~a column by Colleen O’Brien
“What if” stories are fun to read, as well as thought-provoking. Philip K Dick, a science fiction author of the 1940s through the 1970s, wrote a novel belonging to the subgenre of science fiction known as alternate history. The Man in the High Castle is about an alternative end to WWII: The Germans and the Japanese win, the Germans take over our East coast, the Japanese take over the West coast, the Rockies become a no-man’s land of intrigue, spies, escapees and insurrectionists
What if a foreign enemy took over our country right now and occupied Jefferson, Iowa. What would you do?
Whatever they wanted?
Set up a hidden printing press in your basement?
Form a resistance gang in guerilla fashion to harass the invaders?
A few years ago, I wrote that column. It was about a foreign army that occupied Jefferson.
In this present day, what about a domestic enemy attacking us?
Do you feel under attack?
The places, people and ideas which our president attacks run in the thousands by now:
Education, Social Security, Veterans Administration, US AIDS, Medicaid, Sesame Street, foreign-made films, Black history, the Press, Muslims, Palestinians, college students from abroad, museums, women, SNAP (food stamps), ugly people, non-whites, veterans who survived war camps, poor people, low-income heating help, humor and all humorists.
Trees? Yes, he’s finally reached out to my trees. The president signed what he calls an “Emergency Situation Determination” (I really dislike the way he and his people gobbledygook the names of things), which will increase timbering of old growth trees by 25 percent. Randi Spivak, director of public lands at the Center for Biological Diversity, said Trump’s point of view is, “Any regulation or protection of timber production, get them out of the way.”
In this recent case of domestic attack, Trump is making America safe for lumber barons to grab more money at our expense. And jokingly obvious, he seems as averse to diversity among trees as he is of diversity among humans.
From what I’ve read since our current president came into my purview in 2015, the man was despised by all of New York and most often depicted in cartoons for his cheating workers who built his buildings and refusing to rent or sell to Blacks. Then he became The Apprentice on TV and was regularly in the celebrity tabloids with various and often many-at-a-time beautiful women, his infamously arrogant tilt of the head caught by the cameras ceaselessly documenting his aging philandering.
When he decided to run for President of the United States, the New York Times was diligent in placing him on the front page above the fold every day until he became President and continuing throughout his reign. His lies filled the front page, with little comment or censure.
So, the majority of us who had not lived in New York City during the maturation of conman learned little about his past as a cheat, liar, phony grifter, which the newspaper of record in that city knew all about.
So much for congratulating ourselves on a free Press.
What we know about the now widely acknowledged fraudster is so “ ‘uge” that we are overwhelmed daily. For a fellow who plays golf a lot, how he has time to sow the troublesome weed we call cheat grass across the continent is eerily impressive.
That he’s picking on my trees is the last straw, for me. Each of us has a point of coming to a screeching halt because of his cruelty, and I’ve hit that point – I am a tree-hugger, I might have been a Druid in a former life, trees breathe my planet into livability, their beauty calms me. And, boy, do I need calming.
I’m surprised he hasn’t spray painted the White House trees in gold as he has spray painted every surface in the Oval Office, where he now holds press conferences to show off his kingliest room.
Hands off my trees, off my old growth forests, old man. Go live in Dick’s High Castle and don’t come down from it. Spray paint it to your heart’s content. Oh . . . impossible, since you don’t have a heart. Just spray paint yourself, perch on top of Dick’s place. You’ll create your fondest image of yourself: to be your own Mt. Rushmore. Gilded. P.S. And quit hanging portraits of yourself outside–it looks like graffiti on the Department of Ag building. We are not China, Russia, North Korea or Hungary. It is a communist habit, not a democracy’s.
