Gone Team

“Brilliant, gifted, energetic, yes, but also anxious, greedy, bland, and risk-averse, with no courage and no vision -- that is our elite today.” William Deresiewicz

Imagine the person in the White House whose job it is to update the staff directory, produce stationery, business cards and signage for the offices and the Cabinet. During a “normal” administration, where the key players are largely static for a few years, at least, the gig isn’t too hectic. But we now live in Trump World where chaos and incoherence is the norm, and people come and go in droves. Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State from Exxon-Mobil, is gone; Hope Hicks, gone; Sean Spicer, gone; Gary Cohn, gone; Steve Bannon, gone; Mike Flynn, gone; Tom Price, gone. A host of lesser people have also been escorted out the revolving door of the White House. Trump, who lives in his own fantasy world of made up facts, claims to be close to having the Cabinet he really wants, which means, most likely, a Cabinet and advisors who will not contradict him or make him feel intellectually inferior, but who will constantly tell Trump that he is the greatest president of all time.

A Cabinet and White House staff populated with mediocrities loyal to Trump no matter how outrageous or dangerous his behavior.

It’s no surprise that Trump is making madness ordinary, just as he is making conflicts of interest ordinary, hardly worthy of notice. The corporate media reacts to every Trump tweet but fails to see and acknowledge the rot and gangrene at the heart of the system, and by “system” I mean predatory capitalism at home, and imperial designs abroad. As long as Trump occupies the national stage I’m going to keep saying this: he’s only a symptom, not the disease. If Trump were to keel over and expire tomorrow, the system -- in all its heartless cruelty, stupidity, and disregard for the common good -- would continue to function.

As a society we can’t agree about facts, even when the evidence is compelling and visible. America has lost its vision, its boldness, and its confidence. When polled most citizens express a desire for  government to provide services that will make their lives easier, less precarious; single-payer health care, free tuition at public colleges and universities, affordable housing, retirement security, clean air and water, safe roads and bridges, but the political class consistently, and blatantly, ignores the will of the people, claiming that such social benefits are too costly and a drag on the country’s “producers” and “job creators.” It was once accepted that creating a broad middle-class was a worthy objective, but that was before Ayn Rand and neoliberal economic ideas infected the policy stance of both parties.

This nation’s priorities emerge in stark relief when we look at what is always affordable: weapons of war, military invasions and occupations, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, subsidies for energy extractors, and bailouts when the elites overreach and crash the economy. Owners and investors are afforded a cushioned landing, no matter the cost, workers and the poor foot the bill.

This is a sobering date in American history, the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, when US soldiers murdered some 500 Vietnamese women, children and elderly villagers. The My Lai carnage lasted four hours. These days the US kills civilians with drones, a more sophisticated method, but one no less savage and immoral.

A Shot at a Meaningful Life

“I think after going through the common humiliations of a human life, I realized it just doesn’t matter. There’s nobody who can disguise himself. Eventually we’re all outed in one way or another.” Denis Johnson

Survived another week in TrumpLand. The Orange Menace didn’t blow up the world. Trump and his mafia family, Jared and Ivanka, all the corrupt hangers-on, the grifters, and the outright idiots, profaning the White House, day after day. Mike Pence and the Mad Hatter Christians wait in the shadows, Paul Ryan holds the bloody scalps of the poor. Cruel nation, up by your bootstraps or into the gutter with the rest of the losers.

My wife is on the phone with Verizon Wireless, trying to add international calling to her mother’s line ahead of an upcoming trip to the UK. The voice on the other end is that of an African-American male, and he’s obviously reading from a script, and I’m certain that he’s a prison inmate, somewhere. I give him the name Jerome Pettis, guest of the state, working for a Verizon call center, cheap, accessible labor with no rights -- a capitalist’s dream of heaven. Jerome has a southern accent, Arkansas or Mississippi, and talks slowly: “I can definitely help you with that, Ma’am, can I tell you about our packages…” I wonder what Jerome did that landed him in prison, armed robbery, rape, murder? More likely a minor drug crime for which, in the great American tradition of injustice, the big book was flung at him. Black and poor has always equaled injustice. At heart I imagine Jerome is a decent man, simply trying to make the best of his situation, there are worse things than talking to a cranky widow from Toledo, Ohio about her new iPhone. Jerome is patient as he reads from the approved script, but of course, he’s got nothing but time, slow time. Jerome tears me in two: part of me applauds his desire to improve his circumstances, and part wants him to rebel, to refuse, to rise from his cubicle quoting Malcolm X, and demand to be remanded to his cell.

The heaviness of this stupid country, my country, the heaviness of injustice, in contrast to the simple joys of my little family, our spats and petty arguments about who left the milk out all night or forgot to take the trash out. Simple, everyday life. Domestic chores, grocery shopping, my wife watching Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. I want my children to have a solid liberal arts education so they can understand who they are as people, their place in the world; I want them to think independently and to see issues from all sides, to question, to stand up to authority figures who often misuse their power; I hope they will revere books and writers as I do, and painting and theater as their mother does. Like all parents, Syrian, German, Yemeni, Chinese, I want my children to have a shot at a meaningful life. Why do we make this so hard for so many? Why do we cause so much needless suffering? Because some are never satisfied, they must have bigger, faster, shinier, and they must have control over others. Story of humankind -- let me impose my religion, beliefs, culture, and economy upon you. What? You will not submit willingly? Well, no problem, we have many other ways to extract your obedience.

And on it goes, on we go, into the unknown.

Calling BS on Hypocrisy

“The realities of American politics don’t change much from year to year.” Alexander Cockburn

Has the school shooting in Parkland, Florida led us to some kind of turning point in the never-ending gun debate? While money-grubbing political hacks like Marco Rubio continue to do the NRA’s bidding, hiding behind campaign contributions (legalized bribes) and contorted fealty to the 2nd Amendment, teenagers are calling Rubio and other “adults” out for hypocrisy and cowardice.

As in the aftermath of other mass shootings, the NRA’s apologists urged the public not to have a knee-jerk reaction and do something sane and logical like demanding an end to easy access to firearms; Republicans offered thoughts and prayers, as they always do, which is like handing a can of jet fuel and a blowtorch to someone whose home is engulfed in flames; the dipshit in the White House who masquerades as our president called for arming teachers -- one of the lamest ideas, ever. The NRA and their political allies banked on being able to confuse the issue by claiming that the source of the problem of gun violence isn’t guns (it never is, right?), but mental illness, or that the survivors of the shooting who call for decisive action had been put up to it, or Russia was to blame, and even this priceless bit of drivel: many mass shooters turn out to be, wait for it, Democrats!

The United States is a violent country -- at home and abroad -- with zero capacity or inclination to face its most pressing problems. Go right down the list, from climate change, income inequality, mass incarceration, endless war, staggering student loan debt, a nearly extinct middle class, lack of affordable housing, healthcare and education, political gridlock, racism, and you find the same root cause: money. The incentives in this insane society lean toward private profit and property, and legal exploitation of workers, the poor, and minorities. Human needs don’t matter; everything must bow before the God of Profit. If a price tag can’t be slapped on something, it may as well not exist. Social justice is for wimps and dreamers and socialists. The profits of gun and ammunition makers are more important than the safety of citizens, in the same way that the profits of Boeing and Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are more highly valued than helping the unfortunate.

Like the State of Israel, a small nation that wields outsized influence on US policy, the NRA, an organization of 4.5 to 5 million members, exercises too much influence over US politics. Marco Rubio sold his ass to the NRA on national television like a common street hooker. Rubio, and many of his smug, satisfied ilk, weep crocodile tears for the unborn but will not lift a finger to protect the living from the scourge of guns. This is the tyranny of a minority.

The kids are right to call BS and to demand that the adults in charge do more than pay lip service to their concerns; they are right to shame cowards like Marco Rubio who have made a devil’s bargain with the NRA.

Poem: When The Next Time Comes

Add 17 more names to our long list

Of students murdered in school

Bow your head

Wring your hands

Offer your prayers

And then forget

Until the next time

Because there will always be a next time

In a violent country like ours

A gun culture

Where the answer is always

More guns

Not less

Calls to arm school teachers

And deploy more police

Will ring out

As will calls to protect

Our sacred right to bear arms

And the names of the victims will be drowned

Out by noise amplified by

dollars

When the next time comes

We can bow our heads

Wring our hands

Offer our prayers

And bury the dead

The Fearsome Foursome: Leonid, Saddam, Muammar, and Donald

“Money, like vodka, does strange things to a man.” Anton Chekhov

Another fine week in Trump Land which more and more resembles a banana republic where the government steals from the people and the wealthy build taller walls and deeper bunkers. An unarmed citizen like me hardly knows where to begin. On February 5, less than a week after Trump boasted about all the dough his fellow oligarchs were making from the rising stock market, the NYSE took a 1,175 point tumble; three days later, the market took another big hit. Take note: Trump’s casino businesses always went belly up, and the stock market is the largest casino of all.

On February 6 on Good Morning America, the talking heads got to jabbering about the stock market, and determined, after pallaver that might have been written by the US Chamber of Commerce, that Monday’s sharp fall was just one of those periodic corrections, nothing at all to panic about. Besides, they said, the economy is robust, jobs are being added by the thousands, and wages are rising. No relevant statistical data was offered; just take their word for it, and if your personal circumstances don’t mirror their sunny pronouncements, well, it’s your fault because this is America, where every citizen has the same opportunity to make big money.

Trump was reportedly upset with congressional Democrats for not clapping at all the fantastic news he spewed during his droning State of the Union address, going so far as calling the Democrats un-American. Pretty clear that Trump never watched any of Barack Obama’s State of the Union speeches, during which Republicans sat stone-faced, or smirking like Paul Ryan, no matter what Obama said. If Obama had professed his love for the GOP and his admiration for Mitch McConnell, he still would have been met with dead silence. Forget the obvious absurdity for a moment and realize that Trump, like all insecure wannabe dictators, equates loyalty to him with patriotism. This is dangerous.

And then the media reported that Trump had demanded the Pentagon stage a massive military parade in the streets of Washington D.C., for no reason other than to stroke Trump’s frail ego. When I read this news I immediately imagined Trump -- who, let’s remember, dodged the draft -- decked out in military finery, complete with sword and scabbard, his chest festooned with medals and gold braid, saluting as tanks, artillery pieces and troops pass his reviewing stand, just like Leonid Brezhnev, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi once did, and Little Rocket man (Kim Jong-un) in North Korea does in our time. Perfect way to solidify our standing as a bonafide banana republic. The cost can be added to the obscene increase that Senate Republicans and Democrats want to gift the Pentagon. Tax cuts and a huge increase in military spending, like the Reagan years all over again. It’s not difficult to predict what the outcome of this irresponsible spending orgy will be. Groundhog Day in Washington D.C.

One of the most laughable boasts Trump made during his State of the Union speech was that the US is now deadly serious about winning the 16-year-long-undeclared war in Afghanistan. According to Trump, no more fooling around, it’s time to remove the gloves and knock the living hell out of the Taliban because the Taliban is killing people left, right, up, down and sideways; we will win because our warriors are strong, our cause just, our God more righteous, and, most of all, because Donald J. Trump is so-friggin’-awesome that he will triumph where George W. Bush and Barack Obama before him choked on failure.

Sure, and climate change is a hoax, coal burns clean, the surest way to give the middle class a boost is to cut taxes for the wealthy, the only cure for welfare dependency is work (jobs and transportation and child care being affordable and plentiful), Paul Ryan worships Social Security, Jeff Sessions respects the Constitution, and five days from now the sky will glow and all the pigs in America will take glorious flight. Trump is making America great again. We’re back, baby, hear us roar. USA! USA! USA!

Roaming Like a Three-Legged Buffalo

“We are in the hands of greedy businessmen and weak politicians. Such people will see to it that poverty grows every day.” Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World

This week I will roam between topics, like a three-legged buffalo in search of the herd that has left him for lost. I couldn’t bear to watch the State of the Union speech, and, from what I’ve read, and the few clips I’ve seen, I didn’t miss much; it was long and dreary, filled with insipid political platitudes, and Trump looked idiotic while he clapped for himself. The Republicans in the chamber cheered and applauded like fawning morons, but that’s hardly a surprise; Trump remains useful to the GOP and the party’s donor base. The finance, energy and defense sectors still find it useful to back Trump since he’s basically handing them their wish list. We all should know by now that the modern State of the Union address is a piece of political theater that usually bears little resemblance to reality. It has been a long time since an American president told the truth in a State of the Union speech, as long ago as Gerald Ford in the aftermath of Nixon’s resignation, when sugar-coating the real deal wasn’t an option.

I’m reading a book titled Jumping at Shadows by Sasha Abramsky which details how an epidemic of Fear has taken hold in America. Not a new idea by any means. Hunter S. Thompson put out Kingdom of Fear back in 2002 or so, after the nation lost its sanity over the 9/11 attacks and we began trading our civil liberties for a false sense of security. I’ve written about the many political uses of fear on this page, but Jumping at Shadows probes much deeper into the phenomenon. Immigrants, radical Muslims, insect-borne diseases, extreme weather, mass shootings, train wrecks, and on and on. Right after I began reading Jumping at Shadows I happened to catch a few minutes of ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. On the one hand Muir’s breathless delivery was hilarious, and on the other it supported Abramsky’s argument that the television news media is our primary source of fear. Every story Muir introduced was of danger, tragedy or mayhem, a steady drumbeat of things for people to worry about, right up to the end of the broadcast when Muir reported a feel good story.  And of course, Donald J. Trump stoked our fears in his overly long, dull speech, equating immigrants from south of our border to savage MS-13 gang members. Trump likes to paint with the broadest brush he can get his tiny hands on; he’s obviously clueless that MS-13’s origins were a result of US policy in Central America in the 1980’s and 90’s, or that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native born.  

From time to time I turn to the work of Anton Chekhov for solace. I was reading the short story, “Gooseberries” and came across this passage, which, though written about Russia in the 19th century, reminded me of contemporary America: “Just look at this life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, impossible poverty all around us, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lies…” The staggering income and wealth inequality present in the US in 2018 has turned millions of Americans into virtual serfs, with insecure low-wage employment, no access to healthcare, limited educational opportunities, heavy debts. American oligarchs, like Russian aristocrats, want to own and control everything so they can squeeze the people for profits. As I’ve written more times than I care to remember, capitalism not only puts the biosphere in peril, it also grinds human beings down, causing all manner of social ills, anxiety, depression, homelessness and hunger, and at the same time rendering anything that can’t be commodified and sold irrelevant. This is crystal clear where Donald J. Trump is concerned: the only thing Trump has ever loved is money, and I don’t think the Donald can fathom why everyone doesn’t feel the same. Funny thing though, for all his purported wealth, Trump appears to be a very unhappy man, miserable even, hated by millions the world over. It must gall Trump to no end that he will never be as popular as his African-American predecessor.

On the flap created by the release of the Nunes memo, all I can say is that it’s amusing to see the hypocrisy of Republicans and Democrats, who consistently vote to expand the surveillance powers of the national security state, and have no problem allowing intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens, but become outraged when their own malfeasance or conflicts of interest are uncovered by one of those agencies. Another sign of the corruption in our government.

State of the Union -- According to TRUMP

“But that was some other era, burned out and long gone from the brutish realities of this foul year of Our Lord…” Hunter S. Thompson, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

 -Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, and fellow citizens, I stand before you as the greatest president in American history, the most popular, most loved, and most successful. Everybody is saying that my first year in office has been one long winning streak for our great country. The stock market is skyrocketing, because of me; our tax code finally makes sense, because of me; ISIS is defeated, because of me; we are taking control of our borders, because of me; violent crime is way down and our inner cities are being reborn, because of me; the middle-class is growing by leaps and bounds, because of me. In one year I have accomplished more than my predecessor did in eight years. Just goes to show what can happen when a real American, who also happens to be a genius -- a very stable genius -- occupies the White House.

-Our ratings are great, we’re breaking records every day. You may have seen that Apple will soon invest $550 billion in manufacturing plants here in America, which means hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of great jobs for American workers. Think of it, very soon, American workers in Wichita and Youngstown and Camden will be assembling iPhones for the world. This is phenomenal, and something my predecessor could never have accomplished because he never understood the art of the deal.

-America is winning again, and winning large, like my favorite NFL team, the New England Patriots. In my first year in office I met with more world leaders and logged more air miles than any president in modern history, and wherever I traveled, people lined the streets, waving, showing their love for me and my brilliant administration and our great country. The people of Saudi Arabia love me, the jews of Israel love me like one of their own, and the inhabitants of Puerto Rico view me as their savior. We are winning across the globe because I put America first like no previous president has done. Who else but me could toss rolls of paper towels to the people like I did when I personally organized the recovery and rebuilding of Puerto Rico, which, I might add, has been a tremendous success. Puerto Rico is back on track.

-Because I always put America first, I pulled our country out of the Paris Climate deal, a terrible deal, and look what happened: our economy is booming, blacks are doing better than ever, women are doing better than ever. All because of me. And while we’re on the subject of women, people are always saying how much I respect women, which is true, nobody respects women more than I do. This is why ten days or so ago women gathered in the streets by the tens of thousands all across the country to march in support of my administration. The fake news media reported that women were protesting, but we know the truth, don’t we?

-A lot of people are saying that my administration is the most transparent and ethical in American history, filled with individuals of the highest personal qualities, very fine people, who would never place private gain above public good. Only I could drain the Washington swamp in a year. Another promise kept. My administration is a well-oiled machine the likes of which has never been seen before. This is why I have passed more legislation in my first year than any other president.

-On the international front the United States has never been more respected. Iran and North Korea understand that I will not tolerate any threat to our great country. My generals, how I love my generals, are prepared to defend America from any foreign threat, and our fighting men and women are the best the world has ever seen. A lot of people are saying that the morale and spirit of our military forces has improved since I became commander-in-chief. I am not afraid to use our military power, including nuclear weapons. Every one of our enemies should know this. I hope Little Rocket Man is listening very carefully.

-Never has our great country been more united. We are one nation under a benevolent God who protects and keeps us safe from the evil in this world. Only I could make this happen, as only I know how to make America great again. All you need to know is that as long as I’m president, we will keep winning. Thank you, and may God Bless the United States of America, and me, of course, your very own dear leader.

Year of the Jackass

“I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed.” Donald J. Trump, speaking to the press on January 14, 2018.

There’s no point in deconstructing the many racist comments that Donald J. Trump has issued in his first, calamitous year in the White House. From the Muslim ban to the idiotic border Wall, the man is a racist and white supremacist, end of tale. The shocking thing to me is the craven reluctance of Republicans to exercise their constitutional duty and hold Trump accountable. As long as Trump is useful to Republicans, they will continue to shield him from the criticism and censure he deserves. This is a lesson in cowardice and hypocrisy that should not be lost on the public. As Noam Chomsky often says, the GOP is no longer a political party -- it’s a quasi-criminal organization, a gang of looters.

The news moves fast these days and trying to keep pace with Trump’s lame tweets and inane pronouncements (most of which are flat out lies) is futile, and the corporate media offers little help because nearly all reporting is devoid of context, history, and perspective; one can’t honestly learn much of use about this country or the world from the mainstream corporate media. As Chris Hedges frequently points out, the corporate talking heads are not journalists as much as they are courtiers, sucking up to the powerful in exchange for access; they support the ruling class rather than oppose it. It’s a sad state of affairs that has been building for many years, ever since media ownership consolidated into fewer and fewer hands -- all of them corporate -- and the corporate masters demanded that news divisions turn a profit. This trend moved in lockstep with the neoliberal notion that every facet of American life could be commodified, sold, traded, or squeezed for profit: health care, education, freeways, prisons, housing, and so on.

A strain of bad juju is loose in our land, felt most acutely by people of character, soul and heart, traits missing from the Republican mafia and the Trump White House. Destructive cruelty, mendacity, ignorance, and arrogance rule. Who but Donald J. Trump could make George W. Bush look, not only competent, but eloquent and coherent by comparison? It’s still very difficult to accept that the President of the United States is an ignorant, lazy, asshole with the mental capacity and attention span of a fourth grader. Of course there have been terrible presidents in American history -- Trump isn’t the first ignorant racist to hold the office, but he is the stupidest man to reign in the nuclear age, and his denial of the reality of climate change borders on the criminal.

If Hunter S. Thompson were alive to witness America’s descent to bonafide banana republic, he would surely load a pistol and blow his brains out. The first year of Trump has been, as HST might say, a King Hell year of complete degradation. It didn’t take Trump long to drop his pants and piss all over the tomb of the American Dream.

Trump’s erratic behavior and sheer incompetence are not laughing matters, as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson recently pointed out: “The nation has never faced a situation like this: It is unwise to take literally or seriously anything the president and his official spokesmen say. An administration with no credibility cannot possibly lead.” Bingo.

Hold on world, year two of Trump is about to launch. I guarantee you it will be the Year of the Jackass.

Letter from a Shithole Country

“A rotten system must be treated from within.” John LeCarre, A Legacy of Spies

What’s it going to take, America?

How much more of this carnival sideshow that is Trump and the Kleptocrats can we stomach? It has been blatantly obvious for some time now that Donald Trump has no love for anyone not of light pigment. Trump doesn’t just dog whistle, he plays an entire orchestra and the determined faithful who buy what the conman’s selling sway and swoon. The Trump Show’s not working for them on a material level, and never will because Trump is just using them as props in his show, but the faithful never fail to respond when he stokes their grievance and fear. Revving them up, yanking their chain about murderous Muslims and uppity blacks and dangerous Salvadorans, attributing their social and economic decline to brown people from the other side of the border, gets Trump off better than a two-handed handjob.

Donald Trump is a lazy, moronic, idiotic man of meager intelligence who is also an unrepentant racist and white supremacist. This was clear even before his recent comments about people who emigrate to the US from “shithole countries,” comments that have offended most of the civilized world. Deep down, way down, even Trump’s most ardent supporters must at least recognize that Trump is unhinged and dangerous. More aware citizens know that Trump must be chased, hounded and driven from office, not only for the aforementioned reasons, but because every day he remains in the White House he diminishes and embarasses our country.

I can’t imagine that any self-respecting Norwegian would abandon his or her country, a working democratic-socialist nation with a wide social safety net, in order to emigrate to the United States, a cruel, mean, murderous, racist, and grotesquely unequal country.

But what we must understand if we are going to survive, as a country, and quite possibly as a species, is this: even if Trump were to leave office -- through impeachment for money laundering, profiting from his office, or by dropping dead of heart failure after a lunch of Big Macs and fries -- the US will remain a nation in decline and decay because the current power structure will still be firmly in place, run by and for corporate interests and wealthy individuals; bought politicians will still be bought, pay to play will still be the unspoken law of the land; the War on Terror will go on because it’s a dependable revenue stream for the war industry and because there’s no domestic price to pay for the politicians who keep authorizing more and more money for the Pentagon. Yes, absent Trump the tone and tenor and language coming from Washington would undoubtedly change, but the same neoliberal (pursued by Democrats and Republicans alike for decades), pro-market, pro-monopoly, pro-corporate policies will still be in place, just as they were under Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Same basic policies,less obnoxious packaging.

Our country, far from perfect, laden with contradictions, is thrashing around like an epileptic, foaming at the mouth, unable to understand that what’s tearing us to shreds is unregulated capitalism, imperialism, and resurgent racism; we grasp at fantasy saviors like Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey; working people fight one another while the oligarchs strip the nation bare, blaming the poor, the infirm, the elderly, Mexicans, Haitians, Salvadorans, Iran and North Korea, for our ills when in fact we are the agents of our own demise. Too passive, too gullible, too willing to believe in myths and Hollywood, too easily manipulated by corporate propaganda.

The only way to retake our country is to break the oligarchy that runs it, not an easy task. Opposing Trump isn’t enough -- the Orange Menace is only a symptom of a malignant ailment. Forget the Democratic Party -- it’s too compromised and inept to be of any help. Even after a year of Trump’s policy mayhem and gross incompetence, the Democrats have yet to advance a coherent, compelling, alternative vision for the nation; they are waiting for Robert Mueller to bail them out, another fantasy that is doomed to fail.

A Temple of Thieves

“Put yourself for a moment in the shoes of those early Americans who started four major social justice movements in the nineteenth century -- the abolitionist, women’s suffrage, trade union and farmer -- populist progressive revolts. It started with the perception of suffering, humiliation, and deprivation. Then it moved to a realization that such abuses and exclusions were not ordained.” Ralph Nader

I suppose that throughout American history men, and it has predominantly been men, have entered politics with one eye on public service and the other on the advantages public office can bestow on them personally. For most of my lifetime, politicians cloaked their personal greed under the guise of serving their constituents back home, or by invoking that useful and empty catch-all, “the American people.”

Today it seems a seat in congress or the senate is viewed as a golden ticket to the spigot where the money comes out. The corruption in Washington D.C. is now so endemic that pandering to the folks back home isn’t really necessary, and there’s almost no reason for an elected official to hide the fact that he is voting on legislation that will benefit him personally. All that pablum about propriety and the sanctity of public service, serving the sacred Constitution, is a quaint remnant of the past. Legal plunder by men wearing suits, silk ties, cufflinks, and an American flag lapel pin is now accepted as the way business is done. Utterly immoral, yes, but what is mere morality when compared to money and influence?

Secure that money seat in the house or senate and you can set yourself up for years to come. Sure, pandering to donors is a pain in the ass, and asking people for campaign contributions becomes tedious after a while, but you get used to it and it gets easier, and once you’ve delivered the goods for the poultry industry or Wall Street or Big Pharma, they seek you out, shove checks across your desk or send you on all expense paid jaunts to Bermuda or Thailand. You become accustomed to these perks, begin to expect them, and cling to your office with bulldog tenacity. Soon enough you realize how little the folks back home matter -- it’s the campaign donors who matter, them you must satisfy, their calls you must take and their wants you must tend to; they call the tune, pay the band, you do the dance with a vapid smile on your face, waiting for the day when you can slide step from public office to corporate boardroom, think tank, or lobbying outfit. Then the real dough rolls in, a daily jackpot.

Sometimes I marvel at the small size of the minority who own and rule America. Several hundred people call the shots for tens of millions. The minority control the structures of power, enhance the impediments to real democracy, and feed the public a steady diet of superficial “news” devoid of context. It’s as if we have returned to 18th century Europe, when aristocrats gorged themselves while peasants starved or froze to death.

Remember what John F. Kennedy said many years ago, on that bitterly cold day when he was inaugurated, ask not what your country can do for you...Trump and his mafia have turned this noble idea on its head; fuck the citizens and raid the treasury, government is good to the extent it enriches the people in power.

The temple is jammed with thieves, and Jesus is nowhere to be found.

The 2017 Honor Roll

“The earth is but one great ball. The borders, the barriers, the cages, the cells, the prisons of our lives, all originate in the false imagination of the minds of men.” Mumia Abu-Jamal

This has been a bastard of a year for people of goodwill and common decency, for people who believe in truth, in fairness, in equality of opportunity, and in compassion for the less fortunate. Americans are well into a period of orchestrated cruelty, shocking malfeasance on the part of our political class, and body blows to the tattered remains of our democracy.

Still, we have to live and work, study, take care of our families, and do what we can to resist Trump and his mafia; it’s a hard slog up a muddy hill, and at times it appears our efforts are futile, that the game is lost and that the power of the forces opposing our dreams and aspirations for a better country and world are unstoppable. The good news is that these forces aren’t unstoppable -- or inevitable.

What follows is my Honor Roll of people who fight the brave fight and show no signs of throwing in the towel. This isn’t a definitive list by any means, it’s my list, shaped by what and who I read and listen to. If you take time to make your own list you will undoubtedly recognize different people, and that’s good. The point is that there are many millions of people who know damn well that a better, more just world is possible. Keep battling in 2018. We’re better than Trump and his gang of kleptocrats.

Bill Moyers

Amy Goodman

William Rivers Pitt

Chris Hedges

Cornel West

Sonali Kolhatkar

Arundhati Roy

Matt Taibbi

Dean Baker

Rebecca Solnit

Jeremy Scahill

Sally Yates

Colin Kaepernick

Ralph Nader

Jeffrey St. Clair

Ian Masters

Kshama Sawant

Junot Diaz

Carmen Yulin Cruz

Peter Joseph

Paul Jay

William Barber II

Alicia Garza

Women all over the world

Standing Rock Water Defenders

Climate scientists

All the firefighters and emergency responders who worked on the Thomas Fire in Southern California

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.

Keeping Faith In Trump Time

“The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning.” Albert Camus

The massive Thomas Fire has dominated this entire week. The fire has torched nearly 250,000 acres and caused the death of one firefighter, locals schools have been shuttered, and the streets downtown are mostly empty of people. Local merchants are panicking as they watch the holiday shopping season pass. Those of us whose homes are not in danger have dealt with falling ash and unhealthy air quality, and, depending on where in the city one lives, the rumble overhead of helicopters on their way to make water drops. I haven’t left the house without an N95 mask for almost ten days. My 16-year-old daughter is going stir crazy. As of this morning, the Thomas Fire was 30 percent contained, but unless the winds remain quiet and we get some humidity the fire could burn several more weeks. Naturally, there’s no rain in the forecast.

On the political front, the odious Roy Moore did not win election to Alabama’s vacant senate seat; voters repudiated Moore, Trump, and Steve Bannon. Democrats are jubilant but what the party doesn’t seem to grasp is that simply being opposed to Trump isn’t enough for 2018 or beyond. Despite being a complete moron and a first-class creep, Moore lost by a slim margin. After nearly a year of Trump’s idiocy and incompetence, his lies and vulgarity and cruelty, I still don’t know what or who the Democratic Party stands for; working people or Wall Street, war or peace, social justice or austerity, prisons or education, resource extractors or the environment?

The GOP tax rip-off slithers toward Trump’s desk. The Trump FCC voted to repeal net neutrality rules, yet another holiday gift for corporate America, despite opposition from millions of Americans, proving once again, as if more proof were needed, that this country is a democracy in name only. Although, I can’t help but think that this is the last desperate gasp of the insane Republicans -- they are like a pack of looters after a natural disaster, racing to grab as much stuff as they can before the authorities arrive, but they are also planting the seeds of a reckoning. The majority of Americans are better than Donald J. Trump and the cold-hearted GOP. In Trump and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, plus a host of others, the dark underbelly of America has been exposed in all its ugliness, greed and cruelty; for now the dark side holds sway, but beware stirring the masses.

And if the masses can be stirred by a set of basic ideas like living wages for workers, education not prisons, crime and reasonable punishment, a complete re-think of America’s legitimate security and military needs, an end to fouling the earth, water and air for private profit, and the humane notion that no person should go hungry, homeless and without access to medical care, and that no elderly citizen should die destitute, then a lot that is good for people is possible, because the majority of Americans are the opposite of Donald J. Trump and his followers.  

He Ain't Heavy, He's Just a Pedophile

“Conflict is the lifeblood of imperial capitalism.” Jason Hirthler, writing in CounterPunch

 Will Alabama or won’t Alabama?

 Elect the alleged pedophile, Roy Moore.

The same Roy Moore who kept a tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments in his courtroom to remind the sinners and thieves who came before him That he was righteous and tight with the Lord.

Only thing, the Judge was ordered by a higher court to remove his tablet,
Holding the Bible like a shield what did the man do?
Refused, that’s what.

Same way he refused to recognize marriage equality, even when the Supreme Court ruled it the law of the land. Old Roy got himself tossed off the bench until the people, the people! re-elected him.

Time and time again Roy Moore has refused to separate his religious beliefs from his judicial duty. He’s made racist remarks, and even declared that all Constitutional Amendments after the Tenth be repealed. Think about it: the abolition of slavery, equal protection under the law, the right to vote -- forget it all.

Moore’s no fan of the Rule of Law.

This perverse history came before the public allegations of pedophilia, before stories of Judge Moore creeping adolescent girls in shopping malls, believing, so thoroughly in biblical patriarchy that women should submit to their men, and every man deserves a young virgin, that there was nothing amiss with this behavior.

Just gettin’ what God told him he was owed.

Sucking on hubris, high on tax cuts, the morally comatose GOP chucks its support behind Moore, Figuring there’s no electoral downside.

And the Orange Menace, America’s Malignant Tumor, Donald J. Trump, is all-in for Judge Moore, rallying his tribe of racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic and aggrieved followers to vote for Moore because he’s needed to Make America Great Again.

(Did you know that we are well on our way to being great again? Trump said so. Must be true.)

Morality, conscience, compassion, commonsense, humanity, the GOP traded its soul for cash, for power, and now the invoice has come due, time to pony up big tax cuts for the donor base.

So the plutocrats can rule forevermore.

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell laugh hysterically, a pair of sociopathic pranksters who have almost pulled off the cruelest joke -- the free ride for the wealthy will be paid for by the working poor, by children and senior citizens, the disabled, the hungry, the homeless, the sick and infirm.

So funny when you can manipulate people to vote for their own immiseration.

Just talk about God and gays and transgender freaks and liberals and states’ rights and entitlements and welfare queens and the glory of the Free Market and American greatness. Stoke the fires of grievance and envy and fear, never forget fear.

Lie about tax cuts, swear to God that tax cuts for the wealthy produce wonderful jobs for the poor, even though they never have, not ever, not for Uncle Ronnie Reagan, or George W. Bush.

Easy as apple pie. Flat out lies are the New Truth, science is bogus, history irrelevant, memory an aberration.

Already Present in the World

“In an age of almost unparalleled extremism, violence and cruelty, authoritarianism is gaining ground, rapidly creating a society in which shared fears and unchecked hatred have become the organizing forces for community. Under the Trump regime, dissent is disparaged as a pathology or dismissed as fake news, while even the slightest compassion for others becomes an object of disdain and subject to policies that increase the immiseration, suffering and misery of the most vulnerable.” Henry Giroux

Ash from the Thomas Fire in Ventura is falling like snow outside my window. The air quality is unhealthy and the sun is the color of a ripe peach. The wildfires raging in various parts of California are clearly exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change, but don’t bother telling Scott Pruitt or the other venal nitwits in the Trump Administration -- they refuse to believe the evidence right in front of them.

People walking in downtown Santa Barbara wear dust masks or bandanas. Is this what the apocalypse will look like? The schools in the unified district have been shuttered for two straight days. There has hardly been any wind, so the smoke from the fires lays over the city like a malevolent blanket. Some fire officials believe the Thomas Fire could burn until Christmas. More than 130,000 acres have burned thus far. There’s no rain in the forecast, even though this is supposed to be our “rainy” season. When and if rain comes, it will likely produce mudslides, but not to fear, this has nothing to do with climate change, that Chinese hoax.

This is the age of cruelty and stupidity. As I noted on this blog many months ago, Trump and his band of kleptocrats will do enormous damage to the nation, exacerbate our most pressing problems, and fuck things up but good for a generation -- if not longer. Despair is an easy emotion to fall into, and I have been guilty of this many times in the last 12 months. In normal times -- and these are anything but normal times -- I tend to brood and see the world through a dark lens; cynicism comes easy to me. These are not traits I’m proud of, but I recognize them for what they are. But sunny optimism without an understanding of the work required to make any kind of change -- personal, social -- seems naive. Wishing will not make something so, effort is required, and not only effort, sustained effort, through setbacks and failures and dead ends and dark nights when any progress seems impossible.  

The writer Rebecca Solnit whose book, Hope in the Dark, I am reading now, says this: “What we dream of is already present in the world.” I dream of a world less bent on its own destruction, a world where cooperation is more valued than competition, a world in which the pursuit of money isn’t the highest ideal, a world where one human life isn’t deemed more valuable than another, a world of far less wealth inequality, one in which large numbers of people can satisfy their basic needs for food, shelter, medical care, clothing, work and education, a world where a person of color in a hoody and baggy pants and white sneakers  can walk in a predominantly white neighborhood and not be considered suspect, dangerous, a threat.

Come off your corner stool, move to the middle of the ring, start punching. Don’t stop.

The Uses of Fear

“The chief principle of banana-ism is that of kleptocracy, whereby those in positions of influence use their time in office to maximize their own gains, always ensuring that any shortfall is made up by those unfortunates whose daily life involves earning money rather than making it.” Christopher Hitchens

Demagogues throughout history and the world over understand the use of fear, and how to stoke fear in order to manipulate their subjects or followers. When he’s not at war with black athletes, the NFL, CNN, Elizabeth Warren or members of his own cabinet, or insulting indigenous people with his breathtaking stupidity, Donald J. Trump never misses an opportunity to raise the spectre of crime, immigrants, and Muslims. The litany goes: soft on crime, soft on the border, soft on terrorism, yada yada. In reality, the crime rate in the United States is down, immigrants are not pouring across the border to pillage, rape and plunder, and we have far more to fear from deranged homegrown white men armed to the gills than we do from Muslims. But fear works on a large segment of the American public that doesn’t think, read, or know much, if anything, about history.

Trump bangs on endlessly about the threat of Muslim terrorists, but where did he go on his first overseas trip as President? Right, Saudi Arabia, that bastion of moderation and tolerance. As Al-Jazeera journalist Mehdi Hasan noted recently, “The Saudi Arabians have been exporting their particularly puritanical, intolerant brand of Islam to the rest of the Muslim-majority world since the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.” Naturally, Saudi Arabia is our bosom ally, and naturally, Trump is far too ignorant to see the hypocrisy of American policy.

I noticed the other day, quite out of the blue, a sudden surge of disquiet followed by a flash of white hot anger, and I realized the source of these feelings: Trump, the immoral GOP tax scam, the smirk on Paul Ryan’s face, the ongoing genocide in Yemen, aided and assisted by the United States. These are all people or events that take place far from my everyday life, but they feel real, bothersome, and often infuriating, primarily because I am powerless to do much but write my elected officials, sign on-line petitions, and write this blog. Might as well spit into a Category 5 hurricane. I’m not alone in feeling politically impotent; it’s obvious that the views of the majority of Americans are completely disregarded by political, financial and media elites. The people are only needed every few years to legitimize the system by casting votes in sham elections that are bought and paid for by corporations and the super wealthy.  

The proposals and proclamations issuing from the Trump kleptocracy are so heinous and cruel that it makes me wonder if people in Washington sit around thinking of the most damaging things they can inflict on the nation. How can we punish senior citizens, children, the infirm or disabled? What can we do to foul the environment and hasten the effects of climate change? How can we make it more difficult for young people without piles of cash to attend college? How can we get the masses to pay for the excesses of corporations and the wealthy? It’s as if there is a diabolical think tank around the corner from Pennsylvania Avenue where morons and fucktards hatch schemes…Trump has no respect for his office, the Constitution, the rule of law, basic decorum, and he’s even incapable of awarding commendations to elderly American Indian war veterans without making an ass of himself. If Trump were the president of Trinidad and Tobago or the Marshall Islands, I might be less troubled by his penchant for fouling everything he touches, but he’s the President of the United States and his buffoonery isn’t a laughing matter.

My wife clings to the idea that only the arts can save us from our worst impulses, live theater, plays, music, dance, painting; I want desperately to believe her. In a time of darkness, we must look for the light wherever we can.