"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Sunday, October 28, 2018

The Lower Depths (Updated)

Maybe we'd be better off if Trump just didn't make statements on tragic events:

President Donald Trump responded to the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue which resulted in multiple fatalities by blaming the synagogue for not having armed guards inside.

The gunman shot at least three armed police officers, but Trump did not appear to account for that in his remarks. Here is what he said to reporters:

This is a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately...maybe there would be nobody killed.

And let's all remember whose campaign for president got $30 million from the NRA.

And in what kind of country do you hire armed guards to protect you at worship? Just for some perspective:



Via Joe.My.God.

Let's face it, this is typical of Trump, and he's not going to change: he doesn't care about anyone but himself (and I'm very serious about that -- I have no doubt that he'd cut his children loose -- even Ivanka -- if he felt threatened enough). And let's be very plain about it: this is his doing. No, he didn't create this kind of toxic atmosphere -- that honor belongs to much more intelligent people than he is -- but he capitalized on it, and continues to do so, because it reflects his own thinking and resonates with the worst we have to offer: he's one of them, a bully with thin skin and a severe ego deficit:

President Donald Trump is refusing to acknowledge his role in this week's terror attacks which culminated in Friday afternoon's arrest of an anti-Democratic extremist Trump-supporting suspect.

"Not at all, no. There is no blame. There is no anything," the President told reporters late Friday afternoon from the White House lawn. He added that the suspect, Cesar Sayoc, merely is "a person that preferred me over others."

. . .

Trump went as far as to commend himself, saying he's "been toned down, if you want to know the truth."

"I could really tone it up, because the media has been extremely unfair to me and the Republican Party," President Trump told reporters. "The media has been unbelievably unfair to Republicans & certainly to me."

Anything that's not slavish adoration is "unfair."

Footnote: As might be expected, reactions to Trump's comments have been less than positive.

Ann Laurie at Balloon Juice takes the press to task, as well. The zinger:



Update: And just to make sure the target is clear:



Lo! How the mighty have fallen!

Update II: And from Tom Levenson, a look at history and complicity:

Thirty six years ago, on September 12, 1982, a Lebanese Maronite militia invaded two refugee camps occupied by Palestinians. As The New York Times remembered on the 30th anniversary of the disaster,

In the ensuing three-day rampage, the militia, linked to the Maronite Christian Phalange Party, raped, killed and dismembered at least 800 civilians, while Israeli flares illuminated the camps’ narrow and darkened alleyways. Nearly all of the dead were women, children and elderly men.

That reference to the flares points to the miserable truth behind the blood and broken bodies: the people on the spot, those militiamen handled the killing. They pulled the triggers, broke the women, shattered the bodies. They were guilty of those crimes; they did the worst that human beings can do.

But there were others who stood aside, hands nominally clean while the predictable result of their actions and their studied inactions played out in Sabra and Shatila.

After the fact, the Israeli government ordered an investigation into the massacres, and they got a real one. It concluded that

Israeli leaders were “indirectly responsible” for the killings and that Ariel Sharon, then the defense minister and later prime minister, bore “personal responsibility” for failing to prevent them.

Sharon didn’t fire a single shot; no blood spattered the shoes of his colleagues, and the Israeli soldiers on the front lines in Lebanon did nothing more than stay out of the way. But as the report concluded, those in charge in Israeli knew what would happen if the Maronite militias gained free rein in the camps, and they let events unfold anyway. They were guilty not of murder, but of enabling the killings, of giving permission for an atrocity.

Fast forward to 2018 and a "leader" who gives permission for the unhinged and delusional to commit atrocities against their (his) "enemies."



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