Op-Ed

1. Larry Elder announces 2024 White House bid | CNN Politics

“One nation, under God . . .”

Interesting addition to the Pledge, considering, you know, the separation of church and state. I actually remember it — it was 1954. I was in third grade, and had been reciting the Pledge with my classmates every morning for several years by then. I thought it was kind of cool, getting to say “God” without swearing.

“The push to add ‘under God’ to the pledge,” according to the History Channel, “gained momentum during the second Red Scare, a period when U.S. politicians were keen to assert the moral superiority of U.S. capitalism over Soviet communism, which many conservatives regarded as ‘godless.’”

We have it on the very best but very secret source that Trump has clandestine plans to return the Statue of Liberty to the French as soon as he returns to the White House. Amongst his followers, Trump has been heard to say the statue no longer reflects our pure white values.  Some also say he’s been secretly heard to confide to his Maga Mites: “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses from shithole countries like Hell we would.  Thanks but no thanks."

Truth be told, Trump clearly refutes the claim that the U.S. should be the champion of the poor and the dispossessed, a nation that draws its strength from its pluralism. The true gospel according to Trump: America’s greatness is the result of its white and Christian origins. Institutions stand diluted by a stream of alien blood, with all its inherited misconceptions respecting the relationships of the governing power to the governed,”. His government is dedicated to permanently halting the unalloyed welcome to all peoples. 

“Go back to where you came from.”

This is basic American politics – what I might call spiritual ignorance: a dismissal of refugees fleeing war, famine and poverty as global sludge, clogging up our way of life. So many media stories about the border – our border – begin with an unquestioned presumption. These aren’t individual humans fleeing hell and trying to reclaim their lives. They exist only en masse – basically, in the millions.

And they’re going to be nothing but trouble for us. Either they want to work for a living and, thus, claim American jobs, or they’re simply leeches, utterly without skills, simply in possession of their needs, which of course will drain our resources. Go back to where you came from!

Look what happened earlier this month, when New York City’s mayor bused a bunch of migrants out of town – oh, boohoo, too many for you, Mayor Adams? – to several hotels in Orange County, about 60 miles to the north. It just so happened, according to a bogus claim that made big news for a while, that in order for the migrants to get their living space, a bunch of homeless veterans, a.k.a, American heroes, had to be evicted.

“. . . we belong to the Earth rather than to a nation . . .”

These words stick in my heart like a wedding ring. They emanate a cutting glow, a crying wish and hope that slices to the core of me. At the same time, I feel surrounded by a cynical “realism”: Don’t be a fool. A marriage like that isn’t possible. Be grateful you’re an American. Arm yourself! We’re being invaded.

More mass killings. More bloody “normal” — not just in Texas, not just in the United States, but around the world.

Eerily, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott inadvertently reminded us of the international nature of this scourge when he referred to five recent murder victims, in a tweet announcing a $50,000 reward for the killer, as “illegal immigrants.”

Hey, this is a divided world! Were you aware of that?

There’s “us” and there’s “them” — which apparently is a viewpoint that a mass shooter shares with the governor of Texas. Abbott, of course, was inundated with flak and wound up apologizing for his careless tweet, but the reality of it won’t go away. A private belief —that someone’s immigration status matters more than life itself — suddenly went public.

Re “The Tragedy of Fox News,” by Bret Stephens (column, April 26):

We’ve heard this plea before: If only there were a rational, honest, center-right party or news source!

Mr. Stephens and similar lamenters don’t indicate what such a party’s positions would be, other than general shifts to more liberal democratic ideals.

The fact is, the agendas of these center-right Republicans have already won the day. We live in a country dominated by their policies, which today’s Democrats either acquiesce to or try vainly to mitigate, while occasionally passing a measure that’s inadequate to solve a problem.

So the wealth gap steadily increases; the rich continue to evade fair taxation; the prospects of the poor continue to worsen; the judicial system incarcerates disproportionate numbers of minorities; military-style weapons continue to proliferate, resulting in an absurd rate of mass shootings; debt handicaps the young and the poor; and the list goes on.

Recent developments in Washington relating to Ukraine and the Middle East remind me that there is a big difference between maintaining secrecy when a situation warrants it and lying over issues where there is no compelling reason to do so beyond political expediency. Having spent more than twenty years in American intelligence agencies where secrecy was the operative norm, I would illustrate that difference as follows: a legitimate secret would be something like not revealing information that would place people or vital national interests in jeopardy, while a lie would be committing a crime and fabricating a narrative that would deny or obfuscate that anything dire had actually taken place. When it comes to lying, I am, of course, referring to the bizarre behavior by the United States government, most particularly ever since 9/11, to commit war crimes and then come up with reasons for its foreign and national security policies to have taken a singular aggressive and coercive turn not justified by reality or by any real threat.

Hey China, quit threatening us! We’ll kick your ass.

Yeah, bad China, maybe worse than Russia, e.g.:

“The People’s Republic of China, which is increasingly challenging the United States economically, technologically, politically and militarily around the world, remains our unparalleled priority.”

The words are those of Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, addressing a Senate committee recently. As the New York Times noted, she “reinforced the message that President Biden and his top foreign policy aides have been sending on China. . . . that while Russia is a medium-term challenge, China is the greatest long-term rival of the United States and is the only nation with the power and resources to reshape the American-led international order.”

Can we form a circle big enough to fit 330 million Americans? Do we have enough folding chairs? I don’t know, but somehow we’ve got to launch a national conversation about . . . war, security, guns, fear and, oh God, the global future.

Ultimately we need to pull the whole planet into it — this is, after all, one planet, not 193 separate entities — but a circle of Americans, citizens of the most militarized and, perhaps, fearful nation on Earth, is a good place to start. We have to reach into our collective soul, folks!