Anton Chekhov died in 1904 from tuberculosis at the tender age of forty-four. One of my old Russian instructors, an Armenian linguist and grammarian from the Soviet Union, met Chekhov’s widow when she was at an advanced old age. He asked her if she might say a few words about the great writer.
“Meh, ” she shrugged, airily waving her hand, “it was so long ago I can barely remember.”
Love fades. Oh, well.
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Friday, December 29, 2017
A Worm’s Eye View Of The Economy
Over in Drudgeville, every economic factoid that can plausibly make Trump look good and “prove” he’s making America great again is loudly proclaimed at the top of the page. Today, his headlines tell us of a “midwest factory boom” and also that “homeowners made 2 trillion on houses this year.” The main headline trumpets the performance of the stock market, which Drudge is calling the “The Boom of ‘17.”
If you haven’t benefited from any of these economic miracles, don’t feel too bad: There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and when those fail, you can always use the nuclear option: economic statistics, which can easily be stretched and twisted to make things look better than they actually are. Case in point: Is the unemployment rate too high? No problem, just stop counting people who have dropped out of the work force as well as those who’ve been kicked off the unemployment roles but who still don’t have jobs. If that doesn’t do the trick, count partially employed workers — i.e., people who work twenty-five hours a week at Walmart for minimum wage — as fully employed. Bingo! Unemployment just shrank like magic.
It’s all hollow propaganda that every administration and its partisans use to bamboozle us. If the president at the time is a Democrat, phone up Vox and the Washington Monthly; if he’s a Republican, tell Matt Drudge and Sean Hannity. They’ll spread the good news, which will then be used to succour the faithful and bully the naysayers. The fact is, inequality is still growing. Wages are still stagnant and/or declining, people are in debt up to their eyeballs and they have shitty, overpriced healthcare. Unemployment is still much higher than the official rate, and even though economists tell us there is no inflation, rents are sky high, and food and gas prices are rising too. When Walmart is the largest employer in the country, something is deeply, fundamentally wrong.
When the space between official government statistics and the reality of people’s lives becomes too great, a country becomes disillusioned and cynical. This morphs into quiet, seething anger, which finally bubbles over and expresses itself in rage. We’re not at the third stage yet, although Trumpism is a flashing red warning light, but if we stay on our current path we definitely will be. When that happens, you can bet the country isn’t going to turn left. There are no FDRs in our future. When the lid blows off this pot, our childish, unreflective, anti-intellectual population is going to double down with Trump (or whatever Trumpian facsimile happens to be available at the time), and turn hard right. Children want a big strong daddy who’s going to make things all better. Trump (or Pence, or Ted Cruz) can play that part much better than any lefty on the American political horizon.
This has all reminded me of a post I wrote in 2011 called “A Worm’s Eye View of the Recovery.” I had just seen Barack Obama on TV blathering about the wonderful recovery we were then experiencing, and I remember thinking, what recovery? Things were better than in the immediate wake of the economic crash, and according to the narrow definitions economists use for such things, we were technically recovering, but this gave a deeply misleading impression about how things really were. Life on the ground was still shitty — much worse than life before 2008 — and there were precious few indications that it was ever going to get better (it hasn’t). Yet there was the president, cheerfully tossing off abstract statistics about GDP and the employment rate, as if this were ironclad proof that happy days were here again. It inspired me to write a post which, it turns out, was the only thing I’ve ever written that threatened to become viral. It didn’t, and my brush with internet fame proved fleeting. Alas, my blog remains a lonely and obscure outpost in the series of tubes called the Internet. Sigh.
Anyway, since I don’t have anything new to say, I’ve decided to recycle this old post which still holds up, in my opinion. The economic situation it describes is bleaker than things at present, though not, I think, for much longer, but our political situation is much more dire. Anyway, it’s still worth a couple of minutes of your time.
A Worm’s Eye View of the Recovery
You don’t have to be a comedian to get a laugh in my neighborhood. All you have to do is walk up to someone, just about anyone, and say, “Hey, cheer up, we’re in a recovery.”
You may not get a belly laugh, but you’ll definitely hear something in the nature of a chuckle or a guffaw, or at least a snicker followed by a sarcastic eye roll.
I’ve got bankruptcy to the left of me, foreclosures to the right, and all manner of human degradation in between. When I mount the crow’s nest to get a look around, this is what I see: one guy who just got laid off, and now he and his wife are living on his unemployment and her pension. Once his claim runs out, they could be in for some severe austerity. On the other side, there’s a single mother who’s hours have been cut in half and who’s in the process of losing her home. The family right next door is also in dire circumstances. Dad is underemployed and mom has lupus. They were going to cancel Christmas this year, but all the neighbors pitched in and got presents for their kids. George W. Bush would have considered it uniquely American.
There’s even a guy whose wife just left him for another women. That’s not an economic problem, I know, but it fits in rather snugly with the general theme of misery that runs through these parts. It is so unrelievedly dismal you almost have to laugh, at least in a tragicomic sort of way. I know countless people who’ve been laid off and just flat out can’t find another job. I hear a new horror story every week, and I often find myself just shaking my head and saying, “You have got to be freakin’ kidding me!”
Most people aren’t starving or sleeping under bridges, mind you (though some are). They are subsisting, but only precariously. They’re just muddling along through this grim subterranean world of near poverty, chronic anxiety, and deepening gloom. The most accurate word to describe their condition is submerged. I should emphasize that these people I’m referring to aren’t regular members of the working poor. Until a few years ago, they all had what could loosely be described as middle class lives. They weren’t getting rich, to be sure, but they worked every day, paid the bills, and enjoyed their weekends. Life wasn’t glamorous but it was okay. At any rate, it was a slightly more varied and enriching experience than the grinding, joyless struggle it’s become.
Hard times are not unusual here, but there has never been this kind of prolonged malaise, and it’s leading to a sense of hopelessness and futility that is unique. In the past, people could more or less shrug off hard times because they knew they were temporary. Hang in, tough it out, things will always get better. Historically they always have. That belief is gone. It’s been replaced by the growing conviction that things are never going to improve. Life as we knew it has become extinct. It’s all gone forever, and there is nothing in the future but deep black uncertainty.
The other day I was struck by this weird feeling of deja vu. Where had I seen this kind of listlessness before? Where had I observed this sort of laggard, slumping despair? Then I remembered. It was back in Russia during the Yeltsin years. It was the exact same atmosphere: Things were shitty and getting worse. Life was shabby and dilapidated. Their rulers were corrupt and didn’t give a damn. Cosmically rich oligarchs were cannibalizing the country, and the system was so badly broken there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. Drink up.
(Interestingly, that’s when Vladimir Zhirinovsky rose to prominence. He’s a right-wing clown worthy of our own Republican party, a Slavic Pat Buchanan. “We like a lot of the things he says,” the people I lived with told me, “but we would never support him because he’s crazy.” Score one for the intelligence of the Russian people. Would that the American electorate was that sophisticated.)
In the words of the inestimable Charles Pierce, people got no f***ing jobs, people got no f***ing money. And, I would add somewhat ominously, people got no f***ing hope.
There doesn’t seem to be any real rage yet, except, of course, among the right-wingers, who are blaming all the wrong people for all the wrong things, just like the right-wingers near you. People aren’t raising hammer and sickle flags and demanding blood. Me and a retired math professor down the street - a raging lefty like myself — are the only ones who seem to be approaching that enlightened stage, but then we’re both intellectuals, ha ha. There is, however, a very distinct mood of hostility towards our elites. I don’t want to exaggerate here. It’s mild, but it’s definitely there. It’s noticeable. People are aware that their suffering hasn’t been caused by their own failings (the Republican view), nor is it the result of a natural economic downturn, a good old fashioned “market correction” that, given a few well placed pokes and prods, will eventually just cycle away (the Obama view).
No, they’re fully cognizant of the fact that they’ve been ripped off, plain and simple, and the criminals who did it not only walked away scott free, but are still in charge of the show. Hence the pessimism. Hence the despair. Things aren’t getting better because they can’t get any better: the convicts are running the prison, and they ain’t doin it with our best interest in mind. People have perceived this basic fact and it’s made them cynical.
When Obama and his supporters speak of the recovery as if it’s an established fact, it just sounds like so much hollow BS. That’s what the recovery looks like down here on the mudsill.
If you haven’t benefited from any of these economic miracles, don’t feel too bad: There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and when those fail, you can always use the nuclear option: economic statistics, which can easily be stretched and twisted to make things look better than they actually are. Case in point: Is the unemployment rate too high? No problem, just stop counting people who have dropped out of the work force as well as those who’ve been kicked off the unemployment roles but who still don’t have jobs. If that doesn’t do the trick, count partially employed workers — i.e., people who work twenty-five hours a week at Walmart for minimum wage — as fully employed. Bingo! Unemployment just shrank like magic.
It’s all hollow propaganda that every administration and its partisans use to bamboozle us. If the president at the time is a Democrat, phone up Vox and the Washington Monthly; if he’s a Republican, tell Matt Drudge and Sean Hannity. They’ll spread the good news, which will then be used to succour the faithful and bully the naysayers. The fact is, inequality is still growing. Wages are still stagnant and/or declining, people are in debt up to their eyeballs and they have shitty, overpriced healthcare. Unemployment is still much higher than the official rate, and even though economists tell us there is no inflation, rents are sky high, and food and gas prices are rising too. When Walmart is the largest employer in the country, something is deeply, fundamentally wrong.
When the space between official government statistics and the reality of people’s lives becomes too great, a country becomes disillusioned and cynical. This morphs into quiet, seething anger, which finally bubbles over and expresses itself in rage. We’re not at the third stage yet, although Trumpism is a flashing red warning light, but if we stay on our current path we definitely will be. When that happens, you can bet the country isn’t going to turn left. There are no FDRs in our future. When the lid blows off this pot, our childish, unreflective, anti-intellectual population is going to double down with Trump (or whatever Trumpian facsimile happens to be available at the time), and turn hard right. Children want a big strong daddy who’s going to make things all better. Trump (or Pence, or Ted Cruz) can play that part much better than any lefty on the American political horizon.
This has all reminded me of a post I wrote in 2011 called “A Worm’s Eye View of the Recovery.” I had just seen Barack Obama on TV blathering about the wonderful recovery we were then experiencing, and I remember thinking, what recovery? Things were better than in the immediate wake of the economic crash, and according to the narrow definitions economists use for such things, we were technically recovering, but this gave a deeply misleading impression about how things really were. Life on the ground was still shitty — much worse than life before 2008 — and there were precious few indications that it was ever going to get better (it hasn’t). Yet there was the president, cheerfully tossing off abstract statistics about GDP and the employment rate, as if this were ironclad proof that happy days were here again. It inspired me to write a post which, it turns out, was the only thing I’ve ever written that threatened to become viral. It didn’t, and my brush with internet fame proved fleeting. Alas, my blog remains a lonely and obscure outpost in the series of tubes called the Internet. Sigh.
Anyway, since I don’t have anything new to say, I’ve decided to recycle this old post which still holds up, in my opinion. The economic situation it describes is bleaker than things at present, though not, I think, for much longer, but our political situation is much more dire. Anyway, it’s still worth a couple of minutes of your time.
You don’t have to be a comedian to get a laugh in my neighborhood. All you have to do is walk up to someone, just about anyone, and say, “Hey, cheer up, we’re in a recovery.”
You may not get a belly laugh, but you’ll definitely hear something in the nature of a chuckle or a guffaw, or at least a snicker followed by a sarcastic eye roll.
I’ve got bankruptcy to the left of me, foreclosures to the right, and all manner of human degradation in between. When I mount the crow’s nest to get a look around, this is what I see: one guy who just got laid off, and now he and his wife are living on his unemployment and her pension. Once his claim runs out, they could be in for some severe austerity. On the other side, there’s a single mother who’s hours have been cut in half and who’s in the process of losing her home. The family right next door is also in dire circumstances. Dad is underemployed and mom has lupus. They were going to cancel Christmas this year, but all the neighbors pitched in and got presents for their kids. George W. Bush would have considered it uniquely American.
There’s even a guy whose wife just left him for another women. That’s not an economic problem, I know, but it fits in rather snugly with the general theme of misery that runs through these parts. It is so unrelievedly dismal you almost have to laugh, at least in a tragicomic sort of way. I know countless people who’ve been laid off and just flat out can’t find another job. I hear a new horror story every week, and I often find myself just shaking my head and saying, “You have got to be freakin’ kidding me!”
Most people aren’t starving or sleeping under bridges, mind you (though some are). They are subsisting, but only precariously. They’re just muddling along through this grim subterranean world of near poverty, chronic anxiety, and deepening gloom. The most accurate word to describe their condition is submerged. I should emphasize that these people I’m referring to aren’t regular members of the working poor. Until a few years ago, they all had what could loosely be described as middle class lives. They weren’t getting rich, to be sure, but they worked every day, paid the bills, and enjoyed their weekends. Life wasn’t glamorous but it was okay. At any rate, it was a slightly more varied and enriching experience than the grinding, joyless struggle it’s become.
Hard times are not unusual here, but there has never been this kind of prolonged malaise, and it’s leading to a sense of hopelessness and futility that is unique. In the past, people could more or less shrug off hard times because they knew they were temporary. Hang in, tough it out, things will always get better. Historically they always have. That belief is gone. It’s been replaced by the growing conviction that things are never going to improve. Life as we knew it has become extinct. It’s all gone forever, and there is nothing in the future but deep black uncertainty.
The other day I was struck by this weird feeling of deja vu. Where had I seen this kind of listlessness before? Where had I observed this sort of laggard, slumping despair? Then I remembered. It was back in Russia during the Yeltsin years. It was the exact same atmosphere: Things were shitty and getting worse. Life was shabby and dilapidated. Their rulers were corrupt and didn’t give a damn. Cosmically rich oligarchs were cannibalizing the country, and the system was so badly broken there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. Drink up.
(Interestingly, that’s when Vladimir Zhirinovsky rose to prominence. He’s a right-wing clown worthy of our own Republican party, a Slavic Pat Buchanan. “We like a lot of the things he says,” the people I lived with told me, “but we would never support him because he’s crazy.” Score one for the intelligence of the Russian people. Would that the American electorate was that sophisticated.)
In the words of the inestimable Charles Pierce, people got no f***ing jobs, people got no f***ing money. And, I would add somewhat ominously, people got no f***ing hope.
There doesn’t seem to be any real rage yet, except, of course, among the right-wingers, who are blaming all the wrong people for all the wrong things, just like the right-wingers near you. People aren’t raising hammer and sickle flags and demanding blood. Me and a retired math professor down the street - a raging lefty like myself — are the only ones who seem to be approaching that enlightened stage, but then we’re both intellectuals, ha ha. There is, however, a very distinct mood of hostility towards our elites. I don’t want to exaggerate here. It’s mild, but it’s definitely there. It’s noticeable. People are aware that their suffering hasn’t been caused by their own failings (the Republican view), nor is it the result of a natural economic downturn, a good old fashioned “market correction” that, given a few well placed pokes and prods, will eventually just cycle away (the Obama view).
No, they’re fully cognizant of the fact that they’ve been ripped off, plain and simple, and the criminals who did it not only walked away scott free, but are still in charge of the show. Hence the pessimism. Hence the despair. Things aren’t getting better because they can’t get any better: the convicts are running the prison, and they ain’t doin it with our best interest in mind. People have perceived this basic fact and it’s made them cynical.
When Obama and his supporters speak of the recovery as if it’s an established fact, it just sounds like so much hollow BS. That’s what the recovery looks like down here on the mudsill.
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
The Normalization Of Trump
Do you ever wonder how history will view Trump? Disney World is giving us a preview:
This makes my skin crawl, but it doesn’t surprise me. Trump, like all American presidents, will undergo a gigantic makeover in which his flaws and bad acts will be neatly and quietly airbrushed away. At most, textbooks will blandly describe him as “controversial” or “polarizing,” words that in no way capture the sheer reptilian awfulness of the man and the insidious dangers he and his followers represent. If he only serves one term and doesn’t do too much obvious damage, he’ll simply be ignored. He’ll be chucked down the memory hole with Millard Fillmore, Benjamin Harrison, Warren Harding and Gerald Ford.
More likely, the disasters he creates will be interpreted as well-intentioned mistakes or honest miscalculations. Whenever possible, they will be blamed on forces beyond his control (which includes the perfidy of foreigners).
You could call this the Meet the Press school of historical writing, in that it shares the same assumptions as the people on that show (and most mainstream pundits as well). Namely, that American presidents, and American politicians generally, are well-meaning statesmen who genuinely and selflessly act in the country’s best interests. They do not commit misdeeds, only mistakes. When confronted with undeniable proof that this isn’t true, all of society is blamed in a vague, sophistical way. This is the case with the Iraq War and the Wall Street crash, both of which were conceived, implemented and carried out by greedy people with bad intentions. The Meet the Press school sweeps away this untidy fact by holding us all equally guilty: Everybody thought Iraq would be a cakewalk! All the experts thought Saddam had WMDs! Nobody, but nobody, saw the housing crash coming!
Of course, blaming everybody is the same thing as not blaming anybody, which is why this is done. Individual bad actors are let off the hook, the status quo is maintained, and the beloved national myth that we are decent people who live in the best political system ever invented is preserved.
It’s possible that the opposite could happen. Trump could turn out to be so obviously villainous, so blindingly and undeniably harmful, that he’ll be held up as an outlier, a horrendous aberration that makes his predecessors look better by comparison. George W Bush’s former henchmen are already working this beat, as are conservatives of the David Brooks/George Will variety. For a while this happened with Nixon, who was definitely declasse when I was a child in the seventies, but in the end he received full absolution from our media elites and the thinking classes. I distinctly remember seeing him on such venues as C-Span and Nightline in the late eighties and early nineties, very much in the role of the Wise and Respected Elder Statesman and Foreign Policy Expert, all whiff of scandal politely forgotten. Now he’s remembered for opening up China, not Watergate.
I think the same think will happen to Trump. When his crimes and follies have faded into history, he’ll be euphemized as a bold, if flawed, entrepreneur who’s genuine desire to Make America Great Again foundered on the shoals of … partisanship? intransigent allies? a bad economy? (which, as we all know, aren’t caused by people; they just sort of happen in nature, like earthquakes, dust storms and head lice.) Insert whatever Forces Beyond Anyone’s Control you wish to name. You’ll always be able to find some sycophantic journalist or hack historian willing to write it if you pay him enough money and throw in a few perks that appeal to his vanity, such as an invitation the White House Correspondents Dinner or an autographed photo off Melania Trump in which she refers to him as “hun.” Maybe Rich Lowry will be up for the gig after his passion for Sarah Palin fades.
But don’t worry. Future generations of Americans, assuming there will be such, will be just as indifferent to history as their ancestors. Trump hagiographies will be stacked, unread, in boxes at the Salvation Army, next to Nikki Haley’s autobiography and everything written by Tom Friedman, David Brooks and Deepak Chopra. Animatronic Trump will babble in a void while the people stand in line to watch Wonder Woman, eating deep fried Twinkies and posting selfies on Facebook.
This makes my skin crawl, but it doesn’t surprise me. Trump, like all American presidents, will undergo a gigantic makeover in which his flaws and bad acts will be neatly and quietly airbrushed away. At most, textbooks will blandly describe him as “controversial” or “polarizing,” words that in no way capture the sheer reptilian awfulness of the man and the insidious dangers he and his followers represent. If he only serves one term and doesn’t do too much obvious damage, he’ll simply be ignored. He’ll be chucked down the memory hole with Millard Fillmore, Benjamin Harrison, Warren Harding and Gerald Ford.
More likely, the disasters he creates will be interpreted as well-intentioned mistakes or honest miscalculations. Whenever possible, they will be blamed on forces beyond his control (which includes the perfidy of foreigners).
You could call this the Meet the Press school of historical writing, in that it shares the same assumptions as the people on that show (and most mainstream pundits as well). Namely, that American presidents, and American politicians generally, are well-meaning statesmen who genuinely and selflessly act in the country’s best interests. They do not commit misdeeds, only mistakes. When confronted with undeniable proof that this isn’t true, all of society is blamed in a vague, sophistical way. This is the case with the Iraq War and the Wall Street crash, both of which were conceived, implemented and carried out by greedy people with bad intentions. The Meet the Press school sweeps away this untidy fact by holding us all equally guilty: Everybody thought Iraq would be a cakewalk! All the experts thought Saddam had WMDs! Nobody, but nobody, saw the housing crash coming!
Of course, blaming everybody is the same thing as not blaming anybody, which is why this is done. Individual bad actors are let off the hook, the status quo is maintained, and the beloved national myth that we are decent people who live in the best political system ever invented is preserved.
It’s possible that the opposite could happen. Trump could turn out to be so obviously villainous, so blindingly and undeniably harmful, that he’ll be held up as an outlier, a horrendous aberration that makes his predecessors look better by comparison. George W Bush’s former henchmen are already working this beat, as are conservatives of the David Brooks/George Will variety. For a while this happened with Nixon, who was definitely declasse when I was a child in the seventies, but in the end he received full absolution from our media elites and the thinking classes. I distinctly remember seeing him on such venues as C-Span and Nightline in the late eighties and early nineties, very much in the role of the Wise and Respected Elder Statesman and Foreign Policy Expert, all whiff of scandal politely forgotten. Now he’s remembered for opening up China, not Watergate.
I think the same think will happen to Trump. When his crimes and follies have faded into history, he’ll be euphemized as a bold, if flawed, entrepreneur who’s genuine desire to Make America Great Again foundered on the shoals of … partisanship? intransigent allies? a bad economy? (which, as we all know, aren’t caused by people; they just sort of happen in nature, like earthquakes, dust storms and head lice.) Insert whatever Forces Beyond Anyone’s Control you wish to name. You’ll always be able to find some sycophantic journalist or hack historian willing to write it if you pay him enough money and throw in a few perks that appeal to his vanity, such as an invitation the White House Correspondents Dinner or an autographed photo off Melania Trump in which she refers to him as “hun.” Maybe Rich Lowry will be up for the gig after his passion for Sarah Palin fades.
But don’t worry. Future generations of Americans, assuming there will be such, will be just as indifferent to history as their ancestors. Trump hagiographies will be stacked, unread, in boxes at the Salvation Army, next to Nikki Haley’s autobiography and everything written by Tom Friedman, David Brooks and Deepak Chopra. Animatronic Trump will babble in a void while the people stand in line to watch Wonder Woman, eating deep fried Twinkies and posting selfies on Facebook.
Monday, December 25, 2017
Christmas In Trumpistan
Trump and Melania attended Christmas Eve services at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal church in Palm Beach, Florida, where, you can be sure, their prayers weren’t disturbed by the odors of the poor. The congregants, joyously anticipating all the jobs they’re going to create after the tax cuts kick in, gave the Trumps a standing ovation. As a special gift, I decided to share the thoughts of some Trump supporters posted in the comment section below the article. They warmed my heart and gave me hope for the future, and I just wanted to spread the good feeling around. Merry Christmas!
Behold, your fellow Americans:
Behold, your fellow Americans:
If you’re still not satisfied, have a little dessert:
Merry Christmas Doc. This is wonderul...thanks. Papa Trump has brought Christmas home to us!
You're not a Christian. You're an arrogant, egocentric, narcissistic human that apparently has never made any mistakes in his/her life. He is standing up for Christians/Christianity like no president has in decades. Any REAL Christian is aware of that. What I have seen is many pretend Christians that are trying to demean/belittle our President under the guise of Christianity. You're a fraud. Does his past and present actions represent me perfectly, NO, but God will use who he wants and it looks like God knows what he is doing because he is blessing America and Isreal with this man.
Only God knows who is a "real" Christian and who is not. Although the Bible gives us lots of assurances of what it takes to be a real Christian, you'll notice a whole lot of folks claim to be one, and aren't. Remember the Usurper Obama claimed to be one. HA!
God is a republican
Saturday, December 23, 2017
How Would America Respond To Space Aliens?
A recent New York Times article about the Pentagon’s covert UFO program named, in beautiful Pentagonese, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, made me reflect on how America would react if extraterrestrials suddenly showed up and made themselves known. What would it be like? What would America actually do? How would our exceptionalism manifest itself in the face of this profound, world changing event?
First, we could expect the inevitable Trump tweet:
Just met with the aliens. Short. Very short. Much shorter than me. Big heads. Bald. Very bald. Ugliest women in the galaxy! Uglier than Megyn Kelly and Rosie O'Donnell! Aliens refused to paint Trump name on spacecraft! Refused to build Trump Tower on home planet! Refused free Trump steaks and discounted copies of Trump: The Art of the Deal! Total losers! Worst aliens in the universe! Sad, very sad. #GoBackHome!
And with that, thirty to forty percent of Americans would be be instantly brainwashed into thinking that the aliens were evil commie libtards who were worse than Colin Kaepernick and Nancy Pelosi, and those lazy Puerto Ricans who don’t know how to help themselves after hurricanes. It wouldn’t make any difference what the aliens actually were or what they did. They could be giving us a cure for cancer, a longer lasting light bulb, flying cars, space travel, three-dimensional chess and little pink happy pills that gave you boners and made you immortal, and it wouldn’t matter. Trump’s dead-enders, the lobotomized true believers who’ll be down in the bunker eating cyanide with Jared and Ivanka when the four-year MAGA Reich fizzles to an end, won’t care. Their fuhrer will have pronounced the aliens bad and that would be that.
With the right wing base firmly against the aliens, the Republican establishment would have no choice but to follow suit, although Mike Pence and Betsy DeVos might waver a bit if the aliens agreed to accept Jesus and promote school vouchers and intelligent design.
Nobody would care what the Democrats thought, and people would be right not to. But no doubt the Dems would hire some hack consultant for half a million dollars to write a safe, soft, bland, donor-approved statement that said nothing, meant less, and convinced absolutely no one of anything at all.
Meanwhile, the folks at NPR would huddle in the corner, waiting for the mainstream consensus on the aliens to emerge so they could safely follow it without tripping up and saying anything too liberal. In between segments on basket weaving in Zaire and the benefits of Feng Shui in kindergarten classrooms, they could have someone recite alien themed poetry submissions on Writer’s Almanac:
But what of the rest of America, the sleeping fifty percent who are completely disengaged from politics, but who can always be relied on to wave the flag, support the troops and consume on command? They’ll be huddled behind boarded up windows with duct tape and bottled water, waiting for the authorities to tell them what to do.
The U.N would send a delegation with representatives from the EU, Russia, China, India, Japan, Australia, Canada and Brazil, but Nikki Haley would refuse to attend unless the Aliens agreed to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Anything less would be an intolerable insult to the dignity of the US, who would remember their insolence and maybe, just maybe, refuse to invite them to the White House Easter Egg Roll.
So the more mature portions of mankind would gather to communicate with our alien visitors while the exceptional Americans sat in the corner and pouted.
“How is it that these strange unpleasant beings called Americans have come to exercise such a powerful influence over your world?” The aliens would ask.
And the representatives of humanity would shrug and say, “Because they’re rich, and they have an infinite capacity for violence and self-delusion.”
And then maybe something unusual would happen. Mexico would make a motion which Canada would second. And then every other country would quickly get on board: The world, with the help of alien technology, would not only fund but actually help construct Trump’s wall, not to keep people out of America, but to keep the Americans locked in! The world could band together and actually start solving problems, and the dangerous children called Americans would be safely quarantined until they became adults.
First, we could expect the inevitable Trump tweet:
And with that, thirty to forty percent of Americans would be be instantly brainwashed into thinking that the aliens were evil commie libtards who were worse than Colin Kaepernick and Nancy Pelosi, and those lazy Puerto Ricans who don’t know how to help themselves after hurricanes. It wouldn’t make any difference what the aliens actually were or what they did. They could be giving us a cure for cancer, a longer lasting light bulb, flying cars, space travel, three-dimensional chess and little pink happy pills that gave you boners and made you immortal, and it wouldn’t matter. Trump’s dead-enders, the lobotomized true believers who’ll be down in the bunker eating cyanide with Jared and Ivanka when the four-year MAGA Reich fizzles to an end, won’t care. Their fuhrer will have pronounced the aliens bad and that would be that.
With the right wing base firmly against the aliens, the Republican establishment would have no choice but to follow suit, although Mike Pence and Betsy DeVos might waver a bit if the aliens agreed to accept Jesus and promote school vouchers and intelligent design.
Nobody would care what the Democrats thought, and people would be right not to. But no doubt the Dems would hire some hack consultant for half a million dollars to write a safe, soft, bland, donor-approved statement that said nothing, meant less, and convinced absolutely no one of anything at all.
Meanwhile, the folks at NPR would huddle in the corner, waiting for the mainstream consensus on the aliens to emerge so they could safely follow it without tripping up and saying anything too liberal. In between segments on basket weaving in Zaire and the benefits of Feng Shui in kindergarten classrooms, they could have someone recite alien themed poetry submissions on Writer’s Almanac:
Aliens, aliens, walking across my lawn,
Look, my cat!
What news from space? What news from beyond? What news of Jesus, Muhammad and the Buddha?
Does God dance in blue stars among aliens, I wonder, while ants march on red-checked tablecloths in backyards at dawn, oblivious to my Space-God-Alien catharsis?
My cat, my cat …
But what of the rest of America, the sleeping fifty percent who are completely disengaged from politics, but who can always be relied on to wave the flag, support the troops and consume on command? They’ll be huddled behind boarded up windows with duct tape and bottled water, waiting for the authorities to tell them what to do.
The U.N would send a delegation with representatives from the EU, Russia, China, India, Japan, Australia, Canada and Brazil, but Nikki Haley would refuse to attend unless the Aliens agreed to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Anything less would be an intolerable insult to the dignity of the US, who would remember their insolence and maybe, just maybe, refuse to invite them to the White House Easter Egg Roll.
“How is it that these strange unpleasant beings called Americans have come to exercise such a powerful influence over your world?” The aliens would ask.
And the representatives of humanity would shrug and say, “Because they’re rich, and they have an infinite capacity for violence and self-delusion.”
And then maybe something unusual would happen. Mexico would make a motion which Canada would second. And then every other country would quickly get on board: The world, with the help of alien technology, would not only fund but actually help construct Trump’s wall, not to keep people out of America, but to keep the Americans locked in! The world could band together and actually start solving problems, and the dangerous children called Americans would be safely quarantined until they became adults.
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Be Fruitful And Multiply, You Dirty Peons
I thought this was a joke when I first saw it, but then I remembered I’m in America in 2017, where there is nothing so ignorant, inane, dangerous, offensive or stupid that it isn’t being seriously suggested by one of our political leaders. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, objectivist, policy wonk and all around deep thinker:
We really do have one of the most viciously greedy, stupidly short-sighted, arrogant ruling classes in all of history. It is truly jaw-dropping. This asshole is about to shepherd through Congress a gigantic tax break for the richest human beings who’ve ever walked the earth, while simultaneously raising taxes and eliminating deductions for working and middle class people. The ink isn’t even dry on the bill and he’s already promising to cut entitlements for the poor and the middle class in order to pay for (some) of it; entitlements which, by the way, he personally benefited from as a young lad, which afforded him the time and leisure to work through all the heady concepts in Atlas Shrugged, but never mind.
And what does he say to the people he’s about to rob and kick to the curb?
Go out and have more babies.
What does Paul Ryan say to strapped part-time workers who can’t afford a home, can’t afford rent, can’t pay off student loans, can’t find full-time work, and who live one accident away from financial catastrophe? He looks right at them and sneeringly says, “I’m raising your taxes, I’m taking away your health insurance, I’m taking away the deduction on your student loan payment, I’m adding a trillion dollars to the deficit, and I’m ripping off what little Social Security you had coming, but, hey, it’s not my fault. We just don’t have enough people paying into the system. Don’t blame me, go out and have more babies.
Paul Ryan says to go out and have more babies, even though he knows it wouldn’t change anything he does: He is a Randian who opposes the welfare state on philosophical grounds. Even if there were more people paying into the system, he would still want to cut entitlements. Even if the poor squeezed out a billion bright new shiny taxpayers who could fund the social safety net, he’d still work day and night to take it away from them. He’s a thoroughly dishonest scoundrel kicking down at the poor, and he knows it (and he’s doing it with glib, number- crunchy jargon that Beltway imbeciles mistake for deep wonky thought … ninety-percent increase in retirement but only nineteen percent increase in workforce … gotta have more efficiency, gotta have more technology, need more people, yep, uh-huh. Can’t argue with the numbers …)
There are 7 billion people and rising in the world. The human species is placing an unsustainable burden on the planet and rapidly depleting its resources. The climate is warming faster than even the most pessimistic scientists have predicted. Paul Ryan doesn’t care. He wants to cut taxes and gut social spending, and in order to do it he’ll ignore all common sense and all common decency, smirk at the camera and say, go out and have more babies.
All of this so a few hundred rich families and corporations can pay less taxes and get even richer.
The United States was created by morally compromised but deeply intellectual men steeped in the Enlightenment; it is being destroyed by shallow con-men and venal sociopaths with a smattering of cheap philosophy and bottomless greed. Take a good look at this dorky moral vacuum. He’s strangling the country for a few greasy coins and a permanent seat in our banal aristocracy. That’s it. That’s all. A little money and status. That is the alpha and omega in his gnat-sized conception of life. A little money and status. It is for this the country must be drained and it's people fleeced. Now reflect on the sad and pathetic fact that in 2017 America there was no political force that could thwart him.
“This is going to be the new economic challenge for America: people. Baby boomers are retiring — I did my part, but we need to have higher birth rates in this country,” Ryan, a father of three, told reporters as he riffed on how Republicans will tackle entitlement and welfare reform in 2018. “Baby boomers are retiring and we have fewer people following them in the workforce.And here I thought the poor were poor because they fornicated too much and had babies they couldn’t afford.
”We have something like a 90-percent increase in the retirement population of America but only a 19-percent increase in the working population in American,” he continued. “So what do we have to do? Be smarter, more efficient, more technology … still gonna need more people.”
We really do have one of the most viciously greedy, stupidly short-sighted, arrogant ruling classes in all of history. It is truly jaw-dropping. This asshole is about to shepherd through Congress a gigantic tax break for the richest human beings who’ve ever walked the earth, while simultaneously raising taxes and eliminating deductions for working and middle class people. The ink isn’t even dry on the bill and he’s already promising to cut entitlements for the poor and the middle class in order to pay for (some) of it; entitlements which, by the way, he personally benefited from as a young lad, which afforded him the time and leisure to work through all the heady concepts in Atlas Shrugged, but never mind.
And what does he say to the people he’s about to rob and kick to the curb?
Go out and have more babies.
What does Paul Ryan say to strapped part-time workers who can’t afford a home, can’t afford rent, can’t pay off student loans, can’t find full-time work, and who live one accident away from financial catastrophe? He looks right at them and sneeringly says, “I’m raising your taxes, I’m taking away your health insurance, I’m taking away the deduction on your student loan payment, I’m adding a trillion dollars to the deficit, and I’m ripping off what little Social Security you had coming, but, hey, it’s not my fault. We just don’t have enough people paying into the system. Don’t blame me, go out and have more babies.
Paul Ryan says to go out and have more babies, even though he knows it wouldn’t change anything he does: He is a Randian who opposes the welfare state on philosophical grounds. Even if there were more people paying into the system, he would still want to cut entitlements. Even if the poor squeezed out a billion bright new shiny taxpayers who could fund the social safety net, he’d still work day and night to take it away from them. He’s a thoroughly dishonest scoundrel kicking down at the poor, and he knows it (and he’s doing it with glib, number- crunchy jargon that Beltway imbeciles mistake for deep wonky thought … ninety-percent increase in retirement but only nineteen percent increase in workforce … gotta have more efficiency, gotta have more technology, need more people, yep, uh-huh. Can’t argue with the numbers …)
There are 7 billion people and rising in the world. The human species is placing an unsustainable burden on the planet and rapidly depleting its resources. The climate is warming faster than even the most pessimistic scientists have predicted. Paul Ryan doesn’t care. He wants to cut taxes and gut social spending, and in order to do it he’ll ignore all common sense and all common decency, smirk at the camera and say, go out and have more babies.
All of this so a few hundred rich families and corporations can pay less taxes and get even richer.
The United States was created by morally compromised but deeply intellectual men steeped in the Enlightenment; it is being destroyed by shallow con-men and venal sociopaths with a smattering of cheap philosophy and bottomless greed. Take a good look at this dorky moral vacuum. He’s strangling the country for a few greasy coins and a permanent seat in our banal aristocracy. That’s it. That’s all. A little money and status. That is the alpha and omega in his gnat-sized conception of life. A little money and status. It is for this the country must be drained and it's people fleeced. Now reflect on the sad and pathetic fact that in 2017 America there was no political force that could thwart him.
Sunday, December 10, 2017
The War is Over. We Lost.
A year ago, I wrote the following about the incoming Trump presidency:
Now the Republicans are planning phase two of the putsch, cutting Medicare and Social Security. Paul Ryan is walking around literally looking like he’s splooging in his slacks. After all, his life-long dream of making Ayn Rand’s vision of America a reality is about to take a giant leap forward. But, hey, did you hear Donald Trump just gave a speech supporting pedophile Roy Moore for the Senate? What will that awful, awful, hideous orange vulgarian say next? Titter titter. Let’s discuss it for a week.
Coming up next, the end of net neutrality. This means that the one area where you can find alternative opinions and independent news, i.e., the one medium where you can find fundamental criticism of the emerging corporate order, is going to be strangled to death by a cartel of monopolies, and the Internet is going to become exactly like cable TV. But, hey, by then the awful, awful, hideous orange vulgarian will have made some outrageous new tweet for the pundit class to feign outrage over and titter about for the rest of the news cycle.
The Republicans have found the ideal front man, a shrewd con artist who knows instinctively how to manipulate and distract the media while they systematically dismantle the country and refashion in their interest.
And whither the resistance, the one led by the youthful energy of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton? Well, Chuck and Nancy are doddering around looking for their spectacles and muttering about Russia, although Chuck is also taking time out to party in the Hamptons with Jared and Ivanka, and Hillary is still going around blaming everyone but herself for her defeat. Viva la Resistance!
The war is over and we lost. The Republican’s agenda, once passed, will become permanent. It will beome permanent in part because the Democrats will do nothing to overturn it. When they regain power, and they will at some point, they’ll tell us that they’re not going to dwell on the past, but, rather, do the work the American people elected them to do, and the next mushy, centrist, DNC approved creature who sits in the Oval Office will look us straight in the eyes — because that’s what his consultants tell him Real Leaders do — and boldly inform us that it’s time to move forward.
He’ll be a strutting, tweeting, TV nation Mussolini while the real business of government is carried out by Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, and they are going to unleash the most reactionary, corporate friendly agenda we’ve ever seen. It’s going to be worse than Bush’s first term. It’s the Koch Brothers’ country now, and they’re going to nail down the plutocracy and make it a permanent fact of our national life.And so it’s come to pass. Regardless of it’s final details, this tax bill will nail in the plutocracy forever. But, hey, did you hear Trump called Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” at a ceremony honoring the Navajo code talkers from World War II, and that he did it beneath a portrait of Indian killer Andrew Jackson, no less? What will that awful, awful, hideous orange vulgarian say next? Titter titter. Let’s discuss it for a week.
Now the Republicans are planning phase two of the putsch, cutting Medicare and Social Security. Paul Ryan is walking around literally looking like he’s splooging in his slacks. After all, his life-long dream of making Ayn Rand’s vision of America a reality is about to take a giant leap forward. But, hey, did you hear Donald Trump just gave a speech supporting pedophile Roy Moore for the Senate? What will that awful, awful, hideous orange vulgarian say next? Titter titter. Let’s discuss it for a week.
Coming up next, the end of net neutrality. This means that the one area where you can find alternative opinions and independent news, i.e., the one medium where you can find fundamental criticism of the emerging corporate order, is going to be strangled to death by a cartel of monopolies, and the Internet is going to become exactly like cable TV. But, hey, by then the awful, awful, hideous orange vulgarian will have made some outrageous new tweet for the pundit class to feign outrage over and titter about for the rest of the news cycle.
The Republicans have found the ideal front man, a shrewd con artist who knows instinctively how to manipulate and distract the media while they systematically dismantle the country and refashion in their interest.
And whither the resistance, the one led by the youthful energy of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton? Well, Chuck and Nancy are doddering around looking for their spectacles and muttering about Russia, although Chuck is also taking time out to party in the Hamptons with Jared and Ivanka, and Hillary is still going around blaming everyone but herself for her defeat. Viva la Resistance!
The war is over and we lost. The Republican’s agenda, once passed, will become permanent. It will beome permanent in part because the Democrats will do nothing to overturn it. When they regain power, and they will at some point, they’ll tell us that they’re not going to dwell on the past, but, rather, do the work the American people elected them to do, and the next mushy, centrist, DNC approved creature who sits in the Oval Office will look us straight in the eyes — because that’s what his consultants tell him Real Leaders do — and boldly inform us that it’s time to move forward.
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