Argentina Wins the World Cup

 “This World Cup arrived courtesy of Western commercial capital and FIFA. The blood stains their hands as well.” Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin, The Nation 

Super Bowl games and heavyweight title fights don’t always live up to their hype. Not so the 2022 World Cup Final between Argentina and France. The last match of a tournament that saw upsets in the group stages, late goals, penalty shootouts, Croatia knocking Brazil out, and Morocco making an improbable run to the Semi Finals, delivered, and then some. 

It was the best this beautiful, worldwide sport has to offer. The devotion and passion of fans along with the grit and skill of the players. The drama. The twists and turns and heart-stopping suspense, wild swings of emotion, from joy to despair in a matter of seconds. No other sport comes close. It’s what sets football apart.

For 75 minutes, Argentina completely outplayed France, dominating  the midfield, winning almost every duel, pouncing on every loose ball, and defending with an intensity that left France struggling to cope. It was a clinic of tactics and execution. A penalty from Lionel Messi and a stunning team goal on a counter-attack saw Argentina with what looked like a comfortable two goal advantage with fifteen minutes to play.

What happened thereafter will go down in World Cup history. After Kylian Mbappe converted a penalty everything changed for France. The players’ body language was revived as if all of them had received an injection of adrenalin. Within 90 seconds, Mbappe struck again with a bit of incredible individual skill and the match was suddenly tied at two goals apiece. Now it was Argentina’s turn to look dazed. This was a scenario they had seen in the Quarterfinals against the Netherlands, when a comfortable two goal lead vanished in ten minutes; that time Argentina escaped, winning a penalty shootout, but this was the Final against the defending champions. 

Near the end of the first period of extra time, Lionel Messi scored, and it looked like it might be enough to pull Argentina over the line for the first time since 1986. But in the second period Mbappe converted another penalty, giving him a hat trick and pulling France level. 3-3. 

Penalty shootouts are nerve wracking, gut wrenching affairs, full of psychology and mind games, and sometimes even the best penalty takers falter. Look what happened to Harry Kane when England and France tangled in the Quarterfinals. I thought Argentina would have an advantage because France’s goalkeeper, Hugo Lloris, isn’t known as a great penalty stopper, unlike Argentina’s keeper, Emiliano Martinez. Sure enough, France came out on the losing end, 4-2.

France gave everything. Making it to the final of the World Cup two tournaments in a row is a feat of which the French can, and should, be proud. 

But it’s impossible not to feel happy for Argentina and Lionel Messi. The country has faced tough economic times the past several years. For Messi, bringing the World Cup trophy home completes his set of football achievements. The diminutive magician has won everything, individually, and for club and country. As far as I’m concerned, Messi is the greatest player of the modern era. 

This World Cup was phenomenal, but while I loved the matches I can’t forget the enormous human cost; thousands of workers died building the facilities and infrastructure. According to Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin, the financial cost landed in the neighborhood of $220 billion. Writing in the Nation Boykoff and Zirin observe:

“So why did Qatar do it? This World Cup shows that authoritarian, unchecked power can launder surplus capital—the mega-event reportedly cost some $220 billion—into reputational capital. “

One of the commercials on the Fox network boasted about Qatar’s progress and modernization, and its integration with Western institutions, including the US military. That seems a dubious endorsement. Suffice to say that a tremendous amount of money was spent, made, and splashed around. Now that Qatar has all these beautiful facilities, what will it do with them? 

Many Questions, Few Answers

 “Instead of a feel-good ‘touting accomplishments’ campaign, Democrats should rip into the GOP with a warning that America’s future is at stake. Because it is.” John Nichols, The Nation May 16-23, 2022

Maybe we need to think of the world as might the late novelist John LeCarre, as an interconnected web of power, relationships, ideologies, and mutual interests, global and individual rivals jousting for advantage, influence, money, and the raw power to order things as they desire. I have many questions and few answers. Who is running the world? Who are the global movers and shakers so wealthy they can hire private security forces, fund their own intelligence-gathering apparatus, murder rivals with impunity, and control the media? The de facto head of the Saudi monarchy, Mohammad bin Salman, gave Jared Kushner $2 billion with few strings attached. Why? In payment or repayment for what? Where do the interests of MBS and Jared Kushner intersect? Where did Donald Trump go on his first official state visit? Saudi Arabia. Illuminated globes and sword dancing, remember?  

What did Putin and Trump talk about for ninety minutes in Helsinki in 2018? 

Why has MBS been able to evade responsibility for ordering the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Why is Julian Assange wasting away in jail, in one of the cruelest instances of state torture I’ve ever lived through. When was Assange, a journalist, last a free citizen?

After the election of 2016 and the unthinkable happened, how many contacts were made between Trump campaign officials and representatives of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Russia? How do those contacts relate to Putin’s decision to launch his Ukraine war this year, the price of oil, and the money laundering Saudi Arabia and the UAE are doing for Russian oligarchs. How is Putin funding his war? We need a bare white wall and a pad of Post-It Notes, like in the detective thrillers, to chart the web of relationships, channels, companies, governments and safe havens. It’s an interconnected world, particularly when money is involved. 

The Israeli Defense Forces have murdered a well-known correspondent for Al-Jazeera, Shireen Abu Akleh. She was shot in the neck by an IDF marksman. The US provides the usual amplification of Israeli government denials, and will insure there will be no consequences. That’s how this special relationship works. Total immunity. 

When Trump was president he was always boasting about how America had achieved energy independence, producing so much surplus oil and gas that we were exporting it. Where is that independence now, when the price of gasoline hovers around $6 a gallon? Do you think the price is being manipulated? Let me put the question a different way: do you trust Big Oil? 

With another spare white wall and additional Post-It Notes, we could chart all the individuals charged with crimes, convicted of crimes, or pardoned who played a role in Trump’s 2016 campaign and his four disastrous years in the White House. This would make for an interesting visual. Trump’s own family members would be heavily represented. 

I imagine the funeral of Donald Trump. Who will attend, speak, bow their heads, cry? Will millions of people wait in long lines to view the dead man, as millions did when Juan Peron died in Argentina? Will it be a sea of red hats or only a smattering? How many will rejoice that this privileged, incompetent, and demented scourge has finally departed this earth? I know where I will be, and with whom. 

74 Million Reasons to Worry

 “Since the time of Reagan, the American economy has ridden waves of speculation -- in real estate, in information technology, in mortgages, and now in real estate once again -- each leading to a bust.” James K. Galbraith, The Nation

One thing is for certain: the West is treating the carnage, destruction and refugee crisis in Ukraine very differently than it did when the victims were Afghans, Syrians, Yeminis and Somalis. What accounts for this? Is it because Ukranians, by and large, resemble us and pray to the Christian God rather than Allah? Or does the West consider the lives of Ukranians more valuable and worthy of our concern and compassion? Afghanistan is a ruined country, and a forgotten one as millions of its people face the possibility of starvation. Most of the world yawns. 

How does Tucker Carlson -- the poster boy for hysterical white grievance -- get away with spouting pro-Russian drivel on Fox News? Commerce, of course, advertising revenue based on his devoted audience. As long as Carlson attracts eyeballs to screens he will be allowed to continue spewing nonsense like a busted sewer pipe. 

Reports in the corporate media indicate that Russian forces are targeting civilian targets in Ukraine, a charge that Russia denies as fake news. Apparently, any video footage coming from Ukraine that is critical of Russia or evidence of war crimes, has been doctored. Sounds to me like Putin plays the same PR game as his pet and protege, Donald J. Trump. Meanwhile, Biden is doing his best to thread the needle by keeping NATO on the sidelines while he authorizes billions in military assistance. If only it was as easy to fund health care and education for all Americans. Funny thing about war spending: it always receives swift approval and is exempt from all accountability for how the money is spent. No cost-benefit analysis or means testing, none of the hurdles faced by any initiative to assist the poor or needy. War is better for business. 

Remember when the Soviet Union collapsed and there was talk of a “peace” dividend? No? Can’t blame you because it lasted about a minute and was quickly forgotten after 9/11 and Bush/Cheney’s global War On Terror. That blunder cost trillions of dollars, caused thousands of civilian casualties and a refugee crisis, and no one was held accountable. George W. Bush paints and slides into dementia, Dick Cheney clings to life, and people like David Patraeus are invited to prognosticate on cable news programs. What did America get for its “investment” of several trillion dollars? We practiced torture abroad and cruelty at home (we incarcerate more people than any nation in the world), our economy is obscenely tilted in favor of the wealthy, and our political system is a dysfunctional farce. The GOP is so far up Trump’s behind that it didn’t even bother to offer a platform in 2020; whatever Trump wanted was the platform. We demonize the poor and less fortunate. Naked racism is on the rise, greenlighted after five years of Trump. We praise the stupid and villify the intelligent. We’re afraid to look in the mirror and confront our nation’s history. Intolerance is on the march and it comes packing heavy heat, thanks to the perversion of the 2nd Amendment. How long before it turns really ugly? Listen to the rhetoric, the explicit calls for violence. Do you think it will simply dissipate, like fog? I don’t. Malevolent forces are loose in our land and closer than we think.

What happened to the criminal referral for Mark Meadows on charges of contempt of Congress and those highly anticipated public hearings about January 6, and the various probes into Donald Trump? Swept aside by Ukraine and rising gasoline prices. This Congress will run out of time and the work of the January 6th committee will probably never see the full light of day. DOJ will abstain from prosecuting Trump on the pretense of not wanting to divide the nation. Besides money, you know what destroys democracy? Cowardice. If you think these are the delusions of an overwrought old liberal keep in mind that Donald Trump received 74 millions votes in 2020 -- after being impeached, after bungling the federal government’s response to the Covid pandemic, after embarrassing the nation time and time again on the world stage, after all the scandals, after all the lies. 74 million of my fellow Americans saw all that and still voted for Trump. The question for the ages is how can so many people be so stupid and irrational? 

That’s why I must conclude that we are well and truly fucked, as Hunter S. Thompson might say. 

Million $ Road

“Certain habits of mind -- distinguishing between arguments and opinions, admitting self-doubt, rethinking assumptions -- are imperative for collective life.” Andrew Delbanco, The Nation

According to a report issued by Zillow, there are 500 cities in America where the average cost of a home is one million dollars. Astronomical housing prices have been a fact of life in my hometown of Santa Barbara for as long as I can remember, including the day back in the early 2000’s when I wrote my local legislator to oppose a housing development on what had been a small urban farm; at that time, the homes were projected to start at $500,000. That was only the beginning. Inventory is scarce as ever and rents are punishing for working folks. We gave up on the dream of home ownership a long time ago. 

My favorite place to walk is Garcia Road, which starts right across the street from our bungalow, and winds up and up to the Riviera. Garcia is a quiet street with limited traffic, lined by multi-million dollar houses, many of which have spectacular views of downtown and the harbor, and on clear days, the islands in the Santa Barbara Channel. On a recent walk on a day filled with warm sunshine, I felt the sun on my back and heard birds chirping in the trees. I considered all the good fortune I’ve experienced in my six decades of life -- five of which have been lived here -- and felt, not gratitude as much as astonishment. For every person like me, basically content, healthy, how many are like the African woman I read about in The Nation who made a 6,500 trek from her home country of Cameroon to Brazil, through Central America and Mexico, and finally the United States. After coming to the attention of the security forces back home she was arrested and repeatedly raped. She could not stay in Cameroon, her only option was to leave, to go into the unknown. I try to imagine what it must feel like to be forced to undertake such a desperate journey. And that was just one woman’s story, one that happened to gain the attention of a journalist. What about the thousands of forced migrants whose stories will never be known? In the years ahead, as climate change and political unrest make life untenable in more and more places, the world will see more migrants, refugees, and displaced human beings. As far as I can tell, we have no plan to deal with this eventuality. 

I don’t know if unregulated capitalism kills compassion, I suspect it does, though perhaps not at the individual level, because I often see small acts of compassion; it’s at the collective level where scores of human beings are deemed disposable or unworthy. After everything I’ve experienced, studied, read and lived through I shouldn’t be surprised that my country is more willing to build armaments and prisons than schools and hospitals. It shouldn’t surprise me that providing even basic medical care for its citizens is simply a bridge too far or that the American government can break Afghanistan and then blame the Afghan people for their demise. Dig to the root of all of it and you find money. America coddles its wealthy and punishes its poor and still has the audacity to refer to itself as a Christian nation. 

It’s too much sometimes and I feel an overwhelming sadness and sense of powerlessness. Should I just close my eyes and ears and live my comfortable life, convince myself that I deserve my comfort? Should I not notice the homeless person sleeping in the alley behind the motel on State Street, on a night when the temperature dipped into the low 40’s? Should I ignore the lost and broken souls I see around town? 

Some fifty years ago we made the Market our true God and Profit our King. Ever since we’ve busied ourselves slapping a price sticker on almost every aspect of our lives. Unregulated capitalism is cruel, and in the wrong hands wicked. 

"Legitimate Political Discourse"

 “If fossil fuel corporations are allowed to continue heating the planet, mounting food and water scarcity could well induce civilizational decline.” Daniel Sherrell, The Nation

Another week in the open-air asylum that is America. The Republican Party censored two of its members, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, for doing their sworn duty and upholding their oath of office. Pause and allow that to sink in. The Republican National Committee then, believe it or not, called the riot of January 6 “legitimate political discourse.” Sit with that for a moment as well. This is the stuff of which authoritarian regimes are made. Absolutely fidelity to the Great Leader, and belief in fantasy. Is it legitimate discourse when five people die, hundreds of law enforcement personnel are injured, and the seat of our democracy is damaged and desecrated? Is this what the Party of Lincoln calls “legitimate political discourse”? If Dwight Eisenhower was on the scene today, he’d be booted from the GOP. Hell, back in the 1950’s the John Birch Society claimed that Ike was a communist. The nutty fringe is now firmly in the mainstream. Thank you Koch family. Thank you Roger Ailes. Thank you Rupert Murdoch. Thank you United States Supreme Court. 

Stop the presses, Mike Pence said publicly that Donald Trump is wrong! The ultimate blasphemy. Pence was one of Trump’s most subservient lap dogs, who believed as many evangelical Christians did that Trump was the second coming of their beloved lord and savior. Whatever Trump says, spews, or barks is gospel, no matter how witless, idiotic, illegal, or insane. That’s the public belief system that must be expressed at every opportunity, the Party line. Pence was already a pariah in the GOP, the man Trump’s addled foot soldiers sought to hang on January 6, on the gallows they hastily erected, so stating the obvious won’t cost him. Mikey wants to be President almost as much as he wishes to sit at the right hand of the father, but his chance is gone. But let’s not anoint Pence as a courageous man for doing his duty under the law. That’s the bare minimum we should expect from any person in public office. No accolades or praise is necessary. 

Trump’s endless whining about fraud and corruption in the electoral machinery might backfire, and I bet many in the GOP know it. They wouldn’t be disappointed if Trump was struck by lighting and rendered mute. Trump’s unfounded claims could dampen Republican turnout in November. If the whole process is as bankrupt as Trump claims, why bother to vote? Stay home MAGA people, wave your big Trump flag in protest, torch Nancy Pelosi in effigy, stick needles in your Adam Kinzinger voodoo doll. Listen to your false idol, the Fairy King of Mar-A-Lago. 

To watch this country descend into such madness and stupidity, to watch millions of Americans embrace a man as ridiculous as Donald Trump, to watch an entire political party fall to its knees and declare loyalty to Trump rather than loyalty to this country’s institutions and laws, is mind boggling. How can so many people be so gullible? How can so many be so terrified of examining our history, accepting and coming to terms with it? “Real” Americans see liberals as wimps, soft, mush-brained, as Rush Limbaugh told them daily for nearly thirty years. Turns out that Limbaugh’s people, the ones with all the guns and ammo, are a pack of wusses, scared shitless by ideas and historical facts. All this activity around the nation to ban books from school libraries, and etch into law a requirement that teachers not present ideas or concepts that might upset pale-skinned Jack, or high-strung Caitlyn; we can’t run the risk of upsetting the delicate sensibilities of white children. Might harm them for life. Throw those terrible and frightening books on the fire. 

Joe Rogan and Marjorie Taylor Greene are America’s new prom King & Queen.

Remind me, how is the GOP any different from the Taliban?

I’m almost finished with Alfred W. McCoy’s fine book, To Govern the Globe. The world order stitched together by the United States after World War II, which included the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe, the creation of NATO, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and mutual security pacts with Japan, South Korea and Australia, is unraveling. While there was plenty of hypocrisy in Washington’s order (professing democratic ideals and human rights while simultaneously toppling duly-elected governments it disagreed with, climbing into bed with dictators, and so forth) it has managed to maintain relative stability and prosperity for 70 years. What comes next we can only guess at. McCoy theorizes that China has the economic and military potential to supplant the Washington order as early as 2030. If trends continue, the US, with a declining share of the world economy under its control, will be unable to maintain its massive global military presence, and in particular its hegemony over the Pacific Ocean. Climate change is the wild card. McCoy writes, “Through its ever-increasing intensity, global warming will have a destructive impact on world orders for the rest of the twenty-first century and beyond.” What McCoy shows in this book are the circumstances -- political, industrial, diplomatic, social, and military -- that cause empires to fall and world orders to shift. The US is a hollow lion, losing its global edge a little more each year. Trump hastened our slide by stupidly attacking NATO, the WHO, and settled international agreements like the Paris Climate Accords. The framework erected during the American world order, global symbols for order, cooperation, and the rule of law, were either weakened or eliminated under Trump’s reign of error. This country is in for a great reckoning. 

I may not see it, but my children surely will, and that is why I am constantly in a state of anxiety, because time is not on our side and collectively we have failed to take climate change seriously. Baby Boomers, like me, will die in an era we may hardly recognize. 

The Gathering Storm

“What do you do when a big swath of Americans believe things that are demonstrably false and have already led to events like the January 6 insurrection?” Katha Pollitt, The Nation

Are you as tired of the spectacle of American politics as I am? I hate to be defeatist and cynical, but I don’t see a path out of the box canyon we’ve hiked into over the past twenty years. When I look at the scene I am reminded of a line from Yuval Noah Harari’s book,  21 Lessons for the 21st Century: never underestimate human stupidity. Look at Mike Pence, for instance, a man as full of ambition as he is devoid of substance, who now blames the media for the January 6 assault on the capitol. This is the same man who was rushed to safety by Secret Service agents as the Trump mob chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” Who knows what may have happened if the mob had seized Pence, but now Mike has developed amnesia and is back to kissing Trump’s ass with the servility he displayed for four years. Mikey is apparently convinced that God wants him to be president one day, and his penance in the meantime is to suffer humiliation and degradation at the tiny, corrupt hands of Donald J. Trump. 

Nine months on and none of the architects of the attempted coup have been held accountable. With the notable exceptions of authorizing military actions, gifting billions to the military-industrial-surveillance complex, and enacting tax breaks for the wealthy, the gears of Washington D.C. grind and squeal but the wheels barely turn. I assume the efforts of the House committee investigating the coup will come to naught, zero, nada. Let’s see what the committee does when Trump’s aides and toadies refuse to comply with subpoenas, as they almost certainly will. Steve Bannon thinks he’s untouchable. When all is done and dusted, the likely outcome is a voluminous report that will garner media attention for a day or two and then be forgotten without any significant remedial action taken. We’ve seen this movie many times. Iran-Contra. The 2008 financial meltdown. The Mueller Report. I will also not be surprised if Biden decides to shield Trump’s Oval Office actions and communications from scrutiny under the convenient guise of “Executive Privilege.” Political elites rarely hold each other accountable because it sets a bad precedent. As I’ve written on this blog many times, accountability is reserved for those of us without wealth or connections. When the law or the government comes for us, we have no place to run or hide. We can’t ignore Congressional subpoenas or stash ill-gotten gains in offshore tax havens. One country, two sets of rules. It’s good to be King or Queen, lousy to be a serf. 

Life goes on as it has always gone on, through fire, flood, famine, drought, pestilence, war, revolution, insurrection and disaster. The poor scrape and scramble for their living while the wealthy party in high style in gilded palaces. As in the past, so in the present. 

The battle for Truth is in jeopardy of being forfeited. And then what? An America ruled by the Trump family? Will we suffer Big Daddy Donald until he draws his final breath, then watch Junior ascend to the throne, and after him Ivanka, and finally, Eric. Is that what the future holds? Camelot is dead, long live Mar-A-Lago. You think I’m crazy? Perhaps so, but the scenario doesn’t seem that outlandish to me given the chicanery happening in state legislatures and in the chambers of the radical Supreme Court. Add the fact that millions of Americans believe whatever Donald Trump spews or the latest QANON fantasies rather than what they see with their own eyes. The fix is in the process of being hard-wired. Once the Truth and the Law are totally debased what remains? Will Americans come to expect that every politician and public servant is on the take, amenable to bribes, as most Russians do? Possibly. What’s to prevent it from happening, appeals to decency, morality, or ethics? Fat chance. America isn’t immune to the endemic corruption that has sundered other nations. We’re on the slippery downslope. 

Justice Deferred, Denied & Withheld

 “Classic children’s literature is full of racial, ethnic, class, and gender stereotyping, and the outdated language that goes along with that. Some of that can’t be fixed with a few cuts.” Katha Pollitt, in The Nation

Another young unarmed black man is gunned down by a police officer; his name, Daunte Wright; the officer’s name, Kim Potter. He was 20-years-old. She’s a 26-year veteran, an experienced, trained officer who mistakenly pulled her pistol rather than her taser. To some this fact pattern is incredulous, Potter’s excuse as flimsy as tissue paper. I’ve read that the taser is holstered on the left side, for a right-handed officer, the pistol on the right. After carrying a weapon for 26 years you might assume Potter would instantly feel the difference between her pistol and a taser. The day after the killing, Potter, along with the police chief, resigned. She’s been charged with second-degree manslaughter and is free on bail. Was it premeditated? Hard to say. More likely a mistake in the emotion of the moment. Was it a mistake based on false assumptions? Did Potter assume Wright was armed, that he posed a deadly threat? Will we hear that Wright was “non-compliant,” whatever that means? What, I wonder, is going through Potter’s mind now, and what was going through it when she drew her weapon, pulled the trigger and ended Daunte Wright’s life? Incapacitating force versus deadly force; if Daunte Wright were a 20-year-old white kid would he be alive now? I can’t remember another shooting involving a female officer; it’s usually a male, not that it matters. Daunte Wright is dead. What’s it like to wake up the morning after you ended a human being’s life? A human being who hadn’t posed a threat to your life or committed a serious crime. What does that feel like? And what does it feel like to wake up in the morning and know your son is gone, his life snuffed out?

I don’t know what to think any more other than the pedestrian observation that this country is violent, cruel, and disdainful about the lives of black people and others of darker pigment.  I don’t know if Kim Potter is a racist, but it’s possible she is and has been her entire career. The usual rituals will be performed again: the grieving, distraught family, the protests, the speeches, the social media tributes, the bland official statements and easily forgotten promises of reform from elected officials.Then many Americans will switch over to Fox News and listen to Tucker Carlson riff about The Great Replacement being engineered before our very eyes by Democrats (as if modern Democrats could engineer anything successfully), who are inviting millions of non-white foreigners to become citizens and thereby swell the ranks of Democratic voters. Because, you see, Tucker’s theory is that all brown-skinned immigrants are bleeding heart liberals who will always and forever vote for Democrats. Carlson’s the sort of smug white asshole that makes America hospitable to white supremacy, and he gets plenty of aid from the Murdoch media empire. All those brown-skinned people desperate to cross the border are incapable of thinking for themselves, in Tucker’s estimation, so once safely inside with feet firmly planted on this fruited plain they will do exactly as Democrats say to the detriment of salt-of-the-earth, real, honest-to-Betsy-Ross white Americans. 

White supremacy is out in the open again, promoted by a social media megaphone rather than a politician’s racist dog whistle. The changing demographics of America doesn’t trouble my sleep, it’s disturbed by visions of violent right-wing extremists. Even if they don’t realize it, white folks have more consequential problems to worry about than perceived losses of status and power, like climate change, living-wage jobs, and grotesque, destabilizing wealth inequality. As an idea and organizing principle white supremacy makes no sense to me. My skin is lighter than yours therefore I’m smarter than you, more morally evolved, superior and more deserving. Crock of shit. Power is what it boils down to. 

White folks want black and brown people to stay in their lanes, in their ghettoes, emerging only to mow lawns, mop floors, fold laundry, empty bedpans, and fetch artisanal cocktails at trendy farm-to-table restaurants. 

How long can simple justice be deferred, denied, and withheld? 

Trump Makes History

 “But he (Biden) will fail at that task, risking both his presidency and his party’s fortunes if he refuses to hold Trump and his enablers to account. A politics of ‘forgive and forget’ will not unify the nation.” John Nichols, The Nation

The final tally was 232 to 197. Ten Republicans voted with the Democrats to hand Trump a second impeachment. After all that has happened over the past seven days, and with more information coming out every day about coordination between the insurrectionists and some on the inside, only ten Republicans had the courage to impeach Trump. 

The rest stuck with Trump. The best counter argument they could muster was a call for unity, and consideration for the delicate feelings of Trump’s loyal base. A few cowards warned against inflaming the nation; others said impeachment wasn’t necessary because Trump will be gone soon. It was a procession of craven Republicans with more fidelity to Trump than to the Constitution. 

 We need healing! We need unity! We need reconciliation! Called the Republicans, as if the past four years never happened. As if more than 350,000 Americans haven’t fallen to Covid. As if their slavish devotion to Trump isn’t responsible for all the divisive rhetoric about blue states and red states, us and them, evil Democrats, and months of racist dog-whistling and demonizing of Black Lives Matter demonstrators. 

The Republicans ask that the millions of Americans who despise Donald Trump and endured four years of cruelty, incompetence, grift, self-dealing, law-breaking, norm-shattering and criminal idiocy, be gentle and patient with those who support armed insurrection. They ask those who waited for the chance to vote Trump out of power to refrain from seeking accountability. It’s like asking for mercy for the arsonist who just torched your house. Republicans only believe in swift justice when it applies to black & brown Americans, Muslims, immigrants, and others they don’t favor. 

I’ve never heard any sane person argue that we shouldn’t arrest child-molesters, rapists, and thieves for fear of sparking anger in the criminal community. The majority of Republicans are happy to let Trump walk away, unscathed. It’s astonishing. It’s also a disgrace and an insult to any person who has sworn the oath of allegiance to the United States. 

Four years of Trump. It’s fitting that he becomes the first president in American history to be impeached twice. That’s his legacy as well as the heavy stone Republicans must carry from now on. They sold their souls and the bill has come due. 

Ten brave souls from a party of hundreds. Only ten. 

Like a nation under siege, the presidential inauguration on January 20 will be protected by a National Guard force of almost 20,000. It’s unknown how many in that number are Trump supporters. State governments from sea-to-shining-sea are bracing for attacks. This is the carnage and chaos wrought by Trumpism. This is what happens when people worship false idols.  

The Waning Nights of Count Trumpula

“From the very first wave of the virus, Trump and his entourage of quacks and enablers have failed the most basic tests of governance and leadership.” Elie Mystal, The Nation

The waning days of December. Here on the central coast of California the weather is gorgeous, clear skies and sunshine. It’s almost enough to make one forget the pandemic and the economic misery faced by so many in places where the sky isn’t filled with light. It’s winter now, according to the calendar, the winter of American discontent. Congress (at least the half that flies under the Trump Party banner) dithered for months while both the pandemic and the economy worsened. Then, at the eleventh hour, the benevolent servants of the people agreed to dole out a measly $600 for those eligible. That’s what people are worth to this Congress, with its tame Democrats and ideologically stunted Republicans, some of whom had the gall to complain that giving more relief to citizens would expand the deficit. Let’s be clear: Republicans gave not two shits about the deficit when they lavished tax cuts on their wealthy donors and corporate sponsors. The hypocrisy never ends. 

State and local governments got left out of the relief package, which surely portends deep cuts in public services at a time when the public needs those services more than ever. Such is the logic of our cruel capitalism. The rich get tax breaks, the poor get austerity. Trickle down economics means the same thing today that it meant in 1980: the rich piss on the poor from ever greater heights. 

Mercifully, Donald Trump has been dragged from the spotlight where he loves to twirl and preen, but this can only be a temporary lull. The deluded president, prodded by a small cadre of extremists, continues to claim that he won the election in a landslide. This isn’t even in the same zip code with the truth -- Trump lost, and he lost badly. What he cannot accept is that more than 80 million people voted against him, rejected him, fired him. Trump’s fragile ego and fear of being exposed for what he is -- a broken little boy who could never win the love of his mommy and daddy -- cannot handle such a public rebuke. Trump is the worst kind of rich punk because he’s also an asshole, and a cruel one at that. This frightened little man can’t bring himself to offer even a sentence of empathy about the more than 320,000 Americans dead of Covid-19. He doesn’t care, it’s just a number, an abstract idea. 

We will pay dearly for the damage of the Trump years. He has amplified differences and a perverse brand of patriotism. Fear rules in TrumpLand and the ranks of threatening “others” grows all the time. It’s you or them. Choose your side, there’s no middle ground. But once you start demonizing people as “others” where does it end? Where do you draw the line? Who decides who is in and who must be expelled? 

What’s to become of a country indifferent to the deaths of some 320,000 of its citizens? How many of these deaths were preventable? How many were sped along because so many Americans lack access to affordable health care? How many can we lay at the feet of our Market God, who demanded that commerce continue even if it meant that millions of people would be exposed to Covid-19? 

Count Trumpula roams the White House after midnight, looking under beds for conspiracies, tugging at the corners of rugs in search of fake ballots, listening for the ghost of Hugo Chavez. What’s his exit plan? How can a strong man leave the stage voluntarily without appearing weak? The notions from the Fever Swamp become more unhinged: Declare martial law and re-run the election, says retired Army general, and convicted and pardoned felon, Michael Flynn. Seize the voting machines! Stop the steal! It was a landslide and we won! If the Secretary of Defense was a public servant instead of a Trump toady, Flynn would be recalled to active service and court-martialed for sedition. Flynn, whose retirement is paid by American taxpayers, is only too happy to subvert the will of the voters, and piss on the Constitution he swore to uphold and defend. 

The nearer we draw to January 20, the more erratic Trump will become. His only instinct is self-preservation. In his mind, nothing came before him, and nothing will come after. He is the sun and the moon and the stars. He is thunder and lightning, hurricane and flood, fire and ash; he is Death. 

Will We Forget?

 “They will, at last, realize themselves that there cannot be enough freedom and bread for everybody, for they will never, never be able to let everyone have his fair share!” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

This infernal year of plague and death and strife, trapped in the grip of greed and arrogance, careening for the abyss at top speed. It’s hard to decide where to begin. Should I begin with the photographs I took of downtown SB in March, during the first lockdown, when store shelves were bare and the streets were eerily quiet, deserted? When toilet paper was as good as money? Or do I start with the criminal negligence of the Trump Crime Family (TCF)? 

Remember Trump’s statements, day after day, about a few people coming in from China, how Covid would one day go away like a miracle, and that in any case it was no worse than the seasonal flu? 

Will we forget Liberate Michigan?

Human nature being what it is, I fear we will forget what has happened this year, misunderstand its deeper meaning, and how dangerous the game we’re playing with our limited democratic freedoms is. I’m afraid we will forget what an utter disaster Donald Trump has been. That with the passage of only a little time, we will forget the more than 300,000 Americans who have died on Trump’s watch, forget the millions more who lost their economic footing because Trump’s response to the pandemic was so inept, ignorant, incompetent, and indifferent to the reality of the situation. While Trump denied science and commonsense -- and babbled about miracle cures, ingesting bleach and disinfectants, herd immunity, and packed churches on Easter Sunday -- Americans suffered and died. 

Writing in the Nation magazine recently, Elie Mystal noted the following: “And yet, somehow, even all of this -- the bleach, the rallies, the unconscionable disregard for life -- fails to capture the full scope of the harm he’s done to this country. Trump’s anti-science sociopathy has been embraced by many other political actors. His messaging, his attitude, his culture-war mongering have filtered down throughout our country, to our national shame.”

I’m afraid that neither Trump or any of his many, many enablers will be held accountable for the damage they’ve done, or for how casually many of them betrayed their oath of office. Was that taste of power worth it? 

We must never forget the 18 state attorney generals and 126 Republican members of the US House of Representatives who supported the corrupt Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, and the bogus legal claim he mounted in an effort to overturn the results of the election and cancel out the legal votes of millions of Americans. 

Will we forget the ranks of silent Republican senators, who stood by while Trump mounted one laughable legal challenge after another in state and federal courts? Who said nothing when Trump claimed the election was rigged and that he’d never accept the result? Will we forget this wholesale absence of principle and courage? 

William Barr, good riddance doughboy, you sold your soul to Donald Trump, so no mercy will be shown to you. Your trangressions are many, but none more repugnant than reinstating the death penalty for certain federal crimes, and then executing condemned people in record numbers, including Orlando Hall and Brandon Bernard. 

One lesson to be learned from 2020 is that mercy is hard to come by in America, particularly for the poor and marginalized. Perhaps we never had mercy in us to give. Americans have always killed to gain land, territory, minerals, and wealth, or to terrorize people deemed a threat.  

I’m afraid we will forget George Floyd, Breeona Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, just to name a few. 

But Kyle Rittenhouse, a sad, deluded white kid who murdered two people protesting police brutality, will be considered a hero in many quarters. Will we forget hate groups like the Proud Boys, who crawled from the shadows to stand in Trump’s malign spotlight?

Will we forget uniformed but unidentified federal agents plucking people off the streets of Portland, Oregon? Or those federal goons under the direction of William Barr, who drove peaceful protesters out of Lafeyette Square with pepper bombs, rubber bullets, batons and shields, all so Donald Trump could make a triumphant march across the street to the church -- where the idiot held the good book upside down.  

As Donald Trump rants and raves about massive voter fraud, let’s not forget all the efforts by the Republican Party to cripple the US Mail service, reduce the number of polling places and ballot drop boxes. Voter suppression is the real election fraud in America, and it is engineered by a Republican Party that is openly hostile to democracy. 

Will we forget politics by stunt? 

We would be wise to think hard about the divisions, fissures, and fractures the Trump years and this deadly pandemic have revealed about our country, its insidious racism, militarism, and wealth inequality. 

When Donald Trump talked about “American carnage” in his inauguration speech in January 2017, I don’t think many people understood what he meant. Trump made it seem that America was at war with itself. It wasn’t true on that day, but it is true now. 

Rebuild the Guardrails, America

“But if such a thing as legal objectivity ever existed, it was obliterated 20 years ago with Bush v. Gore. It was then that the Supreme Court proved by a 5-4 vote, that it was a purely political branch.” Elie Mystal, The Nation

For Halloween to fall two days before the election is one haunted house too many, an added torture, another crack of the psychological whip, as the country votes and votes and votes, and begins to hold its breath. The big turnout that is essential to a Biden victory looks as if it’s happening, but after the Shock of 2016,  I am ever skeptical. This is the United States of America, a crumbling, bumbling, empire that is in the hands of a crime family, and all manner of election fuckery is possible. 

Someone should ask stone faced Mike Pence this question: Mr. Vice President, If you trust the American people as much as you say you do, why does your party make voting so hard for so many people? How do you square that circle, Mr. Vice President? 

After exposing my brain to news reports and podcasts over the past few days, I’m feeling  anxious, testy, and nervous. I got to thinking about guardrails.  Like many others across the country, I’m trying to game out the various ways Trump can lose, and still hold his office. These are numerous and unsettling. If Trump’s time in office has taught us anything it should be this: the guardrails failed. From the start, four years ago, Trump has been testing the limits on his power. The American “system”, once thought so stable and secure, hasn’t stopped him. For all its flaws, the Mueller Report was conclusive about Trump’s obstruction of justice, a charge for which he should have been impeached. But the Senate, elected to office by a minority of the population, with the absurdity of populous California and under-populated Wyoming having equal power, is in the hands of a far-right GOP which refuses to play by established rules and norms. When every GOP senator, with the exception of Mitt Romney, voted to acquit Trump, a guardrail fell.  

Trump landed Marine 1 on the Emoluments Clause. Trump and his crime family have diverted millions of taxpayer dollars to the Trump Organization. Totally without shame, the Trump Gang will never meet a profitable conflict of interest they won’t embrace. Trump should have hit a guardrail the first time he dipped his beak in the public till, but he didn’t. A few Democrats grumbled about it, some media outlets reported on it, but there wasn’t a groundswell of outrage from the public. 

What protection do we have against demagoguery? When the Democratic-controlled House sent the White House a subpoena, Trump either sued or flat-out refused to comply, and he demanded that other federal agencies do the same. His party turned a blind eye and deaf ear every time. The founders feared majority rule, so they built in a few circuit breakers, the Electoral College being the kingpin. Trump can lose the popular vote by a pretty wide margin and still win the Electoral College. Every analyst I’ve listened to or article I’ve read points out that 2020 is not 2016. Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. Trump isn’t the brash challenger, he’s the president, and more than 220,000 Americans have died through his incompetence and malice. His party, with very few exceptions, has aided and abetted Trump in his ill-fated effort to outwit Covid-19. If Trump’s not held accountable -- if the solid majority of us who think competence in government is a good thing, an important social benefit, can’t hold him accountable -- who or what institution will? 

I think of Highway 1 in California, the twists and turns, the many bridges, and how almost every time I’ve driven Highway 1, some stretch of it has been under construction. Our democracy should be like that, always being maintained at some key junction, shored up, rebuilt, inspected with critical eyes. The Federal Courts need reform. We have to fix our chaotic voting system. It’s time to ditch the Electoral College. We’re not living in the 18th century, and the Founding Fathers were not gods. They were white men, mostly of wealth, who created a system that spreads power around, with three co-equal branches designed to contain the others’ power. These white men understood the tyranny of kings. A system in some kind of balance was the idea, right? It was the best hope for a stable government and society that could expand and prosper; a government that is constantly falling apart can’t do those things. We can thank the Founders for the basic framework, imperfect though it is, commend them for an admirable run at self-government, but we have to make some repairs, restore balance to the system so that we have a chance to face and survive the massive climate challenge that is already here. The road we’re driving cannot get us where we need to go. 

Chevy to the Levee

“Republicans believe that the rich need more money and the poor need less help. They support tax cuts for corporations and cuts in services for the vulnerable.” Editorial in The Nation, June 19/26, 2017.

Madness loose in the land, spurred on by capitalism’s death rattle, the endless drive for more profit, higher rates of return, growth, expansion. The super wealthy stash their coin in offshore accounts, away from taxing authorities and other prying eyes. Some of the wealthy build fortified bunkers for protection against the day when the entire crooked system implodes and the mass of impoverished people rise up, as people once did in France and Russia, and begin searching for those that caused their torment. Chris Hedges, journalist and prophet, calls America a tinderbox and it’s difficult to argue otherwise. It takes little imagination to imagine a full-scale government crackdown on protesters and dissenters, most police forces are already militarized to play this role, and if they aren’t, there are private goons for hire, well-equipped and eager to cash in on domestic upheaval.

America is morally bankrupt, a clear and present danger to its traditional allies, a danger to the planet itself. All the hoary mythology used to cloak America as a beacon of freedom, truth and justice, is being stripped away to reveal our true nature, who we really are, and the portrait isn’t flattering. The face of a true hypocrite rarely is.

The propaganda organs work overtime to control the narrative in order to maintain the status quo. There is no economic alternative to capitalism. Tax cuts produce jobs. The minimum wage cannot be raised or the world will end. Social Security is nearly bankrupt. We cannot afford Medicare for All. Greed is good, compassion is for wimps. And on the foreign front -- Russia, bad. Iran, bad. Qatar, bad (but they can buy our beautiful weapons). North Korea, bad. Saudi Arabia, good. Black or white, nuance abandoned and left to perish by the wayside. Enemies, threats. The nation must be ever vigilant, alert, ready to defend itself from the bad guys who hate our freedoms. We must bomb them before they bomb us. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. All problems can be solved by our beautiful military. Our cruise missiles. Our drones. Scour the kill list for new targets. We can see through the fog of war.

Orwell shakes his head. Told you so. Down the memory hole. War is peace. Truth is what the leader says it is. Slavery is freedom. You didn’t listen then, you won’t listen now.

Reign of terror. Reign of error. Reign of fools. Reign of greed. Reign of lies. Reign of bluster.

Hipsters sip $4 coffee and $15 craft cocktails, oblivious to the impending collapse. They tap their screens and keyboards, all synergy and branding and can’t miss business propositions. Self as commodity, substance buried under a layer of style. Acquire happiness in the marketplace. Enlightenment overnight from Amazon. Wisdom from Google.

Do you remember where you were when the American Dream died, when the party ended and the last note of music faded away?

Bye bye miss American pie.