The Incapacitated President and the Fatally-Flawed 25th Amendment

by Nomad

A Question of Stability and Security

Before Trump became president, there were plenty of people- smart people- who were questioning his mental stability. All through his business career, Trump was always quirky, spreading nonsensical conspiracy theories to outlandish and bizarre claims. That was fine and it seems all he really wanted was to call attention to himself.

All that changed when he somehow wound up as president of the United States. It is no laughing matter.

Tony Schwartz, Trump's ghostwriter and a man who worked closely with the man, labeled the 45th American president a “sociopath.”

I think that now he has moved to a darker place. He was non-ideological when I knew him.. I think he’s drifted into that more for emotional and psychological reasons than for political and ideological reasons.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said on CNN last week:

"Something is unleashed with him lately. I don't know what is causing it, I don't know how to describe it."

Throughout this past summer, there were consistent reports leaking from the White House of Trump's erratic behavior. Those close to the president have in October spoke privately Trump, they say was “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.”

Professionals too weighed in.

A group of 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts recently warned that “anyone as mentally unstable as this man should not be entrusted with the life-and-death-powers of the presidency.” 

With denials of things he has already apologized for and with his excuses becoming more and more absurd, those drumbeats are growing stronger and stronger. Is the president insane and if he is, what are the steps to removing him from office?    

Why This 1967 Interview of Prof. A.J. Toynbee is Still Thought-Provoking

by Nomad

The observations of an esteemed historian from 1967 still hold true in our time.

More than a Historian

To call Professor Arnold J. Toynbee a historian is to fall short of the mark. He was called a " philosopher of history." 

His most famous work "The Study of History" is a staggering 12 volumes and took three decades to write. On a human scale, that's a lot of history right there.
Today, Toynbee is known mostly in academic circles but in his time, he was a widely read and discussed scholar in the 1940s and 1950s.
Sadly, for the anybody without a masters' degree, the work is not what most people would consider and "easy" read.

But that's not to say it is inaccessible. A later condensed version allows us mere mortals an opportunity to understand Toynbee's brilliance. Even then, there are moments when you look up from the book and wonder, what the heck did I just read?
(The Wikipedia version is perhaps the ultimate abridgment.)

To put it simply, Professor Toynbee studied what caused primitive societies to transform themselves into civilizations and the reasons why civilizations collapsed.

Toynbee's goal was to trace the development and decay of 19 world civilizations in the historical record, applying his model to each of these civilizations, detailing the stages through which they all pass: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration.

In a way, Toynbee turned a very wide angle lens on humanity. Toynbee, as dry as his works could often be, provided remarkable insight into where we are in the bigger picture. He also hinted at where we might be going.

Fascism Made in the USA: The Night Nazis Fought on the Streets of New York City

by Nomad

The United States has had its share of fascist groups that have come and gone. One of those was the American Nazi Party, the Bund Party. Here's the story of its 1939 rally and how it led to its collapse. 

A "Pro-American" Rally

On The night of 20 February 1939, something occurred that became an interesting footnote in American history. Today it is mostly a forgotten bit of the history of New York City. And for many, it could be a period they would rather not recall.

That evening, Madison Square Garden was the venue for the American- German Bund party Washington's Day celebration, hosted by American-German Bund party. 

You may not be familiar with the Bund party, it was better known as the American Nazi party. 

Advertised as a "Pro-American Rally" it was attended by somewhere between 17,000 and 22,000. It was one of the largest gatherings of American Nazis of its time.

From the photographs of the event, there were the usual Nazi rally fixtures, flags, the swastikas, and uniforms. In order to establish its brand as true blue American, a forty-foot portrait of George Washington graced the stage. That was more than just window dressing. The organization had declared that Washington was "the first Fascist" who did not believe democracy would work. 

The meeting opened with a salute to the flag and the playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner." (It was to end with the Nazi anthem, however.)

Barbara Jordan Remembered

by Nomad

Today, February 21, marks the birthday of Texas Congresswoman Barbara Charline Jordan, arguably one of the most influential black women in American political history.

Representative Jordan from Texas was the first in many categories: the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South. Additionally, in, July 1976, she became the first African American woman to deliver a keynote speech at a Democratic National Convention.

In fact, on an individual level, it's hard to find, in one person of this period who symbolized the breadth of American diversity. She was an African American, she was a woman and, although it was an aspect of her life she preferred to remain undisclosed, she was most likely a lesbian.

On that basis alone, she had a right to speak on behalf of many people. She once said of the first words of the preamble of the Constitution:

It is a very eloquent beginning. But when the document was completed on the seventeenth of September 1787 I was not included in that “We, the people.” I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have finally been included in “We, the people.”:

The Line It Is Drawn: A Look Back at October 1963

by Nomad

Of the many critical moments in American history, the year 1963 stands out as one of the most climactic.

Yet there were so many things going on and so many stories being told just before that awful moment that were lost in the shadow that fell over the nation after the assassination.

The year 1963 was a momentous one for the fight against discrimination and events were moving quickly. By that year, many leaders in the civil rights movement had begun to question the sincerity of President Kennedy’s commitment to racial equality.

A Great Change is at Hand

In terms of social unrest, it had been a very hot summer. In June, the president had been forced to take a bold step, to federalize the Alabama National Guard when George Wallace, the segregationist governor of the state, refused to allow two black students to attend the state university in Tuscaloosa. Peaceful protests throughout the south had been met with police brutality which, in turn, ignited violence and rioting in many cities. 

American Dreams: My Father, Karl Marx and the Man who Sold the Rope 1/2

by Nomad

Let’s Begin With My Father

My father, born in 1929, grew up in the midst of the Great Depression, in what most people would consider extreme poverty. His father died one week after his birth leaving his widowed mother to raise her five children alone. Had it not been for a productive farmland, it is doubtful they would have survived. “We didn’t have two nickles to rub together,” he’d often tell me,”but we never even realized we were poor. Everybody we knew was in the same situation as we were.”

In 1951. he left the farm to join in the Korean War to fight the spread of the Communist threat. The Red Menace- China- was on the verge of expanding across the border into Korea. Following that, he received credit from a GI loan which allowed him to buy a very humble mobile home to start his married life.

In the economic boom of the 1950s, my father found employment as a precision sheet metal worker at a aircraft manufacturing plant. Along with thousands of other unskilled workers returning from Korea, the company trained my father with the idea of steady long term employment. In turn, my father worked at the company for thirty years. He did not particularly desire to rise up in the hierarchy of the company. He told me that he’d prefer not to have the stress that went with the responsibility. He preferred to spend more time at home at the end of his shift. There was also the goal that he knew that his children would, by his hard, boring and unsatisfying labor, have a better life than he did. It was an attainable goal. Through the use of collective bargaining of his union or the rare labor action, my father’s wage steadily increased.