Trust Only The Children

Burning Down The House

Brazil's National Museum; 200 years of priceless artifacts and historical records, burns (John Moraes / Reuters 2018)

I keep trying to read the tea leaves about the future, a foolish, stupid thing to do. Predictions are an illusion; the world has too many variables influencing what that future will become -- though some people have a frightening talent for being able to predict large-scale swings in the culture. It's also a foolish thing to do because I'm not very good at it.

Trying to predict what will happen is just what humans do -- attempt to exercise control in a chaotic mystery world. Americans are a pack of 400 million proto-Chimps who possess just enough intelligence and socialization to prevent us from acting like the Australopithecines in 2001: A Space Odyssey all at the same time. Still, we're dragged around by our genome and our hormones. Our level of consciousness allows imaginative conceptualization, including an awareness of our mortality, and that we have no idea what this chaotic mystery world is.

The leitmotiv of the human condition is not having absolute answers to the obvious questions arising from self-awareness. Every ridiculous and sublime thing we do or have ever done to define or organize or protect ourselves is a response to that. Whatever we come up with are only operating assumptions. They're not absolutes. They're not the answers. But when we insist those assumptions are The Answers, we feel less anxious and insecure.

For thousands of years, religions, cruise lines, governments, distillers, investment bankers, snack food and condom manufacturers have made good money by selling other proto-Chimps on the idea that [Fill In Blank] is The Truth / makes you feel better /lets you boss other Chimps around.  We want to be distracted -- and, as in so many things, America has been Number One in the Distraction Industry for generations.

As we convince ourselves the collective assumptions are The Answers -- at the same time we know that's a lie. When the balance between those two opposites becomes hard to maintain, the reality can come home to roost with a vengeance: Hubris. The Comeuppance. The Fire Next Time. And -- you know -- Things will happen. 

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Tea leaves, then: America is collectively being sheep-dipped in unreality. Since Trump, the negative feedback loop of cognitive dissonance has gone into overdrive. The effort to maintain a collective illusion that All Is OK In The USA has become progressively more difficult.

It's a Meatball Moment for so many people (if 2008 wasn't enough). And it's happening on so many levels at once -- political, financial; artistic; race, age, and gender (and, hovering in the background, climate deterioration, species extinction). All feed on and amplify each other, and the general dysfunction -- which loops back; 'round and 'round.

All Is Not OK.

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As a society, we've been here before. There's some Summer of '68 in the air.  Then, we had our Foreverwar, too; we had Tet, we had My Lai. We had protests; "People carryin' signs / mostly say, "Hooray For Our Side" '. Left politics and Civil Rights were quashed by assassination, by Daley's police. We had larger versions of Ferguson in Harlem, Watts, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston; Baltimore.

We had an honest-to-god World Struggle For Domination with the Soviets in that 1968, with real thermonuclear war a possibility (well, we do now, too, but everyone thinks it will never happen). It was more likely the Russians would invade somewhere, as the Czechs found out.

The DJIA slumped a bit in 1968 (but the economy hadn't taken a full-on greedhead Ooopsie!, brought to you by America's Fabled Wealthy™) and the average price of an American home was $14,000 (that's about $120K today).

There was Feminism, but no #MeToo; Gays and Lesbians, but no Stonewall (yet) and a nascent Castro. There were drugs and rock 'n roll in long-ago-68; there was Woodstock and Youthtribe! but no Burning Man -- and, there was more hopeful naivety. There seems way more cynicism, more jock-like readiness to take offense, more fuck you today than in 1968.

Might be there's a reason for that -- given what's gone down since.

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The most positive thing Wonderboy has done for America in nearly twenty months is to be precisely who he is -- a congenital liar and an abusive bully.  On a daily basis, he shows us in stark contrast the difference between our collective illusions, and the Real. As Americans, what we do with that understanding is critical.

Not OK, but we'll take what we can get.

It would be a relief, if this was the tipping point in Il Duce's rule.  If that's true, however, think about this:  It means America's population put up with an insane level of behavior by that Orange Suet Pudding-In-A-Bag for nineteen months.  It will have taken 19 months for us to collectively say hey, fuck this, you Jackass! 

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I was once shown a photograph of an older man, taken in Iowa in 1944, standing on a semi-rural neighborhood street with a small girl, possibly his granddaughter. The man appeared to be at least in his late sixties, and looked a little like the author, Kurt Vonnegut (in fact, a lot like him). That would mean he had been born at some point between 1865 and 1875. 

He had grown up in a world where the Civil War, even the First World War, weren't Ken Burns' specials on PBS; it's conceivable he could have been a child when Custer stumbled into the Little Big Horn. His expectations of how the world worked would have been rooted in the 19th century. But there are automobiles in the photo behind him; far beyond Iowa, the Second World War was playing out in all its awful technological splendor.

I don't look anything like Vonnegut, but I could be the Old in someone else's photo, having lived in that long-ago 1968, my expectations about the world based in analog television, 25-cent double-feature movies, rotary phones and slide rules -- but more important, how social behaviors and human institutions worked. 

In the present, we can feel a shift in culture and society, in consciousness, is coming. Driven by changes in climate, technology, in the (im)balance between rich and poor, and unstable global politics, the changes coming will be as radical in their effect as transitions from the 19th to the 20th centuries. 

It's crystal clear that Trump, Alt-right nationalists and Bundist billionares, can't be allowed to shape the debate in America about those social transformations. But I'm not in favor of anyone wired into the neoliberal elite determining our priorities, either. 

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The End Of Trump will play out. One way or another, he's done. It may happen within months; it may take two years. It may involve a "Constitutional Crisis", or not -- but it will be ugly; the only question is to what degree. 

If I had a wish, it would be that Trump's unbelievable, foul-mouthed repeated lying about whatever comes into his head, finally brings about the end of the Murdoch business model of selling lies as facts. That Americans might finally demand truth (or a higher standard of accuracy, at least) from our government, from politicians, political activists, the media, educators, corporations. I mean, you don't lie to people whom you respect; right? And Americans are still treated with casual contempt. 

Yes; this is either setting the bar too high, or it's laughable. Lying -- boldface, or by omission -- is baked into the institutions of human affairs, so I'm pissing into the wind, making this wish; but, still. There are much bigger questions to be answered so that any of us might avoid being forced to wipe the bottoms of America's Fabled Elite™, and provide them with many soft treats.

Will we? I told you: I'm only a Dog. I'm not very good at this.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo

In Middle Of Blog Thing About Congenitally Lying President.
Smooth! Shiny! Crazy!

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• Lil' Brett Kavanaugh is a scum-sucking pig-dog. He is going to be the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The confirmation hearings are a sham -- everyone gets to preen and bellow and act outraged, for different reasons -- but he'll sit on the court. He'll overturn Roe. He'll protect Wonderboy, Because Freedom. He'll do everything Fat Tony Scalia would, were he still staining the bench. Bretty will represent power and privilege, and be feted and stroked by the Federalist Right forever; amen. And they'll say such nice things about him when he leaves, full of years and glory. Abschaum-saugen Schweinhund.

• It doesn't matter what Bob Woodward says. 98% of the 'revelations' in his book had already been reported (though the new bits about stealing papers off the Clown King's desk are choice). Woodward reinforces the view, for those not still Führertreu, that Wonderboy is a cartoon of a man, a scrawl of needs and demands for gratification, piggish and infantile. And, no one is shocked by Bobby's book, really, because (wait for it) it was written for the Villagers! 

          The Great Curmudgeon Says: Fuck Off, The Rest Of Us Can

Many (most? who knows) even benevolent elites think that elites, in the very specific context of what that means in the United States, should run the country, and by implication, the world.  

Upper middle class (at least) background, elite universities (and elite high schools!), connections, etc. The "good" [elites] might not express this. They might not actually know that they believe this. But it doesn't take too many overheard "jokes" about who did and didn't go to Ivy equivalents, or even just understanding that this is a perfectly normal topic of conversation for people who are 20 years out of college, to get the point. 

Good liberal federal judges aren't hiring law clerks from Kabumfuck State University Law School, for example. (I am sure there are exceptions proving the rule). 

And the non-benevolent [Elites?]. Well, they truly think they should run the world. And own it. And the rest of us can fuck off.

Digby Says: A Slice From The Loaf Of Amoral And Unprincipled

It's obvious now that Trump's odious public persona is not a performance. He is even worse in private...  

On Wednesday the New York Times published an anonymous op-ed written by a "senior official" in the Trump administration that further supports Woodward's reporting. This person claims that members of the White House staff are acting as guardians of the country by keeping Trump from going off the rails. It's an astonishing essay in which this unnamed official admits that members of Trump's Cabinet actually spoke about evoking the 25th Amendment. 

This person characterizes the president as an amoral, unprincipled oaf who has no idea what he's doing, so he or she, along with others in the administration, have taken it upon themselves to save the nation, essentially patting themselves on the back and saying "You're welcome" to what is presumed to be a grateful nation.

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TPM Says: Trump Has A Friend?

Trump’s “volcanic” anger and “absolutely livid” (in the Post’s words) reaction to the op-ed sent top aides, like chief of staff John Kelly, scuttling to sniff out the renegade, according to the Times, which reported that aides have already produced a list of at least six possible culprits. Some believe the defector works in the administration, but not the actual White House, while two people familiar with the matter told the Post that Trump is convinced the turncoat is involved in national security or a member of the Justice Department. 

“It’s like the horror movies when everyone realizes the call is coming from inside the house,” one former White House official who remains in contact with ex-colleagues told the Post.  

The publication of the anonymous note of dissension has only added to Trump’s increased “sense of paranoia,” according to the Post, and has pushed the President — who was already feeling vulnerable following reports on Bob Woodward’s new book filled with anonymously sourced palace intrigue — to question his closest allies. 

Only his children remain trusted confidantes, a Trump friend told the Post. 

“He’s surrounded by strangers,” one former Trump campaign official told Politico. 

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MEHR, MIT HUHN:  I just really like this graphic.

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.

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That Narrow Way Towards A Precipice

It Can't Happen Here Unless It Already Happened Here

(Graphic Mongo)

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It Can't Happen Here is a 1935 political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis. 

Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a politician who defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt and is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. 

...Windrip is less a Nazi than a con-man-plus-Rotarian, a manipulator who knows how to appeal to people's desperation, but neither he nor his followers are in the grip of the kind of world-transforming ideology like Hitler's National Socialism.

...Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic / totalitarian rule ... Windrip's administration, known as the "Corpo[ate]" government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors... managed by "Corpo" authorities, usually prominent businessmen.

Those accused of crimes against the government appear before kangaroo courts presided over by "military judges". Despite these dictatorial ... measures, a majority of Americans approve of them, seeing them as necessary but painful steps to restore U.S. power... 

The novel's plot centers on [a journalist, Doremus Jessup's] opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion. 

Reviewers at the time... emphasized the connection with Louisiana politician Huey Long, who was preparing to run for president in the 1936 election...  

-- Wikipedia Entry for "It Can't Happen Here"

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I Lift Mine Eyes To The Hills

And See The Naked Fat Guy

(Photo: ©Indecline, via Art Newspaper, August 17, 2018)

Back in the day, I was associated with the Billboard Liberation Front (a little odd, considering what I once did for a living, but there you are). 

The basic concepts of the BLF (and don't take my word for it: read the Manifesto) were essentially that the materialism and commercialism expressed in billboard advertising were part of the mass deadening of our culture, and so fair game for artistic manipulation which revealed said deadening -- like Adbusters, except the BLF came first and wasn't available in bookstores. You had to look up and experience it -- or, actually do it. 

So when I recently noted the art collective, Indecline, had been out and about in Los Angeles, it stirred a few memories.

(Photo: ©Indecline, via Art Newspaper, June 22, 2018)

Consider the logistics necessary to do something like this in an urban area -- reconnoitering the site; having access to the platforms; creating the artwork to match fonts, sizes and background colors; hauling all materials up narrow ladders; and completing the work rapidly enough to avoid being seen, and any unpleasantness with the local constabulary. Normally, this is done in the dead of night.

Indecline had already garnered some notoriety prior to the 2016 election by creating, and publicly displaying, life-sized statues of a naked Wonderboy in several large American cities (regarding their naked Il Duce statue, placed in New York City's Union Square, a spokesman advised, "NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small").  Earlier this year, they had created a jail cell in a Trump hotel in New York for a Trump lookalike in a MAGA hat.

I should note that, sadly, no one performs this sort of consciousness-raising exercise on a billboard regarding the state of the Democratic party. But don't worry; it's all in Good Fun, and the future is bright and shiny and tasty and fun.

And, Wonderboy continues to gain weight in office, while the rest of us are driven mad -- meaning there will most likely be future billboards in need of liberation. Like this one:

(Margaret Bourke-White, 1937)

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Trumplandia Three

Bark Bark Bark Bark

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? ... You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! ... There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immutable, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars... which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today... 

...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only [ Apple], and [Google], and [Facebook], and [Microsoft], [Bayer, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Disney, AT&T] and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today... We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. 

--  Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" (1976, with updates)

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The current news regarding Mr Cohen and Manafort's convictions aren't necessarily as  significant as some (e.g., A Work Colleague) believe they are.

AWC:  (Walks up) Hey; how ya doin? I'm pumped.
DOG: Why?
AWC:  (Pause) You don't watch the news?
DOG:  A couple of scumbag fixers are being processed through our System Of Justice™. One got convicted, the other pled out. That's all that's happened. Unless aliens landed.
AWC:  Okay; I'm not even going to discuss it. This is the beginning of the end of Trump! You just want to shit all over it!
DOG: This is only the second half of the third inning. Two runners got retired trying to steal bases. Cohen and Manafort couldn't hit that well, but still got on base and then thought they'd cheat and got tagged out. They were puffed-up, small-time fixers who believed they were better Players than they were. They thought they were Ty Cobb and Ted Williams and they weren't.
AWC: Okay, I get it.
DOG:  No, you don't. Let me push this a little further: this is just the second half of the third inning -- in this game. There are like about eighty games left to play in the season! Trump is still in office. The GOP is still Führertreu and still runs the Congress, and Stevie Bannon is still hung over and shedding his facial skin all over Hungary. It's a little soon for the forces of Peace and Justice to be saying, "It's over! We're taking the Pennant!"
AWC: You're just saying this because I wanted a sane woman to be president.
DOG:  Not really -- but, hey; I've never successfully carried a baseball metaphor this far through a conversation before. I feel pretty proud of myself.
AWC: The BBC is reporting Cohen can give Mueller information on a conspiracy with the Russians.
DOG:  Uh-huh. It's still the bottom of the Third -- in one game -- and we're not even talking about the Democratic party, or international politics, or economics yet.
AWC: (Walks away)

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I'm capable of being a selfish, venal Dog. The taste of Schadenfreude as Trump's lies twist around the axle of his public life is tempting and sweet: it's satisfying to watch that bloated punk flail and bellow as he becomes stuck in the Tar Pits. But -- as satisfying as that is, bigger things are at stake and Trump's hair and family and public antics have never been the real show.

The Right-wing media echo chamber -- the true fake news -- has spent over thirty years repeating, again and again, that America's central, federal government is a lying oppressor, a tool of liberal one-worlders out to steal our Rights. It's broken, unresponsive. Individual state governments could do a better job...

On the Left and the Right, people know Trump is an abusive boss, a Crap Daddy, a blowhard and a rich fuck-up. They expect him to behave like one. And everyone hopes this, uh, situation will just resolve itself -- somehow -- with the same dramatic arc as a network television program: the Bad Guy gets his way; then, eventually Hubris brings him low. Everything is resolved. And, most important of all, life goes back to normal.

Except, we don't live in a television program. Even so, the drama is entertaining.  And Trump feeds on it, hour by hour -- he's the center of all attention.

One thing about Manfort's conviction, and Cohen's guilty plea, both on multiple counts is the solidity, the concrete reality, of the events. They can't be denied, called 'fake', or lied about. They're a reminder to Trump that his control is an illusion.

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Even so -- no matter what happens to Trump; or to Republicans, Democrats, the Alt-Right and Social Justice Warrior activists -- all the major issues in American politics and the society that were raised and on display during the 2016 election cycle have not been addressed.

And, our national problems are being played out against the backdrop of a global ideological struggle -- between 'Brexit', anti-immigrant nationalism and repressive quasi-fascism on the Right; Kumbayah-neoliberal-globalism, or Socialist-quasi-communism, on the Left.

Whatever happens to Trump in America may affect that debate (e.g., it might help discredit the myth of nationalist, strongman rule), but despite his trade tariffs, his jackass behavior with the UN, the EU and NATO; despite his bromance with Kim Jong Jong; Trump's downfall won't resolve it.

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(Finally, even if the current situation develops into a question of Impeachment being raised -- I don't like quoting myself, but I've already barked about this:)

...any charges brought by a special prosecutor must be referred to the United States Congress. The House Judiciary committee would hold hearings to determine whether the charges against the president were impeachable offenses. 

Unless the November midterms change the balance in Congress, the Judiciary Committee may still be dominated by Republicans. 

Partisan politics may rule; the Right has run roughshod over the country to get what it wants, so they may shut down any inquiry and to hell with the media and the People. If they do, that's an end to it.

There will be CSPAN coverage of the committee sessions, and video clips of Democratic members crying that this is the darkest day in America since the Civil War -- that will be true, but it won't matter. Trump, vindicated, Tweets for days, strutting and preening. Ivanka goes shopping with Louise Linton and they have a 'Spa Day'.

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But, let's say the Judiciary committee does hold full and transparent hearings. They vote to refer the matter to the full House (here, the Rules Committee would determine how debate and voting would proceed). A simple majority (218) is required when voting on Articles of Impeachment. This means 192 Democrats have to find twenty-six Republicans to join them. It's possible -- but if the vote falls strictly along party lines, it will fail.  That's the end of it.

Trump crows over his 'success', his 'win', in a never-ending series of press conferences, takes a full week off in New Jersey and golfs every day, making Impeachment jokes to the neutered press. President Vladimir Putin of Russia calls Trump to congratulate him.

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So, let's assume Articles of Impeachment actually pass in the House and are referred to the Senate for the president to be tried. When Clinton was tried in the Senate, there were hours of debate and plenty of grandstanding; the same will happen here. The spectacle will 'consume the nation', but remember -- it's theater. Get some popcorn, but I wouldn't spend extra money for the really good kind.

A two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to convict a president on any charge. 67 Senators voting 'Aye' on any charge results in a conviction, which also means a vote to remove the president from office.

If Trump were tried in the Senate, it's probable that, like Clinton, the number of Senators voting to convict would not reach 67. Trump would be "shamed", as Clinton was -- but he remains in office, and that's the end of it. 

The thing about public shaming:  the person being punished has to feel as if the penalty actually means anything. Trump would care less about being disgraced as the third president in history to actually be tried for Impeachment in the Senate. For him, "not getting a two-thirds vote" and remaining in office equals "winning".  

Perversely, Trump would feed on a 24-by-7 news cycle being focused on him, for months on end. After the vote(s) fail, he will bellow, preen, strut, and celebrate with an all-night party at More-Lego, attended by all the bottom-feeding, alt-Right and white supremacist glitterati, flown in at government expense -- and with a manly, affectionate embrace from surprise guest, Stevie Bannon. President Vladimir Putin of Russia will send flowers to Melania.

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MEHR:  NETT u. SPASS!!

If I'm going to be self-referential, might as well trowel it on. From the wayback machine:

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

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Random Barking Friday: Waist Deep In The Big Muddy

Leaders Not Liars

What is it going to take? What are people waiting for?

The person who is President of the United States is a liar. Repeating an observation Robert F. Kennedy allegedly made about Lyndon Johnson, "He lies. He lies all the time. He lies when he doesn't even have to lie." Arguably, Trump is the worst President in the history of the nation.

Trump says things which are completely and verifiably false, using the same method as a Limbaugh, a Jones, a Weiner, or Rupert Murdoch's media: say something confrontational, even nonsensical. Repeat it. When called on it,  double down, even triple down -- or, bully up, and walk away.  An observation about a mid-20th century right-wing politician noted:

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong... never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

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The people of Puerto Rico have been all but abandoned by the U.S. government after the devastation of hurricane Maria. This has been a series of deliberate, choiceful acts.

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What are people waiting for?

Trump is corrupt, and filled his cabinet with right-wing sycophants and individuals who use their positions to advance their self-interest.  The tax structure revisions Trump and the Republicans eagerly pushed into law are the equivalent of burying a nuclear warhead under our house, on a timer: it will detonate -- but someday, in the future. After Trump has eaten his fill, gotten bored, and waddled away.

Then, there's what he and his crew have done with the Federal judiciary. With the environment; water and air quality, food safety, emissions standards. With banking, finance, corporations by eliminating regulatory oversight or refusing to act. With the belief that public leaders should represent a community's ideals, our Better Angels.

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Ivanka and Melania have made public comments appearing to contradict what Daddy Donald has said or done. It's a sideshow.  Melania's "I Really Don't Care" coat defines her; she's not secretly working for fairness and civility against her crude, malevolent husband. Spend a few minutes watching Ivanka operate, and you'll know she's not going to stand against Daddy either. 

Both women are indivisible parts of the Trump Family Brand, which sees the Presidency as just another acquisition, to be milked for every last drop of revenue and influence and discarded, along with the population of the United States, when they're done. 

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What's it going to take?

Watching a past episode of Joe Rogan's podcast, he and astrophysicist Sean Carroll made an observation about Trump similar to one I've shared here -- essentially, that Trump could have sex with a goat on live television, and nothing would happen. Carroll observed:

I worry about what happens next... I do worry, that this [Trump's consistent depiction of the mainstream media as 'fake news', 'enemies'] is a hard thing [for the media] to come back from. Because ... another thing that Trump said was, "Don't believe anything you're told, unless you hear it from me" ... and Tucker Carlson said the same thing..."[If you hear news from] any show other than mine, don't believe it." ... [Trump] gives people a narrative that works for them.

Trump himself constantly use the phrase, "Fake News", a buzz-word to his supporters.  It's been observed that Trump and his legal team -- Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani -- are spinning a narrative about Trump's connections with Russia for public consumption, using the same phrases and memes to be repeated in the right-wing media echo chamber. Their narrative is full of lies, too.

Giuliani admits, cheerfully, that in doing so, what they say doesn't have to be true; it's to influence public opinion around the topic of Impeachment -- because (as Rudy knows, and so does Trump), Impeachment occurs in the House and Senate. Elected representatives can be, uh, 'persuaded' by their constituents to 'go easy' on a disgraced Trump.  But it's a strategy based on contempt -- for 'the base', for any American, as rubes, Marks, who deserve to be fed lies because they're stupid enough to believe them.

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The Special Prosecutor's investigation into Russian influence during the 2016 Presidential election (in paralell with the case against Michael Cohen, and the multiple trials of Paul Manafort) continues to show that Trump is a liar.  Donald, Jr. is a liar. No one knows precisely where this goes.

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What The Fuck? I struggle, daily, with the impact of Trump's personality, breaking political and societal expectations for the role of America's Chief Executive. An unapologetic, in-your-face racist and nationalist, he gives permission to all the 'Little Trumps' to be unapologetic nationalist racists.

None of that is accepted practice. It isn't what Presidents do. It is what authoritarian leaders do.

I've said before, This cannot continue, and This cannot end well. We see and hear our Leader lie, obviously, daily; and the fact that nothing happens as a result makes me ask: Well then, what's it going to take? What are people waiting for?

One of the Last Of The Old Unit observed, "New drinking game -- it's the only one that will get us through this. Every time Trump says -- anything -- do a shot of single malt."

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Not everyone is drinking. Not everyone is waiting. Some are organizing, and the mid-term elections are a natural focus -- and the expectations for some are high, that the season will be a litmus test for American democracy. But the Left and Right wings of both Republicans and Democrats are fighting for control of their respective party.

At least for the Democrats, it's not clear who will be the Democratic candidate for President in 2020. The party's Old Guard could win, and push Joe Biden (or someone like him). The Progressives might win and promote Elizabeth Warren or Kamalah Harris; or, the Social Justice Warriors could win and offer Bernie Sanders (or someone like him).

For Republicans, none of that matters. With their command of the House and Senate, the GOP Old Guard supported Trump to advance the wet dream of american conservatism: dismantling FDR's New Deal, and they've ignored who Trump is to reach their goals.

Unless something reduces Trump's approval rating below 30% (hard to see what would have that effect, given his behavior already), the GOP will continue supporting him, and Trump likely will be nominated to run for a second term.

But if Trump's past behavior catches up with him, then suddenly he becomes the Old Guard's scapegoat; they throw him under the bus -- a risky game plan, again built on the assumption that Americans are naive and manifestly stupid.

(Or, it's not a risky plan at all, because the Old Guard on both sides of the aisle believe that the majority of America's population -- "all those Little People down there" -- are naive and manifestly stupid Rubes and Sheep; disposable and expendable.)

Some congressional Republicans have opted to bail before Bannonite Brownshirts in their districts push them out for being insufficiently Trumpist. Others have different problems. Meanwhile, the GOP continues to ignore Trump the crude, narcissistic liar with poor impulse control, exhibiting the possible onset of dementia.

So we wait for the midterms. My guess is, the Democrats won't have resolved their internal conflicts, sufficient to present a coherent face to American voters, by September / October. The Republicans may lose some Congressional seats, but it won't be a rout. And everyone will wait for 2020.

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Trump is President. He's a compulsive liar, a corrupt and venal man -- and even though that's been shoved in our faces like a crude pornographic cartoon, repeatedly, it isn't enough to prompt us to demand his removal, or commit to ongoing, large-scale public unrest -- not like some of that doesn't happen. And, not like Trump wouldn't like an opportunity to, you know -- crack down a little.

But Trump is a symptom of the failure of two competing visions for a future playing out here, and in Europe: Globalism and Nationalism. So far, I haven't seen a Middle Path proposed -- one that doesn't lead to rule by billionaires, multinational corporations, the WTO and IMF and a neoliberal elite; or, multinational corporations, billionaires, and authoritarian political puppets controlled by a mafia of Oligarchs.

Trump's weird vision of an America behind border walls, but still projecting military and financial strength to influence the world through threats and fear, just isn't viable. The world is interdependent, -- and like it or not, how we vote and who we vote for affects more than just the United States. Trump is a perfect example.

But the two dominant political models in the current world aren't viable, either. Seen from that perspective, the politics of America's midterms are part of a larger struggle between competing theories. The Old Guard of each party will appeal to a Return To Normalcy or To Greatness. The radical Left and Right will demand a revolution.

What concerns me is that enough people will want an End To Crazy -- enough that they'll believe a Biden, or a Kinder, Gentler conservative,  will Make It All Like It Was. I don't believe that's possible. It may not even be desirable.

But until our political parties can enunciate platforms which reflect a broader understanding of what's at stake and provide an alternative, no one has my vote. Meanwhile, we still have Trump; things still can't continue like this without a terrible,  corrosive effect -- and it all cannot end well.

_____________________________

Reprint Heaven: Edge Of The Volcano Edition

Unraveling

(Originally From 2016)

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

Roughly twelve hours and 104 years ago, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Grand Duchess Sophie, were shot by Gavrillo Princip, a member of an assassination team sent to the Bosnian city by the government of Serbia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Cousin Ignatz, Worn Out By All The History

__________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________________________

Random Barking: Wondering

Wandering

Murrika: Enshrouded; Lost; Guided By A Trickster (Foto: Joseph Beuys u. Coyote)

Big Box Of Terror 
In conversations with friends over the past few weeks, we admitted experiencing an uneasy, underlying sense that The World had fundamentally changed in a way we can't fully grasp, validate, or prove. We were the same, but everything around us had shifted, slightly -- like a kid's party game, where you guess which items have been moved on a table.

The Oldest Friend came close: "It's like I went to bed one night, and woke up in an alternate universe that was just a little bit different than the one I went to sleep in. Nothing immediately definable -- it would be like discovering there had never been Abba-Zaba Bars, or the original 'Star Trek' ran for three seasons, not two. I'm fine; I'm okay -- but, the World feels 'off', different -- 'stranger in a strange land'-ish.

"That's completely subjective, I know," she said, "but it takes a while to go away, and it's pervasive."

While all of the people I spoke with defined that experience a bit differently, there was common agreement that we perceived some difference between ourselves and The World that hadn't existed before -- which led us to feel mildly alienated from everything, except possibly each other.

________________________

When we said The World, we didn't mean the planet, the natural landscape. Climate deterioration aside, the Natural World seems to be solid, abiding. 'The World' we referred to is the one built out of social fabric, stretched on a framework of collective relationships and stitched together by the cultural Ways our society accepts and agrees to in those relations. It was in that world we felt, suddenly, out of place.

_________________________

The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs. Mongo said it reminded her of the Cold War -- what it meant to live in the knowledge that nuclear war was possible (guess what? It still is). It was an understanding we kept, down in the basement of our consciousness, jammed in a dark corner, along with the box that has the big, yellow label with red lettering -- Terror: Or, we are Mortal and Death is Mystery.

There were times down those years when we woke up in the middle of the night after a particularly bad news cycle, thinking what if the sirens just went off? Now (the people I spoke with agreed), nearly every morning when we get up, we wonder what new outrage has been committed, what new boundary was crossed, while we slept. We come awake expecting bad news. One way or another what we're really thinking is What? What Has Trump Done Now?

Someone noted, 'Trump is the new Cold War' -- meaning, like that time in our collective past, he has become the symbol and avatar of that dark corner in our own basements. His antics are a reminder that The World is just a construct, and the control we think we have over the Natural World is an illusion. Trump is the embodiment of unpredictability.

As a 72-year-old, Trump has to know that he will not live forever. Spasmodically, he acts out and splatters America with his own feces, then revels in the disgust he provokes, the impotent anger of others, all to feed an endless hunger for validation to avoid the Big Box Of Terror at the center of his own being.

________________________

So I wake up in the 2:30AM, sometimes with the Terror, sometimes not. I remind myself that we're animals, hard-wired to survive -- and self-conscious animals, who understand that our lives are finite, and demand answers.

Our world (the actual one around us; the perceived one in our heads) is changing.  It has always been unpredictable in its details -- but not in our beginnings, rites of passage, ecstasies and sorrows, and our end. No one, alive or dead, can say why we came to be or where we're going -- but we demand our Reason Why, even if it's not possible.

And I remind myself: all of our Details are in The Stories. It's why Gilgamesh. It's why Homer and Herodotus, Chaucer and Pope; Dickens and Melville. It's why statuary and panel and canvas and paper, camera, movement and words on a Stage. It's why music from Cantos to Paart, Bach to Ravel, Joplin to Pere Ubu -- and all of it bent to the virtuous effort of telling the Story of What Happened To Us When We Went Through It. All of our details go; only the Stories remain.

I considered this, and because I'm only a Dog and not a philosopher, passed my observation on to friends in the version used at the Soul Of America: Be Kind, Motherfuckers. They could get behind that.

_____________________________

This Bathroom Is Occupied

I'd picked up Peter Fritzsche's 2016 book, "An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler", now out in paperback. Browsing it at a bookshop, I was idly looking for resonances with the perspective that we're living in an occupied country, under Trump and his creatures. As if the nightmare were something alien, forced on us by an invader.

I do actually know better. My life in America is not even remotely similar to the European experience between 1939 and 1945. As swinish, bloated and mendacious that Trump and his crew are, they aren't foreign invaders. They don't speak a different language. And they aren't nazis  -- though some of  Trump's "fine people" parading in Charolettesville last year would like to be.

I'd like to say Trump's government doesn't demand your identification, perform roundups of civilians, make it easy for companies to provide the population with food, water, or products which are unsafe. But they do these things, and much more. And while Trump and the opportunistic leeches he's dragged in his wake are not nazis, there are people in America who are treated by that government as if nazis had landed -- primarily, the Usual Suspects: immigrants, the marginalized poor, people of color; LGBTQ Americans; women.

You know the drill. None of this is news; we see it on television or online, every day. But so long as it isn't happening in more affluent neighborhoods, or to your friends and families or you -- Meh. Doesn't concern us. Have a beer. Watch the Big Game.

_______________________________

In the 1970's, I visited Europe. Walking through cities I noticed (with surprising regularity) something rarely seen in America -- it seemed a significant percentage of adults in their late forties to early sixties had serious facial scars, eye patches or glasses with one darkened lens; crutches, missing limbs.

At a bus stop on a warm morning in southwestern Germany, a man stood waiting, wearing a Tyroler hat, a topcoat and gloves. His face was a smooth mask of shiny, oddly pink skin, which made discerning his age difficult. His nose had been reduced to a smooth bump. Plainly, he'd suffered serious burns -- except around the eyes, where a pilot or air crewman would have worn a set of goggles. I must have been staring; the man looked over at me, took in my non-European appearance and clothing, and said, "Good morning," in a British-accented English.

I nodded back, said nothing, and so missed the opportunity for an insightful conversation with someone who at the least had an interesting personal story. He also might have confirmed what I was already guessing: that the European experience of the Second World War seared everyone by degrees, civilian and military, the persecutors and persecuted, right down to their souls.

Those who weren't killed in occupied Europe continued to experience degrees of cruelty, humiliation, betrayal, anxiety and uncertainty, at levels that would have been unthinkable before 1933 -- and all because it became acceptable and popular in Germany to believe ideas which first became policy, and then law.

One aspect of the Holocaust is as a teaching moment for humanity about intolerance and hate, and where it can lead. Fritzsche's book shows clearly what the power of belief can do to individuals, and groups, in even more detail than any other look at the period I've seen -- something I didn't think was possible. Using only contemporary documents and writings, he shows how The Leader in an authoritarian system provides permission to his followers for accepting astonishing levels of violence (if not committing it), and how he becomes a psychological scapegoat for the violence should it all go bad later.

America's history has already burned us, as Europe's before WWII had done to its own cultures and societies. We aren't living in an occupied country, but we are changing (“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig... but already it was impossible to say which was which”). We run the risk of being seared down to our souls (as Europeans were, over twelve years of nazism) by whatever at the moment seems to be coming.

I'm not sure what it will feel like to live here, when the country gets to wherever we're headed. We can try to be kind, first; perhaps that's all we can do. Perhaps it's the only real act of resistance, in the end.

__________________________________

Random Barking: Don't Know Much Psychology

Musings Of An Ex-Cigarette-Smoking Man

Research into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder made clear that physical, neuro-chemical effects occur when people experience significant traumatic events, evoking a "fight-or-flight" response, which is a function of our DNA; as hardy meat puppets, we're hard-wired for survival.

Neural pathways created in the brain are triggered when, later, people perceive -- subconsciously, for the most part -- that they're in circumstances similar to that original event, reliving, replaying (and actually reinforcing) the same emotions they experienced in it.

As a definition, PTSD was first used as the Vietnam War began winding down (for America, anyway), and only became a medically-accepted diagnostic category in the early 1980s. The Veteran's Administration was quick to adopt that addition to the DSM-III, but not necessarily to act on it or treat it.

My Dog Trainer (who specializes in PTSD, and has been in the Biz since the mid-70's) agreed that the relationship between trauma, brain chemistry, and cyclic reinforcement of bad experiences is likely.  I've worked with them for a while, and a something we've talked about occasionally is the effect of broad social or political events on the mental health, and trends, in culture and societies.

______________________________

In college I was introduced to Loren Eisley through his autobiographical All The Strange Hours. He was born in 1907, and was already in his early twenties during the Depression. There was no way he could describe experiences in his life, on his way to becoming an anthropologist, without mentioning that historical event.

In trying to understand The Depression, any statistics are useless. Every anchor-point that defined a person's place in a community, their sense of identity and self, was threatened. The anxiety people felt (a constant fear in anticipating more loss, shame, powerlessness; death) went on, every day, for years with no end in sight. 

People adapted -- as organisms, that's what we do. But their spirits were bent by the gravity of events, and the effects rippled out through their lives, because that's what History does. 

The political Right has purred for years that FDR's 'social experimentation' after his election "really made the depression 'Great' ".  The truth is, a Republican-led government left 'the markets' to sort themselves out without interference. The Oligarchs of the day didn't care; their lives remained much as they always had been. They left the People on their own.

Herbert Hoover believed in a rugged individualism, where strength built character. Asked decades later how he dealt with critics who blamed him for the Depression, Hoover quipped, "I outlived the bastards". Meanwhile, people struggled to adjust and survive. Until Roosevelt was elected and tried to do something, anything, they did so without hope. 

_______________________________ 

Eisley never spoke about what The Depression did to people directly. America is composed of physical places, but also it's very much a geography of the mind: Eisley described hopping freights and moving through Hobo Jungles, towns of the Great Plains, writing sketches of the people he met there, dislocated physically and mentally by The Crash. One night, a hobo told him what he believed was the great lesson of life, hoping Eisley would get it: "Men beat men, kid. That's all there is."

Something in those side-glance references to America during those years reminded me of  late-evening conversations I'd overhear as a child, between my parents and their peers. When they'd talked through current events, surface details of their jobs and days, they worked down to the big events, to the Second World War. Reminiscing in that layer could take time.

Among married couples, the men watched their language (for the most part), and only made brief mention of the details of their war if they'd served in a combat arm. The wives talked about waiting, home, families, radio news, and finding work.

If the talk went on long enough, someone would finally mention The Depression, and something about the conversation took on a different character. The War was something to be proud of, and their voices were energetic, confident, talking about it. And it rubbed off on the children: attending the first day of First Grade, when roll was taken some children answered 'Present' or 'Here'; but a good number of kids responded, "Yo!"

But our parents sounded like distinctly different people when talking about the Depression. I don't remember details -- but sharing these memories sounded different. I could sense a current of uncertainty passing between them, a helpless fear; survivors reliving a disaster that came out of nowhere, and repeating every memory sounded like thank god we got through it; I never want to see anything like that again.

______________________________

Reading Eisley sparked a connection for me between the America after 1929, and my mother's compulsive saving of string, rubber bands, pencils, tin foil. How she seemed to expect bad news or a worst-case end to anything; a stock response was, "You never know". My father, despite a level of professional success, bonuses and good reviews, worried that his job was always in jeopardy; his favorite phrase was, "Get with the program".

There was no apparent reason for either of them to live as if anticipating the ceiling would collapse, but they did. And, children talk -- we discovered our parents had similar motivations, fears, even memories. They all had their own Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder -- and the veterans in particular.  One friend's father was a survivor of Corregidor, the Bataan death March, and four years in a Philippine POW camp. Another kid said quietly his father would wake up, shouting for a long-dead shipmate, several times a week.

______________________________

It seems obvious that people are affected by the events they live through; that trauma marks us, and it's obvious what we're living through, now, is having the same effect. Never mind the details; we all watch the news. Many people more intelligent than I am present an analysis of What It All Means every day. I only bark about it.

I keep remembering the opening section of a John Gardner short story, "John Napper Sailing Through The Universe" (1974): he and his wife arrive home after a party, full of drink and making their way up to bed. Gardner has a sad vision of the future: ...fumbling, helping each other as we must... [We] take our teeth out. I'm ninety-two. The planet is dying -- pestilence, famine, everlasting war. The nation's in the hands of child molestors. True Dat.

All I'm considering at the moment is how the echoes of the history we're living through continue to affect us, rippling out across time. How just being in the room when something happens -- seeing an image, hearing something shouted or whispered -- shapes perception. How, like gravity from some body unseen in space, experience bends how we act in the world, and our expectations of it.

_______________________________

And now, something completely different: Socio-Political Commentary!

________________________________

An Illusion In Our Simulated Lives

Presence And Absence

Triumph Of The Shill:  Yesterday morning's news, that Rex Tillerson had been fired as Secretary of Oil State by The Bloated Raving Skunk OUR LEADER, to be replaced by Mikey Pompeo.

Rexi had been tipped off by Whitey Haus Chief O' Staff, General John Kelley, to cut short a State Department trip to Africa. Rexi was flying home when informed of a new Tweet from THE LEADER: "Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! ... Congratulations to all!"

But, Rex is really rich, so it's all good. Yay!

And the world yawns. The daily disintegration of the Murrikan government, such as it is, surprises no one any more. We're suffering from Outrage Burn Out, and it's only been fourteen-plus months. Classical Rome must have been like this -- another day, another advisor banished from the Glory That Is THE LEADER -- or resigning, like Gary Cohn, who last year was described as "the most important man in Washington".

Gary effectively gave up the opportunity to replace Lil' Lloyd Blankfein as Chief Squid at Goldman, to serve THE LEADER. Someone else looks set to seize that role, now, and poor Gary probably bitterly regrets this, now, given that the Bloated, Raving Skunk person he chose to follow was lovin' him some white supremacists and nazis in Charlottesville. But Gary's rich -- so, s'all good. Yay!!

Gary will be replaced by an old teevee personality who once briefly served in the Whitey Haus of Saint Ronald The Dim. And he's supposed to be rich, too. Yay!!! USA! USA!

_________________________________

(Modified Image - Original Photo: Maranie Staab / Reuters)

A Democratic candidate won, by the narrowest of margins, an off-cycle race in a Congressional district which voted overwhelmingly for THE LEADER in 2016. The Democrat was running against a very vocal supporter of  THE LEADER. Pundits everywhere strive to make the claim that they know what these results mean.

At work, I have an encounter with My Very Own Hilliaryite Colleague, who deigns to speak with me now, to discuss this.

MVOHC:  It's proof of a resurgence of the power of the Democratic party.
DOG:  If you say so.
MVOHC: Oh, come on. Put it together with Alabama and Virginia. We're coming back, and the mid-terms are going to be a huge upset.
DOG:  This race wasn't as cut-and-dried as you think. You think it was about a rejection of Trump, or Republicans, or conservative values? Lamb was a Center-Right Democrat; he wasn't an #Occupy organizer or a marcher for A Woman's Right To Choose. Look at his positions.
MVOHC:  Fuck you.
DOG:  I'm just saying: The politics of any Congressional elections are very local. They're not necessarily a bellwether for the mid-terms. The Democratic Party hasn't figured out what it is. It hasn't said what it's for. Until it can do that, it's a sham.
MVOHC: You are completely fucking delusional.

28 Trumps Later
____________________________________

Stephen Hawking died yesterday. For a moment, that news was a surprise -- until I realized with a leavening shock that every person of significance in my world is aging. As I am. That, and the illusion of the permanence of their presence (like the illusion of my own) are things I take for granted. Man; the things we do to create a sense of continuity.

Out for dinner with The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs Mongo, we toasted Hawking. We made the stock observations about him -- that he was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death, and died on Einstein's 139th birthday; that, even with the physical suffering and limitations of ALS, he became one of the great Cosmologists and scientific minds in human history, and seemed to keep a sense of humor about himself.

 Another Mensch leaves us: Now he knows what we do not.  The Girl  sipped her wine at dinner and observed, "[Hawking], we needed. Why couldn't it have been [THE LEADER]?"

___________________________________

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'.")

_________________________________

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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