It doesn't matter at this point whether Donald Trump (R-Trump Towers) gets the Republican nomination to be President of the United States. I don't believe he will, but I don't discount it as not possible given the racist elements in parts of the GOP base, and given so much of the ignorance that this base has shown. (In the latest example, a new Bloomberg poll shows that about 55% of Republicans actually think that unemployment has gone up during the Obama Administration. The reality is that unemployment has dropped from 7.8% down to just 5.6%.)
The point, though -- whether he gets the nomination or not -- is that on Thursday Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate, made numerous statements about the government watching mosques in the United States and having Muslims literally register with the government...and thus far, not a single Republican candidate has expressed head-exploding outrage at a suggestion out of the pages of Nazi Germany. To be clear, I don't easily throw around such comparisons. And I am not hinting that Mr. Trump is a Nazi, nor are his fellow candidates for not slamming him. But Mr. Trump himself was directly asked about the comparison to 1939 Nazi Germany by an NBC reporter, wondering whether such a comparison was apt, and the best that the leading GOP candidate could reply was not horror that anyone could say such thing, but rather merely, "What do you think?" Further, the spokesman for a Jewish organization, referring to the concept of registering people for their religion in Nazi Germany, was quoted as saying, "We've seen this before. And it didn't end well." Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, "What else can you compare this to except to prewar Nazi Germany?" And Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of the nonprofit Interfaith Alliance, told NBC News, ""My father was in World War II, and he fought to preserve America against what the Nazis were doing, This is exactly why there is an America, to not be like that." (Note: If Rabbi Moline's name sounds familiar, that's because he's on the corporate board of Elisberg Industries, as VP of Telecommunications. Hey, we're illustrious here...) So, my comment is, sadly, appropriate. Because the Trump suggestion to register people for their religion -- anathema to all that is decent in the world against atrocities and against every sacred principle at the core of the United States of America -- is now on the table, no GOP candidate has yet eviscerated it, and from such outlandish, pathetic, sick, off-handed comments come the disastrous breakdown of society, unless slammed shut immediately, repeatedly and endlessly. "Never again" is a long-standard Jewish mantra, and it's not just for Jews. It's for everyone. And by "everyone," I mean you. Really. Whoever you are. There's a cruel, galling, maniacal virulence to the Trump comments which help fuel the racist reaction we're seeing swirl in the Republican Party. And if anyone doesn't think it's racist, or if anyone doesn't think "everyone" means you, consider -- What if a pandering, attention-seeking demagogue suggested registering all members of a religious group out of fears for its relentless terrorist acts that have killed countless innocent Americans...and that group was Christians. And lest you think that I'm being bombastic, I am pointing -- not to Christianity, but -- to the terrorist acts of Christian extremist groups, to the terrorist White Supremacist groups that are based in twisting the tenets of the Christian religion, to the terrorist acts of the Ku Klux Klan that was founded in the debasing of Christian beliefs. But all in the very public name of Christianity. Acts like the Oklahoma City bombings of Timothy McVeigh. Terrorist killings like bombings of abortion clinics acting against the Bible. Mass terrorist murders like -- well, honestly, I don't have the heart to name them all and their sick, terrorist brutality, but just do a web search. You'll find numerous listings like, "10 of the Worst Terror Acts by Extreme Christians" here and "Christian Terror: 12 Examples of Terrorism from the Right" here and on and on, and horribly continuously on. None of these terrorist murders and mass murders and bombings and lynchings over the decades were done as actual Christian acts, nor in any way indicative of the teachings Jesus and the New Testament. None of them. But that's how they were committed by Christian Extremists and Christian White Supremacists. Just as none of the terrorist acts by ISIS and Al Qaeda and other such terrorist groups are acts by actual faith-based Muslims, but by jihadist terrorist extremists, twisting the Muslim religion and the Koran for their own terrorist ends. These are acts of terrorism by terrorists, not acts of religion by the faithful. And if you disagree with that, and even attempt to say, "Yes, but...", I can only refer you back to my unthinkable suggestion about Christian extremist terrorist groups acting, so they say in their perverted minds, in the name of Jesus and the Bible. And what if that aforementioned pandering, attention-seeking demagogue -- let's give him a name, say, "Donald Trump," though not necessarily the one you're thinking of -- said that we should watch all the Christian churches and register all Christians because of all these Christian terrorist groups? And no other Republican Party leaders cried out against him in outraged horror. In fact, what if the only political leaders who expressed their fury at this attack against Christians were the liberals and the Democrats? And if you don't think it could happen -- sorry, but it has. Donald Trump merely changed the name "Christian" to "Muslim." I understand people's serious concern over terrorism. But the fear, the issue is over terrorists, extremists, jihadists. Not people of religion practicing their faith -- something, you may recall, that is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution as the very First Amendment. The First one. So important, so critical that it's right before that Second Amendment one about guns, even. What Donald Trump said -- whether or not he gets nominated -- is sick, dangerous, racist, pathetic, viciously anti-American, anti-humane, and any other like words you can think of. All the more so because his fellow Republican candidates have remained silent.
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A few weeks back, I wrote here about the Bureau of Motion Pictures that was organized by Robert Riskin, Oscar-winning screenwriter for It Happened My Night, and father of my friend Vicki, a former president of the WGA. The film office was a division of the Office of War Information. As I mentioned, the BMP made a series of films to show the American way of life for presentation throughout Europe during WWII. One of the most notable, Hymn of Nations, which I embedded in that previous article, even received an Oscar nomination for Best Short Documentary. That along with a couple other were especially popular, even with American audiences. And this is one of those. It's a charming little piece called, Autobiography of a Jeep. It's oh-so nice to see Jeb! Bush (R-FL) call for troops on the ground to fight ISIS. No plan, mind you. No military strategy, mind you. No exit strategy, mind you. No post-war strategy. Just, hey, let's send the U.S. military storming into the Middle East. Oh, those wacky Bush Boys. This worked so well the first time around with Iraq with his older brother, didn't it?
And oh-so-nice to hear Donald Trump (R-Trump Towers) taking out a hysterical radio ad ranting about hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees into the U.S. and bombing the hell out of ISIS and building the military until it's SO large that no one would dare attack us. Because that's exactly the sort of thing that frightens off terrorists. And no plan, mind you. No strategy, mind you. No exit strategy, mind you. Just, hey, let's get involved in yet another massive war in the Middle East with no forethought. What could possibly go wrong there?? And never mind asking where on earth did Mr. Trump come up with the Islamaphobic figure of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees? The last figure bandied about by government officials was a paltry 10,000. At most, there have been calls for 60,000. But why quibble over facts and reality when your in the midst of racist pandering to fear and hysteria? And hey, over there, look it's Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) doing his best to pander to the most agonizingly fearful by insisting he wouldn't even let in three-year-old Syrian orphans. Because, of course, they would...okay, sorry, I don't know why. Maybe he thinks someone might have sneaked a bomb into their diapers that border security would miss, or maybe he thinks they'll grow up to hate the country that saved their lives, or perhaps he thinks saying anything less would make him look weak, as opposed to cruel and pandering. And there are Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Huckabee (R-Fox News) insisting that no visas at all should be given to anyone from any Middle Eastern country. Because that doesn't send a message to the world, to the Middle East, to the destitute and disenfranchised that Americas doesn't hate, hate you all -- hate you!! -- doesn't trust any last one of you because you look different, believe different, are different, and that America isn't at war with you all, with every last one of you, does it because you might be extremist an extremist terrorist, or know an extremist terrorist, or live next to an extremist terrorist, or heard about terrorists, or had your entire family and village and lives destroyed by extremist terrorists? No reason for you all not to distrust and hate America from all that, is there? There are clearly serious global political issues in the world right now. I would guess that most people agree with that statement. The thing is, serious global political issues call for serious people and serious thought. That would seem to be a given. This is not a time for lightweights. And lightweight ideas. And lightweight solutions. It is not a time for TV reality stars, real estate moguls and former neurosurgeons, and those trying to resurrect the tarnished legacy of their brother who helped get us into this mess and worsen the situation, creating the dysfunction that allowed ISIS to come into existence in the first place, or a time for any other demagogue trying desperately to pander fear and racism because they're so far beyond in the polls and need to look fake-tough and get some attention. It is a time for actually serious people, who are able to deal with actually serious problems. Serious global problems that right now are far more at issue for others many thousands of miles away, who right now have far more at stake than the United States does, with whom serious people can work to find a serious resolution. It's been much too long since I've posted some versions of Broadway musical done in international productions, so I figured now was as good a time as any to correct that. This comes from a 2012 production of My Fair Lady done at the old and elegant Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao, Spain, which is just off the north coast of the country. This is the song, "Ser Feliz," or what you might likely know better as "Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?" The actress is Paloma San Basilio, a very popular performer there -- who believe it or not, you may actually know. The name struck a distant chord with me, so I checked her name out. For those who wander these pages, you may recall a while back I posted some Spanish performances from Man of La Mancha. The actress who played Dulcinea/Aldonza was, indeed...Paloma San Basilio. Here she is again, with a loverly version of "Ser Feliz." (Intriguingly, the applause at the end is so paltry that it's almost like a cliched joke. Since the performance is so enjoyable, I have to assume that either the theater is near empty, or is this was a dress rehearsal. Sometimes, those TV schedule grids that come with your DVR get a movie listing SO wrong that's it's almost beyond hilarious. Usually, it seems to happen with stations that don't necessarily seem to take movies so solemnly, so hiccups get through. I don't think I've seen it with TCM. But this was for TCM. Whether the error begins with them, or a computer on the DVR service end, I don't know. I tend to suspect the latter, but since it rarely tends to happen with TCM, I don't know. But still, that's where I'll put my money. Anyway, on TCM Friday night at 10 PM Los Angeles time, they had the 1966 movie classic, The Wrong Box, written by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove (based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson). I clicked on the listing to see how they described, and who they put in as the stars. In case you don't remember or were unawares, among the cast stars are -- Michael Caine Ralph Richardson John Mills Peter Cook Dudley Moore Peter Sellers. The DVR schedule grid showed the movie as starring -- Jeremy Lloyd and James Villiers. (If you look at the iMDB listing for the movie, those two gentleman are displayed first. I'm guessing that it's order of appearance.) I have a feeling that a lot of people might have checked out that listing, decided they weren't in the mood for the latest Jeremy Lloyd and James Villiers epic, and skipped one of the great, unsung comedy classics. By the way, just to conclude things, here's a scene when a conniving Peter Cook goes to the office of a bewildered, corrupt doctor to false death certificate. The doctor is played by Peter Sellers. For the time being, you'll have to anticipate the scenes with Jeremy Lloyd and James Villiers. Just about to take off from LAX this morning, we were delayed for 45 minutes. For the longest time there was no explanation. Eventually, the pilot came on to say, with admirable honesty, that he'd been told there was a VIP who had been moved ahead of everyone in line. He didn't know who -- but he wanted to clarify that we were all important, too...though apparently this person was more important. Eventually we took off.
Later, I found out that Joe Biden had been in Los Angeles yesterday and was leaving today. I would guess that the Vice President most definitely counts as a VIP. Or more accurately as a VP VIP. When I told the elves taking care of the home office about the delay, they found it all amusing. Mainly, they're not terribly interesting in what's going on with me and are just interested in keeping the place open, since it gives them free run of everything, most especially the well-stocked refrigerator. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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