Not In The Stars, But Ourselves

Random Barking:  Oprah

Annual programs, like the Golden Globes earlier this week, celebrate the entertainment industry. It's a way for the public to vicariously experience an event honoring the work of familiar actors and actresses.

I like movies, but avoid watching self-congratulatory presentations like the Globes (the last Oscars I watched were sometime in the late 1980's). They're ways of participating in the American film and television celebrity culture which dominates our public entertainment. I opt out.

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Every summer, there was an annual celebration held in my home town, with a parade down our two main streets. Every year, the organizing committee found some entertainment star to make the parade's 'Grand Marshal'. My father had something to do with organizing these parades, and by my adolescence had spent some time observing a number of film and television notables.

(I won't list them, except to mention in the early Sixties, I was stunned to meet Grand Marshal "Aunt Jemima" -- a heavy-set black woman, smiling and pleasant as she shook my hand, playing the iconic namesake for a brand of high-fructose corn syrup.

(On television just days before, I'd seen news film footage of police, dogs and water hoses attacking civil rights marchers in Mississippi. Even as a kid, I knew in my bones that was ugly and wrong, and remember thinking as this actress shook my hand: how could she stand, smiling, head bound up in what used to be referred to in the majority culture as a 'pickaninny' kerchief, wearing a calico dress with a shawl over her shoulders, smiling, surrounded by a room full white people -- with things like that happening? Well... it was an acting job.)

The characters these actors portrayed on the big or small screen were acceptable -- it was their talent to make us believe the make-believe. But (with a few exceptions) as I watched them interact with other adults from their 'public personas', I began to believe the idea of "celebrity" was about artifice, pretense, in the real world -- and to me, not acceptable, because as a kid, I was constantly getting in trouble for play-acting, "not being yourself" -- but every child can recognize that as typical, and double-standard, adult behavior.

It took much longer to learn that, in the larger world, acting from a persona as an adult is not only expected, it's often supported behavior -- particularly in entertainment, or politics. These days, the difference between the two is so slight as to be trivial.

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The difference between entertainment and politics is that art has power -- but only a politician can arrange to deport 200,000 Salvadorians, initiate Kill Drone Tuesday, authorize mass surveillance of all Americans' personal communications or the invasion of a middle eastern country based on manufactured evidence.

So as I read about the possibility being 'floated' for an Oprah Winfrey run for President in 2020, my immediate visceral reaction was negative: this was more celebrity-politics, reality teevee bullshit. Do we need another billionaire running for office? I thought; do we need another figurehead, utterly without experience in government, allegedly running the country? And, who will run them?

Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire, a competent business person; an entertainer; a black woman who has struggled through prejudice, misogyny and ignorance to succeed, in the way Americans are taught to accept and value 'success'. I understand all this, and (beyond my knee-jerk dislike of wealth and the wealthy) offer no criticism of her achievements.

The UK Guardian this morning referred to Winfrey as "one of the world's best neoliberal capitalist thinkers" -- but is that what we want? Is another neoliberal capitalist what the citizens of America need? I asked myself.

Online, there was a lot of verbiage about Hoping For Oprah, tossed into the air like confetti at a national convention. The pundits and even Our Leader were all a-twitter, literally -- and it isn't as if  we don't have bigger, real things, to worry about. One post by Ian Welch noted that

[None of  the possible Left candidates for U.S. President in 2020] have more star power and fundraising ability than someone like Oprah. ([who] does run a company, and does it competently.)...  Then we add in the billionaires, like Facebook CEO Zuckerberg. What other billionaire is now thinking “screw buying politicians, they can’t be trusted. I’ll just run myself?”...

2020 isn’t going to be a normal election. It is going to be far crazier than 20[16].

And heck, if I had a vote, I’d vote for Oprah (or Clooney) before most Democratic politicians, especially if they say “universal healthcare, fuck the bankers and no wars” like they mean it.

I suspect many Americans would too.

Remember, Trump won, in the end, because enough people were sick of regular politicians to take a flyer on him. A celebrity with more charisma and brains is entirely viable and will be considered seriously.

I foamed a bit more, reading this, until I was finally able to focus on what I thought was his main point: Given where Americans are, a candidate who appears competent and believes in at least baseline progressive policy ideas, is worth voting for. 

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As The new year opens, the notion of a wealthy, (presumed) progressive celebrity, with no experience in government, becoming President of the United States matters less than the direction of Left politics in America. Our fortunes, our families and our lives are in danger. It is that serious. No joke.

If we do not have a political party whose stated aims are people first, not profit; real representation in government; real inclusion; real equality; healthcare; fuck the banksters; and no war -- if we don't have a political movement which says this, first, and a lot else besides -- then which celebrity Liberal figurehead runs for President won't matter. 

If having that kind of political party is possible, then we should ask that its standard-bearer support those aims, and not be owned by the same status quo groups which believe they own all of us. That candidate could be Oprah, or Clooney, or Gillibrand, Warren, or Sanders -- as long as they talk the talk, and mean it. Policy first, then Celebrity.

But we don't have this, now. The Democratic party is (presumably) the most well-organized and well-funded liberal / progressive political organization in America. But it's wounded, adrift, and the list of Democratic politicians not career collaborators in a corrupt system is very short. 

Whether the Democratic party is even relevant in 2018 is an open question; just being the only big Liberal game in town isn't a definition of relevancy. Being the party of more Centrist is not relevancy. Just to survive, we cannot stand in the Center -- that time is long past. The Democratic party needs to be shaken down to its foundations and rebuilt to meet real demands of our times and our people. 

If we can't rebuild the Democratic party, or develop a political organization which represents the future we want and need, then America is done. 

Electing another billionaire celebrity, without massive changes in our national priorities, is no more sustainable than the path being chosen by the current billionaire celebrity in office. The future is ours to lose, or to fight for. 

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Reprint Heaven: Small Animal Photos

Trolling For Submerged Vehicles
(Originally from 2015)

Obligatory Small Animal Photo At Beginning Of Blog Thing

Sniffing around the Intertubes, I found this. [Yes; this link does not work. Read on.]

“When is Ben coming home?” Edmund said.

“They told their dog they’d be back in a week,” the muddy boy said. “So… four more days, then. Their dog hates boats, which means anytime they leave on a sailing vacation their dog has to live outside and kill his own food and put up with me doing whatever I want to it.”

“Do you know which song unlocks the trapdoor in Ben’s cottage?” Edmund said.

As the muddy boy handed Edmund the carton of milk, Edmund saw that on the boy’s wrist someone had lettered, in mud, the letters M O N G O.

“I don’t know anything about songs,” the muddy boy said as he peeked into his bag.

Edmund gestured at the muddy boy’s wrist. “Did Mongo write that on you?”

“Yes.”

“You know Mongo?”

“I am Mongo. Who told you I wasn’t Mongo?”

“Nobody,” Edmund said. “But if you’re Mongo, I’m supposed to tell you something.”

“Then tell it.”

My original suspicion was that James Joyce had been reborn and has been using my name. However, it's part of a serial post-modern Intertubes novel entitled The Numberless, created by Ts’ui Pên, a Chinese writer now living in Italy (and thereupon, I am convinced, hangs a really good tale), translated by a person at Vanderbilt University and published by Potboiler Press.

But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me -- though I do happen to like boats, so long as I'm not actually on them. And, I don't live "outside", and don't kill my own food. I go to a restaurant, like anyone else; even if I have to use a child seat and have difficulty with the silverware.

There. Now you know everything. Except about Heino.

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MEHR, MIT AROOO:  All fans of Umberto Ecco and the Illuminati series, and anyone who enjoys those nifty 9-11 conspiracy videos posted on UTub, take note: in going back to check the links in this post (as the Intertubes has a way of marching on), we discovered a tiny mystery: The novel I'd quoted from had disappeared. And it didn't appear to be as it seemed.

The section quoted above was indeed from a postmodern, online novel, The Numberless -- however, the domain where it was posted, thenumberless.com, has expired.  It did exist, however (and proof can be seen courtesy of The Wayback Machine), but there are no search engine references to the work. 

Thankfully, the Wayback cache did keep a link to the email address at vanderbilt.edu of the novel's 'translator', Matthew S. Baker, and a search for him shows that he is quite real and very much extant.  Formerly of the MFA program at Vanderbilt University, he has had a children's novel, If You Find This, just released this year by Little, Brown publishers.

Baker's claim in posting The Numberless online was that it had been penned by Ts’ui Pên, a Chinese writer living in Rome, and that Baker had translated it from the original Italian.  Putting Pên's name into the vast whirl of the Googlemachine shows one reference  -- to a 1941 short story, "The Garden Of Forking Paths", a collection of short works by Jorge Luis Borges and published under that title.

It's a story set during WW1, involving espionage and a search for Hermetic knowledge.  Pên is mentioned as "a learned and famous man" who resigned as governor of a Chinese province "to undertake two tasks: to write a vast and intricate novel, and to construct an equally vast and intricate labyrinth ... in which all men would lose their way." Ts'ui Pên was murdered before completing the novel. The draft he left behind was confusing, contradictory and made no sense to later readers. The labyrinth he mentioned was never found.

However, the novel Ts'ui Pên wrote was the labyrinth -- his attempt to describe a world where all possible outcomes of an event occur simultaneously, each one itself leading to different possible futures.  Today, given String Theory, The Multiverse, and even stories like "One: A Novel", this vision is hardly new -- but in 1941, notable.

And Heino is still around.

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In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning

Chutulu Makes To Bellow And To Squirm

Wonderboy's "administration" is not an actual government. It's a convoluted, dysfunctional psychodrama. It doesn't bear much relation to the actual world -- though events in the psychodrama have real effect on large numbers of human beings in that actual world.

The principal reason the United States hasn't come apart at the seams more than it already has is the continuity being provided by the bureaucracy of the U.S. government -- which Wonderboy and the alt-Right refer to as the 'Deep State'.

< breaking Godwin's Law >
After Hitler came to power in January, 1933, a new nazi government relied on the old Weimar bureaucratic structure -- not only to support radical change, but to keep the mundane aspects of daily government running -- just as Weimar had used the old Kaiserzeit government to usher in a Republic.

The nazis began a campaign in 1933-34 to push out and replace mid- and high-level members of government bureaucracies -- Jews, those too politically "Red", or otherwise unwilling to cooperate with the New Order. This program was instituted across the board, but particularly true in the Arts, Finance, and The Police. Also, those in government who had secretly (or not so secretly) been early nazi party members settled scores with personal rivals in their departments by denouncing them.

In the lower ranks, there was similar culling and denunciation -- but most government functionaries only saw themselves as serving the legally established order, carrying out their jobs as, duty bound, they always had.

As Chancellor, Hitler disliked the details of running a government or making decisions he saw as beneath him, delegating day-to-day governance -- to his Ministers, and party control to the district Gauleiters.

Nazi control of Germany and the daily life of its citizens was defined by the principles of the nazi party, and backed by new laws in 1934 and 35, primarily against Jews, and government functionaries ensured they were carried out.  The success (albeit limited) of the nazi government's social and financial plans between 1933 and 1938 were in part due to the effort of a government whose structure was rooted in the Hohenzollern era.

After 1933, even if the German version of the Deep State had tried to slow or circumvent Hitler's directives, when the Second World War began, Germany's focus as a military-political state shifted towards 'national security'. Any attempt to throw sand in the gears would be met with the harshest penalties.

Ultimately, Hitler's method of governing -- based more on delusion than reality -- and the toadying obeisance of his direct reports as they squabbled for power and influence, even at the end, overshadowed the government bureaucracies which helped make his grip on power a reality.
< /breaking Godwin's Law >

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 Just Coincidence In The Psychodrama (Digby's Hullabaloo)
[P.S.: Read From Bottom To Top]
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MEHR, MIT EINE KLEINES BETRACHTUNG:  Just a thought -- I expect there will be a chorus of support for release of "The Paper" "The Post", a film extolling the courage of the New York Times'  Washington Post's publishing of 'The Pentagon Papers', which detailed how the U.S. government (i.e., several Presidential administrations, the Defense Department and the Military) had lied to Congress and the public about the scope of and reasons behind America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

There is still little support for Edward Snowden's whistleblowing of the massive violation of privacy of Americans through surveillance of digital communications, among other things. 

Worse, I don't think many people today remember how important the release of those secret documents was, or the context of the era within which they appeared. Between 1961 and 1971 (when the Papers were published), the Bay Of Pigs took place; the U.S. began increasing its involvement in Southeast Asia; the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred; the assassination of JFK; the Gulf Of Tonkin Incident in 1964, which prompted a massive deployment of U.S. troops to Vietnam; the assassination of MLK, Jr., and RFK; the 1968 Tet Offensive; the election of Richard Nixon;  the Cointelpro and Phoenix programs, And the War ground on.

(One reason people may not consider the impact of the Papers' release: our current culture is dominated by digital information and digital storage -- easy to access, if you have system permissions.  But handling information in 1971 was as it had always been -- paper documents, stored in files -- and obtaining copies of it took more time, subterfuge and planning than simply copying files to a thumb drive.)

Worse still, I don't believe many people understand or even care about the programs and capabilities Snowden revealed, or the reasons behind his decision to do so.

Even more worse, I couldn't identify the actual name of the film, and the fact that the Pre-Jeffy WaPo was the original venue for publishing the Papers.  The Dog grows old.

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Future Sky

Current Assumptions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Annual Big Good On Last Night Of The Hanukkah

Is It Wonderful This Life?
By I. Rabschinsky

George Bailey Guy Understanding How We Are To Being Completely Screwed

This is now usual standard hoo boy holiday good for you Internets Tradition. You should enjoy, since next time it may be costing you to read this kinds of blog -- because in our Big Huge Nation there is becoming no room for little opinions such as these. But rather than break printing presses, now they can make very hard to find you on the Googling, very slow to load the pages.

And when Internets are very expensive, Peoples will choose sites which load quickly. Like Good News Tower Of Power and Wholesome Musik For Children. You understand.

Ha ha ha. But, of course; if you have the money, you can see. If you are with the huge money, you can have opinions. How fast the Freedom goes, because Freedom. Ha ha ha!

Great-Uncle Yehudi, who is being so much older now (but is strong enough to want to be hit by telephone book until falling down), refuses to be watching the television news. Little Rupert Fox, he never watched, but now he will not see the See Enn Enn, Big Mouse News, or Amazon News, or even BBC or the Pee Bee Ess Very Balanced. "I am angry, Isidore," he says from the big chair which Reclines. "I would spit, if I was not in my own house, sitting."

But what if you are not watching, I say; you will be not the informed! Great-Uncle Yehudi says, "You are watching what somebodys are wanting to teach you. And their lesson is always, 'You have no power! You are betrayed! Give up! You cannot be fighting the Bosses! Obey the Cossacks! Shut your mouth and convert to be Christian kind of Gentile!' "

So what do we do? Yehudi makes a sour face. "I will be watching watch The Mister Ed." But what do we do if the Cossacks come? I ask, and Great-Uncle Yehudi laughs.

"Izzi, you are my favorite Great-Nephew (I am only great-nephew, I remind), but Cossacks are already here. You have to choose between learning the lesson They are teaching now, or not learning. And if you decide not to learn, then you must be waiting, and when time comes, being ready to fight."  

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Ah; Great-Uncle Yehudi: and still, we love him. So we make this the annual offering of the Funny for you, hoping that it can remind of the Time Before and make a smile.

I, Rabschinsky, say this say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

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So always in the America there is at this time the fooding, and also the Sports Produkt on the television. Many people filling themselves with Holiday as if they about to be told, "Next year, you cannot eat!". I am thinking they are the hostage of their Hindbrain, which is still Neanderthal and wishes to fight with Mastodon. But, still.

And, I am noticing specific films which is only appearing on Amerikanyets television at these months between like maybe September and the time of your New Year.

My examples: At Passover, some of the television is showing The Ten Super Big Mitzvah Rules, with Charlton Heston Guy -- you know, movie where Moses stop making fooling around to pretend he is Big Guy of the Egypt, and decides to get real job saving People Of Israel.

This requires lots of people walking around, always saying "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses" -- like, if they say this three times, they will be teleported by magik into better movie. Navarone Kind Of Big Guns, maybe, or Socialist-Colored Panther.

Place Which Is Gone Forever: Amerikanyets Driving To Movies:

"Moses, Moses, Moses -- What is happening with our Drive-Ins?"

At another time in year, they are showing same Heston Guy what is Moses in Big Mitzvah Rules in another movie, Ben Of Her. However this is basically film of Jewish guy who becomes like early Jesus guy, but by accident.

Movie is good; he is Number Forty-One guy in slave ship, rowing like animator for the Disney; there are becoming big boat battle, and he gets to be some kind of honorary Goyim. Later, there is an exciting thing with horses and carts -- but it is not the porn film, so too bad for you. Go to web sites where they have not blocked you.

Charlton Ben Heston Making The Ramming Speed, 1959

At finally, with the Christmas, every year since somebody discover the Secret Of Fire there is this broadcasting this movie, It Is Wonderful This Life, made by Frank Capra Guy in 1947, showing the kind of place which everybody wanted to believe was the Amerika. Small town, everybody knows everybody; values is good and everybody work hard and knows their places.

Just like village in the Moldova, except animals do not leave defecation in the street, everyone is speaking English, and most people have job. Plus concrete used in apartment buildings is better quality.

Every single year they are showing this film. It is now a classic also, like Wizard Of Odd and Potemkin Kind Of Battleship and Mister Hulot Goes To Beach Place. It is as big movie as The Tanks Know The Truth (Very popular Great Patriotic War movie made in the Russia. My Great-Uncle Yehudi claims he is in this film as Extra, but still we love him).

Big Scene From Tanks Knowing The Truth: Are They Knowing?

Well, They Are Tank; You Are Person. You Want To Be That Sure?

It Is Wonderful This Life story is maybe simple: Guy, George Bailey Guy, living in small town wants to die, because he thinks his life is shit. And there are the angels, who show us life of this Guy in the little town, and how he is The Good, and there is the Rich Guy who is The Bad. And George Bailey Guy never gets to do things in the Life because the Fate is not for him.

Then there is mistake with money (a problem made from the Rich Bad Guy), for which he is blamed, and he runs from family and goes to place of Publik Alkohol; finally he goes to bridge to jump in freezing water so his family will get small piece of Insurance money. Very Sad (There is also squirrel in another scene which is sad, but never mind). Also very Petit-Bourgeois.

So, Angel Guy comes to the Earth and shows this George Bailey Guy his life is maybe kind of okay, not so much the shit; and boom boom boom, problem with the money goes away in big scene at end when everyone gives him their money, and everyone sings. So happy, little bells on tree and big bells of church ring; America wins the World War Two and future is filled with television and freeway. The End.

But this is too simple, my friend. No way is actual life like this. So, maybe some of me thinks this is kind of the Propaganda about America, to keep us from seeing the Truth of the Things.

And, there is forbidden version of this film, which is other kind of the Propaganda. Please -- allow me to introduce.

---

борьбе за построение социализма во время Угнетение
(также называется "Любовь и революция" после 1991)
("Love And Revolution", Directed By Frank Kapronovich [1949]; Starring Pytor Chost, Gravnik Bolodorin, Irina Valutin. Special appearances by the Spirit Of Revolution, also Che Guevara, Samuel Beckett, and entire 12th Guards Motorized Infantry Regiment)

SO, movie opens with Guy, Georgi Edwardovich Bailey Guy, at the Bridge. He is unhappy, this Guy; boy oh boy he is like making the panic. He goes to public alkohol place and tries to think, but he only finds himself between the forces of dissent and confusion!

TROTSKYITE GUY: River not so bad, after five minutes.

EXISTENTIAL GUY: Wait, but no one comes. No one cares.

Hoo boy; Georgi is in big fix. This guy has family with SmallChilds, and tiny Policy Insuring The Life -- and he is believing everybody would be better off if he would jump and get it over with, already.

GEORGI: My life is steaming pile of animal things,

because the Rich Guy will always win. Now I am jumping.

But, Georgi is being watched at Bridge. Not by some angel Guy (none of this reliance on things which cannot be proven by good Socialist science!) -- but even better -- is Spirit Of Revolutsya!

(Spirit Of The Revolution Watches Georgi)

And, The Spirit saves Georgi! He takes him to place where they can speak of things, of the Truth -- and slowly, Georgi's eyes are opened to not only the forces of historical determinism, but the inevitability of struggle against the oppressor classes!

GEORGI: So you are saying that when the consciousness

of the People is raised sufficiently, that armed struggle

is not only necessary but inevitable?

SPIRIT: You got it, Comrade.

So, Georgi, now with eyes opened thanks to the words of the kindly Spirit, is seeing that the world is filled with inequality and criminal things so big your head feels like kicked soccer ball. It is like understanding that, not only are you living as Dog, lapping up the vomit of the Rich Guy, but you work in factory to make guns to force others to live like this (Also, the Rich Guy pays you in fake dog vomit and those X-Ray glasses which do not work).

For Georgi, this is whole bunch of dried fish to eat in one night (Like story by that Guy, Dickens Guy, Carol Burnett Christmas, or something). This is the Life? He is asking himself.

A World Of Things For Them, But Not Food For Children

Economy And Bad Fate For Peoples Means Nothing To Them

For Them, The World Is Something To Carve Up, Like Beef

While The Many People Lose Everything To The Illegal Foreclosure

So now Georgi is filled with indignant and bad feeling for The State Of These Things. He feels the pain of the oppressed, working masses, and is being filled with Revolutionary Fervor -- and he goes to talk with the People in his little village, to tell them what the Spirit had revealed to him -- and the Spirit sends along friend, Che Guevara Guy, to help.

GEORGI: We don't have to live under the heel of Potter's boot!

He's just some, bloodsucking animal! Feeding on all of us -- and I'm

tired of living on fake dog vomit! We have to run things!

CHE GUEVARA SPIRIT GUY: Ay, Yi Yi! You listen to this guy.

The People, moved by Georgi's words, march with him to the place of the Bad Rich Guy, to demand Justice, the chance to make something other than guns, and to be paid in actual money instead of rubber dog vomit and X-Ray glasses which do not work.

BAD RICH GUY: You realize that the manufacture and sale of

weapons around the globe is the backbone of our nation's industry?

GEORGI: You don't understand -- the days of taking your rubber

dog barf are over, Potter! We're going to run things!

MOB: No fake dog barf!! No fake dog barf!!

BAD RICH GUY: My family has run this town for fifty generations.

All I have to do is close the factories. How long will it be before

your little rag-tag mob starts to starve? They'll come crawling back

to work -- and for half the rubber dog barf I gave you before!

Then, Georgi takes the Big Step -- the one which all oppressed people are taking in these movies when faced with Oppressors who pay them with rubber dog vomit: He crosses line from intellectualizing his oppression to active revolutionary.

Otherwise, we would have no resolution of all this rising action; and only ending for this film possible is that everyone would go for Pizza. This is unsatisfying from view of the Socialist imperative.

GEORGI: You're wrong, Potter -- you, and people of your

class are finished. Now you're going to face Justice for your

crimes -- because the People own the means of production!

And so The Bad Rich Guy is taken away by the People; his house later becomes hospital, day-care center, and place where revolutionary theater troupes practice before going into the streets.

And, of course, there is a proper celebration at the Georgi Bailey house, with the Revolutsia Spirit and the SmallChilds.

GEORGI: Gosh, Spirit, I don't know how we can thank you.

SMALLCHILD 01: Spirit, can't you stay and have some Fair

Trade™ coffee with homemade whiskey with us?

SPIRIT: No, SmallChild; I must go. There are so many oppressed

peoples in a world beset by unspeakable monsters of Capital.

But I will take a shot of that whiskey -- neat, please.

Finally, after long discussion between Rich Bad Guy and the Organs Of State Security, he faces Revolutionary Justice and the verdict of The People.

RICH BAD GUY: Long live International Capitalism!

PEOPLE'S MILITIA LEADER: Fire!

And, of course, Georgi and his lovely wife are pausing in their labor to build a New Socialist Future to share a moment's reflection on the plight of The Peoples, and also to suggest some hygienic sexual activity between them which may occur later.

...and in the background, The Internationale swells on the soundtrack, sung by the Sad Vlad Orphans Choir Of Greater Moscow! Please to show the credits!

This film has not been shown since its original release; big shame, also, because it is at least as good as movie with Bert Landcaster in it but of the name, just now, is escaping me.

Great-Uncle Yehudi likes Revolutionary Love. He thinks it is wonderful comedy, but still we love him. If you can find this film on DVD, then okay. If not, well then it is big world out there! Be That Guy -- go find!

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

---

Republican Finish Tax Bill; Perhaps Will Provide Details Later

Step Outside

Up There (Getty)

They haven't yet determined how to charge us a fee  for looking up, into the universe -- but would very much like to, because it is who They are, and is what will please Them.

But even so, step outside and look up. 

___________________________

Tank Onslaught At El Alamein

Nazis Forced To Standstill As Attack Fails

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________________________

Trumplandia, Too

Bark Howl Bark Howl Bark Howl Bark Bark

An associate animal Skypes at me:

...BTW, they're not going to let anything actually happen to Trump. He's the perfect fall guy while they carry out their master plan. They've wanted to dismantle the safety net. They have the idiot in chief, they run the congress, and it's a golden opportunity.

-- The Big Pilgrim Chicken

Since November of 2016, Trumplandia has been chaotic, unpredictable, covered by mud and a stinking fog. Waypoints which all of us (and our allies, and our enemies) have relied on as solid landmarks to navigate into the future are hard to see, or are being erased.  Compasses are no longer reliable. Facts and Truth are Whatever The Leader, Or Those Who Speak For Him, Say It Is.

Despite that, some major shapes of the place we inhabit have become clearer over eleven months.

• Trumplandia -- for at least the next decade -- cannot be relied on by other nations to participate in anything, unless it benefits Trumplandia, even when failing to do so allows other Empire wannabes to step in. Even when the lives of others are at risk due to climate or environmental breakdown (look at what happened to Puerto Rico, and they're Americans), or war. Look somewhere else for assistance with the next Ebola outbreak, child vaccination program, or emergency famine relief. The Department of State, independent and essentially nonpartisan, will continue to shrink -- diplomacy is so overrated.  Trumplandia will regard itself in the mirror, and revel in its self-created beauty, because Freedom: USA! USA!

• Here at home, all the groundwork to de-fund the infrastructure of health, education, and the national welfare has been laid -- for at least the next decade. Healthcare and education can be left to privatization and 'market forces' -- if you're not sick, don't worry! And children only need to know enough to sign their names, and be able to offer trays of treats to Our Wealthy. Programs to support human beings in real need will be reduced or eliminated, because Republicans "have a rough time wanting to spend ... billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything". Social Security and Medicare are next, because older and sick people apparently won't lift a finger to help themselves, either -- they'll have to learn to pull themselves up on their own, just like Our Leader did.  

• And, our Financial Industry needs less and less regulation. We need new innovation in investment vehicles, opportunities for growth! And the manufacturers of products don't need so much regulation, either; it's all so complex and expensive for them! So, whatever. Because Freedom!

• Our Elite and Wealthy are being provided with even more benefits, and treats. It will take time (too long) for the peasantry 'regular' people to realize what this means for them, and that Trumplandia has become shabbier, less inviting and welcoming; kind of like Pottersville. But they will watch their teevees (excited over the next Big Game!) and convince themselves that the world isn't shabbier, meaner, colder, harder. No! It's The Same As It Ever Was -- but more Biggly Huge! Gonna Be Great, Let Me Tell You! 

• Environmental concerns in Trumplandia don't exist; climate breakdown is fake. Industry and jobs, new strip mines and private residential developments -- and more service staff to soothe and do things -- anything -- for Our Wealthy. And when disasters strike; well, it's simply god's will. The survivors won't lift a finger to help themselves and expect the government to do everything, anyway.  But; look, you stupid peasants; the business of Trumplandia is Business. Water quality, air quality; food safety; it's all burdensome and unnecessary. The future is for "the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies".  Regulation just takes away from that investing! We don't need it! Because Freedom! USA! USA!

• The system of justice in Trumplandia is being set, judge by judge, to reflect the values of its creators -- so that even if things changed, and next year every Right-wing buffoon were voted out of office, there would still be Right-wing judges to prevent reversal of the Will of Our Elite and Wealthy. And as below, so above -- the Right wants new Supreme Court vacancies for the all-Republican Congress to fill. And who can deny The Right its every desire?

• There is no movement to renew the national infrastructure. There's certainly no government funds, federal or state, to pay for it. And corporations have no interest in funding even a portion of a national, WPA-like effort. But, Trumplandia will have it's Wall -- even the one being quietly erected between Our Wealthy, and everyone else. And, we're being shown by example that Trumplandians should be building walls between each other. It's a nation for the strong and competitive, not the weak. Who needs 'em? Workhouses. Surplus population; you know. USA! USA!

A war might slow this trajectory -- but only if it's a military exchange that involves direct damage and casualties in the United States. Then, no one will be paying attention to the alt-Right's new culture -- we'll be trying to find our balance in a new Trumplandia, one that more closely resembles a police state.  And if the military action is just another distant conflict in the Forever War, it will doubtless be ignored by the majority of Trumplandians -- unless the casualties are significant.

An economic crisis could affect how Trumplandia develops, but only by accelerating the damage to the culture. Even without a Recession, the costs of what Trump and the Right are doing will begin to fall on inner cities and on people of color, first -- possibly while Trump is still in his first term.

When people begin to react out of desperation (because they understand: there are ways to be owned, even if you're not bought on the block at public auction), how quickly will Ferguson-style protests move from "unlawful assembly" to become 'terrorist acts'?

And, there will always be money in the budgets for police departments. Always.

______________________________

But wait: people say, this will change; it has to change.

They expect big gains for Democrats next year -- with everything that's happened, how could the Dems lose? Or, people hope for a miracle ending to this nightmare, that Trump could be impeached.

Historically, it could be argued that it's possible: in a midterm year, with an unpopular president in office, large gain of Congressional seats for his opposition tend to follow. And, the Democratic leadership claims their base is energized for an upset. They all but say Look, we have to win, because just look at what Trump is doing! Voting for us is a vote for sanity -- we're the only alternative!

However, their party has no real leader, no compelling spokesperson who can communicate the reality of what the Right is doing, why that's important, and offer concrete alternatives. After the chaos of  2016 and Clinton's ugly dominance of the DNC (because Obama helped leave the party effectively bankrupt), the Democrats are fragmented and without a coherent message. Very bad timing, for them.

When we do finally hear a message from the Democrats, it won't be a populist or socialist one. The DNC strategy is to characterize the Republicans as radicals; the Dems believe they will win by appearing to be the calm, rational, inoffensive Center -- and their candidate will appear as just that.

But, none of this changes the truth of the midterm math: To shift the balance in Congress, Democrats need to win nationally -- and primarily in strongly Republican districts. Without a galvanizing candidate or a strong message, can they do this? Or, is it more likely that the Right loses a few seats but continues to dominate all three branches of government?

< spoiler >

But, consider: Do you actually believe that the current American political structure does more than prop up a status quo which does not believe in providing collective security, protecting collective rights, or doing collective anything for its citizens -- beyond ensuring they participate in a cycle of  labor to earn money, to purchase goods and services, and provide unearned income for Our Wealthy?

Does anything about the preoccupation with material acquisition, celebrity, and constant stimulation in our culture (but not only ours) strike you as absurd, out of balance? That for decades you have gotten up every morning with the hollow feeling that you are being lied to, and manipulated, on a scale so huge that it frightens you to think about it? 

That what things you may have, and what you may do, are being defined by individuals who do not see you as a human being with a Life, but only in terms of what amount of value you can produce for them, over X years, before you die? 

< /spoiler >

The old-line GOP has made a Faustian bargain in backing Trump, in order to achieve everything they've wanted for the past forty years by brute force. They're doing it. They're also counting on The Center in Trumplandia to be Sheep, as usual, who won't notice what they've done until it's too late. And, when it turns out their plans were lies and worse than lies, the Right will just blame someone else -- Democrats, immigrants; terrorists.

The old GOP is also hoping they can outmaneuver the alt-Right, and maintain control of the Republican 'brand'; maybe they can. Keeping Our Leader happy is part of that balancing act with the alt-Right Brownshirts -- so McConnell and Ryan and the rest support Trump, for now.

But if the "Russia Thing" begins to heat up, and serious enough charges are brought against Trump directly, that could change. But impeachment is not likely -- the Democrats don't have the power in Congress, and the GOP may see saving Trump as the cost of saving the Republican party, and themselves.

__________________________________

The "Russia Thing"; let's walk through it:  The special prosecutor's investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian government to influence the 2016 election may result in three possible conclusions:

• One, that collusion was probable, but not provable. A number of middle- and lower-level Trump campaign operatives (like Manafort, Gates and Papadopolous) are charged with crimes uncovered in the course of the investigation (such as making false statements to the FBI, money laundering, etc.) but don't necessarily tie to the election, and the case stops there.

• Two, that some level of collusion with Russian agents may be proven, and/or a conspiracy to cover it up afterwards. The collusion/conspiracy involves Trump's inner circle (e.g., Jared; Don, Jr.; Bannon; Carter Page; Sessions, Bannon), and some are indicted -- but no one rolls over on The Capo, and the case stops there. 

• Three, that collusion with Russian agents can be proven; indictments of members of Trump's inner circle occur, and eventually Trump himself is charged -- most likely because he asked for Russian help to affect the election, or conspired to obstruct investigations into it.

The first and second scenarios are Shiny Objects. They'll attract attention, make good theater, and allow broadcast media to charge higher advertising rates. But they won't have much practical affect on the direction of country, and certainly won't impact the Elites.

The third scenario is more serious, because it will inevitably escalate into a symbolic, Culture War confrontation -- between rule of law, and rule by America's political Right; between Justice and Oligarchy. That can alter politics, and even give Our Wealthy pause (admittedly, though, not much).

_______________________________

Something to consider: American intelligence agencies (primarily CIA, NSA, and FBI [historically responsible for counterintelligence within the U.S.]) had been aware of the hacking, and other activities at issue, since August of 2016. All agreed that Russian intelligence, at Vladimir Putin's direction, were the perpetrators. They reported this to then-president Obama and, in a very unusual move, released a sanitized version of their analysis after the election in December, 2016. 

The intelligence community used multiple sources in that investigation, and it's standard not to comment on what methods were used -- point being, the CIA and NSA may have definitive proof that persons now in the White House have committed offenses, and not be able to present it in open court or to a Congressional subcommittee without revealing how they obtained it. 

The new CIA Director, Trump appointee Mike Pompeo, may not be anxious to reveal information, either. He has been unclear what the agency's position is on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

_______________________________

If Trump were accused, his attorneys would assert (as they already have) that a sitting president cannot be indicted. That would provoke a Constitutional question and move directly to the Supreme Court.  Like Bush v. Gore, it would likely end with a 5-4 decision in Trump's favor, a terrible precedent.

[Note: Thanks to the Big Pilgrim Chicken (Roo -- "Who Are You?" "Airborne!") for correcting my errors in describing the impeachment process. My prior version stated that the House Rules and Judiciary committees would each have to agree by vote to refer the charges to the full House of Representatives. Wrong.]

Whether the question of indicting a sitting president is raised or not, 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. 

Like the rest of the Congress, the Judiciary Committee is dominated by Republicans. Partisan politics may rule; the Right has just 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'.

____________________________________

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.

____________________________________

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 possible 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 could 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.

____________________________________

That's Right: Thousands of hours of media time, millions spent on investigating and attempting to punish that useless bully, and it all may come to nothing. The alt-Right will use any Impeachment attempt to fuel an agenda of bigotry and violence. Trumplandia will be a nation more bitterly divided than at any time since 1860 -- and that's exactly what 'patriots' like Mr Bannon want. Leaving the United States more internally divided and preoccupied is certainly what Mr Putin would want. 

Many things can happen, surprising or not. But at the moment, Trumplandia appears like a business, a property obtained in a hostile takeover -- and the corporate raiders who grabbed it are busy selling off its assets, diverting the proceeds into offshore accounts; treating the employees left like serfs; roaring with laughter at their great, good fortune, congratulating themselves as Winners! as they make fun of everyone else -- whom by their definition are Rubes, Suckers, and Losers!

How it all ends? I hope I'm wrong.

______________________________________

MEHR, MIT EIN TAUFZEREMONIE:  

Washington (Reuters) - President Donald Trump told Arab leaders on Tuesday that he intends to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a decision that breaks with decades of U.S. policy and risks fueling violence in the Middle East. 

...Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, who all received phone calls from Trump, joined a mounting chorus of voices warning that unilateral U.S. steps on Jerusalem would derail a fledgling U.S.-led peace effort and unleash turmoil in the region.

Reprint Heaven: This World At Night

Dusk
(Originally November 28, 2016)

(Now, at the end of November 2017; currently re-reading Rosbottom's When Paris Went Dark: The City Of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944; paragraphing added for emphasis:)

Article 43 of the... Hague Convention of 1907 states succinctly: "The authority of the legitimate power... [upon occupying an enemy's territory] shall take all the measures in his power to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and (civil life), while respecting... the laws in force in the country." 

Such benign language assumes that all occupying forces see their primary duty as maintaining a semblance of antebellum daily life. Yet it suggests that the occupier might well read in the innocuous phrase "as far as possible" a loophole that would permit him to do whatever he wants. Also, there is no reference in [article 43] to the notion of time: How long is an occupation? Can it go on forever? Is it... open-ended? 

One of the cruelest impositions on an occupied nation is the idea that time is also an enemy, a heretofore anodyne phenomenon that becomes a patient, insatiable consumer of hope. [An] occupation is no longer just the temporary appropriation of sovereignty.

________________________________

As I punch this in, it's twilight on the Left Coast and almost too obvious an image. At work, in the aftermath of the election few people spoke about the results. Even fewer people mention what's to come, now, except with a lot of who-the fuck-knows eye rolling and shrugging.

For now, there is an adult, no matter what you think of his policies, in the White House. We can push the image of Trump and his ilk, of Mike Pence telling the media to "buckle up", out of our minds -- but everyone knows that this (relatively) liberal presidency is ending; the light is fading.

I wrote a long post claiming to know something of the future, but this was bullshit: I don't know, and am not going to pretend otherwise. I let those who can analyze and translate current events well, or those with louder voices, or with their penchant for ego masquerading as enlightenment, do their thing. The river will carry everything past if we're patient enough, sitting on the bank.

Something else, too:  the future is very present. It's going to play out in the faces and the lives of friends and total strangers, whose fates seem more important now than they did a month ago.

I'm not a very deep reader, and when uncomfortable tend to chew on the familiar. So I grabbed Alan Furst's The World At Night to read over the long weekend. It's a story of Paul Casson, a Parisian and a producer of films, in France at the fall of the Third Republic, and the choices he makes after. It's about morality, love, and the courage and venality of life during occupation.

Casson has been recalled to the army in the late spring of 1940; the Germans are already invading the Low Countries (and eventually, as everyone knows, France itself via the Ardennes). He is part of a propaganda unit filming the French army as it heads toward the front.

     ...Casson was stopped. The sentries were drunk and unshaven. "What brings you here?" one of them said.
     "We're making movies."
     "Movies! You know Hedy Lamarr?"
     "Dog dick," said another. "Not those kinds of movies. War movies."
     "Oh. Then what the hell are you doing up here?"
     The second man... offered Casson a bottle through the window... [and] laughed as he took the bottle back. "Come and see us, squire, after this shit's done with."
     The hard Parisian sneer in his voice made Casson smile. "I will."
     "You can find us up in Belleville, at The Pig's Ass."
     "See you then," Casson said, shoving the clutch in.
     "Red Front!" They called after him.

The German army is successful; Casson melts away, towards Paris, more a vagabond than a fleeing soldier.

     ... Sometimes, in a cafe, he heard the news on a radio. Nothing, he realized, could save them from losing the war. He left the roads, walked across springtime fields... He shared a campfire with an old man with a white beard, a sculptor, he said, from Brittany somewhere, who walked with a stick, and got drunk on some yellow stuff from a square bottle...
     ... "We'll all live deep down, now," the sculptor said, throwing a stick of wood on the fire. "Twenty ways to prepare a crayfish. Or, you know, chess. Sanskrit poetry. It will hurt like hell, sonny, you'll see."

Casson is a character who lived a comfortable, creative life, a Parisian life, and after the nazi victory he only wants to get back to living it -- and he does, until he discovers that he actually is a moral man. And, while it takes time for the corrosion of the Occupation to seep through to him, eventually he has to act against it. He had no other choice, really; it just took some time for him to become clear to himself.

At the end, Casson makes another choice -- as much an act against Occupation and exclusion, division and hate. For a purist or a Marxist, it will appear as sentimentalist garbage, a fool's choice. But it's often our deepest passions, sometimes hidden from ourselves and spurring us to act, that define us in the end.

_______________________________ 

For the Left, the appointment of Bush in 2000 was a shock unlike any other in American politics -- and what followed was an eight year chapter in the Banality of Evil.

Life under Bush, a limited, Dauphin of a man, was Life During Wartime -- one reason Obama's election in 2008 was greeted with street parties -- here in Kiddietown, it was like the Place De Concorde in 1944 -- The nazis are gone! Vive La France!  We were Liberated!

But, Bush and the creatures that swept in with him had some legitimacy as part of the political mainstream.  Lil" Boots played at being a loud, crude Man Of The People but was always the son of a Yankee, blue-blood, Old Money family.

Not so with Trump or the alt-Right. He has all the sophistication of an infomercial, the intellectual depth of a racetrack tout -- and, it's not an act.  The opportunistic fascist con artists he will drag into government in his wake will wipe their boots on the collective culture.  No one knows precisely what will happen but it's almost certain to be even worse than we imagine.

 Obligatory Cute Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Ogg Ogg

And compared with the Bush-time, it feels more like Occupation. Like the real thing -- as if Bush had been a dry run, a testing of limits. Just outside our field of vision, we sense men in Field Grey on the corners, but they're waiting, not asking for Ausweis; not yet.  Unconsciously, this was perhaps why I had taken Furst's book down from the shelf in the first place.

It's going to take time for the corrosion to sink in. And it will take time for people to act against it from our moral centers -- some sooner than others, but act we will have to. And the values and passions at the core of our Selves will direct us. We don't have any other choice, really.

And, comparing what's coming to the nazi Occupation of Paris, or Europe, as metaphor isn't romanticizing our situation. It's all for-real.

_______________________________ 

From the Post That Never Was, some tasty links as you cook that Crayfish. Pass the square bottle of yellow stuff, would you? And, which way to The Pig's Ass?

"Red Front!" They called after him.

Alastair Crooke, Without Any Masterpiece Theatre  --  and who he quotes, Raul Meijer.

ARTHUR, Once Upon A Time In His Head, who self-references. It's totally okay.

Richard Rorty, though he be dead (quotes below -- see The Paper Of Record's original 1998 review.)

"[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

"At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. …

"One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet...

"This world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no more sense of community with any workers anywhere than the great American capitalists of the year 1900... [This group included intellectuals who are] quite well insulated, at least in the short run, from the effects of globalization."

__________________________