The Isolation Diaries No. 20

“And then we realized that the separation was destined to continue, we had no choice but to come to terms with the days ahead.” Albert Camus, The Plague

Numbers, again, reported in various media, approximations of the damage done: more than 32,000 dead, 22 million unemployed. 

I go into the quiet school district office where only a few people from the technology department are working, handing out iPads to parents. The contractors replacing the HVAC system practice a loose style of social distancing, and none of them wear masks. The men’s room on the second floor stinks and the sink is streaked with soot. I have time-sensitive tasks to accomplish, and then some interviews via Zoom for a vacant accounting position. Riding my bike home a few hours later I wonder if we will see food shortages; a few of my colleagues had talked on email about a shortage of flour. 

When I return home the sun is high and bright. A tree company is working at the apartment complex to the west of our triplex, chainsaws whining. An hour later the gardeners arrive at our place and fire up a gas-powered leaf blower. Chainsaws on one side, leaf blower on the other, a discordant, aggressive wall of sound. I see that we are out of almond milk, almost out of yogurt, getting short of coffee, and out of bananas. We have to make a shopping run again. I should start a list, but don’t because I’m distracted by the sound of the chainsaw; the sound makes me angry and I want it to stop, but it doesn’t. It lulls for a moment, then starts again. 

On Spotify I listen to a hip-hop artist named Polo G: “all gas, no breaks.” I think this describes my country, the human race, and definitely our capitalist, plutocratic rulers. Look at Trump, all he cares about is putting the pedal to the floor, fuck the fact that his engine is gushing oil. Trump is Captain Queeg. Or Ahab. I ask myself when Republicans in Congress will wake up and take the wheel from Trump’s inadequate grip. Haven’t they seen and heard enough? Or is there nothing Trump can do or say that will force the scales from their eyes? Madness has been normalized, the bar lowered, the doors of the asylum thrown open. Trump, the cornered pretend strongman, threatens to force Congress into recess so he can make political appointments of more unqualified hacks and sycophants. 

On social media I see that my acquaintance, the author Nomi Prins, is taking part in an online event with the journalist Greg Palast. Topic: the 2020 Election. Will it even happen? I don’t know. Palast, who has done excellent reporting and movie making about systematic voter suppression and dark money in politics, believes that Trump has already stolen the election. 

You may dodge Covid-19 this time around, only to contract it down the road. I imagine the kids returning to school in August in face masks. 

At six o’clock in the evening I hear the peal of church bells, a sign that we are still here, and I think of little towns and villages in medieval Europe.  

Introverts who do extroverted things. This thought comes to me, and I jot it down to think about some other time. I also think I would enjoy observing a conversation between Zadie Smith, Arundhati Roy, Jesmyn Ward, and Yaa Gyasi. Whatever these women talked about would be interesting, different, more insightful and soulful than the claptrap I hear on MSNBC or see on social media. All I know is that the powerful are more than willing to sacrifice the lives of those beneath them. They make no secret of this. They use the media to fan the fires of impatience and many in Ohio and Michigan respond, demanding a return to business as usual, an end to social distancing and shutdown businesses; they raise a middle finger to caution and prudence. Again we hear, “the cure can’t be worse than the disease.” I think, again: America has lost its moorings, lost its soul, lost its fucking mind. We’re incapable of learning, incapable of questioning, incapable of rational thought. 

Around midnight I am awakened by the sound of my daughter crying. She’s having an anxiety attack. Terry goes to comfort her. 

Camus, again: “Most people were chiefly aware of what ruffled the normal tenor of their lives or affected their interests. They were worried and irritated -- but these are not feelings with which to confront plague.”

Waiting on the Ghost of Edward R. Murrow

“Capitalism is like poisoned honey. People swarm to it like bees.” Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Hypocrisy is lodged deep in the American character. We proclaimed that all men are created equal, but put millions of African men (and women and children, too) in bondage; we freak out over the possibility that Russia interfered in our election process, as dubious and corrupt as that money-drenched process is, when the US has for decades interfered in the elections of nations around the globe; we spend more money on the military and intelligence services and domestic security than any country on earth, and yet our president loses his shit over the possibility that a few hundred Central American refugees might “overwhelm” our border.

If you get your information about the world from the American corporate media, you might believe that the only major problems we face are high taxes (always too high), threats from Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, Putin, Robert Mueller, and Stormy Daniels. Poverty, racism, perverse and destructive income inequality, climate change, Fukushima, the murder of unarmed peaceful protesters by the Israeli army, not worth covering. It’s all spin and counterspin, PR flackery, truth-killing, obfuscating statements from nitwits like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and fawning servility from people who call themselves journalists. Superpower? The world’s most wonderful democracy? Land of the free, home of the brave?

The drums of war are beating again. Trump threatens to pull the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, while Bibi Netanyahu, the corrupt and murderous Israeli Prime Minister, makes a hyperbolic presentation suggesting that Iran is poised to seize control over the entire Middle East, and wipe Israel from the map. Never mind that Israel has a nuclear stockpile, plus the unequivocal support of the US military, Iran is the key threat to peace in the region. Forget the fact that the JCPOA appears to be working, and that Iran is said to be complying with its terms, Trump still wants to pull out and make Iran pay a terrible price, whatever that means. Trump obviously hasn’t troubled himself to read the JPCOA or have someone explain its basic terms to him with graphics. I doubt Trump could find Iran on a map.

Short Takes:

Trump is now apparently denying that he had sex with former adult film star “Stormy Daniels,” though the Orange Menace clings to his accusation that Daniels violated a non-disclosure agreement. If Trump and Stormy didn’t do the big nasty, why was an NDA required?

I came across this quote in Ibram X. Kendi’s brilliant history, Stamped from the Beginning: “Faced with an empty national treasury, erratic trade policies, international disrespect, and fears of the union falling apart…” this was America in 1787. Sounds familiar.

What became of all the furor over Trump’s tax returns? Is the IRS “audit” of his returns completed? If not, this must be the longest and most comprehensive audit in the history of the IRS.

Trump seems to have a very difficult time securing competent legal representation. On the other hand, what self-respecting lawyer would want anything to do with a man who lies about everything, all the time, and whose closet is stacked with skeletons?

Congratulations to our friend, Nomi Prins, on the official release of her new book, Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World. Nomi is a wonder.

Trump's Royal Scam

“But some of us are not content to have a gap in opportunity and income that drives a wedge between rich and poor, causing the rich to become ever more callous and complacent and the poor to become ever more wretched…” Alice Walker

With every Trump Cabinet or advisory appointment I become more convinced that we are in for an orgy of crony capitalism. As if the oligarchs needed more power than they have already, corporations, hedge fund managers, the finance, insurance and real estate industry, and resource extractors, will wade into the public sphere up to their chests, and squeeze even more private gain from public assets.

Trump is loading his Cabinet with millionaires and billionaires, characters like Trump himself, who believe the rich are better and more deserving than the rest of us. Because of this belief, the Trump Gang will hardly bother to disguise their intentions -- they will simply pillage our nation, impoverish our future, and exacerbate human caused climate disruption. Of this I have no doubt. We are in for at least two years of staggering rip-offs and ethical malfeasance.  

Nomi Prins, a writer who knows a few things about Wall Street, calls Trump’s Cabinet picks one of the great bait-and-switch jobs in US history. Like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama -- and Hillary if she had prevailed in the undemocratic electoral college -- Trump says one thing and does the exact opposite. For instance, he talked a lot about bringing jobs back to America, and then nominates for Secretary of Labor a corporatist hostile to workers in general and what’s left of organized labor in particular. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were masters of this bait and switch, gifted orators who made you think they understood your problems, pain, anguish and hopes, so much so that you hardly felt it when they plunged the dagger in your back.

Trump is more direct, less polished and urbane. Trump embodies the worst traits of the capitalist system -- an insatiable hunger for money and power, a hunger that recognizes no boundaries or limits, a hunger incapable of regulating itself.

Someone, I think it was Chris Hedges, said that regardless of who sits in the Oval Office our corporate system functions quite independently, pursues similar neoliberal policies designed to either protect the wealthy from taxes and regulations or transfer money to the wealthy. The challenge for the rest of us -- if we are to mount a credible resistance -- is to critique the system of power and wealth concentration, not the personalities the system vomits up. This will not be easy because the corporate media rarely -- very rarely -- allows any critique of American-style capitalism. Instead, capitalism is deemed to be the only possible system, as sacrosanct and unassailable as the notion of American exceptionalism.

The concentration of wealth into few hands over the past 40 years has strangled our democracy and rendered millions of people disposable. The Trump Gang will deepen our class and racial problems and immiserate even more of our citizens in misery.

Hold on, it’s going to be ugly and mean.