A constant theme among Trump cultists and loyalists is the idea that "losers" need to sit down and shut up, be gone, disappear, or be disappeared.
The Women's Marches threw a spanner in that notion, at least temporarily, due to their unprecedented and unexpected size and extent. If these marchers, women, men and children together, are all "losers", the Trump regime is off to a very bad start indeed.
I notice with interest that the Women's Marches are being hailed by the Democratic Party operatives still standing -- despite the obvious lack of Democratic Party loyalists among the speakers in DC -- and are either denounced (by Trump among others) or ignored by those who can't fathom what happened.
Their alternate reality insists that there can't be such a level of opposition to their Gold-Plated God-Emperor. It can't happen, so it didn't. Or if it did, it doesn't matter.
There's always the chance that the opportunity for a mass movement will be thrown away. That seems built in. The follow-on events, to the extent there are any, seem weak and uninteresting. That could be the consequence of Democratic Party operatives' co-optation, but knowing some of the women involved or learning of them during the festivities, I have my doubts that co-optation can succeed.
The success of the Marches can be turned into a loss easily enough. But it can also evolve into something much greater.
There is a pretense of reinventing the wheel, but that's hardly necessary. The way to work this sort of spontaneous uprising for particular goals has long since been figured out. See Gene Sharp's directions for Color Revolutionaries as an example.
There was paranoia among some of the Trump believers immediately after the election that "Soros" was trying to foment a Color Revolution when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to oppose Trump. Comes the Women's March and millions take to the streets and rally in hundreds of cities all over the country and the world, many sporting pink pussy hats, thus inaugurating the "color" aspect of the Revolution. Many speakers used hot headed revolutionary rhetoric without apology. They were not polite. They were deliberately nasty.
They used Trump's own words against him. They demanded their time in the sun. They refuse to be "Losers."
Trump's response was to change the subject to his inauguration and pick a fight with the media over the attendance -- or audience -- there at. Well, isn't that special.
As if it mattered. It didn't, but it was a successful feint and diversion from the Women's Marches at least temporarily.
Trump is deeply unpopular and despised. The reasons why are based both on personality and on policy or likely policies. There is also a class element -- though it's often obscured.
He's riding a tiger, and it's liable to bite him in the throat, but it hasn't quite done so yet.
He sowed the wind, and he's reaping the whirlwind. I think he likes it, though those around him appear not to.
Governance has been thrown into chaos. The permanent government hates chaos. But they're "losers" too, right?
The "loser" trope encompasses the entire country beyond his believers and loyalists. Everyone who doesn't submit is a "loser" -- or even a Clintonite -- according to his metric.
While a dominant minority can rule in this country, it has never been able to do so by rejecting/insulting/denigrating the majority.
The strategy of minority neoLibCon rule has been to rhetorically include everyone, and to provide social if not economic benefits to particular groups on a case-by-case basis. This raises their feeling of status while generally not providing economic security. Clever trick.
On the other hand, the strategy of the Trumpists is to advance the interests of a shrinking minority and no one else. This is classic abuser behavior. Their fantasy is that this strategy is actually benefiting the majority -- that's them -- and anyone who doesn't benefit doesn't deserve to.
They deserve only to be punished or ignored. They're "losers."
As the opposition grows, the Trumpists lose more and more authority; ultimately, like many abusers, they become irrelevant.
We shall see...
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Monday, January 23, 2017
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.
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.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
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.
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.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
On the Coronation and the End of the Republic
I've watched parts of every inauguration since Eisenhower's second in 1957. That was my first opportunity to watch the pageant ""live after we got a teevee in 1954.
Yesterday's pageant seemed more like a coronation than any I've witnessed since Nixon's second in 1973. Of course that regime didn't end well, and it wasn't long after the display of Imperial Ruffles and Flourishes before dude was choppered out of DC in disgrace.
That episode was one of many shocks the Republic has had to endure during its lifetime. Replacing Nixon with the unelected Ford (ably assisted by the unelected Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President) will probably be seen by later historians -- if there are any -- as a critical error of judgment by the high and the mighty who ran the government in those days.
It set a standard of presidential impunity that's only been expanded since.
Bill Clinton's impeachment was another critical error of judgment, but with a very different outcome. It was a shock to the system, yes, and stupid as can be, but it demonstrated as clearly as anything could that whatever these people, Our Rulers, do for public entertainment, it's not even as orderly as Kabuki. They're stone (and probably stoned) idiots. What. The. Fuck?
These are only two of the events that have rocked the Republic and its operations in relatively recent times, but there have been many such shocks -- and much worse -- over the centuries that the Republic has more or less endured.
I'm not at all sure the Republic can endure this latest shock and survive in any meaningful way.
And perhaps it's time for this faulty experiment in Constitutional Self-Government to fold up and conclude.
The experiment has failed.
Presidents come and go, of course, and they don't define the meaning of the Republic which endures despite them. Or sometimes because of them. Any government, any form of government, is going to face shocks as a matter of course, and it is up to the governing class (or ruling clique as the case may be) to deal with them appropriately.
That includes the President, of course, but often in our history, Presidents have been little more than figureheads fronting a government by, for, and controlled by the malefactors of great wealth. They don't use their quasi-imperial power == they may not even understand they have it. I'm not a presidential historian, so I won't delve too deeply into that speculation.
Not all presidents have been mere figureheads by any means. Certainly Nixon and Clinton were not; there's some question over whether GW Bush was a figurehead or actually the guiding hand of his disastrous regime. Accounts from the inside vary.
As for Obama, he seemed to have a sure hand on the tiller from time to time, but so often he was clearly a creature of the Interests Whom He Served. Not, in other words, the People.
I think what may turn out to be the surest measure of his ultimate impotence in the Driver's Seat is the series of disastrous interventions abroad that have turned various areas of the globe into bloody cauldrons and turned many global citizens against the Hegemon. Good heavens, what were they (those in charge of our foreign policy) thinking?
That's just the thing, isn't it? They weren't.
From appearances, it seemed they lost all moral or critical thinking skills whatever. Gone, disappeared, in a fog of neoLibCon ideology that they adopted as the only alternative to chaos (as if) and implemented mindlessly with horrifying results which they deemed "success."
Maybe we should take them at their word. The disasters that have been imposed on the People, at home and abroad, under the rule of the neoLibCon paradigm are exactly what they want and have aimed for.
Many of the hosannas over the elevation of Trump to the Throne have to do with touching faith that Mr. Trump will tear down that disastrous paradigm of neoLibCon rule and end the torture once and for all.
Oh dear.
No. That is not what he has ever said he would do, not even a hint. So far as I know, he's never even used the terms "neoliberal" and "neoconservative." His whole effort has been focused on making the governing paradigm work "better" -- on behalf of himself and his cronies, of course, and if there is anything left over once they have their reward, then providing something, a scrap or two, to the ravening Rabble. Gee. That's part and parcel of the neoLibCon theory of rule.
The Rulers see themselves as having no obligation to the Lower Orders, but in order to secure and maintain their rule, it is wise from time to time to show an interest in the well being of their servants -- if only to exploit them better.
The elevation of Trump via a highly questionable election is tailor made for just such an effort at "showing an interest" in Those People.
Isn't it obvious? Notice who the people being shown an interest in ARE.
The so-called White Male Working Class and Rural White Voters.
The common thread? White.
It's all very highly racialized and overtly White Supremacist. This is in the grand tradition of the US of A. There wouldn't be a US of A without it. Racism and White Supremacy are so deeply ingrained in US culture and society that there is no way to avoid it or extirpate it without bringing down the who structure.
According to the current narrative, the White Male Working Class and their Rural White Cousins have been "left behind" -- while others, brown, black, female -- unworthy -- have profited. There is some truth in it, of course. The working and middle classes in general have paid a heavy price to ensure the comfort and convenience of people like Trump. That cannot be denied and it shouldn't be denied, but focusing exclusively on the travails of the White Male Working Class and their Rural (White) Cousins, is just the kind of Divide the Rabble and Rule Them forever and ever amen tactic that has been employed by their neoLibCon betters throughout history. It's what they do.
So here we go, with a coronated and quite overt White Supremacist now on the Throne, vowing to serve the interests of those white men "left behind" who supposedly elected him. Anyone who gets in the way will face his wrath, for he is Emperor and his Will is Law.
Jeebus Farking Christmas. Do we have to?
Maybe so.
Maybe it takes this kind of Imperial hubris at the top to force those lower down to see what's being done to them, what has been done to them for generations and to finally take action.
I resist the urge to blame the bovine stupidity of the Rabble for what's happened. It simply isn't their fault. With many exceptions along the way, they've tried to do the right thing. They've tried to use the political and operational mechanisms of the Republic to better their own lives and the lives of others, strangers to them, but worthy just the same.
And they have been thwarted every step of the way by a fiercely entitled and resistant Ruling Class. Every/ Step. of the. Way.
Every advance has been fought either to a standstill or has only been accepted -- in modified form -- after decades or generations of struggle.
That's built in to the nature of the Republic, but over the years, the idea of the Republic has decayed to such an extent that it's largely a hollow shell, most of which is inoperative. As hard as it has been to advance under the Republican model, it's been essentially impossible -- with a few exceptions -- to do so for a generation or more.
And this is touted as 'what the people want,' and it isn't. It's false. But Our Rulers, in their ineffable wisdom, believe sincerely that governing contrary to the interests of the Rabble is exactly what they are supposed to do. Whatever the Rabble want or need, do the opposite.
This is insane, but this is how the ruling classes operate. It's a game to them. It's a game to see how many Quatloos they can accumulate before the whole thing implodes.
It's crazy. But there you are.
To say the Republic has been largely useless for the interests of the People for decades is to point to the obvious (I would think.)
So by elevating the Person of Mr. Trump to the quasi-Imperial Throne of the Presidency, it could well be the final nail in the coffin of a long-terminal Republic. Inevitable? Could be.
As for Mr. Trump himself, I'm not at all sure that he sees the Presidency as an "elevation." But given his nature, we can expect him to make it into one. That he's assuming the office in place of a Negro, and he seems to think that the Negro screwed things up majorly, is telling.
The message is that the Mud People and the Lower Orders are simply not fit to rule. Let the magnificence of the Gold Plated "Man of the People" show the right way to do things.
Of course his "Man of the People" shtick is a fraud, but after all the fraud at the top we've witnessed so far, that's nothing new. No, he will rule on his own behalf and that of his cronies, period. As that realization dawns on his faithful followers (he is like a cult leader to them), they somehow manage to rationalize it by hoping a few more scraps will fall from the tables of the Haute Monde than was the case previously. Maybe they will, I don't know, but the hope is all they've got at this point.
He wants to rule as an autocrat/dictator, and he's trying to shape the battle space to ensure that he can and will. From appearances, he seems to be succeeding. As I've said, there is an inherent autocratic component in the Presidency, most often expressed during wartime. Since there is never an end to the current cycle of wars and overthrows this nation engages in, the inherent autocratic nature of the Presidency has no brakes -- except for those the autocrat chooses to engage. Even the Bush-Cheney regime sometimes put the brakes on the autocracy.
But it looks like Trump won't.
OK then. If that's the way he goes, then yes, the Republic is over and done.
What that will mean for the many is yet to be determined.
We'll see.
And if Roberts had been holding a crown of golden laurel leaves yesterday, I have no doubt Mr. Trump would have placed it on his own gold-plated brow and declared himself a god.
Jeebus, what have we done to deserve this.
Yesterday's pageant seemed more like a coronation than any I've witnessed since Nixon's second in 1973. Of course that regime didn't end well, and it wasn't long after the display of Imperial Ruffles and Flourishes before dude was choppered out of DC in disgrace.
That episode was one of many shocks the Republic has had to endure during its lifetime. Replacing Nixon with the unelected Ford (ably assisted by the unelected Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President) will probably be seen by later historians -- if there are any -- as a critical error of judgment by the high and the mighty who ran the government in those days.
It set a standard of presidential impunity that's only been expanded since.
Bill Clinton's impeachment was another critical error of judgment, but with a very different outcome. It was a shock to the system, yes, and stupid as can be, but it demonstrated as clearly as anything could that whatever these people, Our Rulers, do for public entertainment, it's not even as orderly as Kabuki. They're stone (and probably stoned) idiots. What. The. Fuck?
These are only two of the events that have rocked the Republic and its operations in relatively recent times, but there have been many such shocks -- and much worse -- over the centuries that the Republic has more or less endured.
I'm not at all sure the Republic can endure this latest shock and survive in any meaningful way.
And perhaps it's time for this faulty experiment in Constitutional Self-Government to fold up and conclude.
The experiment has failed.
Presidents come and go, of course, and they don't define the meaning of the Republic which endures despite them. Or sometimes because of them. Any government, any form of government, is going to face shocks as a matter of course, and it is up to the governing class (or ruling clique as the case may be) to deal with them appropriately.
That includes the President, of course, but often in our history, Presidents have been little more than figureheads fronting a government by, for, and controlled by the malefactors of great wealth. They don't use their quasi-imperial power == they may not even understand they have it. I'm not a presidential historian, so I won't delve too deeply into that speculation.
Not all presidents have been mere figureheads by any means. Certainly Nixon and Clinton were not; there's some question over whether GW Bush was a figurehead or actually the guiding hand of his disastrous regime. Accounts from the inside vary.
As for Obama, he seemed to have a sure hand on the tiller from time to time, but so often he was clearly a creature of the Interests Whom He Served. Not, in other words, the People.
I think what may turn out to be the surest measure of his ultimate impotence in the Driver's Seat is the series of disastrous interventions abroad that have turned various areas of the globe into bloody cauldrons and turned many global citizens against the Hegemon. Good heavens, what were they (those in charge of our foreign policy) thinking?
That's just the thing, isn't it? They weren't.
From appearances, it seemed they lost all moral or critical thinking skills whatever. Gone, disappeared, in a fog of neoLibCon ideology that they adopted as the only alternative to chaos (as if) and implemented mindlessly with horrifying results which they deemed "success."
Maybe we should take them at their word. The disasters that have been imposed on the People, at home and abroad, under the rule of the neoLibCon paradigm are exactly what they want and have aimed for.
Many of the hosannas over the elevation of Trump to the Throne have to do with touching faith that Mr. Trump will tear down that disastrous paradigm of neoLibCon rule and end the torture once and for all.
Oh dear.
No. That is not what he has ever said he would do, not even a hint. So far as I know, he's never even used the terms "neoliberal" and "neoconservative." His whole effort has been focused on making the governing paradigm work "better" -- on behalf of himself and his cronies, of course, and if there is anything left over once they have their reward, then providing something, a scrap or two, to the ravening Rabble. Gee. That's part and parcel of the neoLibCon theory of rule.
The Rulers see themselves as having no obligation to the Lower Orders, but in order to secure and maintain their rule, it is wise from time to time to show an interest in the well being of their servants -- if only to exploit them better.
The elevation of Trump via a highly questionable election is tailor made for just such an effort at "showing an interest" in Those People.
Isn't it obvious? Notice who the people being shown an interest in ARE.
The so-called White Male Working Class and Rural White Voters.
The common thread? White.
It's all very highly racialized and overtly White Supremacist. This is in the grand tradition of the US of A. There wouldn't be a US of A without it. Racism and White Supremacy are so deeply ingrained in US culture and society that there is no way to avoid it or extirpate it without bringing down the who structure.
According to the current narrative, the White Male Working Class and their Rural White Cousins have been "left behind" -- while others, brown, black, female -- unworthy -- have profited. There is some truth in it, of course. The working and middle classes in general have paid a heavy price to ensure the comfort and convenience of people like Trump. That cannot be denied and it shouldn't be denied, but focusing exclusively on the travails of the White Male Working Class and their Rural (White) Cousins, is just the kind of Divide the Rabble and Rule Them forever and ever amen tactic that has been employed by their neoLibCon betters throughout history. It's what they do.
So here we go, with a coronated and quite overt White Supremacist now on the Throne, vowing to serve the interests of those white men "left behind" who supposedly elected him. Anyone who gets in the way will face his wrath, for he is Emperor and his Will is Law.
Jeebus Farking Christmas. Do we have to?
Maybe so.
Maybe it takes this kind of Imperial hubris at the top to force those lower down to see what's being done to them, what has been done to them for generations and to finally take action.
I resist the urge to blame the bovine stupidity of the Rabble for what's happened. It simply isn't their fault. With many exceptions along the way, they've tried to do the right thing. They've tried to use the political and operational mechanisms of the Republic to better their own lives and the lives of others, strangers to them, but worthy just the same.
And they have been thwarted every step of the way by a fiercely entitled and resistant Ruling Class. Every/ Step. of the. Way.
Every advance has been fought either to a standstill or has only been accepted -- in modified form -- after decades or generations of struggle.
That's built in to the nature of the Republic, but over the years, the idea of the Republic has decayed to such an extent that it's largely a hollow shell, most of which is inoperative. As hard as it has been to advance under the Republican model, it's been essentially impossible -- with a few exceptions -- to do so for a generation or more.
And this is touted as 'what the people want,' and it isn't. It's false. But Our Rulers, in their ineffable wisdom, believe sincerely that governing contrary to the interests of the Rabble is exactly what they are supposed to do. Whatever the Rabble want or need, do the opposite.
This is insane, but this is how the ruling classes operate. It's a game to them. It's a game to see how many Quatloos they can accumulate before the whole thing implodes.
It's crazy. But there you are.
To say the Republic has been largely useless for the interests of the People for decades is to point to the obvious (I would think.)
So by elevating the Person of Mr. Trump to the quasi-Imperial Throne of the Presidency, it could well be the final nail in the coffin of a long-terminal Republic. Inevitable? Could be.
As for Mr. Trump himself, I'm not at all sure that he sees the Presidency as an "elevation." But given his nature, we can expect him to make it into one. That he's assuming the office in place of a Negro, and he seems to think that the Negro screwed things up majorly, is telling.
The message is that the Mud People and the Lower Orders are simply not fit to rule. Let the magnificence of the Gold Plated "Man of the People" show the right way to do things.
Of course his "Man of the People" shtick is a fraud, but after all the fraud at the top we've witnessed so far, that's nothing new. No, he will rule on his own behalf and that of his cronies, period. As that realization dawns on his faithful followers (he is like a cult leader to them), they somehow manage to rationalize it by hoping a few more scraps will fall from the tables of the Haute Monde than was the case previously. Maybe they will, I don't know, but the hope is all they've got at this point.
He wants to rule as an autocrat/dictator, and he's trying to shape the battle space to ensure that he can and will. From appearances, he seems to be succeeding. As I've said, there is an inherent autocratic component in the Presidency, most often expressed during wartime. Since there is never an end to the current cycle of wars and overthrows this nation engages in, the inherent autocratic nature of the Presidency has no brakes -- except for those the autocrat chooses to engage. Even the Bush-Cheney regime sometimes put the brakes on the autocracy.
But it looks like Trump won't.
OK then. If that's the way he goes, then yes, the Republic is over and done.
What that will mean for the many is yet to be determined.
We'll see.
And if Roberts had been holding a crown of golden laurel leaves yesterday, I have no doubt Mr. Trump would have placed it on his own gold-plated brow and declared himself a god.
Jeebus, what have we done to deserve this.
Friday, January 20, 2017
The Problem With Presidents
So as far as we know, later this morning New Mexico time, Mr. Trump will approach the podium set up on the back steps of the Capitol in Washington and be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America, to the shock and horror of much of the population of those United States and the world.
W. T. F. America?
So far as we know, there has been no serious intervention that would prevent Mr. Trump's ascension to office. There have been numerous opportunities for intervention since he began his rise during the primary contests with however many rivals the Republican Party threw up against him.
He was a force of nature. Chatty and incoherent, insulting to any and all critics or rivals and ingratiating with his adoring fans, telling everyone he didn't care what they thought of him, he was going to plow on no matter, and he would win, like he always did in business. Just watch.
He ran as an entertainer, a clown, a vicious street fighter, a financial and sexual predator, a bully, a con man, a force of nature to be reckoned with or to yield to. There were no alternatives, at least none offered in his own narrative or that of the propaganda media.
Accept him as he is or reject him; it didn't matter to him, not in the least. He would win, you just watch.
Sure enough, come election night, the shocked and then resigned looks on the faces of the media talking heads told the tale. Though he was never ahead in the overall popular vote as reported, he got enough votes in the crucial battleground states to defeat Mrs. Clinton soundly in the Electoral College, "the only vote that matters."
Hm. Well, there you are then. For the second time in 16 years, the loser of the popular vote will ascend to the White House as President due to the clever Electoral College mechanism specifically designed -- they say -- to prevent this sort of thing from happening. "They say." In fact, the Electoral College ensures this sort of thing will happen more and more often as time goes by. But that's another issue for another day.
What I'd rather deal with today is the problem with Presidents and the Presidency in general.
We have an archaic system of rule that's largely based in the model of the 18th Century British Empire from which what would become the United States rebelled. The rebellion wasn't on behalf of abstract notions of "equality," "freedom," and "liberty," but for the specific purpose of ensuring the advantages obtained by a rising colonial aristocracy. Fine words were employed to support the cause, but in the end, only about a third of the colonial population -- some of the white ones -- supported the rebellion. Had the Crown and Parliament in London actually taken the matter seriously, it's likely the United States as we know it would never have come into being.
But that's as may be. It did come into being, and after some initial difficulty and some internal rebellions, it began to flourish.
The initial concept under the Constitution that was ratified and went into force in 1789 was that of a domestic empire ruled as a Republic by a qualified class of patriotic aristocrats. White Men (only) of Means, Reputation, and Eminence.
For a long time, I thought one of them was among my ancestors, but it turns out he wasn't. While we may share ancestors in common (I haven't found them if they exist), there is no direct relationship between descendants. I was lied to.
The President is a somewhat anomalous position in that Republic. He (or maybe one day she) has vast powers -- exceeding those of any modern king or potentate, and in some ways exceeding those of 18th Century British monarchs, The President was to be constrained by the monetary appropriations of the Congress, the advice and consent of the Senate, and the rule of law as interpreted by the courts. Initially, the President was considered weaker than a monarch in most respects, but in others -- that is in his representation of the Nation -- he was more glorious than any Emperor.
As the role of the President evolved, however, the Presidency took on not just the trappings of autocracy but the reality of it as well, seen in stark relief during war time, and consolidated with relish during occasional outbreaks of "peace."
In fact, the United States government has engaged in perpetual war domestically and/or internationally for its entire existence, and this constant war-making has had a profound effect on the nature of the Presidency and the US Government as a whole.
Our rulers long ago set themselves up as a warrior caste -- whether or not they personally engaged in military action -- with an ever-varied list of "enemies" to be defeated. Our government runs on the principles of making war, as anyone who's been paying close attention or has had a close relationship with the federal government can recognize.
Behind the Warrior Caste is a Wealth Class, some of whom participate directly in the government, others stay in the shadows directing the government.
This has been the case for as long as there has been a government of the United States, and it isn't changing because Trump is to assume the office of President. He may have pretended to be a Warrior Caste member in his personal pageant, but for decades he's been a member of the Wealth Class who have the power to direct the government to their own advantage from behind the scenes.
This is why the pretense that he is "anti-establishment" is ludicrous. He IS "establishment" -- albeit part of a faction of the establishment that is generally considered contemptible and/or criminal. Nevertheless, it's always been a powerful faction, usually easier to accommodate than contest.
No one quite like him has been "elected" to the Presidency since Andrew Jackson, and the parallels with Jackson are not close enough to be particularly illustrative.
No, this is for all intents and purposes a unique -- and hopefully one-off -- experiment in direct rule by the Plutocracy.
It isn't just the President, the Congress, Courts and Statehouses of the nation are dominated by plutocrats, kleptocrats, and their agents as well.
They have some popular support -- as they have always had in national and state affairs -- but it isn't large, and as long as they have the power, the people's objections to their rule don't matter to them.
Until now, the presidency has been held by an heroic figure such as Mr. Washington, or Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Eisenhower, or by an agent of the plutocrats, not directly by a member of the plutocracy/kleoptocracy.
But that's about to change, and many of those who celebrate it have no idea what kind of change is in the works.
In my view, this is the end-point of the Republic -- a Republic that was on life support anyway -- and there will be no going back. The experiment in self-government -- never perfected -- will end, either with a crash or a whimper, and that will be that.
The President will no longer be a genuinely powerful but ever-modest figurehead, he (or maybe one day she) will be what the office has always inherently implied: an autocrat, an Emperor in all but name, a divinity.
The Congress and courts and to a great extent the shadowy government of the Wealthy will do his bidding or feel his wrath. The People, the Rabble, will be cut loose to fend for themselves -- and be cut down if they get uppity -- or they will be patriotically "organized" and "coordinated" into Imperial support corps led by Himself.
White Supremacy will be restored to its rightful place in the National Mythology.
Too bad for those who don't fit the ideal.
Too, too bad.
The problem with Presidents and the Presidency is that this kind of authoritarian/autocratic and overtly racist rule has always been inherent in the position itself. I'm sure Mr. Trump will innovate in many ways, doing things we've never seen a President do before, but the nature of the position is such that he can do this with little or no interference from those vaunted "checks and balances." This power and authority has always been inherent in the position, but until now, certain formalities and traditions of the office have generally prevented their open expression.
Since 2001 (and actually before) those formalities and traditions have been under threat, and many have already been jettisoned. We entered an alternate political reality when GW Bush was installed in the Presidency lawlessly in 2001, and that alternate reality has only been reinforced and consolidated ever since. Mr. Obama, while seeming to be Mr. Modest in his rule actually carried on the processes that had been under way for quite a long time, and while he didn't adopt the trappings of an Emperor, he ruled like one where and when he could, and when he couldn't, he provided "Imperial Cover" for pretty much whatever the government's owners and sponsors wanted.
So here we're about to encounter the apotheosis of the Presidency, it's open transformation. There will be no going back.
I'm not sure the Nation can or will survive. A unified national consciousness --- and conscience --- has essentially disappeared. There are regional and largely independent perspectives, but they conflict with one another to such an extent that there's little common ground between them any more -- if there ever really was. The only times they've come together, and then only temporarily, has been under the gun. Otherwise they fight one another.
A breakup into several semi-autonomous regional super-states is therefore somewhat likely to relieve the stress of the transformations to come. The secessionists in California, Oregon, and Washington see themselves as a vanguard for this breakup, and maybe they are.
But there are all sorts of potential consequences to the coming ascension of Mr. Trump to the Presidency. Once he is in office, an intervention is still possible but much less likely, simply because it's easier to go along with a New Boss than to fight him.
We'll see.
Opposition is pervasive, true enough, but I have no clue where it will lead.
More and more folks are waking up to the New Reality, and to my eyes, more and more of them are saying "No!" -- but it's too late to stop what's coming (oh, I could go on and on about what could have been done) and we'll just have to ride it out.
Or something.
Strap in; it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
---------------------------------------
Frankie Say:
(There are about eighty-eleven different versions of this, but this one seems to fit the mood of the moment....)
W. T. F. America?
So far as we know, there has been no serious intervention that would prevent Mr. Trump's ascension to office. There have been numerous opportunities for intervention since he began his rise during the primary contests with however many rivals the Republican Party threw up against him.
He was a force of nature. Chatty and incoherent, insulting to any and all critics or rivals and ingratiating with his adoring fans, telling everyone he didn't care what they thought of him, he was going to plow on no matter, and he would win, like he always did in business. Just watch.
He ran as an entertainer, a clown, a vicious street fighter, a financial and sexual predator, a bully, a con man, a force of nature to be reckoned with or to yield to. There were no alternatives, at least none offered in his own narrative or that of the propaganda media.
Accept him as he is or reject him; it didn't matter to him, not in the least. He would win, you just watch.
Sure enough, come election night, the shocked and then resigned looks on the faces of the media talking heads told the tale. Though he was never ahead in the overall popular vote as reported, he got enough votes in the crucial battleground states to defeat Mrs. Clinton soundly in the Electoral College, "the only vote that matters."
Hm. Well, there you are then. For the second time in 16 years, the loser of the popular vote will ascend to the White House as President due to the clever Electoral College mechanism specifically designed -- they say -- to prevent this sort of thing from happening. "They say." In fact, the Electoral College ensures this sort of thing will happen more and more often as time goes by. But that's another issue for another day.
What I'd rather deal with today is the problem with Presidents and the Presidency in general.
We have an archaic system of rule that's largely based in the model of the 18th Century British Empire from which what would become the United States rebelled. The rebellion wasn't on behalf of abstract notions of "equality," "freedom," and "liberty," but for the specific purpose of ensuring the advantages obtained by a rising colonial aristocracy. Fine words were employed to support the cause, but in the end, only about a third of the colonial population -- some of the white ones -- supported the rebellion. Had the Crown and Parliament in London actually taken the matter seriously, it's likely the United States as we know it would never have come into being.
But that's as may be. It did come into being, and after some initial difficulty and some internal rebellions, it began to flourish.
The initial concept under the Constitution that was ratified and went into force in 1789 was that of a domestic empire ruled as a Republic by a qualified class of patriotic aristocrats. White Men (only) of Means, Reputation, and Eminence.
For a long time, I thought one of them was among my ancestors, but it turns out he wasn't. While we may share ancestors in common (I haven't found them if they exist), there is no direct relationship between descendants. I was lied to.
The President is a somewhat anomalous position in that Republic. He (or maybe one day she) has vast powers -- exceeding those of any modern king or potentate, and in some ways exceeding those of 18th Century British monarchs, The President was to be constrained by the monetary appropriations of the Congress, the advice and consent of the Senate, and the rule of law as interpreted by the courts. Initially, the President was considered weaker than a monarch in most respects, but in others -- that is in his representation of the Nation -- he was more glorious than any Emperor.
As the role of the President evolved, however, the Presidency took on not just the trappings of autocracy but the reality of it as well, seen in stark relief during war time, and consolidated with relish during occasional outbreaks of "peace."
In fact, the United States government has engaged in perpetual war domestically and/or internationally for its entire existence, and this constant war-making has had a profound effect on the nature of the Presidency and the US Government as a whole.
Our rulers long ago set themselves up as a warrior caste -- whether or not they personally engaged in military action -- with an ever-varied list of "enemies" to be defeated. Our government runs on the principles of making war, as anyone who's been paying close attention or has had a close relationship with the federal government can recognize.
Behind the Warrior Caste is a Wealth Class, some of whom participate directly in the government, others stay in the shadows directing the government.
This has been the case for as long as there has been a government of the United States, and it isn't changing because Trump is to assume the office of President. He may have pretended to be a Warrior Caste member in his personal pageant, but for decades he's been a member of the Wealth Class who have the power to direct the government to their own advantage from behind the scenes.
This is why the pretense that he is "anti-establishment" is ludicrous. He IS "establishment" -- albeit part of a faction of the establishment that is generally considered contemptible and/or criminal. Nevertheless, it's always been a powerful faction, usually easier to accommodate than contest.
No one quite like him has been "elected" to the Presidency since Andrew Jackson, and the parallels with Jackson are not close enough to be particularly illustrative.
No, this is for all intents and purposes a unique -- and hopefully one-off -- experiment in direct rule by the Plutocracy.
It isn't just the President, the Congress, Courts and Statehouses of the nation are dominated by plutocrats, kleptocrats, and their agents as well.
They have some popular support -- as they have always had in national and state affairs -- but it isn't large, and as long as they have the power, the people's objections to their rule don't matter to them.
Until now, the presidency has been held by an heroic figure such as Mr. Washington, or Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Eisenhower, or by an agent of the plutocrats, not directly by a member of the plutocracy/kleoptocracy.
But that's about to change, and many of those who celebrate it have no idea what kind of change is in the works.
In my view, this is the end-point of the Republic -- a Republic that was on life support anyway -- and there will be no going back. The experiment in self-government -- never perfected -- will end, either with a crash or a whimper, and that will be that.
The President will no longer be a genuinely powerful but ever-modest figurehead, he (or maybe one day she) will be what the office has always inherently implied: an autocrat, an Emperor in all but name, a divinity.
The Congress and courts and to a great extent the shadowy government of the Wealthy will do his bidding or feel his wrath. The People, the Rabble, will be cut loose to fend for themselves -- and be cut down if they get uppity -- or they will be patriotically "organized" and "coordinated" into Imperial support corps led by Himself.
White Supremacy will be restored to its rightful place in the National Mythology.
Too bad for those who don't fit the ideal.
Too, too bad.
The problem with Presidents and the Presidency is that this kind of authoritarian/autocratic and overtly racist rule has always been inherent in the position itself. I'm sure Mr. Trump will innovate in many ways, doing things we've never seen a President do before, but the nature of the position is such that he can do this with little or no interference from those vaunted "checks and balances." This power and authority has always been inherent in the position, but until now, certain formalities and traditions of the office have generally prevented their open expression.
Since 2001 (and actually before) those formalities and traditions have been under threat, and many have already been jettisoned. We entered an alternate political reality when GW Bush was installed in the Presidency lawlessly in 2001, and that alternate reality has only been reinforced and consolidated ever since. Mr. Obama, while seeming to be Mr. Modest in his rule actually carried on the processes that had been under way for quite a long time, and while he didn't adopt the trappings of an Emperor, he ruled like one where and when he could, and when he couldn't, he provided "Imperial Cover" for pretty much whatever the government's owners and sponsors wanted.
So here we're about to encounter the apotheosis of the Presidency, it's open transformation. There will be no going back.
I'm not sure the Nation can or will survive. A unified national consciousness --- and conscience --- has essentially disappeared. There are regional and largely independent perspectives, but they conflict with one another to such an extent that there's little common ground between them any more -- if there ever really was. The only times they've come together, and then only temporarily, has been under the gun. Otherwise they fight one another.
A breakup into several semi-autonomous regional super-states is therefore somewhat likely to relieve the stress of the transformations to come. The secessionists in California, Oregon, and Washington see themselves as a vanguard for this breakup, and maybe they are.
But there are all sorts of potential consequences to the coming ascension of Mr. Trump to the Presidency. Once he is in office, an intervention is still possible but much less likely, simply because it's easier to go along with a New Boss than to fight him.
We'll see.
Opposition is pervasive, true enough, but I have no clue where it will lead.
More and more folks are waking up to the New Reality, and to my eyes, more and more of them are saying "No!" -- but it's too late to stop what's coming (oh, I could go on and on about what could have been done) and we'll just have to ride it out.
Or something.
Strap in; it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
---------------------------------------
Frankie Say:
(There are about eighty-eleven different versions of this, but this one seems to fit the mood of the moment....)
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Jeremy Scahill Explains It All For You
This is from December:
This is from 2009:
Compare and contrast.
This is from 2009:
Compare and contrast.
The Unknown Murder Mystery
Amid the crises and chaos -- oh my! -- I've been working on a post that could be called "creative nonfiction" about the murder of my mother's grandfather Joe in 1904.
Until recently, I knew nothing at all about it. I'm not sure my mother knew anything about it, either. The only mention I recall she made of her grandfather -- ie: her mother's father -- was that he died years before she was born, and she thought it was in an accident of some kind. But she didn't know.
She did remember Ida, Joe's widow, mother of Edna, my mother's mother. Ida always wore black, she was stern, and she was the matriarch of the house of women my mother was born into in 1911.
The newspaper articles about Joe's murder are pretty juicy, including plenty of salacious details, some gore, and statements from witnesses. My my, "Shorty," as he was called, was quite a character and so was Ella, his mistress/murderess.
In my research prior to discovering the murder story, I found a number of curiosities about Joe that I was unable to resolve, but there are some indications from this murder story about what was going on that are kind of astonishing when I think about it.
At some point, possibly around 1890 -- not long after Edna's birth -- it appears that Joe and Ida separated. I've found Joe apparently living with his mother Eliza, not with Ida. But I also found another Joe (we'll call him "Hastings" because that's one of the aliases he used) living elsewhere. On occasion, there were as many as three "Joes" -- that I suspect were all the same person -- living in different places in Indianapolis.
Then in 1904, the year "Shorty" was killed, Joe is listed as living at the same address as Ida, and someone named "Francis J" is listed as living at Joe's mother's address. In other years, there is a "Joseph F" listed at Joe's mother's place, and Joe is not listed at Ida's -- except in the 1900 census, in which he is also listed at his mother's address. I'm pretty sure now that "Francis J," "Joseph F," and "Joseph M" are all the same person listed at different times. I have found no listing for "Joe Hastings" however.
Ella -- Joe's mistress/murderess -- and her husband Frank apparently knew Joe as "Joe Hastings." I suspect that Joe used the name "Francis J" sometimes when he was listed at his mother's house because of Frank Hicks, his mistress's husband. How drôle. They were apparently friends, as the newspaper report of the murder indicates that prior to the deed, Frank had invited Joe to stay for lunch with him and Ella.
From all accounts, Joe was a frequent visitor and had been visiting Ella and Frank for at least two years before the murder.
Ella claimed that she did Joe's washing. That's all. And that's why Joe came over as often as he did. But apparently neighbors knew that Joe and Ella were having an affair. Whether Frank knew, I don't know. I suspect he did.
These sorts of things weren't as unusual in the late Victorian era as we've been led to believe. In fact, casual couplings and long term affairs were pretty routine -- and from what I can tell, they were often accepted with little or no complaint or even much notice. Men and women both had affairs, though women (married or not) were at greater risk for consequences when they did.
I'd say such things are less usual these days than they were then.
In doing this research, I found that Ida -- Joe's wife, my mother's grandmother -- gave birth to her son Ralph more than a year before she married Joe. Oops. This wasn't all that unusual either, but still...
It gives rise to speculation: was Joe Ralph's father? Maybe, maybe not. About 18 months after Joe and Ida were married, my mother's mother Edna was born. Not long after that, as far as I can tell, Joe and Ida separated, and Ida, with her children, went back to live with her parents.
Ida's father, John, died in 1902; her mother Mariah Louisa died in 1908. After Ida moved back to her parents' home, she lived there with various relations. Then after her parents died, she lived there with her widowed sisters, her children, and eventually her granddaughter Virginia, my mother.
So from what I can tell, Ida was more or less independent after separating from Joe. But she did not divorce him, and after his death she staged a big funeral for him at her house and led the cortège to the cemetery a couple of miles away. From that day forth, she asserted she was Joe's widow, and she always dressed in black.
Ida also attended Ella's trial -- as the Wronged Widow Woman. Ella was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. I don't know what happened to Frank, or if Ella and Frank had any children. I've found no record of either of them except for the reports of Joe's murder.
It appears that Ida inherited property from her parents -- quite a lot of it if newspaper reports of her property sales are any indication. She was arguably quite well off from these sales. On the other hand, she claimed to be employed as a seamstress. From what my mother remembered of Ida, which wasn't a lot as my mother and her mother left the household in 1917 when my mother was only five years old, she was strict and stern, and I got the impression my mother didn't like her much, perhaps she was afraid of Ida.
Of course she wouldn't have known Joe, and I doubt she heard much about him. If, as I suspect, Joe and Ida separated not long after Edna's birth, then I doubt Edna had a lot of contact with her father, and she was probably much closer to her grandparents, but I don't know.
So much I don't know.
"Creative nonfiction" is about the only way I can deal with what I'm discovering, too.
Until recently, I knew nothing at all about it. I'm not sure my mother knew anything about it, either. The only mention I recall she made of her grandfather -- ie: her mother's father -- was that he died years before she was born, and she thought it was in an accident of some kind. But she didn't know.
She did remember Ida, Joe's widow, mother of Edna, my mother's mother. Ida always wore black, she was stern, and she was the matriarch of the house of women my mother was born into in 1911.
The newspaper articles about Joe's murder are pretty juicy, including plenty of salacious details, some gore, and statements from witnesses. My my, "Shorty," as he was called, was quite a character and so was Ella, his mistress/murderess.
In my research prior to discovering the murder story, I found a number of curiosities about Joe that I was unable to resolve, but there are some indications from this murder story about what was going on that are kind of astonishing when I think about it.
At some point, possibly around 1890 -- not long after Edna's birth -- it appears that Joe and Ida separated. I've found Joe apparently living with his mother Eliza, not with Ida. But I also found another Joe (we'll call him "Hastings" because that's one of the aliases he used) living elsewhere. On occasion, there were as many as three "Joes" -- that I suspect were all the same person -- living in different places in Indianapolis.
Then in 1904, the year "Shorty" was killed, Joe is listed as living at the same address as Ida, and someone named "Francis J" is listed as living at Joe's mother's address. In other years, there is a "Joseph F" listed at Joe's mother's place, and Joe is not listed at Ida's -- except in the 1900 census, in which he is also listed at his mother's address. I'm pretty sure now that "Francis J," "Joseph F," and "Joseph M" are all the same person listed at different times. I have found no listing for "Joe Hastings" however.
Ella -- Joe's mistress/murderess -- and her husband Frank apparently knew Joe as "Joe Hastings." I suspect that Joe used the name "Francis J" sometimes when he was listed at his mother's house because of Frank Hicks, his mistress's husband. How drôle. They were apparently friends, as the newspaper report of the murder indicates that prior to the deed, Frank had invited Joe to stay for lunch with him and Ella.
From all accounts, Joe was a frequent visitor and had been visiting Ella and Frank for at least two years before the murder.
Ella claimed that she did Joe's washing. That's all. And that's why Joe came over as often as he did. But apparently neighbors knew that Joe and Ella were having an affair. Whether Frank knew, I don't know. I suspect he did.
These sorts of things weren't as unusual in the late Victorian era as we've been led to believe. In fact, casual couplings and long term affairs were pretty routine -- and from what I can tell, they were often accepted with little or no complaint or even much notice. Men and women both had affairs, though women (married or not) were at greater risk for consequences when they did.
I'd say such things are less usual these days than they were then.
In doing this research, I found that Ida -- Joe's wife, my mother's grandmother -- gave birth to her son Ralph more than a year before she married Joe. Oops. This wasn't all that unusual either, but still...
It gives rise to speculation: was Joe Ralph's father? Maybe, maybe not. About 18 months after Joe and Ida were married, my mother's mother Edna was born. Not long after that, as far as I can tell, Joe and Ida separated, and Ida, with her children, went back to live with her parents.
Ida's father, John, died in 1902; her mother Mariah Louisa died in 1908. After Ida moved back to her parents' home, she lived there with various relations. Then after her parents died, she lived there with her widowed sisters, her children, and eventually her granddaughter Virginia, my mother.
So from what I can tell, Ida was more or less independent after separating from Joe. But she did not divorce him, and after his death she staged a big funeral for him at her house and led the cortège to the cemetery a couple of miles away. From that day forth, she asserted she was Joe's widow, and she always dressed in black.
Ida also attended Ella's trial -- as the Wronged Widow Woman. Ella was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. I don't know what happened to Frank, or if Ella and Frank had any children. I've found no record of either of them except for the reports of Joe's murder.
It appears that Ida inherited property from her parents -- quite a lot of it if newspaper reports of her property sales are any indication. She was arguably quite well off from these sales. On the other hand, she claimed to be employed as a seamstress. From what my mother remembered of Ida, which wasn't a lot as my mother and her mother left the household in 1917 when my mother was only five years old, she was strict and stern, and I got the impression my mother didn't like her much, perhaps she was afraid of Ida.
Of course she wouldn't have known Joe, and I doubt she heard much about him. If, as I suspect, Joe and Ida separated not long after Edna's birth, then I doubt Edna had a lot of contact with her father, and she was probably much closer to her grandparents, but I don't know.
So much I don't know.
"Creative nonfiction" is about the only way I can deal with what I'm discovering, too.
Monday, January 16, 2017
As the Coup Continues
There seems to be a much more widespread understanding that there may be a Deep State coup under way to either control the incoming Trump regime or to prevent his ascension to the presidency should control prove impractical or unpossible.
Some observers have gone into hysterics over it, calling it "unprecedented" interference and such-like. Horseshit.
I've pointed out that this is what the Permanent Government does. I won't use a term like Deep State most of the time because it's not really hidden, and its ways ought to be pretty well known by now. It isn't just Trump. They try to undermine or control every president. And if that proves to be to be too difficult or the president goes rogue, they have other solutions at their disposal. Those of us who are old enough have witnessed some of those solutions.
After all, presidents. serve for 4 or 8 years, if that. The Permanent Government is there always. And some of the individuals who hold the power of that Government would like to be there in perpetuity. Immortals, they are or would be if they could be.
Some Trump supporters/defenders seem to be relying on the institutions of government, the constitution, the congress, the courts and such like to protect Trump from the machinations of the Deep State. I'd say that trust is misplaced. The institutions themselves are rotten to the core, long ago compromised and corrupted. They can't effectively protect anyone, not even themselves, and they have that institutional knowledge. They might serve as a buffer if things go completely haywire, but beyond that, I can't see them serving any positive function at all.
If the coup is successful, they'll go along. If it isn't, they'll go along. From appearances, they seem to be on the side of their own perpetuation. Thus, they are instinctively golpistas, but they are unlikely to participate directly in the program.
The institutional defense is the constitution. Whereas the incoming Trump regime seems to be intent on circumventing the constitution and ignoring the rule of law -- among other things -- in order to install direct rule by the oligarchs and kleptocrats, the institutions of the permanent government rely on their devotion to the constitution and the rule of law to prop up their shaky legitimacy. In other words, they may be corrupt and compromised, decadent and generally useless on behalf of the People, BUT they follow the process of government as delineated in the constitution and practiced through the ages. It may not work very well, but that doesn't matter, they do it as they have done it for centuries, and this Trump regime is not going to be allowed to operate outside those parameters.
The institutions will not protect Trump and his cronies if they continue to try to operate outside them.
On the other hand, some of the Trump loyalists and defenders seem to think that if this coup-business goes much further, Trump can rely on a faction of the military to protect him and the incoming regime. That may be the case, I don't know. His determination to strategically seed generals in his cabinet and among his close advisors is certainly indicative of an interest in using the military as a shield, and I'm sure that the golpistas are factoring that into their calculations.
Trump supporters seem to think he's popular and that the public wants him to rule. This does not seem to be the case at all. He was never generally popular, and what popularity he had is cratering as the public witnesses more and more of the chaos that ensues from his wild, unpredictable and childish behavior. Even the military is shaken by it. This man isn't capable of governing a global imperial state like the United States of America, and he apparently refuses to learn how to do it.
That's not to say that direct rule by the oligarchs and kleptocrats is something the military and governing institutions instinctively reject. They don't. Not at all. But a faction of them do reject such rule by Trump simply because he demonstrates every day he is incapable of handling the "awesome responsibility" of the office. He's too scattered, too unpredictable, too resistant to control. He wishes to be an emperor, dictator, and god, against which there can be no opposition.
His supporters largely want him to be that too: an emperor, dictator and god.
How far we have fallen from the ideal of a self-governing republic.
Maybe that was a pipedream all along.
Some observers have gone into hysterics over it, calling it "unprecedented" interference and such-like. Horseshit.
I've pointed out that this is what the Permanent Government does. I won't use a term like Deep State most of the time because it's not really hidden, and its ways ought to be pretty well known by now. It isn't just Trump. They try to undermine or control every president. And if that proves to be to be too difficult or the president goes rogue, they have other solutions at their disposal. Those of us who are old enough have witnessed some of those solutions.
After all, presidents. serve for 4 or 8 years, if that. The Permanent Government is there always. And some of the individuals who hold the power of that Government would like to be there in perpetuity. Immortals, they are or would be if they could be.
Some Trump supporters/defenders seem to be relying on the institutions of government, the constitution, the congress, the courts and such like to protect Trump from the machinations of the Deep State. I'd say that trust is misplaced. The institutions themselves are rotten to the core, long ago compromised and corrupted. They can't effectively protect anyone, not even themselves, and they have that institutional knowledge. They might serve as a buffer if things go completely haywire, but beyond that, I can't see them serving any positive function at all.
If the coup is successful, they'll go along. If it isn't, they'll go along. From appearances, they seem to be on the side of their own perpetuation. Thus, they are instinctively golpistas, but they are unlikely to participate directly in the program.
The institutional defense is the constitution. Whereas the incoming Trump regime seems to be intent on circumventing the constitution and ignoring the rule of law -- among other things -- in order to install direct rule by the oligarchs and kleptocrats, the institutions of the permanent government rely on their devotion to the constitution and the rule of law to prop up their shaky legitimacy. In other words, they may be corrupt and compromised, decadent and generally useless on behalf of the People, BUT they follow the process of government as delineated in the constitution and practiced through the ages. It may not work very well, but that doesn't matter, they do it as they have done it for centuries, and this Trump regime is not going to be allowed to operate outside those parameters.
The institutions will not protect Trump and his cronies if they continue to try to operate outside them.
On the other hand, some of the Trump loyalists and defenders seem to think that if this coup-business goes much further, Trump can rely on a faction of the military to protect him and the incoming regime. That may be the case, I don't know. His determination to strategically seed generals in his cabinet and among his close advisors is certainly indicative of an interest in using the military as a shield, and I'm sure that the golpistas are factoring that into their calculations.
Trump supporters seem to think he's popular and that the public wants him to rule. This does not seem to be the case at all. He was never generally popular, and what popularity he had is cratering as the public witnesses more and more of the chaos that ensues from his wild, unpredictable and childish behavior. Even the military is shaken by it. This man isn't capable of governing a global imperial state like the United States of America, and he apparently refuses to learn how to do it.
That's not to say that direct rule by the oligarchs and kleptocrats is something the military and governing institutions instinctively reject. They don't. Not at all. But a faction of them do reject such rule by Trump simply because he demonstrates every day he is incapable of handling the "awesome responsibility" of the office. He's too scattered, too unpredictable, too resistant to control. He wishes to be an emperor, dictator, and god, against which there can be no opposition.
His supporters largely want him to be that too: an emperor, dictator and god.
How far we have fallen from the ideal of a self-governing republic.
Maybe that was a pipedream all along.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Chaos -- and The Wreck
I've been contemplating Chaos the last few weeks, and wouldn't you know, last Wednesday, Ms. Ché was involved in a serious auto accident in Albuquerque. She and the other driver were both injured, and the cars were totaled. This was Albuquerque, and this is what happens day in and day out. You never know when it will happen to you. But you can be almost certain that it will.
So I guess you have to be prepared, but I don't really know how you prepare for what is essentially a random incident. Best you can do is prepare for the risk. Be aware that it can happen at any time, and you never know.
I wasn't there, so I don't know exactly how this wreck happened or whose liability will eventually be claimed. From what I've been told, it sounds like either driver, or both, may have been at fault. At any rate, that determination is probably weeks or months away.
In the meantime, Ms. Ché is recovering from her injuries (mostly from the airbags) well, and the insurance company has paid off her car loan and provided a modest amount on top of it to use toward another car should we choose.
Well, since Ms. Ché starts back to school at IAIA in Santa Fe on Tuesday, we pretty much have to choose. We have another vehicle, the ancient Astro van that got us here from California back in the day, but she says she can't drive it ("It's too big! My feet won't reach the pedals!") and I really wouldn't want her to, as it is old and the brakes -- among other things -- aren't the best. I've driven it in ice and snow -- whoo-hoo! -- and it's an adventure to say the least.
Another car, though. Hm. A friend wants to sell us a recently restored 1957 T-Bird. Wouldn't that be fun? It's a gorgeous car, but well out of our price range (I believe they want $37,000 and it's worth more), and beyond that, I'm not sure it's the best thing to commute the 50 miles each way between our place and Santa Fe. Still... it would be a treat.
I've contemplated a beater, rust bucket pick up. They are available at pretty low prices in this area, but... Not sure Ms. Ché would be able to drive it any better than she could drive the van, and there would be plenty of safety concerns on that long daily commute. A breakdown along the way could be a serious misadventure.
The car that was wrecked was a Subaru, pretty much an ideal vehicle for New Mexico given the weather and the roads and so forth. She loved it. Now for something else...
The Wreck of course was a chaotic incident. Chaos seems to be our collective fate for a while. Getting through it is not going to be easy, yet some of us are well-adapted to coping with whatever comes our way.
I'm not altogether sure I'm one of them. But we'll see, won't we?
So I guess you have to be prepared, but I don't really know how you prepare for what is essentially a random incident. Best you can do is prepare for the risk. Be aware that it can happen at any time, and you never know.
I wasn't there, so I don't know exactly how this wreck happened or whose liability will eventually be claimed. From what I've been told, it sounds like either driver, or both, may have been at fault. At any rate, that determination is probably weeks or months away.
In the meantime, Ms. Ché is recovering from her injuries (mostly from the airbags) well, and the insurance company has paid off her car loan and provided a modest amount on top of it to use toward another car should we choose.
Well, since Ms. Ché starts back to school at IAIA in Santa Fe on Tuesday, we pretty much have to choose. We have another vehicle, the ancient Astro van that got us here from California back in the day, but she says she can't drive it ("It's too big! My feet won't reach the pedals!") and I really wouldn't want her to, as it is old and the brakes -- among other things -- aren't the best. I've driven it in ice and snow -- whoo-hoo! -- and it's an adventure to say the least.
Another car, though. Hm. A friend wants to sell us a recently restored 1957 T-Bird. Wouldn't that be fun? It's a gorgeous car, but well out of our price range (I believe they want $37,000 and it's worth more), and beyond that, I'm not sure it's the best thing to commute the 50 miles each way between our place and Santa Fe. Still... it would be a treat.
I've contemplated a beater, rust bucket pick up. They are available at pretty low prices in this area, but... Not sure Ms. Ché would be able to drive it any better than she could drive the van, and there would be plenty of safety concerns on that long daily commute. A breakdown along the way could be a serious misadventure.
The car that was wrecked was a Subaru, pretty much an ideal vehicle for New Mexico given the weather and the roads and so forth. She loved it. Now for something else...
The Wreck of course was a chaotic incident. Chaos seems to be our collective fate for a while. Getting through it is not going to be easy, yet some of us are well-adapted to coping with whatever comes our way.
I'm not altogether sure I'm one of them. But we'll see, won't we?
Friday, January 13, 2017
The Coup Intensifies
I dunno.
This Russian Thing is getting more and more bizarre by the hour. The supposed "dossier" has had some effect, but just what it is and will be, who can say?
The intent seems to be more of a warning than a serious effort to undermine/overthrow the President-elect, *quote unquote*, as if to say, "Look, we can do this, and you can't do anything to stop it."
Yes, and? Are they trying to bring him to heel? Or is it something else?
I've been pretty clear that I don't think Trump should take office. His faction of the ruling clique was always small, and from appearances, its core seems to be shrinking. They clearly have a personal interest in seizing the government's levers and dials, and they are being opposed by a much larger cohort that doesn't want to yield. That doesn't mean Trump can't overcome the obstacles being placed in the way of his rule, but each time he has to do something to overcome the obstacles, authoritarianism and rule by diktat are solidified. This may be the intent of the factions of the ruling clique that are facing him down, I don't know.
What I have little doubt of is that these things have been long since gamed out and prepared for. People tend to have very naive notions about how incompetent our government is or how ultimately benign it is. In fact, its operations are quite strictly controlled and internally they are remarkably competently implemented for long time and long term interests and goals. It's not perfect, but on the whole, it's highly organized and well-conducted. And yes, the possibility of someone like Trump arising and being "elected" and what to do about it has probably been one of the scenarios of what could come since before I was born.
The Rabble can certainly affect outcomes, but what's going on is essentially an internal struggle between factions of the ruling clique.
Something like it happened at the outset of the imposed Bush-Cheney Regime when elements of the ruling clique set out to control the incoming regime's scope of action. It worked for a while. Certainly Bush-Cheney was far more publicly benign from its installation in January until the events of 9/11/2001. Once the attacks occurred, however, everything changed fundamentally. Within a month, the government was transformed, and nearly all controls on the actions of Bush-Cheney, domestically as well as overseas were lifted. Opposition within the ruling clique all but disappeared.
And we had one catastrophe of bad judgment after another.
Was that because there was no coherent opposition within government, or was it because a previously prepared game plan was being implemented? I'd say it was a bit of both, plus the effects of whatever spontaneous elements appeared.
It was undeniably catastrophic for millions upon millions of Americans, millions upon millions of people overseas.
And that catastrophe was only partially mitigated in the US, not mitigated at all in the Middle East and elsewhere under the calming rule of Obama and his faction.
Now the Incoming is set to transform government top to bottom (or so they say) and impose catastrophic rule domestically and on a somewhat different set of targets overseas. The permanent government and its ruling clique allies are responding with one grenade after another. I don't think we've ever witnessed anything like it.
It's a kind of a coup. It could turn into a real one. As I said in November, what might come is interim rule by a military figure. But if so, it isn't publicly being prepared for.
Delegitimization of the Incoming is proceeding apace, but beyond that? What? At this point, it's impossible to tell.
The Congress is totally out of control. The Incoming is fighting and flailing. The spectacle is getting more and more chaotic.
What next?
One week before the Inauguration.
Strap in.
This Russian Thing is getting more and more bizarre by the hour. The supposed "dossier" has had some effect, but just what it is and will be, who can say?
The intent seems to be more of a warning than a serious effort to undermine/overthrow the President-elect, *quote unquote*, as if to say, "Look, we can do this, and you can't do anything to stop it."
Yes, and? Are they trying to bring him to heel? Or is it something else?
I've been pretty clear that I don't think Trump should take office. His faction of the ruling clique was always small, and from appearances, its core seems to be shrinking. They clearly have a personal interest in seizing the government's levers and dials, and they are being opposed by a much larger cohort that doesn't want to yield. That doesn't mean Trump can't overcome the obstacles being placed in the way of his rule, but each time he has to do something to overcome the obstacles, authoritarianism and rule by diktat are solidified. This may be the intent of the factions of the ruling clique that are facing him down, I don't know.
What I have little doubt of is that these things have been long since gamed out and prepared for. People tend to have very naive notions about how incompetent our government is or how ultimately benign it is. In fact, its operations are quite strictly controlled and internally they are remarkably competently implemented for long time and long term interests and goals. It's not perfect, but on the whole, it's highly organized and well-conducted. And yes, the possibility of someone like Trump arising and being "elected" and what to do about it has probably been one of the scenarios of what could come since before I was born.
The Rabble can certainly affect outcomes, but what's going on is essentially an internal struggle between factions of the ruling clique.
Something like it happened at the outset of the imposed Bush-Cheney Regime when elements of the ruling clique set out to control the incoming regime's scope of action. It worked for a while. Certainly Bush-Cheney was far more publicly benign from its installation in January until the events of 9/11/2001. Once the attacks occurred, however, everything changed fundamentally. Within a month, the government was transformed, and nearly all controls on the actions of Bush-Cheney, domestically as well as overseas were lifted. Opposition within the ruling clique all but disappeared.
And we had one catastrophe of bad judgment after another.
Was that because there was no coherent opposition within government, or was it because a previously prepared game plan was being implemented? I'd say it was a bit of both, plus the effects of whatever spontaneous elements appeared.
It was undeniably catastrophic for millions upon millions of Americans, millions upon millions of people overseas.
And that catastrophe was only partially mitigated in the US, not mitigated at all in the Middle East and elsewhere under the calming rule of Obama and his faction.
Now the Incoming is set to transform government top to bottom (or so they say) and impose catastrophic rule domestically and on a somewhat different set of targets overseas. The permanent government and its ruling clique allies are responding with one grenade after another. I don't think we've ever witnessed anything like it.
It's a kind of a coup. It could turn into a real one. As I said in November, what might come is interim rule by a military figure. But if so, it isn't publicly being prepared for.
Delegitimization of the Incoming is proceeding apace, but beyond that? What? At this point, it's impossible to tell.
The Congress is totally out of control. The Incoming is fighting and flailing. The spectacle is getting more and more chaotic.
What next?
One week before the Inauguration.
Strap in.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
The Continuing Russian Thing
Hot horny Jeebus. This is stupid.
Why in heaven Our Rulers -- or a faction of them -- continue to press this Russian Thing defies reason. They're out of their minds. It should have long ago been over.
Yes, perhaps some of it is true, but it doesn't really matter whether the Ruskies were trying to influence the election. One would -- or should -- expect various foreign interests to attempt to have their say in who gets to sit on the Imperial Throne after all, and it should make little difference to the American electorate.
There are other problems with our elections that are far more significant and important including unverifiable voting machines and growing levels of voter suppression. The fact that Americans have to choose between what Hugh at Ian's Place calls "shit-sandwiches" for president -- sandwiches chosen by their Betters for their malleability and their likely service to the High and the Mighty while keeping the masses entertained and tame -- is much worse in the end than any propaganda and poison that is injected into the mix by inside and outside influencers.
Our elections have been farces for many years. For people of my generation, November 22, 1963, was the only "election" that really mattered; every one since then has been a farce. The situation has gone from bad to worse, and there is really nothing the People in their multitudes can do about it through regular order.
As long as we accept the regular order of elections and transfers of power and observing the constitution (although not), things cannot change for the better. We started down a rathole in 1964, and we cannot emerge, because there isn't a light at the end of that tunnel. That way leads directly to Hell.
We can break out of the confines of that tunnel, though, and as soon as we do, voila! A new day dawns. Or rather, its always dawning, we just can't see it for all the garbage and horseshit we're surrounded with.
That's why, among so many other things, the Russian Thing strikes me as so stupid. It doesn't matter. But a faction of Our Rulers is intent on making things as fraught as possible with the Ruskies, because they miss the Cold War. Or something.
Of course the Other Faction, apparently aligned with Trump, is just as desperate to get it on with Iran and China and who knows who else, as well as that shadowy metastasizing 'threat' called ISIS or whatever the Brown Menace du Jour might be.
They are creations, essentially fictions, brought forth and flogged to provide an enemy to fight. For without enemies, Our Rulers have no meaning.
Deny them their enemies and you deny them their power.
Think about that...
Why in heaven Our Rulers -- or a faction of them -- continue to press this Russian Thing defies reason. They're out of their minds. It should have long ago been over.
Yes, perhaps some of it is true, but it doesn't really matter whether the Ruskies were trying to influence the election. One would -- or should -- expect various foreign interests to attempt to have their say in who gets to sit on the Imperial Throne after all, and it should make little difference to the American electorate.
There are other problems with our elections that are far more significant and important including unverifiable voting machines and growing levels of voter suppression. The fact that Americans have to choose between what Hugh at Ian's Place calls "shit-sandwiches" for president -- sandwiches chosen by their Betters for their malleability and their likely service to the High and the Mighty while keeping the masses entertained and tame -- is much worse in the end than any propaganda and poison that is injected into the mix by inside and outside influencers.
Our elections have been farces for many years. For people of my generation, November 22, 1963, was the only "election" that really mattered; every one since then has been a farce. The situation has gone from bad to worse, and there is really nothing the People in their multitudes can do about it through regular order.
As long as we accept the regular order of elections and transfers of power and observing the constitution (although not), things cannot change for the better. We started down a rathole in 1964, and we cannot emerge, because there isn't a light at the end of that tunnel. That way leads directly to Hell.
We can break out of the confines of that tunnel, though, and as soon as we do, voila! A new day dawns. Or rather, its always dawning, we just can't see it for all the garbage and horseshit we're surrounded with.
That's why, among so many other things, the Russian Thing strikes me as so stupid. It doesn't matter. But a faction of Our Rulers is intent on making things as fraught as possible with the Ruskies, because they miss the Cold War. Or something.
Of course the Other Faction, apparently aligned with Trump, is just as desperate to get it on with Iran and China and who knows who else, as well as that shadowy metastasizing 'threat' called ISIS or whatever the Brown Menace du Jour might be.
They are creations, essentially fictions, brought forth and flogged to provide an enemy to fight. For without enemies, Our Rulers have no meaning.
Deny them their enemies and you deny them their power.
Think about that...
Monday, January 9, 2017
Pondering the Dead Lists
As I'm old and ill myself, thoughts of mortality naturally enter into my consciousness -- perhaps more than I want them to. Death of course is part of the pageant of life, and I can't say I'm particularly frightened of shuffling off this mortal coil when the time comes, whenever that may be. For all my current health problems, I'm doing pretty well. Frustrations there are aplenty, but it could be so much worse, and so I'm grateful for whatever time I have left and whatever joy and insight I can find and share in that time.
In exploring my ancestry, I'm finding out about people and incidents of death and let's call it mayhem that I knew little or nothing about unmotil recently.
It started with my uncle Vincent who was tried (twice) for the murder of his wife in 1946. My father was one of his defense attorneys, so I knew something about it but not a whole lot. The main take away was that he was acquitted, but how that happened seemed a bit mysterious to me. What I gathered was that my brother -- who was there when his aunt died -- was interviewed in chambers, and subsequently, the court directed a verdict of acquittal. But I didn't know that this was his second trial, and that the first trial had ended in a hung jury -- 9-3, acquital. I also had no idea what the situation really was in Vincent's household and how his wife might have met her demise by cruel accident just as Vincent claimed in his defense.
His alibi was that he was at his mistress's house when his wife fell down the stairs, hit her head and expired. He found her body when he returned the next morning. Called the police, one thing led to another, and he was arrested and charged with murder 2.
One theory was that an intruder had come into the house -- for robbery perhaps -- and bludgeoned her to death. The other theory was that she had just fallen to her death down a flight of stairs, hit her head on a table and that was that.
The prosecution argued that in a drunken rage, Vincent had pushed her down the stairs and left her to die while he went to dally with his mistress in town.
That was actually what my mother believed to be the case, and there was always that kernel of doubt about what had happened.
But my brother was a witness, the only witness, really. He could not testify because he was ruled incompetent.He was 11 years old at the time and severely physically and mentally disabled. He had been raised by his aunt and uncle, Vincent and Garla, since his mother died at his birth. My father could not look after him and Vincent and Garla could not have children of their own, so they took my brother in and raised him as their son.
The extent of his disabilities were manifested over years. He couldn't stand up or walk on his own, he couldn't talk until he was about eight years old, he had repeated seizures. He was in much worse shape than I thought. I only saw him when I was an infant. He was in private care after Garla's death and it was thought unwise for me to see him or him to see me later on. So I never did.
As a witness, I'm not sure what he might have said, or if what he said in chambers made any sense. But apparently it was enough, combined with other evidence, for the judge to declare there wasn't a case for murder.
I learned from a cousin I discovered online that Garla had many problems herself. She drank heavily for one thing. But maybe worse, and what could easily have been the proximate cause of her death, was that she couldn't see very well. From her descriptions of what was happening, her vision would come and go -- she could see for a time, and then her central vision would go blank and she could only see peripherally, sometimes not even that. It can't be corrected with glasses, of course. If she was tipsy and lost her vision the night of her death, well... that would be that, wouldn't it?
Vincent claimed he had left the house in the afternoon to go see Pauline his mistress, and he stayed with her until the next morning. She corroborated his alibi in court. The prosecution's claim was that Vincent had dispatched his wife so he could marry Pauline. They both denied it vigorously.
Well, as it turned out, after his acquittal, Vincent and Pauline were married and they moved to Santa Barbara where they lived the rest of their lives. Hm. Stranger things. I didn't know they were in Santa Barbara -- I thought they'd stayed in Iowa. I periodically lived in Santa Maria, just up the road from Santa Barbara. Stranger things indeed. Vincent died in 1962 which was the last year I saw my father. I think there is a connection, but I'm not entirely sure what it is.
Next on the dead list was my mother's biological father Lawrence. He died when she was five years old in 1916. She told me she remembered very little (I think nothing) about him, but that she clearly recalled attending his funeral where it was discovered he had another wife and daughter. Ooops. This supposedly led to a big scandal, and eventually my mother and her mother moved to California from Indianapolis "to escape the shame."
The shame? Yes. According to my mother, the "discovery" of Lawrence's other family at his funeral was scandalous because it meant that he was a bigamist.
But as I've explored the situation and the public record, I'm not sure it was such a scandal at all. Nor am I convinced that Lawrence's death was an accident.
According to the story I was told and my mother seemed to believe, Lawrence was killed in a streetcar accident in Indianapolis when he was crushed between the cars.
Except that's not quite what happened. He wasn't in Indianapolis, he was in St. Louis. It wasn't a street car accident, it was a railyard incident, and he was indeed caught between two rail cars, a freight car and a refrigerator car, and he was cut in half.
Yes, he had another wife and daughter in St. Louis, but whether he was a bigamist, I can't say. There are hints that he was never legally married to my mother's mother [Note: I found a marriage notice today (01/10/2017); Lawrence and Edna were married on February 4, 1910 in Louisville, KY, yet in April 1910, Lawrence was listed in the census as divorced] but I've found a record of his marriage to his St. Louis wife and to another wife in Indianapolis from whom he was divorced. He had another child by a young girl in Indianapolis (she was 16) the same year my mother was born, as well three children by his first wife, and another daughter by his St. Louis wife. There may have been others, who knows?
The point is that he was quite a ladies' man, and this is one reason why I'm suspicious of his death in the railyard.
For his St. Louis wife subsequently married the yard boss. How... convenient.
Railyard incidents leading to the death of switchmen weren't all that rare in those days as worker safety was not the highest priority, but it was certainly possible to arrange "accidents" should the need arise.
It may have arisen in Lawrence's case simply because... well, any number of reasons. At any rate, he died, and soon thereafter my mother and her mother and Leo, a friend of Larry's from his Indianapolis days who married my mother's mother, decamped for California and a new life. Things went well for them. And then they didn't. But that's another story.
Most recently -- yesterday in fact -- I came across the story of what happened to my mother's grandfather Joseph. He died in 1904, well before my mother's birth. His wife, Ida, then put on her widow's weeds (she always wore black said my mother) and... well, "mourned" is probably too grand a term. More accurately, she declared her independence, and she lived with her children and her widowed sisters and their children until the household broke up in 1917 with the departure of my mother's family to California. Ida went to Chicago with her son, Ralph. Ida's sisters, Nora and Lillian (or Josephine, her first name which she didn't use) stayed in Indianapolis. Ida would return to Indianapolis after Ralph got married c. 1920, an she lived there (as a widow) with one or another of her sisters (both of whom remarried) until her death in 1935.
Joseph, Ida's husband and Edna's father (Edna was my mother's mother) was shot and killed by his mistress Ella on May 24, 1904, apparently after he told her he was "through with her."
According to news reports, he'd been seeing Ella for years, and he basically hadn't lived in the same household as Ida and their children for years before that. Supposedly he moved out to take care of his ill and disabled mother across town. But then at some point, he sent his mother to Chicago to be looked after by his sister who lived there, and Joseph stayed at his mother's house while he prepared to close it. At least that was his story. He had taken up with Ella Hicks, a married woman, at sometime during his separation from Ida.
Ella claimed she only did Joseph's washing and when he made an indecent proposal to her that day, she defended herself with her revolver, thus the murder was actually self defense, don't you see? But apparently there were witnesses to actually happened, and who knew all about Ella's affair with Joseph. Though Frank, Ella's husband, was not a witness to the murder, he apparently knew about the affair, and...I guess he was OK with it. He and Joseph were apparently buddies at any rate. Since I derive all of this from newspaper reports of the incident and Ella's trial, I can't say how much of it is true. Make no mistake, media was just as filled with falsehoods and "fake news" then as it is now, if not more so.
Witnesses said that Ella was intoxicated and was quite deliberate in shooting Joseph when he told her they were done. She was not about to let him go back to his wife or to another woman, no way, no how, and she shot him.
The jury believed that account of what happened and convicted her. She was sentenced to life in prison, but her lawyers argued for a new trial. Apparently that happened, but I don't know the outcome. They were going to try to argue an insanity defense, and maybe they were successful, but if so, I doubt Ella would have been released.
And so... I don't know what these things mean, if anything, in the vast, eternal scheme. Yet I'm bothered by it just the same.
I didn't know. I think that's the most bothersome thing. But I don't know what I would have done if I did know about these deaths and others among my ancestors and relations. As I find that misadventure plays a role perhaps as great as illness and old age in the history of deaths in the family, and that affairs play more than a little role in those misadventures, I have to think about how that all works -- especially in the contexts of the times.
We have an image of Victorian/Edwardian propriety, let's say, that simply isn't matched by fact. In doing research, I found out my father was married three times. I knew about two of his wives, but not the first one -- she was never mentioned. I knew he had affairs, but with whom or when, nope. Well, except for one, but I'll leave that for another time.
And so it goes. In discussing some of these things with my new-found cousin, she confesses there's so much she never knew about her own family and ancestors, so much that was never said. She didn't know about me, for example, nor did I know about her, even though we lived fairly close to one another in California, and there were other cousins (all now dead) much closer -- and we knew nothing about one another. No one ever said. She said there were other cousins too that she had no knowledge of, except their names.
She said she thinks I was privileged because at least I got to know some of the family in Iowa. She never did. We both wonder if there are any relations still living in Iowa, or did they all move to California?
We don't know.
She wants to know how as many of our relatives as we can find died, for she thinks there might be a genetic thread to follow. I don't know.
For example, we share a German great-grandfather who died in 1901 a couple of weeks after my father's birth. We don't know the cause, but we do have a picture, a family portrait taken perhaps five years or sooner before his death (there's no date, but the clothes and the ages of the children indicate it was taken in the 1890s). Reinhold, our great-grandfather, appears to have fallen asleep in the portrait while reading the newspaper. I look at it and suspect he had congestive heart failure -- which would be consistent with what we see in the portrait. May be. I don't know.
She wants to know how Vincent died. I don't know for sure, but I suspect alcoholism, as he was a heavy drinker like his late wife. My father died of cancer. My mother died of emphysema -- smoked like a chimney till the end, she did.
But my sister died of pulmonary thrombosis following surgery for shattered knees injured in a prison takedown. I think I've told the story before. She was 59. My brother also died of pulmonary thrombosis, but it appears he was in a coma for a long time beforehand. He was 32.
So many things we know, and so many more things we don't know. It is a wonder...
In exploring my ancestry, I'm finding out about people and incidents of death and let's call it mayhem that I knew little or nothing about unmotil recently.
It started with my uncle Vincent who was tried (twice) for the murder of his wife in 1946. My father was one of his defense attorneys, so I knew something about it but not a whole lot. The main take away was that he was acquitted, but how that happened seemed a bit mysterious to me. What I gathered was that my brother -- who was there when his aunt died -- was interviewed in chambers, and subsequently, the court directed a verdict of acquittal. But I didn't know that this was his second trial, and that the first trial had ended in a hung jury -- 9-3, acquital. I also had no idea what the situation really was in Vincent's household and how his wife might have met her demise by cruel accident just as Vincent claimed in his defense.
His alibi was that he was at his mistress's house when his wife fell down the stairs, hit her head and expired. He found her body when he returned the next morning. Called the police, one thing led to another, and he was arrested and charged with murder 2.
One theory was that an intruder had come into the house -- for robbery perhaps -- and bludgeoned her to death. The other theory was that she had just fallen to her death down a flight of stairs, hit her head on a table and that was that.
The prosecution argued that in a drunken rage, Vincent had pushed her down the stairs and left her to die while he went to dally with his mistress in town.
That was actually what my mother believed to be the case, and there was always that kernel of doubt about what had happened.
But my brother was a witness, the only witness, really. He could not testify because he was ruled incompetent.He was 11 years old at the time and severely physically and mentally disabled. He had been raised by his aunt and uncle, Vincent and Garla, since his mother died at his birth. My father could not look after him and Vincent and Garla could not have children of their own, so they took my brother in and raised him as their son.
The extent of his disabilities were manifested over years. He couldn't stand up or walk on his own, he couldn't talk until he was about eight years old, he had repeated seizures. He was in much worse shape than I thought. I only saw him when I was an infant. He was in private care after Garla's death and it was thought unwise for me to see him or him to see me later on. So I never did.
As a witness, I'm not sure what he might have said, or if what he said in chambers made any sense. But apparently it was enough, combined with other evidence, for the judge to declare there wasn't a case for murder.
I learned from a cousin I discovered online that Garla had many problems herself. She drank heavily for one thing. But maybe worse, and what could easily have been the proximate cause of her death, was that she couldn't see very well. From her descriptions of what was happening, her vision would come and go -- she could see for a time, and then her central vision would go blank and she could only see peripherally, sometimes not even that. It can't be corrected with glasses, of course. If she was tipsy and lost her vision the night of her death, well... that would be that, wouldn't it?
Vincent claimed he had left the house in the afternoon to go see Pauline his mistress, and he stayed with her until the next morning. She corroborated his alibi in court. The prosecution's claim was that Vincent had dispatched his wife so he could marry Pauline. They both denied it vigorously.
Well, as it turned out, after his acquittal, Vincent and Pauline were married and they moved to Santa Barbara where they lived the rest of their lives. Hm. Stranger things. I didn't know they were in Santa Barbara -- I thought they'd stayed in Iowa. I periodically lived in Santa Maria, just up the road from Santa Barbara. Stranger things indeed. Vincent died in 1962 which was the last year I saw my father. I think there is a connection, but I'm not entirely sure what it is.
Next on the dead list was my mother's biological father Lawrence. He died when she was five years old in 1916. She told me she remembered very little (I think nothing) about him, but that she clearly recalled attending his funeral where it was discovered he had another wife and daughter. Ooops. This supposedly led to a big scandal, and eventually my mother and her mother moved to California from Indianapolis "to escape the shame."
The shame? Yes. According to my mother, the "discovery" of Lawrence's other family at his funeral was scandalous because it meant that he was a bigamist.
But as I've explored the situation and the public record, I'm not sure it was such a scandal at all. Nor am I convinced that Lawrence's death was an accident.
According to the story I was told and my mother seemed to believe, Lawrence was killed in a streetcar accident in Indianapolis when he was crushed between the cars.
Except that's not quite what happened. He wasn't in Indianapolis, he was in St. Louis. It wasn't a street car accident, it was a railyard incident, and he was indeed caught between two rail cars, a freight car and a refrigerator car, and he was cut in half.
Yes, he had another wife and daughter in St. Louis, but whether he was a bigamist, I can't say. There are hints that he was never legally married to my mother's mother [Note: I found a marriage notice today (01/10/2017); Lawrence and Edna were married on February 4, 1910 in Louisville, KY, yet in April 1910, Lawrence was listed in the census as divorced] but I've found a record of his marriage to his St. Louis wife and to another wife in Indianapolis from whom he was divorced. He had another child by a young girl in Indianapolis (she was 16) the same year my mother was born, as well three children by his first wife, and another daughter by his St. Louis wife. There may have been others, who knows?
The point is that he was quite a ladies' man, and this is one reason why I'm suspicious of his death in the railyard.
For his St. Louis wife subsequently married the yard boss. How... convenient.
Railyard incidents leading to the death of switchmen weren't all that rare in those days as worker safety was not the highest priority, but it was certainly possible to arrange "accidents" should the need arise.
It may have arisen in Lawrence's case simply because... well, any number of reasons. At any rate, he died, and soon thereafter my mother and her mother and Leo, a friend of Larry's from his Indianapolis days who married my mother's mother, decamped for California and a new life. Things went well for them. And then they didn't. But that's another story.
Most recently -- yesterday in fact -- I came across the story of what happened to my mother's grandfather Joseph. He died in 1904, well before my mother's birth. His wife, Ida, then put on her widow's weeds (she always wore black said my mother) and... well, "mourned" is probably too grand a term. More accurately, she declared her independence, and she lived with her children and her widowed sisters and their children until the household broke up in 1917 with the departure of my mother's family to California. Ida went to Chicago with her son, Ralph. Ida's sisters, Nora and Lillian (or Josephine, her first name which she didn't use) stayed in Indianapolis. Ida would return to Indianapolis after Ralph got married c. 1920, an she lived there (as a widow) with one or another of her sisters (both of whom remarried) until her death in 1935.
Joseph, Ida's husband and Edna's father (Edna was my mother's mother) was shot and killed by his mistress Ella on May 24, 1904, apparently after he told her he was "through with her."
According to news reports, he'd been seeing Ella for years, and he basically hadn't lived in the same household as Ida and their children for years before that. Supposedly he moved out to take care of his ill and disabled mother across town. But then at some point, he sent his mother to Chicago to be looked after by his sister who lived there, and Joseph stayed at his mother's house while he prepared to close it. At least that was his story. He had taken up with Ella Hicks, a married woman, at sometime during his separation from Ida.
Ella claimed she only did Joseph's washing and when he made an indecent proposal to her that day, she defended herself with her revolver, thus the murder was actually self defense, don't you see? But apparently there were witnesses to actually happened, and who knew all about Ella's affair with Joseph. Though Frank, Ella's husband, was not a witness to the murder, he apparently knew about the affair, and...I guess he was OK with it. He and Joseph were apparently buddies at any rate. Since I derive all of this from newspaper reports of the incident and Ella's trial, I can't say how much of it is true. Make no mistake, media was just as filled with falsehoods and "fake news" then as it is now, if not more so.
Witnesses said that Ella was intoxicated and was quite deliberate in shooting Joseph when he told her they were done. She was not about to let him go back to his wife or to another woman, no way, no how, and she shot him.
The jury believed that account of what happened and convicted her. She was sentenced to life in prison, but her lawyers argued for a new trial. Apparently that happened, but I don't know the outcome. They were going to try to argue an insanity defense, and maybe they were successful, but if so, I doubt Ella would have been released.
And so... I don't know what these things mean, if anything, in the vast, eternal scheme. Yet I'm bothered by it just the same.
I didn't know. I think that's the most bothersome thing. But I don't know what I would have done if I did know about these deaths and others among my ancestors and relations. As I find that misadventure plays a role perhaps as great as illness and old age in the history of deaths in the family, and that affairs play more than a little role in those misadventures, I have to think about how that all works -- especially in the contexts of the times.
We have an image of Victorian/Edwardian propriety, let's say, that simply isn't matched by fact. In doing research, I found out my father was married three times. I knew about two of his wives, but not the first one -- she was never mentioned. I knew he had affairs, but with whom or when, nope. Well, except for one, but I'll leave that for another time.
And so it goes. In discussing some of these things with my new-found cousin, she confesses there's so much she never knew about her own family and ancestors, so much that was never said. She didn't know about me, for example, nor did I know about her, even though we lived fairly close to one another in California, and there were other cousins (all now dead) much closer -- and we knew nothing about one another. No one ever said. She said there were other cousins too that she had no knowledge of, except their names.
She said she thinks I was privileged because at least I got to know some of the family in Iowa. She never did. We both wonder if there are any relations still living in Iowa, or did they all move to California?
We don't know.
She wants to know how as many of our relatives as we can find died, for she thinks there might be a genetic thread to follow. I don't know.
For example, we share a German great-grandfather who died in 1901 a couple of weeks after my father's birth. We don't know the cause, but we do have a picture, a family portrait taken perhaps five years or sooner before his death (there's no date, but the clothes and the ages of the children indicate it was taken in the 1890s). Reinhold, our great-grandfather, appears to have fallen asleep in the portrait while reading the newspaper. I look at it and suspect he had congestive heart failure -- which would be consistent with what we see in the portrait. May be. I don't know.
She wants to know how Vincent died. I don't know for sure, but I suspect alcoholism, as he was a heavy drinker like his late wife. My father died of cancer. My mother died of emphysema -- smoked like a chimney till the end, she did.
But my sister died of pulmonary thrombosis following surgery for shattered knees injured in a prison takedown. I think I've told the story before. She was 59. My brother also died of pulmonary thrombosis, but it appears he was in a coma for a long time beforehand. He was 32.
So many things we know, and so many more things we don't know. It is a wonder...
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Hm. Things You Find Out On the Internet
For some time, I've been working on a follow up post to the one about the house where my mother grew up in Santa Maria. In order to work on it, I had to do some more research on where she and her mother, grandmother and aunts lived in Indianapolis.
The household in Indianapolis was a matriarchy because all the older women were widows, and my mother's mother (Grandmother Ida's daughter) would become a widow soon enough.
So today I was looking up some information on Ida's husband Joseph (I think I called him John in an earlier post) who died in 1904. (I may have said 1902. It seems I confused Ida's husband with her father.)
I found his death certificate today. It said the cause of death was "gun shot wound." That was interesting. I had thought he died in an accident of some kind, but had no idea he'd been shot. Maybe it was suicide? Murder? Something else?
Digging around on the Google Machine, I found news stories which explained plenty. He was murdered.
By his paramour, Ella Hicks.
Apparently, he'd been seeing Mrs. Hicks -- yes, she was married -- for some years, and one day, while he and she were drunk at her house, he told her he was through with her. She took her gun from the chest of drawers in her bedroom and shot him in the mouth, killing him instantly.
I had no idea. Well, I had some suspicion that something was up because Joseph had been living with his mother -- so he said -- at her house, which he used for his official address much more than the address of the house he shared with Ida and their children, Ralph and Edna (Edna would be my grandmother.)
Ella was tried in July of 1904 -- the murder was in May and apparently was witnessed by more than one neighbor -- and she was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Turns out Ida's sister Lillian was the widow of an Indianapolis policeman who was killed in the line of duty. Now I'll have to find out about Ida's sister Nora, who was also a widow. What happened to her husband? And then there is the saga of Edna's husband Larry, who would die under curious circumstances himself -- I've always thought he was murdered by "accident," but how would such a thing be proven? Ah, that's the cleverness of it, no?
The household in Indianapolis was a matriarchy because all the older women were widows, and my mother's mother (Grandmother Ida's daughter) would become a widow soon enough.
So today I was looking up some information on Ida's husband Joseph (I think I called him John in an earlier post) who died in 1904. (I may have said 1902. It seems I confused Ida's husband with her father.)
I found his death certificate today. It said the cause of death was "gun shot wound." That was interesting. I had thought he died in an accident of some kind, but had no idea he'd been shot. Maybe it was suicide? Murder? Something else?
Digging around on the Google Machine, I found news stories which explained plenty. He was murdered.
By his paramour, Ella Hicks.
Apparently, he'd been seeing Mrs. Hicks -- yes, she was married -- for some years, and one day, while he and she were drunk at her house, he told her he was through with her. She took her gun from the chest of drawers in her bedroom and shot him in the mouth, killing him instantly.
I had no idea. Well, I had some suspicion that something was up because Joseph had been living with his mother -- so he said -- at her house, which he used for his official address much more than the address of the house he shared with Ida and their children, Ralph and Edna (Edna would be my grandmother.)
Ella was tried in July of 1904 -- the murder was in May and apparently was witnessed by more than one neighbor -- and she was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Turns out Ida's sister Lillian was the widow of an Indianapolis policeman who was killed in the line of duty. Now I'll have to find out about Ida's sister Nora, who was also a widow. What happened to her husband? And then there is the saga of Edna's husband Larry, who would die under curious circumstances himself -- I've always thought he was murdered by "accident," but how would such a thing be proven? Ah, that's the cleverness of it, no?
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
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.
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.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Looking Back on 2016 -- Heightening the Contradictions
So far, this has been a winter without winter where we live. I'm writing at around 2 am on what should be a cold winter's night, but the outside temp is nearly 40, and there's been some rain. Rain. In late December, early January. In Central New Mexico, rather high in the mountains. While it's not unheard of -- little is -- it's not at all normal.
2016 was like that. Different yet much the same, and not at all normal.
In January, I started having severe symptoms of what turned out to be rheumatioid arthritis. Diagnosis was complicated by the onset of pneumonia. Looking back, I realize what a mess I must have been. I didn't know it at the time, but that's kind of how it goes. When I'm ill, I rarely realize how bad it is -- or if it is bad at all -- and as a rule I wait too long for treatment. In this case, the situation was complicated by multiple conditions needing treatment and by my own cussedness and contrariness.
I think all of that has influenced the way I look at what else happened last year.
"Ché What You Call Your Pasa" started as a political commentary blog back in 2007, and that's what it primarily still is though now mixed quite a bit with personal recollections, ancestry research, nostalgia, local interests, and my obsession with houses. Still the political nonsense of Our Betters and the resistance to their machinations provide the scaffold on which hang whatever insight I may have about what''s going on in the USofA and the world.
What a mess indeed.
Throughout the past many years, I've been highly critical of the policies of the White House occupants and the carefully engineered Congressional majority. I've run the electoral process in this country through multiple wringers. The courts have been subject to intense criticism, particularly the utter lawlessness that seems to have infected the judiciary at every level.
I've been a critic of much of the standard internet criticism of the Way Things Are and How Bad Our Rulers Are. This has been going on since before there was an internet, in much the same way, with the same concepts and criticisms repeated ad nauseum, and nothing (much) gets better. We are always just "starting" to see or believe something that is generally self-evident; the Empire is always on the verge of collapse; blamecasting and scapegoating for failures is a constant; but failures themselves are only steps on the way to ultimate victory. More than anything, the Democrat (sic) Party must be destroyed; the Republicans are generally blameless because they (at least) "tell the truth;" liberty means private sector or even individual ability to impose authority without government interference.
On the internet it's taken as axiomatic that the Clintons ("Clintoons!!") are the source of all corruption and evil.
The Democrats in Congress are worthless.
The media is little more than propaganda for one side or the other.
There aren't really two "sides" anyway. There's only one side with two faces.
Obama is a buffoon. So was Bush. So was Clinton.
In fact no White House occupant since FDR, and maybe not since Lincoln or Washington, has been worthy of the office.
The voters are ill-equipped to make a rational choice for President, thus the mess we're in.
Yadda yadda.
While some of this is rhetoric and cant, some is true enough. The problem is that nothing (much) changes for the better. It just keeps getting worse, no matter what.
Underlying it is the wish for a Savior to fix things once and for all. With the (apparent) election of Trump, much as was the case with the election of Obama, at least some Americans feel the Savior has Come.
Of course, I reject the very idea. Presidents have a particular role to play in the Pageant, but Savior is not one of them -- except among true believers whose touching faith is at the root of both major party's base.
So we've gone through a year of chaos, contradiction, bizarre obsessions, denial, and political theater such as has not been seen in this way previously. Much of the internet seems to feel vindicated by the (apparent) election of Trump. If he's not their Savior, he is what they have been waiting for -- for good and ill.
This belief seems to afflict both the "left" and the right as well as much of the libertarian cohort. They look to Trump to undo what's wrong and restore what's right, and in the end, to rule as a (somewhat) benign dictator/entertainer -- which is all they've ever wanted in the first place.
There is no doubt in my mind that the political system is rotten to the core, and to my way of looking at it, the problems are inherent in the system. It cannot be reformed. No dictator, benign or otherwise, will "fix" anything because they benefit from what's wrong. In fact, so long as the entire institutional establishment benefits from what's wrong or can be made to benefit them, nothing (much) will change for the better. Our system of politics and rule is set up to be that way. It cannot be changed from the inside, and the influence of the Outside (us, the Rabble) on events is slight or none.
The electoral pageant of 2016 had many elements of unreality. The candidates all around were generally execrable with the exception of Sanders whose candidacy was almost too rational for his own good, certainly for the times. Apart from being an old man railing against old problems and offering old solutions (my god, is there nothing new to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow? Nothing?) he was arguing, arguing, arguing, all the time, as if by rational argument alone the intractable problems of our times can be/will be corrected.
No. It doesn't work that way.
I think he knew that, but he was out there making a case that needed to be made-- no one else in the political hierarchy would dare to make it -- and let the chips fall where they may.
Eyes would be opened. The Butterfly Effect would be initiated and things would work out eventually.
Or not.
Mrs. Clinton conducted what looked to me to be a very odd campaign, one that was nearly secret because so much of it was conducted behind closed doors at high dollar fundraisers. Her absence from public view appeared to be strategic. Since everyone already knew everything about her, there was thought to be no need to show her to the public any more. All that was necessary was to defeat her rivals, which-- according to elite theory -- ought to have been a simple enough thing to do.
A clown on the one hand, vs a radical Socialist on the other. Piece of cake.
But it wasn't. Bernie got very close to defeating her in the primaries, and according to some opinion, his defeat was engineered by the Party hierarchy. In other words, had it not been for electoral fraud on a massive scale, Bernie would have won the Democratic Party nomination. Maybe. Maybe not.
Funny thing about our elections: we can't ever know whether those accusations are true or not. Our elections are riddled with faults, opacity, voter suppression, and opportunities for fraud (ie: fixing the tally to fit a pre-determined outcome). Our system is an anachronistic, opportunistic embarrassment and it should have been scrapped long ago. But certain interests benefit from the way things are, and nothing will change for the better so long as that is true.
Herself seemed stunned that it was so difficult to reach the goal she sought. It was incomprehensible to her that there was so much genuine opposition to her ascension; the opposition could only be the result of historic anti-Clinton propaganda and the inherent deplorability of the voters who opposed her.
All her campaign thought they had to do was make mock of and denounce her chief rival, the Evil Clown, and she'd be home free. It was a campaign run like the front page of Daily Kos, and in the end it resulted in self immolation.
The opposition to her ascension, however, was more than matched by the opposition to the ascension of her chief rival, the Trump the Evil Clown. Ultimately, the opposition to him was even greater than the opposition to her, but the quirks of our anachronistic system once again allowed the loser to be declared the winner, and here we go.
Once again: the second time in 16 years that the Electoral College has elevated the popular vote loser to the presidency, once again defying the will of the people (well, at least those of the People willing and able to cast a vote) to install the Other Guy in the White House. This time it didn't require a Supreme Court intervention to reach that point, but courts did intervene, repeatedly, to stall or stop recounts of votes in crucial states. Courts ruled to protect the announced outcome, regardless of what really happened.
We don't -- and can't -- know whether the outcome was jiggered, nor can we know to what extent it was or is possible to jigger election outcomes.
Based on the shocked reaction to the outcome by all and sundry -- including the ostensible "winner" -- the outcome defied expectations. Either the election wasn't seriously compromised and it more or less accurately reflected the will of the voters, or it was heavily jiggered in the states that mattered and there was and is no way to be sure about it one way or another. Either scenario results in the same shock.
Ever since November 8, we've been in a situation where one faction of the Overclass is trying to figure out how to get out of this mess while another faction is trying to consolidate its power in the face of the Twitter troll in chief's chaotic hoo-hah.
In other words, things are flying apart, and it's only by chance that they seem to be holding together.
We're still on the edge of the precipice (another internet trope, btw). I would put it this way: it's another precipice. We've already fallen far. Crashed and burned. The survivors are now facing another drop.
Under the circumstances we really don't have a future to look forward to. The end is not so much nigh as it has long since come.
We're sorting through the debris, that's all.
Compared to the hell so many people around the world have been going through, our situation is mild. That may change at any time, but for now, even the worst of what's been happening domestically -- and much of it is terrible -- is nowhere near the catastrophic levels of pain, death and destruction faced by whole populations abroad. Need we mention the ongoing horrors in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Ukraine and on and on? We have had it lucky compared to so many others.
The contradiction between what those outside our borders go through and what Americans go through -- and complain mightily about -- is stark. We should acknowledge that but we don't.
The notion that somehow putting a made-man "billionaire" in the White House will tame or end corruption is absurd. But it's passionately believed by those afflicted with Savior-itis.
The idea that somehow wars will end because Trump wants "peace" borders on insanity. But it's believed passionately by those afflicted with Savior-itis.
One of the most persistent arguments in favor of Trump's ascension is that regardless of what happens domestically ("who cares, really?") his foreign policies will more than make up for any domestic deterioration. More than make up for it. Never mind no one knows what those foreign policies are. One can dream, can't one?
The idea is that since he won't start "Clinton's War" with Russia, it's all good. Nothing else matters at all. Of course, I've argued that Clinton wouldn't have started any such war, either. What she was doing was ham-handed and stupid, but it would not have led to a first strike against Russia. Period.
Trump on the other hand seems intent on fomenting conflict -- nuclear or otherwise -- with China, Iran, "ISIS" and others, and for some reason that's ok with his loyalists and defenders. Kill them all. "They're not like us."
Of course I recognize and point out the inherent and historic racism in this point of view. "They're not like us" is the key to understanding. One commenter posted about how the Chinese and Vietnamese and others of that ilk raise, kill and eat dogs, the implication being that for that alone they deserve to be exterminated. I'd say they beg to disagree.
Other excuses for mass extermination of the Other include the fact that they breed too much ("Look at Africa for god's sake!") and they don't obey their Betters.
Whatever the case, there are just too many of them and if they won't go quietly into the void, they must be pushed -- for the benefit of all of us.
Don't you see?
Getting rid of them will make our lives better somehow.
This is one of the basic tenets of White Supremacy, and during the Euro-American colonial/imperial period, getting rid of them was policy. Precipitating population control of the other by famine, war and other means (spreading diseases, for example) was routinely employed as a means of keeping their numbers in check. My Irish ancestors had plenty of experience with the tactic as it was constantly being employed by the British against them.
Of course it was policy in the United States against the Indians as well.
So will we see a return to it? I don't know, but all the mechanisms exist to do so, and White Supremacy has once again come to the fore. It's the unmentioned key to understanding the rise of the right in North America and Northern Europe.
They want their countries back.
And to the extent they can, they will get their countries back.
The rest of us had better hunker down.
During the year just past I quoted Robert Graves, "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out."
That's certainly what's happening. Our supposed enemies seem quite content to let it be.
It makes the contradictions between the away we see ourselves and want to be and the way our rulers see us and their own future even starker.
I say the situation is unstable, inherently chaotic, and it will not end well.
But then we've been on this path for so long perhaps it's too late to change it.
Read Mao On Contradiction. See if he wasn't on to something, and see if centers of rivalry -- whether domestically or internationally -- haven't figured it out.
Happy(?) New Year.
2016 was like that. Different yet much the same, and not at all normal.
In January, I started having severe symptoms of what turned out to be rheumatioid arthritis. Diagnosis was complicated by the onset of pneumonia. Looking back, I realize what a mess I must have been. I didn't know it at the time, but that's kind of how it goes. When I'm ill, I rarely realize how bad it is -- or if it is bad at all -- and as a rule I wait too long for treatment. In this case, the situation was complicated by multiple conditions needing treatment and by my own cussedness and contrariness.
I think all of that has influenced the way I look at what else happened last year.
"Ché What You Call Your Pasa" started as a political commentary blog back in 2007, and that's what it primarily still is though now mixed quite a bit with personal recollections, ancestry research, nostalgia, local interests, and my obsession with houses. Still the political nonsense of Our Betters and the resistance to their machinations provide the scaffold on which hang whatever insight I may have about what''s going on in the USofA and the world.
What a mess indeed.
Throughout the past many years, I've been highly critical of the policies of the White House occupants and the carefully engineered Congressional majority. I've run the electoral process in this country through multiple wringers. The courts have been subject to intense criticism, particularly the utter lawlessness that seems to have infected the judiciary at every level.
I've been a critic of much of the standard internet criticism of the Way Things Are and How Bad Our Rulers Are. This has been going on since before there was an internet, in much the same way, with the same concepts and criticisms repeated ad nauseum, and nothing (much) gets better. We are always just "starting" to see or believe something that is generally self-evident; the Empire is always on the verge of collapse; blamecasting and scapegoating for failures is a constant; but failures themselves are only steps on the way to ultimate victory. More than anything, the Democrat (sic) Party must be destroyed; the Republicans are generally blameless because they (at least) "tell the truth;" liberty means private sector or even individual ability to impose authority without government interference.
On the internet it's taken as axiomatic that the Clintons ("Clintoons!!") are the source of all corruption and evil.
The Democrats in Congress are worthless.
The media is little more than propaganda for one side or the other.
There aren't really two "sides" anyway. There's only one side with two faces.
Obama is a buffoon. So was Bush. So was Clinton.
In fact no White House occupant since FDR, and maybe not since Lincoln or Washington, has been worthy of the office.
The voters are ill-equipped to make a rational choice for President, thus the mess we're in.
Yadda yadda.
While some of this is rhetoric and cant, some is true enough. The problem is that nothing (much) changes for the better. It just keeps getting worse, no matter what.
Underlying it is the wish for a Savior to fix things once and for all. With the (apparent) election of Trump, much as was the case with the election of Obama, at least some Americans feel the Savior has Come.
Of course, I reject the very idea. Presidents have a particular role to play in the Pageant, but Savior is not one of them -- except among true believers whose touching faith is at the root of both major party's base.
So we've gone through a year of chaos, contradiction, bizarre obsessions, denial, and political theater such as has not been seen in this way previously. Much of the internet seems to feel vindicated by the (apparent) election of Trump. If he's not their Savior, he is what they have been waiting for -- for good and ill.
This belief seems to afflict both the "left" and the right as well as much of the libertarian cohort. They look to Trump to undo what's wrong and restore what's right, and in the end, to rule as a (somewhat) benign dictator/entertainer -- which is all they've ever wanted in the first place.
There is no doubt in my mind that the political system is rotten to the core, and to my way of looking at it, the problems are inherent in the system. It cannot be reformed. No dictator, benign or otherwise, will "fix" anything because they benefit from what's wrong. In fact, so long as the entire institutional establishment benefits from what's wrong or can be made to benefit them, nothing (much) will change for the better. Our system of politics and rule is set up to be that way. It cannot be changed from the inside, and the influence of the Outside (us, the Rabble) on events is slight or none.
The electoral pageant of 2016 had many elements of unreality. The candidates all around were generally execrable with the exception of Sanders whose candidacy was almost too rational for his own good, certainly for the times. Apart from being an old man railing against old problems and offering old solutions (my god, is there nothing new to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow? Nothing?) he was arguing, arguing, arguing, all the time, as if by rational argument alone the intractable problems of our times can be/will be corrected.
No. It doesn't work that way.
I think he knew that, but he was out there making a case that needed to be made-- no one else in the political hierarchy would dare to make it -- and let the chips fall where they may.
Eyes would be opened. The Butterfly Effect would be initiated and things would work out eventually.
Or not.
Mrs. Clinton conducted what looked to me to be a very odd campaign, one that was nearly secret because so much of it was conducted behind closed doors at high dollar fundraisers. Her absence from public view appeared to be strategic. Since everyone already knew everything about her, there was thought to be no need to show her to the public any more. All that was necessary was to defeat her rivals, which-- according to elite theory -- ought to have been a simple enough thing to do.
A clown on the one hand, vs a radical Socialist on the other. Piece of cake.
But it wasn't. Bernie got very close to defeating her in the primaries, and according to some opinion, his defeat was engineered by the Party hierarchy. In other words, had it not been for electoral fraud on a massive scale, Bernie would have won the Democratic Party nomination. Maybe. Maybe not.
Funny thing about our elections: we can't ever know whether those accusations are true or not. Our elections are riddled with faults, opacity, voter suppression, and opportunities for fraud (ie: fixing the tally to fit a pre-determined outcome). Our system is an anachronistic, opportunistic embarrassment and it should have been scrapped long ago. But certain interests benefit from the way things are, and nothing will change for the better so long as that is true.
Herself seemed stunned that it was so difficult to reach the goal she sought. It was incomprehensible to her that there was so much genuine opposition to her ascension; the opposition could only be the result of historic anti-Clinton propaganda and the inherent deplorability of the voters who opposed her.
All her campaign thought they had to do was make mock of and denounce her chief rival, the Evil Clown, and she'd be home free. It was a campaign run like the front page of Daily Kos, and in the end it resulted in self immolation.
The opposition to her ascension, however, was more than matched by the opposition to the ascension of her chief rival, the Trump the Evil Clown. Ultimately, the opposition to him was even greater than the opposition to her, but the quirks of our anachronistic system once again allowed the loser to be declared the winner, and here we go.
Once again: the second time in 16 years that the Electoral College has elevated the popular vote loser to the presidency, once again defying the will of the people (well, at least those of the People willing and able to cast a vote) to install the Other Guy in the White House. This time it didn't require a Supreme Court intervention to reach that point, but courts did intervene, repeatedly, to stall or stop recounts of votes in crucial states. Courts ruled to protect the announced outcome, regardless of what really happened.
We don't -- and can't -- know whether the outcome was jiggered, nor can we know to what extent it was or is possible to jigger election outcomes.
Based on the shocked reaction to the outcome by all and sundry -- including the ostensible "winner" -- the outcome defied expectations. Either the election wasn't seriously compromised and it more or less accurately reflected the will of the voters, or it was heavily jiggered in the states that mattered and there was and is no way to be sure about it one way or another. Either scenario results in the same shock.
Ever since November 8, we've been in a situation where one faction of the Overclass is trying to figure out how to get out of this mess while another faction is trying to consolidate its power in the face of the Twitter troll in chief's chaotic hoo-hah.
In other words, things are flying apart, and it's only by chance that they seem to be holding together.
We're still on the edge of the precipice (another internet trope, btw). I would put it this way: it's another precipice. We've already fallen far. Crashed and burned. The survivors are now facing another drop.
Under the circumstances we really don't have a future to look forward to. The end is not so much nigh as it has long since come.
We're sorting through the debris, that's all.
Compared to the hell so many people around the world have been going through, our situation is mild. That may change at any time, but for now, even the worst of what's been happening domestically -- and much of it is terrible -- is nowhere near the catastrophic levels of pain, death and destruction faced by whole populations abroad. Need we mention the ongoing horrors in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Ukraine and on and on? We have had it lucky compared to so many others.
The contradiction between what those outside our borders go through and what Americans go through -- and complain mightily about -- is stark. We should acknowledge that but we don't.
The notion that somehow putting a made-man "billionaire" in the White House will tame or end corruption is absurd. But it's passionately believed by those afflicted with Savior-itis.
The idea that somehow wars will end because Trump wants "peace" borders on insanity. But it's believed passionately by those afflicted with Savior-itis.
One of the most persistent arguments in favor of Trump's ascension is that regardless of what happens domestically ("who cares, really?") his foreign policies will more than make up for any domestic deterioration. More than make up for it. Never mind no one knows what those foreign policies are. One can dream, can't one?
The idea is that since he won't start "Clinton's War" with Russia, it's all good. Nothing else matters at all. Of course, I've argued that Clinton wouldn't have started any such war, either. What she was doing was ham-handed and stupid, but it would not have led to a first strike against Russia. Period.
Trump on the other hand seems intent on fomenting conflict -- nuclear or otherwise -- with China, Iran, "ISIS" and others, and for some reason that's ok with his loyalists and defenders. Kill them all. "They're not like us."
Of course I recognize and point out the inherent and historic racism in this point of view. "They're not like us" is the key to understanding. One commenter posted about how the Chinese and Vietnamese and others of that ilk raise, kill and eat dogs, the implication being that for that alone they deserve to be exterminated. I'd say they beg to disagree.
Other excuses for mass extermination of the Other include the fact that they breed too much ("Look at Africa for god's sake!") and they don't obey their Betters.
Whatever the case, there are just too many of them and if they won't go quietly into the void, they must be pushed -- for the benefit of all of us.
Don't you see?
Getting rid of them will make our lives better somehow.
This is one of the basic tenets of White Supremacy, and during the Euro-American colonial/imperial period, getting rid of them was policy. Precipitating population control of the other by famine, war and other means (spreading diseases, for example) was routinely employed as a means of keeping their numbers in check. My Irish ancestors had plenty of experience with the tactic as it was constantly being employed by the British against them.
Of course it was policy in the United States against the Indians as well.
So will we see a return to it? I don't know, but all the mechanisms exist to do so, and White Supremacy has once again come to the fore. It's the unmentioned key to understanding the rise of the right in North America and Northern Europe.
They want their countries back.
And to the extent they can, they will get their countries back.
The rest of us had better hunker down.
During the year just past I quoted Robert Graves, "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out."
That's certainly what's happening. Our supposed enemies seem quite content to let it be.
It makes the contradictions between the away we see ourselves and want to be and the way our rulers see us and their own future even starker.
I say the situation is unstable, inherently chaotic, and it will not end well.
But then we've been on this path for so long perhaps it's too late to change it.
Read Mao On Contradiction. See if he wasn't on to something, and see if centers of rivalry -- whether domestically or internationally -- haven't figured it out.
Happy(?) New Year.
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