To Whom it May Concern:

             

             I’m in shock, disbelief…denial…of the tragic feelings I associated with Kennedy’s and ML  King’s assassinations, 9-11, and now the power grab of Donald Trump. What consequences will the imposition of this character on the world stage have?

              As an instructor, I taught citizenship classes to immigrants in the nationalization process, including my parents, who came legally in 1956.  We learned of the Balance of Powers of the Three Branches Of Our Government, the value of a Constitution and that the majority should rule, within a framework of a republic, not a democracy.  We were expected to be positive that this system would work.  There was a consensus that this government was about as good as we could have, and that there were a Bill of Rights and other amendments that we were told, would predict a more open, multi-cultural society with equal respect and Rights Regardless Of Race, Gender, Ethnicity Or Religious Belief. 

              As a historian and product of WWII, in Europe, I learned of the disasters that a psychotic dictator like Hitler or Mussolini inflicted on the world, and the power that came so easily because of the German depression caused by the punishment the world inflicted on Post WWI Germany, leading  to The NAZI rise.  My German sister-friend, endured the first years of her life in Eastern Germany listening to bombs and scrambling through the trenches to find food.  On the first day of Trump’s campaign she yelled,” Oh God, he reminds me of Hitler”, as she fought off her Post Traumatic Stress.

              The Devil Dragon of Patriotic Isolationistic Nationalism, which has been breathing fire for a while, has finally burned through the common sense of an interdependent mutually sharing species living on the same life raft requiring us to cooperate to save our planet, and not appeal  again to the xenophobic gene to get wealth from war preparation.  My father warned me in my youth, having survived two world wars himself, that the nationalistic gene fires up when there is too much competition for resources or wealth.  Machiavelli had it right: “Divide and conquer!” .  It worked, so in 1938 the smoldering European continent once again found fuel in religion, language, ethnicity and national identity to start another profitable war for the corporate class. Thus the pattern of fascism repeats: Create scapegoats through false accusations and appeal to hate and divisiveness.      

        Postwar, the Marshall Plan was America’s ingenuity to stabilize a war torn continent and create a mutually dependent economy that would lead to the need for uniting under one banner.  A United Nations was founded by America to help diplomacy overcome that warrior testosterone impulse to fight, with all of its divisive and horrific consequences.  Eisenhower, too, warned us not to let corporations and warfare set our agenda.

              Now, we suddenly find ourselves (in the words of David Brooks, a Republican himself) with a ‘narcissistic egotistical 5 year old’ brat who suckered enough of the lower white working middle class to give the 1% plutocrats the opportunity to retreat from the hard won civil rights of our history, and dig back into the “Take care of yourself, we’re not responsible, we don’t need you, stay where you are.” Yet, every step of both industrial and financial progress was made possible by those waves of immigrants from all over the world looking for something like the peace, stability, employment, and necessities their home country no longer afforded them.

              Besides toppling The Statue of Liberty, he also has designated the most contrary staff to manage the very department they despise.  The blatant ignorance of an already educational dysfunctional system, which she will privatize,  and then home schooling and including religious schools back in play in a country of ‘Separation Of Church And State”  Suddenly we’re back to arguing over evolution and science, logic and reasoning, and the cognition necessary to distinguish a world of “alternative facts” from truth.

              Then add suggestions he could get away with shooting someone, insulting patriots like John McCain and the Kahn Family losers, resorting to ‘pussy grabbing’ and shaming the handicapped.   The “system” has either been paid off, or is too cowardly to pursue Trump University, and several rape charges not to mention huge conflicts of interest. 

              Sure, I could definitely support returning key industries to be more accountable to local taxation, and I do believe that a sustainable future will require more and more local adaptations to a rapidly changing planet.  But if that’s going to be accomplished with coal, logging, petroleum and other harmful chemicals then this man is in violation of the one divine command that life requires, Each Specie Should Be Seeking The Most Positive Future To Further Its Own Species, To Find Habitat And Resources.  Now I know most homo sapiens are never satisfied but if there is no leadership willing to educate and act upon ‘facts and truth’, then we have entered another era that will only further the collapse of global civilization and our very planet.

              So, the challenge for those of us who are horrified, and we are the majority of the population, if not the Electoral College “Cowards”, we find ourselves in a world where even speaking up for the rights of others has almost become a crime, and the line between peaceful and violent protests virtually disappears.  The very technology upon which our world is dependent is vulnerable to a loss of our control, yet like 1984, we’re being monitored.  What does that leave?

              We must defend our right to speak our mind, and to defend the fundamental Bill of Rights upon which this nation agreed to unite.  Somehow, our checks and balances must be strengthened so that one administration cannot simply overturn the last 75 years of progress making all humans equal..

              Meanwhile we need to overcome the denial that we have entered a new era in American history, one that 1984 and Brave New World had prophesied:  Propaganda and distractions as a means of brainwashing the populace into apathy and resignation.  At last the sales of “1984” are surging again.

Peter M. Prehn

A supermoon deserves respect as my need to  express my frustration with an appropriate sense of sarcasm

The decision to drive this model of governance by a majority of electors removes all faith I had in the checks and balances o

To expect, to wait, and to hope are all meanings for the Spanish word, esperar.

I’m grieving the death of the final remaining illusions I had of the inherent value of a republic, or an electoral system where the minority actually got to rule.  The success of the racist divisive party to achieve the control they now have over our nation, and the threats to our human rights, education, labor unions, women’s rights, gay rights, and national health care, not to mention corporate deregulaltion and deglobalization.  Then there's to complete disregard for life on earth, or the future generations with no viable path to success.

These threaten the foundations of all I was taught as a student becoming a citizen of America in 1960 as an immigrant kid from Holland.

Obama gave us some hope.  We expected more, but now we shall definitely simply have to wait.

My gut tells me we’re on the threshold of a new era in human relations, and I fear it may be a reversal of the humanism of the past.

The globally intertwined world is trying to sever some ties by propagandizing nationalism and by appealing  to the tribal gene.  Divide and conquer.

I sense the feelings that my Dutch parents must have had when Adolf Hitler came to power…a man who used  the crowd tactic and hate to gain power over others with the superman German propaganda.

I myself have found tears draping forth, despite my seven decades of political disappointment, and can only compare these feelings with the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, or  the news of 9/11.

Certainly the lack of respect, abuse, civility in American politics has been trumped by this candidate, the worst in American history, and yet the uneducated white males of our more rural regions were able to overcome the actual majority of Americans .

I have definitely had anxiety with every election and rarely have things been as on edge as they are now, as our society is already lashing back at those fighting for equality, but rarely has a president sponsored racial and ethnic divisiveness so directly in his words.

It is the end of my own American dream, as a child immigrant to America, in the McCarthy era and patiently watch equality spread to every race, culture, and gender…finally recognizing women as equal humans, and struggling to implement the ideal of the American Dream ‘equal opportunity and respect for all’  which our teachers tried to implant in our values.

Every step forward and backward has been observed, and just as we thought we had reached respect for every sub-culture in our society but are working on giving equal opportunity to all.  

We have gotten caught up in the overpopulation, globalistic economics, resource diminishing, climate change, and the results are sparking the tribes and clans to claim their own turf, culture, life style...

Uncertainty drives innovation, and innovation in times of crisis is to hook up with locals and neighbors and share resources.

The future has always had a dark side, from the atomic bomb, to immigrants taking over Americ from the natives.  Consequences are not always understood until they take affect...Karma is the term for that...our generation has had some of the moste prosperous and luxurious life styles, mostly white, educated and preferred.  Now we shall have to account for those who do no longer see themselves as members of the same society.