Obviously, millions of Americans are consuming the nonsense that the election was rigged and Joe Biden is not the legitimate President-elect. This is not normal anymore – this is abnormal human behavior, this is sick. I have lived and worked in three countries, and nowhere have I witnessed anything even close to this. The brainwashing taking place in the United States is hard to digest. There is a public, mental disease going on in this country – the same widespread disease that made something like Trump possible as President of the United States of America.
Author: gdrthinktank
72 Million Voters: A Success for Donald Trump
From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2020 by Uwe Bahr
I am not a US citizen, and never will be. Without my American wife, I would have left this country instead of continuing using reserve assets from Germany in Trump’s America. But now, I am relieved that the messages of hate and vilification coming from the White House will soon belong to the past.
On the other hand: 72 million voters embracing the Trump-lunacy remain a shocking fact – that’s 48 percent diehards running time and again against a concrete wall, head first. It remains a mystery to me how such a large proportion of people are supposed to get integrated into a sound and progressive society in order to heal the country. That is one of the main tasks the new President will have to tackle.
One essential element to achieve progress would be a degree of better education – probably too late and hopeless for denialists of science and reality allocated to the older generation in localities like North Georgia, but extremely vital especially there for young people, of whom too many are left forsaken, unmotivated and without the rational example of generational guidance.
Support the President-elect
As an essential first step to heal a polarized country, the Grand Old Party now should render America the service necessary and call Donald J. Trump off. His pathological rhetoric has already turned the US into a nasty place – there should not be another chance for him to provoke more dangerous moments by stirring up the most misdirected of his supporters. Amidst an unprecedented health crises, Joe Biden will try to bring the American people together – a Herculean task for which he will need the support of every citizen and every resident. As a non-citizen living in the US since 1998, I continue supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Trump-Supporters: Policy versus Personality?
From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2020 by Uwe Bahr
Many Americans now say they supported Trump not because of his personality, but rather because of his policy. A stunning justification, for the empty phrase caps it all off.
Because the question arises: Which progressive Trump-policy do they talk about that would be crucial and beneficial for everyone? How about Health Care? Or would it rather be the policy of downplaying the corona virus, thereby embracing the possibility of losing thousands of Americans who might otherwise have been saved? Adding fuel to the fire of racism by encouraging crowds to shout “send them back?” Calling members of the White House Corona Virus Task Force “idiots” instead of paying attention to science? Shaking hands with tyrants like the communistic dictator of North Korea, or being Putin’s lapdog? Or to bully and insult his own diplomats in Ukraine, just for the price to harm a political opponent who may now become President of the United States? And, and, and … What sound policy are these people talking about? Do they know at all what they are trying to utter?
And again, one wonders how holy church people in the United States can vote for and support someone who paid hush money to “adult actresses” he had fun with, not to mention all these other remarks and insults he made on camera. It must be very appealing and arousing for these impressive believers, who are pretending they are Christians. What kind of program will they have next to offer in their propaganda temples, which they call churches, in the name of their dear Lord? Strippers? There is obviously a problematic gap between a self-declared Christian creed and the aspiration of living according to it within at least a minimum level of standard and decency.
Such people should be ashamed instead of telling others that “only a Christian person is a good person.” Not a single truthful Christian person was ever able to vote for Donald J. Trump.
Nothing to worry about though – as from time immemorial Christianity in their vast majority has been hypocritical, mendacious, phony, and very successful in playing the commonality for a sucker. And this, in turn, truly goes in line with Donald J. Trump and everyone who supported this lunacy.
Political Scientist predicts Biden-Victory
A look ahead what might come next
From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2020 by Uwe Bahr
American political scientist Allan Lichtman predicted the outcome of each presidential election since 1984 correctly, when Ronald Reagan won his second term. According to Lichtman, Donald Trump will be the first president since George H. W. Bush in 1992 not winning reelection. But, it would be a surprise if any outcome of the 2020 race would allow the country to calm down. Instead, times of even more unrest seem imminent.
In the event of Donald Trump nevertheless winning reelection, the country will probably, if not certainly continue on its wavering course as a banana republic – a circus neither taken seriously by thinking fellow US citizens nor anywhere else in the rest of the world. Four more years of Trump will dangerously amplify social injustice, fume a ubiquitous racism and thereby deepen the divide between Americans even further, making life a horror for many people of different skin color and different thoughts – especially in less educated regions of the United States. The commencement toward a calamitous development of government-controlled deception and encroachments not authorized by legislature but enthusiastically welcomed by the political right, was already observable during the past summer months – not too different anymore from what I have seen in the East German (socialistic!) dictatorship a few decades ago.*
Should Joe Biden come out as winner – and given his advanced age Kamala Harris should be intentionally mentioned here –, the tone coming from the White House, no doubt, will return to a civilized level. Allies in the world will feel relieved and the United States’ reputation will revert to the normal. The country will recommit itself to central problems facing all mankind pressingly and darkly, like the fact of man-induced global warming. The United States will also return as the respected leader to the table of the international community. In other words: It will be back to the status of fact that no country in today’s world is capable of going its own way by sheering out from the global community whenever it seems convenient. There is no America first, as there is no other country first. America needs the world, and the world needs America.
Domestically, Biden and Harris first of all face a rampant pandemic with frightening prospects for the coming winter months. In the presence of a tremendous crises, it remains to be seen if enough room for maneuver is left to tackle other primary problems. If there is, team Biden might move a few things around from here to there. They might even patch up some shortcomings to the advantage of the little guy. In terms of health care, many people presumably should be in better aid than under Donald Trump.
But Biden/Harris will not effectively attack the cardinal American sin that John Adams in his worst nightmares saw coming more than two hundred years ago: They will not curb the super-rich living at the cost of the rest, they will not shift the blatant inequity in wealth toward a more balanced and bearable level to benefit all Americans. They will also not touch greedy corporations decisively, not to mention dare regulating them in terms of workers’ rights – for any such provisions will stand in the way of the ruthless profiteer’s lone interest and their legalized entanglements with the machinations of American politics. Biden/Harris will more than likely not cap the profit margin of Health Care Insurance Companies to leave money in the pockets of the general public, and they will never even think of touching the country’s most popular, upfront bill dodger: the churches.
Aside from that, the worst-case scenario I fear most hopefully will never happen. For that much seems clear: Even in case of a Biden victory, resentments among Americans will not disappear. The United States, with all the guns, racists, denialists, propagandists, and conspiracy theorists out there, is far from becoming a peaceful country. Horror fills the mind if one imagines the unthinkable: that in the sign of a worsening corona crises the country would find itself on the verge of civil war-like conditions.
*If there is anything comparable at all in America with socialism that I have witnessed while once have lived myself in a pseudo-socialistic system, it were the scenes of 1 June, 2020, in Washington DC, transmitted via the media. I no longer trusted my eyes when armored vehicles in a “free country” were slowly rolling towards peaceful protesters to remove them from Lafayette Square and surrounding streets, so President Trump in a histrionic gesture could hold up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. On that day and in front of the world, the Trump administration revealed shocking dictatorial traits, in effect similar to a system of government observable in some countries in Latin America, Africa, or currently Belarus.
Worldview of a Local Yokel
From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2020 by Uwe Bahr
If churches tell people how to vote, then these churches should be taxed. They invest in the stock market from their sheep’s tithing and own property worth more than 600 billion free of tax. At the same time, Joe Schmo toiling for Walmart has to pay his share into the coffers, thereby subsidizing the heavenly phrase mongers and their Sunday morning story time. According to a study from the University of Tampa, poverty in the United States could be eliminated if religious institutions would not be granted a pass on taxes.
“The only way to make any real money in this world was to start a religion.” L. Ron Hubbard, Founder of the Church of Scientology
In the countryside of Guns and God, where church comrades Jim Bob and Joe Bob happily shoot through their neighborhood and a widespread mentality seems out of step with realness, one will wonder no longer how things could change for the better. In lockstep with such obvious backwardness and a meticulously fostered system of “good old boys”-connections, serves a local newspaper in the scenic north Georgia mountains. The provincial paper, distinguished by its perpetual dullness, was capable of publishing the reader’s letter of an alleged Reverend, whose name I do not even want to cite on my blog.
On pages 4 and 5 in the paper’s October 14, 2020 edition, the presumed minister jabbers about a topic he in his perfected bigotry obviously never heard much more about than through dull propaganda widely distributed in the United States. His assertions culminate in the sentence that America is – quote – “on the verge of becoming a socialistic state, which is clearly the work of the great deceiver Satan.” End quote.
I wonder how much time this scriptural genius has spent with lunatic conspiracy ideologists to utter such nonsense. At this juncture, I could go through his absolute baseless gibberish about Socialism line by line and confute him, factually accompanied by verifiable historic facts and first-hand experience. Instead, I would like to refer the reader to my various writings on this blog site.
Apart from that – and probably more importantly – is the rationale that a Reverend as a religious servant should never convert himself publicly into a political ideologist. But that’s exactly what this man does, for he not only uses a poor language in a baseless and repulsive propagandistic style, but rather makes his intention abundantly clear: namely, suggesting to his readers not to vote for the Democratic candidate because the consequence would be nothing but Socialism. This, Mr. Reverend, is not only shameful in attitude and false in itself – it also incapacitates you as your boss’ servant, always in service, whose public rhetoric consequently should be separated from his political bias.1 For what you did, you should change your job.
I am more inclined at this point to express my incredulous astonishment about how in the world, in the United States of America and in the 21st century, a newspaper can publish such horrendous, ultimate mischief without at least labeling a customized warning notice, especially when the personified existence of Satan is mentioned2. This has nothing to do anymore with freedom of speech, but rather with the journalistic obligation to exercise diligence. Or do the protagonists of this newspaper assume that their own children will get educated by being exposed to such ultimate stupidity?
1 And therefore again comes George Carlin’s quotation in mind: “I don’t know how you feel, but I’m pretty sick of church people. You know what they ought to do with churches? Tax them. If holy people are so interested in politics, government, and public policy, let them pay the price of admission like everybody else.”
2 I am aware of Satan’s central character in the Bible, although the unforgettable, genuine Lutheran Pastor Thoms in his religious instructions never mentioned this horrible figure toward us children. The spook probably would have scared the hell out of us. – I had encounters with Satan in a more appropriate place – in the book of fairytales sent in 1969 over the Iron Curtain by my aunt in West-Germany. It is still on my book shelf.
Americans and their Specter of Socialism
From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2020 by Uwe Bahr
The closer it gets to the election day, the more the political right in the United States is riding their hobbyhorse of “Socialism” in a desperate attempt to defend a President who not only has proved a lack of intellect and morale, but bullies, lies, and sneers. Followers that are still holding on to him – careless or clueless about the incorrectness of terms used in the heated political language – walk straight into the verbal trap, eagerly abusing the mystic expression themselves. And yet, the strenuous iteration does not make it an inch truer.
This writing comes from someone who – not voluntarily – has lived nearly thirty years in the pseudo-Socialism of the extinct German Democratic Republic (GDR). I would not want to have it back.
Nevertheless, a dose of clarification seems necessary at this point in view of the utter nonsense spreading like a virus in Trump’s America almost every time the term “Socialism” is being referenced.
So, my fellow Americans, hold on to your seats, lean back for a minute, grab one of your numerous dictionaries especially Trump supporters should always have at hand, and look up what “Socialism” stands for. I am for my part quoting for you Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (unabridged), page 2162. A pretty heavy book, by the way – but any other American dictionary will do.
Socialism is a – quote – “System or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.” End quote. Period, that’s it – no more, no less.
Got it?
A socialist command economy – I did not have to see it with my own eyes decades back for coming to the conclusion: Such state controlled, nationalized economy cannot function due to its utter inefficiency. Which makes me wonder: Where in the United States are such circumstances in existence? Is somebody out there who can please prove me wrong?
Hold your politicians, regardless of their political color, responsible for their baseless propaganda trick, don’t let them take you for a fool with an imaginary scapegoat that does not exist. Don’t fall for the catch phrases from political pied pipers who themselves have never lived in Socialism, like no American within the United States has ever even seen a glimmer of Socialism in their country.
For the sake of bettering the conditions for most Americans, it is worth noting here that an accompanying, controlling mechanism – ensuing from the government in terms of checks and balances – must be incorporated in the legal system to protect the little man from exploitation. It’s not called Socialism, but rather: Justice. Those who have – for example – ever worked for America’s largest retailer, W******, (and again, I was there, too), should know what the talk is about. The indiscriminate cut of work hours without any legal regulations versus the corporations own dictates, recurrent bullying, the shortening and eliminating of night shift allowances, the virtually non-existent access to institutions to defend themselves, a broadly lawless work environment in general, as well as a wage which does not allow hard-working Americans to make a decent living – all these facts experienced by the author disparages American citizens to a merely disposable mass of people without rights. The phrase of a “Free Country” becomes a farce here. Not even in the pseudo-Socialism of the GDR have I witnessed human beings being treated like this, which arises the question: Why do Americans, in their very own country with a Christian claim, humiliate their own people that way, albeit the means for a fair treatment and more income justice are available and could be easily arranged? Why?
By the way: If social justice is an interpretation of Socialism, then the pastor in church who commonly calls his sheep all “brothers and sisters”, obviously invoking equality, might be called a communist as well – that is, God forbid, the consecutive comparative of the spell “Socialism.”
Ironically, some 50 years ago, in that very same Socialism I lived through, once a teacher, not exactly convinced of the subject himself, asked his little students what it might look like in Communism. A girl raised her arm, stepped outside the bench and replied with an upright posture: “In Communism they are all brothers and sisters.”
By now we should know what propaganda is. If not – ask your dictionary.
Racism under the Banner of Christianity
This picture is worth a thousand words, revealing in its microcosm the country’s current, frightening state and what might happen after the election. One of my attentive readers has sent it to me; it was taken somewhere in the northern part of Georgia.
What does it tell us?
Somebody capable of bringing himself to placing such sign in his front yard, illuminated at dark, obviously has a problem with people of different skin color. It is a disturbing perception that racism is a somber reality in a country with a Christian claim.
More than obvious: These people are in refusal of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, which – if articulated in decent words – would be perfectly fine.
The most revealing statement comes from line number four on this sign: “Life begins at conception.” It is a manifestation of a rather Christian confession of faith – one would assume. And yet, used in conjunction with the other statements articulated on this sign, it vilifies in the worst way all those people that still live up to the true standards of Christian belief.
Such true believers are not racists. Such true Christians cannot be in support of a President not willing to distance himself decisively from primitive diehards like the ones responsible for the sign in the yard – for he himself has proven more than once that he is one of them.
Tax the Churches?
From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2020 by Uwe Bahr
In California these days, just weeks before a seemingly ominous election, a canny pastor from the Freedoms Way Baptist Church had a seminal inspiration, obviously sent straight to him from high above through the clouds of holy smog. “Our church”, Jerry Cook addressed his sheep in a post via Facebook, “has a voting drop box in front of our complex. If you are voting early drop your ballot by.”
It did not take any of the church parishioners, but a lady with the sense to note that the drop box was a fraudulent falsification. And as by a miracle, the box disappeared literally over night after the lady had informed local authorities. Quite mysteriously, also vanished had the pastor’s message on Facebook.
A true blatherer by his trade, Jerry Cook did not feel any qualms at all about telling his parish in his very next sermon that the church did not have anything to do with the faked voting drop box. “We are not tampering with anything”, the man of God could not quickly emphasize enough the church’s alleged unbiased justification, obviously referring to the delicate machinations of politics.
The churches do not meddle in anything at all – right.
I have always marveled why many – way too many – Evangelicals of all people constitute Trump’s largest and most reliable base. Turning facts and truths upside down apparently goes hand in hand among a hopelessly lost specialty of like-minded advocates, inept to think for themselves and unreceptive toward truth – no matter what the botched liar from the White House jabbers in his pathological ignorance.
A quote comes to mind recently called to my attention by a dear family member:
“I don’t know how you feel, but I’m pretty sick of church people. You know what they ought to do with churches? Tax them. If holy people are so interested in politics, government, and public policy, let them pay the price of admission like everybody else.” Source: George Carlin
Am I glad that these words did not emanate from my pen – aren’t I?
In Georgia
Allegedly, Georgia is the only state in the US where Trump is presently polling ahead of Biden. Considering the eminently conspicuous, impressive average brain power and progressiveness in the state’s northern region, I am absolutely not surprised.
The Wind of Change 