Where The Skeletons Hang

“In the end, there is only one conclusion to reach in this moment: The day I trust the word of a hired flak like William Barr regarding the behavior of a lifelong liar like Donald Trump is the day I flap my arms and fly to the moon. Barr’s missive is merely another salvo in a disinformation campaign that has lasted two years.” William Rivers Pitt

I never expected the Mueller Report to be a bombshell that would convince Republicans that their fealty to Trump is suicidal. Even if the report had flat out declared that Trump colluded with the Russians and obstructed justice to keep that fact from being discovered, Trump would still have claimed that the whole thing was a sham, a deep-state plot to drive him from the White House and deprive the American people of his great leadership.

Many Democrats put their stack of chips on Mueller, who, let’s remember, is a Republican as well as a former FBI Director, and while we’re remembering, let’s not forget the FBI’s long history of attacking and harassing the Left. Talk about an unlikely savior. The leadership of the Democratic Party, people like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, have no capacity for reflection. If they did, they would have studied what went wrong in 2016, recognized that the party is beholden to corporate interests, and hasn’t had a coherent political message in decades, certainly not one that motivates rural, working-class, or aggrieved white people. Had party leaders reflected, they would have realized that Hillary Clinton was a victim of her own history, arrogance, and sense of entitlement rather than a victim of Vladimir Putin’s meddling.

Had the party elders done any sort of soul-searching, they would realize that progressives like Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, among others, are the future, rather than a force to be marginalized or opposed.

Do you ever get the sense that everything new was once old, like William Barr taking a second turn as Attorney General, and performing the same obfuscation and white-washing he did to save George H.W. Bush’s ass? Barr is a political apparatchik, a Washington fixer who makes bad stuff disappear. The older I become the more I realize that the American government has always been corrupt, has always served the wealthy and connected, has always been murderous. Trained lawyers like Barr and Mueller parse meaning, argue from both sides of their mouths, and protect their clients. The full extent of American “justice” is reserved for the working-class and the poor, not the wealthy and powerful.

Trump is a dangerous criminal. If Congressional Democrats really cared about protecting the Constitution, they would launch impeachment proceedings against Trump. Yes, with the Senate in the hands of a totally spent, brain-dead and corrupt GOP, they would fail to impeach, but going through the process would be beneficial. Nothing is more important than reinforcing that ours is supposed to be a system of laws, with no one above the law, particularly not Donald J. Trump. The GOP had no reservations about trying to impeach Bill Clinton over a blowjob. Compared to Trump, Clinton was a jaywalker.

We should also bear in mind that when it comes to interfering in the American political process no country rivals Israel, but only a small number of journalists ever mention this fact. You’ll never hear a corporate-media talking head mention it. The hypocrisy is stunning.

From the way Trump is behaving he certainly believes he’s skated once again, as he always has, but it’s too soon to put the Mueller Report to bed and forget about it. All kinds of investigations into Trump are underway and one or more of them are sure to bear fruit. The money trail is still the key to the closet where Trump’s many skeletons hang.

In Search of Zen Mind

“Building character is like making bread -- you have to mix it little by little, step by step, and moderate temperature is needed.” Shunryu Suzuki

It’s difficult to stay present in the moment and too easy to drift into the most dire scenarios when the world seems wracked by calamity -- floods, violence, poverty, corruption -- and yet the sun comes up, birds chirp, and spring unfolds. The hills above Santa Barbara are green, and the County recently announced that the drought is over, though we still have a water problem and need to conserve.

The media are breathless about the Mueller Report that is in the hands of the Attorney General. I’m not holding my breath for any shocking revelations about Trump and Russia. What about Trump could shock anyone at this point? Do we need Mueller’s report to know that the President of the United States is corrupt? We already have enough proof of Trump’s disdain for the law. Trump will take to Twitter to deny the report anyway, calling it partisan, a witch hunt, or whatever, and his loyal base of cops, soldiers and bikers will nod their heads in agreement, and the Republicans will remain in line, mute and deferential. Rachel Maddow’s likely to be very disappointed, might even slip into depression.

Although the stock market took a dip yesterday, all you hear about the economy from the mainstream press is how strong it is, how many jobs are being created, and how this strength bodes well for Trump’s re-election in 2020. Incumbents, even one as unpopular as Trump, have built-in advantages, and add to that the near certainty that the Democrats will nominate Joe Biden -- or someone of similar bent -- as their standard-bearer and Trump’s re-election looks even more likely. That’s hard to accept on a sunny Saturday morning. Trump is pushing our institutions to the brink and it’s not certain they will hold for two more years, let alone a second term.

And if the economy is so great, why are so many people struggling and living in precarity?  Great for who?

I’m reading Almanac Of The Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko and 2 Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark. At first I had trouble keeping the relationship of the characters straight in the Silko novel, but I’m getting into it now; it’s a long one. The Shepard and Dark letters are fascinating, a 40-year friendship between two men who bare their souls to one another and examine their lives through lenses that are by turns humorous and deeply philosophical. For men of a certain age, the observations made can bring you up short -- these were well read men who examined themselves rigorously and had life experience as well. I’ve read a fair amount of Shepard’s writing, the play Simpatico, Motel Chronicles, Cruising Paradise, and Great Dream of Heaven. His letters provide context for his work, glimpses behind the stories. I’m old enough to know the excitement of receiving a letter from a friend, the sense of intimacy that an email or text message or social media post lacks. A letter provides a more tangible sense of connection, allows for a pause between receipt and response.

Humans need pause, need time to stop and reflect, but this modern, hyperactive, interconnected society we live in hates any pause and fills any silence with noise. My daughter’s connection to her phone scares me. I’m happiest when I don’t have my phone around, my daughter can’t be without hers without feeling anxious and unmoored. I remember being dependent on pay phones (and having change) when away from home, my daughter barely knows what a pay phone is, or was, since they are few and far between now. So much change to navigate, so little silence in which to do so. We can’t eliminate the pause.

Think I’ll go out and have a look at this day, scan the sky, turn the compost, and empty the trash. Maybe in doing so I’ll find my elusive Zen mind.

Business As Usual

“I was tired of greed in particular and the ostentatious display of wealth that characterizes our times, and the justifications for despoiling the earth and injuring our fellow man.” James Lee Burke, The New Iberia Blues

I have struggled of late to write anything. It’s not due to a lack of interesting topics or a lessening of outrage at the steady decline of the United States driven by the stupidity, incompetence and venality of the Trump Junta and the GOP. That’s a constant for any reasonably conscious citizen today. Day after day Trump defiles the White House and embarasses our country and pulls us deeper into the morass. But how many times can I say that Trump is only a symptom, not the cause, of a much more pernicious disease? The incessant appetite of so-called free market capitalism for more, for bigger, for gaudier, is the disease.

The recent revelations of a sophisticated college admissions scandal angered, but didn’t surprise me. Of course well-heeled people cheat, lie, buy off pliable officials -- that’s the very essence of our hyper-competitive, dog-eat-dog, cat-eat-mouse system, it happens every day in all manner of circumstances. For many years in America, college was reserved for wealthy elites, liberal and conservative, blue-bloods, professionals, WASPs, for the most part. Harvard and Yale and Princeton became elite because they devised admission standards to keep the unwashed masses, predominantly Jews and Catholics, from queuing at their ivy-covered gates. Other schools followed suit. The Civil Rights movement, Affirmative Action, and feminism knocked down many of the admission barriers, but then, once the Market assumed the mantle of God in America -- and higher education became just another commodity, like deodorant or soap or suppositories, albeit a commodity with major economic implications for a person’s life -- and the cost of higher education rocketed into the stratosphere, money emerged as a significant barrier to a college education. Competition for entry got tougher, the stakes became higher and more unforgiving, the enormous student loan debts enervating.  

The best book I’ve read about the dismal state of American higher education is Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz. He covers it all: students turned into consumers, colleges and universities catering to “customers” rather than students, the emphasis on courses and degrees that lead to profitable careers rather than self-exploration, critical thinking, and engaged citizenship, the neutering of the humanities, the explosive growth in administrative positions, the use of low-paid adjunct faculty and teaching assistants, massive classes. And what happens before college with the test prep industry, admission “counselors”, enrichment programs. It’s a bullshit system that does terrible things to kids and makes parents go crazy with fear and worry. I remember attending “college night” at my daughter’s high school when she was a freshman or sophomore. There were probably 150 parents and guardians in the cafeteria, counselors from the school, representatives from local colleges, UCSB, City College, etc. The fear in the place was suffocating, the absolute neurosis on the part of parents who were deathly afraid, or so it felt to me, that their offspring might fail the great university admissions test and be forever left behind, consigned to the register at Taco Bell or taking inventory at Bed, Bath & Beyond just poisoned the atmosphere. I never attended another college night after that.

The wealthy buy their way out of difficulty and I suppose this isn’t new. In a jam with the law, write a check to the attorney and the charge is lessened or dismissed; your kid can’t handle the SAT or ACT, no problem, you can pay a ringer to take the test, and buy off an admissions official with another check. In Excellent Sheep Deresiewicz writes, “For the elite, there is always another extension: a bailout, a pardon, a stint in rehab. The fat salaries awarded to underperforming CEO’s are an adult version of the A-minus.”

That’s life in America.    

This Is What You Do

”It’s what people do. We tell stories that proclaim our innocence. All of us. We tell them to ourselves and to anyone who’ll listen.” Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin

The sun’s out this afternoon, a slight breeze blowing, part of the sky is cloudy, part is clear. My backyard is soaked. Lake Cachuma must be over 60% of capacity by now, the highest it has been in years. In the land of fire, this is a good thing. I worry about climate change a lot, can almost feel the clock ticking down till the reckoning, because when it happens, and it might happen much quicker than we think, I don’t know if my family will have the resources to adapt. There’s so much uncertainty in this world of interconnected technology, wealth inequality, cold-hearted justice, Trump and his gang, and potential nuclear annihilation. How’s the story going to turn out? I assume most people want to know this, though we never will; we’ll only know our little part in the bigger play. In the meantime, we do all sorts of shit we don’t want to, work for people we can’t stand, stay in jobs or homes or marriages or relationships that either bore us to tears or make us crazy. It can be fucking hard, and I’m one of the luckiest guys around, and I know it, because there are places in this world, some closer to us that we know, where human life is dirt cheap, and nobody with their hands on the controls really cares if a man, woman, or child suddenly vanishes. India and Pakistan are facing off again in Kashmir, both sides nuclear armed. Cooler heads seem in short supply. It’s all advertising and marketing and hits and views and ratings, so we only get a limited view of what matters and unlimited attention on what doesn’t.

Trump’s unfortunate former attorney and all-around-bag/hatchet man, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress about his former boss. The Republicans went all apeshit about the process and the fact that Cohen “lied” to Congress! The same Republicans must have missed the appearance of Elliot Abrams the week prior. Republicans have no ear for irony. Trump doesn’t believe it’s fair for Congress to hold hearings about him when he’s not in the country. Yep, the Congress should shut down and do nothing any time the president is away. Separation of powers is becoming more tenuous all the time. Most Republicans are willing to follow Trump over the cliff. It’s astonishing.

The scariest aspect of the Cohen reality show was when Cohen warned the politicians that Trump might not go easily if he loses in 2020. In other words, Trump may not let go of his powers, even if that means instigating violence among his most ardent followers. The gut reaction is to say this will never happen here, but we said that during the election and Trump won the Electoral College. Trump is enamored of leaders who hold the title, President for Life. Citizens beware.

Quiet sunday afternoon. Sunlight in the eucalyptus trees. This morning I was standing on the deck reading William Rivers Pitt’s latest article on my iPhone, and a blue-jay landed on the railing two feet from me. The bird seemed at ease. He or she hopped to the far railing, then poked around the base of a potted plant. I went inside and came back with a few sunflower seeds that I lined up on the railing. The bird and I watched each other. The blue-jay took one and flew off, only to return a moment later for another. First time this has happened in all the years we’ve lived here. My wife is working on her laptop; my daughter is in her room, most likely watching YouTube; my son is in San Francisco, his second major foray away from home, but one that is quickly to come to an end. The boy is bound for Los Angeles and the next chapter of his adventure in life. Make all your mistakes now, kid, when the stakes are lower and your defeats don’t feel permanent. You’re 22, it’s OK to slow down and take it all in, figure out who you are, what you’ll stand for, and what and who you’ll kneel for.

David Cay Johnston has been reporting on the Trump crime family for more than three decades. Johnston has a Pulitzer. He knows how Trump operates as well as anyone, and couldn’t have been surprised by anything Cohen revealed. Johnston has been talking about Trump’s tax returns for a couple of years, confident what they will show is a man far less wealthy than he claims, and with significant debts to some very shady actors. Once someone with a subpoena starts yanking on that one dangling thread, the whole jacket is going to come apart and spill its lining. In the end, it will be all about money, the only thing Trump cares about because it’s all that underpins the man. Money equals power and influence and favors and loans and, most important of all, TV time, screen time, tabloid and New York Times headlines. Get ahold of that and you can rule the world. Even if you’re a spent human being of second rate intelligence and zero ethics.

My wife turns 57 in a few days time, which also means that my 60th is approaching with a fair tailwind. I guess this is the fabled land of adulthood. This is what you do, man. Laundry, shopping, cleaning the bathtub, the toilet, the basin; you shake out throw rugs and roll the recycling bins out every sunday; you go to a job and try to do something productive, and if that’s not possible, at least not harmful. This can be difficult in a bureaucracy, with a hierarchy. Some guys play golf, fix cars, surf, fly drones, ride motorcycles, fish or hunt, hike, camp, travel, scuba dive, I lift kettlebells and swing steel maces and hang upside down on gymnastic rings, kickbox three mornings a week. I read and review books and watch football (soccer) as much as I can. I’m half bad and half good, blind and sighted, and less and less sure what any of it means.