Get Behind The Mule

 “My generation takes what it can get/Are you surprised that the kids are all upset?/They’re looking at Nothing and Nothing turns away and yawns.” Greg Brown, “Whatever It Was”

I’ve got this suspicion that when the January 6 committee wraps up its labor and delivers a comprehensive and damning report to the DOJ, nothing will happen. No indictment of Trump. Possibly indictments for some easier targets like Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, but not the kingpin himself or his many enablers and co-conspirators, like Mark Meadows. Not indicting Trump will come down in the end to fear. Fear that an indictment might spark civil unrest and violence from Trump’s heavily-armed tribe. Fear of losing what should be an open and shut case on multiple charges. Fear of Steve Bannon’s podcast. Fear that voters will turn against Democrats. Whatever. The excuse will sound reasoned but naked fear will still be the reason for inaction.  Nothing is in shorter supply in Washington D.C. than courage. Justice, rule of law, and enforcement is reserved for targets that are poor or working-class -- black or brown or female -- not the mandarins and the owners and powerful political bosses. Elites in every society are adept at ducking accountability and punishment; the worst offenders often walk away, unscathed, like the many Nazi’s that escaped to South America. The worst butchers, the truly despotic, slip the net and vanish. When the elites write the rules, they always weave in loopholes and exceptions. It’s just the way power works, and it’s as corrosive as salt water on metal. 

Why can’t I let this go? Because of what I predicted when Trump was elected, and what I saw with my own eyes on January 6. Because if Trump isn’t held accountable the jig is up on American democracy. I know both parties are corrupted by lobbyists and corporate money and untraceable money, by the madness of perpetual foreign wars, because I’ve been writing about this shit for nearly 20 years. Racism. Militarism. Class Warfare. The creeping cruelty of American life. Dark shit, from George W. Bush to Donald J. Trump. My understanding of American politics, how it works, how it fails to work, its inherent corruption, is better than most. If I could bury my head in the proverbial sand, I would, but I can’t; I’ve got children to consider. I predicted in 2016 that Trump would do grave damage to the country; his manifest incompetence and authoritarian bent were as obvious to me as the wrinkles on my face. If I have an obsession it’s with the fact that a complete fraud like Donald Trump can convince millions of Americans that he’s their champion. My God, after all that happened with Covid and the election, can’t you see that Trump is for Trump and nothing else? How many Covid deaths can be attributed to the Trump administration’s criminal mishandling of the federal response? 10,000? 50,000? 100,000? All Americans, fellow citizens, fellow human beings. 

OK, so I’ll tell you what you already perceive: the order is shifting and the corridors of power are being rearranged, and it’s time for people of decency and goodwill to get off the couch and up behind the mule, because there is much work to be done, many seeds to plant. Turn off Fox News and tune in to your own inherent sense of right and wrong. Trump lied about the 2020 election -- before, during and after -- because he knew he was going to lose, and nothing terrified him more than being exposed for the loser he has been all his misbegotten and miserable life. Trump is a coward at heart, a draft evader, a tax cheat, an elite punk who has never been properly put in his place. He’s an attention-seeking moron who never understood even the most basic functions of government. He disgraced the United States on the world stage, sucked up to Vladimir Putin, ran interference for Mohammed bin Salman after the Saudi prince set his killers on Jamal Khashoggi. How can you put your faith in a man like Trump? Is it just because you despise the same people he does? 

There can be no justice without courage. 

 

Freedom to the Winds

“Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create a market for weapons?” Arundhati Roy, Capitalism: A Ghost Story

It hailed in Santa Barbara this week. My wife got some lovely photos of the courthouse lawn, green streaked with white, and a bed of succulents covered with ice. I can’t remember the last time it hailed here. As little rainfall as we get a hailstorm, no matter how brief, is notable. Lake Cachuma still looked pretty sad the last time we drove past on Highway 154, but our area isn’t in a severe drought. Not yet. The weather’s kind of unpredictable now, a result of our endless meddling in Mother Nature’s business. Do I think human beings are killing the planet? Yes. Will we adapt to it like we have adapted to Covid? Probably. And once we adapt, is there ever any going all the way back? Covid, or something like it, will be with us from now on. 

When I ruminate on our changing climate and the obscene disparities of wealth and power in most places, I figure the wealthy can buy many kinds of protection to give them the best chance of long term survival when the rule of law becomes the law of the jungle. Not hard to imagine a world where the wealthy hoard the resources needed to sustain life, and defend their control of those resources to the death. Grim. Has wisdom and justice ever prevailed in human history? Has decency and kindness ever ruled?  Not to my knowledge. Someone always winds up having more power over others than any human should. Life and death power. 

I received the single dose Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine in my left arm yesterday. This morning when I woke up I felt fine in every respect, but around ten o’clock I began to feel a little dull, a touch fatigued. It wore on as the hours in the office passed and I had to skip my usual Friday evening training session. It’s the one time each week when I feel like working in a higher gear, just because it’s Friday and I can recover the following day. I took a nap instead. My son came up from LA to file his taxes and is staying with us, and I could hear him and his sister sniping at each other in the next room. Non-stop insults, brutal sarcasm, obscene putdowns. The bickering hits a lull and then flares up. The problem is the lack of space, we’re crammed together, four adults now, much different from two adults and two children. I think we’re another month from moving. Our harried and haggard landlord continues his renovation project below us and in the backyard. Our “stuff” is scattered around, piled high, covered with concrete dust. Every day when I go downstairs my training gear has been moved; I stubbornly move it right back to where I can get to it easily. I try not to let the lack of control bug me but it does. We never amassed enough money to buy a house here in our hometown and likely never will. That vessel sailed long ago. This bothers me far less than it once did. I don’t see us becoming as rootless as the people in the film Nomadland, but nor can I see that we will ever own the roof over our heads, which means we will be subject to other people’s rules and bullshit. Money buys many kinds of freedom. 

Should we get used to the idea that we’re going to extinguish all life on this planet one day?That’s cynical and defeatist and hopeless, isn’t it? Yes it is. I’m trying to remember if I felt more hope before Covid hit and gave us a glimpse of the future than I do a year later, after 500,000 Americans have died and the lives of millions more have been forever altered. There are stories from the forgotten and the ignored that we don’t hear about. I’m lucky to have a speedily created vaccine in my arm that I paid nothing for directly. It’s not that I lack hopes and dreams and desires, I still have some. I definitely want to travel more, see places and people, watch a football match in Spain or Italy or England. I’d love to get back to Italy. I liked the vibe there. I’m cynical, yes, but perhaps not entirely faithless because I believe there are many people like me, neither rich or impoverished, who are very content to live and let live, who are opposed to violence as a national ethos, and who think justice is vital to insure long term peace. The big middle, that’s us. We’re rarely consulted about anything except what our money can buy. Money never excited me enough to chase it with all my heart. I read Henry Miller and other sages carefully and they spoke to me about life, what has value, what’s eternal and good in the human species. People go to incredible lengths to help one another survive. Covid has shown us the best and worst in ourselves. 

Joe Biden and the Democrats shepherded a Covid relief bill through Congress. No Republicans voted for the bill but many of their constituents stand to benefit from the legislation. Now Biden has to sell this accomplishment to the public, explaining and highlighting what it will do for working people, small business owners, and children. The Democrats cannot take for granted that the voting public will remember come 2022. Meanwhile, the GOP continues to bow to Trump, who is being hemmed in on all sides with lawsuits and investigations. America is much quieter now that Trump is off the main stage. The danger the Republic faces is still present, make no mistake about that, and what emerges from the investigation into the January 6th Insurrection will be important. How close to Trump will that probe get? How many of those charged will flip for leniency? What was Roger Stone’s role? Stone is a weird fucker, the kind of villian Made in America, something he shares in common with Donald Trump.