The Isolation Diaries No. 36

“Integrity cannot be reduced to cupidity, decency cannot be reduced to chicanery, and justice cannot be reduced to market price.” Dr. Cornel West, Black Prophetic Fire

Bubbling, simmering, seething, the echo of old warnings roll across the land. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Malcom X, James Baldwin, Tupac, Ida B. Wells, Cornel West, Colin Kaepernick, Kendrick Lamar. The fire next time is burning now, an expression of rage, fury, disillusion, despair, sadness, anger, and fatigue with a brutal status quo. George Floyd’s murder in broad daylight by a Minneapolis police officer may be remembered as the flashpoint, the last straw, and possibly a turning point. 

Many voices have warned us of the consequences of unfettered predatory capitalism, endless foreign wars, and a political system so corrupted by money and perverse ideology that it cannot function on behalf of the public. This American house, its rooms filled with past sins, rots on its broken foundation.

Militarized police forces routinely brutalize black and brown people; the stock market rises while millions of people lose their jobs; the corrupt federal government with the orange clown at its head downplays a pandemic and then botches the response, with thousands of citizens dying needlessly; food banks are stretched to their limits; white weekend warriors armed with assault rifles demand their individual liberty at the expense of others; the wealthy profit as the death count from Covid-19 increases. 

The American Dream died and was laid to rest years ago. Smug Republicans intoxicated with power, compromised Democrats addicted to corporate money, piss on its grave every day. The inevitable American nightmare is upon us and there should be no surprise at its arrival. Many voices have warned us of the consequences of unfettered predatory capitalism, endless foreign wars, and a political system so corrupted by money and perverse ideology that it cannot function on behalf of the public. This American house, its rooms filled with past sins, rots on its broken foundation. Mold. Mildew. Dry Rot. Termites. The house is haunted, and the bloodstains will never wash away. 

We have wrought this. We slept while they stole from us our present and future. Don’t lament property damage and looting; the real looting takes place in broad daylight under an impressive dome, in the White House by white men and women, on the floor of the United States Senate, takes place not at the barrel of a gun but with the flourish of a pen. Sickness and perversity, a delight in cruelty, like reducing food stamps in the middle of a pandemic, like forcing our lowest paid workers back to work before it’s safe, like pampering the wealthy while the poor are criminalized, jailed, murdered in broad daylight. A white cop kneels on a black man’s neck even though he knows he’s being filmed with a cellphone. He’s not worried because he knows -- he knows -- he’s not going to face any consequences, not in Minneapolis. His partners lift not a finger as the black man slowly, painfully dies; they’re indifferent to his pleas. 

White people are fucked up. I’m one of them. I’ve not done enough. This blog is a joke, a scream in a typhoon, unheard, drowned out in the vortex. 

America’s utter corruption, spiritual and moral emptiness, violence and cruelty cannot be reformed from within. We are in desperate need of another Reconstruction, but one without the domestic terrorism and systematic injustice. White people must face the truth: white supremacy is not only bullshit, it’s deadly. We’re not better than non-white people, not smarter or more evolved, and definitely not morally superior.  

Roll call of the dead off the top of my head: George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Freddy Gray, Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Stephon Clark, Tamir Rice. There are so many more. 

Answer me this, America: How do we find our way with a broken moral compass? 

White Knee, Black Neck

There’s something wrong with the tree 

Said Dr. Kendi

Too much rotten fruit

A plague all its own

Sea to sea

Big city, rural town

It makes little difference

They had George Floyd handcuffed, face down

On the pavement

A white cop’s knee on George’s black neck

Choking his life away

White man’s knee on a black man’s neck

Same as it ever was

In America

Righteously outraged

People fill the streets in protest

Seeking justice for George

They are met with tear gas

Rubber bullets

Riot cops in blue

Angry white men in Michigan

Armed with rifles

Storm the state capitol

Become YouTube sensations

Malignant roots anchor the tree

To the soil

In the branches

Remnants of frayed ropes

Sway in the American

breeze

The Isolation Diaries No. 35

“Lives are being destroyed on the altar of profit.” Chris Hedges on the Truth Report with Chauncey DeVega

Until today I was feeling decent emotionally, neither too high or too low, taking it day by day, but the minute I went into the office this morning the wheels fell off my mental bus and I plunged down a ravine. I still can’t put my finger on the exact cause, which is as frustrating as feeling like the climb out of the ravine is more than I’m capable of. Even a hard training session failed to lift my mood. 

The Great Forgetting is underway. Coronavirus? What Coronavirus? I listened to an interview with the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole, who said the US under Trump looks pitiful. How, O’Toole wondered, can the country rebound with an actively malign presence in the White House? Good question, and the answer is that it can’t. Trump’s reality show presidency was destined to destroy, not build. Why people thought his run in the White House would be any different from his multiple business failures still baffles me. The American Empire was low on fuel when Trump took office, and now it’s running on fumes. 

Trump is the dark lord of America’s slimy underbelly. 

Remember when Trump said his administration had shut down the Coronavirus? That was almost 100,000 American deaths ago. Here’s the latest from the Trump Death Clock: 59,311. That’s the number of deaths that could have been prevented if Trump and his pathetic administration had acted with competence. 

The Trump Gang is full of political hacks and incompetent dickheads. I thought Lawrence Kudlow or Ben Carson or Betsy DeVos led the pack, but then along comes Trump economic advisor Kevin Hassett, who claims that America’s “human capital stock,” by which he means working people, are itching to get back to serving the millionaires and billionaires who own and operate our economy, even if it costs their health or their lives. Human capital stock. Had he been around in 1830, Hassett would likely have been an owner of human chattel, African flesh and blood, to be used, abused and discarded in the cotton or cane fields. I imagine Hassett as a squeamish owner who outsourced the discipline of his slaves to men even more heartless than he. 

No savior waits in the wings. This isn’t a Hollywood blockbuster. No, Joe Biden isn’t Donald Trump. Biden isn’t a sociopath, but if you think all our troubles -- social, political, economic -- will magically vanish should Biden pull off an upset and defeat Trump in November -- if we even have an election -- you need to spend some time reviewing Biden’s long legislative record. It’s not pretty. Biden’s policy stances are one of the reasons America has been hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. 

Hypocrisy. Stupidity. Cruelty. 

It took a long time for the Greedheads to put truth and honor and decency to the sword. They stood gloating over the bleeding forms, sword in one hand, Christian cross in the other. The Greedheads believe in death and of death they can never get enough.  

Night falls over my ravine. A coyote howls. Come the first light of morning I might climb out. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 34

“Everybody in the south wants the privilege of whipping somebody else.” Frederick Douglass

Here in Santa Barbara several blocks of State Street, our restaurant, bar, and commercial (what hasn’t been destroyed by Amazon) backbone, are blocked to vehicle traffic for several hours a day, creating what the City calls a “pedestrian promenade.” Restaurants, which up to Friday the 22nd were only doing takeout business, are open again with restrictions on how many patrons can dine inside at a given time, and tables set up outside. 

After weeks of isolation, seeing hundreds of people strolling along State Street is startling. More startling is that 80 percent of people are not wearing face coverings. There was a line of people in front of Joe’s Cafe when we arrived to pick up our takeout order, and the tables on the sidewalk were full. The hostesses and waitstaff wore masks. Dining in at this point holds no appeal for us. We just wanted to collect our order of a spinach salad, turkey dip sandwich with salad and fries, ranch dressing, and two Manhattans and get back home. There was confusion at the front counter, the young woman behind it seemed harried, trying to handle our order and answer the phone, and doing neither well. No fault of hers. I felt bad for her. While we stood there, a woman in her mid-40’s who had been waiting outside entered and asked my wife and I if we were waiting for a table or picking up. It was clear from her tone that she assumed we had skipped the line. She wore a large, flashy diamond. Her vibe put me off immediately. “Well,” I said, “if we were waiting for a table we’d be standing outside, wouldn’t we?” She spun around in a huff and went back outside and resumed her wait. 

Back home we discovered Italian dressing instead of the ranch dressing we asked for, and the au jus sauce that makes the turkey dip was missing. The sandwich was dry, the French fries soggy. On the plus side, the Manhattan’s were the usual Joe’s strength. We ate, sipped our cocktails, and watched the last three episodes of the final season of Schitts Creek.

The problem is that ignoring the public health aspects of a pandemic will not make it go away; happy talk and magical thinking are equally futile. I can’t see how we avoid a second wave. 

The pressure to generate economic activity is intense and hangs heavy. After two months of isolation, it’s natural to want to get out, move around, have a drink in a bar, eat a meal, see people. City and state government officials are trying to balance public safety with the need to turn the revenue spigot back on; it’s like spinning six plates while standing on one leg. Since the federal government abdicated its responsibility for the pandemic, states, which have far fewer resources, have had to pick up the slack, blowing huge holes in their budgets in the process. Without an infusion of money from the federal government, states will have no choice but to cut services, furlough public employees, and adopt austerity measures -- at a time when public services are desperately needed. 

Trump and Company try to will the pandemic away with a toxic combination of lies, bluster, and threats. The problem is that ignoring the public health aspects of a pandemic will not make it go away; happy talk and magical thinking are equally futile. I can’t see how we avoid a second wave. When I checked this morning the Trump Death Clock stood at 58,708 deaths that could have been avoided if Trump had taken Covid-19 seriously and acted earlier. But expect no contrition or reflection from Trump. He insists that he would do the same things over again, including, it seems, shilling Hydroxychloroquine endlessly and stoking a culture war between red and blue states. 

Even if Joe Biden were leading Trump in the polls by 50 points, I would still expect him to find a way to blow it. November is a long way off, we’re in a pandemic, Trump’s in the White House, McConnell runs the Senate, and the Democratic Party establishment dithers at the margins

What do you get when for 40 years the reigning ideology in the world is how to monetize every aspect of human life? You get Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk; you get Steve Mnuchin, Jamie Dimon, and Timothy Geitner; you get staggering wealth and political inequality and environmental damage; you get government by money, of money, and for money; and to close out the neoliberal era with a near collapse and endemic corruption, you get Trump, an incompetent, semiliterate failure who sees himself as the best the white race has to offer. 

I just started reading Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, by David W. Blight, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. I’ve also been reading Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith, and listening to Western Stars by Bruce Springsteen. My wife finally acquiesced and cut my hair short with a dog grooming trimmer that we once used on Chula, my inlaws loveable Shih-poo. 

Keep an eye on the mortgage default rate in the next few months. In the words of Warren Zevon, send lawyers, guns, and money, the shit’s about to hit the fan.  

The Isolation Diaries No. 33

“The past is uncertain, mobile. It shifts and rearranges back there. All might turn out and change back there yet.” Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier

Sunny days in Santa Barbara, but so windy at times that the old windows in our apartment rattle. A gust pulls the back door shut with a bang. Our Covid-19 spring. SB remains in hibernation, though it seems more and more people are venturing out. Cautious optimism from local officials and Governor Gavin Newsome, the usual batshit happy talk from the White House. 

As of this writing, the Trump Death clock has recorded 55,642 deaths as a result of Trump’s incompetence.

The Orange Menace claims to be taking daily doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has shown little to no efficacy against Covid-19. Despite medical evidence, Trump continues to tout the drug, saying he’s heard many stories about its effectiveness. Still hoping for a magic bullet. 

By mid-June, if not earlier, we will know if this re-opening gambit was worth the potential risk. If a flare-up of infections is going to happen, it should happen around that time. I think about Frank Snowden, a historian of infectious diseases, most notably the Black Death that struck parts of Europe off and on for nearly 400 years, who contrasted the public health response in Italy (Snowden was there, caught Covid-19, recovered) with that of the United States. Unlike here, where the message about the pandemic has been inconsistent, chaotic, contradictory, and politicized, Italy’s public messaging about the virus was consistent, focused on public health, not politics, sparing lives, not attacking scientific authorities or drenching the public with magical thinking and empty boasts day after day.  

As of this writing, the Trump Death clock has recorded 55,642 deaths as a result of Trump’s incompetence. This shocking number and the misery and sadness and grief it represents, should spell doom for Trump in November, even against a cardboard cutout of Joe Biden, but this is America and there’s a very good chance that the Electoral College will once again deliver victory for Trump. 

That thought is too depressing to contemplate at this early hour of the day, when I can hear birds chirping in the yard. 

Democrats are decent when it comes to governing, but hopeless when it comes to winning elections; Republicans have their message down pat, know how to perpetuate their power, but can’t govern their way out of a wet paper sack. Republicans can’t get over their ideological wall to deal with reality, while Democrats are so compromised by being joined at the neck with Big Finance that they have alienated millions of people who once supported Democrats, no matter what. 

And there we sit, on this slippery, dangerous slope. Our old nemesis, avarice, grins at us from higher up, dislodges a boulder with his foot, and laughs as it tumbles down. 

Spring of discontent, disaster, depression, denial, and dereliction. 

Sun climbing the bottlebrush tree, a crow squawks and is answered by a bluejay. Another Covid-19 morning.  

The Isolation Diaries No. 32

“If we didn’t do any testing we would have very few cases.” Donald J. Trump

Yeah, the sitting president of the United States is as ignorant as the quote above indicates. A moron, or, as Rex Tillerson famously said, “a fucking moron.” Tillerson was a corporate weasel, but he picked up on Trump’s vibe right away. Other administration figures must have felt -- and at least one or two must secretly feel -- the same way about Trump, but most of them have taken a vow of silence, afraid, I guess, of being disparaged on Twitter and FOX News. 

Tyrants, whether the real deal like Putin or a faux model like Trump, rise to power with the silent complicity of people who know better. 

Yesterday I finished reading a book by historian Jeff Forret titled Williams’ Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and his Cargo of Black Convicts. After the United States prohibited the African slave trade, the internal demand for enslaved labor in the sugar and cotton producing southern states drove a furious forced relocation of black people from the Chesapeake region to the lower south. Forret meticulously documents the business and legal structures that made this trade possible and enormously profitable for many slave traders, buyers, boat captains, bankers, lawyers, speculators, and owners of private slave jails or pens. 

In the Epilogue Forret draws a line from the antebellum era, through the Civil War and Reconstruction, creation of black codes and  convict-leasing, all the way to mass incarceration in our time. Here’s a short passage:

“As with the slave trade, prisons engage in a form of economic speculation grounded in African-American bodies and the shipment of captive workforces to locations where the demand for labor is high. The modern-day exploitation of black inmates’ labor remains a thriving business in which the law has again been complicit.”

There were many interesting aspects to Williams’ Gang, but one that struck me was how fearful white people were of slave revolts. The memory of what happened in Haiti and many smaller domestic slave insurrections was never far from the mind of slave owners. Blacks who had been convicted of crimes were not welcome in many states because citizens feared that even by mere presence they might unduly influence enslaved people. 

Again the weather is sublime, blue skies, warm sunshine, the beauty of Santa Barbara on full display. The vibe is that of a city soon to be freed from constraint, able once again to open its arms and welcome the world. 

I’ve read a few reviews of books coming out that compare the contemporary polarized American political scene to that of the decade before the Civil War. It’s an interesting comparison. Whether slavery would be curtailed or allowed into new swaths of American territory was a central question, as was the fate of fugitive slaves, and whether or not the authorities in a free state had to take a hand in the return to their owners of enslaved runaways. These were divisive issues that turned the nation against itself. Local skirmishes and vitriol pointed to a cataclysmic confrontation.  

“Tell me some good news about the pandemic,” my daughter says. I tell her the cities and states where new cases seem to be on the decline, but add a cautionary note about states that might be tempting the Virus God by trying to reopen prematurely. “Not helpful,” she says. Then she sing-songs a line about wanting to hold her boyfriend’s hand. This pandemic has been inconvenient for young lovers. 

We walked from our apartment to the CVS in the 1100 block of State Street. There were definitely more people out and about, gathered in small groups on the Courthouse lawn; a family of Chinese people were taking photographs of each other on Figueroa. CVS was quiet, as many employees as customers. 

Again the weather is sublime, blue skies, warm sunshine, the beauty of Santa Barbara on full display. The vibe is that of a city soon to be freed from constraint, able once again to open its arms and welcome the world. 

I’m not that optimistic. Fits and starts is what I see. Covid-19 still has the country on the backfoot. When defensive soccer teams come out of their block too soon against superior opposition, lose the shape, recklessly commit too many players forward, they are usually punished on the counter-attack. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 31

“Don’t ask me, ask China!” Donald J. Trump

It was only a matter of time until the Trump gang employed a typical tactic in the face of rising American deaths from Covid-19: change the metrics, change the way Covid-19 deaths are reported so that the number appears lower.

Don’t like the hard facts? Create alternate facts, even if they fly in the face of science, logic, and direct evidence. 

Film director Eugene Jarecki has a different idea. Jarecki is the mind behind the Trump Death Clock in Times Square in NYC, a running tally of all the Covid-19 deaths that can be attributed to Trump’s failed response to the pandemic. As of this writing, that number stands at 51,134. The website is worth a look. Here’s a link: https://trumpdeathclock.com.

In striking down the governor’s stay-at-home orders, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has surely laid the groundwork for more infections and deaths. Nice work, ideologues. The bloodstains on your hands will not wash away. Wisconsinites now have the freedom to put themselves and others in mortal danger. Freedom! Haircuts! Bars are open!

Trump was made for TV, not reality. He gambled with the lives of Americans and lost more than 50,000 times. 

As I write this, the Dow Jones is down 383 points, after dropping more than 500 points yesterday. I’m sure this bothers Trump far more than the mounting deaths from the pandemic; human casualties are one thing, but when the Almighty Stock Market declines it’s a crisis for the wealthy and in America we cannot subject our wealthy citizens to any hardship. Back to work serfs! Put your shoulders to the wheel, to the oars, to the mines, open the factory gates and make those furnaces hotter than hell. 

Trump was made for TV, not reality. He gambled with the lives of Americans and lost more than 50,000 times. The script isn’t to his liking, he doesn’t like the arc of the story, so he’s simply going to ignore any fact that makes him look bad. Between now and election day Trump and his gang will deploy every trick and sleight of hand they know to erase history. Pandemic? What pandemic? Oh, you mean the one we triumphed over like no one the world has ever seen? 

Will America survive Trump’s manifest stupidity and incompetence? The country has faced great upheaval before, during the Civil War and the Great Depression. The Reconstruction period helped the nation recover from the Civil War; the New Deal got us through the Depression and World War II, created a deep, wide middle class and a quarter century of economic prosperity. Those were bold, imperfect, controversial responses to existential crises, opposed by many, even to this day. 

What will we do? Which way will we go?

The Isolation Diaries No. 30

“Those jobs will all be back.” Donald J. Trump

Another lovely day in Santa Barbara. The wind kicked up and chased the marine layer from the sky. I rode my bike to the office where now anyone entering the building must wear a facial covering. One of the contractors working on the heating and cooling upgrade never wears a mask. He looks like the kind of person who would say, “I don’t need a mask. It’s just the flu, and I never get the flu. It’s totally overblown.” Part of Canon Perdido street has been repaved, but the lane lines are yet to be laid down. Next door to the office a new building is under construction, a monster that runs from property line to property line, not an inch wasted, and rising three stories. Offices and apartments. Luxury living in beautiful downtown Santa Barbara. Mountain views. Across De La Guerra street, another project is underway and the street is blocked off to allow heavy equipment room to operate. I watch a man bust chunks of a sandstone wall with a sledgehammer. I hear the sound of hammers, saws, diesel engines. 

Whatever you believe about Barack Obama, the facts prove that his administration was one of the cleanest in modern American history. No scandals. No pornstars. No Russian agents.

As I ride my bike around there seems to be more activity, more cars, and more people out. A loosening of the net. But stores are closed, some retail spaces already wear For Lease banners, and the Nordstrom store that anchored one end of the Paseo Nuevo mall for decades has announced it will not reopen. We bought a lot of stuff at Nordstrom over the years, from shoes to cosmetics to jewelry to clothing. No Macy’s. No Nordstrom. No Forever 21. Who will fall next? I still believe that the majority of the general population has no idea what lies ahead. We’ve been hit hard by Covid-19, but the right hook coming from the economic collapse will send us reeling. 

Don’t ask me, ask China, says Donald Trump before he scurries from an uncomfortable press conference. An Asian-American woman half his size tried to hold Trump accountable. Donald hates accountability, whether in business or his personal life. Strong women frighten Donald and he doesn’t know how to react. He likes his women flashy and dense, not professional and determined.  

The crime is obvious to anyone, says Donald Trump, referring to a make-believe conspiracy called Obama-Gate. I don’t know any details about Obama-Gate, other than it’s likely manufactured from the detritus of fevered imaginations. Whatever you believe about Barack Obama, the facts prove that his administration was one of the cleanest in modern American history. No scandals. No pornstars. No Russian agents. Obama’s reign was clean and mostly efficient; while I don’t agree with how he did it, I recognize that he kept the nation on the rails in 2009 and 2010, when the rigged housing market collapsed and the paper economy buckled. 

“We have met the moment and we have prevailed,” says Trump, like a gladiator. According to MSNBC, 81,468 deaths and more infections than any other country. Testing per capita still trailing, though Trump insists that We Are No. 1. The CDC guidelines for safely reopening society are ignored by Trump himself. 

The US has five percent of the world’s population and thirty percent of coronavirus cases. MAGA, baby, this is the “transition to greatness”. We’re going to come roaring back like a locomotive in the third quarter. It will be beautiful, tremendous, like nothing anyone has ever seen, the world will envy us. 

Trump has never failed this spectacularly. This is the apex, the pinnacle, the room at the top of the world, the Emmy and the Oscar and the Tony, a diamond-studded Super Bowl ring, the Masters Green Jacket, the World Cup trophy, and the Olympic Gold Medal of Trump’s long run as a huckster and conman. Trump is the Meryl Streep of con artists, a man of the media age, where facts and truth are overrun by images and simplistic plot tricks. He didn’t just ratfuck a casino or an airline this time, he ratfucked an entire country. Trump knows the sales pitch, the slogan, the mirage, but nothing else. When the shit goes down, he cowers away, hides behind bogus lawsuits and bankruptcy protection. Trump’s a punk who thinks he’s a big boss. 

I miss soccer, it’s like a void. Marcelo from Real Madrid just turned 32, but it seems like he’s been at Real forever. Same with Sergio Ramos. Both are great players, fun to watch. This long hiatus must drive top players crazy. They are like racehorses, primed to gallop, not be cooped up, even if that means cooped up in luxury. 

May. The merry month of May. The mail carrier is wearing blue latex gloves and a face mask. It’s May in the time of Covid-19. It might be May on the edge of the abyss. 

It’s May as far as we can see.