Looking Back on 2016 -- Heightening the Contradictions

So far, this has been a winter without winter where we live. I'm writing at around 2 am on what should be a cold winter's night, but the outside temp is nearly 40, and there's been some rain. Rain. In late December, early January. In Central New Mexico, rather high in the mountains. While it's not unheard of -- little is -- it's not at all normal.

2016 was like that. Different yet much the same, and not at all normal.

In January, I started having severe symptoms of what turned out to be rheumatioid arthritis. Diagnosis was complicated by the onset of pneumonia. Looking back, I realize what a mess I must have been. I didn't know it at the time, but that's kind of how it goes. When I'm ill, I rarely realize how bad it is -- or if it is bad at all -- and as a rule I wait too long for treatment. In this case, the situation was complicated by multiple conditions needing treatment and by my own cussedness and contrariness.

I think all of that has influenced the way I look at what else happened last year.

"Ché What You Call Your Pasa" started as a political commentary blog back in 2007, and that's what it primarily still is though now mixed quite a bit with personal recollections, ancestry research, nostalgia, local interests, and my obsession with houses. Still the political nonsense of Our Betters and the resistance to their machinations provide the scaffold on which hang whatever insight I may have about what''s going on in the USofA and the world.

What a mess indeed.

Throughout the past many years, I've been highly critical of the policies of the White House occupants and the carefully engineered Congressional majority. I've run the electoral process in this country through multiple wringers. The courts have been subject to intense criticism, particularly the utter lawlessness that seems to have infected the judiciary at every level.

I've been a critic of much of the standard internet criticism of the Way Things Are and How Bad Our Rulers Are. This has been going on since before there was an internet, in much the same way, with the same concepts and criticisms repeated ad nauseum, and nothing (much) gets better. We are always just "starting" to see or believe something that is generally self-evident; the Empire is always on the verge of collapse; blamecasting and scapegoating for failures is a constant; but failures themselves are only steps on the way to ultimate victory. More than anything, the Democrat (sic) Party must be destroyed; the Republicans are generally blameless because they (at least) "tell the truth;" liberty means private sector or even individual ability to impose authority without government interference.

On the internet it's taken as axiomatic that the Clintons ("Clintoons!!") are the source of all corruption and evil.

The Democrats in Congress are worthless.

The media is little more than propaganda for one side or the other.

There aren't really two "sides" anyway. There's only one side with two faces.

Obama is a buffoon. So was Bush. So was Clinton.

In fact no White House occupant since FDR, and maybe not since Lincoln or Washington, has been worthy of the office.

The voters are ill-equipped to make a rational choice for President, thus the mess we're in.

Yadda yadda.

While some of this is rhetoric and cant, some is true enough. The problem is that nothing (much) changes for the better. It just keeps getting worse, no matter what.

Underlying it is the wish for a Savior to fix things once and for all. With the (apparent) election of Trump, much as was the case with the election of Obama, at least some Americans feel the Savior has Come.

Of course, I reject the very idea. Presidents have a particular role to play in the Pageant, but Savior is not one of them -- except among true believers whose touching faith is at the root of both major party's base.

So we've gone through a year of chaos, contradiction, bizarre obsessions, denial, and political theater such as has not been seen in this way previously. Much of the internet seems to feel vindicated by the (apparent) election of Trump. If he's not their Savior, he is what they have been waiting for -- for good and ill.

This belief seems to afflict both the "left" and the right as well as much of the libertarian cohort. They look to Trump to undo what's wrong and restore what's right, and in the end, to rule as a (somewhat) benign dictator/entertainer -- which is all they've ever wanted in the first place.

There is no doubt in my mind that the political system is rotten to the core, and to my way of looking at it, the problems are inherent in the system. It cannot be reformed. No dictator, benign or otherwise, will "fix" anything because they benefit from what's wrong. In fact, so long as the entire institutional establishment benefits from what's wrong or can be made to benefit them, nothing (much) will change for the better. Our system of politics and rule is set up to be that way. It cannot be changed from the inside, and the influence of the Outside (us, the Rabble) on events is slight or none.

The electoral pageant of 2016 had many elements of unreality. The candidates all around were generally execrable with the exception of Sanders whose candidacy was almost too rational for his own good, certainly for the times. Apart from being an old man railing against old problems and offering old solutions (my god, is there nothing new to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow? Nothing?) he was arguing, arguing, arguing, all the time, as if by rational argument alone the intractable problems of our times can be/will be corrected.

No. It doesn't work that way.

I think he knew that, but he was out there making a case that needed to be made-- no one else in the political hierarchy would dare to make it -- and let the chips fall where they may.

Eyes would be opened. The Butterfly Effect would be initiated and things would work out eventually.

Or not.

Mrs. Clinton conducted what looked to me to be a very odd campaign, one that was nearly secret because so much of it was conducted behind closed doors at high dollar fundraisers. Her absence from public view appeared to be strategic. Since everyone already knew everything about her, there was thought to be no need to show her to the public any more. All that was necessary was to defeat her rivals, which-- according to elite theory -- ought to have been a simple enough thing to do.

A clown on the one hand, vs a radical Socialist on the other. Piece of cake.

But it wasn't. Bernie got very close to defeating her in the primaries, and according to some opinion, his defeat was engineered by the Party hierarchy. In other words, had it not been for electoral fraud on a massive scale, Bernie would have won the Democratic Party nomination. Maybe. Maybe not.

Funny thing about our elections: we can't ever know whether those accusations are true or not. Our elections are riddled with faults, opacity, voter suppression, and opportunities for fraud (ie: fixing the tally to fit a pre-determined outcome). Our system is an anachronistic, opportunistic embarrassment and it should have been scrapped long ago. But certain interests benefit from the way things are, and nothing will change for the better so long as that is true.

Herself seemed stunned that it was so difficult to reach the goal she sought. It was incomprehensible to her that there was so much genuine opposition to her ascension; the opposition could only be the result of historic anti-Clinton propaganda and the inherent deplorability of the voters who opposed her. 

All her campaign thought they had to do was make mock of and denounce her chief rival, the Evil Clown, and she'd be home free. It was a campaign run like the front page of Daily Kos, and in the end it resulted in self immolation.

The opposition to her ascension, however, was more than matched by the opposition to the ascension of her chief rival, the Trump the Evil Clown. Ultimately, the opposition to him was even greater than the opposition to her, but the quirks of our anachronistic system once again allowed the loser to be declared the winner, and here we go.

Once again: the second time in 16 years that the Electoral College has elevated the popular vote loser to the presidency, once again defying the will of the people (well, at least those of the People willing and able to cast a vote) to install the Other Guy in the White House. This time it didn't require a Supreme Court intervention to reach that point, but courts did intervene, repeatedly, to stall or stop recounts of votes in crucial states. Courts ruled to protect the announced outcome, regardless of what really happened.

We don't -- and can't -- know whether the outcome was jiggered, nor can we know to what extent it was or is possible to jigger election outcomes.

Based on the shocked reaction to the outcome by all and sundry -- including the ostensible "winner" -- the outcome defied expectations. Either the election wasn't seriously compromised and it more or less accurately reflected the will of the voters, or it was heavily jiggered in the states that mattered and there was and is no way to be sure about it one way or another. Either scenario results in the same shock.

Ever since November 8, we've been in a situation where one faction of the Overclass is trying to figure out how to get out of this mess while another faction is trying to consolidate its power in the face of the Twitter troll in chief's chaotic hoo-hah.

In other words, things are flying apart, and it's only by chance that they seem to be holding together.

We're still on the edge of the precipice (another internet trope, btw). I would put it this way: it's another precipice. We've already fallen far. Crashed and burned. The survivors are now facing another drop.

Under the circumstances we really don't have a future to look forward to. The end is not so much nigh as it has long since come.

We're sorting through the debris, that's all.

Compared to the hell so many people around the world have been going through, our situation is mild. That may change at any time, but for now, even the worst of what's been happening domestically -- and much of it is terrible -- is nowhere near the catastrophic levels of pain, death and destruction faced by whole populations abroad. Need we mention the ongoing horrors in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Ukraine and on and on? We have had it lucky compared to so many others.

The contradiction between what those outside our borders go through and what Americans go through -- and complain mightily about -- is stark. We should acknowledge that but we don't.

The notion that somehow putting a made-man "billionaire" in the White House will tame or end corruption is absurd. But it's passionately believed by those afflicted with Savior-itis.

The idea that somehow wars will end because Trump wants "peace" borders on insanity. But it's believed passionately by those afflicted with Savior-itis.

One of the most persistent arguments in favor of Trump's ascension is that regardless of what happens domestically ("who cares, really?") his foreign policies will more than make up for any domestic deterioration. More than make up for it. Never mind no one knows what those foreign policies are. One can dream, can't one?

The idea is that since he won't start "Clinton's War" with Russia, it's all good. Nothing else matters at all. Of course, I've argued that Clinton wouldn't have started any such war, either. What she was doing was ham-handed and stupid, but it would not have led to a first strike against Russia. Period.

Trump on the other hand seems intent on fomenting conflict -- nuclear or otherwise -- with China, Iran, "ISIS" and others, and for some reason that's ok with his loyalists and defenders. Kill them all. "They're not like us."

Of course I recognize and point out the inherent and historic racism in this point of view. "They're not like us" is the key to understanding. One commenter posted about how the Chinese and Vietnamese and others of that ilk raise, kill and eat dogs, the implication being that for that alone they deserve to be exterminated. I'd say they beg to disagree.

Other excuses for mass extermination of the Other include the fact that they breed too much ("Look at Africa for god's sake!") and they don't obey their Betters.

Whatever the case, there are just too many of them and if they won't go quietly into the void, they must be pushed -- for the benefit of all of us.

Don't you see?

Getting rid of them will make our lives better somehow.

This is one of the basic tenets of White Supremacy, and during the Euro-American colonial/imperial period, getting rid of them was policy. Precipitating population control of the other by famine, war and other means (spreading diseases, for example) was routinely employed as a means of keeping their numbers in check. My Irish ancestors had plenty of experience with the tactic as it was constantly being employed by the British against them.

Of course it was policy in the United States against the Indians as well.

So will we see a return to it? I don't know, but all the mechanisms exist to do so, and White Supremacy has once again come to the fore. It's the unmentioned key to understanding the rise of the right in North America and Northern Europe.

They want their countries back.

And to the extent they can, they will get their countries back.

The rest of us had better hunker down.

During the year just past I quoted Robert Graves, "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out."

That's certainly what's happening. Our supposed enemies seem quite content to let it be.

It makes the contradictions between the away we see ourselves and want to be and the way our rulers see us and their own future even starker.

I say the situation is unstable, inherently chaotic, and it will not end well.

But then we've been on this path for so long perhaps it's too late to change it.

Read Mao On Contradiction. See if he wasn't on to something, and see if centers of rivalry -- whether domestically or internationally -- haven't figured it out.

Happy(?) New Year.

Reading List

Thucydides

The History of the Peloponnesian War c. 433-411 BC

It's a wonderful read, densely packed with too much information and strangely modern insights into the roots of war, the selfish motivations of all involved, the difficulty of maintaining honor under any circumstances and how much more difficult it is under the pressures and deceits of war. That's just to scratch the surface.

I'd been warned off of Thucydides back when I was a student, can only recall reading what seemed to be a totally opaque excerpt in a literature history class that convinced me at the time that the Ancient Greeks were simply too remote from our own Advanced Selves to bother with, and besides, they were terrible writers whose works were almost indecipherable. Feh.

Well. This 1954 translation by Rex Warner is nothing short of magical. The work strikes me much as reading the Ancient Greek playwrights did somewhat later in my education. It's like opening a window, breathing a fresh or noxious breeze, but whatever the case, facing something true about the universal human condition.

Two thumbs up, but be prepared to spend lots of time...

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Jean H. Mariéjol

Philip II -- the First Modern King, 1933

I picked this one out of a used book bin a couple of years ago. It's a first edition that had belonged to a professor at UC Berkeley. His notes and marginalia, written in a tiny, beautiful hand, mostly in brown ink, some written in Arabic, add to the remarkable nature of the work itself.

What's remarkable about it, in part, is its perspective on the Philip and events in Europe during his reign. What we Anglo-Americans "know" about Philip and that entire period of history is almost entirely filtered through an English prism. Philip was married to Mary Tudor, aka "Bloody Mary", who tried to reimpose Papism on Britain after she ascended the throne following the deaths of her father Henry VIII and her half-brother Edward VI. She would die as Queen of England, etc., while married to Philip II, who was at the time styled King of both England and Spain. Though you wouldn't know that from most of the history books. Then Philip would send the Armada against Mary's successor Elizabeth and face utter defeat. Thus, Spain's power was broken, and Elizabeth Regina sat unchallenged atop the mountain, Shakespeare wrote some plays, and All's Well That Ends Well. Exeuent stage right.

Mariéjol looks at the picture from a distinctly Continental point of view, barely acknowledging the English episodes in Philip's reign, and explores in enormous and often bloody detail the situation on the Continent -- in Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, the Low Countries, the Papal States, and details endlessly complex dealings with the Ottomans and North Africa.

Looked at from perspective of the whole scope of Philip's duties, authority, and reign, the English episodes are for all intents and purposes a sideshow.

And the story of what was going on in Europe, much of it the consequence of dynastic interrelations between the Hapsburgs of Austria and everyone else, is a tale of almost inconceivable destruction and bloodshed, monstrous cruelty exercised on behalf of privilege, religion, and pride.

Bad as things were under Spanish rule in the Americas, it was no better, and arguably worse, in Europe.

And this was the "first modern king?" Oh my god.

Fascinating for the insight and perspective it brings to the history of the 16th Century, and for what insight that history can shed on our own struggles.

Two thumbs up but be prepared for the worst that humans can conceive of.

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Mao Tse-Tung

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung -- aka "The Little Red Book", Peking, 1967

In San Francisco back in those days, China Books and Periodicals over on 24th Street was a destination for all thinking radicals, and for some tourists, too, who wanted to "see for themselves" what the Great International Communist Conspiracy looked like. It was a remarkable place, bright and sunfilled, with extremely orderly displays of periodicals, shelves of books (not a lot of them, though, as I recall), in English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and other languages, and a very... interesting... staff deeply committed to the Revolution (and at the time, the Cultural Revolution as well, also). I think you could even get "Mao Jackets" and caps at the store.

The shop was registered as a Foreign Agent, and I seem to recall a prominent notice to that effect greeting everyone who entered.

It is no doubt obvious that there isn't much Communist literature in my personal library. I have not studied Communist theory and I don't intend to. Oddly enough, The Little Red Book demonstrates why, as did some of the other things I picked up at China Books and Periodicals. I have some copies of "China Today", for example, the glossy magazine published by the People's Republic and distributed to English speaking lands and peoples, and like nearly all Communist propaganda at the time, it was ludicrous. On its face, it was utterly ludicrous, something that should have been obvious to anyone (much as, if the truth be known, "Life" and "Look" magazines were pretty ludicrous, too.) Communist theory had a certain appeal to those who were convinced a better collective future was possible, but the impact of the propaganda claiming it was "Here!" was just the opposite of the intent.

Mao's quotations, even in the context of the times, seem deeply naive on the one hand, and grossly anachronistic on the other. If they seemed that way then, just imagine how they seem now. It is little wonder China has all but abandoned Communism for a highly idiosyncratic nationalist version of Capitalism -- Usually With A Human Face, But Sometimes Not. Mao is revered as a Founder, but his thought, well, the less said about that the better, and China Books and Periodicals of (now South) San Francisco no longer sells "The Little Red Book" -- and the staff would probably feign ignorance if you asked after it.

Ché says read it anyway. You gots ta know.

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Elsewhere I've posted about the seemingly limitless number of books I've collected and perversely hold on to. I haven't added any since Christmas when I used a Borders Gift Card to get me the one new book I was hankering after. I have never counted and have barely organized the books I have, but I estimate altogether around 12,000 volumes, some pretty old (the earliest are two volumes of the "Poetical Register" from 1801 and 1802), some said to be "valuable" (mostly illustrated children's volumes), some sets of encyclopedias from the 1920's, '30's and '40's, many books on art, some on the sciences, certain categories of literature and plays (Shakespeare, Hemingway, Williams and so forth), novels by selected contemporary writers, thousands of National Geographics dating back to around 1907, some religious tomes, including Holy Writ from Islam, Catholic and Protestant Xtianity, the Jooz, some Buddhist and Hindu stuff, the Dao, etc, etc, anthropology and archeology (primarily of the Americas -- though I've got a whole shelf of King Tut books), a smattering of sociology, history of all kinds, travel -- oh my god, the Travel Section! -- and cook books by the hundreds, lots of home improvement and how to books, and here and there a few political tracts and tomes. But not many of those. Too depressing.

Part of the reason for my bibliophilia is due to my sense that books -- as in physical volumes that you can hold and touch and read by flipping actual pages -- are disappearing. They are actual historical objects. And they contain the documentation of historical periods no matter what the ostensible topic is. This is why they are preserved, at least some of them, through all the ages since writing was first figured out. An electronic book is all well and good (and I have hundreds of those as well), but if we continue to revert as we seem to be doing, there will come a time when those electronic books are no longer accessible to the masses. Either the technology will fail (how many of us, for example, have documents on floppy disks that we can't access or read any more?) or restrictions on access will prevent more than a few Adepts from acquiring the Knowledge therein. So. I keep building my library. With the thought that one day, it will serve a greater purpose than my private interest and pleasure.

OT: The Cat

This is Mao:



He hated having his picture taken, always expressing his supreme annoyance by cutting his eyes and turning away.

He was 16 1/2 years old, been at Casa Ché since he was born, and he died this afternoon and was buried in the back yard with his favorite red bird and yellow squeaker mouse toys, and with a stick, for nothing at all made him happier than playing "Stick!" any time of the day or night all the way up to nearly his last days.

He was the smartest cat I think I've ever known, and one of the most loving. Whenever I picked him up, he would wrap his arms around my neck, rub my cheek with his, and proudly pose there like I was his trophy, and wait for others to admire his prowess.

He knew many words in English and could say some of them. "No!" for example. And "Out!" He would query carefully if he wasn't sure of something or someone, and chat almost mindlessly when the spirit moved him.

His mother was purebred Siamese; his father was a drunkard and a brawler from the alley, but who's to complain. He ran off and we didn't hear any more of him. His mother wound up going back to San Francisco when her "owner" decided he wouldn't be a reliable caregiver.

Mao was truly the friend of nearly everyone -- except other cats, who he would drive off his property with a furious outrage that was a wonder to behold. He was the best friend the residents of Casa Ché.

As I mentioned, home hospice care has been under way here since October for an elderly relative, a woman who adored Mao. When she was in the hospital this last time going through constant torments, she said one night when she was feeling particularly horrible, she heard a voice, not a human voice, a cat's voice, and she said, "Is that you?" The cat responded softly, "Mao..." She said, "Are you here? How did you get in here? They don't let cats in the hospital!" She heard him say, very softly, "Mao..." She said, "Let me touch you to be sure." She said she thought he was on the bed, but she felt all over and couldn't find him. She's blind so she couldn't see him. She heard him say, "Mao..." softly, and she said she reached over the side of the bed and she said she touched him. He was on the floor, and he rubbed her hand and she could feel him purring. She said she heard him say, just as plain as day, "You're going to be all right, and you're coming home. I'm going to make sure. I'll stay with you tonight, but don't tell anyone. It's a secret. Just you and me." And she said she broke down crying, because he'd come to visit her and promised she would come home again.

And he was right there when she arrived home from the hospital, so weak she couldn't hold her head up. And he stayed with her for day after day, drawing the illness out of her, giving her strength. If she needed anything, he would call out or go get someone to help. He slept with her, stroked her with his own paw, and he "helped" when she was strong enough to stand, and "helped" some more when she took her first few steps after coming home. She's been devastated today, disconsolate -- like everyone else around here -- but she said she was so grateful he had been so determined to get her to come home and had done so much to help her get better.

I said, "If Mao had been a person, he would have been a doctor. As a cat, he was a natural healer."

During his last illness, he made clear what his wishes were. He didn't want to see the vet unless there was no other choice. He wanted to feel feline to the end and he wanted to be warm and he wanted to be with the people who loved him. The last couple of days, weak as could be, he wanted to go outside, and go next door to Joe's house. Joe was our neighbor until three years ago in January, when at the age of 100, he fell and broke his hip and had to be placed in a residential care facility. He and Mao were good buddies, and Mao used to sit on his porch and watch the clouds roll by while Joe trimmed the hedges or puttered with his flowers. Joe died a year after he went to the home, and Mao seemed to sense his passing. He didn't go over to Joe's house very often, and when new people moved in, with their own cats, he stayed well away. But he decided he wanted to go back and sit on Joe's porch and watch the clouds again, and he did for a little bit. And then he gave me a look that said, "I want to see Joe again."

And I said, "You will, you will." And I held him so close, tears rolling down my cheeks and I took him back home, where he was warm and with the people who loved him, and this morning, he went outside one more time, and he came in and lay down and said his good byes, so softly, and he did not get up again.

I hope he's with Joe now, and I hope they're sitting on a porch watching clouds roll by and listening to the mocking birds and thinking about playing "Stick!"

You're both missed, buddies.