media have reported a new virus rising out of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the majority of cases, the interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been just 48 hours.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logo

Firing workers at the Transportation Security Agency—which is responsible for preventing aircraft hijackings—can only result in a repetition of 9/11-style hijackings.

The TSA was born in 2001, just two months after Islamic terrorists slaughtered 3,000 Americans via hijacked planes in New York and Washington, D.C—and signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush.

Firing employees at the Department of Defense will endanger America’s national security by drastically lowering morale as remaining employees must carry out their own duties and those of fired workers.

Firing workers at the Federal Aviation Administration virtually guarantees an increase in airline disasters. Since Trump took office on January 20, there have been 14 aviation disasters, killing a total of 93 people. 

Firing employees at the Food and Drug Administration will result in a return to unsafe food, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements, vaccines, medical devices, cosmetics, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices and veterinary products.

The FDA dates back to 1906 and the administration of Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. Even billionaires—Trump’s preferred constituency—must eat and seek medical care, so they will be as disadvantaged by its demise as ordinary Americans.

Although Trump’s purges—current and continuing—of his own government are unprecedented for the United States, they nevertheless have a historical precedent. 

Unfortunately for Americans, that precedent occurred in the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin.

The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion of 1941.

Joseph Stalin

An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner. 

“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”

In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.

Its victims included:

  • Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
  • Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
  • Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
  • One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.

And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, a major Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937. 

Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power. 

THE ART OF THE PURGE–FIRST STALIN, NOW TRUMP: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 11, 2025 at 12:44 am

Donald Trump made butchering the federal workforce a major issue during his 2024 campaign for President. And since taking office for the second time on January 20, he’s thoroughly made good on it—with relish.  

There is no better symbolism of this than the video of his billionaire enforcer Elon Musk literally wielding a chainsaw at a CPAC convention at Orin Hill, Maryland, on February 20.

Musk appeared onstage, wearing shades and his trademark black “Make America Great Again” hat, and said Argentine President Javier Milei had a gift for him.

The Argentine leader then walked onstage with the red chainsaw and passed it to Musk. The chainsaw was engraved with Milei’s slogan, “Viva la libertad, carajo”—“Long live liberty, damn it.”

Waving the power tool high, Musk shouted: “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy! Chainsaw!”

Portrait of Elon Musk, a white, middle-age man with short, dark hair, wearing a black suit

Elon Musk

Meanwhile, CNN has been tracking the number—and effects—of the mushrooming cuts at federal offices in Washington and across the United States. 

By February 28, these are the numbers so far:

  • HUD Community Planning and Development – About 780 employees fired (83.3%)
  • Agency for International Development – About 2,000 employees fired (20%)
  • Department of Energy – At least 1.8 thousand employees fired (10.6%)
  • National Forest Service – About 3.4 thousand employees fired (9.7%)
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – About 800 employees fired (6.4%)
  • Internal Revenue Service – At least 6,000 employees fired (6.3%)
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – About 750 employees fired (5.9%)
  • Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – At least 100 employees fired (5.9%)
  • Food and Drug Administration Food Division – 89 employees fired (4.5%)
  • National Institutes of Health – About 1.1 thousand employees fired (5.3%)
  • Department of Education – At least 60 employees fired (1.4%)
  • Federal Aviation Administration – About 400 employees fired (0.9%)
  • Department of Defense – 5.4 thousand employees fired (0.8%)
  • Department of Veterans Affairs – At least 2.4 thousand employees fired (0.5%)
  • Transportation Security Administration – 243 employees fired (0.4%)

Others who have been summarily fired—without warning–include:

  • 17 Inspectors General, the executive branch watchdogs who conduct audits and investigations of executive branch actions
  • The Board of Trustees members for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts —with Trump naming himself as chairman
  • Elain Weintraub, chair of the Federal Elections Committee, which enforces campaign finance laws and oversees federal elections
  • Gwynne Wilcox, the first black woman to serve on the National Labor Relations Board;
  • Eight senior FBI officials involved in investigating the January 6 Capitol riots
  • Several Justice Department prosecutors who had investigated Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate

And this is just within the first month of the Trump administration. More mass firings are certain to be coming.  

Related image

Donald Trump

But statistics tell only part of the story—and entirely leave out the human element. Among the reactions of the fired federal employees interviewed by CNN:

  • “In spite of everything, I am just waiting on word to go back to work so I can serve the American people. That’s why I’m in public service; that’s why all of us are.” Federal worker – Food and Drug Administration
  • “There are five of us [in my office] who moved over from other HR departments. We are military spouses, we are veterans, one with 18 years.” – Arielle Pines, Veterans Affairs
  • “I was given no time to reach out to colleagues or even clean out my office.” Andria Townsend – National Park Service  
  • “It was a job I loved doing, protecting consumers every day. It will also have a pretty serious financial impact on my family.” Federal worker – Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 
  • “I don’t even have a letter of termination to get unemployment.” Victoria DeLano – Department of Education 
  • “I deployed twice. I spent so much time away from my family. I was gone when my mom passed away. I feel very much like the message is that my service isn’t valued.” Chelsea Milburn – Department of Education employee and veteran

All of this was entirely predictable—long before Trump re-entered the White House. 

And Part Two of my three-part series, “Love Thy Dictator,” published on August 21, 2024, did just that.  From that post:

Donald Trump’s  ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.    

This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.

Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.

Under Project 2025:

  • Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
  • Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
  • Republicans believe the Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.

  • As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
  • The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin. 
  • Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.

400,000 COVID DEATHS LATER, AMERICANS AWAIT THEIR NEXT PLAGUE

In Business, Entertainment, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 6, 2025 at 12:12 am

On November 8, 1963—57 years before COVID-19 invaded the United States—Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” offered a prophecy of future disaster for the country.  

“The Old Man in the Cave” is set in a post-apocalyptic rural town in 1974, 10 years after a nuclear war has devastated the United States. 

A nuclear explosion

The townspeople have discovered a supply of canned food. However, they are waiting for Mr. Goldsmith [John Anderson], their leader, to return with a message from the mysterious and unseen “old man in the cave.” Then they will learn whether the food is contaminated with radiation.

When Goldsmith returns, he informs them that the old man has declared the food is contaminated and that it should be destroyed.

Shortly thereafter, three soldiers led by Major French [James Coburn] enter the town and clash with Goldsmith as they try to establish their authority.

French is clearly a precursor of Donald Trump: Demanding instant obedience and threatening death to anyone who disobeys him, he claims he will organize the region to rebuild society..

President Trump tests positive for COVID-19 | KRCR

Donald Trump

However, Goldsmith believes that French and his men simply want to strip the town of its food.

French attacks the townspeople’s belief in the seemingly infallible “old man in the cave.” He tells them they have survived these past 10 years—but they haven’t lived. 

Fifty-seven years later, Donald Trump will furiously attack not COVID-19 but the medical advice of his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—especially that provided by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious disease.

He will disdain the wearing of masks and social distancing, and attack those Democratic governors who impose stay-at-home orders to contain the virus. He will offer a series of rosy predictions—none of which come true—that the virus will soon end.

His “cures” include ingesting Clorox bleach and/or having UV light shined up one’s anus.

Interferon Plays Pivotal, Inflammatory Role in Severe COVID-19 Cases

COVID-19 virus

And French holds himself out as the man who can deliver them a wonderful new future.

Fifty-seven years later, Donald Trump will similarly declare: “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

French tempts the townspeople to eat the food Goldsmith warned was contaminated. There is a wild orgy of gluttony as they greedily consume it. 

Only Goldsmith refuses to partake in the food orgy.

The townspeople turn on Goldsmith and threaten him with death unless he reveals the identity of “the old man in the cave.” Goldsmith finally takes the assembly to the cave to reveal his source: A computer.

French incites the townspeople to stone the computer with rocks and canned goods until it explodes. Then French leads the people into celebrating their new-found freedom from this “tyranny”. 

Fifty-seven years later, Trump will similarly incite his followers to attack the United States Capitol building to halt the legal transfer of Presidential power from himself to Joe Biden. 

But as Goldsmith had insisted, the “old man” was correct: The canned goods were contaminated with radiation. All the townspeople—including French and the soldiers—die, their bodies left lying throughout the streets.

Trump will similarly tempt millions of Americans to ignore the deaths of tens of thousands of their fellow citizens from COVID-19 and the overwhelming of the nation’s hospitals. The result will be a vast increase in deaths.

Only one man survives—Goldsmith, who has refused to eat the forbidden food and somberly walks out of the now-dead town.  

As always in a “Twilight Zone” episode, it is Rod Serling who gets the final word: “Mr. Goldsmith, survivor. An eyewitness to man’s imperfection. An observer of the very human trait of greed. And a chronicler of the last chapter—the one reading ‘suicide’. Not a prediction of what is to be, just a projection of what could be. This has been The Twilight Zone.” 

Dark-haired man holding a lit cigarette

Rod Serling

Except that Serling was wrong: “The Old Man in the Cave” has proven an uncanny prediction of what did happen in America.

* * * * *

The chief lesson to be learned from the COVID-19 epidemic is that catastrophe inevitably results when natural disaster collides with an evil and incompetent administration.

And totally ignoring that lesson were the 77 million Americans who re-elected Donald Trump—the man most responsible for the deaths of 400,000 Americans—as President. 

Under his tyrannical rule, the United States suffered not simply from a lethal virus but a combination of denial, lies, Republican subservience, chaos, extortion, propaganda as news, quackery as medicine, premature demands to “re-open the country,” ignoring the danger and—finally—resignation (“Learn to live with the virus”). 

Even after three vaccines were produced, millions of Americans—almost all of them Right-wing Trump supporters—refused to protect themselves and the families and friends they claimed to love.

And Trump has appointed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—a 14-year heroin addict and fanatical anti-vaccine proponent—Secretary of Health and Human Services.

As if on cue: A mystery illness has emerged in the Congo whose symptoms—which include fever, vomiting and internal bleeding—result in death in 48 hours.

ONLY CANADA AND MEXICO CAN SAVE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 5, 2025 at 12:05 am

To understand what is happening in the United States today, it’s necessary to realize this: 

Its decent, democracy-cherishing citizens find themselves in the same position as decent, democracy-cherishing citizens of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.

And just as Germany’s government became a ruthless dictatorship, so has that of the United States.    

And just as ordinary, peace-loving Germans hoped for a powerful, democratic outsider to remove the menace of Adolf Hitler, so do ordinary, peace-loving Americans hope the same will happen to Donald Trump. 

Newly released doctor's letters show Adolf Hitler's fear of illness | Adolf Hitler | The Guardian

Adolf Hitler 

From 1939 to 1945, those democracy-cherishing outsiders consisted of Canada, England and the United States. (The Soviet Union reluctantly joined this alliance only after it became yet another victim of Adolf Hitler’s aggression.)

In the case of the United States, that solution can only be achieved economically—by pressuring Right-wing Republican members of Congress in Red states to end their support for Trump’s dictatorial agenda.

And the only democratic countries with the power to do this are Mexico and Canada, America’s foremost trading partners.

The 2024 elections gave Republicans not only the White House but control of the House and Senate. 

Related image

Donald Trump

Republicans don’t care that Trump has trashed the institutions that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. Institutions like an independent judiciary, a free press, and an incorruptible Justice Department.

He has viciously attacked all of these—and Republicans have either said nothing or rushed to his defense. 

What Republicans truly fear about Donald Trump is that if they dare to hold him accountable for his lifetime of criminality, his Fascistic base will turn on them—and turn them out of Congress. 

If they are conflicted—whether to continue supporting Trump or desert him—the reason is the same: How can I hold onto my power and all the privileges that go with it?  

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, President of Mexico

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

Republicans—with Trump as their Fuhrer—are utilizing the same my-way-or-else “negotiating” strategy as Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. 

And Democrats—out of cowardice and/or ignorance of history—are, as usual, refusing to publicly make this comparison.

Thus, America’s rescue from Trump can only come from outside the United States.

Donald Trump has proven his affinity for dictators and dictatorships—lavishing praise on Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.

It’s with the leaders of democratic nations that he loves to pick fights. And he will go on doing so until he is stopped.

There are two reasons for his hostile behavior in foreign affairs:

  1. Trump admires dictators, desires to become one himself, and is now stocking essential federal agencies—such as the Pentagon, FBI and Department of Homeland Security—with his political hacks to make this a reality.
  2. He knows that compared to the dictatorships of Russia and China, democracies such as those of Canada, Mexico and Ukraine are comparatively weak militarily

As with Adolf Hitler, attempting to reason with Trump will prove fruitless. He respects only superior force. 

But he has blinked when confronted with serious opposition.

Thus, on February 1, he threatened to hit Mexico and Canada with 25% tariffs, accusing them of injecting huge amounts of Fentanyl and huge numbers of illegal aliens into the United States. This allowed him to look tough to his legions of uneducated, Fascistic voters.

But then Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatened to retaliate with their own 25% tariffs on American goods.

And the financially conservative Wall Street Journal-–whose target audience includes business leaders, investors, and affluent consumers—called Trump’s threat “the dumbest trade war in history.”

Suddenly, Trump found a way to declare victory, claiming that Mexico and Canada would vastly increase border security to stop the flow of Fentanyl and illegal aliens.

And dropping his threat of a trade war.

So Trump can be beaten—if his enemies are willing to go all the way.

Democratic nations like Canada and Mexico dare not attack Donald Trump militarily. The United States has such a powerful military it’s threatened only by China and Russia.

But Canada and Mexico can target with ruthless tariffs those Red states whose Fascistic voting blocs fanatically support Trump—and the House and Senate members who support him.

They can

  • Deprive Red state populations of the fruits, vegetables, meats, cars, computers, oil, gas—and especially beer and alcohol—they take for granted. 
  • Refuse to stock goods from Red states in their stores.
  • Appeal to the patriotism of Canadians and Mexicans to maintain the boycott despite the suffering this will impose on their own countries. 

Americans have grown used to seeking simple, painless solutions to major problems. Thus, Trump won 77 million votes by promising to drastically reduce the price of eggs.

This despite a loss of millions of bird flu-infected chickens.

With egg prices continuing to drastically rise, Americans are already getting impatient for Trump to work a miracle—as he falsely promised to do during the campaign.

When Red states are forced to suffer staggering losses for months on end, they will elect anti-Fascist Senators and Representatives to nullify the evils of Trump’s administration.

VIOLENCE: THE NAZI—AND REPUBLICAN–WAY

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 28, 2025 at 3:05 am

“We mock you. We mock your fear. We want your fear. It’s going to be accountability. We are taking apart the administrative state. We’re going to destroy the deep state, and we’re going to hold everybody responsible that put this republic in the situation its in today.    

“Accountability, responsibility. And that will come with authority. The authority of Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States.”

The speaker was Steve Bannon, former Trump campaign manager and White House advisor. And he was issuing a warning to everyone who didn’t enthusiastically accept Donald Trump as his Once and Future Fuhrer

Threats of violence have become common among Republicans since 2015, when Trump first ran for President. And they continue to cast a shadow over the 2024 Presidential campaign.

On March 16, 2016, Trump warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.” 

Almost five years later, on January 6, 2021, Trump incited a deadly riot against the United States Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the electoral victory of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Upon taking office again as President on January 20, 2025, Trump issued a blanket pardon to about 1,500 of his supporters who carried out the attack. This sent a clear message to his future opponents: “I will similarly pardon anyone who assaults you.”

The Third Reich similarly relied on violence—or the threat of it—to preserve its dictatorial control over Germany.

A key representative of that violence was Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich.

A tall, blond-haired former naval officer, Heydrich was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.

In 1934, he oversaw the “Night of the Long Knives” purge of Hitler’s brown-shirted S.A., or Stormtroopers.

Reinhard Heycrich

In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.

Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.

In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders in Wannsee, Germany, to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”  

An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.

Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.  

Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague. 

On May 27, 1942, they waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun—which jammed.

Rising in his seat, Heydrich aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.

Scene of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination

Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38. 

The assassination sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Third Reich. No one had dared assault—much less assassinate—a high-ranking Nazi official.

Nazis had slaughtered tens of thousands without hesitation—or fear that the same might happen to them. 

Suddenly they realized that the fury they had aroused could be turned against themselves.

Which brings us to the leaders of America’s own Right-wing.

The names of infamous Nazis were widely known:

  • Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering;
  • Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels;
  • Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess;
  • SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler;
  • “Hanging Judge” Roland Freisler;
  • SS Obergruoppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich; and
  • Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.

Adolf Hitler introducing his new cabinet, 1933

Members of the Nazi government

And so are the names of the infamous leaders of the American Right: 

  • Texas Senator Ted Cruz; 
  • Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas;
  • Evangelist Franklin Graham;
  • Georgia Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene;
  • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito; 
  • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; 
  • President Donald Trump.

The difference between these two infamous groups is this:

In Nazi Germany, ordinary Germans could not learn about the personal lives of their dictators—including their home addresses—and to conspire against them.

In the United States, ordinary citizens have an array of means to do this. They can turn to newspapers, TV and magazines. And if that isn’t enough, “people finder” websites, for a modest price, provide addresses and names of relatives of potential targets.

In Nazi Germany, firearms were tightly controlled.

In the United States, the Right’s National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied to put lethal firepower into the hands of virtually anyone who wants it.

Eighty-three years ago, Reinhard Heydrich believed himself invulnerable from the hatred of the enemies he had made. That arrogance cost him his life.

The day may soon come when America’s own Right-wingers start learning that same lesson.

FINALLY! A REMEDY FOR AMERICA’S PLAGUE–DDMBs: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 27, 2025 at 12:14 am

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen (the German word for “subhumans”) campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.”                  

These are essentially holding pens for drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and parasitic bums until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing. 

But housing is in short supply in San Francisco, and there is no telling how long many of these Untermenschen will stay in them. Or what harm they will wreak on the neighborhoods warehousing them.

Since 2015, eight Navigation Centers have been opened throughout San Francisco; six are in operation.

Among the “amenities” they provide:

  • Meals
  • Privacy
  • Space for pets
  • Space separate from sleeping areas
  • Laundry
  • Access to benefits
  • Wi-Fi

Hundreds—if not thousands—of their occupants are meth or heroin addicts. Such people commit virtually any crime to support their habit. And their crimes of choice are burglary and robbery. 

Little Falls Police Warning Public After Suspected Heroin Overdoses - YouTube

Thus, pouring large numbers of them into San Francisco neighborhoods via “Navigation Centers” guarantees that countless decent citizens will become targets for desperate criminals. 

At a public hearing in January, 2020, San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin touted the importance of Navigation Centers—including the one that would soon be established at Post and Hyde Streets. 

When a local resident asked, “Is one of these centers located where you live?” Peskin replied: “No.”

In short: The city’s elite make sure their homes are far removed from the plague they so easily inflict on San Francisco residents.

In fact, when they’re not swallowing alcohol or injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “homeless” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.

Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for these DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums—the four groups that make up 90% of the “homeless” population.

“I feel sorry for the clerks, they are regularly being verbally assaulted,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want.”

Walgreens 2020 primary logo.svg

“Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso told the Chronicle in October, 2021. 

“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.” 

As a result, Walgreens has closed at least 11 stores in San Francisco

One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft. 

Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.

Under California law, theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor, but many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.

The maximum sentence they could get: Six months. 

Shoplifting at Exchange costs military in many ways | Flickr

Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk. 

The city budgeted $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2021-22 on DDMBs. Dividing that amount by about 7,754 DDMBs provides the figure of about $128,925 per DDMB per year.  

So what can San Francisco do to effectively combat the plague of DDMBs?

  • Launch a “Please Do Not Feed the Bums” publicity campaign—as it has against feeding pigeons. And those caught doing so should be heavily fined. 
  • Trash cans should be equipped with locked doors, to prevent bums from using them as food dispensers.
  • Those living on the street should be given two choices: (1) Go to a local shelter or face arrest and the immediate confiscation of their possessions; 
  • (2) An “Untermenschen City” should be set up near the city dump. There they can live in their tents and/or sleeping bags while being unable to daily confront or assault others to obtain free money.
  • San Francisco’s rent control laws should be strengthened, to prevent future evictions owing to the unchecked greed of landlords. Tenants on fixed incomes should be given special protections against extortionate rent increases.
  • Bus drivers should be able to legally refuse passengers who stink of urine/feces, as they present a potential health-hazard to others.
  • The owners of restaurants, theaters and grocery stores should likewise be allowed to refuse service on the same basis.
  • Those applying for welfare benefits should be required to provide proof of residence. Too many people come to San Francisco because, upon arrival, they can immediately apply for such benefits.
  • Set up a special unit to remove “street people” and their possessions from city sidewalks. This could be a division of the Sanitation Department, since its personnel are used to removing filth and debris of all types.
  • Forcefully tell alcoholics and drug addicts: “Your anti-social behavior is not welcome here. Take your self-destructive lifestyles elsewhere. We won’t subsidize them.”
  • Take the mentally unstable off the street and place them in institutions where their needs can be met. 
  • Tell those who are just plain bums: “Don’t expect us to support you.”

Only then will San Francisco reclaim its place as America’s most beloved city.

FINALLY: A REMEDY FOR AMERICA’S PLAGUE–DDMBs: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 26, 2025 at 12:07 am

If you are a firefighter, police officer, paramedic or schoolteacher, and want to live in San Francisco, forget it.                    

According to Rent Cafe, which provides apartment listings directly from top property managers: “The average [monthly] rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $3,313.” And “the average size for a San Francisco apartment is 734 square feet.” 

Patent 523 Apartments for Rent in Seattle, WA | Essex

But there’s hope for you yet—if you’re a Druggie, Drunk, Mental or Bum (DDMBs).  

Why? 

Because the Mayor of San Francisco—currently London Breed—and Board of Supervisors have deliberately created an Untermenschen-friendly program that actually encourages such people to move to the city.

“Untermenschen,” in German, means “subhuman.” 

The short version of this is “Unters.”

A major part of this lies in placing these “guests” in hotels throughout the city. These range from the relatively low-budget Motel 6 to the luxurious Mark Hopkins.

“Guests” receive personal grooming, sanitary and cleaning supplies, three delivered meals, and laundry service for clothes and linens. 

The hotels were pressured into accepting the Unters, but they also wanted to recover monies lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city is paying $200 per night per room, totaling $6,000 a monthnearly double the cost of a private one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco

But there is a big catch for the hotels: When the “homeless” are placed in subsidized housing, their mental illness, irresponsible addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and/or generally sloth-like habits usually trash those premises.

San Francisco is secretly placing DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bumsamong the tourists who check into these hotels. It does so by designating them as “emergency front-line workers.”

For most people, this means doctors, nurses and similar professionals.

It doesn’t mean DDMBs, if not outright criminals

The city has invoked emergency-disaster law to keep this information secret. Officials refuse to notify the public about the dangers within their midst. The list of hotels is withheld from the press and reporters are forbidden to enter the properties. 

City and hotel workers are required to sign nondisclosure agreements that forbid them to reveal the dangers they and their legitimate guests are exposed to. Doing so is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both.

Despite this, the truth has been leaking out. Security guards stand outside hotel entrances, alerting anyone who sees them that all is not well. Crime, vagrancy and drug usage/dealing have also increased around the hotels.

In one hotel, Unters receive needle kits and are advised to call the front desk before shooting up. Drug-related deaths have occurred. Containers for safely disposing of needles are placed on every floor. Even so, used syringes are often left where non-addicts can be infected by them.

“There are parties, drug overdoses, deaths, assaults on people, sexual harassment. It’s pandemonium,” City Journal writer Erica Sandberg reported. “This is very bad and it needs to be stopped.

“What they [hotel employees] told about the situation inside goes beyond any scope. They are not just terrified, they are traumatized by what they see. According to their stories, in hotels they found mattresses with feces, blood, hospital bandages on the floor. What people see is so terrible that they go out and say, ‘I don’t want to go back there.'”

City officials provide far more than free room and board to DDMBs

The Department of Public Health (DPH) runs the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program. And it works in two stages:

Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.

Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes. 

According to a May 11, 2020 story in City Journal.org:

“The program’s primary purpose is to keep homeless people, the majority of whom are addicts, out of harm’s way during the pandemic. By getting their substance of choice delivered, the thinking goes, the guests may be more apt to remain in their government-funded rooms.

“Another purpose of the program is to protect the public against the spread of coronavirus. The city doesn’t want homeless people who should be staying in their rooms roaming the neighborhood in search of the substances, potentially infecting others.”   

But the agency doesn’t require that its addict “guests” remain quarantined. It merely asks that they do so.San Francisco Department of Public Health - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding

After news about these deliveries leaked on social media, DPH claimed that “rumors that guests of San Francisco’s alternative housing program are receiving taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are false.”

Except that the reports weren’t false.

The program is funded by private philanthropists.  Nevertheless:

  • DPH administers and oversees the program.
  • It’s staffed by city workers, including doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers and security personnel.
  • The department manages, stores and distributes the substances.
  • Employee time is involved.

Thus, the program is financed by taxpayers, even if an outside group provides some of the funding. 

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for Untersuntil they can be “navigated” to permanent housing. 

FINALLY! A REMEDY FOR AMERICA’S PLAGUE–DDMBs: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 25, 2025 at 12:10 am

On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”           

From the story:          

“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.

“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”

And what is the ultimate result of repeatedly saving drug-abusers from their own self-destructive behavior?   

In his 2021 bestseller, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, author Michael Shellenberger provides the answer. 

San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities: Shellenberger, Michael: 9780063093621: Amazon.com: Books

According to its dust jacket:

“Progressives claimed they knew how to solve homelessness, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, progressives made those problems worse. 

“Michael Shellenberger has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirty years. During that time, he advocated for the decriminalization of drugs, affordable housing, and alternatives to jail and prison.

“But as homeless encampments spread, and overdose deaths skyrocketed, Shellenberger decided to take a closer look at the problem. What he discovered shocked him. The problems had grown worse not despite but because of progressive policies.”

In a June 1, 2022 interview with The Spectator World, Shellenberger blamed liberal ideology for this epidemic:

“The first thing is that they don’t enforce laws. They don’t enforce laws against people that they consider victims, which includes addicts and the mentally ill. And if you don’t enforce laws it turns out people don’t follow them and you don’t have functioning civilization.

Michael Shellenberger.jpg

Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

“The second is that they have pursued a radical de-incarceration, de-policing and decriminalization agenda, which has removed penalties for many laws, including shoplifting $950 worth of goods, or possessing three grams of fentanyl and meth, enough to produce paranoid psychosis. And they’ve pursued a so-called housing first anti-shelter policy.

“So they’ve defunded the shelters. The governor himself has established that housing should be a right. That anybody who comes to San Francisco or Los Angeles should have their own apartment unit in those cities. That is the state policy. It is so ridiculous. It is shocking to even say that that is what the policy is, but that is what it is.

“What we need is pretty straightforward. We need to enforce laws. We need a shelter-first housing-earned policy and you need statewide psychiatric and addiction care like they have in every civilized country.

“We’re reviving people from overdose six, nine, twelve times and then sending them right back onto the streets to smoke more fentanyl. It’s bonkers.

“Fifty percent to 75 percent of all fires put out by the San Francisco and Los Angeles fire departments are in homeless encampments. My own research, and the research of others, shows that most of these are arson fires, people just getting back at each other.”

Drunk guy passed out on the sidewalk - YouTube

And how did the city’s mayor, London Breed, respond to the closing of the flagship store of Whole Foods Market?  With a public statement that was pure boilerplate: 

“Public safety is Mayor Breed’s top priority and vital to the City’s work around restoring our economy and making our residents and workers feel safe. 

“We will continue to engage with them about the future use of the site. The Police will continue aggressively enforcing against open-air drug dealing, maximizing police response to urgent calls for assistance, partnering with retailers to address theft in their stores, and enforcing new street vending regulations to disrupt the sale of stolen goods.”

Nowhere in that statement is there any mention that from 2020 to July, 2022, San Francisco had a District Attorney—Chesa Boudin—who saw criminals as victims and sought any reason to excuse them for their crimes. 

Nor is there any mention that the current D.A.—Brooke Jenkins—remains stymied by the realities that, under California law:  

  • Theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor.
  • As a result, many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.
  • The maximum sentence offenders can get is six months.
  • This has led to massive shoplifting sprees at drugstores and merchandise discount stores like Target.

Also left unsaid:

  • Firefighters, police officers and schoolteachers are unable to afford the extortionate rents charged by San Francisco landlords.
  • But city officials have thrown out the welcome mat for DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums
  • Many DDMBs refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, psychotics and outright bums. 
  • Another reason why many of these shelters go unused: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.

Not everyone who can’t find housing is a DDMB

If you are a firefighter, police officer, paramedic or schoolteacher, and want to live in San Francisco, forget it.            

According to Rent Cafe, which provides apartment listings directly from top property managers: “The average [monthly] rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $2,879.” And “the average size for a San Francisco apartment is 739 square feet.” 

FINALLY! A REMEDY FOR AMERICA’S PLAGUE–DDMBs: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 24, 2025 at 12:05 am

On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court, in City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, empowered cities to enforce laws prohibiting camping and vagrancy.           

Almost four years earlier, on September 28, 2018, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had issued Martin v. City of Boise. This held that “the Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of criminal penalties for sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter.”  

People could be evicted only if beds or shelter were available to those who were being evicted.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling, communities nationwide can now fine, ticket or arrest those who make up the greatest part of this population–Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums (DDMBs). But they aren’t forced to take any specific actions or to actively engage in criminal punishment.

The Supreme Court Building - Supreme Court of the United States

United States Supreme Court

On July 25,  California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments from public spaces.

For years, California has been plagued by thousands of tents and makeshift shelters that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks.

California has the highest number of homeless in the country—more than 181,000 people in January 2023, more than 27% of the country’s homeless population.

The governor’s order leaves it up to local mayors to remove the encampments.

“Local governments now have the tools they need to address the decades-long issue of homelessness,” declared Newsome in a statement. 

“Today, we are issuing an executive order that directs state agencies & urges locals to address encampments while connecting those living in them to housing & supportive services.”

San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors may finally be ready to do what, for years, they had refused to do: Clear the city’s streets of DDMBs.

A massive casualty of the irresponsibility of “city leaders” came on April 10, 2023: One of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco—the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets—announced it would shut down at the close of business that day. 

The store, operated by Amazon, had been operating slightly more than a year. It had become the repeated victim of wholesale thefts courtesy of the city’s DDMBs.

Whole Foods Market 201x logo.svg

The Politically Correct name for these people is “unhoused.” The accurate name for them is summed up in a German word: “Untermenschen”“subhumans.”

Given the Politically Correct climate of San Francisco, the closing of the Whole Foods store was almost guaranteed to happen.

At its opening, on March 10, 2022, the store operated from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. By October, it opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.

“It’s to better serve our customers, and it’s more or less because of the area and security issues,” said the store’s manager. “There’s just high theft and people being hostile.”

In November, the store enforced new rules for customers after syringes and crack pipes were found in the restroom. The bathroom was now open only to customers who showed security guards a receipt. Customers were then given a QR code for entry.

It was no coincidence that the bathrooms were often used by drug-abusers—the store was close to the Tenderloin Center, a safe drug-use site. 

Crack cocaine 

Argv0, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikipedia Commons 

Another reason for the change in bathroom policy: Thieves would fill up suitcases with merchandise before going into the restroom.

And who is ultimately responsible for such outrages? 

San Francisco’s topmost officials—the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney and chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Together, they have formed an “Untermenschen”-friendly alliance.

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a massive loss in foot traffic in downtown San Francisco as employees fled high rises to work remotely from home. Many small businesses—especially restaurants—shuttered.

Compounding this disaster has been an increasing influx of hardcore alcoholics, hardcore drug addicts, psychotically mentally ill and parasitical bums. Sidewalks are littered with huge tents, used hypodermic syringes and needles, empty beer cans and wine bottles, human feces and pools of urine.

The local and national press have predicted a “Doom Loop” facing San Francisco, as the city’s tourism rate sharply declines and City Hall officials currently project a nearly $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s budget. 

Tech giants such as Meta and IBM have abandoned San Francisco for events in cities such as Denver and Orlando, Florida.

In September, 2023, Silicon Valley tech giant Alphabet announced that it would move its high-profile Google Cloud Next conference to Las Vegas in 2024.

But this has not prevented city officials from calling for increased efforts to comfort those very parasites who threaten not only their own lives but those of law-abiding San Franciscans and the city’s tourism industry. 

On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”

From the story:

“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.

“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”

SEVEN AMERICAN MYTHS AND THE STUPIDS WHO BELIEVE THEM: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 21, 2025 at 12:44 am

Americans live by a series of myths—myths they would be wise to abandon. Some are embraced by liberals, others by conservatives, and still others by both.      

Myth 4: Americans are knowledgeable about their own history—and that of other nations. 

Americans’ ignorance of  history—their own and that of other nations—has long been a scandal. 

  • A 2018 national survey by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only one in three Americans (36%) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
  • More than half of respondents (60%) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II (Germany, Italy and Japan).
  • Only 24% correctly identified one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for; 37% believed he invented the lightbulb (that inventor was Thomas Edison).
  • Twelve percent incorrectly thought WWII General Dwight Eisenhower led troops in the Civil War; six percent thought he was a Vietnam War general. 

dunce cap meme - xite-salon.com

if Americans are flagrantly ignorant of their own history, they are even worse at the history of other countries. 

A major reason for this lies in Americans’ belief that other nations aren’t worth bothering about except when they threaten us. During the Vietnam war, soldiers referred to the United States as “The World”—as if the rest of the planet didn’t exist. 

Americans, protected from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean and the Far East by the Pacific Ocean, allowed geography to isolate themselves from the messiness of the rest of the world. 

Donald Trump, as President, gave a frightening example of this during a conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” In fact, India does share a border with China. 

Myth 5: The “Bible Belt” (the Deep South) is the spiritual capitol of America.

On the contrary:

  • A 2015 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that religious conservatives search more for online pornography on Google than anyone else. 
  • Educational attainment and college graduation rates in the Bible Belt are among the lowest in the nation.

Holy Bible KJV Gift Edition

  • Smoking rates are high in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi—and so are rates for smoking-related diseases and deaths.
  • Heart disease, obesity, homicide and teenage pregnancies are among the highest in the nation.   

Myth 6: Americans are health-conscious. 

Comparing the United States with Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, the National Institutes of Health found:  

  • The United States has the second highest prevalence of HIV infections and the highest incidence of AIDS.
  • Americans lose more years of life to alcohol and other drugs than people in peer countries.
  • From age 20 onward, U.S. adults have among the highest prevalence rates of diabetes.
  • The U.S. death rate from ischemic heart disease is the second highest.
  • Lung disease is more prevalent in the United States.

Myth 7: Americans only support democratic regimes.  

The United States has long supported foreign dictators—so long as they’re reliably Right-wing.

  • Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean. 
  • The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979. 
  • In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. 

Central Intelligence Agency to make Instagram debut - Weekly Voice

  • He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi, a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
  • In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. 
  • In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
  • His  crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking). 
  • in 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile. 

* * * * * * * * * *

Behind these myths: The belief in “American exceptionalism”—that the United States is unlike other nations in its innocence and steadfast dedication to human rights above all else.

Wrote Christian G. Appy, in his 2015 book, American Reckoning: The  Vietnam War and Our National Identity:

“It was still unimaginable to most Americans that their own nation would wage aggressive war and justify it with unfounded claims, that it would support undemocratic governments reviled by their own people, and that American troops would be sent to fight in countries where they were widely regarded not as liberators but as imperialist invaders.”

For millions, that belief died a horrific death during the Vietnam war. Yet so long as millions remain convinced that America is guided by God and that its people are His faithful servants, these myths will remain vividly alive.