COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
Well, I am sorry he's recalled this tired old Republican
idea of the 1980s.
It was one that went on and on in droning tedium, never
going anywhere. I always understood it as a sign of a party with no real
purpose trying to spark attention.
But Trump is a man who just bubbles over with concepts, good
and bad, and most of the bubbles are allowed to harmlessly pop.
Of course, recalling this is also an effective way to float
a notion and see how the public reacts, which will not be well for this one, at
least with the great majority.
The dumber Republicans tried for years and got nowhere.
This is also a way to keep minority portions of his base
happy with little periodic noises they like to hear.
I cannot believe he really means what he hurriedly typed at
seven in the morning.
________________________
Response to another
reader’s comment:
Many simply do not understand that controversy and troubles
around the American flag stem from the fact that it is no longer just an
innocent national symbol.
For great numbers of people in the world, the same flag some
Americans fly affectionately from a pole on their porch, represents aggression
and bloodshed and grave injustice. The parallel with the Union Jack in 1776 is
rough, although Britain’s imperial forces never killed and destroyed on the
scale of America’s today.
I know that is hard for many naively-faithful American
Patriot types to accept - thinking as they do that America is the fount of all
that's good and fair on the planet - but it is simply the truth.
There has not been a single American war since WWII that was
about self-defense or, indeed, about any matter of principle beyond America's
self-assumed right to tell others what to do, and with deadly force. Although
there was plenty of empty speechifying with slogans and empty words
accompanying each bloody event.
Millions, literally millions, have died at America's hands
in Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and in a host of other
places.
And they all died, with others wounded and vast amounts of
property destroyed, at the hands of American forces waving the flag and
mouthing slogans about democracy and rights. It is an appalling record.
All of them died for no good reason except that the American
establishment wanted it that way. Now, wasn't that kind of arrogance and
indifference to people a major factor in Trump's victory? Many Americans are simply
sick of it because the establishment treats them the same way.
And how bitterly ironic it all is because America seems
incapable of running its own affairs - from its titanic debts to its shabby
third-world inner-cities.
