The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 10

“It’s a dark thing when the world sets no value on you or your kin, and then death comes stalking in, in his bloody boots.” Sebastian Barry, Days Without End

Trump Death Clock

84,589

Estimated U.S. COVID-19 Deaths Due To POTUS Inaction

Trump has his own force of Brownshirts now and they are deployed on the streets of Portland, Oregon, uninvited and unwanted by state and local authorities. Heavily armed, decked out in camouflage fatigues sans branch insignia or name plates, riding around in unmarked vehicles, their mission is to stir the cauldron of social unrest on behalf of our demented president. Trump is itching to demonstrate how to dominate the urban “battlespace” and show the enemies of our beautiful white republic how a real “strong man” operates. If largely peaceful protests and acts of legal civil disobedience can be turned into a street brawl, so much the better. The tactics are straight from the tattered authoritarian playbook; first light a small fire, fan it with armed goons, add copious amounts of gasoline, then ride in with the Law & Order brigade to put the conflagration out. 

Trump is an arsonist, his target is the Constitution.

Silence from the ranks of the GOP Death Cult of traitors, cowards, hypocrites, and opportunists. The rancid moonshine Republicans have been guzzling since 1994 (Newt Gingrich’s family recipe) has shrunk their hearts and muddled their brains, and now a majority of the party is indifferent to the suffering of others whose race, gender, or religious affiliation differs from theirs. They’ve got the power disease as bad as Southern Democrats had in 1857. They’ve convinced themselves that the blood running in the veins of some Americans is inferior to their own. 

Trump will send his Brownshirts to other cities where they will be as unwelcome as they are in Portland. The Orange Menace is desperate for a foe he can vanquish to lift his sinking reelection prospects; Covid-19 is far too formidable, and when it comes to the economy, the GOP will ride their nihilistic ideology into the fires of Hell before they marshall the resources of the government to help ordinary citizens weather the crisis that is barreling toward us. Trump’s betting the last of his chips on beating the mythical “radical left.” I wish we had a radical left in this country. 

The excesses of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 return to roost in 2020, and Democrats bear as much responsibility as Republicans for creating this monster in the first place. Misuse and abuse was an inherent danger of granting so much power to the executive branch in the name of “security.” That brand of power will inevitably be used for nefarious purposes by unscrupulous actors. Thanks, Congress. 

Trump is an arsonist, his target is the Constitution.

In the late 1880’s, when southern Democrats had reclaimed political power and derailed the lofty intentions of Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass urged his fellow Americans to “Remember that all the present rests on all the past.” Almost every day, Donald Trump tries to make Americans forget the present. After all these months, after all the insane pronouncements about the pandemic, after all the blaming of others, after all the denials, after all the suffering and deaths, after all his abuses of power, Trump still insists that he, and he alone, can defy gravity. 

He can’t, but Trump will go down swinging at his real and imaginary enemies. He will make our three-headed crisis -- pandemic, economic collapse, and police violence -- worse. With every passing day, America sheds its democratic skin and takes on the visage of a pathetic banana republic. Our political leaders, of both parties, have failed the nation, failed the people, and failed to do their Constitutional duty. 

The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 5

“We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man we shall be safe.” Frederick Douglass

America, are we tired of winning yet? According to Trump and Pence, and that skinny bitch who calls herself a Press Secretary, Covid-19 is on the decline, jobs are returning in droves, and the economy is on the rebound. Trump’s poll numbers are perfect. The nation has at long last achieved racial equality. The climate crisis is solved. Every American is housed and cared for. It’s all beautiful, tremendous, fantastic, never been done before, the world has never seen, people are saying...

To repeat what I’ve said before: we’re fucked, royally fucked. It’s more than Trump, of course, it took decades for the rot to take hold, for Money to define our lives and worth as human beings, for Money to flood and corrupt the political system, and for the whims, desires, and needs of corporations to take precedence over the needs of the people. It took several decades to render organized labor insignificant. It took 40 years of relentless, slick propaganda to get people to believe that solidarity was in fact tyranny, that the Market God was just and fair. It took far less time to devalue -- even more than they were to begin -- the lives of black and brown people, and anyone who was different and therefore dangerous. The neoliberal system had a wicked answer for that, too: a lucrative carceral state, much of it run by corporations and Wall Street investors. Just add black and brown bodies for delicious profits.

 It was 9/11 hysteria, hubris and hypocrisy, that launched the disastrous, money and body-sucking War on Terror. War on a tactic, against ever-shifting enemies, with no boundaries and no end. Forever war we call it now, as if it’s perfectly normal for a country to be continuously at war or preparing for war. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, swaths of Africa. We are never short of enemies. What does the Pentagon need more than anything else? Enemies, credible or not. Communism. Radical Islam. Venezuela. Al-Qaeda. Iran. 

...an era so perverse and corrupt that when 2016 rolled around a fraudulent fool named Donald Trump, a failed businessman, a serial adulterer, a tax cheat, who appealed to the worst in people, got burped up.

The militarization of American police started in the 1990’s if I recall right, and accelerated thereafter under Republican and Democratic regimes, and almost in tandem with our global war on jihadis. As time passed, more and more military equipment was gifted to the states from the Pentagon surplus, and American police resembled their brothers and sisters in the Armed Forces. War abroad, war at home -- the American Way. 

Police protect property, that has always been their role in America. It started with the Slave Patrols that hunted two-legged property, and continued during labor strikes, the Civil Rights era, and every social upheaval since. Police, as we have witnessed repeatedly of late, from coast-to-coast, look like occupying forces and treat peaceful exercise of a Constitutional right as a criminal activity worthy of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, horses, SUV’s. 

War abroad, war at home -- the American Way. 

Fucking disastrous. I need a beer, maybe two. It’s going to be a long night here in Santa Barbara Town, home of the laid back wealthy and the frenzied working poor, partially shut down again by order of the Governor. No bars or inside dining. Beaches open (but gatherings prohibited), beach parking lots closed. 

California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, among the states where Covid-19 veers beyond control. Public health authorities are largely on their own, abandoned when the Orange Menace tossed the towel in and claimed victory. Red state governors, desperate to put their loyalty to Trump ahead of their constituents, turned a stone ear to public health professionals. Came out of lockdown ahead of the pack, opening bars, restaurants, parks, nail salons, barber shops, pool halls, gyms, hardware stores, a magnificent show of hubris and stupidity. 

Lords of a hollow kingdom. But they will ride it down to the very end, into the fiery pit. 

What was the point I was working toward? Yes, the neoliberal, Free Market God, put-a-price-on-everything, privatize everything, cut taxes, then cut them again, and again, squeeze the working poor, crush the poor, saddle kids with education debt, an era so perverse and corrupt that when 2016 rolled around a fraudulent fool named Donald Trump, a failed businessman, a serial adulterer, a tax cheat, who appealed to the worst in people, got burped up. He was good for TV ratings. He promised tax cuts and radical right-wing judges. He promised to vanquish the limp-wristed Liberals who ate artisanal salads and drove electric cars and thought they were superior to Real Americans. He declared war on immigrants. 

How we are paying for our sins. The Trump Death Clock records 76,669 deaths from Covid-19 that could have been avoided if Trump had acted earlier. But of course the Orange Menace didn’t act, he denied, deflected, downplayed, and dithered in the face of overwhelming warnings. Had to protect the stock market and his reelection chances ahead of public health. Trump is a sociopath. And the entire GOP still bends over for him. 

My brain feels like a pinball machine. Mental overload. I may need some Irish whisky. What fresh insanity will come with the rising sun? This is Trump & Pence Land, a beautiful, prosperous, safe, devotional, and above all, white place, where the sun is always shining and the stars burn bright at night. The picket fences are white. The lawns are trimmed, weeds pulled, American flags on display. Walk into someone’s home and the first thing you see is a Bible. Mr. and Mrs. Jones may have a chest of sex toys in their closet, and cheat on their taxes, but in Trump & Pence Land they are as pure as Sierra Nevada snowmelt.  

We’re not winning. We’re the world’s basket case. Look at the numbers of Covid-19 infections and deaths. Look at the economic calamity, the worst of which is yet to come. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 35

“Lives are being destroyed on the altar of profit.” Chris Hedges on the Truth Report with Chauncey DeVega

Until today I was feeling decent emotionally, neither too high or too low, taking it day by day, but the minute I went into the office this morning the wheels fell off my mental bus and I plunged down a ravine. I still can’t put my finger on the exact cause, which is as frustrating as feeling like the climb out of the ravine is more than I’m capable of. Even a hard training session failed to lift my mood. 

The Great Forgetting is underway. Coronavirus? What Coronavirus? I listened to an interview with the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole, who said the US under Trump looks pitiful. How, O’Toole wondered, can the country rebound with an actively malign presence in the White House? Good question, and the answer is that it can’t. Trump’s reality show presidency was destined to destroy, not build. Why people thought his run in the White House would be any different from his multiple business failures still baffles me. The American Empire was low on fuel when Trump took office, and now it’s running on fumes. 

Trump is the dark lord of America’s slimy underbelly. 

Remember when Trump said his administration had shut down the Coronavirus? That was almost 100,000 American deaths ago. Here’s the latest from the Trump Death Clock: 59,311. That’s the number of deaths that could have been prevented if Trump and his pathetic administration had acted with competence. 

The Trump Gang is full of political hacks and incompetent dickheads. I thought Lawrence Kudlow or Ben Carson or Betsy DeVos led the pack, but then along comes Trump economic advisor Kevin Hassett, who claims that America’s “human capital stock,” by which he means working people, are itching to get back to serving the millionaires and billionaires who own and operate our economy, even if it costs their health or their lives. Human capital stock. Had he been around in 1830, Hassett would likely have been an owner of human chattel, African flesh and blood, to be used, abused and discarded in the cotton or cane fields. I imagine Hassett as a squeamish owner who outsourced the discipline of his slaves to men even more heartless than he. 

No savior waits in the wings. This isn’t a Hollywood blockbuster. No, Joe Biden isn’t Donald Trump. Biden isn’t a sociopath, but if you think all our troubles -- social, political, economic -- will magically vanish should Biden pull off an upset and defeat Trump in November -- if we even have an election -- you need to spend some time reviewing Biden’s long legislative record. It’s not pretty. Biden’s policy stances are one of the reasons America has been hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. 

Hypocrisy. Stupidity. Cruelty. 

It took a long time for the Greedheads to put truth and honor and decency to the sword. They stood gloating over the bleeding forms, sword in one hand, Christian cross in the other. The Greedheads believe in death and of death they can never get enough.  

Night falls over my ravine. A coyote howls. Come the first light of morning I might climb out. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 34

“Everybody in the south wants the privilege of whipping somebody else.” Frederick Douglass

Here in Santa Barbara several blocks of State Street, our restaurant, bar, and commercial (what hasn’t been destroyed by Amazon) backbone, are blocked to vehicle traffic for several hours a day, creating what the City calls a “pedestrian promenade.” Restaurants, which up to Friday the 22nd were only doing takeout business, are open again with restrictions on how many patrons can dine inside at a given time, and tables set up outside. 

After weeks of isolation, seeing hundreds of people strolling along State Street is startling. More startling is that 80 percent of people are not wearing face coverings. There was a line of people in front of Joe’s Cafe when we arrived to pick up our takeout order, and the tables on the sidewalk were full. The hostesses and waitstaff wore masks. Dining in at this point holds no appeal for us. We just wanted to collect our order of a spinach salad, turkey dip sandwich with salad and fries, ranch dressing, and two Manhattans and get back home. There was confusion at the front counter, the young woman behind it seemed harried, trying to handle our order and answer the phone, and doing neither well. No fault of hers. I felt bad for her. While we stood there, a woman in her mid-40’s who had been waiting outside entered and asked my wife and I if we were waiting for a table or picking up. It was clear from her tone that she assumed we had skipped the line. She wore a large, flashy diamond. Her vibe put me off immediately. “Well,” I said, “if we were waiting for a table we’d be standing outside, wouldn’t we?” She spun around in a huff and went back outside and resumed her wait. 

Back home we discovered Italian dressing instead of the ranch dressing we asked for, and the au jus sauce that makes the turkey dip was missing. The sandwich was dry, the French fries soggy. On the plus side, the Manhattan’s were the usual Joe’s strength. We ate, sipped our cocktails, and watched the last three episodes of the final season of Schitts Creek.

The problem is that ignoring the public health aspects of a pandemic will not make it go away; happy talk and magical thinking are equally futile. I can’t see how we avoid a second wave. 

The pressure to generate economic activity is intense and hangs heavy. After two months of isolation, it’s natural to want to get out, move around, have a drink in a bar, eat a meal, see people. City and state government officials are trying to balance public safety with the need to turn the revenue spigot back on; it’s like spinning six plates while standing on one leg. Since the federal government abdicated its responsibility for the pandemic, states, which have far fewer resources, have had to pick up the slack, blowing huge holes in their budgets in the process. Without an infusion of money from the federal government, states will have no choice but to cut services, furlough public employees, and adopt austerity measures -- at a time when public services are desperately needed. 

Trump and Company try to will the pandemic away with a toxic combination of lies, bluster, and threats. The problem is that ignoring the public health aspects of a pandemic will not make it go away; happy talk and magical thinking are equally futile. I can’t see how we avoid a second wave. When I checked this morning the Trump Death Clock stood at 58,708 deaths that could have been avoided if Trump had taken Covid-19 seriously and acted earlier. But expect no contrition or reflection from Trump. He insists that he would do the same things over again, including, it seems, shilling Hydroxychloroquine endlessly and stoking a culture war between red and blue states. 

Even if Joe Biden were leading Trump in the polls by 50 points, I would still expect him to find a way to blow it. November is a long way off, we’re in a pandemic, Trump’s in the White House, McConnell runs the Senate, and the Democratic Party establishment dithers at the margins

What do you get when for 40 years the reigning ideology in the world is how to monetize every aspect of human life? You get Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk; you get Steve Mnuchin, Jamie Dimon, and Timothy Geitner; you get staggering wealth and political inequality and environmental damage; you get government by money, of money, and for money; and to close out the neoliberal era with a near collapse and endemic corruption, you get Trump, an incompetent, semiliterate failure who sees himself as the best the white race has to offer. 

I just started reading Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, by David W. Blight, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. I’ve also been reading Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith, and listening to Western Stars by Bruce Springsteen. My wife finally acquiesced and cut my hair short with a dog grooming trimmer that we once used on Chula, my inlaws loveable Shih-poo. 

Keep an eye on the mortgage default rate in the next few months. In the words of Warren Zevon, send lawyers, guns, and money, the shit’s about to hit the fan.  

The Isolation Diaries No. 33

“The past is uncertain, mobile. It shifts and rearranges back there. All might turn out and change back there yet.” Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier

Sunny days in Santa Barbara, but so windy at times that the old windows in our apartment rattle. A gust pulls the back door shut with a bang. Our Covid-19 spring. SB remains in hibernation, though it seems more and more people are venturing out. Cautious optimism from local officials and Governor Gavin Newsome, the usual batshit happy talk from the White House. 

As of this writing, the Trump Death clock has recorded 55,642 deaths as a result of Trump’s incompetence.

The Orange Menace claims to be taking daily doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has shown little to no efficacy against Covid-19. Despite medical evidence, Trump continues to tout the drug, saying he’s heard many stories about its effectiveness. Still hoping for a magic bullet. 

By mid-June, if not earlier, we will know if this re-opening gambit was worth the potential risk. If a flare-up of infections is going to happen, it should happen around that time. I think about Frank Snowden, a historian of infectious diseases, most notably the Black Death that struck parts of Europe off and on for nearly 400 years, who contrasted the public health response in Italy (Snowden was there, caught Covid-19, recovered) with that of the United States. Unlike here, where the message about the pandemic has been inconsistent, chaotic, contradictory, and politicized, Italy’s public messaging about the virus was consistent, focused on public health, not politics, sparing lives, not attacking scientific authorities or drenching the public with magical thinking and empty boasts day after day.  

As of this writing, the Trump Death clock has recorded 55,642 deaths as a result of Trump’s incompetence. This shocking number and the misery and sadness and grief it represents, should spell doom for Trump in November, even against a cardboard cutout of Joe Biden, but this is America and there’s a very good chance that the Electoral College will once again deliver victory for Trump. 

That thought is too depressing to contemplate at this early hour of the day, when I can hear birds chirping in the yard. 

Democrats are decent when it comes to governing, but hopeless when it comes to winning elections; Republicans have their message down pat, know how to perpetuate their power, but can’t govern their way out of a wet paper sack. Republicans can’t get over their ideological wall to deal with reality, while Democrats are so compromised by being joined at the neck with Big Finance that they have alienated millions of people who once supported Democrats, no matter what. 

And there we sit, on this slippery, dangerous slope. Our old nemesis, avarice, grins at us from higher up, dislodges a boulder with his foot, and laughs as it tumbles down. 

Spring of discontent, disaster, depression, denial, and dereliction. 

Sun climbing the bottlebrush tree, a crow squawks and is answered by a bluejay. Another Covid-19 morning.  

The Isolation Diaries No. 31

“Don’t ask me, ask China!” Donald J. Trump

It was only a matter of time until the Trump gang employed a typical tactic in the face of rising American deaths from Covid-19: change the metrics, change the way Covid-19 deaths are reported so that the number appears lower.

Don’t like the hard facts? Create alternate facts, even if they fly in the face of science, logic, and direct evidence. 

Film director Eugene Jarecki has a different idea. Jarecki is the mind behind the Trump Death Clock in Times Square in NYC, a running tally of all the Covid-19 deaths that can be attributed to Trump’s failed response to the pandemic. As of this writing, that number stands at 51,134. The website is worth a look. Here’s a link: https://trumpdeathclock.com.

In striking down the governor’s stay-at-home orders, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has surely laid the groundwork for more infections and deaths. Nice work, ideologues. The bloodstains on your hands will not wash away. Wisconsinites now have the freedom to put themselves and others in mortal danger. Freedom! Haircuts! Bars are open!

Trump was made for TV, not reality. He gambled with the lives of Americans and lost more than 50,000 times. 

As I write this, the Dow Jones is down 383 points, after dropping more than 500 points yesterday. I’m sure this bothers Trump far more than the mounting deaths from the pandemic; human casualties are one thing, but when the Almighty Stock Market declines it’s a crisis for the wealthy and in America we cannot subject our wealthy citizens to any hardship. Back to work serfs! Put your shoulders to the wheel, to the oars, to the mines, open the factory gates and make those furnaces hotter than hell. 

Trump was made for TV, not reality. He gambled with the lives of Americans and lost more than 50,000 times. The script isn’t to his liking, he doesn’t like the arc of the story, so he’s simply going to ignore any fact that makes him look bad. Between now and election day Trump and his gang will deploy every trick and sleight of hand they know to erase history. Pandemic? What pandemic? Oh, you mean the one we triumphed over like no one the world has ever seen? 

Will America survive Trump’s manifest stupidity and incompetence? The country has faced great upheaval before, during the Civil War and the Great Depression. The Reconstruction period helped the nation recover from the Civil War; the New Deal got us through the Depression and World War II, created a deep, wide middle class and a quarter century of economic prosperity. Those were bold, imperfect, controversial responses to existential crises, opposed by many, even to this day. 

What will we do? Which way will we go?