A Walk to the Park - Part II

I’m just back from a walk to Franceschi Park. From our front porch to the parking lot of the park took 31 minutes at a reasonable pace, with only a brief stop or two to enjoy the view of the city. I had my phone but didn’t listen to music or podcasts. I’m trying to provide myself a respite from news, information, sound bites about American democracy or the situation in Ukraine or which Chelsea attacking players are said to be at odds with the manager. Enough. Poverty, injustice, cruelty, and stupidity. Same goes for you. I need a break. I worked the last three days at the Market, one day shift, two closing shifts, during which I walked nearly 40 miles and put in 24 commuting miles on my bike. Didn’t get up until eight this morning, late for me. A body needs rest. Ahead of me near the top of Garcia Road I saw a worker carrying his tool belt in his right hand and his lunch pail in his left. His body language told me he was tired after a long day. No weekend for him, just a short respite and back to it. I see that same look at the store in some of my co-workers, the guys and ladies who work in areas that are short staffed, like the meat department. More times than not, their workday goes on for twelve hours. Most of us always have one eye on the work and the other on the clock. 

I’m reading a book called Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Prize winner who until recently I had never heard of. This is why I remain an unpaid book reviewer. I can’t even pretend to have read broadly or deeply enough. But this novel is so brilliant it makes my head spin. The voice telling the story is that of a master of pace, dark humor, and memory. Heavy moral and ethical subjects written about with a sly humor, and always, a knowing. 

The other book I’m reading is To Govern the Globe by historian Alfred W. McCoy. It’s weighty like Chronicles, but in a much different way. McCoy’s subject is empire and world orders, and his range of analysis is the past half century of human history. Empires like that of Spain and Portugal, and later Britain, with outposts in exotic, foreign locations; wars of conquest for church and crown giving way to wars between sovereign nations that included colonization and the radical racial theory that legitimated the enslavement or murder of thousands of human beings. A world order organizes an entire age, not precisely, but as a prevailing ethos, like the Iberian idea -- backed by the Catholic Church -- that to the conqueror went the spoils, including total dominion over the conquered. Great book. British rule of the Indian subcontinent has always fascinated my imagination, the circumstances that made it possible for so few to assert control over so many for so long. I’ve heard Alfred McCoy on podcasts and seen him on Democracy Now, and he’s always concise and direct in his analysis. He has some trenchant things to say about the future of the American world order. (Spoiler alert: it’s coming to an end.) He’s worth listening to. 

I put a book by Rebecca Solnit called Orwell’s Roses on my radar. 

In terms of my own writing, I published one review at California Review of Books this month, and two pieces for my Medium page. I admit to getting caught up in the anxiety and anticipation of views, reads, and reaction from others, but I usually remind myself of the hundreds of things vying for our attention these days, sunup to sundown, from the latest must-have deals to what’s hot on HBO. Is it trending? How many likes? What’s the hashtag? It’s exhausting. My fiction project hit a stall, as if the breeze on the sea suddenly ceased and the sails drooped. While I was walking it occurred to me that though the story is coming clear to me, I still do not know who is telling the story. I don’t trust my own voice, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I don’t know what my voice sounds like. I think I’ve stumbled upon a structure that might connect all the scenes in my head. We’ll see. My labor of love, failure, and hopefully, learning. I try to get better at things. 

As I was riding past the Old Mission the other night around 10:30, I heard the yipping of coyotes, a loud chorus that I haven’t heard in such volume in a long time. The sound echoed in the heavily wooded canyon. Nature. I’ve been working on composting, experimenting with opening the tumbler to air it out as much as possible, because it’s too wet and smells rank, a sign of excessive moisture. Composting food waste and watching its slow decomposition, then spreading it around our yard, turning it into the soil with a long-handled trowel, is very satisfying to me. From a very young age I loved gardening. There’s wisdom in it. I need to get my hands in dirt on a regular basis. 

And sometimes I find I need to just be, where I am, fully present in the moment. It’s the toughest discipline. 

Alpha & Omega

 “Stories trap us, stories free us, we live and die by stories.” Rebecca Solnit

Why read the ramblings of an aging White American male, resident of Santa Barbara in the Once Great state of California? Fair question. Why write them? Better question. Everything is fair game at the minute. Excuse me while I empty the contents of my brain. Come along if you are inclined. We’ve been in our new digs for a month. It seems longer for some reason, like the physical movement of our household, be it only a block, had the effect of slowing time down. It was two and a half weeks before we had sorted the upheaval enough to be somewhat comfortable. Thinking back on those first couple of weeks, and my reaction to it, only reminded me of how fortunate I am at this moment. Millions of people on this damned planet do not have the luxury of being inconvenienced. We all saw that during the height of the pandemic. Many of us haven’t perceived the true damage wrought by Covid. Takes time, and a bit of distance to see clearly. (That’s my view, anyway, but maybe I put too much stock in the virtue of wisdom. Doesn’t naked ambition and blind greed run the table every time? Isn’t that what history tells us? Wisdom, that’s from the age of chivalrous knights, the warrior kings of old.) And fewer people would be inclined to walk away from a job that pays what mine does, but that is what I have decided to do at the end of June. It’s something I have thought about, off and on, for more than a year. The smart thing would be to suck it up and stay in harness; the right thing is to call it a career. Doing the right thing has most of the time served me well, led me to something else. It’s in no way a true retirement because I intend to continue working, just elsewhere, and in a different environment. I have worked almost my entire life, all kinds of jobs, and I still want and need to work, but what I don’t want is the daily pressure of dealing with other people’s issues, sitting through endless meetings, sorting annoying problems, always grinding, which is what I do at the moment. That, and much more, though I have been very well compensated for my efforts. I’ve never complained about the compensation; the battle for me was keeping boredom, frustration, and cynicism at bay. My career at the local school district has treated me well, and I’m leaving at the moment that feels right to me. But under no illusions, either. It’s going to be tight financially until I find something to do for money, and my wife finally moves on to better paying employment. She works hard and makes next to nothing at her job, exchanging low pay for flexible hours and the ability to work remotely. She’s ready for a change, too. I’ve got medical coverage until September, but then it’s off to anxiety land, buying health insurance through Covered California. My biggest peeve about this backassward nation is that we’re so weird about the commons. Every human being will need medical care sooner or later. It’s as fundamental as clean water and food. A civilized society should be able to agree on that, at the very minimum. Personally, I’d pay higher taxes for universal health care. Call me crazy. Most European nations make this arrangement work, it’s only in this country that rigid adherence to ideology makes it politically impossible. 

An end, and then I hope a new beginning, what I’m thinking of as the third phase of my life -- bring what it may. I’ve had incredible luck, good health, and a strong wife at my side. I’m forcing myself to stay in the present moment, not wander two months ahead and What If. I see it as taking a temporary step off the treadmill. What a luxury. It’s in considering how fortunate I am to have these options that my thoughts drift to places where survival is a perpetual struggle and decent choices are few. It’s a greedy world. America is a greedy nation. Always has been. Designed to be so. But I don’t think it speaks well of our country when there are people living in tents on the sides of our major freeways. It’s a sight that always jars me. Human lives shouldn’t be disposable. Seems like we often treat animals better than we treat people.

I’d rather not think about the political situation in America. It’s worse than it looks, of that I’m sure. One party is attempting -- and largely succeeding -- in choosing its own voters while excluding as many others from voting as possible. That’s part of it, but the GOP is also enshrining its powers relating to election law all over the country. That’s the more critical piece. First, prevent certain people from voting. Second, make sure their votes don’t count even if they manage to cast a ballot. A collision is coming. When a political party refuses to bow to the will of the voters and peacefully relinquish power according to the law, it has crossed over. The GOP is straddling the line, but by very little. After Trump, they understand that victory can be had by not conceding defeat. Don’t concede defeat, and you win. 

What a month this has been. I seem to be doing everything backwards. Moving into more expensive digs while at the same time walking away from my job. To top it off my beloved Chelsea Football Club won the Champions League title on Saturday, defeating Manchester City by one goal to nil. It still feels like a dream. The Blues put in a top performance against a City side that looked the favorite to lift the trophy. Big accomplishment for the club and manager Thomas Tuchel, who in less than a month beat Pep Guardiola three times. After a couple of poor late season performances -- against Arsenal in the Premier League, Leicester City in the FA Cup Final, and away at Aston Villa to close out the campaign -- Chelsea conspired to put together a complete performance, first minute to last. A very sweet victory, and some redemption for Kai Havertz, the young German who joined Chelsea for a record fee but started the season slowly. Havertz scored the match winning goal near the end of the first half. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 6

“Nobody can know the full consequences of their actions, and history is full of small acts that changed the world in surprising ways.” Rebecca Solnit

I think fourteen days have passed since the World Health Organization declared the Coronavirus a pandemic. The death toll in the United States passed 1,000 yesterday. A month ago, Donald J. Trump said the number of cases was going down.

According to the Santa Barbara Independent, there are 26 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Santa Barbara County. 

My thoughts ricochet around like a .45 caliber bullet in a metal drum, from personal concerns like our TP supply, to thoughts about my job, money, staying healthy ourselves and hoping our friends and relatives remain healthy, to larger concerns about the long-term effects of this pandemic, and, because I can’t restrain myself, obsessively tracking the dismal response by the ruling class in general and the Trump Gang in particular. 

I’m watching too many segments of MSNBC on YouTube, reading too many news sources, checking Facebook too often. I feel it taking a psychic toll. In the midst of a pandemic the President of the United States doesn’t divert from his tried and true playbook: boast, brag, blame, and whine. 

Where are the Democrats? Day after day the people hear from Trump at his propaganda briefings, and naturally the word from the Malignant One is rosy, on the upswing, America is rising like the proverbial phoenix. “Nobody’s done the job we’ve done,” Trump says. Have you noticed how many times Trump describes his telephone conversations with governors and corporate CEO’s as “great“? The conversations are great if the governor or CEO first praises Trump, kisses his flabby white ass. “As we near the end of our battle,” Trump said yesterday, as if we’re at the end of the pandemic rather than the early stages of what may very well become a long siege. CEO-types and CNBC and Fox News yakkers pound the drums for a return to business-as-usual. Our fuedal lords are eager to send the serfs back to work. I fear that Trump -- by virtue of the Big Lie technique, the constant repitition of false or misleading statements -- is winning the narrative war. 

Lacking a Democratic response from Reality, many citizens -- if polling is reliable -- believe Trump is doing a fine job. In times of crisis, a sitting American president typically sees a bump in his approval rating, as George W. Bush did after 9/11. Prior to 9/11, if you remember, W was a little boy lost, wandering in circles with his pants down and snot hanging from his nose. It’s a normal response to support the president, who many people view as the embodiment of the government and nation, but how any one can watch Trump sputter, spew and lie, and believe the man gives a shit about the public welfare, is beyond my ability to comprehend. Trump is concerned about Trump, his re-election bid, his company, his resort properties, the stock market. Trump has enough functioning gray matter left (or maybe it’s feral survival instinct) to know that he will not win re-election if the country is mired in a depression, and unemployment is 25 or 30 percent. 

Trump found time to ridicule Senator Mitt Romney on Twitter, calling Romney a RINO (Republican in Name Only), after Trump learned that Romney tested negative for the Coronavirus. Even in this dire situation, Trump can’t muster an ounce of class. 

Trump lied yesterday about the extent of Coronavirus testing. While testing in the US is increasing, as it absolutely must, when viewed in proportional terms, we still lag behind the rest of the world. As the BBC reported, South Korea with a population of around 50 million has tested 1 in 150 people; the US, with a population of 330 million or so, has tested 1 in 1000.

No, Trump, we’re not winning. You’re calling the race over while the country looks for the starting line. You’re hawking the dangerous idea that the worst is behind us. The morgues are filling up in NYC, and healthcare workers there are wearing garbage bags as protective gowns.  

As I write this, unemployment claims in the US have surged to 3.3 million. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones has gained 1,158 points. Let this sink in. What does it tell you about what -- and who -- matters in America? 

Here’s a question: are you willing to risk your health, and possibly your life, not to mention the health of your family, friends and co-workers, for Donald J. Trump’s re-election? Because Trump is clearly willing to gamble our lives for his political advantage. 

Let that sink in, too. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 3

“Why? Because there was no money to be made in being prepared, in making test kits we might not need, in having unprofitable community hospitals remain open merely because they serviced low-income neighborhoods. COVID-19 is why we needed to be prepared, needed to protect everyone behind a stout medical infrastructure free from the profit motive, but all of that went by the boards because ‘healthcare’ is a commodity to be traded like petroleum, and for pennies on the dollar.” William Rivers Pitt, Truthout

The bread aisle at Whole Foods is bare in the late afternoon, and only a few people at a time are allowed in to shop. I find some lettuce, asparagus, and almond milk. I forget that we need eggs, but I’m not sure any were available. The frozen section is picked over, though I find some broccoli. Near the check out aisles there are tape lines on the floor to remind people to keep their distance. Some customers wear masks. Some wear latex gloves. We are still not greatly inconvenienced, but it’s fair to say that resupplying has become more difficult, requires more planning and forethought. 

According to the Santa Barbara Independent, there are now 13 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the County. 

I listen to On Being with Krista Tippett. The episode is a repeat of her 2017 interview with the writer, historian and activist, Rebecca Solnit, one of my favorites. Solnit has a knack for tracing social roots back to when the seeds were planted, and for naming the hands from which those seeds fell. When she thinks about how social change is made, Solnit takes a long view, decades in some cases. In this interview, she talks about the 1989 earthquake in the Bay Area, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, how people, often complete strangers, came together to offer mutual aid in a time of mutual emergency. We see the same sense of cooperation and solidarity now, in this time of enforced isolation. Solnit’s point is that a crisis like a hurricane, earthquake or pandemic more often than not brings out the best in people, we rise beyond our daily preoccupations with ourselves, we reach out, lend a hand, extend ourselves to strangers who are in the boat with us. This spirit of community often baffles social Darwinists who believe human beings are incapable of cooperation. 

In a pandemic, survival of the fittest depends on survival of the most vulnerable. 

More full bore BS from Trump. His goal is obvious: by dint of repetition he’s trying to change the story of how the Covid-19 has gone down. He doesn’t care about what happens on the ground to millions of people, as long as he can make his followers believe his version of the story. Autocrats, even one as incompetent as Donald J. Trump, rewrite history. 

Here’s a fine example of a Trumpian word salad from March 2: “A lot of things are happening. A lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.” Meaning? Nothing, nothing at all, these words only fill empty space. What “exciting” things have happened in the past twenty days? 

Get down in the cracks and crevices, read between the lines, connect the dots, find the pulse, take the baton, the sword or the torch. 

What we do today matters. 

1000 Days of Madness

“If we are not currently an authoritarian nation it’s thanks in part to the insubordinate spirit of a good deal of the American public and the underlying confidence behind this relative fearlessness.”  Rebecca Solnit

1,000 days of the madness of would-be King Donald I. At times it feels like a bad dream and I long to snap wide awake and breathe a sigh of relief that Trump never happened except in our imagination. The idiocy, cruelty, venality and mendacity is almost too heavy a burden. When we look back at this period -- if the republic survives and what remains of our institutions hold -- one question that must be answered is why many of our fellow citizens followed Trump, believed in him, and thought he was doing good for the nation. Any conscious, sane person who listens to Trump for more than a minute should reach the conclusion that the man is nuts, insane, a sociopath. I don’t think all of Trump’s supporters and followers are bad people, but I do marvel at how misinformed they are.

Trump is P.T. Barnum on crack. 

Has Trump made us stupid or did we make Trump because we are stupid? During the reign of George W. Bush the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson often said that America was trapped in a downward spiral of dumbness. W. Bush, now being rehabilitated as a kindly nitwit, seemed the epitome of elite decay, a man buoyed by his family name and connections and wealth, a serial fuck-up who always landed on his feet, smiling, a faux cowboy. Donald J. Trump makes George W. Bush look eloquent by comparison. I never thought I would see that. Trump doesn’t have as much blood on his hands as Bush does, not yet anyway, but who knows if he manages to escape impeachment and scandal and win another term via the undemocratic Electoral College. 

As we saw this week, any translator who has to make sense of Trump’s gibberish is in a most difficult spot. “The Kurds have sand, a lot of sand. More sand than is good for them. Lot of sand, too much. It’s hard to imagine so much sand. You can’t believe it. Sand everywhere. Gets in your shoes and your hair. Hard to get the sand out of your hair. I’ve got great hair, the best hair of any American president, ever. Very soft, very shiny, it’s beautiful, my hair, my great and unmatched hair.”

1,000 days of madness, drifts of BS up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, Abraham Lincoln turning in his grave, George Washington sobbing uncontrollably as King Donald tramps over the republic. This can’t be happening, yet it is. It’s not a dream. Trump and the fourth string crew who surround him are becoming more and more blatant and defiant of every norm. Wholesale disregard for the Legislative branch. Total disdain for the rule of law. This is dangerous territory. 

The Real American Divide

“Now it seems exhaustingly obvious that what’s happening to refugees, to the climate and the biosphere, to the poor under hypercapitalism, is a vicious disregard for their rights and humanity, and that some of the men perpetrating public brutality are monstrous in private is a given.” Rebecca Solnit

The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges has warned for years about the corporate takeover of the American state, but because Hedges is, for all intents and purposes, banned from mainstream media outlets, his warnings go largely unheard. 

I bring Chris Hedges up because South Dakota recently passed two laws to make protesting the construction of oil pipelines a crime. Eight other states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois are considering similar measures. Think about this for a moment: energy extraction companies -- keen to avoid another Standing Rock -- flush with lawyers, lobbyists and cash, use the power of the state to make public dissent a criminal act. By passing such laws, under euphemistic titles like The Infrastructure Protection Act, the state prioritizes corporate interests over public welfare. This is, or should be, astonishing, but I would wager that most Americans are completely oblivious to such affronts to democracy, let alone the environment on which we all depend. 

Robert Reich recently wrote that the divide in America isn’t between the left and the right, it’s between the oligarchs and the rest of us. He’s correct. The oligarchs, the ruling class, the elites, call them what you want, have been on a 40-year roll, a grand neoliberal economic project of low taxes, privatization of public services, monopolies, scant regulation, and endless military conflicts. They have gutted America’s manufacturing base, decimated organized labor, made it legal to buy politicians (see the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling), and organized an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the many to the few. 

Grotesque income inequality leads to political inequality and political inequality makes it nearly impossible for citizens to exercise agency when it comes to protecting the environment, voting rights, reproductive rights, or stopping the Pentagon from sucking up almost half of all federal government revenue. Neoliberalism has been a spectacular success for the few, and an unmitigated disaster for the many. This is blatantly obvious, but look how both political parties cling to the tenets of neoliberalism. Only Bernie Sanders, and to some extent, Elizabeth Warren, come close to offering a critique of this system that is inexorably destroying our environment and what remains of representative democracy. But none of the bumper crop of Democratic presidential candidates dare to name the real villain: unregulated capitalism. 

And that’s the other factor about the oligarchs -- they set the boundaries of debate, what can be discussed, and what topics, like catastrophic climate disruption, will be studiously ignored. Capitalism itself is never questioned, it’s the only system on offer, the sole possibility, even if it ultimately renders this planet uninhabitable. 

It seems to me that neoliberalism has also stunted our collective imagination. The mass media (owned by a handful of corporations), the universities, the think tanks, all reinforce the dominant narrative of free markets, fossil fuels, imperialism (in the name of freedom and democracy, naturally), and the dangerous idea that the unbridled accumulation of wealth and power leads to virtue. It never has and never will. 

The Sniveler

“Inequality creates liars and delusion.” Rebecca Solnit

Last week I flew up to Oregon to visit my brother who lives in Tillamook. We drove to Astoria, spent one night, and early the following morning crossed the bridge over the Columbia River into Washington, headed for the Olympic Peninsula. Over three days we made an arc from Port Angeles to the Quinault River, stopping along the way in little towns like Forks, where we visited a timber museum, and the lodge at Lake Crescent. The creator, whoever she is, went a bit crazy in this part of the world, creating breathtaking vistas, towering trees and abundant water, hills shrouded in mist. So much beauty you run out of awe. Seeing my brother again was wonderful, and I felt the ties of blood as I never have before. Actually brought me to tears, something that doesn’t happen very often. If you were to ask me why I cried I couldn’t tell you. Although Santa Barbara is holding to its beauty like an old pageant winner and remains a fine city to live in, it was good to get away and see new scenery, different people, container ships on the Columbia, big log trucks jamming down the highway on their way to mill, guys fishing for salmon, dairy cows, old barns, verdant pastures.

Sadly, my sense of renewal and peace quickly faded, this being, after all, Trump’s perverse America, where, according to the Orange Menace, we are winning on every level and becoming great again, where truth is put to the sword every single day, and an unqualified sniveling prep-school prick like Brett Kavanaugh is elevated to the highest court in our land by a gang of Republican mobsters.

Come one, come all to the kangaroo court, behold aging white men as they cast judgment on a brave woman who had lost before she ever sat down to speak. Revel in the tyranny of the minority. 30% of the country dictating how the game will be played by the other 70%. As a father, as a man, as a citizen, I feel powerless, invisible, and irrelevant. Who represents me and my values? Nobody. What do I want? That’s easy. Justice. Fairness. A more equitable distribution of riches. A balance of power. Respect for the environment, and a realization that there is more to life than accumulating money and stuff, that there are limits and natural laws we cannot ignore.  

I didn’t watch the Kavanaugh circus, knowing that it would only infuriate me, but I caught some of Kavanaugh’s remarks via Democracy Now, his poor me and my family routine, we are broken by false accusations, it’s a left-wing conspiracy on behalf of the Clinton’s, and so on, the usual tropes of the whack-job right. Kavanaugh showed no class, no judicial cool, confirming the old saying that the higher a monkey climbs, the more he shows his ass. (Apologies to monkeys.) This charade will result in Kavanaugh’s confirmation, no doubt, proving, again, how busted American “democracy” really is. Then the fun will begin -- for the rich and powerful, the corporations, the crazy evangelical Christians -- but not you or me, my daughter, your sister, the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Here’s an interesting tidbit pointed out by Thom Hartmann on his radio program. Back in 2000, during the Florida recount and shenanigans that gifted the presidency to George W. Bush, there were three lawyers deeply involved on behalf of the GOP: John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Two of these jokers are sitting on the Supreme Court now. The third amigo is about to join them.

The leaders of the world laughed at the President of the United States this week. Laughed at his hubris, his fantasy world, his phony accomplishments, his bluster and stupidity. In this bizarre time certain things bear repeating: Donald Trump, aside from being an idiot, is a failed human being, devoid of empathy, compassion, and decency; the Republican Party is a political party in name only, it is actually a criminal organization; deregulated capitalism is killing the planet; it has been decades since US elites feared the public.

Wisdom, courage, justice and moderation are almost non-existent in America. This week proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

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.

Smash, Grab, and Don't Look Back: A Looting on Pennsylvania Avenue

“Nobody can know the full consequences of their actions, and history is full of small acts that changed the world in surprising ways.” Rebecca Solnit

You’re going to hear this a lot over the next year or two from Trump and his handlers and enablers: The tax reform we passed in 2017 is the single greatest piece of legislation in American history! It returns more money to the middle class than any tax cut ever has, and it insures that small businesses and family farmers will not lose everything they’ve built when they die.

And blah, blah, blah, and many other lies, too. If there is any good economic news to be had -- not to fear, it won’t be news of real jobs being created, industries returning to the Ohio River valley, or wage growth, it will likely be the rising stock market, fueled by corporate purchases of their own stock (with the money they are not paying in taxes) -- the GOP will say that the tax cuts are the reason. And if the economy runs off the rails, the talking points are already written: Obama’s fault, naturally, the black guy who wasn’t even a real American left the country in a mess. (In any case, Obama’s two terms are being erased, goodbye ACA, the Iran Nuclear arrangement, the Paris Climate Accord, rules to protect the environment, regulate the banks, etc.)

Trump will undoubtedly begin comparing himself to FDR and LBJ, claim that his tax cuts are as great an achievement as the major parts of the New Deal, and way better than the Civil Rights Act, and that it was all done to help the little guy.

No mention will be made that the GOP-controlled House and Senate rammed these bills through the legislative process like thieves during a blackout: backroom, closed door meetings, favors exchanged, promises made, no public hearings, shoddy analysis, lines of corporate bagmen lined up in the halls for their share of the spoils, flat out lies in the press. The GOP wins because it cheats -- it cheats to get elected through gerrymandering and voter suppression, and it cheats when it controls the levers of power.

Has fucking the American people over ever been so easy?

When the Democrats controlled both houses during the first Obama term the Republicans contorted themselves to block, delay, derail, and undermine Obama’s legislative agenda -- tepid as it was -- even though Obama had what Donald J. Trump will never have, a legitimate mandate from the electorate. All’s fair in love and politics. Shoe now on the other foot and as these disgraceful bills moved I heard nary a peep from the Democrats about the corrupt process.

Oh yeah, for a year or two the propaganda is going to come thick and heavy, laced with deadly, mind-numbing, truth-obfuscating BS. The attacks on Social Security and Medicare will come, the huge burden of these “entitlement” programs (paid for by worker contributions, so technically not entitlement programs at all) will be blamed for bankrupting the nation, ruining our credit standing in the world, our competitiveness, the deficit! Only one possible solution -- strict austerity for the slovenly poor and wage earning class. Cut, cut, cut. The war machine, energy extractors, lords of finance, and the wealthy in general will be exempt from the austerity blues, of course, walked around the velvet rope and right into the VIP section, bitching about the profligate ways of the unwashed masses as they go. Gilded, baby, gilded everything.

The people knew this was coming. Destruction is all Trump and his mafia can do. They cannot build, erect, create, or imagine anything but violence and destruction. They are pirates loose in port, drunk, crazed, rabid, horny, and mean; they’ve got the keys to the armory, the courts, and the treasury, no one to answer to, nothing to slow their roll. In the time it takes to pour a flagon of rum half the town will be in flames.

History says Trump and the GOP will overreach, go too far, grab too much, and the pendulum will swing back toward the safe center, where capitalism, militarism, and imperialism reign. We can change the hands on the levers, a good, necessary step, but until enough Americans realize that we must change the game if we are going to have any chance of surviving climate change and every ill this man-made threat brings in its wake, just changing the party in charge won’t get it done.

A society is reasonably just if its people don’t have to die for access to health care, decent housing, meaningful jobs at living wages, courts that act independently of politics and ideology, education, food, assistance when disaster strikes, and a fair opportunity to address their legitimate grievances.  

Get ready, people, hard times are coming.