This Is Your Boat Deck Wednesday Update For 2nd Class Passengers

A Barking Rant 

God's Away On Business

Using BandAids On Brain Cancer

Prosecutions for the January 6th attempt to derail Congressional certification of the  Presidential vote are dissolving into surrealistic theatre. The investigation, involving so many Federal resources, was intense and focused -- it matched the seriousness of the event. But any investigator knows a case they've built can be chopped up, watered down, even ignored by the prosecuting authority in their jurisdiction.

Charges have been brought by the DOJ against 605 rioters. The lead felony offense in the Federal indictments -- the most serious violation against each of them -- is "obstruction of an official proceeding"; attorneys for the defendants argued back that the joint session of Congress to certify electors' votes is a ceremonial, not an official, session, and the charge should be dismissed.

What constitutes an official Congressional proceeding; its never needed to be defined. One Federal judge in Washington was frustrated enough to comment that the DOJ's charge was so constitutionally vague that it could easily be overturned on appeal.

But there seems to be no rush to bring justice. Some defendants on bail are being allowed to vacation, attend weddings, or go backpacking out of the country; it's all quite leisurely. And while estimates of damage repair costs to the U.S. Capitol are over $1.4 million -- the total of monetary fines levied against the 605 defendants for that damage is... $2,000. 

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Cosplay Conspiracy Is Too A Crime

More serious, the DOJ is not pursuing actual conspiracy charges against any defendants. The FBI claims no such information has been discovered, but an independent review of social media posts in the weeks leading up to the insurrection show clear planning and coordination -- tactics, and objectives. 

Review of cellphone videos and social media traffic show at least two groups of insurrectionists appeared at the Capitol in full tactical dress and appeared to follow military-style movement discipline. At least two of them carried zip-ties inside the Senate chamber. 

Lt. Col. (Ret) Larry Brock, USAF, (At Left), and unnamed Cletus in Senate Chamber

Then there are the recent revelations about the attempt by Trump and his allies to entice then-acting Attorney General Rosen to support The Leader's false narrative of a stolen election through a letter from the DOJ claiming irregularities in swing state voting. 

Trump told Rosen in a December 27th phone call that all he had to do was agree to the DOJ letter -- "Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen", according to contemporaneous notes taken by acting deputy AG Richard Donoghue. 

Meetings between Trump and his allies and toadies were held at the White House in December and January. Trump (and others) made phone calls to election officials in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, trying to find weak links who would support The Lie. Trump inserted loyalists into key intelligence and Defense Department positions; the Joint Chiefs of Staff planned to resign if he ordered the Armed Forces to enforce martial law. Then came January 6th.

(Photo: Mother Jones)

You could ask whether there was an attempted coup in the United States; it's a matter capable of question, but no one wants to ask it. As with prosecution of the insurrectionists who breached the Capitol -- the Justice Department and Attorney General Garland seem tired, uninterested in pursuing Trump or his toadies for conspiracy. Biden said recently that pursuing Trump is a "bad idea". 

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One might be forgiven for thinking that our Justice system just doesn't care. The message our government seems to be sending is attempt a takeover; pay no penalty. That there is no political will in the government to step down hard on any attempt to subvert the Constitution -- and to appoint a fat, lying, narcissistic con artist as President For Life of the United States of America. 

It's almost as if they were signaling to the Owners who financed the coup attempt (Koch, Mercers, Murdochs; others), and their hired front men -- Trump, Stevie Bannon; screeching evangelical preachers; and the Red-Hat Orcs -- telling them: try again. 

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Meanwhile, the usual suspects in Congress seem determined to push every situation as close to the edge as possible -- keeping the level of viciousness and blood-feud outrage high among the Faithful Red-Hat Cletuses. 

There's a drumbeat, too, on Murdoch media; Tucker Carlson travelled to Hungary, then aired on Fox his extended infomercial gushing with praise for its authoritarian, proto-fascist government, and its Leader, Viktor Orban. It was a love letter to Lil' Viktor, and a message to Americans that -- with a Strong Daddy and United [White] People -- a fascist form of government can be good, for loyal white people. Such a pretty, orderly country under Orban, the Strong Daddy -- as Trump was, and will be again.

Little Tooker Hearts the Strong Daddy, the Good Daddy; the Fuhrer

Little Tucker, like the Congressional Rethugs, want to keep the level of hatred and calls for Action! high -- all for Der Tag, when the call goes forth, and the loyal [white] people will Own The Libs once and for all. Scores will be settled and the strong shall rule; non-white people will disappear again, and all will Love The Leader, or else. 

And the Red Hats continue to lap up the vomit NewsCorp and the Murdochs provide; a fantasy of victimization and marginalization -- and now, they've twisted their politics around the axle of the Covid wagon: Mask mandates, vaccinations, are infringements on personal freedom and cannot be allowed. Marjie Green, Rand Paul, Teddy Cruz, Loren Boebert and others screech and preen and strut in front of the cameras, decrying this vast conspiracy against freedom-loving Americans.

And tens of thousands of bikers crowd into Sturgis, South Dakota, for their annual festival -- cheered on by the state's governor, who wants to be the next Trump. Last years' event was cheered on by her, too. 500,000 people showed up. It was later proven to be a Superspreader event for Covid; this year will be no different -- given the Delta variant, it will be worse.

...and the Delta variant roars across the country. For someone who actually trusts science, scientists, and professionals to provide the best data possible, watching people on the Right equating vaccination with slavery or the Holocaust is unbelievable. There is almost no way to describe it, except as metaphorically a descent into schizophrenia, psychosis.

I'm an end product of the Enlightenment -- and people behaving like superstitious peasants, refusing to listen to anyone but Murdoch media 'personalities', or gibbering Sky God preachers, about, well, anything... I find it hard to believe it's happening. America hasn't had a long spasm of irrational nationalism since 1917 or 1942 -- but this is different. 

40% of our adult population claims that science and fact are lies. That bleach and faith in Jesus are prophylactic miracles, or a cure, for Covid. That simple, common-sense public health measures (masking and social distancing) are part of a sinister plot organized by a One-World cabal of pedophiles to steal the election from Trump and his loving supporters, to control Americans and remove their freedom. 

All the verbiage aside -- I'm speechless in the face of this level of malicious, willful ignorance. I don't know how the Cletuses can do it -- particularly when The Truth is staring them in the face: The largest number of new Covid infections consists of unvaccinated individuals. States with the highest percentage of Maga-ites, or Trumpist Rethugs, also have the highest new case numbers in America. This is what happens.

Surge bedding outside a Texas hospital, to accommodate high numbers of Covid patients 

The governors of two states hit exceptionally hard -- Abbott in Texas and DeSantis in Florida --  have signed orders banning any mandates by school districts, or businesses to wear masks or to be vaccinated. DeSantis threatened that school districts which violate the order will have salaries or state funding frozen.

As unbelievable as that seems -- at the same time, DeSantis and Abbott are asking for help from other states to deal with the rising number of the sick who need hospitalization, as medical facilities in each state are overflowing with Covid victims; as in the Fall of 2020, ICU nurses are posting videos describing how bad this is. And it is bad.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released it's 2021 report on the state of  deterioration of the earth's living species, weather, soil, water and temperature. No surprise: it's bad. 

But this report -- unlike the others released by the IPCC since 1988 -- says unequivocally that their report is "a code red for humanity". It's effectively too late to prevent a rise in average world temperatures by 1.5 Centigrade, and as a result there will be a rising number of "extreme weather events", wildfires, disease. 

Evacuees watch from a ferry as wildfires consume the Greek island of Evia

The best humanity can do to mitigate the effects already put in motion is to completely change the course of the major streams of the global economy towards that end. It is all or nothing -- unless world governments do what they've always done and allow themselves to be bought cheaply by the fossil fuel, mining, aerospace, timber, and farming megacorps. Then I guess we're well and truly fucked.

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But on the bright side -- hey, we have Our Owners, the Oligarchs, at play! Richard Branson got into space -- well, kind of -- ahead of Jeffy Bezos; yay! But meanwhile, Elon got the coveted contract with the U.S. government! Which means a Virgin made it above the Amazon, but both were sprayed with Musk.

Jeffy didn't like that. He filed papers and said it was unfair and he would just give more money to NASA and he would too just give the government a real price reduction (which would be recouped with interest in Jeffy's pricing structure; it looked good to say we'll charge less right now!). But the government said Jeffy was a silly and ha ha ha no. Jeffy cried, and took away things from the subcreatures in his labor camps to make himself feel better. And lots of people bought stuff and made him more money too. Yay!

Our Oligarch Owners caper and play, and someday will all go away -- to the emerald Isle of New Zealand, to escape all the Bad Things. We, of course, will not -- proof positive that god favors Jeffy and Elon and Marky and Richard and all His Billionaires. Because otherwise they'd have to bake and die with the Little People Worker Bees! 

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Please go to the Boat Deck for a Second-Class sing-along with the ship's orchestra! There will be a free, small soda for those of you who remembered to keep your coupons. After, we will assist the First Class passengers into their boats and wish them a hearty Bon Voyage! and wave to them, until.

Meanwhile, don't cry, or make a scene. That will just spoil the party for everyone else; look at how brave they are. And remember, that small soda is a privilege. They can take it away any time they want.

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MEHR, MIT EIN SPOTTSBILLIG KLEINER SODA:  Here, courtesy of The Soul Of America, an essay on the balance between the sinkhole of facts we observe, and the sticky commodity of faith in a future.

We must always act from a sincere love of our fellows, but never give in to maudlin sentimentality or (worse) facile irrationalism. In theory, so long as one avoids silly ideological tropes, it is not so difficult to keep the two apart. But on a day to day level it can seem very difficult indeed. Especially when one is faced with nigh-inevitable catastrophe.

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Never Be Rid Of Him

Until The Cletuses 'Own The Streets'

Oh, and [redacted] Steve Bannon to [redacted].  And, the heads of all the fascisti parties in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Coatia, Serbia, Russia, Greece; China, and all the other [redacted] countries where they live and breed.

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Random Barking: End Of The Beginning

 The Year Of Living Dangerously

2020 (MMXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2,020th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 20th year of the 3nd millennium, the 20th year of the 21st century, and the 1st year of its second decade. 

Initially trained as an historian, my reflex is to see 2020 as a mega-event -- where one year is dominated by  a few serious, unique and overwhelming occurrences affecting hundreds of millions of individuals. It's felt like wartime, with battles, victories, losses; new technology; politics affecting the war; and, deaths.

So in finding a year to compare with 2020, some obvious choices were the Great Plague of Athens in 380 BC, which took three years to burn out and killed ~25% of the Greek population. Or, 1347 and the Great Plague of Europe, the Black Death, which lasted four years and killed ~200 million; 1664-65, the Great Plague Year in London; or the 1918-19 Spanish Influenza epidemic.

2020 seemed to be a year of emotion more than actual conflict. As a nation, or as individuals, we were about 'waging war' with a viral organism, and with some of the most vicious, ugly aspects of human nature -- sometimes, in ourselves.

But I found myself looking for periods that felt more like a match than were correct in some one-for-one historical comparison. The Second World War felt obvious; maybe, too much so. It isn't part of my experience, but I was born not long after it ended. I absorbed its experience by my parents' generation, the Depression that preceded it, and the early Cold War / Red Scare America that followed.

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Then I gave up. I realized that comparing 2020, globally and in America, with a year in WW2 is what we've always done -- dramatize events as one more chapter in the heroic, upward progression of America's story. It's normal to frame traumatic events in ways that help us absorb them, find a context and understanding. But we need to see what has happened, just over the past 365 days, with real clarity.

The true meaning of events we're living through are both profoundly personal and epochal at once. But by turning 2020 into a Ken Burns special in our heads, it becomes a Year already in the Past -- safely in memory, something manageable, unable to hurt us further.

That would remove the fear and disruption and claustrophobia -- but it will also rob us of our own individual experience of this moment, this time. It prevents us from seeing the reality of 2020's real impact.

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We're still in the middle of a bad spike in a long-term pandemic. It isn't a dramatization to say: We're in the most fragile and desperate of moments in our nation's history, since 1776 or 1861. Believe it. Trump (please God) leaves office as of January -- but he tried, incompetently, to stage a Coup. He's still trying to subvert the election, still trying to burn down as much of America as he can before the 20th.

And, he's just the worst symptom of a deep infection at America's core; the worm at the heart of the rose. Trump will go; but Trumpism -- fascism, authoritarianism, Bannonism; what you like -- is now a precedent in American politics. Two months ago, seventy million adult Americans voted in favor of it.

As a nation, if we're wise, we'll take this Plague Year ending as a wake-up call to address a very long list, spanning generations, of cultural Chickens Coming Home To Roost -- starting with The Pandemic. How we prioritize the rest will determine where we go as a nation. And that's just the beginning

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MEHR, MIT MUSIK, MIT MUSIK, MIT MUSIK: The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs. Mongo put in her oar: "The phrase, 'Letting your freak flag fly' popped into my head, for some reason."  Fair enough.

Wartime: A Long Howl

 The Worst Nightmare You Ever Had

This is wartime. 

Our cities haven't been bombed, with combat in the ruins around us. There is a level of threat in going out in search of food or water, or to jobs in businesses that remain open -- but not from being caught in a crossfire; you don't have to wait in cover and to guess when to make a run across some rubble-strewn intersection. 

There is a body count, and there are people responsible for substantial portions of it. Mostly, it's a state of mind, not a physical manifestation of destruction. But recognize it or not, we are in wartime.

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Trump, his family and sycophantic staff, Congressional Republicans and GOP leadership; and the entire travelling grifter roadshow of the political Right have assaulted America without pause. 

For five years, we've watched the United States deteriorate into a chaotic, corrupt, authoritarian state. Trump himself is manifestly corrupt, so the government reflects its Capo. He sees the American Presidency as nothing but an extension of personal greed, an exercise in raw power that he can use to destroy his enemies and gift largess to his toadies. And his corruption is openly mirrored through his administration, and the political Right. 

It all happens right out in the open. The Justice Department is run by Trump crime family Consiglieri Billy Barr, so there will be no investigations or indictments, and everyone knows it. But we have also seen a parade of forced resignations; pardoning of Trump's cronies; politically-motivated prosecutions and retaliations -- and for a while, the threat of the stillborn 'Durham Report'. 

We watched the Impeachment and Trial in the Senate, listened as career members of the government detailed the administration's crimes and misdemeanors, and Trump's complicity. It was said clearly that what Trump and his toadies were doing were counter to the idea of Democracy -- but the fix was in in the Senate.

Trump emerged, the Teflon Don, shrugging it all off with a smirk and a threat: You come at the King, you best not miss. And everyone knew what would come next.

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Every morning we've gotten up and checked the news; What has he done now? And always, we had the same unanswered question: How does he get away with this? Why will no one stop him? What is this inexplicable hold he has, getting others to throw their lot in with this crude, greedy, stupid bully?

We lived with it, day after day. And it delegitimized the idea of government -- What good is it? One side as bad as the other; no one cares about us -- which is exactly what people like Bannon, the GOP leaders, the Billionaire backers of Tea Party and PACS, taking money laundered from overseas, intended. 

They want us to see a dog-eat-dog world. They want us to believe in social Darwinism and continuing minority rule. They want us to believe they cannot be defeated.

But, day after day,  it drew a line under the belief that The People have no real power against the political Right, against the Mercers and Mellons and Kochs; the billionaire Bundist money. See? We've packed the Supreme Court! Even the law works for us now! That there are no limits on the rich getting richer and the poor, poorer. Power means you pay no penalty -- and having no power means no protection.

And in our drop by drop exposure to Trump, the media's response boiled down to Ahhh, Trump is Trump; that's just how he is. When he attacked mainstream media as Fake, calling them "enemies of the People", all major outlets (except Murdoch's Fox, of course) bent over backwards to show themselves neutral, "fair", and balanced. They didn't know what to do with Kellyanne Conway's "there are alternate facts". They didn't push back.

Instead of calling Trump a liar, and Conway a malicious loon, they only said the President needed to be 'fact-checked".  Twitter's owners did not dare flag or block Trump's unceasing torrent of lies and slander and veiled threats. 

And Trump would emerge to go golfing, again, or lumbering off to yet another rally in front of screaming, ecstatic crowds, more smirking, and not-so-veiled threats about Very good people, asides to QAnon; dogwhistling to white supremacist groups. And his Base cheered. And cheered. And the GOP defended each and every step down the path he was taking, each new red line crossed. 

Trump isn't very sophisticated -- he simply sees masses cheering, all for him, and his narcissism is sated, for a while. As a grifter, he understands instinctively how to connect with and milk the emotions of his Base. He preys on their fear, and hope -- and offers them hate as the antidote to fear. And they cheer.

Calling up murderous tendencies in the human heart has only one outcome, one destination. But Trump doesn't see further than the moment, the cheering sea of red MAGA hats, the maskless faces, the Proud Boys giving him the Hitler salute. And he does not care.

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So we would get up, check the news; with each new outrage Trump committed, and in the absence of criticism saw the media normalize his behavior. Like the Frog in the kettle, we tuned him out -- fuck this garbage -- and got on with our lives. People responded by perceiving the mainstream media as unable to speak obvious truths about what was happening right in front of us -- so, part of the problem; tainted, cowardly.

But it also meant tuning out our broader awareness of what was happening to America. In our inner mindscape, we could see tornado clouds gathering, hear the sirens going off.  We kept waiting, as we had for years, for some adults in the room to do something. We hoped the election season, the Biden candidacy, would tear down Trump's tower of lies. 

And we went into the Thanksgiving and Christmas season of 2019. There was a report about a new respiratory illness in China, but few paid any notice.

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We are in the second wave of SARS-CoV2. As of this writing, 245,000 Americans are dead. Biden was elected two weeks ago, but Trump disputes it as Fake, "rigged", "stolen" -- a conspiracy theory he had already prepared well ahead of November 3. 

He claims there is proof of a conspiracy, election fraud on a mass scale. No such evidence has been presented, because it doesn't exist. Dozens of lawsuits pushed by Trump's shrinking legal team, attempting to slow, stop, or interfere with counting of votes in key states, have been dismissed as frivolous. 

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

But Trump continues to lie. His Base believes every word of it. Republican members of Congress and Party leaders, with few exceptions, back Trump's insistence the election has been "stolen". Some of them say, privately, that Trump is having difficulty adjusting to the election results; that we should give him time to "process" losing. That we should humor him.

Meanwhile, Trump will not allow the normal mechanism of transition to a new administration to occur.  He suggests Republican state Governors appoint their own, Trump-True electors to appear in Washington on December 14.

If in that process, either Biden or Trump do not receive 270 electoral votes, then election of the President will result from a vote in the House of Representatives -- where each state has one vote. If that were to happen, Donald J. Trump would likely be 'elected' for a second term -- all legal, and blessed by the Constitution.

Yesterday, approximately 10,000 members of his Base attended a "Stop The Steal" "Million MAGA March" in Washington D.C. Out in force were the openly nazi 'Proud Boys', and other right-wing militia -- 'American Guard'  'Oath Keepers'  'Groypers' -- marching with the other, more mainstream Trump supporters. 

The Leader himself decided to drive past them in his armored SUV, on his way to play golf at his country club in Virginia, giving them a characteristic gesture through the window: two thumbs up, and sticking his tongue out between his teeth. The Base cheered. Later, he broadcast by Twitter: 

"[Biden] only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!"

Later that night, the various fascist militias walked the streets in Washington D.C., assaulting counter-protesters, 'owning the streets'. It was a scene straight out of Berlin in the early 30's, with nazi Brownshirts assaulting whomever they believed were an enemy. The Washington police appeared to focus on containing anti-Trump protestors, allowing the pro-nazis freedom of movement and action. 

Again, Trump Twittered:

"ANTIFA SCUM ran for the hills today when they tried attacking the people at the Trump Rally, because those people aggressively fought back. Antifa waited until tonight, when 99% were gone, to attack innocent #MAGA People. DC Police, get going — do your job and don’t hold back!!!"

This continues a trend that's developed since the summer, as the various fascist militias come together develop and coordinate their tactics; they organize.  And, a continued blurring of boundaries between armed, openly pro-nazi organizations and a the broader 'legitimate' conservative mainstream is very disturbing. 

The day you see a spokesperson from one of the pro-nazi organizations appear on PBS' The News Hour, or MSNBC or CNN, as one half of a 'both-sides' segment -- we will be too far down the road towards very deep trouble.

Millions, including hundreds of thousands of Americans, died to crush nazism

during the Second World War. Now, nazis sell their flags on the National Mall,

not far from the WW2 Memorial, or Arlington. (via Twitter)

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On top of that, it was announced yesterday (in Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, of all places) that the Mercer family -- who brought you Cambridge Analytica, among other things -- is funding Parler, a new social media app boosted as 'Twitter for conservatives' . 

Essentially, it's the Murdoch business model of monetizing right-wing users, using the app to broadcast rightist propaganda, lies, and distortions to be shared by The Base. The Mercers will be able to harvest their user's data, sell it to vendors, right-wing organizations, and (as they've done with Facebook) develop strategies for those clients to manipulate the Base -- Rubes and Marks that they are.

And, insanely, an interview with Charles Koch was published two days ago:

After spending decades bankrolling causes and politicians that fueled America’s increasingly ugly and hostile national divide, billionaire mogul Charles Koch [said] he now wants to focus on bridging the gap he helped create.

“Boy, did we screw up. What a mess,” is how the Donald Trump supporter characterizes [it] ... Koch claims he wants to work across party lines to forge solutions to poverty, addiction, gang violence and homelessness...

Koch's interview was also published in Murdoch's WSJ.  Just as Murdoch wants to buy a fig-leaf of credibility by calling Arizona for Biden on election night, Koch wants to others to not hate him and remember him as the kindly philanthropist who only believed in healing. 

Not sure, given his Randian, Social-Darwinist view of human beings, what kinds of solutions to poverty, addiction, gang violence and homelessness he could suggest. It's hard to "save" people you believe are nothing but easily-manipulated, disposable, and ultimately irrelevant.

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Meanwhile, America's political Left is fragmented. The Democratic party's leadership appear convinced that appealing to the center, 'normalcy', while singing Kumbaya to the GOP is the way to the future.

The Progressives believe their way is not only best, but the only way to positively affect the environment and achieve racial / economic equality and diversity. They see the mainline DNC's approach as too little, too late, and their distrust of the Democratic leadership's motives is high.

It's worth nothing that competing factions of the political Left in Europe before the Second World War (Italy in the years after WW1; Weimar Germany up to 1933; and Third-Republic France during the 30's) made it a near-certainty that the more cohesive fascist parties would come to power.

What Digby said:

[Biden] ran on unifying the country. And it was a smart appeal to people who are sick of the division and the chaos. But it’s not possible for him to deliver that. Obama ran on that and he failed as well. This is because the Republicans will obstruct and refuse to cooperate and then point the finger and say, “See? He didn’t deliver on what he promised!” It works out great for them.

..."Towering before [Biden] is a wall of Republican resistance, starting with Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede, extending to G.O.P. lawmakers’ reluctance to acknowledge his victory, and stretching, perhaps most significantly for American politics in the long term, to ordinary voters who steadfastly deny the election’s outcome."

...Voters want to believe in bipartisan cooperation but it’s a one-way street because Republicans, being a cohesive, radicalized minority party with outsized power, benefit from obstruction. So Democrats have to run as the “unity party” but there’s no way for them to get it. Most people see this and understand it... [but] people in the middle who Dems need to win the electoral college, or in red districts and states, don’t pay close enough attention to sort it all out. It’s a problem.

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The chances are that "the process" will work (unless there is another massive conspiracy out there we aren't aware of), and Biden will be inaugurated next January. 

Trump will continue to squeal, and fuel the notion that the election was stolen from him. He will go off into some kind of exile, trying to throw as much sand in the gears of American politics as he can -- but he's in his mid-seventies, a waddling tub of guts with health issues, facing potential prosecution for a variety of fraudster crimes. 

In that, he will become lies and less useful to the Steve Bannons, Nigel Farages and Marie LePens of the world. He may still have some use as an elder figurehead of a rightist movement in the U.S. -- and it will be a symbiotic relationship: Trump will get to monetize his notoriety as long as he can.

As an honest political party, Republicans are effectively done. They are the party of Trump, now; the party of white power, Ayn Randian, corrupt strongman rule.  The Base is the party -- and GOP leaders understand they have to continue dogwhistling to them in order to win elections.

And whether they recognize it or not, the RNC, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican 'leadership' are strapped to the proto-nazi, white-power militias that Trump called forth. I'm not sure they give a damn any longer.

The current Republican leadership can maintain power at the polls for a few cycles, but if they can't deliver on whatever the Base demands, a 'True Trumpist' may appear -- a new Leader, talking about God and Country and a glorious future. One who publicly embraces the militias, forcing GOP leadership to become more radical just to hold on to their personal power. 

America, meanwhile, continues down a road towards open violence, oppression, and civil war -- which is what the militias and their supporters want.

But now, Trump continues to sow doubt about "the process"; he tells his Base that assumptions about our Republic are false -- that without him in the White House, the government itself is illegitimate, run by Antifa, Satanists and pedophiles.

This may seem insane to most people who hear it -- but for roughly 37% of America's adult voting population, it is gospel and settled science. They believe it. They heard it on Fox.

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So, we continue in social isolation, in lockdown. We live in an internal landscape where nothing seems certain, and in an external world with very real threats. 

We are in wartime. Biden's election is a bit of grace -- even if all it does is cease the endless focus on one corrupt, deranged bully -- but there will be no Kumbaya with the Right. 

America has never been as divided a country since the last time we took up arms against each other, and that will not vanish overnight, if ever. The Republicans depend on stoking that outrage to maintain power, and at this point the level of public debate can only sink lower.

We are in a wartime of the spirit, and on that ground inside ourselves is where it will be fought. We will either come to recognize, or reject each other. It's likely to last for years -- a decade, if not longer -- and there is no guarantee that America will exist in any way we recognize when it comes to an end. 

But I continue to feel how we pay attention to the moments that will come for us, how we behave towards each other, and the choices we make may be more important than before. 

The Dalai Lama was asked what he felt the central tenet of Tibetan Buddhism to be; he replied, "Just, 'Do your best.' "  I took the Lama's observation to suggest that Existence is too complicated for any person to say why they are, and what the end results of their thoughts and actions will be. Be kind; act with compassion. Do the best you can, moment to moment. That works for me.

But, as a comparative comment on purpose and values (in his case, Resistance), Albert Camus believed the fact of humankind was the justification for right action, of making a demand for Justice -- for a better world. And that works for me, too.

I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. [That] ... it has no justification but man -- hence he must be saved if we want to save the idea we have of life. 

With your scornful smile you will ask me: what do you mean by 'saving man'? And with all my being I shout to you that I mean not mutilating him, and yet giving a chance to the justice that man alone can conceive.  

(Resistance, Rebellion and Death)

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Reprint Heaven: After You've Gone, Again

 America, Redux: A Long Rant

(This, from July 2016, after the [then] Republican National Convention where The Leader declared he would accept the party's nomination ["Aw shucks; well, if you really want me"]. 

(Looking back through the lens of the election year, of Covid, of Black Lives Matter; America is no less divided. This is not over. Remember: millions of people are praying, fervently, that you and all those you know and love, should die. 

(And if someone appears with that message [delivered in wink wink language, but a clear message nonetheless], they would cheer and praise and follow. Remember that.)

Cleaning Up After Cleveland (Andreas Kudacki, July 22, 2016; nymag.com)

The Republicans have left Cleveland. There's little doubt that can-do Managers, the Owners and Choosers and Deciders, and the Belivers, were in control at the RNC, as they seem to be in control in so many places in our culture. Because Life is for The Strong, and the Tough, and the Competitive.  And those with The Faith.

You Worker Bees, you "individual contributors" will just have to pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps. We will be Great again, and have Law and Order -- here in Merica -- or, you know, not. Thank everyone for coming! 

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Two Tales Of The City

Yesterday, I exited a subway car heading home from work at rush hour, turned right, and walked up a crowded concourse. There was a wall to my immediate left and knots of other exiting passengers to my right. Suddenly, I was face to face with a Caucasian male in his mid-20's, tall -- I'm well over six feet; this guy was at least three inches taller -- thin, hair cut close on the sides and in the middle puffed up in a modified Mohawk strip (as if he had, uh, a Weasel On His Head).

What followed was textbook; each movement was an escalation. First, we looked -- no, we stared --at each other. Neither of us gave way. Even though by then there was plenty of room around us, we each moved forward and slid past each other, equally determined not to make it simple and as if daring the other party to ratchet things up. Our arms inevitably brushed against each other, and we both pulled them away like yanking off a band-aid. 

I had walked a step or two, and turned; he was already walking back. I stood where I was; he stopped inches from me. "You want some?" he said. I was surprised, but not that much; I was aware that ratcheting up the confrontation was my fault as well as his: They fought so fiercely because the stakes were so small. So, here we were and Quo Vadis?

Over the next second or so, I had two trains of thought. The first was something from another job life -- when an altercation turns into a confrontation, and the next step is physical violence, that's not optimal. Keeping public order means, even if you have a disregard for your own well-being, other people, innocent people, can get hurt. Your Macho takes a back seat.

The other consideration was -- this Guy. It was clear he was willing to make a physical threat to a complete stranger, standing on a public transport platform during rush hour and In These Times, when there are transit system police around -- I'd seen a K-9 patrol up ahead a few seconds before. I looked at the Guy, careful not to lean forward or move my hands, and made an Are you fucking kidding me? face. "Really?" I asked him.

"Really," he said -- and leaned forward. Without moving, I said, "Excuse Me."  Leaning forward a bit more, determined to count coup, he said, "Excuse me. Have a nice day." Even without hearing his tone of voice, you can decide whether or not he meant it.

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Fast forward to this afternoon: A bus in Kiddietown; another Caucasian guy in his twenties -- this one short and slight, casually dressed, otherwise unremarkable -- drops a few papers as he enters the bus, and begins cursing -- shouting, in fact; and it's quickly clear he's inordinately upset about something which does not involve the bus, or anyone on it.

He stomps toward the back of the bus, drops into a seat, and for the next block or so periodically shouts more curses, slapping the seat beside him. Almost everyone else on the bus goes into You Are A Nutter And We Will Now Ignore You mode -- but, The Guy gets into it verbally with two Black males sitting behind him. Predictably, it escalates quickly.

"Hey!" Says the first man to The Guy, "Leave me alone. Shutthefuck up, man!"  "Fuck you man!!" shouts The Guy. "I'll kick your fuckin' ass!!" The second man, who has a voice like James Earl Jones and is happy to project it, joins in: "Hey; I ain't takin' that fuckin' bullshit off you, so just shut - the - fuck - up!!"

The Guy braces himself in his seat and, with a real sense of timing, waits for a beat and then leans forward, staring at the two men, his face distorted with rage. "Fuck you!!" he shouts, then adds, "You, you -- N_____ !!"

A hush falls over the entire bus, more felt than heard -- because He said the N-word to two Black guys and we live in post Furgeson-Cleveland-Baltimore-Chicago-Mineapolis-et al. America -- and I'm thinking: man, wasn't I just here yesterday?

Meanwhile, the James Earl Jones Soundalike both increases the volume and lowers the pitch of his voice to a growl, another textbook stop on the road to This Is Really Fucked Up. The Guy keeps shouting, a slight hesitancy in his voice now, as if understanding he'd crossed The Fabled Line when using the n-word a block or so back. The two Black guys keep raising their voices in response.

Obligatory Mongo Photo In Middle Of Blog Terror

It's clear the confrontation has reached a binary decision point, and several other passengers call out to the driver, a Latino with a wrestler's build wearing Ray-Bans, to "do something".  He doesn't, right away; I understand -- 1.) Things can happen, all of them unpleasant by degrees; 2.) His Management supervisor and Union Foreman have advised there are liability issues; and  3.) "They don't pay me enough for this shit, dude".

The driver finally comes to an official bus stop, halts the vehicle, then stands up, leans on a nearby pole and looks toward the altercation (all non-threatening, casual). "Hey -- hey; take it outside," he says to no one in particular, then appeals to reason and some generally-accepted social propriety: "Not on the bus, man."

After a few seconds, when things could have gone in any direction, The Guy stands up and exits by the side door, shouting insults at the other men all the way. The men return them -- but it's all textbook now; The Guy has been the one to retreat.

Once he's off and the doors close, the bus begins to pull away. As it does, from the relative safety of Outside, The Guy performs another textbook maneuver: he begins screaming, ratcheting up his invective ("Fuck you! N_____!! You N_____!!") and slaps the side of the bus.  JEJ-2, looking through the bus windows, grins and flips him off; The Guy seems even more enraged and escalates again ("I'll kill you, N_____ motherfucker!!"), but it's all for show, now, and everyone knows it. JEJ-2 grins once more and shouts, "Yeah; talk on, fuckhead"-- counting coup, also textbook.

A woman in her twenties at the front of the bus, holding a Prada purse and wearing a print sun dress, a Rolex and her own Ray-Bans, looked around at the other passengers and said with a giggle, "Well, that was rully intense!" The remainder of the ride, by comparison, was uneventful.

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The Brand, As If Anyone Had Forgotten

(Carolyn Kaster / AP; The Atlantic online)

Jocks And Mean Girls Rule

So why mention these things? (Dogs like stories, and are good at the details.)  Because they exemplify a miserable trend in the broader culture; because I can't remember the last time I was in a confrontation (even one I helped create), as a civilian, which had real potential to become physically violent. And some of it mirrors what was on stage in Cleveland.

I'm part of an American demographic that doesn't encounter much real violence or intimidation, or police activity, on a regular basis. Mentioning my experiences to my friends prompted their own stories of confrontation and escalation. The general consensus:  these altercations seem to happen more frequently, now --- and, they've increased over at least the past decade.

Most often, they happen when driving, shopping, and (bingo) commuting on mass transit. However, the most disturbing aspect to my friends is how easily things escalate: people seem more willing to push situations, which could easily be walked away from, right to the brink where real violence is possible.

Official studies show the same trends, nationally, and in the same areas of social interaction. A quick check of the ubiquitous Gogglemachine will show the same observations, the same consensus by multiple observers. It doesn't have to involve complete strangers. My experiences, and those of friends, involving bullying by managers in the workplace has also increased in the past decade.

 Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

A few months ago, I'd called a manager of a national group about help in a project; he spent ten profanity-packed minutes accusing me of complaining about him to a vendor, crudely bullying me in any way he could.

This person has a reputation; I wasn't so surprised -- but I hadn't experienced him in that way, and I was knocked off balance. My responses -- interrupted constantly -- were factual; at some point, this person realized he was wrong in his accusations -- and like flipping a light switch, suddenly he sounded friendly, reasonable, behaving as if the previous ten minutes hadn't happened. 

We both knew what he'd done -- and we both knew that even if I were to complain, because this person is labeled an "effective manager"; "he gets results"; there would be no repercussions.  I have a number of similar stories about other managers, and executives; so do my friends who work in corporate businesses, even 'cool' tech companies with "new" working cultures -- and they're all depressingly the same. 

These sorts of person are narcissistic, possibly sociopaths. They're certainly bullies -- and know that they are.  They've found a niche in society which not only tolerates manipulation and mistreatment of other human beings, but rewards and promotes it. For them, it's a point of pride -- after all, they get results. And that's all that matters.

Weeks before he was assassinated, John F. Kennedy observed that one measure of a nation is through the individuals it upholds as heroes, worthy of emulation.  Over the past few decades in America, the people we are told to venerate, our Best, are the Business Leaders. They're supposed to be what we should want our children to grow up to become.

I don't think we'd want to leave our children alone with them for thirty seconds. But the promise of wealth and success through a life spent in corporate business is what our children are being told is the highest expression of our culture, and the behaviors of these 'leaders' are what they need to adopt in order to reach that wealth, success and self-fulfillment. 

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A long time ago, a cartoon posed the question, "What was the result of America's experience in Vietnam, and the attendant politics at home?" The correct answer was, "A deterioration of secular and spiritual priorities!" American culture is fraying badly under the weight of too many changes -- just the last ten include mass shootings, terrorism; The Crash; media outlets (Murdoch; Limbaugh, Wiener, Beck; O'Reilly) dumping human waste on our culture, 24-7.  Our 'entertainment' almost universally involves violence.

The real wonder is that people aren't more uncivil to each other, or that overtime parking doesn't invoke the death sentence.

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Trump: A Symptom 

This week we watched (some of) the antics at the Republican Convention, the Trump campaign's themes delivered by most of the speakers -- except Grand Turtlebear Greg Stillson, and Herr Doktor Carson, Exorcist and Fearless Vampire Killer, who seemed to have additional messages of hope and faith and eternal punishment in the fire the fire the fire for us all. And, of course, we heard The Donald.

 Additional Obligatory Animal Photo

There was nothing new in what he said Thursday night (though its delivery was less his trademark stream-of-consciousness) -- but I found myself asking How the hell did we come to this? That this stupid bully became their candidate??  It was as if someone had reanimated Fr. Charles Coughlin from the 1930's, George Wallace of the 1960's, or even George Lincoln Rockwell.  Trump appeared no different or better than any of the narcissistic bullies I've worked with or for in my lifetime. One difference between his campaign and Hillary's -- Trump says that he speaks for the angry Americans, the ones who want to "take it all back".

His campaign depends on tapping the kind of inchoate rage that we see or experience on the street, or at work. If Trump were to win, it would mean a period of social and political dislocation in America which no one in memory has experienced. I could make a joke about a similarity with H.P. Lovecraft's return of Chtulu and the Old Ones, but in fact nobody knows where it would all lead.

That said, I still believe Trump can't win. If how a person uses language is a good gauge of how they conceptualize and navigate the world, then Trump is too scattered and impulsive -- my Dog's nose tells me he can't run an effective team, and won't run a good ground game.  And, there aren't enough of his brand of conservative to go to the polls for him on November 8th. He can't win by sheer weight of numbers. He'll lose.

But, this contest will be played in the media as a close race. The assumption of office by President Hillary, The Inevitable One, will seem so very close (until the numbers come in) -- and Her victory will provide the consistency of a certain narrative about our history, a return to normal.

But Hillary is about the values of Business, too. When Hillary trotted out Tim Kane as her Veep, he spoke to a crowd and said, "America has never been about fear... it's been about bravery, and imagination, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done! [applause]." Hillary described him as "a Progressive who believes in getting the job done" (Emphasis in the original delivery).

Additional Obligatory Stimpy Face Photo

It's my expectation Hillary will assist in wiring America into a global system which will free business and banking from being responsible to the laws of individual nations -- environmental regulations; banking laws, trade laws. It will be an advantage capitalism has never had in history, making corporate business the single most important human activity. And it will continue the stratification of society, globally, into corporate Managers -- and everyone else, who will work for them, to earn money to buy products and services.

We'll still continue to be told a comforting narrative -- about America's uniqueness, independence and values, and it's place in the world. Frankly, Hillary's narrative is just a little softer than Trump's story of American greatness; only the wrapper is different. But to global Business, America is just one more place with resources and a population that can be bought, one more market where things can be sold.  We can play our pretend politics, so long as we don't get in the way of the grownups, managing large-scale operations for profit.

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Without belaboring the obvious, it isn't surprising that so many people (including myself) are acting like badly-wired rats. The post-WW2 world's politics, ideologies, technologies; its commerce and wealth, all made major shifts in just one generation. 

There had been a Cold War, and the possibility of a hot one, but also stability -- many regional players and ideologies (including those religious) were kept in check by the East-versus-West balance of power. No more. 

It's been decades of pressure; the cycles of change happen more quickly, and the world appears to be changing in unpredictable ways. The trends being presented by these changes appear to indicate that the world is a Box Full Of Bad Crazy, Looking For A Way Out. And that The Fix Is In.

People are frightened about the future, and fear can easily flip into anger. Most people have some unresolved conflicts; others have years of badly-wired resentments and painful memories; still more have PTSD  (thanks for the War, Lil' Boots!). This election season will be something to watch (I'd buy the Good Popcorn, but don't fire it up just yet) but the presidency of Hillary The Inevitable will not provide America what it needs to heal itself. I don't think even Ted Cruz and Benny Carson's jesus™ could do that.

Try not to piss anyone off in public.

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Reprint Heaven: Morton's Fork

 Yes It Is Pleasant To Vote Against Fascism But We Are Still At War
(From June, 2012)

Siting on the sofa On a Sunday afternoon / Goin' to the candidates' debate
Laugh about it, shout about it / When you've got to choose
Either way you look at it, you lose
-- Simon and Garfunkel, "Mrs. Robinson" (1968)

 

(Cartoon: Mr Fish) 

 When the practice of politics becomes little more than deciding the color of posters advertising candidates, both of whose actual policies benefit a ruling elite, the question in America is not, How did we come to this?, but "Whaddaya talkin' about? Ahhh, go live in France, ya cheese monkey." Right.

Random Barking: They Came To Him In The Dead Of Night And Told Him He Must Choose

Post-Mueller Coherence 

(A portion of a post from May, 2017, that seems relevant today.) 

Last week, I waited in line at O-Dark-Thirty for coffee at a [Redacted] near the Embarcadero Bart station. A half-dozen of us, corporate Sheeple, mildly sleepy, stood to the right of an open-fronted display case holding yogurt, hard-boiled eggs; sandwiches and bottled drinks.

As we waited, one of San Francisco's homeless pushed his way through the line to the cooler. With a badly shaved head and dressed in a long cloth jacket that had once been blue, he reminded me of the escaped convict, Magwitch, in Dicken's Great Expectations. The man bent down towards the display case, reached into it and began stuffing the pockets of his jacket with bottles and packages of food.

Alerted by some of the patrons ("Hey, this guy's stealing stuff"), the early shift manager -- a nice guy, in his late 20's whom I see almost every weekday morning -- came out from behind the counter. The homeless man -- his pantslegs rolled up to reveal badly swollen lower legs and ankles  -- had already hobbled out of the shop.

The manager caught up with him, but wasn't confrontational. "You can't just take stuff, man," the manager said quietly. "That's completely uncool."  With a wild, intense expression on his face, the homeless man took one wavering step backwards, spread his arms, and bellowed something spectacularly incoherent before hobbling away up Market Street into the dark. The manager watched him go, looked over at me, and shrugged.

Talking with the manager about the incident as he rang up my coffee, we agreed: The Man was a figure of pathos, straight out of Hugo: Jean Valjean and the loaf of bread. The man was ill, and hungry, and to make a larger issue out of the theft would be sanctimonious assholery of a particularly low order. Neither of us felt like Inspector Joubert that morning.

We spoke about other things. "Wish that had been Trump," the fellow laughed. "I would have called the cops on his ass."

I laughed back, and mentioned the early-days investigations by the FBI of Trump and his campaign's connections to the Russians. "We could get lucky," I said.

Then, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and, pushed along by a series of Tweets both pathetic and bullying by turns, the antics of his Clown Car government went into screaming, vibrating overdrive. 

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Down here in the trenches, everyone likes to try and read the Tea Leaves and divine the future. How does this all play out? There are a few broad categories, and all this is just one Dog's opinion. 

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...

[Concession]

Trump has revealed to us all, on an almost daily basis, the paranoid alt-Right universe which he lives in -- where Trump, like 'forgotten' Americans who voted for him, is an innocent victim of a vast conspiracy. Its tentacles are everywhere. Everyone knows it.  QAnon!

And he must fight that conspiracy, because he is a fighting fighter, who fights, and doesn't give up. He is the only one who can fight it, because he is Trump. Now he is in the White House, sometimes, surrounded by barely competent advisors who constantly disappoint him and must always be watched, Trump fights on and on and on. He does it all for you. He doesn't rest, except when he is in Florida. But he doesn't give up -- because he is Donald Trump.

That said: were Trump faced with incontrovertible evidence ... a few GOP stalwarts would approach him at his More-Lego palace in Florida in the dead of night. They would tell him he should spare the country a wrenching ... spectacle (read: please leave us our Republican party), and strongly recommend he [concede].

Donny waffles; he shouts, he cries like a child. They wait. Then they offer him a one-time deal:  He will stay out of jail; his immediate family will be spared, but they all must go. Now. And like any leader of a Banana Republic where the mob is at the gates of the palace, it will take Trump five seconds to understand: He'll get to keep whatever he's looted from the nation during his time in office.  

In a Kleptocracy, it's still a Win if you are forced away from the table, but get to keep the offshore accounts. You can always claim in your ghosted biography that your downfall was someone else's fault; a forced error. In Trump's mind, Aber Natürlich, his numbers would still be all-time highs.

So, he accepts the offer. After a last, GBCW speech that rivals Nixon's blubbering farewell in its bitterness and surreality, Trump is whisked away to his anti-environment compound in Florida, faithful Melania at his side in a tasteful Victoria Secrets day dress. 

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MEHR, MIT EIN TIEFERES VERSTÄNDIS DER PUNKT: 

And they came unto him saying, Lord, we are confused greatly in our minds and hearts and there is the sounds of keening and the gnashing of mandibles in the land. And the LORD spaketh saying, I am reminded that Kayfabe is Kayfabe -- and the individual user's inability to discern fake Kayfabe from true-true Kayfabe is like he who stood waiting for that Uber ride which never came, for he was drunk and knew not. Go now, and do not buy into that crap, sayeth the LORD. Or, words to that effect.

(Acts Against The State, 23 : 7.6183)

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