The Blue Trickle

“The three richest Americans now have as much wealth as 50 percent of the population -- some 160 million people.” Katrina vanden Heuvel

Although voter turnout for last Tuesday’s midterm election was the highest it has been in nearly half a century, millions of eligible voters didn’t bother. The Blue Wave didn’t materialize -- journalist Abby Martin called it a Blue Trickle -- but the Democrats will assume control of the House of Representatives come January, which means they will have the power, if allowed by Nancy Pelosi to wield it, to issue subpoenas and investigate Trump’s financial records. This possibility may be the reason Trump attacked reporters at a White House press conference on Wednesday and demanded Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions’ resignation. The country isn’t on the brink of a Constitutional crisis -- it’s immersed in one and has been since Trump repeated the oath of office and then began to make a mockery of it.

Some positives came out of Tuesday’s election results, with the detestable Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, being booted from office, and Mr. Voter Suppression, Kris Kobach, losing his bid to become Governor of Kansas. Stacey Abrams is still in the Georgia governor’s race. Millions of ex-felons in Florida got their eligibility to vote back, a fact which will have implications in the future. And perhaps most significant of all, more than 100 women will serve in the US House of Representatives.  

But Tuesday also told a story about America’s utterly decrepit and corrupt voting system, which isn’t a system as much as it is a patchwork that differs from state to state. My polling place here in California was busy, but I had my ballot in less than five minutes. No lost voting machines, missing power cords, my polling location wasn’t mysteriously changed the night before. My name hadn’t been purged. When a local or state government actually wants people to participate in democracy, it’s not that complicated a process. But when a state government, like Florida, Michigan or Georgia designs to make voting as tedious as possible, it’s not that hard to disenfranchise people. Ironic that the United States, which for decades lectured other nations about democracy and fixed elections, needs the United Nations to observe its elections to insure they are fair and free.

The 307th mass shooting in the US in 2018 happened on Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, south of Santa Barbara. The shooter was an ex-Marine. We hear the usual “thoughts and prayers” sentiments, but I have yet to hear anyone propose a link between the shooter’s military service in a bogus war and his murderous actions. Our endless, unjustified wars have consequences.

Imagine the outcry from the Right if Barack Obama had treated the White House press corps the way Donald Trump does? Mitch McConnell and Sean Hannity would be absolutely apoplectic, screaming about the First Amendment and the sanctity of a free press in a democracy. They would demand apologies, make the circuit of the TV news gabfests talking about the need for civility in our political discourse; they would accuse Obama of being divisive, of undermining the Constitution, of destroying the nation.  

Meanderings

“Politics used to be a simple, predictable con. Every four years, the money men in D.C. teamed up with party hacks to throw their weight behind whatever half-bright fraud of a candidate proved most adept at snowing the population into buying a warmed-over version of the same crappy policies they’ve always bought.” Matt Taibbi, Insane Clown President

>America’s Afghanistan Scorecard (Courtesy of Robert L. Borosage):

Cost of our 16-year-long war: $117 billion (No wonder we can’t afford free tuition at public colleges!)

Americans killed; 2,400

Americans wounded: 20,000

Cost of equipment for the Afghan Army: $11 billion

Afghan casualties: 225,000 (but who’s counting and who cares?)

>Every time I buy something from Amazon I feel guilty. I hate contributing to Amazon’s dominance, making the company bigger, more profitable and influential because I know how ruthless Amazon is, how bad for manufacturers, book sellers, and workers. It’s the same feeling I get when my son comes home from H&M with a bag of clothes made in India or Vietnam. He sees affordable garments; I see young women chained to sewing machines. I am a participant in a deadly system. Fuck!

>Trump in Poland, protected by bulletproof Plexiglass, banging on about how Western civilization is under attack and in danger of being overwhelmed. By whom, exactly? Anyone who isn’t like Trump, white and ostensibly Christian? Pure Steve Bannon horsehit. Disturbing echoes of the Nazi party too, but apparently music to modern Polish ears. Build walls, hunker down, lock and load, drive out any person who looks, acts, or seems different. Here’s what I know for sure: I’m not worried about Western civilization, I’m worried about civilization, period, and Donald Trump is a real and present threat to civilization.

>When Trump and Putin sit down for a chat perhaps Putin will school Trump on how a real strongman crushes the media.

>The water canons, drones, helicopters and stun grenades came out early for the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. Pesky protesters! The world’s economic masters will show them who’s boss.

>Never forget that the elites who rule and run the world have a dim view of democracy. Too messy, too unpredictable. Coming out of the 1960’s, America’s wealthy decided that the hippy freaks had had their day and it was time for corporations and the business community to reassert and reaffirm that the business of America is business, profit-making, unfettered capitalism. For the elites, exploitation of people and natural resources was their birthright. While hippies and Flower Children faded into the mainstream, and the Democratic Party began to abandon its core constituents, the right wing of the Republican Party started staging a corporate coup, now largely complete. Keep an eye on Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and head hitman on Trump’s absurd election commission. Kobach is a master of voter suppression and he wants to do for the entire country what he did for Kansas, namely, kick eligible voters of color off the voting roles. Journalist Greg Palast has done some good reporting about Kobach. Where does the GOP find these scary fuckers?

>The things he left behind. Six steel tape measures of various lengths. A coffee can full of nuts and bolts. Fishing tackle. Three circular saws, a jigsaw, two portable drills, four socket sets, a telescope, myriad hand tools, pocket knives, safety goggles, two metal toolboxes, a small American flag, a walking stick, an underwater camera, fins, rubber booties, an air compressor, a snake for unclogging pipes, a pair of orange traffic cones, and more, bits and bobs, odds and ends, but none of it told the complete story of the man, my father-in-law, an immigrant from Mexico.