Mostly a Rant Today

Hi All,

I took this shot at the Seattle Zoo in Woodland Park on a recent trip. I'm not sure what it is but I like the image.

So what do you say when you've got to say something?

This past week the Trump administration and Fox News continued to trumpet lines of racial fear and hatred, calling immigrants invaders and dangerous to our country. These words were echoed by the shooter in El Paso, whose deadly rampage was specifically directed at Mexicans. White nationalism is rapidly on the rise, fueled by the Trump's often repeated words. Meanwhile they've enacted vast budget cuts toward investigating organizations of domestic terror. Hmmm, I wonder why?

Dayton, Ohio, where I once lived, joined in the list of 250 US cities just this year to experience a mass shooting. Calls for Trump to own up to his words, apologize, and remove them from his 2020 campaign website have met deaf ears.

He is a shameless bully. Bullies don't attack powerful people who can fight back. Instead they build themselves up by victimizing the most helpless and vulnerable among us. In this case he's chosen poor people of color who have little or no legal power or ability to defend themselves. As such our country is now embracing a terror campaign against people whose only crime has been to come here seeking work and a better life for themselves and their families.

Clearly his supporters either don't care about his behavior or just plain love it. Some are probably even happy to see people killed. Some are one issue voters, whether for 2nd amendment rights, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, pro-Israel, or simply what-do-i-think-is-best-for-me.

I'd like to think it's out of benign neglect that other people who voted him in still adhere to Trump, but it's not benign, not any more. So far Trump hasn't gotten millions of people killed (yet), just hundreds, or maybe thousands. There's still plenty of time for that. But how long can Christians support him and his administration despite vast corruption and his clearly un-Christian treatment of anyone who'se not white or rich.

The faces of children in detention centers, and those whose parents were swept up by ICE agents says it all. Our USA, a place we grew up to be proud of, a place of laws, justice, and freedom, a land of immigrants, is now and forever will be known as a place of state sponsored domestic terrorism. We have let it happen here. Three cheers for the red, white and blue.

Trump and white nationalism are a cancer on America.

Barry Rothstein

I send out a weekly email of these. If you'd like to be included, please go to the contact page and send me an email.

Previous Images of the Week