[Note: Buddhism, in some cases especially Zen, doesn't preclude one's interest and involvement in the material world. It does, however, affect one's sense of the importance of this or that aspect of it. 🕉]
The current impeachment inquiry is the third in my lifetime. There have only been four attempts at impeachment of a president in the history of the United States. None have been successful [Nixon resigned before the impeachment resolution went to the floor of the house]. The betting is that this one won't be, either, but of course you never know.
The charges likely to be included in any House resolution to impeach Trump are being laid out day-by-day, pretty much as follows:
Abuse of power -- impeachable, not criminal
Bribery -- of Zelensky/Ukraine; impeachable, criminal
Intimidation of witnesses -- impeachable, may be criminal
Suborning perjury -- impeachable, criminal
Defying Congressional subpoenas -- impeachable, may be criminal
Probably violations of emoluments clauses -- this might be a throwaway
Misprision of felony -- impeachable, criminal
And so on. The charge-list could get quite long indeed. But there is no likelihood, whatever Trump does, that a Republican-controlled Senate would vote to convict and remove him from office. At least not now.
It's possible that not even a Democratic controlled Senate would do so.
Here's the problem as I see it:
Trump has been allowed to get away with just about anything he wants to do during his tenure in office -- just like he's largely been allowed to do whatever he wants throughout his life. He's a terrible person and a rotten president, but.... he gets away with it, just like he always has.
As president, he's changing the presidency and the nature of the federal government. He's making the presidency over into a highly authoritarian position (it's always had such elements) in command of not just the government, but of the nation as a whole. In other words, the point is to make the president a ruler rather than a servant of the people. Opposition to be crushed rather than co-opted or negotiated with.
In this remodeling of the presidency by Trump, the president is to have full and personal control of the federal government independent of any advisors, systems, precedent, Congress, or the courts. S/he will personally direct and control every aspect of the federal government (something no individual human being can do, but that's beside the point). The president becomes a de-facto emperor. Something that again is inherent in the position, but which until recently has been suppressed in action.
These are among many aspects of systemic changes we're seeing in real time under Trump's presidency, and they will become precedent for future presidents. Trump may be a bad emperor -- oh yes -- but what he's being allowed to do can lead (in time, if we're very, very good) to a Good Emperor. But Emperor it will be, good, bad or indifferent.
I came to this conclusion while watching part of the Yovanovich testimony yesterday. What it boiled down to was a question of whether the president has the power and authority to emplace anyone he wants in an ambassadorship (yes), and whether it is appropriate for a president to engage in the smearing of an ambassador in the process of having her removed (could be.)
In this case, the ambassador is the avatar of any federal officer, the smear is the symbolic means of removal/replacement that could affect anyone in federal service. We've seen examples in the past (Shirley Sherrod comes to mind, but there have been many others, especially since the 2000 election.)
But now it seems the smear-and-removal will be codified.
These are big changes to what the presidency is, not so much what it could be, and I predict they will be permanent. Trump can go or stay, it really doesn't matter. The governing system is what is being overhauled-- mostly without the knowledge or consent of the governed -- and there will be no going back. Impeachment may just fade entirely from the conception of checks and balances. After all, the consistent argument during the Trump reign is that ONLY impeachment can be used to control the actions of the president, and if impeachment fails to remove him (likely), there's no remedy under the constitution or law. That's it, he gets away with it.
Ambassador Yovanovich was quite eloquent in defending norm, process, propriety, etc., but I don't see a future in which those things are considered necessities for governing. Indeed, just the opposite may become normalized. The reasons are simple enough. We're entering into a rough transition period in which the consequences of climate change and decades of neoliberalism become one continuous crisis. There's really no escape at this point. Past norms and processes will have to be jettisoned in order to deal with the inevitable crises, or the permanent crisis. No way around it. Trump is crude and awful, but he's doing what the ruling class believes is necessary to cope with the transition and beyond. That's why he's been protected and allowed to get away with so much harm.
Better it should happen now. So that we can become accustomed to it. It's only going to get worse for most of us.
Trump won't be in the Big Chair forever. And whoever comes after him -- whenever that happens -- will almost immediately be considered a "savior". Because he or she won't be as terrible a person nor as incompetent and chaotic a ruler.
But Ruler/Emperor the follow-on president will be. And most of the hoo-hah during the Trump years will seem silly in retrospect. We have serious business to attend to.
Hard to say. I'm not really up on military thinking (to put it mildly), so I haven't a clue to what The Generals are up to in their own secret realms. I know that they, their troops, their allies and their mercenaries have been killing and destroying up a storm overseas, and they've been organizing disaster response domestically. That can easily -- too easily -- morph into occupation abroad and martial law at home, but domestically it hasn't quite yet (the situation in Puerto Rico may hold the key... they say that crime is running rampant on the streets of San Juan and "something has to be done." Right.)
When Gen. Dunford appeared before the media to clean up the mess of the Niger Operation, I thought, "Well, there's your Emperor-in-waiting."
I've said for a while now that we're one or two catastrophes away from the Apocalypse, and we've had one major catastrophe (the California wild fires) since.
We're very close to the edge.
We've seen over and over how close to nonfunctional Congress is, and when they can do something, it's detrimental to the public good. We've seen over and over how dysfunctional and chaotic the White House is, and when they do something, it is all but certain to bring harm to some segment of the public -- and probably save the favored faction of the gangster rich from harm -- to say the least.
The courts too often reinforce injustice and free the rich from the law.
The public is restive enough that some are taking matters into their own hands; white rightists are on the march, racially motivated murder and assault is on the rise, and nothing is being done about the long term problem of mass murder, except perhaps to encourage more of it.
The White House backs the "good people on both sides" -- whoever they may be -- involved in the mayhem.
This is not sustainable.
The military and intelligence community are already in effective control of foreign policy, international affairs -- and warmaking. Trump freed them from Obama's restraint almost the moment he assumed the throne. I doubt he fully understood what he was doing -- does he fully understand anything, after all? But by doing so, he set up the foundations for the military take over of the government (to the extent it isn't already overseen/directed by the military.) The emergency framework has been around since the 1950s. On occasion, parts have been implemented, starting, so far as I can tell, with the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, or perhaps with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Or maybe earlier.
The point is that both the military and the permanent government in Washington, DC, have contingency plans which can be implemented in a heartbeat should the need arise.
Parts of those plans can be implemented without notice or a backward glance, and it's possible hardly anyone would notice.
Trump opened the door to the seizure of the whole government by the military when he countermanded the restraints on military action imposed by the Obama regime. It may seem like those restraints only involved who got killed and what was destroyed where and when -- overseas. The White House had to approve.
But the military also has a domestic presence and role, and if by chance the chaos of the Trump regime interferes... it can be (and in part already has been) neutralized.
Retired and currently serving generals are scattered throughout the Trump regime, and they head -- or have headed -- the key agencies that can impose rule on a restive population. Experiments and examples are implemented by such agencies as the Gestapo-like ICE which has been unleashed to terrorize brown people and communities.
This sort of thing is easily expanded, but I would suggest that in a military take over, this sort of thing would be reduced or even cease.
The military and their sponsors would want calm and certainty at home so they can more easily and effectively pursue their Imperial objectives abroad -- which apparently involve the wholesale destruction and annihilation of "rebels against the Empire" we've been seeing.
All to what end?
We're not privy to that.
At any rate, I'd say we're closer than ever to the end point of the Republic, and once it comes, a lot of Americans will breathe a sigh of relief.
For years, I've been toying with notions of parallels between the late Roman Republic and our own US governmental mess. It is a mess, you understand, at nearly every level, though for the most part, its mechanisms function more or less well most of the time.
The problems are mostly at the ideological and leadership levels. The almost universal operating paradigm is what I call neoLibCon. That is to say, it is a fusion of neoliberal domestic and economic policies together with neoconservative foreign policies. There are many complexities (and surprising levels of denial) along the way. It's not a binary "this or that," it's a multiplicity of "this and that."
The government has run rogue at the top for many years, at least since the days of Clinton and Gingrich hammering away at one another. I saw it as Gingrich's attempt to reanimate and replay the English Civil War with himself as Cromwell to Clinton's Charles I.
The struggle and pageant didn't end well for either of the main characters, but it had a profound effect on government and the electorate. Lessons were learned. Primarily, the lesson was that that Leaders can get away with pretty much anything they want, so long as they keep their constituents entertained (bread and circuses), but they may not succeed in reaching their goals (for example, impeaching and removing Clinton from office.) But then, was that ever their goal? We can't be sure, can we?
Perhaps the impeachment saga took place to diminish the aura of the presidency. Or rather to diminish the aura of Democratic presidents while enhancing that of Republican presidents and legislators.
A sort of sideways statement that we are ruled by Rs no matter which party holds congressional majorities and the White House.
It's not just that they are the ruling party, they are the only legitimate party; the Ds exist merely as foils.
For as long as I've been playing on the intertubez, I've noticed a strong animus toward the Democrats, to the point of urging and working for the "utter destruction" of the Democratic Party. That's almost a core principle for the internet political junkies and denizens. Democrats delenda est!
They are betrayers, feckless, worse than Rs, and corrupt as hell. Yes? And? Democrats must be destroyed!
Well, OK. But if they are the Washington Generals to the Republican Harlem Globetrotters, then the whole thing is just a show, a pageant, with a pre-determined outcome, meant to entertain the rubes while the real work (and money counting) goes on in the back office somewhere. It's a game, a show, a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
So if that's the case, do we need an Emperor instead of a president? Perhaps to be above the president?
Trump of course is inadequate to the role. Octavian was a masterful politician and bullshitter, however, and it was apparently easy for him to elide the roles he assumed and created (once the civil war was done). He "preserved and protected" the Republic while essentially doing away with it.
Is that what we need?
Sometimes I wonder.
The fantasy world that many Trump supporters, defenders and loyalists created around their devotion is still very strong. To some, Trump is their longed for "God-Emperor," who can never fail, he can only be failed. They actually use the term "God-Emperor" in their devotions. Their longing for... something.... is so strong, they can't see the flim-flam and fraudulence of what they're getting. Those who do see it recoil in disgust.
And yet... I'm convinced Trump won't last in office (but I've been wrong about coups and such, so we'll see.) It doesn't actually matter whether he serves out his term or not. What matters is what comes After Trump, and my sense is that a precedent is being set which will solidify the oligarchic rule we've been under for many years and enable direct rule from the palaces of our Overlords, one of whom will be periodically selected to be Emperor. We will have good Emperors and bad.
The Republic, then, having given up the ghost, will be lost forever after.
It seems that some of Trump's partisans are beginning to wake up to the fact that they've been conned, big time. Of course they're reluctant to admit it and they still rationalize Trump's many betrayals and about faces as due to his "capture" by the Deep State Clintonites, but I think that misses the point.
First of all, he wasn't supposed to be elected. The fact that he won enough electoral votes, not popular votes, to ascend to the Throne came as a shock and surprise to everyone, including Himself.
I truly expected a coup of some sort before he ascended the Throne, but apparently those who might perpetrate such a thing backed off -- repeatedly.
I attributed that to dissidents within the ranks who essentially said, "No deal" because nobody had a clue to what was to come next if a coup was successful.
They chose instead to let things play out.
Of course chaos ensued.
Trump has no idea how to president. It's all bluster and optics with him. Show Business if you will. He's way out of his depth, and he seems to know it. A coup became unnecessary when he turned the wars over to his generals to do as they wanted without his active input, and he turned over everything else to Jared and Ivanka to do as they will -- or can. Which isn't much.
This happened by the end of February. I notice, however, that some of his partisans think it happened toward the last week of March. At least they noticed.
Trump is not in charge. He literally can't do anything independently, prolly not even take a piss, and it appears that the government itself is hamstrung to the point that nothing (much) can happen while The Powers That Be sort out some kind of future path.
I would say this is a least-worst outcome. Not that it's any good. It isn't. It's terrible. Another shade of terrible.
Yet mob rule -- as in gangsters -- is on the ascendance and there seems to be nothing we can do about it.
Even some of Trump's partisans have noticed parallels between the Corleones and Trump's attempts at ruling from the Throne. It's not just the movie versions of gangsters, though. Our governments have long had a parallel operational model that is not that different from the operations of a large scale crime family -- mob. In fact, I think the two go hand in hand, and essentially always have. The Genius of our Founders.
But we note with interest that El Jefe is tied down almost as securely as Gulliver was in Lilliput.
What gives, and who is really running this battle wagon?
It's not Trump -- he could go into retirement at any time now, become President Emeritus like Pope Benedict and I doubt many people would notice. It's not Jared or Ivanka. Not President Bannon, They say even Gorka is being forced out of the Inner Circle in the White House. The little fascist pissant Miller is still stalking the corridors of power, but to what object remains unclear.
So who is running things? My guess, based on his frequent junkets abroad and his nearly constant presence on the teevee, is Pence. He's not acting on his own, however. He's acting on behalf of...
who(m)?
Ah, there's the question. Who actually constitutes the Shadow Government, and what are their objectives?
I long ago noticed that We, the Rabble, have no champions among the Masters of the Universe. None. This is quite unlike the situation during the previous Gilded Age. Then, quite a few of the Gentry and High and Mighty Titans of Industry, yadda yadda, were at least ostensibly on the side of the People, calling for reform -- gradually, of course -- and doing Good Works in the teeming slums, blah blah blah. Some spoke out, loudly and frequently, against the horrible conditions too many of the Rabble were forced to endure, just so some Vanderbilt somewhere could erect yet another pseudo-palace.
Action was taken, too, with any number of experimental projects launched (mostly funded from private fortunes) to ameliorate the conditions of the poor and working class.
It was not enough, but it was something, something practical that inculcated civic virtue, improved public infrastructure, and bettered the lives of millions. At least for a while.
There's nothing like that today. It seems that every one of Our Betters (so they think of themselves) lives to exploit and oppress the Lower Orders and can't conceive of not doing so. The idea of Good Works is alien to their class.
They can't imagine...
And this, I think, is one of the reasons a false champion like Trump could achieve the White House, despite all the efforts of the Powers That Be to thwart his rise.
Even a false champion is better than no champion at all -- at least it is emotionally fulfilling.
Trump's attempts at rule -- mostly inoperative -- are those of a crime family boss, not those of a President. And yet some of what he commands/orders from On High does get implemented -- such as the deportation efforts carried out by his personal Gestapo ICE.
The killing spree in the Middle East and elsewhere has accelerated under Trump as well.
Anything that benefits the exploiter class appears to be fast tracked, while anything that might benefit the Rabble is put on hold or not bothered with at all. After all, what can the Rabble do about it? Right?
Been feeling pretty run down lately. Have a doctor's appt. today and more coming up in an effort to get a handle on difficult to control rheumatoid arthritis symptoms that were responding well to medication and now are not. So, we'll see.
Consequently, I haven't been keeping up with events quite as much as I once did, and I haven't got all that much to say about the Chaos swirling around us. There isn't necessarily much we can do about it for all that we might rage at the clouds and such.
I've held up the Water Protectors at Standing Rock as examples of how we might approach what's going on in an effective manner, but the eviction and destruction of the camps and the continued construction of the pipeline belies that, doesn't it? In other words, the effort has failed, hasn't it?
Well, yes and no.
Yes in the immediate cause of preveniting the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, no in the sense of highlighting the issue and planting the seeds of resistance to the corporate state and its obsession with money and power all over the country.
In fact, Ms Ché is in the preliminary stages of working with some Standing Rock veterans planning an action against a pipeline in Oklahoma that is slated to cross the Trail of Tears. There are similar actions planned and under way all over the country. The Water Protectors are not going to win every struggle -- they know that -- but by keeping the pressure on, through their presence and their determination, they help those of us who can't do what they do see a way forward in the face of an increasingly militarized police state.
That seems to be what our rulers have in store for us now. From appearances, the Trump Regime and their allies in congress are depending on their loyalists in the police state to protect and defend them against the public outrage at their corruption and destruction of a decent society.
When Steve Bannon announced that their aim and goal was the "deconstruction of the administrative state" I took him at his word -- as should everyone. He's actually been rather clear about it for a long time. To most people, a statement like that is just gobbledygook, as the notion of an "administrative state" doesn't mean much of anything to them. Who or what is it?
Of course Bannon is not going to say in detail. He can't without provoking even more unrest and outrage than the Trump regime's actions already have.
The "administrative state" is anything that stands between direct rule by the oligarchy and the Rabble. That was easy.
Another term of art, shorthand, is "Clintonites." Anyone or any institution that tries to interfere with the oligarchic rule, any individual who stands in the way, any interest that does not align with the Trump regime is by definition "Clintonite," and is part of that "administrative state" to be deconstructed.
Whole swaths of the federal and state governments, as well as local and regional governments and compact would be subject to abrupt termination. Others, however, would be enhanced and given nearly free rein to enforce the rule of the oligarchs.
Indeed, that seems to be the plan, starting with the apparent free rein given to ICE and CPB to do as they wilt with regard to visitors, immigrants and deportees. The anecdotal stories coming out of these agencies are horrifying, but that's what's wanted of them. Scare the shit out of anyone who could become a target.
Once that's coordinated, it appears the next stage is to give free rein to the local and state police to do as they wilt with regard to "criminals" in their midst with the full backing of the Department of Justice, no matter how egregious their actions.
Then, of course, the real challenge begins. The coordination of the federal police and security forces completes the process of making serious and effective opposition impossible.
Once that's done, there is nothing to stand in the way of a full on purge and deconstruction of the "administrative state" at every level of government as well as within the private sector.
Ta-da! It would take less than a year and it is already under way.
The result? Not good, but perhaps unavoidable. There may be too much institutional support for taking this path to overcome it.
Stunning. It's hard to imagine that so many people are apparently so blind to the strategies being employed to keep the anti-fascists and all the rest of the Trump opposition off balance and fearful.
Of course one of those strategies is induced chaos.
It's classic. Now that they've captured the mechanisms of government, Trump and his operatives want to rule and to continue to rule. They knew there would be opposition though maybe not the extent of it nor its full nature, but their political theory says that injecting as much chaos into the system as possible as quickly as possible is the best and possibly only way to ensure their success.
So here we are.
Yet some observers are in deep denial about it, as if nothing is really wrong, as if the System will somehow magically right itself -- after a period of turmoil -- and everything will go on as it should.
Ie: Revert to the status quo ante.
Well, no. That's not going to happen.
The situation is chaotic, unstable, and no matter what happens from here on, it cannot revert to any prior state. The systems were fragile to begin with, and the strain is becoming too great to maintain appearances let alone to preserve, protect and defend.... what used to be.
Nihilists are loving it, and some of my anarchist and revolutionary friends believe this is "It" -- our experiment in constitutional self-government is coming to an end, and nothing can save the situation.
Could be.
In fact, I've long suspected the End of the Republic is nigh, and the advent of Trump and his cronies in the White House signifies that the End has Come.
They clearly do not believe in the rigmarole of Constitutional Self Government," feh. They're busy setting up a kind of quasi-fascist dictatorship/autocracy, based on principles we thought were dead and buried long ago, but which we're finding out are very pleasing to certain types of yahoos and others who desperately wish to be ruled by someone like Trump. A bully and an abuser. A conman with a highly unstable and unpredictable character. A white supremacist. A sexist/misogynist/homophobe/germophobe. A "Destroyer of Worlds." An out of control freak. A representative of his class.
They will defend Trump and his cronies come what may, and very often their defenses and apologetics are based in implacable hatred for the Clintons ("Clintooons!"), Obama ("0bomba!") and Democrats ("Dims!")
I've tried to study this phenomenon a little bit; it's not easy due to the tendency of a few online screamers to repeat and repeat and repeat the same tired tropes, with no ability on their part to see beyond their hatreds and personal desires to see others ("Clintonite scum!") suffer. They use charged and violent rhetoric casually, and they typically wait for word from on high to adjust their talking points to reflect the latest "position" of their Leader. It's all very cult-like in that way.
Some of these people deny the chaos underway, in part because their Dear Leader sometimes denies it. Whatever he says is Law, no matter his lies and contradictions.
On the other hand, some embrace the chaos, because they seem to think it's what's necessary to "shatter the Establishment once and for all!!!!!" Yes, well.
What they don't seem to understand -- in fact, most people seem to be in denial about it -- is that "shattering the Establishment" through this kind of chaos also shatters the systems by which the nation has governed itself for centuries. Ie: the whole thing is thrown in the dumpster, burned and buried.
It's over. Once and for all.
None of the nihilists have any idea what to replace it with. The true believers seem to think that Trump and his cronies know best, and they will institute a grand New America, The Way It's Supposed to Be.
I see the chaos spreading, and it will ultimately engulf us all. I don't think there's any escape. There are rumors of war going around -- of course, this is no surprise -- that should give pause to even the True Believers, but of they can't let reality interfere with their dreams. If what's being rumored comes to pass, not only do the systems collapse, but an End such as people of my generation marinated in for most of our childhoods becomes reality. Trump is from that generation, too. And he seems to be of the opinion that such an End is desirable, and that he and his cronies will survive and prosper.
Well only if we let them.
The other side of this chaotic situation is that it can sweep them away too.
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.
No, not much. A lot of people will be hurt, some may lose their lives. Hundreds have already been hurt as the country prepares for what is to come. Many more will join the target list; the word will come that we must Obey. But even obedience won't be enough to protect those who have been targeted.
I note that when I point out some of these things online -- my main communications outlet these days since I have been unable to get around much -- the response tends to fall into two categories: "So what?" and "What about all the people Obama has targeted or Hillary would have targeted" -- meaning the overseas targets, for the most part, and the false accusation that "Hillary would have started WWIII, so there!"
In other words there is no empathy whatever for those who have really been targeted and will be targeted at home or abroad. That's because according to the tenets of the New Model Social Contract, everyone who is targeted deserves their beat down and then some. If they have been targeted then they've done something or are something to deserve it by definition.
This is little different than the primitive version of White Supremacy that Trump and many of his followers seem to believe made America Great. And they can and will restore that greatness to the wild cheers of the multitude.
I doubt it will go quite that way, but that's what they believe. At this point, as they salivate over the power they will be able to wield, they'll believe almost anything about what they can do to punish the Other.
If the multitude chooses not to cheer, as they indicate through their rejection of Trump and his cronies in office (by votes and through protest actions), they themselves become targets, and repression becomes general. Commands and threats to Sanctuary Cities have already been issued: They MUST obey the identify, round up and deport orders or they will be punished, first with loss of Federal funds, and then who knows? Actually, it's not that hard to guess where it goes from the order to the implementation. This has all been worked out in practice long since. The models exist. The authority exists. The motivation exists now among Trump's followers. We only have a couple of months before the hammer drops.
The first thing the Nazis did to consolidate their power was to forcefully eliminate their political opposition. Socialists and Communists were rounded up, put in camps, some were murdered pour encourager les autres and others were publicly shamed or put on bogus show trials. All this was for the edification of the masses who needed to learn right off the bat that dissent and political opposition would not be tolerated. It worked. Opposition collapsed within weeks or months of the installation of the Nazis to rule over Germany. There was no more public opposition to them because all of the opposition had been suppressed.
Our case won't be the same, partly because Our New Model Rulers are not Nazis. There may be Nazis among their followers, but if there are, they are few and they won't be given the keys to the kingdom. At least not right off.
These New Model Rulers ARE White Supremacists. Let's not fool ourselves about that. It's clear as a bell, and that's one of the main reasons why so many black and brown and other targeted groups are angry and fearful. White Supremacy is not a good thing for most of those who aren't white or don't conform to the standards imposed by "liberated" white folks. That shouldn't be hard to understand, but for some reason I can't fathom, it is inconceivable to those who benefit from White Supremacy that those who don't benefit would have anything to fear. (Ha ha, suckers.)
This Restoration of White Supremacy to its rightful rulership role in the West is supposed to represent the failure of Multiculturalism, diversity, and the social reinvention of the latter half of the 20th century, continuing to the "overwhelming victory" and "mandate" given to the New Model Rulers.
These thumping freaks have no idea. White Supremacy has never not been the ruling class's underlying premise. It's always been there, always at the foundation of ruling class, neo-imperial, neo-colonial practice. It never went away.
What was modified was overt prejudice and discrimination against women and people of color. What changed was not the foundations of rule, but the way it would be implemented and by whom. "Inclusion" meant that selected members of out groups would be included among the ruling cliques, and those included members would be trained and conditioned to believe and act on the tenets of the ruling class. It worked pretty darned well. Nowadays, there's very little difference in the way women and black and brown people who have been included among the ruling clicques approach their responsibilities and the way the white ruling class has always done so.
And yet White Supremacists find that intolerable. Inclusion is simply wrong. It must be stopped and reversed forthwith, and so it will be.
The untermenschen must be returned to their place -- and they will be.
It's been quite stunning to watch the political class and nearly all the mass media obey their New Boss even before he takes the throne. This includes Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, both of whom, along with almost all the Democratic Party hierarchy and the few remaining elected Democrats have pledged their troth and loyalty to the incoming regime. Guys, this is a reason why you lose elections time after time after time.
I can detect a certain sly undertone in Obama's "graciousness" toward Trump and his followers, but I don't know what he's thinking. Probably about whether his bolt-hole is stocked well enough if his protestations of loyalty aren't sufficient to protect him and his kith and kin. As for Mrs. Clinton, it's remarkable to me that she conceded when she did, before it was even confirmed that Mr. Trump would have enough electoral votes for victory in the EC. This was odd and uncalled for at least in my view, but she did it, and here we are.
Even odder to me was that as soon as Trump's victory was declared, all the raving about election rigging and Putin's interference suddenly and completely disappeared as if it had never been the apocalyptic theme of both campaigns. Whut? Was the election rigged? Well, we don't talk about that, we are told to just accept the outcome, because the outcome is what those who were claiming it was rigged want. Was Putin's interference real? Who can say? It was promoted as real, but now... it's a mystery, and we will probably never know. We are told to just let it go.
Bizarre. Truly bizarre. But as they say, this has not been a "normal" election. I'll agree with that.
The fact that the political class and nearly all the mass media have essentially become Trump apologists if not outright supporters is, I think, instructive. The media and the political class are of course looking out for themselves. It's human nature and it's also "just business." Trump and his followers are hypervigilant about disloyalty and they condemn and threaten anyone who gets out of line. The higher their public profile, the more certain the threat and condemnation. Cf: the 'Hamilton' flap and many, many more. This is the way they work, and it will be the way they rule -- backed up with the force multiplier of the Surveillance State and the more and more authoritarian and randomly violent Police State.
Oh boy.
They will have so many tools available for suppression and punishment of what they see as disloyalty, and I don't doubt they will use every one of them and invent more. It's simply their nature.
Bush and Obama used them but modestly compared to what it looks like the Trump regime intends to do.
And I notice that anytime someone openly suggests that suppression of dissent and the detection and punishment of disloyalty will be hallmarks of the Trump regime, there is usually immediate deflection: "What about Obama, what about Clintoon!!!!!" They did it too! Libya! Ukraine! Nazis! Yadda yadda!
Every time. In other words it's not supposed to matter what Trump and his followers have done or will do because Obama and Clintooon!!! Nonsense.
The oddest part of that concept of false reality is the frequently asked question, "Why weren't you protesting in the streets then instead of now?"
Hello? We were. Where were you? Where were they indeed. I think we know. Bunkered down for the most part, waiting and hoping for the Apocalypse.
Has it come? Not yet, no. But the signs and portents aren't very encouraging for those who would rather not endure it, which typically is most people most of the time.
There are plenty of crazies in the world, though, who look forward to the End Times-- for everyone else. Because of course they will survive. God has granted them grace after all.
Jeebus. I don't even want to go there.
It's been pointed out that the Restoration of White Supremacy is now a Thing practically everywhere in the Euro-American orbit. There's no escaping it as one by one, European and American polities "fall" to the White-Rightist resurgence. Well, didn't I warn years and years ago that if the Revolution is to come, it will come from the Right? Not the Left?
At that time, I was saying the Busheviks had perpetrated and got away with a Rightist coup and they were in the process of conducting and consolidating a counter-Revolution against their Leftish enemies, but it turns out that isn't quite what they were doing.
The so-called Left had already been vanquished under Clinton. There essentially weren't any Left enemies in the political realm any more. What the Busheviks were doing was consolidating neoLibCon rule and practice, not against a Left opposition but against any opposition.
They were demonstrating they were prepared to do anything necessary to ensure that this ideology became the permanent operating belief system of the government. They would have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams but for the failure of their wars and the collapse of the economy. Oh. That. Huh. Well.
It's not so much that they were incompetent as that they started off on the wrong foot and their ideology and belief system was so rigid and self-righteous they couldn't change course. They had to follow through with it, gross errors and all, no matter what. This is the bull-headedness of neoLibCons. Reality is simply not a factor in their world view. It seems to me that Mr. Bush, for all his manifest faults and failings woke up to the reality of the situation he and his henchmen had caused much earlier than the rest of them and he tried (and failed) to make a few course corrections.
It was then up to Obama and his team to correct as much of what had gone wrong as they could but without challenging the neoLibCon frame of rule. This he set out to do to the dismay of so many who bought into his con of "Hope and Change." There was very little of either during his reign. For so many of those who had suffered throughout the Endless Recession and for those overseas who were being subjected to random act of Death From Above or the horrors of political coups, civil wars, and "regime change," there was no hope, and only arbitrary change.
Obama's reign was a continuation of Bush's for all practical purposes.
And had Hillary won the prize, her reign would be a continuation of Obama's. In other words, little hope and no change.
Institutional neoLibConism would have gone unchallenged.
This election, however, neoLibConism was challenged and brought to the forefront by Bernie Sanders on the leftish side, and Donald Trump on the other side. Sanders presented a strong argument for the restoration and adaptation of the New Deal for Americans. His argument didn't really persuade me, although I voted for him in the primary. The issue for me was that the New Deal had its own flaws, and it took LBJ's Great Society programs to address some of the failings of the New Deal. And that, unfortunately, had triggered the reactionaries into undoing it all. So here we are.
We can't go back, we have to have a forward vision of what kind of society we want to live in an what kind of nation the United States should be. Developing and stating that vision has been a perpetual failing of Democrats at least since Johnson, and neither Bernie nor Hillary were able to articulate a forward vision for the future. Bernie presented a good argument for specific reforms, but no vision that I could see. Hillary started off her campaign by saying "No, you can't." And she pretty much stuck with it throughout. Too clever by half.
Trump on the other hand didn't argue or say what couldn't be done. He persuaded (conned) by claiming whatever his listeners wanted or needed done could be done and he was the one to do it. He would take care of whatever they felt they needed or wanted. He was the one.
So his listeners could project almost any unmet need onto him and come to believe that he would take care of it. That's the nature of a con artist, which Trump has shown himself to be at a level that almost matches Mr. Obama's ability to con the masses.
Try as she might, Hillary couldn't do it. And Bernie refused outright to con his listeners.
So here we are.
Where do we go from here? It's conventional wisdom that the protests won't work, they may backfire instead. Perhaps. They're still in their nascent stage and how and whether they continue to grow and spread remains to be seen. It's wrong in my view to dismiss them as irrelevant because that just feeds the fictional beliefs of the other side. We must not comfort the comfortable.
I think it's more than interesting that the Trump followers insist that the protests are an attempt at a Color Revolution, funded by the Arch-Devil George Soros. What nonsense. But if that's their belief, I say take every advantage of it. Fuck with their minds. It should be easy given their inherent paranoia.
It's obvious that the elected Democrats (few as they are) are hopeless collaborators with the New Model Rulers. We're screwed six ways from Sunday if we rely on them for anything. They won't help, nor they stand athwart the barricades. Nope. Not them.
Mass media is totally out of touch, and they won't challenge authority, no matter who wields it or how, if it means their bottom line suffers. Since they are facing signs and portents of coming restrictions on how and what they report, they are unlikely to be any kind of help for the powerless, and they may go from constant propaganda to full-on cheer leading for Himself.
If anything is to be done, it will have to be done outside the system.
Hang on, the times are about to get a lot more interesting.
As this electoral debacle devolves, more and more it looks like not only did Trump sow the wind, so did the ruling clique that now faces as profound a constitutional crisis as last time this sort of thing happened (2000) and are facing a far more resistant Rabble due to events that have transpired since the 2000 abomination.
What were they thinking?
Both major candidates were absurd, and were insults to the rest of us. I think that was quite purposeful, too. Our Rulers fully intended to insult us, and so they did.
Don't think that Trump was somehow some kind of pop up populist who popped out of nowhere to slay the R Establishment Dragon and ride to victory. That's not what I saw going on at all. He was carefully groomed to play a supporting role in the Pageant, and to serve as a sop to the raging crazies on the Right. I think he did his job, and he's still doing it. The trouble is, he wasn't supposed to win.
And I think he wouldn't have if some shadowy force hadn't interfered in the count in just those states where he had to win in order to secure an EC majority. Just. Those. States. Alrighty, then. In other words, something changed in the background dynamic of the factions which produce our Presidents.
I won't go into all the factional politics that are part of the Deep State that rules us, but the Pageant that passes for an election campaign is just that, a Pageant. And who ultimately rules depends more on which faction gains the upper hand in the background than it does on the Rabble's votes. The candidates are proxies for the factions.
Hillary's faction had the upper hand up to the very end of the Pageant/campaign, and then whoops! the prize was snatched right out of her hand just like that. The tell that this is what happened was Hillary's concession the next day, in which she basically abased herself before the God-Emperor Trump -- or rather his faction -- without a single reference to Putin's Interference or any questioning of the results whatsoever.
Since only those "must win" states flipped -- some by a tiny margin -- at the very end of the Pageant, my sense is that the faction backing Trump, whoever they are, was able to gain the upper hand through strategic vote counting (how well they know how to do it by now) and wah-lah. The prize goes to ... Trump!
The question is, why would they do it? What were they thinking?
Their action has precipitated a constitutional crisis and a crisis of legitimacy, not solely for the incoming president, but for the Ruling Class in its entirety. The situation is very unstable, to the point where it looks like the nation could disintegrate, though I doubt that will happen, at least not soon.
When it was shown that Hillary got more votes than Trump, initially by a few hundred thousand nationally, the Trump partisans simply dismissed it as irrelevant; only the EC mattered, and her margin was too tiny to even notice. But since then, her margin has grown to the point where it may top out at 3-4 million, far greater a margin than any defeated candidate has ever led by. This is the fifth time the popular vote leader has been denied the presidency, the second in the last 16 years, but never has there been such a stunning difference in the popular vote between the vote leader and the person installed in the presidency.
Whoops! The discrepancy has become so great that the Trump partisans are now trying to claim that Hillary jiggered the results in the Blue States, and that in fact Trump won the popular vote. He did! He did! Nyah. Nyah. I don't think they really want to go down that path. But they're going down it out of desperation. The transition simply isn't going well. It's falling to pieces.
At least from what little I've seen of him -- is he bunkered down in his penthouse or what? -- Trump seems to be trying to be a little less childish and tantrumy, but he's obviously not in control of his own raging whatevers. The PTB look to be giving him enough rope to hang himself if you ask me.
So what's the long game here?
I think I sketched out a scenario yesterday whereby he's allowed to take office but then exits stage right -- voluntarily or by force -- in favor of his VP, a right wing religious zealot, who also leaves before the Rabble storms the gates, burns down the palace and hangs every aristo they can get their hands on (figuratively of course.) At that point, some unelected hoo-hah (maybe a general) is installed to bring the disorder in and out of government to a halt, much to the relief of most Americans.
I think a scenario of that sort becomes more likely every day this unstable situation is perpetuated.
I suppose this sort of Deep State factional struggle was inevitable once Our Rulers succumbed to the blandishments of so much cash to be had for their compliance with the wishes of the Few and the Proud and the Rich.
They're not so brave though. And they're not all that smart.
In this context it appears that Trump is way out of his depth -- he had no idea -- and he had no intention for this sort of thing to happen. I don't think he had any idea he'd be the EC victor. Didn't enter his mind, because that wasn't the way it was supposed to go. Hillary was supposed to win, everyone was prepared for Hillary's win, even or especially Trump, and then... something happened. Somehow it got fucked up, and I don't think it was the voters who did it.
Actually, they can't. But that's another story.
No, because of the tiny margins by which Trump appears to have secured Michigan and Pennsylvania, and the somewhat larger margins in Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio (Wisconsin's being the most questionable) I think we've been rooked by a faction of Our Betters who decided among themselves at the last minute that Hillary could not be president. And once she was informed (the night of the election) she said OK, have it your way.
I think she pissed off somebody -- yes, they're that petty -- who could pull the plug on her, and the plug was pulled.
Whoops!
But they didn't think it through, and there is no Plan B.
So. Here we are.
Someone posted a comment at NC yesterday which suggested I wanted to see a "color revolution" in the US. This is nonsense, of course, but the whole Color Revolution and Soros funding CT is coming from a faction of Trump partisans who appear to be desperately trying to hold this hot mess together by throwing whatever they can think of against the wall hoping that something sticks.
Soros is a Devil, of course, because he funds factions of the Rabble which hector the High and Mighty, and he played a role in the Eastern European Color Revolutions that eventually led to the fall of the Soviet Union, much to his personal profit and pleasure.
Of course it's the profit and pleasure part of these efforts I dispute. Color Revolutions basically exchange one boss for another, in Eastern Europe, it amounted to replacing the Communist rulers with NeoLiberal rulers who proceeded to strip the public of every ounce of wealth they could get their hands on, reducing them to poverty, ill health and functional slavery to the profit and pleasure of a handful of greed crazed oligarchs. Which they call "Democracy!" Feh.
You think I want to accelerate that process here through the efforts of Color Revolutionaries? No way!
But that notion got going among Trump partisans when the protests kept growing and growing, spreading and spreading, and they started having a destabilizing effect on the cities where they are taking place, which in turn has a butterfly effect throughout the nation. Obviously, this must be a Soros-funded effort to overthrow the duly elected government, right? Like the Maiden in Kiev, right?
Soros! Nuland! Clintooons! They're trying to overthrow the government! Just like a Color Revolution!
Obviously.
The CT and paranoia is thick and heavy with those people in part because Trump has been feeding it for years. As president-elect, though, he's been trying to back away a bit from what he used to revel in as recently as the day of the election.
I'll tell you this, though. If it were a Color Revolution type operation, not only would Trump be unable to survive it, the whole rotten apparatus of government including the craven Congress and their sponsors and owners would be swept away as if they never existed. It's not going to happen because what's going on isn't a Color Revolution, but if it were...
But aren't I arguing that something like that is going to happen anyway?
I suppose I am, except that the scenario I've laid out preserves the framework of the present government, and it doesn't sweep away the deeply embedded corruption and its practitioners. It doesn't even necessarily change the background players. All it does is change the face of the operation, and it imposes "order" on the chaos that has been precipitated by the abomination of the so-called election.
The Republic becomes an empty shell; the forms are still there, but they don't function. The game is still played, but it becomes solely sport and entertainment, elections having no consequences. The institutions of rule become more rigid, the pre-chosen President more like a God-Emperor (Hail Caesar!) whose word is law, whose divinity is worshiped by cult followers, and woe betide whoever doesn't bow down.
That's the more likely outcome than a Color Revolution. But ya never know. Things can change in a twinkling, as they did election night.
Whatever the case, Hillary will not be president, and Trump may not be either, at least not for long.
The flop sweat of Our Rulers is stinking to high heaven, and We the Rabble are in for a very rough ride.
Signing off. Your correspondent in the Wilderness. Ché.
To the extent I've been paying attention to the hot mess that is the current state of the presidential campaign, I guess I've been witnessing through the class war lens of some kind of unreconstructed Marxist.
It's so obvious to me that the top of the ticket of both major parties is occupied by class warriors intent on preserving and expanding the pre-eminence, wealth and power of the now iconic 1% at the expense of everyone else.
Trump is the embodiment of the 1%; Hillary embodies those who serve them and ensure their success.
Kaine and Pence also serve in their own way and would be quite capable of continuing the elite class war on the masses should anything untoward happen to one or the other of the principals.
It is so obvious to me, and yet it seems to be completely out of the realm of consciousness or possibility to partisans on either side. They simply don't -- and possibly can't -- get it.
To place a loudmouthed bully like Trump in the White House would be an interesting experiment from a technical, sociological and scientific point of view. The last example of a member of his class in the White House was FDR.
FDR was Old Money, of course, and represented long, long years of government service by the time he was elected to the presidency. His initial opponent, Herbert Hoover, was as rich if not richer, but he was New Money with a very different kind of service background. For example, he'd coordinated relief efforts in Europe during and after WWI. He'd done it as a volunteer, and at the time, his efforts were considered remarkably successful.
FDR ran to the right of Hoover in 1932, and there was very little or no inkling of the soon-to-be implemented New Deal in his campaign. Whether it was already in the works, I don't know. On the other hand, Hoover was no slouch when it came to innovative ways to deal with the dislocation and distress of the early years of the Depression. He instituted any number of programs at the Federal level to relieve suffering and expand the economy, but he was hamstrung by his Republican Party orthodoxy and his belief in the limitations of federal power.
FDR initially shared many of Hoover's beliefs about government authorities and the necessities of balanced budgets, etc. In fact, he campaigned as if Hoover was just too radical.
When he got into office, of course, he practically did a 180 and became much more radical in addressing the Depression -- which caused Hoover to condemn him and the New Deal for the rest of his life.
According to the Hooverite belief system, what Roosevelt did prolonged the Depression and may well have contributed to the outbreak of WWII.
We hear plenty of echoes of that belief system today, although it is actually in service to a different ideology.
Both Hillary and Trump are campaigning well to the right of Hoover, and neither has any interest in reviving the solutions to economic and social problems that FDR eventually undertook. Hillary offers a modest economic stimulus package, but apparently only because Bernie "forced" her to.
Trump offers nothing, insisting that tax cuts, trickle down, and immigration control are the only things that "work" to elevate the masses.
Literally neither has any interest in the ultimate well being of the masses. They are both fully focused on the well being of the 1% at the expense of the masses.
Trump would do it by bulling his way, steamrolling opposition and demanding obedience through the force of his personality. Hillary would do it by the usual means of government -- bribery, persuasion, quids-pro-quo, etc. But those means primarily apply to the High and Mighty -- ie: Trump's class, not to the rest of us. We are to be exploited and disposed of.
Her campaign, after all, initially got going with the motto: "No you can't!" and her outlook really hasn't changed a whole lot since then. Trump's campaign is little more that "I am the One!" repeated over and over again -- with a dollop of "I will set you free!" to sweeten the pot for his white-male constituency.
Neither offers anything but more of the same little bit or less to the rest of us, and it's because we really don't count in their equation of what's important and what's necessary.
I can't be bothered with either of these candidates. On the other hand, Bernie wasn't much of an option either, and as many suspected, he was sheepdogging for Herself and will probably continue to do so as his so-called "political revolution" is institutionalized.
Trump, though, as an example of the crudity and meanness of his class seems to be perpetually able to get away with almost anything because of his entertainment value. The idea that the way he is is the way most of those of his class are is barely recognized. Somehow his behavior and beliefs are considered aberrant, but they aren't. They're typical. Trump has rougher edges than most of his class, but that's about the only difference.
Hillary's interest in serving his class is also not widely recognized.
I've been avoiding the topic of the recently concluded mid-term elections, in part because the outcome was pretty much foregone, and if it hadn't gone the way it was predicted, I don't doubt it would be made to. American elections have become farcical (old timers will say they've always been that way), and the results are almost always what the consultants and pollsters agree in advance they ought to be "for this cycle."
The Rs will take control of both houses of Congress in January, and apparently they picked up or held on to any number of Statehouses and governorships. There is a real question why.
Earlier, I speculated that the Dems were throwing this election just as they have so many of them in the recent past, and as things devolved over the last weeks of the campaign, it seemed pretty clear that was what was going on this time too. Dems can win when they want to, but they didn't seem to want to, and I read yesterday that the DSCC has pulled its ad buys on behalf of Mary Landrieu in Louisiana who faces a run off with her Republican rival. I guess they've written her off, too.
Oh well!
On the other hand, a Republican controlled congress seems to suit Mr. Obama just fine, at least as far as I could tell from his presser the other day. He was looking forward to "getting things done." Well, why not. Anyone who's been observing him over the years understands that his politics basically align with the Reagan Wing (now considered the "moderate wing") of the Republican Party, they are not traditional Democratic Party politics at all. He's a defender of Oligarchy, despite all their whining and complaining about how mean he is to them, and he's a glad hander for everyone else.
Internationally, he's nearly in lockstep with all the rest of the warmongers and imperialists.
Oh.
It's not just a matter of Dems choosing to lose particular elections. Rs are able to pick up a lot of seats in part because they are perceived as activists and doers, even when they aren't actually doing anything. It's because they can clearly and incessantly articulate a political point of view and a determination to follow through, something Dems seem incapable of. They will always try to yield to opposition. Rs never appear to, although they do. It's a contrast of style, but also a contrast of substance. When Dems are in control, they cannot and do not follow through on the public's expectations. Instead, they continue to find ways to yield to their opponents, their ostensible opponents, until it's obvious to observers that Dems are serving the same interests Rs are, only with a somewhat kinder/gentler face. They're on the same side, and it's not the side of the People.
Oh.
So. I've said I expect Obama and Biden to be impeached next year and quite possibly be replaced by a different speaker of the House (not the orange crying man) and Paul Ryan. No one else seems to be predicting this, and it may not happen, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
As far as the public and policy is concerned, there would be little or no difference; it wouldn't actually matter. Our government is captured by the legendary malefactors, and we the rabble have no role in it.
An impeachment, if it happens, will be essentially entertainment for the masses.
I've compared the period we've been living through for the last few decades to the transition of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.
The parallels are far from exact, of course, but my argument has basically been that the Republic of Our Founders has gone extinct. It is not revivable at this point, any more than the Roman Republic could be revived post-Augustus. Of course, the Republican forms continued long after the expiration of the substance of those forms. There was a Roman Senate (in Constantinople) eight hundred years after the advent of Augustus, and it would last in Rome itself almost as long. But it was an institutional survival with no useful function or -- more particularly -- no useable authority.
Elections continued to be held for Roman state and local officeholders, but they were meaningless as well. The Empire was run from the Palace based on the Palatine Hill in Rome, but it could be anywhere the Emperor designated and was moved periodically, by a large bureaucracy under the direction of the Emperor and whoever controlled him.
"Democracy" has always been a fiction in the developed world, of course, despite what we are propagandized to believe. The idealized form of representative government, whether on the anachronistic and increasingly nonfunctional model of the United States or on the more usual (but also dysfunctional) European parliamentary model, was never meant to be particularly democratic, and in the case of the American model, it was never meant to "represent" everyone. In fact, it is purpose-designed to exclude vast swaths of the population and their interests from representation, even as it undergoes centuries of modification to expand representation.
For some time now, we've been in a situation in which a certain privileged segment of the population has quite consciously and successfully placed itself outside the confines of responsibility, accountability and law, while it has more and more successfully taken economic -- and in some aspects, political -- control of nation after nation.
If the financiers who are pulling off these deals were half as smart as they think they are, they would know full well that continuing to foul their nests as they have been doing is not going to end well. For them.
On the other hand, they really seem to relish the suffering of the People under their austerity lash, so there is that.
The Sacred Second Absolutists continue to be in complete denial about the extinction of the Republic as it used to be. Those who claim to be ready and able to defend to the death the rights of Americans as enshrined in the Constitution are completely oblivious to the fact that those "rights" are mere figments these days, and soon enough they will be little more than historical relics, whether or not the gunners are allowed to keep their arsenals.
By now, it should be perfectly clear to Americans -- as it is around the world -- that private arsenals do not and cannot prevent the "imposition of tyranny." In fact, they enable that imposition.
Perhaps the most glaring example in recent times is Iraq under the Ba'athists and that Old Devil Saddam. It wasn't all that long ago, you know. Everyone was ordered to be armed to the teeth under Saddam, and all those armaments in civilian hands did nothing -- nothing -- to prevent the imposition of Saddamite tyranny, in fact, civilian arms helped maintain it. Duh. It was only through massive intervention from outside that the Ba'athists were at first contained and then driven out of power.
Far from being the fantasized "protectors of Liberty" they imagine themselves to be, heavily armed civilian populations typically function as tools of tyranny. After all, the origin of the Sacred Second is found in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the purpose of which was the arming of Protestants and the disarming of Catholics so as to ensure the perpetuation of Protestant authority and rule over the Realm. That's what the English Civil Wars were about, and that's what the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 was about. It was nothing less than a fight over which religious faction would have authority -- tyrannical authority -- over the whole.
There was no thought of "liberty" for the common people at all, and there was certainly no thought of universal "liberty." The idea was absurd.
The American experience was not that much different. From the beginning of British settlement right up to today, the notion of universal "liberty" somehow preserved, protected and defended by a heavily armed civilian population is patently absurd. Civilian arsenals enable no "liberty" for the masses whatsoever; instead, they enable endless individual gun deaths and periodic mass murder that keep the People in a state of fear and near panic, which enables... tyrannical rule. Surprise, surprise.
That's the point.
And one of the principles of Sacred Second Absolutists is no different than that of the English version of 1689: while some civilians are allowed essentially unlimited access to weaponry, other segments will be disarmed by law and custom.
This enables those with armaments to more effectively rule over those who are disarmed. For example, in the early days of the Republic, armed white militias were utilized against disarmed slaves and Indians -- and from time to time, domestic rebels. Later, they would be utilized against supposedly free blacks and workers who dared to question the authority of and exploitation by their bosses and the corporations they served. The definition of the "liberty" being protected was the freedom to exploit an underclass without hindrance.
It's not all that different today, though the gun rights issue is once again leading straight to a civil war.
Absolutists, for example, insist on their right to defend themselves against marauding Negroes and other swarthy-brown-black Criminals. The occasional innocent slaughtered in the struggle is just "the price you have to pay" they say, for the "liberty" to assert your dominance over the marauders. Or anyone who looks like them. Or might be one. Or has an attitude. Or who makes you scared. Or...
In the meantime, an Imperial Police State is imposed from Above while the gunners and absolutists are oblivious -- when they are not actively encouraging it. After all, so long as the Police State ostensibly only applies to Designated Out Groups and Swarthy Others, why should the gunners and absolutists care?
In my view, the only way to solve this untenable situation on behalf of the People is through Civil Disarmament -- in other words, essentially eliminating civilian arsenals, and strictly limiting civilian access to guns and ammunition. By "civilian arsenals" I mean those of the police too.
As many Americans know all too well, the police have become part of the problem of gun violence in this country. Reducing their access to and utilization of armaments will go a long way toward reducing the overall level of gun violence in these United States.
Gunner Absolutists have long been in the business of supplying weapons to factions within impoverished American communities, on the premise that armed competitors (gangs as it were) will wipe each other out in the by and bye. While they are engaged in their continuous armed struggle, non-combatants will live in perpetual fear -- which will make them much easier to control than they otherwise might be.
What works so well in impoverished communities has its application to better off communities through the periodic means of apparently random mass shootings at sites otherwise considered "safe": schools, malls, movies, churches and so on. Each time there is another of these mass shootings, people panic and tremble in fear. It's a good thing in the eyes of those who wish control over the masses.
On the other hand, calls for even modest gun control get nowhere, in part because the weapons industry is so profitable and so generous to officials, and in part because the gruesome level of gun violence and mass murder in this country is useful to those in power. So long as they are not the targets -- and they only rarely are -- what's to worry?
If gunners and absolutists really had any interest in thwarting tyranny they would have long ago applied their arguments (ahem) against the abrogation of the other provisions of the Bill of Rights, but this they -- tellingly -- do not do, not on a bet and not on a prayer. In fact, they feign utter obliviousness to any imposition by the Imperial Police State so long as there is no interference with the domestic (let alone international) weapons trade.
It's Just Business, see?
Certain Libertarian factions like to "stand up to tyranny" by video recording their resistance to and encounters with TSA and Border Control. Occasionally, they'll take on the day to day harassment and abuse of the public by local police forces. Some media figures have made entire careers out of it. The problem is that the tyrannies they are so manfully standing up to are usually the smallest ones, the relatively minor irritations and harassments that come with the territory. We face a situation in this country which is the result of collapsed and imploded institutions -- including much of government -- being replaced by ever-more authoritarian, draconian, and even totalitarian policies and procedures, often -- as in the case of the DHS -- imposed by entirely new departments and agencies acting with apparently impunity.
Don't blame it on '9/11'; essentially all of what is being imposed was pre-programmed well prior to those attacks.
It is always in the nature of government to seek means to expand its authority, something that is in-built into the institution itself.
None of the tyrannical incidents cited in this post -- and there are many hundreds more available -- require or utilize civilian weapons arsenals to counter or thwart the imposition of tyranny, nor would the employment of these arsenals be of any use in thwarting these tyrannies. In other words, the purported reason for maintaining civilian arsenals -- the thwarting of tyranny -- is bogus. In fact, in the incidents cited, deft argument on the scene or in court following the incident generally suffices to... erm... thwart the immediate imposition of tyranny.
Much the same could be said about out of control, violent, and too frequently deadly policing.
