There's an ethical lesson to be learned from the collapse of the Dutch government over immigration policy

 

By Hal Brown

This blog story is avalialable on a single page here, along with the Disquis comment secton at bottom of page.

Here's a basic summary of what inspried todays blog from CNN: 

Below are three points which address what I consder to be basic ethical concerns. They are from this New York Times (subscription) article from July 7th.

1. “One of the values that are important with the proposals is that children grow up with their parents,” a statement by the Christian Union party said. “As a family party, that is what we stand for.” The party said it wanted to work with “heart and soul for a humane and effective migration policy.”
2. The large numbers of arrivals have strained the Netherlands’ housing capacity, which was already suffering a shortage for the country’s more than 17 million people.
3. “Everybody wants to find a good, effective solution that also does justice to the fact that this is about human lives,” the finance minister, Sigrid Kaag, a member of the D66 party, said before the talks began.

The belief that there is a moral imperative for being willing to sacrifice your own comfort, up to your own life in extraordinary circumstances, is a core tenet of all or most of the world's religions and a basis for the philosophy of ethics. 

As Wiki explains, "ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime."

Whether in the Netherlands or the United States the immigration of people fleeing persecution, sometimes risking their lives to do so, has been a major divisive poltical issue.

At the most simple level this boils down to actually giving up something tangible, for example in the Netherlands better housing capacity or something intangible like in the United States and other countries the sharing of your country with people of other ethnic and relgious backgrounds and life styles.

From immigration to human rights for everyone including groups not only demonized by Trump and more blatantly (if we ever thought this was possible by a right-winger) by DeSantis, but also like Marine Le Pen in France, it's all about ethics. More specifically it is about a lack of ethics.

When I was considering writing this I shared some of my ideas with a dear friend whose parents survived a NAZI concentration camp. She reminded me of this line from "The Diary of Anne Frank": 

“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

She wrote this about a month before she and her family were arrested.

Anne Frank was in her early to mid-teens when in hiding and we can speculate that despite the abject fear she lived with knowing what she and her family's fate could be, she depserately tried to maintain her optimistic view that deep down all people were good at heart.

To contemplate that this is not demonstrated in real life and that while there are people who try to live their lives adhering as best as they can to an ethical code, there are those who, to put it bluntly, are just plain evil

By conincidence in relationship to my writing this blog about Dutch politics, this was written when she and he family were in hiding in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

During World War II the NAZI's occupied the Netherlands and about 75% of the Jews living their were sent to concentration camps where most of them were killed.

Between 25,000  and 34,000 Jews fled from Germany in the 1930's. For more see The Holocaust in The Netherlands from Wikipedia.

Dutch citizens had engaged in a valient and fierce resistance againt the NAZI's which you can read about here.

Also by chance, as I did some research about the Netherlands and the Holocaust I came across tis article:

The article begins with a reference to Anne Frank:

The story of teenage diarist Anne Frank is known across the world. But a new survey suggests a “disturbing” lack of awareness about the Holocaust in the Netherlands, where she and her family hid for years before being discovered and deported to a Nazi concentration camp.

and goes on as follows:

A Dutch Holocaust survivor and Jewish cultural leaders have expressed dismay at the survey, which was released Wednesday and suggests that more than half of the residents were not aware of the deportation and murder of Jews from the country during World War II.

The survey, conducted and released by the New York-based nonprofit Claims Conference ahead of International Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday, found that 53% of the respondents couldn’t identify the Netherlands as a country where the events of the Holocaust happened — rising to 60% among millennial and Gen Z respondents, meaning those under 40.

Historians estimate more than 70% of the Netherlands’ prewar Jewish population was killed during the Holocaust, more than 100,000 in total. Frank hid in a secret room in Amsterdam with her family from 1942 to 1944 before she died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp weeks before its liberation.

I can do no better than to end this blog with a quote from Mark Lezer who was six when the NAZI's invaded the Netherlands and who lost family in the Holocaust. He said it is imperative that the story of the Holocaust should never be allowed to fade from memory.

“Because if you don’t know enough about the Holocaust and you do not know that so many people died because of the Nazi persecution, then you do not know enough to be realistic about the future.”

This should go not only for the Dutch, but for everyone whose country is facing a push by authoriatians who envision ruling over a country not too different than what Hitler wanted for Germany.

Is Netflix movie "Mar-a-Lago Murder Mystery" in the offing?

 

By Hal Brown

I had nothing particularly profound or inspired, or original, to blog about this morning. Then I read about Kari Lake and Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago. I can't say this blog is up to my usual standard but want to write abiout it anyway.

I was curious about the top of the page article when I looked at Raw Story and I liked the side-by-side photos of Kari Lake and Melania Trump then decided to use it to illustrate the story with a major modification.

Excerpt:

Following up on reporting that failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's prospects of becoming Donald Trump's 2024 running mate are collapsing, the Daily Beast's Zach Petrizzo is reporting that Lake is also causing the former president grief with his wife Melania.

Speaking with the hosts of the Daily Beast's "The New Abnormal," Petrizzo pointed to an article in People Magazine that made the claim that Lake has been at Mar-a-Lago with Trump more than his wife and that is putting him an awkward position with Melania. 

"Those type of headlines -- Trump of course is printed out story after story, he runs through a stack of papers or whatever have you -- typically many of these type of stories will go to the wastebin, but stories about Melania Trump, I mean, really get kind of scrutinized because he has to see her," he explained.

This is the People article referred to in Raw Story, click above to read it.

At first, just for the hell of it, I made an image and put it on as a comment (below) and then decided to blog about the story.

These are the replies to my comment:

Dean Martian  Hal-Brown-MSW39 minutes ago

Certainly not on Hallmark.

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  dashitcrazy(jamie)  Dean Martian37 minutes ago

  Not if they have to rate it XXX!

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    THCV  dashitcrazy(jamie)13 minutes ago

    Well, trying to, at any rate?

Click above to enlarge most recent comments.

Many of the comments, almost 300 at this update, as expected from the readers of the progressive website, are snarkily sexually suggestive or outright profane. I copied some them and realized half of them violated the Google Blogger rule that bloggers put adult content behind a warning. So if you read the comments to the article consider yourself warned. Saying many are salacious is saying the least.

I really don't expect to see a "based on a true story" NetFlix movie about whatever is going on at Mar-a-Lago with Kari Lake. However, I think a fictionalized tale about a wealthy former president living in a tacky opulent seaside mansion, maybe in California to avoid a dircted comparision. He'd be a notorious womanizer who was on his third, or for drama, his fourth, marriage. His wife could be a losely based on Kim Kardashion. 

Said former presdient has already won the nomination for his party to be president and there's wild speculaton as to whom he'll select to run as his vice president. Then a former air-brushed attractive dim-bulb female tevelsion news show host and losing political candidate moves into the mansion leading to rampant specualtion she is angling to be chosen to run for vice presdient.

You get the idea. 

Hey, I'm a blogger, not a screenwriter. 

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If you don't see the (preferred) Disquis comment section below click here and scroll to bottom of the page.

There are famous fictional butlers. White House butlers Alonzo Fields and Eugene Allen were real. Now we have Walt Nauta.

By Hal Brown

Do you recognized whose bald pate this is? If you do, you have been following the news about the butler who could contribute consequentially to Trump's legal leap into the abyss.

Update:

Below: some of the most famous butlers in fiction:

Click images to enlarge

While his name may be far less known than butlers in fiction, Alonzo Fields actually served in the White House for twenty-one years under presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. Of those twenty-one years, twenty were spent as the White House chief butler.

Here's an article about him.

Alonzo Fields wrote a book:

Eugene Allen, raised on a virginia farm, was another White House butler. He worked there for 34 years starting as a pantry man and working his way up. 

A movie was made about him:

Above: When Nauta sported a short cropped but full head of hair.

Perhaps he shaved his head so not to make Tump jealous.

The story of Nauta (Wikipedia article) fascinates me. His name is pronounced NOW-tuh.  Just like Alonzo Fields and Eugene Allen, Nauta came from a humble background to a job where he was a witness to history. 

Nauta was one of one of six children growing up in Guam. His real first name is Waltine.

This is his Facebook page:

Here's a photo of him in uniform from his Facebook page:

Click to enlarge

Also from Facebook, dated Feb. 22, 2022, this is him at Mar-a-Lago:

Click to enlarge

Nauta never got beyond high school. He enlisted in the Navy where he served as a cook, technically as a culinary specialist. 

We know that after enlisting in 2001 he served in a number of units as a cook. He ended up as a petty officer. According to Trump he retired as a Senior Chief Petty Officer.

Navy petty officers are equivalent to sergeants in the other American armed services.

In 2012 Nauta was assigned to the Presidential Food Service, which is run by the U.S. Navy and manages the White House Mess as part of the White House Military Office.

Somehow he managed to score the cushy Navy job of being selected to be the White House valet under Trump. He then must have ingratiated himself to Trump and ended up as his body man. 

Until now Reggie Love, President Obama's body man (above), has been the best known. 

How Nauta managed all of this and then end up facing possible imprisionment along with his boss is a tale yet to be told.

As is well known now when Trump left office Nauta followed him to his other residences as a close aide. It is yet to be determined how close he was to him personally. It is possible that he ended up as a confidant and the closest person Trump ever had to a friend.

Currently we have Michael Cohen, who should know of what he speaks, warning Nauta about the consequenses of being a loyal servant to Donald Trump:

Click above to read article and view interview.

What has Nauta's alligence to Trump earned him so far? At minimum, it is being a footnote in the history books. If he decides to tell the absolute truth (there should be no other kind but Trumpworld has alternate definitions) he could pass Michael Cohen in history and end up as another John Dean.

Cohen got his law degree at the decidely unprestigious Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan (when I lived in the state I knew two excellent lawyers who went there) and Dean got his at Georgetown. 

High school graduate Nauta's place in history is already assured. His significance in history is yet to be determined.

Who knows, if he plays this right maybe he can write a book (perhaps with help) or sell rights to his story for a NetFlix or Paramount movie.

If you don't see the (preferred) Disquis comment section below click here and scroll to bottom of page.

There's a Devil emoji for far-right anti-woke warriors, these rightious believers need a God emoji

 

By Hal Brown

This blog was inspired by this article in Media Matters:

Excerpt:

Last year, Trump ally and provocateur Roger Stone even claimed that a “Satanic portal” had opened over the White House after President Joe Biden took office. 

This sort of framing, which posits that political enemies are literal “demons” waging a “spiritual war,” stems largely from a right-wing Christian movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. For years, the NAR movement has reportedly sought “to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus.” Rolling Stone described the core NAR belief in spiritual war in a profile of one of the movement’s leading figures, commentator and self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnau:

NAR followers like Wallnau believe that America is specially anointed by God to project Christianity across the globe. And the NAR movement’s followers view foes of their quest as satanic. This is not metaphorical. They hold that the physical world is enveloped by a supernatural dimension, featuring warring angels and demons, and are convinced that demons afflict their enemies on behalf of the devil. The movement holds that these spiritual battles are reflected in earthly politics. As the late NAR founder C. Peter Wagner explained in a striking NPR interview in 2011: “I believe there’s a lot of demonic control over Congress … that needs to be dispersed.”

Fiery rhetoric of a spiritual war coupled with demonization of opponents has created an atmosphere in which violence appears permissible and justifiable to followers. For instance, the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was largely undergirded and inspired by boisterous cries of spiritual warfare from prominent figures on the religious right — including Wallnau — who have conditioned their audiences to consider political violence a legitimate tactic. 

Because there are so many people who not only believe that God is real also believe that the Devil and his demons are real I thought that it was time for God to have His own emoji.

The Devil got his emoji in 2010.

The world got a little more mischievous in 2010 when the Smiling Face With Horns emoji 😈 was approved on Unicode 6.0. It’s commonly called the Devil or Happy Devil emoji.

On most platforms, the Smiling Face With Horns emoji 😈 depicts a purple face with devil horns. Microsoft still features a red-faced devil, as did Google and Samsung until they brought the style of their emoji more in line with Apple’s smiley devil in 2017.

Regardless of style, the emoji is suggestive of a prankster or naughty, naughty person. Reference.

I don't remember an uproar in the evangelical community when the Devil was so honored.  There are over 3,600 emojis, so many that this list page takes a long time to load.  No specific people have an emoji and as far as I can tell the Devil is the only entity that has one.

My hunch is that the Big Guy Down Under was more than pleased that this slipped by fairly unnoticed. After all, the closest emoji Big Guy in the Sky got  to having an emoji depicting him (or Him) is 😇 sometimes used with the praying hands, 🙏 which are often used to illustrate worhiping God.

You can find references to God on Twitter using several emojis. Below are  examples:

There's no emoji specifically for God. There aren't any for Jesus either. There are emoji for various religions, for example ✝, ✝️, ✡, and ☪️.

The two most well-known images of God are Michelangelo's Creation of Adam" from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and "God the Father" by Cima da Conegliano. 

Neither was made into an emoji. The later could be easily made into an emoji.

It could look something like this...

By Hal Brown