​ 
When Joe Biden visited the Kremlin in 2011, he reportedly said to Putin: “Mr Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul.” According to Biden, Putin smiled and replied, “We understand each other.”
 
Many of those who choose to overlook the well-documented egregious acts of Trump seem to think of evil as a generic term to define societal ills, that evil itself has no singular identity. The Evangelicals inexplicable support of Trump supports the notion that one is to believe that the goodness of God now embraces man’s evil. It is ok to commit adultery, lie, cheat, etc. Modern Evangelicals have re-created God. In the past, there existed a dualistic world-view within religious groups; good and evil were separate forces. Not now. I grew up in that environment, taught that good would prevail over evil because of a holy God. So, you can understand my confusion when I see people who say they embrace that God, yet shout that in this modern age it’s okay to be evil.
It is not new.  David Cesarani wrote in his book Eichmann: His Life and Crimes that Eichmann took part in the Holocaust because he wanted to do so. In this he was no different from many others, though his crimes were larger in scale. Until it was clear that the war was lost, Nazism was extremely popular. William Shirer reported in his eyewitness account of the rise of Hitler, The Nightmare Years:
“Most Germans, so far as I could see, did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their splendid culture was being destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work were being regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation … On the whole, people did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous tyranny. On the contrary, they appeared to support it with genuine enthusiasm.”
 
Freud suggested that human beings are ruled by impulses or instincts, impelling them towards life and creation or destruction and death. He cautioned against thinking that these forces embodied good and evil in any simple way. Whether they worked together or in opposition, both were necessary. The fragility of civilization reflected the divided nature of the human animal itself. This seems to be the path Evangelicals and many others who embrace God travel. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin, both are choices. And therein lies the problem that must be resolved. Is there truly evil or is it simply a bad choice. If simply a choice, then what is God’s role? If as Freud suggests, we are slaves to our impulses, where is God? Those Evangelicals with their new God would have us believe that God not withstanding, when we feel threatened it is just fine to have feelings of anti-Semitism, ethnic nationalism, hatred of gay people, immigrants, etc. God is with us.
 
One of my fears is that Trump’s acts aren’t rejected because many of his supporters endorse them. They admire one who acts tyrannically, much as did the Germans with Hitler. And this becomes much easier with their re-created God.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

​We have become Hitler’s America, with a ruler who does and says whatever he pleases and a Congress that is too insipid to react. Read history and see the parallels. I am now officially concerned. When our government disses our long time friends for butchers, we have----well, you figure it out. Oh, a few members of Congress will whine but have you seen a single one stand up and yell, THIS ISN’T RIGHT! What will we do next to the immigrants and their children? Load them into trains and take them to camps?? The German citizens bought into Hitler’s insanity about the Jews that their removal was necessary to protect the race, just as we are buying into the theme that all must speak English and worship Jesus. Please, I’m not speaking as a Liberal, which I am, but as a concerned American. We are losing control of our government. This nation needs a voter revolution, beginning by a few million marching to Washington and taking over Congress. If you agree with my concern, please share this.

​We have become Hitler’s America, with a ruler who does and says whatever he pleases and a Congress that is too insipid to react. Read history and see the parallels. I am now officially concerned. When our government disses our long time friends for butchers, we have----well, you figure it out. Oh, a few members of Congress will whine but have you seen a single one stand up and yell, THIS ISN’T RIGHT! What will we do next to the immigrants and their children? Load them into trains and take them to camps?? The German citizens bought into Hitler’s insanity about the Jews that their removal was necessary to protect the race, just as we are buying into the theme that all must speak English and worship Jesus. Please, I’m not speaking as a Liberal, which I am, but as a concerned American. We are losing control of our government. This nation needs a voter revolution, beginning by a few million marching to Washington and taking over Congress. If you agree with my concern, please share this.

This is a continuation of a Facebook post.

​Assuming that we accept that in the eyes of the quantum physicist that with every choice you make, an alternate YOU is created to experience the other choice, then what happens? Well before going there let’s examine the statement Bob Albiston made about thought.
 
“In Frontiers Of Psychology, 2017, recent developments in the neurology of thought and consciousness were summarized. We tend to think that we consciously direct our thoughts and make choices. Actually, thinking goes on in the background in an efficient manner while consciousness passively rides alongside unaware of how information is being processed. We quickly become aware of what we have already thought. It is the old horse and rider analogy of the deep meditator...we are not really the directors of the play. We are, in fact, being thought by large processes outside of our consciousness. Your MWI is equally humbling, disconcerting, and oddly liberating.”
 
This is pretty much in agreement with quantum physics theory that thoughts interact. Divide the mind into two components, the conscious part that gives us our self worth, that tells us who we are when we look into the mirror, and the second part that doesn’t care about our self worth because it’s too busy working on what and who we want to be. Some scientists call this the Undermind. It is the Undermind that helps us play golf, breathe, etc. And it is the Undermind that makes it possible for us to get what we seek. So while the conscious part of our mind is being ‘oh hum’, it is actually the other portion controlling our thoughts. And because the Undermind is interacting with other forces—and we are not even aware of it, the sly devil—it is, as Bob said, directing the play we are seeing. So the question becomes, how do we choose the play? I’ll get into that later but for now there is this: BELIEF IS EXPECTATION AND EXPECTATION IS BELIEF.
 
So, a brief synopsis of MWI is that choices create a new YOU, and that new YOU shares the same space as the old you, but its world is different. The new YOU brought along its friends, house car, etc into the world. This man is insane, you say---but hold on because if a hundred years ago I said that we’d be traveling in space and able to talk on a wristwatch, well---
Why accept this theory? There is a story about a drunk looking for his lost keys under a street light because he could see better there. Well, this theory answers a lot of my questions so until I find something better, I’ll stay where I can see.
 
So, assuming there are an infinite number of YOU’s and your brains are using the same space, do YOU interact? Of course, why wouldn’t YOU? And there is nothing to suggest that in our MWI, time is not accelerated or events compressed. When Jesus told the thief on the cross that today he would be with him in paradise, was that event compression or accelerated time? One or the other. Dreams about the future that come true are called psychic events, but perhaps they are simply another YOU travelling faster than you and seeing the future. What is intuition? De je vu moments?
 
For now, I’ll let this be digested, or thrown up—whatever, and go back to EXPECTATIONS AND BELIEF. We have the power to control our life to a much greater extent than we imagine. Jesus tried to tell us that when he said that with faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains. So what happened? Well, we chose to take this as a metaphor, to accept limitations rather than possibilities. All this while our Undermind was screaming, NO, NO, NO! Please listen to him. See, the Undermind knows but won’t force its will on us. We have to choose. Again Jesus said, that where people were gathered together, he would be there. To me this means that when thoughts are forming a consensus, there is great power. EXPECTION IS BELIEF. Your expectations tell the Undermind to get busy, so it does that through—well, networking. Remember, that thoughts interact. And here I’m talking about the world YOU now live in. So, get rid of those negative thoughts and grab onto the Undermind---have true faith, not hope, expect things to improve, and see what happens. Search under the streetlight.
 
MUCH MORE LATER---if you have issues or questions you can address them through my blog. They will be private.
 
 
Dick

This is a continuation of a facebook post. 

​Assuming that we accept that in the eyes of the quantum physicist that with every choice you make, an alternate YOU is created to experience the other choice, then what happens? Well before going there let’s examine the statement Bob Albiston made about thought.
 
“In Frontiers Of Psychology, 2017, recent developments in the neurology of thought and consciousness were summarized. We tend to think that we consciously direct our thoughts and make choices. Actually, thinking goes on in the background in an efficient manner while consciousness passively rides alongside unaware of how information is being processed. We quickly become aware of what we have already thought. It is the old horse and rider analogy of the deep meditator...we are not really the directors of the play. We are, in fact, being thought by large processes outside of our consciousness. Your MWI is equally humbling, disconcerting, and oddly liberating.”
 
This is pretty much in agreement with quantum physics theory that thoughts interact. Divide the mind into two components, the conscious part that gives us our self worth, that tells us who we are when we look into the mirror, and the second part that doesn’t care about our self worth because it’s too busy working on what and who we want to be. Some scientists call this the Undermind. It is the Undermind that helps us play golf, breathe, etc. And it is the Undermind that makes it possible for us to get what we seek. So while the conscious part of our mind is being ‘oh hum’, it is actually the other portion controlling our thoughts. And because the Undermind is interacting with other forces—and we are not even aware of it, the sly devil—it is, as Bob said, directing the play we are seeing. So the question becomes, how do we choose the play? I’ll get into that later but for now there is this: BELIEF IS EXPECTATION AND EXPECTATION IS BELIEF.
 
So, a brief synopsis of MWI is that choices create a new YOU, and that new YOU shares the same space as the old you, but its world is different. The new YOU brought along its friends, house car, etc into the world. This man is insane, you say---but hold on because if a hundred years ago I said that we’d be traveling in space and able to talk on a wristwatch, well---
Why accept this theory? There is a story about a drunk looking for his lost keys under a street light because he could see better there. Well, this theory answers a lot of my questions so until I find something better, I’ll stay where I can see.
 
So, assuming there are an infinite number of YOU’s and your brains are using the same space, do YOU interact? Of course, why wouldn’t YOU? And there is nothing to suggest that in our MWI, time is not accelerated or events compressed. When Jesus told the thief on the cross that today he would be with him in paradise, was that event compression or accelerated time? One or the other. Dreams about the future that come true are called psychic events, but perhaps they are simply another YOU travelling faster than you and seeing the future. What is intuition? De je vu moments?
 
For now, I’ll let this be digested, or thrown up—whatever, and go back to EXPECTATIONS AND BELIEF. We have the power to control our life to a much greater extent than we imagine. Jesus tried to tell us that when he said that with faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains. So what happened? Well, we chose to take this as a metaphor, to accept limitations rather than possibilities. All this while our Undermind was screaming, NO, NO, NO! Please listen to him. See, the Undermind knows but won’t force its will on us. We have to choose. Again Jesus said, that where people were gathered together, he would be there. To me this means that when thoughts are forming a consensus, there is great power. EXPECTION IS BELIEF. Your expectations tell the Undermind to get busy, so it does that through—well, networking. Remember, that thoughts interact. And here I’m talking about the world YOU now live in. So, get rid of those negative thoughts and grab onto the Undermind---have true faith, not hope, expect things to improve, and see what happens. Search under the streetlight.
 
MUCH MORE LATER---if you have issues or questions you can address them through my blog. They will be private.
 
 
Dick

T

​ 
THE TRUMP PHENOMENOM
is not his alone, nor did it begin with him. Nationalism was used by Nazi Germany as a springboard to power, as did nations before this. After its defeat, the word became enmity to European nations, replaced by democracy and capitalism. Only those seeking quick political death dared to whisper the word in public. With the lingering threat of Russia, along with the lure of economic improvements, it wasn’t difficult to hold this new movement together. But the question was, is, did the Europeans fully move away from nationalism and fully embrace the new model? I think not. And perhaps the formation of the European Union, along with its common currency, seeded a fertile field for rebellion. So with the end of the Cold War, the arrival of imported terrorism, and  a cycle of economic issues, came BREXIT, the rise of populism, a less threatening word for nationalism, to show the first signs of the coming harvest as Europeans began to openly ask, “Is anti-nationalism too steep a price?”
The story in America, while differing in history, has many similarities.  Nationalism is loosely as “a strong belief that the interests of a particular nation-state are of primary importance, and that a people who share a common language, history, and culture should constitute an independent nation, free of foreign domination.” Nationalism was the most successful political force of the early 19th century. It brought the nation together through the exaltation of feeling and identity. America began to have its own identity in the world now that it has been a nation for over a century. Its own economy took off when the market revolution began. Already, the United States had already won several wars. At this point, the nations people were proud to live in the U.S. and thus nationalism began to grow further. Nationalism helped many industries grow such as railroads and roads to connect and unify our country. Now that Americans were connected better by these systems they began to view themselves as a whole who had one thing in common, they lived in America. 
 
Wars, immigration, economic vagaries muted this nationalistic emotion over the next centuries, but like out European neighbors the feeling was only dormant, waiting for the call to awake. In 2016 the Huffington Post issued an article: The American Nationalism Problem
 

• “America has a nationalism problem. The U.S. has been described as the melting pot, a nation of immigrants and the Land of Opportunity. Indeed, the story we tell ourselves is that the American identity is rooted not in place, but in the acceptance of a common set of ideals, irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity. The politics of the last decade, however, have strained the notion of e pluribus unum, revealing among whites three definitions of the American nation that are exclusive rather than inclusive.

First come the “Unhyphenated Americans”. For decades, the Census Bureau has asked Americans “to what country does this person draw their heritage?” Among whites, German (17 percent), Irish (16 percent), and English (14 percent) are the most common responses. But about one in twelve whites Americans indicated they are just “Americans,” indicating an indigenous white identity unconnected to any particular European ethnicity. These Unhyphenated Americans are distinct. They are more likely to be fundamentalist Protestants. Nearly two thirds of them live in the Census South, and especially in Greater Appalachia.
The highest rate of “American” identity is among young rural whites with limited education. Recent surveys find that whites with an “unhyphenated” identity are increasingly voting very conservative and perceive a cultural threat from foreign influences. They also call themselves ethnic “Americans” for patriotic reasons. They favor a stronger national defense. And, they are more likely to think that an individual’s life chances are tied to their racial identity (what Michael Dawson called “linked fate“).
Historic data from the General Social Survey shows that Unhyphenated Americans are no more racially conservative than other Americans. The exception is that they are consistently less likely to vote for a hypothetical black candidate for president, or, since 2008, an actual one. They are also increasingly less likely to vote for Democrats in general.
Then there are the Christian Nationalists. The most visible religious tension in American politics is between the Establishment Clause and the long tradition of Protestant ownership of the moral nation. Christian Nationalists have the highest agreement with four statements about America: that is “holds a special place in God’s plan;” that “God has chosen [America] to lead the world;” that the United States “was founded as a Christian nation;” and “it is important to preserve the nation’s religious heritage.” According to a poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in June of this year, 62% of Americans either completely agree or mostly agree that “God has granted America a special role in human history.” 52% said “believing in God” and 33% percent said “being a Christian” was very important for “being truly American.” Similar distributions have been found in other surveys of the public since 2010. They are also heavily invested in Biblical literalism. Agreement with these statements is strongly correlated with anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment among white Americans. Politics and the course of America are therefore a question of the degree and intensity of Christianization. Christian Nationalists are often found among Unhyphenated Americans (or vice-versa).
Finally there are the New Nationalists. New Nationalism was coined in the 1990s by journalist Michael Lind, who describes it as an elite white regime. Under New Nationalism, the white elite (or “overclass”) withdraws into a private realm — private neighborhoods, private schools, private health care and private security. Working class whites are abandoned to a broad, publicly dependent underclass along with most people of color. The New Nationalism is deeply invested in a “bootstrap ideology” of America, built on private property rights and individual responsibility. The New Nationalists overlap with Christian Nationalists on some beliefs, but have little in common with Unhyphenated Americans. Communities broadly exhibiting these inequalities are most common in the Corridor from New York to northern Virginia , though they occur as suburban counties of nearly every major metropolitan area in the U.S.
What it Means for Others. These three concepts of American nationalism share several features. They introduce an identity component — wealth, or ethnicity or religious identity. They overlap with each other, largely through Protestant evangelical identity. And, they contrast against “out groups” that are growing in the U.S. — the secularists, immigrants, non-Caucasian ethnics and Muslims. Conflict in the GOP arises from the growing voices of white identity and Christian identity, versus efforts by the economic conservatives who populate the New Nationalism who seek to co-opt elites from non-white ethnic and racial groups.
The major victim of this new politics of competing forms of American nationalism a national consensus most recently observed by social scientist Alan Wolfe. At the end of the Clinton Administration, when political polarization had exploded into full flower, Wolfe wrote in his book One Nation After All that there was a broad-based consensus of tolerant belief across seemingly different American communities. This consensus has not survived the downward mobility of the white working class. The white working class is heavily populated with Christian Nationalists and Unhyphenated Americans. Its members are upset at the loss of an American Dream that was taken for granted by their grandparents and are threatened by future in which they will be an ethnic minority.”
And this led to Trump.
Even when he leaves, whether forcefully or otherwise, we will still have a dysfunctional government and the debate over our values. The issue here, like in Europe, is not about democracy. It is far more important. We have to decide on what form of nationalism we will embrace. The EU is valiantly fighting to hold off this debate but they will fail for the same reason America’s debate will eventually fail. The average citizen feels betrayed by government. I see no other end. Draining the swamp is doomed to failure because the major culprits always find safety.
 
NEXT SUBMITTAL----WHAT’S THE ANSWER
 
 
 
 

​Writing has made my life more than just interesting; it has introduced me to people who have led remarkable lives. When I wrote about Julie Holland and Maxine Raines, I had no idea that I was in the presence of greatness. But I was. They are two treasures in East Tennessee that go unnoticed by far too many. They are SAINTS, whom I came to love. Then, I met Jerry Allen LeQuire, a man who spent most of his life in prison, and died in prison, a man who did, and was accused of, acts most of don’t understand. But you know what, I liked him. So, what does that make me?
 
Understand, I spent four years talking with him, about everything from drugs to God. And I came to see him for not only what he had done, but for what he could become. As I found myself changing my opinion about him, I thought that it might be time to end my research. After all, he was far removed from anyone I had associated with. That I decided to continue was my good fortune. His questions about God were genuine, thought provoking, and showed what so many like him wonder. How could God forgive? My answer was simple: Since God is perfect, can He possibly have degrees of imperfection? I think not. But man does. If someone kills, he himself might be killed for society has decreed. But if a man constantly abuses a child, he will be sent to prison but his life will be spared. Which is the worse crime? Ironically, the prisoners will tell you the abuser is far worse, so where does that leave us who judge? Think about it.
 
My point is, I decided to treat Jerry like I thought Jesus would, not with judgment but with spirituality. Yes, I understand there are those who Jerry scarred who find it impossible to forget, and forgive---I really do understand. I came to him with none of this baggage.
 
I titled the book A SPECIES OF INSANITY not because he or those around him were insane, but because we as a species act in such insane ways that are not in accordance with what God intended---and I’m not just talking about crime but the way we deal with life. Yes, we are insane, don’t you agree? Look at our political situation where compassion is just a word. If Jesus were here, he’d probably go to Washington and drive Congress out with a whip. But enough of that!
 
I have interfaced with many others in my writing research, and each one had their own story. In that, as a writer I had the advantage of looking at the people through a wide-angle lens.
 
So, I will continue to write, to attempt to see the full picture, and hopefully this path will be equally satisfying and rewarding.