Burning Man Four, original mixed media
8.5" X 11" , unframed
Dictators, kings, emperors and autocrats do not like to be contradicted by anyone
or have their decisions proved wrong. Their minds are made up with inaccurate or
incomplete factual knowledge and an excess of personal prejudices and hatreds, and
they do not allow anyone to question their intelligence or their ability to rule. But of
course, inevitably and sometimes even frequently, they do receive factual messages
which often contain enough truth to make these egocentric men feel uneasy about
maintaining their grip on power, or even angry enough to punish the individuals who
simply delivered the true but unwelcome messages.
History is full of stories, going back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, about the
messengers who were killed by the tyrants who received their messages, simply because
the tyrants didn't like to hear the bad-news truth which was delivered to them in the
messages.
Donald Trump is a fascist autocrat who continues his drive to destroy American
democracy, first by an armed insurrection and now by whittling away our constitutional
rights. The latest part of our Bill Of Rights he is destroying is the freedom of speech.
Our founding fathers made the freedom of the press the first priority of our constitutional
rights. But crooks like Trump, and Nixon before him, do their best to eliminate any news
source with journalists who tell the truth about the administration. Nixon used to
repeatedly tell his secretary of state, "The press is the enemy!", because the newspapers
were exposing his crimes. Trump has de-funded Public Television, because its news
reporting was fair and balanced and a truthful examination of his administration. And he
is laying outrageous lawsuits on the most truthful newspapers we have, in an attempt to
stop them from telling the American public the truth about his crimes. And he is now
directing his FCC chairman to try and revoke the broadcast licenses of the TV networks
which have late evening talk shows featuring comedians, who use comedy to reveal
Trumps crimes and failures. Trump doesn't like his ignorance to be exposed every night
for the amusement and benefit of the American public.
Trump is also continuing to fire anyone in our government who tells the truth about
anything in contradiction to Trump's stupid decisions questioning the truth of science
and the scientists who advance our health and the protection of our daily lives. Perhaps
the most crucial of these firings, as far as the future of our survival on this planet, is his
firing of the scientists who were monitoring the ever increasing rise of the poisoning,
greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. They were fired because they were telling the
truth about the growing danger to the planet, and he can't stand the truth of the science
and the factual information because it contradicts his ignorant declarations that global
warming is a hoax. I believe he also even plans to turn off the satellites which provide
the actual, growing measurements of carbon in the atmosphere: he is killing the innocent
messengers because they are delivering messages he doesn't want to hear.
The 2025 Burning Man Festival has just wrapped up on Labor Day. As I have said
before in previous posts to this blog, I have never attended that festival, but the annual
publicity which that name, Burning Man, brings to the public, is an important reminder
that we could all end up as burning men, if we don't do something to drastically reduce
our use of carbon fuels. And since Trump is doing everything he can to kill the sensible,
progressive climate legislation of the Biden administration, the fire is coming ever closer
to all of us, every day.
Eugene P. McNerney
