Yesterday, I visited with my dear neighbor Aggie. She wanted me to meet her 93-year-old mother, who is in town for the month, vital and sharp as a tack. When I asked her name, she said “Alice in Wanderland, because I’m still wandering!” While visiting, Aggie  and I discovered that we are on “opposite” sides of the fence regarding the whole Trump phenomenon. She sees him as a money-hungry, self-aggrandizing liar. I see him as a necessary force to disrupt the endemic corruption within government. She sees him as part of the corruption. On and on.

We were both surprised to be having the argument. And yet, instinctively, I relished the occasion, feeling that Aggie is one of the few people in this leftist academic town with whom I can argue without it disturbing the bedrock of our relationship. Why? My housemate Dan wonders, “is it because she’s Armenian, and used to political arguments?”

Yet this morning, after my walk with puppy Shadow, Aggie called me over. Wondered, “Are we okay?” Sure! I told her, and went on to say, laughing, that from my point of view she’s suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome)! That knocked her for a loop, temporarily; but then she came right back, saying he’s a shady businessman, citing Newsweerk. I said I no longer trust mainstream sources. She said he’s a dictator;  her son says that’s what dictators do, claim that the news from the other side is all fake. I said yes, that’s possible, and “It all depends on the condition of Trump’s heart. Is it open? I think so.” 

We agreed to continue to disagree. We hugged. No biggie!

Meanwhile, from my decidedly non-mainstream sources, this, thanks to both myself (I had earmarked it yesterday) and Reader Rose, who alerted me to it this morning, with this comment:

Is it just me or do you also find it a bit noteworthy that a considerably far-reaching site [zerohedge[] is sharing this info . . .actually . . .

make that a bit unbelievable actually . . . revealing times indeed . . .

Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the CIA and the Mafia

If you’re like me, you won’t be able to do anything but skim the above post, it is so devastatingly detailed, and weaves together so many conspiratorial threads. Rather than a review of Paul Williams’  book, it appears more as an attempt to condense the entire tome into a single article.

Here’s how the author summarizes his book, much more concisely than the above article.

And here’s an RT interview with Williams, describing himself as a former neocon who “swallowed the red pill, but I didn’t want to.”