Further on Maduro capture

Truth 1: Venezuela is in terrible shape economically; 8 million Venezuelans are refugees; there is great hardship there.

Truth 2: Maduro caused this and had stolen two elections. (Ironically, Trump tried to do so.)

Truth 3: Venezuela does not have the financial, governmental, legal, and cultural infrastructure the U.S. does to support democracy.

Truth 4: Venezuela benefited from massive investment by U.S. oil companies and those companies were forced out when the oil industry was socialized.

Truth 5: President Trump's legal authority to do this is tenuous at best. Yes, War Powers Act. Yes, lots of other presidents have done similar actions, such as Bush in 1989. That doesn't seem like rock solid justification.

Truth 6: President Trump says he's not into regime change but this is clearly regime change.

Truth 7: Since this was a covert, special forces operation, we don't know as much as we think we do.

Since I don't believe these truths are debatable (are truths debatable in the first place?), the conclusion seems that this is a complicated mess, we should not feel comfortable about it, we should probably not act like we know everything, and I'll hush and pray that God's sovereignty overrules the sometimes unfathomable actions of this president.

Comments

Why to Read Fiction, Idea #27: Empathy, anyone?

The Idea #27 is tongue in cheek. But these are some ideas about writing fiction, which I have done in ten novels (and counting), a dozen short stories, and two produced plays (I know, not exactly the same). Background: In 2015 a colleague and I wrote an open educational resource public speaking textbook for a grant provided by our University System. We didn't realize at the time that it would go viral and be used all over the world within a few years. There are two reasons for that: it is good (as good as anything on the market) and it is free, although only in digital form. Check out www.exploringpublicspeaking.com for it. We also didn't know at the time that my co-author would die at 39 in 2016. I still miss him. Back to the point, I receive requests for the test banks every other day, and this morning I received one from Pennsylvania. The writer had a signature line: "Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in t...

Keeping Up Appearances? David's Surprise Anointing to Be King

Have you ever watched the show, Keeping Up Appearances? What it is. A comedy about a British woman who wants to be thought of as very high class even though her family is low class. Her name is Hyacinth Bucket but she pronounces it Bouquet. She wants everything perfect but her family works against her, and her neighbors run from her. We all know someone who wants to keep up appearances, and sometimes we do. In our everyday life, we depend on our eyes and we automatically trust them, at least at first, and we often don’t look closely or below the surface. Like puzzles. But we know that appearances can be deceiving, even though they catch us. So I wanted to show this video I saw recently because it’s disturbing but informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FERa1AI2EK8 AI has gotten far better on making these deep fakes—videos that are not of anyone but totally generated by the software. Even though they look like someone, they are not. Of course, it is stealing fro...

Birdwatching

Whose world is this, anyway? My husband came out to the deck where I was reading, thinking, and taking long pauses to listen to birds and watch them visit the feeders. Nala and Butter were keeping the the squirrels away. The cardinals, like kings, were making sure they were fed first but wrens, sparrows, finches, robins, swifts sat in the trees calling and cackling. My Cornell Labs app has identified 18 in 18 minutes, some new ones included. “How interesting that God made all the birds have distinctive calls,” I said. “But I guess they are calling to their own kind, their mate and children.” “Do you think they are talking to each other?” he said. “Not like we do, no communicating, but signaling.” “I thought they were singing for us.” We laughed about that; our human-centric, self-centered view of things takes over. “They sing and make noises when we are not here, so it’s not for us. If they are singing for anyone, it’s God.” I had read Samuel’s speech to the nation in I Samuel 12,...

Parts of Speaking Publishing

Search This Blog