Just Who Is Trump Running Against?

Recently billionaire Donald Trump announced a bid for the Republican nomination for the presidency. He said a lot of things, some basically true, some "iffy," some absolute nonsense, in my opinion, but one of the things that caught my attention was how he seems to have taken up the mantle of Ross Perot, who ran for president as an independent (at first), in 1992, when there was an incumbent Republican president, George H.W. Bush, who I usually refer to as "Bush, Sr." When Perot, actually a Republican, ran, we had had nearly twelve years of Republican presidential rule; eight years under Ronald Reagan, and going on four years under Bush, Sr. Perot clearly touched a nerve in the country, as for a time, he led in many of the polls taken in the spring and summer of 1992. One of Perot's most potent issues was his opposition to trade agreements that would send many American jobs, especially in manufacturing, out of the country. The thing was, while the two major political parties of that time were somewhat different from what they are today, Republican support for such agreements was strong, while Democratic support was far less, with a good many Democrats fervently against such agreements. It was during Reagan's time as president that the U.S. began experiencing balance-of-trade deficits with China.* So was Perot admitting he had made a mistake supporting Reagan and then Bush? Is Trump, who preached about China's economic power, admitting he made a mistake supporting Republicans who generally favored free trade laws?

Perot also touched another nerve over the national debt, a number which had soared on the Reagan and Bush watch. He made fun of "voodoo economics," an expression used by Bush, Sr. to describe Ronald Reagan's economic plan, when the two ran against each other in the 1980 Republican primaries. Reagan's plan essentially called for huge tax cuts, big increases in military spending, and (mostly) unspecified budget cuts, but that the tax cuts would "pay for themselves," by stimulating the economy, and they would not cause deficits. While most segments of the taxpaying public saw some money from the tax cuts, the biggest beneficiaries were the wealthy. The economy boomed, but so did deficits. Perot mentioned the "voodoo economics," followed by "we're now in deep voodoo," a play on "doo doo," for those unaware.** So was Perot admitting he had made a mistake supporting Reagan and Bush?

Anyway, Trump emphasized he would bring back American jobs from overseas, but he didn't say exactly how he would do so. Many politicians have railed against the loss of jobs to other countries, but there really hasn't been anyone, Republican or Democrat, who really has presented a firm plan, that has public support, to do so. Since I do a lot about words, let me do some translation here. American businesses often moved plants and jobs overseas for one reason, and only one reason .... to make MONEY! Capitalism is about one thing and only one thing ... making MONEY! It is NOT about you or your family, or educating your children, or providing you with affordable medical care, or providing for you in your old age, or providing for you in your younger age, for that matter. No, it is about investors making money! Big business and its investors saw foreign labor markets where workers made a fraction of what American workers made, and they made the conscious decision to move work to other countries, especially once American tariffs were reduced or abolished, thus making it cheaper to send the produced goods from these low wage nations to this country. The so called "free traders," often more from the conservative side of the political spectrum, didn't scream about patriotism or traitorous behavior or any such other things. This was about making MONEY!

So does Donald Trump propose to make American wages and benefits even lower to bring back jobs from overseas? Does he propose to raise taxes on companies who send jobs overseas? Just what does he propose to do? Over time, wages in some countries have risen, making some American companies consider moving some jobs back to America, and from what I understand, that has been actually happening to some degree, but I'm not exactly sure how much of this has been happening.

Trump also talked about workers who can't get jobs, and he more or less promised to see that everyone has a job, because that will make those people have more self respect, although I just forget his exact words. The thing is, if wages and benefits are reduced enough, just about anyone could have a job, BUT will they be able to live on the pay? Will they be able to save for their future? Will they be able to raise a family? Will they be able to get good educations for their children? Will they be able to afford health care for themselves and their families? Or will they be worked for long hours for little pay and few if any benefits, just to make sure people like Donald Trump make billions? What is your answer to that question, Donald Trump? And just which party are you actually running against?***

* See: http://www.iie.com/content/?ID=27

** "Doo doo" is a nice way of saying "shit," and Perot played on the expression, "We're in deep shit."

*** Trump also told supporters how the U.S. has spent two trillion dollars in Iraq, with the implication being that it was wrong to do so, but the funny thing is, it was the Republican Bush-Cheney administration that sent the troops there in the first place. So is this an admission by Trump that he supported the wrong political party?
       
WORD HISTORY:
Weave-This word, related to "web," goes back to Indo European "webh," which meant "to weave." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "weban(an)," with the same meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "wefan," also with the same meaning, and this then became "weven/weaven," before the modern version. The noun was derived from the verb. The other Germanic languages have: German "weben," ^ Low German and Dutch "weven," West Frisian "weve" (little used?), Danish "væve," Icelandic "vefa," Norwegian "veve," and Swedish "väva."

^ The common German name "Weber" is simply "Weaver" in English.

The New Arms Race: Guns

This was first published in June 2015


Every era has its fears and the present is no exception: fear of terrorism, fear of warming climates, fear of government spying, fear of business spying, fear of guns, fear of modernity, fear of gay people, fear of black people, fear of Latino people, fear of minorities in general, ahhhhh, you get my point. 

Look at what has happened with guns. The post World War Two era produced an arms race, with western democracies, led by the United States, trying to keep an edge in weaponry over the Soviet Union (later also to some degree over China), fearful that otherwise we would all be under the boot of totalitarian communism. I don't recall the numbers, but the amount of weapons produced, and especially of nuclear weapons, reached a point where both sides had enough weapons to destroy the world 10 or 20 times over (after one time over, who's counting?). In more recent times, gun advocates, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), have essentially used similar tactics with the basic argument being, "Government can't protect you from every crime, but you can protect yourself by having a fire arm, or firearms, in your possession, wherever you go." The general argument has continued that no longer are guns necessary just to protect you in your home, but anywhere: a bar, a restaurant, your car, a store, a school, any place. Then mass killings with guns took place in increasing numbers, often perpetrated by people with various mental problems, and when many Americans (polls seemingly indicate a large majority) wanted some regulations about mental qualifications for gun buyers, the argument by gun advocates essentially became, "We now need more guns to counter all of those guns already out there." It's the new "arms race," but now it's no longer about nations, but about each of us individually.

WORD HISTORY:
Gloss-English has two words "gloss," but this is the one meaning, "sheen, glistening." It is closely related to both "glow" and to "glass," thus taking it back to Indo European "ghel," which had the notion, "to shine, be bright." An Old Germanic form is lacking, but it may simply have been derived from a form of "glow" or "gloss," as German once had "glos" (glowing, bright), from "glosen" (glow) and Icelandic had "glossi" (flame, spark). English borrowed the word in the first half of the 1500s, likely from German. The word is commonly used to describe various grades of paint, and there is also the expression, "gloss over," used to describe something that has been treated with little emphasis or detail, likely with the idea of covering up flaws and thus making it look better than it is (give it a "glow").

"The Quiller Memorandum," Anti-Nazi Revival Film

The "Quiller Memorandum" was released way back in late 1966. It starred newly acclaimed actor George Segal,* well known actors Alec Guinness and Max von Sydow, and increasingly popular actress Senta Berger. Much of the film was shot in (then) West Berlin, so you get something of a view of 1960's West Berlin. With World War Two over for 15 years by the dawn of the 1960s, the decade saw a burst of memoirs, documentaries and films about the war, and also its legacy, "the Cold War," including a divided Germany, which was literally divided by walls and barbed wire fences.** The 1960s saw a proliferation of spy/secret agent films, the most prominent of which were the James Bond films. So what does all of this have to do with "The Quiller Memorandum?" Absolutely nothing! Well, very little, and that "little" being the spy part. The movie is not about spies trying to gather information on the communist government in East Germany, or even in Moscow. Nope! It is about democratic forces trying to prevent a revival of Nazism in West Germany. Yep! While the end of World War Two moved further into the past, participants from that era, on all sides, began to want to tell their stories about the war, thus the memoirs and films. Notice I did say, "on all sides," and some Germans, and even some non-Germans, seemed to long for the time when a chorus of "Sieg Heils" rang from public venues in Germany and Europe. While many Germans of the 1960s just went about their every day lives earning a living, raising their children, and shipping Volkswagens to the U.S., where they were highly popular, there were those who plotted for a "Fourth Reich."

In those times, there were still many unanswered questions about the Germans (including Austrians) and some prominent Nazis who were unaccounted for from the end of the war. Stories circulated at times about close former Hitler aide Martin Bormann, whose body had not yet been found in Berlin, where he supposedly had either been killed by Soviet fire, or where he had died at his own hand.*** Could Bormann lead the Nazi revival? And some even thought Hitler himself had escaped the ruins of Berlin and had been transported by submarine to South America, where he awaited the right moment to launch a Nazi takeover of Germany. Remember, while these things seem ridiculous to us today, back in those times, these possibilities were not seen as quite so farfetched. Today's cynicism about government invasion of citizens' privacy was getting a strong boost back then, as schemes hatched during the war to keep military operations secret, or to uncover enemy attempts to hide such plans, and then the covert operations during the Cold War to find out secrets of foreign governments, made many people shudder, with some even having disturbing episodes in their minds about CIA operatives following them, or trying to use them for some secret mission. All of this led some to speculate that Hitler or Bormann could well have been alive, since some believed governments would never have admitted what they knew about the former Nazi nutcase. Further, the tension between many democratic nations and the Soviet Union made some people feel, in retrospect, that maybe the Western Powers should have made a separate peace with Hitler and then allied themselves with his forces against the Soviets. These ideas were not really all that far out of the mainstream back then, and the very troubling part of it is, people DID KNOW about the overwhelming war crimes and crimes against humanity of the Nazis, as these crimes had been well documented. Fear can make people react in some strange ways, and in the 1960s, fear of war with the Soviets, even nuclear war, was always on many people's minds, at least to some extent.

"The Quiller Memorandum" is available on DVD and is well worth the watch. I am not going into the plot or the general flow of the film. I will only again say, it is about democratic forces trying to get information on active Nazi operatives in Berlin so that these folks could be rounded up, thus keeping the pro-democracy forces ahead of the Nazis. Like the war then raging in southeast Asia, in Vietnam, it was not always easy to tell who was a friend and who was an enemy. I'll leave things right there!

* George Segal's performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," earned him an Oscar nomination. That movie was released earlier in 1966.

** Berlin too was divided by the famous "wall." The reason for this division was that Berlin was located within the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany (by the 1960s commonly known as East Germany), but the city itself was divided into occupation zones, and the East German Communist government had built a wall beginning in the summer of 1961 to keep other people from breaking into their paradise, or at least that was the reason given by the Communists, if I recall correctly from my then childhood days. Of course this was a bunch of malarkey, and many an East German trying to get to the West was shot and killed by East German border guards. I guess it can be said that Berlin was the epicenter of the tensions between the Soviet Union, along with its satellite states of eastern Europe, and the United States and its western European allies during the Cold War.

*** For more on Bormann and his death see: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/09/german-leaders-of-nazi-erabormann.html  


                                   
WORD HISTORY:
Spy-This word, used as both a noun and as a verb, goes back Indo European "spekh," which had the notion of  "to look, to observe, to inspect." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "spehonan," which meant  "to look, to watch closely, to gather information by observing (thus, "to spy, to scout")." This gave Frankish, the dialect of the Germanic tribe the Franks, "spehon," with similar meaning. As Frankish blended with the Latin-based dialects of what is generally now France (named after the Franks), this produced French (named after Frankish), "espien," meaning "to observe closely, to spy." The Germanic word also gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "spyrian," which meant "to search for, to track, to check into, to find out." "Apparently," the French word blended with the native English word in the 1200s, but with the emphasis on the then predominant French meaning of "spy," to produce "spien," which later became "spy." German has "spähen" (to scout, to peer),^ Low German Saxon "spigeneren" (to spy), Dutch "spieden" (to scout, to spy), West Frisian "spehen" (archaic, but with similar meaning), Danish "spejde" (to scout, to spy), Icelandic "speja" ("apparently archaic," meaning "to scout, observe"), Norwegian "speide" (to scout, to peer), Swedish "speja" (to scout, to spy).

^ German also borrowed a form from French and thus the language also has "spionieren" (to spy), a word which was perhaps borrowed by Frisian, as it has similar; of course, Frisian may also have borrowed it directly from French.