America: Toad Away

Yet Another Long Howl:  Obligatory Voluntary Assembly To Follow

DONNA: ... he's resting after an attempted murder. I don't want people going over there and getting him all Fertushed.
TOBY: 'Fertushed'? You know -- don't bring the Yiddish if you don't know what you're doing.
-- Donna Moss (Janel Moloney) and Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), The West Wing

Events continue to happen, as we knew they would. And hearing about them is almost like eating a chocolate Eclair, rubbed down with Vaseline, while watching the news.

Enjoy it while you can: after The Incident, or when The War begins, whichever comes first, ingesting them will be mandatory, and watching the Compulsory News will be -- well, compulsory.

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The Fire, This Time
Wonderboy says climate breakdown is "fake". Meanwhile, in Kiddietown, I overheard two women complaining over lattes that unhealthy air quality, due to the still-uncontained fires in Napa and Yuba counties, had disrupted their running schedules.

"I mean, like, I just feel it when I don't run; you know?" One said. "For sure, it's all tragic? But I so don't like it. I feel fat." "Yah; yah; totally," replied her friend. "They should, like, take care of that."

The fires are still burning. So far, at least 30 people are dead, 5,000 homes and businesses destroyed, and tens of thousands of persons forced to evacuate. The devastation is incredible.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population of Puerto Rico, heading for one month after Hurricane Irma, still do not have power or potable water sources.

Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The War
In an interview with Forbes (as quoted by the UK Guardian), Wonderboy said he is not "stupid, like people say -- I'm SMART !!"  So smart, in fact, that when asked about reports that Secretary of Oil State Rex Tillerson had become unhappy enough to consider resigning this past summer, and referred to him as "a moron", Donny replied, "I think it’s fake news. But if [Tillerson] did [say] that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win." Donny repeated this again later, adding, "I don't undercut anybody."

Dear Leader, And Weasel  (David Becker / Reuters)

This was backed up by the Whitehouse Media Wrangler, Missy Sarah, who has gained a few more pounds. Missy said jesus was the lord really, and Wonderboy was just joking; and the reporters just want to make up things to write about, and were all poopy-heads who would 'learn a thing or two' after 'The Incident', praise somebody's god.

In his sly way, Donny also said he had “just about the most legislation passed of any president, in a nine-month period, that’s ever served. We had over 50 bills passed. I’m not talking about executive orders only, which are very important. I’m talking about bills.”

Donny has said this before, and was shown to be a liar. When some people tried to wash his mouth out with soap afterwards, Donny ran away, shouting ("I'll show you!") that he would send everyone to a FEMA camp after The Incident, or The War; whichever comes first.

"Where Do You Go / When You're Toad Away?"

(Donny paused to show the interviewer some "great, totally great" drawings he had made -- each showing himself, ordering airstrikes, signing large documents, and cheeseburgers. His own signatures on the drawings were large and spiky, almost dominating the drawings themselves. Donny said the drawings were "the best drawings ever by anybody," and because he is The Leader, he is right.)

Donny also showed his motor skills, Tweeting that he would replace the Affordable Care Act all by himself. “Since Congress can’t get its act together on HealthCare, I will be using the power of the pen to give great HealthCare to many people – FAST.”

All America (especially the old, poor, infirm and sick) felt safe and happy in the knowledge that Wonderboy, just like god, knows what is best for each and every one of us -- except non-white persons, about whom Wonderboy doesn't give two hoots.

Donny continued to say things -- silly things, just to get any grown-up to watch him. But the Grups were busy doing grown-up things. Donny thought it might be time for The Incident, or The War -- which would legally allow him Bonk Bonk On The Head any bad Grup who would not stop everything they were doing and watch him, watch him, watch him.

Mock, Pseudo-, Crypto-, Quasi- Newsy / Truthy
And, people continue to say how bad Donny is; how disruptive to the rest of the class. They say it over and over. And, guess what?  Nothing happens.

But, there are news items in the press that don't seem to find mention, or are lost in the fog, in our great U.S. media.  A few examples:

• "Trump ramped up his war with the news media on Wednesday morning, suggesting that it might be appropriate to challenge the license of NBC News in response to what he claimed was its “fake news”(UK Guardian).

• "The hack into the accountancy giant Deloitte compromised a server that contained the emails of an estimated 350 clients, including ... US government departments [State, Energy, Homeland security and Defense; US Postal Service, NIH, Freddie Mae and Mac], the United Nations and some of the world’s biggest multinationals, the Guardian has been told" (UK Guardian).

• Little Stevie Bannon, six years old, did his best John Adams impersonation -- with all his grumpy imperiousness, the everyone's-a-fool-but-me attitude, that big paunch and everything -- appearing at the annual "Value Voters" convention in Washington, D.C.  Stevie said that he, and those like him, were 'at war' with the GOP leadership, and that he would like to put a pillow over Yertle The Turtle's face. And run 'Alt-Right' candidates to replace establishment Republicans with Parteigenossen who believe in Little Stevie's wonderful world vision of Sugar Mountain, for white persons (USA Today).

• Wonderboy, when shown a graph of the reduction over time of all U.S. nuclear warheads (down from ~30,000 in 1965, to <3,000 today), did not like that. Like five-year-old Richie Rich, he wants lots of everything -- and so demanded a "tenfold increase" in U.S. nuclear weapons. He also asked his briefers, three times: "Why haven't we used them? What good are nuclear weapons if you don't use them?" Three times, leading Secretary Of Oil State Tillerson to refer to Donny as "a fucking moron".  Given North Korea, given China; given that Donny can order a nuclear strike if he wants -- there are reportedly hushed conversations among White House senior staff about what to do if Wonderboy "lunges for the nuclear football" (Washington Post).

• "There’s endless debate about what impeachment is for and what it is. At the end of the day, it’s really not about criminal infractions or which misdeeds might be impeachable... the architects of the constitution wanted a path to avoid what we would now call a coup....You need a constitutional framework ... by which a President who is clearly dangerous to the Republic or not capable of filling the job can be removed. The odds of this happening any time soon or any time during Trump’s term seem close to nil. But this is the kind of President it was designed for." -- Josh Marshall (Talking Points Memo)

Our Dear Leader appeared before the 'Value Voters' on Friday the 13th, stuffed into a khaki uniform and shouting about historical union with Vienna or something; I don't know. That loon rants and raves so often we just tune him out, now, hoping he'll go away; thank god for President Hindenburg.  But no matter what Wonderboy does, strutting and preening and capering, nothing happens. Guess we'll be invading Poland next.

Springtime For FP
Recent elections in Austria have made Sebastian Kurz Austria's newest Chancellor. A 'center-right' politician of the Oesterreiches Volks Partei (Austrian People's Party), Kurz at age 31 will be the youngest leader of the country in its history. The OVP has dominated Austrian politics for decades, generally making a coalition with the country's Socialist party in its Parliament -- but that is about to change.

This time, Kurz will make a partnership with the far-right 'Freedom Party', founded in the 50's by alleged ex-nazis, and which had a rebirth in the early 2000's. The FP never received more than a fractional percentage of the vote -- until now. Elections earlier in the year brought the FP within shouting distance of leading the entire country. They've pulled in nearly 27% of the national vote -- while at the same time in Germany, the far-right 'Alternative For Germany' party recently won over ninety seats in the Bundestag. Apparently, fascism isn't just for jokes, anymore.

A coalition between Austria's centrist conservatives and proto-fascists would result in more political credibility for the far right -- which doesn't surprise, really: despite its history after the 1938 Anschluss, when WW2 ended the Allies considered Austria a nation which had been 'occupied' by Germany. So, even though many Austrians had cheerfully, gleefully supported the nazis, the entire population of the country was given victim status.

There was no effort to denazify the country after May of 1945, as was done in Germany. That Austria later gained a reputation as an unreconstructed hotbed of nazi sympathizers was no surprise, either.

Sad Vlad: Winnah And Champeen
Reports continue in the New York Times and elsewhere showing the extent to which giant (ostensibly) American Tech companies were used to manipulate the voting population in 2016.

 Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty / UK Guardian

None of this should surprise anyone. Cyber warfare is an extension of signals and cryptography intelligence developed during WW2, resulting in Britain's Blechtley Park (now GCHQ), America's Arlington Hall (now the NSA), and in Russia, what became FAPSI. The difference is, hacking a foreign government (or business competitor)'s computer system is no longer just about stealing secrets or reading communications traffic. So much critical public and private infrastructure is digitally connected that (as with the Stuxnet worm attack on Iran) it's vulnerable to outright sabotage.

It's ironic that the products of a Marxist-Stalinist-Oligarch society used the highest expressions of capitalism and personal enrichment of a tiny technocratic elite (Facebook, Google, Twitter) to affect the course of a critical national election -- and this, after the U.S. allegedly 'won' the Cold War. This was probably not lost on Sad Vlad, the Putin, who may have herniated himself laughing over it.

Harvey Weinstein: Unrepentant Bag Of Redacted
Tubby Harvey, who has apparently used his position as a Hollywood deal- and star-maker ("I'm a famous guy," he said to one of the women he'd abused, who was wearing an NYPD wire) into a bullying, sociopathic domination of everyone and everything around him for nearly three decades, is [redacted] [redacted].

Within a week, he's been fired from a company which had his own name on it, one of the preeminent media talent and production agencies in 'the Biz', his own brother on its board of directors saying what a [redacted] he is; he's been kicked out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; his wife has left him because [redacted]; and he is facing multiple legal actions, and criminal investigations for alleged rapes in the UK, where there is no statute of limitations on such a crime.

His fall was so swift. It was as if, suddenly given an opening, the entertainment industry went after him for what he had done -- in part, revenge for being bullied all those years, and out of self-preservation. It appeared obvious many in the biz, men and women, knew Harvey was a [redacted] [redacted] [redacted], and that he [redacted], but remained silent. The women abetted his acts out of fear -- because he was such a power in the industry; one phone call from Harvey Weinstein could make or break a career.

The men abetted Harvey's behavior, both out of fear he would Go Tubby on them, and because so many men dominating the film industry treat the women in it as chattel, just as Tubby Harvey had.

Auf nicht wiedersehen, Harvey, you Momzer.

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MEHR, Mit Eine Erklärung:  I toyed with the idea of apologizing for the forgoing, but I won't. 

As it is, I'm frustrated by the utter senselessness of many aspects of our culture -- how things have come to be as they are -- as well as the continuing harm to people, to animals, to things. We know (hell; even children understand) that if you do certain things, or act in certain ways, the outcome isn't good. I don't bring the Yiddish for just any set of circumstances. And I don't just mean fat Harvey.

That we are, collectively, where we are is confounding, saddening and disorienting. I'm surprised that I haven't just created a post which repeats a single epithet, over and over, three thousand times.

Instead, I keep returning to a single pair of phrases: It can't go on like this, and, This cannot end well.

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UND JETZT NOCH IMMER MEHR:  Via Soul Of America, this from Dave Zirin at The Nation [paragraphing added for emphasis]:

"Coach Pop [Gregg Popovich, Head Coach, San Antonion Spurs] called me up after hearing the president’s remarks explaining why he hadn’t mentioned the four US soldiers killed in an ambush in Niger. Trump said, 'President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.'

Maybe it was the bald-faced nature of this lie, maybe it was Pop’s own history in the military, but the coach clearly had to vent...

'I want to say something, and please just let me talk, and please make sure this is on the record... I’ve been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this president had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never ending divisiveness. 

'But his comments [on Monday, October 16] about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families are so beyond the pale, I almost don’t have the words.

'This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner—and to lie about how previous presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers—is as low as it gets. 

'We have a pathological liar in the White House, unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office, and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this president should be ashamed, because they know better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.' ..."

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And Now For Something Completely Differen

A Prime        r Wit     sing  ow ls

Slogan Behind Prime Minister Theresa May Sheds Letters 

As She Delivers Keynote Speech; October 4, 2017

It was touted as among the most consequential speeches delivered by a sitting British Prime Minister: Theresa May, PM and head of the UK's Conservative (i.e., Tory) party, giving the keynote address yesterday in the industrial Midlands city of Manchester at that party's annual conference. It was intended to reestablish May in the public's mind as an effective, strong leader, and the Conservatives as the rational leaders of a nation facing a serious fiscal and political crisis.

May's speech had been hyped by the party's media arm as A Very Important Address (she is the Prime Minister, after all). Photos released to the media showed May at her desk at 10 Downing Street, hard at work, writing The Speech out in longhand.

More accurately, the speech was a make-it-or-not affair for May, whose stiff, scripted responses to questions have had the British tabloid press dub her 'The Maybot', and whose political career is in serious doubt.

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The June, 2016 Brexit vote forced the previous Conservative PM, David Cameron, to resign -- he had bet his political career on the Brexit vote failing, and lost.  Theresa May was elected Conservative party leader and (as they still held a majority in Parliament) replaced Cameron. She would have to begin the process of separating the UK from the European Union.

The Brexit vote had showed a slim majority (but still a significant percentage) of British voters were fed up with involvement in the EU. Plus, it raised the ghost of dissolution: Scottish voters supported remaining in the EU. Having barely voted to remain in the UK a few years ago; would the Brexit vote eventually cause Scotland to separate from Great Britain?

Conservatives had been champions of Austerity for All (except, of course, the Rich), cutting social programs, which -- surprise! -- had done nothing but harm people and were very unpopular. The Conservatives supported remaining in the EU -- losing the Brexit vote made them suddenly, publicly, vulnerable.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party saw their advantage, and stated that the Brexit vote proved the Conservatives, heirs of Maggie Thatcher and champions of Austerity, had lost the confidence of The People. Labour could make a working coalition in Parliament; Theresa May should step down for the good of the country, and Corbyn should be asked by the Queen to form a government.

To scrape a coalition together and survive, May held her nose and made an alliance with Northern Ireland's ultra-conservative Democratic Unionist Party (who believe, among other things, that abortion and homosexuality should be re-criminalized in Britain). It gave her the slim majority in the Commons she needed, but was a desperation play and looked it.

After the 2016 vote, reports on the impact of leaving the EU were a daily feature in the UK press. Business leaders were reported preparing to move their companies elsewhere, and experts estimated that thousands of jobs would be lost. A number of Conservative leaders believed the Fear Factor had caused enough voters to change their minds about Brexit, and cause a political shift in their favor.

Obligatory Photo Of Small Animal Changing Their Mind About Brexit

Theresa May made a decision, calling for a snap general election almost a year after the Brexit vote, on June, 8, 2017.  May believed it would be a landslide victory, reestablishing her party's political dominance. And, it would help fend off internal challenges to her leadership.

Wrong. The Conservatives lost twelve seats in Parliament (ominously, the DUP gained ten more). The Labour party made even more impressive gains. It was a humiliating defeat that left May and her Conservatives even more vulnerable than before, and making it an even more obvious question whether she could remain as head of her own party, and PM -- or, if her own people might chuck her out.

On June 14, the Grenfell Tower fire occurred in London; Jeremy Corbyn appeared at the site and spent time talking with survivors and neighborhood residents. May appeared the next day, surrounded by fire and police officials; she did not meet with survivors or relatives of those who had died. As she left the area in her official car, there were shouts from a nearby public crowd for the government to resign; May was criticized for not meeting with residents, and for showing a "lack of humanity".

The current Foreign Secretary in her own cabinet, Boris Johnson, has been open about wanting May's job. Other insiders favor replacing her with Doug and Dinsdale, the Piranha Brothers.

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I make that Monty Python reference for a reason: Yesterday afternoon, May walked up to the podium, standing before a royal blue curtain with an image of a slogan, spelled out in white letters: BUILDING A COUNTRY THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE.

She began speaking -- and almost immediately suffered a series of coughing spasms. She stopped, and was given water; the Chancellor of the Exchequer handed her a cough drop (she's going to suck on that during her speech? Really?). In a show of party solidarity, many of May's pauses were filled by applause from the rank-and-file in the conference hall until she had gotten her bearings.

Starting again, her voice began failing. More delay; more water was produced, more applause provided, but things were becoming a little strained -- this wasn't normal. It almost seemed fated.

Finally, May was back on track. As reported in the New York Times, she "promised that more affordable homes would be built to address the country’s housing crisis". She promised to cap energy prices, and to create a "British version of the American dream". She also apologized to members of her party for having led the June general election campaign in “too scripted, too presidential” a manner.  She made a brief reference to Brexit, but otherwise stayed away from the topic.

Suddenly, May was interrupted by a man, sitting directly in front of the podium, who handed her a printed form with the label 'P45' in an upper corner, easily seen by cameras (apparently, a P45 is the official form any employer in Britain is required to submit when an employee is fired; they receive a copy as part of the termination process), saying, "Boris [Johnson] asked me to give you this".

P45: Terribly Sorry, But You're 'Leaving Work'

(The man was a comedian, Simon Brodkin, and no stranger to pranks -- he once attended a news conference for FIFA soccer league president, Sepp Blatter [at the time being disgraced by a corruption scandal], and threw paper money at him. According to the Times, he was accredited to attend May's speech, and after handing her the form spent a long minute crouched down, talking with press photographers and [or so it seemed] Boris Johnson, who had been sitting behind him. A number of people shouted to have Brodkin removed, and he was escorted from the hall.)

May took the form Brodkin was holding up and tucked it out of sight, carrying on, as those who sleep in Winnie's old room must do. As she spoke, letters in the slogan attached to the blue curtain behind her began dropping off. By the time she was finished, to applause (it is Britain, after all), the slogan finally read  BUI DING A C NTRY THA ORKS OR RYON.

Predictably, the British media fell over itself in the rush to go to press. Reactions ran the gamut, but seemed weighted towards a decision of Golden Duck / Diamond Duck; not a good thing in Cricket, or politics. May, beyond her speech, had no comment.

If you were to make stuff like this up and put it in a novel, some readers would say Hold on a minute -- this could never happen in real life. It's enough to make you a believer in the law of averages; or, if there is in fact a Prime Mover in the Universe, it's nice to know they have a sense of humor.  Tha  orks  or me.

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Instructions Pour Populations Dans La Zone Occupée

Random Barking

Now is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
--  Winston Churchill, November 1942

Hey-- I know you, man; you're famous.
-- Tom Petty (1950 - 2017) Cameo Appearance; 'The Postman', 1997

(I began this post before the most recent mass shooting episode [link via Digby], and though much of its focus is on our Dear Leader, what follows should also be read with recent events in mind. And the Tom Petty quote, because another Mensch, et al.; and as is said at the Soul Of America, the Fuck, Man?)

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Obligatory Tubby Animal Photo At Beginning Of Blog Thing

It's hard going in These Days. The quote from Churchill is occasionally used to sound a positive note in the midst of a struggle -- a way of saying, as Gandhi did, that the upward progress of Humankind continues. That Truth will triumph and Justice, eventually, will be done.

I have conversations about The State Of Things. One thing I hear continually repeated is, This Can't Continue. Some think a Deep State will remove Trump. Or Robert Mueller and 'The Russia Thing' will uncover enough to force him from office. And, it's always possible that [mention of extremely bad thing redacted].

But it isn't even about this bloated peacock of a man; he's just a symptom, it's deeper than that. Our politics are an illusion of choice. Everyone I talk with at some point will shake their heads: the America we see isn't sustainable and has not been for some time now. Surely this can't go on.

But what if it can? What if, like the citizens of occupied Europe seventy-seven years ago, we come awake to the sounds of loudspeakers, broadcasting instructions of the new authorities? That like the Danes, Belgians, Norwegians, the Dutch and the French, we're at the beginning of over fifteen hundred days of being at the mercy of persons who are simple as children in their greed, and a desire that all America satisfy their every whim?

YOSSARIAN: We're never gonna see those replacements. We're never gonna see those coconuts. They're just gonna keep making us fly until we're all dead.
DOBBS:  Aw; Cathcart wouldn't dare raise the number of missions again!
YOSSARIAN: Who's gonna stop him?
DOBBS: [Pauses] Somebody will.

-- Alan Arkin (Yossarian) and Martin Sheen (Dobbs) / Catch-22 (1970)

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The executive branch of the American government is bent to the ego and whimsy of a seventy-year-old child. All that occasionally blunts his narcissistic tantrums are three former U.S. Generals (until he decides to fire them). Their influence is limited by Trump's character, but it's worth noting that their military perspective will be a serious factor in how the Executive functions: When every problem they see is a nail, the only solution they'll offer is a hammer. 

As Trump has done things since January 20th, journalists and commentators have reacted with expressions of social opprobrium -- the nerve; the unspeakable rudeness! A President can't do that! --  as if collective social disapproval will force Trump to behave differently, even leave office.

Additional Obligatory Tubby Animal Photo

I've joked that Trump could have sex with a goat on live television, and no one would be surprised: nothing would happen. Now, I actually wonder if that might be true.

Trump and the creatures which slouched into government behind him are dismantling the political structure of the United States in ways the Right has dreamed of doing for generations. Pundits report it; neutral analysts detail their budgeting plans for education, healthcare, taxation, human rights. All are disastrous, everyone can see it coming -- and nothing happens.

Read Charles Blow's outrage at Trump's racism. Read Paul Krugman's outrage at Trump's fiscal incoherence. Read the reports in Jeff Bezos' Washington Post about mendacity and malfeasance in Trump's cabinet, and about Robert Mueller's investigations. There have been a tidal surge of reports, invective, observations and opinion about him since the inauguration. His popularity is the worst of any president in America's history -- and still, nothing happens.

But what if all the outrage no longer matters? After just eight months, the country appears to be getting used to the idea of Trump; what if he's the 'new normal'? The collective disapproval of the majority of America's adult population doesn't appear to matter.

I read or hear news commentary about Trump that now seems to carry an almost an apologetic note, as if saying Ah; whadya gonna do, huh? Even with the sheer volume of evidence showing Trump a witless sociopath, unfit to hold office, having no empathy for others, even when Puerto Rico almost literally writhes at his feet -- nothing happens.

Some people say, Just wait until the midterms -- but in key states, nearly twenty years of gerrymandering (Karl Rove's blueprint for a Forever GOP majority) has ensured that even if we had a third party in the country, nothing will happen.

No matter how many rallies Bernie holds to push single-payer healthcare, how many interviews Hillary gives, no matter how much gets said about changing the demographics of America's allegedly Left party -- it's plain the Republicans and Democrats are whores of the Rich. 'Bipartisan cooperation' is just a code for maintenance of the status quo, in service to Our Owners.

It's true that the worst Democratic politician doesn't sink to the level of the worst Republican, but their whoring is no less true. It's the reason the Democrats can't effectively combat fascism -- they are morally impotent because their core values have already been compromised. There is no organized, viable political alternative to the Racist, -phobic, lovin'-our-guns Nationalism of the American Right, or the Neoliberal Globalism of what passes for the American Left.

Unless (and perhaps, even if) future events take a different turn, the collective American Right will continue to throw their feces into our faces and revel in our sputtering responses. Trump will remain The Leader; the outrages will continue, and the dismantling of society. And, with the assistance of Democrats, our politics will continue to reflect an engineered inequality, the obvious rule of Wealth.

Borrowing an image from Orwell -- imagine a $38,000 pair of A.Testoni monk-strap loafers, stomping on a human face, forever.

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But, things are happening -- all on the political right. The apotheosis of Trump is occurring against a backdrop of what amounts to two groups of Klansmen, fighting over who gets to paint a huge Starz-n-Barz flag on the White House.

The Left and Center of our politics don't control any branch of government. Because they're in the minority, they seem even more fragmented than the Right, which is saying something -- because America's government is dominated by a GOP in the middle of a civil war between old-school Crazy Right, and the Crazier Alt-Right. 

The old-school Right wants privatization of everything, including education; an end to 'coddling of welfare queens'; an end to regulation of business and the financial markets; larger Pentagon budgets (a bigger stick, because China); more Austerity for everyone (except the Fabled Rich), and more of the Surveillance State. It's a Chamber Of Commerce, Country-Club America.

The Crazier Alt-Right wants all that, too -- but they want a Breitbart America, where you can't tell fact from fiction. The Alt-Right wants Muslims to leave, and all other non-white people will only be seen occasionally (in a hotel corridor, or a vegetable field) and not heard. Get uppity with the Po-lice and see what happens. Women? Well of course they will be "seen", but they'd better submit to Men in all ways, as the bible teaches. There will be no gay people, ever, anywhere; get in the right bathroom and get right with god. Remember so-called 'rights' can be changed by friendly Justices.  And, the Alt-Right must have Guns, and their Jesus. More Jesus. And more Guns. Amen.

 Perfect Teeth: All The Better To Chew You Up With

Actually, the Crazier Alt-Right is what the Kochbrudern, and other aging, Bundist billionaires, want. The old-school GOP was not conservative enough, not responsive to The Bundist's desires (and you piss off Oligarchs like them at your peril), so the Oligarchs paid to create the Tea Party, fund the Alternate Right, and conduct a hostile takeover of the Republican party and American conservatism. Expect to see more right-wing politicians of the stripe of Texas' Ted Cruz or Alabama's Roy Moore at an election near you.

They've paid billions into this effort since the early 2000's, and people with teeth that perfect want a return on their investment: setting fire to the GOP, replacing it with Bannon and Breitbart and the Tea Partei or all manner of smoke and mirrors. This isn't about Trump, some rust-belt 'forgotten Americans', or any Americans; The Brothers don't care about you. This is all about the Great Game -- manipulating an entire nation's politics, just because they can. Because they wish it.

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MEHR: This Just In:

After seeing yet another deranged gorilla just burst into a public place and start killing people, I decided I need to make sure something like that never happens to me... It just gives me peace of mind knowing that if I’m ever in that situation, I won’t have to just watch helplessly as my torso is ripped in half and my face is chewed off. I’ll be able to use my gorilla to defend myself. Law enforcement and animal control can only get there so quickly, and you never know when you’ll need to use a gorilla to save your life.
--  "Gorilla Sales Skyrocket After Latest Gorilla Attack", The Onion, 1/10/13

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MEHR, Mit Blutwurst:  Just go here and give this your attention. It's easy and fun! 

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Reprint Heaven Forever (1934 - 2016)

Closing Time

Over at The Soul Of America, a reminder that today is Cohen's birthday. Originally posted last Armistice Veteran's Day in 2016, when he went off to the Bardo, or wherever the hell we go, if anywhere (and in that spirit, I'll add a link to this).

November 11 is one Day I use to consciously remember specific people, from a specific time, whom I miss. It was right after the election, and everyone still numb; the fat, raving Parasite-Elect had barely begun to push his tiny manhood into America's collective face, and everyone I knew were looking around for anyone wearing the same uniform. Cohen's bowing out just then (to take the metaphor a little further), seemed like one more Loss in the Unit. We were going single file; I turned around, and he wasn't back there there any more: Ah, fuck; aber natürlich, it would have to be now.

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Goddamn it. Knew the news was coming, but wasn't ready for it just now.

Ah we're lonely, we're romantic
And the cider's laced with acid
And the holy spirit's crying, where's the beef?
And the moon is swimming naked
And the summer night is fragrant
With a mighty expectation of relief

So we struggle and we stagger
Down the snakes and up the ladder
To the tower where the blessed hours chime
And I swear it happened just like this
A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
The gates of love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
But closing time
Closing time
Closing time
Closing time 

 Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius. Even the counterpoint lines—they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs. As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music. Even the simplest song, like ‘The Law,’ which is structured on two fundamental chords, has counterpoint lines that are essential, and anybody who even thinks about doing this song and loves the lyrics would have to build around the counterpoint lines.

His gift or genius is in his connection to the music of the spheres. In the song ‘Sisters of Mercy,’ for instance, the verses are four elemental lines which change and move at predictable intervals . . . The song just comes in and states a fact. And after that anything can happen and it does, and Leonard allows it to happen...

‘Sisters of Mercy’ is verse after verse of four distinctive lines, in perfect meter, with no chorus, quivering with drama. ... This is a deceptively unusual musical theme, with or without lyrics. But it’s so subtle a listener doesn’t realize he’s been taken on a musical journey and dropped off somewhere, with or without lyrics.

I see no disenchantment in Leonard’s lyrics at all. There’s always a direct sentiment, as if he’s holding a conversation and telling you something, him doing all the talking, but the listener keeps listening. He’s very much a descendant of Irving Berlin... [whose] songs did the same thing. Berlin was also connected to some kind of celestial sphere.

And, like Leonard, he probably had no classical music training, either. Both of them just hear melodies that most of us can only strive for. Berlin’s lyrics also fell into place and consisted of half lines, full lines at surprising intervals, using simple elongated words. Both Leonard and Berlin are incredibly crafty. Leonard particularly uses chord progressions that seem classical in shape. He is a much more savvy musician than you’d think.

-- Bob Dylan 

I loved you for your beauty
But that doesn't make a fool of me
You were in it for your beauty too
And I loved you for your body
There's a voice that sounds like god to me
Declaring, (declaring) declaring, declaring that your body's really you
And I loved you when our love was blessed
And I love you now there's nothing left
But sorrow and a sense of overtime

I know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life, whether they want to cop to it or not. It’s there, you can feel it in people—there’s some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which influences their mood and activity. So that’s operating. That activity at certain points of your day or night insists on a certain kind of response. Sometimes it’s just like: ‘You are losing too much weight, Leonard. You’re dying, but you don’t have to cooperate enthusiastically with the process.’ Force yourself to have a sandwich.

What I mean to say is that you hear the Bat Kol (divine voice). You hear this other deep reality singing to you all the time, and much of the time you can’t decipher it... At this stage of the game, I hear it saying, ‘Leonard, just get on with the things you have to do.’ It’s very compassionate at this stage. More than at any time of my life, I no longer have that voice that says, ‘You’re fucking up.’ That’s a tremendous blessing, really.

-- Leonard Cohen / September, 2016

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

And I missed you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
Looks like freedom but it feels like death
It's something in between, I guess
It's closing time
closing time
closing time
closing time

___________________________

MEHR, Several Hours Later:  The last thing I wanted to do was write a post about this man that had even a hint of self-reference, but remembered a thirty-year-old conversation. 

A long time ago: someone said in a discussion of Sufis and 'The Work' that "There are a lot of people around who say they're looking for answers, want self-enlightenment, and they present a posture -- removed, serious, aesthetic. Like a parody of the Holy Man. Another is the smartass, the 'Mister Natural' who just enjoys fucking with people. And my feeling is, neither of them are 'authentic'. 

"The Sufis I've met have been raw and real, man; There's grit in their voices -- they're like Blues singers. Tom Waits, minus the alcohol. They've been around the fucking block, they've done some things, and they know what really matters. They're not saints -- 'rogue sage'; you know? -- but about the Big Things, you can trust them."

Cohen loved the Blues. He sang them, no matter what style his songs were.  He spoke simply, straight from the heart, about The Big Questions.  His music, the way he lived his life, was grappling with those questions and his human condition, and ours, unashamedly. He was no saint, but an honest and sincere seeker of Truth -- and his music was a commentary on that stumbling around in the dark. His work was illuminated by a long Rabbinical tradition; he was born with a Heart On Fire.

His songs were in the language of missed chances, relationships spoiled by ego or greed or a simple misunderstanding; ecstatic revelry and bone-crushing disappointment. When he sang politics, it was about choice and betrayal from the level of someone in the street. He told you: This is what happened to me. I don't know what all this is. I don't know what I'm doing, either; you're not alone out here. It was like the end of Moby Dick: A thing happened; buoyed up by a coffin, I came back to tell thee.

And what he sang about was a reminder that everything in this world was part of something else  -- The Big Questions, maybe. And he sang about that all the way to the end -- "You Want It Darker", his album released in October.

People sense how much truth they're being told by others, moment to moment, moving through the world. The number of people who speak in an authentic voice that we recognize, instinctively, as being true are very few. Poets can do this; Cohen was a poet, first, which is how I met him (only discovered later that the guy had albums of music, too, which made sense). From his work, he was recognizable as being as egotistical, confused, scheming, greedy; fucked up; kind, generous; lonely and longing -- as human, as I am. He had the energy and talent to share his particular vision, and it resonated with a wide audience.

When someone like that leaves the room, I grieve, because they're so few. And I'm pretty damned sad (The Best Friend texted back "Goddamned shit storm November" when I told them Cohen had died). I understand: never knew the man personally; it's the connections on so many levels to memory and hope and experience that add to the emotions. And there was Fucking Tuesday; and, today.  We're all going to have to leave the room -- if I can bow out in the same frame of mind, with the same intent as he was reported to have, that would be an act of grace.

Another Mensch leaves us. Now he knows what we do not -- but he was frankly curious, without much fear, as to whatever that is.

___________________________

Also, remembering the day, and Absent Friends. "We Have Done So Much With So Little For So Long That We Could Do Everything With Nothing Forever" (1969 - 1971)

Annual Reprint: Sixteen Years On

(Originally posted September 11, 2010)

Nine-Eleven

On November 22, 1963, I was on the playground for 10:00AM recess at my elementary school when teachers called classes back inside prematurely. After a few minutes, the school's public address system was broadcasting the carrier for CBS' radio network, announcing the shooting of JFK in Dallas and, ultimately, the audio portion of Walter Cronkite on CBS television announcing the President's death.

Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot? was a fixture in the cultural landscape for a large number of people (now referred to by the younger set as 'Bloodsucking Useless Boomers') for a long time, due to the magnitude of the event and because it was shared in real-time by the cutting-edge media of the early 1960's.

So, September 11th, 2001: Where were you on 9-11? I had gotten up to go to work around 5:30AM PDST, and as usual turned on KQED-FM's NPR news. After stepping out of the shower, I heard a report that a plane appeared to have crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York -- I've been in Manhattan and had seen how huge those buildings were. To me, "A plane" meant a Cessna, or similar light aircraft.

I remembered seeing a 1945 film newsreel about a B-25, flying through dense fog, directly into the Empire State Building. A similar incident at the WTC would be tragic, I thought; but it was an accident, for crying out loud, on the other side of the continent, distant. No one in their right mind would deliberately kill themselves, I sighed, and I shaved.

At some point the report was updated; I heard the words "jet airliner", which moved the entire event in my mind from 'Cessna-going-off-course' to the category of Did-You-Call-The-Coast-Guard-About-This?-It-Was-No-Boating-Accident.

Turning on CNN, I sat on the edge of an armchair, watching an image of the WTC towers from CNN's Manhattan headquarters, and other shots from a helicopter hovering over the Hudson. A few minutes after I sat down, I watched as the second airliner slammed into the second WTC tower.

Images Like This, and Worse, Were Broadcast And Published

In Europe, But Not In America (Photo: UK Guardian, 2001)

No joke: Aside from Holy Fuck, the only thing I recall thinking was, This is what standing at the curb in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, watching the Archduke Franz Ferdinand being shot, must have been like. I knew immediately that what I was seeing was another line in the sand being crossed, an event with consequences that would be immense. The dice were in motion in the Crapshoot that is our Universe, and what I was watching was the proof.

It also seemed unreal, a Hollywood special effect -- as if CNN would break for a commercial at any moment;  it would turn out to be this generation's War Of The Worlds broadcast.

I sat watching as the South and North towers collapsed (Wikipedia's timeline of the events puts that at 6:59 and 7:28 AM PDST, respectively), flipping back and forth between networks for coverage of the airliner plowing into a wing of the Pentagon. Finally I left to make my way to work on mass transit.

On a BART train, I was amazed at the languid attitudes of the crowd of commuters -- reading books and newspapers, a few tapping on laptops -- as if it were just another Tuesday morning. No one appeared stunned; there was no conversation about what had just occurred.

Finally, I turned to a woman sitting opposite me, reading a folded copy of the (pre-Little Rupert) Wall Street Journal, and asked if she was aware of what had happened that morning. "Yes," she replied, adding in a please-pass-the-salt voice, "There are supposed to be more of them [i.e., airliners] in the air to hit other targets."

Had anyone estimated how many? "No," the woman shrugged, and went back to her WSJ. I don't know what surprised me more, her matter-of-fact attitude, or her piece of news.

---

That was September 11th -- a red line on the American calendar in so many ways, the culmination of a large number of threads in our history, and the pacts and choices successive administrations have made since America decided to follow an Imperial course.

The attack on the Trade Center towers could have been another kind of defining moment for America. Our government and institutions could have taken it as an opportunity to press for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy; we could have opened a dialog with others, rather than dictate to them.

Lil' Boots, 2004 Republican Convention:

Feared And Bigger Than His Daddy, At Last

I'm not suggesting it coulda been a Kumbyah moment; I am saying that it was a crossroads moment, and that our choices mattered. But, the government was run by men who had no interest in anything except power (personal, partisan, and financial) and policies that meant the use of force in furthering that power. What else could we have expected from the likes of Lil' Boots, President Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld? From the PNAC crowd, Fat Karl Rove, Little Tommy DeLay, and Lard Boy?

(And remember, these geniuses had been discussing how to invade Iraq just days after Lil' Boots first inauguration. September 11th was simply an excuse.

And, they believed it would be simple, 'Roses All The Way', 'Greeted As Liberators' ... so no one planned for occupation, or fighting an insurgency for seven years; or for the effect on the U.S. military of multiple redeployments and 'stop-loss' denials of separation. They never conceived of failure; therefore, it wouldn't happen.)

So what followed from 9/11 shouldn't have been a surprise: An utterly unnecessary, even illegal invasion of Iraq, supported by intelligence about WMD's invented by right-wing operatives to create a causis beli, and pushed in the national media by sociopathic egos 'journalists' like Little Judy Miller, and pundits like David Brooks and William Kristol, and Little Tommy Friedman, to name but a few.

Palettes Of $100 Bills, Baghdad, 2003 (Photo: UK Guardian)

And let's not forget the $12 Billion in cash (at least; no one really knows), piles of U.S. currency shrink-wrapped and paletted and airlifted to Iraq. Some $12 Billion in cash cannot be accounted for. And all the cool new powers used by that dry-drunk, Frat-Boy younger son of an American ruling-class family; or all the power available to President Cheney.

There was plenty of money to put in C530's and airlift it: 363 Tons of it. There was plenty of money being made from the war, and tax breaks to the wealthy, which reduced tax income to the government; but there was no money  and Lil' Boots wanted to cut health care, cut social programs that continue the ideas of the New Deal, and privatize Social Security... because there's just no money to pay for it.

And there's Guantanamo, 'black airlines' flying suspected terrorists to secret CIA prisons, and the extra-legal, secret program of 'renditions'. Let's not forget Abu Ghirab. Let's not forget people like John Woo, whose written suggestions created what he still claims is a "legal" basis for torture as national policy.

Civilian Casualty Of Baghdad Suicide Car Bomb, 2007

And what followed wasn't just prisons and a lack of due process for terrorist suspects, but developing a matrix of information [Note: This was posted before Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent of surveillance performed by America domestic and foreign intelligence agencies] -- based on the unprecedented data-mining of domestic email and cellular and telephone traffic, of banking records and public record databases; the rise of a government/corporate State surveillance and intelligence apparatus that outstrips the wildest dreams of the Gestapo and the KGB.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Being Interrogated At

Undisclosed Location By CIA In Middle Of Blog Rant

And, very little seemed to be about defeating Al-Qaeda, capturing or killing Bin Laden and Al-Zwahiri -- otherwise, we would have finished the job in the mountains of Tora Bora in October of 2002, and Iraq would never have mattered. We would have kept Lil' Boots' promises to the Afghans about rebuilding their country, instead of ignoring it -- at least half the reason the Afghan Taliban were able to come roaring back, and are now as strong as they were in 2001, if not stronger.

The 'Go-Go', Lil' Boots Bush years were about a larger Rightist agenda; it was about deregulation, defense contractors, and higher profits; and it was about Fat Karl's dream of rigging elections for permanent Republican rule of the United States.

Victory, to these assclowns, had a very different meaning -- and little of it was military.

But let's not forget, too, how dissent or criticism of what would become that unnecessary war; of even more power given to people with poor impulse control, was looked upon in the immediate aftermath of September 11th.

• Andrew Sullivan (9/16/01) -- The middle part of the country--the great red zone that voted for Bush--is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead--and may well mount a fifth column.
• Robert Stacy McCain (9/27/01), columnist for the All Perfect Great Father Moon Washington Times -- Why are we sending aircraft carriers halfway around the world to look for enemies, when our nation's worst enemies--communists proclaiming an anti-American jihad--will be right there in front of the Washington Monument on Saturday?
• Robert Horowitz (9/28/01), Los Angeles Times -- The blood of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans is on the hands of the antiwar activists who prolonged [the Vietnam War] and gave victory to the communists... this country was too tolerant toward the treason of its enemies within.

Those who dissented, who believed the country was manifestly on a wrong track, were smeared as 'helping the enemy', a 'fifth column' for Islamic fundamentalism. "You are either with us, or with the terraists", as Lil' Boots so bravely told other governments of the world after the World Trade Center attack.

The chittering hatred all sounds like standard Tea Party rhetoric, now. From their point of view, to dissent and criticize is only permissible when you're attacking the Left -- and that socialist, illegitimate ruler in the White House; the dirty hippies; all those "in rebellion against god".

Our economy continues to implode, and it has never been clearer who is benefiting from the policies of the Right; but, then, it's been a long, strange trip from September 11th, 2001. Few things should surprise us any longer.

Another Lil' Boots quote:

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: In history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. (Applause)

-- George W. Bush, Address To Joint Session Of Congress

Is that appropriate as an epitaph for those who wish to do America harm?

Or, does it speak to how we have allowed ourselves to be lied to, and led; will it end up being our epitaph, a closing quote for the United States Of America?

There is no ‘populist’ version of a world where some few are born booted and spurred, and the many are born saddled, and ready to ride, and that's precisely the world which conservatism is trying to preserve.

Random Barking Friday

Talk Amongst Yourselves

Fundimentalists Touch The Leader To Invoke His Power (Original: Bloomberg)

The idea of the military as an enforcer of order in a world filled with corrupt and even crazy political leaders has long been a theme in emerging markets from Turkey to Argentina. But as those countries also show, it usually doesn’t end well. This should give pause at a time when a June Gallup poll shows that while only 12 per cent of Americans have confidence in Congress, and only 32 per cent in the president, a whopping 72 per cent have “a great deal” of faith in the military. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when a long-time source of mine, behavioural economist Peter Atwater, released an investor note in mid-August pointing out these numbers, and suggesting that markets and experts were naive to dismiss entirely the possibility of an American coup d’état.

Extreme, to be sure, but coups need not be of the bloody emerging-market variety to be effective. One could imagine a 25th amendment process organised by the generals in the president’s cabinet, or a forced resignation with details revealed only after the fact. In any case, Atwater isn’t alone in feeling that the political situation in the US is nearing a dangerous breaking point. In a public post on LinkedIn, Ray Dalio, Bridgewater founder and America's most famous hedge-funder, recently announced that he was rejigging his portfolio in reaction to political risk in the US. “It seems to me that we are now economically and socially divided and burdened in ways that are broadly analogous to 1937,” he wrote. “During such times conflicts (both internal and external) increase, populism emerges, democracies are threatened and wars can occur. I can’t say how bad this time around will get. I’m watching how conflict is being handled as a guide, and I’m not encouraged.”

-- Rana Foroohar, "Dystopian America -- how far are we from Gilead?"
Financial Times Magazine, September 8, 2017 (Article here, but beware the paywall)

_______________________________

MEHR, MIT DIE MEINUNG AUS DIE GEMEINSCHAFTEN: 

It goes without saying that Foroohar, and Dialo, are part of the business sector. The Business Sector cares whether things go south, because it can affect their portfolios. Beyond that, not so much. 

If you want proof, look at the three Equifax senior managers who sold their stock in the company about thirty seconds after they learned about the size of the data breach, which Equifax finally reported last week. These weasels didn't give a damn about anything but their personal exposure. Nothing like a little insider trading.

Dialo was, according to Foroohar, "rejigging" his fund's holdings (that is, his clients') to bet Short -- profiting from disaster, again, something which made him famous and rich before 2008. 

It's interesting that one of the planet's top hedge fund managers would say something that, on its face, appears critical of Things As They Are, which some might take to mean Trump (See, even among the Coporatocenti he is unpopular). But Dialo is only broadcasting a message that's been circulating among his client base for some time. 

Read this (and don't miss the comments, either). Social collapse has been an unspoken assumption by major financial institutions for a long time, and have influenced their reports on strategic planning for investors.  More recently those same reports more openly admit climate breakdown will produce the kind of scenarios that trigger social disintegration. It's why (in particular since 2008) so many of of the Rich have been bunker-building here at home, and home-buying in New Zealand.

____________________________

Everyone Sing Along

Eine Kleine Rhumba Tanzen

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


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

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

_________________________

Random Barking: Burning Down The House

After Harvey

 Previously Flooded Houston Neighborhood; September 1, 2017

It is hot in Kiddietown. Baking hot. Pipin' hot. The kind of Hot where Dogs get under things, in the shade, and just watch stuff happen. And smell things. We bark randomly at what appears to be nothing.

_____________________________

The media coverage of Harvey's hitting Texas seemed to fall into neat categories, from the relative safety of Kiddietown: pre-game warnings and warmup as the storm approached land; cellphone video of the effects of high winds, before-and-after photos showing effects of unbelievably torrential rain; and, in Harvey's wake, the brave pluck with which those affected, and the rescuers, soldier on. Cut to commercial.

A good example of this last -- Thursday's ABC World News Tonight (A Walt Disney Production) aired a segment  showing one ABC reporter on-scene in Houston, 'embedded' with a helicopter unit. They lift off -- and suddenly, are diverted to evacuate people sheltering in a Middle School -- dry at that moment, but threatened by rising flood levels. The people had to be airlifted out -- quickly!

The helicopter lands near the school. The ABC reporter was filmed assisting in the evacuation, even at one point appearing to give orders to someone off-camera; okay, let's go! Rapid cuts between shots makes for rising tension; will they make it? Will they have enough time?

All those at the school (including Dogs; film crews love photographing Dogs in emergency situations) were airlifted to another shelter. We watch them, dazed, walking into another building -- brave evacuees! -- and presumably all was a happy ending.

I'm bothered by this, as I am about the sensationalism of news reporting generally, the demand for a happy ending before the last commercial break. And, what's being reported has to conform to that story arc. Real conditions on the ground can't be controlled --  they're messy, and prompt some to ask uncomfortable questions. Can't have that.

_____________________________

A friend has family in Texas; the texts fly back and forth. Both have their own families; all live in / around Houston. One has lost their home and very probably everything in it -- and, because they relied on the information from the City of Houston, didn't purchase flood insurance. The chance of that would be a "once-in-500-year" event in their part of the city.

The other family member and their people are dry so far but surrounded by flood zones. They've spoken with others in their area, who watched armed men commandeering boats from their Coast Guard crews at gunpoint. and those same people and boats were seen systematically looting neighborhood homes. They've heard sporadic gunfire.

They live in Katy, near a reservoir which may breach, and have to be ready to evacuate within 30 minutes of notice -- but, have been given no instructions on how they are to leave an area surrounded by flood waters, or where they are to go.

Over at The Soul Of America, there was a link to a similar take on what Harvey means, in spite of the media coverage:

...an air of unreality hangs about the flooding of Houston. Those of you with memories of the 00s will remember how Gore was mocked for his animations of oceans flooding cities. ...

The press so far has -- understandably -- concentrated on happy rescues, people doing things for people. Underneath this news is a sort of failure to express the probable extent of the casualties and what this means economically.

...We gotta change our infrastructure. We gotta severely reshape our economy. Capitalism isn't built to solve this problem. That isn't even to say we abolish capitalism, it is simply a call for recognizing its limits and acting accordingly.

________________________

And in the midst of it all, Our Leader's appearance in Texas. He never spoke about the People with any empathy, never said how he recognized their fear and loss; he only spoke about them in relation to himself. The focus must be on Him, the magnificent one -- the vengeful one (reminding FEMA in a Tweet, "The world is watching!" Don't fuck this up or you'll deal with me). At his side, the Faithful Melania, in six-inch [redacted]-me high-heeled pumps, off to see how the peasantry is faring in this icky weather -- like her husband, tasteful; classy.

_____________________________

Bad things are happening. Nearly every sentient human senses that hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and other storms are becoming more and more powerful, destructive, and that climate change (I heard the term, "climate breakdown," yesterday) is a principal factor.

But, we know what our Leader's feelings are about that. Fake news; fake science. USA. USA. Climate breakdown isn't real to the Leader. Perhaps it will be when Mor-e-Lego is submerged by another hurricane hitting Florida, but I doubt it. He'll find a way to make the country pick up the tab for it. We already pay for his many jaunts. And his golf.

_____________________________

The mainstream media's presentation of Harvey's landfall and aftermath is a reminder of how much more of things, iceberg-like, are out of our sight below the waterline. Not only things which we don't see, but which by some collective, unspoken agreement we aren't allowed to see.

It is, if we look, a way of judging how much difference there is between comfortable assumptions of how life In These Times is, and the real. If you look closely enough, you might see a nation fracturing along lines of race and class, net worth and age; and it seems God's away on business.

Heading off to work early each morning, I see more homeless, broken, addicted and profoundly, heartbreakingly disturbed human beings on the streets than ever before. A friend, working in Tech in Kiddietown, had his first-ever anxiety attack and ended up in an Urgent Care ER in the Tenderloin; being there for several hours was a cultural eye-opener.

And around the corner from where network news is filming a man carrying a Dog to safety, our national politics is teetering between two different visions.  One, identified as liberal, believes a strong Federal government is essential to ensuring all of The People are served, and protected from the excesses of Capital. It's a compact between a government and its people: You are our highest priority. We are here for you. The spirit of the New Deal.

(It's worth noting: there is a body of opinion that [no matter what laws have been passed making some provisions for our citizens] the New Deal was window-dressing, a band-aid -- in the early 1930's, it saved and perpetuated systematized inequality, that same structure of power and class that has existed in America for generations.)

But there's another group in our national politics which sees that same power and class structure as being too unbalanced  -- towards the poor. That in true Randian spirit, the poor are responsible for their own poverty. That the 'business of America is business', not foreign nonsense. That the country is only a loose confederation of fifty regions and doesn't need a Federal government messing in the business of the States: America, circa 1860. And, if some wealthy person believes we should change the number of states, why not?

And if some States want to declare that -- slavery, say; or 'separate but equal' clauses, are legal -- along with lower wages for women; healthcare determined by "market forces"; relying on corporations to determine 'safe' levels of chemicals in air and water -- well, the States should be able to do that.

The High School Civics Class Version of America is what the media and networks assume is the surveyor's mark, the fixed assumption we share about the world we live in. But that vision doesn't allow for boats taken at gunpoint, looting, nazis marching in the the Old South, robotics, and poverty. It doesn't allow for a Tech industry poised for a great leap forward, which will enrich some, and leave others unable to afford the pretty toys and wonderful services yet to come.

The High School Civics Class Version doesn't allow for the rise of an unstable, corrupt leader, with both major political parties explaining that their continual Fluffing of Corporations and The Rich is just a necessary pragmatism. It doesn't allow for Ferguson, or Charlottesville, or the picture of Hillary Clinton as she warmly embraces Henry Kissinger.

And The High School Civics Class Version doesn't allow for that unstable leader to be a potential target in an investigation for corruption and potential treason. It also doesn't allow for that same Leader to be at the helm of the Joint Chiefs, his principal advisors all four-star generals, as he decides how to deal with a nuclear North Korea backed up by the People's Republic of China.

_____________________________

 
None of this is any great surprise, and my observations are not unique. Just more tears in the rain.

Hurricane Irma is developing in the Atlantic. It was just declared a category 3 storm (Harvey was a 4 when it slammed into Texas), and, all things being equal, NASA has predicted it could make landfall in Maryland -- that the District of Columbia will be right in its path.

Other meteorologists predict a track to send it slicing across Florida, not too far from Mor-e-Lego, and some have it sliding across the Caribbean to strike Texas. Again. We'll see -- because we're not going anywhere. The hurricanes will come to us.

_____________________________

MEHR, MIT WASSER:  

 2 hurricanes in ten days and the mother fucker in the White House still says climate change is a hoax   #Irma  #Harvey
--  Tweet, via Red painter @Redpainter1; 31 August 2017
(From TomClarkBlog)

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