DAWN OF THE DEAD

The Trumpocalypse has arrived.  Street demonstrations have started in major cities from coast to coast.  Overnight on Facebook, former friends have “unfriended” themselves along party lines. Progress in human rights and cherished social safety net programs are now at risk. 

Goodbye healthcare. Goodbye environmental protection. Goodbye nuclear non-proliferation. Goodbye hard won rights for minorities, women, and the LGBT community. Goodbye freedom of the press. Those “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” will now be deported.

A GOP sweep of state and federal legislatures has removed all checks and balances.  Hello nativism and xenophobia.  Bigots and white supremacists have won.  Anti-establishment populism has opened the gates of fascism.

Friends tell me to be patient. Give the man a chance. Keep an open mind, they say.  No past words or deeds of the president-elect merits such idiotic and misplaced Kumbaya.  Most shocking of all, 53% of American white women voted for a known serial sex predator and voyeur. Speaking of cognitive disconnects …

Where does this turn of events leave me?  And what are my options?  Join street protests?  Form an underground resistance movement?  Leave the country?  All options are open as far as I am concerned.

Another Republican Collapse

Huffington Post has never seemed an extremist publication, except perhaps to extremists, but today's article about the historic drop in the markets coincident with the recent rise of Trump's prospects is full of flashing lights, klaxon horns and a voice from Das Boot shouting "Dive, Dive!"

We have, if you've been watching markets as closely as I do, the most prolonged sell-off since the financial crisis even though the odds are he will lose. Is that ironic with so many of his lower education level supporters extolling his talents as a business man who will end our "debt problem?" You betcha! as another lowbrow Republican pundit said. It seems like yesterday.

Financial experts and leaders around the world are expecting little short of total world collapse under a Trump administration. "Inconceivable" is the nearly universal reaction to the prospect of President Trump.   Moody’s says Trump’s policies would throw the U.S. economy into the longest recession since the Great Depression. Citigroup thinks a Trump win could cause a global depression.British research firm Oxford Economics thinks Trump in the White House would cause the American economy to shrink by $1 trillion over five years. Is the Nixon Gambit going to work to dismiss the fears of  the most informed conservatives in the Capitalist world by reciting the "Liberal Media" formula?  It will for some; for many in the Denialist/Conspiracy community. But it won't matter. For them it will still be all about emails and Benghazi and Crooked Hillary and if  (please) she manages to win she'll be straightjacketed by investigations and inquiries and impeachment hearings and filibusters and budget crises and shutdowns and the inability to appoint anyone to anything.

Are we damned either way?  Who knows, The best I can hope for is survival. Greatness may have to wait. An out of office Trump is not a dead trump and like Dead Cthulhu in his home beneath the sea, he'll be dreaming of revenge.

No Exit

Hell is other people, said Jean-Paul Sartre. in No Exit, (Huis clos) and so is Democracy, as I was reminded today in the New Yorker.  A third of Americans can't name one branch of government and examples of  the massive failure of education to integrate the population into the process are more than abundant.

Perhaps it's my prejudice speaking but I would guess, in the absence of further data, that this proportion is even higher among supporters of Donald Trump, many of whom seem to think that a president can do almost anything he wants, from "fixing the schools" to changing the tides in the affairs of men and rebuilding the world of the 1950's within our walled borders. All of course without help or hindrance from  the legislature or the Judicial Branch.

The requirements of Democracy include an informed, intelligent, rational electorate and I know I didn't have to tell you that, and I didn't have to tell the Founding Fathers that; seeing that they attempted to follow a sort of hierarchy of decision making that we call a Republic to protect us from the passions, the rages and the foolishness of the people.

I don't think it's working and not only because fewer and fewer potential voters are informed enough to rise above the level required to get on the carnival ride we call our electoral process, and more and more are intentionally and effectively misinformed, propagandized and enraged beyond the point of caring.  The days of hand set and hand printed newspapers ended over a century ago along with the disappearance of a population with the time and inclination to read them. Ten thousand, ten million flowers have bloomed as the tyrant Mao would have said and there is much confusion about who is or isn't likely to be telling the truth.  Every truth, every lie, every observation is buried in an accretion of commentary and although so much information is available, few bother to do more than seek out confirmation of what feels good to believe and scream it loudly in the street. 

Perhaps there truly is no exit and perhaps there are no limits. A candidate we associate with "those" people is soon divorced from his own history and ours and becomes indistinguishable from the Satan who was long ago invented to enable the demonizing process -- while the devil himself can become a hero. There is no damping factor as an engineer might term it and the system flies apart as we see today - right now. 

Is the secret to stall the rush to authoritarianism and a government of men to introduce some authority of information: some referee of last resort?  We can't know because even though it's so easy to check facts, checkers who we don't trust because they tell us we're wrong, become the demons themselves and we trust no one but the anonymous voices of agreeable rage on the web, in our emails, in our minds and on the 24 hour news. We sink into paranoia and into faith at the same time: into separate hermetic universes. Nothing in one can be proved to be true or false in any other frame of reference. Whether or not Hassan really said it, in our world and in his, nothing is true and anything can happen.

Is there really no exit?  How do you say "No Chance" in French?

FINAL COUNTDOWN - Election 2016

As the clock runs down on Election 2016, I am running out of words. Have I covered all points? Left any loose ends? With few days left, here is a quick recap of the year in headlines:

Trump treats sexual assault as a joke and brags about molesting women. Clinton emails. Trump demeans, degrades, and shames women in public. Clinton emails. Twelve sex assault victims — plus dozens of eyewitnesses — come forward and expose Trump. Clinton emails. Trump faces charges of raping a minor. Clinton emails.

Trump University sued for racketeering and fraud. Clinton emails. Trump bribes district attorneys in Florida and Texas. Clinton emails. Trump files bankruptcy six times. Clinton emails. Trump avoids paying taxes over 20 years. Clinton emails. Court orders Trump to stop racial housing discrimination. Clinton emails. Trump submits fraudulent insurance claims. Clinton emails. Trump cheats workers and contractors by refusing to pay them. Clinton emails.

Trump ridicules disabled people. Clinton emails. Trump smears Mexicans as criminals and rapists. Clinton emails. Trump stereotypes black people as inherently lazy. Clinton emails. Trump vows to deport all Muslims without due process. Clinton emails. Trump threatens lawsuits and press censorship. Clinton emails.

Trump supports nuclear proliferation. Clinton emails. Trump praises Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as strong leaders. Clinton emails. Trump campaign officials have Russian mob ties. Clinton emails. Trump knows nothing of Russian interventions in Syria and the Ukraine. Clinton emails. Trump threatens to undermine NATO and abandon allies. Clinton emails. European allies fear Trump as a threat to world peace and security. Clinton emails.

Does this recap capture the essence of Election 2016? The contrasts? The claims and counter claims? If I have forgotten anything, please add a comment below.  This election represents a true existential moment in our history. Please share with friends who are still undecided and sitting on the fence.

Behind the screen

I never go out without one, usually small - the sort of thing they used to call a "gentleman's knife" or pen knife because it so often comes in handy. I once used a Swiss Army knife to repair a carburetor linkage well enough to get the car home.  I'm as likely to turn around and go home for having forgotten a pocket knife as I am for forgetting my phone or even my wallet. You never know.

A 13 year old kid here faces a felony charge for having a pocket knife. His life may well be ruined. This is no longer my country, my civilization, my culture.

We look around at tools and see weapons. We look at cars and we see death. We look at falling crime and tremble in fear. Nothing is safe enough. We're afraid of our food, our water, our government. Teach your kid to build a fire, make a shelter?  DANGER! Let him walk to school? You're going to jail.

Drive a car on the interstate, the safest roads we have -- hell no. It's too dangerous. Remember kitchen "Strike anywhere" matches?  Some states ban them.  I mean you could burn your finger.

Paranoia strikes deep. Starts when you're always afraid, as the song goes. We're terrified of our phones, our electric meters. We're afraid of freedom and so we let them sell us subjugation wrapped up in a flag and complete with air bags and radar brakes and we build walls to hide behind and the fat men in wigs smile, the lawyers get richer while we watch people have adventures in the only world we aren't afraid to participate in: teh one behind the screen.

OCTOBER AMBUSH

By (O)CT(O)PUS

The October surprise we have been expecting was more ambush than surprise. The Trojan Horse turned out to be FBI Director James Comey.  The surprise did not start in October.

It began long ago in the halls of Congress when partisanship preempted citizenship followed by years of legislative deadlock and gridlock, showdowns and shutdowns.

Politics has always been a rough and tumble business; but this election cycle is unlike any in history. Bombast, falsehoods and reckless rhetoric have pushed all standards of honesty and decency further into a savage wilderness … far from traditional norms of civilized conduct.

According to sources close to the FBI investigation, Hillary’s computer server is no longer the subject of the latest probe, nor her emails. Attention has turned to a flaccid laptop owned by Anthony Weiner of pickled pecker fame shame.

Devoid of detail, Director Comey’s notice to Congress is more Rorschach schlock than letter.  It arouses the dark id of innuendo and insinuation, unleashing fiendish wraiths from the pits of Mordor.

“Crooked Hillary … the biggest scandal ever … worse than Watergate … lock her up,” bellows the smug Scumbag Billionaire, whose words stink of mob malevolence immune to evidence.

According to a complaint filed by Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in the Bush administration, Director Comey failed to secure a warrant before notifying Congress. Ignoring DoJ guidelines, he committed an abuse of power in violation of the Hatch Act. Thus, one lone saboteur cast a pall over an election unjustly days away.

How a bully, charlatan, misogynist and serial sex predator made it this far is inconceivable. More astonishing are his legions of loyal followers who filter only the news they want to hear — yet remain steadfastly tone-deaf to his reckless rhetoric. Decades ago, Hannah Arendt warned of ruthless demagogues who will usurp our democratic freedoms to undermine democracy itself.

More than 2,000 years ago, Plato foresaw the demise of democracies which inevitably devolve, decline, and sink into dictatorships. Circa 2016, the signs and symptoms are clear, but you cannot reason with an angry mob.

Scumbag Billionaire has unleashed a dark and ugly populism slouching towards fascism, and worse is yet to come.

America's Evil Twin

OK, it's official. They've been telling me I hate America since the mid 1960's and it's never been true, until now. I hate America but please realize that I hate only one of the two. I hate the America where people scream about Mrs. Clinton approving of ripping "babies" out of their mother's womb two days before birth. I hate the America where people howl about how "those damn liberal Democrats" have ruined everything, where Trumps "boy talk" is just boy talk. I hate that America for a thousand reasons and ten times more and if you belong there, I hate you too.

Sitting in the hospital waiting room this morning waiting for a blood test and it's always a chore, not because I'm afraid of needles but because it's largely an elderly crowd and in Florida elderly often means mean. There was no Fox news on the TV this time, but one woman in her 70s, speaking to an older male companion volunteered that it was "only boy talk."  A day or two ago, before I had given up I might have replied. "are you talking about the boys in the juvenile home or the psych ward?"  But I didn't. It wouldn't do any good.

"well there's nobody lower down on the moral scale than the Marines and they all talk like that" says he. "but God bless the US Marines."  Sure, as long as they don't rape anyone or run for President, but what good does it do to argue people so far removed from decency, so devoid of intelligence and so damned stupid as to need me to explain it to them.

Someone on Facebook gets all kind of high fives for talking about "partial birth abortion" and Hillary Clinton. I didn't reply and for the reason, see above, but explaining to him that this was a term made up by Religio-Republican liars for Jesus, not doctors, would get nowhere with him or his crowd. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and blowhards gotta blow hard.

Approximately 0.2% of abortions are the D&X type: Dilate and Extract, where instead of "ripping" the cervix is dilated. It's done not as birth control, but in cases when the foetus is dead, or has no brain or is brain dead and delivering it normally would kill it and its mother. Liars for Jesus are not approachable and particularly not with facts.

Should I go on?  Why? It's hopeless. You can't fix stupid and fixing ignorant takes a willing patient.  I've yet to meet one. Call it the US of  idiocy, Call it Jesustan, call it what you like, it's here to stay while the other America withers away. It's too late. We could have done something, but once the brainless, the mentally unfit are born, it's too late because such people will take over and it will end badly.  I hate that America and its sad, sick history of genocide and persecution and superstition and bigotry. I hate the camo commandos with their fake military weapons and pea brains, the government haters, the civilization haters, the law haters who want to live alone in the jungle like orange haired Orangutans, dreaming about rape and Donald Trump. Do I think the other half could have done better?  Of course, but all the haters, baiters and masturbators with your Bibles and Trump signs can only lead us to war, famine pestilence and poverty.

Four Years and Four Horsemen

I'm cautiously optimistic about Mrs. Clinton's chances this November, but I'm absolutely confident that we will have four years of investigations and hearings designed, if not to produce an impeachment, to impede here ability to function as a president.  It's been the modus operendi since Bill's two terms and the Republican Party has been a straight jacket and little more ever since.

The usual suspects in the house are calling for a special prosecutor.  Crazy Cruz  has called for a "serious criminal investigation" based on yet another fabricated video alleging voter fraud and Speaker Paul Ryan, the Cowardly Lion wants "aggressive oversight work" in the House based on the utter and absolute and overwhelming scandal of reclassifying an email.  All tactics familiar to the GOP and exciting to those hopelessly infected with Hillaryhate and to those whose insight into American politics began yesterday.

Some have hoped a Trump debacle would force reality on the Republicans, prompt a shift toward the middle and a tentative return to concern for the consequences of their actions, but of course some have hoped for a lot of things and a lot of lost causes. It's probably better than a psychopathic, vengeful and power mad warmonger in the White House, but the price will be high and the war on government, the war against America and the war against progress will continue. ISIS or no ISIS, I can see the future and it's war. Famine, Death and Pestilence sold separately.

Abandon All Faith

I can hardly condemn people for getting much if not most of their news from the Internet. It's efficient, you can read many sources quickly and you don't have to sit through all those TV commercials or deal with all that newsprint. That's why you're here, right?  The problem is, obviously, that for every legitimate news report there are uncountable sources of propaganda, slanted news and totally fabricated lies. Unless you're just looking for laughs you tend to believe them because you want to. We all want our prejudices, or as we like to call them, our principles, to be confirmed. Indeed far too many of us log on first thing in the morning desperately seeking outrage, scandal and condemnation. It's like a strong cup of coffee to get us going, and as with all things, where there is a demand, there arises a supply. It's called the Internet.

There are web pages that closely mimic the major outlets and unless you look closely you may think you've logged in to CNN.com or a legitimate newspaper. There are all sorts of web sources attached as supporting links on the things you get on Facebook or in email demonstrating that whatever it is you don't like is a fraud, fake or a harbinger of doom. Many are just more propaganda, many don't even exist.

But there are all sorts, put up by all sorts of organizations or individuals or political parties. My opening delight this morning was labeled as World News Politics.com and in the wildest of hysterical terms proves that Hillary Clinton hates and wants to persecute Christians:

Hillary Clinton: CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA Must ABANDON FAITH IN CHRIST, Adhere To NEW LIBERAL LAWS

Screeches the headline. a misquoted menu of quotes mrom Mrs. Clinton proving this premise follows. Why this found its way to me, I don't know, being a cynical and fairly well informed atheist, but the claimed 277,000 "shares" means others welcomed the chance to feed the addiction, to feed the Hillaryhate, that newest branch of the Clintonhate religion that dates to Bill's first campaign. Of course none of those predictions or maledictions came true and Bill may have been the most successful president in our history, but faith never dies, nor do lies  and they're still predicting all sorts of horrors that never happened then and won't happen now. One of those things is the persecution of Christians.

The writers of News World Politics may or may not believe this idiocy, but they know you desperately need it as a vampire needs blood and the people who pay them make their living from your fear and hate and other psychological problems you like to call Christianity. What you may depend on for your identity and self respect along with your Confederate pretense, your sense of biological superiority and your guns.

It's not going to die, it's not going to go away and it will continue like a cancer in America no matter that it's fake and like the "tax and spend" meme, the Gun Grabber meme, the "spread the wealth" calumny, it's designed to make you abandon your faith in America. Can you imagine what kind of people with what kind of motivation are behind this? That's not too hard, is it?

Even if It's Not Indian Summer in Your Location This Should Bring You Cheer

Julian Assange is without his beloved internet access and there is no one that he can call. The government of Ecuador has decided to suspend his privileges. Ha ha! What a hoot. I stumbled across this using my own cable modem and later traced the original article to Monday's edition of Wonkette. Our poor and very dear little baby-faced boy must be so upset. Not much to do all shut up inside in London as he has found himself. The government of Ecuador remains committed to protecting him from political persecution. However, it would seem that they are, at least temporarily, seeking to prevent him from doing any further harm on the behalf of Putin and his puppet, Trump.