Ten Dead In Buffalo

Chickens, Roosting

Oh, Andy loved geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes really -- pressure, and time.

     -- Ellis Boyd Redding (Morgan Freeman); Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Racism is part of the fabric of American society. Our system was built to automatically, unconsciously, reserve and protect power for Caucasian males at almost any level of society. Cultural assumptions are like that. If you're White, you're soaking in it, breathing it, benefiting from it. 

Class is also part of the fabric of America. Even a poor, Cletus Red-Cap who knows he's poor also understands The System has been arranged and maintained to his benefit. Because he understands that -- like America's wealthy, the Owners -- he's White, and male, too.

But among a White majority, The System is built to reserve and protect power for a small percentage: the Owners. Every poor Cletus Red-Cap knows that, also: It's Chinatown, Jake.

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Story-telling and Imagination are part of the human experience. Some stories draw on tropes that are DNA-deep -- monsters in the dark (devils, vampires, aliens), magical powers; glimpses of the sacred and the profane; fear and hope. 

Stories are shared now, globally, instantly, through social media and mass entertainment. Fox, Google, Facebook, Twitter; all harvest information about their users to manipulate them, sell advertising -- and influence public consciousness on a societal level. Look at Cambridge Analytica, at the UK and Brexit. Look at the 2016 and 2020 U.S. elections.

And, when imagination is mixed with politics, and boundaries between Stories and experienced, verifiable reality are blurred -- you end up with millions of people believing that stories of monsters and conspiracies they see on social media are objectively real.

Obligatory Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

They believe a national election was stolen by Ballot Mules. That Sandy Hook was a hoax. That JFK, Jr., will bring Trump back to rule us all. That America is being stolen from its rightful White population by Non-Whites, supported by demon-possessed creatures: Liberals; Soros and the Clintons; LGBTQ+, Antifa. That Whites are being "cancelled". 

They believe that "we are at war with our government" (as Limbaugh used to say). They believe in themselves as the real victims. 'Hillbilly Elegy' said so. The Murdochs' media implies it, daily.

They believe acts of brutality and gun violence have no cause beyond Operator Error -- "just some crazy guy" -- because guns don't kill people; only other people do.

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Points of pressure and division in America, created over 400 years, have been cracking for decades and the tempo of the fracturing is increasing. Some points of division are kdue to legitimate, long-standing demands for historic, social and economic justice. Others result from attempts to destabilize American society and government.

All of it is happening against a background of global climate change -- rising temperature, sea levels, food shortages, pandemic disease. Authoritarian and fascist political movements are also rising -- Russia's government among them. Russia has brutally invaded Ukraine, and the mystic vision of its dictator-leader boils down to Make Russia Great Again.

The 'stable' Post-WW2 world my generation grew up in is gone. But what could we expect, after almost 70 years of CIA-fueled regime changes in Africa, West Asia, South and Central America; actual war in Southeast Asia, Iraq, Afghanistan; and twenty years' massive surveillance of American citizens?

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With every new massacre by a white-supremacist, ideologically-motivated shooter, I put my face in my hands. In my view, the Murdochs and their paid talking heads; the white supremacist militias; the braying and screeching Rightist politicians want this to happen. They want a civil war.

And the more persons -- like the Buffalo shooter -- are incited by the Right's rhetoric, convinced that planned, brutal acts are self-defense against a world controlled by a conspiracy of liberals and non-white monsters ... then the closer we get to the war America's political Right dreams of.

My country has sown the wind, and here are our Chickens, time coming 'round at last: slouching home to roost, to be born. 

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Right-wing pastor Perry Stone declares that Democrats in D.C. who oppose Trump "...are not normal people... [they] have demons in them." (Newsweek, October 28, 2019)

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By imagining [actual] demons behind social welfare, economic and environmental regulations, or legal protections for marginalized groups, spiritual warriors frame the dismantling of these systems as ridding the US of demons. More than this, they frame the people and groups they see as benefiting from those systems as agents of evil incarnate. Only after such people are removed can there be a national rebirth. ("Demons of the Deep State"; The Conversation, September 19, 2020)

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"Think of what the enemies of America have done over the last 14 months [Ted Nugent told the audience at Trump’s May 14th rally in Austin, TX]. They didn't sneak into the White House -- they lied, they cheated, they scammed; and every day the Democrats violate their sacred oath to the Constitution. And if you can't impress your friends on that, they shouldn't be your friends.

“I love you, but I would love you more,  if you went out and just went berserk on the skulls of the Democrats and the Marxists and the communists," Nugent said. "Evil [must be] stamped out.” (via Daily Kos May 15, 2022)

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It's All Funny To Herr Carlson: But, Then, He's Getting Wealthier

Night after night, hour by hour, Mr. Carlson warns his viewers that they inhabit a civilization under siege -- by violent Black Lives Matter protesters in American cities, by diseased migrants from south of the border, by refugees importing alien cultures, and by tech companies and cultural elites who will silence them, or label them racist, if they complain.

(Nicholas Confessori, "How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable"; New York Times, April 30, 2022)

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[In mid-December, 2018] Mr. Carlson had set off an uproar, claiming on air that mass immigration made America “poor and dirtier.” Blue-chip advertisers were fleeing.

Within Fox... [m]any wondered what price he might pay. The answer became clear that night ... absolutely none. When “Tucker Carlson Tonight” aired, Mr. Carlson doubled down ... citing a report from an Arizona government agency that said each illegal border crossing left up to eight pounds of litter in the desert. 

Afterward ...Mr. Carlson spoke directly with [Rupert] Murdoch, who praised his counterattack, according to a former Fox employee...

(Nicholas Confessori, "How Tucker Carlson Reshaped Fox News And Became Trump's Heir"; New York Times, May, 2022)

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MEHR, MIT 'DER IST SCHULD':  The Best Friend reports that here in San Francisco on May 14th, the Women's March was not that well attended. The most disturbing aspect were the counter-protestors -- all of them evangelical 'christians', who almost outnumbered the marchers, standing on the sidewalks as the contingent made its way down a nearly deserted Market Street, "shaking their fists at us and shouting that we were going to hell. It was really creepy; we felt alone out there."

And that was in San Francisco.

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Cult Of America

State Of Emerging Emergency

In these days I live in a bubble of self-imposed social isolation: an urban dweller, still occasionally going into hospitals to do my work, I'm stricter about protocols and distancing in the other areas of my life.

I follow the rituals, because I am an acolyte of a cult; the cult of Covid, which coexists inside another -- the cult of America. Both can be comforting if you follow their rules, and both can be damaging, even fatal, if you don't.

The rules of Covid are clear. Risk increases if you disregard them, for yourself and others. America's rules, as they say in corporate life, contain a higher level of ambiguity. For now, anyway.

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Years ago, at a holiday party in North Beach, when there was still a Cold War and Ceausescu's regime still in power, I met a Romanian journalist who had managed or been allowed to escape to the West -- and in giving me his impressions of the United States, the man said something I've never forgotten. It seems timely to recall.

In Romania, in the East Bloc -- you become enough of a problem for somebody, they take you out in the woods and put a bullet in your head. In America, you become enough of a problem for the government, and you -- don't get a credit card. They restrict your ability to make money. 

That's the difference between Reagan, America; and what Ceausescu has made out of Romania. But someday, that difference may disappear. When your government crosses the line. When you start finding people in the woods who have been shot in the back of the head? Then it's too late.

When you attack a man, or a people, you must destroy him entirely: they must have no power left at all, or will take vengeance (Machiavelli).

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Trump says the election is a fraud, rigged, stolen. That it is the work of a massive conspiracy by Democrats and the Deep State to deny him his rightful place as Leader. 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs -- but there is no evidence. At all. Trump's legal team has filed multiple legal actions to delay or overturn the tallied vote counts. All but one, inconsequential action has failed, denied by judges. Multiple recounts in the key states have proven no fraud had occurred, and reaffirmed the election's outcome. 

However, very public Trump supporters have begun saying very publicly that he should go further -- that the Republic is in danger from such a massive, carefully planned conspiracy. In order to preserve America, Trump should declare a State of Emergency and order a "second election" be held under military supervision. 

Among the people saying this are ex-Army General Michael Flynn, recently pardoned, and ex-Air Force General Thomas McInerney, who earlier this week claimed "US soldiers died attacking a CIA facility in Germany tied to fraud in the US election". And, Sidney Powell, tossed from Trump's legal team last week after spouting theories about who was behind the conspiracy that not even Rudy Giuliani could stomach. 

On Twitter late Tuesday, Flynn shared a press release from the nonprofit 'We The People Convention (WTPC)', which had purchased a full-page ad in the right-wing Washington Times. The Ad stated that Trump should declare "limited" martial law and hold a new election. 

(It's worth noting that the Military Times, an official organ of the U.S. Armed Services, reported all of the above in detail, quoting a 'senior defense official' as saying the prospect of a new election run by the military was "insane".)

Also yesterday, Trump released what the Washington Post described as a "bellicose, rambling" 46-minute video address taped at the White House (released on Facebook in full, and a shorter version via Twitter). It was stupefying in it's banality, and frightening in that Trump repeated the same primary lie, over and over -- that the election was rigged, its outcome fraudulent, and Biden has no legitimate claim to the Presidency.

1.  It's not possible to overstate how pathological, how untethered from reality, this is. Trump is the elected head of state. Faced with a complete absence of evidence for his claims (in fact, faced with evidence disproving the lie he is telling), Trump claims it is still true just because he says so. 

2.  Senior White House staff; Giuliani, other lawyers; Congressional Republicans; Murdoch's media / Fox 'personalities'; all support contesting the election as a Leftist conspiracy and Biden as its illegitimate winner  -- even though there is no evidence to support it beyond whatever comes out of Trump's mouth.

All of Trump's toadies have to be aware that the only conspiracy being conducted around the 2020 election is the one they have helped to create and perpetrate. For them, the ends shape the means, and as self-styled Patriots, whatever ends they use are right, proper; even blessed.

By itself, the video is just a curious artifact. But as the result of everything that's happened since election night, Trump's behavior demonstrates an inability to distinguish his fantasy from Reality . It's reason enough to invoke the 25th Amendment.

But it won't happen, of course.

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I've seen officers make bad, even crazy, decisions, and issue bad orders. I've watched managers and executives in corporate organizations, who had created environments every bit as toxic as Trump's, do the same. And, most people just execute the orders given -- they don't want to be punished for disobeying. They don't want to lose their jobs, or their 'power', inconsequential as it might be. They go along to get along.

Trump is doing everything possible to overturn the November election. Have no doubts about that. It's helpful that he's an incompetent bully, and has surrounded himself with other self-important incompetents who support his delusions. But there is more he can do.

All of his staff who have spoken out or spoken up have quit or been fired. Those left are True Believers in the Cult Of Trump. All live in fear of his rage and vindictiveness. If he acts on his delusions and issues orders, his staff will carry it out without much hand-wringing. He is Der Chef, and what he says carries the force of a Presidential order.

There may be people around Trump to dissuade him from bombing Iran, but domestic considerations are different; there may not be anyone to place a check on his mad impulses. And, forget the influence of Javanka or the rest of his family -- we were told Trump 'just needed time to adjust' to reality, that Trump would see reason sooner or later. How did that work out?

Staffers, and Congressional Republicans, think he's an asshole, and say so -- in private; particularly since the election. But the GOP's political fortunes are welded to Trump's crazy house of cards. Very few Congressional Republicans have said the election is over; Biden is the winner; time to move on. Others have pulled away, a little, from The Leader -- but in the language of their public statements you can see they're hedging their bets. Trump still controls The Base; he has the majority of the GOP by the short hairs. 

The federal bureaucracy may have enough persons in it who might slow-walk any truly crazy order Trump might issue. But he is the President, and can still order a state of emergency -- even over a non-existent election crisis -- and it will be a legitimate order from a sitting President.

Interesting that, after the election, Trump fired the Secretary of Defense because, it was reported, Esper refused to agree to order U.S. military personnel into American cities if there was civil unrest. Then, he fired the head of Cybersecurity (because Krebs wouldn't support Trump's false claims of election fraud).  He had already appointed John Ratcliffe as DNI, and was threatening to fire the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Director of the FBI. These agencies and individuals would be affected if Trump declared a state of emergency over a "stolen" election, and order some level of martial law. 

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If Trump's 46-minute video rant really is a preface to further Presidential action -- then all the major players in America's power structure will have to make a choice: Back Trump by accepting any order as legitimate because it is issued by the President, or refuse.  

I think Trump actually doing something regarding the election using the power of his Office is quite possible -- don't give it much of a chance, but we're in uncharted territory here. His legal strategy is a failure; he can try to lean on governors in the Key states to appoint their own electors. He can keep trying to place the election question in front of his Supreme Court.

Trump could be dragging all this out just to keep the focus on himself, and the idea of a second election is just a massive head-fake. He's even dangled the possibility of announcing his run for the Presidency in 2024 -- timed to coincide with Biden's inauguration on January 20th. 

One way or another, we will never be rid of Trump until (from natural causes, of course) death comes to claim him. He's a grifter; he and his family had just begun to taste the rich seam of public money. They were the Meth Addict Family with their own reality TV show, and they want their happy ending: the rest of the world prostrate at their feet, enriched beyond the wildest fantasies their BSE-riddled brains could imagine.

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Most people aren't following this story any longer. We watch a video clip or two on the news -- always, it's Crazy Rudy and his crazier 'witnesses'; sound bites chosen to highlight Trump's assertion that he won the election looks every bit as crazy as it is, and we have just tuned the entire story line out. This will all be over in January; he's crazy, let him rave on. We do have more pressing realities than to give any more time to that lying, bloated caricature of a man.

It isn't that 'The System Works', so much as it worked this time -- and, a sitting President refusing to concede his loss of office, making every effort to overturn an open election; this has never happened before. I believe we have dodged a collective bullet over the past month, beginning with Trump's loss at the polls -- but, look: nearly all Congressional Republicans continue to give public support for his batshit-crazy ravings. 

And, Lindsey Graham called the Secretary of State for Georgia, asking whether whole classes of votes could be rejected. Trump reached out to Republican canvassing board members in Michigan. If there had been a serious effort to pressure Republican governors into appointing their own electors, or refusing to certify their state's results... we could be in a much worse situation, now.

In the events of the past four weeks -- like the past four years -- there's a clear warning in how far Trump will go to mutilate America in protecting his personal interests, and how far the political Right will go in making up insane conspiracies, making alliances with proto-nazi militias, in order to push the tyranny of minority rule.

And they're not done with us. And we haven't even spoken about the Democrats.

200,000 new Covid cases, and 2,000+ deaths per day; the coming potential relief of a vaccine: the unimaginable sacrifices being made by Emergency technicians, nurses, physicians, environmental services -- these are the stories we should pay attention to. 

And we should remember who brought us to this, and how we got here.

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Politics Is Prologue

The Afternoon Of The Days Before

                                                    Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man

Es deckt einen da keiner zu

Und wenn einer tritt, dann bin ich es

Und wird einer getreten, dann bist’s du.

--  Kurt Weill / Bertold Brecht; "Meine Herren, Meine Mutter Prägte",

(aka, 'Denn Wie Man Sich Bettet') from Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahoganny (1931)

In November 2016, I assumed Clinton would win. I was wrong. Everyone knows how well the aftermath has worked out.

Now, it's the end of October, 2020. I've already voted; so have millions of others. I live in a solid-Blue state and city, where my mail-in ballot will be delivered, processed, counted; this isn't the case elsewhere in the country. 

I wasn't comfortable casting a vote that is more about saying "No" to fascism than 'Yes' to progressive initiatives and perspectives. But this election truly is about voting for nazis, or for not-nazis. Yes, it is not that simplistic; but at base it's not an exaggeration. 

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Based on public statements by all living former Presidents, from ex-government appointees from multiple administrations, ex-Congressional representatives and Senators from both parties, and retired senior military officers, they reject Trump and support not-Trump. 

That so many Republicans, and the ex-presidents in particular, have done so is remarkable. Even if what they're supporting is a semblance of democracy to protect continued rule for benefit of hereditary and corporate wealth, they understand Trump's reelection means the 244-year experiment known as the United States of America is over.  We will be ... something else.

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On election eve in 2016, Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com predicted Clinton victorious.

Throughout the election, our forecast models have consistently come to two conclusions. First, that Hillary Clinton was more likely than not to become the next president. ... That remains our outlook today in our final forecast of the year. Clinton is a 71 percent favorite to win the election according to our polls-only model and a 72 percent favorite according to our polls-plus model. ... Her chances have increased from about 65 percent.

But, many pundits say current polling compensates for the kinds of errors which made Clinton seem like a sure thing in 2016. They say the Biden lead is so significant that he seems a sure thing, too -- and 538's current  forecast (October 31st) continues to say Biden is "favored to win":

We’re now less than five days away from Election Day, and Joe Biden leads in both national and state polls. At this point, President Trump needs a big polling error in his favor if he's going to win. Although the error doesn’t need to be as big as you might think ... 

Take Pennsylvania, the state our forecast currently thinks is most likely to decide the election. Biden doesn’t have much extra cushion ... so a 2016-magnitude polling error could deliver the state to Trump. Remember, Trump has a meaningful chance of winning the election, per our forecast -- roughly the same as the chance that it’s raining in downtown Los Angeles (... about a 1-in-10 shot ...).

I hope there is a massive popular electoral uprising, a rejection of everything Trump and his toadies represent. Not because it will guarantee Trump's defeat -- only that the popular will of the People will be clear. But that will not save us.

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I want to be wrong, but believe we're on the brink of actual conflict in America. How exactly it happens, how our culture buckles and tears, will not be the same as we've seen in video news footage from countries in the Middle East. It hasn't happened in a 'first world' country since the coups and conflicts of Russia in the early 1990's, or Yugoslavia dissolving into political, cultural and religious civil war.

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Why? It's this simple: Leaders of the Republican party saw Trump as the one who could give them things they have dreamed of for generations. They have never been so close to reaching these dreams as they are now -- and a crude, corrupt oaf is the one whom fate has chosen to hand it to them. 

They've tied their fortunes, collectively and individually, to the person of Donald J. Trump. They've pledged their lives and fortunes, to honor a second-rate Grifter. They have too much at stake. They're all in. They have too much to lose -- and, if they did, it's not a stretch to imagine things being revealed, things they've done for Trump. Ensuring of a Trump victory can cover up a multitude of sins.

Will the political right in America allow a bunch of Proles, these sheep, to snatch away the chance to realize their dreams -- with a few votes? No professional politician, a connoisseur of power and its use, would let this moment go by. And Trump knows what Republicans want. 

After the passing of a legal and social giant like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, replacing her with a second-string, tinpot Stepford Wife like Barrett was Trump's opportunity to offer Leonard Leo and Mitch McConnell the equivalent of pharmaceutical-grade dope -- they're hooked. And Trump knows it. If he remains in office, Trump promises to give them more.

If you believe that, "somehow", 'adults' will save us -- that some institutional constraints, some belief that a majority of Elites running The System won't permit Trump to continue -- but did they stop him when they could, when Impeachment would have put an end to his time in office? Come to that, he could have been stopped in 2016. What makes you think they will now?

And simply 'More Trump' isn't even the worst-case scenario. If, after a stolen election, against a background of massive civil disobedience, a group of white, male 'christian' leaders steps in to take control of a godless nation (don't laugh; these people have formidable resources, and an absolute belief that god is directing them), then we have hit rock-bottom. It will be too late, for all of us.

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Yesterday, Robert Kagan published another opinion column in the Washington Post ("It’s up to the people to foil Trump’s plot against democracy"). It's worth reading (there is a paywall, so Digby helpfully reprinted most of it here).

Trump and his supporters have told us exactly how they plan to hold onto power regardless of the election outcome. The president began declaring the election “rigged” even before early voting began ... Republicans in hotly contested states are already planning to bring lawsuits alleging fraud, miscounts, tainted ballots and other irregularities.

...[Eventually the election may] come before the Supreme Court, which, with a solid 6-to-3 conservative majority, will put its stamp of legitimacy on the stolen election.

... Let’s be clear about what that America will look like. An administration that steals an election by abusing power must continue abusing that power to keep it. And Trump will have no shortage of excuses to wield power. A stolen election will bring tens of millions into the streets, possibly for weeks and months. The nation will have descended into an extra-constitutional civil conflict, with each side using the tools available to try to prevail.

For Trump, those tools are those of the executive, which the founders entrusted with immense power, from the administration of justice to the defense of the nation by the armed forces. The administration’s opponents, lacking institutional power, will be able to count only on its millions in the streets, and on the democratic consciences of individual judges and justices and federal employees, armed and unarmed, across the country. 

... Meanwhile, Trump and his minions will purge the federal government of all those deemed disloyal. Barr will open and expand investigations into anyone suspected of conspiring against the president ... for as long as Trump remains in power. Owners of mainstream media outlets will become targets of investigations by government agencies. 

Smears against Democratic lawmakers will mount. Trump’s supporters at massive rallies will shout “Lock them up!” And who will come to the rescue of the persecuted? Who in a position of power will have an incentive to reverse the events that kept them in power?

... We kept counting on others to save us — our institutions, our political leaders, our courts — but help never arrived. And as we waited for someone, anyone, to do the right thing, we moved closer to the end.

I really do hope I'm wrong -- that our political Right will refuse to sacrifice the country, just to ensure the rule of White christian Men, and keep their personal gravy trains running. But my trust in human nature is low, and America has too many chickens coming home to roost to allow for a lucky roll of the dice.

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MEHR, MIT BIGGLY BIGGLY:  Oh, even if Trump loses -- really loses? -- the era of Trump, the all-consuming ego and needy id, is not over.  It won't be over until much later.  Think about that.

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In A World Of Gutturals

 I Want What I Paid For

The first Presidential debate was a concentrated, painful display of one man's perversity and evil. Over 90 minutes on the stage at Case Western, Trump showed everyone exactly how he will behave over the election's outcome, and what he will do in a second term. 

Then, he 'suffered' through the most public, and hidden, case of Covid-19 in the history of the pandemic. He emerged (for the cameras) as the Strong Daddy, The Leader. I watched his choreographed return to the Whitey Haus from Walter Reed and felt a chill: the sequence appeared copied, nearly shot-for-shot, from Adolf's arrival at Nuremberg captured in Riefenstahl's Triumph Of The Will.

Since then, The Leader has gone on a social media rage, an almost nonstop public vomiting of bile, the usual lies and self-aggrandizement to Jack's Twitter and the Murdoch media, his enablers. His (presumed) case of Covid was a "gift from God" that regular Americans should not be afraid of. 

He wants Hillary, Obama and Biden arrested by 'his' Justice Department. He is all but silent about a militia plot to kidnap a sitting U.S. Governor. He demands that a Federal judge, with strong and deep ties to a bordering-on-evangelical-Protestant cult, be confirmed to the Supreme Court. He says all American troops will be Home For Christmas from Afghanistan, and the Taliban smile. 

He turns this way; he turns that way. He capers and spins. He is the focus and center of all disgusting things, the degenerate clown who drops his pants and exposes himself to show the crowd the anus mundi -- Well, at least they're all lookin' at me! And that means they're not lookin' at Sleepy Joe!

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Results of the debate were not what I expected. People reacted against Trump's behavior, seeing it as an embarrassment -- like watching a relative pick a fight in a restaurant for no reason, and voiding his bowels at the same time. Possibly, they saw the same thing I had -- that being steeped in a concentrated bath of Trump was like watching the capering clown; so disgusting, but you couldn't look away. The longer you watched, the more painful it became.  

Biden, by comparison, appeared sane -- and, also a little like the Geek kid whom a bully goes after. They may not like the Geek much (secretly, they think he's weak and should stand up for himself), but they liked the bully less for his behavior.  

In the world most people live in, which never got much more sophisticated after High School -- if the majority of Americans were the school vice-principal, they signaled in their rejection of Trump's display that he would get the three-day suspension. 

The second debate was cancelled. Because The Leader does not wish a virtual debate (due to Trump's own infection with Covid-19); he considers it a "waste of time." Perhaps the third debate will be held -- and by then, The Leader may be so untethered, his little piggy eyes squinched with hate and a desire to hurt, to dominate, that he will give America a show it will never forget.

I paid good money -- SARS-CoV2 money -- for the past eight months; the past four years; and I want to see this murderous, narcisstic jerk-off pull a China Syndrome, and melt down right to the bottom on national television. Gibbering, screeching, making monkey noises; voiding his bowels in public.

That's my right as an American, and a consumer: I want what I paid for.

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Vote Of No  =  Not The Same As A Vote Of Yes

At the same time, I'm clear that voting for Biden is a vote of No against all that. As my vote in 2016 was. As my vote for Obama was in 2008 and 2012. And so forth.

So I'm voting against a deluded grifter, a child-man caricature of a politician who is an empty suit for religious crazies and opportunistic proto-fascists -- who are just front persons for the monsters: corporations, and Our Fabled Wealthy.

I'm voting for Democratic empty suits, promising Americans a little more prosperity, a little social justice, but have ever only delivered a small fraction of that. Because to get it, they make deals with the front persons for the same monsters, same corporations and Fabled Wealthy. 

This time, the front men for the monsters have had a taste of all the money to be made, the 'christian' messages that can be delivered; a delicious taste of Power. They can see how easy it is to paint whole sections of the country as looters, Antifa; communists and Those In Rebellion Against God. They may not be in the mood to make deals with Democrats. They may decide to back Trump all the way to a coup -- when will they ever have as good a chance again?

"If you fuck around with us; if you do something bad to us; we are gonna do things to you that have never been done before.”  

      -- Trump, Interviewed On Limbaugh's Radio Program; October 8, 2020

The fix always seems to be in. The truth always seems to be just out of reach, obscured by alternative facts, by the Murdoch machine "flooding the Zone with shit", as Lil' Stevie Bannon says; because people have been treated like Rubes and Marks so long that many of them are, now. And because I know what I'm voting against, and voting for, I despair for my country. 

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Looking Over The Edge Of The Vent Block Roof

Most healthy persons can't take more than a few minutes of Trump at a time. To preserve our sanity, we've been forced to absorb him by spoonfulls over the past four years -- mostly, video clips of his speeches and press events. We know he's a liar, an infantile, insecure bully using taunts and threats to feel powerful. He responds to external stimulus through a narcissistic filter: he is the center of the universe.

Four years of clips, sound bites, and reported self-referential bully's chatter is the context for our understanding of Trump.  But we keep all those moments separate in our minds -- like the core of a nuclear device -- because experiencing all of Trump, suddenly bringing all those facts together, might be more discomfort than most people can stand. 

Doing that could mean the realization that Trump is the embodiment of every lie, every contradiction and half-truth about America that's woven into our national fabric. He's the personification of everything about America we have been trying as a society to avoid facing. He's Brutal Whiteman Daddy Who Doesn't Care, coming home drunk at 3 A.M., and fuck knows what will happen. 

And we know he will at least try to bully his way into rigging and stealing the election, to avoid prosecution, to rule America as a dictatorship. The past four years may be prologue.

The debate forced America to experience all four years of Trump, concentrated into 90 minutes of bombast, jeering, heckling, lying. It was painful to see just how good he is at it. It was frightening. What I found just as painful was watching Biden's response.

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The Minotaur And The Other Guy

Biden appeared to have prepared for a debate on the facts, to show his qualifications to be President (this strategy had been broadcast by his campaign, several times). Trump would appear weak and out of his depth.  

What Biden wasn't prepared for was Trump, acting in the tradition of a Joseph Goebbels / Steve Bannon Brownshirt. He went after Biden from the moment he opened his mouth -- interrupting, insulting; forcing the eyes of the cameras on him, making his behavior the focus of the debate.

Biden's initial response was to laugh, but after a few minutes he reacted like any normal person would:  he was pissed; This is a Presidential debate! You can't act like this! But Trump isn't normal. He's pathological. And his political career is based on acting that way, a dogwhistling display of behavior that sends his Base into an orgasmic delight.

Two minutes in, it wasn't about facts. Trump was a bully in a bar fight, daring Biden to punch back -- and when one starts, it's not about principle; Woodrow Wilson's famous "there is such a thing as a man too proud to fight" only means you will take a beating.  Biden responded with a normal person's outrage -- exactly the way the media and institutions have reacted to this punk for the past four years -- and Trump didn't just keep stepping over the line, he pissed on it, on national television..

Biden's campaign has focused on his experience as Vice-President, and his empathy for ordinary Americans in the midst of a consuming national emergency. He wanted to show by contrast that he was a better, more qualified person than Trump. It didn't work. He didn't have the physical presence, voice, or quick responses to Trump's crude taunts. 

Chronologically, I'm only a few years behind Trump, and a few more behind Biden, but Joe seemed Old -- flustered, stumbling on occasion under Trump's relentless needling. In those moments he looked exactly the way the Rethugs want to portray him. Isolated clips of Biden on the nightly news didn't show this, aber naturlich. You had to be there.

From coast to coast, Trump's Base was drinking in bars and each others' homes, not wearing masks, bellowing their approval: Yeah! Yeah! We're ownin'; them libs! YAAAH-hoo!!  Itching for the opportunity to take their AR-15s and surplus gear and head for a polling place to Get in some lib's face, dare 'em to push back. 'Cause we're ready.

____________________________

Strong Daddy; Good Daddy

Then came the via Dolorosa of Trump, the Brave, Our Savior; whisked off to Walter Reed, walking -- no, striding resolutely to Marine One, apparently with a cannula hidden under his hairdo and cloth face mask, and a portable 02 unit in his right pocket. And there were reports that the celebration of Lil' Amy's announcement (of soon being able to speak in tongues from the highest court) turned out to be a Superspreader event.

In quick succession, his doctors prevaricated and threw magic pony dust in the eyes of the mainstream media. Trump spoke -- not through his Press Secretary, brave Lil' Kayleigh (who later tested positive, too) -- but through the Murdochs, telling their 'broadcast personalities' he was The Strong Daddy, the 'good genes' Daddy who was "in control".

Meanwhile, no one gave a damn about the White House staff or the "domestics" (i.e., the butlers, housekeepers, cooks and custodians). No guidelines were issued, no suggestions to be tested; no rules about wearing face masks -- which few people in the White House did; after all, they worked for The Leader, and all reality bends to His will. There would be contact tracing, but not by the CDC; a private contractor would handle it (wonder which cabinet secretary owns the company -- or, a friend of Javonka's?).

There were video clips and still photos released. Evil know-it-all Antifa sympathizers indicated they were staged, taken before Trump left the White House, minutes apart, using the same props in two different rooms. But they showed Daddy hard at work -- for you; all for you, in The Leader's America.

Then, a long, surreal weekend, culminating in a bizarre joyride -- and then, science and all persons bowing to The Leader's will, his triumphant return to Washington, jumping up the South Portico stairs, up, up to the balcony, framed by backlighting and American flags. Daddy was home; and for some all was well. Everyone else felt their stomachs clench, checking their cellphones: What crazed shit has he done now?  Just as he wants us to do. 

Always doing something new, our Daddy.  What will be next?

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Random Barking: You Know That

Everybody Knows

...And everybody knows that the Plague is coming

Everybody knows that it's moving fast

Everybody knows the naked man and woman

Are just a shining artifact of the past

Everybody knows the scene is dead

But there's gonna be a meter on your bed

That will disclose

What everybody knows

         -- Leonard Cohen

Animals

We live in an anthropocentric world of social and political constructs, dominating the natural biosphere. That structure is composed of more layers than we can imagine, constantly interacting: a terrible beauty. 

We can't know how those layers interrelate with each other. Data and technology can reveal, even predict cause-and-effect interactions between some layers in the constructed world. But no one can have a god-view of the entire system. This makes a definite future difficult to predict.

As animals, we're hardwired for sensory input; every waking minute we navigate our constructed world, we take in information. We consider what we see as fact; or we reject it as false (it's not either/or; more a spectrum of relative value judgments). 

How we determine that is affected by our personal histories and emotional drivers -- and it's happening, for the most part, unconsciously, moment-to-moment.  And those emotional levers are notoriously easy to manipulate. Advertisers, social media oligarchs, megachurch 'pastors' and politicians know this.

______________________________

Factually, all this is as much as we can know about how we are as thinking animals and the world we are living in. It's an intentionally simplified description, but stops here -- where a pitch by carny barkers, cults, social media platforms or political parties normally begins.

There are religious and metaphysical perspectives, too. I make a joke out of having once met the Dalai Lama (asking if he'd seen Caddyshack), but I was able to pose another question: Was there one passage or observation which he felt summarized the teachings and the way of the Buddha? The Lama -- who never stopped smiling -- considered for a moment, then said, "Do your best."

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Complacency

None of our basic assumptions about America are complete or correct. We've mostly been content to live as resources and participants in a materialist culture, having The Good Life that the Promise Of America is supposed to provide. We've been drifting along on assumptions about what America is, what our national priorities are, where we as a society we should go. Not even the 2008 Recession shook us out of our complacency.

Before Covid, most Americans assumed America wasn't perfect, but things are way better than they were in the past. Economic and racial inequality takes a long time to address! 2008? Well, we came back from that (or, most did). As long as people could pay their way, America appeared to be a progressive society. 

Unless you're Black. Or Latino. Or Native American. Or Poor. Or an Immigrant. Or 'Other'. If so, then they already understood the High School Civics Class View of America was not based on their lives. They already understood what the knee on the back of George Floyd's neck felt like.

All of the metrics of the Pandemic have already been reported: the unemployed, the shuttered businesses; the evictions; the dead, the populations at risk. The Great Recession wasn't a mortal blow to America. But the Pandemic might be. 

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Future

When not talking about SARS-CoV2, my friends in America are focused on the November election. They see it in traditional terms: Either / Or.  They're the "Democrats" (or 'Progressive Independents'; or 'Left', anyway),  in opposition to "Republicans" or 'The Right'. They see the result of this contest as pivotal, a critical juncture; I agree. But the unspoken assumption is, Once Biden is elected, everything can go back to the way it was. 

This is based on the ideal that American society and culture really are progressive, egalitarian. My friends -- some of whom have children -- want a good outcome for our collective future. So do I... but I realize we're looking at our current state through different lenses.

They believe the fundamental layers of America -- our collective assumptions -- are real. That they are strong enough to see us through this crisis. That the rise of an armed, delusional Right, the revelations of bottomless greed and vulpine mendacity of The Wealthy; the absolutely chilling, child-sacrificing heartlessness of right-wing politicians, over just the past seven months, will disappear, swept away by a 'Blue Wave'. I feel those assumptions are laughably naive. 

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Curtain

America is everything in our memory and our lives tomorrow; but what we were taught are a fiction. This isn't a new revelation -- but for generations, only marginalized, ignored Americans have been saying it: that our national history is incomplete. It ignores and marginalizes Slaves; Native Americans; Women; Non-Christians; Immigrants; Commerce and War; Wealth and Inequality. 

But the most incomplete part of our national history is that there really is a One-One-Hundredth, a One-One-Thousandth of the One Per Cent who own the majority of everything worth having. With the exception of noveau riche newcomers like a Bezos or Gates, a Musk or Ellison or Zuckerberg, you never hear about the truly Rich.  They are behind a curtain, living and playing in places you will never hear about or see in photographs, let alone be allowed to enter. 

The history of politics has always been a struggle between the representatives of Our Wealthy, and those speaking for The People, to wrest concessions from the Rich on behalf of the rest of us.  Everybody knows there is one system for Them, and another for us. Since the Gilded Age, 150 years ago, this has never been made clearer in America as now. 

They care about their families first, then those in their class. Everyone else is only important relative to our usefulness to Their interests. Politicians, the judicial system; even laws are inconveniences, things to be manipulated. 

They view society not as a structure of cooperation, but a mechanisim created to satisfy their desires and further their interests. To Them, the notion of 'Freedom' does not include the visions of a John Lewis, Dr Martin Luther King, a Dietrich Bonhoffer or Mahatma Gandhi. It does not apply to you and me.

And, they absolutely do not care at all what happens to you.  When a Covid-19 vaccine is developed, it will be provided to Them, first, because they are The Best, and Our Owners. The rest of us will wait; some will die. 

If you say all this makes the wealthy sound like monsters, I won't disagree. They are.

______________________________

Savage

An opinion piece in today's WaPo notes that we are in a 'Pandemic Depression': Covid-19 has stressed all the fractures in our society at once -- racial, economic, gender; generational; political. But our past seven months of terror, suffering and cruelty were the result of the last four years of corrupt, incompetent authoritarian rule. 

And the Past four years were led by a Prologue: thirty-five years of right-wing talk radio and 'news': Limbaugh, Weiner, Murdoch; Sinclair, Mercer. Corporate media. The unbridled, savage expansion of personal wealth and societal power in the hands of the wealthy and conservative politicians, conservative judges. It will not vanish with a Democratic president. 

This is the malignancy which America's political right and Trump have bequeathed the country. It can't be walked back. We don't have the political cohesion to accomplish it. Republicans have shown themselves openly to be craven, ruinous opportunistic liars and toadies, and they will resist any change just to protect their bloodstained reputations. They are scum; no mistake.

But, let's be clear: Democrats are almost as corrupt as the Rethugs. Their campaigns are financed by the same wealth that pays the Right: it's equal-opportunity bribery. If our society isn't cohesive enough to heal our most serious divisions, the Democratic National Committee doesn't have the political will or desire. 

Many in the DNC want a return to Obama-era neoliberalism, the continuing march of globalism. Everything the way it was, with vaccines. Don't believe it? Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is being denied a speaking slot at the Democratic Convention. But, She Who Will Not Be Denied, Hillary, will speak. So will her shiny Bill-O. They will be the Voices Of Our Hopes.

At least the Republicans are more open about what they are.

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Dissonance

This is what Covid has done for us. It's made it easier to see and feel the weight of our collective cognitive dissonance around what America is. That the notion of race and social equality, getting better all the time, is a fiction. That what truly matters in America is how much money and influence you have, the color of your skin. 

For someone who's served, in more ways than one; taken oaths; to finally come to an understanding of what it is you'd been in love with is difficult. I'm not talking about some popularized 'woke' meme, adopting a perspective because it's Trending. It's a gut-level understanding that you've been wrong. My grandfather would have said: Du hast die Realität falsch verstanden; you have misjudged the reality around you. You're not sure where that takes you, but you're going to have to let it settle and live with it. 

Dashiel Hammett used to say that, when he came into a city, all he wanted to know was 'Who runs the cops?' Who are the real bosses? This is what we need to ask ourselves, going forward. It's the same question people ask in Putin's Russia, or Lukashenko's Belarus, Bolsonaro's Brazil, Orban's Hungary or Jinping's China. Who do we need to avoid, or bow to, just to keep living our lives?

The polite fiction of our country as egalitarian, a nation of laws, with two separate and different political parties offering a free choice of different perspectives, will continue until it becomes an encumbrance. Those of us who still have jobs will hang on to a vision of America as the freest place on earth, while watching Federal 'police' on the streets, rounding up the angry and the unruly and the hungry. 

Do Your Best.

___________________________________

Reprint Heaven: Oh; So *That's* What They Call It

(This, from January Of 2010. We already knew what it was that was killing us.) 

In order to make decisions, human beings need information -- as clear, reliable, and precise as we can get; in other words, the Truth. Without it, complex decisions involving a consensus, or even something as simple as meeting someone for a movie, is almost impossible.

[A log time] ago (on the day of Barack Obama's Inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, in fact), Clive Thompson of Wired Magazine posted an article about the work of Robert Proctor, a Historian of Science at Stanford University.

Cover Of Wired, January, 2009 (Photo: Wired Magazine)

Proctor has said that, ordinarily, the more information we have about a subject, the clearer it becomes. However, when contentious subjects are involved, our usual relationship to information is reversed -- ignorance increases.

As Proctor argues [notes Thompson], when society doesn’t know something, it’s often because special interests work hard to create confusion. Anti-Obama groups likely spent millions insisting he’s a Muslim; church groups have shelled out even more pushing creationism. The oil and auto industries carefully seed doubt about the causes of global warming. And when the dust settles, society knows less than it did before.

“People always assume that if someone doesn’t know something, it’s because they haven’t paid attention or haven’t yet figured it out,” Proctor says. “But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what’s true and what’s not.” (emphasis added)

Proctor has also coined a term to describe this condition -- Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth. Proctor coined it from the Greek, agnōsis, "not knowing"; the condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.

Daily, second by second, we take in millions of bits of information about the world around us. Matrix-like, that shifting curtain of input shapes our sense of consciousness about that world -- and while most of it has to do with events happening to us, personally, what we listen to, see and read through culturally-designated sources for information is also part of that input.

United Press' Newsroom, In New York City, 1960's (Photo: UPI)

The job of a news reporter, on network television or in the pages of newspaper, was once to determine facts -- Who, What, Where, When, and Why; the Truth -- about events, and no matter where the chips fell, to accurately inform viewers and readers. Even the opportunistic, abrasive, nosy reporter (a character in our culture from plays and movies like The Front Page in the 30's, to All The President's Men in the 70's) was driven by a search for those facts, and the truth.

News and issues reported in the mainstream media, years ago, were certainly being spun on occasion by special interests, or the government. But those were exceptional interventions rather than the rule -- America's Media consisted of journalists who considered themselves professionals, and their level of success in their work was based on their accuracy. Their tradition really did believe in reporting fact, not cant. And (with some exceptions; Hearst's and McCormick's newspapers in the 30's are a good example), so did their editors.

Hoffman as Carl Bernstein and Redford as Bob Woodward In

All The President's Men (1976): For A Little Longer, American

Journalism's Primary Role Would Be Accurate, Reliable News

Whether we picked it up on the radio, in the New York Times or on the 'The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite', information our Press provided to us and the rest of the 'Free' world was trusted as accurate and uncensored. We believed, as the journalists did, that the Media had an obligation to report the truth, independent of the government, the interests of a specific class on Left or Right, or the interests of business. These were American traditions; so we were told.

But the "news industry", and journalists, in the 21st Century aren't like that now, and haven't been for at least twenty years. The three major networks, ABC (owned by Disney), CBS (owned by Westinghouse), and NBC / MSNBC (about to be bought by Comcast from General Electric); cable news channels like CNN (excepting Fox, which is an unabashed propaganda channel); even PBS, through The News Hour -- and even with various Net sites and Blogs, teevee is now the primary venue for disseminating what passes for news in the United States.

Shields And Brooks On PBS' News Hour With Jim Lehrer:

Two Points Of View, And Both Are Just As Accurate; So PBS Says...

In 2010, we believe the immediacy of an image in the same way that people once listened to and trusted what they heard on radio. Our belief in the accuracy of what we watch on television is a basic assumption that our Media wouldn't lie to us -- Christ; this is America, not some Banana Republic!

News and information are now commodities; just points of view, packaged and presented using the same tools 'n tricks of network episodic television. It's fast food, not a meal -- like Cafe Mocchas, or 'flame-broiled' hamburgers. News is less and less about any commitment to accuracy and real impartiality.

Fox: No News, Please; Just Insults And Screaming;

O'Reilly's Usual Behavior With Guests,

["Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut Up!])

The format in providing information about the "contentious issues" Proctor mentions is always the same -- two or more advocates for sides of an issue answer questions put to them by a journalist, who isn't there to uncover basic truths about the issue; they're only a moderator. When solid facts are presented by any side, they're treated as points of contention rather than the truth, and lost in the adversarial nature of the process.

Viewers are left to decide who "won" what amounts to a debate between the Talking Heads. We're left feeling that no one is right; no one is wrong; gosh, reality is just a point of view, isn't it? Small wonder many people watching might fall back on emotional, rather than reasoning, responses to an issue (unless people are watching Fox, whose programming is slanted to evoke such emotional, and one-sided, responses).

Whatever either side claims is given equal weight in this format. If one advocate spouts an obvious lie, the journalist's job isn't to point that out, or emphasize the facts to show they're wrong. They simply nod, and toss softball questions so that "all sides of the topic is covered for viewers" (PBS' News Hour is famous for this kind of pap). And, the 'news' program can't be accused of biased reporting by either side, can they?

The 1984 Film Version Of Orwell's Book, 1984: Don't Expect This

Soon; But Radicals Always Seize Radio And Teevee Stations, First

We may not know the exact nature of the World we find ourselves in; there is more in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in all your philosophies, Horatio. But, misdirection and manipulation of news information is a common feature of the dictatorships and Failed States, and Banana Republics of the world -- so we've been told -- and not part of life in These United States.

So we've been told.

---

Random Barking Sunday: Cognitive Dissonance Division

How We Live Now

I'm the product of a middle-class white family from a small town, born not very long after the end of WW2; college-educated, male. This past January, in my small, lower-mid-tier level in my occupation, I went off to work daily as I have most of my life, and put up with whatever was necessary to pay for basic expenses; to get the pension, to maintain the healthcare. I dutifully set aspects of things aside for someday, and in the meantime for everything else, it's SITFU, and I enjoyed living as best I could. This has been my daily frame of reference for a long time.

Observing the world beyond, I generally tuned out politicians (politics = ultimately, lies and compromise, limited benefit to people), external wars (an obscenity; and I've had mine, thank you), domestic violence; mass shootings (no end), police shootings.

And no matter how Left my views might be, I did little beyond donations, attending the occasional march, to show my solidarity in the political stream: and I did these things, not out of anger or desperation or necessity, but because I could afford to.

And I understood my participation did little to acknowledge, and nothing to change, the disproportionate agony of people below me in the food chain -- mostly people of color, still taking the blunt end of the culture, 400 years after the arrival of America's first African slaves.

__________________________

The High School Civics Class view of America: myths which, when assimilated, were reflected all around us in the culture, ensuring we grew up as compliant members of society, good consumers.  We accept a consensus view that things aren't perfect, but I'm getting by. But we know it doesn't reflect reality.

And we understand -- questioning the difference between what we've experienced and observed to be true, versus reality-as-consensus, is a Red Pill / Blue Pill situation that most people explore at their peril. Supporting the consensus model has been the chief feature of stability in America for as long as I can remember. Everything about our culture -- particularly corporate media -- echoed that.

In the mid-1990's, that changed. The FCC under Reagan had eliminated the 'Fairness Doctrine' in 1984; broadcasters were no longer required to provide equal time for opposing political viewpoints. Over the next twelve years, Limbaugh, Wiener, and thousand wannabes sprung up on radio in the U.S., and built a public vomatorium.

Limbaugh -- just a bully, but now with a megaphone -- spewed his hate and mockery into the air, to be eagerly lapped up by right-wing listeners. They, in turn, vomited the same hate to others around them. And, 'hate radio' caught on as an organizing tool for not only mainline, GOP conservatism, but a wide spectrum of Rightist causes. Limbaugh, Wiener and other hate hosts didn't care what damage they were doing to the culture; suddenly, they were popular. And they were getting rich.

Rupert Murdoch, whose tabloid newspapers in Australia, the UK and America used a 'tits-n-tattle' formula that treated its consumers like children, saw the trends in the U.S. A cynical, opportunistic right-wing type himself, Murdoch believed there was plenty of money to be made in television, pushing right-wing conspiracy theories to a disaffected, conservative audience. Lil' Rupert saw an ocean of 'Joe Six-Pack' Rubes in America that advertisers would pay handsomely to reach.

Murdoch launched Fox as a cable channel in 1996 as part of a broader business model -- to coordinate his media as the propaganda arm of the English-speaking political Right. Helping elect more Rightist politicians would mean favorable treatment to expand operations when the Right came to power. It worked in the UK, the US, Australia; and eventually, the model would make his family empire indispensable to the racists, white nationalists and neo-nazis growing in the heart of American conservatism.

We've suffered 35 years in an America where truth and facts are whatever The Murdochs -- speaking through Hannity and Carlson, and an endless stream of blondebots -- say they are. The Murdochs have done more to divide America, to make it easier to exploit and weaken us into tribes over three decades than any other aspect of America's recent history.

They have made America a place where they, and the political Right wing, literally just make shit up -- and there are no repercussions. In Steve Bannon's quip, the Murdochs "flood the Zone with shit", and facts are lost in a sea of confusing half-truths and outright lies.

It's easier to lead the Rubes that way. And the Murdochs have personally benefited from it; they're very rich; and they do not care what damage they've caused to actual human beings in the process of that enrichment. Ask the family of Milly Dowler.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Ogg Ogg

____________________________

Comes Trump: The endless parade of MAGA, the triumphant apotheosis of stupid. Fox broadcast it all, like an endless Leni Reifenstahl film; flags and chanting (Lock her up! Lock her up!). There was nothing Trump could do or say that wasn't allowed. And he lied; constantly, daily, about everything. The right-wing media and its talking faces amplified Trump's lies, and presented them as facts.

People were stunned at his brazen racism, his craven love of authoritarian figures like Putin, his dog-whistling to white nationalists and 'christian' dominionists.  We watched America disintegrate in the international community as a result of Trump's personal statements and incoherent political decisions; Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller laughed and laughed -- destroying America has been their goal, and they feel proud.

We were horrified, and laughing. There seemed to be no end to it, and no repercussions -- not even impeachment; the fix in the Senate was always in. The intelligence community as much as declared Trump an active asset of the Russian government -- but it all meant nothing; Trump doubled down, tripled down. He laughed at us. He strutted and preened and capered, and just kept on: Teflon Don.

Additional Cute Animal Photo For Right-Wing Media

_______________________________

It requires a significant amount of cognitive dissonance -- between the facts we know, truth, our experience; and myths we accept -- in order to be American. To live and work in this culture. How much cognitive dissonance you deal with depends where you are, and who you are, in America.

Then, two things happened that couldn't be spun, dismissed, or lied about -- although the entire political Right, and Murdoch's propaganda, have tried:  The Covid-19 Pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd.

Trump, aided by the Right's media, ignored Covid, dismissed it. He ignored it for six weeks -- then, even after suppressing testing for infection, when the case rates and deaths began climbing; when Trump showed no leadership whatsoever and threw everything in the faces of state governors -- when the Republicans could see their political repercussions in a collapsed economy and 200,000 dead by July... they did an about-face.

They used the Joseph Goebbels - Murdoch formula. They simply lied.  They said they had too cared, they had too been prepared and taken decisive action, all along. They asked us to believe whatever they said, even though it was utterly false. Because they made it up, and said it was 'true'.

And they pushed for America to Reopen Again! The Leader said everything would be back to normal in no time. Inconvenient medical spokespersons who said it was too soon, that it invited another spike in Covid cases; that there would be a likely 'second wave' of the pandemic in the Fall and Winter several magnitudes worse than the February-May wave we'd just experienced... Trump ignored them, too. He suggested people drink bleach.

And, America went back to work. Beaches were opened; the summer weather began in many places. And Covid cases are beginning to rise -- but there was another reason for that.

___________________________________

A black man was arrested by four police officers on a street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, apparently for using a counterfeit $20 bill. One, a white officer, put his knee on the man's neck to restrain him. And, despite consistent protests from the man that he could not breathe, the officer (aided by the three others) did not relent and asphyxiated, murdered, the man, George Floyd. This took roughly twelve minutes, during eight of which the officer's knee was pressed down on Floyd's neck. And all of it captured on multiple cellphone videos.

If you were trying to find a metaphorical image for the black experience in America, an image of a prone black man with a white man's knee on his neck seemed brutally apt. That it was a white police officer was an added layer of metaphorical irony.

Weeks of marches and demonstration -- including rioting and civil disobedience and looting, but primarily peaceful -- followed. Their focus has been on violent actions by militarized police departments, primarily against people of color.

Videos from those demonstrations showed scores of examples of violent and brutal behavior, by police against those ... ironically, protesting brutal police tactics. As if many individual officers and departments didn't care what those optics would do, or the repercussions of their behavior in the broader context of This Historical Time.

___________________________________

It's a defining, fork-in-the-road, Moment In America.  It's a national consideration of Race in America -- and everything connected with it around the distribution of wealth, power, and privilege. Where all this goes, and what actually happens, is hazy -- but the moment has started. Each of us, as individuals, have some responsibility for where it ends up.

____________________________________

The single takeaway I hope for in all this is, that the burden of maintaining conflicting perceptions about our society and culture has finally become too much for the majority of us. That we can't tolerate the cognitive dissonance any longer, reject 'alternate facts' and demand truth -- in public affairs, in science, in our relations with each other. That we can't suppress our lived experience and accept lies in its place.

I hope that people reject being so grossly lied to and manipulated, treated like children, Rubes and Marks. I'd hope Murdoch's media, and its business model based on brazen lies and manipulation, is finished in America and around the world.

And a part of this Moment has to mean confronting automatic assumptions about people of other races, gender and identification; the assumptions of white or heterosexual superiority, or of wealth and ownership. Is it the truth that all persons are equal, or are some more so than others?

Because this is all intimately connected to the distribution of power, and inequality of wealth in America, I don't have any illusions of how quickly this dialogue can result in meaningful change. Or that what's been triggered by George Floyd's death is anything more than a single step; others will have to follow.

James Fallows of the Atlantic recently noted that the story of America is about getting out of trouble, of facing and overcoming crises. America's current crisis has both a Leader utterly unfit to lead, supported by an entire political party in the Republicans; this, he agreed was unprecedented in our history. The question, Fallows went on, was whether our country had a sufficient counterbalance to the harm caused by Trump and the political Right -- that the sum of all things positive in America would be enough to overcome the damage, allow us to find a better resolution than division, exploitation, despair and death.

I'd like to think this moment is a wild card in that equation. That the sum of our best intentions as people will contain the weight needed to swing us in a different direction. I'm not often positive about the future; quite the opposite. But I'm willing to suggest that hope is not a bad thing.

We'll see what does happen. Hang on.

_____________________________

Quo Vadis?

What Digby and Elie Said

( "Depravity, Inc."; Digsby's Hullabaloo, June 2, 2020 )

"[Trump] and his Republican enablers have shown us for decades neither the spirit nor the letter of the law is an impediment their designs. This is how the extremist Republican Party rolls:

"1. Find the line
 2. Step over it
 3. Dare anyone to push you back
 4. If no one does, that’s the new line
 5. Repeat

"Trump has repeatedly suggested violence against opponents. He may be a coward, but by instincts a violent one. The man who swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States to the best of his ability has demonstrated none. His oath is as much an inconvenience as the laws for which his entire life he’s flaunted his contempt, save for those he can use to flog opponents.

"Republican 'invertebrates' such as the 'bottomlessly loathsome Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida' are abetting Trump’s efforts to turn the world’s oldest democracy into a dictatorship. They will not stop him. Indeed, from Watergate to Iran-Contra to state-sponsored torture to targeting “African Americans with almost surgical precision,” they have proven their disdain for democratic processes for decades.

" 'History is written by the winners,' Trump’s attorney general declared recently. Principles be damned. Might makes right. Trump and his enablers have no interest in governing. They mean to rule. They mean to dominate.

"The unanswered question now is whether the country will survive until November, much less next January. A party that has demonstrated by its unwavering support for Donald Trump it will say anything, do anything, to maintain power by any means necessary. 

"Trump means to win [by] keeping fooled the faction he can fool all the time into thinking this is still a democratic republic. His enablers at Fox News and in conservative media are content to remain fooled. Their paychecks depend on it. Their audience will wave flags and Bibles all the way to fascism if need be."

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( "The Question Isn’t Whether Trump Will Go Full Authoritarian—It’s How We’ll Respond" );

Elie Mystal, The Nation, June 2, 2020

"There is only one truth left to wrestle with: It does not matter if what Trump is doing is legal. It does not matter if what he’s doing is constitutional. It doesn’t matter, because nobody is going to stop him.

"We had our chance to prosecute him, but Robert Mueller decided that the Office of Legal Counsel’s suggestion that the president could not be prosecuted while in office was an ironclad principle... We had our chance to remove Trump from office, but 52 Republican senators refused to convict him or even call witnesses during their “trial.” ...

"Trump has been told that he can’t be prosecuted and won’t be removed... And nobody has stopped him. Nobody is even really trying to stop him anymore. Those who want him stopped are just kind of waiting and hoping he goes away. Maybe on January 20, 2021, he’ll just leave, and we can get back to having a society.

"He won’t just leave. He won’t leave unless the men with guns—the armed agents of the federal government—make him leave. And this upcoming week of protests is going to tell us if there is any hope of those men doing the right thing.

...

"Trump is beyond the rule of law now. Republicans have placed him there, and armed men keep him there. People have to think through what that means, about how to stop a man who is above the law...

"If history is any guide, there’s no simple option. The only way to stop a brutish demagogue like Trump, the only way men like that have ever been stopped, is by people who are willing to lay down their lives to do so. 

"Who is going to be our Hero of Tiananmen, our Unknown Rebel who stands in front of the tanks when they come rolling through Times Square? Who is going to be our John Lewis and get their skull fractured as Trump Troopers hurl projectiles at peace? Who wants to be Thich Quang Duc? Lots of people are willing to fight this administration; how many are willing to sacrifice their lives opposing it?

...

"Nobody has stopped Trump. I don’t think any single person can. But the question is no longer whether Trump “can” do something; the only relevant question is what we are prepared to do when he does it. How much of ourselves are we willing to give?

"It’s not an easy question to answer, but it’s the one authoritarians always get around to asking. It is the question Trump keeps asking the country..."

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