Bearing Witness to Trump Week 10

Week of March 26 – April 1, 2017

How ever so fitting for this administration that the week after attacking the healthcare security of millions of Americans, Trump attacks the climate health security of the entire planet. In a series of widely anticipated executive orders he dismantled years of work to limit the carbon pollution that contributes to man-made global warming, ocean acidification, extreme weather events, and refugee migrations.

I am sad beyond belief. And ever so challenged by what to do as a citizen of this country and the globe. If you know your country is participating in something that will be recorded as evil as committing a genocide or holocaust, what morally are you compelled to do? Bear witness, run, hide, turn your eyes, resist, fight, confess, or weep?

We now have military operations in so many countries who can keep track. Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Turkey, UAE and others. It seems we are destined to be at war forever. And it has become so normal for Americans. Who wants to live in a country that is always fighting someone? Where is the outrage?

The President’s daughter Ivanka now has an office in the White House and has become a federal employee. But she has not shed her commercial business interests.

No surprise that the EPA has rejected a ban on a pesticide that the agency previously deemed a hazard.

Trump adviser Steven Bannon, who rails against illegal immigrants and others voting illegally, himself registered to vote in a state he did not live in. Of course there won’t be charges filed.

The Secret Service requests tens of millions more dollars in budget to support a first family that lives apart and a president who spends most weekends in Florida.  The man who ran as a populist is a plutocrat.

I have lost count of all the Trump advisers, campaign members, and family members who have met with the Russians, worked for the Russians, got paid by the Russians, or lied about the Russians.

Meanwhile, other crisis are occurring around the world that the administration seems indifferent to, such as in Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan. Are they so blind that they don’t see how famine and migration of millions of Africans creates the space for terrorism and more evil? So what do we do? We decrease foreign aid of course so we can build a bigger military to fight the results of having too little diplomacy, compassion, and foreign aid.

The above news items have been taken from a number of international, national, regional, and local news media sources, both print and digital. Additional editorial opinions and comments about these news items are those of this author.