Tom Glenn's Blog, page 102

Trump: A Three-Term President

Each time I try to turn my attention away from the Trump presidency, Trump offers new evidence for alarm. This time it’s hints that Trump won’t give up the presidency even if he is defeated in the November election.

The story started a while back when Trump suggested that he might not relinquish the White House in January even if he is not re-elected. Then he threatened to send sheriffs and law enforcement personnel to polling places which would intimidate those who wanted to vote against him. Over the weekend, he stated that if he wins re-election this November, he will “negotiate” in order to run for an unconstitutional third term. On Sunday, Michael Caputo, Trump’s Health and Human Services (HHS) chief spokesman, warned Trump supporters to be prepared for an armed insurrection and “buy ammunition” after a contested election. He added, “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin.”

Trump, in sum, is threatening to stay in power by force of arms. Will it lead to armed conflict? Will Trump lead us into a civil war?

Mail Disruption

The arrival of my mail has become erratic. Once a week or so, I receive no mail at all. The next day, my mailbox is overloaded. Mail is taking longer to arrive. One letter from North Carolina was delivered three weeks after its postmark date.

I learned this morning that I am not imagining the disruption. The New York Times announced that “analysis of more than 28 million pieces of mail found that on-time delivery declined noticeably in July and August after Louis DeJoy, the [Trump administration’s newly assigned] postmaster general, put cost-cutting measures in place.”

The Trump administration isn’t interested in saving money. It wants to make vote-by-mail impractical. It’s deliberately sabotaging post office operations for that purpose. The result is that people like me who depend on the mail for their prescriptions and their business (sending and receiving books and manuscripts) are left hanging. The medications are key to my health and survival; the books and texts I send and receive are essential for my work as a writer and book reviewer. And Trump is delaying their delivery.

Some years ago, we had a discussion about whether the United States Postal Service (USPS) is in fact a service or a business. Lawmakers tended to side with the business argument. In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the USPS. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for its post-retirement health care costs 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation. But the USPS receives no funds from the government. It is expected to pay its costs through stamp sales and mailing fees.

With the growth of email and the internet, people are sending fewer letters, and the USPS’s income has shrunk. The solution to that problem is obviously for Congress to allocate funds to keep the USPS operating at top efficiency. But the Trump administration and DeJoy, with the complicity of Republicans in Congress, are instead weakening the service in hopes that voting-by-mail won’t be feasible. They know that the more people that vote, the greater the likelihood that Trump and the Republicans will be defeated.

Despite this and a litany of other destructive actions by Trump, he continues to enjoy the support of something like 40 percent of the American citizenry. I am at a total loss to understand how that can be.

Politicization of Intelligence

Two recent developments, now being reported in the press, are arousing grave concern in me as an intelligence professional. First, the Director of National Intelligence is withholding briefings from Congress. Second, a whistleblower in the intelligence community claims that he was told to stop reporting on Russia’s efforts to disrupt the 2020 election.

When falsification of intelligence begins, so does fascism. Trump is attempting to distort and withhold the truth from government decision makers and the American people. He is trying to persuade citizens that the country is in a crisis and that he, the law and order president, is the only one who can fix it. This is on top of the thousands of lies he has told us while in office. In the aftermath of Bob Woodward’s book, Trump admitted he lied about the severity of the coronavirus pandemic to forestall panic. Apparently panic control is more important than saving thousands of lives and justifies blatant lying.

Just how bad Trump’s actions have been won’t be apparent until after he has left office and is no longer able to hide damning evidence. I fully expect that Trump will be arraigned, convicted, and sentenced to prison for crimes we don’t even know about because he has been able to conceal them while is still in office. What possessed Americans to elect this man to office in the first place?

Americans, beware. The distortion of intelligence has begun. Fascism is at our door.

Bach and Mozart (3)

Both Mozart and Bach succeed because of their intense innate musicality. Both were geniuses beyond compare, and both were well-suited to the tastes of the time in which they lived. That I can play their music at all is a great gift to me.

But I am a writer, not a musician. I toyed with professions other than writing early in life. I trained as a dancer and actor. I took a BA in music. Professionally, I became a linguist in seven languages, and I earned a living and supported my family by spying. I retired as early as I could to be able to write full time. That turned out to have been a wise decision.

But through it all, I kept returning to playing the piano. It started when I taught myself to play because my family couldn’t afford music lessons for me. I eventually earned enough money from part-time jobs to buy my first piano, an ancient upright with some keys missing. Throughout my life, I’ve never gone for very long without working at the keyboard.

Bach and Mozart were always important to me, but it wasn’t until my maturity that they came to dominate my playing and listening. Had I lived two complete lives, I still wouldn’t be able to encompass the greatness of their music.

Bach and Mozart (2)

I find Mozart, a composer of the Classical period, much easier to play on the piano than Bach, the master of the Baroque. By the time Mozart was a rising star, musical taste had rebelled against the complexity dominant during Bach’s day. People wanted simpler, easy-to-listen-to melodies and accompaniments. Mozart and Hayden, the two leading composers of the Classical period, complied with seemingly straight forward and direct compositions that met the expectations of listeners. Both stressed music with a repeated accompaniment figure and a simple, single melody.

But both introduced more complexity as they matured. Mozart’s last three symphonies, the 39th, 40th, and 41st, are both perfect examples of music from the Classical period and among his longest and most complicated works. And his Requiem, which he didn’t live to finish, is rich in intricate composition and reaches a level of dissonance only hinted at in his 39th symphony. One can only wonder what he might have moved on to had he lived beyond 35 years, his age at death.

Bach, by way of contrast, was the master of complexity. He emphasized polyphony, also called counterpoint, that is, multiple melodies all going at the same time. The form he is best known for is the fugue. That form requires beginning with a melody, then starting the melody again while the first version continues, then a third and finally a fourth sounding of the same melody, all going at the same time. The four different versions are sounded in different tonal spans called “voices,” that correspond roughly to the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass ranges of the human voice.

Bach is vastly more difficult to play at the keyboard than Mozart. Keeping all four voices going and sounding like separate, distinct, and individual entities is, for the most part, beyond my skill level. As a result, I play his preludes more often than his fugues. He wrote two sets of preludes and fugues, together known as the Well-Tempered Clavier. Both sets include a prelude and a fugue in each major and minor key for a total of 24 per set.

More tomorrow.

Bach and Mozart

These days, with the coronavirus lockdown in place, I have more time than usual on my hands. One result is that I’m playing the piano more.

I remind readers that I am the proud owner of a six-foot Steinway grand piano which I judge to be the most beautiful-sounding instrument I have ever played. I found the piano many years ago in the cocktail lounge at the Kennedy Center. I tried it numerous times, when the regular player was absent, and fell in love with it. The next year, it was gone, replaced by another piano I didn’t like nearly as well. In the long term, I found the same glorious piano again when the Kennedy Center was selling its used pianos, and my daughter, Susan, bought it for me. Where she got the money is another story I’ve told in this blog.

I just had my Steinway tuned, and it is more glorious that ever. It dominates a room with a high ceiling and a two-story wall of windows. The sound in that room is ideal for a piano that size, and I have never enjoyed playing more than now.

But I’m out of practice. In recent years, my writing has taken off. I now have six books and 17 short stories in print, and I have been doing many presentations and readings. Between that and working on two more new novels, for months on end I barely touched the piano.

But, rusty as I am, I am rediscovering the joy of making music. I play music of a variety of composers—all classical—and lean toward the romantics. When I can do it, I listen to my several stereo systems when I’m not playing the piano. Again the composers I favor make for a long list, ranging from the Renaissance to the modern era.

But the older I get, the more I favor two masters: Mozart and Bach.

More tomorrow.

Personal Insult

President Trump has insulted Vietnam veterans, myself included. He has said that Vietnam was a stupid war; anyone who went there was a sucker.

This quote came to light in the aftermath of the furor over his remarks that those killed and wounded in our wars are losers and suckers. Those who went to Vietnam were “too dumb to have gotten out of it.” He expressed disgust and revulsion for war wounded. He didn’t want them in any parade he participated in because it was “not a good look.”

A variety of sources—the Washington Post, the New York Times, and even Fox News—have verified the validity of the quotes from Trump. There is no question he said, multiple times, the words attributed to him.

As readers of this blog know, I spent more time in Vietnam that in the U.S. between 1962 and 1975. I escaped under fire when Saigon fell. I stood shoulder to shoulder with young men brutally killed on the battlefield. I knew these men. I lived undercover as one of them, wearing their uniform and going into combat with them. I still grieve over their deaths.

For the president to refer to those of us who risked out lives on the battlefield and those who were killed or wounded as suckers and losers is a grave insult. I take it personally.

Let’s rid ourselves of the disgusting man currently occupying the White House. He has betrayed us.

Colonel Lou Schott Honored

I am privileged to belong to the same American Legion Post as Marine Colonel Lou Schott who retired from the Marine Corps in 1967. During World War II, he fought in the battles of New Britain, Peleliu—often called the toughest, bloodiest battle of the war— and Okinawa and is also a Purple Heart recipient. He just turned a hundred years old.

On Wednesday, 2 September, Colonel Schott was the guest of honor, invited by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, at the sunset parade held at the Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, in Arlington, Virginia, to commemorate the end of World War II, 75 years ago. The event was telecast, and I was able to watch it on my computer.

The ceremony, which lasted the better part of an hour, involved what appeared to be hundreds of Marines, many in bright red uniforms. They executed complex maneuvers, including presentation of the colors and other intricate drills in what looked to me like perfection. I saw not one error or misstep.

As readers of this blog know, I have great respect for the Marine Corps. I worked with them many times during my years operating undercover in Vietnam. More than once, I survived because of them. Without exception, they used the intelligence I was able to provide them in fighting the enemy. It was among them that I met a young captain named Al Gray who, as a colonel in 1975, saved my life when Saigon fell and I escaped under fire. General Gray went on to become the Commandant of the Marine Corps. He is a hero among Marines.

I try to demonstrate my admiration for the corps by capitalizing “Marine” every time I use the word. I include Colonel Schott in that esteem. I am privileged to know him.

Trump and Intelligence

As long-term readers of this blog are well aware, I am proud of my 35 years of work in intelligence for the U.S. government. I’m very critical of President Trump for his attacks on the intelligence agencies, and I continue to maintain stoutly that intelligence must always tell the truth no matter how unpalatable.

We don’t know what damage Trump may have inflicted upon the intelligence community. Everything they do and the results they produce are of necessity classified. But we do know that Trump was enraged that intelligence reported on Russian interference on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 election. As more and more evidence becomes public, it’s becoming more apparent that Trump did benefit from Russian ploys and knew very well what was going on. According to the Washington Post, Michael Cohen in his new book Disloyal: A Memoir says that Trump loved Vladimir Putin, the Russian autocrat, because Putin had the ability “to take over an entire country and run it like it was his personal company — like the Trump organization, in fact.”

The most recent scandal is Trump’s curtailing of briefings to Congress about Russian interference in the 2020 election to increase the likelihood of a Trump victory. Reports from the intelligence community that pro-Trump Russian meddling was continuing so enraged Trump that last February he fired acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire. John Ratliffe, the current DNI, is attempting to trim back reports to Congress.

I remind readers that intelligence agencies are the eyes and ears of the nation. They tell us—and Congress—what other countries are up to. To the degree that they are hampered or constricted, we become blind and deaf to what is happening around us.

David Ignatius put it well in his 2 September column in the Washington Post. He says that politicization of intelligence “makes it dangerous for career [intelligence] officers to tell the truth. For an intelligence service, that is the road to corruption.”

Should the accusation that Trump has corrupted the government surprise anyone?

Carney’s Command at Dawn (2)

Fortunately, I won’t be reviewing Command at Dawn. The book came out last year. And my love for the book is personal, not likely to be shared by the reading public. To be honest in a review, I’d have to point out the writing flaws that prevent the novel from being a top runner. I believe that Carney writes about Vietnam for the same reason I do: to vent his Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). At the end of the text is a note that says the book “is the result of writing to stay sane.”

The novel ends with Ledbetter returning to the U.S. He is greeted by mobs that spit on him and call him “butcher” and “baby killer.” I experienced those rebukes repeatedly each time I came home from Vietnam with the troops starting in 1968. Like Ledbetter, I didn’t speak of my time in Vietnam for decades after the war ended. Like him, when I was finally received warmly, the emotions overwhelmed me. The first time a young person hugged me and said, “Thank you for your service. And welcome home,” I cried.

This isn’t the first time a book about Vietnam has awakened my anxieties. Over the years, it’s happened many times. The memories that cause PTSI never go away and never weaken. It doesn’t take much to trigger them. A sound, a smell, words from long ago—anything can bring them back. So much of my writing was done to help me vent those unbearable memories. Every little bit helps. But I’ll never be healed.