Probably Shouldn't Have Shown Yourself To Be Lovin' You Some Nazis In The Middle Of A Pandemic With 40,000,000 Unemployed, Huh

Remember: No One Is Coming To Save Us

1.)  "Everything Can Be Like It Was Again": America somehow calms down, the insurrection (because that's what it is) tapers off, and everyone on the 'Left' concentrates on organizing to elect Joe Biden in November. 

• Covid-19 remains more-or-less quiescent through the summer (people still die, just not so visibly or rapidly). Another Covid support package rolls out of Congress, more money for struggling private-jet charter LLC's and Friends of Jared, and -- Oh Yes; enough trickle-down to keep 40,000,000 unemployed afloat and their children from starving, through the election.

• On November 3, Biden wins by a large plurality: a wave of euphoria, a belief that Happy Days Are Here Again! send people into the streets -- not to scream rage, but to party. And in January, 2021, an addled, drugged Leader appears at Biden's inauguration; maybe there's an incident, maybe not. No one really cares, because Ding Dong; Th' Bitch Be [redacted]! 

This path is a re-affirmation of basic American principles, rejecting Trump as an aberration. It also relies on a general acceptance by black communities and People Of Color that more change can be gained under a Biden presidency, than four more years of proto-fascist criminals.

Somehow, America stumbles forward. Some 'social gains' are made, checks and balances are introduced. The Biden presidency spends more time trying to fix the damage wrought by Trumpism than actually governing. Things appear to be "getting back to normal".

The American Openly Fascist party criticizes Biden's lack of progress, taking no responsibility for enabling and supporting Trump. They demand austerity, an end to social safety nets as 'unsupportable', due to America's huge national debt in light of Covid. The virus, meanwhile, is tamed, even all-but-eliminated. Until the next one appears.

But most important, the structures of ownership of America by the 0.001%, are intact -- necessary to provide jobs, it is said. Some people say the inequalities laid bare in the spring of 2020 have only been painted over; but in the rush to Be Like It Was, few notice they are poorer, their social mobility, choices for employment and education, more restricted than before. That social surveillance and national security laws created since 2001 are still in place, and enhanced. Because Pandemic, it is said.

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2.)  "Business As Usual" : America simmers into the summer. Governors in multiple states call out their National Guard; as in Minnesota, Humvees and troops in Camo hold spot checks at strategic intersections and enforce curfews (Note: civil unrest in poor 'minority' neighborhoods; cities on fire; National Guard troops in the streets -- was a routine occurrence in America, every summer, from 1965 to 1971).  

• The unrest drops in intensity but never completely disappears. The National Guard is replaced by municipal police in some areas. Neo-nazis and militias make some attempts -- some, spectacular and disturbing, as in May -- to spark their dreamt-of Boogaloo, but the incidents are defused.

• Trump continues to rage-Tweet, bellowing on 'Fox'n Friends', but more people recognize he is profoundly disturbed, unfit for office, than before. Biden is elected in November -- not by a landslide, and it's clear some Right-wing attempts to suppress or even falsify voting occurred. Trump claims the election is a fake for weeks until, abruptly, he says he will not contest the results. In a tense inauguration, Biden assumes office. 

• Trump announces a 'joint venture' with the Murdochs: a new cable channel, broadcasting the Trump message alongside News Corporation's media. Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller are executive producers and partners, along with Jared and Ivanka.

• America stumbles forward, but the euphoria of Biden's election is muted. Republicans in Congress, eager to see Biden fail, remain obstructions to legislation: gridlock, partisan politics continue. Voters are frustrated, and whatever coalition the Democrats created for 2020 begins to slip. 

• The Democrats may do what they've done before, and give the Thugs what they most want -- reductions to Social Security and Medicare, erosions to reproductive rights; more emphasis on religion through law -- just to move legislative packages through both houses. The Rethugs refuse to entertain any legislation to rebuild America's infrastructure. FDR's New Deal comes to an end.

America is uneasy. Armed militias and far-right groups, 'christian' leaders of megachurches, are now political fixtures calling openly for white power and preaching for a theocratic government. While most people dismiss them as fringe groups, local and regional politicians and legislatures are careful not to provoke them. Their spokespersons are interviewed on the PBS News Hour and Face The Nation. They are legitimized, part of the American mainstream. 

The social issues that sparked civil unrest in 2020 are not fully addressed, leaving communities of people marginalized, under-represented and still angry.  A disproportionate number of black men are still shot by police. There are fewer corporations; billionaires are still billionaires, but they're mentioned in the media less frequently. 

Unemployment finally stabilizes between 7 and 10%, but jobs being created are primarily in the 'service economy'.  Covid still appears in hot spots every winter; people still die, just not as many.

2023 comes to an end. For voters, the euphoria over being liberated from the rule of Trump has mostly dissipated. It isn't clear whether Biden has enough popular support for a second term. And a new Rethug challenger, a young, little-known Senator, from a second-generation immigrant family, appears -- sounding very much like a more reasonable, folksy, easy-to-like version of Donald J. Trump.

An unashamed 'christian', with a populist message of 'hard work' and America resurgent, he begins polling with likely voters in the high 40's, against Biden's low 30's, in campaign match-up polls. People respond to his open smile and gracious manner in television interviews. "I believe I've been chosen for a purpose," he says.

However, there are rumors that in private he is much less friendly -- vicious, in fact; that his smile never reaches his eyes; it's reported he once remarked privately that 'we ought to put these godless leftist sons of bitches in the ground'.

But many voters supporting him, and his GOP colleagues, don't care about the rumors: "He just seems like a leader." 

Additional Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Blog Rant

3.)  "When You Come At The King, You Best Not Miss":  Unrest over the death of George Floyd, a trigger for an ocean of anger over deep and unhealed currents in American culture and society, spreads.  Trump carries out threats made on Twitter to send Regular Army troops into the cities to restore order. 

• The military may establish curfews, checkpoints. This doesn't end the protests. There are escalating incidents; more protesters are injured or killed.

• Armed militias may appear, to provoke demonstrators and spark their fabled Boogaloo. If they end up in a hot confrontation with Regular Army forces, that is a significant and separate level of escalation.

Past a certain point in this extreme scenario, the fabled 8-Ball Of The Future says "All Bets Are Off". Trump could declare a State of Emergency and effectively lock the country down -- it could also muzzle Biden, while Trumpo dominates the media through press 'briefings' a la Covid for hours each day. The election could be 'postponed'. 

The Democrats would be left scrambling -- while the Thugs support Trump to the hilt, not knowing where The Leader is taking them, their party, or the country -- and they won't care; as long as their personal interests are served. The country can step into actual fascism and collapse, and like it.

If things reached this level of chaos (or, if someone saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity), it's probable some group would step forward -- with Trump as figurehead, or not -- to 'take control'.  There are very few layers in American society with the resources, or the absolute inner certainty that committing treason is a necessity. If you believed you were being directed to do so by god, for example. 

The country wouldn't know anything had happened until, suddenly, major media was disrupted (Fox, in all probability, would be given an exclusive to broadcast the Good News). Cellular and broadband service might become unpredictable. Banks might close, and restrict ATM withdrawls. Democratic members of Congress and the government might find themselves detained, or worse. The Army, already restricting travel and enforcing curfews, would execute last orders given until new ones came down. 

It wouldn't matter who the players were, or which figureheads would be chosen among the Rethugs to act as mouthpieces -- if their move to seize power succeeded, then the United States of America would end. Something else would begin.

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The civil war in Syria started with the arrest of some teenagers, spray-painting anti-Al-Assad graffiti on a wall; protests over their arrests a few days later, which were really about the inequalities and authoritarian rule of Al-Assad's regime, ended with police opening fire and killing some in the crowd. This led to a rapid spiral of more protests and deadlier reaction by the government. Some anti-Assad group began using weapons, firing back, and the civil war began.

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I'm not suggesting that any of these three views plays out, the civil war scenario particularly -- only to note that this seems a fork in the road. 

A disease, and events triggered by it,  have pushed America to a point where we can't go back to where we were. There are different groups, for different reasons, who see where we are, right now, as their chance to tear down the old structure and rebuild it. To what degree you would like to do that, and what means you feel are necessary and permissible, depend upon whose lens you view it through.

So, the future is not set.  For perspective, I do suggest looking at this, and then this.

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MEHR, MIT WIR KOMMT, U. HIER WIR SIND:  James Fallows, staff writer at The Atlantic Monthly, quoted by Digby, echoing something I'd been thinking about:

I’ll give you my voice-of-history overview here. I did a piece for The Atlantic a couple of years ago where I said that I realized that every article or book I’d ever written had really been about just one question: Is America going to make it? The story of the U.S. is trouble and the response to trouble.

But one thing that’s particular to this moment is that national leadership is the worst in my lifetime, and arguably the worst in our history. We’ve never had a head of federal government as unmatched to the duties of that role as we currently do. 

The question is how all the other sources of resilience and health in the country balance that singular but very important point of dysfunction, and the party that supports him too.

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Twilight At Noon

A Long Howl:  Misery Does Not Require Acts, Only Conditions

Vanished World: Ours Will Also Seem As Remote

While from a Proud Tower in the town / Death looked gigantically down

-- Edgar Allan Poe, "City In The Sea" (1845)

The ... great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark reliance... The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, “With emotion, to the man I used to be.” 

-- Barbara Tuchman (1966)

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In The Proud Tower, popular historian Barbara Tuchman focused on describing Western culture in the decades leading up to the Great War -- a huge, red line of demarcation that finally separated the generations of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries.

Her story is a chronicle of human folly (one of Tuchman's favorite themes), and because we know how the story will end, a leitmotif of nostalgia we sense in the background is really the collective despair of survivors who had lost everything familiar, an entire frame of reference for living.

Edward VII's Sendoff: Royal Procession Of Mourners, 1910

She opened her book with a spectacle: the funeral of King Edward VII of England, who had been on the throne for less than a decade after the death of his mother, Victoria. Tuchman described the brilliant funeral cortege, royal houses and empires in uniform. As Edward's coffin rolled along London streets, "The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock ... but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again." One of the last displays of presence and power of the Elite of the Gilded Age.

Tuchman closed the book with another funeral: this one for Jean Jaures, Socialist member of the French Chamber of Deputies, and a  principal, seminal Left political agitator of the age. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary had been assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and with the interwoven alliances in that era, major European powers began slow-walking into war.

Jaures Speaking At A Socialist Rally, Paris; 1914

A general war had been building for the better part of a decade, and the Socialists in Europe knew working people in all countries would be the disposable cannon-fodder for nationalist politicians and industrial plutocrats. Jaures believed only a pan-European worker's strike, united under the banner of each country's Socialist party, could prevent the continent from being dragged into a catastrophe.

Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, whose assassin had killed the Archduke, then mobilized to invade. On July 30, Russia declared a general mobilization; Jaures was pushing to organize the strike action with other Socialist leaders. While eating at a Paris cafe on the night of July 31, he was assassinated by a right-wing nationalist who had been stalking him. Jaures died at roughly the same time Germany's ambassadors were delivering messages in European capitals, advising it had declared war on Russia.

The Great War had just begun as Jaures' funeral took place in Paris on August 4, 1914. As the funeral cortege moved through Paris streets, Tuchman described a muffled bell of Notre Dame tolling, thinking of a poem by Schiller: "I summon the living / I mourn the dead."

Four years, three months, and the deaths of ~10,000,000 soldiers and civilians later, the war ended.

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We know we're living in a time of extremity. Everyone is figuratively holding their breath, waiting for ... something.  Tuchman's story led to a streetcorner in Sarajevo, and a few weeks in the high summer of 1914 -- and we read it with dread because we know where it ends. No one knows where our American story is leading.

Tuchman's story closed in 1914, 105 years ago. In 2019, there's no one reason to assume bad things are coming, in America -- because there seem to be an overwhelming preponderance of reasons. No one can be blamed for feeling the present moment is portentous, that we're approaching something, a Sarajevo moment, that will trigger a cataclysm. It's a continuous, negative feedback loop, difficult to shake off.

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America has ignored critical, obvious things for generations: contributing to climate disintegration; the inequality in wealth. We've ignored our real history of class, race and gender. We became an Empire, and behaved like one. We became a center to develop technology out of desire for novelty and profit, while reducing personal privacy and allowing our opinions, desires, habits to be harvested and exploited.

We ignored the rise of weapons availability and gun violence. We ignored evangelical christian religious extremism. We ignored right-wing domestic terrorists and white supremacists. We ignored a malignant right-wing media -- whose lies and distortion have created a separate, alternate reality, tailored for a specific segment of America's population.

Our great national weaknesses have been chronicled and discussed for decades. Then, we had 9/11, and the Forever War; the 2008 financial crisis; an internal struggle in the GOP (won by the Alt-Right); and a loss of focus or purpose by our political Left (ostensibly, the Democratic Party).

In the new Millennium, America became progressively more tribal, split along every fault line you can imagine -- Left vs. Right; Rich vs. Poor; Young vs. Old; Urban vs. Rural; christian vs. non-christian; White vs. Anybody Else; LGTBQ vs. homophobe; Men vs. Women. Into the mix, throw gun ownership, militias, private armies and private intelligence groups, and the daily drumbeat of lies, conspiracies, taunts and threats pouring out of the great echo chamber of the Right.

Never before have the 'deplorables', the Base, felt so empowered, so justified, so ready to take back what they have been told is theirs from a rag-tag crowd of liberals, hippies, immigrants, minorities, and devil-worshiping pagans.

And, I can't shake the feeling that there are too many 'responsible' conservatives who want some final, showdown battle with everything they hate in life, personified by liberals, women, and anyone different from them.

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Sad Vlad's Pal.

Against that background, Trump was almost inevitable -- "I can drain the swamp"; the allegedly rich mogul with the blow-up doll trophy wife; America's Silvio Berlusconi. He is the personification of everything we've collectively ignored, the would-be Clown Emperor. Everything about his presidency is a symptom of the rot at the heart of America, and on constant display -- selfishness, arrogance; narcissism and misogyny; nationalism; religious extremism; racism and sexism.

If you were trying to find a political leader who, if elected, would blow America apart along those developed fault-lines -- someone who would subordinate the needs of a democratic nation-state to feed a bottomless, life-sucking pathological need -- Trump is precisely who you would pick.

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I don't have any great expectations for the impeachment process. The hearings are important, historic. There will be moments everyone will recall with relish or anger. Generations will remember them, as  Watergate is remembered. From a legal perspective,  and for the historical record, they're essential.

Whether a majority of Americans understand this impeachment is about limits of Executive authority is an open question. The GOP will continue to push a conspiracy-fueled, barely coherent defense of Trump, designed to confuse and obfuscate, because that's what liars do.

Another part of that defense is the yet-to-be-released Barr report, which will attack America's intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement, claiming to document a titanic conspiracy by The Deep State to thwart a victorious, glorious Trump presidency. It's a lie, of course; a projection of Trump's distorted interior landscape, tailored by Barr and others to please and curry favor with The Leader -- and on that basis alone, it'll be astounding.

Barr intends people will go to jail because of The Leader's whims; that one cannot act against The Leader, lest they suffer. And Republicans in Congress, the huge megaphone of right-wing media, are eager to dominate any impeachment coverage with a constant smoke screen of lies.

The GOP will not walk away from Trump. He is their chance to roll back generations of Liberal political change, social programs, and legal precedents. That great work, blessed by evangelical pastors, is more important than anything. But they've gone all-in.

Last night on Amanpour & Co., journalists Jeff Greenfield of Politico and Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame were asked about the current impeachment hearings, compared with those 46 years ago. Greenfield noted Americans seemed to be more involved and informed about the issues at stake, during Watergate -- and that they seemed to understand readily how Nixon had abused his office. More of an effort will be needed to 'sell' impeachment to Americans in 2019, Greenfield thought.

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I'm certain the hearings will lead to Articles of Impeachment in the Democratically-controlled House, but (my opinion) they will die in the Senate -- probably after an abbreviated trial; McConnell has already indicated what the result will be. After, there will be protests and civil disobedience (watch carefully how Trump and the government he owns will respond, as a preview of what may happen after the 2020 election).

Then, we'll head to the election. If the Republican attempts to confuse and obfuscate are successful; if the Democrats can't coalesce, and field a strong candidate; if our voting isn't secure against tampering; if voter suppression in key districts is successful... short of an act of god, America could end up with another 1,640 Days Of Trump.

There won't be a second attempt at Impeachment; the majority of Americans will be stunned, dispirited, and "sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science." (Winston Churchill; June, 1940)

I'm also reminded of a quote by lawyer and philosopher, Joseph De Maistre, in 1811: "In a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve."

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Let's put on our tinfoil hats.

Trump wins re-election. That would be enough to trigger mass social unrest. His response could end in a national state of emergency.

Or, before the election -- if his poll numbers indicate he's in serious jeopardy, an "event" might occur serious enough to trigger a state of emergency. The election is disrupted or delayed.

Or, Trump loses, and refuses to concede, saying the results are "fake news". He asks "very good people" to bring their guns and come to Washington DC to "protect your president". The result would look very much like the confusion in a banana, or central African, republic as the government disintegrates.

Another possibility: if Trump loses the 2020 election and is replaced by a Democrat, the current "Cold Civil War" in America could turn hot:  asymmetrical warfare by rightist, white supremacist militias demanding -- something -- would likewise end in a state of emergency, a quasi-guerrilla war, endless paranoia and heightened surveillance.

If these circumstances become dire enough, other actors may step in. The military is one possibility, but more likely is a cabal of 'christians', backed by elements of a private corporate militia, might decide that god has called them to take control of America, end the sin, and bring the nation to His judgement and the path of righteousness. These actors are the best organized, best resourced group to commit treason on the scale necessary to succeed -- and, they believe they answer only to god.

There are scenarios, of course, where the Good Guys win, and America appears to have been 'saved'. Unfortunately, Fox and the rest of the Rightist echo chamber will continue pumping sewage; a Trump loss will make 'The Base' apoplectic, and right-wing violence will increase.

Any Left political leader elected to the Presidency will find it hard to govern in as fractured a nation as America is in the second decade of the 21st century.

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Before you completely laugh off the possibility of a Republic of Gilead option for America's future, please consider these two news items:

1.)  The Ohio State Legislature has passed House Bill 164, the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under this law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically inaccurate, as long as their reasoning is based on their religious beliefs.

If a public school student turns in a class assignment stating the earth is only 10,000 years old, if it's based on their religious belief, the student cannot be given a failing grade for the question.

The Bill also requires:

• Public schools to give students the same access to facilities as provided to secular groups, if they wish to meet for religious expression;
• Removing a provision that allows school districts to limit religious expression to lunch periods or other non-instructional times;
• Allowing students to engage in religious expression before, during and after school hours to the same extent as any student in secular activities or expression;
• Prohibiting schools from restricting a student from engaging in religious expression in homework, artwork or other assignments.

2.)  Former Time and Los Angeles Times journalist Joel Stein appeared on the PBS News Hour on Thursday, November 14, to discuss his new book, "In Defense Of Elitism".

Stein spoke about visiting the town of Miami, Texas, and his observations that Americans there were not uninformed or ignorant, but very determined that their point of view was true and correct:

...They [residents of Miami, Texas] were very white, and they were very christian.... And their anger about what is going on was different from what I thought it would be. And I found out that what they're upset about is, they feel really discriminated against. These are the people that, if you asked, 'are christians discriminated against more than black people', they will say yes. 

...So what they have noticed is that white christians have less power than they did 10, 20, 30 years ago. And they're panicked about that kind of change. ...These people are voting for what they want for the country. I think it's a dangerous vision they have, in my opinion, but it's not ignorant.

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Steak Of The Union

Eat Up And Leave, You Hoser

The Leader Speaks:  Sleep, America.  Sleep.

Tuesday night, The Leader delivered a rambling STFU address, written by committee (as these speeches are), only this one done more so and badly. He was pathetic; the script execrable, and it met the low expectations of nearly the entire national punditi class -- some of whom whom had said that the address would look and sound as if it had been slopped together by a Primary School.

(I'd thought of liveblogging the event [Archives are proof, I've done it before], but it would have been like channeling The Leader's twitfeed; like repeating a giant informercial for America™ Trump Timeshares. Couldn't stomach the notion; so, uh-uh.)

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Everyone heard a Reagan-era speech, built around references to an illusion of America which never was. Old-line Republicans like baseless appeals to patriotism ("Why? Because Freedom!"). Reagan's description of a "shining city on a hill" was outdated when he spoke the words, and is stupefyingly illogical to use any similar metaphor 35 years later.

(Not surprisingly, the "shining city" reference Reagan's speechwriters chose was drawn from a Puritan -- John Winthrop, who lead the Massachusetts Bay colonists from England in 1630. America, and the rest of the planet, continue to suffer the echoes of the Puritans' world view [principally its justification for class stratification, misogyny, and exploitation], as it shaped the cold-blooded and self-justifying behavior of America's hereditary upper class -- and all its institutions, which it does to this day.)

The Leader's speech asked Americans to focus on an illusion that past great deeds equal what we are today. It was a ninety-minute exercise in ignoring every major challenge we're currently facing as a nation or as a species -- but the speech implied that America's worst problems seem to be the political Left, and murderous Brown People From The South.

It was a speech appropriate for the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce in 1919, but not a Joint Session of Congress in Washington D.C., and for the rest of the world, in 2019.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

Ironically, a speech invoking the great deeds of America's past was being delivered by a mediocre, populist grifter -- the sort of person who always seems to show up just as Empires begin to fade. The Leader's hair appeared a darker and more uniform yellow (a few days before it had been almost whitish); otherwise, he appeared the same bloated caricature, a man who personifies every prejudiced, misogynistic and ignorant aspect of our culture. And he claims to speak for all of us.

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The Leader looked and sounded conspicuously unprepared to give a milestone speech -- as if he didn't have to be. He is Trump, The Magnificent, and can Wing It anywhere if he wants; fuck that Gravitas crap.  His delivery was halting, choppy, always changing tempo, as if reading something off the teleprompter for the first time, unsure what was coming next.

His delivery, like his entire presidency to date, was substandard and extemporaneous, painfully embarrassing to watch. The only thing we could be sure of : everything in the speech was written to focus on him. It would all be about him. It's all he knows or understands.

And for once, he'd be right. Just as the mid-terms were partly a referendum on Trump the man and The Leader, this State Of The Union speech would show whether he had listened to the message those midterms delivered. Or, whether he was going to shove his tiny manhood into the collective face of America while screaming fuck youuuuuuu!! As he does so often. 

I suspect The Leader believed this speech would be a Great Political Moment for him -- but as we observed, his Personal Best was the functional equivalent of licking his crotch in public while on international live television (Hey; as a Dog, I know about this).

Additional Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photos In Middle Of Blog Thing 

Think: You Never See The Two Of Them In The Same Room.

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The speech began with I Make A Mock Appeal To Bipartisanship, leading to I Am Responsible For A Wonderful Economy Which Benefits Working Americans Most. Then came My Tax Cut Benefited Working Americans Most; and then But There Is More We Together Must Do.

This was followed by We Could Accomplish More, But For Partisan Investigations.  Then, as we knew it would, came I Will Have A Wall / A Wall  / A Wall Wall Wall -- which tumbled abruptly into his introducing relatives of an elderly couple, apparently killed in Nevada literally days ago by undocumented alien Brown persons. Fear The Caravans! FEAR THEM! More Soldiers To The Border!

Well -- it was obvious we could go here, so we went.

Cynically, I had to ask myself: not to trivialize their loss -- but why would grieving relatives, whose loved ones (so said The Leader) had been killed days before, want to sit in the public gallery of the Capitol on display before international teevee? Is their love for The Leader that great? How do they feel about his Brutal Whiteman Daddy vision of the future? Or, were they chosen as representatives of The Base, to be seen as guest stars in the reality teevee show, Trump's America™ ?

Eventually, the speech wandered into I Say To You We Must End AIDS In America, and too, also We Must End The Scourge Of Child Cancer.  The Leader stumbled with the word "scourge"; but who could argue with either idea? Which was, of course, the point. The Leader is Compassionate. He feels for ordinary faceless peasant Americans like you. Really. No, really.

Finally came A Nod To Evangelicals That Soon, By My Bounty, Shall They Have A Late-Term Abortion Ban, surely the first of many Wonderful Things. And as the room erupted in Republican applause and cheers, TeeVee cameras showed Misters Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, sitting side by side, looking up intently, respectfully, at The Leader.

(That's called "Foreshadowing" -- the hallmark of quality reality teevee entertainment, like the program our planet has been forced to live in).

And sprinkled like raisins through the suet pudding of this event, The Leader directed his audience to Look! Look Up There! It's [A Grieving Family]  [A Sick Child]  [Old Soldier]  [Astronaut]  [Holocaust Survivor]  [Police Man]  [Trophy Wife]!

It went on, and on, and on. And after more and more and more, The Leader finally said Gobblezyou gobblezmurrika G'nite.

G'nite.  You can, of course, sleep on.  I suggest waking up as fast as you can.

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MEHR, MIT SPECIAL BONUS UPDATE:

Holy Mother Of God.  Fortunately, only a car part; but, still: Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck.

It's been almost fifty years since anyone has fired a weapon at me, and while there was context for it at the time ("Since you are here, people will try to fuck with your basic existence"), the fact of guns and that humans use them at all leaves me speechless.  

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That Narrow Way Towards A Precipice

It Can't Happen Here Unless It Already Happened Here

(Graphic Mongo)

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It Can't Happen Here is a 1935 political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis. 

Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a politician who defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt and is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. 

...Windrip is less a Nazi than a con-man-plus-Rotarian, a manipulator who knows how to appeal to people's desperation, but neither he nor his followers are in the grip of the kind of world-transforming ideology like Hitler's National Socialism.

...Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic / totalitarian rule ... Windrip's administration, known as the "Corpo[ate]" government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors... managed by "Corpo" authorities, usually prominent businessmen.

Those accused of crimes against the government appear before kangaroo courts presided over by "military judges". Despite these dictatorial ... measures, a majority of Americans approve of them, seeing them as necessary but painful steps to restore U.S. power... 

The novel's plot centers on [a journalist, Doremus Jessup's] opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion. 

Reviewers at the time... emphasized the connection with Louisiana politician Huey Long, who was preparing to run for president in the 1936 election...  

-- Wikipedia Entry for "It Can't Happen Here"

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America Wants Its Guns And Jesus

Parkland, Florida: 17 Dead

Yet one more mass killing.

I understand what gunfire and injuries caused by weapons mean. In 2012, when twenty children -- 20 children -- were murdered at Sandy Hook, projecting my own experience into a situation involving the deaths of five-year-old children -- five-year-old children -- I thought this, finally, would be the event, the tipping point which would cause us to turn in collective revulsion, and something would be done about gun violence in America.

But it wasn't. And in the six years since, we've had Virginia, and Denver, and Florida (No. 1), and Washington D.C. And San Bernardo. And Texas. And South Carolina. And.

Every time this happens, it becomes Just One More Of Those Things That Happens. And, I've said it before: these incidents always happen Somewhere Else in this big Nation of ours -- until they don't. And Our Corrupt Whores Complicit In Homicides Sainted Politicians do nothing.

Our Bloated, Raving Skunk Sainted Leader says it's about mental illness -- guns don't kill people; it's the crazy nutjobs who do that.  But Our Sainted Leader can shut the fuck up and be damned: as I've said and unfortunately will go on saying, none of these incidents are about Operator Error.

And because I've said it before, here are reprints from 2015, and 2014, and 2012, after (then) yet another mass killing. And another.

And while the massacre in Norway in 2011 didn't occur in the United States, the connection between gun violence and right-wing consciousness is clear -- more of a threat in America than the rest of the 'developed' world.

_________________________

Virginia

I've already had to repost my thoughts about Sandy Hook after yet another rampage by some angry nutjob.  I'm not going to do it every time we see the effects of combining Angry Nutjob with Firearms, or I'd be reposting it every week.  But I will quote myself:

Only in cases like Sandy Hook does our national debate begin and end with, "Guns don't kill people; the people using them do". And that's it -- Pilot Error, essentially, is the public finding; and any other meme is just filler in the media. That, and people repeating, "It doesn't happen every day."

I'm sure that fact is a comfort to the extended families of twenty children, who died because they were shot with high-powered handguns. Twenty children...

What happened in Sandy Hook yesterday has happened before -- in Columbine; in Denver; In Virginia; in a mall in Seattle last week; at a Dairy Queen in the Northwest. There may not be massacres, but annually there are many multiple-victim, firearm homicides in America.

And they will keep happening, until something changes about how firearm ownership and possession is discussed, and regulated, in this country.

The debate is not about Operator Error.  It's not about something that happened "over there" in another city or state. It's about twenty dead children.

 Per Reuters:

Two journalists, reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward of Roanoke CBS affiliate WDBJ7, were shot during a live interview on Wednesday by a disgruntled former station employee who later killed himself. The woman who was being interviewed was wounded and hospitalized.

Parker's father, Andy Parker, urged state and federal lawmakers to take action on gun control, especially to keep firearms out of the hands of people who were mentally unstable... "How many Alisons is this going to happen to before we stop it?"

The United States had about 34,000 firearms deaths in 2013...  with almost two-thirds of them suicides, according to the [CDC]...

The last time there was a push at the federal level for tighter gun control was following the massacre of 26 people, mostly children, at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012... [the legislation] was rejected in April 2013 by the U.S. Senate, including by some lawmakers in [the] Democratic Party.

________________________________

Norway

I want to say this, right up front: In the United States, domestic terrorism is in fact committed by those on the Right. Period.

Don't agree? How many dirty hippie leftists plotted to destroy the Federal Building in Oklahoma City? How many bombs have been set off by "left-wing extremists"? How many family planning clinic doctors and nurses have been stalked and murdered by Buddhists? Or Progressives? Come on; how many?

How many organized groups of dirty hippies (some with illegal heavy weapons) publicly hail Marx and Lenin and claim they are "at war" with an illegal, 'occupation' government? How many churches, and alleged 'pastors', preach messages of exclusion, intolerance and hate towards Evangelicals? How many radio stations in America spew out a never-ending stream of hatred and bile towards conservatives, caucasians, and christians?

How many? How many?

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Sandy Hook

 (Photo: AP, via The New York Times)

There are no real words for what happened in Connecticut, yesterday. There is plenty to say about how it happened.

I overheard someone at work (a classic gun nut owner who believes Negros persons of color will overrun his part of the planet) observing that "this [presumably, massacres committed by unstable individuals with firearms] is the new normal".

On PBS' The News Hour, a professional psychologist asked to comment said (and I'm paraphrasing) that "It's important to say... this kind of tragedy doesn't happen every day... that schools really are safe places."

I reject the first comment. The second remark made me think: This fellow doesn't go to many Inner City schools, then -- massacres with 27 dead don't happen every day, that's true; but there are shooting incidents, and kids packing, and metal detectors, and education occurring against a solid backdrop of poverty and violence, every day.

The psychologist on News Hour was, I thought, trying to suggest themes parents might pass on to reassure their children (Don't worry, Timmy; It Can't Happen Here) -- that planes can crash, but the odds of going down in one, or having one crash on top of you, are hugely in your favor. And largely, that is true.

But planes do crash. Ships sink. Trains collide and buses plunge. Whenever that does happen, there are NTSB investigations, reconstructions and root-cause analyses. There are discussions with engineers and manufacturers about what to do to lessen the chances such a tragedy doesn't happen again.

Only in cases like Sandy Hook does our national debate begin and end with, "Guns don't kill people; the people using them do". And that's it -- Pilot Error, essentially, is the public finding; and any other meme is just filler in the media. That, and people repeating, "It doesn't happen every day."

I'm sure that fact is a comfort to the extended families of twenty children, who died because they were shot with high-powered handguns. Twenty children.

I've owned firearms; at various times because I was required to carry them, but afterwards had no sane reason to keep them. I don't want them in my home.

We live in a world of high anxiety, and there are persons who want to exploit those feelings of danger, threat, and imminent disaster:  Gun manufacturers, and their lobby, the NRA, are at the top of the list.  Mike Huckabee and the rest of his fellow Xtian evangelical ilk; there are 2012 World-Enders, predicting massive earthquakes and crustal displacement and 'coastal events', and ultimately few survivors.

There are White Power fascists, and Survivalists, and the people who manufacture and sell them freeze-dried food and plans for bunkers to shield against the EMP bursts from North Korean-launched warheads, detonating high above the USA.

What happened in Sandy Hook yesterday has happened before -- in Columbine, in Denver; In Virginia; in a mall in Seattle last week; at a Dairy Queen in the Northwest. There may not be massacres, but annually there are many multiple-victim, firearm homicides in America.

And they will keep happening, until something changes about how firearm ownership and possession is discussed, and regulated, in this country.

The debate is not about Operator Error.  It's not about something that happened "over there" in another city or state. It's about twenty dead children.

Along those lines are two, other very pertinent observations -- one, a part of the discussion at TPM Prime:

Memekiller:  ...for me, it's all about the NRA. I'm anti-NRA, not guns, and am offended by the strangle-hold they have over our politics. And I'm angry that Democrats have ceded the issue, only to have the NRA, if anything, put twice as much effort into unseating Democrats and Obama who, if anything, loosened rules on guns ...

... And the gun culture the NRA fosters... Would the prevalence of guns be as frightening without the culture of paranoia and conspiracies they perpetuate? It's not just about freedom to own a gun. The NRA culture is a cult of xenophobia and insanity. They don't seem to be aiming their message at responsible gun owners so much as the disgruntled and those prone to paranoia. They are less about developing an advocacy group than they are about assembling a well-armed militia of the mentally unstable.  

And the other, at The Great Curmudgeon :

Broken

Our discourse, that is. Fortunately, we have DDay trying to repair it.

Just to pick at random, here are a couple headlines at the Hartford Courant site just from the past 24 hours: Woman Shot, Man Dead After Standoff In Rocky Hill. Armed Robbery At Hartford Bank, Two In Custody.It’s not that school shootings like this are abnormal. They are depressingly normal. The fact that there were no shootings in one day in New York City recently was seen as a major achievement, which shows you how desensitized we have become to gun violence as a normal occurrence of daily life.Just a reminder. The NRA is an industry lobby for the gun industry. The industry that makes consumer products largely designed to kill people.  Not deer. Not rabbits.

People.   

by Jay Ackroyd (@jayackroyd)

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Random Barking: Boomba Boomba, With Skunk

Sit Up; Roll Over; Rig The Stock Market

Obligatory A.I. Advertisement Parody In Blog Thing

As is said over at The Soul Of America, I tell you three times: We are being reprogrammed.

Looking at Jeff Bezos' WaPo last week, it's clear to Wall Street traders that a good amount of recent market volatility is exacerbated by 'automatic trading', performed by algorithm-driven software, a rudimentary form of artificial intelligence.

Then, opening the online Paper Of Record, I saw a banner ad by The Zuckerberg Company (let's call it "ZuckCo") showing a photo of a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, wearing a Lion costume -- what the fuck? -- beside the legend, "An Explanation Of A.I., Featuring Dogs".

The ad shows an Artificial Intelligence (let's call it "Jeffy"), which can identify a photograph of a Dog based on visual Pooch characteristics. Now, show Jeffy a picture of a Lion; can it tell the difference? It can! So smart, that Jeffy.

Then, show Jeffy a photo of a Dog, wearing a fake Lion's mane; how about now? Whoops. Jeffy fucks up, and Has A Sad.

"Puppy Or Muffin?" Actual A.I. Test. Can It Tell The Difference?

(Karen Zack / Hahvad Business Review, July 2017)

Then Jeffy gets mad. It cuts all power from the North American Electrical Grid, causing mass higgeldy-piggeldy and forcing scores of nuclear reactors to malfunction, turning the continent into a radioactive wasteland where there's lots of Whoa Jeezus going on, and where the living envy the dead (Kind of like Nebraska, as we now know it).

Jeffy allows one electrical connection to remain -- powering the Public Address system at the (abandoned) Missoula, Montana International Airport (swear to god; they call it that), which will play a recording of Justin Timberlake singing "Purple Rain" over and over, until the end of time (Exactly like Nebraska, but without Missy Sarah Huckiebee).

But whatever media house is doing ZuckCo's ads, they're attempting to trick your Slave Brain into associating "A.I." with ideas most of us hold about Dogs: Cute. Loyal. Occasionally Goes To The Bathroom Indoors. And, Lions: Proud, regal; don't even think of fucking with me.

They're using cute Pooches to sell something potentially dangerous. Sehr ganz typisch for something like ZuckCo; but I tend to come down on the 'potential hazard' side of the A.I. argument, so if we're going to compare Artificial Intelligence with anything, they should be using an unexploded bomb. A perfect metaphor for a potential future. Or for Nebraska.

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Oh, and Our Sainted Leader is a bloated, raving skunk.

2019 Tax Plan: Changes Over 6 Years Where Tax Burden Falls  (NYT)
Clicky = Bigger! Easy And Fun!
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The Manner Of Our Living

Thorns On Roses

The point has been made that the election in Alabama is more an American cultural metaphor than a political contest. It's one reason why the state's Governor and its GOP leadership can say they support Roy Moore, no matter what -- and why that feels both unbelievable and make perfect sense.

For the alt-Right (e.g., Bannon and Breitbart, and the Bundist billionaires who bankroll them), supporting Roy Moore is 'revolutionary'; an in-your-face attack on the old-line GOP.  They support neo-nazis and white nationalists for the same reasons (and because they are racist, fascist scum). So does our bloated, piggish Leader.

But it's worse than that. It's an assault on perceived common values, on what is considered permissible by social contract. It's a formula well-known in fascist societies: The 'revolutionary' Bundists breach social boundaries, forcing a culture to accept something which restricts human rights, or is repressive, as acceptable conduct.

"We believe in god, the Constitution, the Sanctity of Life and the Sanctity of Marriage," Moore tweeted. "We are everything the Washington Elite hate. They will do whatever it takes to stop us. We will not quit."

The persons defending and supporting Roy Moore, on one level or another, understand this 'revolutionary' aspect of their actions. As perceived victims of a vast liberal conspiracy, they see a vote for Moore as support for their entire world-view: it's okay that ol' Roy did what he did. It don't matter what he made those girls / women feel, or feel like. We got ways of doin' things where we live and you best just keep your nose out of it. 

Do you understand that when we get in that votin' booth, and pull that lever for ol' Roy -- we're doin' it to spite you godless Northern liberal sons o' bitches? Roy is already pissin' in your faces. That's why we like Trump and Fox and Rush, 'cause they piss on you, too. So we're gonna stand with him.

And we're sendin' you a message, and it's this: We hate you. We're gonna take all your godless one-world, immigrant- and black- and muslim-lovin', faggot-feminist bulllshit an' make you eat it. And we'll vote for a child molester and put him in the U.S. Senate, just so you hear us loud 'n clear. 

And, what you gonna do 'bout that? Ain't nothin' you can do. Fuck you, boy. 

This reminded me of a passage in the film, Mississippi Burning (1988), where the Southern FBI agent, played by Gene Hackman, tries to tell the Northern-Intellectual-Liberal FBI agent, played by Willem Dafoe, how things are below the Mason-Dixon: 

You know, when I was a little boy -- there was an old Negro farmer, lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was... Well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town.

My daddy hated that mule. His friends kidded him that they saw Monroe ploughin' with his new mule... and Monroe was gonna rent another field now that he had a mule. And one morning, that mule just showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there was never any mention about that mule around my daddy.

One time we were drivin' past Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He'd just packed up and left, I guess -- gone up North, or somethin'.  I looked over at my daddy's face ... and I knew he'd done it. And he saw that I knew.

He was ashamed; I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and he said, 'Son -- if you ain't better than a nigger, who are you better than?' [He was] so full of hate ... that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killin' him.

_____________________________

These persons are a minority, in raw numbers, but collectively they're dangerous to themselves and others. And, their idols either run the government or influence the society -- and for all its connections with centers of power, the establishment media didn't spend thirty years saying there are no facts -- only alternate, competing systems of belief fighting with each other for dominance.

That image is so beloved of fascist ideologies: the future is for the strong. Because Democracy is weak, compared with Randian, capitalist alt-Right nationalism. It's the alt-Right's intent to break American democratic culture, dominate it and rebuild it in their image; but I'm not sure people like Bannon truly understand where their actions will really lead. People like Moore assuredly don't.

They understand what they're doing in the short-term feeds their egos. It brings them degrees of personal power and wealth. But their actions are based on a long-term belief that they can control the future. The problem with extreme political systems is a belief in magical thinking -- that things can be willed into being if you are simply strong enough.

The fascination, the Great Game, is being able to influence the world at the level of an entire society. They see themselves and their "struggle" in larger-than-life, romanticized terms, as if this will all end in a lavish, eight-hour HBO mini-series. They crush their enemies and are vindicated by history, with a thrilling soundtrack, in the last ten minutes before commercials -- portrayed by handsome Hollywood actors as wise, human and good, worthy not only of veneration but love.

___________________________________

It seems supporters and defenders of Moore would be happy to re-fight the Civil War; the alt-Right has spent decades building the idea of a 'culture war' in America without bothering to mention that war means violence and death and surrender or submission.

It isn't just that die-hard, Red State Americans don't like the rest of the country's centrist or liberal opinions on politics -- they don't like the people who have those opinions. They don't like the people. And that makes it easy to move from passively absorbing decades of corrosive Murdoch propaganda, to marching in the streets, ready to hurt their perceived enemies, or worse.

About Alabama, the feeling that keeps returning is that it's one more violation of our collective social contract, as Americans; and that the alt-Right is looking for its Fort Sumter moment -- possibly another Charolettesville, one where armed alt-Rightists 'stand up to' the central government and, instead of an Abraham Lincoln, a president sympathetic to their cause stands that government down and directs former Klanster Jeff Sessions to blunt the force of the Justice Department.

We could see a vindication of human nature next month. I wouldn't bet heavily on it, but it's possible. That Moore has a chance of being elected, by people filled with sickness and Bad JuJu -- to the degree that they don't know what's killing them -- should frighten us all.

_____________________________________

Our Nada Which Art In Nada

Bark Bark Bark Bark

Tourist Snaps Photo At More-A-Lego, Florida; February 2017 (Reuters)

I could be wrong; I am, after all, only a Dog -- but my country is in a state of forever war, part of a world run by corporate business and finance, to benefit a relatively small number of persons. This is all happening against a (mostly unacknowledged) backdrop of existential unknowing: Most of us don't claim to understand what, or why, the world is, or why we are. All we do know is, we will die, and then something else will happen. Or, you know -- not.  No one knows. And we're scared.

In the teeth of that fierce unknowing, we're shown messages in film, on small screens, in advertisements, that the highest aspiration of humanity should be to acquire things, and the finest exemplars of humankind are our corporate or finance leaders. The shiny message: Don't Be A Loser. Get More Than Others, and Be Prepared To Fight For Limited Resources. Your children should want to be an entrepreneur; to become a Daimon, a Bezos, a Musk, a Branson. A Trump. And an Owner. When you have so much -- only then can you "Win".

And -- Dude! -- for the lucky ones, it will only get so much better with the next round of technology breaking out. There will be so much opportunity for those with technology skills, and who are young. And being able to afford the cool toys that will be coming. And you'll be able to afford the three-thousand-dollar-a-month studio apartments, the leased driverless cars, the newest i-somethings, and vacations, and you won't need much healthcare. And the stock market will go up forever. Because freedom.

For those lucky ones, the world will continue a wonderful forever place, filled with parties and treats, and trips to the gym to buff up and hook up. And it will all look and feel just like college. And as long as there's Netflix and voice-activated everything, with Uber everywhere, we Par-tay!

 Obigatory Huge Moose Photo In Middle Of Blog Thing

S'all good, man. Chill out. Have a beer. It's almost time for the Big Game -- because there's always a Big Game. It'll be fun. Forever. The climate is broken but, hey man; we can't fix it -- we have to live for Today, Dude. And those people in those other countries we see on our smartphones? Heart-breaking, man. We're pretty much fucked. Thanks, Useless Boomers -- you screwed us!

So, under the circumstances, who cares if you're being monitized, tracked, lied to and led?  Or if your role is just to buy things and funnel money up to the Owners? Can't do anything about stuff we can't do anything about, man.  Have another beer. It's Game Time!

_____________________________

Dear Leader can fire Mueller when he gets too close -- and Nothing will happen. Too many people seem to be frozen, waiting, hoping for that one thing, the last straw, a final red line which, when crossed, will mean the end of Trump -- as if getting rid of him will magically change everything.

But that won't happen. The alt-Right and the Old-GOP Republicans are locked together in a furious civil war. Neither side can give the other an inch -- each wants to seize control of the GOP just when it has control of all branches of government.

And no matter what new outrages Trump may commit (as I've said, he could have sex with goats on live television and Nothing Will Happen), both sides need him. To abandon or even impeach him would mean publicly discrediting American conservatism and jeopardizing the Right's control of the government. Neither the alt-Right or Old GOP are willing to risk that.

Trump is what he is. Because he only cares about being shown slavish loyalty from moment to moment, the greasy alt-Right opportunists can stroke and cajole him, or kiss Jared and Ivanka's behinds to win his favor.

They need Trump as their entry ticket to Government, to legitimacy, in the same way that The Duce needed King Vittorio Emanuel II, and the Brownshirts needed President Hindenburg.

The Old GOP -- the Paulie Ryans and Yertle The Turtles -- live in fear of Trump's Tweeting, his viciousness and unpredictability, because they want to outmaneuver the Stevie Bannons and the Mercers, and hold on to their old power...  so, Trump can do as he likes. 

When Trump fires the Special Prosecutor -- or issues blanket pardons to his family and friends (an equally likely scenario), beyond a strongly-worded Op-Ed piece in the Paper of Record, a few days of marches and some minimal civil disobedience, Nothing Will Happen.

Think about what Trump has said and done since January 20th. Every day, people have said to each other Can you believe he did this? A President can't do that. He can't do that!  But Oh Yes. He Can.  And, just when you thought his behavior couldn't be any more incredible, he doubles down. Where do you believe that will stop?  Or better yet -- what makes you think he is a rational person, a healthy person, and believes he has any limits to what he can do?

Today, filmed before a meeting with Congressional Republicans began, Trump obviously looked down at notes as a guide when making comments about ending the so-called 'diversity lottery' of visas to the U.S.  Then, a reporter asked whether the self-professed IS terrorist who attacked pedestrians in lower Manhattan should be sent to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Again, I'm only a Dog -- but when not reading from his notes, Trump behaved as others have observed before -- forcefully repeating simple phrases, appearing to have difficulty focusing or concentrating, his voice labored and slurred, as if he were drugged or otherwise impaired -- again, something other observers have noted. And still nothing happens.

Appearing on The Little Rupert Network today, Mike Pence, the possible heir apparent, said gleefully, "I tell you; there's very little resemblance between [the Trump White House] and the previous administration!"

_____________________________

There's A Star Man / Waiting In The Sky:  SETI Recommends Not Landing Here

This is how fascism works. The Leader is the focus of praise and rage, the center of all things; the Anus Mundi.  Whatever he does is right, correct, and explainable; and every new outrage results in -- Nothing.

The collective behavior of Our Leader, which would provoke mass demonstrations and even riots in other parts of the world, results in -- Nothing. Each new proclamation or law or restriction by Trump, and as alt-Right crazies dismantle regulations protecting Americans and our environment, passes without any real response from the majority of Americans. They still can't fully accept, even after nearly ten months, that this is happening.

And, these changes will continue to come, each day, incrementally -- until we will find ourselves standing at the edge of another red line which we know we can cross only at our mortal peril. To Do Nothing, then, will not be a choice we can make. Inaction, acceptance; even full-throated support of The Leader will be required. Because Freedom.

And doing Something, then, may not even be an option.

_______________________________

MEHR, MIT MILITÄRISMUS:  Well, it may be too late already.  Have a gander, and please be sure to read the comments. Be advised: if it's a consideration, Moon is an equal-opportunity call 'em like they see 'em space and the political perceptions of some commenters may not be your own. 

_______________________________

[Peter] Schwartz submits that government incompetence might not be enough to trigger America's implosion. After all, we could always just vote out the bozos who let us down. What we need to destroy the country, he argues, is Zimbabwe-sized corruption: a succession of executives who pilfer the national treasury and refuse to hold free elections. In that case, the country could fall apart as our national creeds of freedom, democracy, and openness are gradually abandoned.

-- Josh Levin, "How Is America Going To End?"; Slate, August 2009

_______________________________

Instructions Pour Populations Dans La Zone Occupée

Random Barking

Now is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
--  Winston Churchill, November 1942

Hey-- I know you, man; you're famous.
-- Tom Petty (1950 - 2017) Cameo Appearance; 'The Postman', 1997

(I began this post before the most recent mass shooting episode [link via Digby], and though much of its focus is on our Dear Leader, what follows should also be read with recent events in mind. And the Tom Petty quote, because another Mensch, et al.; and as is said at the Soul Of America, the Fuck, Man?)

______________________________

Obligatory Tubby Animal Photo At Beginning Of Blog Thing

It's hard going in These Days. The quote from Churchill is occasionally used to sound a positive note in the midst of a struggle -- a way of saying, as Gandhi did, that the upward progress of Humankind continues. That Truth will triumph and Justice, eventually, will be done.

I have conversations about The State Of Things. One thing I hear continually repeated is, This Can't Continue. Some think a Deep State will remove Trump. Or Robert Mueller and 'The Russia Thing' will uncover enough to force him from office. And, it's always possible that [mention of extremely bad thing redacted].

But it isn't even about this bloated peacock of a man; he's just a symptom, it's deeper than that. Our politics are an illusion of choice. Everyone I talk with at some point will shake their heads: the America we see isn't sustainable and has not been for some time now. Surely this can't go on.

But what if it can? What if, like the citizens of occupied Europe seventy-seven years ago, we come awake to the sounds of loudspeakers, broadcasting instructions of the new authorities? That like the Danes, Belgians, Norwegians, the Dutch and the French, we're at the beginning of over fifteen hundred days of being at the mercy of persons who are simple as children in their greed, and a desire that all America satisfy their every whim?

YOSSARIAN: We're never gonna see those replacements. We're never gonna see those coconuts. They're just gonna keep making us fly until we're all dead.
DOBBS:  Aw; Cathcart wouldn't dare raise the number of missions again!
YOSSARIAN: Who's gonna stop him?
DOBBS: [Pauses] Somebody will.

-- Alan Arkin (Yossarian) and Martin Sheen (Dobbs) / Catch-22 (1970)

______________________________

The executive branch of the American government is bent to the ego and whimsy of a seventy-year-old child. All that occasionally blunts his narcissistic tantrums are three former U.S. Generals (until he decides to fire them). Their influence is limited by Trump's character, but it's worth noting that their military perspective will be a serious factor in how the Executive functions: When every problem they see is a nail, the only solution they'll offer is a hammer. 

As Trump has done things since January 20th, journalists and commentators have reacted with expressions of social opprobrium -- the nerve; the unspeakable rudeness! A President can't do that! --  as if collective social disapproval will force Trump to behave differently, even leave office.

Additional Obligatory Tubby Animal Photo

I've joked that Trump could have sex with a goat on live television, and no one would be surprised: nothing would happen. Now, I actually wonder if that might be true.

Trump and the creatures which slouched into government behind him are dismantling the political structure of the United States in ways the Right has dreamed of doing for generations. Pundits report it; neutral analysts detail their budgeting plans for education, healthcare, taxation, human rights. All are disastrous, everyone can see it coming -- and nothing happens.

Read Charles Blow's outrage at Trump's racism. Read Paul Krugman's outrage at Trump's fiscal incoherence. Read the reports in Jeff Bezos' Washington Post about mendacity and malfeasance in Trump's cabinet, and about Robert Mueller's investigations. There have been a tidal surge of reports, invective, observations and opinion about him since the inauguration. His popularity is the worst of any president in America's history -- and still, nothing happens.

But what if all the outrage no longer matters? After just eight months, the country appears to be getting used to the idea of Trump; what if he's the 'new normal'? The collective disapproval of the majority of America's adult population doesn't appear to matter.

I read or hear news commentary about Trump that now seems to carry an almost an apologetic note, as if saying Ah; whadya gonna do, huh? Even with the sheer volume of evidence showing Trump a witless sociopath, unfit to hold office, having no empathy for others, even when Puerto Rico almost literally writhes at his feet -- nothing happens.

Some people say, Just wait until the midterms -- but in key states, nearly twenty years of gerrymandering (Karl Rove's blueprint for a Forever GOP majority) has ensured that even if we had a third party in the country, nothing will happen.

No matter how many rallies Bernie holds to push single-payer healthcare, how many interviews Hillary gives, no matter how much gets said about changing the demographics of America's allegedly Left party -- it's plain the Republicans and Democrats are whores of the Rich. 'Bipartisan cooperation' is just a code for maintenance of the status quo, in service to Our Owners.

It's true that the worst Democratic politician doesn't sink to the level of the worst Republican, but their whoring is no less true. It's the reason the Democrats can't effectively combat fascism -- they are morally impotent because their core values have already been compromised. There is no organized, viable political alternative to the Racist, -phobic, lovin'-our-guns Nationalism of the American Right, or the Neoliberal Globalism of what passes for the American Left.

Unless (and perhaps, even if) future events take a different turn, the collective American Right will continue to throw their feces into our faces and revel in our sputtering responses. Trump will remain The Leader; the outrages will continue, and the dismantling of society. And, with the assistance of Democrats, our politics will continue to reflect an engineered inequality, the obvious rule of Wealth.

Borrowing an image from Orwell -- imagine a $38,000 pair of A.Testoni monk-strap loafers, stomping on a human face, forever.

______________________________

But, things are happening -- all on the political right. The apotheosis of Trump is occurring against a backdrop of what amounts to two groups of Klansmen, fighting over who gets to paint a huge Starz-n-Barz flag on the White House.

The Left and Center of our politics don't control any branch of government. Because they're in the minority, they seem even more fragmented than the Right, which is saying something -- because America's government is dominated by a GOP in the middle of a civil war between old-school Crazy Right, and the Crazier Alt-Right. 

The old-school Right wants privatization of everything, including education; an end to 'coddling of welfare queens'; an end to regulation of business and the financial markets; larger Pentagon budgets (a bigger stick, because China); more Austerity for everyone (except the Fabled Rich), and more of the Surveillance State. It's a Chamber Of Commerce, Country-Club America.

The Crazier Alt-Right wants all that, too -- but they want a Breitbart America, where you can't tell fact from fiction. The Alt-Right wants Muslims to leave, and all other non-white people will only be seen occasionally (in a hotel corridor, or a vegetable field) and not heard. Get uppity with the Po-lice and see what happens. Women? Well of course they will be "seen", but they'd better submit to Men in all ways, as the bible teaches. There will be no gay people, ever, anywhere; get in the right bathroom and get right with god. Remember so-called 'rights' can be changed by friendly Justices.  And, the Alt-Right must have Guns, and their Jesus. More Jesus. And more Guns. Amen.

 Perfect Teeth: All The Better To Chew You Up With

Actually, the Crazier Alt-Right is what the Kochbrudern, and other aging, Bundist billionaires, want. The old-school GOP was not conservative enough, not responsive to The Bundist's desires (and you piss off Oligarchs like them at your peril), so the Oligarchs paid to create the Tea Party, fund the Alternate Right, and conduct a hostile takeover of the Republican party and American conservatism. Expect to see more right-wing politicians of the stripe of Texas' Ted Cruz or Alabama's Roy Moore at an election near you.

They've paid billions into this effort since the early 2000's, and people with teeth that perfect want a return on their investment: setting fire to the GOP, replacing it with Bannon and Breitbart and the Tea Partei or all manner of smoke and mirrors. This isn't about Trump, some rust-belt 'forgotten Americans', or any Americans; The Brothers don't care about you. This is all about the Great Game -- manipulating an entire nation's politics, just because they can. Because they wish it.

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MEHR: This Just In:

After seeing yet another deranged gorilla just burst into a public place and start killing people, I decided I need to make sure something like that never happens to me... It just gives me peace of mind knowing that if I’m ever in that situation, I won’t have to just watch helplessly as my torso is ripped in half and my face is chewed off. I’ll be able to use my gorilla to defend myself. Law enforcement and animal control can only get there so quickly, and you never know when you’ll need to use a gorilla to save your life.
--  "Gorilla Sales Skyrocket After Latest Gorilla Attack", The Onion, 1/10/13

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MEHR, Mit Blutwurst:  Just go here and give this your attention. It's easy and fun! 

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