13 XI 2020: BS from Justice Alito

Justice Alito who has been agitating to deny gays the freedom to marry is now objecting to restrictions on “liberty” arising from the struggle against COVID19. The news report reads: “‘We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged,’ he said, and added that the pandemic has resulted in ‘previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.'” I guess Mr. Justice Alito has not read about the steps taken to control the flu epidemic of 1918 nor about the restrictions imposed during WWI and WWII.

Am I wrong to see here the influence of America’s mistaken notion of liberty? If liberty means the freedom to do whatever you may want, however destructive to yourself or to others, then I guess the restrictions put in place to check COVID19 are restrictions on “individual liberty.” But does individual liberty allow us to drive an unsafe vehicle or to drive while intoxicated? Am I being denied my liberty if I’m forbidden to dump sewage into a creek that runs through my own property? Doesn’t regulation of tobacco, alcohol, firearms, and narcotics sharply curtail individual liberty? And what about the Transportation Security Administration that can inspect our luggage and our bodies?

Justice Alito is very worried about what he perceives as threats to “religious liberty.” Again, the report says: “‘It pains me to say this,’ Alito said, ‘but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.'” Well, I think a lot depends on what one means by religious liberty. So I would pose the same sort of questions. Does religious liberty extend to religious assemblies that endanger the congregants and all with whom they come into contact? Does religious liberty allow snake handling, the “circumcision” of girls, “temple prostitutes,” unrestricted use of narcotics in religious services? Does religious liberty allow me to pay no taxes because I think the government is immoral? Does religious liberty allow me to beat my children if my church believes that the male should rule the family? Does religious liberty allow me to force my peculiar ethics and practices on others? What if my church condemns democracy, as the Catholic church did for centuries? Am I allowed to try to subvert democracy?

I’ve no doubt that Justice Alito was presenting his honestly held opinions. I am sorry that they seem to pander to good old American antinomian license and to the prolonged hegemony of certain religions. He has provided a list of the biases that will require him to recuse himself if the major issues of our time are referred to the Supreme Court.

13 XI 2020: Is Trump doing a Hitler parody?

I’ve read about Trump’s laying low in the White House — no mention of his bunker, but I wonder … Then I see in an article that those around Trump are afraid to tell him that he lost the election. 

I thought at once of the Hitler Rants Parodies on the internet. These insert footage from the portrayal of Hitler’s last days in the movie Downfall into new narratives, e.g., Hitler confronts Trump at Coronavirus press briefing, Hitler’s KFC order disaster, Hitler finds out Kanye West is running for president, Hitler debates Biden and Trump, and so on. The footage from Downfall shown most often portrays Hitler losing it in a furious rant.

I wonder if those close to Trump fear a similar eruption from the President. I read rumors that he has been permanently pissed off since losing the election, so they must be accustomed to his irascibility. But I can imagine that they are coddling Trump for fear of touching off something like what you can see at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH7zn52M_BA

12 XI 2020: Will America die of its own delusions?

Today’s newspaper reports that officials in St. Louis County are considering maybe tightening the restrictions now in place because of our apparent inability even to slow the spread of COVID19. Maybe it will be necessary to reduce the maximum gathering size down from the current number of 49! Are they kidding? And maybe reduce allowed occupancy levels of bars and restaurants to 50%. I find this astonishing, for half-measures like this are unlikely to make a bit of difference. Why not require all to wear a masks, why not reduce the maximum attendance at a gathering to the size of a nuclear family? Why not close bars and restaurants for a while?

But then, in the same article, a citizen attending the latest County Council meeting asked “Why do you insist on spreading fear and bullying the residents of St. Louis County.” Thank you, Mr. Trump! A Republican councilman is quoted as saying “to penalize everybody because certain people chose not to heed warnings is somewhat irresponsible from a policy point of view.” A complete misunderstanding of the COVID19 problem! Another Republican councilman warned that tightening restrictions in St. Louis County would drive people to go to other counties where the COVID19 threat is worse. I think we must read between the lines here: Tighter restrictions might drain off some cash from St. Louis County to other counties that are even more remiss. As always, economic considerations come first!

I would like to ask: Is telling the truth about a grave threat to our national security simply “spreading fear”? Is it bullying, is it penalizing if you compel citizens to do their duty to one another and take steps to protect their health and the health of all around them? 

Not telling the truth is a major cause of the crisis we face today. Our President knowingly lied to us when we might have taken steps to prepare for the onset of COVID19. And then, in an attempt to diminish his responsibility for his public health crime, he continued to lie about the severity of the pandemic and ridiculed the safety measures recommended by honest experts.

We would benefit from a lot more fear. I think Americans have developed a false sense of security due to the government’s control of information and due to the propaganda of the financial and commercial communities that is aimed to make us prodigal consumers. We have been brainwashed into believing that as long as we pay our taxes, spend our paychecks, and keep up our credit card payments we are what no human being ever can be, totally secure. So Americans won’t believe that there could come a plague that would be a real threat to US, won’t believe that there is not some medical magic that will take care of the problem at once, and, of course, believe their President because his lies reinforce their false beliefs.

Any honest appraisal of how great a menace COVID19 is to the US would, I think, make talk of “bullying” and “penalizing” seem ridiculous. If we truly feared COVID19 as much as it deserves, we would not worry so much about cash leaving our County. If we really feared COVID19 and if we really thought of ourselves as a civic community, we would work together, would support radical restrictions, would demand the truth, and would not let this plague continue to kill our fellow citizens.

10 XI 2020: Remember, Trump was crazy already

I read reports of the wear and tear of Biden’s victory on Trump’s mental health, and yes, Trump seems wholly out-of-control. But Trump is not going crazy, he’s simply getting crazier. We’ve grown so accustomed to Trump’s instability, irascibility, pettiness, megalomania, and lapses from reality that it takes his really freaking out to recall to us that our sociopath President is, has been, and will forever be crazy. In fact, I expected rather more uproar and self-pity from Trump than we have seen so far. We must congratulate his psychiatrists for adjusting his dosage to these altered circumstances.

I do want to know whether it was Trump’s idea to risk the nation’s security by appointing his ass-kissers to the Pentagon or something that his “aides” came up with. Trump and Co. will sabotage whatever they can, like the Nazis in retreat, tearing up railroads, blowing up dams, dynamiting buildings, and pausing only to massacre the locals.

Can’t someone stick a pin into Mike Pompeo? Must we still listen to his lies? Can’t Rudy Giulliani’s family have him committed before he becomes a permanent joke? And cannot someone make the Republicans in Congress realize that they are married to a corpse? That they still cower before Trump is so damned degrading! And what about Lindsey Graham? What does Trump have on him? What could have turned a man worthy of some respect into a political pervert?

9 XI 2020: Oh no, I was in the Resistance!

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has asked in a Tweet a very important question: “Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future?” and predicted: “I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future.” I agree. I believe we are going to see a phenomenon here such as occurred in France after the Nazi occupation during WWII. All kinds of people who favored and supported the Vichy regime claimed they only appeared to support Petain, that they never really liked the Nazis, and that they were in fact secret members of the Resistance.

My reference to Vichy France is not outlandish. Support for the Vichy government and the Nazis was not a political point-of-view, but was, rather, a collaboration with evil. That is how I view Trump’s minions and collaborators, like Rudy Giulliani, William Barr, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz, and Ron Johnson., how I view the Republicans in the Senate and the Boys in the House. Those immediately involved in the Vichy Government would be analogous to Trump’s atrocious “political appointees,” figures chosen not for any competence they have, but only for their willingness to collaborate in the subversion of the government of the United States. Trumpism is not a political movement, but a pathology.

Some Frenchmen supported Petain because he promised to “make France great again.” Others backed Petain and the Nazis because they were vigorously anti-communist. They endured willingly the elimination of their civil liberties, rejection of France’s republican past, and alliance with a patently evil regime, an alliance that made them complicit in the slaughter of many patriotic French men and women and the extermination of the Jews. But agreement with the Nazis on one issue, the Bolshevik threat, somehow enabled them to overlook atrocities of every kind.

This too sounds quite familiar. Trump claimed to be “pro-life,” presented himself as a stalwart defender of “religious liberty,” and vowed to be a resolute defender of “gun rights.” Various groups, the myopic Right-to-Lifers, the pseudo-evangelicals who want to be the state religion, and the half-mad throng of gun nuts, were driven by their passion about these single issues to ignore Trump’s ignorance, his amorality, his and his family’s corruption, the corruption of all around him and of the Republican Party. All these American Trumpers, from senators down to people in the street, are responsible for the near destruction of the United States’ democracy. Continuing antagonism would prolong the Trump Era, but the American people must not be allowed to forget the irresponsibility, gullibility, and lack of a civic conscience of these people.

6 XI 2020: Gas on the surface of the swamp water

Sometime presidential adviser Steve Bannon has shown, if not his true colors, at least his true propensity. He is as uncivilized as the Islamic Nation who probably gave him the idea of beheading the two honest members of the administration. Bannon feels that all civil servants should “get with the program,” making clear his assumption that members of the civil service are servants of the President and not employees of the American people.

Bannon is too recognizable (he does love publicity!) to take part in attacks by the Thrugs,* for as in a bog, so also in the bad-boy right wing the more malodorous material rises to the top. I’m sure he is frustrated and disappointed that he cannot get out there to bash, burn, and have a good old Brown-Shirt fling. 

*Thrugs = Trump thugs

5 XI 2020: There ought to be consequences

I’ve read about a “press conference” by Rudy Guilliani and Eric “Freddo” Trump that was in fact a propaganda event at which they repeated and embellished the misinformation being spread abroad by Trump and his collaborators. There seems to be swirls upon swirls of misinformation around us, and these are not cases of someone misunderstanding or being innocently mistaken, but they are calculated programs of lies, empires of fraud.

I do not believe that this should go unchecked, indeed, go unpunished. We demand truth in advertising, and so those who practice deceit in their adverts must answer to the Federal Trade Commission and often suffer the loss of large sums as a result of attendant lawsuits. If we can be so fastidious about false claims in commerce, can we not create some similar mechanism to control political discourse? This may well be impossible because in politics there are so many instances of lying that capacity of the courts would be far exceeded. But we must somehow get beyond our responses of “Sure, he’s lying, but that’s the kind of guy he is.” or “Don’t expect the truth, it’s politics!”

31 X 2020: Trump’s juvenile delinquent followers

I’ve read now about two instances of obstruction of the Biden campaign by menacing pre-adolescent supporters of Donald Trump. “We’ll show all them eeleets! We’ll blow air-horns and the hell with freedom of speech. We’ll show how we love our Messiah by attacking the Biden bus! Ain’t it fun!”

Well, it’s not. Down in Texas, the Rednecks-for-Trump crowd were clogging a federal highway with their pickups in an attack on the staff of a presidential candidate. Why didn’t the highway patrol do their job? I suppose they were understaffed and unable to deal so many semi-criminals at once. Well, there were a lot of four-wheel assholes surrounding the bus and many of these assholes were armed. Yes, this was no college prank or exercise of free speech, this was armed rebellion.

Biden’s local p.r. man lamented: “Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas today instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way,” Way too polite! Productive conversation is not an option for these meatheads. That’s why they are so devoted to Trump, who, of all the presidents we have had, is most like them in speech and spirit. As always, ignorance seeks its own level.

30 X 2020: Home of the brave, and of the childish

Today’s episode in the comic strip Pearls before Swine continues the story of Pig’s campaign to be elected Village Idiot. A neighbor nominated him for this office. Pig was deeply flattered and looked ahead to the election. But a rival emerged in the person of Larry the Croc who, with his family’s encouragement, put himself forward as a candidate. When asked in today’s episode how his campaign against Larry for Village Idiot is going, Pig says “Not good. But then we heard Facebook will run political ads even if they’re not  true. So we started running ads about him.” “What are you saying?” asks Rat, and the Pig replies “Larry can read.” The Rat observes “That’s defamatory,” and the Pig explains “We think it will ruin him.” As so often, today’s Pearls before Swine portrays America in a microcosm.

I have always thought that the election of Donald Trump exposed the failure of public education in the United States. Successful democracy requires informed and thoughtful voters, but we have learned from the election and the continuing cult of the satanic Trump that a large part of our population have not passed out of middle school. Yes, maybe at one time they were able to read, but, finding that burdensome, they’ve turned to commercial and right-wing media with its unrelenting propaganda. Of course, their education gave them no capacity for critical thought, so they are unable to see how they are manipulated and abused by the forces of plutocracy. Thought involves some effort, but these are like the sort A.E. Housman once described, when he wrote

                                           Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink 

                                           for fellows whom it hurts to think.

The peril of this condition has been made even more obvious by the reaction of these people to COVID19. Guided by their Great Leader, they rejoice in refusing to cooperate with the efforts of the medical community to keep the virus in check. For fear that the solitude and calm caused by the pandemic might give them an inkling of the extent of their folly, they insist on their delusional “rights,” the right to have fun, the right to crowd together and stroke one another’s egos, the right to show that they are tough and indifferent to prudence and truth. So, thanks to these childish and reckless citizens, the virus rages on and on. Under these circumstances, what claim has America to any greatness, how can America be regarded as anything but pathetic.