So. The Diagnosis Is In

 Advanced Stage 4 Prostate Cancer.

I probably had it when I was hospitalized last year in addition to a lumbar and disc infection, but nothing was done. It was barely mentioned as a Thing. I recall a biopsy was done to test for cancer cells in the bones of my hip. I recall that isolated cells were identified but none were specific for prostate cancer. Thus, the focus remained on clearing the infection -- ultimately successful -- and no action was deemed necessary to deal with cancer.

Now, apparently, it's too late. Oh, they can make me comfortable and that's good -- I guess. Well, the amounts of opioids I'm prescribed and taking are alarming. But on the other hand, I'm not opposed to going that route. There are treatments, but the more modest ones initially undertaken, basically just suppression of testosterone production, aren't doing it, so more radical chemotherapy is to start in two weeks, i think. If that doesn't work then radiation could begin soon after. I get confused about dates. There are so many things going on and moving parts. It's a whirlwind. MD Anderson.

I'm at home which I much prefer to hospital or acute care facilities. Depending on how things go, I'll stay here till the end. 

And that will be? Oh, "we don't know." Could be four or five years. Or more. Or less. But nope. One doesn't live forever.

How much of this do my handful of readers want to follow? Should I detail step-by-step what I'm going through or should I just let it go? There is a whole world out there and I am hardly the pivot around which the Universe revolves -- that's my cat Princess. 

It's a lot to process, and I've just barely started.

The Water Heater Analogy -- or is it a Metaphor?

 The other day we had to have our water heater replaced. We knew it was coming. A repairman came a couple of years ago to fix the gas inlet and he couldn't do it. The problem was that the water heater was so old that his parts didn't fit and he didn't know where to find ones that did. He called in to his company and they didn't know where to get parts either. I said I'd try to find something since I have some contacts in the old appliance realm. I checked with the local hardware store -- which used to have lots of old stuff. Well, no. They'd got rid of most of their old stock, and the parts they have now were the same as the plumber had, and they wouldn't fit. Try a place in town (Albuquerque) they said. A couple of them still have old stock.

So I go into town. At the recommended place. they said yes they had the part I needed (a reverse thread nut) but they only sold it with a complete replacement kit for the firebox. Oh. How much? $108. The part I needed was about $1.35, but what the hey? So I got the kit, called the plumber -- who was shocked I found the parts -- and he came back and put the whole kit in the water heater, and it worked fine, better than ever. But he said at max, the WH would last maybe three more years, and I'd better start saving up for a new one. How much, I asked. He said at least $1,500, probably closer to $1,800 to $2,000.

Yikes. 

Well, but that's the way it goes.

So maybe 2.5 years go by, and by golly, the pressure relief valve goes out, water -- hot water -- spraying everywhere, and there's no way to stop it. Nowadays, it wouldn't happen quite that way, but I'll get to that.

You see, this is an old house, and things have been cobbled together, often self-built and repaired over more than 100 years, and so things aren't necessarily well-planned or thought through. For one thing, even though the water heater was installed in 2005, it was an older model, and it wasn't put in properly -- though it was supposedly done by professionals. There was no shut off valve, for example, and there were other issues. So in order to stop the water spraying all over the laundry room, I had to go out to the driveway and dig out the meter box which was buried in gravel. Initially, I couldn't find it. But then I did and dug and scraped until the cover emerged, and I couldn't find the tool to open it. I used to do it with a big screwdriver, but I couldn't find that either. So I called the city (yes, though we live in a rural area, we are technically in a city, and the city provides water to our section.) They sent a guy within 10 minutes and he had to struggle some to get the water off, but he finally did, and we started cleaning up the... mess...

I called the new plumbers we'd been using, asking if they could send somebody. Well, yes. They could but it might not be until late, maybe 5p or even later. Would that be all right?

I said I'd check locally, and if I could get somebody sooner, I would. Fine. I called several local plumbers, and as I expected, the answer was nope, or there was no answer at all or no call back. One didn't even have a phone number listed. What fun. 

So I called the other plumber back. I knew they were more expensive, but if they could get somebody out here, that would be cool. 

I'd called at 8:00am. At 1:00pm the plumber assigned to us calls, and we discuss what's wrong, and he says welp, he can fix the pressure relief valve ($7-800) or he can replace the whole thing ($2100). What did I think? I said welp, it's old, and we'll have to replace it soon anyway, let's do the whole thing. Can he put a shut off valve on it? Yup. Everything to code, and a very high-end water heater. 

Wow. That's more money than we've got on hand, but you do what you gotta. 

So after several more conversations about household heating and cooling, how much room he will to work and what size the heater is, he says he'll pick up a water heater and parts and be here in about an hour. Sure enough, he shows right on time, and after checking out the situation gets right to work. 

About 3 hours later, the city worker comes out and turns on the water at the meter, and ta da, a fancy new water heater is installed, with a shut off valve, a drip tray, a copper line from the pressure relief valve to the outside, an alarm if it leaks, and all sorts of other things which I wasn't expecting, including the fanciest earthquake restraints I'd ever seen. The water heater works electronically, no pilot light, and there are special instructions for shutting the dang thing off. Not at all like the old one. Steep learning curve for me. But oh well. 

He walked me through the basics and pointed out the instruction manual. It's guaranteed 6 years, he said, installation guaranteed for a year. If anything goes wrong, no charge for parts or labor for the first year, then labor only for the next five years. He said it would probably last for 15 to 20 years, but we should think about replacing it before that.

Otherwise, the price complete was indeed $2,100. 

We chit-chat a bit while he's preparing the bill, and it turns out he's from South Africa and he came to the US in 2016. Whoa, mercy. Got in just in time. He did an excellent and very thorough job. He asked if we wanted him to clean up the water which was still puddled here and there in the laundry room, and the mud he'd tracked in from outside. I said no, he'd done his part. We'd take care of it.

And so, we thank him profusely and at about 6:00pm, he drives away to his next job, a broken refrigerator water line. Time to start cleaning up.

We now have hot water to clean up with. Everything works except one faucet in the bathroom which now leaks which it didn't before. Hm. Well, I can fix that, eventually. 

Now why is this a metaphor for our national condition? 

For one thing, the last four years have been a mess and the government is partially -- some would say completely -- broken. There's crap all over the place, and a big part of the project for the Biden regime (yes, they're all regimes now) is repairing what's broken, replacing what doesn't work any more, and cleaning up the mess left by Trump and his fans. No easy task.

Biden and Harris seem ready to start. But there's so much work to do, and whatever gets done is going to be different than we expect. It's going to be more complicated, better in some ways, not so much in others. It'll look good, probably, but it may not last very long. It'll take professionals, not grifters, to get done. 

We've known this would happen, would have to happen, sooner or later, and we've been prepping, somewhat, not very well, but still...

What needs doing -- like replacing the water heater -- will take care of a little bit of what ultimately needs to be done. Biden and Harris say they are focused on controlling the virus, rebuilding the economy and fixing broken institutions. OK. That's really a much bigger job than I think they can handle, but what do I know? There is so much that's gone sideways, not just since the advent of Orange Man Bad in the White House, but for a very long time. Fixing it isn't going to happen overnight, and the crew coming in is more like a restoration effort, not a renovation/repair/rehabilitation outfit. But again, we may be in for surprises. 

A simple fix of the water heater would have made me happy. We got a deluxe fix. But it's not going to last forever. Nothing does. 

Junta Time?

The events in Charlottesville continue to reverberate. While Nazi torchlight parades and chants of "Blood and Soil!" are a disgusting display and street brawls are little more than theater -- usually -- the upshot in Charlottesville was the terror-by-vehicle tactic deployed against the so-called counterprotesters (watch how that term is twisted and turned this way and that to normalize the Nazis as the genuine "protesters.")

One was killed and dozens were injured on the ground. Two state police officers observing from above were killed when their helicopter crashed.

It was a debacle for all kinds of reasons.As we inch closer to Labor Day, we need to keep that in mind.

The day did not go well for anyone.

It seems to me this was the tipping point we wondered if it would ever come.

Trump demonstrated clear unfitness for office and inability to lead with his pathetic and contradictory responses to the events in Charlottesville. He was so far out of touch with the zeitgeist he seemed like some alien entity plopped down in front of a teleprompter to say just the wrong things and repeat them, at a time of public mourning and national moral crisis. He failed every  test of leadership.

In normal times, that would mean he's done. In these times, it's hard to say.

But note well that he's effectively installed a military junta to run the country should his regime collapse -- as it appears to be doing.

Mattis at Defense, McMaster at DHS (the key domestic agency -- thanks Cheney!) National Security Advisor and Kelly (ex-DHS) in the White House as chief of staff. There seems to be bipartisan support for these fine fellows, each of whom is practically worshiped by both parties and many in the Overclass. In other words, if the Trump regime goes down, these three can instantly elide from their current positions to ones of executive control, without objection from the People Who Matter.

The US experiment with constitutional self-government will reach its final end.

Though I'm sure the junta, like Octavian in Rome, would say they are protecting and restoring the Republic. Bless their hearts

Events of this magnitude take place after Labor Day, so we have a few days to psych ourselves up.

Ms Ché  and I are scheduled to visit Acoma Pueblo on Labor Day. There is a whole story to tell about what happened there when the Spanish came a-calling in 1598. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.

Acomans survived it in sufficient numbers that they are still around; the mesa-top village was rebuilt along with the huge San Esteban mission church, one of the largest in New Mexico, and today, the Acoma pueblo and surrounding territory are major tourist destinations. Despite survival, Acoma today is a very different place than it was before the Spanish conquest.

My bet is that the US will become a very different place after Labor Day this year, but I wonder how many people will notice.

There has long been a significant sector of the US population that would prefer military rule to the messy "democracy" that's been teetering on the verge of collapse for a generation.

The Class That Stands Together

There may be a glimmering among the Rabble that not only is Trump no populist, he's a fairly accurate representation of his class. The class of billionaire oligarch/gangsters who set out to rule the world some decades ago and have nearly achieved ultimate victory.

It isn't talked about in class terms, not in the US at any rate, and that's too bad. These people rule us, they own the government, and they are bad news. They seek to steal everything they can from the masses, and provide just enough in return to keep the Rabble fighting over the scraps. Dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, yadda yadda.

You may note that for the most part the Overclass is silent about Trump -- or enthusiastically and actively supporting him. Almost none actively -- and openly -- oppose him and his rule. Instead, it's left to a shadowy "deep state" to hamstring and undermine him, neutering his worst impulses from time to time, but otherwise leave him be.

Why not? He provides endless entertainment that can be marketed to the Rabble, and as long as what he does or wants to do is confined to what the Overclass deems meet, what's to worry, right?

Trump was effectively neutered as President by the end of February. Apart from his twit-storms, he really hasn't been able to do anything on his own since. To say he's figurehead is being charitable. Government is delegated to his family and cronies and he can go golf. This is essentially how enterprises of the sort he's familiar with operate. The Jefe doesn't actually do much. He doesn't have to. He has people for that.

Interestingly, he's failed with the congress, he's been slapped down by the courts, the military seems to ignore him (and treats with his son-in-law instead, knowing where the "real power" behind the throne is), and the media makes mock of him day in and day out.

According to the polls, his popularity, never great, has collapsed. He is a king without a country.

However, and we should be clear about this, the Trump regime is being allowed to set precedent. A precedent that says that direct oligarchic rule is OK by The Powers That Be. The Rubes are too stupid to say otherwise.

In other words, what comes After Trump won't be much different. Style wise it may be less tawdry, but substance? Pretty much the same.

The US is now over the notion that someone who knows what they're doing should be in charge. As long as the class of the Rulers is Ruling Class, Overclass, Oligarch-gangster, it's OK. Whatever.

The Rabble is to be barred forever more from the levers of power. Even the professionals and experts are to be barred from the halls of the Mighty until they are vetted for loyalty first and foremost.

What will be will be.

I long ago pointed out that if the Revolution ever comes to the US, it will come from the Right. And so it is. We're in the midst of it.

Ultimately, Trump himself is not the issue. It is the class he represents, the class that's seized power and intends to rule directly for ... eternity?

The Left, such as it is, appears to have given up on the US some time ago. The Left has been almost entirely absent from politics in the US since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even before that, it was weak and ineffective.

So Democrats have been cast as "The Left" -- but they're nothing of the sort. They are little more than the somewhat less brutal rightist party. For a time, Libertarians tried to claim the "Left" mantle, but it didn't work. Their key concept -- "I demand the liberty to impose my authority on you, without government interference" -- is hardly a Leftist notion.

If there can be no Revolution from the Left, the question will be how to survive the shitstorm brought to us by the Oligarch-gangster class. Combined with climate change and everything else, it should be clear by now the Rabble is in for a world of hurt, unrelenting and increasingly cruel.

What a whirled...

Water Protectors Retreat

I was able to watch a bit of what was going on at Standing Rock via Unicorn Riot's livestream yesterday, and I must say it was dispiriting on many levels.

The Oceti Oyate (formerly, Oceti Sakowin) camp had already been largely vacated and dismantled when the final eviction order was issued early in February. The issue of "clean up" came to the fore, with the authorities declaring anything that had been left in the camp was trash. Some clearly was, but much wasn't. Nevertheless, the bulldozers and skip loaders were sent in to "clear" the campground before the spring floods.

Of course they made a worse mess of things by churning up mud and destroying perfectly useful shelter and supplies.

Yesterday, the remaining Water Protectors lit the wooden buildings still standing on fire, in a ceremonial act. A few veterans and Water Protectors stood in the road confronting riot garbed police. For reasons unclear, the police attacked the unarmed Water Protectors, injuring several and arresting 9 or 10. Then they retreated behind their barricades saying they would leave the 50 or so remaining Protectors and veterans to their own devices, with the proviso that "clean up" would re-commence at 9am this morning. People on site at that time would not be subject to arrest unless they interfered with "clean up."

These are some of Unicorn Riot's videos from yesterday. Unfortunately, they missed a good deal of the action, particularly the police assault.

This is a link to Eric Poemz live video from the scene yesterday. He was apparently shot in the hip with a "rubber bullet" and arrested, along with several other independent media reporters. His arrest is documented at about the 2:57:00 mark in the more than 3 hour video.

Note: I despise Facebook, but for whatever reason, activists are devoted to it.

Truthdig live-blogged events yesterday. So there is that.

Some of the activists have moved to other camps nearby, but I've heard that they may be subject to eviction orders as well. Other Water Protectors have dispersed around the country, focused on the issue of... well, "Water Protection." Pipeline projects; contaminated municipal water systems; riparian and aquifer issues and so on.

I think I may have mentioned that the local municipal water system where I live doesn't meet federal standards for lead and other contaminants, so we don't drink it. Thousands of other municipal systems are in similar non-compliance, not just Flint's, but of course nothing (much) is being done about it.

The issue of water protection is not going away anytime soon, and it goes well beyond the specific matter of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Actions have been taking place all across the country and elsewhere, and they will no doubt continue until water protection really is taken seriously by those who rule us. So far, water is seen as a commodity for profit.

The Water Protectors and their allies made a stand in North Dakota. Hundreds were arrested, hundreds were injured, some permanently. They sacrificed their comfort and convenience and ultimately their well-being for a cause greater than themselves, and I commend them.

They showed that the State is the enemy of the People. Period. End of discussion.

So. What is to be done?

Pipelines will continue to be built. Water systems will continue to be contaminated. Profit seekers will continue to privatize access to clean water. That's how things are set up, and that's not going to change soon.

Nevertheless, the Water Protectors have highlighted just how screwed up the ruling paradigm is, and they have shown the way toward rectification. They didn't succeed in North Dakota but they showed how to succeed over time. It's a long struggle back from the brink, but if no one tries, they will never succeed.

Sustained opposition to what's wrong, positive envisioning of what's right, sacrifice, prayer, and determination all enter into the process of rectification.

The Pushback Is So Weak

It's long been a truism that "bullies are cowards."

Anyone who has dealt with bullies, which I guess we all have at one time or another throughout our lives, knows that they can be both dangerous and cowardly, but their ways are patterned. They can be wrangled and defeated, either by strategy or by force. On the other hand, a bully isn't necessarily bad; bullies can be useful if they're on your side. That may not happen often, but it can.

Bullies have to have toadies or they can't function. The idea of a solitary bully is almost impossible to conceive, but I understand they do exist and they can and do terrorize whole neighborhoods. I think that phenomenon may be a different thing, not a classic bully, but I don't know because I've never encountered someone like that. Heard about them; never seen one in the flesh.

No, most bullies I've encountered have a cloud of followers, toadies, some of whom become trusted assistant, others little more than hangers-on. The point being an expected reward for loyalty and service. The reward might consist of nothing more than a glance, a smile, a pat on the head, but for many who toady, that's enough. Some toadies become objects of contempt or derision among the group, and for them it's fine. At least they're noticed.

Challenging a bully can be tricky, especially if s/he has a relatively large following, each member of which can be a bully, a danger, and a coward in his/her own right. Getting through all of them to challenge the head-bully can be difficult, and it can be so exhausting that  challengers give up. In some situations, too, challenging the bully can get you killed.

Another truism: "If you strike at the king, you must kill him." Indeed. Challenging the bully without defeating him or her is a dangerous exercise, dangerous not only for the challenger but for many of those who seek to stay outside the conflict as well. Most people would just rather not be involved in any way, but when a challenge fails, as they often do, the consequences for the innocent can be severe.

All this is prelude to what I see going on with the White House occupants. Bullies and toadies aplenty, head bully with the gold-plated pate, and they are being challenged on all fronts, in the streets, behind the curtain, daily, hourly, nonstop in the media, and throughout the permanent and elected government. They have fewer and fewer allies, and they seem to relish alienating those individuals and interest who might naturally be their allies. They're in a world of shit of their own making.

What I'm seeing is some of the weakest pushback imaginable. Good heavens, they have essentially no defense mechanisms at all. It's all show business, no substance -- or at least not much.

Paper tiger doesn't begin to describe it.

The vile twitter rants have become international jokes. Policy and law are not made on the twitter machine. But the rants do expose weaknesses. Bald assertions of power and authority are regarded with the same arched eyebrows as Cartman's "You will respect my authoritah!" Sure, whatever. Blah, blah, blah.

Blamecasting for the multiplicity of missteps and failures, particularly blaming "Clintonites" and "The Media," is loopy. False claims and accusations are constant. They're called out for what they are, "lies," and the death spiral spins ever faster.

Threats and imprecations go nowhere. "Operations" to get rid of the troublemakers fail.

From the perspective of the governing class, those who do this governing thing for a living, the out of control and very weak bully-behavior is incredibly dangerous for the leader of an imperial nation-state such as the USofA.

It cannot be allowed to continue, and I have no doubt it won't be. The pushback is so weak from the White House, and it's becoming weaker by the hour, I'm not even sure the regime will last out the month. This coming weekend may be its last.

On the other hand you never know. All the weakness I'm seeing may be a feint, and something unpredictable and awful will take place. Another Reichstag Fire type event.

I've pointed out we've already had our Reichstag Fire (ie: 9/11) and there's no going back. We've been in a kind of interim phase since then; everything is set up behind the scenes to institute a full on police state autocracy, but if it were to happen, we the Rabble weren't supposed to notice. It would just be a smooth and natural transition, and that would be that.

The current situation has disrupted those plans (!), and the Rabble is noticing. How to finesse this with as little hoo-hah as possible?

I suspect it can't be done.

There will be hoo-hah, and some of it is bound to be ugly. In fact, a lot of it probably will be.

While Trump defenders continue to rationalize his every twist and turn as "brilliant!" even they are beginning to recognize that this situation is not sustainable, and the End quite likely is nigh.

The tipping point has been reached, and it's downhill from here.

It looks like some of the Rabble are recognizing that in order to correct the situation, there may have to be a period "without a president." Until yesterday, it seemed the focus was on impeachment or using the 25th Amendment -- ie: Constitutional remedies. Which would take time, time we don't have, and would result in Pence, Ryan, McConnell, or even Tillerson in the White House. But... this is such a severe situation that it seems more and more likely that extra-constitutional means will be necessary. In other words, "suspend the constitution" -- temporarily, of course. There is a means to do that, btw.

I for one don't necessarily look at what comes After the coup as a positive thing, but perhaps it's a Needful Thing. There will be dancing in the streets, perhaps replaced with fear and loathing soon enough.

What gets me about all this is that it was always possible for whoever sat in the Big Chair to do the right thing, and Trump, being such a disruptor and a bully to boot, could actually have taken the power of the presidency to new realms of Doing Right. That's what I think his believers thought he would, peace and prosperity would reign, and heaven would open a branch office on earth. But it isn't working out that way, and Trump is being revealed as a weakling, whining, empty headed freak.

OK then.

Off with their heads. Metaphorically speaking...

End of the Beginning?

Of course it's hard to know at any given time what's coming. One can read their beads and assess the signs and portents all the live long day and then something unexpected happens. You're in a different reality, one that perhaps was always there, the way multiple universes are said to interpenetrate one another, but it wasn't something we had to pay attention to. Until now.

The reaction to Stephen Miller's round of performances on the Sunday Gabfests has been rippling through the political class, the media, the permanent government and among some of the Rabble. With few exceptions, the judgment is that he was way, way over the line. And something must be done, and done quickly.

Miller took the place of Kellyanne Conway on the shows -- apparently because her credibility was in the crapper and since she'd been working so hard at it, she needed a break. We'd been hearing about Miller for some time, as he is reputed to have written some of the more incendiary statements and speeches of the regime and its titular ruler. He along with Bannon have long been considered the ideological masters in the White House. Miller, it is said, was one of the writers of the Muslim Ban (that isn't) now wending its way through the judiciary.

So the White House sends Miller out to do the Shows, and "OMG."

I saw part of his performance on Meet the Press, and it was shocking. He came across as Joseph Goebbels' bastard Jewish grandson, railing and ranting, ordering and demanding, lying and daring Chuck Todd -- or anyone else -- to do anything about it. Pugnacious doesn't begin to cover it.  This was a pure, over the top, Nazi performance project, something designed -- I thought -- to put the Fear into all of Trump's opponents, be they judges, media celebrities, or the pink pussy-hat wearing "Resistance."

Message: "This stops now."

Now while his performances were obviously being done for effect, I'm not sure he got the effect he wanted. When the initial shock wore off the Nazi allusions -- while still strong -- faded and some of us recognized that it was more on the lines of the Israeli Spokesperson (especially under the Likud regime) than straight out Nazi. Meaning that this is a contemporary model for regime spokesmouths, not the historic one from the Time of Unpleasantness in the 20th Century. This way of communicating regime demands and commands goes on all the time around the world. It's just not been typical American practice. So it's shocking -- and rightly so -- to see it on the Sunday Shows, unvarnished, unbridled, and very much in your face.

The reaction was mostly swift and quite negative. Not simply because he was lying; we're so used to that from the White House, it's almost normal. No, it was the whole package. If that's the way the White House wants to present itself, then by golly, it's game on.

A number of thinkers and pundits and commentators have been sounding the alarms. "This is an Emergency!" they say. If something isn't done, and done quickly, about Trump and his band of mountebanks and thieves, liars and con artists, Christian Dominionists and Apocalyptic believers, white supremacists, Fascists, and worse, the United States is on a path toward becoming a failed state in its own right and instigating global destruction on an unparalleled scale simply because it can.

Trump's core believers call these warnings "hysterics." I'm old enough to have lived through a number of these transformative presidencies, and I've never seen anything quite like this. The lies and the chaos are one thing. What's worse is the overt contempt for other interests and points of view, and the easy sadistic glee in scapegoating the vulnerable and punishing opponents. This cannot be allowed to stand.

But we can't look to the courts to save us. It's not going to happen. The courts can stall some of the worst of what's in store, but they can't stop it. Should the justices get too uppity, the regime can go full on Andrew Jackson and ignore any ruling it doesn't like. After all, the courts have no independent enforcement power.

No, the system under which we've been governed up till now can't handle something like this. It will shatter to pieces. Some would say that's a good thing in and of itself, and so we should just let it shatter. The system is decadent and corrupt and unreformable. It has to crash and burn for something better to emerge.

The Resistance, so far, is basically critiquing and naysaying. A positive alternative is still in formation.

Up till now, the Resistance has been a somewhat formless potential movement away from the chaos. Potential. It hasn't turned into a movement yet, though some of its critics call it one. It's lacking a catalyst to turn it into a movement.

But that could come at any minute.

Indeed, Stephen Miller's performance on the shows seems to be catalyzing something in the media particularly.

The demonstrations continue in the streets and at selected congressmembers' town halls and offices.

So far as I can recall, there have never been so many sustained nationwide opposition actions, and they are having an effect. That isn't to say they'll succeed. But they are being noticed, which is something that deliberately didn't happen with the demonstrations against the Iraq Invasion.

There have been a few counter demonstrations, but so far, they are very small and have had no effect at all.

Perception management is an important element in these situations, and in this case, there is a perception that opposition to Trump and his cronies is widespread, deep-rooted, active and determined.

The demonstrations immediately after the election were large and widespread, so large in fact that a whole sub-industry sprang up on line to discount them as "Clintonite" rejectionism, involving too few people to matter. Well, that was wrong. In fact those who were in the streets at the time reported that "Clintonites" were a minority among the crowds, as they have remained ever since.

No, the Resistance is something else again, and the Democratic Party and the Clintons are at best minor players. Often enough they are completely irrelevant to the interests and actions of those who are taking to the streets.

There was a brief moment of hysterics on the part of Trump supporters when Alex Jones (I think it was) said that the post election demonstrations were an attempt to incite a "Soros funded Color Revolution." Why that should inspire near-panic among the Trumpists, I'm not sure, but at the time, such a judgment was premature. There was no Color Revolution, not even a hint of it. There was a largely spontaneous rejection of the election outcome. Given the fact that Hillary had so many more votes than Trump -- by an as yet unknown margin at the time -- it was natural for people to vent their outrage. Yet again the Electoral College would override the vote of the people.

However, by the time of the Women's March, the day after the inauguration, many of the elements of a Color Revolution had come together. With or without Soros funding.

The color is pink; the hand-sign is a fist, the right arm held straight across the chest at heart level. Large scale mass demonstrations can be assembled at a moment's notice, and they can and do interfere with routine. They're covered in the media. When tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of demonstrators can be assembled quickly and can disrupt the implementation of some of the regime's diktats -- and do it over and over again -- it's kind of hard to ignore.

I said a week or so ago that the wheels had come off this shitwagon, and indeed that seems to be the case, as the White House is bunkered down and Trump himself prefers the Mar-a-Lago Winter Palace in Florida or the Trump Tower HQ in New York. At least in those places, his Divinity is unchallenged.

The White House has been flailing for weeks. The court battle over the travel ban diktat is symptomatic not dispositive. Flynn's resignation, the constant dissembling, the leaks,  the fights over cabinet picks, the utter chaos all contribute to the perception that the White House is a madhouse where no one really knows what's going on, and except for certain issues, Trump doesn't care. He's looking out for his own wealth and well-being; bugger the rest.

So my question is, "Will this regime be brought down?" The Magic 8 Ball says "Most Definitely!" I take that as a yes since my own Predict-O-Meter has long been on the fritz.

OK, let's say it happens. Who will do it? The people in the streets cannot do it on their own. They can, however, make it impossible for him (or his goons) to govern, and we're close to that point now.

"Ungovernable" has become one of the protest memes, and I'm promoting "Disobey." These are ideas and actions with powerful potentials. The roundups of immigrants haven't quite catalyzed the kind of response necessary -- ie: human shields in every case -- but as more and more efforts to crack down on the designated Others get under way, I think we'll see more direct action to stop it. Disobedience will become the rule rather than the exception. Becoming defiant and ungovernable will be the new normal.

On the other hand, the tipping point may have been reached with the resignation of General Flynn from the NSC. There is gossip that the matter actually involves Trump and Pence in a conspiracy of silence about their Russian dealings. (I've never put much store in the whole Russian Thing, but apparently it matters deeply within the governing clique.) If as may be the case, then entire Trump regime is involved in something that can be construed as compromising the sovereignty of the United States -- that's what this is beginning to look like -- then the consequences  can be, must be, severe. Though not likely, it could even involve treason.

Impeachment is an option, but I think it would take too long and much mischief would be possible in the meantime.

It looks more and more like a coup will be deemed "necessary." My suspicion is that the next time Trump goes to Florida, a select team will place him under house arrest. Meanwhile, in DC other teams will isolate Pence and the White House staff. A general, could be even Mattis, but Petraeus is more likely, will take charge (much as Al Haig tried to do when Reagan was shot.) He will be interim leader.

What happens then is anybody's guess, but if the present regime is deposed, we can be sure there will be dancing in the streets.

I give it till the end of the month.

The Squeeze

After the coup fizzled out, it looked for a time like Our Betters were simply going to let things devolve under Trump however they might and say fuck it all. A reason why the coup may have fizzled out is that the factions have become too polarized and they have very different visions of what should come after The End. They couldn't agree on a path forward, the military didn't provide buy in, and the factions are too evenly matched power-wise for any of them to assert rule over the others.

So we get Trump getting more and more off kilter as the days go by -- how many has it been? two? -- and his defenders are flailing wildly to hold on to something solid before it all flies apart.

The Squeeze has taken the place of the Coup.

Maybe that's the better way to go, I don't know. If I had confidence that the golpistas had the best interests of the People in mind, I'd go with the Coup (reluctantly), but clearly they don't. It's all against all with them and we the Rabble are the Devil's Hindmost. But the coup-plotters seem to have given up on the project for now, so The Squeeze is coming into play.

Perhaps it's better because it is more populist. And it is closing in from all directions.

The Revolutionary Communist Party (RevCom, RCP, Bob Avakian's little pop stand) is in the vanguard -- of course -- and it makes me laugh a bit because they can't actually do a damned thing, but they're out there, and they're acting all radical and shit, and saying what has to be said: "We gotta stop this fascist shitshow once and for all."

Just putting it as bluntly as that can make a difference. Most commentators dance around the obviousness of what's going on, fearful perhaps that if things are what they look like, those who speak out will be caught up in the meatgrinder and their remains will be fed to the dogs. Yes, that's a real risk. And that's why, no matter how bizarre RCP is/can be (and there are times I don't know what they have to do with any political archeology or ideology, communist or not) their presence on the front lines can make a difference. Somebody has to do it.

RCP is out front. I would think the anarchists would be out there too, but apart from some Black Blocyness during the Inaugural Pageant, I haven't seen much anarchist involvement in the whole hoo-hah, "peaceful transition of power," yadda yadda.. It doesn't mean it's not there, I just haven't seen it, locked as I am in my prison of illness and disability. (Whine, whine). It's possible that anarchists are revving up for something else later on, but my sense is that they're essentially withdrawing into the shadows with perhaps occasional outbursts of Black Blocyness to keep the pot stirred. Survival mode.

Things aren't going to be pretty, after all.

No, the Squeeze isn't coming from the anarchists nor necessarily from the radical vanguard.

It's coming from a consolidation of domestic and international business and financial interests with the anti-Trump factions of the permanent government and from the rising and (more or less) genuine grassroots populist movement -- signified by the spectacular turnout for the Women's March -- on the other.

I don't think Trump will survive it -- but of course, he's pulled through many other efforts to kneecap him, so I'm not placing bets yet. It's risky for those involved, and there's no sign yet of what comes after.

If The Squeeze merely replaces Trump with Pence we're probably worse off than if nothing were done. But we might feel better about it. I don't know. I know I wouldn't, but that's me. I think a lot of anti-Trump activists would be much happier with Pence, though the anti-Fascists would puke. Myself, I'd prefer to see the entire cavalcade swept away, but I don't have much of a solution beyond that, either.

The inability to predict or describe what comes next is one of the chief impediments to action. I would think this was all gamed out long ago by the Ruling Clique, but apparently not. Signs are clear that they were not prepared, not even close, for what's happened. Thus so much wheel spinning.

We don't have an image of what comes next in part because we've been conditioned not to think that way. When people did think that way, we got utopian visions such as Communism, Fascism and Nazi-ism. I think Our Betters want to ensure that never happens again, so thinking through what comes next is almost impossible except for those with an apocalyptic frame of reference. No more utopias, in other words.

Trump was selling a different kind of dystopia, and enough people bought the snake oil to put him into the White House (if that's where he is, I kind of doubt he actually stays there. Not enough gold plate...)  But they're finding out it tastes awful and doesn't cure what ails them. It makes them sicker.

The media is part of The Squeeze, but note, plenty of formerly "progressive"ish websites among the New Media ("") have thrown in their lot with Trump, placing a bet that whatever happens under his rule, it will be better for them to be on the side of the winner than not. That will only work for them if he actually wins in the end. It's a calculated risk, of course, for the Internet as we've known it looks slated to go away sooner rather than later -- and that would be likely whether or not Trump were in the White House. Noncompliant as well as compliant websites and their proprietors are in the crosshairs no matter what. It really won't matter much whether a blog or website proprietor defended Trump or not. The point will be to stifle dissenting points of view and market only approved positions.

The coastal enclaves and their economic clout are part of The Squeeze. Trump ultimately can't do anything without them. And he's done his absolute best to alienate them.

Elements of the military and the MIC are part of The Squeeze. Of course the anti-Trump faction of the intelligence community is part of The Squeeze.

One of the more interesting factors of The Squeeze is that the professional bureaucracy that actually does the business of government is not just resisting, they're actively subverting many of his initiatives and desires. Not just saying "No," they're saying "Fuck you very much."

Oh my. Something like this happened with Reagan, too, but the bureaucrats were ultimately brought around, though it took quite some time and the Reaganites had to yield on many fronts before they were able to get their modified way. They thought they could just wave a wand and compel obedience. That's not how it works.

I don't think Trump will be given that kind of time to sort things out. And if the subversion is as extensive as it seems, he won't be able to mollify the resisters. Too many other things to do on too many other fronts.

The Squeeze is coming from the tech sector, the financial sector, as well as many other sectors which feel uneasy about the advent of this gross abuser in office, and it's coming from some who probably want revenge for some of his behavior in business. This is their chance.

Mob interest must be keen. Factions there, too.

Ultimately, it boils down to a popular revolt. All these interests and more will try to manipulate it, but we can't know in advance how it will turn out.

But recall that early on, the Trump defenders and loyalists were hyperventilating over some sort of Soros-funded Color Revolution their paranoias told them was under way when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets right after the "election."

There were millions in the streets on Saturday, and the color was pink pussy.

The hyper ventilating and paranoia was triggered once again. Soros! Soros! Soros! No doubt he and his money has something to do with the growing resistance, and maybe his idea is to underwrite a Color Revolution in the USofA. So? Not that I approve -- these Color Revolutions elsewhere have turned into disasters for the Rabble -- but when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, that's just the way it is. Trump opened this door, and if he doesn't like what's behind it, too fucking bad.

This might be a good time to post a link to Gene Sharp's directions on how to do a Color Revolution. 

Maybe the paranoia is justified as many of the elements Sharp says are necessary are in place.

Ahem.

There are alternatives. 

Take the Square provided the guidebook for Occupy -- one that's been expanded with lessons learned since then.

Peter Gelderloos' How Nonviolence Protects the State is a good and useful reference for understanding just what all those cries for "nonviolent resistance" really mean.

Then there's David Graeber's Revolution in Reverse which turns the whole Revolution!! theory on its head. There are other ways to do it, people. Think!

These are some of the alternatives to a Color Revolution, there are many others, and we really haven't seen anything yet.

I'll close this long-winded screed with the observation that the Internet is designed to overwhelm any likelihood of action. It is filled to bursting with entertainment, fear, uncertainty and doubt. It is made to hold your attention and keep you from doing anything about your situation and condition but submit to what you are told to do. Ie: send money to candidates, vote for one shit-show or the other.

Decoupling is necessary.

Be careful of falling into the propaganda and argument trap. You'll never emerge!

Onward.

Yesterday was Terrific -- Himself's First Full Day on the Throne Was A Disaster of Epic Proportions

Game on, eh?

I watched bits and pieces of the Women's March in DC on C-Span's livestream yesterday -- as it wasn't being covered live on any of the local broadcast stations. Odd I thought, but there you are. There were a lot of people there, obviously, but it was impossible to tell from the camera angle how many. Then I found a long-shot from the Washington Monument, and it was clear the crowd was huge, but still hard to tell how huge. Bigger, obviously, than the inaugural, but the people were arranged differently, facing away from the Capitol rather than towards it, and many, many more were in the streets beside the Mall than was the case during the inauguration.

A lot of people, yes, and they were certainly in a good mood, enjoying most of the speakers and entertainers -- it was certainly an energetic line up -- and even more important, enjoying one another's company. This was like a community get-together on a massive scale. They couldn't march -- there were too many people, and they'd already filled up a good deal of the march route -- so they had a rally instead, and it was good.

While the local stations didn't cover it live, they also didn't cover Trump's rambling, incoherent and self-referential remarks at the CIA live, and they didn't cover Sean Spicer's little tirade at the White House press corps live either.

So I'm still doing catch up on what was going on yesterday, the first full day in office for the new boss. Or whatever he is.

Not sure at this point just how "in charge" he is. But we'll know soon enough.

The masses of people in the streets yesterday, in DC and all over the country, was astonishing. In my condition, I can't do these things any more, and it kind of drives me nuts. I don't want to be sitting at home with oxygen tanks and tubes and doG knows what-all, remembering to take my meds and trying to remember which ones I forgot this time, yadda yadda. But that's the reality I live with, and it means no more marching in protest or hanging out much with various opponents of the status quo...

I have to get news as it comes and I can find it, and the news is often shaped and shaded for a particular purpose in support of a particular agenda. Treading carefully and critically is necessary.

As I cruised around the Internet for news on the marches, my astonishment at the outpouring of community feeling, good fellowship and determined opposition to Trump and all his cronies and minions all over the country and the world only grew. I had no idea -- I don't think anybody did -- that the Women's Marches would be so well-attended. 

750,000 in Los Angeles??? Is that even conceivable? Estimates now range to 650,000 in DC. 100,000 in Denver. 120,000 in Seattle. 10,000 or 20,000 in Albuquerque --- Albuquerque!!  20,000 in Sacramento. 100,000 in Boston. 400,000 to 500,000 in NYC.

And it goes on and on and on, In many places, the largest demonstrations ever seen. Unprecedented. And everywhere, consistent reports of good feeling, community, and determined opposition to Trump and all his bullshit.

I've noted some of the critics of yesterday's demonstrations have taken the tack that the women were incoherent, had no specific goals or items they were protesting, their rage was impotent, their presence in the streets irrelevant. Yadda yadda, the usual anti-protest garbage.

But here's the deal, during this nascent popular uprising -- that's what it is -- the White House and the would be God-Emperor were trying to take control of the narrative, to dominate the coverage, and to make all this Female Business go away.

As I say, neither their efforts nor the marches themselves were covered live on my teevee, and I didn't see that much of what was going on elsewhere when I checked the Internet. But when I did see things...

Trump went to the CIA and yapped for too long about himself, whined about the coverage of the inauguration and denounced the "lies" about attendance. What? WTF, dude. Get over it. Put on your big boy pants and suck it up. Nope. Not him. Whine, whine, whine, whine. Nonstop. That's his style. It's an identity thing. But showing it off at the CIA headquarters may not have been wise. Or maybe it was just what they needed to see to convince them -- if they had any doubt -- that this man cannot be allowed to be "in charge" of anything but a pedal car.

The infantile nature he displayed at the CIA would have been shocking if we hadn't seen it many times before. What was new was his open display of childish tantrum throwing at the headquarters of one of the agencies he's been insulting and denigrating. Yet his audience seemed to love it.

That gave me the sense that the ruling clique's factional contest is more complicated than I thought. These were supposed to be rank-and-file CIA workers in attendance at the Trump appearance yesterday. I don't know if they were or not. But if they were, their reaction was a sign that the agency is split -- as is most of the permanent government -- over whether Mr. Trump is to be obeyed or thwarted. That may be the reason he has not been thwarted... yet. Perhaps it's why there has been no intervention of consequence, despite the many opportunities presented.

If there is such a split in the agencies, then it's likely the split runs throughout the permanent government, and a resolution may not be possible. I will keep that in mind as things devolve.

Later in the day, Sean Spicer, the Presidential Spokesmouth, made remarks at the White House regarding the issues brought up at the CIA by the President. The important issues. Ie: crowd size at the inauguration vs the Women's March, and whether or not a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. was removed from the Oval Office as reported in Time magazine.

He yelled, he threatened, he blustered, he read from a prepared text and stumbled all over his words. He took no questions. The press corps was dumbfounded.

Spicer lied on behalf of his boss. He declared war on the media. Again.

OK then.

What to do about it?

The problem here is that the Media -- as in the big ticket propaganda organs -- has a shitty reputation in part because it is so unreliable and so focused on info-tainment. Many of us simply ignore it or pick and choose very carefully what to watch and listen to and critically assess what to believe.

We won't have cable teevee in our house, in part to make sure that cable "news" never darkens our viewscreens.

To the extent we watch any news on the teevee, it's mostly Amy Goodman -- who I frequently criticize -- and PBS NewsHour, which I also criticize. Network news is rarely seen or heard here.

So when Spicer or Trump criticize the media, they will get little argument from me -- except when they demand, as Spicer did, and Trump has often done, that the media report the lies of the regime as Truth.

The correct answer is No.

But that's hard for the media to do. The threat is that if they don't fall in line, they will be shut out of access, and Trump will go around them, which I guess gives them major heartburn.

So what do they do? They don't know. Not yet. Some are standing up to the abuse, but others are yielding in order to maintain their access to the King. It's a mish-mash.

In the meantime, what these mooks in office are saying is... crazy. Not just crazy but dangerous. Divisive. Destructive.

Personally, I'd rather not see it reported as anything but lies, division, and danger.

But that's not up to me.

Meanwhile I'd like to see the spirit of resistance that was shown in the marches and rallies yesterday be sustained, and I'm not sure at this point it will be (of course, since I can't be there, I don't know what's going on internally.) The massive attendance is probably not repeatable, but it doesn't need to be. What's needed is sustained and focused opposition, and that's very hard to accomplish in this society.

Stranger things have happened. Stay tuned.

On the Refusal to Stop Being Distracted

For some it's football; for some it's Facebook and Twitter; for me I suppose it's nostalgia and learning something about my ancestry.

These are distractions from The Other Things we're told are Very Important and To Be Feared. Media outlets compete with one another to generate the highest level of fear among the Rabble they can, and apparently one of the focuses of Fear, Fear, Fear is the Russian Thing (whatever it may be) and Putin-the-Devil.

Oh my goodness. I am all atremble.

I can't even count the number of years ago it became apparent to me that Our Dauntless/Faultless Media engages in Deliberate Fear Campaigns over anything at all (including Foreign Devils) on a regular basis, the point of which is to get the Rabble all hopped up about something and buying things -- including repeat doses of media propaganda -- to salve their Fear. You go back in media history, and fearmongering over just about anything at all has been a constant throughout that history. So has propaganda on behalf of government and propaganda against the ruling party in favor of the other party. Conspiracy theories have been rampant in the mainstream and the fringe media. As bad as it is now, it's been worse in the past.

All the agitation against it has done nothing to change it. We must come to the recognition, then, that Our Media, for all its good points and for all its ills, has never been the paragon we are expecting it to be. The media's function, for the most part, is to distract the Rabble from what's important.

What's important is the way government and finance capital collude to rob and exploit the people and suppress dissent and revolt in order to continue robbing, exploiting and destroying for profit.

What's important is that elections in the US -- as well as many foreign lands -- are farces. The pageants result in outcomes that the Rabble must accept on faith alone because there is no way on earth to verify the vote. It is what we're told it is, with no way at all to review and confirm that the tallies actually record the vote as cast by those who  are permitted to cast votes.

What's important is that the pace of climate change appears to be accelerating and our rulers have made no preparations for the well-being of the Rabble -- and don't appear to care what happens to them anyway.

What's important is that our warriors continue to expand their reach and continue precipitating calamity and chaos without end.

What's important is that our rulers rule contemptuously and contrary to the interests and will of the People, and they believe there is nothing the People can or will do that they need pay attention to.

What's important is that 2016 was the turning point whether anybody likes it or not, and it's now or never. Change for the better will come -- or it's not coming, and we may as well lie down and die.

If we are to be saved, it will be up to us to do it; no Savior is on the horizon.

I've said that "non-cooperation" is the key to changing things. Don't go along with the Fear, don't go along with what we're told to do, don't go along with what we're told is true.

Starting with the election outcome.

As I've said many times, the vote and the outcome cannot be verified. We have to take it on faith alone. I for one refuse. Everyone should. Refusing to accept the outcome, denying its legitimacy is the first step to undermining the legitimacy of the whole enterprise our rulers have been engaged in. Denying the legitimacy of the election delegitimizes not just the presidency but the congress, courts, state houses and even local governments. The whole rotten apparatus of rule starts to crumble.

The people don't have to engage in violent uprisings -- though I expect that will happen in some areas under some circumstances. There may be no way to prevent it. On the other hand, simply refusing to be distracted from what's important and sustaining that refusal can have powerful effects far beyond what's immediately apparent.

This year things will change for many millions of Americans and people around the world. We can't stop it, but we can affect what changes and how that change occurs.

We can-- and must -- make a difference.



White Rightists, King-Emperors, and the Führerprinzip

I'm not sure whether a coup is underway, but the outlines of one have taken shape. A powerful faction of the Ruling Clique, how large of one it is impossible to say, has issued a challenge and a series of threats to the out-group faction that won ("won") the election and is preparing to shift the ship of state onto an uncharted course of unbridled corruption, destruction and rapine.

There is no precedent for anything they are setting out to do. The consequences, if they are not stopped or controlled, intrinsically threaten the survival of the Republic (already on its last legs), and could result in an extinction level of harm to Americans and people around the world. (Again, not that such a fate hasn't been bruited about for a generation or more.)

Something must be done about it, and fast.

The agencies that have lined up in opposition to the imposition of Trumpivism on the nation and the world -- an opposition retailed as some kind of Russian interference in the election just past -- are not among the most highly regarded by the public. The CIA has one of the most wretched reputations for bad thinking, lies, and destructive conduct of any in US history. It has operated effectively as a shadow government since its formation after WWII. While there are few brakes on CIA activities abroad, it can assert a powerful influence on domestic government; it has the power to change who is in charge through various means, including the Kennedy Solution.

One messes with it and its affiliated agencies at one's peril.

Apparently Mr. Trump has chosen to mess with it.

OK then.

We'll see what happens. I'm not particularly sanguine that the opposition agencies will win the contest with Mr. Trump and his loyalists, but we'll see.

A way to understand what's going on is through the lens of White Supremacy and the White Rightist conception of how the United States and the world should be run.

I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Trump and his chief loyalists and followers are steeped in the belief system of White Supremacy. It's the foundation of their identity. We've been seeing a resurgence in White Supremacy, White Identity, and White Rightist and Nationalist political ideology throughout Western Europe and North America especially since the advent of the Obamas in the White House, but it has never not been a factor in the political economies of Western Europe and their colonial and post colonial enterprises around the world, including the United States and Canada of course. Let's not forget Russia as part of the White Rightist world.

White Supremacy and White Rightism is always there, but it has been submerged in very public efforts to be inclusive and promote ethnic, racial and cultural diversity within the context of White Supremacy.

The context doesn't change. Who gets to participate and to what extent does.

Once included, it's hard for formerly excluded groups and individuals to let go of their seat at the table, and that's part of why there is so much public anxiety about the advent of the Trumpist faction to power. He and his loyalists have made quite clear that the party's over for the inappropriately included (interpreted, I believe correctly, as non-white.) He has explicitly targeted numerous minority groups he regards as unworthy. Scapegoating is de rigueur. One almost has to be white (and preferably male) or be seen as a non-white acceptable to white men to be included in the Trumpist vision of the New America. Loyalty and obedience are the essential factors affecting inclusion; race and gender are subsidiary but crucial factors.

The Republic has been on its death bed for some time, the coup de grace administered by the Supreme Court decision handing the presidency the Busheviks in the interest of "equal protection." It was bullshit, unconstitutional, and it was a coup. Yet by and large, Americans accepted it with relatively minor protest and grumbling. What could they do? A lot more than they did do, but the Rules of Politeness and Patriotism were more important at the time than fighting for what was right.

It was clear from the outset that the Bush Regime would be catastrophic for Americans and peoples around the world, and so it was. We are still living with the consequences. My generation will never escape them.

The Obama regime mitigated some of the worst aspects of the Bushevik catastrophe but didn't really change any of its fundamentals. It was obvious from the beginning that his job assignment was to con and soothe the Rabble and prevent, channel, or crush any revolt -- while the looting and destruction continued with little let up.

Hillary was supposed to continue the program with some slight revisions in emphasis.

Trump has overturned the status quo in a way; in another way, he's announced his intention to shift the existing program of looting and destruction into hyperdrive. In other words, the current program isn't producing enough rewards for the worthy people and it produces too much reward for the unworthy. Priorities and targets for exploitation and destruction will change, the world will witness and tremble.

Among White Rightists, Nationalists and Supremacists, there is a near worshipful regard for Trump and extreme levels of hope for his commitment to restoring Whiteness to its rightful position of superiority over the lower orders. Cluestick: there has never been a time in the colonial and post-colonial era when Whiteness hasn't been privileged in the Western European/North American context. Never. But that doesn't register with white people who sense an existential threat to them from the very presence of non-whites.

This White Supremacist worship is being exploited by Trump and his cronies to the fullest extent they can without triggering too much of a response from the lower orders. One of the ways they exploit it is by assuming a quasi-royal mantle (the Busheviks were masters at it) by which the title of President serves as a stand in for what it really is --- modern day King-Emperor. After all, Trump summons his potential barons and earls to his gold-plated palaces for interviews (palaces that strangely and discordantly resemble Saddam's "Republican Palaces" most of which were destroyed in Bush's war of aggression, but some of which were preserved intact and are part of the American and Iraqi puppet presence there.)

It's a matter of style over substance, but there's little reason to doubt that Trump intends to rule as if he were a King-Emperor, and his loyalists and cronies are fully on board with it. Why not make explicit what has long been implicit, after all?

There's another element that seems obvious to me, but is otherwise widely unrecognized. It is the concept of Führerprinzip -- the "leader principle" -- commonly ascribed to the Nazi rule of the German Reich, but much more widely believed and exercised than merely during that episode of unpleasantness.

I pointed out that it was part of the belief system of Arnold Schwarzenegger as he assumed the mantle of California's governorship after defeating Gray Davis in that recall back in 2003. He strongly believed in his rightness and unbridled authority because of his personality, power and position. The fact was, like so many who have been raised to power over the years, he was incompetent and was unable to rule as he wished because of powerful forces aligned against him, and the ability of some of those forces to more and more easily influence his rule as they took his measure and exploited his many weaknesses. By the time his wife left him, he was little more than the tool of other interests.

I doubt that would happen with Trump. Not because he's competent. Not at all. But because he has carefully tended his authoritarianism and knows how to use it against rivals and enemies. This is part of his conman and gangster persona. He acts as an implicit -- and sometimes explicit -- threat to any disloyalty or disobedience. This in turn shapes the behavior of both his loyalists and opponents. These threats are clearly meant to be taken seriously. And for the most part they are.

The Führerprinzip presents the Leader as the center and source of all law, policy, and political action. This is of course totally at odds with the traditional power-relationships of the Republic, but the Republic has been on life-support for a long time. The transition to a hegemonic imperial state guided and ruled by a Leader is merely a detail in the march of progress, no? Call him a dictator, a king, an emperor, a president or Führer, it hardly matters. In the conception of many authoritarians, it doesn't matter. They're all essentially the same thing.

Trump may face opposition from Congress, the judiciary, and many elements of the security state and the military, but he seems to have convinced the private sector elites to go along with him at least for the time being.

After all, they're getting richer by the minute. What do they have to lose?

As for the Rabble, enough of them are happy enough to be ruled; and too many don't care. On the other hand, Their Betters care no a whit what happens to the Rabble. They are mostly surplus anyway.

Meanwhile, this is a dangerous and unstable situation. Those who manage and impose the rule of the government and take action for and against governments overseas are rationally alarmed at what might be coming, and Trump has gone out of his way to antagonize them.

How they will respond is anyone's guess at this point, but what's happened in the past is that the security state and the presidency have found accommodation with one another through  various forms of unpleasant negotiations. We'll see whether accommodation is found this time.

I'm not looking forward to the outcome.

Reality Bites -- Nomi Prins Tells It Straight

Funny.

Jeebus.

Fore!

Trump’s Bait and Switch 
How to Swamp Washington and Double-cross Your Supporters Big Time
By Nomi Prins

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176219/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_the_march_of_the_billionaires/#more

I'll excerpt a few pertinent graphs from it, but please read the whole thing.

First of all, Nomi Prins is a well known and respected writer on matters of politics and economics. She has the requisite Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs background to know the real deal about the finance sector. She is somewhat of the leftish persuasion, but in our political realm, that's not really leftist at all. There is no left to speak of in US politics or economics, it's all rightist and it is more and more reactionary all the time.

Prins is telling the truth here, and the truth is kryptonite to Trump and his followers.

They can't stand it.

So what is the truth here? Let's go through some of her points, one by one.

Trump’s version of a political and financial establishment, just forming, will be bound together by certain behavioral patterns born of relationships among those of similar status, background, social position, legacy connections, and an assumed allegiance to a dogma of self-aggrandizement that overshadows everything else. In the realm of politico-financial power and in Trump’s experience and ideology, the one with the most toys always wins. So it’s hardly a surprise that his money- and power-centric cabinet won’t be focused on public service or patriotism or civic duty, but on the consolidation of corporate and private gain at the expense of the citizenry. 

The signs have been plain since the campaign, of course, but as the Gold Plated Great Man fills his cabinet and appoints loyalists and cronies to other positions of import in the coming Regime, literally daring anyone to do anything about it, there is no sign of public service or public interest in the choices and their life's work at all, any more than there is any sign of patriotism or civic duty in Trump's background.  It just doesn't exist. There is every sign of consolidation of (favored) corporate and private gain at the total expense of the citizenry.

It’s already obvious that, to Trump, “draining the swamp” means filling it with new layers of golden sludge...

Gee, ya think?

The rarified world of his cabinet choices is certainly a universe away from the struggling working class folks he bamboozled with promises of bringing back American “greatness.”

Let's call a con a con and be done with it.

His attacks on working people via his appointments and his Twitter machine should have been a wake-up call to his working class followers, but in the Trumpiverse, every attack is deserved. The people, institutions and companies he goes after deserve it because they are disloyal or disobedient or both. For them, no quarter. Regardless of anything else.

what is guaranteed to be an abyss of inequality and instability.

Precisely. This is what some of us have been warning of. Strangely, now that these warnings are being listened to, known of, and worried over outside the Cassandra Class, the opportunities for action become more and more limited. It doesn't mean that nothing can be done, just that what can be done about it is shrinking.

Of course for disaster capitalists, an "abyss of inequality and instability" is perfect. Let's not forget that, either.

There follow details of the Harding-esque nature of the coming Trump Regime a detailed examination of the important players in the New America being set up.

Finally, wrapping up, Prins notes that

His new incarnation of the old establishment largely consists of billionaires and multimillionaires with less than appetizing nicknames from their previous predatory careers. They favor government support for their private gain as well as deregulation, several of them having already specialized in making money off the collateral damage from such policies....

Trump is now surrounding himself with a crew of crony capitalists who understand boardroom speak, but have nothing in common with most Americans.  So give him credit: his administration is already one of the great political bait-and-switch productions in our history and it hasn’t even begun.  Count on one thing: in his presidency he’ll only double down on that “promise.”

Well, yes. Wasn't it obvious?

For some of his followers, it was. And they hope to profit on their insight and loyalty. Others may not have seen the thieves picking their pockets as they joyously shouted "Lock her up!" or whatever, and don't see them now. Little or nothing can persuade them that they've been conned and will be fleeced of what little remains of their pelf.

They're not the only victims, of course. Everyone who can be will be relieved of everything the grubbing con artists can get their hands on. That's baked in. Anyone who tries to protect and preserve any shred of their former lives will easily become a target. That's how these things work.

Some of Trump's loyalists are eager for that outcome, looking forward to how they might profit from the ascension of His Gold Plated Self. The opportunities are immense. The victims deserve their fate.

Trouble is, they don't recognize that even the strongest loyalists can wind up in the victim basket. Or if they do recognize it, they think they will escape. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge and understanding of history,  maybe it's contrariness and pigheaded self absorption, I don't know. But their illusion of safety under the circumstances is false.

Our Banana Republic -- Memories and The TINA Principle

[OT: Oxygen! I got the small tanks yesterday. What relief. Couldn't deal with the big ones and the huge "portable"concentrator. Well, it's got wheels, so yah, it can be rolled from room to room, so there's that. Portability! The small tanks, about the size of a large wine bottle, can be carried about with a shoulder strap and the oxygen is dispensed in little bursts as you breathe. They last much longer than the big tanks that way, 4 hours or more as opposed to an hour and a half or less. I like it. And let me tell you, it is the simple things these days that make me smile... Oh my yes...]

Gold plated toilets. Damn, Dude has gold-plated everything. WTF? Why would anybody even want that?

But let's look back in our history. Do they teach history any more? They say that Civics isn't taught any more, so maybe they're not teaching history either.

Ms. Ché and I were yakking the other day about Our Day ("Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?")  We've long been convinced that our years (1965-66)  were the last high school graduating classes in California to get a comprehensive education. It was downhill from there, and we cite as evidence our nieces who went to the same high school I did. Things had changed radically from Our Day. And they, our nieces, did not get anything like the education we did. I wouldn't say they got an education at all.

We had to take six periods in class every day throughout three years in high school and one year (9th grade) in junior high -- it wasn't called middle school in those days. We took foreign language  -- Ms Ché Latin and Spanish, me French all four years; science, history, math, social studies, civics, English, Ms Ché was also taking performing arts classes and performing in plays; I wrote a couple of plays in college prep English classes which were then performed by the drama students. Electives were few, and for me, there was almost no time for much besides regular college prep classes (it wasn't called Advance Placement until several years after we graduated and went on to higher education... another story entirely.) We had to successfully complete 250 units as I recall to graduate. In order to receive scholarships and other benefits to go to college or university, our grade points had to be above 3.2, which wasn't an easy challenge in those days. Our teacher worked us hard and expected excellence.

My senior English teacher was a Stanford graduate married to State University drama professor, and her standard for us was modeled on Stanford's English class requirements. It was her intent that whether or not we went to Stanford (I think only one of those in my senior English class did) we would be prepared for any college or university English class, and because we would be prepared for that, we would be prepared for any other college course as well.

My French teacher was a Columbia graduate who had been a student at the Sorbonne when Paris fell to the Nazis. She spent almost a year in Nazi controlled Paris before she was "miraculously" able to return to the United States. Her last name was Cohen, and when she told us about this, we thought "Oh my god, she's just lucky she wasn't sent to the camps for liquidation." She said she had friends who were rounded up, but that there was little chance she would be. Not only was she American -- and at the time, the US was not at war with Germany -- but she wasn't a Jew, she was a WASP from Long Island. She would marry a Jew later, but at the time, she didn't feel she was under any particular threat because of her religion or nationality, though she knew people who were, and it tore her apart. She  was just glad to get out of there, and when she returned to Paris after the War, she said she was devastated. The city had survived more or less intact, but the people were so traumatized she wondered if they would ever recover from what they'd been through.

My chemistry teacher's last name was Tsuda. He was Nisei, and he was sent to the camps during the War. He was a teenager at Manzanar, and his experience there shaped his attitude toward the "America" as an adult. He graduated from UC Berkeley with high honors, but he had to wait until after the War, and until after some of the Anti-Jap agitation in California had died down before he could attend and complete his degree. All of the high school students he taught were white... go figure. He had no open animosity toward us, but I wouldn't say he liked us or gave a shit about us, either. I never did learn chemistry to speak of, and I doubt that more than one or two students in my class did.

When I was in high school, I lived next to the site of one of the transit camps for Japanese-Americans on their way to relocation. I knew there had been a military facility there called Camp Kohler. It had burned down-- I didn't know when at the time, but I found out later the fire was in 1947 when the camp facilities were being used to house returning US veterans and their families. All that was left of the camp were the concrete barracks pads, charred wood, fused glass, bits and pieces of metal, overgrown asphalt roads, and a spirit. A dark spirit.

I don't recall if Mr. Tsuda ever spent time at Camp Kohler before being sent to Manzanar (probably not, but who knows... ) What I do recall was his barely contained rage about what had happened to him and his family under the Stars and Stripes. I recall he mentioned being in Japan before the war and how beautiful it was, and he had returned after the war, I think he said in 1952 or 53 (Korean War? Was he a vet? I don't remember....) and it broke his heart. So much of Japan was still in ruins, of course. But it was the  broken people that hurt his heart more. I don't recall him specifically mentioning Hiroshima and Nagasaki but it was very much on our minds given the nuclear tension we were all living under during the Cold War.

I could go on describing my memories of high school and my teachers, but these examples give an idea of the kinds of people they were and the kinds of experiences they shared with us. Wartime memories were of course very important because they had so strongly shaped our parents and our teachers, and WWII had completely transformed the world we came into as post-War Boomers.

There was a level of prosperity and well-being that Americans had never experienced before. There were also severe strains and the early stages of general social unrest that seemed to begin in California and spread outward from there. Of course it had not started in California, but it became focused there as the youth rebellion took hold and Hippies became a Thing.

Ms. Ché and I were on the cusp of all that.

No doubt we were rebels, but generally were not part of the Hippie scene -- which we saw for its self-evident commercial aspects more than its social importance. We would go to San Francisco from time to time during the hey-day of Hippiedom, but it was not necessarily an attractive thing. It was just another Thing, not the only thing. We had friends who moved to the City and became part of the Scene there, and we saw it as them being who they were, not as something we were compelled to emulate or necessarily wanted to.

We did attend the Monterey Pop Festival the summer after the Summer of Love, and we almost went to Altamont, but thankfully did not.

In 1966, Ronald Reagan was -- "impossibly" -- elected governor of California promising to bring an end to the student unrest, suppress the rebellions in the black ghettos, and ensure that nothing like that ever happened again.

Ever.

His methods were cruel and violent on the one hand, more subtly destructive on the other. He deliberately set out to wreck California's Progressive operating system, and he largely succeeded. After California's Progressive Era was brought to a screeching halt under Reagan, he and his cronies would  apply the lessons learned nationwide.

And so here we are, Banana Republic.

Progressivism was itself the Enemy. Ripping it out root and branch was neither wise nor possible, but what the Reaganites did was set in motion its self-implosion and collapse, first by discrediting it, then by pushing on carefully selected pressure points -- including public education, mental health care, and "law and order" -- to produce desired results in time if not immediately. They knew what they wanted  but they didn't always know how to get there.

What they wanted -- and largely got -- was a reversion to pre-Progressive California and ultimately a pre-Progressive America.

In other words, a Banana Republic ruled by caudillos, whose favor had to be curried or else. Corporate control of government would replace Progressive "experts" and public servants. Elections would be manipulated for desired results. Tax burdens would be lightened for the well-off (why should they be forced to pay taxes anyway?) and fees in lieu of taxes would be increased for everyone else. Government would be operated by and for the rich, and barely function at all for anyone else. Public education would be administered to death. There would be no more "free" higher education in California. Students would pay increasing fees and tuition until going to college at all would be too expensive to even think about. The quality of public education at every level would decline, to the point where high school students would graduate pig-ignorant, and college graduates would barely begin to comprehend what an average high school student understood in previous generations.

"All against all," "greed is good," and "There Is No Alternative" would become the new reality.

And so it was. So it is.

I have long been a critic of Progressivism for cause, but not necessarily the same cause as its Reaganite critics. It's racist and authoritarian at its core, even in decline, and those factors were in large part responsible for the uprisings that presaged the Reaganite reaction. Progressivism led to some good things to be sure, but the costs were very high, especially for marginalized populations. Progressivism could not mask its racism and authoritarianism, though in a late fight for survival, it tried to.

The argument was that compared to Reaganism, Progressivism was less racist and less authoritarian. The lesser of two evils, eh?

Besides, what are you going to do? You have a choice between the radical return to the Bad Old Days or continuing on a failing course of what was seen as public sector stupidity.

Nobody I know of in the political realm bethought themselves to come up with something better than either choice.

There was no alternative. "None of the Above" was not an option.

Nixon was elected president in 1968, and compared to Reagan, he was practically a Communist. He was a genuine California Progressive but on the dark side of the movement, and eventually he was driven from office, not so much because he was a criminal, but I believe because he was going bonkers and had become unstable and unreliable. His judgment was so severely impaired and his actions so arbitrary that he was seen as a clear and present danger to the survival of the  Republic. That's something Our Rulers do not and cannot talk about. We the Rabble are not to know just how incompetent Our Rulers are. Please.

Incompetence is part of the package of public sector destruction that Reaganites set in motion in California and spread all over the country once they achieved the White House.

They didn't want competent public servants, and they saw to it that at the Rabble level, competence was often unavailable from government. This was actually a genius move because it destroyed confidence in government ("of the people and by the people") to get necessary things done. The only success allowed to government in the future would be police, prisons and jails, and in time, even that would be largely taken away with the substitution of private prisons, much like private schools would replace government schools.

They used some of the social strengths of the liberal-Progressives against them, and it worked.

I would say that initially the Reaganites were very weak, and they didn't really know how to do what they wanted to do. Progressives then offered them  a helping hand to get things done. They set the stage and the standard model for their own destruction. They cooperated and collaborated. Oh my, we've seen so many examples of this throughout history, haven't we?

We see echoes of it in the actions of the few Democrats still in office nationally. I wouldn't call them Progressives, good doG no, but they act as the rump remainder of what used to be Progressives.

They are notorious collaborationists.

It is one reason among many they aren't elected any more. They offer no policy alternatives, only procedural and personality ones. Bless their hearts.

The Mini-Mes of Destruction. USA! USA!

You gotta elect me cause I'm not him! YAY Me!

Jeebus what a goon show.

Thanks to Jill Stein -- bless her heart-- we're finding out just what a fucked up scam this latest election was. Honestly, at this point there is no way to tell who the voters chose in the battleground states, as there is no way to accurately count or recount their votes in too many jurisdictions. There's no way to know.

We've been experiencing fucked up scam "elections" for so long that a lot of people seem to take it for granted and accept the announced results on faith -- because you can't do anything else. There is no way to show that faith results are right or wrong. They just are what they are.

Electoral fraud appears to be pervasive but unprovable -- by design.

Voter fraud is something else altogether and appears to be rare, but maybe not. Again, there's no way to tell.

And in the common perception manipulated by the media, there's no difference. The two are conflated all the time, deliberately and with malice aforethought.

It's becoming very clear that we do not know and we cannot know who the voters in the battleground/recount states actually chose to become president. And if we can't know the actual vote in those states, it puts into question the actual vote in every other state.

And that's not even considering the active voter suppression efforts that have been under way throughout the country for years.

Reports indicate that millions of otherwise eligible voters were prevented from voting or had their votes tossed out due to a wide variety of suppression efforts, and in at least some cases due to the whim of election officials. The suppression efforts during the primaries were highlighted -- and they were extraordinarily varied and frequent. By the general election, it was all but taken for granted that the same sort of suppression would occur on an even wider scale, and nothing would or could be done about it.

After all, There Is No Alternative.

How much longer this corrupt and corrupting system can endure is anybody's guess.

With the advent of Golden Boy to the White House (will he choose to live in his hotel, will he sell or rent rooms in the White House, say tuned campers!) the inherent instabilities may become so severe that it all collapses.

I'd say we're close to that point now.

I've thought for some time that Trump will not be inaugurated Jan 20, but if he is, he won't serve more than a year in office. This is based on instinct rather than any evidence, so I won't say it's a prediction, but because he is personally so unstable -- and is known to be -- it seems to me unlikely that the Deep-State/Permanent Government will allow him to rule as president or anything else.

On the other hand, I'm not seeing any effort at all to contain him.

So.... we don't know. We can't say. And for the moment, there is no alternative to his ascension.

As they say, We Are So Fucked. No matter what.

What a whirled, what a whirled.
------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile on the Standing Rock/Archambault front. Wow. As I expected, the announcement that everybody should go home, they weren't needed any more, was met with shock, outrage, and resistance. Chad Iron Eyes, a prominent Standing Rock Sioux, all but called Archambault out for this bullshit. But some people did try to leave in the blizzard and some ran off the road and otherwise wound up in dire straits. What was he thinking? This is crazy.

There have been many attempts to rationalized Archambault's statements as primarily a matter of "safety" -- but when so many people who tried to leave were caught in the blizzard and were stuck, the "safety" argument fell apart. Safety for whom, eh? Not the Water Protectors.

Most of those who stayed were obviously better off than some of those who tried to leave.

Apparently there have been some modifications since the "leave now" statements were issued. Realizing -- gee, ya think? -- that leaving under blizzard conditions is probably unwise, the tribe and (interestingly) Morton County and AoCE officials have extended their hands to "help" by opening shelters for those who don't have winterized camping facilities, and for those who would rather not travel in such weather. Morton County officials (the source of so much pain) have said they will respond to any emergency and provide assistance to anyone who needs it due to the weather. This after saying they wouldn't.

I've been around Indian politics enough to recognize or at least suspect what's going on, but I'd rather not get into it right now -- because I can't do anything about it, and it will have to be resolved one way or another by those on scene. I don't doubt it will be, and it might get pretty ugly.

Indeed, what a whirled.

Shock Doctrinaire

[I have a juvenile black cat sprawled across my lap, so it's a little hard to type. Oxygen is flowing into my nose from my chair-sized concentrator though, so that's good. I think. We'll get to that -- maybe -- another time...]

It seems to be dawning on the political class and Our Rulers -- even to some extent to the wider-spread media -- that the elevation of Trump to the White  House is a classic Shock Doctrine move intended to produce classic Shock Doctrine effects. The Ratchet ratchets down another few clicks and there is no going back. [Shock Doctrine link. Be warned, 565 pg pdf.]

Regardless of what happens with the recounts and efforts to persuade the Electoral College to do the right thing and not elect Trump.

The shock(s) to the system(s) was calculated and deliberate, it has been delivered with a good deal of force, and whatever happens from this point will be in consequence of it, not in consequence of what the People want or need or voted for. It has nothing to do with the People except to the extent they can be further exploited, abused, and disposed of.

It has much, much more to do with the wealthy and powerful amassing more of the same at the expense of the People everywhere.

All of this seems to have come as a Shock to the Trumpians, too. They didn't expect it, and they have been wrong-footing ever since the (s)election.

Soon enough, it will dawn on the Exploiting Class -- if it hasn't already -- that Trump and his band of thieves and mountebanks are a god-send, their deliverer from the burden and annoyance of the People. That seems to be the point of all this hooey more than anything else.

The No-Brakes Regime the Trumpians are getting ready to impose begins in Chaos where it will stay till the Bitter End. In operation it will make the Bush2 Regime seem calm, restrained and rational (it was anything but).  Can you imagine being nostalgic for the Bush-Cheney Madhouse of Mis-Rule and Ruin? That's the kind of dissonance that's typical of imposed Shocks.

And this is being hailed and marketed far and wide in media, politics, and academe as if it were a Good Thing. Well, it's a Good Thing for those who profit from it, isn't it? It's not such a Good Thing for those who don't and can't and won't.

There is at least a chance, slim though it may be, that the operators of this madness will pull back from the brink and that there will be another shock, equal or greater than the first, and Trump will not become the president.

Personally, I think he will be allowed to sit in the Big Chair at least for a time -- maybe a few months -- before he is voluntarily or forcibly removed from office. The ways and means of that removal I'll leave to the imagination, but there are many options available, always have been. Presidents serve at the pleasure of the factions of the permanent government. Just like the rest of us, they are disposable. Trump is no exception. It looks to me like the factions are lining up on his side, though. They are getting used to the idea of a man-boy in the Big Chair again, and it looks like they like it.

I've noticed the atmospherics, the visuals he's been utilizing and the media has been aiding him with during this so-called "transition." There's a lot of Show Business, it seems to me, and less revealed substance than might be expected of someone else.

The backdrop of a White House-like doorway through which Trump and his interviewees retreat, and before which they pose for the cameras upon emerging from their interviews is interesting. This is a Bushian move, one the Busheviks employed effectively during the recount follies in 2000, though they tended to pose in front of a fireplace just as Oval Office photo ops are traditionally arranged. An expectation of inevitability was being induced through the use of White House-like sets, props, and decor. It was never entirely clear where these sets were, any more than the location of the Trumpian White House-like set is clear, but it doesn't matter for marketing purposes as long as it looks right. And it (more or less) does. Of course these posed shots on or in front of evocative "presidential" sets mask what's really going on effectively too. That's one of their main purposes.

Trump's pre-presidential pronouncements are clearly intended to soothe both his loyalist followers and the majority of voters who chose someone else. Because the situation is chaotic, thanks to his campaign rhetoric -- which was purpose-designed to alienate the majority of the population while appealing to a partisan minority -- and his and his cronies' statements and actions since election day, "soothing" noises are necessary to keep the masses from doing anything untoward prematurely. None of it makes any sense, truth to tell, and it's not supposed to. His congressional allies are causing even more disruption and chaos with their Grand Smash and Burn Plans to "overhaul, eliminate, and destroy" various programs and policies that they've been targeting for years if not generations.

They have declared, in no uncertain terms, that This Is The End of... well, Everything.



They now have unfettered Power. The rest of us be damned.

The rest of us be damned.

I recall that when the Busheviks were installed against the will of the People in 2000-2001, they were incredibly weak. Had there been any united and broad-based opposition, they could have been thwarted, maybe even prevented from taking office. But the shock was so great, it seems to me, that the political class simply gave up, did nothing but accommodate their New Overlords, and went on as if nothing was wrong. They stuck with the Busheviks out of a false sense of loyalty till the very end, and even in the midst of the shock of economic collapse, they did not repudiate the Busheviks. And now, of course, many -- including Bush 2 himself -- have been rehabilitated, and some of them are being integrated into the Trumpian Regime-to-Come.

The cycle repeats.

Obama's regime has been a necessary interlude, relatively peaceful and calm (I know, I know) compared to the utter Chaos of Bush2's reign and the even more chaotic Trumpian rule in preparation.

Shocks of this kind are intended to grease the skids for even more suffering and dislocation and death and destruction than we witnessed or felt or experienced from 2000 onward. According to the Doctrine and the way these things work, there is now nothing to stop it, nothing to stand athwart the barricades. There are no barricades. It's now a complete free for all. Yahoo! Advantage must be taken fast and furiously.

No brakes! Wheeeeee!

In many ways, it's Chaos for its own sake. Yes, exploitation, death and destruction are part of the program, part of the plan, but keeping things crazy is also pleasurable to the Ruling Clique regardless of anything else. They like seeing the untermenschen scramble in fear and despair. It gives their lives meaning. Our Rulers are, after all, the Masters of the Universe, are they not?

The pleasure of seeing others' suffering is sufficient unto the day for many of them. Monsters that they are. One day, we might want to explore how that happened. How did these Monsters arise? Have they always been among us, or is this something new?

At the moment, the Chaos is such that much of what could become the effective opposition to Trumpianism is disoriented and disunited. Whether it can shake free of the Chaos and become a stake in the heart of this vampirism and madness remains to be seen; I'm hopeful, but the signs aren't that encouraging at the moment. The only ones who seem to be able to carry the torch and stand firm appear to be the Water Protectors in North Dakota and their many, many allies around the world. They are the core of the Resistance.

Jill Stein's efforts to clarify through recounts what happened in three "battleground" states are being disputed and dismissed by political operatives on "both" sides of the aisle acting in common cause to prop up the Trumpian "victory," no matter what the facts of the matter are or may show.

They are denouncing Stein and the Green Party in full-throated fury, and many are claiming that this recount madness is a Clintonite Plot to steal the election for The Hag. It would be funny if it weren't so stupid. And of course, Soros-the-Devil MUST be behind it all, because everyone knows he owns the Clintooons.  Or even funnier, they are denouncing it as a Green Party Plot to enhance their public profile. Really? Well, who'd a thunk. And this is supposed to be a Bad Thing. I see.

As I've pointed out in several fora, it doesn't matter to the winning faction how the winning results are obtained. Election integrity mattered not at all to the Clinton faction during the primaries, and all the complaints of irregularities -- some of them stunningly obvious -- were simply dismissed as irrelevant because Hillary WON the nomination. Much the same has been happening with regard to Trump's narrow and unexpected Electoral College win -- or potential win, it isn't settled yet. Any irregularities or -- as in Pennsylvania -- the complete inability to verify the vote are just too bad; it doesn't matter how he got there, what matters is that he WON!!!! USA! YAY!

Ok. The Shock has been administered, and the experiment is under way. There is scrambling to be sure, but there is something more. What it will lead to, I don't know. But it is interesting to witness who is linking up and lining up behind the Trumpians and who is refusing. When the institutional players start refusing -- say if California does go ahead with autonomy (not secession) -- then I think we'll start to see the outlines of a less dismal future.

On the other hand, if enough of the institutional players go along with  the New Boss, it's Game Over.

We'll see, won't we?