Roy Cohn's Spirit infuses the Trump Campaign

Like Jacob Marley in Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Roy Cohn is dead and gone. Now his ghost is paying us a visit in the context of Donald Trump's candidacy for President. There are some differences. Marley's spirit sought to warn Scrooge to mend his ways; Cohn's spirit, in the form of his protégé Roger Stone, is the apparent advocate of the worst of Trump's rhetoric including his claim that the November election is rigged and threatening a revolution if Trump loses the rigged election. See https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/05/trump-confidante-roger-stone-pushes-clinton-aide-911-conspiracy-claims-trump-views-rnc-chairman/212214

Roy Cohn is immortal. In Angels in America, the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama, the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg tells us so.

ETHEL ROSENBERG: You're immortal.
 ROY: I'm immortal. Ethel. (He forces himself to stand) 
I have forced my way into history. I ain't never gonna die.

Angels' America is a bleak surreal plain, where lost souls teeter on the brink of apocalypse. Cohn is a metaphor for the seductive, dark side of the American dream. Awash in intransigent denial, the playwright limns Cohn's audacious ego, cunning seductiveness, brutal transcendent power and helplessness against ravages of AIDS. It is a chilling, provocative portrait. 

As black as the playwright's perception may be, the reality of Cohn's life is darker still. His career embodies the confluence of two primeval forces of our day, organized crime and rabid anti-communism, into a single, swift current. Those forces manifested themselves in Las Vegas casinos, Havana gambling palaces, the Bay of Pigs, Dealey Plaza, Watergate and beyond. While Roy Cohn was not solely responsible for these events, or clearly a direct participant in all of them, so much of the current of his life runs through each of them, that the study of his life and power enlightens the causes and effects of many of the most significant events of our times.

There is an excellent posting this week which relate Stone's involvement with Trump's campaign. 
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/08/jacob_weisberg_s_classic_new_republic_profile_of_trump_adviser_roger_stone.html 

Another posting warns of Russian interference in our election process on Trump's behalf.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/07/an_interview_with_anne_applebaum_on_the_russian_hack_of_the_dnc.html

I would also recommend Wayne Barrett's Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention which has been updated and reissued for this campaign year. It's available in E-Book format or paperback on all major internet bookseller pages.

As Bob Dylan sang:

"You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing."

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This is not a promo for my book Quantum Christ but you can find out about it at:

http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-coming-of-quantum-christ-has-arrived.html

Christmas Eve: A holy night indeed

Tonight is Christmas Eve when we celebrate the Nativity of Jesus Christ. The date was arbitrarily established a   millennia and a half ago. It is more than likely he was born sometime in late winter or early spring. However, the magic of this night are attending Midnight Mass; I remember the snow crunching beneath my boots as we walked from the car to the church. Many times it was to hear my aunt Pauline sing she was an outstanding soprano and once sang at Hyde Park for Eleanor Roosevelt.

My favorite Christmas Carol has always been O Holy Night. On this Christmas Eve I will share it with you. It celebrates the transfiguring nature of the Christian myth where human nature is joined by the divine. There are a couple of lines that truly nail it.

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

'til he appeared and the soul felt its worth."

And then it continues:

"A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices,

for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

Pope Francis has astonished the world by preaching a universal message of love and mercy. He blurs the distinctions between Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and almost every other religion. He has become in many ways the Pope of All Humanity. This Christmas let us pray for the success of his mission and give thanks that he is with us.

And now, the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8uxCiJXFVs

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This is not a promo for my book "Quantum Christ" but if you are interested:

http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html