The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 11

“In a real sense, all life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother’s keeper because we are our brother’s brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Time in Trumpistan moves as fast as a tornado and as slow as molasses. Fast in the tumult of Trump’s infantile and incompetent response to Covid-19, the staged assault on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square on June 1, the deployment of heavily armed, unidentified, Federal agents in Portland, the lies and corruption and outright lunacy of Trump and the miscreants who surround him. But ever so slow as the nation staggers toward Election Day, less than 100 days hence, and one day runs into the next, not a carbon copy, but similar, with the latest Covid numbers the priority. Is our county up, down or flat? What’s going on statewide, where’s the latest hot spot, where are deaths rising? What’s Congress doing or not doing to help states and citizens weather this storm? 

And of course we are forced to endure the daily spectacle of Trump himself, the bloated leader of our Covid-19 battered banana republic, bragging about his mental acuity on national television. Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. Trump’s new mantra. Bonus points (only in Trump’s withered brain) awarded for reciting the words in order. Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So proud is Trump of his achievement that even as the American death toll from the pandemic reaches 150,000, he can’t stop talking about it. “I passed a test! I finally passed a test, all on my own, with no help and no cheating!”

Journalist Mehdi Hasan called out the irony. When it comes to Covid-19, a lethal pandemic, Americans look in vain for a coordinated federal response. But when it comes to protecting federal property from graffiti in Portland, behold, the federal response is not only coordinated, it’s jackbooted, long on shock and raw force. When it comes to dispersing protesters from Lafayette Square so Trump can stage a photo opportunity for his reelection campaign, the federal response is not only coordinated, it’s choreograhped by William Barr to portray Trump as the triumphant protector of law and order. The pandemic bores Trump because it’s too complicated, like the algebra he never could fathom. Unleashing BORTAC -- the shock troops of the Customs & Border Patrol -- against American citizens exercising their first amendment right is not only easier, it provides immediate gratification and satisfies Trump’s sadism. 

So proud is Trump of his achievement that even as the American death toll from the pandemic reaches 150,000, he can’t stop talking about it. “I passed a test! I finally passed a test, all on my own, with no help and no cheating!”

(Here’s a random thought: how does Jared Kushner react when Trump summons Ivanka to the Residence at 2:30 a.m., with instructions to report in high heels and a black negligee?)

In all this turmoil and madness, Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence, on the very same day Stone asked for it, has gone down the memory hole. The GOP is a lost cause, so of course not a soul from that doomed vessel sounded a dissent. Hypocrisy, cowardice and silence is now standard procedure in the GOP Death Cult. But where the hell are the Democrats? The Stone commutation was obviously payback for his loyalty. It was the Trump crime family taking care of its own. The timing and context are clear. The commutation was a crime. Where’s the outrage? Jerry Nadler’s committee had Attorney General Barr on the stand and in the main failed to land a significant blow. Barr is a seasoned Washington fixer, he knows the game, how to parse, dodge, obfuscate, duck, parry and counter. Barr is the Pillsbury doughboy’s evil twin. The Democrats had plenty of opportunities to hammer at Barr’s mendacity and subversion of the rule of law, his craven and comprehensive dereliction of duty, but for the most part let the chance pass. 

Trump knows he’s staring defeat at the polls in the face, and his gut impulse dovetails with his tactics over the past three and a half years: toss even bloodier hunks of red meat to his base of true believers (his recent remarks about saving Suburbia from people of color), his focus on Law & Order, and his empty threat to postpone the November election based on fear of massive voter fraud. With intent and malice Trump is tossing seeds of delegitimization to the wind, hoping to harvest a crop of Doubt after November 3. 

If that’s not sobering enough, imagine if Joe Biden wins the election but the GOP retains control of the Senate. 

We're No. 1!

I went over to the Home Improvement Center on Gutierrez Street the other day to look for a shower curtain rod. I didn’t need anything with designer or decorator touches, just your basic 72” curtain rod. I figured I’d find one that was cheap and made in China, but to my surprise the rod I found was made in Delaware – right here in these United States.

A few days later I read excerpts of an interview with Vice President Joe Biden in which the Veep defended the US economy and insisted that America would never lose its position as the world’s leading economic power. Biden had strong words for those who claim that America has seen her best days.

Joe Biden tends to be verbose and hyperbolic -- and of course it’s the duty of a Vice President to defend our nation’s honor even if it means denying reality -- but like the majority of politicians, regardless of party affiliation, Biden is unwilling to look reality in the face and admit that America doesn’t manufacture enough shower curtain rods. Or toaster ovens. Or flat screen televisions. Or computers. Or blenders. Or durable medical equipment. Or -- you name it.

And unless Americans are building tangible products that the rest of the world wants to buy, our economy will never fully recover nor will the yawning gap between the haves and have nots narrow. A “financialized” economy cannot produce widespread prosperity; what it will produce is banana republic-like income disparity.

Of course there are many more things that Joe Biden and the ruling class need to wrap their heads around if this country is to pull back from the brink.

Open-ended wars are one. The government of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan talks about being dependent on US military assistance for the next two decades. With the exception of opium production, Afghanistan doesn’t possess an economic infrastructure lively enough to produce the revenues needed to build and sustain a functioning police force and military. The US is that revenue source, and we are therefore trapped in Afghanistan, unable to “win” the war and equally incapable of cutting our losses and exiting; we will waste bodies and coin for years to come.

The ruling class in Washington cleverly keeps the true costs of our foreign adventures off the books, but the bottom line is that the capital we are pissing away in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan should be invested in rebuilding our country.

The sclerotic, paralyzed, and corrupt state of our politics isn’t helping matters, either. Forget for a moment the absurd Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, and instead consider the political strategy of the Republican Party. At every turn the GOP says, “No.” Not “maybe,” not “subject to discussion,” not “we’re willing to negotiate,” but flat out “No.” The only policy the GOP will support is tax cuts and obscene amounts of spending on the military-security complex.

Not that the majority Democrats are any less ridiculous. In the Clinton Era they abandoned their traditional constituencies in favor of bribes from corporate America, and now Democrats more often than not sound, look and smell just like Republicans.

To make the political landscape even more toxic and surreal, the mainstream corporate media takes people like Sarah “No-Brains” Palin seriously. Did you hear her rambling speech at the Tea Party convention? One tired, worn out conservative orthodoxy after another tumbled out of Palin’s mouth and the audience lapped it up like she was the second coming of Dutch Reagan.

I hate to admit this, but Palin is so vapid that she makes Reagan look like an Ivy League intellectual.

Palin is the poster child for what Hunter S. Thompson called America’s “downward spiral of dumbness.”

In the same breath, and with no sense of contradiction, Palin advocates that government level the playing field for average Americans AND get out of their lives; she proposes a “market” economy AND “small” government; tax cuts AND big spending on our war machine. It’s as if Palin and her clan have been living in an isolation chamber for the past decade.

Note to Sarah: Bush/Cheney tried that circus act and we are reaping the dire consequences.

I can’t take Sarah Palin seriously and for the life of me can’t understand why anyone does. On the other hand, I’m sure there were plenty of Germans who thought Adolf Hitler was a harmless crackpot right up until the time his henchmen torched the Reichstag.

The state of collective denial in this nation is stunning, but at least there’s a company in Delaware that manufactures a fine shower curtain rod.