Subj : Quid Pro Quo - Joe
To : Gregory Deyss
From : Lee Lofaso
Date : Wed Jan 08 2020 02:13 am
Hello Greg,
>LL>>You think Amy, Elizabeth or Peter have a chance..
>LL>
>LL>Not only the gals, and one who thinks he is.
>
>Ever ask yourself how these gals have become millionaires.
Donald Trump got his the old-fashioned way. He inherited it.
Elizabeth Warren got hers the hard way. She earned it.
Taught school, raised a family, went back to law school, became
a professor ...
>Elizabeth is a opportunist who uses her -smallest sliver of Indian heritage
>when it suits her. These people do not know what it means to play by the
>rules. America sees this too, her campaign will run out of gas and she will
>drop out of the race. Then there is her days representing DOW chemical...
>Champion for Women? more like Champion over women...
Well, she is a lawyer ...
[..]
>LL>No president is above the law. He swore an oath. He broke it.
>
>I know that sounds good rolling of the tongue and it gives you great pride,
> with your chest all puffed out when you type that here, but tell me and us
> all what law did he broke?
All of them. Or so it appears.
[..]
>LL>Donald Trump has trashed America and American values.
>
>oh really? please do tell.
He has lowered America to his own set of values.
>Donald Trump is all about America, or perhaps you would rather see America
> under the thumb of another nation, a country that is barely alive, 48
> million people on food stamps, no jobs and even a President who tells us
> that the jobs just are not coming back. - Been there done that...
Donald Trump is about Donald Trump. And only Donald Trump.
>Tell us all how Donald Trump is trashing and destroying American Values.
Donald Trump does not have American Values.
He has only his own values.
No empathy for others, except for his own self.
That is the one and only value he has.
The value of Donald J. Trump.
>I really don't think you can define American Values.
Would that be cultural values? Moral values? Personal values?
We each have our own ideas as to what constitute "American Values".
Here is what a fellow by the name of Guy Reel claims are his own
set of "American Values" -
Published on
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
by Common Dreams
American Values
by Guy Reel
What is America? What are the values it has most fought for
and admired? A few of the first, and most important, come to mind:
Freedom.
Equality.
Democracy.
Champion of the little guy.
Helper of the oppressed.
Defender against tyranny.
Some of the other values are ingrained in our history and our
belief in our future:
Capitalism.
Independence.
Strength.
Rightness and righteousness.
Manifest destiny.
God.
Freedom of religion.
Family.
Wealth.
Faith.
Entertainment and happiness.
Even a casual reader of these values can see where conflicts might
arise among them. Capitalism and strength have made America great,
but they have generated their own set of inequalities. Our wealth
is unequaled, but Jesus taught that our faith should make wealth
meaningless. Equality is a wonderful ideal, but frankly, not everyone
is created equal. Freedom is fine until we see our vast money-obsessed
entertainment and happiness apparatus assaulting us with base
immorality, cowardly news, and stupidity.
Over the last twenty years or so, the most radical members of the
right wing have claimed they've owned the core American values that
I've just enumerated; moreover, they've claimed that liberals have
tried to defeat them. Therefore, they argue, liberals are trying
to ruin the American way of life. They claim that liberals are a
threat to our very future. For those who question this assumption,
they need only to listen to talk radio, Fox news and the Republican
leadership who pass for responsible voices in our democracy.
Their methods are not surprising. Because here is their dirty little
secret: The far right must gain its identity from imagined enemies.
Because without these imagined enemies, the ultra-right wing is not
viable. Without the imagined enemies, you just have - America. It
is an America struggling with competing interests among its core
values. It should try to help the poor while building wealth for
us all; it should try to lead the world without exploiting or
dominating it; it should not be ashamed of a faith in God but should
never discriminate against those of different beliefs; and it should
try to figure out balances between those "right and left" policy
disputes, such as protection of the environment versus encouraging
development.
This is the true American value: We are a nation of compromises. The
Constitution is a document of concessions between competing interests.
We weigh the right of the accused against the power of prosecutors; we
weigh the power of judges against Congress and the president; we weigh
the power of the people against the strength of the government.
Yet this is the problem with the right wing today. When a political
faction encourages an atmosphere that makes these competing principles
evil and corrupt - even the idea that there should be competition among
them - it threatens the very essence of America. It must be said
outright: These strange Americans are fighting against the founding
values of this nation.
The radical reactionaries (it is absurd to call them conservatives)
have convinced about half of Americans that the basic American values
- the values of balancing various competing interests - are evil and
anti-American. This is where the future of America is threatened, and
it must be fought at every turn.
What we have seen is the creation of a culture of hate in America,
and that is not too strong of a characterization. The radicals vilify
those who disagree with them -they must do this to survive. For without
the enemies that they themselves imagine, they are nothing. After the
imagined enemies are gone, they have nothing to rant against, except
the notion of American values. Therefore, if they lose their enemies,
they lose America.
America is a balancing act. Sometimes we slip off the wire. No one said
it would be easy. No one said it was simple. It's a work in progress,
and it always will be. The danger to America is when we allow those who
vilify basic American values to have the loudest voices.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
3.0 License.
Guy Reel is an associate professor of mass communication at Winthrop
University. He may be reached at
[email protected]
--Lee
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