I had an intuitive feeling I was in the country that would either save or destroy the world, nothing I have experienced since that day nearly fifty years ago has altered this view. I was then nineteen years old, feeling the aloneness, standing in a parking lot in Los Angeles.
In his ‘Selected Essays and Critical Writings’ A. R. Orage wrote, “no mere record of experience, however novel,” can obtain entry into true realism. “Entry is by divination, not by description. Compare, for instance, the descriptions of battles in Homer and in the Mahabharata with the descriptions of actuality. The latter are accurate, but the former are true. There never was such a battle as Vyasa described in the Mahabharata. Let us hope there never will be. But, as we read it, we feel that Nature has dreamed it, and only not actualised it because she had other plans. By this means, actuality itself becomes transfigured; experience is given a solace; and no mere reporting can accomplish that. What is the satisfaction in knowing that such and such a thing occurred? But there is satisfaction in knowing that it occurred as a consequence of choice among many alternatives! Freedom is given back to us. At each moment we stand at a new crossroads. The road Nature takes will be, in course of time, the actual; the roads she passes will remain the potential. The more of them there are, the richer life has become for us.”
I do not know what the result will be of a Trump presidency but in my view the appointments of Stephen Bannon, Mike Flynn, Mike Pompeo, Reince Priebus, Nikki Haley, Jeff Sessions, Betsy DeVos to his cabinet, Myron Ebell to his transition team does not bode well for the USA or the world.
One of Americas finest investigative journalist I. F. Stone wrote - "All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.” Experience eventually helped me to see a truth in this, but also to remember Martin Luther realised, “Truth can only manifest through a lie.”
At the end there is a short sequence from the BBC series The Nazis a warning from History, this is very much based on the work of Prof. Sir Ian Kershaw. Kershaw although one of the more nuanced historians of the Nazi era does not really fathom the depths of the phenomenon of Adolf Hitler. The ever deepening question rather than an answer for the existence of such a being does not lie in ordinary history but in mythology.
Mythology, etymologically from Muthos, indicative of the truth cannot be approached with the ordinary mind. There exists an index of similarities between Donald Trump’s political campaign and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, however Trump is no Hitler, the United States is not the Weimar Republic. However the combination of strong narcissistic and authoritarian bigoted tendencies within a person in high office of state can unwittingly enable more sinister interests. Whereas Jiddu Krishnamurti stated, “Evil exits but you know nothing about it’, nonetheless it is worth recalling Shakespeare’s words placed upon the characters of Banquo and Macbeth, …
Banquo.
That, trusted home,
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:
And oftentimes to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence. —
Macbeth.
Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme...
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill; cannot be good: — if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is
But what is not.
New York times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/opinion/no-trump-we-cant-just-get-along.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
http://joshuafoust.com/this-is-not-normal/
CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/14/politics/white-nationalists-on-bannon/index.html
Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/
New Republic
https://newrepublic.com/article/138814/media-failing-explain-trumps-recklessness
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/sessions-flynn-and-pompeo-who-are-the-potential-trump-cabinet-picks-
The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-president-latest-cabinet-sessions-flynn-pompeo-racist-mike-a7426046.html
The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/trump-bannon-election/508688/
Letters from America - BBC 4
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083h0tp
Aljazeera (Interview with Noam Chomsky)
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/11/upfront-special-noam-chomsky-trump-era-161125114959227.html
International business News
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/what-are-similarities-between-donald-trump-adolf-hitler-1582136
Wall Street Journal
http://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-rode-waves-of-populism-until-it-crashed-the-party-1477492356
BBC Series - The Nazis a Warning from History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__oBkRYT7A&t=32s