They Are Punching America In The Face And Laughing

  The Normalization Of The Night World

(Originally posted during the Covid-Time. Still as meaningful today as it was then.)

Ken McElroy's Chevy Pickup, Elm street; Skidmore, Missouri; July 10, 1981

My favorite opening in a short story is T. Coraghessen Boyle's 1984 "The Hat": They sent a hit squad after the bear. It's really a story about people caught in a cul-de-sac of life, marginal at best, and not a large Ursine animal just doing its Bear Thing -- but I dare you to pass on reading a story with a hook like that, just to find out where it would lead.

This doesn't have much to do with the little screed which follows. Oh, maybe a little -- I'm in my own corporate / retirement merry-go-round cul-de-sac at the moment, wondering when They will send a hit squad after America; how long the current precarious balance of all things will last. Who knows.

________________________

The population of Skidmore, in Nodaway County, Missouri, as captured in the 1980 National Census, was 437 people.  One of them was Kenneth Rex McElroy, born 1934; according to Wikipedia, the next to last of 16 children, born to a dirt-poor, migrant tenant-farming couple. At age 15, still in 8th grade, he dropped out of school "and quickly established a local reputation as a cattle rustler, small-time thief, and womanizer."

McElroy worked on occasion, stealing and selling to fences when he wasn't; barely drifting along at the edge, smack in the middle of flyover country. He had a reputation in Skidmore as a rough customer, someone you shouldn't cross. 

Reportedly, while working on a local construction site, an iron girder fell and grazed him on its way down; he suffered skull fractures and other injuries. He healed -- but some in Skidmore believed the injuries, particularly to the head, changed him. 

The Grendel Of Nodaway County; His Grave Marker Says, "Fearless... Compassionate"

McElroy was already a town tough, but then he went further: he became proactively vicious and cruel -- someone who went after people, because he could. Because he wanted to. Because it seemed to give him pleasure to do so.

____________________

For the next twenty-plus years, McElroy was the the monster in the Corn of Nodaway County.  He was suspected of stealing "grain, gasoline, alcohol, antiques, and livestock", and was charged 21 times with various offenses. McElroy was helped by a clever, not very principled defense attorney, Richard Gene McFadin.

Reputed to have connections to organized crime in Kansas City, McFadin did the legal work. McElroy terrorized witnesses against him, or members of juries; several times, he put rattlesnakes in the Rural Route mailboxes of his targets. And -- su-rprise, su-prise -- suddenly, witnesses' memories faltered and became hazy, or complainants withdrew charges, or if matters ever got as far as a courtroom, juries hung when some members claimed they just couldn't reach a decision.

Rape, theft; extreme physical violence -- McElroy did more or less whatever he wanted. There is plenty of reporting on McElroy's reign of terror in Skidmore. He was a living Id, untethered and loose.  Some stories leave you shaking your head, wondering just how this violent, narcissistic sociopath was allowed to get away with it all for over 20 years.

Example: McElroy was married to his second wife when he met Trena McCloud, a twelve-year-old girl. He raped her repeatedly. The McClouds told him they wanted his 'attentions' to end. McElroy didn't like that, and so burned the McCloud family home to the ground and shot their dog.

Trena moved into McElroy's house, living there with him and his then-wife, Alice. According to Wikipedia, "McElroy divorced Alice and married Trena in order to escape charges of statutory rape, to which she was the only witness. Sixteen days after Trena gave birth, both she and Alice fled... McElroy tracked them down and brought them back. He then returned to Trena's parents' home when they were away and, once again, shot the family dog and burned the[ir] house down."

__________________________

In 1980, McElroy shot the 70-year-old owner of Skidmore's only grocery store, for accusing one of McElroy's daughters of shoplifting. Just --  bang -- shot him. The man survived.  And, McElroy was finally convicted of a crime... second-degree assault. The jury specified the maximum sentence: two years in State prison. 

His attorney, McFadin, had McElroy released, pending appeal -- unbelievable, given McElroy's history of witness and juror intimidation. Predictably, he began harassing the grocer at his home, and any Skidmore citizens he encountered. None of McElroy's previous legal issues had gotten this far -- and possibly, he sensed whatever bully's magic charm of invincibility he may have possessed was disappearing. 

On July 9, 1981, he walked into Skidmore's local bar, carrying a Garand M1 with a bayonet, and threatened to kill the old grocer. Sheriffs were called; McElroy was taken into custody, his weapon impounded -- but again, he was released.

Parked In Front Of The Bar; July 10, 1981-

A Reenactment, In Skidmore, For Television Documentary

On July 10, McElroy drove into Skidmore with his wife, Trena, in his maroon-and-white Chevy pickup truck and parked on Elm street, the town's main drag, directly in front of the bar. He went into the town grocery store -- where he had shot its owner -- while his wife waited in the truck.

While McElroy was in the store, a group of Skidmore's men held a quick, impromptu meeting inside the bar. Other residents in the immediate downtown area had seen or were told of McElroy's arrival, and began to gather on the street. There was a sense something was about to go down.

McElroy walked out of the grocery, unwrapping the pack of cigarettes he'd purchased, and got into the driver's seat of his truck. The men came out of the bar and confronted McElroy. Several, apparently, were armed. McElroy, still sitting behind the wheel of his truck, casually lit a cigarette, appearing completely unconcerned.

Suddenly, and for the next twenty seconds -- which I can tell you is an eternity when discharging firearms is concerned -- several armed individuals shot McElroy. He was struck multiple times by .22 rifle rounds (a poor man's gun, for hunting small game, Foxes, Coyotes or other predators) from at least two different weapons. 

Apparently, McElroy took some time to die. He bled out, slumped in his truck. No one made any attempt to help, or call for emergency medical assistance. When the shooting began, Trena had jumped out of the truck in a panic; she was unharmed.

_______________________

As investigators worked the crime scene, canvassed, identified and interviewed, every witness to the shooting said the same thing: They didn't see who fired any weapon, had no idea -- as if, collectively, everyone present had suffered a crucial erasure of memory at the same time.

McElroy's wife, Trena, claimed to have recognized one of the shooters -- but they denied it, there were no other witnesses; Trena's testimony alone was not a strong enough case for prosecution. 

The same witnesses told the same story to County Sherriff's detectives, State investigators, and eventually the FBI.  Richard McFadin, the attorney who had helped McElroy to walk free on so many prior charges, said "the town got away with murder". 

_________________________

Skidmore's population as of 2020 had fallen to 247.  To date, no one has been charged in connection with McElroy's death. The original DA and chief investigator in the case have retired. McElroy's wife,  his attorney McFadin, and a number of witnesses have passed away. The case is still open. And for almost 42 years, no one who was on Elm street in Skidmore that July afternoon has said a single thing.

________________________

Uvalde.

In America we are witnessing the blowback of a culture awash in guns, in hatred, in insane and illogical ideas about nearly everything, broadcast eagerly 24 hours a day by the political Right's private propaganda stream, its special opinion-makers.

We're watching a country where the political Left is marked by indecision and learned helplessness, by complicity with the same corporate interests and wealthy Oligarchs.

And, the political Right's rhetoric continues to become more shrill, more apocalyptic, by the day -- talk about "taking back" the country, before guns are taken away, before the liberals / gays / unchristian / colored persons and immigrants / socialists destroy America. 

They attempted to overthrow the government of the United States in January, 2021. They want to try again. It isn't guns that someone is coming for; the Right wants your soul.  This isn't hyperbole and it isn't exaggeration.

At the same time, Rightist-dominated state governments and their Rightist governors pass laws they know will be appealed to their Supreme Court, secure in the knowledge that whatever challenge to existing Lib-Socialist law will be taken up, and affirmed by a slate of second-rate, rightist legal hacks appointed for life.  With the fervor of the 'christian' zealots they are, they can't wait for their day, their chance to do god's work.

America and its citizens are being cowed, and bullied. The Right has decided if it wants to burn down your home and shoot your dog, they will. And no one is coming to your aid.

A nation's government which can't govern, a society which can't maintain basic public safety and human rights, is five minutes from being overthrown. Ask the Royal French bureaucracy in 1789. Ask the Duma. Ask the Cambodian government in 1975. Ask the Weimar Republic's Reichstag. 

___________________________

In the larger world, Western democracies were more concerned with making money -- making a world safe for the corporate interests, globally: a neoliberal New World Order, wonderful for business and the rising Oligarch class. Not so much for the little people. But, who cared.

The sages of the West believed the assumed stability of a post-WW2, post-Soviet world would be forever. Hitler and Stalin were dead; so was Mao. No one wanted to go back to the world on September 1, 1939. War was a thing we had tamed. Dictators could be dealt with through sanctions, economic coercion. 

NATO was just one method of maintaining the nation-state structure to support corporate business -- but the day of military force had passed, unless something happened in one of the shithole countries: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia; North and Central Africa; Afghanistan. 

And if it did, said the businessmen gathering at Davos, we don't care. No one is crazy enough to mount a major military conflict to grab territory and resources. This isn't 1938 or 1939, after all.

This Is What They Worship; This Is Who They Sold Their Souls To

But, Putin was crazy enough. He nursed a set of historical grievances which sound as delusional as the disinformation pouring out of the Murdochs' media. After more than a decade of coordinated manipulation and misinformation aimed at the West, Putin pushed the envelope in Georgia, in the Crimea. NATO and the West did little, or nothing. 

Europe was fractured, distracted by Brexit and the fumbling of the UK's Clown-Prime Minister. America was consumed with the predations of its own Clown-leader, then an attempted coup -- and above it all, a pandemic. Putin felt he could take Ukraine. The West could do nothing; the Ukrainians had elected a fucking comedian as their President! And like a bully in central Missouri long ago, Putin did what he wanted.

The stability in the world everyone has taken for granted is over. That of itself is a huge challenge to the neoliberal New World Order.  It isn't clear what will replace it. That it's coming at the same time as effects of climate deterioration are beginning to make themselves felt is rancid whipped cream on the proverbial Shit Pie.

The bullies have always been with us. They've just made it impossible to ignore them any longer. They aren't going away. Like it or not, we are going to have to deal with them individually, and collectively. One way or another.  And how that happens, or doesn't, is the story of the next months and years.

__________________________

At The Limits Of Diversion Is The Beginning Of The Real

Revere Them As Royalty, As Gods

(A version of this was originally posted on June 10, 2025.)

National Guard Troops, Los Angeles Civic Center, Federal Building

June 9, 2025 (Daniel Terna / NYT)

                                            "How did you go bankrupt?"

                                            "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."

                                          -- Ernest Hemingway; The Sun Also Rises (1929)

When things happen, they come in a waterfall, a cascade, a torrent. If you haven't been paying attention, they will seem to appear as if by magic, out of nowhere.  But they never do. 

What's unfolding is not a surprise. It's not hyperbole, or an exaggeration. The Leader wants a blood sacrifice on the altar of his madness. His Orcs are working, Sir Sir Sir, yes Sir, to manufacture it. 

Every passing day, a new outrage, murder, scandal. Every day an increased possibility of a red line being crossed which can't be walked back. Ultimately, it's what they want.

SFPD Faces Off Against Anti-ICE / Deportation Protesters, 

San Francisco Mission District, June 9, 2025 (Lauren Elliot / NYT)

The Past Is Present, Tense

Even with everything that's happened since January 20, 2025; even with No Kings rallies, all major polling organizations showing Trump and Republican numbers flashing red -- even with shooting after corrupt grifting in the open, even after The War The War The War The War -- people are going along as if everything will magically reset after November 3rd. 

Convincing people to believe that we're deep into a fascist coup, and that the election results might just be ignored because the fascists say so is hard. And we've had nearly a decade to understand -- where we are, right now, is no surprise. It's the realization of a right-wing dream.

In the long-ago 2021 (via The Soul Of America),  Adolph Reed posted an observation ("The Whole Country Is The Reichstag"):

"The right-wing ... [has] a single concrete objective—taking absolute power in the U.S. as soon and as definitively as possible. And [they] even seemingly want, to destroy the social fabric of the country [in taking power] ...

"Discrediting government ... has been a component of the GOP game plan ..  and Democrats have reinforced [that] in their own way. ...Four decades of retrenchment and privatization ... steadily increasing economic inequality and government’s failure to address it in any meaningful way [fuels a] lack of confidence, distrust, and hostility toward government ... and eventually even the idea of the public itself.  And [Right-wing billionaires who] bankroll the ultraright have taken advantage of that, [stoking] frustration and rage into a dangerously authoritarian political force."

Campaign Commercial For Every Maga Rethug Candidate In 2026

(Los Angeles Civic Center, June 8, 2025)

_____________________________________

I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties. I believed, naive and bred-to-be-hopeful as I was, in our long national Narrative of America. We're an imperfect country, always trying to Do Better, on a constant upward (and so, of course, liberal) arc into an inevitable future. Even after experiencing the disneyland E-Ticket ride of Southeast Asia, I still believed it. 

That this dream of a future looked identical to the post-WW2 economic boom enjoyed by white male straight 'christian'  Americans, and may not have been good for other humans, in other places, took time for me to learn.

National Guardsmen On The Streets Of Newark, NJ; April, 1967

In that national Narrative, Watergate, Vietnam; riots every Summer in major American cities, and the National Guard in the streets; Nixon, Reagan, Bush; Clinton and Obama's neoliberalism; Forever War -- all could be seen as tragedies, regrettable episodes.

And, so was the political Right. They were Birchers, Bow-Tie Daddies. They were all a Fringe, on the wrong side of history. The future would belong to a moderate, Liberal culture: always upwards.

Of course it would.

___________________________________

I'll Take 'White Nationalist Political Narratives' For A Thousand, Alex

In 2021, author George Packer noted in The Atlantic that America's national narrative, Our Story, is a string of crises -- all leading to 'how we got out of it'. How we overcame and went on to even greater triumph: Upwards, always upwards.

But, Packer said, we don't have one unified Story of America -- we have four. The one chosen by the religious and political Right is that of a beautiful America, stolen from its people by immigrants, noisy and uppity People of Color, Women, Liberals, Socialists; LGBTQ+, and (the Base is saying openly, now) Jews. 

The issues Trump had campaigned on waxed and waned ...What remained was the dark energy he unleashed... Trump’s people still talked about freedom, but they meant blood and soil. Their nationalism was like the ethno-nationalisms on the rise in Europe ... Trump abused every American institution ... and his people cheered. Nothing excited them like owning the libs.

The beautiful America can only return when these demon-possessed culture-despoilers are destroyed. When our Blood and Land is cleansed and purified. Then all will be good again. 

America's Right has been told to prepare, and plan, for a confrontation -- final, bloody, retributive; like battle on the plains of Armageddon.. Trump's core sycophants are using this narrative like a blueprint. It's the logical culmination of forty years of victimhood propaganda and hatred. 

They've tied their futures, their fate as human beings, to achieving the goal of domination and vengeance. It's why there have been armed troops in major American cities. Something has to happen. It's the story arc of a cheap thriller -- Rising Action, leading to a Cliffhanger Climax; then Resolution -- and the ending is inevitable: It's Victory. It's "Owning The Libs" once and for all.

___________________________________

The Leader, During The 2024 Campaign

The lies and hatred broadcast for forty years by Limbaugh, by the Murdochs and their hand-picked talking heads, are in the "historical record". But the Right thinks: we're Owning The Libs. They are all about the naked use of power, and using that power to enrich themselves. Every day, Trump and his weasels create a new provocation, crossing another red line.

The situation is like a madman with a gun, who keeps walking towards you, while screaming, Don't get any closer!! I'm warnin' ya!! I told ya -- stop comin' at me!!  Finally, he shoots you, shouting, See what you did?? You Libs made me do it!! Told ya!! Told ya!! 

_______________________________

This Will Be On The Exam

54 years after crowds chanted Nixon's The One !  Four More years !!, the children and grandchildren of the Silent Majority, the Birchers and the Klan, are back. 

They're bully-mean in their MAGA caps and January 6, 2021 - Civil War T-Shirts. They see the world through small, piggish eyes, and they hate you.

The Leader, Riding Out To Play Golf  On January 7th, 2021:

The Rioters Had Attempted A Coup -- For That

They hate Colored People and Foreigners, and Eggy-heads, and Libs and Gays and Trans People; and them Eee-leets, weak and soft. They think vaccines and science are evil. They love god; yes they do (somebody's god, anyway), and America. But they hate you, and want you to die. 

America's Owners are delusional, and rich. Very, very rich. They don't like Trump, or the Base, or anyone who isn't part of their class. But they believe in keeping control. Trump -- the Leader they paid for -- and his weasels control both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court. Trump is an imperial President; he has more power than any U.S. chief executive in modern history. 

The Billionaire businessmen (Koch; Uihline; Coors; Addelson; Diamon, the Murdochs, etc.), the new fascist ideologues (Leo, Vought; Dans, et al.); the Tech Bro Billionaires dreaming of a new feudalism; evangelical "christian" white supremacists and their militias, dreaming of a Gilead-like theocracy -- all of them are closer to regaining control of American society than they have since 1934.

These persons believe they are destined to seize that control. They expect not only that People fear them, but revere them, like royalty; like gods.  As close as they are to realizing their dream... do you really think they'll allow that chance to be stolen by ... an election ?

 I'm not saying the elections are an empty gesture.  But I'm not alone in considering they may be nulified. 

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo

In Middle Of Cassandraizing Blog Rant 

_____________________

Even in the face of open corruption and misuse of presidential authority -- even with Trump and the Republicans' pushing an illegal war -- the Democratic Left has been splintered. Democratic leadership is divided, and with few exceptions, Jeffries and Schumer seem to focus on how the Right will be judged in the historical record. They send sternly worded letters, and make focus-tested remarks on PBS.

That worked during Trump's first term, but this is Crazy Donny 2.0.  American democracy is a store that's being looted right in front of us. The DNC Gerontocracy is not capable of fighting back against a fascist takeover because they don't understand that is what's happening.

They can't believe Trump is, like Noah Cross in Chinatown, capable of anything.  For someone who is literally accused of raping children, how far do you think Trump might go?

_________________________

Part of Trump's power lies in attracting people who are fundamentally unhappy with America's political system. They know in their bones that System is rigged in favor of wealth and lineage.  They're pissed off at being lied to and fucked, over and over, by the same people, for generations. 

Some on the Left understand that these specific voters want change -- fascist, Democrat; Socialist; it almost doesn't matter.  If the Left can communicate a coherent, realistic promise -- a new New Deal -- come together around a popular candidate, who can articulate the promise, give voice to people's experience and hopes -- then the death grip Trump and Trumpism has on our future can be broken. 

Democratic Socialists are not just calling out Crazy Donny and his Lieutenants, defining why we're standing up for democracy -- they're describing a future vision that doesn't include the Neoliberal shuck-and-jive of the Clinton and Obama years, which the current Democratic leadership embodies: No More Business As Usual.

No more business as usual.

_____________________________

Reprint Heaven: Twenty-Five Years

 Nine-Eleven

(This post, in an earlier version, has been run annually since September, 2010.)

On November 22, 1963, I was on the playground for 10:00AM recess at my elementary school when teachers called classes back inside prematurely. We were told to sit quietly in our desks. When asked, our teacher told us nervously that President Kennedy had been shot.

After a few minutes, the school's public address system was broadcasting CBS' radio network, announcing the shooting of JFK in Dallas and, ultimately, the audio portion of Walter Cronkite on CBS television announcing the President's death.

Where were you when JFK was shot? was a standard question a large number of Americans (now referred to as 'Useless Boomers') asked each other, due to the magnitude of the event and because it was shared in real-time by the primary media of the early 1960's -- radio and television.

______________________

So, September 11th, 2001: Where were you on 9-11? I had gotten up to go to work around 5:30AM in California, and turned on KQED-FM's NPR news. After stepping out of the shower, I heard a report that a "plane" appeared to have crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. I lived briefly in Manhattan in the late 70's and had seen just how huge those buildings were -- and to me, "a plane" meant an aircraft like a Cessna or something similar.

Getting ready to shave, I remembered a 1945 newsreel about a B-25, flying through dense fog over Manhattan and plowing directly into the Empire State Building. A similar incident at the WTC would be tragic, I thought; but it was an accident, and on the other side of the continent, distant. I sighed, and I shaved.

Not long after, NPR updated its report; I heard the words "jet airliner", which moved the entire event from 'Cessna-off-course' to the category of Well-This-Was-No-Boating-Accident; Did-You-Call-The-Coast-Guard-About-This?

Turning on CNN, I sat on the edge of an armchair, watching an image of the WTC towers from the roof of CNN's Manhattan headquarters, roughly two miles away. One tower looked like a chimney, a boiling cloud of dark grey smoke drifting away into an otherwise cloudless sky. 

Aaron Brown was reporting, taking phone calls directed from witnesses in the vicinity -- only one of whom, the doorman at the World Trade Centers Marriott, was close enough to report on anything immediate and consequential. 

A CNN-affiliate local news helicopter, hovering over the Hudson, provided a closer perspective of the damage. One extended telephoto shot was of the façade of the Tower on fire; I was looking at the pattern of the cladding of the building, a huge, black gash angled across it. I saw occasional clouds of small white shapes fluttering in the smoke, like flocks of birds, swirling -- and realized they were sheets of paper, reams of it, drifting out of the building's broken windows. 

Just as that thought registered, at the right-hand edge of the screen, I saw a darker object drop quickly, straight down and out of frame, for just a moment. I didn't know it then, but I had just seen one of roughly two hundred people that morning who fell or jumped from the Towers' upper floors.

The Falling Man: Photograph By Richard Drew / AP

Images Like This Were Broadcast And Published

In Europe, But Not In America (Photo: UK Telegraph, 2001)

As I watched, a dark object moved into the frame of the television screen from the right -- zip -- and tout of sight behind the second, undamaged WTC tower. A second later, boiling clouds of fire wrapped in smoke rolled slowly from behind it; I realized: Holy Mary; that was a second aircraft. Another jet had just slammed into the Trade Center. I had actually seen it. 

Aside from profane shock, the only thing I recall thinking was, This is what standing at the curb in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, watching the Archduke Franz Ferdinand being shot, was like. This is living through history. 

I've seen large-scale explosions. I've been in crazy environments and seen other people suffering real injury -- but the scale of what I was watching made it all seem unreal; Hollywood special effects. I sat down in the armchair, watching, as first the South, then the North towers collapsed (Wikipedia's timeline of the events puts that at 6:59 and 7:28 AM PDST, respectively). News of a third plane crashing into the Pentagon was broadcast; I began flipping back and forth between CNN for coverage in New York, and CBS for news from Washington. 

I didn't want to stop watching, but had to leave to make my way to work on mass transit. On a packed BART train -- normally quiet -- I was amazed at how subdued the crowd of commuters was -- reading books and newspapers, a few tapping on laptops and Blackberries, as if it were just another Tuesday morning. No one appeared visibly stunned, but there was no conversation about what had just occurred.

Finally, I turned to a woman sitting opposite me, reading a copy of the (pre-Little Rupert) Wall Street Journal (folded into a vertical rectangle so commuters on either side wouldn't be inconvenienced), and asked if she was aware of what had happened. "Yes," she replied, in a deadpan-calm, matter-of-fact voice, "There are supposed to be more of them [i.e., airliners] in the air to hit other targets." Had anyone estimated how many? "No," the woman shrugged, and went back to her WSJ.

At work, everyone was released to return home after Noon. I went to a friend's house, where we sat watching CNN. Clips of the second Tower being struck, and of each one falling, replayed endlessly, interspersed with hourly updates and commentary by subject matter experts.

I made a few phone calls, including The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs. Mongo and to The Last Of The Old Unit ("Fuckin' glad we're not eighteen right now," one observed). My friends and I sat, watching, barely taking a break, drinking beer, ordering takeout. We wanted more information, something to allow everything happening to make sense, but didn't really expect any.

We also knew we weren't going to get it -- the dice had been rolled. There would be no clarification until they had bounced off the back of the craps table and come to rest. It's been twenty-five years, and the dice are still bouncing; they haven't stopped.

They never really will. The dice that were rolled at an intersection in Sarajevo in the high summer of 1914 are still in motion. So are the dice of the Manhattan Project, of Recombinant DNA; of January 6th. That's how history works. 

_____________________________

That was September 11th -- a red line on the American calendar, the culmination of so many threads in our history, the choices successive administrations have made since America decided to follow an Imperial course.

The attack on the Trade Center towers could have been another kind of defining moment for America. Our government and institutions could have taken it as an opportunity to press for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy; we could have opened a dialog with others, rather than dictate to them.

Lil' Boots, 2004 Republican Convention: Feared And Bigger Than His Daddy, At Last

I'm not suggesting a Kumbyah moment. But, it was a crossroads moment, and our choices mattered. The government was run by men who had no interest in anything except power (personal, partisan, and financial) and policies that meant the use of force in furthering that power. 

The people "Lil' Boots" surrounded himself with were Project For A New American Century neo-imperialists. After Bush's inauguration on January 20, 2001, they were discussing how to invade Sadaam Hussein's Iraq. What else could we have expected from the likes of Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld? From Fat Karl Rove, Little Tommy DeLay, and Lard Boy?

September 11th: Simply An Excuse

And, they believed it would be simple, 'Roses All The Way', 'Greeted As Liberators' ... so no one planned for occupation, or fighting an insurgency for seven years; or for the effect on the U.S. military of multiple redeployments and 'stop-loss' denials of separation. They never conceived of failure; therefore, it wouldn't happen.

What followed from 9/11 shouldn't have been a surprise: An utterly unnecessary, even illegal invasion of Iraq, supported by intelligence about WMD's invented by right-wing operatives to create a causis beli, and pushed by sociopathic egos 'journalists' like Little Judy Miller, and pundits like David Brooks and William Kristol, and Little Tommy Friedman, to name only a few.

Palettes Of $100 Bills, Baghdad, 2003 (Photo: UK Guardian)

And let's not forget the $12 Billion in cash (at least; no one really knows), piles of U.S. currency shrink-wrapped and paletted and airlifted to Iraq. Some $9 Billion in cash cannot be accounted for. And all the cool new powers used by that dry-drunk, Frat-Boy younger son of an American ruling-class family; or all the power available to President Cheney. 

There was plenty of money to put in C530's and airlift it: 363 Tons of it. There was plenty of money being made from the war, and tax breaks to the wealthy, which reduced tax income to the government. It was a good time to be part of the Carlyle Group.

But, Lil' Boots wanted to cut health care, privatize Social Security; cut any social programs continuing the pact between government and citizens that was at the heart of FDR's New Deal... because, he claimed, there was just no money to pay for that. Because of the war, you see.

And there was Guantanamo, CIA 'black airlines' flying suspected terrorists to secret prisons, and the extra-legal, secret program of 'renditions'. Let's not forget Abu Ghirab. Let's not forget people like John Woo, whose written opinions created what he still claims is a "legal" basis for torture as national policy.

Civilian Casualty Of Baghdad Suicide Car Bomb, 2007

And what followed wasn't just prisons and a lack of due process for terrorist suspects, but developing a matrix of information [see Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent of surveillance performed by America's intelligence agencies], based on the unprecedented data-mining of domestic email and cellular telephone traffic, of banking records and public record databases; a government/corporate State surveillance and intelligence apparatus that outstrips the wildest dreams of the Gestapo and the KGB.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Being Interrogated At

Undisclosed Location By CIA In Middle Of Blog Rant

And, very little seemed to be about defeating Al-Qaeda, capturing or killing Bin Laden and Al-Zwahiri -- otherwise, we would have finished the job in the mountains of Tora Bora in October of 2002. Iraq would never have mattered. We would have kept promises to the Afghans about rebuilding their country, instead of ignoring it -- at least half the reason the Taliban were eventually able to come roaring back.

The 'Go-Go', Lil' Boots Bush years were about a larger Rightist agenda; it was about deregulation, defense contractors, profits; and it was about Fat Karl's dream of rigging elections for permanent Republican rule of the United States. Victory, to these assclowns, had a very different meaning. The portion of it that was military was just a backdrop for Bush and his cronies: Mission Accomplished.

_______________________________

We've had an economic collapse in 2008; eight years of neoliberal nothing, followed by four years of proto-Fascism; we're still wading through the swamp of a two-year pandemic; an attempted coup; and roughly 37% of America's adult population claiming to believe that bulletin-board posts by an anonymous fraudster are more real than mathematics, science, or common sense. 

This blessed 37%  refuse to accept the vaccines for SARS-CoV2. They refuse to wear masks. They do this to "Own The Libs". They are injecting themselves with special magic pony blessed horse juice, or screeching that the Blood Of The Jezus is all they need.

These are the same unvaccinated persons crowding into ED's, taking ward beds in hospitals; filling the ICUs. As I write this, America is losing roughly the same number of people to Covid-19 as were killed on September 11th. Every - Single - Day.

Frequently, since September 11th, 2001 a quote by Bush (whom we are supposed to think well of now; let the healing begin) comes back to me:

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: In history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. (Applause)

-- George W. Bush, Address To Joint Session Of Congress

Is that appropriate as an epitaph for those who wish to do America harm? Or, does it speak to how we have allowed ourselves to be lied to, and led; will it end up being our epitaph, a closing quote for the United States Of America?

There is no ‘populist’ version of a world where some few are born booted and spurred, and the many are born saddled, and ready to ride, and that's precisely the world which conservatism is trying to preserve.

_________________________________ 

Yes It Is Beginning, Another End Times Laugh Riot Week

 Yet Another Barking Rant

John Currin,  Park City Grill  (2000)

There is an inbred,

genetic-template look for these people.

This post feels incomplete; unconnected observations thrown up at the wall -- spitballing, as it were -- about the omnipotent, they-are-always-with-us Rich. You may think this is low-hanging fruit, but it's not. It's a reminder.

If this blog's observations had any impact in the public discussion of serious issues, then this post might be seen as having more meaning. But, it's just unsourced opinion by one individual with no agency beyond their own existence. 

I am as singular, and no more important than, any of the dead discovered at Pompeii whose names we'll never know. We can see what their last moments must have been -- but all the events and actions and experiences in their lives are unknown, lost.

Some of my observations offered will, in all probability, cause the few readers of this blog to say yeah okay, Boomer; eyeroll, whatever the fuck, but this is life here in downtown Earth. Be well.

____________________________

Bring My Car And Be Quick, You Dirty Little Proles

Amazingly prescient: If you haven't read this novel (1986), please do so. 

I'll just say it: American and Western society is essentially owned by a vicious, arrogant layer of wealth. Call them the 0.001 % -- principally Old Wealth, maintained in the same families for generations. I have been around these folk (almost married into a branch of one of those families) and they are just as stereotypical as characters from a comedy-of-manners film, dropped into Real Life. It's uncanny.

They do not know how to build a fire, use basic tools, make coffee, set up a tent or cook a filet of sole; they hire others to do that sort of thing. They scream at domestic servants or gardeners as things, barely even human. They are inbred, culturally; they are cruel and voracious, and they truly exist.

They own multiple homes, in neighborhoods which, if you don't live in them, you'd better have a verifiable reason to be there. They move in a cyclical progression from home to home, with seasonal vacations at resorts and private hotels.

John Currin,  Stamford After Brunch  (2000)

Most of these families know (or are at least aware of) each other. They are supported by the same circles of accountants, financial and investment advisors, personal assistants, tax and estate attorneys, physicians and surgeons, tailors, gardeners, chefs and valets. They walk in comfort and anonymity along the same private, manicured paths as their families have done for generations.

Their children attend a tight circle of preparatory schools, and enter certain European and American universities as Legacies. Eventually, they will slide into sinecures at law and investment firms. They are members of clubs we wouldn't be allowed to join. Typically, these children intermarry.

Within their class, maintaining their family's financial fortunes is the critical priority. There's also a certain amount of competition between players, a jockeying for position: It's Edith Wharton and John Cheever with a touch of Voltaire, an essence of films like "The Discrete Charm Of The Bourgeoise", The Ruling Class, or 'Reversal Of Fortune'. 

That competition plays out in odd ways -- like, bidding against each other to possess a specific, classic piece of art, or owning the largest yacht / private jet / media company; or, building a family bunker and compound in New Zealand, or purchasing a Hawaiian island. 

Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close as Claus and Sunny von Bulow

In "Reversal Of Fortune" (1990)

They tolerate the Zucks, the Musks, the Jobs' and Bezos' and Thiels and Andreesens; all the Tech Bro billionaires, as nouveau riche arrivistes; pool boys, waiters and office workers who somehow struck it rich. Not the right sort -- no history, no breeding- -- but, they can afford to live well, and, if the past is any guide, within a few generations their money will disappear. Or, they'll eventually become accepted, part of the Class.

And they have serious class solidarity: depend on it.  Even when Claus von Bülow appeared to have attempted to murder his wife --  members of his class might disapprove, but they would never show that to the rest of society. They would "support the side" against a greater mass of humanity: We are the Owners, and Fuck You Peasants (see 'The Draughtsman's Contract').

Our Fabled Wealthy don't wait in line, don't submit to passport control or customs checks. They aren't required to appear in court for all but the most serious charges (if they appear at all, even then). They are not accountable under any law in the same way, or to the same extent, that you or I are.

Collectively, they believe that they own us -- whether we accept it, or not. They believe in the age-old Puritan assumption (as fundamental to the beginnings of America as slavery), that their wealth is proof that they are the Elect of god. They will rise to heaven on the Day Of Judgement and spend eternity in a wonderful softness, with many Treats: Of course.

They also believe in the corollary to that assumption -- that poverty, people who are poor, are disfavored by god. God made them poor. And because of that, on the Big Day 'O Judgement, they will burn in Hell.

Our Fabled Wealthy believe this (or some version of it), as surely as they accept the basics of Newtonian physics. It is axiomatic for them. Oh, ayuh.

______________________________

You Are Pwned -- A Dream Coda

Years ago, I had a dream which stands out in memory -- because I don't often dream with details that I recall so completely. 

I was some kind of mountaineering guide, taking wealthy persons up ... not Everest, but some similar peak. I was "inside" myself in this dream (sometimes dreams allow you see yourself in 'camera view'), looking out on a snow-covered slope -- a right triangle of pure white, from upper left to lower right -- against a sky of deep Cobalt blue.

A man in his late twenties / early 30's stood a few feet in front of me, wearing an orange parka with the hood pulled back. He had a light stubble of beard, curly, reddish-blonde hair, and wore a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. He was completely at ease, smiling, and spoke with an accent (French, I knew, in that telepathic way of dreams). He wasn't arrogant in his delivery, but matter-of-fact, as if describing the weather.

"I will tell you how it is," he said. "My family is thirteen hundred years old. One of my ancestors was  knighted by Charlemagne. We've survived plagues, wars, financial collapse, revolutions, occupation. We've had our black sheep, our idiots -- but mostly, we have made fortunes and passed them down to the next generation. We've been good at it, and lucky. We live very well.

"If you can't trace your family back more than a few generations? I don't care. You've always worked for pay -- but maybe you get lucky, win some lottery, and your children inherit that money? I don't care. In one, maybe two generations, it will be gone, absorbed into banks, financial houses, and by taxes. Perhaps my family owns some of those financial houses.

"We own forests and mines. We own companies" -- he waved at me with one hand -- "Maybe you have even worked for us. But some day, you will be dead, and that will be the end for you. Your name will be forgotten, as if you and everyone in your family line before you had never existed. My family will still be here. Many recognize our name. No one knows who you are.

"If that's unhappy for you, or if it makes you angry, I don't care," he said, and smiled again. "And that is how things are."

Fantasy Singalong With Big Bird At End Of Blog Rant

_________________________________

Welcome To Your Midsummer Shuffling Of Deck Chairs In Third Class

 It Can't Happen Here Until It Does

(A near-annual posting -- originally From 2016, before the Trump-Time.)

Given a time machine, if there is any single event in modern history I would travel back to and attempt to prevent, it would be the killing of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary in the Balkan city of Sarajevo at approximately Noon on June 28, 1914. It triggered the First World War -- and the Second, and the First Cold War - now, the Second - a fractured, tribal Middle East, and a rising, hungry China.

How this moment in history occurred seems unbelievable -- a string of events, choices made by its participants, all happening in just the right order and the right moment. If it was part of the plot in a novel or film, you might say Oh that's impossible; that couldn't happen. But it did. And its echo is still resonating over a century later.

The Archduke and his wife's assassination was a 'Black Swan', rara avis moment which pulled out multiple threads that led to a collapse of the Old World of the nineteenth century -- though what the event triggered had been boiling for some time. It's how history works. 

After eleven years of Trump, a worldwide pandemic, and the American Experiment in danger of being snuffed out by an armed, imbecilic 'christian' mob, we're still feeling the impact of what was set in motion on a street in Sarajevo that day in late June, 1914.

Sarajevo has a large number of unowned dogs living in the city. 

Here, Cousin Ignatz, Asleep At Princip's Post: Sarajevo, 2014 (Matthew Fisher / Postmedia News)

112 years ago today, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Grand Duchess Sophie, were shot by Gavrillo Princip, a member of an assassination team sent to the Bosnian city by the government of Serbia.

Collectively, the team was the gang which couldn't shoot straight: armed with crude grenades, a few pistols, and carrying some form of suicide pill, they waited along the route Franz Ferdinand's car would take as it drove beside the Miljacka river, which cuts through Sarajevo (local Austro-Hungarian authorities had helpfully published the Archduke's route beforehand).

Most of the team either was poorly positioned, or chickened out at the last moment.  One conspirator did throw a bomb at the Archduke's car -- which bounced off its folded-back fabric top and exploded near a second car traveling just behind. Several people in the car had minor injuries and it continued on to a local hospital.

The Archduke's driver, Leopold Lojka, continued to Sarajevo city hall. When Franz Ferdinand arrived, he effectively unloaded on the hapless administrators about the state of their local security ("I come to your city and am greeted with bombs!"). Meanwhile, back at the river, the would-be bomber had jumped into the Miljacka and swallowed his suicide pill -- which he promptly threw up. The police arrested him, barely managing to keep him from being lynched a mob of pro-Austro-Hungarian citizens, and so save him for later trial and execution.

At approximately 12:30 PM, having finally accepted the thanks of the Sarajevo city fathers, Franz Ferdinand and his wife got back into their car, planning to go to the local hospital to see those wounded in the bomb attack that morning. They used the same route, in reverse, that they had taken into the city, driving along the river. But when the Chauffeur, Lojka, came to a particular intersection -- to his left, a street; to the right, a bridge over the Miljacka river -- he was confused.

 The Royal Couple (Seated, At Rear) Leaving City Hall: Fifteen Minutes Left

Believing it to be the route to the hospital, Lojka slowed and turned left.  Almost immediately, he realized he'd made a mistake and stepped on the brakes. The car came to a stop a few yards into the street, and Lojka moved to put it in reverse gear.

 The Intersection of Kaiser Franz Josefstrasse and Appel Quay Road, 2014: 

The Archduke's Car Turned Left, Up This Street;
The Restaurant Where Princip Bought Lunch, Now A Museum (Photo: CNN)

At that same intersection was a small restaurant. Gavrillo Princip, last member of the Serbian assassination squad, had gone inside to buy a sandwich, angry and dejected after the team's failure that morning. Standing on the sidewalk outside the cafe, he saw a large, dark-green automobile turn out of the boulevard and come to a stop directly in front of him. 

In the rear seat were the Archduke and his wife. The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne had been delivered, less than ten feet away, from an armed assassin who had come to the city specifically to kill him. 

Consider: every event that had to happen, like a string of dominoes falling, to bring everything together to allow this moment to happen. Again, if you were writing a novel or screenplay, anything that coincidental would be branded as implausible. Impossible. No one's gonna believe that.

Princip didn't hesitate. He dropped his sandwich, pulled a pistol out of his jacket and stepped towards the car, firing several shots, managing to mortally wound both the Archduke and his wife. Lojka, the driver, was ordered to rushed the royal couple to the local military governor's residence. Sophie died on the way. A military officer in the car, checking on the Archduke's condition, asked the wounded man how he was; Ferdinand said, "Nichts (It's nothing)", and died.

Just over a month later, Europe was at war. Over the next four-plus years, the entire social fabric of the continent and much of the world changed irrevocably. Monarchies ended; millions died; the map of the world changed as the victors annexed territory from Germany and Austria Hungary, and new countries were created. New technology was developed -- and, in the Versailles Treaty, the groundwork was laid for a second, even more horrible war to begin by 1939.

(And, in 1918-19, the Spanish Influenza infected 500 million people, killing 40 million, worldwide. It was the largest number of fatalities due to pandemic disease since the 'Black Death': the coming of  Bubonic Plague to Europe in the 14th century [which killed an estimated 200 million].  In the U.S., millions were made sick, and 675,000 died [0.6-plus per cent of America's population at the time, 103 million]. It's often referred to as the "forgotten epidemic" -- just one more terrible event in an ocean of violence and atrocity.)

 Cousin Ignatz, Worn Out By All The History

__________________________

Why the history lesson? We're living through history. When we read about events in Europe during the Interwar Years (1918 - 1939), there's a feeling of being slowly pulled down into a drain of inevitability -- revolving-door failures of parliamentary governments in France; Britian's declining empire; the manic Totentanz of global capital leading to 1929; the rise and fall of Weimar. Italian, German and Japanese fascism. The Russian revolution, civil war, and mass murder of Stalin's dictatorship; the terror. The Spanish civil war. 

Like the story of the Titanic or the Hindenburg, we know where the story is going. We know it will end in Nanking, Kristalnacht, Dunkirk; Auschwitz; Stalingrad; the Warsaw Ghetto; D-Day; the Führerbunker; Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But you read about the years leading up to all that with a mounting sense of horror, because we all know how it ends.

Labour is trying to hang on in the UK and defeat the New Right; the Scots still wonder about independence; Nigel dreams of being the Trump of Britain. Putin dreams of grinding Ukraine under a bootheel. China bides its time. The Middle East continues a slow-motion atrocity: Gaza, Iran, the Gulf. Europe boils. Climate deterioration is not fake news.

America, ruled by Babbitry, greed and rabid delusion, retreats from the world stage; its leader is Bloated, Sick, and Raving, focused on being The Great Leader, surrounded by car-wash dilettantes -- and no one seems to be able to do much about it. 

And no matter how you want to characterize it, there's a confrontation -- between those who want a globalist neoliberal world (organized around the goals of international finance and business, together with the most powerful nation-state actors), and those who don't. The balances in the old alliances created after WWII have all but unraveled.  Kleiner Mann; Was Nun?

Hope you're not looking for an answer here. I am, after all, only a Dog, and no one listens to me.

__________________________

Return Of The Third Cousin Of The Great Hedgehog Of Post-Modern Neoliberal Capitalism

 

Obigatory Cute Small Animal Photo At Beginning Of Surrealistic Blog Thing

[ This, from eight years ago. Then, I had decided to take a stab at what can charitably be called stream of consciousness writing, sparked by the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, attended that year by Wonderboy, Murrikan Leader.

[ I was moved to repost this by the recent appearance of Our Wondrous Leader in Davos, where he spoke for an hour and twelve minutes about -- well, no one really knows. Various Mainstream Media, and all the Right-Wing sewage pumps, pulled together a few video clips where Leader was only moderately addled. He speaks in an almost-whisper these days, an intimate rasping into microphones of new threats against Greenland and Denmark ("You'll find out"), until suddenly he said exactly the opposite. There was a deal now with the NATO / EU nations sending troops to secure Greenland and make the Leader think twice about military action. ]

__________________________________

I don't normally play with this style of fiction; so, apologies in advance. As Wonderboy's own parents once said, "Let's do this, get it over with, and never speak of it again" -- point being, this is supposed to be topical, and funny.

(For those with no knowledge of Cricket, a "Diamond Duck" is the term for a situation where [per Wikipedia] "a batsman who is dismissed without facing a ball -- most usually run out from the non-striker's end, but alternatively stumped or run out off a wide delivery -- is said to be out by a 'diamond duck'.")

_________________________________

Diamond Duck In Davos

1.  Greasing The Grenze

Coming into Davos, surrounded by winds whipping the confectioner's sugar of Swiss hospitality between the crisp billboards, Halt! Grenze! (Stop! Pemmican!) and Kämpfe Für Das Karussell Des Fortschritts! (We  Struggle For Kurt Russell's Foreskins!) The searchlights are blinding, guard dogs bark with an accent (Wüf!), and sudden efficient women are opening doors of perception in your car, murmuring, "Good evening. Anything to declare?"

But you're not surprised. No, not you; never you. All this was in the briefing. They are efficient, here in Davos. The Mark O' Mammon is barcoded on their hind parts -- you've been shown photos -- and at home, skis are racked demurely beside priceless paintings bought at bargain-basement rates, in auctions at Zürich and Geneva, between 1936 and 39.

And of those pouring into the valley, no one ever says to the women, "Ah DO -- Ah say, Ah say, Well AH DO DECLARE," in a voice borrowed from Foghorn Leghorn -- although you have a secret urge to do that. The women smirk at you, without envy, because Ach, Ja; we know this about you. You wish to do That Cartoon Rooster; such a typical male. We here in Davos know -- otherwise, you would not be allowed here. A brief blonde hand mumbles through your luggage, brushing socks and briefs, lingering for a moment with the rough play of starch in a shirt -- then, waving your car on: Alles Gut; los geh'n. 

And then, you glimpse the last billboard: Im Diesen Friedenskrieg Gibt Es Keine Gefangenen! -- No Prisoners In This Peace War. The Great Carousel Of Progress gives only to take. It really is shitty, what a Town Without Pity Can Do. Ha, ha, ha; that's our Davos!

Even if you have a Safe Conduct Leaflet, dropped like pet leavings on sidewalks by the IMF and WTO (Be a DO RAG, it proclaims, Not a DON'T RAG), after surrendering, the best one can hope for in coming to Davos is a cot in that hut on the mountain. They'll be jammed in with municipal workers and novelists. There will be a crucifix hung on the damp concrete wall, and a 1970's postcard showing light at the end of a tunnel. In the dark, farting and snoring settle around you, diaphanous, studded, anxious. You dream of gristle.

The others will receive a coupon for a discount-price small soda, and a trip to observe George Soros' hair colorist, reading a copy of Forbes, through a bulletproof window. But the Surrendered had denied the primacy of the Great Carousel, so their Davos will be a short sniff of the leather seats in an otherwise unoccupied Daimler. Then, to be sent home at their own expense for long retraining in a job that will take months to find, and which is discontinued the day after they are hired.  Ho, ho,ho, ho, Cisco! Ho, ho, ho, ho, Pancho! That's our Davos!

But this is not your Davos. You are not on file, under the name you were given to use, as having denied The Carousel Of Progress. [Your Name] has been Cleared, umbrage squeezed dry and ready for productive action in service to Man's Betterment. If L.Ron were ever alive, he would be. If Tony Robbins were real, he would guide you personally across the hot coals. Parma-shahanda Yoga-nanda, Parley-voo. In your mind, a Crackerjack prize, and in your gloved hand, the feel of a bag strap made from an endangered petrochemical, all telling you this is real.

(But: The whole squeezing Man's Betterment is just fake bullshit, a double-blind ruse. You're here in Davos in a big quilt, so far under the covers that your latitude and longitude come up Zeroes. You're not who you say you are, and never were. The hopes of all humankind stain your carpeting in expectation that you would complete this mission and get an oil change. God is with you, but he steals your stuff and sells it downtown.)

You stride up to the 4-star hotel desk repeatedly, just trying it out. The clerks -- parthenogenic, muted -- take no notice. They are busy timing each other's movements and their interactions with guests. The clerk with the lowest total time receives a coupon for a discount-price small soda. The rest are allowed to live, but forced to wear old animal costumes outside the hotel, in public, so that all will know of their shame and inexactitude.

Your electronic room key is imprinted with the likeness of Klaus Schaub, wearing a bib, and pictured eating in a 'Communist Lobster' franchise restaurant. The room, fragrant with violets; your phone, seeking you; and promises of delights of the eye, tongue and intellect are hung around the wallpapered box of your room like laundry washed in the sink. It is cheesy and expensive: the highest expression of the Free Market. You have made it.

Pencils down. You evacuate your bowels. The toilet has a shelf for you, the curious, to view leavings before flushing, and it would be churlish to refuse anything offered for free. This act of introspection will be your best moment at Davos. They told you this would happen -- but nothing, nothing could prepare you for that moment of contact, of spurning. You wash your hand.

2.   Where You Were, Gentlemen

It's the day. There are WEF conferences and hubub scheduled, rooms, many rooms, of people murmuring peasancarrots, peasandcarrots repeatedly. But you were instructed to feign shyness until The Moment. You hang. You chill. In The Packed Elevator, you do your Robin Williams laugh -- and everyone in the Car suddenly does the same thing.

You almost flinch. It's endless, permeable, like having a colonoscopy on a train -- but you remember: Keep control. Deep breaths. Be Coolidge: You Lose. Then, the Car stops; its doors slide open and a man moves past you, still making his seal-bark laugh, pausing to wipe his eyes on a woman's hair, and pat you on the shoulder as if to say, Dude -- good one.

Here, finally; the white placard outside a door to an auditorium, with a single word in red: Stumpfegger. This is where you are to meet your contact. You accept a glance from the woman beside the door -- an intense simulacrum of Donna Reed -- who hands you a brochure entitled Complete Release. Blushing, she says this conference covers "the plot for forgiveness of all First-World debt." You smile, nodding, earnest, but keep moving. Your mission is more important than what you suspect about her thong underwear -- and will never know. You'll have to live with that.

They said, Your contact will know you. All you had to do was to find "Stumpfegger" and show up. You stand near the tasteful refreshment table and realize the man serving drinks is a frenzied doppelgänger for Joe Turkel, eternal bartender in The Shining, and decline a tequila shooter. You wave the Complete Release brochure back and forth, as instructed -- a signal, an urgent, full-bladder motion, and think about thong underwear. Really hard.

Then, you see The Contact. You see them seeing you see them, actually. Everything that happens after this is a blur; you'll be debriefed about it for weeks in extra crispy detail, a swimming up from sewage depth to where sheep graze, safely. And, fortunately for you, the story will not change. You will be allowed to go back to wherever it is you come from. You will be allowed to toil in many jobs, but not remain for long -- because Lt. Gerard will always show up, looking for money.

__________________________________

What catches your attention about The Contact first is his hair, its architectural blondness -- now whitish, now caution orange, and shiny, like preternatural two-tone ice cream or a small child's flotation device. The Contact is a suet, puffed inside his black suit, behind the signature doublewide red tie. His face is a carnivore drunkard's bloat, too-small eyes, piggish; his mien oblate and spiky. His lips are a crayon line drawn by an angry pensioner across the lower third of that orange face. The French Cuffs of his whitish shirt have little numbers embroidered on them: "45",  and he is nodding, nodding, at you as he walks forward. This is your contact.

3.   Historical Briefs With A Brown Streak Of Genius

A Stonehenge of men and women in sunglasses surround The Contact. They move in formation, maintaining a Raggedly Ann circle around him, continually bumping into other guests, chairs, tables, each other, headed right towards you in a chorus of s'cuse me; par-done, pal; hey lookout; aw christ you could see me comin', right? and who keep reaching inside their jackets as if checking to ensure they still have their wallets.

You clench. The deer flips on its headlights and there you are, about to get a mouthful of antler (Hi! Remember me? You hit me with the Volkswagen! Payback's a bitch, pal!). You think of the face of your mother -- or Lady Gaga, or another suitable female substitute, just as The Contact stops directly in front of you. You are standing in his Circle Of Trust, surrounded by partially blind people who have weapons.

"Hey, you know," The Contact says, lifting his chin and tilting his head back to look down at you, Mussolini squinting at a small boat far out at sea, "You know, I was out there, goin' by, and thought, 'You know, I should stop in there'. How's it goin'?" You open your mouth to answer but the contact, like the voiceover for an industrial safety film, keeps on talking.

"There's so many things goin' on here! It's like the world's fair of banking and whatever, right? You know, they never -- never -- wanted to invite me to Davos. I mean, I'm the most sympathetic person to what they want to do, in this whole place, the whole thing, me -- and they never invited me before! Not once!"

The Contact sees a blur moving outside his Circle Of Trust and raises a hand, perfect white teeth in the ocher pudding of his face, saying, "Hey, thank you. How ya doin', yeah; thank you," before turning the oily tumblers in his eyes back on you.

The Contact's eyes widen to the size of dimes. He throws his hands out, experimentally, the breadth of a large fish. "But, n-ow -- now, they had to invite me! I'm the leader of the free world, right? Over 300 on the electoral; nobody ever mentions that, by the way. But, hey -- Swiss've been great, they really have, very gracious -- they've been very, very good to me, very respectful. Not saying they're not. I'm very much thinking I hope they stay like that."

You nod. You lean towards him slightly, and enunciate the code phrase: Hobo Oboe.  The Contact stops, squints, pushes on his chin. "Din' getcha," he says; you rinse and repeat. The Contact thinks about what an impression of remembering something might look like, then leans towards you, and speaks a countersign: "Ah, Yeah, yeah.  'My Penile Prosthesis'." He steps a little closer and, with a quick glance around the room, squeezes out a shruglet, raising his brows while the eyes remain inscrutable, swinish.

This was the moment. This was why you came to Davos: to observe your leavings, and tell this person what you were instructed to say -- a single phrase, "Stormy Weather". You ignore the sure impression you have gained that The Contact is wearing thong underwear, stand on your feet's balls, and draw a deep breath -- but before you can speak, The Contact interrupts you.

"Hey, I have a lot to do; so much to do, I've got -- you wouldn't believe how much I have to do in this job. I tell you, if I could go on strike, I'd do that. Leftists would love it. Chuck Schumer'd love it -- but I am the most involved president, hands-on involved, of any president. Not since Lincoln, or anyone, has there been a harder-working president than I am. So that's one.

"Two, nobody is listening to me. I mean, the people, some of the people, they listen, sure. But there's a fucking conspiracy with the New York Times and fucking PBS. Jesus; fucking Frontline. The Washington Post -- that Bezos, he's just trying to mindfuck me. But, I'll be fair, some of my own people -- don't want to name anybody, but some of them are very close to me -- use the media to talk themselves up. Take credit, make me look like some crazy, stupid person. Happened just last week."

Everyone in the Stumpfegger Room is looking at something else while they look at The Contact, and you. He has drawn himself up on a cocktail napkin, his gut pendulous within a tent of jacket; he pushes a stubby finger into the inches before your face, shouting, "I'm tellin' you: I am not stupid, like everyone says! I'm Smart!! I am fucking in charge!"

"I was elected with the largest electoral numbers in modern history -- I was, me! Not the goddamn Daily News! And I'm about ready to say to the Post, 'Hey, Jeff; you want to get shut down? You want a military censor sitting in your office with a magnifying glass up your ass? You want the IRS looking at your offshore LLCs?' And those terrible conditions in his shipping places; just terrible. We're gonna look into that. He's outta control, that guy; it's very sad how outta control.

"I'm not even getting into the Russia thing. Yeah, we're lining up for ol' Bobby; and oh, everyone's gonna be surprised when we let go, my friend!" His face is an alarmed bell of crimson. "see, it takes just one thing, just one thing, and the whole ball game can change. That's what I'm saying; I'm saying that. All right." His face relaxes like a sphincter, and he nods, lifting a hand with two fingers, faintly Benedictine. "All right. Thanks very much. Great to see you."

The theme to "Heroes Of Telemark" begins to play in the background and he's off walking, his perimeter of flesh shifting with him back through the room and out the door.  A tendril in your head saying hey man that tequila shooter be lookin' good right now. From here to eternity, everyone is turning, turning, and have come round, Right wing, at last, to be looking at you. If curious glances had their own mucus, you would be coated in slime.

You order a tequila; the Joe Turkel bartender says Your Money's No Good There, and it's all on the House. Somewhere, you realize that you did not give The Contact that message. On the way back to the hotel, your Uber driver talks about a company which has made an app -- an interactive photo-calendar of shaved animals, for other animals. It has had two billion downloads at $2.99 each.

Obligatory Dog-Faced Fruit Bat Photo: Pooch Of The Sky

At the hotel, you receive a message: Mother says the cow is sick. You must come home immediately. Tickets will be delivered today. There is also a huge, Dog-Faced Fruit Bat, in a basket, from the Davos Chamber Of Commerce. One of these messages is benign, the other ominous, and you do not know which is which.

The Fruit Bat turns on the room's television;  you both watch situation comedies in German until the Fruit Bat turns to you and says, "Are you understanding any of this?"

___________________________________

The Fruit Bat dials Room Service and orders a Martini. After a time, the Room Service waiter, a man in his mid-twenties, appears. He places the Martini, and the bill, on a side table.  The Fruit Bat sips at the Martini in silence. The waiter stands to one side, observing. The world wonders.

After a few minutes, the waiter politely clears his throat and says, "You know -- we don't get many Fruit Bats ordering Martinis here." The Fruit Bat, glancing at the bill, replies, "Yes; and at these prices, you won't see many more of us, either."

___________________________________