I am reading several books simultaneously now because my latest book, The Story That Must Not Be Told, was just published – you can buy it now on Amazon – and it traces the parallel between Hitler’s actions beginning in 1933 and Trump’s in 2025. The correspondence, much to our collective shame and grief, is ongoing because both men carry a similar intention to consolidate Aryan and White political power until it is absolute and to dominate world politics as well.

This latest moment as the fate of Ukraine is being negotiated at the White House – when President Zelensky of Ukraine is told to suit up and shape up while representatives of France, England, Finland, Italy NATO and the European Commission stand by — looks a little like the Munich Agreement, or as some call it the Munich Betrayal, when after the paramilitary Sudeten German Free Corps under orders of Hitler began cross border terrorist operations into Czechoslovakia, Britain and France urged the Czechs to give up Sudetenland and ten days later Britain’s Neville Chamberlain, France’s Edouard Daladier, Galeazzo Ciano of Italy, Mussolini and Hitler signed the 1938 Munich Agreement dissecting Czechoslovakia. Or maybe the resemblance to the Munich agreement or the Anschluss of Austria of the same year, is not so much to Trump handing the Donbas region to Putin, but Netanyahu and Trump eying all of Gaza including the West Bank and woe to all the Palestinians who need to be eliminated for that to happen.

Writing The Story That Must Not Be Told required me to observe Trump’s actions when they are a repeat of Hitler’s actions and here is a short list that focuses on very recent incidents including John Bolton’s investigation by the FBI, the list of exhibits from the Smithsonian that don’t please the President, Hegseth’s firing of Lt Gen Jeffrey Kreuse, over 1000 deportation flights to hellholes like CECOT prison in El Salvador, Trumps continuous activities against Trans people and the recent disclosure that the President wishes to end same sex marriage, the astronomical sum of money designated for ICE, as well as the plan for 125 new detention facilities and and and ….

In order to understand the nature of our contemporary world and of Western mind, I am reading, Timothy Ryback’s, Takeover, Annie Jacobsen’s The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of Darpa, America’s Top Secret Military Research Agency, Philippe Sands, East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, and I am listening to Jean Edward Smith’s Eisenhower in War and Peace. Yesterday, I heard how General Douglas MacArthur ignored President Herbert Hoover’s call for restraint and attacked the Bonus Marchers, the hungry. unemployed veterans seeking accelerated compensation during the depression. It seemed similar to the administrations callous disregard of the need for veteran benefits, including or especially medical, also to Trump’s military invasion of Washington DC which will be armed on August 23. Who knows how the national guard will be instructed to deal with the many homeless veterans, but we do know they will be forced to act against their own people and American soldiers will be looking at each other, eye to eye.

This was not the booklist you would expect of me but The Story is not the book you would expect either, except that the publisher, Hand to Hand, cites it as a Literature of Restoration book. That is because it is a book that spirit, in the form of the Ghost, Ina Andreae, the German woman, who committed suicide in response to her family’s manufacturing warships and fighting planes for Hitler during WWII, insisted that I write it. A Dead Woman’s Memoir is the subtitle.

And also The Story carries a fundamental understanding: war is ecocide. War is first and foremost against the Earth.

Writing this far, I needed to ask spirit – because I don’t know – How do we meet this for we must? I leave the computer and go outside to the patio surrounded by 18 trees – I have planted many dozens since I moved onto the land – so it is cool here though not far away the heat is very intense. At this moment, I received an alert: Extreme heat warning extended through at least Sunday. Nevertheless, a Goldfinch and a Hummingbird give each other turns at the fountain which is shared by Bees and Yellow Jackets clinging amicably to the wet head of the Buddha. Jays and Finches sweep toward and away from the bird feeders and will be joined as the sun goes down by Mourning Doves who will eat the seeds the other birds drop. A young Bobcat strides across the outdoor kitchen entirely disinterested in us. When it is dark, the music will be the harmony of the various ground and tree crickets.

The difference between the concerns of the Body politic and of the Beings of the natural world is extreme. Two different universes. One destroys and one sustains.

Here is the poem that came yesterday to speak of this:

YESTERDAY THE RAVEN

Yesterday the Raven

was chanting his mating call,

though out of season.

Perhaps his mate has died,

as there is no infidelity,

nor is there assassination

among the animals,

though we attribute

murder to Crows.

We could learn from these

who observe day and night,

and birth and death,

and raise their little ones

soberly and in song.

Even Coyote selects a singer

who leads the pack in harmonies

every hungry night.

***

When I went outside, I had the question in my mind that I am always addressing, but I needed to gaze at the bowl of the Santa Monica mountains which surrounds me in order to receive a credible answer. The answer had to accord with the land and that, indeed, was the answer.

We may not survive the national obsession with power, violence and munitions. It affects everything, even our language, so that we regularly weaponize whatever we can, in spirit and in action. But we can provide each other the means to endure by focusing our thinking differently. If every single decision we make considers its effect upon the natural world – and we refuse to do harm – it will save our lives and souls.

Imagine it: If nothing you do harms the natural world ….

Such a perspective implies thinking WE rather than I. And life flows as a consequence.

***

SANCTUARY

I would learn from the animals

who live within

this circle of mountains

where the Deer graze

and Cougar hunts,

and so it is that Mama Bear

has brought her three little ones

to the Ark this land has become

while waiting for rain.

***

We have to choose – ecocide or the environment. Actually, we do have to choose!

***