I have a guilty pleasure that requires penance ... and no, I'm not referring to an Ashley Madison account.  My pleasure has to do with the unscripted speeches of Bernie Sanders and, dare I say it, Donald Trump.  Here are two gentlemen who hail from New York City (although Bernie took a detour through Vermont), who are unconstrained by the dictates of the donor class and professional consultants.  They simply go on stage, tee it up, and let it rip.  No tele-prompters, no hemming and hawing, no convoluted syntax designed to confuse or provide a non-answer. 

I have tried to fight this guilty pleasure.  First, there was Bernie.  I know that we need Hillary in the White House ... we need someone with her experience, her tact, her understanding of domestic and international issues based on years of being there in the trenches.  We need a female President who can represent that half of the population who has had to fight to be heard.  We broke the color barrier with an African American President ... and now we need a woman.

But there is Bernie.  Here is this curmudgeon who projects outrage at the excesses of the capitalist system and how it is destroying middle class families.  He will brook no dissent from the moneyed elites.  I tried to not listen to him but eventually fell under his spell.  I attended a video-streamed presentation of his, and then journeyed to the Los Angeles Sports Arena to see him in person.  I absorbed his message, shook his hand, and I was completely sold.  

But Bernie is a feel-good obsession compared to the guilty pleasures of Donald Trump.  I learned years ago that I could never again vote for any Republican after one misspent vote on Ronald Reagan.  No matter what their individual beliefs, Republicans can be counted on to band together to promote the most outrageous policies ... policies that seem intentionally designed to hurt people, mainly female and minority people, but others as well.  I learned that Republicans will fawn over their wealthy benefactors, and everyone else will be hurt in the process.

So why am I following Trump's speeches, listening to his insult humor aimed at virtually everyone who has not acknowledged his obvious greatness ... obvious, that is, to Mr. Trump?  Why am I not shutting out his bombastic utterances about "illegal immigrants" that are clearly wrong-headed with no basis in fact whatsoever?   

The truth is ... I am incredibly turned off by the packaged candidates of today, those neatly scrubbed, well-dressed people who are vying for my vote through poll-tested statements and carefully staged photo ops.  I look at these people and see the pernicious influence of money, which forces them to make statements that are pleasing to the ears of their hidden big-money donors.  

You see, I view big money as the biggest threat to our democracy.  Our country cannot take any bold reform actions that aren't endorsed by major industry groups represented by lobbyists, because these groups pay for the elections and the candidates.  The result is ... no single-payer health care, no gun control, no climate change legislation, no guaranteed leave, no increases in the minimum wage, no tax increases for the wealthy, no infrastructure improvements, and on and on.  Initiatives with industry/lobby backing are constantly being promoted including ... new "free trade" treaties, more wars, attacks on unions, reduced corporate taxes, attacks on social security, and on and on.

Contrast that money-induced political fakery with Bernie and Trump calling it the way they see it.  I know that Bernie is simply telling the truth in as forthright a manner as possible, just as he has been doing for his entire career ... because he is not for sale.  He is calling out capitalistic abuses and prescribing mild socialist remedies, and he is doing so with a populist fervor not seen in years.  I know that Trump's statements are a curious mix of truth, racism, and ego-driven fantasy.  But they are unscripted, and the truth does occasionally rear its ugly head, especially when he points out the role of money in buying elections.

So, believe it or not, I would welcome a Presidential campaign featuring Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump.  Can you imagine the debates between these two, especially if Bernie is allowed to take Trump to task for his many outrageous statements?  Bernie and Trump would go at it head-to-head, like the gladiators of old.  And in the process I think some real truths would emerge, the kind that Americans need to hear.  Some of these truths may be ugly, such as our country's continuing racism, our addiction to war, and our decline from democracy to oligarchy.  But we can only work on revolutionary change, once the truth has been revealed. 

So, you may ask, what happens if Trump actually wins the election?  Well, let's just say that I have my eye on some beautiful property north of the border ... 

 

It seems like every time I check the news I read about yet another violent incident in the United States.  The violence runs the gamut ... from police shootings of unarmed civilians ... to public massacres in movie theaters and campuses ... to animal killings, most recently the shooting of a beloved lion in Africa by a dentist from Minnesota (40 hours after he wounded it with an arrow).  It is all so mind-boggling and disheartening.  

So what do we make of all the violence in this poor benighted country of ours?  How do we reconcile the killing of 111 people during police encounters in the US during one month (March) with a total of 52 people killed in the United Kingdom during the entire 20th century?  How do we deal with the fact that the United States has the largest incarceration rate in the world, a country with 4.4 percent of the global population but 22 percent of the prisoners?  And how does all this relate to our out-sized military with a budget greater than the next nine countries combined?

This problem is quite personal for me.  I am an alumnus of Virginia Tech, which was the scene of the worst massacre by a single gunman in US history.  In April 2007, a mentally ill student methodically killed 32 people and wounded 17 others before taking his own life.  He started his rampage at the dormitory I had lived in decades before and then crossed the campus to kill the rest of his victims in the academic building where I took most of my engineering classes.  

I learned about the Virginia Tech shootings while I was on a business trip to Washington, D.C.  I remember discussing it with my colleagues at the Washington Navy Yard, several of whom were also Virginia Tech graduates.  Little did we know that the Navy Yard itself would become the scene of yet another mass shooting in 2013 after I had retired.  The shooter in this incident killed 12 people and wounded three others.  I actually called some of my friends at the Navy Yard during the incident.  They were holed up in a cafeteria while the police searched for the shooter.

In 2009, Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army major, fatally shot 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, and wounded 30 others.  This was the worst mass shooting on a military base.  Well guess what?  It turns out that he was himself a graduate of Virginia Tech.  

It seems to me that effective gun control is essentially non-existent in this country.  The shooter at the Washington Navy Yard was able to easily circumvent strict gun control laws in the District of Columbia by buying his weapons in nearby suburban Virginia.  

Have you noticed how many times I have brought up the State of Virginia?  I lived in the state for ten years before moving to California in 1977.  My last residence was in the Norfolk area.  Within a few blocks of my apartment, there were three murders within a six-month period including the killing of the former mayor of Norfolk.  The murder rate in Virginia, and in fact the rest of the country, was running out of control in the 1970's.  Homicides are lower now, but still unacceptably high by first-world standards.   

In spite of all the violence, it appears to be more difficult than ever to institute effective gun control laws in this country, especially in the Deep South with their open-carry and stand-your-ground laws.  Behind all of this stands the specter of the National Rifle Association, which has successfully fought effective gun control on behest of gun manufacturers.

I actually understand why many people would want guns, especially if they think their personal safety is in question.  I remember the riots in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict when the Los Angeles Police Department withdrew from the scene leaving shop owners on their own to defend their property.  Who can forget the pictures of the Korean shopkeepers with their rifles cocked and loaded awaiting the mobs approaching their stores?

So this is my somewhat rambling discourse on violence in this country ... with a personal touch.  There is no doubt that we need much more effective controls on guns.  In fact, I believe we need to get rid of them.  But I also think we need to search our hearts and answer this question:  why is our country so violent?  Why do we encounter so many bullies in our midst, not only in playgrounds but on the political stage?  To bring it home, why do we have people in Camarillo so willing to throw f-bombs at us while we sit at our booth at the Fiesta or Farmer's Market?  Why was my young daughter subjected to profanity by teens in trucks when she participated in a peace rally at City Hall before our ill-advised venture into Iraq?  And why do we hear such outrageously bellicose statements on right-wing radio and from "normal people" in their comments in the newspaper, Facebook, and other social media?  

Sometimes I wonder whether we are descended from uniquely violent people who were exiled from Europe to the New World.  Was this the beginning of that American phenomenon, where people loudly trumpet their Christianity while paying no heed to the true message of peace and forgiveness by their anointed savior, Jesus Christ?

Lots of questions but few answers ...