The Sniveler

“Inequality creates liars and delusion.” Rebecca Solnit

Last week I flew up to Oregon to visit my brother who lives in Tillamook. We drove to Astoria, spent one night, and early the following morning crossed the bridge over the Columbia River into Washington, headed for the Olympic Peninsula. Over three days we made an arc from Port Angeles to the Quinault River, stopping along the way in little towns like Forks, where we visited a timber museum, and the lodge at Lake Crescent. The creator, whoever she is, went a bit crazy in this part of the world, creating breathtaking vistas, towering trees and abundant water, hills shrouded in mist. So much beauty you run out of awe. Seeing my brother again was wonderful, and I felt the ties of blood as I never have before. Actually brought me to tears, something that doesn’t happen very often. If you were to ask me why I cried I couldn’t tell you. Although Santa Barbara is holding to its beauty like an old pageant winner and remains a fine city to live in, it was good to get away and see new scenery, different people, container ships on the Columbia, big log trucks jamming down the highway on their way to mill, guys fishing for salmon, dairy cows, old barns, verdant pastures.

Sadly, my sense of renewal and peace quickly faded, this being, after all, Trump’s perverse America, where, according to the Orange Menace, we are winning on every level and becoming great again, where truth is put to the sword every single day, and an unqualified sniveling prep-school prick like Brett Kavanaugh is elevated to the highest court in our land by a gang of Republican mobsters.

Come one, come all to the kangaroo court, behold aging white men as they cast judgment on a brave woman who had lost before she ever sat down to speak. Revel in the tyranny of the minority. 30% of the country dictating how the game will be played by the other 70%. As a father, as a man, as a citizen, I feel powerless, invisible, and irrelevant. Who represents me and my values? Nobody. What do I want? That’s easy. Justice. Fairness. A more equitable distribution of riches. A balance of power. Respect for the environment, and a realization that there is more to life than accumulating money and stuff, that there are limits and natural laws we cannot ignore.  

I didn’t watch the Kavanaugh circus, knowing that it would only infuriate me, but I caught some of Kavanaugh’s remarks via Democracy Now, his poor me and my family routine, we are broken by false accusations, it’s a left-wing conspiracy on behalf of the Clinton’s, and so on, the usual tropes of the whack-job right. Kavanaugh showed no class, no judicial cool, confirming the old saying that the higher a monkey climbs, the more he shows his ass. (Apologies to monkeys.) This charade will result in Kavanaugh’s confirmation, no doubt, proving, again, how busted American “democracy” really is. Then the fun will begin -- for the rich and powerful, the corporations, the crazy evangelical Christians -- but not you or me, my daughter, your sister, the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Here’s an interesting tidbit pointed out by Thom Hartmann on his radio program. Back in 2000, during the Florida recount and shenanigans that gifted the presidency to George W. Bush, there were three lawyers deeply involved on behalf of the GOP: John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Two of these jokers are sitting on the Supreme Court now. The third amigo is about to join them.

The leaders of the world laughed at the President of the United States this week. Laughed at his hubris, his fantasy world, his phony accomplishments, his bluster and stupidity. In this bizarre time certain things bear repeating: Donald Trump, aside from being an idiot, is a failed human being, devoid of empathy, compassion, and decency; the Republican Party is a political party in name only, it is actually a criminal organization; deregulated capitalism is killing the planet; it has been decades since US elites feared the public.

Wisdom, courage, justice and moderation are almost non-existent in America. This week proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

A-Plus

“And that, against this: the king-types who would snatch the apple from your hand and claim to have grown it, even though what they had, had come to them intact, or been gained unfairly…” George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

A few days ago in front of a few thousand people in Minot, North Dakota, Donald J. Trump took the stage against the backdrop of a massive American flag. Red MAGA hats. T-shirts emblazoned with, “This Is Trump Country.” All-white audience, of course, North Dakota not being known for its hospitality to people of color. Raucous applause, whistling, whooping, one woman swooned and was carried off. For no apparent reason a skinny kid with bad acne was yanked from his seat by Security and frog-marched to the exit.

So great, Trump said, settling behind the podium. So great. This is a great reception. Thank you, thank you. North Dakota is a wonderful place. Thanks to me, your economy is booming and because of my tough action against China, manufacturing jobs are coming back by the millions. The millions! So great. America is winning all over, from sea to shining sea. But, you know, the fake news media, CNN and The New York Times, they don’t want to talk about what a wonderful job I’m doing, maybe the greatest American president, ever. I was asked to give myself a grade for the job I’ve done so far, and what could I give myself but an A-plus? Right, so fantastic.

(Cheering, a few chants of four more years)

The media is the enemy of good people like you. All they want to talk about is Russia and collusion, it’s a witch hunt, a fraud. My administration is totally ethical, the most ethical in our history. Believe me, I know all about ethics. Robert Mueller’s chasing ghosts, wasting your tax dollars, he’s not going to find anything, it’s a big, big waste of time. He should be investigating crooked Hillary…

(Chants of Lock Her Up, Lock Her Up)

Crooked Hillary and her sour grapes. But make no mistake, the economy’s roaring, we’re producing oil like it’s going out of style, and I brought beautiful coal back. We’re building the Wall to secure our border, keep bad people out of our country, protect Americans from MS-13 gangs and drugs, criminals and perverts.

(Chants of Make Mexico Pay, Make Mexico Pay)

Oh yeah, you can bet on that, Mexico will pay for the Wall, and we’re making NATO pay their fair share, too, because they know they have to. American first, ladies and gentlemen, America first. Our country has never been stronger, more united or respected. Don’t believe the fake news media. A phony report came out recently which said that thousands of Puerto Ricans died as a result of Hurricane Maria. Well, I can tell you that because of the great response by my administration, the absolutely flawless response -- so fast, so efficient -- only about 16 people were killed. I went to Puerto Rico, a place surrounded by water, and saved hundreds of lives on my own, just by tossing out rolls of paper towels.

(Chants of Trump, Trump, Trump)

The Democrats think there’s a blue wave coming this November, but if we know anything about Democrats it’s that they are weak, they are losers, and they don’t know what it means to be a true American. We know, only we know. You know what the Democrats are going to do? Destroy Social Security and Medicare, the greatest programs ever created by the Republican Party. They’ll throw our senior citizens in the street! Do you want your 90-year-old grandmother eating cat food?

(Chants of No Cat Food, No Cat Food)

Teddy Roosevelt created Social Security a long time ago, a great law, fantastic. We had dinner at the White House a few weeks ago, Teddy, me, Melania and Frederick Douglass, and I can tell you that Teddy and Frederick are big Trump fans, big fans, big, big, big fans. They’re good people, the best. We’re going to play golf at Mar-A-Lago real soon. Frederick said he’d be my caddy.

The Cherry on Top

“Right now, the triumph of market logic, with its ethos of domination and fierce competition, is paralyzing almost all serious efforts to respond to climate change.” Naomi Klein

You know how it feels when something you believed in -- a person, a company, a social institution -- turns out to be an elaborate sham. Like when you learn that dear Father O’Brien, your first grade teacher at Saint Augustine, buggered thousands of boys; like when you finally grasp the brutal reality of American capitalism; like when you realize that the “democracy”  American leaders are always crowing about is a steaming pile of goat shit.

Millions of Americans are horrified by Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s ultra-right wing, reactionary Supreme Court nominee, but he will be confirmed no matter how horrified we become. We don’t matter. This game is being played on another level -- the process is rigged, the dice loaded, the cards marked. Carefully scripted theater. You don’t believe this farce, do you? Kavanaugh, a highly suspect jurist, who was probably the biggest dick in his college fraternity, will join four other men who will determine the direction of our legal system for the next 30 years. Kavanaugh is a corporate toady, against human beings in decision after decision, against the environment, against holding police officers accountable when they lose their minds and pump 20 rounds from a 9MM into the back of a suspect. This pasty fucker is against workers, gays, women, transgender folk, African-Americans, protesters of any color or creed, union members, and any style of sex beyond the missionary position.

How did we get to this sad fork in the road? Well, that’s the question isn’t it, how in hell we got ourselves in this bleak (unless you’re rich) capitalist wasteland. It was 1971 when the Powell Memo was issued, that blueprint for a corporate counterattack against the America the flower children were attempting to midwife into being. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, socialism, and real respect for the planet. Man, the white elite, the wealthy, the corporate honchos, the Christian zealots, freaked out, shook from head to toe, shit their pants, and got themselves organized, poured major money into think-tanks and university endowments, into the campaign coffers of capitalist zealots, and in the space of 40 years, transformed America into an oligarchy. Bought state houses. Bought congresspeople. Bought judges. Capitalism will, they pledged, be the basis for the law of the land, for every decision we make, for the value of human life. The pillars undergirding this assault are: privatization, deregulation, and reduced taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

Mission accomplished. Kavanaugh is the cherry on top, the last piece of a solid 5-4 radical right majority.

They’ll kill the right to a safe abortion. They’ll make Christian prayer mandatory in public schools. They’ll allow corporations to pollute our air, water, and land in the name of profit. They’ll allow guns in schools. They’ll force workers to toil in unsafe conditions. They’ll make voting harder for people of color.