The New Declaration of Independence: From Trump

 

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is fast approaching. The present  state of the USA demands a new declaration -- against Trump and Trumpism. The original declaration of 1776 blamed George III for the conflict. Much if not most of the blame lay with the British Parliament, but focusing on the king made the argument for independence simple: the people versus a tyrant. The argument is much stronger today than in 1776, because Trump, unlike George III, truly is a tyrant. So let's KISS again. 

The original Declaration of Independence, in the part few read today, listed a long series of "repeated injuries and usurpations" designed to establish "an absolute Tyranny over these States." The New Declaration of Independence from Trump should contain a similar list of the injuries and usurpations he and his toadies have inflicted on the USA. I propose something like the following:

He has repeatedly violated the Constitution, the laws, and the legal system.

He is destroying the fabric of American institutions, including the legal system and those designed to advance education, health, and the general welfare. 

He has attacked and is attacking freedom of speech, the press, and assembly. 

He has violated the norms of diplomacy and human rights, killing and arresting people without evidence of any crime. 

He has made enemies of traditional allies and friends of the USA

He is destroying one of the strongest economies on earth.

He has repeatedly violated the norms of human morality.

He has brought the USA into global contempt.

He has praised and assisted the enemies of human freedom, decency, and democracy.

He is a felon guilty of bribery, rape, pedophilia, tax evasion, extortion, and other crimes. 

He is a six times bankrupt who has repeatedly failed to pay his creditors.

He golfs on the taxpayers' money while the country burns.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks!

A Poetic Piss-Potpourri: In Honor of Donald Trump

Uptown, Downtown, 

All around Epstein,

A tisket a tasket, 

Trump is in a basket.

All fall down!

If he doesn't go to jail, 

He will damn sure go to Hail.

Don and Mel went up the Hill,

To make a crooked Congress.

Don fell down and lost his Crown, 

And Mel came tumbling on her ass.

Trumpstein Bridge is falling down, 

Falling down, falling down,

Trumpstein Bridge is falling down, 

My Dear Ladies, 

No Trumps! No Trumps!

I introduce Vice Charlatan Vance,

Who decided to take a big chance.

He joined with a liar named Shitler,

Who once he had called Herr Hitler,

And together they went to The Dance.

Great Fatsby achieved a new low

Putting on a mega-tacky show,

At His Christian-themed bordello,

That pile he calls Mar a Lago,

A truly real and genuine farrago.

There once was a prince name of Andy,

Who reputedly leaned towards randy.

Prince Andy fell down, 

And off went his crown,

Isn't this story just dandy?

Hey kids! come along to Mr. Trumps’ Neighborhood

You bet you should, and I promise I’ll be good.

My friends Jeff and Ghislaine will make you free.

We’ll have such fun at Epstein Island By the Sea.

Zionists and Nazis, you're the same, 

There's simply no one else to blame. 

You kill and starve all ages, sexes, 

And joyfully you love to vex us.

A cursed bunch of poor pretenders, 

You talk as if you're our defenders.

Carrying out the will of God,

While stealing other people's sod. 

Off

Gridley, you may fire when ready,

God man, why's your hand unsteady?

Fire the missiles, I order you!

Send them up and on and through!

But Captain, can't you see?

They're only fishing boats to lee;

We'll blow them all to smitheries, 

Just as we did at Wounded Knee.

Gridley, dammit, move aside,

Such cowardice I can't abide.

Killing drug lords is our job,

So missiles at them we must lob.

I'll press the button and send

Them on their way to wend.

Watch them blaze across our bow, 

That's it -- the battle's over now.

Our God POTUS will be clapping,

Lots of backs he'll be slapping, 

Put some lefties in the pen,

Gridley, America's Great Again

Look! Up in the sky! 

Is it a bird? 

Is it a plane?

No, its Super-King!

He's just the thing!

Come to save us

From evil lefties.

Oh, shit!  

Behold! The Epstein Files,

Chock full of pedophiles.

What rhymes with orange?

Could it be brown?

Chicago, Blues Brothers Town,

Where ICE will be a'goin' down.

Chicago, City of Broad Shoulders, 

Will not welcome rebel soldiers.

Chicago, Noble Windy City,

Will crush Orange Turd the Shitty.

Chicago, Chicago, Toddling Town,

Will in its river fascists drown.

The Epstein Hoax is such a Joke!

Says Agent Trump a'snortin' Coke,

I know the truth believe you me,

Ask Madame Maxwell, yes siree, 

At Epstein Island by the Sea.

The FBI hired me to show, 

That Epstein ran a bordello.   

I love tariffs, they're so good for me, 

Slap them on all countries, they are my enemy.

Tariffs with my coffee, tariffs with my tea,

Send me golden trinkets to match my golden pee, 

I love to threaten tariffs when I am on TV. 

I like my women on the younger side,

12 to 17 I can abide.

Epstein stole the best from me,

But still I had a bigly spree,

At Epstein Island by the sea.

There once was a POTUS most arrogant

Who spewed nonsense incredibly arrant

His mind is quite broken 

His knowledge mere token

And his brain like a wrinkled currant.  

This fellow named Trump is quite comical

With words he is not economical

They flow from his rump 

Like a fast-flowing dump

What a marvel he is anatomical.

God has sent us a wonderful gift
To save us all from devilish drift
He may be a rapist,
A crook, and a racist
But God knows we're not very swift.
(Thanks to Trumpgelicals for inspiring this poem)

Trump's a fascist his critics declare.

Trump says my MAGATS don't care.

In fact, they quite like it.

No way shall I drop it,

When my fascism they all share.

There once was a POTUS named Trump
Who called the White House a dump.

"There's no golden potty

It's driving me dotty
I guess I will just have a hump."

Trump wanted to buy Greenland I've heard.

Denmark said, "that's completely absurd."

His deal thus upended, 

Her Trump was offended, 

And acted once more like a turd.

TAX REVOLT: Don't Put Your Money Where Trump Is.

 On the18^th of April in ‘75

Hardly a tax was then alive.

A tiny British tax on tea

And Patriots made the British flee.

 

Today Americans meekly send,

Tax money for the rich to spend.

Loopholes and subsidies do the job,

The rich need not the people rob.

 

Your money does much godly work,

It pays for bombs and missiles, jerk.

Destroying Gaza is a worthy job,

And turning fishermen into blobs.

What about health care? you might ask.

Take a swig from yon whisky flask. 

Health care's not for the likes of you,

For Congress yes, for sure that's true.

You have "insurance" for a bigly fee,

Congress get their health care free.

Education? That's for nerds,

MAGAts have no need for words.

Alas! Do not in misery wallow,

Bread and football you may swallow.

Let’s drink a toast to celebrate,

Though Miller and Bud is all we rate.

Champagne and yachts belong to others,

Even though we all are brothers.

Someday their dough will trickle down,

And we can all then go to town.

 

With abject apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks! 

Remarkable Charlestonians of the American Revolution

 

The Death of Major Pierson by John Singleton Copley, 1782. Tate Britain 

The American Revolution was a struggle for liberty, but not in the uncomplicated way we learned in school. The traditional story holds that Patriots fought to free themselves from arbitrary taxation by a tyrannical king, George III. In truth, the tyrant, if there was one, was the British Parliament, which passed the laws that angered the colonists. That was true enough. What is left out is that supporters of the British government also fought for liberty, but of a different sort. People on both sides viewed their actions as patriotic, even if they were sometimes self-serving.

Enslaved blacks fought to free themselves from slavery. The War for Independence, especially in  the southern colonies, was also in part a war to to preserve slavery. Slaveholders feared that an arbitrary British government might grant their slaves freedom after Lord Mansfield declared slavery illegal in English law in 1773. In that sense the Revolution had more in common with the later Civil War than is generally acknowledged. Many white Loyalists supported the mother country because they believed that it was the best protector of their inherited liberties.  

Charleston, South Carolina is famous as the place where the American Civil War began. Less well known is its significant role in an earlier civil war. For South Carolina, the American War for Independence was more truly a civil war than the conflict of 1861-1865. During the 1860s, South Carolinians were united in defense of their state. During the Revolutionary War, they were bitterly divided. South Carolina witnessed some of the most violent episodes of the conflict.

Remarkable Charlestonians of the American Revolution relates the stories of a spectrum of the city's residents during the is turbulent time. Its subjects were famous, obscure, rich, poor, black, white, men and women. Some supported the "Patriot" cause; others were loyal to the British crown, or tried to remain neutral. A few switched sides, one more than once. Collectively, their experiences highlight the often grim reality of the revolutionary era. If you are convinced that Mel Gibson portrayed the Revolution correctly in "The Patriot" this book may not be your cup of tea. (Pun intended).

The public memory of the American Revolution is encrusted with layers of convenient forgetfulness, dubious facts, distorted legends, and outright myths. History, as Sir Lewis Namier wrote, is not a visit of condolence. Nor should it be. This book seeks to portray the complexity of a chaotic, turbulent, and fascinating time. Its pages provide, I hope, a nuanced sense of what it was like to live in Charleston during the American War for  Independence, 250 years ago. It also, I believe, sheds light on the situation in the USA today. 

The premise of Remarkable Charlestonians is that people on both sides of the War for Independence fought for liberty, although with a different sense of what liberty meant. The majority black population wanted to rid themselves of enslavement, and many joined the British, who promised them freedom. Many white Loyalists believed that the British government was the best protector of "the rights of Englishmen" against what they saw as mob rule. White revolutionaries (Patriots) opposed what they perceived as the arbitrary actions of the British government. One of the things they feared and fought to prevent was the possibility that an overpowerful Parliament would declare slavery illegal in the colonies. 

For more information, visit Remarkable Charlestonians in the American Revolution – Arcadia Publishing $24.95 

Available at all good bookstores and even some bad ones.

 

Defend American Culture, Join ICE!

Yes, indeedy -- your country needs you -- to defend American Culture from people who are not like us. As FOTUS Trump and Kristi (Dog Killer) Noem have said, criminals, thugs, and rapists have infiltrated the pure and innocent body of this great nation. It is time to take the gloves off, release arms tied behind our backs, and show them how Americans deal with this poison in our bloodstream. They are easy to find. Most have Hispanic names, brown skins, dark hair, and answer to Manuel or Maria. They are especially numerous in Californication.

I know you are eager to serve your country without reward. But if you join ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) you will receive a signing bonus of up to $50,000, a salary between $50,000 and $90,000, performances bonuses of $10,000 a year. And you stupidly wanted to be a teacher, a nurse, a policemen or a fireman! Don't be a loser!

In addition, you get a package of federal benefits, including all health care, that will free you from the anxieties that keep ordinary Americans working at shitty jobs they hate. We know most of you despise higher education, but ICE will pay off your student loans if you have any. Pesky things, those loans. If this isn't enough to tantalize you, you get a black balaclava to hide your identity, a bullet proof vest with the letters ICE emblazoned across the chest, and a shiny badge in gold plate, like Trump's potty. 

Oh, and did we tell you? ICE is waiving the old age requirements. We will take you from 18 to Joe Biden. But here's the biggest bonus of all: an autographed photo of FOTUS with his bosom friend Jeffrey Epstein and his procuress, Ghislaine Maxwell. 

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks!

The GOD-KING of Dumbfuckistan

I present His Majesty and Savior, The God-King, divine instrument of the Lord, chosen to lead America to the Promised Land of Dumbfuckistan via Proposition 2025.  

Dumbfuckistan has NEW RULES. 1. Worship the God-King. 2. Obey the God-King. 3. All other rules are hereby repealed. 

The God-King's road to total power as FOTUS was greatly smoothed by the six SUPREME SAINTS of SCOTUS. Directed by God, they ruled that he can do anything he wants, from stealing classified documents and inciting insurrection, to rape, bribery, theft, and pedophilia. His powers include shooting someone on Fifth Ave  -- as long as he is president.   

In his quest to unify the USA, the God-King chose as his vice-president a man dedicated to the values of the Lord's People. Magas love that he hates immigrants. They are less thrilled that he is married to one. 

Like his Superior FOTUS, the Senator from OWHYO defended the peaceful tourists who visited the capitol on January 6, 2021 to get some souvenirs. He dutifully calls the UK a "Muslim country" but magnanimously decides to vacation there. He showed the same compassion to the deprived people of Vermont and LA.

In 2016, Senator ADVANCE denounced the God-King as "America's Hitler" and "an idiot." But that was before GOD sent the senator an epiphany on the Road to Washington. A huge donation from a billionaire, and polls showing Trump was likely to win changed his perspective. Like St. Paul, ADVANCE shifted to the side of the Angels of Trump.  

Some Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 have been confused by recent events, especially Trump's refusal to release the Epstein Files, which he told them were filled with the names of Democrat pedophiles. But most of them will forgive the God-King for that minor lapse. They have drunk the Kool Aid and internalized the Gospel of Trump. Their evolution to that godly state was helped by endless hours of watching and listening to FOX News.

Image: Trump astride his Golden Throne. 

Trump, Manifest Destiny, and American History

[Image: "American Progress" by John Gast, 1872]

The term "Manifest Destiny" describes the belief of many 19th century Americans that they were destined to rule the North American continent; that they had a "divine right" to dominate the lands between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The idea, if not the term, was unabashedly imperialist but even today, many political commentators seem to shy away from calling US expansion "imperialist." Donald Trump is a firm believer in Manifest Destiny, even if he knows little if anything about its history.

The phrase "Manifest Destiny" came into use after 1845, when newspaper editor and expansionist advocate John O'Sullivan used it. The timing was not coincidental. The US was in the process of annexing Texas, which had gained independence from Mexico in 1836. The US would soon be at war with Mexico, a war that was driven by expansionist ambitions. 

The plunder included what are now the states of California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. Some expansionists, including Jane Cazneau, who used the term "manifest destiny" before O'Sullivan, advocated the annexation of the rest of Mexico. 

That never happened, mainly because Manifest Destiny was a thoroughly racist ideology. It envisioned an American empire made up of white Europeans (plus their African slaves). Mexico was inhabited by large numbers of Native Americans (AKA "Indians") and people of mixed race who could not be part of the divine American mission.

The same thinking operates today. Trump has never spoken of annexing Mexico, because it is full of the sort of "criminal" and "inferior" people he claims are threatening the US. He has, however, repeatedly spoken of a US annexation of Canada, a predominately European white country. 

Advocates of manifest destiny also viewed Canada as a an area ripe for US expansion. Some expansionists demanded that Great Britain cede all of the Northwest Oregon Territory up to the border of Alaska. |Their cry was "54-40 or Fight". War threatened in 1846 but was avoided when the two countries agreed to a border on the 49th parallel. The peaceful resolution was partly due to the fact that the US was about to embark on the war against Mexico. To fight the British Empire at the same time would have been foolhardy. Of course, no one consulted the Native Americans who lived in the region.

Although the term "Manifest Destiny" emerged during the 1840s, the idea was expressed much earlier in American history, indeed at the very birth of the nation. It was annunciated clearly by William Henry Drayton of South Carolina in 1776. In that year, Cherokee bands attacked European settlers encroaching on their lands in the upcountry of the Carolinas and Virginia. The war that followed ended in a crushing defeat for the Cherokee. Many of their towns were destroyed, and they lost much of their historic land.

Drayton, a fervent advocate of American independence, viewed the war as an opportunity. At the time, he was serving as the Chief Justice of the newly independent state South Carolina. Drayton proposed that the defeated Cherokee be "extirpated" as a nation, that their lands "become the property of the American public," and that captives "become the property of the taker."

Drayton declared that the new nation had a divine mission. God had chosen the "American Empire" as his tool to advance the cause of liberty. The Lord had previously chosen Britain for this mission, but the British government had violated divine intentions by "trying to enslave the American people." Like other "Patriot" slaveholders, Drayton failed to see the irony in his own rhetoric. 

In his role as Chief Justice, Drayton also recommended the suspension of due process. A state court charged fourteen "Tories" with treason and sentenced them to death. Their "crime" had been fighting with the Cherokee against the new independent states. Drayton commented that he would have hanged them without a trial, thus advocating what soon became known as "lynching." The sitting "President" of South Carolina, John Rutledge, pardoned them. 

During the War for Independence, partisans on both sides employed lynchings. Nowhere was it more common than the backcountry of South Carolina. Among those lynched were blacks who supported the British, something Rutledge did support. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, blacks became the main victims of lynchings. 

Drayton may not have used the term "manifest destiny" but his statements and actions show that the idea a divine mission was present from the infancy of the American Republic. The popularity of his ideas and methods was an unfortunate omen for the new nation. 

Like Trump, Drayton employed populist rhetoric to convey his ideas of a divine mission to the public. Trump doesn't use the term "manifest destiny" either, but he is echoing it when he says that Greenland and Canada should belong to the US. It is also noteworthy that Trump has not threatened to annex Mexico, because it is supposedly inhabited by the sort of "bad people," he has sworn to deport from the USA. In doing so, he is aligning the country with the imperialists of the nineteenth century.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks!