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.

Fund Drive

“It can be terrifying to know your own frailty.” Karen Connelly, The Lizard Cage

When I’m driving around town in my old Honda Civic I listen to KPFK, the leftist station based in Los Angeles that is part of the Pacifica radio network. I like Democracy Now, Thom Hartmann, Background Briefing with Ian Masters, and Margaret Prescod, but like most listeners, I tire very quickly of endless on-air fund drives, the frantic pleas for money to keep the station from death’s doorstep.

The problem is that KPFK is always at death’s doorstep. Various reasons for this penury are advanced, including the difficulty in our corporate media landscape of operating a station solely on listener donations, or because KPFK is managed by an unwieldy board that can’t locate its behind with both hands. Maybe the truth is that lefties can’t manage money. Anyway, it feels as if the current fund drive has been going on for three weeks. I made my tithe a few months ago and have no more to give, and I don’t like being made to feel guilty for not chipping in $150 for a book and a couple of DVD’s. I wish some left-leaning billionaire – if such a person even exists -- would send KPFK a check for a few million so they can knock off these fund drives and get back to programming.

Case in point: I’m in the Honda the other afternoon and this host is vigorously hawking downloads for a breakthrough, consciousness-raising, spiritual-cleansing program guaranteed to change a person’s life. Access Consciousness it’s called. Never heard of it or the host’s guest, a fellow named Dain Heer, who talked as if Access Consciousness had given him the key to the universe. Money woes? No problem. Trouble finding that special someone to share your life with? Easy peesey. Questions about why you are where you are and not someplace better? Access Consciousness will open doors for you that you never dreamed existed. I began to listen more carefully. Like all commercially savvy gurus, Heer talked a lot without divulging much -- about tools and joy and ease and vibrant health and financial freedom. When he mentioned “clearing statements” my inner skeptic stood up and said, “Whoa man, this is starting to sound like Scientology BS.”

I went back to my life, my routines and habitual patterns of being, early to bed, early to rise, a bottle of beer before dinner, and the pages of a book before switching off the light for the night. But what I’d heard on KPFK nagged at me so I did some research. What I learned from Google searches is that the founder of Access Consciousness is a guy named Gary Young, who at the time he conceived his answer to all of life’s doubts and difficulties just happened to live in Santa Barbara. Dain Heer, who to my chagrin also had a Santa Barbara connection, joined the team a bit later and immediately became the young, cool face of the enterprise. Heer’s talks are all over YouTube; the few I watched creeped me out.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Access Consciousness is total nonsense and a cult. What really bugs me is that KPFK is pushing this snake oil on unsuspecting listeners. Any time some smug white guy claims to have the answers to life’s perplexing questions, and offers to share them for a price, you can be assured you are about to be fleeced.