The Nadir of the American Republic

“But that boundless blind faith is beginning to fade now.” Hunter S. Thompson

My head aches. I listen to bits of the House impeachment proceedings, then read about them on my usual outlets -- Truthout, Truthdig, The Nation, Counterpunch, Politico, Democracy NOW -- and try to make sense of it all. What’s abundantly clear is that the Republicans have sold their souls and their children and their pets to Trump, and can no longer even be described as a political party. Noam Chomsky has said numerous times that the current GOP is a criminal organization. When it comes to the Orange Menace, they see no evil, hear no evil and speak nothing but nonsense. Naturally, the blowhards and miscreants over at FOX News spin and slant their coverage to make it appear that the Democrats are throwing punches but not coming close to landing a glove on the innocent Trump. 

It amuses me to hear Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, talk about how the State Department attempted to school the newly established Ukranian government in anti-corruption practices. Coming from the United States -- whose Representatives and Senators are, with few exceptions, purchased, owned and operated by corporate interests, and whose foreign policy history is rife with coups, election interference, regime change operations, spying, invasions, assassination attempts and other malfeseance -- this is laughable, like a convicted pedophile priest teaching sex ed to teenage boys.  

When I think of American corruption, I think of the silky smooth rhetoric of Barack Obama, who couched the power plays of the American empire in words like self-determination, democracy, liberty and justice, and then turned around and authorized targeted assassinations in Afghanistan or wherever else he felt US power needed to be demonstrated. Measured, reasonable language and a Sidewinder missile is how America has always preferred to operate its Empire. The Trump Administration is completely different, of course, crude, clumsy and overt, the shiny facade ripped away to reveal the base intent of Empire (or is the objective now only to enrich Trump and his family?), which is, lest we forget, to thwart global rivals, control natural resources and markets, put down popular uprisings, and justify ever-increasing contributions to the Pentagon war machine. 

The divide in this country, between reality-based citizens and those who dwell in the FOX News ecosystem, is now so deep and broad that I fear America is finished as a representative democracy. We’ve reached such a nadir the two political parties cannot even agree on the most basic facts. If Adam Schiff asserted that Abraham Lincoln was 6’4” tall in his stockings, Republicans would immediately accuse Schiff of inflating Lincoln’s height, Tucker Carlson would call him the biggest liar in American history, and Sean Hannity would devote an entire show to “Height-Gate.” No republic can survive in this atmosphere, not when the economy is primed to implode and the impact of anthropogenic climate change is accelerating by the day. 

Here’s a dim and not very original prediction. The House will impeach Trump on a party-line vote and the Senate will acquit him, also on a party-line vote. If the economy doesn’t implode between now and election day, Trump will lose the popular vote, again, but prevail in the undemocratic Electoral College, again. Four more years of Trump will spell the end of America as we’ve known it. If you can think about that without feeling a sharp pain in your lower intestine, you must be very wealthy, stone dumb, or high on the most potent chemical concoction Big Pharma can come up with. 

A Synthetic Scandal: Ilhan Omar & AIPAC

“That victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat.” James Baldwin

Maybe AIPAC, the powerful Israel lobby, doesn’t directly buy political favors in the way the NRA does, but that doesn’t mean that politicians from both parties aren’t influenced to  outright support AIPAC’s aims or remain silent about them for fear of landing on the wrong side of the lobby. And you can see by the hysterical reaction to Ilhan Omar’s comments about AIPAC how quickly bipartisan indignation and righteousness gets ginned up. How dare this first year congressperson from Minnesota criticize AIPAC! The temerity. Naturally, anti-semitism must be Omar’s motivation. What else could it be in our black and white world?

Omar apologized but you can bet money that she will be forever fighting the anti-semitic label, which is one way AIPAC wields influence. On their best days, Washington D.C. politicians are a pusillanimous lot, and for the majority of them the idea of crossing AIPAC is about as welcome as a colonoscopy. Get smeared with the anti-semite brush and you can kiss your career goodbye. An AIPAC endorsement can spell the difference between winning or losing an election or reelection bid. And it hardly matters if the charge is baseless. You just can’t criticize Israel, period. You can’t compare AIPAC to the NRA though they both practice and benefit from influence peddling. You can’t bring up the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank without having anti-semitism thrown in your face. I can think of no other nation in the world that can squelch even the mildest criticism as quickly as Israel can. The Israeli Defense Forces shoot and kill unarmed Palestinian protesters without consequence. This is a fact, not an anti-semitic statement. I don’t contest Israel’s right to exist as a nation and have security for its citizens. I don’t question the reality of anti-semitism in the world; it is real. I do question whether Israel has a right to forcibly expel Palestinians from their land, wall them into pitiful enclaves, restrict their freedom of movement, torch their olive trees and take their water, or strangle the life out of them in Gaza; I also question the Netanyahu government’s support for democratic values.

But just try having this debate in the United States, or Britain, for that matter. You can’t. No critique of the government of Israel is allowed. The subject is off-limits. The second you raise the question of the Palestinians you are deemed to be hostile to Israel, and if you’re hostile to Israel you will be chased from the editorial pages of the New York Times, from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and all the rest. You will be silenced. Ask Angela Davis or Mark Lamont Hill. Ask Noam Chomsky. Ask Jeremy Corbyn. Ilhan Omar is in good company.

MJ Rosenberg, a contributor to the Huffington Post, wrote the following: “AIPAC uses the same tactics as the NRA to ensure that the United States never deviates from support for whatever policy the Israeli government is pushing at the moment.” It’s assumed that Israel’s foreign policy objectives are indistinguishable from those of the United States, and that the United States will always, and forever, provide diplomatic cover and military aid to Israel.

Donald Trump has called for Omar to resign over this synthetic scandal, a ridiculous thing for him to say but hardly unexpected from the most corrupt person to ever inhabit the White House. Less than two years ago Trump was apologizing for neo-Nazi’s who chanted “Jews will not replace us!” Pelosi and others in the Democratic Party leadership have extracted an apology from Omar, that’s enough. Like the NRA, the fossil fuel lobby and Big Pharma, AIPAC uses all the means at its disposal to influence the United States government on behalf of Israel. This is a fact and nothing to apologize for. If supporters of Israel are so certain of their righteousness and morality, why are they afraid to engage in debate and discussion?

Liar, Liar, Earth on Fire

“The Republican Party stands alone, in terms of rich countries, in its blatant denial of climate change. This is why Noam Chomsky correctly calls them the most dangerous organization in human history. The Democratic Party, their hapless and willing enablers, are a close second.” Nick Pemberton, writing in Counterpunch.

Fires in Northern California. Fires in Southern California. Fires in Greece. Fires in the Arctic Circle.

The grass in Hyde Park in London is brown.

Floods in Japan. Floods in the Northeast of the U.S.

“Extreme weather” say the talking heads on Corporate TV. Rarely do their masters allow them to utter the forbidden words, “climate change.”

If Mother Earth could bring a legal case against the Trump Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress, every last one of them would be found guilty of criminal stupidity and gross negligence. At a time when the earth is sending us a clear and unequivocal message, giving us a taste of what is to come, our government ignores and denies the obvious evidence and in fact makes everything worse. Much worse. The weather around the world isn’t just extreme, it’s deadly.

It’s too late. The oceans will rise, fires will burn, millions will flee. We haven’t seen anything yet. We will pay, dearly, for our hubris, our greed, our venality.

The Democrats would rather talk about Russia. Day and night, through fire and flood, Russia, Russia, Russia; evil Russia, diabolical Russia, cyber-attacking Russia. Russia at dusk, Russia at dawn, Putin this and Putin that. The Russian threat to our glorious democracy, which is hardly a democracy at all. It’s as if Russian troops were massed near the US-Canada border, a daily provocation, rather than the truth: NATO forces have squeezed up to Russia’s borders for years, another broken promise. Who threatens whom?

We need our bogeymen to keep the war profiteers content. Russia. Iran. North Korea. And if we can’t find an enemy, we’ll just create one. Watch out for Venezuela, they have it in for us.

Sane voices are drowned out in the daily cacophony of idiocy and spectacle. We’re going down, days numbered, nights finite. We had our chances to amend our ways, but ignored and shunned the prophets and silenced the scientists. Nobody but ourselves to blame.

Fire and flood. Run to higher ground and all you will find is a mountain of ash.

A Nation of Racketeers

“The current situation of the United States is obscene, insane, and incredible. If someone had pitched it for a thriller novel or film a few years ago, they would’ve been laughed out of whatever office their proposal made it to because fiction ought to be plausible. It isn’t plausible that a solipsistic buffoon and his retinue of petty crooks made it to the White House, but they did and there they are, wreaking more havoc than anyone would have imagined possible, from environmental laws to Iran nuclear deals.” Rebecca Solnit

The most amusing thing I notice in America’s slow (but gathering speed) political, economic, and moral collapse is how many people still consider the Democratic Party a viable counterweight to Trump and Trumpism (which I define as endemic corruption, incompetency, and utter disregard for and ignorance of the Constitution and the rule of law), despite evidence that the Pelosi/Schumer Democrats are inept, timid, and devoid of any principles except serving their corporate donor base. At this point, can anyone reading these words tell me what Democrats stand for? Because I have no idea. The lessons of Hillary Clinton’s loss stood out like New Year’s Eve in Times Square, clearly visible to all -- with the exception of corporate Democrats.

In a recent piece for Truthdig, Chris Hedges wrote of the Democratic Party: “It is deaf, dumb and blind to the very real economic suffering that plagues over half the country. It will not fight to pay workers a living wage. It will not defy the pharmaceutical and insurance industries to provide Medicare for all. It will not curb the voracious appetite of the military that is disemboweling the country and promoting the prosecution of futile and costly foreign wars. It will not restore our lost civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom from government surveillance, and due process. It will not get corporate and dark money out of politics.”

We face an urgent need to restructure our economy in a manner that slows destruction of the biosphere, but the Trump Administration is moving full-speed in the opposite direction, toward the abyss where our addiction to fossil fuels is taking us.

Here’s what Noam Chomsky had to say on this subject recently: “One cannot overemphasize the astonishing fact that the most powerful country in world history refuses to join the world in doing at least something -- in some cases a lot -- about this existential threat to organized human life (and to the species that are disappearing as the Sixth Extinction proceeds on its lethal course). And beyond that, is devoting its efforts to accelerating the race to disaster. And no less astonishing is the failure to highlight, even to discuss this extraordinary situation. Considering what is at stake, it is hard to find a historical parallel.”

We face an urgent need to end our perpetual wars on the Muslim world, and to drastically curtail mindless military spending, but no, our glorious, bloated and insatiable military is sacrosanct and untouchable.

We face an urgent need to provide healthcare for all citizens based on need, not bank account. Our for-profit insurance system kills people, bankrupts people, and leaves far too many with no care at all. Placing medical decisions in the hands of insurance company profiteers is insane.

We face an affordable housing crisis that is devastating communities and leaving even lower middle class citizens in a precarious situation, forced to devote a higher percentage of their incomes to keep a decent roof overhead.  

We face a multi-faceted political crisis caused by too much money, too many lobbyists for corporations and oligarchs, outright bribery, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a two-party system that leaves millions of voters with no choice whatsoever. Tweedledee or Tweedledum isn’t a choice. A lack of independent news media plays into our political ignorance and dysfunction. The corporate media, dominated by cable, distorts, obfuscates, confuses, and, mostly, fails to do any meaningful reporting on climate change, the real economy, and international affairs like Israel’s murder of unarmed Gazans.

Short Takes:

Rest in peace, Philip Roth. You leave us with Portnoy, Zuckerman and David Kapesh, and some of the most beautiful prose ever produced in American literature.

NFL owners, all but two of whom are white and wealthy, have decided to prohibit their largely African-American labor force from taking a knee (or doing anything else) in protest during the national anthem. Compulsory patriotism, as Davie Zirin, sports editor for The Nation calls it. As far as I’m concerned, NFL players have the right to express their opinions in whatever way best gets their message across; they don’t cease to be citizens when they walk on the playing field or the court. Seems that the intent of the owners is to placate Trump and at the same time assert control over labor. White NFL fans can’t handle it when African-American athletes assert their human rights.

Chelsea Football Club won its 8th FA Cup trophy last weekend, salvaging some pride from a season that more often than not felt dull and dismal. No sooner had the team lifted the trophy than speculation about Antonio Conte’s future began in earnest. Will the Italian remain or leave, has he torched the bridge connecting him with the club’s board? Still unknown, though most fans are leaning towards Conte’s departure. Blowing through managers is a Chelsea FC staple. By August, the club’s make-up will likely look very different.

The veneer of civilized debate and democracy, of respect for tradition and American values, has been ripped off like a tin roof in a hurricane, revealing the corruption that has been there all along. The class war is long over, the rich won, and now nothing can hold them back. America: a nation of racketeers, by racketeers and for racketeers.

Year of the Jackass

“I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed.” Donald J. Trump, speaking to the press on January 14, 2018.

There’s no point in deconstructing the many racist comments that Donald J. Trump has issued in his first, calamitous year in the White House. From the Muslim ban to the idiotic border Wall, the man is a racist and white supremacist, end of tale. The shocking thing to me is the craven reluctance of Republicans to exercise their constitutional duty and hold Trump accountable. As long as Trump is useful to Republicans, they will continue to shield him from the criticism and censure he deserves. This is a lesson in cowardice and hypocrisy that should not be lost on the public. As Noam Chomsky often says, the GOP is no longer a political party -- it’s a quasi-criminal organization, a gang of looters.

The news moves fast these days and trying to keep pace with Trump’s lame tweets and inane pronouncements (most of which are flat out lies) is futile, and the corporate media offers little help because nearly all reporting is devoid of context, history, and perspective; one can’t honestly learn much of use about this country or the world from the mainstream corporate media. As Chris Hedges frequently points out, the corporate talking heads are not journalists as much as they are courtiers, sucking up to the powerful in exchange for access; they support the ruling class rather than oppose it. It’s a sad state of affairs that has been building for many years, ever since media ownership consolidated into fewer and fewer hands -- all of them corporate -- and the corporate masters demanded that news divisions turn a profit. This trend moved in lockstep with the neoliberal notion that every facet of American life could be commodified, sold, traded, or squeezed for profit: health care, education, freeways, prisons, housing, and so on.

A strain of bad juju is loose in our land, felt most acutely by people of character, soul and heart, traits missing from the Republican mafia and the Trump White House. Destructive cruelty, mendacity, ignorance, and arrogance rule. Who but Donald J. Trump could make George W. Bush look, not only competent, but eloquent and coherent by comparison? It’s still very difficult to accept that the President of the United States is an ignorant, lazy, asshole with the mental capacity and attention span of a fourth grader. Of course there have been terrible presidents in American history -- Trump isn’t the first ignorant racist to hold the office, but he is the stupidest man to reign in the nuclear age, and his denial of the reality of climate change borders on the criminal.

If Hunter S. Thompson were alive to witness America’s descent to bonafide banana republic, he would surely load a pistol and blow his brains out. The first year of Trump has been, as HST might say, a King Hell year of complete degradation. It didn’t take Trump long to drop his pants and piss all over the tomb of the American Dream.

Trump’s erratic behavior and sheer incompetence are not laughing matters, as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson recently pointed out: “The nation has never faced a situation like this: It is unwise to take literally or seriously anything the president and his official spokesmen say. An administration with no credibility cannot possibly lead.” Bingo.

Hold on world, year two of Trump is about to launch. I guarantee you it will be the Year of the Jackass.