I rarely comment on politics anymore as the situation has been dire and dismal for too long and I'm too old, grumpy and cynical to even bother with it any more.
As far as I can tell, the Dems are done. They did what they saw themselves elected to do, passing the COVID relief plan of 2020, and that's it. Done. Going home now. Bye-bye. The Congress starts its LOOOONNNNNNGGGGG vacation tomorrow, and they, our elected representatives in the two Democrat controlled bodies, are outa here, so long, too bad about all the things they didn't get done. Maybe next year, eh?
It truly is shameful, primarily for the Dems' failure to recognize that anything is urgent enough to keep them from going home for the summer and letting everything burn while they do whatever it is they do during the hot months.
Nothing at all is urgent enough for them. Certainly not the looming eviction tsunami. Climate catastrophe. COVID resurgence. Sputtering economic situation. Federal voting rights protections. The faltering lost in the weeds infrastructure half-plan. And on and on and on.
Enh. Too much trouble. Going home now. Y'all can fend for yourself. mkay?
I'm old enough to remember the catastrophic Democratic wipe out in the elections of 2010. At the time, I speculated that it was deliberate. The Dems did not try to hold state and local offices, and they failed to hold on to their congressional majorities, largely it seemed to me because of gross policy failures to adequately address the financial and economic meltdown of the failed previous administration, and perhaps worse, the imposition of what was at the time a very unpopular health insurance mandate (which was not yet in effect) on a long suffering and fearful population.
This was like a one-two "fuck you" punch to the public, and the public responded by voting them out.
Bye-bye, so long.
And as is so often the case, those superfluous Dems turned around and blamed the voters for failing to show up at the polls.
The 2010 R take over of state houses meant that they would be in charge of gerrymandering election districts for the next ten years, possibly longer -- it will be twenty years because Rs still hold the majority of state houses -- and now with voter suppression all the rage among Rs, the outcomes of elections will be determinable by R legislatures and/or election officials regardless of the actual votes.
It would be astonishing if we hadn't seen this sort of dereliction by Democrats before. In fact, it's so frequent, it's considered normal. Dems don't have a follow-through. They present X+++ as their Plan, they do Y-, and then they go home -- either voted out or as in this case simply because they want to. Nyah. Nyah.
It's always the voters fault when they do this, never their own.
A lot of internet opinionators hate on the Dems for everything because it's their brand to do so. They claim to be "progressive" or something but objectively they're R shills in "progressive" drag, and they've been around in one form or another since before the internet was born.
And these days we should understand that a lot of Democrats, some in powerful positions in or out of office (particularly but not exclusively in the media) are ex-Republicans who are still ideologically aligned with conservative political and economic ideology. I like to think of Markos over at Daily Kos in this way. He was a die-hard Republican who "switched" during the Bush2 years, especially in support of the Dean campaign in 2004. Dean himself, though nominally a Democrat, was for all intents and purposes a Rockefeller Republican like his parents. Ie: he came from money, was raised in a Republican household, was basically conservative in ideology though with many old-line progressive attributes (Progressivism was originally formulated and implemented within a Republican political context), and had he been elected, he would have governed as a progressive Republican, in contrast to Bush2, who was essentially a corporate shill and war-monger, in other words, a representative of the un-progressive wing of the Republican Party.
Markos likes to claim that his site is intended to help elect "more and better Democrats" -- which it has utterly failed to do. Instead, his and many other ostensibly Democrat-aligned sites on the internet have served to elect many more -- and often worse -- Republicans who have turned into bat-shit fascists.
I have often criticized Daily Kos for failing to even name a Democrat on its front page, even during election season, while featuring and amplifying Republicans endlessly. Interestingly, the tactic of constantly writing and talking about Republicans while ignoring Democrats doesn't seem to work very well in electing "more and better Democrats," does it?
But since the Republican Party has essentially taken over the Democrats, indeed become "Democrats", we're really dealing with two branches of a Uniparty that both serve corporate interests quite shamelessly, leaving the public to fend for itself. Relying on politicians of either party to serve the public is a fool's game. We haven't seen that happen for generations. And even then, political service to the public was limited.
The failure of Democrats in Congress and the White House to substantially move government from inappropriate corporate service to long-neglected and necessary public service -- again -- is likely to lead to yet another mid-term blow out election for Republicans which signs and signals suggest will be the last more or less "free and fair" election this nation/empire conducts.
Any future election will be an overt sham intended solely to preserve an illusion while protecting and perpetuating neo-fascist oligarchic rule regardless of which team nominally holds power. I think many would say this already happened, perhaps with the Bush v Gore decision of the Supreme Court in 2000.
There's no going back.
Every attempt at restoring some kind of public service -- as opposed to corporate service -- ethic to government since then has failed.
There is no sign any such effort will succeed in the future. Every sign suggests the opposite.
I can't say I know what's really going on because I don't, but the view from out here in the wilderness of the continuing spectacle in DC is both alarming and hilarious.
The "President" is a running gag, but he's a joke whose policy effects are real and devastating for many. He seems to be intent on causing as much harm as he can to as many people as he can before his plug is finally pulled and he's hooked off the stage for good and all. He seems to know he doesn't have that much longer in the Oval Office -- if indeed he's actually in office and not just someone else's puppet on a string.
It's never been clear with him.
But then, nothing is.
Congress, for its part, seems nearly incapable of functioning so long as there are these pesky "parties" and "politics' going on. The rare agreements, like sending Calista Gingrich to the Vatican (oh, that should work out well) as ambassadress are often more symbolic of "supporting our own" and real policy moves.
They can't do much more without pissing off someone. Some time. Some where. And too many of them are terrified of the consequences of pissing off the wrong person/people at the wrong time.
The White House seems to be run by The Generals whose objective appears to be committing as much mayhem, death and destruction (directly or by proxy) as they can in as many places as they can so as to force the rebels (whomever they may be) to desist and submit. I keep seeing references to all the death and destruction committed by Obama and Mrs. Clinton, but never anything about the death and destruction an order of magnitude greater committed by Trump and His Generals. It's as if Obama and Mrs. Clinton are still in charge -- of whatever they were in charge of. They are blamed no matter what happens.
Trump and His Generals don't actually exist. Or something.
The legitimacy of the courts has been under question since the appalling Bush v Gore SCOTUS decision almost 20 years ago now. Whatever the corrupt courts decide is subject to a perfect storm of dispute and disagreement. No longer is justice found in the courts (assuming it ever was).
So here we are. Effectively, we're being ruled by a junta fronted by a buffoon.
While I have railed plenty against Trump and the gang of thieves and mountebanks who moved into the White House with him, that does not mean I am unaware of or uninterested in the continuing failure of the fucked up Democrats to offer anything other than the bitter pill of the Status Quo to the long-suffering masses.
The Democrats are no better than the Bourbons prior to the Revolution -- or maybe no better than the Bourbon Restoration après Napoleon. They neither learn nor do they forget.
It's nuts-making.
We're dealing with a Ruling Class incapable of comprehending any misery, inconvenience or discomfort apart from their own.
Even the slaughter of the innocents overseas is incomprehensible to them, despite their constant escalation of the process of murder by every means necessary.
It's insane.
The Ruling Class includes, of course, the likes of Trump. He being an avatar of the worst of the category. Though he's largely been disempowered by the Permanent Government, he hasn't been defenestrated, and that, I think, is partly due to the fact that the constraints on his power effectively produce what the neoLibCon Ruling Class would be doing anyway but at a somewhat accelerated pace. And, bonus!, the masses are endlessly entertained in the bargain. Genius!
Democrats, of course, are eager participants in this little goon show. Of course they are. They see plenty of advantages to their own sweet selves from going along with it, even pushing the narrative this way or that. Nothing really changes all that much, you see, and so long as that is the case, Dems are sitting pretty no matter what.
The Bourbon Democrats are sticking with a simple narrative: "Trump evil, Russian interference, Putin the Devil, never-you-mind about anything else. Who is Sanders again?"
It boils down to Baroness Thatcher's rubric: "There is no alternative." TINA. There ya go.
I have never doubted that the election was manipulated to produce the result it did. Trump in response to a question about Russian interference said something I think was true. Yes, there was Russian interference, but it probably wasn't just Russian interference. There was likely other interference from other countries and (importantly) from individuals.
He didn't say, but the upshot is that the outcome in the three states that gave him the electoral college is the key to understanding what happened. But as Jill Stein's recount effort showed, in those three states, it is impossible to verify the vote. So yes, manipulation could well have taken place and there is no way to prove or disprove it.
How convenient. And note, the Bourbon Democrats are just as happy it is so. They have never questioned the outcome in those three states. Why? Isn't it obvious? They know what happened, they have been eager participants in election manipulation -- boy howdy have they ever been! -- and they see only benefits from continuing the unverifiable electoral system we have now. They will not interfere, no way, no how, even if they lose again and again.
In other words, so long as both teams can play, they don't care.
They figure the Rabble are too stupid to understand these esoteric matters, so why should they care anyway? Right?
Another part of the narrative has to do with some mythical "whiteruralworkingclass" whatever that is.
Of course I know what this is, it's a false construct -- apparently developed by Republican consultants but eagerly adopted by Democratic ones -- to "explain" the otherwise inexplicable victory of Trump over Mrs Clinton.
How could this have happened? Welllll, it was obviously because the rural white working class voted in overwhelming numbers for Trump. Don'tchasee? The out of work coal miners and the factory workers whose jobs have been shipped to Mexico and China and yadda and yadda and yadda, all these dispossessed and dishonored rural white male voters who have been ignored all these years (by that Nigrah in the WHITE House) finally got their revenge. You see?
Except that isn't what happened at all, and the consultant class and the Ruling Class they serve know that full well. It's a false narrative pushed onto the Rabble to keep them divided and squabbling among themselves so that the looting and oppression by those at the top can continue without interruption.
It works, too.
And the Bourbon Democrats are going along with it.
Why not? They benefit from it, too. Win or lose.
I must reiterate something I've said before: the Internet has had an objective of destroying the "Democrat" Party since it was the Intranet. The dweebs online have always had a very crabbed and often ignorant notion of how politics works in this country and what needs to be done about it. The focus has almost always been on the inadequacy, fecklessness, corruption and betrayal by the Democrats, thus: Democratic Party delenda est.
Even a hint that bad as the Democrats are (and they're terrible in their Bourbon arrogance and stupidity) the Republicans are and long have been the problem is met with derision, contempt and fear.
If any party needs to be destroyed, it's the Republicans. I suggested they be RICOed out of existence long ago.
But that's like heresy deserving of burning at the stake as far as Internet political gamers are concerned. No, only the Democrats deserve destruction and salting of the earth behind them.
My observation is that if we want to preserve the political system more or less intact, then the Radical Republicans and their reactionaries must go, and the Bourbon Democrats must become -- or re-become -- the aristocratic and conservative party they so dearly want to be. A new People's Party must then arise, as it's been trying to do for generations but has always been suppressed by co-optation and other means not pleasant.
If you don't want to preserve the system, then both parties must be consigned to the ash-heap and we start anew.That's Revolution, and we aren't ready for that. Not yet, anyway.
We need have no love for the Bourbon Democrats; they are foul and stupid and arrogant (among other things) but that should never mean taking the side of the reactionary-fascists as so many have done in defending and supporting Trump and his "disruptors."
Politics is a tough and often nasty game, no doubt. On the other hand, we must be clearheaded enough to fight for what's right, not just for what's expedient and serves the Ruling Class.
Interesting speculation I''m seeing in several places that the firing of James Comey from the FBI was intended -- at least in part -- to mollify grudge-holding Dems who were still smarting over Comey's interference in the 2016 election. Odd interference if you ask me, but what do I know about the machinations in DC these days? Not much.
The Outrage!!!™ (FFS are we back to that?) over it seems to be a bit overwrought, but that's how things are done among the political and media classes, for reasons that long ago escaped me. Until Trump actually did it, Dems, by and large, called for Comey's ouster. Now, of course, they are his greatest defenders in the whole wide world.
It's much like the near unanimity of praise for Trump when he picked up the Big Stick and blew some shit up in foreign lands. Despite the fact that he was still the ego-driven blowhard he'd always been, and just as ignorant too.
Of course the Comey Thing is turning out to be the reverse. According to reports, things have never been so chaotic in the White House. And that's saying something, I'd say.
Mollifying Dems seems like the least important thing to those people, the people in Power. Dems, at least in recent times, have been incapable of using Power. They don't like to. It's icky. (Unless, of course, it's pink-misting brown people overseas. With drones. Yay US! Odd, that.)
The Democrats have limited power, but they tend to be reluctant to use what little they have, no matter the provocations. They are often referred to as "feckless," which they are, "corrupt" -- yes, well, who in Washington isn't? -- and "incompetent."
Since the advent of the Republican sweep of government, however, it's clear that the Rs are incapable of governing in the public interest. They just can't do it. To me, this means that they need the expertise of the Ds in order to maintain even the appearance of competence, and getting rid of a "troublemaker" like Comey was expected to gain some Democratic support. Well, it did just the opposite.
The Rs and Trump are in a real pickle right now. I think the act of firing Comey was an unforced error, but it was also a power play. As if Gulliver were breaking free of the Lilliputian's bonds. Well, maybe so, but in the end, Gulliver becomes the best friend of the Lilliputians, doesn't he? Perhaps Trump thought he could pull off a similar trick.
It's been odd -- to say the least -- watching so many self styled progressives defend the contraption called Obamacare. A contraption meant to ensure the profits of the insurance cartels in perpetuity. As a side benefit, some people who otherwise wouldn't have health insurance can get it. Others are out of luck.
It looks like the Rs will "repeal and replace" Obamacare with their own contraption that will most certainly punish and kill people -- why not? tough luck suckers! -- as well as ensure the profits of favored members of the insurance cartel. (Molina, watch yer back, hear me?)
And so it goes.
Of course at no time has either major party even considered doing away with the stupid, aggravating and too often deadly health "care" contraption that relies on private/commercial health care insurance through giant companies who intend to profit no matter what.
Until that happens, the trainwreck will continue to plow into the ditch and people who otherwise wouldn't will die.
I'm not clued in to the various -- and contending -- protest movements under way to "stop Trump". The initial street protests seemed to fizzle out, partly because of the holiday season I'm sure (priorities and all that), partly because people have to work to get by, and partly because they were being overwhelmed/co-opted by Democrats who basically didn't want any uprisings in the streets.
No, they were going to go about the business of de-Trumping by clever political strategy. Except they didn't have one. They still don't. Some of the most ludicrous examples of the failure of political strategies are on view daily at Daily Kos. I will say no more about that.
What the Dems have had all along, though, is an intense and overriding interest in knee-capping the Left -- or what they believe to be the Left. No genuine popular movement can get going under their wing. Any independent "left" movement must be crushed or co-opted. They must control the process. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? Someone like Trump could get elected.... ooops.
Speaking of, we just can't know whether vote casting and counting was done accurately this time around. It's a mystery that will never actually be solved because in too many cases, there's no way to verify the vote. It can't be done. What is becoming known, however, is that efforts to suppress the vote, to disqualify millions of voters, and to make it impossible for significant numbers of voters to vote, or for their votes to be counted were very successful, and these efforts were directed at and largely affected Democratic voters. It also appears that many Democratic voters declined to vote for president, whereas others voted third party.
So for the sake of argument, I'm going to accept the results as a relatively accurate reflection of what those who were able to vote and were so inclined voted for. I'm not taking it on faith. The announced outcome is one of many possibilities. For the sake of argument, the result is instructive.
We get to this outcome in large part through the failure of institutions and politics to protect and defend the People from the depredations of the Overclass, an Overclass which has had almost unfettered free rein to pillage and plunder for decades.
Politics hasn't changed it; politics has enabled it. No matter what the People say they want, no matter what or who they vote for, the political class does what it wants. Institutions have been more interested in preserving, protecting, and defending themselves rather than anything or anyone else, and they have almost all failed their constituencies. NGOs have long been a bad joke. Churches forgot their mission. Institutions of higher learning exploit their students and their parents. Police go rogue and murder without consequence. Financial institutions loot their customers. Media parades bizarre falsehoods.
On and on. It's a goon show, and most Americans know it.
Since its all a con anyway, why not put a master con-man on the throne? What do we think Obama has been? Or Big Dog? Or Bush the Lesser? All of them con-artists. And that's big reason why they were put on the throne to begin with. Their job is to con the public and keep them tame in the face of all the horrors and exploitation they're subjected to. Hillary couldn't do it.
The biggest institutional failure in the political realm is that of the Democrats who have failed in every way -- especially since 2009 -- to protect and defend the People against the forces arrayed against them. I maintain that failure is cynical and deliberate. They knew what they were doing: betraying their constituency. That's been the way of nearly all leftish political parties in the west for many years.
And that is a primary rationale for the "rise of the right." Given that the so-called Left has entirely abandoned the People, there is no political party that serves them. The "rise of the right" is not due to popular will, it's due to abandonment by the pseudo-left, the Democrats and Social Democrats and in some regions by Socialists. They obviously don't care any more -- if they ever really did -- about what happens to the Little People. No doubt it has something to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into the capitalist workshop of the world, but that happened so long ago now, hardly anyone remembers any more.
The right rises when the People, abandoned, have no political anchor on the left or center. A political vacuum thus created is filled one way or another.
What is necessary, then, is for the People to take matters into their own hands, outside the political process, and make it impossible for the Ruling Clique to govern.
That's both easier and more difficult than it sounds. Most people, by nature, are going to go along with the powers that be. Most think they have no other choice. On the other hand, it doesn't take a lot of resistance or rebellion to throw a spanner in the works and bring the Juggernaut to a halt -- at least temporarily.
A weak government can be stalled or overcome rather easily.
I will not recommend ways to do it at this point, but understand that many of the "resistance manuals" out there are little more than support manuals for the failed political institutions and systems that don't work.
Robert Reich has one that's gotten some currency. It's not really about resistance at all. It's about supporting failed institutions, the political process and the Democrats. To that I say, No. He blew his premise in any case on Democracy Now! yesterday. It bordered on self-parody. Sorry that Amy didn't call him on his bullshit.
Another is the Indivisible Guide produced by congressional staff and political consultants which again focuses on working within the failed political process that's brought us to this point. It doesn't work. But it keeps people busy doing things -- which won't work -- so there is that. Keep hope alive and all that!
If the Trumpian agenda is to be stopped or thwarted, what's needed is to make it impossible.
The political system is designed and intended to enable it. It's just that simple.
No, not much. A lot of people will be hurt, some may lose their lives. Hundreds have already been hurt as the country prepares for what is to come. Many more will join the target list; the word will come that we must Obey. But even obedience won't be enough to protect those who have been targeted.
I note that when I point out some of these things online -- my main communications outlet these days since I have been unable to get around much -- the response tends to fall into two categories: "So what?" and "What about all the people Obama has targeted or Hillary would have targeted" -- meaning the overseas targets, for the most part, and the false accusation that "Hillary would have started WWIII, so there!"
In other words there is no empathy whatever for those who have really been targeted and will be targeted at home or abroad. That's because according to the tenets of the New Model Social Contract, everyone who is targeted deserves their beat down and then some. If they have been targeted then they've done something or are something to deserve it by definition.
This is little different than the primitive version of White Supremacy that Trump and many of his followers seem to believe made America Great. And they can and will restore that greatness to the wild cheers of the multitude.
I doubt it will go quite that way, but that's what they believe. At this point, as they salivate over the power they will be able to wield, they'll believe almost anything about what they can do to punish the Other.
If the multitude chooses not to cheer, as they indicate through their rejection of Trump and his cronies in office (by votes and through protest actions), they themselves become targets, and repression becomes general. Commands and threats to Sanctuary Cities have already been issued: They MUST obey the identify, round up and deport orders or they will be punished, first with loss of Federal funds, and then who knows? Actually, it's not that hard to guess where it goes from the order to the implementation. This has all been worked out in practice long since. The models exist. The authority exists. The motivation exists now among Trump's followers. We only have a couple of months before the hammer drops.
The first thing the Nazis did to consolidate their power was to forcefully eliminate their political opposition. Socialists and Communists were rounded up, put in camps, some were murdered pour encourager les autres and others were publicly shamed or put on bogus show trials. All this was for the edification of the masses who needed to learn right off the bat that dissent and political opposition would not be tolerated. It worked. Opposition collapsed within weeks or months of the installation of the Nazis to rule over Germany. There was no more public opposition to them because all of the opposition had been suppressed.
Our case won't be the same, partly because Our New Model Rulers are not Nazis. There may be Nazis among their followers, but if there are, they are few and they won't be given the keys to the kingdom. At least not right off.
These New Model Rulers ARE White Supremacists. Let's not fool ourselves about that. It's clear as a bell, and that's one of the main reasons why so many black and brown and other targeted groups are angry and fearful. White Supremacy is not a good thing for most of those who aren't white or don't conform to the standards imposed by "liberated" white folks. That shouldn't be hard to understand, but for some reason I can't fathom, it is inconceivable to those who benefit from White Supremacy that those who don't benefit would have anything to fear. (Ha ha, suckers.)
This Restoration of White Supremacy to its rightful rulership role in the West is supposed to represent the failure of Multiculturalism, diversity, and the social reinvention of the latter half of the 20th century, continuing to the "overwhelming victory" and "mandate" given to the New Model Rulers.
These thumping freaks have no idea. White Supremacy has never not been the ruling class's underlying premise. It's always been there, always at the foundation of ruling class, neo-imperial, neo-colonial practice. It never went away.
What was modified was overt prejudice and discrimination against women and people of color. What changed was not the foundations of rule, but the way it would be implemented and by whom. "Inclusion" meant that selected members of out groups would be included among the ruling cliques, and those included members would be trained and conditioned to believe and act on the tenets of the ruling class. It worked pretty darned well. Nowadays, there's very little difference in the way women and black and brown people who have been included among the ruling clicques approach their responsibilities and the way the white ruling class has always done so.
And yet White Supremacists find that intolerable. Inclusion is simply wrong. It must be stopped and reversed forthwith, and so it will be.
The untermenschen must be returned to their place -- and they will be.
It's been quite stunning to watch the political class and nearly all the mass media obey their New Boss even before he takes the throne. This includes Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, both of whom, along with almost all the Democratic Party hierarchy and the few remaining elected Democrats have pledged their troth and loyalty to the incoming regime. Guys, this is a reason why you lose elections time after time after time.
I can detect a certain sly undertone in Obama's "graciousness" toward Trump and his followers, but I don't know what he's thinking. Probably about whether his bolt-hole is stocked well enough if his protestations of loyalty aren't sufficient to protect him and his kith and kin. As for Mrs. Clinton, it's remarkable to me that she conceded when she did, before it was even confirmed that Mr. Trump would have enough electoral votes for victory in the EC. This was odd and uncalled for at least in my view, but she did it, and here we are.
Even odder to me was that as soon as Trump's victory was declared, all the raving about election rigging and Putin's interference suddenly and completely disappeared as if it had never been the apocalyptic theme of both campaigns. Whut? Was the election rigged? Well, we don't talk about that, we are told to just accept the outcome, because the outcome is what those who were claiming it was rigged want. Was Putin's interference real? Who can say? It was promoted as real, but now... it's a mystery, and we will probably never know. We are told to just let it go.
Bizarre. Truly bizarre. But as they say, this has not been a "normal" election. I'll agree with that.
The fact that the political class and nearly all the mass media have essentially become Trump apologists if not outright supporters is, I think, instructive. The media and the political class are of course looking out for themselves. It's human nature and it's also "just business." Trump and his followers are hypervigilant about disloyalty and they condemn and threaten anyone who gets out of line. The higher their public profile, the more certain the threat and condemnation. Cf: the 'Hamilton' flap and many, many more. This is the way they work, and it will be the way they rule -- backed up with the force multiplier of the Surveillance State and the more and more authoritarian and randomly violent Police State.
Oh boy.
They will have so many tools available for suppression and punishment of what they see as disloyalty, and I don't doubt they will use every one of them and invent more. It's simply their nature.
Bush and Obama used them but modestly compared to what it looks like the Trump regime intends to do.
And I notice that anytime someone openly suggests that suppression of dissent and the detection and punishment of disloyalty will be hallmarks of the Trump regime, there is usually immediate deflection: "What about Obama, what about Clintoon!!!!!" They did it too! Libya! Ukraine! Nazis! Yadda yadda!
Every time. In other words it's not supposed to matter what Trump and his followers have done or will do because Obama and Clintooon!!! Nonsense.
The oddest part of that concept of false reality is the frequently asked question, "Why weren't you protesting in the streets then instead of now?"
Hello? We were. Where were you? Where were they indeed. I think we know. Bunkered down for the most part, waiting and hoping for the Apocalypse.
Has it come? Not yet, no. But the signs and portents aren't very encouraging for those who would rather not endure it, which typically is most people most of the time.
There are plenty of crazies in the world, though, who look forward to the End Times-- for everyone else. Because of course they will survive. God has granted them grace after all.
Jeebus. I don't even want to go there.
It's been pointed out that the Restoration of White Supremacy is now a Thing practically everywhere in the Euro-American orbit. There's no escaping it as one by one, European and American polities "fall" to the White-Rightist resurgence. Well, didn't I warn years and years ago that if the Revolution is to come, it will come from the Right? Not the Left?
At that time, I was saying the Busheviks had perpetrated and got away with a Rightist coup and they were in the process of conducting and consolidating a counter-Revolution against their Leftish enemies, but it turns out that isn't quite what they were doing.
The so-called Left had already been vanquished under Clinton. There essentially weren't any Left enemies in the political realm any more. What the Busheviks were doing was consolidating neoLibCon rule and practice, not against a Left opposition but against any opposition.
They were demonstrating they were prepared to do anything necessary to ensure that this ideology became the permanent operating belief system of the government. They would have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams but for the failure of their wars and the collapse of the economy. Oh. That. Huh. Well.
It's not so much that they were incompetent as that they started off on the wrong foot and their ideology and belief system was so rigid and self-righteous they couldn't change course. They had to follow through with it, gross errors and all, no matter what. This is the bull-headedness of neoLibCons. Reality is simply not a factor in their world view. It seems to me that Mr. Bush, for all his manifest faults and failings woke up to the reality of the situation he and his henchmen had caused much earlier than the rest of them and he tried (and failed) to make a few course corrections.
It was then up to Obama and his team to correct as much of what had gone wrong as they could but without challenging the neoLibCon frame of rule. This he set out to do to the dismay of so many who bought into his con of "Hope and Change." There was very little of either during his reign. For so many of those who had suffered throughout the Endless Recession and for those overseas who were being subjected to random act of Death From Above or the horrors of political coups, civil wars, and "regime change," there was no hope, and only arbitrary change.
Obama's reign was a continuation of Bush's for all practical purposes.
And had Hillary won the prize, her reign would be a continuation of Obama's. In other words, little hope and no change.
Institutional neoLibConism would have gone unchallenged.
This election, however, neoLibConism was challenged and brought to the forefront by Bernie Sanders on the leftish side, and Donald Trump on the other side. Sanders presented a strong argument for the restoration and adaptation of the New Deal for Americans. His argument didn't really persuade me, although I voted for him in the primary. The issue for me was that the New Deal had its own flaws, and it took LBJ's Great Society programs to address some of the failings of the New Deal. And that, unfortunately, had triggered the reactionaries into undoing it all. So here we are.
We can't go back, we have to have a forward vision of what kind of society we want to live in an what kind of nation the United States should be. Developing and stating that vision has been a perpetual failing of Democrats at least since Johnson, and neither Bernie nor Hillary were able to articulate a forward vision for the future. Bernie presented a good argument for specific reforms, but no vision that I could see. Hillary started off her campaign by saying "No, you can't." And she pretty much stuck with it throughout. Too clever by half.
Trump on the other hand didn't argue or say what couldn't be done. He persuaded (conned) by claiming whatever his listeners wanted or needed done could be done and he was the one to do it. He would take care of whatever they felt they needed or wanted. He was the one.
So his listeners could project almost any unmet need onto him and come to believe that he would take care of it. That's the nature of a con artist, which Trump has shown himself to be at a level that almost matches Mr. Obama's ability to con the masses.
Try as she might, Hillary couldn't do it. And Bernie refused outright to con his listeners.
So here we are.
Where do we go from here? It's conventional wisdom that the protests won't work, they may backfire instead. Perhaps. They're still in their nascent stage and how and whether they continue to grow and spread remains to be seen. It's wrong in my view to dismiss them as irrelevant because that just feeds the fictional beliefs of the other side. We must not comfort the comfortable.
I think it's more than interesting that the Trump followers insist that the protests are an attempt at a Color Revolution, funded by the Arch-Devil George Soros. What nonsense. But if that's their belief, I say take every advantage of it. Fuck with their minds. It should be easy given their inherent paranoia.
It's obvious that the elected Democrats (few as they are) are hopeless collaborators with the New Model Rulers. We're screwed six ways from Sunday if we rely on them for anything. They won't help, nor they stand athwart the barricades. Nope. Not them.
Mass media is totally out of touch, and they won't challenge authority, no matter who wields it or how, if it means their bottom line suffers. Since they are facing signs and portents of coming restrictions on how and what they report, they are unlikely to be any kind of help for the powerless, and they may go from constant propaganda to full-on cheer leading for Himself.
If anything is to be done, it will have to be done outside the system.
Hang on, the times are about to get a lot more interesting.
I saw Bernie on Charlie Rose last night. As he always does, he made a strong case for his policies and programs that he believes would control Wall Street greed and uplift the working class, curb the police state, and inspire confidence in America around the world. All well and good, but by pleading with Trump to do the right thing, he's essentially declared the Democratic Party irrelevant.
Of course.
Democrats have been yielding power to the Rs for decades, truly since Reagan, but they weren't so savvy about wielding power after Nixon defeated Humphrey either. Nixon was practically a Communist compared to Trump, and the Republicans in Congress in Nixon's day weren't anything like today's radical reactionaries who call themselves Republicans. But Nixon's election signaled the end of the New Deal/Great Society coalition headed by Democrats and progressives, and the coming reversion to prior theories of what it was appropriate for government to do.
As things have devolved from that point, the Democratic Party has reverted more and more to its roots as an aristocratic and deeply conservative party not particularly intent on rule so much as it is on influence. Democrats have adopted populist and/or progressive positions periodically throughout the long history of the Party, but they've also been perfectly willing to throw them away.
During the most recent campaign for president, it appeared that Hillary was attempting to pull off something Democrats have long yearned for -- the union of the Democratic Party with top level Republican "moderates," those Republicans who had rejected Trump.
I think she thought she had achieved her objective, but lo and behold, she hadn't. The R "moderates" went right back to the fold once Trump was declared the victor. The power that Rs can wield by holding the White House and both houses of congress is truly intoxicating, They won't let this moment pass unexploited. Oh no.
Trump's apparent EC victory was stunning because it wasn't expected or planned for. The shock waves ran through the Ruling Clique, just as they did through the media and the public; it was in its own way an even greater shock than the Supreme Court's lawless interference in 2000 to give the presidency to GW and his bloodthirsty cohort. It makes no sense, and it is "illegitimate" from the get. Just as GW's elevation was. GW was forced upon an unwilling but also largely unresistant public and he caused the very horrors his opponents warned he would. Wars and economic collapse being the highlights -- or lowlights as the case may be.
Democrats, to their undying shame, did not serve as an opposition party but were instead enablers, co-conspirators, and willing victims. Even when they were given back Congress in 2006 they sat on their hands and essentially pretended that everything was OK, and Bush and Company would not be more than ritually challenged. For some, it was a shocking revelation: Democrats were useless.
And in 2008 when Obama was elected in a landslide and congress had a filibuster proof Democratic majority, guess what? Obama's prime objective was rehabilitating the Rs, resuscitating them from their near-death experience, and carrying on the Republican lite programs and policies the Ds had been notorious for since the victory-debacle of 2006.
To say the public was disappointed is to put it gently, and the Ds were given their punishment in 2010. The interesting thing to me is that the Ds didn't even try to reverse the trend. They essentially conceded state houses all over the country without a fight, knowing full well that by doing so, Republican gerrymandering would ensure R political dominance for at least ten years and possibly much longer than that. The Ds knew what would happen and they let it, if they didn't actually help engineer it.
They lost most of their Congressional majority as well.
As long as they had the White House, apparently the Ds didn't care. Of course the policies which essentially favored Rs, Wall Street, and the financial elites were enacted right and left (intentional pun) to the horror of many Americans who simply wanted fairness and justice from their government and got something else entirely. Disappointment? Ha.
Government obviously was totally out of the hands of the public, governing contrary to the public interest was the operating theory of both parties, and for all intents and purposes, there was no alternative. NeoLibCon capture was complete.
There was nothing We the Rabble could do about it. Elections in 2012, 2014 and now 2016 confirmed the People's powerlessness.
But this time, instead of the stability and continuity that would have been Hillary's direction in office, we get another shock to the system, equivalent to, maybe even greater than that of 2000, and literally nobody knows for sure where we go from here. I'm convinced that's designed and deliberate, not an accident of the voters' unexpected preference. I think the voters had very little to do with it. And it is obvious from Hillary's increasing, indeed unprecedented, lead in the popular vote (now up above 1,000,000 it seems and headed toward 2,000,000 maybe even 3,000,000 or more) that the voters chose stability and continuity -- even if they didn't like Hillary -- not whatever radical upheaval is in the works.
But it doesn't matter. What the voters want in any given election is of no interest or consequence to the Ruling Clique. They want what they want, and they will get it by hook or crook. The trouble is, until the outcome was announced, they obviously wanted stability and continuity, though not for the same reasons the public did.
So what happened?
Somebody or some faction which could do so pulled the plug.
Given the tiny margins in some of the battleground states that switched the outcome, and given the exit polls showing a substantial Hillary victory in those same states -- much like Gore's exit poll victory in Florida which was conveniently overruled -- it's pretty obvious that the count was interfered with (somehow) by a faction that wanted shock and destabilization rather than stability and continuity.
Crisis-opportunity, right?
Crisis=Opportunity.
We've been through this so many times, we should understand it by now. And we should have some way to counter it. But no.
Every time is like the first time. "Whut?!" And the cycle repeats over and over.
That is one of the ways Our Rulers keep their grip on power no matter the wishes of the public.
But it's a factional rulership, not a monolith, and the factions are constantly contending for the upper hand.
The fact that Hillary, Obama, and nearly all the Democratic hierarchy went along with the... odd... outcome without question and rank and file Democratic office holders are stunningly mute about it indicates to me -- having observed these things over the years and having had an inside view of DP operations for a while in California -- that the Dems really don't care, never did, and as far as they're concerned, it's no problem -- for them. In other words, they're useless and irrelevant as a political opposition, for they do not oppose; they enable.
Of course I and many others have known that for years, but seeing it so obviously presented in this case is still a shock.
But that's the intention.
Shock the public and get away with god knows what while they're fighting among themselves.
Works every time.
So far anyway. This time it may run into a few speed bumps, but what needs to happen are spike strips at least.
That can happen if the results in the battleground states are investigated thoroughly enough to discover the kind of jiggering I suspect went on. But I don't see that on any agenda. I don't think anybody wants to do it for fear of what they'll find. This is essentially complicity in fraud but that's hardly unusual in American politics and elections.
If it were discovered that the results actually were jiggered in Trump's favor just enough to clinch the EC, that would essentially cancel the election. The whole thing, the vote in its entirety would have to be reviewed (which wouldn't bother me) and the transition schedule would be thrown into chaos. What would be found would likely be appalling to everyone. One shock would follow another. Our Rulers would find that unacceptable because the whole system would shudder and potentially collapse. A crisis indeed, but one which the Wrong People could use as an Opportunity. The Wrong People being the Rabble.
The Rabble want fairness, justice, economic comfort/prosperity for themselves, and a sense of self-worth. Our Rulers do not want the Rabble to have those things because if they do, they can't be exploited to the extent they must be to please and pleasure their Betters.
What the Trump cabal appears to be preparing to do is to restore White Supremacy pretty much as it was in the 1950s and before, as a sop to some of the Rabble to make them think they're getting what they want while exploiting and robbing them to the hilt.
It's a nasty tactic, but it worked back in the day, so I suspect the Trumpists think it will work again. Why not?
The rest of the Rabble, the ones who will suffer the most under this scheme, "deserve their punishment" according to the principles of White Supremacy. They are inferior. Period. End of discussion. Some of them are Good Mexicans, Good Darkies and such, and so they can be rewarded, but the rest? They're lucky to be alive, they can bow down and shut up. Or leave. Or die. Their choice.
No, this isn't Nazi-ism or straight on Fascism. This is the way the US was ruled and operated from its origin until the mid Sixties and LBJ's Great Society when many of the disabilities imposed on Out Groups began to be removed.
The Trumpists want to restore America's Greatness by reverting to the white supremacist principles that they believe made America "great" in the first place.
Whether the Ruling Clique is down with that, I don't know. Some of the factions aren't, but some are.
The Democrats, in the end, though, will go along with whatever faction wins.
The Rabble can have a say, if they take the reins and force the issue, but in the meantime, the Trump cabal can get away with a lot of mischief while the issue of White Supremacy is serving to distract the masses.
Oh, these people know how to run cons all right, and they know most people are marks. Breaking free of this crap is what the People need to do. Whether they or we can, I dunno....
Gee Dan. Miss ya Dude. Hope the party Up There never ends... (Dan Hicks, 1941-2016, "I Scare Myself")
As the protests continue to grow and spread, this election debacle is getting uglier and uglier, as could have been predicted when Trump unleashed the violent id of his many cult followers, and those opposed to his elevation to the Presidency take up the cudgel.
I think all the garment rending and teeth gnashing over the "violence" in the streets is just silly, because there is never -- ever -- any whining or even notice taken of the Official Violence used against protest in this country if someone breaks a window, overturns a news rack, or sets a dumpster fire (in other words, the usual vandalism and disruption that accompanies urban unrest called a "riot.") Woe betide anyone who gets in the way of traffic. OMG! nothing worse than inconveniencing a commuter! Nothing! It's absurd. But that's how the game is played in this country.
You inconvenience anyone, break a window, start a trash fire, or damn your eyes, fail to obey a police order, and you are guilty! guilty! guilty! and deserve whatever horrible fate Authority has in store for you. You Monster, you!
The Usual Suspects are contributing to the usual mayhem in the usual places and those on the sidelines are having their usual vapors over it. Gah.
In the meantime, Hillary's popular vote lead grows and grows. I saw one estimate yesterday that it will probably top out at about 1.5 million more than Trump, and I'd say that's a good estimate except that over 5 million votes are yet to be counted in California alone. As California went massively for Clinton over Trump, her popular vote margin could reach spectacular numbers never seen before.
The petitions to overturn the usual Electoral College rubber stamping have garnered many millions of signatures -- 3 or maybe 4 million between them by now and probably more by the time the EC meets on December 19.
Things are moving fast and it is scary because there is going to be a reaction from the Trump brownshirts and militias, guaranteed.
And there has been a little bit -- just a little bit -- of probing of the curious results from those key states that provided just enough votes to flip the outcome to Trump. Just enough.
He he he.
Of course there are plenty of rationalizations for it. The media was ready with their answers -- white women, hidden rural voters, failure of the vaunted Hillary Ground Game, blah blah blah, the day after the election. They knew, they knew for certain what had happened, and it didn't occur to even one of them that the results might have been jiggered and vote suppression might have been more effective than previously believed. No, it was all on white women, rural voters that had never been seen before and Hillary's failure to get out the vote, not even considering that the margins are so small in these key states -- and only these states -- that it would take no effort at all to flip the results. As if it's never happened before....
Of course as I flog this notion around the intertubes it's shot down right quick. CT! CT! CT! But come on, it's all but obvious.
As Trump falls ever farther behind in the popular vote -- were those results flipped to Clinton somehow? -- and the streets fill with angry, fearful protests (just get over the anarchist allies who are breaking windows and starting dumpster fires) something will have to be done.
The question is what.
So far, most of the protesters appear to be young and white, and they are allied with their brothers and sisters who happen not to be white or properly oriented and gendered and who are terrified by the unleashing of a racist, violent alt-Right authoritarian cum fascist sector of the population under a quasi-Fascist Caudillo who wasn't even chosen by the People of the United States, but is only elevated to the Presidency by an antiquated and deeply anti-democratic provision of our troublesome constitution.
Them's the facts.
Installing Trump in the Presidency (King-Emperor? God?) actually doesn't have to happen under the antiquated and troublesome Constitution, but it probably will. The EC is actually free to choose anyone, but they won't.
The wind Trump has sown will reap a whirlwind such as we haven't seen since the nation split apart in 1860. How that will be resolved, I don't know. There is already some talk of secession by California -- which might be joined by Oregon and Washington. I doubt it will happen, but conceivably it could. That leaves Colorado and New Mexico to consider their own secession. Then there are the Northeastern states that will have to consider their own distancing from the Capital, perhaps secession, perhaps autonomy or some other arrangement.
The brownshirts and militias, for their part, would probably be just as happy to see these Librul Backwaters go, and go quickly.
But the alternative, to quickly show that the vote was jiggered in just those states it needed to be for a Trump EC victory -- bugger the popular vote elsewhere -- is my preferred course. Prevent his elevation, and while it may trigger a violent reaction from his brownshirts and militias, they would probably be put down or accommodated (the likely course) sufficiently to calm their fevered disappointment (Awww. Poor babies.)
Accommodation would include greater autonomy for those parts of the country where their kind are dominant. That could be arranged in many ways, the problem being protection for those who would suffer under their rule. (Viz: North Carolina where the Bathroom Crisis was raised to an extreme level by an out of control R state government that will not back down, No way, no how.)
The only resolution I can think of, and maybe I'm just not thinking creatively about it, is to move the likely victims of the Brownshirts to other areas of the country where they'd be welcome. I know, I know, that's like the Partition of India and Pakistan, but what else are you going to do when the other side will not yield even an inch and every effort to make peace is met with greater levels of hostility and hatred? What do you do? I say get the people who will be harmed out of harm's way.
Is there another solution?
And then the question is who would be President if the elevation of Trump is invalidated? Hillary? Not necessarily. The problem is simple enough. Neither candidate got a majority of the popular vote, at least not so far. Hillary might wind up with a majority if all the votes yet to be counted are heavily in her favor but except in California, I doubt that will happen. So. With neither candidate having a majority in the popular vote, the actual choice would have to be some sort of neutral candidate (as if there were such) to serve in an interim capacity until there could be new elections -- say in a year or 18 months.
OMG. Really? Well, ya know, the problem has been building for many years -- at least since the lawless intervention and usurpation of 2000 -- and it has so destabilized the electoral process that something drastic is necessary. My solution is a way to address it in a way that at least gives a nod to the problem as well as the preservation of at least some semblance of a democratic process.
In my view, the critical factor is to prevent Trump from ascending to the Presidency. First. The rest can follow, but first order of business is to make sure he does not become President.
What about the Congress? What a mess there, too..
The continued Republican dominance in both houses is an existential threat to many Americans if Trump is President. Another Republican might or might not be such a threat. The risk is great, however, no matter who is installed in the Presidency -- even a Democrat or an Independent -- because the Republican Congress, feeling its oats, is eager to slash and burn, caring not a whit who they harm in the process. Wisdom and compassion they have none. They are champing at the bit to prove it, too.
What do you do?
The Republican House is a product of gerrymandering instituted in Republican controlled states after the Democratic electoral collapse of 2010. To my way of looking at it, that collapse was deliberate. An controlled implosion, shall we say, in order to enable a Republican revival after their collapse in 2008. Our parties can and do work together to ensure a certain "balance" if you like. That balance is always-- always-- in favor of the right, and in favor of the preservation of power elites.
Always.
Trump has sort of disrupted this long maintained balance, but it looks like he's been trying to wrap his mind around it and be an accommodating figure. You can never tell with him, though, and worse, the balance is shattered and a full-on rightist (indeed, fascist in all but name) and deeply cruel regime would be the result were he to be installed, even under tight wrap.
The Senate's continued R majority is not due to gerrymandering, but it is due -- in part -- to deliberate sabotage of their own candidates by Democratic Pooh-Bahs. Look at Finegold in Wisconsin for a nearly perfect example. There are others. Murphy in Florida is another. Because Hillary was expected to win the Presidency, the calculation was that an R congress -- with or without a D majority in the Senate was OK. Therefore, fully supporting Dem Senate or House candidates, or even mounting candidates who could win as opposed to place-hold, wasn't necessary. I am sick to death of Democratic Party cleverness in these matters. They know how to win elections, but they often deliberately don't. And they are almost as bad at voter suppression as their Friends on the other side.
I really hate this aspect of the Democratic Party, and I'm with a lot of others who want to see the whole system blown to smitereens.
It's a big part of why we're in this crisis now. Damn their eyes!!
But what do you do until the system rights itself? (as if it will. Ha!)
I think the best course is to let the Rs be what they want to be, but have some mechanism-- again -- to prevent the harm they wish to impose on the most vulnerable. That means, first of all, Trump cannot be President. He relishes harming the vulnerable. But if not him, who?
The choice may come down to Hillary for various reasons, but I'd rather it not.
So who?
I don't know. But there has to be a brake on the extremes Congress wishes to impose. The courts are incapable of being that brake, and a President Trump would make sure that's true for all time to come. I'm not kidding. That's what they are eager to do. And there would be no way to stop them were they allowed that kind of power.
It would not only be the End of the Republic, it might well be the end of any pretense of a Republic.
Our Rulers, I think, know what dangers this situation represents. Whether they are convinced it's time to overthrow any pretense of a Republic, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if they really are that craven. I'm sure they understand that the current situation is unsustainable whether or not Trump is installed in the Presidency. It just can't go on like this.
Consequently, I imagine there's a lot of scrambling going on among the High and the Mighty to find a resolution and compromise before December 19. They may not succeed, but then again they might.
This latest Hillary flap has brought out all the hysterics on the intertubes to ventilate their spleens over Hillary's Health Crisis Du Jour.
Her campaign says she's got pneumonia. I don't know whether it's true or not. There's no way to know. The campaigns are charades top to bottom and sorting out truth from fiction is an endless task. There's no way to keep up. That she's ill is clear enough. With what, though?
There have been rumors about her health for months or years, and I typically ascribe them to anti-Clinton bullshit. How it is that the Clintons, among all politicians, invite such over-the-top antagonism is a mystery to me. They have long fed their haters, though, so I don't entirely blame it on some kind of Derangement Syndrome. There seems to be something symbiotic about it, bizarre though it may be. They get something from being hated so strongly, and their haters need the Clintons just as much.
Be that as it may, Hillary's been sick, and the 9/11 Memorial Incident could not -- at least it wasn't -- hidden from the public. At one point, while awaiting her transport, she could barely stand and could not walk on her own. There were indications that she passed out. Oh boy.
When the announcement was made -- eventually -- that she had pneumonia, I nodded and said, "Yep." Her symptoms, at least visible ones, some of which had been rehashed over and over in the hysterical media no matter the political persuasion, were consistent with a severe and/or long-untreated case of pneumonia. I know. I've had it. Several times. What she was showing were symptoms very similar to some of the worst experiences I've had with pneumonia. Others would testify to having similar symptoms themselves.
But the intertubes exploded with authoritative but utterly false declarations of what pneumonia does and doesn't do, and with equally false declarations of how serious or not serious the condition must be in Hillary's case. Jebus dancing on a crust of Wonder Bread, this was insane. Utterly insane.
What I reacted to was the completely inane and false and almost universally encountered statements regarding how pneumonia behaves -- particularly how it is relatively mild or benign, and how, for example, it doesn't cause dehydration or make one feel hot or feverish in mild weather. This is utterly false. Yes, it can cause severe dehydration and feelings of fever or overheating. Yes. It. Can.
It can make you feel faint. It can make you pass out. It can cause "out of body" experiences. It can leave you disoriented, confused, incoherent, etc. A bad cough that doesn't go away with ordinary cough suppressants is routine.
It can give you the shakes, or you can be semi-paralyzed. It can be deadly.
Vaccines cannot and do not prevent all forms of pneumonia, but patients are not always told that they can still get pneumonia even if they've received both vaccines.
In my view, pneumonia is always serious, but its course may not involve all the most serious symptoms. It can be very difficult to control with antibiotics. I've usually required two courses of antibiotics every time I've had it. That's ten days each. But even after the infection is controlled, there are lingering after effects for months.The worst is fatigue, something that you really can't do anything about (but see below.)
Many authoritative commenters insisted that pneumonia is easily controlled with antibiotics. It's not always easily controlled at all. A few days on antibiotics and you're good as new. Not true. It may work for some people, for others, no.
Other commenters authoritatively insisted that Hillary couldn't have pneumonia because of this, that or the other symptom that pneumonia doesn't cause. Except for the fact that her visible symptoms were consistent with severe or untreated pneumonia...
Others seemed to have so much invested in their pet medical diagnosis for what ails Hillary that they couldn't accept something as uninteresting as pneumonia and dismissed it out of hand.
Many insisted that Hillary was obviously contagious and should be effectively quarantined. Or contrariwise, she was exposed to too many sick people and should be better protected by her staff. Some of her staff were apparently taken ill too.
Almost all of the intertube commentary was wrong, and most of it was ridiculous.
One of the most striking things after Hillary's episode at the 9/11 memorial was her astonishing recovery after an hour or so at Chelsea's place. My own perception is that it could not have happened without some kind of "boost." There were speculations she was given amphetamines.
Maybe.
It looked to me like she'd been ill with pneumonia for some time, perhaps months, and neither she nor her staff was aware of it. She thought it was allergies. She may have thought it was a persistent cold. Whatever the case, she showed some symptoms, but they went unrecognized, and so she went on with the campaign without treatment, or perhaps with treatment for the wrong condition.
Undiagnosed pneumonia is pretty common.
She probably didn't even see a doctor until she felt so bad she had to do something.
They say she was diagnosed last Friday and put on antibiotics. My guess? Too little, too late.
They didn't have time to work before the 9/11 memorial, and they may not have been effective in any case. For example, I had one course of antibiotics that had no effect at all.
Her condition likely would get worse under those circumstances. And so the episode at the van where she appeared to be either unconscious or semi-paralyzed.
This should have set off a whole series of alarm bells in the campaign, but it's not at all clear that it did. Taking her to Chelsea's house rather than to a hospital was a strategic move that Hillary probably insisted on -- it's clear enough that she sets the rules of the campaign -- but it may not have been medically wise.
If she was given a "boost" of some kind at Chelsea's but had no real medical treatment beyond already prescribed antibiotics and maybe an energy drink or two, I would be alarmed.
If she was severely dehydrated and actually passed out, then she should probably be under close medical supervision -- if not actually hospitalized -- for at least several days. It may require IV infusions of both stronger antibiotics and fluids.
That can take place at her home if need be, and that's likely what's going on at her place in Chappaqua.
There are many issues that can be raised over this situation, none of them particularly good, but the intertube hysterics over it are not helpful at all. Neither those who dismissed the seriousness of pneumonia nor those who made it out to be worse than it is really caught the fundamental problem:
1) she had apparently been ill for some time but was not diagnosed until last Friday.
2) either she denied she was as ill as she was or -- likely -- no one bothered to check what was wrong or how severe it was.
3) even after being diagnosed, her treatment was apparently inadequate to her condition.
4) her campaign was not forthcoming about her condition.
5) speculation was rampant for months before her diagnosis based on nothing at all but a perception that she wasn't well. She wasn't, it's true, but the speculation was allowed to run wild when a proper diagnosis and initiation of treatment early on might have scotched the speculation and she might have gotten well much sooner.
It's valid to question her judgment and the judgment of her staff and medical personnel. What were they thinking? There appears to be a dangerous level of disengagement from reality involved in this episode. Many questions about her judgment have already been raised, of course. There are plenty more questions to be raised. But the way this episode has been handled is not helpful either to understanding Hillary's condition or the many problems of this outrageous political season and the interests being served.
On the other hand, there is a whole series of unanswered and largely unasked questions about the other major candidate...
To the extent I've been paying attention to the hot mess that is the current state of the presidential campaign, I guess I've been witnessing through the class war lens of some kind of unreconstructed Marxist.
It's so obvious to me that the top of the ticket of both major parties is occupied by class warriors intent on preserving and expanding the pre-eminence, wealth and power of the now iconic 1% at the expense of everyone else.
Trump is the embodiment of the 1%; Hillary embodies those who serve them and ensure their success.
Kaine and Pence also serve in their own way and would be quite capable of continuing the elite class war on the masses should anything untoward happen to one or the other of the principals.
It is so obvious to me, and yet it seems to be completely out of the realm of consciousness or possibility to partisans on either side. They simply don't -- and possibly can't -- get it.
To place a loudmouthed bully like Trump in the White House would be an interesting experiment from a technical, sociological and scientific point of view. The last example of a member of his class in the White House was FDR.
FDR was Old Money, of course, and represented long, long years of government service by the time he was elected to the presidency. His initial opponent, Herbert Hoover, was as rich if not richer, but he was New Money with a very different kind of service background. For example, he'd coordinated relief efforts in Europe during and after WWI. He'd done it as a volunteer, and at the time, his efforts were considered remarkably successful.
FDR ran to the right of Hoover in 1932, and there was very little or no inkling of the soon-to-be implemented New Deal in his campaign. Whether it was already in the works, I don't know. On the other hand, Hoover was no slouch when it came to innovative ways to deal with the dislocation and distress of the early years of the Depression. He instituted any number of programs at the Federal level to relieve suffering and expand the economy, but he was hamstrung by his Republican Party orthodoxy and his belief in the limitations of federal power.
FDR initially shared many of Hoover's beliefs about government authorities and the necessities of balanced budgets, etc. In fact, he campaigned as if Hoover was just too radical.
When he got into office, of course, he practically did a 180 and became much more radical in addressing the Depression -- which caused Hoover to condemn him and the New Deal for the rest of his life.
According to the Hooverite belief system, what Roosevelt did prolonged the Depression and may well have contributed to the outbreak of WWII.
We hear plenty of echoes of that belief system today, although it is actually in service to a different ideology.
Both Hillary and Trump are campaigning well to the right of Hoover, and neither has any interest in reviving the solutions to economic and social problems that FDR eventually undertook. Hillary offers a modest economic stimulus package, but apparently only because Bernie "forced" her to.
Trump offers nothing, insisting that tax cuts, trickle down, and immigration control are the only things that "work" to elevate the masses.
Literally neither has any interest in the ultimate well being of the masses. They are both fully focused on the well being of the 1% at the expense of the masses.
Trump would do it by bulling his way, steamrolling opposition and demanding obedience through the force of his personality. Hillary would do it by the usual means of government -- bribery, persuasion, quids-pro-quo, etc. But those means primarily apply to the High and Mighty -- ie: Trump's class, not to the rest of us. We are to be exploited and disposed of.
Her campaign, after all, initially got going with the motto: "No you can't!" and her outlook really hasn't changed a whole lot since then. Trump's campaign is little more that "I am the One!" repeated over and over again -- with a dollop of "I will set you free!" to sweeten the pot for his white-male constituency.
Neither offers anything but more of the same little bit or less to the rest of us, and it's because we really don't count in their equation of what's important and what's necessary.
I can't be bothered with either of these candidates. On the other hand, Bernie wasn't much of an option either, and as many suspected, he was sheepdogging for Herself and will probably continue to do so as his so-called "political revolution" is institutionalized.
Trump, though, as an example of the crudity and meanness of his class seems to be perpetually able to get away with almost anything because of his entertainment value. The idea that the way he is is the way most of those of his class are is barely recognized. Somehow his behavior and beliefs are considered aberrant, but they aren't. They're typical. Trump has rougher edges than most of his class, but that's about the only difference.
Hillary's interest in serving his class is also not widely recognized.
The attacks on Sanders over the Nevada State Democratic Convention debacle are only going to intensify. We can expect redoubling of these attacks if the Sanders campaign doesn't collapse before the California and other primaries on June 7.
The point is to de-legitimize the Sanders campaign and Sanders himself so as to remove any possibility of them having influence and/or power over the Democratic Party, its chosen and anointed candidate, and ultimately any influence over the People.
Bernie has dared to propose an alternative -- a very modest alternative -- to the status-quo, powers-that-be, NeoLibCon paradigm that rules globally throughout the Overlord Class. As the Baroness Thatcher was ever so fond of putting it:
THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE
You Hippies can get in line, sit down and shut up. Now.
Because you don't matter, you have no power, you will never have any power, nobody cares what you think, nobody ever will.
Yet Bernie keeps winning primaries, and every time he does, he shames Mrs. Clinton and her flacks just a little bit more. So they have their knives out for the kill.
For some reason, known only to the community of ratfuckers who seem to be behind much of the happenings of late, the Nevada Democratic Convention became ground zero for both ratfucking and Swiftboating of Bernie Sanders and his campaign -- probably because it is now or never for Mrs. Clinton. According to the polls (and who can have confidence in them), she's not meeting expectations against Trump, and she could very well lose in the General. This would not be acceptable to TPTB, but as they saw in the R primary, the powers of TPTB and their ability to control events aren't what they used to be.
There are ways, of course, to ensure that Mrs Clinton wins in the Fall, but those ways are not the preferred means of acquiring or holding on to political power. They will be used if necessary, of course, but it would mean triggering a chain of events that could not be controlled.
For some time, I've thought that the Trump campaign was a classic ratfuck of the Rs. It probably started that way, but when Trump found that he touched a chord among disaffected Republicans, one that he didn't expect to find, he ran with it, and now he is sitting on a remarkable power - base and can call the shots.
Their PTB seem to be flummoxed. Trump is one of them, after all -- well, to the extent any billionaire who wants to be among the High and the Mighty can be. There has been no way to "stop" him, not so far. But as I've said, we've been down this path in the past with celebrities taking on the political establishment -- and winning. They may wind up doing the bidding of a faction of the Establishment, but the upshot of their political activity is the disruption and/or dismantlement of established power structures and the substitution of others.
When Ronald Reagan did it, it was called a "Revolution." It's more like a coup or a counter-revolution, but that's for another discussion. The point is that established power structures were disrupted and some of them were dismantled. The Progressive Era came to a final end. We are living with the consequences, for good and for ill.
Trump could do the same thing if got into office, but just what he would do and how is unknown. That's what frightens the PTB. He has no faction backing him within the government (unlike Reagan), and he seems to have no Establishment backing in the public sector either. He's a lone wolf and thus dangerous.
On the other hand, Hillary seems to have all the support in the world, including (apparently) among Republicans, except that she does not have leftist support -- which she and her people seem to be doing everything in their power to alienate.
It would seem odd if it weren't part of the NeoLibCon political playbook: to disable and irrelevate the Left has been a fundamental part of the NeoLibCon program from the get-go. Bernie, therefore, has to be destroyed. It's too late for him to yield. He must be destroyed utterly and his supporters must be dismissed.
So, I see what's going on with a sad sense of deja vu. It doesn't have to be this way. It shouldn't be this way. But there is no alternative is there?
When it happened to Howard Dean, it was literally breathtaking. I'd never seen anything quite like the immediate and coordinated pile-on after the so-called Dean Scream. It was successful, but it didn't help Kerry in the General. Not a bit, not after the Swiftboating he was subjected to.
Meanwhile, Dean recovered quickly and used his electoral infrastructure to become chair of the Democratic National Committee -- something he probably couldn't have done if Kerry had been elected president in 2004.
Dean used that position to get Democrats actually elected (something the PTB was not keen on). He was so successful, he was dismissed the moment Obama was elected to the presidency.
Democratic electoral fortunes have been on a downward spiral ever since -- I believe by design..
Sanders is unlikely to use his political infrastructure in the same way.
But something will come of his candidacy, and it looks like it's got the Establishment scared out of their wits.
They can be nasty when they're frightened.
------------------------------------------------------
A little musical history to lift the mood?
Seems that the elevation of Trump to be the Republican Nominee Presumptive has unleashed a veritable shitstorm of panic and dread on both sides of the political aisle -- because it seems the Party Apparatchiks and Nomenklatura of both the Dems and the Rs fear their chosen one, Mrs. Clinton, will not be able to withstand Trump's withering attacks and his rosy-orange public persona. And he might fucking get elected.
Really? I mean really?
Are they that freaked out by their own creation, or is this all just a game to stampede the masses into voting against their best interests (again) in order to stock the larders of the Highest of the Mighty and stoke the flames of Fear, Panic, and Dread just one more time before the inevitable Collapse?
Somehow, there's an element of unbelievability about all this hoo-hah over Himself, simply because Trump is one of the Oligarchs Who Rule the World, or at least he plays one on TV. He's been around for decades, Asshole of the Western World, repeatedly bankrupted Real Estate Mogul, finagler, deal maker/breaker, bully, freak, yadda yadda. Everybody knows him, everybody. He's like Schwartzenegger only worse.
Electing him to any office, let alone the Emperorship -- er, Presidency -- of the United States of America, (LLP), is absurdity on stilts. Yet here we are, with the distinct possibility of a President Trump in our future... who would have thought????
Of course we've been down this path before, haven't we? Sure we have. Schwartzenegger captured the governorship of California away from Gray Davis in one of the most ill-conceived political actions in my lifetime (and there have been many) when Davis was recalled mere months after an overwhelming electoral victory when he dared -- dared, I tell you! -- to let the vehicle registration fee rise substantially in order to help fund government operations. The nerve!
Schwartzenegger stood for election because he was convinced by some of California's Big Money Boys that he could do better than Davis, and that he was needed in the Capitol to fix what ailed the State of California. Of course that meant looting on behalf of his sponsors, but who cared? He was certainly decorative if not particularly functional.
Who cared that his reign was a failure -- a failure that led to much hardship and suffering, let it be known. Nobody liked Gray Davis, and he made some people's skin crawl, so having Schwartzenegger in the Corner Office was better all around. No?
No. But there are still those who think the presence of a Movie Star in office makes perfect sense.
After all, there was Reagan, wasn't there?
I'm old enough to remember when he was elected governor of California the first time, to the complete shock and dismay of the Establishment at the time. They couldn't believe it, oh no. The impossible had happened, though, and on January 1, 1967, Reagan was inaugurated according to Nancy's astrologer's prescriptions, and the dismantlement of Progressive California began.
Jerry Brown's father, Pat Brown, was stunned. Well, nearly everyone was stunned. Except for those who had voted for Reagan, those for whom the Status Quo had become intolerable.
Which happened to be a majority.
How could it be????
Well, it was easy to fathom, but nobody wanted to fathom it: racism and anti-student-privilege rose to the forefront of public consciousness thanks to progressive efforts at expanding civil rights, urban riots, and widespread student rebellion. Reagan promised to end these problems (once and for all?) and take care of all the other annoyances well-off (and would be well-off) white people in California were complaining about.
So it was.
Perhaps the greatest legacies of the Reagan Era in California were the destruction of public education (through the brilliant tactics of making higher education expensive and administering to death the academics of primary and secondary education) and the termination of public mental health services, leading to untold levels of homelessness and suffering.
That's what happened, and progressive California has not recovered.
It's possible Progressivism will never recover.
But that's another issue for another day.
What we're seeing now is a rerun of sorts, the elevation of a rich, wild, semi-buffoon to the highest office simply because it's possible to do so. Our system has some built in resistance mechanisms against too blatant capture by populists and/or oligarchs, but in the case of popular entertainment figures who sell themselves the way Trump has (a man of the people, no doubt) there is little or no functional systemic resistance. Too often they get elected and there is nothing -- or rather nothing legal -- the Establishment can do about it but yield.
That's what happened in California with both Reagan and Schwartzenegger, and if things turn out the way they've been going, it's what will happen with Trump. Washington has a far more illiberal governing system than California, and yet it yielded to Reagan when he was elected President (pretty much with relief, never having accepted Carter, the peanut farmer) just as it will most likely yield to Trump -- no matter how crazy -- when and if the time comes.
So long as he maintains a rightist populism and keeps the masses tame and entertained, what's the problem, right?
Clinton is in a total bind. She is no populist, and she is unlikely to become one during the remainder of the campaign. She is a rigid, no-nonsense elitist, the definition of the Establishment, and she and her surrogates have been going out of their way to court disaffected Republicans while hurling invective at Bernie Sanders supporters and ignoring or dismissing their interests.
You would think that this would be political malpractice on a massive scale, but apparently those who advise the Clinton campaign insist it's a winning strategy. I don't see it myself, but what do I know?
They've even taken a leaf out of Baroness Thatcher's playbook, touting the notion that "there is no alternative" to electing Clinton in the fall.
Perhaps.
But "No you can't" is hardly a slogan I can get behind.
The institutional resistance could not prevent the Bush-Cheney regime from causing havoc. In fact, the institutions of government largely enabled the Bush-Cheney regime. I suspect those institutions would be even less effective against Trump. As long as he kept the masses distracted and entertained...
Much has been made of the apparent collapse of the Republican Party Establishment in the wake of the Trumpist Rebellion. There is a lesson there which apparently cannot be learned by the Establishment or the rebels on the (so-called) Left.
The election that I really wasn't much interested in this cycle is starting to look more promising. The question is for what, though?
It's clear enough that the Bernie phenomenon has put the fear of the Devil into the Hillary camp. That wasn't supposed to happen. Bernie's entrance and presence into the primaries was supposed to be nothing more than a footnote. Similar to O'Malley's. These two would be allowed to bookend Herself, but not at all to threaten her Victory. (There were other Democrats in the primaries for a bit, but I've forgotten who they were already, not being all that much interested in the Pageant at the outset.)
Well, Bernie surprised everyone, including himself. It seemed like no one knew beforehand that there was such a deep reservoir of resentment toward the Democratic establishment -- partly because no one "who mattered" was paying attention. Ah, power politics and how it works!
No, the People had been dismissed long before by the Powers That Be in both of the major political parties, and literally nothing the People had to say about much of anything was something the PTB believed they had to listen to. "Governing Contrary" to the public interest and the will of the People was ingrained in the System. There was -- and would be -- no alternative.
"No you can't." No, you CAN'T! NO, YOU CAN'T!!!!
That was Hillary's opening gambit, and she's pretty much stayed with it ever since. And it's honest. Honest for her, certainly. But an honest reflection of the attitude of the Establishment -- regardless of party -- toward the Rabble everywhere, expressed as directly and openly as you could want.
No. You. Can't.
It goes to the heart of the political system, its beliefs and its workings, and there is and can be no alternative for the Rabble. None. Ever.
This is the Neo-LibCon statement world-wide to anyone and everyone who wants something better. "You can't have it. You will never have it. There is no alternative."
Yes, well. Bernie upset that applecart. So did Trump. This wasn't supposed to happen.
More and more, I'm suspecting Trump is a ratfuck. His campaign was never intended to be real. Instead, it was supposed to be little more than a sop to the Other Side's Rabble, while preventing the emergence of a popular (not populist) Republican candidate in order to grease the skids for a Hillary Victory.
Yeah, it looked from the outset that both Party's establishments had chosen Hillary to be the next President, and they believed it would be a piece of cake to get her in. The rest would be Show Business.
But a spanner or two has been thrown in the works.
A lot of Hillary Haters simply cannot understand her appeal. Why, they wonder, would anybody vote for her given her obvious and notorious Evil?
To me, this is just silly. Her Evil is no worse or better than any other presidential contender's. The idea that she is somehow Uniquely Evil -- because she's a Clinton or something -- is ridiculous. She is what she is, and she's reached the level she has in US and Global politics because she's useful to the Powers she serves. She's also a known -- and generally respected -- quantity globally. She may not be all that popular when you get down to it, but she's popular enough at home and abroad.
People vote for her because they know her. That's the simplest way to explain it. There's a little bit of nostalgia involved, but it's mostly because they know her story very well, those old enough to remember the Clinton presidency followed it like a soap opera, and many expressed deep and abiding sympathy for Hillary that they've carried to this day.
So a "coronation" was not out of the question at all. It should have been easy, but it wasn't, an it may get even rougher. I have little doubt she can sustain herself no matter the onslaught, but it's not clear that her path to Victory is still open wide. It may turn into a real contest, and that would be something.
Let's be blunt. There was no way in Hell Bernie would be allowed to defeat Herself in the overall primary contest. None. Those who rule us have many, many ways to ensure that upstarts like Bernie are kept well away from the levers of power, oh yes. This is basic to the theories of Neo-LibCon primacy. Nothing and no one an ever be allowed to interfere with their rule, and anyone who seriously tries to shall be crushed with extreme prejudice.
But I don't think Bernie ever intended to be a serious challenge to the PTB or Hillary.
His intent was little more than to move her and her sponsors leftwards, on the premise that it would be better for everyone (including Hillary and her sponsors) to do so. Continuing the rigorous path of TINA and LibCon rule would be a disaster.
It was not difficult at all for Hillary and her sponsors to move slightly left in response to Bernie's hectoring, but oh my. He tapped such a reservoir of resentment on the part of the Rabble.
Just as Trump did on the other side.
And now what wasn't supposed to be looks possible.
Hillary could go down to defeat.
Oh. My.
Even Trump didn't expect that.
Flop sweat, panic and desperation is growing over the events of the last few months, and Our Rulers appear to be entering Defcon 4, preparing the bunkers, and holding their breath.
I don't know how else to say this, but he's an old man who comes across too often as if he were the crazy uncle in the attic. Sorry, he just does.
By and large, he advocates for policies and programs that would have been ideal in 1980 -- or 1950 -- but now they seem inadequate and anachronistic. We can't go back to some halcyon past when things were or could have been better.
The mess we're in is the result of cumulative decisions by policy-makers and their sponsors over the last several decades. Both major parties have been complicit. Bernie has not been able to stem the tide. Sometimes he hasn't tried.
Comes now his campaign which has been resonating strongly, particularly among the young, and it almost seems like something out of the mythological past. Things could have been so much better if only...
If only, yes. The problem is that "if only" notes what's been lost, not what can be -- will be? -- made manifest in the future. In other words, as I see it, Bernie's campaign is a lament, not a manifesto.
I won't even mention Hillary's campaign, as it's too dreary. "No you can't have nice things -- ever!" is hardly an inspirational message, no?
It's my hope that the Sanders campaign will be a catalyst for that missing manifesto for the future, but I don't think the necessary political, economic and social adjustments will come through the ballot box.
I watched a bit of yesterday's debate on PBS, but I have to confess that the debates do not hold my interest for more than a few minutes.
That's because our electoral system is a sham. Whomever is put up for and eventually elected president is a figurehead emplaced primarily to keep the masses tame while in the background the looters and killers have free rein to do what they do.
Even a mook like Trump will find that out in the by and bye, assuming he doesn't already know it, which I think he does.
All the candidates know the real deal.
Including Bernie.
So I wonder what he thinks he's doing yadda-yadda-ing all the time about things he can't actually change from the Big Chair in the White House.
Ah yes, it's a bone, he's a bone, thrown to the groundlings who feel so disoriented, so dispossessed by things as they are. He can't do anything about it but yadda-yadda. More to the point, even if he were to sit in the Big Chair -- and it could happen -- he won't be allowed to do anything substantive about it.
At least Hillary says what she knows: the way things are is not gonna change substantively in our lifetimes, and probably not in your children's lifetimes, either. Deal with it.
Any "revolution" has already happened, and it came from the right. There will be no leftist counter-revolution.
The reason why is simple enough. Maintenance of the status quo, which keeps shifting ever rightwards, is the whole point of what constitutes the so-called "left" in today's political world. Bernie talks about what amount to tweaks in that status quo and preventing an even more precipitous lurch to the right. And he calls it "revolution" -- which is silly. And I think he knows it. Hillary, on the other hand, says the revolution is not coming (because it's already come?), she will tweak things a bit this way or that way, but mostly she will maintain an even keel through the next eight years, which is what she declares the People want.
Well, she could be right.
Bernie the Bone says "No, no! We have to do better!" Well, yes, but how? Through "reform?" He talks a lot about expanding and growing and building from the current base, but that's not revolutionary. It's hardly evolutionary. Hillary talks the same but takes a different tack: "Slow and steady. Step by step. Not all at once. A piece at a time. We'll get there. Eventually."
Time and again modern leftist parties have won elections by promising to do something about the looting, corruption, death and destruction caused by the triumph of the political and economic illiterates who rose to power and prominence on the wreckage of the Soviet Union.
At best they've been to mitigate some of the damage some of the time. But mostly they've been able to do nothing. Or -- as in the tragic case of SYRIZA in Greece -- they have been forced to implement even worse measures to satisfy their rapacious overlords.
Someone like Trump, as one of those overlords, would do it gleefully, come what may.
Someone like Bernie might say "I'd rather not" -- but would have no choice in the end.
Hillary would argue how best to do it.
So I don't watch the debates as a rule. The Show Business is all well and good but pretty meaningless in the end.
