Donald J. Trump and Military Science 101

In Military Science 101 at the U of Illinois in 1961, we were "discussing" — getting Socratically quizzed on — military preparedness. Our instructor, the Professor of Military Science and Tactics and head of the Army ROTC unit, asked what sort of preparedness the US should pursue.
First guy he called on (and we were all guys) said the US should be able to defend ourselves "against any conceivable attack." The PMS&T asked/challenged — "Invasion from Mars?" And the student answered back, "I said 'conceivable' ... Sir." "H. G. Wells conceived of it, and it's been a popular literary theme ever since. Should we prepare for invasion from Mars?"
The instructor kept pressing the point, which I enjoyed (although I came to understand better why the Athenians poisoned Socrates) until he finally got a class consensus that we should fund the military to where we could defend the US against attack from any country or any group of countries including every other country. 
The PMS&T then paused and said something like, "Well, aside from any ethical qualms you might have fighting for a country that couldn't find a single ally on the planet — thank you, gentlemen: in your little frenzy of patriotic zeal you've just bankrupted the Republic. (beat) It was a trick question; you had to have read the assignment, or thought. It's a political question and a diplomatic one: What more precisely does the President and the Department of Defense want to *do* with the military, and what allies can we get — and what will they go along with."
Colonel Ramrod (my very private name for him) thought 18-year-olds should be able to figure out on our own that the US needs allies, or read, already, our goddamn assignments in the US Army history of the US Army and see that that was the assumption by US military folk pretty much since the US got in the Great Powers business.
I think Cadet Trump missed that class.

Guilt and "Agency": Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump, and Deserving

I was struck by and somewhat upset by Stormy Daniels's in the 60 MINUTES interview saying she felt she "deserved" having sex with Donald Trump even though she didn't want to. I hope she's come to realize that that feeling of "having it coming" (as an FB contributor pointed out) is itself a kind of victimization.

I hope also that Daniels's comment renews a discussion.

Three background stories I can add to such a discussion:

(1) Years ago, the National Organization for Women (NOW) chapter in Butler County OH met with a rape counsellor, and we went through an exercise on how one should counsel a woman who'd been raped, including a woman who felt she somehow had invited the rape or "deserved" it. Some of the participants quite correctly denied that our hypothetical "she" had done anything wrong and deserved rape but repeated variations on "There was nothing you could have done"; "There's nothing you can do to prevent a rape like that" — and it got pointed out that it's a bad idea to substitute for guilt a sense of helplessness. (The rape counsellor counseled us to say "It *wasn't* your fault" and then say less and listen more.)

(2) Even longer ago, a rehab person told my father that he couldn't help having had a stroke, but "Invalidism is a separate disease"; she insisted strongly that he *could* choose not to become an invalid.

(3) A member of a local Jewish congregation is a survivor of the Nazi death camps. One occasion when she was being introduced as a survivor and that was dwelt on, she said that she had lived a long life and had done many things and was not *merely* a death-camp survivor.

There are horrific exceptions — some prisoners, e.g., children in abusive families — but much the time people can't avoid being hurt, but we can avoid becoming victims. It is a delicate issue, but in various senses of "we" we need to help people who've been harmed to heal and to not "get over it" but use the experience in ways that they can feel and be empowered.

We (in those various senses) need to help people lose a sense of guilt while retaining and strengthening a sense of agency. We need to help people — where it's possible — to recognize they've had a literal or figurative stoke but not become an invalid; to understand they've been hurt but to be a survivor, among other things, and not, at their core, a victim.

Kim Jong Un & Donald J. Trump: Buttons, Tweets, Potency, and Apocalypse

"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.' Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" — Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, 2 January 2018

This is the way the world ends*
(For many humans, and other species);
This is how the world ends
(Worse goes to worst,
"Depending on the breaks"),
This is why the world ends:
From a tweet* and a brag,
And measuring 

Symbolic cocks.

                                    * With thanks to Jeffrey Weinstock (well, and T.S. Eliot and Gen. "Buck" Turgidson)

The Congress of the United States needs to write us a bit of law renouncing the current U.S. doctrine of First Use (nuclear) and restricting the power of the U.S. President to use nukes for anything but proportionate retaliation. I'd also add a provision that in case of nuclear "exchange," the duty station of the Commander-in-Chief is wherever s/he might be, and forbidding spending any money to move the President to safety. If a President gets us into a nuclear war, the very least s/he can do is to get killed in the first exchange.

And on this utterly depressing, apocalyptic subject, I'll pass along the suggestion from a couple or three decades back that the final part of the launch codes should not be in the "football" that accompanies the President but near the heart in the chests of the people carrying the football, and, of course, carrying also a knife. To launch the missiles [etc.], the President would have to cut open the chest of the attaché — the logic being that if the situation warrants a nuclear response, it justifies murdering a single person, and insisting that the murder be up-close, personal, and messy. The logic is that bombing and missile attacks are way too abstract all down the line and that a key part of initiating nuclear warfare should be a death with emotional power and deep-seated inhibitions. Perhaps, though, the code should be in the chest of the President, and s/he should have to order a high-ranking official to do the cutting. I am serious here, following Konrad Lorenz on the dangers of being able to kill at distances that reduce inhibitions.