Reprint Heaven: Sarajevo

Unraveling

(From 2016)

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

Roughly twelve hours and [103] years ago, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Grand Duchess Sophie, were shot by Gavrillo Princip, a member of an assassination team sent to the Bosnian city by the government of Serbia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The Intersection, 2014: The Archduke's Car Turned Left, Into This Street;
The Restaurant Where Princip Bought Lunch, Now A Museum (Photo: CNN)

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

The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne had been delivered, less than ten feet away, from an armed assassin who had come to the city specifically to kill him. If you were writing a novel or screenplay, anything that coincidental would be branded as implausible. No one's gonna believe that.

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

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

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

 Cousin Ignatz, Worn Out By All The History

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Why the history lesson? We're living through history. When we read about events in Europe during the Interwar Years (1918 - 1933 or so), there's a feeling of being slowly pulled down into a drain of inevitability -- revolving-door failures of parliamentary governments in France; Britian's declining empire; the manic Totentanz of global capital leading to 1929; the rise and fall of Weimar; Italian, German and Japanese fascism. Regional war and civil war. 

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

While the Brexit may be not have been a "shot heard 'round the world", the Tories are hanging on by their fingernails in the UK; the Scots still wonder about independence; the Greek, French and Italian economies are still at risk. Putinland, the Great Bear, still pushes the envelope here and there -- Ukraine and Syria. As IS loses on battlefields in the continuing slow-motion atrocity that is the Middle East, suddenly they appear in a Philippine city, on a London street. Disproportionate numbers of Black people are shot in major American cities on a routine basis. Climate change is not fake news.

America, ruled by Babbitry, greed and illusion, retreats from the world stage; its leader is Bloated, Sick, and Raving, surrounded by car-wash dilettantes. Other nation-state players, great and small, are happy to rush into the vacuum we leave behind, and any of them could easily start a larger conflict -- India, Pakistan; Kim Jong Fat Boy's Fun People's Republic Of Chuckles, and South Korea; Iran and Saudi Arabia.  

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

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

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And Reduce The Surplus Population

Sickness

Here is what the bill actually does:

Takes a machete to Medicaid. The bill would cut $880 billion over 10 years from Medicaid, the program that provides health care to about 74 million poor, disabled and elderly Americans. That’s one-fourth of its budget. As a result, 14 million fewer people would have access to health care by 2026, according to a C.B.O. analysis of the earlier bill, which contained similar Medicaid provisions... [and] special education programs, which receive about $4 billion from Medicaid every year.

Slashes insurance subsidies. It would provide $300 billion less over 10 years to help people who do not get insurance through employers and have to buy their own policies. This would hurt lower-income and older people the hardest. For example, a 60-year-old living in Phoenix and earning $40,000 would have to pay an additional $12,370 a year to buy a policy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many people who find themselves in this situation would have no choice but to forgo insurance.

Eliminates the individual mandate. Many people hate that the A.C.A. requires people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. But without the mandate, fewer younger and healthier people would buy coverage. This would lead to what health experts call a “death spiral” as insurers raise rates because they are left covering people who are older and sicker, leading to even more people dropping coverage. Eventually, companies could stop selling policies directly to individuals in much of the country.

Guts protections for people with pre-existing conditions. An amendment by Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey would allow states to waive the requirement that insurers sell policies to people with prior health problems and not charge them higher rates. The chief executive of Blue Shield of California said the bill “could return us to a time when people who were born with a birth defect or who became sick could not purchase or afford insurance.” Republicans say they will require that states with waivers offer high-risk pools and find other ways to help treat these people. The bill offers $138 billion over 10 years to help states pay for such programs. Health experts say this is far too little; Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Foundation estimates that at least $25 billion a year would be needed.

Makes insurance less comprehensive. The bill would also let states waive a requirement under Obamacare that insurers cover a list of essential services. This means people in some places might not have access to maternity care or cancer treatment. This provision could also hurt people who get insurance through work, because federal regulations allow employers to opt into the rules of any state for the purposes of determining annual and lifetime limits on coverage, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution.

Defunds Planned Parenthood. Republicans have included a provision that takes federal money away from the organization, which provides birth control, cancer screenings and other health services to 2.5 million people, mainly women. About 60 percent of people who use Planned Parenthood depend on government programs like Medicaid.

--  New York Time Editorial, 5/4/17: "The Trumpcare Disaster" 
    (All Links Above In Original)

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...In in the summer of 2009, Ryan argued that the healthcare bill was moving too quickly through Congress without an adequate CBO estimate and a full understanding of the legislation. "If you rush this through before anyone even knows what it is, that's not good democracy," he explained... "I don't think we should pass bills that we haven't read that we don't know what they cost."

-- Time Magazine 5/4/17; "5 Quotes Haunting Republicans As They Vote On Healthcare"

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Just a few hours before a scheduled vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the House voted 429-0 to strip out a provision in that legislation that would have exempted members of Congress and their staffers from some of the most radical changes to health care law...

“They planned to exempt themselves from Trumpcare until they got caught,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) accused Republicans from the House floor.
-- Alice Ollstein, TPM, "House Votes To Eliminate Congress Carve-Out From O’Care Repeal Bill"

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Today, I hope there is a hell. If such a place has a use, it is to house people who celebrate with a cold beer after voting to endanger the lives of millions to enrich the already wealthy. These people should be trembling in fear before the justice and wrath of God. But since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to [do] things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them.
--  Adam Kotsko / An und für sich: "A Theological Reflection On The Obamacare Repeal Vote"

 

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Sleep

More Random Barking

We read stuff, and we learn things.

You yearn, you hunger, for Daddy to take care of you, to give you candy, and an occasional afternoon off. And, to beat you whenever it pleases them you deserve it.

And -- admit it, now -- you do deserve it. You know that you do lots of stupid stuff. You have to be watched carefully, all the time, so that you don't lie, or slack off, or 'borrow' things that don't belong to you. Or touch each other in places where you shouldn't. Or ask questions like Why do Mom and Dad and their friends have it so soft, with treats? How come the police open our emails and listen to our mobile calls? How come boys get fifty cents an hour and girls only get thirty? Will there be another war? Why do the brown people next door get taken away by the police? How come they shoot black people? What's that little helicopter thing flying over our neighborhood?

See, the world is really big. You just don't know enough to figure it all out. It's all so confusing! And tell the truth, now -- who wants to rubberfy their little heads with all that? But Daddy, and Mommy, Do know. Jared Kushner knows. And they Care; they really do. They'll take care of everything.

So, sleep now. Sleep. There's candy for you, tomorrow, after all your work is done. If you're good.

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If you followed the link (be advised, you may have to take a Google test; that's what you get for accessing sites that know better than you and went to an Oxbridge college, too), the article is "Angry Voters Are Nostalgic For Powerful Elites", by Janan Ganesh in the online Financial Times.

Similar themes were being discussed by Very Serious people out on the Intertubes, even before the U.S. election. In Austria, it was "Faced With Angry Voters, The Elites Sour On Democracy." Glenn Greenwald noted that the Brexit was just one more proof "Of The Insularity And Failure Of Western Establishment Institutions." And Jeff Bezos' Washington Post quipped that "Everyone Hates The Elites. Even The Elites."

Ganesh is, outwardly, a member of the Labor Party in Britain who once declined to attend local Party meetings because they were "too dominated by Trots". Ganesh describes himself as essentially liberal on social affairs, center-right on economics; he co-authored a book in 2006 with a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, entitled Compassionate Conservatism.

That was all before The Crash, however, when conservatives could afford to ignore The Peasantry, which was besotted on ARM loans and cheap refinancing to turn their homes into ATMs. After the Crash, governments were unable to pay for their whining (or much else), and as a result turned the failure of private banks into public debt the Peasants would have to pay. And there would be Austerity for at least 99% of everyone. Yay!

Ganesh's thesis is simple: So long as Elites actively use their power for the material betterment of the people, "voters do not mind elites."

[They] do not want a putsch against elitism. If anything, they want its restoration. They want the ordered world they grew up in, when a measure of central direction kept jobs secure and neighborhoods familiar... The West is not in revolt against elites. The people who voted Britain out of the EU and Donald Trump into the White House ... are nostalgic for a time when elites were more, not less, powerful.

...To read about the architects of [that era] is to bathe in shameless, seigneurial elitism. ...They were extreme in their isolation from normal people. Some had beliefs that touched on the pre-democratic. But that was the point: it was their expert imposition of order on chaos that was so prized, and so missed when that order turned to flux in the 1980s and beyond.

...The trouble is that “oligarchy” is a serviceable description of the social system that angry voters miss. A system of large companies with implicit political duties to maintain jobs onshore, of government as a screen between worker and market, of the armed forces as a large employer and source of cultural mores, of immigration levels set by tight diktat rather the interplay of supply and demand, of free exchange as a curbed and conditional thing.

The masses deferred to elites as long as the elites managed the masses’ exposure to the brute realities of the market. The fraying of that contract led to the bitterness of today. ... In 2016, voters did not ask elites to abdicate their power. They punished elites for [abdicating it].

This assumes that the world, so complicated a place, filled with human folly, can only be tamed and controlled by the Barons and Dukes of Capital which literally and figuratively litter the planet. Genesh's perspective is a love letter to the world Our global HNWIs want -- a New Feudalism, one more financial Crash away.

This perspective also assumes that 'voters' (read: human beings) are children, or chattel, who need to be managed -- sometimes sternly -- rather than addressed and enabled as equals. That government is not a compact between citizens and the representatives they elect; that it is supposed to elevate only the interests of a few over the rest of the population; and that government holds property to be sacred over persons. It's a perspective which seems to suggest that the 'voters' don't have to be considered as human beings at all.

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One More Voice

The Beaver Speaks For His Kind

(Photo: William Ploughman / NBC)

Never did I ever think I'd be grabbing quotes from Davey ("Bucky The Beaver") Brooks, unindicted war criminal, but these are strange times.

Bucky is really an old-line conservative, out of Kristol, by way of  Buckley and Podhoretz. Like many pundits of any political stripe, he supports the status quo (ultimately, rule-by-the-0.01%), but from the Right. He's carved out a niche in Right wingnutostan as the voice of traditional conservative values; a reading of his columns in the Paper Of Record seem to indicate his perfect world looks a lot like Saskatoon around 1958, as Bucky was born and raised North Of The Border.

While many pundits frequently hedge their bets, while the contest for a Republican candidate ground on, Bucky sided with that party's old-line leadership in declaring Trump a menace, and said plainly This Is Bad when Wonderboy became the nominee.

Still, for the sake of preserving a Republican party, through the summer he tried to find some silver lining in the sow's ear as Trump faced off against She in the clash of worlds. With the election, Bucky was as stunned as the rest of us, offering jumbled conservative credos that amounted to a 'How Can This Be Happening??'

Wonderboy, Speaking To A Room Of Dishonest Lying Haters (Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP)

Bucky is one bellwether of mood among status quo conservatives. Not long before the inauguration and America's renaming as Trumplandia, he said plainly that he wouldn't take a Trump presidency lying down.  And after watching the 77 unscripted minutes of Wonderboy's free association press conference yesterday, Bucky typed:

I still have trouble seeing how the Trump administration survives a full term. Judging by his Thursday press conference, President Trump’s mental state is like a train that long ago left freewheeling and iconoclastic, has raced through indulgent, chaotic and unnerving, and is now careening past unhinged, unmoored and unglued.

Trump’s White House staff is at war with itself. His poll ratings are falling at unprecedented speed. His policy agenda is stalled. F.B.I. investigations are just beginning. This does not feel like a sustainable operation.

One way or another, we're all feeling this. Bucky, on the other hand, is a well-known right-wing cheerleader with impeccable (for those people, anyway) credentials -- and even he is verbalizing the same WTF and "this can't end well" which we're all feeling. And, what next?

On the other hand, I have trouble seeing exactly how this administration ends. Many of the institutions that would normally ease out or remove a failing president no longer exist.

There are no longer moral arbiters in Congress like Howard Baker and Sam Ervin to lead a resignation or impeachment process. There is no longer a single media establishment that shapes how the country sees the president. This is no longer a country in which everybody experiences the same reality.

... The Civil Service has a thousand ways to ignore or sit on any presidential order. The court system has given itself carte blanche to overturn any Trump initiative, even on the flimsiest legal grounds. The intelligence community has only just begun to undermine this president.

President Trump can push all the pretty buttons on the command deck of the Starship Enterprise, but don’t expect anything to actually happen, because they are not attached.

So far as the USA goes, this is a good description of the internal political landscape as of February 17, 2017.  However, this ignores the possibility of something -- an external threat, but most likely something happening within our own border -- to change the game.

We're one terrorist (or false flag) incident away from Wonderboy -- insecure, narcissistic, child-man led by Stevie Bannon -- declaring a State Of Emergency and locking the country down. It will be a massive overreaction designed simply to match the paranoid, delusional world Trump and Bannon inhabit, a "War Of The Worlds" radio broadcast -- the results of which will be impossible to predict once it's been put in motion. At that point the nation will find all the buttons on Trump's command deck are fully connected and operate very well. 

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MEHR, MIT MEHR VON BUCKY!  On this evening's PBS New Hour -- following a segment showing interviews with Trump supporters and critics in Bellville, and Austin, Texas -- Bucky made a few observations [warning: paraphrased quotes].

"What's at the core [of the divide between Americans]? Why is the chasm so wide?  Is there some cultural or racial divide?  Whether it's some identity politics thing or something else... that's the world we're in."

Bucky said he saw Trump's news 'conference' performance as "mildly deranged", then questioned what of substance Trump was actually doing. He noted that relatively few of the total number of presidential appointees had actually been made. "On the substantive picks, he doesn't have nominees [in place]... nothing is happening."

Asked if he believed Trump was 'mildly deranged', Bucky made a trademark non-demurral demurral: "I'll walk that back a little... he was 'unmoored'... he's not speaking as a president giving orders and leading the American people... [his] attack on the press... saying that they are enemies of the people... [that's] to take [direction] right out of the fascist playbook..."

Trump's actions "offends 65 to  70 per cent of the American people," Bucky added later. "It pleases 35 per cent of the people," he said, noting that the Republican leadership was not in any hurry to put distance between themselves and Trump "anytime soon. Among Republicans, 82 per cent support Trump, a higher [percentage] than Reagan got."
 

Finally, Bucky said the Republican leadership are "living in a hermetically-sealed universe, as are the democrats; so they're going to [support Trump] even at the risk of electoral downfall..."

And that's Jenga.

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Random Barking: Days Of Wonderboy

Chewing On This

Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark: I have another conversation with Archibald "Harry" Tuttle, which summed up the feelings both of us have on Day 24 of our Republic's new, mandatory 24 X 7 Soap, Rule Of The Buffoons. We agreed the bar of our expectations for this Clown-Car government is set so low you couldn't slide a photon under it.

"I'm sitting there, watching television, when this Fool shows up like he does," Harry says (and, in a slight digression, we agree henceforth to refer to Il Duce as 'Wonderboy'). "To me, he's 'Trump the Entertainer' 'Trump the Businessman' -- spouting some kinda bullshit, like he always does -- and then it hits me: This man is 'the president'!"  Harry brushes his face, forehead to chin, two-handed in rapid succession, as if he were doing the introduction to the Curly Shuffle, or brushing off a poisonous insect.

"I mean: I still can't get my hands around this!" He says. "Wonderboy, this motherfuckin' jackass, is 'the president' ??!! You'd expect it would've sunk in, by now -- but, Nooooooo.

"And, this white power asshole who helps run Wonderboy -- Bannon," Harry spread his hands. "I was reading that this fuck is pretty much lovin' him some Hitler!!" (While not 100% accurate, it's close enough. Harry was reading this article, which he had gotten to via The Soul Of America. And yes; we talk in italics a lot.)

"Does nobody on your side of the street [Harry means: White People] get it? This man will not be happy until he owns our ass. You all don't think that can happen, but it's simple: You'll wake up one morning, head off to work, and there's a Humvee at the intersection and three guys in fatigues with AR-15's who have their orders. You want to pass, and you meet whatever profile is in their orders, you're gonna hear Sir I need you to step out of your vehicle. We know this drill. Isn't anything new for us.

"Bannon and Wonderboy want to own the country," Harry continued. "Own it right up front; none of this slinking around in the shadows. Trump just wants to own things, like the stupid Richie Rich he is. But Bannon? He want to own people's souls, man. He wants to make it impossible to think about Freedom, the way we do now. He wants that to be illegal. But both of them wants a country where it's obvious who runs things, and you'll bow and scrape to your betters. All they want from us is yes massa, no massa; three bags full, massa, and if you step outta line there's jail for you, or something worse.

"He'll throw the statue of liberty across the hood of a 1963 Chevrolet, and put it to her without the benefit of Vaseline -- after he and Wonderboy, and Wonderboy's friends, steal everything what ain't nailed down.

"And I still can't believe this is what's happening," Harry sighed. "I just can't."

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It's as if a symbol of America -- the Flag; the Bald Eagle; the Great Seal -- has been replaced with a coupon, good for one small soda at a god-fearing, hatin'-them-fags-and abortion-doctors franchise like [Name Of Chicken Place Redacted; But, You Know].

(These items are manifestations of what we hope for, living in community. What we assume America means. Those visions tend to leave out slavery and genocide, misogyny, the baked-in rule by Persons Of Property, and the occasional Terror -- such as 1894, 1917; 1932, 1941; 1947; 1968; 2001; and now 2017).

Because organizations run by a crowd of smiling, intolerant evangelicals who have prayed their entire lives for the chance to punish punish punish the sinful liberal hellbound hippie assholes, in the name of the living god -- is what America is all about becoming now. Don't believe it? Just remember the monstrous, stupid drivel Mikey Pence signed into law in Indiana.

A travel ban by executive fiat today becomes denying other rights tomorrow -- at the stroke of a pen, along with an order to a compliant Congress to rubber-stamp whatever Wonderboy desires. Join the Party; join the mob. Sieg Heil, y'all.

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And, aber natürlich, the wealthy are making plans to split this scene when Der Tag comes -- whatever form The Day takes. Having despoiled and looted, they'll flee; because they are special, and valuable. Not like you disposable labor and consumer resource units out there. What are you good for, if you're not working for the Owners, or purchasing their companies' wares and services?

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People talk to each other. I have other conversations -- with my Dog Trainer, with The Best Friend. The portion of Dog Trainer Talk to which I will own up publicly settled on that sense of unreality around the fact of Wonderboy, his Parteigenossen, and their Glorious Reign over everything.

"I see it," said my Trainer. "So many people have been profoundly affected, even clinically affected, by what's happened." He shook his head. "I still can't quite believe it, either."

The Best Friend won't even discuss Wonderboy. "I just can't. I turn the sound off on the television whenever he appears. I can't listen to the sound of his voice."

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When we talk, we get to that point in the conversation where one or the other of us asks What Next? We talk through many different scenarios, none of which seem so ludicrous any longer and include impeachment; another military incursion or limited war; a trigger event which will allow a State Of Emergency and extraordinary Executive powers; possible economic secession; civil war.

Aber Das Tea Partei Muss Sein.

(What's more likely is a continued, slow erosion of respect for a central government, environmental controls, fiscal regulation. An America First economic policy will please the Faithful, and a massive public works project will be fine misdirection for a few years -- until the rest of the world begins using AI and automation, and our Made In USA goods will be too expensive for export; the Parteigenossen who voted for Wonderboy will love that. 

(I dislike globalism and automated factories as ultimately enriching the few and making a return to The Peasantry likely for so many of the rest of us -- but that technological tide isn't going to be reversed unless the entire System collapses. 

(It seems Trump, Bannon and the Tea Partei may not be the bringers of Ragnarok. They're just opportunistic thieves with a good patter, and just enough veneer of conservative progress to distract the Rubes as they concentrate on pouring Quatloos into their private coffers. Our quality of life, education, medical care, food and water safety may be allowed to decline, while requirements for ideological purity, christian values and obedience increase. 

(After Wonderboy and Stevie are gone, The Real Monsters may rise up as they have waited so long to do. And it will be clear that Wonderboy was just one of a series of Suits occupying the White House who made Chtulu's homecoming more of a possibility.)

The possibilities we discussed were all American-centric -- which don't take into account the uncoordinated and completely unpredictable response of Wonderboy, Stevie, Ugly Big Nose and the Billionaire cabinet to an actual crisis generated by external events (such as meeting, in a public restaurant, to discuss the launching of a missile by Kim Jong Fat Boy's North Korea). It's assumed they won't care very much what happens to a bunch of non-white people in one of Those Countries. Besides, having to pay attention to that means less time to steal, connive, and deal; oh my yes. Times are so good.

While we can't agree on the likelihood of any one thing happening, we do agree: There appears to be no good outcome to the apotheosis of Wonderboy and Friends. This cannot end well.

Resist.

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Any Questions?

They're Selling Postcards Of The Hangings

Granting that it is not necessary to like the leaders of a democracy, it is necessary that they grasp the responsibilities of democratic governance, including respect for free speech, reciprocal obligations, and public accountability. In a week’s time, Trump and his proxies have trampled on the expectations of even this very low bar, throwing tantrums over crowd size, naming billionaires with no civic experience to prominent cabinet positions, and making the stunning, Orwellian claim to the existence of “alternative facts.”

Alarming as each moment has been, we cannot misjudge such actions as being merely appalling statecraft. Rather, when taken as a whole, they amount to a fairly coherent set of actions that displays the traits of an emergent totalitarian regime. This is unprecedented in American history.

When the president’s chief strategist declares he is at war with the press and identifies the pillars of free speech as “the opposition party,” we need to ask how many institutions will be severely weakened, maybe permanently, as an administration wantonly challenges the foundations of democratic life.

-- Christopher Lebron, "What Totalitarianism Looks Like";
    Boston Review, January 28, 2017   (Courtesy Soul Of America)

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I see a few key patterns here. First, the decision to first block, and then allow, green card holders was meant to create chaos and pull out opposition; they never intended to hold it for too long. It wouldn’t surprise me if the goal is to create “resistance fatigue,” to get Americans to the point where they’re more likely to say “Oh, another protest? Don’t you guys ever stop?” relatively quickly.

... Note also the most frightening escalation last night was that the DHS made it fairly clear that they did not feel bound to obey any court orders. CBP continued to deny all access to counsel, detain people, and deport them in direct contravention to the court’s order, citing “upper management,” and the DHS made a formal (but confusing) statement that they would continue to follow the President’s orders. (See my updates from yesterday, and the various links there, for details) Significant in today’s updates is any lack of suggestion that the courts’ authority played a role in the decision.

That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get [Italics Added]: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.

Yesterday was the trial balloon for a coup d’état against the United States. It gave them useful information.

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Now for the less pleasant part of this: What is the likely next step, in each of these cases?

While I hope that most people are beyond the stage of saying “oh, this is all just campaign rhetoric,” I know that many people will still say that... But given that in his first eight days in office, Trump has proven himself quite honest on the campaign trail — going out and doing exactly the things he said he would ... I’m hoping people are starting to realize that no, it wasn’t just a joke.

So I expect to see certain next steps ... each of these is a major move, which can have significant political value if spread out over time. This is roughly a roadmap for the next 2–3 years.

>> For Latinos, increased laws and orders exerting pressures on employers, landlords, etc., to get rid of anyone who even might be undocumented... i.e., making the situation bad enough to cause people to flee the country...

>> For Muslims, increased surveillance of (leading up to registration of) groups. The next big step would be bulk revocation of visas from people from various countries, at which point they fall under the same “illegals” program as is set up for Latinos. This also gives political cover for mass deportation — which, as an operational footnote, also requires mass internment for logistical reasons...

>> For black people, an increased crackdown on protests, if that’s actually possible... Any protest, no matter how peaceful, will be declared a “riot” and a reason for sharply increased police presence, not just then, but going forward; we should expect to see a lot of very visible marching of cops through the streets, arrests of anyone for insubservience, and so on... already happening; I simply expect the knob to be turned higher, much as it was in the 1960's...

>> For trans people, a systematic passage of laws somewhere between legalizing and mandating discrimination in all things...  I would expect that this is the first place where we’ll see a resurgence of “purity” laws. We used to have a lot of these, e.g. “gay people are a danger to our children and cannot be allowed to work in schools.” Here, you could not only have that, but you could have restrictions on where people are allowed to live...

>> For the press, I expect to see real attempts to silence it — but we’ll see how the power balance plays out. This is not going to be a simple fight.

>> For academia, I expect to see tremendous pressure brought to bear immediately: all research funds for research which either goes against some policy objective of the administration (e.g., climate research), or which sounds too aligned with “liberal elites” (e.g., anything involving gender and sexuality), will be targeted first... the first major orders cutting research funds were issued last Tuesday...

...Milo Yiannoupoulos is scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley on Monday, for example; it will be interesting to watch how the administration responds to any opposition to his presence. (NB that at his last speech, at UW last week, a medic was shot by a neo-Nazi. Past speeches he’s given at universities have included doxxing and calling for attacks against individual students. Sending him to talk at universities is a deliberate provocation.)

I expect to see a lot of people described as “un-American” and this to be used as an excuse to do various things to universities — which are not just schools, but also where people meet, discuss, and organize, things which the regime has a lot of reason to oppose.

... Now the grimmest part of all: Working through timelines. I’m going to be extremely blunt about this, because measuring these timelines accurately and knowing when to jump is the most basic survival skill I was taught from childhood... I also know that this time people are affected who don’t have twenty generations of practicing this behind them, so we need to speak out loud sometimes.

... For foreign-born Muslims and Latinos who are undocumented, related to someone undocumented, or who might be confused [about their documentation status], I’d say that the red flag is up, and it’s time to consider exit strategies with a 6-month window.

US-born Muslims, Latinos who have more stability inside the country, and Jews have a somewhat longer time horizon available, but I’d start quietly thinking about options for when things change.

Advice for the black and trans communities is simpler, because everyone already knows it: Organize! The advantage there is in numbers and shared strength, and in community. That’s also good advice for all of the other groups: even if you’re thinking about your exit strategy, you have very good reason to make common cause, and for everyone to work and pull together. That’s the thing that has a chance of preventing all of this, and of saving the most lives when that fails.

-- Yonatan Zunger,  

    "Trial Balloon For A Coup?", January 31, 2017; and

    "What Things Going Wrong Can Look Like", January 30, 2017

    Mediumdotcom (courtesy Soul Of America) 

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“Prepare for malice; hope for incompetence.”

 -- ( @nomikkh )

MEHR, MIT EIN ANDEREN MEINUNG :  

Not everyone agrees with Yonatan The Wise. Courtesy of Your One Stop Shop For Cats 'n Culture, we bring you "Liberals On The Edge" 

P.S. -- Not like Sam Kriss doesn't make a point... but you don't have to hear Ian McDiarmid cackling Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen in the background to find it plausible that Lil' Stevie Bannon, Rinse "Nancy" Prebius, Ugly Bignose and Tiny Teddy have a plan. These people are the incarnation of evil; they smell and don't fit in their clothing very well, but they're not stupid.   

Overreaching; greedy; besotted with a sense of power, yes -- and, by the way, it's the overreaching and arrogance which will ultimately be their undoing. Sadly, that Undoing may mean the same for all the rest of us.

_________________________________

( Artist Unknown - Courtesy TomClarkBlog, via Soul Of America; February 2, 2017 )

Always Free Cheddar In The Mousetrap, Baby

Digging Up The Dead With A Pick And A Shovel

Tom Waits: "God's Away On Business" (Album, 'Blood Money'; 2002)

(Used in the 2005 film, Smartest Guys In The Room)

... Political conditions were becoming even more confused. One crisis followed on the heels of another, and we paid no attention... On January 30, 1933, I read of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, but for the time being that did not affect me. Shortly afterward I attended a membership meeting of the Mannheim local party group... "A country cannot be governed by such people," I briefly thought. My concern was needless. The old bureaucratic apparatus continued to run the affairs of state smoothly under Hitler, too.
--  Albert Speer, Inside The Third Reich; The MacMillian Co. (1970), p.25.

Police reported that eleven people were shot and killed in Chicago, primarily in South Side neighborhoods, during the Christmas holiday. The city may pass 700 homicides, and over 4,000 gun-related injuries, before 2016 ends.
--  Information In PBS 'Nightly News Hour' Segment, December 26th

BOB:  ... And a heartwarming moment this weekend when Fred Arnold of Pinole lost his partial upper dental plate while riding the Richmond BART line on Christmas Eve. The dentifrice was found by a five-year-old boy, whose parents wish him to remain anonymous; and on Christmas Day Mr. Arnold was reunited with his dental plate, telling KTUV news, "I can eat now."
KATHY:  That's so kind of that boy. You know, when I hear items like this, it balances out so much of the other news we report, you know?
BOB:  Sure does.
--  Close Of 6:00PM Newscast, KTUV-Oakland, California, December 26 (OK; maybe not).

Tom Waits: "Hell Broke Luce" (Album, 'Bad As Me'; 2011)
_____________________________

The Days

Random Barking: Fate Of Our Fodders 

Electoral College members voted today, with minor defections, to affirm that Donald Trump is the next President Of The United States (News Item).

Eschewing politics, partisanship, and party building, Obama seemed to believe that restoration of transparent, efficient, competent, and responsive government within strict neoliberal policy parameters was commensurate with the epochal demands of social renovation that his own unlikely emergence was supposed to signify. In retrospect, it should not be surprising that this brand of repressive tolerance and progressive tinkering would not hold back the forces of repressive desublimation and social decay that Trump represents. Risk and volatility are on again... the wrecking crew is back in the saddle.
 -- "Trump and the Present Crisis," Nikhil Pal Singh; December 6, 2016

The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion.  The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.
-- George Orwell, Freedom of the Park (1945), quoted by David Remnick in "American Tragedy"; The New Yorker Online, November 9, 2016   

May They Burn In The Forever Fire

"Today there were terror attacks in Turkey, Switzerland and Germany and it is only getting worse. The civilized world needs to wake up."  -- Duce!

I'd like to thank the Project For A New American Century, William Kristol, David "Bucky The Beaver" Brooks; 'Dick' Cheney'; Paul Wolfowitz; Donald Rumsfeld; the Special Condi Rice (Shot From Guns!); Colin Powell; munitions manufacturers, military contractors; many other scuttling roaches, and (last but not least among Bottom-feeders) George W. "Lil' Boots" Bush -- for an unnecessary, criminal invasion of Iraq, without which hundreds of thousands of human beings would be alive today, and multiple tragedies in Baghdad, Aleppo, Islamabad, Mumbai, Tripoli and Benghazi, Paris, Berlin, and a thousand other  cities and towns would not have taken place.

But, don't worry. As children are barrel-bombed in Syria; drown trying to escape across the Mediterranean; as suicide bombers kill and maim hundreds; as women and girls pass into sexual slavery for IS -- for all the above-mentioned persons, it's the most wonderful time of the year. Their holiday is easy and soft. They are warm , and safe, with many treats; and people to tell them they are kind and loved and right and sane and good.

We Mean It, Too.

Die Sprache

Going to work at 5:20AM and a stop at a coffee chain near the entrance to BART on a cold (48 Degrees F.) day. Considering how amazing it all is: Coffee grown thousands of miles away, roasted in machines, brewed in other machines behind the counter -- all the manufacturing processes to fabricate them, and the ships and the trains and the trucks that brought it all together. Served hot in paper cups with plastic tops (trees, oil; more machines making them) in a city with moderate political corruption and a good public transport system.

Inside, a carousel of baked goods, topped by a plate of Bear Claws piled ten inches high -- flour, butter; sugar grown and made in Hawaii (with all the machinery of harvesting, refining); almonds grown in the Central Valley; industrial mixers; baking ovens.  I'm moving towards work, considering the shifting likes and dislikes of my Dog's life and aware of the irony that I have these troubles in the midst of skyscrapers and laptops and cellphones and women so beautiful your heart (among other things) aches with memory and imagination.

At a table in the cafe: an Indian couple in their late twenties or early thirties, having an earnest conversation. "No you do not understand how I feel," says the woman ("Yes; I understand," the man says over her, in a flat voice without much conviction), "There are things I want to do, now."  "Yes and what things," says the man, waiting for the moment to pass, looking off into some middle distance.

"I want my career," the woman replied; the man made a sour face, and the woman said, "You are not taking me seriously. You have to listen to me!" As I was walking past them on my way out of the cafe, the man swung his face back to quickly look at her, eyebrows raised as if to say Oh, do I?

What The Election Means: Easy To Read Nutshell Version

(Click To Enlarge !  It's Easy And Fun !)

I walk down into BART, thinking: the intellectual concrete of language makes possible the construction of ideas, emotions, into the real. If people don't have (or aren't allowed) language that defines concepts like equality in opportunity, employment, pay; or reproductive rights; or when No means No... then after a while, not only will they no longer exist as rights in a society -- the very ideas will cease to exist for the larger mass of the population. It truly is that simple.

_________________________

They Have Milestones

John Glenn died, age 95. I met Glenn in 1963 for less than five minutes. He had been doing something at the Air Force base near my small home town, and had gone into a local shop to have new rubber heels put on a pair of shoes (his old heels were 'Virginia Oak' brand). He would be back in a week 'during the lunch hour' to pick up the shoes, he'd said.

In the early 1960's everything about the manned space program fascinated me. I had scrapbooks of every space-related article printed in LIFE magazine since before Sputnik -- and seven days later, I was in the shoe shop when Glenn drove up shortly after noon, alone, in a dove-grey military sedan and parked in front.

He looked exactly like his pictures, dressed in a black suit with the thin line of a white handkerchief showing above the coat's front pocket; a white shirt, and a blue-grey bow tie. He was polite, but contained, aloof -- discouraging any attention as embarrassing or unseemly.  We shook hands, and he autographed the LIFE magazine cover of the issue about his multiple-orbit Mercury mission, with the photo of him wearing his astronaut's silver flight suit and white helmet ("Best Wishes, John H. Glenn, Jr.").

What was it like? I asked. "Well, you can read about that in there," Glenn said, nodding toward the magazine -- and after paying for the shoe repairs, politely said goodbye and left quickly.

In the late Eighties, when Glenn put himself forward as a potential Democratic presidential candidate, I read an article about his campaign in Rolling Stone -- in one passage, without being seen, the author had observed Glenn while the ex-astronaut, Senator from Ohio, waited alone in a side room for an introduction to speak at a meeting of some civic organization; its members were in a larger room directly next door.

The group opened their meeting by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance -- and as they did so, the author watched Glenn stand, put his right hand over his heart, and recite the Pledge himself. There was no reason for him to do that; so far as he knew, no one was looking.

_______________________

Kirk Douglas celebrated his 100th birthday.  ZaZa Gabor died at (maybe) 99, and her passing even eclipsed information about Aleppo and submersible drones seized by the Chinese and Duce! in the nightly news -- ironic, as ZaZa was almost wholly without talent, one of the first to be famous ... just for being famous. She made Paris Hilton possible (more irony, as ZaZa had married, and divorced, Paris' grandfather Conrad). Even in death, our 'news' organizations treated her as if she were a person who had achieved something worthwhile and notable in human affairs. 

_______________________

I Remember It Was Better In The Olden Days

One Wants To Believe What Will Keep One Safe

... this is something different. This is not Mitt Romney winning in 2012 or John McCain in 2008. It's part of a larger current in the world that I find equally troubling, which is an illiberal current. It has justifiable beefs with the results of globalization, de-industrialization.

There are all kinds of people in the north of England, in the south, in the Rust Belt of the United States and throughout Europe who are made uneasy by, and have suffered by, all these currents... I just don't think that the political results that we're seeing in many of these countries are the healthiest thing in the world. I think just the opposite...

A friend of mine here at the office said it's like you've been tossed out of an aeroplane and you feel the sense of alarm, fear... no parachute is opened. No sense of "ah this is a normal event"… But there is that impulse to make it such, and I see it all around me. I see it on television. I see it in the paper. What I would call normalization.

You see it all over. I understand the impulse. It's a very human impulse always to normalize the situation, so that you're not in a state of constant alarm or fear or sadness or agitation.
-- David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker, Interviewed By The BBC, 12/17/16

________________________

Rot Front; Rot Front!

You want the 1930's (hopefully minus the Depression)? Okay; we'll give you the Thirties.

Antifa! Poster Announcing

"Prevent Nazi Parade In Berlin !", May Day 2004

Announcing Trump’s victory, his clever consigliere [Steve} Bannon offers a different story from the one we have typically been told about American global power, foretelling of a future restoration of what Bannon calls native, “American capitalism” and its place in the sun. For Bannon and Trump, the bill has come due for the global protection racket that the US has run lo these seventy years. “The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia,” Bannon has declared. “Like Andrew Jackson’s populism, we are going to build an entirely new political movement… it’s going to be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”

 -- "Trump and the Present Crisis," Nikhil Pal Singh; December 6, 2016

________________________

I Really Got Nothin'

Barrel-Bottom Time At The End Of All Things

 Obligatory Demonstration Of Mongo Baking System

It's cold, in a relative way for America's Left Coast, and we tend to stay indoors. While shuffling through stuff with my nose, looking for something that will light up the Speak, Memory module in One Dog's Brain, I happened across the liveblogged Republican Response to Pestident Obama's January 2015 STFU speech.

It has a particular odor -- aged now, like a nice Vache (a raw-milk cheese wheel which, if improperly ripened, will fucking kill you), and seemed very apropos of Things, here at the Dawn of Trumplandia, the End of the Beginning, and the Beginning of The End.

One of the things I enjoy about liveblogging the STFU speech (boy; can't wait for the one we're gonna hear in January of 2018; can you?) is the opportunity to do some stream-of-consciousness that contains Teh Funny. Always the Funny, because otherwise we'd never stop screaming.

So Gobblez you, and Gobbelz 'th United States of 'Murrika; we're here for the rest of the year. Be like the Monkey Man and grope your waitress, or at least Tweet everyone about how it's your right to do so, and that everyone should prepare for a go-back to 1950 and just, you know, lighten up. Fascism's not so bad; there's just a lot of repetition.

_____________________________________________

The Liveblogged Rethug Response

Joanie Ernst (R - Tea Parteish): On The Importance Of Being Ernst

Rather than respond to the President, I'm going to say in a Chamber Of Commerce way how great the Republican Congress is and the Republican Congress feels your pain in that little way it does, and let me tell you about that small town in Iowa, where I worked construction and was raised to be in the Republican Congress.

You see, when growing up, I wore bags on my shoes along with young Iowans who worked hard, and many families today feel they're working harder and getting less of those bags. We see the hurt, in the Republican Congress -- in cancelled health care plans and everyone more fearful. And less bags. America is hurting -- but when the Republican Congress demanded, there were failed plans like Obamacare.

The Republican Congress will make Congress function again. We want the Keystone "Jobs" bill -- the President, despite being wrong, hasn't done it. It will have minimal environmental damage. Will he sign a bill, or block good American jobs? Let's go over there to Eurp so the Republican Congress can boost simplified tax codes for the well-connected -- flat tax!  Flat tax! Tax the rich even less and all boats will rise, all bags will float!

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Whatever

We're calling on the President now in the Republican Congress. Some of it will occur where I stand tonight, in my Republican cloth coat, mispronouncing 'Al Qaeda', and our hearts can only imagine the two decades I spent in the Iowa National Garde. The innocent are not comprehensive in the Republican Congress.

Bonus Marchers must be prevented by the Republican Congress. The Republican Congress will address things and mail them to unknown places so no one will ever see them again. We will replace a healthcare law that has hurt so many HMOs. We'll do everything! We'll defend and protect because we in the Republican Congress measure our society with coffee-spoons.

America faces big challenges, but look at my parents, who had dirt to call their own. They sacrificed -- and now I am here, truly extraordinary. You just need the freedom to dream big and hard work -- the Republican Congress will do that dirt, with little help from the President. And I can't shut up, I must go on about this great nation and it's veterans and women and the Republican Congress. Thank you thank you thank you.

Republican Congress. You elected us (Smiles).

______________________________________________

MEHR, MIT ERBRECHEN:  

(Reuters; December 9, 2016, via TomClarkBlog) President-elect Donald Trump's Energy Department transition team sent the agency a memo this week asking for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers, alarming employees and advisors.The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and seen by Reuters on Friday, contains 74 questions including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years.
 
It asked for a list of all department employees or contractors who have attended any meetings on the social cost of carbon, a measurement that federal agencies use to weigh the costs and benefits of new energy and environment regulations. It also asked for all publications written by employees at the department's 17 national laboratories for the past three years.
 
"This feels like the first draft of an eventual political enemies list," said a Department of Energy employee, who asked not to be identified because he feared a reprisal by the Trump transition team.
 
"When Donald Trump said he wanted to drain the swamp it apparently was just to make room for witch hunts and it's starting here at the DOE and our 17 national labs," the employee said.
 
Trump transition team officials declined to comment on the memo...

______________________________________________

 

You Want It Darker

January 29, 1933

(NBC)

"Waiting For The Barbarians", Chris Hedges, Truthdig; November 27, 2016, via Mr. Fish:

... The desiccation of our liberal institutions ensured the demise of our capitalist democracy. History has amply demonstrated what was to come next. The rot and political paralysis vomited up a con artist as president along with an array of half-wits, criminals and racist ideologues. They will manufacture scapegoats as their gross ineptitude and unachievable promises are exposed. They will fan the flames of white supremacy and racial and religious bigotry. They will use all the tools of legal and physical control handed to them by our system of “inverted totalitarianism” to crush even the most tepid forms of dissent.

The last constraints will be removed by a crisis. The crisis will be used to create a climate of fear. The pretense of democracy will end.

“A fascism of the future—an emergency response to some still unimagined crisis—need not resemble classical fascism perfectly in its outward signs and symbols,” Robert Paxton writes in The Anatomy of Fascism. “Some future movement that would ‘give up free institutions’ in order to perform the same functions of mass mobilization for the reunification, purification, and regeneration of some troubled group would undoubtedly call itself something else and draw on fresh symbols. That would not make it any less dangerous.” ...

... There will be rebels. They will live in the shadows. They will be the renegade painters, sculptors, poets, writers, journalists, musicians, actors, dancers, organizers, activists, mystics, intellectuals and other outcasts who are willing to accept personal sacrifice. They will not surrender their integrity, creativity, independence and finally their souls. They will speak the truth.

Read this. Read it all. And by everything I hold dear and sacred, I hope he's wrong; that what will develop in our future will be an aberrant episode in the American Experiment and not the end of it. And, everything I was raised to believe says It Can't Happen Here.

(And it has to be pointed out: My perspective on the American Experiment is rooted in the 'High School Civics Class' definition of America, which has status quo spray-painted all over it. And we all know what the Status Quo is about, who benefits from it, and who suffers in order to keep it going. I can't be blamed for wanting the stuff We Learned In School to be true -- but it isn't true for All, and that's the problem.)

At The Place Of Witless Labor yesterday, I had another conversation with Archibald "Harry" Tuttle. Unlike other people at the POWL, Harry goes right at Recent Events -- a 60-ish black man, he has no illusions about what's 'permissible' in our culture. I had mentioned the Chris Hedges article to Harry, who listened as I described it, and said, "And? Your point?" (Harry, incidentally, is an actual person, not a fictive alter ego for my own opinions, and the conversation was for-real.)

"You think a police state, in America, isn't possible?" Harry said. "Curfews, checkpoints, 'illegal' searches and seizures? Being singled out because you 'meet the profile'? Just because the Constitution this and the Bill Of Rights that? Or just because it's never happened to you?" Harry laughed. "It's been happening to us forever. Fuck the Constitution -- it doesn't mean shit, if they don't want it to. That ain't news to me. This guy [he meant Hedges] sounds like he's just catching up."

"Sometimes I wonder -- movies and television have been showing us for decades all kinds of bad events happening," Harry said. "Terrorists get the bomb, use it in some big city; another nine-eleven. Or a virus gets loose. Or space aliens -- and monsters are just symbols for real shit we're afraid of anyway.  

(Machine)

"But there's always a state of emergency, a lockdown. Army in the streets. What those movies don't ever show you is how long all that lasts -- everyone watching makes the assumption, 'When the monsters are gone, everything will go back to normal.'  They'll go to work and go to the mall and take their kids to school, or whatever.

"What if it doesn't?" Harry said. "After nine-eleven, we ended up with 'Snowden' and a war in the fucking Middle East, and drones, and the economy went to hell so the Usual Suspects could get even richer. The prisons are full and they are still shooting unarmed people in the back. None of that has changed. It didn't go away. It's the new normal. 

"When something big goes down here, some people are gonna have a rude awakening when they find out what a whole lot of people already know about power, and rights, and how far your arguing about the Constitution's gonna get you. And, with the fuckin' clowns about to go into office, it wouldn't take a flying saucer landing in Washington to give them the excuse."

________________________________

MEHR, VON DIE VERGANGENHEIT:  All this reminds me that a week before the election, I rode a Cable Car up the hill to my stop, near the border of a Very Wealthy Person's District. I sat beside one of these Persons, a white woman of indeterminate age -- honey-blonde hair done with just enough grey; excellent plastic surgery gave her the facial features of someone vaguely fortyish, but her hands were spotted, bony claws of the fairly elderly. I'd seen her riding the line in the past, but we'd never spoken.

She was dressed in a classic blouse/wool skirt/camel's hair topcoat/print scarf ensemble, as much a signal of class as School and Club ties for men once were. I don't remember how we began talking about the election -- in a city like Kiddietown, the assumption was that everyone was voting for Clinton, anyway. She wasn't direct about saying she was a Republican, but her assumption was that I (white-haired, white man in a suit and tie, topcoat, grey Fedora) might be One Of Us -- if not in Net Worth, then in spirit. 

"I know she'll win," the Person said, quietly. "But it would be so nice if it were -- you know; if he would win. All these unpleasant things would stop, then," she said, and her smile was shy, conspiratorial, like a wink. As if we had been on the S-Bahn in Berlin, long ago, and she had flipped back the lapel of her very expensive tan coat, just for a moment, so I would see the Parteiabzeichen pinned on it's hidden side.

Assumptions. All the unpleasant things, stopping. One of Us.

________________________________

Fuck that, man.

________________________________

 

MEHR, MIT EIN ANDENKEN:  And, a reminder of a deeper focus that needs to underlie our everyday attention, courtesy of The Soul Of America.  Woof !

________________________________