Wreckage Of War - and - "The Dead Sea"

 

                                     

                                       The Dead Sea, ( 1940 - 41) by Paul Nash ( 1917 - 1941) 

 

     In !940, Paul Nash imagined having all of the warplanes which had been shot down

in the war over England, along with their crews, being raked together and tossed into

 a sea of death.

 

     In 2026, we don't have to use our imaginations to see the death and destruction which

is happening on The Persian Gulf; we see the burning oil tankers and the exploding 

war base installations around it's shores, as we watch it happening, on our television

screens. 

     Donald Trump has been spending a billion dollars of national treasure every day

for the past thirty days, to fund an illegal war without a plan to win it, and without a

plan on how to get out of it.

     Now everyday, the people who voted to give the presidency of our country to a

man who is a total fraud, a convicted felon, a rapist and a probable pedophile, are

watching the price of gasoline rise higher every day, and they wonder how this 

could have happened.  Maybe some of them are finally beginning to realize that

so-called "alternative facts" are simply more of Trumps lies, that he dreams up

to obscure the truth of his blunders and failures.

     The truth right now is that he has dragged us and the whole world into a

rising high-tide from which there may be no escape any time soon.  And now,

how many of our young military personnel will die in the struggle to get us

out out of this oil-soaked, bloody gulf's waters?   

                                                                           Eugene P. McNerney 

 

Donald Trump's Poisenous Mind - and - The Scream

    

                                                   The Scream,  by Edvard Munch,  Pastel, 1895 

                                              

 

          Edvard Munch is probably the most famous Norwegian artist, and his painting

series which he called The Scream, are some of the most iconic and recognizable art 

images in the world.  This version, of the series of at least five, was painted two years 

after the mixed-media original, but it sold at auction for a record price which still 

stands as the fourth highest ever paid for an artwork.    

     So, why am I talking about this image today?  This figure, who is so terrified of

of the sound of what is happening in the world around him, is a good description of

how so many of us feel when we get up in the morning and hear about Trump's latest 

outrageous decision.  Every day he awards us with some new destructive disaster.   

That bloody, shrieking atmosphere which is hovering over the frightened figure in

 the painting is especially relevant to Trump's latest assault on the American people;

he has gutted the Environmental Protection Agency.  From now on there will be no

restrictions on the amount of poisons our industries release into the air we breath and

into the water we drink.  The buildup of mercury and lead in the environment will

continue to increase, poisoning the brains and nervous systems of our children, and

shortening our lives.   And the reason Trump has made this decision is simply to 

increase prophets for the carbon fuel industries, which support him so extensively

with donations to his election campaigns. 

      Even now as I write this, I am hearing that Trump has pushed The United States

into a war with Iran, without having congressional approval, as required by our 

constitution.  But of course Trump has never worried about doing things which are

unconstitutional or illegal or unethical before, so this has been expected and 

approved by his MAGA cult Republicans.

     So, now the bombs and missiles are falling, and there is nothing that innocent

citizens can do but cover our ears and hope that we can survive another three years

of Trump.

                                                  Eugene P. McNerney 

    

Trump's Gestapo - and - Truth In Art

 

                                                       World War II political cartoon

 

                                          "....She jumped on us and hit us violently...."

 

          Ninety three Lauriston Street in Paris France is the address of the infamous

building used as a headquarters of the Gestapo, during the Nazi occupation of Paris.

That was where the members of the French Resistance who had been caught, were

taken to be tortured and killed by criminal collaborators.   In the above cartoon, the

woman who was being "interrogated" has been beaten to death so viciously that even

her chair has been shattered.  And then, immediately after her murder, the killers 

begin creating the false narrative for her official cause of death, in which the victim is

responsible for her own death, thereby absolving themselves of guilt for the crime

of murder, and giving themselves permission to continue the killings as usual.

     That false narrative of the responsibility for her death is remarkably similar to 

what is happening now in Minneapolis.  A gestapo like force of gun-happy, masked, 

helmeted and booted recruits of the Department Of Homeland Security, in greater

numbers than the local police force, has invaded that community.  They were so

poorly trained that they have already killed two ICE protesters and injured other

citizens.  Immediately after the killings, the head of the DHS began the false narrative

that it was the victims who were attacking the gunmen, even though the video 

recordings of the assaults, clearly prove that she is lying.  This woman is totally

unqualified to be the head of such an important department.  She was only given

that cabinet position because she was willing to worship at the feet of Trump.  She

will no doubt continue to follow Trump's lead, and lie as long as he continues to

lie, and since he never stops lying, their lies will go on denying the facts and the truth.

     The saddest part of the whole story, is that the whole MAGA cult continues to

support Trump in his claims that all of the other "different" kinds of people are the 

source of all of our problems in this country.  His followers continue to accept all of 

his lies as truth, as if they are living in an alternate universe, where white is black 

and black is white.  They are the same people who would have supported Adolph 

Hitler's lies, no matter how inhumane were the results.  

                                                                          Eugene P. McNerney