The Time For Talk — An old short story explaining the Trump/Putin Nuclear Policy

THE TIME FOR TALK

A Short Story by Tim McMullen

The glass sparkled as he held it up to the light. He poked the towel into the mouth with his fingers and wiped it again; then he reached up and placed it on the shelf beside the other glasses. He quickly picked up a fork and began to rub it.

"Sure," he said, scratching with his fingernail at some unidentifiable crust of food, "I know everybody's making a big deal about it, but it's mostly just bull."

"What do you mean by that?" the woman said as she lifted her hands out of the water and rinsed the soap off a saucepan.

"I just mean that we've been through it all before. The scare stories…the tests ...the drills. You remember, when we were kids, the plan we had to follow?"

She placed a newly rinsed spatula in the drain rack and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"You know the rule ...but then, maybe you don't ...being a hick and all," he grinned and then ducked the water which he knew would be flicked in his direction. "All us city kids learned the four magic rules: When you see the light," he chanted, "turn your back to the windows, get under your desk, put your head between your legs, and KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE!"

"That's disgusting," she giggled and flicked both water-drenched hands in his direction. He caught one stream on the right cheek before he grabbed her hands and pulled her to him. He clasped both her wrists in his left hand and lifted them above her head as he encircled her waist with his right arm.

"AH-AH-AH! You'll lose your kitchen help," he said.

He kissed her playfully. She kissed him back, saying: "Hmph! Some help you are." She wrinkled her forehead and looked into his face.

He looked back at her for a second and then peered intently at the fistful of forks in his hand, inspecting each one carefully as he placed it in its proper slot in the drawer.

"I'm catching up!" he laughed as he reached for the last item in the drain rack. The muffled clank of pans rose from the dishwater as she submerged her hands.

"Besides," he said finally, "What do you want from me? It's just not that big a deal. I mean we've been through it before. Everybody gets all stirred up for nothing. Nobody's stupid enough to start something ... Not even the Russians. Gimme a break! They know we'd blow hell out of 'em if they ever tried to hit us ...and we're never gonna' start it, so why get all excited?"

"How do you know we'll never start it?" Her fine, brown hair flipped from her face as she looked at him over her shoulder.

"We just don't do that kind of thing. We stop wars...We don't start them. That's a fact."

"Maybe, but there's only one country that's ever used an atomic bomb on people."

He looked at her, slightly puzzled, then mumbled, "Oh." Then he brightened. "But, like I said, we didn't start that one ...we finished it!"

"All the same ... " she muttered and pulled the stopper out of the basin. She watched the swirling vortex whirl down the drain. The sink sucked loudly as the last of the soapy water disappeared. With a faint but reassuring smile on his lips, he dried his hands on the dishtowel, folded it neatly in thirds, and threaded it through the handle of the stove.

He put his arm around her shoulders, and they walked into the living room. She watched him settle down in the new armchair and fold his hands across his stomach. She stood at the end table, idly riffling the pages of a magazine with her right hand.

"You know," she said finally, "we're less than ten miles from downtown."

"Huh?"

"We're sandwiched between the oil fields, naval base and a huge metropolitan area." "Yeah, so?"

"We're a target. It would hit us before we even knew it. Don't you ever wonder what you'd do.... what it would feel like ...really?"

"You mean what it would feel like? Yeah, I suppose . . . " He spoke hesitantly, his voice and eyes raised unison. "Well, no. I guess I haven't really wondered. A bit too morbid for my taste. But we have Civil Defense. We'd know ahead of time ... We'd be prepared." He shrugged his outstretched palms upwardly in a "you-know-what-I-mean" gesture.

She gazed over his head through the hazy, lace curtains, at the darkening sky. This view out her living room window was her favorite. Her sudden reverie was so deep that she was startled to hear his voice again. But it was his voice, the voice she loved, and she pulled herself back to hear him finish his sentence.

"...to worry about," he said. "What good does it do? You only scare yourself. Wondering what an atomic explosion feels like is like asking what it’s like to be dead. Who knows?”

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled slightly. Having won her tacit agreement, he continued enthusiastically. “I mean, one second you’re sitting here talking, and

©1985 T. McMullen

All Rights Reserved

The Fallacy of the Ironically Claimed "Vote of Conscience" in this Election

I would argue that this graphic shows exactly the opposite of what they think it does. Yes, America is filled with millions of people who, for whatever reason, choose not to vote. Having voted in EVERY election, from local to national, since I became eligible to vote over 46 years ago, I do not understand their refusal to participate in the only chance that we have to create a working democracy, but I accept it as a given. In large part it is the direct result of the machinations of the oligarchs who have an interest in breeding despair and apathy fomented by a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. It has worked on too many.

On the other hand, let's look at the pie chart. Just how many of those Nader voters do we suppose would have supported the Republican candidate? Nader's people were not middle of the road fence sitters. These were committed liberal and progressives who placed their bet on an an outsider to push their progressive dreams. Again, as with our current alternative candidates, Nader never had the inkling of a chance to become president. Not ANY chance AT ALL. He was supported by only a tiny fraction of the American people, both the voters and the non-voters. So, if even half of those Nader voters had voted for the Democrat, and it is a given that almost NONE of them would have voted for Bush, the Supreme Court could not have intervened with Gore winning by over two million votes. The argument that Nader had no impact on the outcome just doesn't fly.

In the subsequent 16 years, the move to dishearten and disenfranchise voters has increased exponentially, aided by corporate media and that same radically regressive, politically motivated, 5-4 Supreme Court majority that stole the 2000 election with the help of Nader voters. Were we foolish enough to waste a vote on Stein, or Johnson, or Sanders while Republican governors and legislatures all across the country attempt to disenfranchise many millions of likely Democratic voters from students to seniors, we could very well face a debacle so much worse than the Bush presidency that could have an impact for many generations to come. The Supreme Court offers lifetime appointments. Two to four nominations could occur in the next term.

To pretend that a vote for Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders, or much worse, Gary Johnson—each of whom certainly have their own significant drawbacks—is a vote for "conscience" or "purity" is tragically misplaced in this election.

For the record, I have supported Sanders for decades both monetarily and philosophically, having given to his campaigns many times over the years, having given several times prior to this election's primaries, and having given to his new "movement" after he lost.

Voting for someone who has no chance to win, like the Nader vote in 2000, is precisely what those Republican operatives have dreamed of and worked for these past two presidential elections. Thousands of them trolled the Sanders campaign, enflaming the NEVER HILLARY lies that they have been perpetrating and perpetuating for thirty years.They have fomented the anti-"Democratic Establishment" vote that would hand total control of the country to the corporatocracy.

Hillary Clinton, like most people, has swallowed the "magic free market" fallacy for the last thirty years (including not merely all the current Republican politicians and most corrupt corporate management, but most Democratic politicians including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama). However, like Obama, she also has progressive tendencies that need to be constantly prodded and pushed toward more progressive goals both socially and economically. A Trump win will NOT accomplish any of this. In fact, it is much more likely to entrench the power mongers and consolidate their stranglehold for many decades.

This is not an attempt at fear-mongering. It is an attempt to analyze clearly that chart and the argument proposed above. It is an attempt to reveal the likely outcome of the ironically claimed "vote of conscience" which elects Trump and renews the Republican legislative majority.

A Wake UP Call? If Not Now, When?

With the crude, crass, vacuousness of the Republican debates now behind us, it is Donald Trump's rallies that have become the focus of his campaign. Empty catch phrases, sometimes meaningless, rambling non sequiturs are met with loud applause and chants. These displays, however, have very little traction. 

The media has now turned its attention to Trump's gleeful cheerleading of violence at his rallies: his offering to pay legal fees for those who might be arrested for using violence against protestors; his saying from the podium about a protestor that he'd like to "punch him in the face"; his encouraging the crowd to "knock the crap" out of protestors. These are simply escalations of his mocking of women, mocking of his Republican opponents, mocking of Democrats and President Obama, and his mocking, early in the campaign, of a handicapped reporter. A recent graphic showed a picture of the crippled reporter juxtaposed with a picture of Trump imitating him. The text asked, "Is this 'Making America Great Again'?" Here is my response.

It's called "playing to your audience." Remember, they laughed and cheered when he did this. Trump didn't make these people—he just empowered them to be as ugly as they really are and then encouraged them to compete to one-up each other. 

We are who we have allowed ourselves to become, and we have allowed the worst among us to drive our national narrative for the last thirty years. Selfishness, greed, self indulgence, ugliness, coarseness, baseness, violence: In the hands of our consolidated corporate media they have come to redefine our national character. From Jerry Springer to Seinfeld (the show, not the comedian), from waffle and ice cream commercials to hotel commercials, these traits are not ridiculed or vilified, like they generally have been in our own past; no, they are championed as the means to success.

So often it goes under the guise of "values"—traditional values, family values, conservative values, religious freedom, PATRIOTISM. The tragic irony is that most of us have stood by while our language, our values, and our country were co-opted by liars, swindlers, cheats and thieves whose ironic double-speak has led to unfathomable hypocrisy, cruelty, greed and violence in both domestic and foreign affairs. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Ryan, McConnell, Palin, Bachmann, Gohmert and the hundreds of other little wannabe conservative extremists are the result of our own national apathy, ignorance, and complacency.

We need to WAKE UP, and just possibly, the vile and repugnant Trump campaign will be our wake up call although the ugliness of the similarly themed McCain/Palin and Romney/Ryan campaigns were not. More important than merely waking up, however, we need to fight this pernicious moral cancer and restore honor, integrity and a true sense of freedom and justice for all. That just might "make America great again."