The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 5

“We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man we shall be safe.” Frederick Douglass

America, are we tired of winning yet? According to Trump and Pence, and that skinny bitch who calls herself a Press Secretary, Covid-19 is on the decline, jobs are returning in droves, and the economy is on the rebound. Trump’s poll numbers are perfect. The nation has at long last achieved racial equality. The climate crisis is solved. Every American is housed and cared for. It’s all beautiful, tremendous, fantastic, never been done before, the world has never seen, people are saying...

To repeat what I’ve said before: we’re fucked, royally fucked. It’s more than Trump, of course, it took decades for the rot to take hold, for Money to define our lives and worth as human beings, for Money to flood and corrupt the political system, and for the whims, desires, and needs of corporations to take precedence over the needs of the people. It took several decades to render organized labor insignificant. It took 40 years of relentless, slick propaganda to get people to believe that solidarity was in fact tyranny, that the Market God was just and fair. It took far less time to devalue -- even more than they were to begin -- the lives of black and brown people, and anyone who was different and therefore dangerous. The neoliberal system had a wicked answer for that, too: a lucrative carceral state, much of it run by corporations and Wall Street investors. Just add black and brown bodies for delicious profits.

 It was 9/11 hysteria, hubris and hypocrisy, that launched the disastrous, money and body-sucking War on Terror. War on a tactic, against ever-shifting enemies, with no boundaries and no end. Forever war we call it now, as if it’s perfectly normal for a country to be continuously at war or preparing for war. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, swaths of Africa. We are never short of enemies. What does the Pentagon need more than anything else? Enemies, credible or not. Communism. Radical Islam. Venezuela. Al-Qaeda. Iran. 

...an era so perverse and corrupt that when 2016 rolled around a fraudulent fool named Donald Trump, a failed businessman, a serial adulterer, a tax cheat, who appealed to the worst in people, got burped up.

The militarization of American police started in the 1990’s if I recall right, and accelerated thereafter under Republican and Democratic regimes, and almost in tandem with our global war on jihadis. As time passed, more and more military equipment was gifted to the states from the Pentagon surplus, and American police resembled their brothers and sisters in the Armed Forces. War abroad, war at home -- the American Way. 

Police protect property, that has always been their role in America. It started with the Slave Patrols that hunted two-legged property, and continued during labor strikes, the Civil Rights era, and every social upheaval since. Police, as we have witnessed repeatedly of late, from coast-to-coast, look like occupying forces and treat peaceful exercise of a Constitutional right as a criminal activity worthy of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, horses, SUV’s. 

War abroad, war at home -- the American Way. 

Fucking disastrous. I need a beer, maybe two. It’s going to be a long night here in Santa Barbara Town, home of the laid back wealthy and the frenzied working poor, partially shut down again by order of the Governor. No bars or inside dining. Beaches open (but gatherings prohibited), beach parking lots closed. 

California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, among the states where Covid-19 veers beyond control. Public health authorities are largely on their own, abandoned when the Orange Menace tossed the towel in and claimed victory. Red state governors, desperate to put their loyalty to Trump ahead of their constituents, turned a stone ear to public health professionals. Came out of lockdown ahead of the pack, opening bars, restaurants, parks, nail salons, barber shops, pool halls, gyms, hardware stores, a magnificent show of hubris and stupidity. 

Lords of a hollow kingdom. But they will ride it down to the very end, into the fiery pit. 

What was the point I was working toward? Yes, the neoliberal, Free Market God, put-a-price-on-everything, privatize everything, cut taxes, then cut them again, and again, squeeze the working poor, crush the poor, saddle kids with education debt, an era so perverse and corrupt that when 2016 rolled around a fraudulent fool named Donald Trump, a failed businessman, a serial adulterer, a tax cheat, who appealed to the worst in people, got burped up. He was good for TV ratings. He promised tax cuts and radical right-wing judges. He promised to vanquish the limp-wristed Liberals who ate artisanal salads and drove electric cars and thought they were superior to Real Americans. He declared war on immigrants. 

How we are paying for our sins. The Trump Death Clock records 76,669 deaths from Covid-19 that could have been avoided if Trump had acted earlier. But of course the Orange Menace didn’t act, he denied, deflected, downplayed, and dithered in the face of overwhelming warnings. Had to protect the stock market and his reelection chances ahead of public health. Trump is a sociopath. And the entire GOP still bends over for him. 

My brain feels like a pinball machine. Mental overload. I may need some Irish whisky. What fresh insanity will come with the rising sun? This is Trump & Pence Land, a beautiful, prosperous, safe, devotional, and above all, white place, where the sun is always shining and the stars burn bright at night. The picket fences are white. The lawns are trimmed, weeds pulled, American flags on display. Walk into someone’s home and the first thing you see is a Bible. Mr. and Mrs. Jones may have a chest of sex toys in their closet, and cheat on their taxes, but in Trump & Pence Land they are as pure as Sierra Nevada snowmelt.  

We’re not winning. We’re the world’s basket case. Look at the numbers of Covid-19 infections and deaths. Look at the economic calamity, the worst of which is yet to come. 

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.  

Seeing the Contours

“The color is innocent enough, but things with which it is coupled make it hated. Slavery, ignorance, stupidity, servility, poverty, dependence, are undesirable conditions. When these shall cease to be coupled with color, there will be no color line drawn.” Frederick Douglass

One

I compost kitchen scraps and leaves and clippings in a medium capacity plastic composter in our backyard. One of those drum composters, with two compartments and rollers that allow it to be spun. I’ve composted in our narrow backyard for years, in bare piles and homemade bins fashioned with scrap wood and chicken wire and, until it fell apart, a plastic bin from Smith and Hawken that was my mother-in-law’s. The drum is the best composter yet, even though the aperture is a bit small. I like the idea of turning waste into fertilizer. Seems like a good metaphor for life. It takes time to make fertilizer, some patience and care, just as it takes time for the contours of life to start making sense. What I mean is that it takes time to learn to see the contours, how they fit together. It’s easy to miss a lot of signs along the way. What seems monumental today may be meaningless further down the road, and the apparently meaningless might turn out to be monumental. 

Two

The real criminal types aren’t satisfied with taking over a street or village or city. Real criminals think much bigger. They take over governments and entire countries, fix the laws for their own benefit and the benefit of their compatriots and collaborators. Hasn’t this always been so? 

Three

My congressman, Salud Carbajal, put his finger to the breeze begun by others with more courage, and only voiced his support for the impeachment of President Trump when it was safe to do so. Political pragmatism, I guess. Courage is more admirable in my book, especially when the most fundamental principle of representative democracy is at stake. Even while we watch Trump take hammer and chisel to the integrity and legitimate authority of the Legislative branch, Salud waited, hesitated, calculated. On the question of whether the chief executive is immune to, exempt from, and above the law, Salud followed the herd, but only when it was politically safe to do so. Not exactly a profile in courage. 

Four

Fiesta time in Santa Barbara. For some, a time to remember the city’s Spanish and Mexican origins, for others it’s all about commerce, hotel occupancy rates, bed taxes. We saw some of the parade on State Street, men on horses waving and calling out, “Viva La Fiesta!”, horse-drawn carriages or wagons hauling local bigwigs. Ladies on horseback, their colorful dresses flowing, flowers in their hair. Little girls in traditional dress tossing flowers into the crowd lined along the street. Horse hooves clip-clopping on the pavement. The image that stuck with me was of a vaquero holding an American flag. I imagined the days when State Street was packed dirt and Fiesta was a much smaller, more local affair. Progress. Maybe. 

Five

We used to think big in America. Send a man to the moon and bring him back safely. Eradicate poverty. Establish the Peace Corps. Now we think small. Once we had confidence, now we’re afraid, all the time, of shadows and just about everything else. What happened to us?

Six

I’m reading Sam Shepard’s last book, a slim volume called Spy of the First Person. Just finished Stony The Road by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.