[Note from Steve: I’m posting this article to both my blogs because it’s about politics as well as reading and writing. If you object to that, you don’t have to read it!]

Although I’m sure the neo-Nazi and white supremacist MAGA maniacs and their fascist fuehrer, Donald J. Trump, don’t give a rat’s ass about Hispanic heritage (not to mention all those other bigots, haters, and general assholes who supported him in this last election, some even Hispanics!), I want to write first about our US immigrant heritage in general.

Let me say this to a lot of dumb SOBs out there: The only native Americans are Native Americans (and even they came over that land bridge from Asia to America long ago!). We’re all immigrants! There were waves and waves of immigrants to the New World. (I suppose today the FPA—that’s the “Fascist Party of America,” once was the Republican Party until Trump turned it into the FPA—would call all immigrants “evil migrants” today.) Yes, they came to our shores in waves and waves—Europeans in the east, fleeing wars, famines, and religious persecution; Africans in the south, most unwillingly as slaves, to maintain an evil way of life by making it economically feasible; and Asians in the west imported to work essentially as slaves to America’s robber-barons, themselves the sons and daughters of immigrants, to connect east with west. (Yeah, you might think that’s a “woke” statement. Tough!)

All the while, Americans methodically killed, enslaved, and “resettled” tribes of Native Americans, destroying their culture and civilization in the process. Let’s remember, though, that this also occurred elsewhere in the American continents at the hands of European invaders. Many of them were Portuguese or Spanish. Those decades of exploitation couldn’t stop the wonderful blending of Portuguese and Spanish colonists’ cultures, at least their positive parts, with those of America’s indigenous people, leading to what we now call Hispanic culture.

All that great Latin American diaspora has now settled into our country is the latest wave of decades of immigration to the US that is still going on, so for the bigots, haters, and racists of the FPA, they’re the obvious ones to take on the role of scapegoats for all the problems people believe they have, making them targets of their ire.

Hitler and Stalin had the Jews; American Nazis at the end of the nineteenth century and first part of the twentieth had the Irish, Italian, and other more recent immigrants from Europe; fascist leaders in Africa now go after gays, sentencing them to death; Jews in Israel are out to exterminate all Palestinians; Russians call Ukrainians, who are led by a brave Jew, Nazis; etc., etc. But in the US, the FPA has decided to use Hispanics as their scapegoats and has done so ever since 2015 when the Donald came down that escalator at Trump Tower. That was the first sign that things were going horribly wrong in America. “Hispanics are rapists and murderers,” that new presidential candidate said. He’s never stopped saying it!

Unfortunately, even many Hispanics have betrayed their heritage and moved to support that “f$#%ing moron” (that’s a quote from ex-SecState Tillerson, whom Trump fired in his first term) and Trump’s planned pogrom to be launched against their people. Is this cultural suicide and death wishes on their part? It sure looks like it! Gone will be any appreciation for the literary Hispanic heavyweights of Isabel Allende, Luis Borges, Leon de Greiff, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, Vargas Llosa, and so many others. Gone will be the wonderful dance and musical tradition of cumbias, bambucos, rancheros, tangos, vallenatos, and other musical forms of greats like Carlos Gardel, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and so many others. By destroying an entire people, America’s dictator and his crazy followers will destroy a culture just because American fascists need scapegoats to survive like Hitler and Stalin did. Fascist movements everywhere need people to blame. America’s Hispanics were the obvious choice for them, in their minds’ eyes a worthless minority everyone will love to hate.

If the internment and deportation program is successful (that mostly means that fascists will be willing to spend billions of your taxes on paying for it!), the fascist bigots, haters, and racists will get their wishes granted at the expense of killing American democracy. American fascists need a hard lesson of woke and DEI: America will die if it closes its borders to immigrants, and it will be a death by many cuts. Immigrants have always come to America to start new lives in the land of opportunity and have always contributed to building a stronger America. (Do you remember that Neil Diamond song?) The FPA and its fuehrer only want to tear America down. They even call themselves “disrupters”! Which future for America do you prefer? One controlled by the bigots, haters, and racists?

Like many others who have studied in detail at America’s current political disaster and its origins, something now so awful that the country looks like 1930s’ Germany, I’ve often thought of going elsewhere. During the Vietnam war era, I considered Canada. After all, I can live abroad and did so for more than a decade in Colombia, South America. Europe looks more sane too. But despite my age now that makes such a decision more difficult (although I’d like to leave the sinking ship because I know that, except for supporting their aging fuehrer, the FPA doesn’t care about the elderly—will Dr. Oz to offer euthanasia as a Medicare option?), all I can do is fight against fascism and for democracy in America with my writing during the years I have left; that includes my two blogs. That’s a promise I’ve made to myself. Won’t you join me?

I haven’t been publishing my stories that long compared to some authors (my first published novel, Full Medical, also #1 in the “Clones and Mutants” series, was published in 2006), but there were many more things that concerned me at that time than the so-called “culture wars” (Saudis’ support of 9/11 the terrorists, the Iraq War, a POTUS from the Good Ole Piranhas who now looks good in comparison to the one who lost hugely in 2020, etc.). Nevertheless, from first book to my last one (so far), a celebration of diversity and its importance in our great country and the world can generally found in my prose, so much so that it’s something of a meta-theme. Certain people would now say that prose supports “woke,” a recent addition to American slang that confuses everyone across the political spectrum.

If so, I wear that label “wokeness” with pride. My parents from Kansas went to California during the Great Depression and were always celebrating the diversity found there in that greatest of great American states. (Actually, they celebrated it in their native Kansas as well—their best friend was a Mexican national who went to the same business school in Topeka.) From food to friends, my childhood was defined by my parents’ celebration of the state’s diversity, so it should be no surprise that I also celebrated it as an adult. In my California hometown, my parents’ best friends were an Armenian couple from whom I learned all about the Ottoman Empire’s attempt at ethnic cleansing; the main road in my college town just off-campus was Embarcadero del Norte; my best friend at grad school on the East Coast was a good-natured black fellow from the Dominican Republic, who married a nice Jewish girl—I read one of my poems at their wedding; and through him I met my first wife, a fantastic Colombian lady who passed on far too soon; etc., etc.

I’ve celebrated diversity all my life for so long and considered it such an important part of our American culture that I was surprised that certain scurrilous politicians now use this new term to focus their hatred, racism, and nationalist, isolationist tendencies on their enemies: “woke” recognizes the importance of diversity; “anti-woke” implies that such hatred, racism, and nationalist, isolationist tendencies should be used against any group whose members aren’t far-right white Christian women and men. In other words, anti-woke signifies a desire to have forced apartheid in our society; woke means freedom and respect for all and a celebration of all human diversity.

When Ron DeSantis or any other far-right wannabe dictator (“there were good people on both sides” one said to excuse his bigotry) says that the state or country he’s running in is where “woke comes to die,” he’s channeling Hitler and his use of Jews, homosexuals, and others—anyone considered to be an enemy—as scapegoats to be attacked, imprisoned, and executed…and will do exactly that if ever given the chance! The lesser extremes all too often lead to terrible events too. I can’t watch this going on and not think of the Armenian, Jewish, Cambodian, Rohingya, Uighur and other genocides that have appeared throughout the world. I can’t watch these occurring and not worry that too many politicians are following those same horrific plans made by the monsters of history to use any people perceived as different as scapegoats. It’s terribly sad that we continue to let this occur over and over again. That says a lot about humanity in general and a specific challenge for any democracy. Are we up to the latter? Or will “anti-woke” become the new norm in our sad world?

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Intolerance. This seventh novel in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series shows that anti-woke can take many forms and isn’t restricted only to the US. Three separate cases challenge Esther and friends here: One involves a whole town’s intolerant treatment of an atheist family; another shows how jealousy turns an old British soldier into a rabid hater of the Irish; and a third describes a right-wing domestic terrorist group’s hatred of refugees and migrants who have come from foreign lands to the UK to escape economic catostrophes and persecution in their homeland. Some of these themes will continue in the following novels in the series, but this one is a free PDF download available on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page. The novel is a great introduction to the entire series. Enjoy.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I guess the Donald believes the adage “Any PR is good PR” (“the Donald” is the New Yorkers’ nickname for real estate mogul Donald Trump, who has his eye set on owning the White House—and turning it into a casino?)  As of today (7/21), he’s leading the other GOP presidential hopefuls in a poll taken after the anti-Mexican immigrant spiel but before the attack on John McCain.  Maybe that will change.  But the GOP has to be careful.  If Trump the Chump leaves the GOP to form a third party, they’re setting themselves up as victims for the third party jinx.  It’s probably more beneficial for them to leave him alone because he makes the other fifteen clowns almost look sane.

Of course, Trump is appealing to the dark side of the GOP with his anti-Mexican immigrant comments.  It’s clear a lot of frustrated, angry people blame immigrants, legal or otherwise, for all their financial woes.  “What the hell?” they say.  “I join a union that’s supposed to protect me, and if the company doesn’t ship my job overseas, they give it to some damn immigrant who’s not even American.”  Never mind that the immigrant works harder for less and is often exploited.  Never mind that the immigrant actually knows how his government functions when s/he becomes a citizen.  Never mind that the immigrants’ sons and daughters go overseas to fight for this country when Trump took five deferments.  Never mind that the disgruntled worker’s family tree contains members who were also immigrants at one time (the only native American is a Native American!)  Every political hack knows how to hide her/his failings by creating a scapegoat and pointing the finger.  And Trump is a political hack.

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The mess on our southern borders with the unaccompanied illegal immigrant children illustrates the Keystone Cops attitude of many bills coming out of Congress and/or proposed by the Executive Branch.  You’d think that most of these people who, after all, are usually lawyers (albeit failed ones, for the most part), could word the legalese and implement it in such a way that these things don’t happen.

The problem of child pornography and child prostitution in this country led to a “feel good” bipartisan bill back in the latter Bush era (i.e. not Papa Bush but Dubya) that promised to take care of unaccompanied minors until their cases were settled, all in order to protect them.  The law didn’t become effective until Obama became president.  Not knowing the details of that law, I presume “settled” means that immigration workers, judges, and their assistants would treat each case on a one-by-one basis to prevent abuse to these kids, or even sending them back to war-savaged homelands.

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In one meaty item in my last Irish Stew post, I reflected on the abysmal proficiencies of our high school grads: 28% in math; 34% in reading.  In that same post and in comments to it, possible reasons for this were listed.  One commenter pointed out that maybe it’s because parents just don’t care anymore.  That’s one reason we need immigrants.  Many immigrant parents care about education.  They want their kids to have a better life than they had or even have now.  Moreover, they take pride that their children excel.

After World War II, many parents of baby boomers exhibited these same attitudes.  That’s one reason that era in U.S. history was golden, except for the scourge of Communism.  Parents or grandparents who suffered through the hardships of the Great Depression and a terrible war had their priorities straight.  Without being immigrants, they had that immigrant attitude.  And there were many postwar immigrants too, ones who reinforced that attitude.  There was also social upheaval, because baby boomers wanted more than just the good ol’times—they wanted a better world, thinking that their own kids would benefit.  They did and became the generations where too many think that life owes them everything, including a living—or, at least, their parents owe them that.  There are many exceptions, of course; many of these exceptions are children and grandchildren of immigrants.

There are stats to back this up.  For example, examine lists of recent winners of the Intel Science Talent Search (it used to be known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search).  An eyeball estimate using last names (as a writer, names are important to me) tells me that about 50% of them are probably children or grandchildren of immigrants.  These kids are smart, but they’re also highly motivated and work their butts off to learn too, in order to make their parents proud.  That’s in science and technology, of course, but kids like this also dominate other fields.  Just consider the top kids in the national spelling bee every year.  They aren’t all going to be scientists, by any means.

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Arthur Miller’s allegorical attack on McCarthyism, The Crucible, has a good film version.  I watched part of it on Encore the other night and it caused me to start thinking about freedom of religion.  This is another first amendment right that the Founding Fathers forgot to put in the original Constitution.  They quickly fixed their error.  There are two ironies here.  The first is that they forgot this important right, initially.  Many immigrants to the English colony came here to practice their religion freely, so it wasn’t that they were unfamiliar with the concept.  The other irony was signaled out by Mr. Miller:  here you have Puritans, who wanted to practice their religious freedom, doing some very unchristian things to their fellows.

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