Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

1.)  To Avoid the Collapse Of Western Civilization.

In der offiziellen Version ist das Huhn ein beklagenswerter Feigling, vor der Glorreichen Zukunft davonläuft und falsche Nachrichten verbreitet. (In the official version, the chicken is a deplorable coward who runs away from the Glorious future and creates fake news.) 

There are, at a global level, two “mainstream” forms of hegemonic politics, each with their own oligarchical backing. One of these is the Clintonian-Merkelist-Obamist-Sorosian politics that is a confluence of at least overt social-liberalism and a variety of economic neoliberalism.  The other one is a Trumpian-Putinian-Bannonite-Orbánist instrumentalization of parochial nationalism. 

The former represents an oligarchic politics, democratically unrestrained trans-national capitalism, that has the potential to do great harm to the world if left unchecked.  The latter represents a con game that starts out with cotton candy for the True People and eventually ends up with states under the control of local and not-so-local looters who instrumentalize nationalist conflict for crony enrichment — this too, is oligarchy.

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2.)  To Challenge A Corrupt Patriarchal Power Structure.

"I'm not exactly sure why the chicken crossed the road... I attempted to question the chicken but he wasn't really communicating with me." (The Dodo, July 12, 2018)

(Actual Quote:) "I recently uncovered the nature of reality from a man on a flaming pie, who handed me a[n] herbal cigarette. I now know that previously I was a body in a vat being poked by a malignant demon. I was only an ape then, but after millions of years I evolved so that I could have the brain power to lasso the demon with my electrode and thus escape. I was chased by a large white balloon, but made my getaway from the Island. Since then, I have set up my own very successful religion in the U.S.  So, all in all, make sure you always trust your senses, never question organised religion, and don’t engage in any philosophy beyond The Matrix 1-3. 

Simon Maltman, Bangor"

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3.)  To Express Incredulity At The Level Of Malevolent Stupid Which Is Allowed. 

At the Friday propaganda session, when Missy Sarah told Another Big Fib, she was immediately shamed by the Chicken. All the Boys and Girls laughed at her because she was such a Big Fibber.

Some reporters will outright call Sanders a liar. Others are more reluctant to break out the L-word but still become frustrated at the way she regularly obfuscates and bends the truth. Whereas [Sean] Spicer was known for big blowups, reporters say that with Sanders it feels more like a million small things. “There’s almost sometimes an exhaustion writing the stories of the daily briefing because the number of things she says that are patently false are too many to let your story be weighed down with them,” one White House reporter says. 

-- Jason Schwartz, "The Puzzle Of... Sanders"; Politico, May/June, 2018 -- the puzzle, of course, being how a government based on such obvious boldfaced lies and illusion can continue. 

We mean utterly baseless and over-the-top lies, not the standard obfuscations and misdirection we're used to in Aremica -- but real, Foxy Murdoch-style, verging-on-Joseph-Goebbels-type lying.

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4.)  To Maintain Its Balance In An Uncertain Future. 

Don't Drive Angry.

Essentially, businesses have been in a sweet spot for years, in which profits have gradually risen while interest rates have stayed low by historical measures. If either of those trends were to change, many companies with higher debt burdens might struggle to pay their bills and be at risk of bankruptcy. 

...If inflation were to get out of control and the Fed raised interest rates sharply, companies that can handle their debt payments at today’s low interest rates might become more strained. Moreover, with federal deficits on track to rise in the years ahead, the federal government’s borrowing needs could crowd out private borrowing, which would result in higher interest rates and even more challenges for indebted companies. 

The International Monetary Fund included a warning about this run-up in global corporate debt in its most recent Global Financial Stability Report. If inflation were to rise more quickly, Tobias Adrian, an I.M.F. official, said in a news conference, it could “trigger a sudden tightening in financial conditions and a sharp fall in asset prices,” which is I.M.F.-speak for [Ruh-Roh]. 

-- Neil Erwin, "What Will Cause The Next Recession..."; New York Times

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MEHR, MIT EINE KLEINE ANFRAGEN: A message for the three humans, and the Superintelligent Parakeet, who read this blog:

Please go here and do whatever you can to help Arthur. You can click on the "donate" button on his site; or, use the following link, because this is a request that you donate money. 

It doesn't have to be a huge amount. For the price of a couple of lattes and a Boo-Boo Burger, you can do the needful for another person.  Twenty bucks -- ten bucks. Just your pocket change, even.  

This is someone who should have a listing on Go Fund Me! just to keep them alive and in their home -- but they don't; it's just us. Come on; it's a mitzvah, for Christ's sake. 

I never ask you three reprobates to do anything, ever (and, hey; you approach the Parakeet at your peril) -- but I'm not kidding. Please give Arthur some help.  

Please feel free to pass these links around to others.  C'mon, do it.  Thank you.

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Big Guy Barrel-Bottom Time

It Has Come To This

What, you expected 'culture'?

When Gorjira gets bored, look out. Liked His lead-guitar solo vocals, though. We'd better hope the Apocalypse, too also, has its "light moments".

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MEHR, MIT CONTENT-FREE BONUS:

Hopefully, there will be content over the wochenende, but as is painfully obvious for now, I Got Nothin'.  It happens, sometimes:  you're moving through your day, and bam -- there's just nothing in your head. And, it's kind of peaceful. All those important and meaningful topics you were just thinking about are still present but oddly muted, outside on the street and only dimly registering in your consciousness. Meanwhile, you are gently nestled in the cocoon of  a whole buncha Nothin', and for a few moments not even entirely sure what species you are.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Conway Twitty.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo At End Of Blog Filler

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Random Barking: Boomba Boomba, With Skunk

Sit Up; Roll Over; Rig The Stock Market

Obligatory A.I. Advertisement Parody In Blog Thing

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Karen Zack / Hahvad Business Review, July 2017)

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

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

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

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

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

2019 Tax Plan: Changes Over 6 Years Where Tax Burden Falls  (NYT)
Clicky = Bigger! Easy And Fun!
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The Great Hedgehog Of Post-Modern Neoliberal Capitalism

Obigatory Cute Small Animal Photo At Beginning Of Surrealistic Blog Thing

Moved by the posts of others, recently, I decided to take a stab at (what can be charitably called) stream of consciousness writing, sparked by the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, attended this year by Wonderboy, Murrikan Leader.

I don't normally play with this style of fiction; so, apologies in advance. As Wonderboy's own parents once said, "Let's do this, get it over with, and never speak of it again" -- point being, this is supposed to be topical, and funny.

(For those with no knowledge of Cricket, a "Diamond Duck" is the term for a situation where [per Wikipedia] "a batsman who is dismissed without facing a ball -- most usually run out from the non-striker's end, but alternatively stumped or run out off a wide delivery -- is said to be out by a 'diamond duck'.")

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Diamond Duck In Davos

1.  Greasing The Grenze

Coming into Davos, surrounded by winds whipping the confectioner's sugar of Swiss hospitality between the crisp billboards, Halt! Grenze! (Stop! Pemmican!) and Kämpfe Für Das Karussell Des Fortschritts! (We  Struggle For Kurt Russell's Foreskins!) The searchlights are blinding, guard dogs bark with an accent (Wüf!), and sudden efficient women are opening doors of perception in your car, murmuring, "Good evening. Anything to declare?"

But you're not surprised. No, not you; never you. All this was in the briefing. They are efficient, here in Davos. The Mark O' Mammon is barcoded on their hind parts -- you've been shown photos -- and at home, skis are racked demurely beside priceless paintings bought at bargain-basement rates, in auctions at Zürich and Geneva, between 1936 and 39.

And of those pouring into the valley, no one ever says to the women, "Ah DO -- Ah say, Ah say, Well AH DO DECLARE," in a voice borrowed from Foghorn Leghorn -- although you have a secret urge to do that. The women smirk at you, without envy, because Ach, Ja; we know this about you. You wish to do That Cartoon Rooster; such a typical male. We here in Davos know -- otherwise, you would not be allowed here. A brief blonde hand mumbles through your luggage, brushing socks and briefs, lingering for a moment with the rough play of starch in a shirt -- then, waving your car on: Alles Gut; los geh'n. 

And then, you glimpse the last billboard: Im Diesen Friedenskrieg Gibt Es Keine Gefangenen! -- No Prisoners In This Peace War. The Great Carousel Of Progress gives only to take. It really is shitty, what a Town Without Pity Can Do. Ha, ha, ha; that's our Davos!

Even if you have a Safe Conduct Leaflet, dropped like pet leavings on sidewalks by the IMF and WTO (Be a DO RAG, it proclaims, Not a DON'T RAG), after surrendering, the best one can hope for in coming to Davos is a cot in that hut on the mountain. They'll be jammed in with municipal workers and novelists. There will be a crucifix hung on the damp concrete wall, and a 1970's postcard showing light at the end of a tunnel. In the dark, farting and snoring settle around you, diaphanous, studded, anxious. You dream of gristle.

The others will receive a coupon for a discount-price small soda, and a trip to observe George Soros' hair colorist, reading a copy of Forbes, through a bulletproof window. But the Surrendered had denied the primacy of the Great Carousel, so their Davos will be a short sniff of the leather seats in an otherwise unoccupied Daimler. Then, to be sent home at their own expense for long retraining in a job that will take months to find, and which is discontinued the day after they are hired.  Ho, ho,ho, ho, Cisco! Ho, ho, ho, ho, Pancho! That's our Davos!

But this is not your Davos. You are not on file, under the name you were given to use, as having denied The Carousel Of Progress. [Your Name] has been Cleared, umbrage squeezed dry and ready for productive action in service to Man's Betterment. If L.Ron were ever alive, he would be. If Tony Robbins were real, he would guide you personally across the hot coals. Parma-shahanda Yoga-nanda, Parley-voo. In your mind, a Crackerjack prize, and in your gloved hand, the feel of a bag strap made from an endangered petrochemical, all telling you this is real.

(But: The whole squeezing Man's Betterment is just fake bullshit, a double-blind ruse. You're here in Davos in a big quilt, so far under the covers that your latitude and longitude come up Zeroes. You're not who you say you are, and never were. The hopes of all humankind stain your carpeting in expectation that you would complete this mission and get an oil change. God is with you, but he steals your stuff and sells it downtown.)

You stride up to the 4-star hotel desk repeatedly, just trying it out. The clerks -- parthenogenic, muted -- take no notice. They are busy timing each other's movements and their interactions with guests. The clerk with the lowest total time receives a coupon for a discount-price small soda. The rest are allowed to live, but forced to wear old animal costumes outside the hotel, in public, so that all will know of their shame and inexactitude.

Your electronic room key is imprinted with the likeness of Klaus Schaub, wearing a bib, and pictured eating in a 'Communist Lobster' franchise restaurant. The room, fragrant with violets; your phone, seeking you; and promises of delights of the eye, tongue and intellect are hung around the wallpapered box of your room like laundry washed in the sink. It is cheesy and expensive: the highest expression of the Free Market. You have made it.

Pencils down. You evacuate your bowels. The toilet has a shelf for you, the curious, to view leavings before flushing, and it would be churlish to refuse anything offered for free. This act of introspection will be your best moment at Davos. They told you this would happen -- but nothing, nothing could prepare you for that moment of contact, of spurning. You wash your hand.

2.   Where You Were, Gentlemen

It's the day. There are WEF conferences and hubub scheduled, rooms, many rooms, of people murmuring peasancarrots, peasandcarrots repeatedly. But you were instructed to feign shyness until The Moment. You hang. You chill. In The Packed Elevator, you do your Robin Williams laugh -- and everyone in the Car suddenly does the same thing.

You almost flinch. It's endless, permeable, like having a colonoscopy on a train -- but you remember: Keep control. Deep breaths. Be Coolidge: You Lose. Then, the Car stops; its doors slide open and a man moves past you, still making his seal-bark laugh, pausing to wipe his eyes on a woman's hair, and pat you on the shoulder as if to say, Dude -- good one.

Here, finally; the white placard outside a door to an auditorium, with a single word in red: Stumpfegger. This is where you are to meet your contact. You accept a glance from the woman beside the door -- an intense simulacrum of Donna Reed -- who hands you a brochure entitled Complete Release. Blushing, she says this conference covers "the plot for forgiveness of all First-World debt." You smile, nodding, earnest, but keep moving. Your mission is more important than what you suspect about her thong underwear -- and will never know. You'll have to live with that.

They said, Your contact will know you. All you had to do was to find "Stumpfegger" and show up. You stand near the tasteful refreshment table and realize the man serving drinks is a frenzied doppelgänger for Joe Turkel, eternal bartender in The Shining, and decline a tequila shooter. You wave the Complete Release brochure back and forth, as instructed -- a signal, an urgent, full-bladder motion, and think about thong underwear. Really hard.

Then, you see The Contact. You see them seeing you see them, actually. Everything that happens after this is a blur; you'll be debriefed about it for weeks in extra crispy detail, a swimming up from sewage depth to where sheep graze, safely. And, fortunately for you, the story will not change. You will be allowed to go back to wherever it is you come from. You will be allowed to toil in many jobs, but not remain for long -- because Lt. Gerard will always show up, looking for money.

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What catches your attention about The Contact first is his hair, its architectural blondness -- now whitish, now caution orange, and shiny, like preternatural two-tone ice cream or a small child's flotation device. The Contact is a suet, puffed inside his black suit, behind the signature doublewide red tie. His face is a carnivore drunkard's bloat, too-small eyes, piggish; his mien oblate and spiky. His lips are a crayon line drawn by an angry pensioner across the lower third of that orange face. The French Cuffs of his whitish shirt have little numbers embroidered on them: "45",  and he is nodding, nodding, at you as he walks forward. This is your contact.

3.   Historical Briefs With A Brown Streak Of Genius

A Stonehenge of men and women in sunglasses surround The Contact. They move in formation, maintaining a Raggedly Ann circle around him, continually bumping into other guests, chairs, tables, each other, headed right towards you in a chorus of s'cuse me; par-done, pal; hey lookout; aw christ you could see me comin', right? and who keep reaching inside their jackets as if checking to ensure they still have their wallets.

You clench. The deer flips on its headlights and there you are, about to get a mouthful of antler (Hi! Remember me? You hit me with the Volkswagen! Payback's a bitch, pal!). You think of the face of your mother -- or Lady Gaga, or another suitable female substitute, just as The Contact stops directly in front of you. You are standing in his Circle Of Trust, surrounded by partially blind people who have weapons.

"Hey, you know," The Contact says, lifting his chin and tilting his head back to look down at you, Mussolini squinting at a small boat far out at sea, "You know, I was out there, goin' by, and thought, 'You know, I should stop in there'. How's it goin'?" You open your mouth to answer but the contact, like the voiceover for an industrial safety film, keeps on talking.

"There's so many things goin' on here! It's like the world's fair of banking and whatever, right? You know, they never -- never -- wanted to invite me to Davos. I mean, I'm the most sympathetic person to what they want to do, in this whole place, the whole thing, me -- and they never invited me before! Not once!"

The Contact sees a blur moving outside his Circle Of Trust and raises a hand, perfect white teeth in the ocher pudding of his face, saying, "Hey, thank you. How ya doin', yeah; thank you," before turning the oily tumblers in his eyes back on you.

The Contact's eyes widen to the size of dimes. He throws his hands out, experimentally, the breadth of a large fish. "But, n-ow -- now, they had to invite me! I'm the leader of the free world, right? Over 300 on the electoral; nobody ever mentions that, by the way. But, hey -- Swiss've been great, they really have, very gracious -- they've been very, very good to me, very respectful. Not saying they're not. I'm very much thinking I hope they stay like that."

You nod. You lean towards him slightly, and enunciate the code phrase: Hobo Oboe.  The Contact stops, squints, pushes on his chin. "Din' getcha," he says; you rinse and repeat. The Contact thinks about what an impression of remembering something might look like, then leans towards you, and speaks a countersign: "Ah, Yeah, yeah.  'My Penile Prosthesis'." He steps a little closer and, with a quick glance around the room, squeezes out a shruglet, raising his brows while the eyes remain inscrutable, swinish.

This was the moment. This was why you came to Davos: to observe your leavings, and tell this person what you were instructed to say -- a single phrase, "Stormy Weather". You ignore the sure impression you have gained that The Contact is wearing thong underwear, stand on your feet's balls, and draw a deep breath -- but before you can speak, The Contact interrupts you.

"Hey, I have a lot to do; so much to do, I've got -- you wouldn't believe how much I have to do in this job. I tell you, if I could go on strike, I'd do that. Leftists would love it. Chuck Schumer'd love it -- but I am the most involved president, hands-on involved, of any president. Not since Lincoln, or anyone, has there been a harder-working president than I am. So that's one.

"Two, nobody is listening to me. I mean, the people, some of the people, they listen, sure. But there's a fucking conspiracy with the New York Times and fucking PBS. Jesus; fucking Frontline. The Washington Post -- that Bezos, he's just trying to mindfuck me. But, I'll be fair, some of my own people -- don't want to name anybody, but some of them are very close to me -- use the media to talk themselves up. Take credit, make me look like some crazy, stupid person. Happened just last week."

Everyone in the Stumpfegger Room is looking at something else while they look at The Contact, and you. He has drawn himself up on a cocktail napkin, his gut pendulous within a tent of jacket; he pushes a stubby finger into the inches before your face, shouting, "I'm tellin' you: I am not stupid, like everyone says! I'm Smart!! I am fucking in charge!"

"I was elected with the largest electoral numbers in modern history -- I was, me! Not the goddamn Daily News! And I'm about ready to say to the Post, 'Hey, Jeff; you want to get shut down? You want a military censor sitting in your office with a magnifying glass up your ass? You want the IRS looking at your offshore LLCs?' And those terrible conditions in his shipping places; just terrible. We're gonna look into that. He's outta control, that guy; it's very sad how outta control.

"I'm not even getting into the Russia thing. Yeah, we're lining up for ol' Bobby; and oh, everyone's gonna be surprised when we let go, my friend!" His face is an alarmed bell of crimson. "see, it takes just one thing, just one thing, and the whole ball game can change. That's what I'm saying; I'm saying that. All right." His face relaxes like a sphincter, and he nods, lifting a hand with two fingers, faintly Benedictine. "All right. Thanks very much. Great to see you."

The theme to "Heroes Of Telemark" begins to play in the background and he's off walking, his perimeter of flesh shifting with him back through the room and out the door.  A tendril in your head saying hey man that tequila shooter be lookin' good right now. From here to eternity, everyone is turning, turning, and have come round, Right wing, at last, to be looking at you. If curious glances had their own mucus, you would be coated in slime.

You order a tequila; the Joe Turkel bartender says Your Money's No Good There, and it's all on the House. Somewhere, you realize that you did not give The Contact that message. On the way back to the hotel, your Uber driver talks about a company which has made an app -- an interactive photo-calendar of shaved animals, for other animals. It has had two billion downloads at $2.99 each.

Obligatory Dog-Faced Fruit Bat Photo: Pooch Of The Sky

At the hotel, you receive a message: Mother says the cow is sick. You must come home immediately. Tickets will be delivered today. There is also a huge, Dog-Faced Fruit Bat, in a basket, from the Davos Chamber Of Commerce. One of these messages is benign, the other ominous, and you do not know which is which.

The Fruit Bat turns on the room's television;  you both watch situation comedies in German until the Fruit Bat turns to you and says, "Are you understanding any of this?"

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The Fruit Bat dials Room Service and orders a Martini. After a time, the Room Service waiter, a man in his mid-twenties, appears. He places the Martini, and the bill, on a side table.  The Fruit Bat sips at the Martini in silence. The waiter stands to one side, observing. The world wonders.

After a few minutes, the waiter politely clears his throat and says, "You know -- we don't get many Fruit Bats ordering Martinis here." The Fruit Bat, glancing at the bill, replies, "Yes; and at these prices, you won't see many more of us, either."

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Random Barking: Climate Denying Potato Edition

Knitting Trees For Africa

• Let's keep this short and to the point: When you're monstrously wealthy, every day is a good day. Also fun!

• This isn't much, I know -- but it could have gone a completely different way if I'd been in the mood. Be thankful I didn't spend 1,500 words on tapeworm sushi.  

• The Good News is, before a replay of the dinner scene from the original Alien occurs, you can take your dog's worming pills and get clean.

• Remember -- ask your Dog for the pills, first. Politely. Don't take what doesn't belong to you just because you have opposable thumbs.  

• Oh, and Shutdown Ends! Bait and Switch! Bait and Switch! Yay!  And we know Majority Yertle The Turtle will keep his word. Unless, you know -- not ever. USA! USA!

• And, we will have to watch this happen all over again before February 8!

• Will America's Other Party ever learn?

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 MEHR, MIT MEHR:  Still in that place.  But: Woof ! Muss Sein. Es ist so.

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Future Sky

Current Assumptions

This has been a hard season.  I understand; it's worse, Somewhere Else: so many places in the world outside the United States continue to experience some of the greatest human suffering of the past forty years, since we stepped away from That Land War In Asia.

It's just that -- relative to our own culture, many have it bad, here: no matter what that paragon of conscious life, Nikki Haley, believes, the United Nations just issued a report stating that of First World nations, America has the highest level of extreme poverty.

And here among my tiny circle, it's been a hard season. For the West, it's been cold (what the parts of America with record snowfall are experiencing would be unimaginable, here). Two friends have a parent, now dying (one a Survivor -- of Auschwitz, no less). Health issues abound; everyone seems to have a cold or the flu; all more or less normal -- but, people in my Cohort are Olds, and those with chronic health problems seem to have been hit particularly hard.

Christmas parties at The Place Of Witless Labor were lavish -- our department was taken to a three-star, name restaurant in Kiddietown -- but the dinner had an odd undercurrent ("Enjoy it," my director said to me archly, like a warning. "Next year we won't have budget for this").  I work in Healthcare; no one discusses the future, but everyone is waiting for Wonderboy's other three shoes to drop, and there seems to be an expectation of Hard Road ahead.

For those who are aging with few social extensions, isolation and anxiety are a constant undercurrent, a consuming negative feedback loop. Memory and unfocused thinking slide rapidly into regret and blame -- for oneself, for all the bad decisions; for a life as it is now. It's useless, but people do it all the same.

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Surrounding us and all the details of our lives is the unpredictability of the future, dictated by America's political Right, with Trump as its foil and figurehead. We feel we're at the brink of -- something, some place which no one now living in America has ever seen; and whom no one, except the wealthy, believe it will be anyplace good (and not even They much believe that). Daily, Trump and the creatures around him poison our experience of living with fear and negativity. They appear to pay no penalty for what they do.

There is no hero coming to save us. The Democrats have no coherent plan to rebut what's being done to America, now. I have a bad feeling the DNC will put forward candidates for the 2018 midterms who are as Centrist and inoffensive as possible -- not like those Radical Republicans; no, sir. Recently, the media floats the image of Joe Biden as the Perfect Democratic Presidential Candidate. Draw your own conclusions about how successful any of that excuse for a strategy would be.

Everyone wants things to Be Like They Were -- but the status quo which America's political parties  support is one where Jeff Bezos, World's Richest Human (and the 499 other Oligarchs in the world), can continue having it all. The rest of humanity? Submit your resumes to be considered for 12-hour sweatshop shifts at minimum wage in one of Jeffy's Fulfillment Centers (an exaggeration, but not by much).

Life is unpredictable. We really do live it on a razor's edge. Every day above ground (as a specific part of my Cohort can say from experience) is a Good Day. But the apotheosis of Trump is forcing us to confront another layer of uncertainty in this new year: that things must change, fundamentally -- that the status quo cannot continue. 

Everyone gets that -- and not only in America. But here, no one wants to talk about it. We're frightened, because no one knows what form that change will take, or where we will be at the end of it. And no matter how much we Americans like to think of ourselves as hardy and resilient, reading about Depression or Revolution or Fascism isn't the same thing as experiencing it.

People may begin to understand that, too, in the New Year. I hope, as sincerely as I can exclaim, that we don't have to.

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I called the Oldest Friend, a Bernista who listens politely to me when I rant about an In-The-Dock-At-Nuremberg culpability for the GOP and Democratic party's hierarchy, listened to me this season for a while.

After a pause, she said, "Years ago, before Twitter and all that crap, remember people just forwarded emails to each other as 'social media'?

"Sometime in the late Eighties, someone sent me an email which quoted, I think, a Hopi prophesy; there's a lot of this stuff floating around out there -- which said times were going to change. Everything would be affected. It would be like a flood; that was the metaphor. And there was nothing we could do to prevent it.

"Those who tried clinging to the banks, holding on to their land and possessions, would lose everything and die," she said. "Only the people who surrendered to the current might survive -- no guarantees on that, by the way. They would have to give up everything, and end up wherever the flood took them.

"I got really pissed, reading that. I'd struggled in getting a better job, working on my marriage, taking care of my mother, having a great house and garden," the friend said, "and I understood this was metaphoric -- but, shit.

"We grew up in a generation who believed science could explain or solve any problem. The future would be a continuation of that post-WW2 economic Boom, forever. Americans were going to live in a world that looked like 'The Jetsons'. Television and movies told us that was the future -- if you were white, and mostly male; but never mind that," she said. "So what's this flood about?

"Then, the more data on climate change was available, the less that email seemed so metaphorical. I began reading reports that made it more literal. I might have to lose everything, just to survive?" She laughed. "Well fuck that, I thought."

We talked a while longer. "It had more to do with aging than anything, but over time I began feeling that letting go wasn't so terrible. There are a lot of chickens coming home to roost now. Think of the people raised in peace, before the First World War, and then watched all the reference points in their universe fall apart like a theater backdrop. The more they held on, the harder it was, psychologically.

"If we're seeing the beginnings of a societal collapse coming, or not -- how you see all of that depends on whether you perceive the universe as essentially supportive, or malevolent. That won't change things when there's no money, or food and water. But, 'as a man thinketh', you know?" She laughed again. "Our perspectives are all we really can change in the end, anyway."

_________________________________

And as gets said over at the Soul Of America, I don't know where the New Year will take us; I barely know where the Old Year went.  Also, too, I don't know where this shitty little blog will go, except to note it doesn't seem to be going away, either.

As a New Year's resolution, however, the Comments have been switched back on. Not sure what that means, but play nice.

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Tank Onslaught At El Alamein

Nazis Forced To Standstill As Attack Fails

Local Residents Refuse To Allow Uber Service (Associated Press, 1942)

DEEP SOUTH (CHEESE STAR NEWS)  In the bright white depths of the Murrikan South, teams of dedicated journalists crowded around the fortress compound of "Judge" Royo More, in the wake of his defeat by Democratic candidate Doug Jones in yesterday's closely-watched election to fill the Murrikan Senate seat left vacant by Jeffrey Stonewall Beauregard Bonnie Blue Forrest Hill Kiss My Porcelain Sink Sessions. Luther, Strange, was busy nailing ninety-five feces to the door of a Megachurch and could not comment.

The crowd of reporters waited in vain for Royo to appear, and announce anything. After the official results had declared Jones the winner, media teams turned off their microphones so that the White Nation would not hear More, inside his compound, sobbing like a little girl who was denied her Savior Pony.

In Washing Tong, Murrikan Leader was swift to deflect prior remarks and congratulate Jones. "Something is happening here but I don't know what it is! Congratulations, Mister Jones! It doesn't matter because very soon we will take his seat! I'm feeling great about it!"

"I knew all along that Royo could not win," said Our Leader from the Offal Office. "He was old, and hinkey, and there was this smell. I know all about that smell, let me tell you... Smell -- not gonna make it. I knew it. There oughta be a law, against you comin' around, and maybe I'll make one. Thank you."

The WhyHouse Home-Room Teacher, Missy Sarah, ate doughnuts and echoed her master's sentiments. "Stop lookin' at me! All right. The Prestident has said all he's going to say. The Murrikan people voted for him, all of them, and frankly it's typical of the fake media to make up things for him to smell. You're all just rude," she said. "Don't look at my doughnuts."

Asked to comment on the results of the Alabama contest, Senate Majority Leader, Yertle The Turtle, said, "Silence!! 'You hush up your mouth. You have no right to talk to me, such an especial turtle! I rule from this pulpit, overall; can't you see?? There's nothing, no nothing, that's higher than me!' "

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Everyone Sing Along

Eine Kleine Rhumba Tanzen

It's all too much Mehr.  So; Fuck it.  Let's all do the Rhumba -- yeah; you. You all know who you are.


... Navigate this YouTub to start at 37:25 (Est ist wo wohnen die Rhumbazeit, Kinder!) and the Little Rhumba is over all too soon -- though if you wish to watch the whole video, it runs approximately two hours, and will be good for you.

P.S. :  That is not George "Lil' Boots" Bush at right with the violin.  This is a family Blog, for god's sake.

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Ich Bin Noch Immer Verrückt, Nach Alle Diesen Jahren

Still Crazy After All These Years: A Before Nine Birthday

To use someone else's turn of phrase, This Shitty Blog is nine years old.

Over at The Soul Of America, there was this reference to another blog -- this one is produced by an intelligent person about economics, rather than by a Dog with a bizarre sense of humor who barks repeatedly about whatever comes into his tiny head.

And (as any good numbers wonk would -- that's not a criticism; it's a compliment) the other blogger performed a full traffic analysis of the previous five years, including observations such as, "I now have 11,271 followers",  and, "3,227,472 hits over the last five years ... I’ve written somewhere between 737,000 and 1,474,000 words on the blog. For comparison, the entire Harry Potter series is 1,084,000 words long."

Dude: My congratulations -- all proofs that the content has value and speaks to a need people have in getting factual information about the world we live in. BeforeNine's content tries to be fact-based -- really, it does -- but frequently takes a dive for cheap humor that's one step above the "arm and leg routine" that the Hologram mentions in THX1138 (whatever that routine is).

My running joke about writing for three (now, two) people and a Superintelligent Parakeet is very close to the truth. On a really good day, perhaps 50 people will stop in, look around, and then are off to god alone knows where -- and that, only when another blogger does a Kind and adds a link.

I don't complain. It's actually a wonder (и маскарад, как собака!*) I haven't been sued into poverty by now. 11,000 followers? Wouldn't know what to do with that, even if were so. But, plainly, I don't Bark here to be popular, or even lay claim to being right.

For better or worse, this is the place in life where I come to Do My Dog Thing. Hopefully -- occasionally -- it makes someone laugh, right out loud, hard enough to wet themselves.

Please continue to enjoy.  Be nice to your neighbors.  Don't piss off Ed209. Thank You. You're welcome.

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*  And masquerading as a Dog!

Random Barking: Our Weak In Review

Fanaticism

Kim Jong FatBoy Demands Additional Helping Of Foreshortening With His Dessert

In The Boom Boom Room

The military might of a country represents its national strength. Want pizza?

-- Kim Jong FatBoy, That Guy of Korea

On July 29, Kim Jong Un, Happy Killer of the Korean peninsula and starver-in-chief, rejoiced at the launch of (yet another) version of intercontinental ballistic missile -- the second in less than a month, and claiming this one has the capability of striking a target anywhere in the mainland United States.

There's no doubt that Kimmy is Bad, even if he hangs out with Dennis Rodman (okay; maybe because too, also, he hangs out with Rodman). He starves his population, is a despot, has a friggin' wacky haircut, and likes to execute his potential enemies with antiaircraft guns or have them torn apart by dogs. And he has nuclear weapons. And now ICBMs.

It appears to be an even chance that the U.S. could choose to launch a strike against North Korean infrastructure and its military in the near future, and if that happens it's anyone's guess where it would all end.

And, of course, the most important thing in these circumstances is to lower tensions as much as possible. So the U.S. response was to hold joint military exercises with South Korea, around the Korean peninsula, which in the past has driven the North Koreans bugshit.

But, I'm curious: while he is undoubtedly a despot and his rule over North Korea is brutal... has it occurred to anyone that the characterizations of Kim Jong-Un and reports on the state of his regime sound almost identical to those in the western media about Saddam Hussein, in the year or so leading up to the PNAC-sponsored invasion of Iraq? Or, is it just me?

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Da Mooch: Race You To The Bottom

I'm not Steve Bannon. I'm not trying to suck my own [redacted].
--  Da Mooch, To New Yorker Journalist Ryan Lizza

Just when you thought Be No More Weird, This, it got even stranger.

Two weeks ago, Little Seany Spicer, nine years old, was forced out of his position as Mr. PotatoHead at the Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda, and replaced by that peevish Middle School teacher in a Wal-Mart sack dress, Miss Sarah. Then, we were introduced to the new White House Communications Director.

Anthony Scaramucci was already a curious figure in American business: a hedge-fund manager who built his own trading house, a known GOP fund-raiser (who once called Trump "a hack" and "a mouth") who sold his stake in his company to a Chinese consortium, expecting he would aber natürlich be brought into the new administration -- after all, he was The Mooch. That didn't happen, and Tiny Tony was at loose ends. 

I'm not the first person to use this turn of phrase to describe the man -- but from the moment Scaramucci appeared in the White House Press Room, he seemed the personification of the Trump regime -- baseless self-confidence; foul-mouthed, bullying; not a person adding clarity to our experience of life, but an obfuscator -- a person who tells lies or half-lies to hold an advantage.

The Mooch (a Nick that encapsulated him, both alliteratively and specifically) was another despicable, tiny, tiny, tiny man -- like his good buddy, who got him that gig. This was the public face of Trumplandia -- this figure out of a Renaissance Commedia del arte?

It's taken just seven months for this Clown Car government to drag most Americans down to a level of cynicism which past presidencies have taken well over a year to achieve. Even Trump's supporters expect that cronyism and nepotism is normal, here in Trumplandia -- as in any corporate Oligarchia.

Then, Reince ("Nancy") Priebus was out the door. The Mooch claimed he was behind it, of course, hinting that he believed Priebus was a "leaker" within the administration. After a dinner with Trump at the White House, The Mooch made an evening phone call to New Yorker journalist Ryan Lizza, whom Mooch believed used Priebus as a White House source.

It was a foul-mouthed, bullying conversation, full of threats and grandiosity. However, Da Mooch neglected to advise Lizza that his excess of Self was all Off The Record -- and so the following day, the New Yorker ran an online article by Lizza, to share the Plaint Of Tiny Tony, a man in full (and later, releasing an audio recording of the call).

In short order, Trump announced he had chosen current Homeland Security Director and former Marine Corps General James Kelly as his new Chief of Staff. One of Kelly's first acts was to demand Tiny Tony be fired; as reported by CNN, Tony was escorted from the White House. At almost the same time, his wife of three years filed for divorce, having just given birth to their child.

If Past is indeed Prologue, I'm expecting Kim Kardashian to become our first female president in 2020. And, given the general tone and tenor of these United States, she'll probably win -- on a platform of "Gettin' that, you know -- good stuff" for all Americans.

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Und Sie, Meine Deutscher Jugend

My German youth.
-- Hitler, Speaking To Mass Hitlerjugend, 1938 Nuremberg Rally

The day before Da Mooch was frog-marched from the building, Trump appeared at the annual National Jamboree of the Boy Scouts of America.

(1)  During the 2016 election season, Trump had appeared at the traditional Al Smith dinner, "where presidential candidates roast their rivals and themselves every four years", per the Atlantic Monthly -- an opportunity to show graciousness and humor even in the middle of tough and even dirty political campaigning. While Clinton sat and watched him, Trump called the U.S. media "Hillary's team", referred to her questioning by the FBI over the then-present Emailgate -- then said with a trademark Hey-Whadya-Whadya shrug, "Hillary is so... corrupt!" The audience was stunned. In retrospect, they shouldn't have been.

( 2 )  Within days after his election, and after publicly railing against America's intelligence community during the campaign, Trump appeared at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and -- standing in the building's lobby before the marble Memorial Wall, marked by 125 incised stars, representing intelligence agents killed in the line of duty -- "stunned CIA employees by delivering a campaign-style speech".

( 3 )  Two days before his appearance at the Boy Scouts' conclave, Trump appeared at the commissioning of the USS Gerald R. Ford, and surprised -- well, some people, I suppose -- by asking the crowd of soldiers and sailors to support his agenda, which increases defense spending at the expense of other domestic priorities. “I don’t mind getting a little hand," Trump said, "so call that congressman and call that senator and make sure you get it." Then he added, “And by the way, you can also call those senators to make sure you get health care.”

( 4 )  Appearing before a crowd of police and other law enforcement officials in Brentwood, New York on July 28, Trump spoke about the brutal reality of a specific Latino gang, MS-13, and urged police to go ahead and "treat 'em rough... Don't be too nice... Like when you guys put somebody in the car? And you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put [your] hand over [the top of their heads]. Like, 'don't hit their head' -- and they've just killed somebody... I said, 'you can take the hand away;' OK?"

So when Our Oligarch appeared at the Jamboree, everyone should have seen it coming. In a rambling, disjointed, 38-minute speech, he spoke little of community service or the scouting tradition; instead, Trump referred to that favored topic -- himself.

Washington is "a cesspool... a sewer," Trump told the Scouts. He recalled the "beautiful date" of November 8: "Do we remember that date?" he asked, to applause. Reporting the progress of the election that evening, Trump described television network "maps were so red [for Republican victories in various states]... it was unbelievable."

Trump told the assembled Scouts his election was "an unbelievable tribute" to those who voted for him "to 'Make America Great Again'." He referred to his secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, and said that if the secretary couldn't obtain the votes to kill "this horrible thing known as Obamacare," that perhaps he would fire him.

Trump also mentioned the Republican Senator from West Virginia, Shelley Moore Capito, who had openly criticized previous versions of the GOP healthcare legislation. Reflecting on the word 'loyal' in reference to the Scouts, Trump quipped, "We could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that." 

The first National Jamboree was held in 1937. It was attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who told the assembled scouts, "When you go out into life, you come to understand that the individual in your community ... who by inaction or opposition slows up honest, practical, far-seeing community effort, is the fellow who is holding back civilization and holding back the objectives of the Constitution of the United States."

The remark absolutely had a political reference. Despite an easy reelection in 1936, FDR found his New Deal stymied by Republicans and declared unconstitutional by a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives, and he was deeply frustrated. But his comment was an oblique reference -- FDR's speech that day was about public service, and the values Scouting was supposed to foster. It wasn't a self-referential rant by a low-class, narcissistic opportunist. Trump's speech could just as easily have been delivered by Recep ('Kiki') Erdogan.

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 Song Of The Volga Boatmen

...Why won't you go away?
-- Randy Newman, "I'm Dead But I Don't Know It"; Bad Love (1999)

The Trump - Russia connection will not fade away. Even former CIA officers, old Russia hands, believe that based on the evidence and their own experience of how Russian intelligence runs an operation, there is some kind of fire beneath all the smoke.

This past week, Reuters broke the story that Trump Jr.'s initial statement about his 2016 meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya had ben dictated by his father, aboard Air Force One while returning to the U.S. from the G20 summit when the initial story was reported in the New York Times on July 10.  Missy Sarah, when asked about this by the hated fake media, did not deny it, saying only that Trump Sr. had done "what any father would do."

The statement dictated by Trump Sr. claimed the meeting with the Russians was "short", that Trump Jr. had "asked Jared [Kushner] and Paul [Manafort] to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.

"I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance," Trump Sr. dictated while in flight, "but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand."

This initial statement was so vague, and contradicted by other reported details, that Trump Jr. was forced to issue a 'clarification' which amounted to a contradiction. Additional details to come out after that second statement even threw its accuracy into doubt. All any one could say was, there's a great deal of smoke.

The immediate view by a number of opinion commentators and news journalists was, even if Trump Sr. were responding as a father, crafting an inaccurate and/or incomplete statement about l'affaire Veselnitskaya, from an investigative perspective at least, gives the appearance of an act in furtherance of covering up a crime, an obstruction of justice. Unless he already knew about the meeting (which raises additional questions), Trump Sr. could not write even an inaccurate statement without talking to others who did know what happened, when, and why.

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More important, it was revealed yesterday to the public (not a surprise for the Trump legal team, surely) that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had been dealing with not one but two Federal Grand Juries to hear evidence in two separate matters.

Trump characterizes this kind of activity as a "witch hunt," that it's all about Democrats being sore losers. Most news commentators have said grand juries are a normal occurrence, not anything particularly notable -- but as an ex-investigative Dog at the Federal level, let me observe: that's not entirely true.

Federal Grand Juries aren't empaneled unless sufficient grounds exist to suspect a breach of Federal law. While they have a large amount of power to direct the inquiries themselves, through their Forepersons, Grand Juries rarely do so -- the old adage about a Grand Jury being something a District Attorney or United States Attorney can play like a piano is often the case  Their members are primarily retirees who have the kind of free time needed to sit on a jury and hear evidence, often for months. 

Grand Juries exist to compel production of documents, and the testimony of witnesses. And, Grand Juries cost money. There is no guarantee they'll find in favor of handing down a criminal indictment -- but they aren't convened for no reason. And Robert Mueller has apparently been managing two separate juries, dealing with two separate lines of inquiry. 

But it's early days; many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, and all that. Still, small wonder everyone on Team Trump is lawyering up, including the Vice President.

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Public Trump = Private Trump, And No One Is Surprised

Yesterday, transcripts prepared by the White House but not released were published by The Washington Post of telephone conversations between Trump and the Australian Prime Minister, and the President of Mexico, shortly after his inauguration.

With the Mexican President, Pena Nieto -- whom he kept calling 'Enrique' -- Trump alternately threatened and flattered him, and then said Mexico had to pay for construction of a border wall with the United States. Because. 

>> TRUMP:  The only thing I will ask you though is on the wall ... I have to have Mexico pay for the wall – I have to. I have been talking about it for a two year period, and the reason I say they are going to pay for the wall is because Mexico has made a fortune out of the stupidity of U.S. trade representatives. They are beating us at trade and they are beating us at the border, and they are killing us with drugs... 

>> NIETO:  ...But my position has been and will continue to be very firm saying that Mexico cannot pay for that wall. 

>> TRUMP:  But you cannot say that to the press. The press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that...

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (whom he insisted on calling Malcom) had reached an agreement with President Obama to resettle 1,250 Syrian refugees in the U.S., initially taken in by the Aussies. Trump was on record as saying the deal was bad, and used a blend of self-pity and begging to get Turnbull to agree not to send the refugees, to no avail. 

>> TRUMP:  Malcom [sic]... This is going to kill me. I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people and I agree I can vet them, but that puts me in a bad position. It makes me look so bad and I have only been here a week. 

>> TURNBULL:  With great respect, that is not right – It is not 2,000... The given number in the agreement is 1,250 and it is entirely a matter of your vetting... 

>> TRUMP:  Look, I do not know how you got them to sign a deal like this, but that is how they lost the election. They said I had no way to 270 and I got 306. That is why they lost the election, because of stupid deals like this. You have brokered many a stupid deal in business and I respect you, but I guarantee that you broke many a stupid deal. This is a stupid deal. This deal will make me look terrible... 

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Finally, in a related item, Federal prosecutors in New York are issuing subpoenas, looking into the propriety of a Kushner family project -- selling EB5 visas, allowing immigration into the U.S. for (principally Chinese) investors who pay $500K to support real estate projects which claim to hire construction crews from the neighborhoods where the building takes place. This, at the same time his father-in-law supports restricting any legal immigration to half of its current annual level.

Woof.

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But I feel like a stranger
Feel like a stranger
You know it keeps getting stranger and stranger
If it's love then how would I know?

Yes and it's gonna get stranger
Some things you just know

If this were love then how would I know
(Feel like a stranger)
(Feel like a stranger)
Feel like a stranger
(Feel like a stranger)
It's gonna be a long hot crazy night
It's gonna be a long long crazy crazy night
Yeah crazy night
Silky silky, crazy crazy night

--  Grateful Dead (Weir/Barlow), "Feel Like A Stranger"; Go To Heaven (1980)

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Pardon Me

Same As It Never Was

While all agree the U.S. president has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.  FAKE NEWS
Trump / Twitter, July 22, 2017

Donald Trump is a pivotal historical figure. He'd like hearing that, but not for the reasons it's true.

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Trump is an Oligarch, the first of his ilk elected to national office in America, the culmination of a long string of compromises, inertia, and bad choices in our history and politics. Trump came to power in an alliance with opportunistic associates, the best political con artists of the early 21st century; and voters loosely described as Tea Party and Alt-Right, who have unquestioningly accepted 30 years of indoctrination in the alternate reality of the Right's echo chamber.

The image of a corrupt, bombastic national leader is one Americans have always used, with a smirk, to dismiss the problems of 'somewhere else': the behavior of a Berlusconi, a Mugabe; a Ghaddafi, a Middle Eastern prince; or the leader of a 'Banana Republic'. Now, America has just such a leader.

Nine months after the election, it's fair to say the majority of Americans do not understand how this could have happened, are frightened of what will happen next, and don't know what to do about it.

Far from being steward of a nation of some 400 million people, Trump sees the presidency as an extension of his own person, a grand stage on which to strut and preen and demand validation, over and over. He personifies what American culture holds out to the world as the apex of success and fulfillment in life -- being a billionaire business 'leader', wielding power, able to afford a wonderful life, with treats, and a separate system of taxation and justice.

Trump has no real political agenda, because the presidency of the United States is just his latest acquisition. It's a sweet little property, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to the kind of access needed to work deals so 'big', so 'huge', that they will elevate him and his family into world-class Oligarchs. 

His administration may not last another twelve months, but his becoming president is one symptom of a metastatic disease within America's political structure. And like the towering rages he treats his subordinates and family to, as Trump leaves the presidency, thwarted by a liberal conspiracy, his greatness stolen by a fake-news media, Trump will urinate in the Lincoln Bedroom, set fire to furniture, spray-paint obscenities on the Roosevelt Room walls and cut paintings out of their frames on his way to the helicopter.

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A little speculation: Trump was determined to be president. He saw no difference between "winning" a national election and making any other successful corporate power play -- you pull out all the stops, play rough; even play dirty if it will gain an advantage. In that context, it's very believable that Trump would see back channel help from a foreign government in winning that election to be no different than approaching a business associate for assistance in closing a deal. 

And why not accept some help? Trump has what we now know are thirty years' worth of business and personal connections with Russia -- and at least a handshake relationship with its ruler, Vladimir Putin, whom Trump respects and believes he understands. During the campaign, Trump sent signals in the many complimentary things he said about Putin. He praised the Russian president in terms Trump likes to use to describe himself -- tough, rich, uncompromising; a Player. 

But Trump wanted to win. And he may have considered that if he became president, Russia could become an ally to fight ISIS, possibly even a partner to help broker peace in the Middle East, instead of an adversary. It's a bit of a stretch -- but an alliance-in-all-but-name with Russia would remake the balance of world politics overnight. It's the sort of game-changing strike without warning which Trump and his principal strategist, Steve Bannon, are fond of.

There would be skeptics in the GOP like Graham and McCain, who mistrust the Russians; and among Europeans, who are closer geographically to Russia than we are. The Chinese wouldn't like it. But somehow, Trump might believe -- if he could just become president -- it would work. And, a political fait accompli would tend to obscure any Russian hacking that might happen before the election, which was already obvious to U.S. intelligence and then-President Obama. Any investigation of that activity would be buried, because Trump would be in charge.

After, Trump just knew he would be covered in glory, with huge, big, big, big; hugely big approval ratings -- proving to everyone that he was loved and adored (no, worshiped) as no American Leader before him had been. Craving uncritical adulation appears to be one of Trump's principal motivations. It may be the only one.

Trump would then have all the domestic political capital with a Republican-controlled Congress he needed to build border walls, deport people he doesn't like; repeal Obamacare. Easily elected to a second term, he would continue to encourage his surrogates and camp followers to realize the fevered, wet dreams of power, domination and punishment which America's political Right has nurtured for generations.

So, in this consideration, help was offered and/or asked for, and was delivered. If that sounds like a bridge too far, here's a question: Why was there so much attention focused on Russia, and contacts with Russians that have direct connections to Putin, by Trump and his coterie of advisors both before and after the election? What was the reason?

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You have to wonder how Putin viewed Trump's becoming president. Financial sanctions levied against Russia by the Obama administration hurt Putin (and his associate)s' ability to more efficiently skim off the top and launder the proceeds, and he had no intention of taking it lying down.

The cyberarm of the GRU (Russian military intelligence) has been probing American governmental and commercial systems for over twenty years. Their goal has never been to run scams like Ransomware, or weaponize software code in something like Stuxnet -- but in developing the ability to use cyberwarfare as one part of an asymetric attack on a target; in this case, the United States.

Putin's KGB career involved analyzing American culture and intentions, and it's likely he understands roughly a quarter of the adult U.S. population has swallowed thirty years of right-wing codswallop, which always ends with a Federal government determined to sell America out to a one-world, globalist liberal conspiracy.

America is full of fault lines, primarily involving race and wealth inequality. Russians view even the flawed diversity and democracy in the U.S. as expressions of weakness, especially when compared with their own nationalist, authoritarian government. Putin wants to diminish U.S. influence in the world, and anything which exploits America's partisan divide against itself gives Russia more advantage -- in Syria; in Ukraine; and in offshore accounts.

A straight hack of the DNC to obtain more raw intelligence about the organization of a major American political party is one thing. But hacking to obtain information, and then using the product to tip the scales of a U.S. national election is something else. Trump presented the Russians with an irresistible opportunity: all hackers are Geeks with Kung-Fu powers; there's a lot of juice in just pulling the hack off successfully. 

The product of the GRU's hacks, used properly, could destabilize the United States -- not in an obvious way that could be seen as an act of war (e.g., bringing down the electrical grid or disrupting the banking system), but by kicking the confidence of Americans in its government and basic democratic institutions further to the curb.

Trump's election would leave the U.S. further divided and uncertain, its government distracted, its president a weak, bombastic narcissist who only accepts advice from a tiny circle of family or uncritical 'alternative' advisors. If even a part of that could be achieved, with a minimum of resources and effort, Putin might consider it an exquisite kind of payback.

Putin knew Trump might expect an America under his leadership becoming a closer partner with Russia. Publicly, Vlad said he welcomes closer relations. He would like the sanctions against Russian individuals and its banks lifted -- but it is certainly advantageous to Russia if America is kept off-balance and distracted. So, Putin could suggest the possibility of A Great New Friendship... but it will always remain just out of Trump's reach, so long as Vlad wants it that way. Bizarrely, Trump needs Putin more than the reverse is true.

______________________________

So, very possibly, Trump accepted assistance offered by intermediaries from Putin. He saw the Russian hacks and release of the product as right, a necessary edge in an election against a hated liberal icon, sowing confusion and discord in a political structure that the outsider Trump claimed to detest.

Crooked Hillary, the Fake News conspiracy against him, would be outmaneuvered. He would fight and fight and fight -- and win, because he was Donald Trump; and all would love him.

That's all that mattered.

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I keep hearing conversations with some variation on If only this turd were swept out of power, everything could go back to normal. This perception is a mistake. Mike Pence in the Oval Office might seem more socially acceptable; we could pretend everything was The Same As It Ever Was. But Trump's fall means elevating a religious fundamentalist to the presidency, and even though Pence outwardly appears to be 'normal' (relative to Trump), he is equally as threatening and destabilizing. Look at his record.

Pence aside, the damage has already been done. There is no viable alternative to the continued rule of America by the individuals who crawled in behind Trump as he was inaugurated. Their goal is to continue dismantling the social contract between government and citizen that was the cornerstone of FDR's New Deal. And they will not cease, unless someone stops them.

And by that I mean a Poland-style, hundreds of thousands in the streets, saying No Pasaran stopping them. But with few exceptions (in particular people who already know what the score is and are so full of rage they feel they have little to lose), everyone just wants it to be The Same As It Ever Was.  

But who or what will offer a change? The Democratic party appears rudderless. The same neoliberal PTB who wanted Hill-O as Leader seem still to be in charge -- and their message isn't about Resistance. It's about connecting with the people they believe voted Trump into office; feeling the pain of ordinary Americans.  It's about playing a longer strategic game.

Yesterday, Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Nancy Pelosi and DNC Chair Tom Perez announced the 2018 campaign direction for their party. Reduced to it's essence, their 'answer to America's working families', is the same as Michael Dukakis' during the 1988 presidential election -- "good jobs at good wages" -- meaning they would focus on addressing basic economic issues, in order to define the Democratic party as being more than "just against Donald Trump".

It's easy to see the decision behind this rebranding, but it doesn't encourage standing up, or fighting back. It's like handing an aspirin to a person slowly being crushed to death, and touching their hand -- tenderly, and with love. Under the circumstances, this kind of response is inadequate.

Something more active needs to be done. But given the lack of response from the population and Left politicians, how much worse will it need to become before a larger number of people act? 

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Trump has gotten what he wanted -- the limelight of history: Top of the world, Ma! In what happens next, he is a pivotal figure, a cause utterly out of proportion with the effect he will have on our lives. That anyone suffers because of this Clown is tragic, and ironic. Chickens, home to roost. Somewhere the gods are laughing, fit to bust -- and Vladimir Putin, of course.

The ascension to the presidency of a right-wing buffoon with limited impulse control is bad: The Past Is Prologue; just look at what's happened in seven months. The buffoon made Leader at the same time the Congress is dominated by Republicans, with a probable conservative bias in the Supreme Court, is very bad.

If it's determined the buffoon president solicited or agreed to assistance from a foreign power, in order to affect the election which barely gave him a victory, it's not just extremely bad for America -- it's an unprecedented Constitutional crisis.

And Trump is only a symptom. All this, The fact that he is where he is, makes obvious our political structure is dysfunctional and schizophrenic. That we're becoming a culture where the needs of Americans -- employment; housing; safe water and air and food; medical care; one system of justice -- won't be addressed unless they can pay for them. That we all feel something is out of control, getting perilously close to an edge. That things can't go on like this.

As if it wasn't obvious. As if anyone had to actually say so.  But we do. We need to say it publicly, loudly, and often, until we believe it.  Because at the moment, a majority of Americans are still betting that Same As It Ever Was is still a possible future.

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MEHR, MIT DAS TIERLIEBE: 

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