Beacon of Freedom

“Maybe what I’m pining for is a liberal Magic Kingdom, a Midwest where things function again. A countryside dotted with small towns where the business district has reasonable job-creating businesses in it. Taverns, too.” Thomas Frank, Rendezvous with Oblivion

 

Historically speaking, the Supreme Court has never been a friend of us commoners. With few exceptions, the Court has advanced or protected the interests of capital and property, rich over poor, whites over Africans, males over females. That the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s Muslim ban was shocking at first, but when considered in historical perspective, not shocking at all. The United States -- beacon of freedom and liberty for the world’s poor and downtrodden, (don’t laugh) -- has blocked Chinese immigrants, Hindus and Sikhs, Syrian-Lebanese, and, of course, we shamefully incarcerated Japanese-Americans during World War II. North Korea and Venezuela were tossed into Trump’s mix to make it appear more palatable, but the target population was crystal clear: Muslims.

How many terrorist acts have been committed by Iraqi, Syrian, Iranian, Libyan or Somali immigrants? Zero. How many Iraqi, Syrian, Iranian, Libyan or Somali citizens have been displaced by undeclared US wars against their countries or by US support for countries like Saudi Arabia? Millions. Like presidents before him, Trump’s rhetoric inflated the danger and downplayed the reality. He is playing the very same card with regard to our southern border. Think about it, is the most heavily armed country on the planet really at risk of being overrun by brown-skinned immigrants from Mexico and Central America, many of them women and children? Demagoguery isn’t designed to make sense, it’s sole purpose is to stoke fear and make people act irrationally.

After upholding Trump’s Muslim ban, the corporate-friendly Court swung a lead pipe at the kneecaps of the last stronghold of organized labor -- public employee unions. The argument in JANUS vs. AFSCME, that collection of mandatory and involuntary agency fees (also called service fees or fair share fees) violated an employee’s first amendment right to free speech, was spurious at best, but this Court must believe that corporations don’t already have enough power and might over workers. The radical right has long sought to decapitate public employee unions and the JANUS decision might just do it. I was a member of a public employee union for many years, a local president, an activist, and I know that unions, like corporations, do dumb things; I got ticked off by the so-called “member leaders” who seemed as disconnected from reality as Washington politcos are from people who work for wages. But I always, and still, believed in collective action, people with shared interests, be they of whatever color or creed, standing together and making demands of the high and mighty. What remains of organized labor after JANUS must be more radical, more confrontational, more inclusive.

One bright light in this otherwise dreary week was the primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Latina socialist in New York who whipped an entrenched Wall Street toadie Democrat. Ocasio-Cortez is smart, passionate, real, and she’s promoting issues like Medicare for All, free college, and so on, that make the Democratic Party establishment cringe, and Chuck Schumer’s hemorrhoid pop. Ocasio-Cortez just might be going places, making things happen, shaking the tree. We need that.

Short Takes:

Shocking news from the group stages of the World Cup: Germany, the defending champ, is out. The talented giant, tripped, then stumbled, and never recovered. My three favorites: Belgium, France, and Argentina remain in the hunt. The knockout stage is next.

I just began reading a delightful book about football by the late Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow. Here’s a quote: “In soccer, as in everything else, consumers are far more numerous than creators.”

And so it goes, in June of this terrible year.

Crazy, Cruel & Venal: Another Week In TrumpLand

“In American the quirk was that people were things...A slave girl squeezing out pups was like a mint, money that bred money.”  Colson Whitehead

The United States is failing in so many ways that it’s mind-boggling. The slow-motion train wreck continues to unfold, one ghastly image heaped upon the last, from terrified migrant children to the idiotic Melania, to the scowling visage of Stephen Miller. This nightmare can’t be happening, and yet it is, the dark, slimy underbelly of America exposed for the world to see, though most nations have understood for decades the brutality of my country. Except for the Vietnam War in the 60’s and the Nixon Administration, I can’t remember the country being so divided against itself, so full of hatred and fear.

The Trump junta is crazy and cruel and venal, playing to a small base of the misguided who don’t know where to direct their ire. Trump’s diehard supporters continue to believe -- against all evidence -- that their man is working for them and that their circumstances will improve, as the Orange Menace promised. That they won’t is a foregone conclusion. Trump and his cronies and family members are making everything worse for the many, as I knew they would. Kleptocracies serve the very few, and only the very few. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, Trump spreads chaos and confusion. He clearly enjoys doing so. Immigration, trade, foreign policy -- there may be some twisted method to what Trump says and does -- but usually his actions seem driven by whim and pique and caprice.

I was listening to Thom Hartmann on the radio the other morning, on my way to the dojo for a kickboxing session, and he was talking about the many ways the people who own and run this country operate. They could never succeed by coming straight out about their aims to reduce regulation on corporations, slash corporate and personal income taxes, bankrupt the social safety net, and keep wages low. Wouldn’t fly and the owners know it. They have to wrap their true aims in claims about murderous immigrants, dangerous Muslims, welfare queens (who are invariably African-American), drugs and drug dealers, morale decay and decline whose only cure is personal responsibility (thus no welfare check without a job), and the Christian church, prayer in public schools, etc.  We elect scads of politicians who spout these sentiments and then once in office, vote to cut regulations on corporations, slash taxes on the wealthy, gut social programs, and punish the poor. Bait and switch.

Short Takes:

Belgium and France are playing reasonably well in the World Cup, Mexico is through to the Round of 16, and Germany is back on track after some late heroics from Tony Kroos. Great, entertaining stuff. Brazil and Argentina are lurking, too. Portugal, as it did in the Euros in 2016, finds a way to advance. The number of Mexico supporters who travelled to Russia is astounding. How do they manage it?

This week I’m reading The Bonanza King by Gregory Crouch, Reporter by Seymour Hersh, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and Rendezvous with Oblivion by Thomas Frank. And the Lady and the Monk by Pico Iyer. Some of these I will review for the Santa Barbara Independent, my other job that brings me a lot of satisfaction and allows me to meet interesting and accomplished people. The day job is a necessity and I’m OK at what I do, but books and ideas feed my soul.

Earlier this year the local media reported that the annual Solstice parade (one of SB’s major tourists draws) might not happen due to lack of money. The fires and floods, road closures, loss of life and general disruption had dried up donations. The parade came off yesterday, though the Solstice organization was literally pushing a giant black hat mounted on wheels up and down the street, while volunteers angled poles with bags tied on the end into the crowd, hoping to come away with a few bucks. Bills to pay and all that. It costs money to block off streets and pay the police and clean up the mess afterwards. It’s always difficult to tell at street level, but the parade didn’t appear as well attended as in the recent past. The marine layer was thick and the sun never broke through.

The Blind Pig Finds an Acorn

“Say no more to treating people like things and corporations like people.” The Reverend William Barber

Another crazy week in TrumpLand. Who else but Donald Trump goes to meet one of our perennial bogeymen and babbles about building condos on the beaches? Despite the fulminations of Rachel Maddow and what passes for the liberal media ( what a joke), the bumbling, idiotic Trump might actually have done something good in Singapore. As Hunter S. Thompson was fond of saying, “even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then” and if nothing else, it’s better and safer for the world when nuclear armed nations are talking, rather than threatening, one another. Every now and then a rank amatuer pulls off a miracle. Of course, Trump returned from Singapore talking as if North Korea had already disarmed, the whole matter done and dusted, just like that.

What a simpleton.

But then you turn around and look a the deplorable, cruel and inhumane treatment of migrant children at our borders, separated from their parents by order of the diabolical Jeff Sessions, and the reality of the Trump Junta comes screaming back into one’s face.

I imagine Kim Jong-un leaning toward Trump and asking, “So, Donald, what was it like to fuck that porn star?”

The United Nations -- yes, that despised body -- released its report on extreme poverty and lo and behold the U.S. is doing great! 40 million Americans living in poverty; highest infant mortality rate in the developed world; our citizens live shorter and sicker lives; our access to clean water and sanitation ranks 36th in the world; and, of course, we retained our title as the undisputed leader in incarceration. Can’t touch the USA there! Take that, Vladimir. For every one you jail, we jail ten.

The World Cup is underway. The three teams I am pulling for are France, Belgium, and Argentina. France because of N’Golo Kante, who plays his club football for Chelsea; Belgium because Eden Hazard is one of my favorites and also a Chelsea man; and Argentina because I’d like to see Messi get the international monkey off his back. How fun was the match between Portugal and Spain? Cristiano buried that free kick to rescue a point for Portugal before he kicked the ball, you could see it in his face.

Maybe the thrill is gone, maybe it never was. It’s Father’s Day and I’m thinking of my dad, the smell of cigarette smoke on his coats hanging in the closet of our house on Ardilla Drive, and how little I knew of his interior life, what he thought and believed, what gave him joy. Ironically, I knew my father-in-law more intimately than my own father; they’re both gone. I’ve tried to lay down some markers for my kids so they’ll know who their old man was, but by the time they know, I’ll be gone, too.

And so it goes.

Bill of Goods

“People come, people go

Some grow young, some grow cold

I woke up in between

A memory and a dream

So let's get to the point, let's roll another joint

Let's head on down the road

There's somewhere I gotta go” Tom Petty

The daughter of one of my wife’s oldest friends graduated from a local high school on Thursday, an afternoon full of sunshine and a light breeze. The line of people filing into the stadium was long and moving slowly through the gate; parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, some clutching balloons that were not allowed into the stadium by the hired security guards, who also checked bags for contraband, air horns, signs, and anything else deemed verboten. An instrumental group was on the artificial turf field playing musical numbers from movies. White chairs for the graduates, arrayed like a chevron, and a three person Navy color guard. The mood in the area where we sat was expectant, light, tinged with relief, graduation being an end and a beginning. As we watched people stream in I thought of my son, for whom high school was one long agony of not fitting in or connecting; he stacked his time and couldn’t wait to be free of what he considered a soul-sucking waste of his time.

The instrumental group began playing the graduation march and the students filed in, two by two, girls in red robes, boys in blue; as the students passed the stands family members stood up and waved or called out, hoping for a wave in return. Pair after pair until all the students were seated on the white chairs. The school principal asked everyone to stand for the pledge of allegiance -- that strange ritual -- and then a choir sang the national anthem (no one took a knee in protest). The principal, an embattled figure who is currently suing the school district for its decision to return him to a teaching position next year, introduced two of the school board members who voted to oust him, an ironic twist. I wondered what was going through his mind, knowing that this was his final graduation exercise at the school where he had worked for nearly 20 years. He began speaking about what a record-breaking year it had been for the athletic department, with something like eight conference championships and two state titles, an odd place, it seemed to me, to start a graduation speech, given that the majority of students are not involved in athletics, and then he spoke of the award-winning choir and the theater department, using, within the first two minutes, the word “amazing” three times. Most of his speech consisted of platitudes to hard work, learning from adversity and never giving up, stock phrases, many of which were repeated by the white girl who spoke next; she reminded her classmates that they had begun four years before as wide-eyed, weak-kneed freshman, and now here they were, confident and accomplished seniors, ready to step out into the wider world and seize all the opportunities she was positive were waiting. Her pigmentation or surname would never stand between her and her dreams, and the cynic in me suspected she came from a family with dough, maybe even a Hope Ranch clan.

The final student speaker was a special education kid who got a big cheer when he finished. I wondered what his future would be like, if he would find his place in the world, or if this accomplishment would be the highlight of his life. The times are so different now, the American Dream is dead, the American Empire is in decline, and the can-do American spirit that existed in the the quarter century after World War II has been replaced by fear and cruelty and grotesque, brazen corruption that kills hope. As the long roll call of names began I wondered if my generation had sold these kids a bill of goods, a false promise, and a bucket of piss. I hope not. I hope these kids will wrest power from the oligarchs before it’s too late.

Short Takes:

Donald Trump: “All the best Constitutional scholars agree that I am above the law, below the law, immune to the law, better than the law, and beyond the reach of law. I can pardon myself any time I want to.”

Razan Al-Najjar was only 21 when she was murdered by an Israeli army sniper. Razan was a medic, trying to provide care to a wounded Palestinian near the fence that keeps Palestinians trapped in Gaza. The medics wore white vests and held their hands up, not that this universal gesture matters to the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel is now spinning the fairy tale that Razan was no Florence Nightingale, she was providing care to Hamas. Nobody believes this BS except Nikki Haley, Trump’s ambassador to the UN, and Bibi, of course.

Anthony Bourdain, RIP. You told the truth about what you saw, as well as what you ate.

According to Seymour Hersh, the award-winning and legendary investigative reporter, the most lethal words to come out of the mouth of a guest on cable news are, “I think.” Hersh could care less about what guests think -- he only wants to know what they know and can prove. Amen.

Trump is possibly the most brazenly corrupt American president in history. The US Constitution has a mechanism for stopping him, but only the corrupt US Congress can make that mechanism work, and the chances of that happening are slim.

A Nation of Racketeers

“The current situation of the United States is obscene, insane, and incredible. If someone had pitched it for a thriller novel or film a few years ago, they would’ve been laughed out of whatever office their proposal made it to because fiction ought to be plausible. It isn’t plausible that a solipsistic buffoon and his retinue of petty crooks made it to the White House, but they did and there they are, wreaking more havoc than anyone would have imagined possible, from environmental laws to Iran nuclear deals.” Rebecca Solnit

The most amusing thing I notice in America’s slow (but gathering speed) political, economic, and moral collapse is how many people still consider the Democratic Party a viable counterweight to Trump and Trumpism (which I define as endemic corruption, incompetency, and utter disregard for and ignorance of the Constitution and the rule of law), despite evidence that the Pelosi/Schumer Democrats are inept, timid, and devoid of any principles except serving their corporate donor base. At this point, can anyone reading these words tell me what Democrats stand for? Because I have no idea. The lessons of Hillary Clinton’s loss stood out like New Year’s Eve in Times Square, clearly visible to all -- with the exception of corporate Democrats.

In a recent piece for Truthdig, Chris Hedges wrote of the Democratic Party: “It is deaf, dumb and blind to the very real economic suffering that plagues over half the country. It will not fight to pay workers a living wage. It will not defy the pharmaceutical and insurance industries to provide Medicare for all. It will not curb the voracious appetite of the military that is disemboweling the country and promoting the prosecution of futile and costly foreign wars. It will not restore our lost civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom from government surveillance, and due process. It will not get corporate and dark money out of politics.”

We face an urgent need to restructure our economy in a manner that slows destruction of the biosphere, but the Trump Administration is moving full-speed in the opposite direction, toward the abyss where our addiction to fossil fuels is taking us.

Here’s what Noam Chomsky had to say on this subject recently: “One cannot overemphasize the astonishing fact that the most powerful country in world history refuses to join the world in doing at least something -- in some cases a lot -- about this existential threat to organized human life (and to the species that are disappearing as the Sixth Extinction proceeds on its lethal course). And beyond that, is devoting its efforts to accelerating the race to disaster. And no less astonishing is the failure to highlight, even to discuss this extraordinary situation. Considering what is at stake, it is hard to find a historical parallel.”

We face an urgent need to end our perpetual wars on the Muslim world, and to drastically curtail mindless military spending, but no, our glorious, bloated and insatiable military is sacrosanct and untouchable.

We face an urgent need to provide healthcare for all citizens based on need, not bank account. Our for-profit insurance system kills people, bankrupts people, and leaves far too many with no care at all. Placing medical decisions in the hands of insurance company profiteers is insane.

We face an affordable housing crisis that is devastating communities and leaving even lower middle class citizens in a precarious situation, forced to devote a higher percentage of their incomes to keep a decent roof overhead.  

We face a multi-faceted political crisis caused by too much money, too many lobbyists for corporations and oligarchs, outright bribery, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a two-party system that leaves millions of voters with no choice whatsoever. Tweedledee or Tweedledum isn’t a choice. A lack of independent news media plays into our political ignorance and dysfunction. The corporate media, dominated by cable, distorts, obfuscates, confuses, and, mostly, fails to do any meaningful reporting on climate change, the real economy, and international affairs like Israel’s murder of unarmed Gazans.

Short Takes:

Rest in peace, Philip Roth. You leave us with Portnoy, Zuckerman and David Kapesh, and some of the most beautiful prose ever produced in American literature.

NFL owners, all but two of whom are white and wealthy, have decided to prohibit their largely African-American labor force from taking a knee (or doing anything else) in protest during the national anthem. Compulsory patriotism, as Davie Zirin, sports editor for The Nation calls it. As far as I’m concerned, NFL players have the right to express their opinions in whatever way best gets their message across; they don’t cease to be citizens when they walk on the playing field or the court. Seems that the intent of the owners is to placate Trump and at the same time assert control over labor. White NFL fans can’t handle it when African-American athletes assert their human rights.

Chelsea Football Club won its 8th FA Cup trophy last weekend, salvaging some pride from a season that more often than not felt dull and dismal. No sooner had the team lifted the trophy than speculation about Antonio Conte’s future began in earnest. Will the Italian remain or leave, has he torched the bridge connecting him with the club’s board? Still unknown, though most fans are leaning towards Conte’s departure. Blowing through managers is a Chelsea FC staple. By August, the club’s make-up will likely look very different.

The veneer of civilized debate and democracy, of respect for tradition and American values, has been ripped off like a tin roof in a hurricane, revealing the corruption that has been there all along. The class war is long over, the rich won, and now nothing can hold them back. America: a nation of racketeers, by racketeers and for racketeers.

Enough Bullets for Everyone

“The victims are themselves the culprits. This is exactly what the Palestinians have had to endure for 70 years.” Robert Fisk

Watching Israel and the United States stand truth on its ear is like riding Space Mountain at Disneyland in pitch blackness for hours on end; climb, descend, twist left, then right. Hearing Donald J. Trump compared to King Cyrus of Persia -- Persia! -- by nutjob pastor Robert Jeffress is nauseating. Too much irony and cognitive dissonance. I’m sure Trump thinks Persia is a theme park or a competing luxury hotel. “Where is this Persia?”

American evangelicals adore Trump, the thrice-married womanizer, pornstar banging, lying adulterer, and unabashed pussy-grabber. So much for Christian principles.

To hear Bibi Netanyahu and Nikki Haley tell it, Israel is simply protecting itself from hordes of Palestinians who have the temerity to approach the border. It’s all Hamas, Hamas, Hamas. Rinse, repeat. The American corporate media dutifully report the bullshit -- if they bother to report at all. Somewhere in America a cat is stuck in a tree, a community has been ravaged by a tornado, or a passenger airplane was forced to make a dramatic emergency landing. These are “breaking news” stories which must be covered in breathless detail.

The plight of Palestinians in Gaza? Not worth thirty seconds. Too complicated for Americans to understand.

Bibi Netanyahu: “We are besieged by the forces of Hamas. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly non-violent protests, the women and children waving flags -- they are killers, every one of them, trained by Hamas, armed by Hamas, controlled by Hamas. Israel faces a grave threat, an existential threat. Our brave soldiers face bloodthirsty Arabs armed with slingshots and Molotov cocktails and wire cutters. These wicked Arabs set tires on fire which threatens the health of our forces. The smoke gets in their eyes and lungs. One of our soldiers suffered a scratch on the arm that almost bled. Israel will not tolerate this. We have a right to protect our border and we have done so with extreme care, only firing on Hamas when under mortal danger from their advanced weapons. The casualties on the other side are caused by Hamas, not Israel. Hamas shoots its own people and then blames Israel. We have incontrovertible proof of this! Don’t fall for propaganda. Listen to me, I am telling you the truth. Israel is righteous and moral. We do not kill innocent people, only Hamas terrorists whose sole aim is to destroy Israel!”

Nikki Haley: “I have a message to convey to the UN Security Council from the President of the United States, the great and wonderful Donald J. Trump, who knows everything about the Middle East because he is the smartest human being to ever walk the earth: Hamas bad, Israel good.”

The gross injustice heaped on Palestinians for decades by Israel and the US has long troubled me, nagged at me, and infuriated me. The longer I live, the more I read, and the more I understand the difference between American rhetoric and American actions, the angrier I become. Israel could never have occupied Palestinian land for as long as it has without the unqualified support of the United States. As author Rashid Khalidi pointed out in his book, Brokers of Deceit, the US has long been an unreliable intermediary between Israel and the Palestinians; how can the US claim to be neutral and objective when it hands Israel billions of dollars in various types of aid every year? US allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt turn their back on the Palestinians.

In the same way that the American government does not represent the views of the majority of the American people (we are not as immoral, corrupt, greedy, and murderous as the political hacks, CEO’s and bankers who rule us), I want to believe that a majority of Israeli citizens realize that the actions of their government toward the Palestinians are unlawful, immoral, and antithetical to a real, lasting peace.

The American media has an infuriating habit of painting the Israel-Palestine conflict as one waged by equals, which is simply ridiculous. For years now, Israel has changed the reality on the land in the West Bank, displacing Palestinians, building settlements, walls, restricted roads, and making it next to impossible for Palestinians to return, ever.

In the meantime, the Israeli Defense Forces have plenty of bullets and no shortage of unarmed human targets.

Bibi's Puppet

“Actually, the ones who at all costs want to appear strongest are usually the weakest, and at times they look ridiculous or pathetic.” Piero Ferrucci

Against all professional advice and the pleadings of our European allies, the Orange Menace has done it, pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement. Reneged. Bowed to his pals and our long time “allies”, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and the prime minister of Israel, both of whom would love to see the US attack Iran. The neocon wet dream may be within reach, the dream that arouses Pompeo and Bolton in the middle of the night more than kiddie porn arouses a child molester.

What a state of affairs, this slow-motion train wreck that may very well end with the US waging war against yet another Middle Eastern country that hasn’t attacked or directly threatened us. What will the trigger be, some Tonkin Gulf type incident, a provocation by Israel (this began on cue in Syria shortly after Trump made his announcement), or simply the steady drumbeat of hysterical reporting in the New York Times, on CNN and from Netanyahu? Convincing the American public that Iran poses an imminent threat to our sacred way of life and that violence is the only solution is easy, and Congress isn’t likely to put up much resistance. American propaganda can turn any foreign leader into the equivalent of Hitler. One thing is certain: Trump has killed any chance of negotiating with Iran. Sanctions will punish the people of Iran -- not that Trump cares about them -- as well as European nations like Germany that trade with Iran. So dumb, so destructive, so hypocritical.

So Trump.

In the Middle East, a region we have never understood, our wagon is lashed to Saudi Arabia, country of origin for most of the 9/11 hijackers, a barbaric place where the state stages public beheadings, and an avid sponsor of a perverse strain of Islam; and Israel, the world’s great occupier, land thief, and perpetual victim.

On the domestic front, Trump continues to fulminate against the press any time an unfavorable report or story about him emerges. I think the corporate press has been cowardly in reporting about Trump, unwilling to confront his obvious inadequacies and lack of intelligence, but then, the Orange Menace is so outrageous that his every idiotic mutter is covered, drawing coveted eyeballs to screens for advertisers, and ad revenue is far more important than intrepid reporting. Anyway, most members of the credentialed press are parrots. But Trump is so mentally deranged that he deems any negative or unflattering report about him as fake news; the man honestly believes that he is accomplishing deeds greater than any previous president. Trump is impervious to truth, proud of his ignorance, blind to anything outside of himself, and ever desperate for attention and approval.  

The Pelosi-Schumer Democrats appear content to bide their time and hope that Trump either self-destructs or is brought down when Robert Mueller sorts out the money pipeline linking Russian oligarchs and the Trump Organization. The only thing I ever agreed with Steve Bannon about is that the entire Russia-Trump story is about money laundering. Corporate Democrats seem to believe they can sit back, offer nothing in the way of policies, and capitalize on Trump’s unpopularity with much of the electorate. No upsetting Wall Street donors or the military-surveillance complex, no abandonment of the neoliberal fictions of the Clinton/Obama eras. This is a recipe for continued failure. After 18 disastrous months of Trump, Democrats still cannot find their voice. It’s not enough to be against Trump -- a majority of Americans are against Trump. Democrats need to get off their lazy asses and offer the electorate -- not only their corporate donors -- something to be for. This will not happen.

Short Takes:

The Premier League season ends tomorrow. Manchester City are champions, deservedly so, and my Chelsea is most likely to finish fifth and miss out on the Champions League competition next year. Our manager, Antonio Conte, will pack his bags and leave Stamford Bridge, yet another manager who couldn’t get on with the club’s top officials. It has been a frustrating year for Blues fans.

Waiting on the Ghost of Edward R. Murrow

“Capitalism is like poisoned honey. People swarm to it like bees.” Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Hypocrisy is lodged deep in the American character. We proclaimed that all men are created equal, but put millions of African men (and women and children, too) in bondage; we freak out over the possibility that Russia interfered in our election process, as dubious and corrupt as that money-drenched process is, when the US has for decades interfered in the elections of nations around the globe; we spend more money on the military and intelligence services and domestic security than any country on earth, and yet our president loses his shit over the possibility that a few hundred Central American refugees might “overwhelm” our border.

If you get your information about the world from the American corporate media, you might believe that the only major problems we face are high taxes (always too high), threats from Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, Putin, Robert Mueller, and Stormy Daniels. Poverty, racism, perverse and destructive income inequality, climate change, Fukushima, the murder of unarmed peaceful protesters by the Israeli army, not worth covering. It’s all spin and counterspin, PR flackery, truth-killing, obfuscating statements from nitwits like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and fawning servility from people who call themselves journalists. Superpower? The world’s most wonderful democracy? Land of the free, home of the brave?

The drums of war are beating again. Trump threatens to pull the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, while Bibi Netanyahu, the corrupt and murderous Israeli Prime Minister, makes a hyperbolic presentation suggesting that Iran is poised to seize control over the entire Middle East, and wipe Israel from the map. Never mind that Israel has a nuclear stockpile, plus the unequivocal support of the US military, Iran is the key threat to peace in the region. Forget the fact that the JCPOA appears to be working, and that Iran is said to be complying with its terms, Trump still wants to pull out and make Iran pay a terrible price, whatever that means. Trump obviously hasn’t troubled himself to read the JPCOA or have someone explain its basic terms to him with graphics. I doubt Trump could find Iran on a map.

Short Takes:

Trump is now apparently denying that he had sex with former adult film star “Stormy Daniels,” though the Orange Menace clings to his accusation that Daniels violated a non-disclosure agreement. If Trump and Stormy didn’t do the big nasty, why was an NDA required?

I came across this quote in Ibram X. Kendi’s brilliant history, Stamped from the Beginning: “Faced with an empty national treasury, erratic trade policies, international disrespect, and fears of the union falling apart…” this was America in 1787. Sounds familiar.

What became of all the furor over Trump’s tax returns? Is the IRS “audit” of his returns completed? If not, this must be the longest and most comprehensive audit in the history of the IRS.

Trump seems to have a very difficult time securing competent legal representation. On the other hand, what self-respecting lawyer would want anything to do with a man who lies about everything, all the time, and whose closet is stacked with skeletons?

Congratulations to our friend, Nomi Prins, on the official release of her new book, Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World. Nomi is a wonder.