Burning In The Dark

“The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain.” Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Parts of California are burning again, and here on the coast it’s nearly 90 degrees at the tail end of October. A few days ago local residents were advised to prepare to be without power for 24 to 48 hours as Southern California Edison planned to shut down its transmission lines to prevent potential fire danger, much as beleaguered Pacific Gas and Electric had already done up north. Both utilities are desperate to avoid further liability. Stock up on batteries, bottled water, canned food, fill the gas tank in the car. As I write this, half a million people in Sonoma County are without power. 

SCE and PG&E are loathe, as is most of corporate America, to connect the dots between climate change, prolonged drought and deadly wildfires, but their silence can’t change the reality that climate change is already impacting our lives, and most thinking people know this is just the beginning. California is drier and wildfires burn hotter and longer. I don’t know if shutting down power lines is useful except as a way of limiting corporate liability. 

I’m reading American War by Omar El Akkad, a novel that imagines an America at war with itself in the year 2075, when most of Louisiana is submerged by water, and the capital of the north has relocated from storm-battered Washington D.C to Columbus, Ohio. Mexico has reclaimed most of the territory it lost to the United States in the 19th century. A few southern states have banded together, not because of slavery this time, but because they refuse to stop using fossil fuels. The entire state of South Carolina is under quarantine, completely walled off due to a virus so virulent it killed 110 million people. The world’s superpowers are now China and a conglomeration of former Middle Eastern countries called the Bouazizi empire, who provide basic material aid to war-torn America. Mighty no more is America, either militarily or economically, hopelessly divided against itself, and dependent on the generosity of other countries.   

American War is a depressing read because, like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, it feels plausible, particularly at the speed we are moving toward climate catastrophe. I’ve never been able to re-read The Road; once was enough. The novel terrified me, probably because when I read it my son was five or six years old. In the years since, we’ve moved nearer to McCarthy’s dark vision. When the imbecile who occupies the White House isn’t stoking the fires of division and hatred, he’s doing everything he can to make life easier for fossil fuel extractors and polluters. The very wealthy in this country seem to believe they can sidestep the climate bullet. Perhaps they will, for a while, but even if they buy a little time, the degradation of our air, soil, water, and infrastructure will ensnare them eventually. 

Meanwhile, the Kincade Fire has scorched 20,000 acres. Here in Santa Barbara the air outside feels reminiscent of fires past -- the Tea, Gap and Thomas. I keep waiting for a plume of smoke to rise from behind our mountains. It’s not windy now, but later in the afternoon the wind will likely pick up, adding to the danger. 

1000 Days of Madness

“If we are not currently an authoritarian nation it’s thanks in part to the insubordinate spirit of a good deal of the American public and the underlying confidence behind this relative fearlessness.”  Rebecca Solnit

1,000 days of the madness of would-be King Donald I. At times it feels like a bad dream and I long to snap wide awake and breathe a sigh of relief that Trump never happened except in our imagination. The idiocy, cruelty, venality and mendacity is almost too heavy a burden. When we look back at this period -- if the republic survives and what remains of our institutions hold -- one question that must be answered is why many of our fellow citizens followed Trump, believed in him, and thought he was doing good for the nation. Any conscious, sane person who listens to Trump for more than a minute should reach the conclusion that the man is nuts, insane, a sociopath. I don’t think all of Trump’s supporters and followers are bad people, but I do marvel at how misinformed they are.

Trump is P.T. Barnum on crack. 

Has Trump made us stupid or did we make Trump because we are stupid? During the reign of George W. Bush the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson often said that America was trapped in a downward spiral of dumbness. W. Bush, now being rehabilitated as a kindly nitwit, seemed the epitome of elite decay, a man buoyed by his family name and connections and wealth, a serial fuck-up who always landed on his feet, smiling, a faux cowboy. Donald J. Trump makes George W. Bush look eloquent by comparison. I never thought I would see that. Trump doesn’t have as much blood on his hands as Bush does, not yet anyway, but who knows if he manages to escape impeachment and scandal and win another term via the undemocratic Electoral College. 

As we saw this week, any translator who has to make sense of Trump’s gibberish is in a most difficult spot. “The Kurds have sand, a lot of sand. More sand than is good for them. Lot of sand, too much. It’s hard to imagine so much sand. You can’t believe it. Sand everywhere. Gets in your shoes and your hair. Hard to get the sand out of your hair. I’ve got great hair, the best hair of any American president, ever. Very soft, very shiny, it’s beautiful, my hair, my great and unmatched hair.”

1,000 days of madness, drifts of BS up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, Abraham Lincoln turning in his grave, George Washington sobbing uncontrollably as King Donald tramps over the republic. This can’t be happening, yet it is. It’s not a dream. Trump and the fourth string crew who surround him are becoming more and more blatant and defiant of every norm. Wholesale disregard for the Legislative branch. Total disdain for the rule of law. This is dangerous territory. 

A Quick Flash of Light

“The government’s central evil is its willful failure to distinguish the quality of intent or motive.” Jim Harrison, The Beast God Forgot to Invent

I am having a long conversation with myself about this blog and why I keep writing it. 15 years. Through George W. Bush and the Iraq Disaster, that unbellievably stupid strategic blunder, which has since caused distress and death for thousands of people, from Egypt and Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. We meddled, and we’re paying and paying and paying. I doubt  they can even keep count of all the money the US spent destroying those countries. 18 years in Afghanistan. Longest war in American history, and nobody’s pissed about the milestone except a few middle-aged liberal cranks like me. The Obama years were disappointing to me, a fumbled opportunity. Obama lost his political nerve and turned in the direction he was oriented in anyway, center-right. Outwardly kinder and far more sophisticated but no less deadly than W. Smoother by a mile. With no push forward, we stayed in place. But the optics as they say, the presentation of Barack and Michelle Obama, was to me always reassuring, even hopeful. Cautious man, that Obama. Measured. Honestly seemed to be a very decent person, and never for a minute did I doubt that Obama was doing his best for the country. The man was calm, cool, polished to perfection, and that drove some people in this country into anger, then near madness. I believe, historically speaking, in black backlash. Happens every time there are any widespread gains for people of color. 

Obama didn’t do much for the Democrats as a party. But he stayed smart and elegant and cool until the last day of his term. Only doubted the policies and decisions and compromises, not the man.

And then the system goes haywire and vomits up Donald Trump. And here I am three years and countless unread blog posts later, living in Trump Time. America is an amusement park violently flipped upside down. Donald Trump. Fuck! I don’t know what else to say. I cannot even keep track of all Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors. Everyday there’s a new transgression. And his party of supposedly rational, decent people, the Grand Old Party, continues to follow Trump, fear Trump and, if not licking Trump’s ass, at least kissing it. They keep turning a blind eye and a deaf ear, afraid of Dear Leader and his Twitter machine, but secretly hoping he falls, and falls hard. 

The ship’s taking on a lot of water. The captain is addled, to say the least, but pretends that everything’s alright, that he’s the greatest man ever to sail, king of the sea, even though he knows deep down that this is the caper he’s not getting away with. The ship’s not listing, yet, but it’s taking on a lot of water. When are the rats going to start jumping, by ones and twos, and then trios and quartets? When will the sailors turn on the captain? This captain will sell his mother’s soul if it means saving his own. He’s fucked things up pretty well, and now it looks like his treasure maps are soon to be let out in the world. 

The age of Obama feels a long way back, a quick flash of light in the dark. The man read real books. He understood the law. He followed the law, for the most part. He was eloquent, even inspiring. Obama in eight years left no stain on America’s soul or hole in her heart. He kept the world at bay and the American empire humming. That takes a bucketful of skill. Obama had that. He also hired competent people. There were no personal scandals during Obama’s tenure in the White House. And then Trump and Company tramp in and the beautiful white walls turn a shade of ochre, the windows grow a film, a smell of rot permeates the whole place, and soon the only people that remain are the most immoral, crooked, cruel, and stupid. Barr. Pompeo. Mulvaney. Mnuchin. It’s not even the fourth string. It’s a coup alright, a coup by a bunch of people you’d never invite into your home for a cup of coffee. Redolent of sloth, all of them. The bottom of the barrel, the dogshit on the bottom of your boot. A decent God would smote them one by one, or at least plague them with disease, but as Tom Waits sang, God’s away on business. 

What I started with was the question of why I continue writing this blog. I’ll put that aside for now. 

It has been a strange week. I feel like I spent three days in a dark tunnel, with the faintest light at one end, and only today did I return to myself. I’ve been depressed. What Ernest Hemingway called the Black Dog. I bet my aura was tar black. I realized all of a sudden that I was garnering little joy for my day job, a job I have always performed very capably, but not one my heart is always in. The job pays the rent and puts food on the table and allows us to go to the clinic or the hospital. 20 years I’ve been there. 60 years old. I wonder about the remainder of my life, how we might survive on some pension money, my freelance work, and maybe a job at Trader Joe’s or something like that. The big worry is losing employer-based health insurance. I’m too young for Medicare. 

Grifter's Carnival

“Impeaching Donald Trump would do nothing to halt the deep decay that has beset the American republic.” Chris Hedges

On the one hand, it’s absolutely comical to watch Donald J. Trump flail around like an orangutan with a mongoose attached to his testicles, but on the other, what we’re witnessing is the outing of the entire corrupt American political system. It’s laughable enough when Trump warns his base that they stand to lose their guns, their religion, and their military if he’s impeached, less so when both Republicans and Democrats have mercilessly pursued whistleblowers like Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden into prison or exile. And when either party spouts off sanctimoniously about doing the business of the American people -- which neither party has done since the mid-1960’s -- it’s hysterical. As I’ve said on this blog many, many times, we do not have a democracy and our government only marginally works for us; we have a tyranny of a minority of people and corporations that have the money and influence to buy legislative favors and judges. Tax holidays for the rich, corporations and special interest groups, and cruel austerity for the poor, is not how a democratic government works for its citizens. 

There are only two instances when the American government can be roused to action: undeclared military interventions that go on without end is one. Cutting taxes for people and corporations who already have more money than they know what to do with is the other. Think I exaggerate? A majority of Americans want decent jobs, affordable housing, health care, educational opportunities, meaningful action to curb the effects of climate change, plus reasonable, commonsense restrictions on the sale of military-style assault weapons. The political class, which purports to represent “the people,” wants none of these things and will never deliver it under the current capitalist framework. 

The journalist Chris Hedges wrote recently that while the impeachment of Donald J. Trump is necessary,Trump’s ouster won’t change the underlying system one iota. Yes, impeachment -- if the Senate convicts (not likely) -- will remove from office the most idiotic, malignant, amoral, and corrupt president in American history and possibly key underlings like Mike Pompeo and William Barr, but loyal servants of the status quo like Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will remain in place, as will douchebags like Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes and Rick Scott and Ted Cruz and Susan Collins. Many congressional districts will remain rigged and widespread voter suppression will continue; North and South Dakota will still have the same disproportionate political clout in the US Senate. The Supreme Court will remain a subsidiary of the Federalist Society. The undemocratic Electoral College will still supersede the will of voters. 

What astonishes me is the utter lack of honor on display in Washington D.C. It’s just a big grifter’s carnival, with damn near everyone in the trough up to his or her neck. Maybe it has always been so. Did Joe Biden make calls and open doors for his wayward son, Hunter? It’s highly likely that he did, but rich, well-connected people do this for their kids every single day. It’s risible to hear Donald J. Trump accuse Joe Biden’s son of being a know-nothing loser who walked away with millions, when his own offspring carry his criminal DNA and would be working behind the counter at Wendy’s without Daddy Trump’s money and name, but no level of hypocrisy, or irony, is too much for The Donald. Born halfway to home plate with a platinum spoon up his ass, Trump still made a hash of every business venture he tried. 

It’s all a perverse joke. I might laugh if it wasn’t so serious. Donald J. Trump has waged a two and a half year siege on the rule of law; the GOP has been content to stand by and help him do it, and the Democrats too feckless to fight.

The Ball Is At Nancy Pelosi's Feet

“Trump is a habitual criminal.” James Risen

Well, those of us who wanted the Democrats to launch impeach proceedings the minute they took control of the House have finally got our impeachment. We’ve reached Nancy Pelosi’s threshold for serious wrongdoing. Now the question is, how do the Democrats proceed? Stick to the safe middle and base their case on the Ukraine issue alone, or tack on Trump’s multiple other impeachable offenses? Go narrow or wide? Shallow or deep? Slow or fast? This week I’ve read pieces advocating a go-quick approach, and an equal number practically begging the Dems to slow down and be thorough, meticulous. Build a mountain of evidence, so tall that even a modern Republican -- spineless, corrupt, hypocritical as such are now -- has second thoughts about being on the wrong side of history. While not likely, it’s possible that some Republicans will face reality, find their spines, and remember their sworn oath when the evidence against Trump is too overwhelming to ignore. 

Republicans are a strange breed. They’re all about the Constitution and the rule of law when they’re in the minority, but put them in power and the only oath they swear is to the Party, no matter how ridiculous and corrupt it becomes; they throw their weight behind a man like Donald Trump, and then cower before him like little bitches. Terrified of Trump’s tweets, they allow Trump to run roughshod over the Constitution, its separation of powers, checks and balances, and the most elemental norms of decency, like not putting innocent children in cages or denying school lunches to millions of school kids. 

The list of Trump’s high and low crimes, his misdemeanors and felonies, is long. James Risen is correct: Trump is simply a habitual criminal. The man has been like acid on the American republic since the day he placed his hand on the Bible and lied. For the next few months, Trump is going to spin like a top, froth and fulminate against the Democrats at every opportunity, call Adam Schiff names, portray himself as the victim of a Deep State witch hunt, whine, and declare how unfair it all is and how it should be illegal. Get ready. It’s going to be an all-out onslaught of drivel, bullshit, wild claims, boldfaced lies, conspiracy theories and hypocrisy the likes of which Americans have never seen before. 

Before long, Trump will have convinced 40% of Americans that Joe Biden, with assistance from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, shot JFK. 

I doubt that the tone of his chat with the new Ukrainian president was far different from that used by Trump in other instances with other foreign leaders. We have to understand the way Trump perceives the office he holds. In Trump’s criminal mind, a president is like a mafia don, the ultimate authority, the Alpha male, the toughest guy in the neighborhood, and the Man who controls it all because he controls the biggest gang. This may be why Trump cannot fathom how, or why, Congress has any authority over him. In his muddled mind Trump believes he’s back in his tower in New York, his name on top, and every decision his alone to make. Receiving any resistance to his whims freaks Donald out, messes with his sense of himself as a badass with nerves of steel, muscles, a large cock, and real hair. Nobody checks Don Corleone, and Donald Trump thinks nobody can check him. This is why the asshole needs to be impeached.  

All I can say is that the Democrats better not blow this chance. I’d say we keep an eye on Nancy Pelosi to make sure she doesn’t use legislative judo to concede an advantage for no reason. Pelosi only did the right thing when forced, impeachment isn’t the road she chose or wanted because she is a pillar of the Establishment, but now the ball is at her feet and the field is opening before her. When the instant comes, when the goal-scoring chance presents itself, will she make the right decision, pick the correct pass or let the chance go begging?

The other thing I agree with James Risen about is the absurd way the mainstream media covers Trump, as if he’s a serious man rather than the bloviating incompetent that he is. Trump has opinions aplenty but a shocking lack of even basic knowledge. Most of what he says or tweets is unintelligible nonsense. The press should treat Trump as he is: habitual liar, immoral ignoramus, and total grifter. Trump was never in a million years going to grow into the office, and not once in three years has the Orange Menace come close to being Presidential. 

Blood Ties

“No doubt the future will bring more causes, more necessary repairs to American democracy, and more need for passionate civic activism.” Elaine Weiss, The Woman’s Hour. 

There’s no comparing where I’ve been for the past week with where I am now. Tillamook, Oregon, where my brother lives, is rural, small town America. It’s a place where the school bus driver is your neighbor, and he drops you off in front of your house. For several hours over a couple of days, I sat in my brother’s garage, sipping IPA’s and listening to outlaw country music on his Sirius FM boombox. The sky was gray and cloudy, but the rain stayed away, and on my last afternoon the sun broke through the clouds and it was warm. Every hour or so I’d jump on my brother’s black adult tricycle and pedal around the neighborhood, across the little park to the lumber mill. I didn’t see many people. Some of the streets are paved, full of potholes and rough patches, and some are packed gravel. There are no sidewalks. Homes sit contiguous to each other, though every lot isn’t fenced. I saw dilapidated, fall-down houses the likes of which one almost never sees in Santa Barbara. Pick-up trucks and boats parked on the front lawn, old furniture, car axles, tires, rusted out refrigerators. An easy pitching wedge from my brother’s front gate sits an abandoned house slowly being taken over by blackberry vines. I went past the house several times, wondering each time about its story, its history, and what the sagging walls would tell me if they could speak.

A huge American flag flies over the lumber mill. Along with the Tillamook Creamery, the mill is one of the biggest employers in town. I thought to myself as I rode the tricycle around that I had stepped into an Elizabeth Strout novel. The comforting familiarity of a small town, where people know your family, and most graduate from the same high school, but with a corresponding lack of anonymity and privacy. Although Oregon is a liberal state, it has pockets of conservatism and I’m sure its share of Trump supporters. I tried to stay away from the news and politics on the trip, but when you carry an iPhone it’s hard to completely escape the news and noise, the latest Trump outrage or scandal.  

Saw some lovely country, from the south jetty of the Columbia River to a country road in Sequim, Washington, from Astoria to Port Townsend, through places like Raymond where self-reliance carries real meaning, and a young woman with colorful gel fingernails named Abigail debated with herself over giving me change for a minimart cup of coffee with five ones or a five dollar bill. Exploring Sequim on our bikes, we passed the Dungeness schoolhouse, built in 1892, and now a landmark. It was easy to imagine a procession of children filing through the front door, farm kids who learned to read and write, basic math, geography and history, in this one building. No ipads, Chromebooks, Apple TV’s. White chalk on a dark green blackboard that had to be cleaned every day. Saw a red-tailed hawk not far from the school. Had the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted at the Dungeness Creamery. Talked to an avid bird watcher and a woman who told us of last year’s heavy snowfall in Sequim. 

My brother and I were not close as children. After a certain point he went his way and I went mine and our paths rarely intersected. I went into the Air Force and spent five years in Japan, he went to college for a couple of years and then joined the Forest Service as a firefighter. A lot can happen between siblings, hurts and misunderstandings collect and fester, but, somewhat to my surprise, I’ve found that the pull of shared blood is strong. Accepting our mutual flaws and idiosyncrasies is easier now. I don’t watch the Weather Channel to pass the time, but my brother does and that’s fine. He’d be bored by English Premier League football. Beneath our skins, in our bones, we share a lot of traits and proclivities, along with a love of the outdoors and a sense of time passing.  

After You See the Truth

“And so we come to Donald Trump, the very personification of this low, dishonest age.” Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion

There are evenings in this crazy age of Trump when I wish that Hunter S. Thompson was still alive, hunkered down in Woody Creek with a huge supply of weed and coke, 3 cases of Carta Blanca beer, 4 quarts of Jose Cuervo, limes, an assortment of pipes and bongs, writing at his best in the darkest hours of night. I miss his voice, just as I miss Alex Cockburn’s. Blazing wit and intelligence, daring, balls, seeing things exactly as they are and why -- why being most important -- because it leads to who, as in, whose interests are we talking about here? 

Look what the rich have done in a little less than 50 years. Behold, for this is what concentrated political and economic power looks like. The owners and investors got us to hate the commons and pretty much everything associated with government; got us to believe that capitalism and democracy always walk hand in hand; got us to believe that everything about human life on Earth is just about the money; that it’s every man or woman for himself (except if the woman is pregnant and desires an abortion), and that we can only depend on ourselves; they convinced us that peace and cooperation are unattainable ideals; they got us  to believe that one day we can all be coders and entrepreneurs, winners in the gig economy; that the science of climate change is open to interpretation; that “wars” that go on for decades are normal.    

The shit they got us to believe is incredible! Tip of the cap to the rulers and their associates! It’s no surprise that the rich have ravaged the world, turned it all into commodities, endless wars, poisoned water, and a surveillance camera up your ass or implanted in your arm. 

Spread the news. The rich whipped our asses in the class war! It was a massacre. They buried our ideology along with our bones. 

We let them. We barely fought back. 

Now we have Donald J. Trump, the dumbest motherfucker imaginable, sitting in the Oval Office. My God, doesn’t this freak you out? It sure as hell freaks me out, sends me into deep depressions and prolonged funks. How the fuck did it come to this? I always thought the USA was a serious country, historically immature, of course, but at least pretending to high-mindedness in polite company. I suppose this is a result of all that JFK-rhetoric I imbibed as a young person. We used to be perceived as the good guys, the decent guys, the guys who at least thought twice about torturing prisoners or dropping bombs on civilians. Now? We do it for sport and with the impunity white men enjoyed in the days of chattel slavery. 

I couldn’t bear to watch the Democratic Party debate, that terrible circus of second fiddlers. When Joe Biden, resembling an upright corpse, is the front runner, it’s not an inspiring time. Biden’s sputtering nonsense is too much to watch. I cannot believe that fucker is in this race. His deeds are one of the reasons Donald J. Trump sits in the White House. What does Biden stand for, shill for, sell his ass for, as much as he does right-of-center notions? Biden was better than a Republican when it came to protecting and serving corporate clients like credit card companies, Wall Street investment houses, and the carceral industrial-complex. Wars, too. Biden was all over that shit, like a dog with a bone. He added his voice and position to a center-right, right, and whacky right cacophony and left a visible trail of destruction. But fuck all if despite his record Biden isn’t the man the mainstream media and the DNC is attempting to shove down our throats, force us to swallow. Doddering fucker. Tells batshit stories like your ancient grandpa after he’s tipped back six shots, all kinds of twisted, incoherent shit. Nowhere near Trump’s gibberish, of course, that stuff’s heroic -- (I hope we don’t see its kind again for a very long time) -- but along the same fact-less, ignorance-laden and incoherent line. 

How long will it take to dig out from under Trump’s pile of shit when the asswipe dies in his sleep, chokes on a cheeseburger, or Melania slices his ball-sack off and lets him bleed to death? (Either she’s itching to do it or she’s a robot.) Can you imagine a naked Donald J. Trump climbing on top of you? How fucking sick would that make one feel? 

Hunter Thompson would scorch Trump at every opportunity with both barrels, and it would be beautiful to see. But Hunter would also remind us to keep an eye on the courts, district and federal, because Trump is taking over that branch of our government. Appointing uptight fucktards left and right. Imagine how much more difficult this will make it to erase the shit smear Donald J. Trump leaves on America. Two decades, three? You think fuckers like Gorsich and Kavanaugh will make a philosophical about face and join us in the real world the minute Trump is pronounced dead?

We need wild, but not insane, voices to jar people out of their insta-cart, Facebook, Instagram world. Very few people are willing to face the truth, see what’s really happening, why, and by whose hand. Look deeply, but at your own risk. Not responsible for loss of political or religious ideology, party, group, pack or gang. You see the truth on your own, all by yourself. But it’s what you do after you see the truth that matters. 

One Nation Under The NRA

“Imagine losing the Amazon and the Antarctic ice sheets. Well, it’s happening: ‘The estimated mass of particulate organic carbon held in sediments beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet is up to an order of magnitude greater than that associated with northern hemisphere permafrost.’” Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch

Maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Instead of trying to pass firearm laws, background checks, red flag warnings, all that sensible stuff, maybe we should simply pass a law mandating that every man, woman, and child in the United States own a firearm. Maybe the law should also require every American over the age of 16 to carry a loaded firearm at all times -- to school, the grocery store, the dentist, the church, synagogue and mosque, to the doctor, to weddings and funerals, to amusement parks and concerts, dance recitals and soccer games, to Dodger Stadium and Madison Square Garden. Think how happy this would make the NRA, and which of our national priorities is more vital than pleasing the NRA? Clean water? Breathable air? Safe food? Fuck all that. Forget a chicken in every pot and a car in every driveway. Let’s strive to put a firearm in the hands of every American! 

Fuck the piecemeal approach. Fuck doubling-down. Let’s triple down on the American penchant for violence and blood. It’s our birthright after all, the way we became who we are today. Let each and every American embrace his or her inner sociopath. Lock and load people. Don’t give your 7-year-old an iPad -- give her a 9mm Glock with a full magazine. “Run along now, go shoot something, or somebody. Just be home in time for lunch.”

I’m being facetious, but only just so. America is a fucking open-air insane asylum, ruled by a tyrannical minority of wealthy people and institutions, with a bloated imbecile at its head. Every time there’s a mass shooting, the wacky right pulls its tired, worn bullshit off the shelf:

“Guns don’t kill people, criminals kill people. Our focus must be on the criminals. (By the way, wink, wink, dog whistle, the criminals are all black or brown.)”

“Gun violence is the result of moral decline. If the Ten Commandments were posted in every public place, we wouldn’t see the level of carnage we’re seeing. Our moral decline must be stopped. Christian faith is the answer.” 

“The problem is that when we teach evolution in schools we disconnect our children from God. How can we then expect them to know right from wrong? If you tell a child he rose from the primordial slime rather than the blessed loins of the virgin Mary, that child will not value human life!”

“Mental illness is the problem.”

“Gun violence is caused by violent video games.”

The NRA and its cowardly enablers in Congress talk around and around, mentioning everything except guns. An overwhelming percentage of Americans want sensible, reasonable, restrictions on the purchase of firearms, particularly military-style assault weapons, but our political system is so corrupt and rotted that what the majority desires is brushed aside, ignored. 

Our dipshit president claims that Congress is working on many proposals to curb gun violence, great stuff, big ideas that will soon roll down Capitol Hill. These ideas are certain to be as fantastic, and invisible, as Trump’s health care plan, as certain as Mexico coughing up the money for Trump’s racist wall, as certain as our manufacturing base returning from China. If Congress failed to enact meaningful gun legislation after the October 2017 Las Vegas massacre, during which one gunman killed 58 people and wounded more than 400, if that slaughter couldn’t goad Congress into action, what will? How many deaths is too many?

No death threshold is too high for the NRA. 

Our political leaders can’t even be bothered to come up with better talking points. They obviously think the people are stupid, and perhaps they are right. When morally bankrupt motherfuckers like Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Steve King, and Rick Scott get elected and re-elected, and a human cesspool like Donald J. Trump ascends to the highest office in the land, maybe we -- and I mean citizens, voters, people of good will and decency -- are reaping the whirlwind of decades of silence and passivity. American oligarchs don’t fear us, they don’t believe we can channel our outrage into mass acts of civil disobedience that will bring our sick and weary society to a grinding stop. 

All the potentates understand, and the only way to force them to act, is to confront them with the potential loss of their profit, position, advantage, and privilege. 

Working Stiffs

“What if we treated racism in the way we treat cancer?” Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist

Labor Day is my favorite national holiday. There’s something right and good about honoring the people who do the work that turn the wheels that make the country function. I’ve always enjoyed work. I remember when I was a kid of nine or ten, doing yard work without being asked, just because it felt good to pull weeds or trim a hedge or turn soil with a shovel. Around the same time I was working on the driving range at Muni, our local public golf course which wasn’t far from our house on Ardilla Drive, picking up range balls. Usually it was me, my brother Mike, and another boy named Jimmy Ley, working sections of the sloping range, picking up balls with a small basket fixed to the end of a golf club shaft as the summer sun went down. Some days we finished in the twilight. We carried large yellow wire baskets until they became too heavy, and then we dumped the balls into a bin on the back of a golf cart. I always tried to pick up as many balls in a single pass as I could. I still remember how the basket banged painfully against my hip and thigh. I also remember how satisfying it felt when the entire range was picked clean, and all the red and blue-striped range balls were washed and stacked, ready for the next day.

That was a long time ago now, another life. 

The decline of organized labor and the rise of income inequality have walked hand in hand. If you’re a capitalist, the first thing you want to do is keep labor costs as low as possible, and it’s much harder to do when workers bargain collectively, speak with a unified voice, and always have the potential to shut down production if you try to take too much and share too little. Eliminate the union and the hand of the capitalist is much freer. And if you can get the legislative arm of the government to help you marginalize organized labor, and the judicial branch to deem it perfectly legal, well, the conditions are ripe for maximizing profit -- or increasing shareholder value -- as it’s euphemistically called in this neoliberal era. It’s profit, pure and simple. 

American capitalists have always fought like cornered wolverines to keep workers from forming unions. Slave labor was the optimum system of course, and as Ibram X. Kendi has noted, “It is impossible to know racism without understanding its intersection with capitalism.” When slavery ended, other means to keep workers in line were used, strikebreakers, private detectives, mercenaries, and state and federal troops. Pitting workers against each other worked well, too, white and black, northern and southern, native born and foreigners. It’s a bloody history, largely forgotten in this time of the “gig” economy, the “sharing” economy, the “flexible” economy. Call it what you will but the end is the same: squeezing the maximum production from the lowest possible labor cost. Why do you think American manufacturers moved to Mexico, Vietnam, Pakistan, and China? 

Organized labor has shrunk so much and been on the slide so long that workers are consigned to the kids’ table, ignored by Republicans and Democrats alike. Want to know the state of Labor in America? Look at the federal minimum wage, the bitter fight for $15 an hour, the JANUS decision; look at public school teachers marching for liveable wages. Look at the bloated salaries of university presidents and the scraps thrown to adjunct faculty and graduate student teaching assistants. 

Capitalism runs on exploitation of people and resources. Capitalists will concede nothing to workers unless and until workers force them to by cutting off their sources of capital. You want to understand America? Look at how we treat our elderly, our young, our infirm, our incarcerated, and our workers. Think about how we treat those among us who have the least. Do we lift them up, or push them down? 

Happy Labor Day.