Random Bits

1.       Trump on Korea:  One of the constant mantras Trump uses to justify his stance in Korea is that our policy there is a failure.  Actually, our policy in Korea has been a huge success.  There hasn’t been a war there for 64 years.  That’s pretty good.  Trump thinks we can stop the North from developing nuclear weapons, but that is unrealistic.  Any country that wants to pay the economic and political price to develop a weapons program can do so.  The technology, by today’s standards, isn’t that hard to come by.  Any claim America has to denying North Korea a nuclear program is undercut by Trump’s own actions.  Who in their right mind would agree to a deal with a guy who changes his mind about agreements already signed on a regular basis?  If there was a viable military option in Korea, it would have been used a long time ago.  There is no reason to talk so tough when the options are so limited.  The number thrown around is a million people would die in the first days of the conflict.  But if the North has the ability to hit not just the South but also Japan with a nuclear weapon, that number could be in the tens of millions.  Just shut up, please.

2.       Jimmy Bakker says it’s bad to make fun of God:  Jim Bakker is tired of people making fun of him and says that what they’re really making fun of is God.  Furthermore, God will punish those who laugh.  Well, if that’s the case, Jimmy better join the witness protection program.  It’s hard to imagine someone who has made more people laugh at God than Jimmy Bakker.  How many lives do these guys have?

3.       Trump on ‘Honoring’ the Military:  Trump likes to say that the people protesting at NFL games are dishonoring the military (and first responders and mom and the flag and ice cream).  First, they’re not protesting the flag, they’re protesting police violence against minorities.  Second, how can you dishonor the flag by taking advantage of the rights it represents?  Third, who is Trump to suddenly be so enamored of the military.  When he had a chance to fight for his country he declined.  Some of those deferments were legitimate, but at least the last one was a blatant bribe by his old man.  I don’t care that Trump didn’t serve, but please stop with hypocritical flag waving.

4.         Harvey:  The fallout from the Weinstein scandal continues to escalate.  Recriminations about who knew what when and revelations about other people in the industry are bound to continue.  The real story here is the women who came forward and how it might be a pivotal moment in how we see these issues.  A tangential concern for me is how these few powerful men with their abhorrent attitudes about women dominate our cultural production.  If you follow the money, only a few studios and a few powerful men control most of the entertainment industry.  That industry produces almost all our images of love, desire, sex and romance.  If men like Weinstein control those choices, the art they produce replicates their tastes.  In their hands, everything is reduced to a misogynistic and adolescent male fantasy or fetish.  Rather than exploring desire or sex in a diverse and human scale, we have the same images shoved in front of us over and over, creating a simulacrum of human desire.  Removing them not only protects the women who work in the industry, it may lead to a more diverse and fully human treatment of love and desire.

5.       Meanwhile:  We’re still talking about Trump too much and not focusing on what we might do to improve the world.  One of the regrettable by-products of some versions of American Protestantism is that the chosen can do no wrong.  Once you’re a good guy, you’re always a good guy.  The people who still support him will never change their minds.  It leaves the rest of us frustrated and tired.  Winter’s coming – it’s no time to let our guard down or stop the resistance.  Make some soup and gather your friends around the table and tell some stories or sing some songs to make it through the days ahead.