I ruminated recently on how the issue of violence has got more problematic recently with neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and religious extremists using the language of violence to incite their followers. The group that has come to be known as ‘antifa’ consist of anonymous people, sometimes dressed in black, who have arrived ready to combat these groups with violence if necessary and have become part of counter-protests that have sometimes turned violent. The people on the left have been ambivalent about how to deal with the antifa, some seeing them as allies in the cause though not agreeing with the tactics they adopt.
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One thing the US media loves to do is hype the threat of wars, even highly dangerous ones with the potential use of nuclear weapons such as in the long-standing dispute between North Korea and the US. I am not accusing them of actually wanting to see the outbreak of nuclear war because that would be truly insane but they tend to talk of the situation as one of being on the brink of such a war with no solution in sight, even though there has been one for a long time.
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Louise Linton, the wife of Steve Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s secretary of the treasury who is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and immensely wealthy, came in for some well-deserved and harsh criticisms for the flaunting of her wealth while emerging from a government helicopter, because of her drawing attention to the brand names of the expensive clothing items she wore as if she were a paid spokesperson for them. She then lashed out at an Oregon woman who had the temerity to criticize her for it, replying thusly on her Instagram account.
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Donald Trump has decided to effectively end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), the program that enabled the children of undocumented immigrants who had been brought here when they were young to study and work without fear of deportation
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Those, like me, who have not grown up in America are often startled when attending some perfectly ordinary function to be suddenly asked to stand for the national anthem or to say the Pledge of Allegiance and, in the latter case, to watch everyone solemnly place their hands on their hearts and look devotedly at the large American flag that often adorns the venue. It has always struck me as silly and pointless as does anything associated with patriotism.
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With all the focus on how the top 1% (or 0.1% or 0.01%) are enriching themselves mightily at the expense of everyone else, Richard Reeves says that we must not ignore the problem of a much larger class of people, those who are in the top 20% of income whom he calls the ‘upper middle class’, for whom trickle down economics does work. He says that they are the hoarders of the American dream who are denying access to it for everyone else.
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The story of the police officer who roughly handcuffed and arrested a nurse at the University of Utah hospital because she politely – and rightly – refused to take blood from an accident victim because the officer lacked proper authority has received widespread attention in the media. PZ Myers has also written about it.

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