Less Sense Than A Norway Rat

“Revolutions have a habit of succeeding when the time comes for them.” Eugene V. Debs

I skipped Trump’s falsehood laden speech on the make-believe southern border crisis. I can’t stomach listening to that fool spew for one minute let alone nine or ten. Every time Trump opens his mug, especially on the subject of immigration, he demonstrates his stupidity, incompetence, and manifest unfitness for the office he holds. After Trump won the electoral college I remember pundits wondering if the office would change the man. I scoffed. The office hasn’t changed Trump one iota, but he has changed the office, trashing it like a rock star amped on Cutty Sark and cocaine trashes a hotel room. The deliberate mendacity, cruelty, corruption and ineptitude of Trump and his administration has been astonishing. Never have I seen anything close, not from Nixon or the murderous Bushes. Trump occupies a league all his own.

That the major commercial broadcast networks aired Trump’s nonsense bothers me. None of them had to grant Trump time to disseminate lies and pretend that he cares about the fate of women and children. (I’m fairly certain that were Trump adrift with his family in a leaky lifeboat he would kick the lot of them over the side to save his own skin. Trump doesn’t have a humanitarian molecule in his bloated white body; the man thrives on cruelty.) The networks would do America a huge public service if they would immediately stop covering every Trump bellow, belch, bleat, fart and Tweet. Give Trump any kind of platform and the damage is done.

For the record: no national emergency exists at the southern border.

The crisis is wholly manufactured inside Trump’s mushy brain, with some assistance from Stephen Miller and other far-right trolls. The Big Speech was the latest Trump stunt, yet another diversionary feint, no different than his ordering regular military troops to “guard” the border against a caravan of a few thousand unarmed migrants ahead of the midterm elections. Didn’t work then, won’t work now. By boasting -- on television no less -- that he would own a government shutdown unless Congress coughed up money for his wall, Trump backed his ample butt into a corner and now he can’t extricate himself without appearing weak and foolish, which is, of course, precisely what he is. Trump claimed he wouldn’t blame Democrats for the shutdown, but of course that was just another lie as he is now blaming them every chance he gets.

Some dealmaker, huh?

Donald Trump is ignorant and weak. What blows my mind is that Republicans continue to follow this meathead as he leads them toward the abyss. Can’t any of them straighten their backs and think for themselves? By now, after every lame thing Trump has done, you’d think some impulse for self-preservation would kick in. Norway rats have more sense.

Compared to climate disruption, income inequality, and undeclared wars that drag on for nearly two decades with no end in sight, the security of the southern border doesn’t keep me awake at night. What disturbs my slumber, in addition to things aforementioned, is the near certainty of another financial crash, the lack of affordable housing, education and medical care for working people, and the insidious size and reach of Amazon. America is insane, a country that no longer has even the dimmest notion of itself. Cruel, racist, war-mongering, unequal, undemocratic, this is us.

Great? Exceptional? Indispensable? Not by any measurement that really matters.

More Profound Than Ruin*

“The emptier our hearts become, the greater will be our crimes.” James Baldwin

In the same way Israel slowly chokes the Palestinians out of existence while the world sits on its hands and averts its eyes, the world is witnessing the slow demise of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, who has been in exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly eight years -- without, it must be noted -- ever being charged with a crime. Assange, a journalist by trade, has been cut off from the outside world for months and is reported to be in declining health. He is largely denied access to sunlight, fresh air, and medical attention. Ecuador, under pressure from the United States, is said to be in the process of revoking Assange’s citizenship. If Assange is booted from the Ecuadorian embassy it’s likely the British government will turn him over to the United States, which will no doubt mean lifetime confinement or execution for espionage.

Assange and Wikileaks exposed the slimy underbelly of American foreign policy in Iraq and Libya, embarrassed the Clinton campaign, and the political elites will never forget that. They prefer to cover their brutality and mendacity under the guise of freedom, liberty and democracy. The persecution of Assange is a bipartisan gig, one of the few matters Democrats and Republicans agree on. If the United States gets its mitts on Assange, he’ll get the Chelsea Manning treatment, and then some for good measure. All investigative journalists should be watching this cruel injustice with extreme care as the distance separating them from Julian Assange isn’t long. Expose the ugly or uncomfortable truth about empire, feel the wrath. No journalist is safe, and particularly not when the President of the United States calls the media the “enemy of the people” and Saudi Arabia murders a journalist in its own consulate in Turkey.

So behemoth Amazon has chosen sites for its next headquarters, extracting billions of dollars in tax concessions from New York and Virginia in exchange for what it promises will be thousands of high-paying jobs and urban renewal. The latter no doubt means hyper-gentrification, soaring rents and housing prices, and longer commutes for working stiffs who will not be able to afford the price tag. The promised number of jobs will likely be fewer than advertised, which is usually what happens when corporations play cities and states against one another. This sorry game has been going on for decades. Corporations dangle the carrot of jobs, jobs, jobs, and then slam states and cities across the back with demands for tax breaks and infrastructure improvements. It’s basic extortion, and taxpayers usually wind up holding the bag or suffering diminished social services.

Amazon is the avatar of nearly everything wrong with the American economy. Gargantuan size, low wage seasonal workers, shameless exploitation, cutthroat practices. It has been allowed to become a monopoly that has driven thousands of small businesses out of existence, turned main streets into virtual ghost towns, wiping out retail jobs, local brick & mortar stores, bookstores, all because it can withstand selling products at a loss. I’ve seen this happen on State Street in Santa Barbara, the retail backbone of my hometown. Amazon is now competing with FedEx and UPS to control the delivery pipeline. If the US enforced its antitrust laws, Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods would never have been approved. No single corporation should amass the power that Amazon has over so many aspects of the economy. This kind of concentrated economic power naturally turns into political power. Many years ago, singer-songwriter Greg Brown wrote that one day there will be one corporation selling one little box, it will give you everything you want and take everything you’ve got. That’s Amazon. Yes, Amazon makes acquiring stuff easy and quick, but as a society we pay dearly for this magical efficiency. I buy stuff from Amazon, so I’m as guilty as most American consumers, though whenever I hit that one-click button I feel a little sick to my stomach.

Trump sure looks like a frightened man with piss running down his leg. He’s sullen and petulant and more erratic than ever, his statements little more than gibberish. He reminds me of a comedian who has run out of material, who reaches deep into his bag and finds nothing but lint, and can do nothing but repeat himself. Naturally, Trump made a fool of himself on his recent ceremonial visit to France. The French mocked him. Back home, Trump spews unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. The White House is rumored to be a total shit show, a scene of confusion and disarray, turmoil and backstabbing. Trump must sense that the Democrats are coming (if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer don’t capitulate before the first shot is fired, as Democrats almost always do) with Robert Mueller not far behind, and the rotten facade of Trump World on the verge of collapse.

Here’s a thought to consider from writer Jacob Bacharach, “Poverty—both individual and social—is a policy, not an accident, and not some kind of natural law. These are deliberate choices about the allocation of resources.”

*thank you, William Faulkner

Hey Mr. Jefferson

America was conceived as a nation

of property

whether African flesh,

land

or the tallow factory.

Yet the 18th century minds that

wrote the rules

understood the dangers of concentrated

power.

Where is that notion now, Mr. Jefferson?

No way you and the boys

could imagine Google, Amazon, or Facebook;

undeclared wars that drag on so long we forget

why we fight them;

a spent and disgraceful 2-party system

stymied and rent

by

factionalism

irrationality

and money, money, money;

dark money, dirty money, blood money

chased by prostitutes who claim

to represent the

people.

You knew the face of tyranny

if you could see us now,

sir,

waiting for the next insane

pronouncement

from our duly (by the antiquated, un-democratic Electoral College)

elected

Mad “Would Be” King.

It’s all going to shit, Mr. Jefferson

the dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit

of property.

Too few have too much

too many have too little.

Is this what you had in mind?

Hypocrite's Ball

I own a Kindle Fire.

For work, I have use of an iPad and iPhone.

I admit these are remarkable devices, capable of all kinds of tasks and magic that just a few years ago was unthinkable or unattainable, from making the Brothers Karamazov -- among other books -- extremely portable, to answering e-mails, taking photographs, making notes, or playing Angry Birds while waiting in the doctor’s office.

I like the feel of the iPhone; it’s sleek and stylish, and its heft is solid and reassuring. I’ve got photographs of my kids on it, a few hundred songs, some useful apps.

My Kindle library spills over with digital editions from some of my favorite authors: Philip Roth, Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, Shakespeare, Christopher Hitchens, Raj Patel, and Robert Scheer to name a few. My library is stored in the cloud, available whenever I want, and the volumes never gather dust or play host to silverfish.

My Kindle Fire, iPhone and iPad are arrayed on the table in front of me. As much as I admire them, I know these astounding gadgets are the products of Chinese workers, some of them very young, and some of them subject to dubious working conditions and treatment. I know what you’re thinking: why interject darkness into this otherwise upbeat tale of technological advancement. Why worry about some faceless workers on the far side of the world when here, on the fruited and blessed plain of America, we can purchase a Kindle Fire for $199 and an iPad for $500 or so?

Globalization isn’t our fault, right? It’s just the order of things, the logical result of “market” forces and trade agreements. It’s the reason we can buy so many of the things we need and enjoy at bargain prices; it’s why Wal-Mart and Costco thrive, and why Amazon wields enormous power.

Apple builds products in China because the work force is capable, cheap, plentiful and pliable. Annoying labor laws and costly environmental regulations are lax or nonexistent, and taken together these factors make China a manufacturing paradise, the sort of place corporate CEO’s have wet dreams about.

Apple claims to be unaware of any exploitation on the part of its Chinese contractors, but one would need to be deaf, blind and dumb to believe this. Coercion and exploitation hold labor costs down and push profits up.

Exploitation is the grease that makes globalization work and it doesn’t matter if the exploited are Mexican, Guatemalan, Vietnamese, or Chinese. Capital finds cheap labor the same way a Sidewinder missile finds its target. National borders are meaningless -- this is free trade, baby, not fair trade – and all rights and power and privilege are controlled and exercised by companies like Apple, HP and Dell.

The welfare of workers and the environment don’t factor into free trade equations; if they did, Old Navy might not exist.

Every time I buy a piece of clothing the first thing I do is look at the label to see where it was made, and invariably I find myself wondering about the people who made the item. Who are they? What are their working conditions like? How much are they paid? How many hours a day do they work?

A feel good aura surrounds Apple and Amazon, but that aura obscures a rapacious nature that leaves me unsettled. How much power is too much? Amazon plays hardball with book publishers, crushing the little ones, and forcing the big ones to make concessions. Small, local retailers cannot compete with Amazon’s economies of scale, its ubiquity and reach. It’s no less cutthroat than the days of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller.

My Kindle Fire, iPad and iPhone are mocking me. “You talk a good game,” they say, “but we dare you to take us out in the backyard and smash us to bits with an 8lb sledgehammer. Go on, put your principles into practice. Don’t be a hypocrite. If you’re so concerned about Chinese workers do something about it. C’mon, brother, talk is cheap. Bring the hammer down.”

I am a hypocrite.