Let it Rain

There ain't no drought in California
There ain't no flames in Hell
The snow don't fall in North Dakota
His hair is free of gel.

The rain it runs into the sea
Because of Uncle Sam
It's all about some kind of fish
But Trump will build a dam!

"There can't be no climate change"
His beer is always cold
And all his lies are really great
The finest ever told.

The bear it's said, goes to the woods
When he needs to take a dump.
America goes to the polls
To vote for Donald Trump

Greed

Greed: everyone's talking about it, but as with much of what remains of our uncommon language, everyone has his own definition and of course that's necessary, because everyone in his way, or more comfortably: everyone else in my way is greedy.  In fact, one could say that life itself is greedy by nature and without that lust for more, that innate, inescapable drive to eat and reproduce, thrive and survive this would be a barren planet. Greed is a force of nature, the breath of life.

But greed is bad, and every election cycle gives us reminders that the rich are greedy, the poor are greedy, the "corporations" and "Wall Street;" the bankers, the welfare queens, "Big Pharma" and all the "takers" are greedy. That's another way we have of expressing our greedy grudge, our greedy jealousy of everyone we don't think deserves what they have when we deserve it more.

As I said, everyone has his own dictionary and many words in it are of a double entry book keeping sort. If you support Bernie Sanders for instance, you have to discount his mad lust for the White House as something other than greed. You have to use the other definition. Greed is altruism. That greed is good. The greed that produces a Bill Gates or a Larry Ellison or an Andrew Carnegie? Well I'll leave that to you because all our dictionaries are edited by our own greed and self-importance and narcissism and the words are just things to throw at straw men anyway. It's all about winners and losers and how each hates the other.

I could mention that a fundamental drive for more is the force behind Capitalism, amongst other things, and although in some circumstances, altruism, compassion and a feeling for justice can control that force, at times and in places, we need more in the way of control, just as we need to control, in our greed, the other forces of nature to benefit from them.

But we can't say that out loud, because the greedy Libertarians would say your car would be more efficient without brakes or a throttle or a steering wheel. Regulation and the law itself is the enemy of freedom as every libertarian knows. I would suggest it, but that would make me a greedy taker, a Commie, a bleeding heart eager to hand out "free stuff" at the taxpayer's expense -- or something entirely different depending on the greedy eyes of the observer  It would put me in the pocket of greedy Wall Street too and Big Bad Pharma, unless you use some other dictionary or some other way of disguising your greed for power and control and dressing it up as a "vision" and selling your prejudice and jealousy as principle.

Are you a Gump for Trump?  Do you wan't to pillory Hillary or are you a bully for Bernie?  Does it matter. We're all a bunch of greedy bastards anyway.

OVER THE TOP

Earlier today, Associated Press announced: Trump reaches the magic number to clinch nomination (link here):

“Trump, a political neophyte who for years delivered caustic commentary on the state of the nation from the sidelines but had never run for office, fought off 16 other Republican contenders in an often ugly primary race.”

The words ‘caustic’ and ‘ugly’ are understatements; the word ‘sick’ may be far more accurate. For a clinical perspective on 'sick,' please read this definition of narcissism as defined by the American Psychiatric Association.  Or better yet, go to this essay by psychologist Elizabeth Mika.

Note these signature traits of narcissism: Grandiosity, a fixation on power, a need for constant admiration, a ruthless and often malicious disregard for others, and a tendency to defame, devalue, derogate, insult, and blame others.  Sound familiar?

These are the same character flaws shared by some of the most ruthless despots in history, such as: Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, Augusto Pinochet, and Saddam Hussein, as examples. 

And please note the prevalence of narcissism in the general population: 7.7% of men and 4.8% of women, a rate that has more than doubled within the past 10 years (Twenge and Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic, 2009).  Why is the prevalence of narcissism significant?  Donald Trump would be NOTHING without the popular support of fellow narcissists and other disturbed persons.

In a room full of random people, the most seriously disturbed among them will naturally gravitate towards other like-minded people as if drawn by an invisible force. This attraction not only explains his cult following, it predicts the kind of cabinet officials, advisors, and judges he will appoint. As president, Trump will chose people with like-minded pathologies and put them into positions of power over us. Caveat emptor!

Imagine a future dominated by bigots, cranks, hotheads, misogynists, and xenophobic extremists — all adulators and henchmen of Il Duce II. If this demagogue wins, the next president may also be our last president.

I Grow Old

What does it feel like to be old?  Of course that's far too complex a question to have a simple answer, but one of the reminders of that thing you try to forget is that so many people around you seem to know so little.  I'm reading a story set in the 1950's, generally realistic until you read about how the driver of the 1955 Chevy pulls over and turns on his emergency flashers. You may be puzzled at my amusement, but they were not furnished in those days, not for another ten years.

I'm watching one of those programs where "experts" poke around in attics looking for treasures. a mid 60's table radio is discovered and the hunters marvel that it has tubes.

 "Look - tooobs!  That's what they had then before the chips and transmitters came in.  This could be valuable"  

It wasn't worth more than a few bucks at most, even if it worked.  Obviously he has no idea about the history of radio or what a transistor is.

Go ask some thirty something what "Ethyl" is or how you dial a phone, or if he remembers the Sylvania "Halo Light TV."  He won't know.  Chips and transmitters indeed, it brings tears to my aging eyes.

Ever notice all those period dramas where someone turns on the 1930 Motorola "tombstone" radio ind the sound comes on instantly?  Yep, it sometimes seems like everyone was born yesterday. It's because you're old jack and that's a fact.

Donald Trump, Gunslinger

Or Bullslinger: take your pick

He's a long time member and so are his "boys" Donald Trump told the NRA. I have no idea if that's true or whether his girls are duck hunters.  I do know whether I think that's a reprehensible organization -- and I do.

Before you put the "liberaliberaliberal" disc on your Victrola, I'll continue on and say that since 1993 when The NRA began to use the the Oklahoma City bombing and the holocaust in Waco, Texas as fund raising fodder and began to justify terrorism in the name of the second amendment, it lost any credibility as an advocacy for anything but arms manufacturers and insurrectionists.

"In Clinton's administration, if you have a badge, you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens."    — Wayne LaPierre, 1993 NRA fundraising letter. —

As you may recall George H.W. Bush resigned his membership because of statements about "jack booted thugs" deserving to be blown up along with their children and I'm sure you know that Quick Draw LaPierre is still at the helm of that organization. Of course the tired trope about the license to kill is also a battle flag of some allegedly left-leaning organizations, but we do live in a time of  the war of all against all and war justifies all lies, or so it's said.

Picturing the young Donald at high noon on Main Street in Queens, reaching for his matched pair of Colts is worthy of a giggle, but pudgy old Don, the comb-over king isn't so cute at all and I'm not laughing.  He's attempting to rally the well-regulated militia by lying about Hillary Clinton - our new national pastime.
If she's elected, he says, she'll somehow make the second amendment go away and he's "not going to let that happen,"  as though any president any anything like the power to amend the constitution, particularly an amendment with a huge following.

In fact she's never suggested that and has publicly supported it as fundamental, although the notion that a manufacturer of a legal product that is not defective can be sued if that product is used illegally seems like nothing less than an attempt to kick the legs out from under the concept of law itself, but I digress.

Hillary Clinton has a lot of haters on all sides and if  she is to have some hope of defeating the Flushing Kid she's got to sound more moderate about guns. The Democrats, as the public sees that party, have pandered too long to the anti-gun phobics, spent too much time fudging figures and hyping up the danger despite two decades of declining gun violence. It's the main issue today in the minds of a huge number of Americans including many Democrats, and their votes hinge entirely on  a candidate sharing that magic thinking that is the hallmark.  She needs a big image change and she needs it now and the Trump-happy media need to cooperate.

Of course I don't want to see her duck hunting in a camo pants suit, We remember Kerry with a shotgun and Dukakis riding in a tank and it would backfire, but make no mistake this is a gun-loving country and people will vote for a megalomaniac liar with no morals or manners before it will consider Hillary the gun-grabber.

Give the Devil the Benefit.

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake. 

 -Robert Bolt, A man For All Seasons-

One of the reasons - perhaps the reason, I no longer support so many of the causes I did as a younger and more innocent man is that they so often succeed in making things worse.  Civil Rights, Feminism, and so many other causes fundamental to liberty, equality and fraternity have been corrupted and have adopted the furious fundamentalism they seem to oppose.  It's as though a lifetime of being a liberal was for naught when I hear feminists declare that an accusation of rape is so likely to be true that no burden of proof is needed for conviction. The righteousness of the cause, whether it's fighting racism or advocating for public safety, is often enough to quell the qualms of the critic concerned about what we have left when we are all perfectly safe but need constantly to prove our innocence.  Let the innocent hang as long as no guilty man shall go free.

The righteousness of the cause. I used to contribute to a gun control forum in the early days of the internet. I left because of bogus figures like the 4400 children allegedly killed by guns in a week. I couldn't pry it from their cold fingers. It's only a small example of the intransigent extremism saturating the moral market.  Is it really true that no man accumulates wealth without taking it away from someone else?  It's not worth questioning that indefensible assertion, the Bernie Boys will stomp you with your Bernie Boots after breaking your shop windows.

It's not just the liberals of course. Often it's the zealotry of prosecutors and law enforcement putting liberty at risk for the sake of getting after the devil.  Take the disturbing case of Philadelphia police sergeant Francis Rawls, suspected of possessing child pornography.  His computer was found to be running Freenet, which can be used for the purpose, and there were indications of certain illicit searches. Probable cause? yes, but the proof?  The illegal images, if there are any, are encrypted on his hard drive and to be short, he's being kept under lock and key until he agrees to forfeit his constitutional right to due process and against being forced to self-incriminate.  Damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't and we don't care about the 5th amendment because we have to protect the children or the 4th because we're afraid of drugs and terrorists.

It's the constitution, boys, not a roll of Charmin.  It's a cornerstone of our claim to be a just society, a government of laws and not of moral crusaders.

I wonder how ling it will be before I put my passport where my mouth is and get the hell out of this miserable country while I still can.

Brown Shirts for Bernie

By now I'm used to the trolls. I've been blogging for a long time but of late the most viciously personal ad hominem has come, not from the Republican Right but from the Bernie Boys. I blocked someone on another venue yesterday after I mentioned to a Bernie Bully that by hoping that a candidate Clinton would fail and thus cause the nation to fail, he was taking words out of Rush Limbaugh's prayer book.

I don't think I've seen such ugly invective since I graduated from Middle school and believe me, I've read some nasty stuff in my years on-line. I am lucky, says he, that he doesn't have my address or he would kill me.

Sanders Supporters Prepared to fight, I read this morning.  Indeed they are. You can almost hear the sound of a Munich Bierstube echoing with the sound of stomping jackboots and Bernie's Brownshirts yelling Seig Heil !

Yes, they're ready to fight, because it's not about convincing the public that Big Brother B has a rational plan to address what ails us or a rational view of a complex world coupled with the ability of any president to do all those revolutionary things without an actual revolution.  It's about the fight, the struggle, the Jihad, the Kampf, the Crusade. It's about how irredeemably evil the other side is.

It's all about the urge to fight, the narcissistic lack of introspection.  Just close your eyes and fly right into the enemy battleship called "Wall Street" because, as Barry Goldwater supporters used to shout: "In your heart you know he's right." "The bankers are destroying our country" and where have we heard that one before? Sieg Heil indeed.

It's not about qualifications or experience or even about the possibility or even the legality of putting all that pie up into the sky, it's about BERNIE! St Bernie of the beer hall, leader of the Sanderistas - a Che Guevara for El Norte, the Donald Trump of the Democrats.

It Ain't Me!

So Trumpty Dumpty says it wasn't him on the phone posing as a spokesman. He says his tax returns are nobody's business either.

I hear his campaign is coming out with a song:

It ain't me, it ain't me, no, ain't my voice that's on the phone
It ain't me, it ain't me boys, blowin' on my own horn.

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, at all.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale.

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no.

Trophy

And here you were losing faith in America.  Apparently the auction house now offering George Zimmerman's cheap little Kel-Tec has reversed its decision not to offer it on their auction site.  Of course I have to ask, despite all the outrage, shouldn't Georgie get rid of all his guns ASAP?

But we don't want him to get rich, do we, even though if he did have some money the Martin family might be able to sue for it, but the man was only expecting a few thousand dollars.  As of now, the bidding has gone up to $65 million.  No, that's not a typo.

But here's the funny part, As I write this, the high bid belongs to "racist McShootFace" whom I suspect not to be sincere.  It could be that the whole thing will fall apart and UnitedGunGroup.com might rue their decision to stand up for George's right to sell his property legally. Unless some patriot like Ted Nugent steps up with a legitimate $66 million to own some "piece of American History" of course.  Personally I would love to have a piece of American history like Zimmerman's mummified head, but my otherwise tolerant wife would, I'm afraid, balk at hanging that over the fireplace.

Will I be bidding?  You'll have to check at the auction site because I'm not going to say and if you do see a Capt. Fogg there, it's not me. That goes for Donald J. Drumphscheisser or Humpty D. Trumpty.  I disavow all knowledge of them.

I am duty bound however to point out to the perennially hysterical:  if you buy a gun on the Internet or on GUN.TV they cannot ship it to you.  It has to be shipped to a Federally licensed gun dealer who must go through the legal process of checks and waiting periods and in person. The cause of sensible gun control is not furthered by not telling the truth or denying it when it falls on you.

Update

This morning's Philadelphia Enquirer in an article about the auction tells us that George Zimmerman was acquitted because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" statutes, which typically, of most discussion on the subject of guns in America, isn't true.  Such is the urge to make the scary guns go away no fact need interfere.

Frankly I'm so disgusted by activists of all stripes who indulge in "anything goes" arguments I'm done with it all.

Humpty Trumpty Built a Great Wall

"But now the big banks are back in the party, pushing for Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump."  

Writes Bill Moyers and if you're like most people, seeking signs and marshaling facts to back up your emotionally derived and factless delusions, you'll read that as evidence  that she will be controlled by that nebulous straw man "wall street."   

Didn't really work all the other times financial interests contributed to other candidates, and of course no matter how much some brokerage house gave her, we don't know how much they gave to others, do we?  And of course the only reason people heavily involved in managing the wealth of nations would contribute is because she's a patsy, right?  It's not that highly informed and educated people don't believe Trumptastic Mister Shortfingers is going to make America Great like it was in 1862 or 1929. It's Wall Street.  It's Capitalism and we all know how crooked that is until anyone mentions Socialism.

That's the news in America -- a farrago of fallacy being served even by those presumably smart enough to tell shit from shoe polish selling it to others who think it's shampoo.

Trump is trustworthy because he's rich and Hillary must be a crook because she's rich.  How do we understand this?  Better ask Beyonce because Prince is dead and all the while we hear them pissing themselves lest God suddenly return to kill us all because some former dude walks into the lady's room. I mean that's never happened before without at least a plague of toads ensuing.

Look, Democracy in America doesn't have a chance. It's failing fast because America is the last stronghold of stupid. We've used miraculous information technology to create and maintain ignorance, feed delusion, dress up fake arguments as news and make everyone incoherently outraged on demand.  Hot and cold running Fox and that old slime religion every Sunday.  What a great country and soon to be greater, or whiter if you prefer when we round up and deport 11 million people, establish a State religion and close other houses of worship.  Great again, like when the Conquistadors were here and the Indian hunters and slave drivers and we all had good solid Anglo names like Drumph.