15 I 2021: Naked without my gun

A number of Republican legislators, inspired, no doubt, by Rep. Lauren Boebert, a.k.a. The Capitol Glockette, have refused to pass through the metal detectors installed to protect our Congress. Clearly they are fishing for fanatic Trumpist votes, for the insurrectionist vote, and for the gun-nut votes. 

Some of our fellow citizens are passionately protective of their guns because they have made the gun the symbol of their whiteness, their lawlessness, and their manhood. This firearms/phallus fixation is based on their inability to tell their pistols from their peckers, and, by gum, the feds are going to have to wrest both from their dying hands. The chief instigator of this falsehood-based paranoia is the NRA. That Association’s bankruptcy and flight to Texas show that the premier “gun rights” organization has long been an enormous scam.

14 I 2021: Trump Flag, the The new Stars and Bars

The news reports that the insurrectionist photographed parading in the Capitol with a large Confederate flag, Keven Seefried, has been busted. Mr. Seefried’s home state, Delaware, was a slave state, but the people of Delaware voted in early 1861 not to secede from the Union. Even so, Seefried chose to display the flag of rebellion, secession, and slavery of black to white. This constellation of evils was defeated in the 1860s, but has risen up again and again, and in 2020-2021 has once more attacked the United States of America.

But an additional flag of racism and rebellion was seen everywhere at the insurrection. Rep. Cori Bush reports in her account of her experience of the attack on the Capitol: “I could see Trump flags and Confederate flags gradually moving closer. I froze in disbelief.” This dramatizes the fact that the Trump flag is the new Confederate flag, for the Trump flag also symbolizes lawlessness, rebellion, and white supremacy.

13 I 2021: An overlooked Trump atrocity

It is reported that 4,400+ Americans died Tuesday as a result of contracting COVID-19. Trump is not to blame for the fact of COVID-19, nor for COVID-19’s entering the United States. But I believe he must bear the blame for a vast number of all the deaths. He minimized the threat of the disease, telling lie upon lie, for fear that the truth of COVID-19 might hurt “his” economy. His deceit and delays guaranteed that the United States would be almost wholly unprepared for the pandemic. He screwed up the response to the pandemic with his silly recommendations of cures and with numberless obstructions of the efforts of expert physicians and scientists.

By his words and example he started the anti-masker movement, and not wearing a mask came to be a sign of solidarity with Trump. He held some notable super-spreader events, infecting staff and guests at the White House and who knows how many at his maskless rallies. And now he and his incompetent political appointees have made a complete muddle of the vaccine program.

His mishandling of COVID-19 was not a pardonable lapse in judgement or a failure to realize the gravity of the pandemic. No, in a planned series of misrepresentations and delays he put what he perceived to be his interests before the lives of some 388,000 Americans so far, and the die-off has no end in sight. 

He is a mass murderer.

13 I 2021: Collaborators in Trump’s big lies can’t let go of them

There was an article in today’s Post Dispatch by Eugene Robinson in which he described the current crisis as “a battle for objective truth over paranoid fantasy,” and observes that the Republican Party is on the wrong side.

I find remarkable the continued adherence of Republicans to the lies of Trump. This suggests that they think complicity in these lies is still to their advantage. 

Most of the Republicans in Congress are educated people of average intelligence who ought to know that

1)    Wearing masks is a proven way to restrict the spread of COVID-19. 

But while legislators were hiding in cramped quarters during the attack on the Capitol, Republican congressmen were filmed resolutely refusing to wear masks, just like Trump. Do they still believe that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu? Why did they refuse the masks that were offered to them? Would it have hurt them to put on a mask in those close quarters? No, but they thought that putting on masks would make them seem less than Trumpian.

2)    The presidential election was deemed sound and fair by all responsible parties who have examined it.

But we still have Republican legislators explicitly or implicitly questioning the validity of the election, echoing Trump’s lies in this sphere as well. Do they believe that the election officials, state by state, who monitored the election are corrupt? Do they too believe that the great number of judges who rejected allegations of fraud were ideologically driven or on the take?

I suppose that maybe a few of these Trumpian legislators do believe that COVID-19 is a hoax and that the presidential election was rigged. But most of them are, it seems to me, far too intelligent to have been taken in by Trump’s obvious lies. So why support what they know to be untrue?

They do so because covering up for Trump and repeating and defending his lies is an ingrained habit developed over a period of four years, and because a lot of their voters, convinced by the lies that Trump and they have been telling, would be alienated if they departed from Trumpian orthodoxy. Rejection of masks and doubting the election are badges of Trumpism that they are afraid to give up because numbers of their constituents choose to FEEL with great determination that Trump’s lies are the truth.

10 I 2021: The new organized crime

What the assault on the Capitol has demonstrated is that America has produced a new type of organized crime. There were plenty of evidence of politico-criminal organizations, going all the way back to the emergence of the “militias” and the “gun rights” crazies. Recent years have brought QAnon, White Supremacists, neo-Nazis, et al. But ignorance, inertia, and cowardice caused us to turn a blind eye to these avowed terrorists. Then Trump came along and energized them, giving them the implied approval of the President of the United States and of his propagandists in the media. From then on we’ve had riots, attacks on state capitol buildings, a scheme to kidnap a governor, and finally January 6th. These groups are criminal insurrectionists in-waiting, and when summoned by their Leader, they gathered in Washington and did what they have been talking about doing for a very long time. 

Citizens who monitor hate groups’ communications on the internet saw the Washington insurrection coming well in advance. The Justice Dept. and FBI have access to the same internet material. So why was government so completely unprepared for the insurrection. Are they so naïve? Are they so ill-informed? The FBI has nearly eliminated the Mafia through gathering of intelligence, the RICO act, and prompt and determined action. The same resources can be turned against domestic terrorists, so one has to ask “Why not?”

Was Trump’s alliance with these groups responsible for the unpreparedness of police and national guard and for the great delay in mobilizing the national guard? Trump and his regime not only tolerate domestic terrorists and their lawlessness, but foster them in order to create a constant threat of civil violence. Now it is time to crack down on the terrorists.

Multiple veins of criminality run through all of these groups. If appropriate diligence is applied to monitoring them and their criminal communications, and if all criminal acts are investigated and prosecuted, the threat from these violent associations could be very much reduced. I would say that doing this is a necessary precondition to the exorcism of American politics.

10 I 2021: Tweedledee and Tweedledum, dum, dum

I saw a photograph of four of the dozens of self-styled militia men who held a demonstration of their mental instability on the lawn of the Kentucky Capitol Building. They were there to “Stop the steal!,” to denounce Mitch McConnell, cheer for the DC insurrectionists, and rage against Kentucky’s Governor Beshear, not to mention against socialism and communism (do they know what these words mean?).

The four in the photo are standing there in let’s-play-soldier outfits, armed with various long guns, and with their faces covered, not by COVID-19 masks, but by scarves wrapped round and round their necks and heads to make a mask like a  KKK hood. These nerds are really dangerous. They are hyper-aggressive, self-righteous, and stupid. They are also, as human beings go, ridiculous and pathetic.

They are not the only ones who are ridiculous and pathetic. We have allowed our laws to be so misinterpreted and twisted that these heavily armed hooligans can parade around, their presence and appearance making an implicit threat of insurrection. 

9 I 2021: Question and suggestion

Is Rudy Giulliani, Trump’s spieler, still out of jail?

Senator Hawley is unrepentant for the melodrama he staged. He says he “will never apologize for giving voice to the millions of Missourians and Americans who have concerns about the integrity of our elections.” Oh my!

1)   “Integrity of our elections” is, of course, crucial to our democracy, so all Americans share concerns about the integrity of our elections, but that’s not what Hawley is talking about.

2)   He’s giving voice to the disappointed and delusional people who are echoing Trump’s claim of a stolen election. This claim has been echoed also by some cynical politicians who know very well that Trump’s claim is false. Has Hawley ever said that these people, politicians, and President Trump are absolutely wrong?

3)   “Giving voice,” as if we have not been hearing “rigged election” bullshit since even before Trump lost the election.

Hawley should shove his fist where it can’t be seen.

8 I 2021: Comments

Trump now reminds me of the emperors Caligula and Nero who ended their reigns as dangerous psychotics.

Today’s paper offered images of staff removing trash from the House floor. Who will remove those in the House and Senate who tried to interfere with the counting of the electoral votes?

6 I 2021: Today’s attack on the United States

Well, as with all things that come from Trump, I am disgusted but not surprised. Trump sent his virtual brownshirts to shut down Congress, and that’s just what they did. 

I do wonder why the Capitol Police and the D.C. Police were so completely unprepared to deal with this riot? There were many indications that such a thing could happen, was likely to happen, and, once Trump gave his harangue in the morning, they should have known that it was sure to happen.

Who exactly were the Trump supporters who attacked the Senate and House of Representatives? I examined photos of the rioters and did not see many of what I would call polite people. There were a lot of guys, many of them short, many of them a bit overweight, most of them sporting beards and baseball caps. They looked like the sort of people the peak of whose social lives is gun and knife shows. In films of some of the attacks it was clear that most of these men were just looking for a fight, any fight, just seeking to smash something, anything, just wanting to be bad little boys and impress the other bad little boys. In England they would be football hooligans.

And in interstices of the t.v. coverage I saw Josh Hawley raising his fist to show his solidarity with the mob and Ted Cruz looking and talking like a lounge lizard. These good ol’ boys pretend to believe Trump’s Great Lie. They both know damned well that Trump lost the election, but they want to have a commission to look into irregularities. 

What bullshit! Hawley and Cruz pretend to represent the many voters who are suspicious about the results of the election. These voters are suspicious because they were told untruths again and again. If some voters believed that the moon is composed of green cheese, Hawley and Cruz would call for a commission to examine the moon.

6 I 2021: Pharmacist believed lies

These words, “Pharmacist believed lies,” are the subheading of the St. Louis Post Dispatch’s report of the arrest of pharmacist Steven Brandenburg, an employee of the Advocate Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, because he intentionally spoiled 57 vials, that’s 500+ doses, of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Brandenburg, a devotee of conspiracy theories, tried to destroy the vaccine because he believed the shots would cause mutations in patients’ DNA. The report in the Post concludes: “Misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccines has surged online with false claims on everything from the vaccine’s ingredients to its possible side effects.” We have to hope that misinformation about the vaccine does not lead to others’ deranged behavior.

Now, rewrite this subheading to read “Public believed lies” and you could then go on to write an account of the popular furor about the presidential election. Large numbers of citizens have been tricked by planned programs of disinformation to believe that victory in the election was stolen from Donald Trump. We cannot say that some voters just “voted with their feelings” or that they reached different conclusions from the evidence. The agitated voters were DECEIVED, they believed the misinformation, i.e., the lies, spread by Trump and his supporters.

So, Mr. Brandenburg believed lies and destroyed desperately needed vaccine. A tremendous number of voters believe lies and are trying to destroy our democracy. Of course, Brandenburg and the Trumpies must bear their share of responsibility for what they do, but far greater guilt belongs to those who told the lies that deceived them and to the media that promiscuously or designedly transmitted them. 

We are victims of our “freedoms.” The freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment has been twisted to mean not freedom, but an unconstrained license for speech, however dangerous, however divisive, however obscene, and however false. Similarly, the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment has been misconstrued and abused. There are so many unregulated firearms in circulation that any fool can get a gun, and any gun, for any purpose. 

How might Americans go about limiting these “freedoms”? Will we see any public figures who could start the bringing these abuses born of a childish notion of freedom under control. But I think that without some rational constraint, freedom will be our undoing.