Met First Cyclist on the Way to the Airport

Amtrak Conductor and cyclist Don Austin Tucker

On the train from Philadelphia to New York one of the conductors looked at my computer and asked "Are you going to do an Ironman?"

He saw the brag stickers on my MacBook.

I told him I did an Ironman more than five years ago and a knee replacement last year meant I will never do another one.

He told me he was becoming an avid cyclist. He did his first century (100-mile ride) last year and was cycling more and more. He told me how his first distance ride was on a mountain bike with cleated tires.  "That was 50 hard miles," he said. We talked for a while about tires and wheels and types of bikes and types of training.

Don rides the trail along the Schuylkill River and in Valley Forge Park.  We talked about riding in Philadelphia and the surrounding region.

Then Don told me he rides with MS. He is also living with cancer.  A group of his friends formed to walk and ride with Don. The group is called: Team Don Austin.

Don is hoping to ride the Covered Bridge Metric Century in Lancaster County in August so we may see each other again outside the train.

Vermin, Cockroaches, Human Scum: Words That Lead to Death

Three who described their opponents as human scum: 

Josef Stalin, Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler

Every tyrant needs an enemy.  In the malignant moral world of tyranny there must be Us and Them.  The Them for a tyrant is never spoken of as human.  Hitler called Jews vermin; Stalin called many groups "enemies of the people" then slaughtered them; Hutu leaders called the Tutsi cockroaches, then Tutsi men, women and children were butchered in Churches with machetes.  The two most murderous leaders in the 20th century are being quoted in the 21st century by the U.S. President when he refers to his enemies as human scum.

So far, in every case but America, calling the opposition vermin, cockroaches, enemies of the people and human scum has led to murder.  America may take longer to go from words to murder than Germany or the Soviet Union, but Trump's words will eventually cause death.

This week I am leaving on a five-week trip that will include visits to some of the places where 20th century genocide was at its worst: Dachau and Flossenberg, Germany; Kiev, Ukraine; and Rwanda. Since the summer of 2017, I have been to most of the countries in which The Holocaust occurred, as well as the Yugoslav genocide. I want to see how countries recover from mass murder.

For me, The Holocaust is just as much about the 400 million Christians between the Pyrenees and the Urals who participated in or turned a blind eye to the slaughter of six million Jews.  I am convinced that a Church with temporal power will eventually kill or condone killing.

Trump's Church of white Evangelical power seekers and idol worshippers will bless every outrage he commits. And when Trump's words lead to death, the false prophets like Graham and Falwell will say dead Americans are God's will.

The Cynical Sinking of John Kerry—The Attack on the 2020 Nominee will be Worse

How did the Republican Party sink a decorated Navy veteran and make a pair of war avoiders into heroes?  It was brilliant. And it will happen again. 

John Kerry was a veteran of one of the more dangerous duties in the Vietnam War. He patrolled the Cambodian border on the Mekong River in a Swift Boat, a small gunboat.  John Kerry was a Swift Boat captain.  So how did a guy who took and returned fire on a hostile border get trashed for his service? 

Jerome Corsi and other Republic hacks attacked Kerry for lying about his war record.  When I first heard this attack, I couldn’t believe it. Soldiers, sailors and everyone who ever served in the military has exaggerated a war story, or any story.  When I was in Basic training, pimply faced 18-year-old boys bragged of prowess in lovemaking that left a half dozen women breathless and begging for more. They competed about who had the worst stepmothers, fathers, sisters, whoever. In the muscle-car obsessed 70s they all bragged about the Corvette Sting Ray, or Road Runner, or Hemi ‘Cuda they had back home.  We made $283 per month.

Liars in the military are as rare as liars on fishing boats.  Or in barrooms. 

The political hacks knew that soldiers were held in the highest regard since the attack of America on September 11, 2001.  He also knew that the vast majority of Americans did not know a soldier personally.  So, Corsi could make Kerry’s exaggerated war stories into a real sin for the plurality of Americans who don’t know soldiers and sailors. 

Could it work with veterans? There were still a lot of veterans who heard lies in tents and troopships and drafty barracks. But Rove knew that most veterans, me included, hated Kerry for what he said after the war, calling all Vietnam War veterans war criminals.  And worse than that John Kerry went to a Paris conference attended by the North Vietnamese and Jane Fonda.  The vast majority of Vietnam War veterans hate Jane Fonda for going to North Vietnam and posing with Viet Cong soldiers. 

Corsi knew that old ladies across America love Jane Fonda, so if he attacked Kerry for his connection to Fonda, it would backfire. He also knew that veterans needed only the flimsiest excuse to hate Kerry. So, lying was enough, even for the veterans. And combat veteran Kerry became a liar while Bush and Cheney, who both avoided service in the same war, became the veterans choice.

In 2020, the attacks Republicans make on Democrats will take the worst of Corsi and amplify it with Trumpean hate. 

As a veteran and a communications guy, I will be interested to see how low the Republicans go in attacking Democrats.  I won’t be surprised however they attack.  And it will be sophisticated. The attack on Kerry was a brilliant piece of communications strategy, taking one misleading message and twisting it to give veterans an excuse to hate Kerry while convincing idiots that soldiers are heroes who would never lie about their war records.