“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.
