This, That And a Dash of the Other

 “At some point the US may no longer be in a position to exploit its financial centrality as it does now. For large parts of the world that moment will be cause for celebration.” Tom Stevenson, London Review of Books, 24 March 2022.

How long before Putin’s war against Ukraine spills over a border line, perhaps Poland’s? What stance does NATO and the US adopt then? America’s political and military leaders are focused on taking every opportunity to weaken an enemy (real or perceived), whether Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela or Iran. That’s deep in the DNA of the Pentagon and National Security state, despite the incredible failures of the architects in the White House, Senate, media, and intelligence community. Serial failures that set off a cascade of devastating consequences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. I can think of one reason for the outpouring of support for Ukraine from all over the world: the emphasis of the global media. This time an unprovoked attack was launched by Russia, not the US. In Ukraine, the media is getting stories out about civilian casualties, mass rapes, summary executions, and indiscriminate bombing, uprooted refugees, and graphic images of destruction and death. This is Putin being a sadist, we want maximum exposure of his crimes. In the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, the American military was effective in muzzling the media, hiding unpleasant facts beneath claims of classified intelligence, need-to-know, eyes only. Sources and methods. The Pentagon and State Department managed the narrative, always casting the US in the guise of noble and generous protectors, builders, deliverers of freedom and democracy.  Now, I’m not claiming that we can compare what Russian soldiers are accused of doing in Ukraine with the conduct of American soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq. Were civilians killed by US forces? No doubt. Were civilians explicitly killed as a matter of strategy? Was mass rape used as a weapon? Not to my knowledge. Did such war crimes occur? It’s certainly possible. The US military has done it before.

The war is over a month old. How much has Putin been weakened? How long can Ukraine hold out? 

Watch the housing market, it’s once again completely out of kilter with reality and the needs of Americans for safe, affordable housing, a basic human necessity. Prices have soared out of all proportion with wages, not that that matters to Bank of America or Citibank or any of the hedge funds that are buying residential housing stock across the country, no Zip Code beyond their reach. Yes, the largest single owner of houses in America is a corporation. Soulless financial engineers have created another Frankenstein monster, financial instruments out of thin air, under the limp and lifeless bodies of government regulators, and a Congress deep under the duvet with the lawyers and lobbyists who work for the gain of the Finance, Real Estate and Insurance lords and dukes. 2008/09 is going to repeat. How much will the corporate bail-out and total indemnity of Capital cost the people this time? These extraordinarily cunning people never learn lessons from their failures -- they’re not required to, that’s part of running with the elite, clean slates, second and third chances. Loads of fuck-up insurance. 

A recent article in the Atlantic magazine by Mark Leibovich caused a bit of stir when it suggested that Republican candidates pitted against Trump-endorsed shitbirds just call Trump a loser and then enumerate Trump’s trail of failure and broken promises. I think Democratic candidates should include the same theme in their campaigns, and then contrast Trump’s failures with what Democrats have accomplished since 2021. Here’s a list off the top of my noodle:

-Twice-impeached.

-Lost the popular vote twice, the second time by a wide margin.

-Lost the GOP the House in the 2018 midterms.

-Lost the GOP the Senate and the White House in 2020.

-Joined the ranks of one-term US presidents, including Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Despite many catastrophic mistakes, even George W. Bush managed to be re-elected. 

-Failed to build the great Trump Border Wall or make Mexico pay for it.

-Ballooned the Federal deficit.

-Got outplayed and outsmarted on trade.

-Failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. 

-Completely mismanaged the Federal response to the pandemic, resulting in thousands of needless deaths. 

-Lost nearly sixty legal challenges regarding the 2020 election.

-Instigated a deadly mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

-Stole classified information from the White House and transported it to Mar-A-Lago. 

That’s what the GOP cult is running on, though they will portray themselves as lovers of liberty and free speech, low taxes, and protectors of white citizens from Mickey Mouse and Ibram X. Kendi. 

What does Trump give his fans in return for their blind loyalty? Certainty in uncertain times; simple solutions to complex problems; enemies to revile and fear. Trump’s misrule did little to improve their material circumstances, they still struggle with low-wage jobs, lousy and expensive health insurance, debt, and limited prospects for social mobility. But at least they can feel superior to Muslims, African-Americans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, and so on. MAGA, baby!

Beware the Full Moon

 “Another day of anger, bitterness and doubt.” Bob Dylan, “False Prophet”

I can always tell that the moon is full or nearly so by the behavior of the people I observe at the Market. It’s really uncanny but people seem to act differently, more befuddled and spaced-out than usual. Slower, indecisive, best evidenced by a woman with a basket standing in the center of the aisle, as if she’s the only person in the store, completely alone with no sense of time or space or the fact that there’s a man with a broom behind her, looking for a way past her so he can get on with his work, a determined runt of a man who tries to anticipate if the woman might veer left or right so he can dart by. For what seems an eternity she does neither. This is the time when customers ask all kinds of questions -- where’s the dijon mustard, where’s the sour cream, do you have crystalized ginger, can I buy just one stalk of celery. A tall man stopped me on his way out of the store with his grandson and asked me to examine a quarter to determine if it was real or counterfeit or foreign. He couldn’t read the inscription on the back, but I could and assured him that he had the real deal. “Old eyes,” he said. As if I’m the proverbial spring chicken. I’ll be sixty-three in a couple of weeks. 

Full moon, odd behavior. Fuck, in the United States of America, the moon is always full and bright and fit for lunatics. The American era is ending and something new is being born, and it appears more authoritarian and cruel, driven by a perverse greed for wealth and power that is difficult for average people to understand. Without heed of consequences or casualties. Without shame. The will to power, I guess. I don’t have it, I may have many years ago, when I was in the Air Force, but the impulse flared and died. In my professional life I have always been honest and fair. The only job that I flat-out failed at was as an insurance salesman. Dark days, foolish days. Cold-calling from the phone book. Knocking on doors in the suburbs. I could do neither with any competence, I was struck with terror at the prospect and could never overcome the fear of rejection. Even when I got an appointment, which was rare, I was probably the worst closer on my best day in the history of sales work, statistically more likely to talk myself out of a sale than into one. Asking a stranger for money is what it comes down to and I couldn’t do it. For a certain time in my life I believed a lot of corporate bullshit and American hype. Strong military, free markets, low taxes, American benevolence, etc. I was as ignorant as they come about the history of my country, the theft of indigenous land and the enslavement of Africans, the causes of the Civil War, the Industry of American slavery, white supremacy. American imperialism. American-style capitalism. The only thing that saved me was a love of reading, a thirst for knowledge, and my own lived experience. 

Fuck, on this full moon I committed a cardinal sin of a book reviewer and mispelled the names of two of the main characters in a piece I wrote, edited and proof-read. Fuck, double screaming fuck. The publisher brought the error to my attention, kindly, but I’m furious with myself, chagrined that I could make such an elemental error. No excuse, I fucked up. I fixed the review and sent my apologies. 

Full moon decisions usually go sideways. There’s a lot of noise in this world, a constant, annoying buzz; we can’t get quiet enough to hear. Phones, sirens, radios, bells, beeps, chirps, screeches, chainsaws, leaf blowers, pneumatic nail guns, cement mixers, drills, endless and everywhere, poison for some, the kind that takes over the brain, and these days everybody’s got an opinion and some means for expressing it. Lots of noise, images slipping past at warp speed. We need to put our phones down, shut out the noise and the images. There’s too much talking, too much hypocrisy, too many lies and too many flim-flam artists, too many cowards.

But there are no saviors. Hold on. It’s the end of an era. And a full moon. 

Down Mexico Way

 “Then sitting around campfires listening to men tell stories of women as they slide deeper & deeper into that all too familiar drunken slur of the profoundly disappointed.” Sam Shepard

My wife and I went to Mexico City and Oaxaca for six days, our first trip outside the US since 2019. Three nights in each location, enough to get a taste, a feel for the vibe and atmosphere. Everywhere we went face coverings were required, and people were very compliant. The traffic in Mexico City was astounding as was the pall of smog that smudged the sky. This was one of those trips where you see and experience more than you can assimilate. Too much Art, perhaps too much mezcal. I made the notes that follow on my phone, usually while riding in the backseat of an Uber. 

A mongrel hound brown and gray with an elongated nut sack; rebar extending from rooftops, an inhabited work in progress; dusty landscape, sere; thinking of a graveyard in a tiny town where the name on every stone represents someone you were related to; land of motorcycles and scooters; older sister carrying her younger brother down a narrow dirt lane, each step she takes kicks up a small cloud of dust; Sunday afternoon, dead part of the day, hot and drowsy; dog sleeping beneath a car; down the road the boy’s great grandfather built with his brother and a pair of mules; kids playing football on a bare dirt field; never seen so much corrugated tin, a basic material to keep in, out, or covered; unfinished houses with rectangular eyes; holding her history like something that might slip from her grasp; a place filled with ancestral spirits and omens; feral dogs roam in pairs; people who will never be relieved of tedium and boredom by money; the high priest was also the ruler; refuse caught on a barbed-wire fence; caramel-colored mutt asleep in the dust; stacks of bricks; children selling trinkets to tourists in the square; intestines hanging from a hook; the smell of leather; a blind girl singing on the sidewalk, her plastic cup empty.