The Wannabe: Don Corleone Trump

 “The Birch Society called for defending the police against charges of brutality, opposed putting fluoride in the water supply with the fervor of today’s anti-vaxxers, and fought efforts at gun control, which they depicted as the preliminary step for confiscation and a Communist takeover of the United States.”  James Mann, New York Review, June 23, 2022

Trump and his crime club will spend the next days and weeks engaged in a multi-media campaign to destroy young Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House advisor who dropped strong tea to the January 6 Committee and the American public on June 28. We learned a lot that was new regarding Trump’s behavior on January 6, namely that he was warned that many in the crowd were carrying weapons of some sort: spears, flagpoles, mace, body armor, and firearms, including Glocks and AR-15’s. We learned that the disgraced ex-president had a hissy fit in his armor-plated SUV, demanded to be driven to the Capitol complex, and got physical with the Secret Service agents riding with him when they refused to comply. We also heard of Trump throwing his lunch against a wall in the White House when the Dishonorable Doughboy, aka former Attorney General William Barr, refused to tell Trump what he wanted to hear. The Fat Man has a temper. 

MAGA-world will be oblivious to the revelations about their Hero & God, but anyone with a functioning mind saw Trump come across like a punk, a bloated, defeated, whiny little shit upset because he can’t have his way. It’s more clear than ever that Trump wanted an armed mob to storm the Capitol and disrupt the proceedings. He wanted chaos. He got his wish: people died, hundreds were injured, and one of the best things about America, the last trophy in our case -- the peaceful, orderly transfer of presidential power, a rare thing -- was tarnished. Trump the sociopath primed and then unleashed an armed and angry mob on the seat of legislative authority, with the entire Congress in session and the Vice President presiding. MAGA-world won’t care. Their man could sodomize a ewe on the South Lawn of the White House and MAGA-world would still praise him as moral and god-fearing, the prime contemporary example of American manhood. 

What smears and innuendo will Trump and Rudy G and the propagandists on Fox News hurl at Cassidy Hutchinson? What kind of dirt can they unearth or manufacture to ruin this young woman’s life? One doesn’t cross the big boss without consequence. But before we become too misty-eyed about Ms. Hutchinson’s fate, let’s recall that she was all-in for Trump, firmly on Team MAGA, a true believer. You can’t get as close to Trump’s inner circle and co-conspirators as Hutchinson did without first passing a loyalty quiz. Meadows must have vouched for his very young, only 23 in 2020, idealistic assistant. But credit must be given where it is due: Hutchinson has a better moral compass than 90 percent of the cowardly white men she worked with, several of whom have snubbed the Committee. 

Which brings us to the curious case of Mark Meadows, who, until the special hearing on June 28, had gone deep underground. Meadows began cooperating, then reversed course and sued the Committee, blew off a congressional subpoena, and was let off the hook when the DOJ declined to indict him. Why did the DOJ make that decision? Was it perhaps judging that Meadows was vulnerable on meatier charges down the road? Has some agreement been made with Meadows? We might find out soon enough because after Hutchinson’s testimony, Trump will turn on Meadows like a rabid wolverine. If Meadows eventually reads the sign on the wall and flips on Trump I will not be surprised. Meadows strikes me as someone extremely interested in saving his own ass. 

The Republicans now have to decide if they will continue to grovel and cower before a man who turned an armed mob on their place of work, continue to support a man who is demonstrably unfit for any political office, and continue to parrot that man’s malign fairy tales about election fraud. 

Fated to Keep Going

 “It’s a warning: tread carefully, you who are drunk with power or even a little tipsy; you too could end up plucked and squawking and driven from the city.” Eduardo Galeano

I hated to do it but I couldn’t leave the shopping cart full of stuff next to the dumpster behind the market. For one thing, the cart wasn’t one of ours, it belonged to Smart & Final. Most of the contents had spilled on the ground: two pairs of sneakers in plastic bags, part of a Swiffer duster, a Big Gulp plastic cup, two wooden broom handles, an empty pack of cigarettes, a mattress cover, a gray sweatshirt, a pink bedsheet, a soiled bath towel, a couple of magazines, a flimsy floral-patterned scarf, a section of hose from a vacuum, a metal nail file. Somebody’s stuff. Somebody’s earthly possessions. I opened the lid to the dumpster and started tossing it all in, then I wheeled the cart out to the street. It made me feel sad. 

Our shopping carts find their way all over town, miles from the store, until they are rounded up by a man paid to return them to us. The carts often come back from their travels encrusted with mud and grime, with bent frames and broken wheels, littered with weeds and branches. Wheeled beasts of burden, luggage carriers of the poor and downtrodden. If they have any life left, we douse them with disinfectant, rinse them off, and let them dry in the sun. Sometimes my co-worker Jose gives them a new set of wheels. 

M runs the receiving dock. He unloads trucks and checks deliveries in. M is short but thick, big-boned, with a long ponytail and a deep, raspy smoker’s voice. He lives in the San Fernando Valley and his daily commute is in the neighborhood of 160 miles. I don’t know why he doesn’t look for a job in a store closer to home. The cost of gasoline has M sleeping in a black van in the parking lot a couple of nights a week. The shit people have to do to keep going is unreal. In some cases the problem is too many hours, too many days in a row, and in others it’s not enough hours, a losing proposition either way, but that’s the American wasteland; wages are low, rents are stratospheric, especially here on the glitzy American Riviera, and serfs swap the hours of our lives for money. I walked 13.3 miles last night during my shift. It wasn’t too difficult, the store wasn’t busy; I made my rounds with my broom and dustpan, took out the trash, emptied the cardboard baler, mopped the johns, and rounded up the carts. Simple job. The secret is just to keep moving, circulating. 

My neighborhood is noisy. If it’s not wailing sirens from fire trucks, ambulances or cop cars, it’s the unsettling whine of leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, chainsaws, or nail guns. MTD buses lumber past on Milpas. One of the things I remember about the first Covid lockdown was how quiet it was; that was eerie, but kind of beautiful in a way, when the dominant sound was the wind in the trees or birdsong. 

And we are fated to keep going, through the stupidity of our rulers, their cruelty and indifference to life, the hypocrisy and cowardice that follows in their malevolent wake; the sun rises and we get up and do it all over again. No wonder people go insane. No wonder so many are too worn down and tuckered out to think for themselves, to push back against the bastards who run the machinery that churns out misery and suffering; it doesn’t have to be. Human beings still haven’t figured out how to share the bounty in any manner that approaches equity. 

Get Behind The Mule

 “My generation takes what it can get/Are you surprised that the kids are all upset?/They’re looking at Nothing and Nothing turns away and yawns.” Greg Brown, “Whatever It Was”

I’ve got this suspicion that when the January 6 committee wraps up its labor and delivers a comprehensive and damning report to the DOJ, nothing will happen. No indictment of Trump. Possibly indictments for some easier targets like Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, but not the kingpin himself or his many enablers and co-conspirators, like Mark Meadows. Not indicting Trump will come down in the end to fear. Fear that an indictment might spark civil unrest and violence from Trump’s heavily-armed tribe. Fear of losing what should be an open and shut case on multiple charges. Fear of Steve Bannon’s podcast. Fear that voters will turn against Democrats. Whatever. The excuse will sound reasoned but naked fear will still be the reason for inaction.  Nothing is in shorter supply in Washington D.C. than courage. Justice, rule of law, and enforcement is reserved for targets that are poor or working-class -- black or brown or female -- not the mandarins and the owners and powerful political bosses. Elites in every society are adept at ducking accountability and punishment; the worst offenders often walk away, unscathed, like the many Nazi’s that escaped to South America. The worst butchers, the truly despotic, slip the net and vanish. When the elites write the rules, they always weave in loopholes and exceptions. It’s just the way power works, and it’s as corrosive as salt water on metal. 

Why can’t I let this go? Because of what I predicted when Trump was elected, and what I saw with my own eyes on January 6. Because if Trump isn’t held accountable the jig is up on American democracy. I know both parties are corrupted by lobbyists and corporate money and untraceable money, by the madness of perpetual foreign wars, because I’ve been writing about this shit for nearly 20 years. Racism. Militarism. Class Warfare. The creeping cruelty of American life. Dark shit, from George W. Bush to Donald J. Trump. My understanding of American politics, how it works, how it fails to work, its inherent corruption, is better than most. If I could bury my head in the proverbial sand, I would, but I can’t; I’ve got children to consider. I predicted in 2016 that Trump would do grave damage to the country; his manifest incompetence and authoritarian bent were as obvious to me as the wrinkles on my face. If I have an obsession it’s with the fact that a complete fraud like Donald Trump can convince millions of Americans that he’s their champion. My God, after all that happened with Covid and the election, can’t you see that Trump is for Trump and nothing else? How many Covid deaths can be attributed to the Trump administration’s criminal mishandling of the federal response? 10,000? 50,000? 100,000? All Americans, fellow citizens, fellow human beings. 

OK, so I’ll tell you what you already perceive: the order is shifting and the corridors of power are being rearranged, and it’s time for people of decency and goodwill to get off the couch and up behind the mule, because there is much work to be done, many seeds to plant. Turn off Fox News and tune in to your own inherent sense of right and wrong. Trump lied about the 2020 election -- before, during and after -- because he knew he was going to lose, and nothing terrified him more than being exposed for the loser he has been all his misbegotten and miserable life. Trump is a coward at heart, a draft evader, a tax cheat, an elite punk who has never been properly put in his place. He’s an attention-seeking moron who never understood even the most basic functions of government. He disgraced the United States on the world stage, sucked up to Vladimir Putin, ran interference for Mohammed bin Salman after the Saudi prince set his killers on Jamal Khashoggi. How can you put your faith in a man like Trump? Is it just because you despise the same people he does? 

There can be no justice without courage. 

 

The Wrong People Are In Charge

 “And there's a shadow on the faces/Of the men who send the guns/To the wars that are fought in places/Where their business interest runs”

Jackson Browne, “Lives in the Balance”

I finally got to run on the artificial turf in Peabody Stadium. For two years or more I watched the new stadium rise and contented myself with running on the front lawn of the high school, which due to the use of reclaimed water is green all year. Even when the stadium officially opened with a big groundbreaking ceremony attended by Santa Barbara High alumni and local political personalities, it was never open to the general public like the old stadium was. Pandemic restrictions kept the public at bay -- though I saw young guys hop the fence to use the new outdoor basketball courts all the time; something I didn’t feel right about doing while I was working for the school district. Because of the recent graduation ceremony, I found the gate wide open and walked down the hill and checked out the track and the turf field, the bronze plaques dedicated to people who coughed up matching funds. A lot of local history on this ground. I found both surfaces ideal for the kind of running I do, mostly intervals and agility work. Since I’m no longer employed by the district, I may join the youngsters in hopping the fence in the future.  

I wrote a review of The Cross and the Lynching Tree by the late theologian James H. Cone for California Review of Books. It’s linked here in case anyone is interested: https://calirb.com/the-cross-and-the-lynching-tree-by-james-h-cone/

It’s astonishing, and sobering, to think about the number of people who occupy positions of authority or leadership who have no business in such positions. Whether it’s the United States Senate, the Texas State Legislature, police departments in cities large and small, Secretaries of State, Attorneys General, or superintendents of school districts. The Peter Principle isn’t imaginary. In many organizations, public or private sector, rising has less to do with the ability to get things done, and far more to do with the ability to get along with people higher on the food chain. Say the right words, obtain the recognized credentials, and don’t make enemies. I worked with a fair number of stiffs during my career in public education, and a few zealots who honestly believed our work was changing the world, a claim of hubris that I couldn’t entirely buy -- particularly after experiencing the local schools through my own children. The day I met the last superintendent I worked under I knew she was in over her head. That was my instant gut feeling -- and time proved me right. Oh, she had all her boxes checked, but you cannot learn leadership from a textbook or a degree program or a week-long conference with other people who think like you do. 

I’m thinking of changing the subtitle of this blog from Notes of an Unarmed American to Notes of a Working-Class Intellectual. After 18 years it feels like it’s time for a change. I was reading some older posts the other day and it occurs to me that inequality and injustice are mainly what have preoccupied me for nearly two decades. My sense is that wealth inequality is one reason for the divisions in this society. Too few have too much, and too many either have too little or a very tenuous grip on just enough. I’ve written over and over again that American-style capitalism is cruel. This is why it must be regulated. My political platform isn’t complicated. It starts with universal healthcare and public education. Maternity and child care and care for the elderly. Housing. And an end to devoting half the federal budget to “defense.” It’s not defense, it’s offense, it’s empire, power projection and endless war and snuggling up with murderous regimes like Saudi Arabia and Israel for the primary benefit of multinational energy extractors. I’m for gay marriage and a woman’s right to exercise total control over her own body. I’m against all forms of slavery. I’m for sensible gun laws. I’m for immediate recognition that climate change is happening faster than the majority of Americans understand. I’m not a communist. I suppose I’m best described as a social democrat. 

I marked two passages in Bad Mexicans by Kelly Lytle Hernandez that struck me as relevant to our own day. Granted, Praxedis Guerrero wrote that “Tyranny is the crime of collectivities that do not think for themselves, and it should be attacked as a social illness by means of revolution” in 1910, but millions of Americans have given up thinking for themselves and appear willing to turn the country over to Donald Trump, a failed single term and twice-impeached president, a serial business failure, tax cheat, and one of the true grifters in modern world history, along with what seem like hundreds of nutters who think a fascist America will be better. Perhaps Americans will soon have a better understanding of how close Trump came to igniting a political coup. People died on January 6. We cannot forget that. 

The other quote is this one from Ricardo Flores Magon, the man at the center of Bad Mexicans, and also penned in 1910: “Political liberty requires as an adjunct another liberty to be effective, and that is economic liberty.” If one is in debt, does one have economic liberty? In my mind economic liberty means freedom from want: food, clothing, medical care, education, and shelter. A baseline enough to sustain life. I imagine that when most Americans think of economic liberty -- if they think of such a question at all -- they equate it with choices: models, colors, sizes, varieties, specification, hipness or status. But how many choices in airlines do we have in the US now? Rental cars? Cell phone carriers? Internet service providers? Grocery stores? Medical insurance? How many different companies provide services in these different sectors? Is our freedom more an illusion of choice when in fact most of our consumption benefits a few dozen corporations? I always recall this line from a Greg Brown song: Sooner or later there’ll be one corporation selling one little box, it will give you what you want and take everything you got. 1910 and 2022 are not the same, obviously, and Mexico isn’t the United States. What is similar are the concentrations of wealth, power and influence, in Mexico in the person of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, and in the United States represented by oligarchs like Gates, Bezos, the Koch family, Musk -- the entire billionaire class and all the infrastructure, financial and legislative, that allows them to get over at the expense of individuals, families, and communities. The common folk. Power is the common thread, who has it, who doesn’t. 

Holy Trinity: God, Guns, Abortion

 “This is a country built on violence and determined to survive by violence or take the world down with it. It consistently rejects peace talks in favor of war, nonviolent approaches to crime in favor of killer cops, and open borders in favor of heavily militarized border enforcement. Then it cries when its children are killed. Then it sells more guns. It’s a twisted place to live and most of its residents have no clue how twisted.” Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch

They will say anything to deflect attention from guns and their complicity in making guns easy to obtain. They ramble on about mental illness, entry doors, armed guards, armed school teachers, hardened schools, but the bottom line is always more guns, not less guns. And so this deadly wheel turns, in Texas, New York, California, Georgia. Readers of the Balcony know that I’m proud to be an unarmed American. I hate guns. This doesn’t imply any desire on my part to impose my views on others. Anyone of legal age who wishes to own a pistol, shotgun, or hunting rifle should be allowed to do so. Responsible sport shooters and hunters pose little risk to the public. If owning a pistol makes you feel safer in your home, by all means acquire one and learn how to use it. I don’t, however, believe in open carry laws because I see no justification for them; they are part of the Wild West mentality we must cast off. 

My problem is with the weaponry of war, military-grade assault rifles like the AR-15 or semi-automatic pistols. Citizens have no need for such weapons, no matter what the NRA or its silver-tongued lobbyists say. Fuck them. And fuck all politicians of either party who bend over for the Gun Lobby year after year. I reserve special disdain and contempt for Greg Abbott, a coward and a punk; Dan Patrick for being a self-righteous asshole; Ken Paxton for just being who he is; Ted Cruz for personifying a perverted Ivy League education; Kevin McCarthy for being a dry turd masquerading as a man. All of these pissants, and many, many more, have blood stains under their fingernails.

Money and power. Cower behind the cross, hold up a gun, wail for the unborn and millions will follow you, send you money, and vote for you, no matter what. Republicans have message discipline and get on the same page very quickly, but the GOP is an immoral gang of weasels. On the other side the Democrats stagger around the frontier of the culture war, preoccupied with identity politics, wokeness, call it what you will. You want to know what triggers me? Stupidity. Injustice. Cruelty. The rule of law is being eroded, abroad and at home, and those in power escape accountability for their misdeeds. What’s a progressive to do? Where do I turn? Like James Baldwin, I hold the right to shame and criticize my country until it does better. Our society will never be perfect or even close to it, but one predicated on fear and hatred cannot long endure. 

What’s the breaking point, where does this madness end? Does it end? How do we break the iron grip of the gun lobby and the defense industry, and stop promoting violence as the answer to our mutual problems? How do we reinvigorate the anti-war movement? How do we change the American economy to make it less predatory, unfair, unequal, and also less detrimental to the planet? There’s so much heavy lifting to be done.

In the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy I come across this passage which, if we continue staggering blindly down our current path, might just apply: “We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.” 

Walk On

 “If there's ever somethin' bad you don't wanna see/Just keep on walkin' and let it be…” Curtis Mayfield, “Back to Living Again”

I’ve been listening to Curtis Mayfield today. He was a wise man who saw deep and expressed what he saw and felt in his music. I’m reading The Cross and the Lynching Tree by the late James H. Cone, a well-known and regarded black scholar and theologian. I began this book ten days or so before the mass shooting in the Tops Market in Buffalo; Cone’s writing about the Church and White Supremacy was fresh on my mind when I saw the headline. The contradictions of faith, of the relationship between the cross of Jesus and the lynching tree of white supremacy, and how the black church was a place of sanctuary from oppression and brutality. Jesus understood the suffering of the poor and downtrodden (at least until the Christian Right in America transformed him into a greedy capitalist with a nice suit and gleaming dental work). Vigilante violence, mob violence, a preview of which we saw on our screens on January 6, 2021. Blacks were never safe from the arbitrary, capricious anger of the white mob. The church and the Bible gave them faith, and faith gave them hope, and they kept on, and on. 

I’m into the final section of The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture & Society by William Deresiewicz. Wonderful book, a treasure trove of thoughts brilliantly expressed, across a wide range of subjects. I’ve learned much from it. Deresiewicz is insistent that people think, and surprised when they think clearly, because he understands the effort thinking requires. “It takes a long time to have an original idea,” Deresiewicz writes. Deresiewicz wrote a brilliant book about higher education called Excellent Sheep that I recommend. He’s a craftsman with language. We share an admiration for the writer Rebecca Solnit and the musician Zoe Keating. 

I begin reading Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire & Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernandez, and by the middle of the introduction I am hooked. I’m frequently amazed at how little I know about American history, and particularly of our long and often tortured relationship with Mexico. The knowledge that I’m not alone in my ignorance doesn’t make me feel better. Hernandez claims that one cannot understand U.S. history without Mexico and Mexicans. Mexico occupies an important place in the story of U.S. territorial expansion and imperialism. In the early 20th century U.S. capital flowed into Mexico, spurring the construction of railroads, mining, and oil extraction. I see a parallel with the history of slavery, white supremacy, and Jim Crow; you cannot understand U.S. history without examining these topics. In our strange day, the forces of the theocratic right allied with the power-mad GOP want to prevent Americans from confronting the past honestly; they want to ban books they find too revealing or challenging. Similarly, they want to control women. It’s dangerous and frightening, and, I fear, only the beginning. The authoritarian tide is rising and I’m not confident it can be restrained; millions of Americans don’t seem to care if what remains of our democracy is lost. 

It took me five or six months to read The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years by the Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia. The book is a hefty 500 pages, filled with references to the literary scene in Argentina in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Piglia wrote about the political situation, Peronism, the military coups that roiled Argentina during that period, literary rivals, women, and his constant state of near poverty. Due to his work as a writer and editor, he came under the scrutiny of the Army and had to flee his apartment with only what he could carry. I gained solace from Piglia’s false starts, stops, and doubts about the value of his writing projects. 

My decision to retire from the school district last year was the right one. I have many thoughts about my career, the work I did, the roles I performed, the good and bad moments, K12 public education in general, and in particular the experience of working in a bureaucracy. I was a cog in an institution, tasked with keeping a routine going, that’s all. My part-time job at Whole Foods Market provides daily satisfaction because at the end of a shift I can clearly see the results of my labor. I like and enjoy my co-workers, the vibe in the store is usually upbeat, and I never take the work home with me; there’s no need. My family members are healthy, we have a little money, no material wants. I spend many hours each week reading, though I never read as much as I want or think I should. I take long walks along the Riviera a few times a week. 

I’ll end this with a quote from The Cross and the Lynching Tree: “Whites today cannot separate themselves from the culture that lynched blacks, unless they confront their history and expose the sin of white supremacy.”

To that I can say, amen. 

Many Questions, Few Answers

 “Instead of a feel-good ‘touting accomplishments’ campaign, Democrats should rip into the GOP with a warning that America’s future is at stake. Because it is.” John Nichols, The Nation May 16-23, 2022

Maybe we need to think of the world as might the late novelist John LeCarre, as an interconnected web of power, relationships, ideologies, and mutual interests, global and individual rivals jousting for advantage, influence, money, and the raw power to order things as they desire. I have many questions and few answers. Who is running the world? Who are the global movers and shakers so wealthy they can hire private security forces, fund their own intelligence-gathering apparatus, murder rivals with impunity, and control the media? The de facto head of the Saudi monarchy, Mohammad bin Salman, gave Jared Kushner $2 billion with few strings attached. Why? In payment or repayment for what? Where do the interests of MBS and Jared Kushner intersect? Where did Donald Trump go on his first official state visit? Saudi Arabia. Illuminated globes and sword dancing, remember?  

What did Putin and Trump talk about for ninety minutes in Helsinki in 2018? 

Why has MBS been able to evade responsibility for ordering the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Why is Julian Assange wasting away in jail, in one of the cruelest instances of state torture I’ve ever lived through. When was Assange, a journalist, last a free citizen?

After the election of 2016 and the unthinkable happened, how many contacts were made between Trump campaign officials and representatives of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Russia? How do those contacts relate to Putin’s decision to launch his Ukraine war this year, the price of oil, and the money laundering Saudi Arabia and the UAE are doing for Russian oligarchs. How is Putin funding his war? We need a bare white wall and a pad of Post-It Notes, like in the detective thrillers, to chart the web of relationships, channels, companies, governments and safe havens. It’s an interconnected world, particularly when money is involved. 

The Israeli Defense Forces have murdered a well-known correspondent for Al-Jazeera, Shireen Abu Akleh. She was shot in the neck by an IDF marksman. The US provides the usual amplification of Israeli government denials, and will insure there will be no consequences. That’s how this special relationship works. Total immunity. 

When Trump was president he was always boasting about how America had achieved energy independence, producing so much surplus oil and gas that we were exporting it. Where is that independence now, when the price of gasoline hovers around $6 a gallon? Do you think the price is being manipulated? Let me put the question a different way: do you trust Big Oil? 

With another spare white wall and additional Post-It Notes, we could chart all the individuals charged with crimes, convicted of crimes, or pardoned who played a role in Trump’s 2016 campaign and his four disastrous years in the White House. This would make for an interesting visual. Trump’s own family members would be heavily represented. 

I imagine the funeral of Donald Trump. Who will attend, speak, bow their heads, cry? Will millions of people wait in long lines to view the dead man, as millions did when Juan Peron died in Argentina? Will it be a sea of red hats or only a smattering? How many will rejoice that this privileged, incompetent, and demented scourge has finally departed this earth? I know where I will be, and with whom. 

Forward to the Past

 

“Prophet’s take risks and speak out in righteous indignation against society’s treatment of the poor.” James H. Cone

I’m not surprised at all by the vehemence of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito’s recently leaked opinion. Alito was writing for the majority -- on behalf of the infamous political operatives in robes -- Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett “Spring Break” Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett. How the draft became public is irrelevant. Alito made very clear where this is going, the repeal of Roe V. Wade and what will mark the beginning of a gradual, but steady, erosion of other fundamental human rights most of us take for granted. What’s going to change between now and when the decision is handed down except maybe the addition of another line of fencing around the Supreme Court building? We know the outcome. John Roberts might insist on watering down some of Alito’s more obnoxious phrases, citations and inferences, but the outcome will not change.  

What happens when this illegitimate, unaccountable, and reactionary Supreme Court delivers its anticipated opinion?

The crusaders are going to find the magic cup they have chased since I was a boy -- the repeal of a woman’s Constitutional right to abortion health services. Health services for women, many of them working-class or poor, the ones for whom life is already difficult enough. The crusaders will lift the cup like the winners of a European Champions League football final.  And then the unholy alliance of the GOP/Evangelical Christian right will move to the next target. Their odds of success are good. They’ve got tons of unaccountable money, FOX News, and a network of evangelical churches that enjoy tax-free status while they preach a vile form of theocracy. In the short run, before they start feeding on each other (a hazard of amassing too much unaccountable power), they will wield power like a hammer. And then, if the GOP regains control of Congress and the White House, watch out. 

America isn’t immune to the consequences of Empire Rot, a terminal condition. The example Trump sent the political class during his disastrous single term was that norms don’t matter, laws against political corruption and ethical violations are tepid and easy to evade by simply ignoring them, and telling  extreme and outlandish lies is a viable and effective tactic. In fact, the more outlandish the lie the greater the likelihood it will become the truth, and for some small percentage of the population, gospel. 

What happens when this illegitimate, unaccountable, and reactionary Supreme Court delivers its anticipated opinion? Will we stage another massive Women’s March, feel the rush of solidarity and purpose and tolerance, and then retreat to our separate silos waiting for someone else to do the work of educating, organizing, and channeling the energy and outrage and determination into a coherent, focused political direction? That’s one of the tallest orders there is, yet it’s the only way social change is made. Ground up, slow, painstaking, and, yes, incremental. In contrast, when hard-won rights are diluted, narrowed, or stripped away, it’s usually a top down process, opportunistic, cynical, and cruel. We forget so many elemental lessons, or perhaps we never learned to begin with. Rights won are not forever; they can be lost. Rights must be defended with vigilance, like liberty itself. We will soon be a country where abortion is legal in some states and a crime in others, not unlike the years leading to the Civil War when half the states permitted and perpetuated chattel slavery, and the other half forbade it. 

Serfs in Russia did not have pension plans or social insurance. They depended on their master, from birth to death. When Alito and his noxious cabal put Roe down for good, they will set their sights on other rights they find objectionable: birth control, same-sex marriage, other privacy rights, and then, one day they will come for the last prize of the New Deal era, the big one, Social Security. It will happen in stages, by a cut here, a scratch there. But once they get going more will come, more impetus for unaccountable power to go further, take more, control more. Only a credible, focused and organized people’s movement or coalition of movements that pushes back whenever it detects a threat can stymie these radicals. The demise of Roe isn’t a women’s issue alone, it must be part of a broader coalition focused on securing human rights. Losing Roe is a major setback, an insult to women, essentially a white man’s declaration of sovereignty over women and their bodies; it could be the centerpiece of a mass movement, perhaps it will, but to be transformative a movement needs size and depth. And staying power, which is where the tax-free Evangelical church network has been so lethal. 

The Democratic Party isn’t the vessel, let’s establish that from the jump. The Democrats have not done much to enshrine the right to abortion health services in law since the time abortion became a wedge issue more than 40 years ago. In 1976, a young Senator from Delaware named Joseph Biden voted for the Hyde Amendment, legislation that banned federal funding of abortion health services. Both parties have used abortion as a moblizing tool. The Democrats will talk-the-talk but fail to muster the support to pass legislation protecting the right to abortion health services. They’ll mount one of their patented doomed-from-the-outset initiatives that will have zero chance of being enacted in anything resembling its original form. 

So, what are We the People going to do? 

This, That And a Dash of the Other

 “At some point the US may no longer be in a position to exploit its financial centrality as it does now. For large parts of the world that moment will be cause for celebration.” Tom Stevenson, London Review of Books, 24 March 2022.

How long before Putin’s war against Ukraine spills over a border line, perhaps Poland’s? What stance does NATO and the US adopt then? America’s political and military leaders are focused on taking every opportunity to weaken an enemy (real or perceived), whether Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela or Iran. That’s deep in the DNA of the Pentagon and National Security state, despite the incredible failures of the architects in the White House, Senate, media, and intelligence community. Serial failures that set off a cascade of devastating consequences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. I can think of one reason for the outpouring of support for Ukraine from all over the world: the emphasis of the global media. This time an unprovoked attack was launched by Russia, not the US. In Ukraine, the media is getting stories out about civilian casualties, mass rapes, summary executions, and indiscriminate bombing, uprooted refugees, and graphic images of destruction and death. This is Putin being a sadist, we want maximum exposure of his crimes. In the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, the American military was effective in muzzling the media, hiding unpleasant facts beneath claims of classified intelligence, need-to-know, eyes only. Sources and methods. The Pentagon and State Department managed the narrative, always casting the US in the guise of noble and generous protectors, builders, deliverers of freedom and democracy.  Now, I’m not claiming that we can compare what Russian soldiers are accused of doing in Ukraine with the conduct of American soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq. Were civilians killed by US forces? No doubt. Were civilians explicitly killed as a matter of strategy? Was mass rape used as a weapon? Not to my knowledge. Did such war crimes occur? It’s certainly possible. The US military has done it before.

The war is over a month old. How much has Putin been weakened? How long can Ukraine hold out? 

Watch the housing market, it’s once again completely out of kilter with reality and the needs of Americans for safe, affordable housing, a basic human necessity. Prices have soared out of all proportion with wages, not that that matters to Bank of America or Citibank or any of the hedge funds that are buying residential housing stock across the country, no Zip Code beyond their reach. Yes, the largest single owner of houses in America is a corporation. Soulless financial engineers have created another Frankenstein monster, financial instruments out of thin air, under the limp and lifeless bodies of government regulators, and a Congress deep under the duvet with the lawyers and lobbyists who work for the gain of the Finance, Real Estate and Insurance lords and dukes. 2008/09 is going to repeat. How much will the corporate bail-out and total indemnity of Capital cost the people this time? These extraordinarily cunning people never learn lessons from their failures -- they’re not required to, that’s part of running with the elite, clean slates, second and third chances. Loads of fuck-up insurance. 

A recent article in the Atlantic magazine by Mark Leibovich caused a bit of stir when it suggested that Republican candidates pitted against Trump-endorsed shitbirds just call Trump a loser and then enumerate Trump’s trail of failure and broken promises. I think Democratic candidates should include the same theme in their campaigns, and then contrast Trump’s failures with what Democrats have accomplished since 2021. Here’s a list off the top of my noodle:

-Twice-impeached.

-Lost the popular vote twice, the second time by a wide margin.

-Lost the GOP the House in the 2018 midterms.

-Lost the GOP the Senate and the White House in 2020.

-Joined the ranks of one-term US presidents, including Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Despite many catastrophic mistakes, even George W. Bush managed to be re-elected. 

-Failed to build the great Trump Border Wall or make Mexico pay for it.

-Ballooned the Federal deficit.

-Got outplayed and outsmarted on trade.

-Failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. 

-Completely mismanaged the Federal response to the pandemic, resulting in thousands of needless deaths. 

-Lost nearly sixty legal challenges regarding the 2020 election.

-Instigated a deadly mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

-Stole classified information from the White House and transported it to Mar-A-Lago. 

That’s what the GOP cult is running on, though they will portray themselves as lovers of liberty and free speech, low taxes, and protectors of white citizens from Mickey Mouse and Ibram X. Kendi. 

What does Trump give his fans in return for their blind loyalty? Certainty in uncertain times; simple solutions to complex problems; enemies to revile and fear. Trump’s misrule did little to improve their material circumstances, they still struggle with low-wage jobs, lousy and expensive health insurance, debt, and limited prospects for social mobility. But at least they can feel superior to Muslims, African-Americans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, and so on. MAGA, baby!

Beware the Full Moon

 “Another day of anger, bitterness and doubt.” Bob Dylan, “False Prophet”

I can always tell that the moon is full or nearly so by the behavior of the people I observe at the Market. It’s really uncanny but people seem to act differently, more befuddled and spaced-out than usual. Slower, indecisive, best evidenced by a woman with a basket standing in the center of the aisle, as if she’s the only person in the store, completely alone with no sense of time or space or the fact that there’s a man with a broom behind her, looking for a way past her so he can get on with his work, a determined runt of a man who tries to anticipate if the woman might veer left or right so he can dart by. For what seems an eternity she does neither. This is the time when customers ask all kinds of questions -- where’s the dijon mustard, where’s the sour cream, do you have crystalized ginger, can I buy just one stalk of celery. A tall man stopped me on his way out of the store with his grandson and asked me to examine a quarter to determine if it was real or counterfeit or foreign. He couldn’t read the inscription on the back, but I could and assured him that he had the real deal. “Old eyes,” he said. As if I’m the proverbial spring chicken. I’ll be sixty-three in a couple of weeks. 

Full moon, odd behavior. Fuck, in the United States of America, the moon is always full and bright and fit for lunatics. The American era is ending and something new is being born, and it appears more authoritarian and cruel, driven by a perverse greed for wealth and power that is difficult for average people to understand. Without heed of consequences or casualties. Without shame. The will to power, I guess. I don’t have it, I may have many years ago, when I was in the Air Force, but the impulse flared and died. In my professional life I have always been honest and fair. The only job that I flat-out failed at was as an insurance salesman. Dark days, foolish days. Cold-calling from the phone book. Knocking on doors in the suburbs. I could do neither with any competence, I was struck with terror at the prospect and could never overcome the fear of rejection. Even when I got an appointment, which was rare, I was probably the worst closer on my best day in the history of sales work, statistically more likely to talk myself out of a sale than into one. Asking a stranger for money is what it comes down to and I couldn’t do it. For a certain time in my life I believed a lot of corporate bullshit and American hype. Strong military, free markets, low taxes, American benevolence, etc. I was as ignorant as they come about the history of my country, the theft of indigenous land and the enslavement of Africans, the causes of the Civil War, the Industry of American slavery, white supremacy. American imperialism. American-style capitalism. The only thing that saved me was a love of reading, a thirst for knowledge, and my own lived experience. 

Fuck, on this full moon I committed a cardinal sin of a book reviewer and mispelled the names of two of the main characters in a piece I wrote, edited and proof-read. Fuck, double screaming fuck. The publisher brought the error to my attention, kindly, but I’m furious with myself, chagrined that I could make such an elemental error. No excuse, I fucked up. I fixed the review and sent my apologies. 

Full moon decisions usually go sideways. There’s a lot of noise in this world, a constant, annoying buzz; we can’t get quiet enough to hear. Phones, sirens, radios, bells, beeps, chirps, screeches, chainsaws, leaf blowers, pneumatic nail guns, cement mixers, drills, endless and everywhere, poison for some, the kind that takes over the brain, and these days everybody’s got an opinion and some means for expressing it. Lots of noise, images slipping past at warp speed. We need to put our phones down, shut out the noise and the images. There’s too much talking, too much hypocrisy, too many lies and too many flim-flam artists, too many cowards.

But there are no saviors. Hold on. It’s the end of an era. And a full moon. 

Down Mexico Way

 “Then sitting around campfires listening to men tell stories of women as they slide deeper & deeper into that all too familiar drunken slur of the profoundly disappointed.” Sam Shepard

My wife and I went to Mexico City and Oaxaca for six days, our first trip outside the US since 2019. Three nights in each location, enough to get a taste, a feel for the vibe and atmosphere. Everywhere we went face coverings were required, and people were very compliant. The traffic in Mexico City was astounding as was the pall of smog that smudged the sky. This was one of those trips where you see and experience more than you can assimilate. Too much Art, perhaps too much mezcal. I made the notes that follow on my phone, usually while riding in the backseat of an Uber. 

A mongrel hound brown and gray with an elongated nut sack; rebar extending from rooftops, an inhabited work in progress; dusty landscape, sere; thinking of a graveyard in a tiny town where the name on every stone represents someone you were related to; land of motorcycles and scooters; older sister carrying her younger brother down a narrow dirt lane, each step she takes kicks up a small cloud of dust; Sunday afternoon, dead part of the day, hot and drowsy; dog sleeping beneath a car; down the road the boy’s great grandfather built with his brother and a pair of mules; kids playing football on a bare dirt field; never seen so much corrugated tin, a basic material to keep in, out, or covered; unfinished houses with rectangular eyes; holding her history like something that might slip from her grasp; a place filled with ancestral spirits and omens; feral dogs roam in pairs; people who will never be relieved of tedium and boredom by money; the high priest was also the ruler; refuse caught on a barbed-wire fence; caramel-colored mutt asleep in the dust; stacks of bricks; children selling trinkets to tourists in the square; intestines hanging from a hook; the smell of leather; a blind girl singing on the sidewalk, her plastic cup empty. 

74 Million Reasons to Worry

 “Since the time of Reagan, the American economy has ridden waves of speculation -- in real estate, in information technology, in mortgages, and now in real estate once again -- each leading to a bust.” James K. Galbraith, The Nation

One thing is for certain: the West is treating the carnage, destruction and refugee crisis in Ukraine very differently than it did when the victims were Afghans, Syrians, Yeminis and Somalis. What accounts for this? Is it because Ukranians, by and large, resemble us and pray to the Christian God rather than Allah? Or does the West consider the lives of Ukranians more valuable and worthy of our concern and compassion? Afghanistan is a ruined country, and a forgotten one as millions of its people face the possibility of starvation. Most of the world yawns. 

How does Tucker Carlson -- the poster boy for hysterical white grievance -- get away with spouting pro-Russian drivel on Fox News? Commerce, of course, advertising revenue based on his devoted audience. As long as Carlson attracts eyeballs to screens he will be allowed to continue spewing nonsense like a busted sewer pipe. 

Reports in the corporate media indicate that Russian forces are targeting civilian targets in Ukraine, a charge that Russia denies as fake news. Apparently, any video footage coming from Ukraine that is critical of Russia or evidence of war crimes, has been doctored. Sounds to me like Putin plays the same PR game as his pet and protege, Donald J. Trump. Meanwhile, Biden is doing his best to thread the needle by keeping NATO on the sidelines while he authorizes billions in military assistance. If only it was as easy to fund health care and education for all Americans. Funny thing about war spending: it always receives swift approval and is exempt from all accountability for how the money is spent. No cost-benefit analysis or means testing, none of the hurdles faced by any initiative to assist the poor or needy. War is better for business. 

Remember when the Soviet Union collapsed and there was talk of a “peace” dividend? No? Can’t blame you because it lasted about a minute and was quickly forgotten after 9/11 and Bush/Cheney’s global War On Terror. That blunder cost trillions of dollars, caused thousands of civilian casualties and a refugee crisis, and no one was held accountable. George W. Bush paints and slides into dementia, Dick Cheney clings to life, and people like David Patraeus are invited to prognosticate on cable news programs. What did America get for its “investment” of several trillion dollars? We practiced torture abroad and cruelty at home (we incarcerate more people than any nation in the world), our economy is obscenely tilted in favor of the wealthy, and our political system is a dysfunctional farce. The GOP is so far up Trump’s behind that it didn’t even bother to offer a platform in 2020; whatever Trump wanted was the platform. We demonize the poor and less fortunate. Naked racism is on the rise, greenlighted after five years of Trump. We praise the stupid and villify the intelligent. We’re afraid to look in the mirror and confront our nation’s history. Intolerance is on the march and it comes packing heavy heat, thanks to the perversion of the 2nd Amendment. How long before it turns really ugly? Listen to the rhetoric, the explicit calls for violence. Do you think it will simply dissipate, like fog? I don’t. Malevolent forces are loose in our land and closer than we think.

What happened to the criminal referral for Mark Meadows on charges of contempt of Congress and those highly anticipated public hearings about January 6, and the various probes into Donald Trump? Swept aside by Ukraine and rising gasoline prices. This Congress will run out of time and the work of the January 6th committee will probably never see the full light of day. DOJ will abstain from prosecuting Trump on the pretense of not wanting to divide the nation. Besides money, you know what destroys democracy? Cowardice. If you think these are the delusions of an overwrought old liberal keep in mind that Donald Trump received 74 millions votes in 2020 -- after being impeached, after bungling the federal government’s response to the Covid pandemic, after embarrassing the nation time and time again on the world stage, after all the scandals, after all the lies. 74 million of my fellow Americans saw all that and still voted for Trump. The question for the ages is how can so many people be so stupid and irrational? 

That’s why I must conclude that we are well and truly fucked, as Hunter S. Thompson might say. 

The Tide of Injustice

 “One should never discount the historical importance of lunatics.” Marci Shore, Historian

Vladimir Putin is fighting the war he instigated with the sons of Russian mothers and fathers who have little say in matters of public policy. According to one report I heard, nearly 500 Russian soldiers have perished thus far. More will follow, of course, as will more casualties on the Ukrainian side. I still cannot fathom why Putin chose this course of action at this time. Did he miscalculate the response from the people of Ukraine and much of the world, the economic sanctions that threaten his vast stolen wealth and that of his oligarch cronies? I’ve read speculation that Putin has lost his mind, is suffering from an illness and might possibly be addled from steroids. Be that as it may, I wonder how long he can keep the Russian population in the dark about what he’s doing in Ukraine. Putin has many plates in the air. 

Putin is a case study of a brutal tyrant who has clung to power for too  long. It seems to happen to them all, the lure and curse of power; Putin has been Russia’s top dog longer than any man should. He’ll likely win the first significant military victories, taking more and more territory, but then what? How is Putin going to keep the Ukrainian people under control while Russia is under brutal economic sanctions? 

Putin, Trump, Orban, Xi Jinping, Erdogan, Modi, it’s the age of the tyrant and the autocrat. How many refugees will ultimately flee Ukraine, and how will the receiving nations manage the influx of so many desperate people at one time? The logistics are daunting. The suffering will be extreme. Because of one man, Vladimir Putin.  Why do we fall for these people, allow them to amass such powers to themselves, these men so deranged that they should never be within feet of power? Because they make things simple. They say, you’re the real people, the ones who deserve to be taken care of, not those free-loading immigrants; they say, you’re struggling financially because of the evil European Union or the Democrats and the snobby, woke intellectuals. These autocrats are skilled at simplifying the complex, casting the battle as good against evil, us against them. It speaks to our need for association with like-minded believers. Same as religion, and often hand in hand. Marry Grievance with the Bible and you’ve got something. 

We -- and by we I mean as many nations as possible -- should provide relief and relocation for the innocent victims of Putin’s War. Seize his financial assets and real property and that of his cronies and major enablers, and use the funds for resettlement and rebuilding. But we should also remember that the Ukrainians are not the first people to face a relentless, lethal military assault: that distinction belongs to the Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, and many more who came before. People who by no fault of their own suffered for decades. Creating scores of refugees is a world problem, and we keep doing it, as if we can’t learn our lesson in the unintended consequences of war. It’s always the same with us: start a military conflict, create a humanitarian crisis, rinse and repeat. 

The tide of injustice rises ever higher.