Yes It Is Beginning, Another End Times Laugh Riot Week

 Yet Another Barking Rant

John Currin,  Park City Grill  (2000)

There is an inbred,

genetic-template look for these people.

This post feels incomplete; unconnected observations thrown up at the wall -- spitballing, as it were -- about the omnipotent, they-are-always-with-us Rich. You may think this is low-hanging fruit, but it's not. It's a reminder.

If this blog's observations had any impact in the public discussion of serious issues, then this post might be seen as having more meaning. But, it's just unsourced opinion by one individual with no agency beyond their own existence. 

I am as singular, and no more important than, any of the dead discovered at Pompeii whose names we'll never know. We can see what their last moments must have been -- but all the events and actions and experiences in their lives are unknown, lost.

Some of my observations offered will, in all probability, cause the few readers of this blog to say yeah okay, Boomer; eyeroll, whatever the fuck, but this is life here in downtown Earth. Be well.

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Bring My Car And Be Quick, You Dirty Little Proles

Amazingly prescient: If you haven't read this novel (1986), please do so. 

I'll just say it: American and Western society is essentially owned by a vicious, arrogant layer of wealth. Call them the 0.001 % -- principally Old Wealth, maintained in the same families for generations. I have been around these folk (almost married into a branch of one of those families) and they are just as stereotypical as characters from a comedy-of-manners film, dropped into Real Life. It's uncanny.

They do not know how to build a fire, use basic tools, make coffee, set up a tent or cook a filet of sole; they hire others to do that sort of thing. They scream at domestic servants or gardeners as things, barely even human. They are inbred, culturally; they are cruel and voracious, and they truly exist.

They own multiple homes, in neighborhoods which, if you don't live in them, you'd better have a verifiable reason to be there. They move in a cyclical progression from home to home, with seasonal vacations at resorts and private hotels.

John Currin,  Stamford After Brunch  (2000)

Most of these families know (or are at least aware of) each other. They are supported by the same circles of accountants, financial and investment advisors, personal assistants, tax and estate attorneys, physicians and surgeons, tailors, gardeners, chefs and valets. They walk in comfort and anonymity along the same private, manicured paths as their families have done for generations.

Their children attend a tight circle of preparatory schools, and enter certain European and American universities as Legacies. Eventually, they will slide into sinecures at law and investment firms. They are members of clubs we wouldn't be allowed to join. Typically, these children intermarry.

Within their class, maintaining their family's financial fortunes is the critical priority. There's also a certain amount of competition between players, a jockeying for position: It's Edith Wharton and John Cheever with a touch of Voltaire, an essence of films like "The Discrete Charm Of The Bourgeoise", The Ruling Class, or 'Reversal Of Fortune'. 

That competition plays out in odd ways -- like, bidding against each other to possess a specific, classic piece of art, or owning the largest yacht / private jet / media company; or, building a family bunker and compound in New Zealand, or purchasing a Hawaiian island. 

Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close as Claus and Sunny von Bulow

In "Reversal Of Fortune" (1990)

They tolerate the Zucks, the Musks, the Jobs' and Bezos' and Thiels and Andreesens; all the Tech Bro billionaires, as nouveau riche arrivistes; pool boys, waiters and office workers who somehow struck it rich. Not the right sort -- no history, no breeding- -- but, they can afford to live well, and, if the past is any guide, within a few generations their money will disappear. Or, they'll eventually become accepted, part of the Class.

And they have serious class solidarity: depend on it.  Even when Claus von Bülow appeared to have attempted to murder his wife --  members of his class might disapprove, but they would never show that to the rest of society. They would "support the side" against a greater mass of humanity: We are the Owners, and Fuck You Peasants (see 'The Draughtsman's Contract').

Our Fabled Wealthy don't wait in line, don't submit to passport control or customs checks. They aren't required to appear in court for all but the most serious charges (if they appear at all, even then). They are not accountable under any law in the same way, or to the same extent, that you or I are.

Collectively, they believe that they own us -- whether we accept it, or not. They believe in the age-old Puritan assumption (as fundamental to the beginnings of America as slavery), that their wealth is proof that they are the Elect of god. They will rise to heaven on the Day Of Judgement and spend eternity in a wonderful softness, with many Treats: Of course.

They also believe in the corollary to that assumption -- that poverty, people who are poor, are disfavored by god. God made them poor. And because of that, on the Big Day 'O Judgement, they will burn in Hell.

Our Fabled Wealthy believe this (or some version of it), as surely as they accept the basics of Newtonian physics. It is axiomatic for them. Oh, ayuh.

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You Are Pwned -- A Dream Coda

Years ago, I had a dream which stands out in memory -- because I don't often dream with details that I recall so completely. 

I was some kind of mountaineering guide, taking wealthy persons up ... not Everest, but some similar peak. I was "inside" myself in this dream (sometimes dreams allow you see yourself in 'camera view'), looking out on a snow-covered slope -- a right triangle of pure white, from upper left to lower right -- against a sky of deep Cobalt blue.

A man in his late twenties / early 30's stood a few feet in front of me, wearing an orange parka with the hood pulled back. He had a light stubble of beard, curly, reddish-blonde hair, and wore a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. He was completely at ease, smiling, and spoke with an accent (French, I knew, in that telepathic way of dreams). He wasn't arrogant in his delivery, but matter-of-fact, as if describing the weather.

"I will tell you how it is," he said. "My family is thirteen hundred years old. One of my ancestors was  knighted by Charlemagne. We've survived plagues, wars, financial collapse, revolutions, occupation. We've had our black sheep, our idiots -- but mostly, we have made fortunes and passed them down to the next generation. We've been good at it, and lucky. We live very well.

"If you can't trace your family back more than a few generations? I don't care. You've always worked for pay -- but maybe you get lucky, win some lottery, and your children inherit that money? I don't care. In one, maybe two generations, it will be gone, absorbed into banks, financial houses, and by taxes. Perhaps my family owns some of those financial houses.

"We own forests and mines. We own companies" -- he waved at me with one hand -- "Maybe you have even worked for us. But some day, you will be dead, and that will be the end for you. Your name will be forgotten, as if you and everyone in your family line before you had never existed. My family will still be here. Many recognize our name. No one knows who you are.

"If that's unhappy for you, or if it makes you angry, I don't care," he said, and smiled again. "And that is how things are."

Fantasy Singalong With Big Bird At End Of Blog Rant

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The Morning Of The Day Before, Again

 January 29, 1933

Statue Advertising Restaurant, Northern China

(John Woo, Reuters / 2016)

(This is originally from Sunday, January 19th, 2016.  This history still applies.)

Sunday
(Sh'vat, 5785, for those who do.  Note: The 1933 [Gregorian] calendar is the same as that for 2025.)

Poet Sarah Teasdale dies in New York City after an overdose of sleeping pills. She is most commonly remembered for "There Will Come Soft Rains" (aka 'War-Time'), published in 1920.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound...

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

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On January 29, Edouard Daladier, French centrist politician, was asked to assume position of Prime Minister and form a new coalition government, which would last from January to October, 1933.

In 1938, Daladier was again a minister in (yet) another coalition government in France, and with extreme reluctance supported the 1938 Munich agreement to cede the Sudeten portions of Czechoslovakia to Germany, and (presumably) avoid a general European war.

Returning to Paris after the agreement was signed, Daladier expected hostile crowds, but was instead warmly cheered. A combat veteran of the Western Front in WW1, Daladier understood: The Great War had been such a monumental bloodletting for the world, a fall of European empires and whole ways of life, that few people wanted to see new monsters on the horizon.

However, Daladier understood that Munich was nothing but appeasement. He had no illusions about the ultimate intentions of Hitler and the nazis -- to him, Munich only delayed what he saw as an inevitable war. 

Seeing the crowds cheering his arrival -- to the man on the street, war over Czechoslovakia had been averted! Yay! -- Daladier turned to an aide and said sadly, "Ah, these morons".

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German Chancellor General Kurt von Schleicher had resigned on January 28th. The recently re-elected German President, Paul von Hindenburg, had to appoint a replacement who could form a new government. On January 29th he offered the position to Franz von Papen, who refused.

von Papen had already been Chancellor from June through November, 1932. The possibility of another civil war in Germany between the extreme right and extreme left was growing, and von Papen had tried and failed to resolve tensions. On January 29th he suggested to Hindenburg that Hitler be named Chancellor -- because, he explained to the old Field Marshall, Hitler could be controlled.

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The Weimar Republic had survived the 1919 civil war between the Center-Right and the 'Spartikus' Left (which became the German Communist Party, the KPD) only because the Center begged the German army to crush the Leftists.

That bargain linked the survival of a moderate democratic republic to army support -- meaning the officer class, heavily linked to Prussia's landed nobility -- part of the same mixed bag of conservatives which had always been on top under the Kaisers. 

The 1929 stock market crash (Thanks, America! Didn't see that coming!) resounded around the world. By 1932, the Depression had kicked Germany's people to the curb. The most significant aspect of Germany's politics was how most people gravitated to one extreme or the other in the country's political spectrum.

Times were desperate; there wasn't much of a Center left to hold. On the Left were the KPD and Red Front. On the Right were a number of nationalist / conservative parties. The nazis (NSDAP) were the most radical.

Something usually glossed over in summary histories about Weimar in 1932 is the backstage maneuvering by the same traditional conservative layers of German society, attempting to maintain a grip on power. 

In April of 1932, a national election was held: Hitler ran against Hindenburg for the Presidency of the German Republic -- and while the nazis made gains in the Reichstag, Hitler wasn't popular enough to beat the Old Man.  

National elections for Reichstag deputies saw support for the nazis rise to 37% : with the KPD, they were a majority party. Anyone who wanted to govern in Germany's parliament would need their support (Remember, however -- Hitler's stated position was to eliminate all political parties in Germany, except his own).

In May of 1932, the moderate conservative government was frightened there would be an eventual revolution from the Left -- enough that General Kurt von Schleicher, and a previous Chancellor, Franz von Papen, held secret meetings with Hitler to offer a proposal. 

In order to keep the KPD and the nazis from fighting in the streets, the brownshirts and SS had been banned from holding public rallies and marches. von Schleicher told Hitler the ban would be lifted -- also, the Reichstag would be dissolved, and new elections called. The then-Chancellor, Heinrich Bruening, would be dismissed by Hindenburg.  von Papen would replace him... and Hitler would support von Papen's conservative nationalist government. 

Conservatives were just as frightened of Hitler and his NSDAP as they were the KPD. This attempt to appease Hitler -- they would have a real 'seat at the table' -- was really about neutering the nazis and bringing them under control of the moderate conservatives. 

Hitler agreed, only in order to have the ban on nazi public appearances lifted. Bruening was dismissed; von Papen was named by Hindenburg as Chancellor. However, Hitler had no intention of being co-opted into von Papen's government, and said so -- that he considered it a 'temporary measure'.

When the political situation continued to deteriorate through 1932, Hitler claimed to be the only political figure who could hold the Republic together. He requested a meeting with President von Hindenburg so that he could demand to be appointed Chancellor. In a humiliating session, the old Field Marshall treated Hitler like the ex-Gefreiter (Lance Corporal) he was, and refused Hitler's demands. 

The entire episode fed into Hitler's general delusions of power. Being Chancellor became the only outcome he would accept, and made it impossible for the conservatives to offer him anything less.

The nazis and KPD continued fighting in the streets. Hitler and leading nazis (mostly, Goering and Goebbels) kept pushing von Papen and the conservatives: only Hitler could unify the country and control the Communists and political-Left parties. 

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von Papen kept pushing Hindenburg, and von Papen said he would become vice-chancellor. The nazis would have only two of 7 cabinet positions; non-nazis in key government positions would contain Hitler. Finally, faced with continuing Right vs. Left violence, Hindenburg sent for Hitler and offered him the Chancellorship.

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On January 29th, 1933, the New York Times ran three separate articles about events in Germany.  The first looked at European stock markets, saying “apprehensions [are] generally felt over the fresh evidence of Hitler’s influence in the German situation.”

The second article summarized events in Germany, stating that Hindenburg was seeking a coalition government -- and that Hitler could only be made part of it through a guarantee that his power, and the nazis', would be limited.

Many leading intellectuals in Germany had serious misgivings about any government that might include Hitler -- “a straight Parliamentary government headed by [him]... is not envisaged in sober-minded political quarters.”

The third article was a long piece on Mussolini, Stalin, and Hindenburg. Hitler was only briefly mentioned; the article spoke of Hitler's "extreme policies", and inferred that he and the nazis were not the future of Germany in the same way that Mussolini and his fascists, and the Soviets under Stalin, appeared to be.

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Monday, January 30, 1933

Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of the Weimar Republic.

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Wartime: A Long Howl

 The Worst Nightmare You Ever Had

This is wartime. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, Trump Twittered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Digby said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Resistance, Rebellion and Death)

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Reprint Heaven: In The Beginning Was The Word

 Ten Years Later

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

(It grieves me to give Glamorous Glenny any space in this post, but it can't be helped. Originally offered August 28, 2010.)

 

Glenn Beck, At Lower Right Surrounded By Private Security Guards, Waits To Begin The Rally behind A Poster Of A Native American (Photo: Brendan Smialowski, New York Times Online, 8/28/10) 

It isn't really important that someone staged a religious rally in Washington, D.C.; that's been done before. The Moral Majority and Christian Coalition have staged them, and the 'Million-Man March' comes to mind. But this is the first religious rally that is overtly political, a demand to link or merge church and state, organized by evangelical christians with the general theme of turning America back to god -- through the general emergence of a new political force, the vaguely-defined 'Tea Party'. And it is happening at a time when the mainstream media continually portrays the state of National politics as confused at best and governing against the will of the People at worst. 

And, this rally is happening at a time when many people are out of work, angry and vulnerable, and ready to listen to a "new message". The Times stated that NBC news estimated 300,000 people lined the Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument; the event's spokespersons said it was half a million. "But," said the Times, "by any measure it was a large turnout," which to me is disturbing.

 

The Rally (Photo: New York Times / Jacquelyn Martin - AP) 

 It was organized by Glenn Beck -- an eager entertainer who has the backing of Little Rupert's News Corp., the most powerful media conglomerate on the planet. Ten years ago, Glenny was just another drive-time talk jock. Now, he's standing with the Lincoln Memorial at his back, believing he speaks for god and preaching a mixture of biblical interpretation and Rightist garbage.

   

The Most Something Name In News: Reflecting Beck's Penchant For Truthyness And Factitiousness (Screencapture: CNN)

It's a Meaglomaniac's dream come true. However, the phrase, "Jesus wept," is invoked for a reason. There are a large number of people who see Beck attempting to equate his little monologue with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech in the same place, on the same date -- an address of hope and a demand for equality and justice, that has nothing to do with the ego of a tubby con man enabled by a media oligarch. And they're not happy. 

"For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,” Beck said to a nearly all-Caucasian crowd in a long, rambling speech that repeated themes from his Fox television program, his Clearchannel radio show, and his Web 'University', all of which push a bizarre amalgam of half-truths and boldfaced lies about American history. "This country has spent far too long worrying about ... and concentrating on scars," Glenny went on. "Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished, and the things that we can do tomorrow.”

   

"Under God": Tea Party Attendees Recited The Pledge Of Allegiance; Find A Black Person In This Photo And I'll Pay You 1,000 Quatloos (Photo: Brendan Smialowski, New York Times Online, 8/28/10)

Speaking of something many of the other tubby white men in the crowd would do, Sarah Palin spoke immediately after Beck; "We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want," Palin said. "We must restore America and restore her honor." The themes were consistent: America is on the wrong road; we need to regain our honor; we need to look to our glorious past; we need to turn back to religion as the basis for governing the country; and as Beck has been spouting for several years, the Federal government should be reduced in its power, and get out of the lives of its citizens... and all citizens should accept god, and live by godly principles.

 

Obligatory Cute Dead Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant 

...the important thing is that all signs are that the next few years will be a combination of economic stagnation and political witch-hunt... This is going to be almost inconceivably ugly. 

-- Paul Krugman, "Failure To Rise"; NY Times, August 28, 2010 

 I believe a large number of people will snort out a laugh about Beck's rally, and his performance, today (even David Niewart, who has kept as close an eye on the totalitarian leanings of America's Right as anyone). After all, they'll say, we've heard all his themes before; nothing new there -- and they'll make fun of him. 

 But I also think people are uneasy at what they're seeing; all sniggers aside, the rally had a moderately respectable turnout (Definitely not half a million, and not 300,000; but respectable). And, because Beck wants nothing short of a revolution -- he's as much as said so. His enablers and investors (monkey-gland-fueled oligarchs like Little Rupert, and the Billionaire Boyz Club) think the Tea party will disappear, sooner or later -- but intend to make Progressives spend capital and resources fending it off ...and get something out of it for themselves.

 

And if it does become something; if the country ends up being ruled by nut jobs like Palin and Bachmann and Paul... well; it's nice to be on the right side of people who believe god speaks to them, isn't it? Because those people usually take a Dairy Queen full of people hostage and then demand money, a fueled jet, and "complete release". 

 Unless revolutions are seriously non-violent (as Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, or Mahatma Gandhi's long effort to win independence for India, were) and truly have justice and history on their side, they end in two ways -- a coup d'etat, because in order to survive, a government has to share power with the revolutionaries (Germany in 1933); or a seizure of power by force, (the French and Russian Revolutions), usually with some involvement by part of a country's professional military officers, even if they stand aside and wait for some 'supreme authority' to win the struggle for control.

 

Who Wants To Swear Allegiance To Anything We Say,

Or End Up In The Gulag? Soviet Citizens During The Purges Of The 1930's

In either case, the revolutionaries need scapegoats. In moving from the Old Order to the New, there will have to be punishments, a comeuppance. And, since it's a Revolution, the old notions of civility, fairness and justice won't apply. The revolutionaries suddenly in power will do whatever is necessary to keep it -- and to survive, people will have to swear allegiance to whatever those in power want them to. Because in the end, it is all about power; "Where the broom does not sweep," Mao Zedong said, "The dust will not vanish of itself." 

In order to bring about revolutionary change, the new leaders won't ask a society to do what they want -- they have to demand it, and behind that demand is always the barrel of a gun. In a political revolution, that's bad enough; ask the Czechs, the Romanians, the Bulgarians and the Russians; the Spanish and the Germans. 

But in a revolution created by religious True Believers, they will not only want you to agree that two and two make five; you will have to prove to them that you believe it with all your heart. Or else. The only way religious revolutionaries can build consensus is by attacking 'heretics' and 'unbelievers' as defined by their leaders, who claim to speak for god.

 

Francisco Goya, Inquisition; Prado Museum, Madrid 

 For example: Non-christians, agnostics or atheists may be identified by others in their neighborhoods to the authorities. They may be ostracized, their businesses boycotted. Eventually, they will be marginalized legally -- at first, laws may be passed requiring only recognized christians to hold public office or civil service jobs; then, to hold any job. Then, to own certain kinds of property. 

 And while all this is going on, the media is broadcasting the message that since the new leaders are informed by god, directives of the new government are directed by god as well -- in fact, will be equated with god's will. Those against the government, and certain non-christians, are evil; "in rebellion against god"; agents of Satan.

 

Nazi Auto-Da-Fe In The Operaplatz, Berlin A.R. Moritz, 1938

And, the things these evil people have made -- art; literature; scientific studies; architecture and design and theater ... all of it will become objects of official ridicule and discarded (even, burned in public) as evidence of moral degeneracy.

 

Exhibition Of 'Entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art); Münich, 1937 -- An Exhibition Of Art Declared Against The Principles Of German Culture And Society As Defined By The Government (Wikipedia)

It's inevitable; at some point, witches will have to be be tried. There will be forced confessions (as with the Inquisition, or Soviet Purge trials, or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge). If the accused don't recant, and accept whatever interpretation of religion the leaders direct as orthodox -- then, it ends in executions and anonymous graves.

 

Cambodian Teacher, Photographed Before Execution By The Khmer Rouge.

If you think this is science fiction, substitute the word "Jew", or "Homosexual" "Communist" "Monarchist", or "Liberal" for 'non-christian', 'atheist' or 'agnostic', and remember your history (only, recanting an unpopular opinion, or changing religious affiliation did nothing to help the Jews). 

If you spend even an hour listening to 'christian' radio, its broadcasts are long, ranting monologues about fire and sin that build slowly to a frenzy -- and always delivered by men, shouting about seeking out and recognizing the devil and the ungodly, about prophesy as they interpret it, and punishment to come. 

Those who punish others out of a claim to know wickedness are blind to it in themselves. 

I'm a long way from saying we're on the cusp of a Rightist, Dominionist 'christian' takeover of the government. More likely, the Teabaggers can try and ram god down the country's throat, and at some point the society will begin to choke.

Until then, it will look and feel like the McCarthy era, as incompetent evangelicals run the United States onto the rocks and brand everyone who blames them as agents of Teh Satan. However, make no mistake: any change of government in this country from its current, secular democratic Republic would have to end in the repression, imprisonment, and murder of anyone whom the new leaders saw as a threat. That is the nature of revolution; there are no exceptions. There never have been.

If Little Glenn Beck has another rally, and more people show up than there were today -- if this is pushed as a "populist" uprising by Right-wing media like Fox and bankrolled by billionaires with revenge on their minds -- then I would take note, and be afraid, because the days of living in a pluralist, secular and diverse society may be numbered.

All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. 

[-- All Boldface Quotations: Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797); Taste The Irony ]

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---

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.

---

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."

_______________________________

( "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..."

______________________________________

This Should Tell You Something

Character
(Originally posted in 2015; this, and the comparisons drawn, seem particularly apt in 2020. The bottom line here is: The Proles are expendable; the Rich are with us, always, like an STD you can't cure.)

Rick Bower, AP - Canal Sreet,; September 4, 2005

Most mainstream news organizations are hosting ten-year retrospectives of one of the most tragic natural disasters to befall a major, iconic American city -- the flooding of New Orleans at the end of August, 2005, caused by one of the most powerful storms to hit the U.S.: Hurricane Katrina.

Not that unnatural disasters haven't occurred to cities in the U.S. -- the abandonment of Detroit is the most obvious; Love Canal in the 1960's, Manhattan on 9-11; even other natural disasters like the Great Johnstown or Brownsville Floods; the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906. But the catastrophe in New Orleans was different -- because of who lived in the city; and who was in charge of the government which was supposed to protect and rescue its citizens. All its citizens.

It became a tragedy watched in near-real-time on cable and mainstream news, and it was magnified by indifference, arrogance and incompetence. Today everyone just calls it 'Katrina'.

________________________________________

Terms like Personality and Character are used to describe traits of an individual -- 'personality' referring to something mutable, changeable; while 'character' is something more essential and fundamental, the bedrock and framework unique to each person that animates a 'personality' like a suit of clothing -- the upshot being that personality can change, but not character: Blood will out. A Leopard can't change its spots.

For me this week, remembering Katrina is a short meditation on the idea of Character, as personified by two women -- one black and poor, the other white and a member of the top one-hundredth of our One Per Centers.

_________________________________________

On Monday morning, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina had slammed into the coast of Louisiana; four major levees had been breached around New Orleans and much of the city was flooded. People had died. More were dying. Thousands were losing everything they could not carry.

To escape the flooding, 11-year-old Danielle Mollett helped her ill grandmother Diane Mollett, 64, up into the attic of their home in the Ninth Ward, the area of lowest elevation in New Orleans and the district that would be hardest hit by the flooding. 

In the aftermath of the Hurricane's landfall, the weather turned tropical, sultry; temperatures rose -- hard on those trapped in the confines of an attic. With no food and little to drink, they waited for help.

Danielle Mollett, Interviewed For The August 24, 2015 Edition Of CBS News (CBS)

On that same August morning, George "Lil' Boots" Bush -- the "Decider" -- appeared in Arizona to present a birthday cake to John McCain. He spoke about his plan for Medicare, and gave Katrina only a passing mention.

 Bush had been told that the New Orleans levees might not hold, that there was potential for a catastrophe. That this had happened, that 85% of the city was deeply flooded, had already been communicated to the White House on the evening of August 29th.

On August 30, New Orleans had descended into something out of Dante. At the same time, Lil' Boots appeared in California, at the Coronado Naval Air Station in San Diego, where he had delivered his 2003 "Mission Accomplished!" speech, claiming Vic'try in Iraq.  Bush spoke about those wonderful times -- and made mention of Katrina, saying help would be coming "any day now".  And he was photographed trying to play a guitar.

Lil' Boots left for Crawford, Texas on Air Force One,  intending to take a Labor-Day vacation at 'The Ranch'.  White House aides, aware of what was happening in Louisiana, suggested the situation was serious enough that the President return to Washington.  Lil' Boots was not happy, but agreed to cut short his vacation by a whole day, but through that night it became clearer just how bad it was in New Orleans.

On August 31st, Lil' Boots demanded that he be flown from Texas, low over the city, on Air Force One. The huge 747 buzzed the area repeatedly for over a hour -- interrupting relief efforts requiring helicopters. As Bush stared out a window, press secretary Scott McClellan later quoted him as saying, "It's devastating. It's gotta be doubly devastating on the ground."

Bush returned that day to the White House, held a cabinet meeting on Katrina, and spoke briefly in the Rose Garden to describe federal relief efforts.  FEMA's uncoordinated reaction before and after Katrina struck (and that of its polo-playing director, Michael Brown) had been stupefying. Mainstream television news had reported on the confused and ineffective relief efforts -- too little, too late, and most of it FUBAR.

Privately, Representative Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] urged Bush to fire Brown because of all that had gone wrong; "What didn't go right?" Lil' Boots replied, and on September 1st praised Brown publicly ("You're doin' a heckofa job, Brownie!").

8 days later, 'Brownie' was allowed to quietly step out of an active role in managing the crisis. On September 12th, he resigned as director of FEMA; in later testimony before Congress, Brown alleged "that Lousiana governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin bore most, if not all, of the blame for the failures in the response to Katrina, and that his only fault had been not to realize sooner their inability to perform their respective duties." (Wikipedia)

_______________________________________

In New Orleans on August 31st, 11-year-old Danielle Mollett had managed to help her grandmother out of the attic where they had been trapped. Her grandmother's health was failing. They were lucky enough to be seen and rescued by one of the few boats bringing survivors out of flooded areas, taking them to the New Orleans Superdome stadium, which was situated on slightly higher ground than the rest of the city -- still, lower portions of the structure were flooded by three feet of water.

An estimated 30,000 people found their way to the Superdome between August 29 and September 2. Conditions were bad: limited food, water, sanitation and medical services; sewage systems were backed up by the flooding. The most seriously ill -- like 64-year-old Diane Mollett -- were given small folding cots to rest on.

 _________________________________________

Boots, On The Little Rupert Network From New Orleans

To balance public perception that he showed little concern for the tragedy on the Gulf, Bush quickly flew back to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and fumbled through a long, photo-op tour of the region. He even made an 'Address To The Nation' from New Orleans. A few miles away, at the Superdome, not enough of the thousands of survivors had adequate food or water, and no one seemed able to get any to them.

______________________________________________

But by now, too many people had seen just how desperate things had become -- network news reporters at the Superdome were shaken by what they saw of the conditions there. On September 1st, Paula Zahn of CNN interviewed FEMA director Brown, who claimed to have "only just learned" 30,000 people in the damaged Superdome had no food or water: "Sir, you aren't just telling me you just learned that the folks at the Convention Center didn't have food and water until today, are you? You had no idea they were completely cut off? " she asked, incredulous. 

Brown appeared bored as he replied, "Paula, the federal government did not even know about [them] until today" --an obvious lie, since evacuations from the Superdome had been going on, slowly, for over 24 hours.

No one seemed to be in charge. In FEMA's inactivity before the catastrophe, and its mismanagement in the aftermath obvious to anyone watching the news, the government's response seemed too little, too late. Another fuck-up, like Iraq -- Because FUBAR; and because the people suffering and dying in New Orleans were poor and primarily black.

On September 2, NBC broadcast a live Concert for Katrina, to raise awareness and money for relief efforts. Standing beside comic Mike Meyers, Kayne West offered an observation about the disaster which was broadcast live across America -- except on the West Coast, where tape delay allowed NBC to delete his remarks:

Meyer's Look ("OMG: On Teevee??") = Priceless

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. If it's a black family, it says we're looting. If it's a white family, it says they're looking for food. And you know that it's been five days because most of the people are black... We already realize that a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way, and they have given them permission to go down and shoot us. George Bush didn't care about black people."

_______________________________________

On September 2, Diane Mollett died on her cot, waiting to be taken out of the flooded city to the Houston Astrodome. Her 11-year-old granddaughter Danielle was alone, surrounded by strangers in a nightmare; she would stay, "balled up inside myself" for two more days before being bussed, by herself, to distant relatives in Texas .

________________________________________

As a show of their own concern (and damage control for the Bush brand), former President George H. W. 'Poppy' Bush had reached out to former President Clinton to found a charity organization for relief and rebuilding.  On September 5th, Poppy and his wife, Barbara, toured the Astrodome in Houston, now filled by thousands of refugees from New Orleans.

Barbara Bush had recently spoken about her son's invasion of Iraq, which wasn't going well ("Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? ...It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?") -- and after her tour of the Astrodome made this observation, broadcast on National Public Radio's Marketwatch program:

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they [refugees from New Orleans] all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the [Astrodome] here, you know, were underprivileged anyway; so this (chuckle) – this is working out very well for them."

______________________________________

Danielle Mollett wept, remembering the death of her grandmother. She has spent the last decade trying to remake her life and move beyond what she experienced in New Orleans. It's a proof of character, and its quality, that she's succeeded.

Then, there's Barbara Bush. Her remarks, and the social class she represents, provide indications and testaments as to the quality of her character, as well.  And, her son... well;  the less said about him, the better.

______________________________________

MEHR, MIT LUMPENHUND:  Lil' Boots -- too arrogant and limited to recognize that he has failed at almost everything he has attempted as an adult; too dim to recognize that he was an empty-suit front man for President Cheney -- appeared in New Orleans today to speak at a local school in commemoration of New Orleans, a city "which never gave up".

Auf Nicht Wiedersehen, Lil' Boots, you Poultroon *; you Lumpenhund nutter.

( * Poultroon = Archaic /Middle French: A rascal, a scoundrel; a coward. )

______________________________________