“If you’re really looking for a scandal, think about that. The United States and Russia, the world’s top two nuclear powers, are both headed by petro-capitalist oligarchs who could give a flying fuck about human survival and who both represent an eco-exterminist system that is choking the life out of the planet.” Paul Street, Counterpunch
I took a break from reading Moby Dick to re-read Martin Cruz Smith’s Tatiana, one in his series of novels featuring the Russian investigator Arkady Renko. The character behind the title, Tatiana Petrovna, is an investigative journalist in the new, post-Soviet Russia, a world of corrupt officials, oligarchs, and gangsters all vying to skim a windfall for themselves. In this nearly lawless world, investigative journalists who expose corruption become targets for beatings, intimidation, and murder. I was reminded of the way journalists are treated in Turkey under Erdogan, and in Mexico, where reporters who edge too close to the intersection of narco interests and crooked government officials die; and then, of course, I thought about my own country and the way our insane president denigrates the press every chance he gets. Reality feels fictional.
One runs out of things to say about Trump and his gang of incompetent kleptocrats. Crooks. Greedheads. Fucktards. Shitbags. Dickheads. Every day, it seems, there’s another hint of scandal or another batshit crazy Tweet or another absurd statement, like when Trump proclaims that he has accomplished more than any other president after a comparable stint in office. Trump still doesn’t grasp that signing an executive order is not the same as passing legislation. Irreversible damage is being done day after day by Trump and his gang, and by feckless politicians who are more concerned with ideological purity or base opportunism than common sense and the good of the country.
All Trump has managed to accomplish is to embarrass the hell out of the US on the world stage, fan the flames of division on the home front, and make a mockery of his office. As he was a lousy tycoon, lousy husband, lousy father, and all around lousy human being, Trump is a lousy president.
The Russia-Trump headlines, all of them blaring for attention, are now too frequent to be meaningful. All I can say is that if a trail of money can be found, follow it, and it may lead to connections between Russian oligarchs and the Trump Organization. It’s always going to be about money with Trump and his clan, as money is the only thing they really love.
What’s the wealth inequality figure I’m frequently reading about, that 5 or 6 people own as much wealth as the bottom 50% of humanity? Yeah, this is definitely a sign that capitalism is working just fine, lifting all the little boats on a rising tide…of human excrement, Benzene, battery acid, motor oil, and mercury.
I’m trying to stay sane and keep my head above the waterline as I watch my country slide down the drain. I want to live in a country that isn’t insane, that isn’t an empire, and that isn’t the single greatest instigator of violence on the planet. Is this too much to ask? Why don’t we give the idea of doing no harm to other countries and the planet a try? Why not give sustaining rather than destroying a go? Would cooperation rather than competition bring on the apocalypse?
What to do, what to do? Where to seek shelter from the gathering storm?
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