This Is What You Do

”It’s what people do. We tell stories that proclaim our innocence. All of us. We tell them to ourselves and to anyone who’ll listen.” Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin

The sun’s out this afternoon, a slight breeze blowing, part of the sky is cloudy, part is clear. My backyard is soaked. Lake Cachuma must be over 60% of capacity by now, the highest it has been in years. In the land of fire, this is a good thing. I worry about climate change a lot, can almost feel the clock ticking down till the reckoning, because when it happens, and it might happen much quicker than we think, I don’t know if my family will have the resources to adapt. There’s so much uncertainty in this world of interconnected technology, wealth inequality, cold-hearted justice, Trump and his gang, and potential nuclear annihilation. How’s the story going to turn out? I assume most people want to know this, though we never will; we’ll only know our little part in the bigger play. In the meantime, we do all sorts of shit we don’t want to, work for people we can’t stand, stay in jobs or homes or marriages or relationships that either bore us to tears or make us crazy. It can be fucking hard, and I’m one of the luckiest guys around, and I know it, because there are places in this world, some closer to us that we know, where human life is dirt cheap, and nobody with their hands on the controls really cares if a man, woman, or child suddenly vanishes. India and Pakistan are facing off again in Kashmir, both sides nuclear armed. Cooler heads seem in short supply. It’s all advertising and marketing and hits and views and ratings, so we only get a limited view of what matters and unlimited attention on what doesn’t.

Trump’s unfortunate former attorney and all-around-bag/hatchet man, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress about his former boss. The Republicans went all apeshit about the process and the fact that Cohen “lied” to Congress! The same Republicans must have missed the appearance of Elliot Abrams the week prior. Republicans have no ear for irony. Trump doesn’t believe it’s fair for Congress to hold hearings about him when he’s not in the country. Yep, the Congress should shut down and do nothing any time the president is away. Separation of powers is becoming more tenuous all the time. Most Republicans are willing to follow Trump over the cliff. It’s astonishing.

The scariest aspect of the Cohen reality show was when Cohen warned the politicians that Trump might not go easily if he loses in 2020. In other words, Trump may not let go of his powers, even if that means instigating violence among his most ardent followers. The gut reaction is to say this will never happen here, but we said that during the election and Trump won the Electoral College. Trump is enamored of leaders who hold the title, President for Life. Citizens beware.

Quiet sunday afternoon. Sunlight in the eucalyptus trees. This morning I was standing on the deck reading William Rivers Pitt’s latest article on my iPhone, and a blue-jay landed on the railing two feet from me. The bird seemed at ease. He or she hopped to the far railing, then poked around the base of a potted plant. I went inside and came back with a few sunflower seeds that I lined up on the railing. The bird and I watched each other. The blue-jay took one and flew off, only to return a moment later for another. First time this has happened in all the years we’ve lived here. My wife is working on her laptop; my daughter is in her room, most likely watching YouTube; my son is in San Francisco, his second major foray away from home, but one that is quickly to come to an end. The boy is bound for Los Angeles and the next chapter of his adventure in life. Make all your mistakes now, kid, when the stakes are lower and your defeats don’t feel permanent. You’re 22, it’s OK to slow down and take it all in, figure out who you are, what you’ll stand for, and what and who you’ll kneel for.

David Cay Johnston has been reporting on the Trump crime family for more than three decades. Johnston has a Pulitzer. He knows how Trump operates as well as anyone, and couldn’t have been surprised by anything Cohen revealed. Johnston has been talking about Trump’s tax returns for a couple of years, confident what they will show is a man far less wealthy than he claims, and with significant debts to some very shady actors. Once someone with a subpoena starts yanking on that one dangling thread, the whole jacket is going to come apart and spill its lining. In the end, it will be all about money, the only thing Trump cares about because it’s all that underpins the man. Money equals power and influence and favors and loans and, most important of all, TV time, screen time, tabloid and New York Times headlines. Get ahold of that and you can rule the world. Even if you’re a spent human being of second rate intelligence and zero ethics.

My wife turns 57 in a few days time, which also means that my 60th is approaching with a fair tailwind. I guess this is the fabled land of adulthood. This is what you do, man. Laundry, shopping, cleaning the bathtub, the toilet, the basin; you shake out throw rugs and roll the recycling bins out every sunday; you go to a job and try to do something productive, and if that’s not possible, at least not harmful. This can be difficult in a bureaucracy, with a hierarchy. Some guys play golf, fix cars, surf, fly drones, ride motorcycles, fish or hunt, hike, camp, travel, scuba dive, I lift kettlebells and swing steel maces and hang upside down on gymnastic rings, kickbox three mornings a week. I read and review books and watch football (soccer) as much as I can. I’m half bad and half good, blind and sighted, and less and less sure what any of it means.

National Emergency: The Long Death of America's Soul

“The even larger problem is that a chronic complacency has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing real to anyone -- except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman.” Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion

For me, living in America right now is like watching a train wreck in super slow-motion. The daily insanity coming out of Trump and the Republican Party, the outright cruelty, racism, stupidity, intolerance, corruption, and incompetence is real, and yet, unreal. It hasn’t directly impacted me yet, or the city I live in; Santa Barbara is still gilded, full of well-to-do, smug hipsters, wine bars, craft breweries and gourmet noodle shops, upscale boutiques, and yoga studios. Like they do elsewhere, the rich live well here. The City debates the scourge of electric scooters and the fate of the Paseo Nuevo shopping mall. The latter is a big deal because the Paseo anchors the State Street retail core and a large space once occupied by Macy’s has been vacant for nearly two years. The City and the Paseo’s operators have struck a deal, a lease extension in exchange for $20 million in renovations and upgrades and some dough for services for the homeless -- presumably to keep them away from the Paseo during business hours. The renovations are said to include fire pits and a bocce ball court. When I read this I burst out laughing at the absurdity, but this is the Age of Amazon, 1-click satisfaction, and retailers must resort to all manner of gimmicks to lure people into actual stores; not only do they have to sell products, they must provide the customer an “experience.” No wonder this country is so fouled up. Mindless and endless consumption is our true religion.  

The Orange Menace, unable to garner support by legitimate means for his vanity wall, has declared a National Emergency and will pursue his personal Moby Dick without the consent of Congress or the citizens, who overwhelmingly oppose this monument to racism, xenophobia and fear. The only emergency on the Southern Border exists in what remains of Trump’s fevered brain. His insipid declaration will wind up in the courts, but Trump will no doubt claim a great victory anyway. That’s how he operates, always characterizing his failures as big wins. His gullible followers cheer and wave their red MAGA hats. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, a man as debased and detestable as Trump, backs the president’s play though he probably understands that the courts will throw a spanner in the works -- which will allow Mitch to shake his head and say, what can you do about the courts?

God, how working people in this country have been had, played, manipulated, lied to and betrayed. We let the neoliberals destroy unions, ship jobs overseas, create powerful monopolies, and privatize the commons upon which we all depend. We are overworked, underpaid, spied upon; our votes are almost meaningless, if we are able to vote at all. America is an oligarchy, owned and operated by the rich for the rich. How many of the people who represent us in Congress are multi-millionaires? You think they care about working-class people? They never have. Not Bill-I-Feel-Your-Pain-Clinton or Barack-Hope & Change-Obama. Not Nancy Pelosi. Definitely not Chuck Schumer. With a few rare exceptions, the American working class has given the game away without a fight. We lost our sense of solidarity, allowed ourselves to be torn apart and divided, pitted against one another by neoliberal promises of great jobs manipulating data, boundless opportunity for entrepreneurship. In the meantime, damn near everything we need -- medical care, education, child and senior care, clean water and air, basic services in our cities and towns -- have been privatized by the relentless force of capitalism. The rich and corporations declared a tax holiday for themselves many years ago and barely pay any now compared to what they ponied up in the 1950’s and 60’s. The result? Massive income and wealth inequality, with just a handful of people owning as much wealth as the other half of the entire nation. This is a massive, legal but immoral shift of wealth to people who need it least. Read Martin Luther King, Jr., he knew, he saw it coming and he called the rich out. Then he was killed.

The oligarchs have hijacked our language. Profit, loss, cost-benefit, branding, leverage, synergy, curating, thought-leading, though-partnering bullshit that has spread like a virus. Public agencies now talk like corporations. It’s despicable.

We are down to one functioning political party -- and the Democrats function at a low level of effectiveness because their leadership is corrupted by money -- a bad spot for a so-called democracy to be in. The GOP is now a criminal gang, forcing their minority views on the majority of citizens, giving the government away to special interests, lobbyists, and the Pentagon, which devours about 57% of our total federal spending, an obscene, unjustifiable amount that benefits resource extractors and defense contractors and all the other parasites who suck at the War Machine’s teat. Our wars go on and on and the citizens could care less because too few of us pay attention and none of us are being drafted. The Trump junta is right now doing everything it can to gin up a war against Iran, a nation that isn’t a threat to the United States or any other country at the moment. But taking Iran out has been a wet dream of the neocons for decades. Wars of choice, people, how fucking insane is that?

I once thought that despite America’s very checkered history we were a country with a decent heart and soul, that though we had the capacity to do tremendous harm, and frequently did, waging war wasn’t our first inclination when faced with a problem. I thought there were some things we agreed on, like the dignity of work, a fair wage, reasonable security from want, care for our young and our elderly, a shared sense that we were together. No more. Capitalism has destroyed America’s soul because it is a soulless system. We have become monstrous, deluded, cruel and belligerent. Trump’s bloated, snarling face is our face. America is in its death throes and our democracy is soon to be completely extinguished.  

A Synthetic Scandal: Ilhan Omar & AIPAC

“That victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat.” James Baldwin

Maybe AIPAC, the powerful Israel lobby, doesn’t directly buy political favors in the way the NRA does, but that doesn’t mean that politicians from both parties aren’t influenced to  outright support AIPAC’s aims or remain silent about them for fear of landing on the wrong side of the lobby. And you can see by the hysterical reaction to Ilhan Omar’s comments about AIPAC how quickly bipartisan indignation and righteousness gets ginned up. How dare this first year congressperson from Minnesota criticize AIPAC! The temerity. Naturally, anti-semitism must be Omar’s motivation. What else could it be in our black and white world?

Omar apologized but you can bet money that she will be forever fighting the anti-semitic label, which is one way AIPAC wields influence. On their best days, Washington D.C. politicians are a pusillanimous lot, and for the majority of them the idea of crossing AIPAC is about as welcome as a colonoscopy. Get smeared with the anti-semite brush and you can kiss your career goodbye. An AIPAC endorsement can spell the difference between winning or losing an election or reelection bid. And it hardly matters if the charge is baseless. You just can’t criticize Israel, period. You can’t compare AIPAC to the NRA though they both practice and benefit from influence peddling. You can’t bring up the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank without having anti-semitism thrown in your face. I can think of no other nation in the world that can squelch even the mildest criticism as quickly as Israel can. The Israeli Defense Forces shoot and kill unarmed Palestinian protesters without consequence. This is a fact, not an anti-semitic statement. I don’t contest Israel’s right to exist as a nation and have security for its citizens. I don’t question the reality of anti-semitism in the world; it is real. I do question whether Israel has a right to forcibly expel Palestinians from their land, wall them into pitiful enclaves, restrict their freedom of movement, torch their olive trees and take their water, or strangle the life out of them in Gaza; I also question the Netanyahu government’s support for democratic values.

But just try having this debate in the United States, or Britain, for that matter. You can’t. No critique of the government of Israel is allowed. The subject is off-limits. The second you raise the question of the Palestinians you are deemed to be hostile to Israel, and if you’re hostile to Israel you will be chased from the editorial pages of the New York Times, from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and all the rest. You will be silenced. Ask Angela Davis or Mark Lamont Hill. Ask Noam Chomsky. Ask Jeremy Corbyn. Ilhan Omar is in good company.

MJ Rosenberg, a contributor to the Huffington Post, wrote the following: “AIPAC uses the same tactics as the NRA to ensure that the United States never deviates from support for whatever policy the Israeli government is pushing at the moment.” It’s assumed that Israel’s foreign policy objectives are indistinguishable from those of the United States, and that the United States will always, and forever, provide diplomatic cover and military aid to Israel.

Donald Trump has called for Omar to resign over this synthetic scandal, a ridiculous thing for him to say but hardly unexpected from the most corrupt person to ever inhabit the White House. Less than two years ago Trump was apologizing for neo-Nazi’s who chanted “Jews will not replace us!” Pelosi and others in the Democratic Party leadership have extracted an apology from Omar, that’s enough. Like the NRA, the fossil fuel lobby and Big Pharma, AIPAC uses all the means at its disposal to influence the United States government on behalf of Israel. This is a fact and nothing to apologize for. If supporters of Israel are so certain of their righteousness and morality, why are they afraid to engage in debate and discussion?

Presidential Harassment

“Old evils return with new names.” John Gray, Seven Types of Atheism

Poor Donald Trump. The pussy-grabber is himself a pussy, whining about harassment from Democrats armed with subpoena power. The Republicans didn’t do this to Obama, Trump cries. No, the GOP wasn’t able to use scandal against Obama because there wasn’t any to speak of. Obama had many faults and his administration failed on many fronts, but for eight years it was never a cesspool of corruption and self-dealing like Trump’s criminal enterprise. Obama got a different brand of treatment. He was burned in effigy by Tea Party supporters, called a liar by Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina during a State of the Union address, and, most notably, hounded about his birth certificate by one Donald J. Trump. He’s not an American, Trump said, he’s a foreigner, not one of us. Trump beat this racist drum for a long time.

On the one hand it’s amusing to hear Trump moan about how unfair it all is, this man who constantly boasts about how strong he is, how tough, how macho, and on the other it’s infuriating. Trump is sitting in the Oval Office today for many reasons, a few of them valid, but he lost the popular vote and wouldn’t be in the White House except for the un-democratic structure of the American political system. The iron grip of the two political parties, the flow of dark money, pervasive gerrymandering, blatant voter suppression, the fact that Montana has the same number of senators as California, and that almost every presidential election is really contested in only 15 or so states. American democracy is anemic, at best, entirely based on personalities instead of substantive ideas.

Emails keep appearing in my in-box about 2020. They want to know which Democratic candidate I might support. I have no idea. Thinking of another marathon presidential election season, an American tradition that benefits campaign consultants and media types and PR flacks and the TV networks, but not voters, is nauseating. I can’t go there yet. What I know for certain is that whoever the Democrats nominate to take on Trump, he or she will be an enthusiastic supporter of the American Empire, of endless wars never declared by Congress, of obscene Pentagon budgets, of law and order on the domestic front, and of capitalism as the only economic system. He or she will pledge undying devotion to Israel, no matter what outrageous crimes against humanity that tiny nation commits. If Trump is the naked face of empire, a bloated and ugly one, the Democratic nominee will wear an elaborate mask, as Obama did, as Hillary Clinton tried to do though hers was cracked and worn. In one hand an olive branch, in the other a cruise missile. It’s never easy to pull the status quo down; too many people are invested in it, profit from it.

No savior is going to rise from this swamp to set the world right. The American Empire has had a long and bloody run and now this heavily armed frigate is headed for the reef at full speed. The crash might be spectacular. The masts will snap in two, the canon and the barrels will go over the side, the hold will fill with water. There will not be enough lifeboats. As the boat slowly sinks the plaintive wail of all the innocent victims of the American Empire will be heard. Koreans and Guatemalans and Salvadorans and Iraqis and Afghans and Yemenis and Panamanians and Palestinians and Vietnamese.   

 

Lie-Fest 2019

“We read to remember. We read to forget. We read to make ourselves and remake ourselves and save ourselves.”  Maria Popova

The economy is fantastic thanks to our rollback of useless regulations. Manufacturing jobs are flocking back to our great country by the millions. Eight beautiful new steel mills have been built and are producing gorgeous American-made steel. Oil and gas exploration is off the charts. Our healthcare system is the best on the planet. We gave the middle-class the largest tax cut in history. Foreign leaders now know without any doubt that America is back, that we are strong and getting stronger, that our military is the greatest and our airplanes the fastest. We have great relationships with our allies, including the magnificent nation of Saudi Arabia. In two years my brilliant administration has accomplished more than any administration in American history, and we’ve done it by following the highest ethical standards. America is winning on every front, every single day and when we have border security...when we stop the flow of drugs, murderers and terrorists who stream across our southern border...

I know how Trump’s turn in the spotlight will go. If he manages to read from the teleprompter he might, maybe, make more sense than he does when speaking extemporaneously. The Republicans in the House chamber will have been instructed by their leaders to clap raucously, no matter what drivel comes out of Trump’s mouth and to rise to their feet on cue. Democrats will likely sit very quietly, hands in their laps (or covering their eyes). Nancy Pelosi will stare at the back of Trump’s head, searching for clues to his comb-over. Others will stare at their phones, pissed at having to bear witness to an empty spectacle, in the company of a lazy, incompetent, brutish and cruel man with a dead soul. They will wonder how much longer  this will go on. How many lies can one man tell in less than an hour? Do those people across the aisle, mostly men, mostly white, believe anything he says? Ninety-two percent of political life is pure bullshit, benign lies, words designed to sound substantial but evaporate like morning dew, fake smiles and false promises. I feel your pain tripe, I’m with you, you have my support. This guy is 100% Grade A bullshit. On his best day he’s barely coherent. He doesn’t read! He trusts no one! My toddler has a longer attention span. What do the Russians have on him? It can’t be a pee tape, that wouldn’t embarrass him in the least. Has to be money, dirty money that came to Trump for a wash. American banks cut him off, remember, because he ran every one of his ventures into the ground. Jesus Christ, Trump couldn’t make money in the casino racket, what does that tell you? He’s still talking, how can he still be talking, and about what? How can this guy be president? Who turned the world upside down?

I won’t be watching. I’d rather watch an iron pipe oxidize. We need to turn Trump off, kill the microphone and the lights, and simply ignore him, let him wither like a vine in need of sunlight.

The Gates of Hell

“How Venezuelans choose to conduct their political affairs never has been and is not now the business of the US government. One need support neither Maduro nor Guaido to reach this conclusion. It’s simply not up to Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, or any other American politician to run Venezuela.” Thomas Knapp

I don’t know much about the history of Venezuela or its politics. I do know that Hugo Chavez was a meddlesome figure for the George W. Bush administration and that back in 2002 Chavez survived a coup attempt orchestrated behind the scenes by the US. No surprise there. The US has meddled in Latin American for a century or more, destabilizing countries that refused to hand over their natural resources or open markets for US firms or adopt American-style capitalism or obey the dictates of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (the arms of American-style capitalism). Heaven forbid a Latin American country get chummy with Cuba, Russia or China, or stand in opposition to US whims. That’s a big no-no. I know that when the US can’t have its way it often resorts to force, covert or overt; it can bring enormous financial and diplomatic pressure to bear on a target country, and if that fails to unlock the door, the US can, and will, obliterate the door with military might. Chavez survived in 2002, his hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, may not. This is a different time than 2002, the third-stringers are running things in the US, leaping from the bench with their tattered imperial playbook. The US corporate media is reluctant to call what is happening in Venezuela a coup, though it certainly smells like a coup and walks like a coup and looks like a coup.

If Venezuela wasn’t oil rich would the US care about it so much? Dumb question, right? Would we go to such lengths for apples or grapes or bell peppers or cauliflower? Or maple syrup? Or coconut oil?

I have heard media pundits blame Maduro’s socialist policies for wrecking Venezuela’s economy. I have also heard pundits claim that the economy collapsed due to punishing US sanctions. Andrea Mitchell, NBC’s old talking head, said that Venezuela was thriving when Chavez took over, the people’s pots overflowed with bounty, life was good, but if that was true and the populace was content, why did they elect Chavez? Other pundits claim we have to recognize the unelected opposition leader Guaido in order to save democracy in Venezuela, and that the crippling economic sanctions are actually helping people. Where are you, George Orwell? But it gets truly comical when the US claims that Maduro’s reelection was marred by massive voting irregularities. After the American election in 2016, and last year’s midterms, with those infamous now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t polling stations, faulty voting machines, and purged voter rolls, that’s just flat out hysterical.

The truth is always more complicated than the “official” narrative makes it out to be, but if you live in the US and swallow corporate media, you will be wildly misinformed, and not only about Venezuela. The situation in Venezuela is extremely complicated and cannot be reduced to ten second sound bites or 140 character explanations.    

The writer Chris Hedges likens the US to a wounded beast, thrashing around in its death throes. Hedges isn’t optimistic about the immediate future, or if any meaningful future is even possible. The murder of the planet continues while Trump and America face off over his vanity wall. The American empire is still powerful, but also hollow, ruled by corporate interests and abetted by a corrupt political system full of unscrupulous hacks like Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, not to mention hopelessly compromised souls like Chuck Schumer and, yes, even the darling of the moment, winner by TKO of the Great Wall Showdown, Nancy Pelosi.

What to do? What to think? Where to turn? Feels to me that we are closer to the gates of hell than to the gates of heaven, but perhaps this is business as usual for our species.     

A Bottomless Bout of Vertigo

“This is one of those nights where there is nothing. Imagine being always like this. Scooped-out. Listless. No light. No dance. Not even any disgust.” Charles Bukowski

It’s hard to keep one’s wits in the looney bin that is America in the time of Trump. Truth is optional, public relations and perception are everything, and every damn day is like suffering a bottomless bout of vertigo.

The detestable Mike Pence, our wax figure veep and one of the preeminent ass-lickers in recent American history, compares Trump, an immoral, ignorant, racist blowhard, to Martin Luther King, Jr. Contemptible. Trump and Pence aren’t fit to clean Dr. King’s toilet.

The Los Angeles public teachers strike is over, but it appears that many rank-and-file teachers are none too pleased with their union leaders and Democratic Party pols. While the teachers will receive some salary increases, they didn’t do as well on reducing class sizes, adding nurses and librarians, or getting binding agreement to slow the expansion of charter schools. One wonders how much time the leaders of the UTLA spent breaking bread with LAUSD officials and local Democratic politicians during the six day strike. Doesn’t smell right.

Despite the rather anticlimactic outcome of the LA strike it does appear that working people are finally regaining consciousness, and not just in the US. The Yellow Vest protesters in France, the thousands of workers in India who rose up to express their collective displeasure with Modi’s policies, made the billionaires meeting in Davos set down their champagne glasses and plates of caviar and pay attention. In the neoliberal world order, workers are supposed to remain silent. This is why the action in India received barely a mention in the US corporate media. The proletariat can’t be allowed to get ideas, can they? Ideas are dangerous things, more dangerous than an unarmed migrant from Guatemala. Average workers might wake from their slumber and realize that much of their suffering isn’t of their own making, that they have been made to suffer by design, which in turn might compel them to turn their ire on the oligarchs as the peasants once went after feudal lords.

Torches and pitchforks on a moonless night.

Despite claims of total victory by Trump and Pence, the ISIS faction in Syria isn’t dead just yet. It’s damn hard to annihilate a tactic…

I don’t know what to make of those Catholic high school kids who taunted a native American man armed only with a drum and a traditional song. Some call them little angels, others call them sniveling, entitled devils, like Brett Kavanaugh. The only thing I know for sure is that any person who dons a MAGA hat deserves an ass-kicking. That hat stands for one thing and one thing only: intolerance.

The partial shutdown of the American government drags on. Trump tossed out some tired, worn, and ridiculous ideas as concessions, but these were never to be taken seriously. Trump’s approval rating is in the crapper and there are signs that his base of support among a minority of Americans is starting to fray. Trump, the great negotiator, is still trying to find a way out of his corner without alienating the wingnuts who cheer for him at his rallies.

Where did the $5.7 billion figure Trump is demanding for his vanity wall even come from? This question was posed by the media watch group FAIR, and it’s a good one. What would $5.7 buy US taxpayers? (Or it is Mexicans?) Who came up with this number, what rational analysis is it based on? Oh shit, I forgot that this entire Wall project has no basis in rationality.  

Finally, a tip of the cap to Mariano Rivera, the newest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, elected unanimously. Rivera had nerves of steel and a devastating 95 mph cut fastball that was nearly unhittable. The man is a champion, the greatest closer of all time.

Trump's Prison

It's good to be King and have your own way

Get a feeling of peace at the end of the day

And when your bulldog barks and your canary sings

You're out there with winners, it's good to be King

Tom Petty

I feel a minuscule amount of sympathy for Donald J. Trump, but it must really suck to be him right about now, with everything he nears turning to shit and the legal screw turned by Robert Mueller and others tightening, and Democrats in the House preparing subpoenas left and right, night and day, probing and prying into his tangled affairs and murky revenue streams, and refusing to pony up money for the Great Wall. Trump clearly had no idea, none whatsoever, how hard the job of POTUS would be, particularly when you’re one of the laziest, most ill-prepared presidents in American history. In the still of the White House night, when Trump is all alone (Melania having retreated to her own room and dead bolting the door behind her) and the voices inside his head start talking, there’s one, clearly heard above all the others, that says:

“Obama was so smooth, so cool, and he made it look easy, the way he glided around and handled the job, from meetings with foreign leaders to speaking with school children. No batshit, incoherent Tweets at 3:00 a.m., no torrent of demonstrable lies, and no scandals. You’re in over your head, Donald. You’re like a blind mallard flying in the dead of night. You’re an embarrassment. Feeding fast food to college athletes. Jesus, what the hell were you thinking? Are you insane? You don’t invite the National Champions to the White House and serve them Big Macs and pizza. Stupid, no-class meathead. You’re a rich guy with a truck driver’s mentality, except that you’re so pathetic you couldn’t drive a truck if you’re life depended on it. How you think you’re running this country is beyond me. Honestly, Donald, you couldn’t run a meeting of the local chapter of the KKK without fucking it up.”

Daddy’s voice, always Daddy’s voice. Old Fred Trump, the patriarch who taught Donald to lie, cheat, dodge taxes and stiff contractors. Old Fred who bailed Donny out every time he failed, to whom Donny had to come begging, on his knees, hand outstretched, please Dad, I’ll do better next time. But next time is always like the last time. The casinos, the airline, the university. Failure, failure, failure. Three marriages, God-awful children.  

At night Donald paces his bedroom in the hated White House, pissed that he’s not in Trump Tower in New York where he calls the shots and nobody second guesses him, corrects his grammar or ridicules his intelligence. New York, where Ann Coulter can’t challenge his manhood, and porn stars are only a phone call away. Where damn near everyone he has known hasn’t turned on him, cut a deal with prosecutors. It wasn’t supposed to go this way, the run for the White House was a lark, a way to build the Trump brand. Hillary was supposed to win, but who knew she’d run a tepid, inept, tone-deaf campaign? Who knew the American electorate was so angry with the status quo that they were prepared to roll the dice on a wannabe dictator with a kit bag full of skeletons? Why did the stars align so malevolently?

And gnawing at the remains of Trump’s soul is the legacy of Barack Obama, the accomplished black guy with the silver tongue, who could read from a teleprompter and speak in complete sentences, who read books and understood how government works, who actually knew the difference between an executive order and a bill, who understood the function of the Federal Reserve and all the confusing Cabinet departments. Black people are supposed to be inferior to whites! White people are supposed to rule! The Bible says so, it’s the way it is!

The White House is Trump’s prison. Unable to sleep Trump stares morosely out the window and remembers what Putin said in Helsinki. “It’s much easier for me, Donald. I want to make someone disappear, I say the word and it happens. No one can investigate my little side deals. I am master of my domain in a way you can never be. What a pity. Plus, I don’t have man boobs. Take my advice, invest in Spandex.”

Just as the first hint of light appears over Washington, the voices in Trump’s head drone on, and a single tear slides down his face.

Less Sense Than A Norway Rat

“Revolutions have a habit of succeeding when the time comes for them.” Eugene V. Debs

I skipped Trump’s falsehood laden speech on the make-believe southern border crisis. I can’t stomach listening to that fool spew for one minute let alone nine or ten. Every time Trump opens his mug, especially on the subject of immigration, he demonstrates his stupidity, incompetence, and manifest unfitness for the office he holds. After Trump won the electoral college I remember pundits wondering if the office would change the man. I scoffed. The office hasn’t changed Trump one iota, but he has changed the office, trashing it like a rock star amped on Cutty Sark and cocaine trashes a hotel room. The deliberate mendacity, cruelty, corruption and ineptitude of Trump and his administration has been astonishing. Never have I seen anything close, not from Nixon or the murderous Bushes. Trump occupies a league all his own.

That the major commercial broadcast networks aired Trump’s nonsense bothers me. None of them had to grant Trump time to disseminate lies and pretend that he cares about the fate of women and children. (I’m fairly certain that were Trump adrift with his family in a leaky lifeboat he would kick the lot of them over the side to save his own skin. Trump doesn’t have a humanitarian molecule in his bloated white body; the man thrives on cruelty.) The networks would do America a huge public service if they would immediately stop covering every Trump bellow, belch, bleat, fart and Tweet. Give Trump any kind of platform and the damage is done.

For the record: no national emergency exists at the southern border.

The crisis is wholly manufactured inside Trump’s mushy brain, with some assistance from Stephen Miller and other far-right trolls. The Big Speech was the latest Trump stunt, yet another diversionary feint, no different than his ordering regular military troops to “guard” the border against a caravan of a few thousand unarmed migrants ahead of the midterm elections. Didn’t work then, won’t work now. By boasting -- on television no less -- that he would own a government shutdown unless Congress coughed up money for his wall, Trump backed his ample butt into a corner and now he can’t extricate himself without appearing weak and foolish, which is, of course, precisely what he is. Trump claimed he wouldn’t blame Democrats for the shutdown, but of course that was just another lie as he is now blaming them every chance he gets.

Some dealmaker, huh?

Donald Trump is ignorant and weak. What blows my mind is that Republicans continue to follow this meathead as he leads them toward the abyss. Can’t any of them straighten their backs and think for themselves? By now, after every lame thing Trump has done, you’d think some impulse for self-preservation would kick in. Norway rats have more sense.

Compared to climate disruption, income inequality, and undeclared wars that drag on for nearly two decades with no end in sight, the security of the southern border doesn’t keep me awake at night. What disturbs my slumber, in addition to things aforementioned, is the near certainty of another financial crash, the lack of affordable housing, education and medical care for working people, and the insidious size and reach of Amazon. America is insane, a country that no longer has even the dimmest notion of itself. Cruel, racist, war-mongering, unequal, undemocratic, this is us.

Great? Exceptional? Indispensable? Not by any measurement that really matters.

Turbulence Ahead

“The curse of the human race is not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike.” Salman Rushdie

New year. Like a child peeking out from under his blankets I peer out at this new year. Is the Orange Menace still holed up in the White House, wreaking havoc while he watches Fox News and issues insane Tweets about “border security?” As I write this, the NYSE is down another 500 points, below the 23,000 mark. Since the market began sliding in December, Trump hasn’t had much to say about the economy, except to blame the Federal Reserve for hiking interest rates. Trump is never responsible for anything negative, only the good, what little of it there is. Trump’s ability to debase whatever he touches is astonishing. America has had lousy presidents, but never one so blatantly inept and dishonest. Ditto the entire Trump junta. What a pathetic assortment of brutes, shitheads, assholes, and jerks. Like attracts like. Perfidy begets perfidy.

I’m not one for making resolutions, other than to stay in the present moment and try to be calmer and kinder, worry less, and enjoy more. I’m a lucky person, blessed with fortune. I have a rich life. When your chief wank is that your beloved football team (Chelsea) is playing uninspired, boring football, it means that the major aspects of your existence are damn good. I attribute my good fortune to luck more than anything else. I won Santa Barbara in the birth lottery and was reared before the American empire turned overtly, openly, cruel and maniacal. That’s the most disheartening aspect of the post-9/11 years, how America has lost whatever moral bearing we had before the Towers fell. Now we run side-by-side with rogue nations and make no excuses for it.

Because the federal government is at a standstill due to Trump’s temper tantrum over his Wall I have been thinking about the border with Mexico, our long suffering neighbor. As pointed out by Francisco Cantu in the New York Review of Books recently, the border area is one of the most heavily patrolled and surveilled on the planet. Migrants face a staggering array of obstacles, not to mention terrain that easily becomes deadly. Drones, helicopters, Humvees, infrared cameras, ground sensors, heavily armed agents. Against all this, and the fact that border crossings are down, the Orange Menace demands the public pony up the money for his vanity Wall. Colossal stupidity. When have walls, fences, moats or barricades ever worked for long? People always find a way under, over, around or through.

We don’t look at root causes, how from our very hand fell the seeds of the Central American migrant “crisis.” The elites in both political parties always have convenient justifications, plausible deniability, sound reasons, and, of course, historical amnesia. America is due a reckoning. We have to get over our 9/11 trauma and change cruel and inhumane systems, starting with our winner-take-all, survival-of-the-richest economy. The rich will have to take less, give more, and our tired empire must soon fold its tents, herd its livestock, and begin the long journey home. Trump is only a symptom of a disease, and even were he to be frog-marched from the White House in shame or shackles -- and no matter how good it might feel to witness Trump’s long overdue comeuppance -- the disease would remain, malignant cells rampaging over healthy ones.

Keep your seatbelt fastened. There may be turbulence ahead. If you ignored the flight attendant while he went over important safety features, you might want to take a moment now to identify the nearest exit.