Activism

The war in Iran is merely an expression of the deranged ego of the United States President. There may never be such a thing as a good or justified war, but the military action in Iran makes no sense from a military, economic or political perspective. Then there is the obscene amount of money that this country is spending to do something that very few people believe should even be happening.

The U.S. has spent $51 billion in the first 28 days of the Iran war. Where is this money coming from and how will this ridiculous spending affect other government programs? According to the Institute for Policy Studies, “Daily operations in and around Iran for these major military systems are costing taxpayers an estimated $59.39 million per day. That $59.39 million a day could instead cover the daily costs of Medicaid for more than four million Americans, or SNAP (food stamps) for more than 9.5 million Americans. Both programs were subject to significant cuts under last year’s H.R. 1, with millions of Americans at risk of going hungry and without healthcare as a result.”

There should be no doubt in most people’s minds that the President of the United States is severely mentally ill. Other world leaders have described him as unhinged, or worse, based on his erratic behavior and lack of any sense of ethics or morality.

Some politicians are talking about using section 4 of the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office. It is a flawed amendment because it requires politicians close to the president to determine that he is unfit for office. It says, “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

I can hear the cries of six million souls pleading to the living to make sure what happened to them never happens again. Yet, our world today is facing a threat too similar to the one that was faced when Hitler and his team of murderers tried to wipe out an entire race of people and dominate the world.

Maybe people who think they understand history do not know what it meant when the Jews who survived the Holocaust told the world that they must be vigilant and never let a tyrant wantonly kill people while removing any possibility of peace.

Trump is a modern day version of Hitler, Mussolini and all of the mentally deranged generals in history who have preceded them.

Most countries in the world that attack other countries expect some degree of retaliation on their own soil. But the United States has engaged on multiple fronts and has seemed to be safe from any major retaliatory attack. There was 9/11, but that was not in response to us starting a war.

Trump has been attacking countries all over the world and, when he does so, he puts U.S. military bases and their personnel into the line of fire, but our country has not been attacked. The question in my mind lately is whether or not Iran is going to be satisfied with killing a few American soldiers in response to the no-reason attack on their country.

It just may be possible that the reason for this newest incursion into international law-breaking and senseless murder has more to do with Trump’s personal issues than any international political problem. Talks were in process with Iran and there surely was no imminent threat to the U.S. or Israel. So why start a war now?

Here is my analysis that may seem a stretch, but keep in mind that we are dealing with a president who is showing more severe signs of mental illness every day. When he bombed Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro and his wife the media was focusing more and more on the details of the Epstein case. It is clear that Trump most likely committed serious crimes during his friendship with Epstein. If any situation is capable of bringing down Trump it is his behavior in the Epstein world.

The Venezuela incursion forced the media to change focus. That lasted for awhile until more of the Epstein files were released and a New York Times reporter found out that files relating to Trump had mysteriously gone missing.

In our world of celebrity worship, you can garner mainstream media attention if you are famous or a close relative of a famous person. That means that ordinary people who are not considered newsworthy by the media can wallow in obscurity even if they suffer indignities that media attention could help relieve.

Case in point is the incessant media attention that the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of news celebrity Savannah Guthrie, is receiving. She was kidnapped on February 1 and, as of this writing, she is still missing. There are few clues to her disappearance, but the mainstream media and law enforcement have given her case an inordinate amount of attention.

Protests in this country are escalating, yet the illegal violence against citizens continues. The Trump sandbox mentality of having the big guns makes him feel that no laws apply to him, so he continues to trample on the rights of Americans as well as some people in other parts of the world.

Most of us are feeling helpless, but the question in my mind is whether or not people will move their protests closer to the level of a civil war. We are losing the democracy that many of us have believed in, and we are being mentally and physically tormented on a regular basis just for trying to stand up for the rights that have been guaranteed in the documents that are supposed to guide the people who run this country.

Most reasonable people assume that governments exist to support people and provide the infrastructure to make sure commerce provides whatever is needed to keep people safe and healthy. Sadly, a lot of people who are not reasonable, ethical and moral tend to rise to the top of the power structure in many countries.

When that happens, all of the documents and policies in place become meaningless. The founding fathers of the American experiment wrote a number of documents to guide the new country that was breaking away from the tyranny of King George III. The hope was that they could provide more freedom for people in a new country.

It’s not the first time in the history of the world that a power-hungry deranged head of state is trying to take as much of the world as he can grab. It is the first time this type of leader is from the United States. It makes me sick, and it is not only causing Americans to be fearful in their own country, but it is also causing the rest of the world to worry if their country will be his next target.

Fear is the weapon of dictators and autocrats, and Trump is using it here to make people feel unsafe in their own country. If we really had a functional system of checks and balances the legislative branch would have the ability to be guided by a moral and ethical compass. Instead, Washington republicans are following a severely mentally ill leader in lockstep for fear of personal retribution. The lock on domestic power is almost complete.

I have been reading Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s memoir and the similarities between Russian and American politics are frightening. It’s no surprise to anyone in this country that we are living under a repressive regime that disrespects free speech and the rule of law. That is the case in many countries around the world today, but I believe most Americans never thought it could get this bad here.

As Navalny outlines political events during his short life, it becomes clear that Putin and Trump have a lot in common. They both are intolerant of any viewpoint not supporting them and they both will do anything to hold on to and increase the power and wealth they have.

When egomaniacal oligarchs assume power they are not satisfied simply bending their own people to their will. Their disease compels them to move to the next level. That means trying to take over countries beyond their borders and starting wars for no other reason than to give them more personal power.

When fighting an unconventional war you have to think out of the box and develop new strategies to defeat the enemy. The war that is being waged in this country by Trump and his people defies logic, morality, ethics and common sense. But he has the ultimate power and, so far, he has been able to do whatever he wants. The only sensible counterattack requires new strategies.

One of the impediments to having a government that should be fair and just for the majority is the two-party system.

The world is hardly black and white, yet we expect our country to operate within an unrealistic system that only offers binary choices. Life is not like that.

This country has faced a critical nursing shortage for years. The situation was made worse as a result of the COVID pandemic when health care workers were burned out and left professions that already needed to increase their numbers. Now, the Trump administration has created a new threat to the nursing profession by changing its definition of a professional degree to exclude nursing.

This a gut punch to the 5.86 million nurses in this country. Of that number, 920,000 are LPNs and 5 million are RNs. These are significant numbers, and I hope that all nurses are reminded of the disrespect that this Republican administration is showing to nurses when it comes time to vote.

The day that the government shutdown of 2025 ended was the day that any hope for preserving the quality of life of millions of Americans ended. On the surface, the shutdown was presumably about extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. But there was a lot more at stake.

The Republicans had already had success in shredding the Medicaid program by making sure that millions of people will not be able to access the program. Those changes have not played out yet. When they do, there will be a new epidemic of untreated disease that will have consequences throughout the entire health care industry.

Brattleboro Senior Meals is urgent need for Meals on Wheels drivers. 

Please contact Cynthia Fisher, Director of Senior Meals at (802)257-1236 or email at Director@brattleboroseniormeals.org.