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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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. ]

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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'.")

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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.

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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?"

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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."

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Hoo Boy We Are To Be Keeping All Internets Traditionals

Is It This Life Which Is The Wonderful ?

By I. Rabschinsky

(So this is now annual reprinted Blog thing made just for you. Make enjoyment of holidays because soon they will be made to deport to their country of the Origin.)

George Bailey Guy Understanding How We Are To Being Completely Screwed

This is now standard hoo boy holiday good for you Internets Tradition. You should enjoy, since next time it may be costing you -- because in our Big Huge Nation there is becoming no room for opinions such as these. Peoples may go to the Gitmo for having such opinions. Ha ha ha. But, of course; if you have the money, you can move to the Canada. If you are with the huge money, you can have opinions. How fast the Freedom goes, because Freedom. Ha ha ha!

Great-Uncle Yehudi (In The Front) In The Berlin, 1945

Great-Uncle Yehudi, who is older, still, but strong enough to want to be hit by telephone book until falling down, refuses to be watching the television news. Little Rupert Fox, he never watched, but now he will not watch See Enn Enn, Big Mouse News, or Joe Scarborough network (though he has secretive desires involving the Rachel Maddow ["Nice Jewish girl -- you should find way to meet her," says Great-Uncle Yehudi] ). 

He will not even watch BBC or the PBS Very Balanced. "I am angry, Isidore," he says from the big chair which reclines. "I would spit, if I was not in my own house, sitting."

Great-Uncle Yehudi Today, Without Book Of Phones

But what if you are not watching, I say; you will be not the informed! Great-Uncle Yehudi says, "You are watching what somebodys are wanting to teach you. And their lesson is always, 'You have no power! You are betrayed! Love the Hitler! You cannot be fighting the Bosses! Obey the Cossacks! Shut your mouth and convert to be Christian kind of Gentile!' "

So what do we do? Yehudi makes a sour face. "I will be watching watch The Mister Ed." But what do we do if the Cossacks come? I ask, and Great-Uncle Yehudi laughs.

"Izzi, you are my favorite Great-Nephew (I am only great-nephew, I remind), but Cossacks are already here. You have to choose between learning the lesson They are teaching now, or not learning. And if you decide not to learn, then when time comes, be ready to fight."  

_______________________________

So we make this the annual offering of the Funny for you, hoping that it can remind of the Time Before and make a smile.

I, Rabschinsky, say this say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

_________________________________

So always in the America there is at this time the fooding, and also the Sports Produkt on the television. Many people filling themselves with Holiday as if they about to be told, "Next year, you cannot eat!". I am thinking they are the hostage of their Hindbrain, which is still Neanderthal and wishes to fight with Mastodon. But, still.

And, I am noticing specific films which is only appearing on Amerikanyets television at these months between like maybe September and the time of your New Year.

My examples: At Passover, some of the television is showing The Ten Super Big Mitzvah Rules, with Charlton Heston Guy -- you know, movie where Moses stop making fooling around to pretend he is Big Guy of the Egypt, and decides to get real job saving People Of Israel.

This requires lots of people walking around, always saying "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses" -- like, if they say this three times, they will be teleported by magik into better movie. Navarone Kind Of Big Guns, maybe, or Socialist-Colored Panther.

Place Which Is Gone Forever: Amerikanyets Driving To Movies:

"Moses, Moses, Moses -- What is happening with our Drive-Ins?"

At another time in year, they are showing same Heston Guy what is Moses in Big Mitzvah Rules in another movie, Ben Of Her. However this is basically film of Jewish guy who becomes like early Jesus guy, but by accident.

Movie is good; he is Number Forty-One guy in slave ship, rowing like animator for the Disney; there are becoming big boat battle, and he gets to be some kind of honorary Goyim. Later, there is an exciting thing with horses and carts -- but it is not the porn film, so too bad for you. Go to web sites where they have not blocked you.

Charlton Ben Heston Making The Ramming Speed, 1959

At finally, with the Christmas, every year since somebody discover the Secret Of Fire there is this broadcasting this movie, It Is Wonderful This Life, made by Frank Capra Guy in 1947, showing the kind of place which everybody wanted to believe was the Amerika. Small town, everybody knows everybody; values is good and everybody work hard and knows their places.

Just like village in the Moldova, except animals do not leave defecation in the street, everyone is speaking English, and most people have job. Plus concrete used in apartment buildings is better quality.

Every single year they are showing this film. It is now a classic also, like Wizard Of Odd and Potemkin Kind Of Battleship and Mister Hulot Goes To Beach Place. It is as big movie as The Tanks Know The Truth (Very popular Great Patriotic War movie made in the Russia. My Great-Uncle Yehudi claims he is in this film as Extra, but still we love him).

Big Scene From Tanks Knowing The Truth: Are They Knowing?

Well, They Are Tank; You Are Person. You Want To Be That Sure?

It Is Wonderful This Life story is maybe simple: Guy, George Bailey Guy, living in small town wants to die, because he thinks his life is shit. And there are the angels, who show us life of this Guy in the little town, and how he is The Good, and there is the Rich Guy who is The Bad. And George Bailey Guy never gets to do things in the Life because the Fate is not for him.

Then there is mistake with money (a problem made from the Rich Bad Guy), for which he is blamed, and he runs from family and goes to place of Publik Alkohol; finally he goes to bridge to jump in freezing water so his family will get small piece of Insurance money. Very Sad (There is also squirrel in another scene which is sad, but never mind). Also very Petit-Bourgeois.

So, Angel Guy comes to the Earth and shows this George Bailey Guy his life is maybe kind of okay, not so much the shit; and boom boom boom, problem with the money goes away in big scene at end when everyone gives him their money, and everyone sings. So happy, little bells on tree and big bells of church ring; America wins the World War Two and future is filled with television and freeway. The End.

But this is too simple, my friend. No way is actual life like this. So, maybe some of me thinks this is kind of the Propaganda about America, to keep us from seeing the Truth of the Things.

And, there is forbidden version of this film, which is other kind of the Propaganda. Please -- allow me to introduce.

---

борьбе за построение социализма во время Угнетение
(также называется "Любовь и революция" после 1991)
("Love And Revolution", Directed By Frank Kapronovich [1949]; Starring Pytor Chost, Gravnik Bolodorin, Irina Valutin. Special appearances by the Spirit Of Revolution, also Che Guevara, Samuel Beckett, and entire 12th Guards Motorized Infantry Regiment)

SO, movie opens with Guy, Georgi Edwardovich Bailey Guy, at the Bridge. He is unhappy, this Guy; boy oh boy he is like making the panic. He goes to public alkohol place and tries to think, but he only finds himself between the forces of dissent and confusion!

TROTSKYITE GUY: River not so bad, after five minutes.

EXISTENTIAL GUY: Wait, but no one comes. No one cares.

Hoo boy; Georgi is in big fix. This guy has family with SmallChilds, and tiny Policy Insuring The Life -- and he is believing everybody would be better off if he would jump and get it over with, already.

GEORGI: My life is steaming pile of animal things,

because the Rich Guy will always win. Now I am jumping.

But, Georgi is being watched at Bridge. Not by some angel Guy (none of this reliance on things which cannot be proven by good Socialist science!) -- but even better -- is Spirit Of Revolutsya!

(Spirit Of The Revolution Watches Georgi)

And, The Spirit saves Georgi! He takes him to place where they can speak of things, of the Truth -- and slowly, Georgi's eyes are opened to not only the forces of historical determinism, but the inevitability of struggle against the oppressor classes!

GEORGI: So you are saying that when the consciousness

of the People is raised sufficiently, that armed struggle

is not only necessary but inevitable?

SPIRIT: You got it, Comrade.

So, Georgi, now with eyes opened thanks to the words of the kindly Spirit, is seeing that the world is filled with inequality and criminal things so big your head feels like kicked soccer ball. It is like understanding that, not only are you living as Dog, lapping up the vomit of the Rich Guy, but you work in factory to make guns to force others to live like this (Also, the Rich Guy pays you in fake dog vomit and those X-Ray glasses which do not work).

For Georgi, this is whole bunch of dried fish to eat in one night (Like story by that Guy, Dickens Guy, Carol Burnett Christmas, or something). This is the Life? He is asking himself.

A World Of Things For Them, But Not Food For Children

Economy And Bad Fate For Peoples Means Nothing To Them

While The Many People Lose Everything To The Illegal Foreclosure

So now Georgi is filled with indignant and bad feeling for The State Of These Things. He feels the pain of the oppressed, working masses, and is being filled with Revolutionary Fervor -- and he goes to talk with the People in his little village, to tell them what the Spirit had revealed to him -- and the Spirit sends along friend, Che Guevara Guy, to help.

GEORGI: We don't have to live under the heel of Potter's boot!

He's just some, bloodsucking animal! Feeding on all of us -- and I'm

tired of living on fake dog vomit! We have to run things!

CHE GUEVARA SPIRIT GUY: Ay, Yi Yi! You listen to this guy.

The People, moved by Georgi's words, march with him to the place of the Bad Rich Guy, to demand Justice, the chance to make something other than guns, and to be paid in actual money instead of rubber dog vomit and X-Ray glasses which do not work.

BAD RICH GUY: You realize that the manufacture and sale of

weapons around the globe is the backbone of our nation's industry?

GEORGI: You don't understand -- the days of taking your rubber

dog barf are over, Potter! We're going to run things!

MOB: No fake dog barf!! No fake dog barf!!

BAD RICH GUY: My family has run this town for fifty generations.

All I have to do is close the factories. How long will it be before

your little rag-tag mob starts to starve? They'll come crawling back

to work -- and for half the rubber dog barf I gave you before!

Then, Georgi takes the Big Step -- the one which all oppressed people are taking in these movies when faced with Oppressors who pay them with rubber dog vomit: He crosses line from intellectualizing his oppression to active revolutionary.

Otherwise, we would have no resolution of all this rising action; and only ending for this film possible is that everyone would go for Pizza. This is unsatisfying from view of the Socialist imperative.

GEORGI: You're wrong, Potter -- you, and people of your

class are finished. Now you're going to face Justice for your

crimes -- because the People own the means of production!

And so The Bad Rich Guy is taken away by the People; his house later becomes hospital, day-care center, and place where revolutionary theater troupes practice before going into the streets.

And, of course, there is a proper celebration at the Georgi Bailey house, with the Revolutsia Spirit and the SmallChilds.

GEORGI: Gosh, Spirit, I don't know how we can thank you.

SMALLCHILD 01: Spirit, can't you stay and have some Fair

Trade™ coffee with homemade whiskey with us?

SPIRIT: No, SmallChild; I must go. There are so many oppressed

peoples in a world beset by unspeakable monsters of Capital.

But I will take a shot of that whiskey -- neat, please.

Finally, after long discussion between Rich Bad Guy and the Organs Of State Security, he faces Revolutionary Justice and the verdict of The People.

RICH BAD GUY: Long live International Capitalism!

PEOPLE'S MILITIA LEADER: Fire!

And, of course, Georgi and his lovely wife are pausing in their labor to build a New Socialist Future to share a moment's reflection on the plight of The Peoples, and also to suggest some hygienic sexual activity between them which may occur later.

...and in the background, The Internationale swells on the soundtrack, sung by the Sad Vlad Orphans Choir Of Greater Moscow! Please to show the credits!

This film has not been shown since its original release; big shame, also, because it is at least as good as movie with Bert Landcaster in it but of the name, just now, is escaping me.

Great-Uncle Yehudi likes Revolutionary Love. He thinks it is wonderful comedy, but still we love him. If you can find this film on DVD, then okay. If not, well then it is big world out there! Be That Guy -- go find!

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

Reprint Heaven: Holiday Update For Third-Class Passengers

 We Had A Good Run 
[From November 27, 2024, prior to the arrival of The Monsters; slightly edited.]

I've noticed a binary spectrum developing -- with friends; commentors and analysts in the media -- about the arrival of the nazis in January. It's one perspective, or another; there's not much middle ground.

One Perspective: Things won't be as bad as you think. "You got a lot of hyperbole going, there -- and and and and; y'know, that kind of thinking is; well it's just not helpful, that thinking. You're frightening people, you're scaring people. You know that? Scaring them. And no matter how much you hate the Trump people, don't call them nazis. That's an incorrect use of the term -- and why don't you capitalize 'nazi', as a Noun? Thought you knew better. Look: You're being a downer. It's a difficult time; if you can't be supportive, just shut up. Shut up."

The Other Perspective: It is exactly as bad as you think (a group that includes Mary Trump, who is in a position to know whether her uncle is a fascist and dead serious, or not). It's tough, playing Cassandra in a room full of people who want any reason to feel less afraid. And, Things could be even worse than you imagine.

_____________________________

Down But Not Out

So, I'll just say it: The United States of America we know is past, but not gone. It's in transition -- we don't know where we will end up, or when; but the United States which existed between 1945 and January 20th, 2017, is absolutely over. Our place as the arbiter of the World Order is over. In the past eleven months, our horizons about America have been pulled back to the limit of our own borders -- and ultimately that's not only good but necessary.

The long, persistent idea of The American Nation still exists -- the one backed by the Constitution, that we studied in school; chronicled by Ken Burns in so many films; the place where we and our families were born, lived; the nation we volunteered (or were drafted) to serve; the place we counted on to be there every morning when we woke up  -- because here, there were rules. Most of us were Safe.

But, 'Safe' depends upon your race, gender, economics; choices; your place in the pecking order of society. George Floyd was not safe. Matthew Shepard, Jazzlyn Johnson, Pauly Likens were not safe. The children at Sandy Hook were not safe.

The children abused by the team doctor at Ohio State, or in Catholic churches across America, were not safe. The families of Flint, Michigan (still) drinking lead-tainted water were not safe. And the families evicted from homes they could no longer afford in the 2008 Crash, or Covid twelve years later, were not Safe.

Even so -- in other societies, other countries, there might be armed troops in the streets; identification checkpoints. The press may be censored, muzzled. Mail and communications, monitored. Warrantless searches or raids on homes; arrest and imprisonment, or worse, for opposing the government. 

But in America, we had a Constitution. Our history rested on being a nation of laws. Until, we weren't.

Mistah Kurtz, He Crazy

We've always had crazy politicians -- but they were fringe, cartoonish characters, creeping around in the margins. The people we elected to keep America on an even keel (and stay out of our hair) spouted typical Democratic or Republican nonsense. 

But they would never allow The United States to become unstable and unpredictable, like those dreck countries in Asia or Africa, or dictatorships like Russia or China; North Korea. 

This was the United States of America, for fuck's sake; we're better than that. Until, we weren't. 

49% of people casting a ballot in the 2024 election voted for a demagogue. A fascist.

He told everyone during the campaign what he would do, and showed everyone (as if the previous nine years weren't already proof) who he is. People voted for him with full knowledge: This is what Trump is, and they did it anyway.

49% of the United States put a gun to our collective head -- grinning a manic grin, shouting MAGA !!! MY LIFE FOR YOUUUUUUU !!!! -- and pulled the trigger.

_____________________________

Pass The Last Of The Schadenfreude, Please

As you sit down with family and friends over the holidays -- consider all the other people in past history who suspected they were on the edge of ... something -- catastrophe, collapse; war; oppression; penury; mass suffering: Peasants of Europe before the Hundred Years' or Thirty Years' wars; the Irish before the Famine; the French before financial collapse and Revolution; the Weimar Germans on Christmas Eve and over Hannukah in December, 1932. They gathered together anyway.

And now, We, The People.  Us.  On the edge of... we don't yet know.

Americans sat down to Thanksgiving on Tuesday, November 20th, in 1941. On the 26th, by proclamation, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

Eleven days later, Japanese carriers reached their designated positions northwest of the Hawaiian Islands and launched the attack on Pearl Harbor.

______________________________

"Trumplandia, 'Tis For Thee"

So, our country, with its long and fabled history, much bad and some good, has come to the end of this phase in our national story. That America did not exist after Noon on January 20th, 2025. "The United States" in future is just a label.

Its new Owners should call it Trumplandia, because its government doesn't stand for anything but the twisted, unquenchable greed, violent misogyny and narcissism which will run our lives, until it doesn't.

Someone once noted that the American Story is one cliffhanger episode after another. The Great Depression was an example: the worst financial collapse in U.S. history. It could have been the end of our Constitutional Republic -- but, at the last minute, we got FDR. It was the New Deal, and a global war, which lifted America out of it. 

So, Our Story remains: How will they get out of this one? And, What next?

______________________________

Leave The Hopeism At Home, Yo

We have never had a dictator become President, not to mention controlling both Houses of Congress and a majority of That Court, before. Never in America have our politics -- our very lives -- been so openly and cynically manipulated by technology. Never have so few arrogant theocrats and technocrats spent billions of dollars so openly, to force their desires on so many.

Democrats, the political Left, are pushing back. Citizens will fight. It may be possible that this is a terrible, four-year, seminal period which America will emerge from battered but wiser -- as if struck with a terrible disease and surviving.  It may be that We, The People, endure, fucked over as usual by wealth and power, but that in the end We Get Out Of This One. Maybe. 

We seem to have so much stacked against Us, The People. One thing is true: The shared idea of a nation we've had to carry us this far is going to have to fundamentally change when and if we come through this. That is the transition I mentioned earlier. We can't be what we were before; so what will America become? 

The bullying, the lying and violent greed of the Right needs to be kicked to the curb -- but Neoliberal Happytalk and Hopeism on the Left won't work, either.

When you have this very technocratic, 'Third Way' neoliberal approach, and sprinkle in some anti-corporate, anti-billionaire populism... then you're a rudderless ship. You're not communicating what you are about -- and when you don't have a North Star every single person can point to and say, 'this is what the party is about', then your enemies can portray you as whatever they want.

       --  Hasan Piker, 'Pod Save America'; November 27, 2024

America can't be ruled by a dictatorship -- whether by an individual, or the Proletariat. It isn't the way in our Culture-- as opposed to our Society, which changes more rapidly and dynamically.

Perhaps we need to experience a cruel and vicious politics, the lawless application of brute force from the faceless ICE and CBP thugs. Perhaps we need the experience of feeling unsafe in our own land, so that We, The People will reject it -- now, and ever again. 

Yesterday, they were ruffians / Today, they control our lives /

Tomorrow, they will be the keepers of the public lavatories.

--  Juvenal

Trump and his toadies, the pack of Billionaire tech Bros, do not care about you, or me, or anyone but themselves. America is their social engineering laboratory, now -- and they are literally drunk, gibbering with delight at their power. Americans, as Eeelon said, will "endure hardships". Oh, they can't wait.

I've been rereading various histories of France under the Occupation. I'd recommend it.

_____________________________________

It reminds me of the 1993 film from a Steven King novel, Needful Things: The devil (Max von Sydow) comes to Castle Rock, Maine, opens an antiques / curios shop, and in selling various enchanted items to town residents, sets them murderously against each other. It ends in chaos, flames; madness and death. "Hey," Lucifer tells J. T. Walsh, who calls to confess he's just killed his wife, "These things happen."

There's a scene where von Sydow, his face a manic grin, grips his hands together -- shaking with glee as he literally feeds on the energy of the evil he's set in motion; 'Ave Maria' plays in the background. A few townspeople, including the police chief (Ed Harris), fight back. Castle Rock is ravaged; people are dead, shaken, the damage done; but the devil is finally forced to leave.

Von Sydow's Satan -- Looking Very Much Like Good Ol' Fred Trump

______________________________________

Shaking with glee at their perceived power: We are standing at the precipice of a possible war in South America. Trump and his lackeys keep telegraphing that they want an excuse to broadly crack down against the hated Libs, the People of Color, the immigrant and the stranger. The No Kings rallies, the results of the November elections, polling results show the majority of Americans reject Trump, reject Maga.

Perhaps at this moment, Trump deteriorating in front of the cameras and determined to grip power with a bruised claw of a hand, is the Zenith of The Right's power -- that it all begins to fall apart for them from here. There's no way we can avoid what they intend to do. 

The seeds of their eventual failure may be sowed now; it can be a comforting prospect. Earlier today, I heard Mary Trump telling Molly Jong-Fast, "We'll get through this".  Maybe. 

Lee Miller's photo of a local nazi leader and family, having committed suicide, 1945;

One can only hope this is the future of our Fabled Leaders

We'll see.

_______________________________

It Is Really That Simple

We Don't Know How Long We Have

What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth -- the real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. Then, what else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth? and content ourselves with stories. In these stories, it doesn't matter who the heroes are -- all we want to know is, who is to blame.

-- Valery Legazov, Soviet Physicist

    Remarks recorded before his death

    Moscow; April 26, 1988

For months, I've been trying to understand the reasoning (if any) behind what The Leader and his Lieutenants -- Mob-Boss style -- have done since January 20th. 

Every act seems to negate basic assumptions Americans make about our society, our place in it, and our potential futures. Musk and his DOGE team took control of databases in critical government departments. It's more than likely he's made copies of the personal data of a majority of the U.S. population. How it gets used, or whom Musk sells it to, is anyone's guess. We aren't told.

The 'Maga' affect financial markets. The Congress they dominate is poised to ram through a single, massive piece of legislation which (among other things) will increase an already huge national debt, and gut critical public health programs -- all to benefit one-one-hundredth of one per cent of our population, in perpetuity.

And, the effects of what Trump and his Lieutenants are doing is global: elimination of food and medical aid programs to foreign countries have resulted in the verified deaths of some 200,000 people, mostly children. So far. 

The bright new Legislation will also fund ICE / DHS -- more agents; more private prisons; more deportation flights and payment to dictators in Central America, North Africa, Eastern Europe for throwing whomever they want into the Grift Gulag.

_______________________________

For Trump, the Gestapo-style raids, arrests, detentions and associated deportations have been an obsession: Blood and Soil. Over the past week, raids in Los Angeles culminated in federalized and regular military troops being deployed, on Trump's order, on the streets -- the major city of a Blue state. 

This may become the operational prototype for taking the ICE roadshow to other Blue cities. Our military will appear there, too. Eventually, troops sent on the order of The Leader may fire on Americans in their own country.

Why? Why all of this? When does it end; what's the end-state?

As events in L.A. unfolded last weekend, I heard a political analyst on a podcast indirectly ask the same question. They saw Trump's sending troops -- over objections of the Governor, mayor, and the LAPD -- was not to reduce the size of protests and a chance for violence, but dramatically escalate it. It was a deliberate provocation, using military troops with live ammunition.

"Somehow," the analyst concluded, "Republicans feel what they're doing in L.A. around immigration is a political winner for them." Okay, I thought, But that makes no sense. Multiple polls show people don't support the government's immigration actions. There's no political gain in it. So, Why?

Then, it hit me: seen through a historical lens -- politics-as-usual; the United States Of America before January 20th -- then breaking everything, and acting as if they'll face no consequences for what they're doing... makes no sense.

But if their real goal is to remake American society -- a real Bolshevik, Khmer-Rouge, Taliban-style assertion of control, Or Else -- then what they're doing, and how, makes perfect sense. 

The Tell is their blatant lying, the doubling-down; one new outrage after another -- We do what we want because we can -- and shut up, peasants. Since they believe the People have no power, their opinions don't matter. 

ICE / DHS's immigration actions -- 'protecting America from an invasion of criminals' -- are a fiction. They only provide a justification for sending armed soldiers into American cities. What's happening in L.A. has nothing to do with immigration. It's about control. 

And god -- somebody's god, anyway -- help us all in the days to come.

__________________________________

MEHR, MIT SCHLAG

The individual detained was a veteran, trying to make his VA appointment.

__________________________________