By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

W

ho was not there at the Donald Trump Presidential Inauguration says a lot about the Administration going forward, because who was there was an insider look at the new economy that involves greater control of political and social infrastructure by capitalist forces.

Did you notice that? Not only wasn’t Disney CEO Bob Iger present in Washington DC, but Mickey Mouse was noticeably absent as well, unless he got stuck on an icy patch along the National Mall, next to the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, before everyone moved inside to warmer conditions.

A GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA, US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

Trump brought the 60^th Inauguration party inside because of the bitter Washington cold made all that more unforgiving by a polar vortex. In peace, as in war, America knows how to adapt. 

Trump then quickly withdrew America from global Climate Change initiatives.

The podium of high end politicians, such as the living former Presidents and First Ladies, members of the Supreme Court of the United States, who are normally gathered on the westside of the Capital Building facing the Washington Column and the Lincoln Memorial and about 60 thousand spectators in town for just such an event, found a more comfortable place in the Rotunda and the Capital One Arena where the Wizards normally play basketball and the Capitals play hockey.

The 47^th President of the United States took the oath of office a few minutes too late after 12 Noon EST on Monday, January 20, 2025. Trump was late in the East, but Mr. President was still a couple of hours early in the West when he ushered in a self proclaimed ‘Golden Age of America’.

The President called for a Revolution of Common Sense.

A COMMON SENSE REVOLUTION, US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

Trump must perform this miracle in 1460 days, minus two since Monday, otherwise the Republicans will be discombobulated by the electorate in the next Presidential Election, expected in four years time in November 2028. 

The Trump Administration has gotten off to a rocket like start with hundreds of Executive Orders that Trump immediately began signing between salutes to America and speeches to the gathered crowds.

Trump kept his promise to the January 6 Rioters by pardoning 1500 accused and convicted, including the leaders of two of the off-the-grid militias who had been sentenced to multiple years off the pathways of the National Mall and behind bars in prison.

The issue of previous Presidential Administrations has been one of betrayal to America and of allowing a festering lack of trust among the citizenry toward government that was going to be corrected in swift fashion, according to Trump in his Inaugural Address delivered in the Rotunda by the Statue of Freedom in front of about 600 Very Important People (VIP).

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The far right in Germany wants to shut down illegal immigration, reduce crime and turn on the country’s dormant nuclear power plants.

The internal combustion engine should be allowed a continued existence, according to Alice Weidel, leader of the far right party, the Alternative for Germany.

Weidel appeared on X with billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X, on Thursday, January 9, 2025, 5 pm PST. I listened to the 74 minute chat in replay on YouTube.

Weidel has been making political space for herself and for her party by blaming former Chancellor Angela Merkel for ruining Germany. Based on the Musk interview, the two main gripes about Merkel seem to be the open door immigration policy that has allowed 7 million immigrants into the country since 2015, and a move toward clean energy, by subsidizing wind and solar power, while simultaneously shutting down all of the nuclear power plants and relying on gas from Russia.

FORMER GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL RUINED GERMANY

ALICE WEIDEL

Musk did not have to prompt Weidel much at all before the party leader blurted out: “Merkel ruined Germany.”

Musk had much improved his interview skills since entertaining then United States Presidential candidate Donald Trump on August 13, 2024, just weeks away from the United States Presidential Election. Musk has since been given a seat within Trump’s inner Presidential Circle, after Trump was elected-re-elected President of the United States.

The German Federal Elections are less than 41 days away, on February 23, 2025. And, based on result in state elections, the political Far Right in Germany has gained political momentum and has become a substantial threat to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s federal coalition, center left government.

Olaf had to spend some time creating a government after nearly losing the moral imperative to the Far Right last time around. Germany remains a democracy, and has been a democracy for one hundred years, with the first Presidential election held on March 29, 1925. Before that, Germany was a constitutional monarchy with a parliament and a King sharing power.

The German political system may be more layered with intrigue than the United States political system, with state elections being strong indicators of national trends. European Parliamentary Elections are also used as an indicator of broader political shifts in voter sentiment.

French President Emmanuel Macron had a similar confrontation with the French far right party, National Rally (NR). NR leader Marine Le Pen took away his majority in sweeping style, after previous unsuccessful attempts, by making electoral gains in the National Assembly elections in 2024. The French have separate direct elections for President, like in the United States.

Le Pen has not given up on her vision for France, and she is so determined and so tough that she expelled her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founding leader of the party, after he made too many controversial statements that threatened to alienate the party from the voter majority needed for attaining real political power in France.

Weidel apparently is a Thatcherite who believes in liberal economic policies – perhaps better described as a ruthlessly, aggressive advocacy for small government that is driven by market forces controlled by individuals such as Musk.

Weidel’s broad brush approach is to create a “Fortress Europe.”

On X, the pair of political chatter boxes agreed that nuclear power would reduce the carbon footprint while also freeing up land for other uses. Wind turbines and solar power energy plants require a lot of land.

Every once in a while Musk would try to micromanage the interview by changing the subject to such issues as the length of time required to obtain a business permit – and that anyway, Germany requires a lot of paper, perhaps truck loads of paper to meet the permit requirements, according to Musk. 

The change to this topic seemed to be more of a tactical diversion that got Weidel talking about taxes and her plans to reduce taxes in Germany. Weidel stated that people work half the year to pay their taxes to German governments.

The conversation shifted to theft under $1000, with Musk stating that the impractical implementation of the law, that would require thousands of arrests, meant that a lot of crime had been decriminalized in the United States, particularly in California where Musk operates Tesla.

Weidel appeared still stung by the world-wide mandatory vaccines required to combat Covid-19 around the world. The Far Right leader put it out there that the side effects caused by the vaccines being pushed by tech billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates are concerning.

Everyone, the two of them anyway, then shifted into double speak, with a conversation about the importance of free speech and real democracy – free speech being the bedrock of democracy in creating an informed vote. 

Musk, like Trump, often practices censorship, though, by flooding the marketplace of ideas with false information that shrouds the truth of the world, especially the truth presented on social media.

Musk has been accused of spreading misinformation, on his social media company X, recently helping Trump, who was spreading misinformation on his social media company Truth Social, to kill an omnibus spending bill in the US House of Representatives prior to Trump taking office.

Musk stated that you can tell who the bad guys are by the ones that want to shut down free speech.

Weidel unabashedly pointed out that the first thing that happens within the rise of autocratic regimes is the takeover of public media and the imposition of extreme censorship to control the way the population thinks.

The world needs independent free thinkers and the corresponding strong leadership that free speech helps develop, the pair agreed.

Then the conversation shifted to war, with Weidel being concerned for the escalation of the war in Ukraine and the risk of that war escalating into a nuclear exchange.

The Far Right leader also said that the Israel conflicts in the Middle East are so complicated, but that she supports the existence of Israel as an independent state, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made many mistakes in the past.

Germany needs to take steps to protect Jewish people, against Muslim crime, and that Jews were no longer safe because of the Palestinian protests, according to Weidel.

The AfD is the only protecter of the Jewish people within Germany because all other parties have done the opposite, by letting in millions of people into Germany and letting them do crimes on the street, Weidel declared.

Weidel stated that the streets of Berlin are no longer safe for Jews because of the constant Palestinian protests.

Weidel then moved Musk to speak on the topic of the SpaceX CEO’s long term plan of colonizing the Planet Mars. Musk underscored the importance of extended the lifespan of the human collective consciousness by transforming humanity into a multi-planet species. 

Earth has had five previous extinction events, and the likelihood is that a sixth one is in the forecast, which may even be a nuclear war, Musk stated.

Musk surmised that humanity had just a small window of opportunity to become a multi-planet species, before, although he did not come right out and say it, the next extinction event.

On being prompted by Weidel, Musk foretold that the breakthrough moment for humanity would be when a human colony on Mars could sustain itself without resupply ships from Earth.

And on that note, the chat ended.

MARS

Mars photo by Kevin Gill from Los Angeles, CA, United States, CC BY 2.0

MR JIMMY WAS ONE OF GOD’S GREAT GIFTS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

W

hen the Great Ones go, the grateful nation honours their passing. In certain cases, the entire world mourns. This passing was one of those moments.

Former United States President Jimmy Carter reached the grand old age of 100 before finally being taken by the Lord Jesus Christ on December 29, 2024.

For Mr. Jimmy, the day probably could not have come soon enough after his lifelong wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, passed away the year before on November 19, 2023. The love birds were married in their hometown on July 7, 1946, just before Jimmy shipped off for duty in the United States Navy submarine fleet.

Jimmy and Rosalynn were born in the small southwest Georgia town of Plains. Plains had a population of between 400 and 479, probably fluctuating from year to year depending on the yield of the local peanut crop, so Jimmy and Rosalynn probably met, before they could be conscious of their meeting, when their mommas bumped into each other on the 100 foot or so town boardwalk that was constructed in front of the hotel and a few shops next to the railway that passed through the small town. 

Jimmy was a Baptist, and Rosalynn was a Methodist, so the parties likely did not meet at Sunday school. The happy couple’s union was destined, though, even after Jimmy’s family moved three miles away to the town of Archer, where he made his childhood home.

For me, I remember US President Jimmy Carter taking office after the dramatic fall of US President Richard Nixon, since our family binged on American politics. For us, Sunday studies meant gathering in front of the television at night to watch the network current affairs news program, 60 Minutes. 

Carter was a one term president, as the 39^th President of the United States, who had helped the nation transition from the plummeting humiliation of Watergate to regaining pride on the world stage with United States President Ronald Reagan.

I also remember Mr. Jimmy’s continuous participation in Habitat for Humanity, post Presidency, during which he could be witnessed picking up a hammer and building houses for people.

Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2002. Carter had brokered peace between Egypt and Isreal, during his Presidency, which was at the time a monumental achievement. And then, Carter also promoted worldwide peace, often engaging in conflict resolution, and facilitated economic prosperity with his foundation as an ex-President for several decades. 

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate kept going for another 20 years until he could not go anymore.

Mr. Carter influenced me in other ways. When I watched a newsreel on YouTube showing Jimmy Carter stating to a reporter that the history of the American South began with Gone with the Wind, I would eventually watch the film again, and write a review. (See Sidebar)

America goes out of the way to honour those people who dedicate their lives to public service. US President Jimmy Carter laid in repose at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia from January 4 -7, 2025, before being flown to Washington DC, to lay in repose there as well, in the Capitol rotunda, placed on the Lincoln catafalque made in 1865 for assassinated President Abraham Lincoln to lay in state on there as well.

Carter was then taken, with much ritualistic pomp and ceremony, to a National Service held at the Washington National Cathedral, which is an Episcopal Church, in Washington DC on Thursday, January 9, 2025.

The cold wind of the Washington winter blew to the point the flag bearers outside the National Cathedral had a difficult time waiting for the former President to arrive for his final farewell on the national and international stages.

The flag bearers had to wait a bit longer for the living former Presidents and most of the former First Ladies to take their seats at the front of the cathedral for the service.

In the deep background, wildfires were burning out of control in Southern California, fueled by tinder dry drought conditions and 100 mile per hour Santa Ana winds funnelling over the mountain ranges from the Great Basin and desert regions just east of the Great State of California.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former First Lady Hillary Clinton had a lot in common on Thursday, each having lost the Presidential election to President Donald Trump, who was also in attendance, although Harris was so preoccupied, her being from California, they did not even share a glance. 

The Clinton’s did not look so happy, generally, as if something had happened in the Cathedral’s catacombs while waiting for the service to begin, like a slight between Presidents or whatever, in direct opposite to the happy Trumps, getting ready for a second 4 years in the White House.

President Obama was unchanged since his presidency, all chatty and wearing a full smile, although having grown a swath of grey that was not there 8 years ago when being evicted from his residency at the White House.

The Presidents sat in chronological order of their Presidency, with current President Joe Biden entering last and sitting in the front row. Who would be the next to go was difficult to say, as after 39 (Carter), comes 42 (Clinton) 43 (Bush Jr.) 44 (Obama), 45 (Trump) 46 (Biden) or 47 (Trump) with President George W. Bush looking the worst for wear on camera, anyway, although his father, 41 (President George H. Bush) lived a long life to the age of 94.

When the Military Honour Guard brought in Jimmy Carter, the Cathedral became host to three Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, that could be seen anyway, with Carter (2002) joining Obama (2009), and former Vice President Al Gore (2007), who was seated behind the Presidents, as a climate change activist who had toured the Globe educating people with a persuasive presentation containing the hard facts about climate change.

I had to double check this, but the Clintons have been locked out of the Nobel Prize, so far, anyway. And maybe that is what the Clinton scowls were all about when they first entered the Cathedral chamber to take their seats for the service, with Gore, already seated, beaming up at them as they took to their designated seats.

The bitter political battles were not forgotten, but the grievances were, otherwise for the most part, temporarily put aside to pay respects, in a democracy, anyway, to former President Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy’s faith in Jesus was mentioned, during the eulogies, as a guiding light throughout his long life, as if his life map had perhaps predestined him for a long walk of faith under God.

Two posthumous eulogies were given, if you can have that sort of thing in the English dictionary, with Steve Ford reading his deceased father’s eulogy, 38 (President Gerald Ford), which he had written for Jimmy before his passing, and Ted Mondale, for his deceased father, Jimmy’s Vice President, Walter Mondale.

Jason Carter, just one of the grandsons, remembered his grandfather taking him for fishing trips and for walks through the forests of Georgia. 

President Joe Biden mentioned Jimmy Carter’s character as being so distinguished as being able to lead by example in the 40 years of public service post-presidency. Biden said that Carter refused hate a safe harbour.

And there was absolutely no doubt, perhaps all across the world, that Jimmy Carter, a white southern Baptist, in the minority of a small southern Black town, led the good life and made good use of his time on earth.

And for that, everyone around the world appeared grateful.

SWEEPING MASTERPIECE DEPICTS HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS IN THE BURNING SOUTH DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

BY PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Hollywood had begun to master the feature length film during the sound era only to be put back again with Technicolor until one of the greatest movies ever produced ran in theatres nationwide.

Gone with the Wind (1939) still holds the top in terms of cinematic achievement as a sweeping breathtaking masterpiece about the beginning of the end of the culture in the Deep South as civil war breaks out between the Yankee steel producers to the North and the Confederate slave owners to the South.

Producer David O’Selnick took a bit to get the right cast – spending the wait revising the script based on the Margaret Mitchell novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1937).

Clark Gable was under contract by another studio. And Vivien Leigh had to still be discovered among the casting calls for the female lead. The star studded cast also included Hattie McDaniel as Mammy, as well as Leslie Howard and Olivia De Haviland.

Director Victor Fleming had been wrapping up The Wizard of Oz (1939) when Selnick fired his director and hired Fleming to direct a second blockbuster in the same golden year for Hollywood.

Gone with the Wind would earn eight Oscars, including best actress in a leading role for Vivien Leigh and best actress in a supporting role for Hattie McDaniel, as well as best directing, best screenplay, cinematography, art, editing and best picture.

Clark Gable was nominated but lost to Robert Donat for his portrayal of a boarding school master in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). Gable had already won an Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934) and received a second of three nominations for the first of a number of remakes of Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Gable died at the relatively young age of 59, but he had already had a long career with 82 acting credits including opposite Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift in his last film, The Misfits (1961).

Leigh gave what is still considered one of the greatest performances in cinema only to follow with another greatest performance opposite a young Marlon Brando in a Streetcar Named Desire (1951). A Streetcar Named Desire is based on the Tennessee Williams play of the same name. Tennessee Williams also earned credits for the movie’s screenplay.

Leigh died young as well at the age of 53, but unlike Gable, she had just 21 acting credits, although two of which are possibly two of the greatest performances in cinema.

In A Streetcar Named Desire, Leigh plays the eccentric sister-in-law, Blanche DuBois. DuBois loses the family property in Mississippi to creditors and must stay with her sister and Brando’s character, Stanley Kowalski, in the French Quarter of New Orleans. 

DuBois exhibits emotional and psychological distress as well as financial distress, but she takes the new beginning as an opportunity to resurrect her personality.

Leigh’s performance shows how the psychological make-up of a fragile soul can quickly deteriorate from just a few directed personal insults.

Gone with the Wind describes the loss of a way of life in the American south reliant primarily on the plantation economy before and after the American Civil War. 

While film critics claim the film is racist and whitewashed the injustice of slavery practice in the plantation economy of the South, the historical film depicts a period of time in which slavery existed and the racial prejudices defined society from a white perspective.

Fleming weaves the complex narrative forward through a number of sub-plots about relationships, love and marriage, the foolishness of war and the momentary, although frequent, fall from grace of mankind.

The sophisticated narrative flows seamlessly from scene to scene and topic to topic, aided by the sectioning off of segments of the film with the art filled scenes of dark silhouettes against the beautiful Georgian landscape shot in Technicolour.

Fleming paints with the camera as much as he tells a story, with scenes such as the two boys making the bell ring to announce the end of the working day, and several scenes of trees in silhouette against a Georgian sunset.

Such imagery reappears forty years later in director Francis Ford Coppola’s war epic Apocalypse Now (1979), which narrates the end of post-World War II heroic America with the military loss and great moral injustice of the Vietnam War. 

Coppola also uses a novel, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), as an outline for the collapse of humanity in the film. Conrad’s compelling descriptions of anti-hero characters would influence literature and film for the next century.

Fleming’s telling of the love interest, which compels audiences to jump from scene to scene through a love triangle, to find out who ends up with whom and how that affects the other love interests, is flawless story telling made all the more remarkable because of the inclusion of anti-hero characteristics.

People end up married to other people often for all the wrong reasons, and quite often somewhat unrelated to love.

Fleming shows audiences that different relationships are the product of different personalities with often secret motivations that mature as people experience life.

Gable plays Rhett Butler, a millionaire bachelor spending more time in a brothel than courting young women to be married.

Rhett spars with Scarlett O’Hara, played by Leigh, throughout the film from the early beginnings when all the pretty young women from rich plantation families court young men to be married.

Howard plays, Ashley Wilkes, a more mature man who marries Melanie Hamilton, played by Da Havilland. Fleming shows that the loyalty between married people and to the family carries them through the rough times when other people of less character would be torn apart.

Fleming does not provide an answer for the love dynamic, the director simply states the love dilemma is life in all it’s complexities.

Gone with the Wind is a David O. Selznick production during a time when the studio executives controlled the film industry as well as the individual film projects.

Selznick had produced commercially successful movies for MGM, Paramount Pictures and RKO Pictures. And then Selznick formed Selznick International Pictures to produce his own film projects beginning in 1935, while distributed his films through United Artists.

Selznick produced the earlier version of A Star is Born in 1937. And Selznick would win a second best picture Oscar the year after Gone with the Wind for the production of Rebecca (1940). 

Selznick is also known for bringing British film director Alfred Hitchcock to Hollywood under contract. Hitchcock became one of the greatest film directors with his mastery of the narrative and suspense.

The film has been so endearing and rereleased more than once every generation that the ideas behind the film and the complex sweeping images that created the overall vision for the film made indelible marks on the collective consciousness, especially with such classic lines as “Frankly dear, I don’t give a damn,” performed by Clark Gable.

The film carries audiences for almost four hours with the unravelling of a number of complex characters, such as Scarlett. Leigh first portrays her character as a narcistic fool, but as Scarlett suffers and survives during the film’s various parts, Scarlett changes, not entirely, but enough so as to eventually win the audience’s favour.

Then, by the end, with the help of move magic, Scarlett becomes the personification of the South during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era.

“I’ll never be hungry again” and “Tomorrow is another day” are Scarlett’s closing lines of this epic masterpiece.

The intent to document the history of the American Civil War from the perspective of the wealthy Southern plantation owners results in the use of Southern racial stereotypes prevalant during a time when the cotton plantation economy relied heavily on the subjugation of inexpensive slave labour. 

Scarlett’s character has respect and compassion for the black slaves wearing out their hands and bodies working the cotton fields, and also for the black domestic workers taking care of the household and the personal details of dress and diet.

But ultimately Scarlett is motivated by self interest, not just towards the Southern white gentlemen, but towards the black slaves that generate wealth and prestige for the O’Hara family. 

The idea of Tara, the family plantation, is what keeps Scarlett alive through the worst of the Civil War and the Reconstruction.

Fleming shows how the world of the South gradually disintegrates to the point where those Southerners that did survive the deconstruction, caused by the armies of the Yankee North and the Confederate South, must start over from less than humble beginnings, while other people, like the war profiteer, Rhett Butler, simply carry on almost unscathed and undeterred.

Vivien Leigh creates a character that continually shifts and shapes with the particular circumstances in which the character finds herself.

Scarlett is at first surrounded by young handsome wealthy and eager-to-marry men, but they are just as eager to join the Confederate army.

Scarlett and the men are filled with hubris and, that rare quality of youth, the delusion of invincibility.

Soon enough civil war is declared and the mood gradually shifts over several scenes to one of remorse and sorrow as the war dead are counted, including family members of almost every Georgian family.

Leigh shows the stronger side of the duality of Scarlett, as the young Georgian heroine volunteers as a nurse in the Atlanta war hospital during the most important battle of the American Civil War at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in July of 1863. 

Scarlett feels the horror of war but then she eventually finds where her self-interest lies, and she heads back to the plantation even though the hospital is dearly short of staff.

At the same time, Fleming uses the camera to paint a picture of panic as the Yankees are near victory on the outskirts of Atlanta. The Southerners fear the Yankees’ arrival and dominance in the South.

The narrative becomes a metaphor for the Reconstruction Era as Fleming has the war casualties lined up in the street outside the hospital clearly far too many for the hospital staff to manage.

Scarlett then falls to the weaker aspects of her character by calling on Rhett Butler to help her escape to her family’s planation.

The audience remains sceptical of Scarlett, but through the perilous journey and further personal tragedy, she gradually becomes more and more endearing until Tara becomes the symbol and Scarlett the personification of Reconstruction.

Gone with the Wind documents the distinct regionalism of the American South at a time when that culture and social-economic dynamic is under pressure to change.

The film has influenced generations because of the lasting portraits of human nature and the timeless story of war and peace told by actors at the pinnacle of their art.