5 V 2020: Miscellany

Cinco de Mayo: May God bless the people of Mexico everywhere, and protect them from the ruthlessness and brutality of the United States.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The Trumpists are grasping at straws to counter criticism of the President stupidities by blaming China. Recently, they are citing what seem to be reliable reports that the Chinese kept secret the virulence and extent of COVID-19 so they could amass all the medical supplies they thought they would need. So they left us in the dark while they tried to provide for their own citizens. 

1) I seem to recall that American intelligence provided early notice of the corona virus, notice that Trump chose to ignore. 

2) I want to ask: Wouldn’t the United States of Trump have done much the same thing?

3) If our President and his cultists can bellow and re-bellow “America First,” cannot 1,439,323,776 Chinese shout “China First.”

4 V 2020: Do we need J. Crew!

In today’s Daily Beast: “J. Crew Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection as Analysts Wonder Which Retain Behemoth Will be Next.” The article reports that Nieman Marcus and J.C. Penny are also looking rather wobbly, and I imagine the list of large retail businesses threatened by the COVID-19 Depression is very long.

I feel pity for the workers who are losing their jobs. I feel my usual contempt for the money people who will, of course, like Trump, make money out of bankruptcy.

I do find a symbolic significance in J. Crew’s failure. J. Crew and the bulk of commercial enterprises in the United States are built on our being manipulated into buying things we don’t need. Oh, we need clothing, of course, but when I visit a large mall I wonder how so many chain stores that sell practically identical clothing can survive. (A study of why the names of all these chains were chosen might tell us a lot about our culture.)

Of course, we could not afford to buy all these clothes if they were not imported from overseas where labor is cheap and we did not have credit cards. The abundance of cheap goods conceals the fact that our standard of living has been declining and our credit cards create an illusion of wealth that conceals the fact that we are most of us broke.

3 V 2020: Making America Gross Again

I found online a site named “DL Grandeurs/Confederate and Rebel Merchandise.” There you can buy the Confederate Flag on everything but toilet paper. This firm has a “Home Goods” department with its subdivisions: Rebel Blankets, Kitchen, Rebel Bathroom, and Around the Rebel House. You will find a Rebel Shower Curtain, Rebel Flag Bed Sheet Set, Rebel Baby Fleece Blanket, Confederate Flag Area Rug Wall Tapestry, Rebel Flag Christmas Ornaments, Rebel Flag oven mitts and pot-holders, and a Jefferson Davis coffee mug.

You can also buy your choice of bikini: Confederate Flag Bikini, Confederate Flag Classic Bikini, or Rebel Flag Halter Top Bikini. Match your choice with coordinated Blue Rebel Flag Flip Flops and a Rebel Flag 30″ X 60″ Beach Towel.

Of course, Trump had to be included, so there’s “Donald Trump Tank USA Flag” that shows Trump standing atop a tank labeled TRUMP with fireworks and the American flag in the background, and a “Trump Make America Great Again Bazooka Flag” that shows Trump with bulging muscles holding a bazooka. If you buy one of these Trump flags, you should buy a “Confederate Flag Antique Style Round Wood Toilet Seat” to go with it.

2 V 2020: Campaign contribution from all of us to Trump

I received a form letter from the President that let me know that I too would receive my COVID-19 payout. It was sent from the Dept. of the Treasury, so the whole expense of paper, printing, and mailing will have been paid by tax dollars. My Spouse and I have sent the following letter to Mr. Trump:

Dear Mr. President,

We strongly disapprove of your using our money to finance your campaign. We received from the Dept. of the Treasury a form letter that we are supposed to believe originated at the White House and bears a facsimile of your signature. This letter informs us that we are to get some money that constitutes “fast and direct economic assistance to you.” I wonder if you sent a similar letter to accompany the big-money bailouts of which we have heard so much.

This letter is an attempt to claim credit for what others have done, and it is nothing but a political advertisement that is paid for by taxpayers’ dollars. This is a lowdown maneuver that is an abuse of the office of President of the United States.

29 IV 2020: Who is Tara Reade?

I find the Tara Reade business very puzzling. Unless the Biden supporters achieve some resolution of the issue, it may be that we will have to believe either Biden or Reade.  

There is, on the internet anyway, a dearth of information about Reade. I read that she began as an actress, performing in stage plays and commercials. She was an intern for Leon Panetta and worked for Joseph Biden. She served as General Manager of the Santa Cruz Chamber Players. She is married and has a daughter, though her husband is unknown. She earned a law degree but has never practiced. It is said that she describes herself as a domestic violence and animal rights activist and a couple of sources described her as a “controversialist.” No one has disclosed how she supports herself now. 

I have not found that any have investigated her and work experiences since the alleged abuse. 

A number of people have come forward to say “Oh, yes, now I remember, Tara told me about her troubles, in 1993, in 1995 or 1996, in 2008.” These statements are described by some as corroboration, but at best they corroborate only the fact that Reade talked about having been abused and fired from her work in Washington for that reason.

As I see it, a lot more must be done to establish Reade’s credibility. Her making a charge has gained her the right to be heard, but, contrary to what some seem to think, it does not give her the right to be believed. That must be earned.

23 IV 2020: Trump is full of it

I had been thinking of Trump as a weathervane, turning this way and that according to the breezes blowing from Jarrod, Dr. Oz, his employees at Fox News, Lindbaugh, Mitch, and unseen investors. My Sister has suggested a better alternative: Trump is a wind-sack, turning this way and that but always full of hot air.

20 IV 2020: The Economy may kill us

We are being told that the economy matters most. Various Republican figures seem to think that it would be better to let the old and infirm die, better than put the whole population at risk than have the Economy suffer. The Economy! We would be nothing without it, or, Trump would be nothing without it, for the “booming economy” is the solitary boast of Trump and his Republican minions.

But how booming is the economy? The national debt is $23.3 trillion as of February 2020, and we would now have to add the vast sums being paid out as a “stimulus package.” Closer to home, the average credit card debt for American households is $5,700; the average debt for households that carry a balance on their credit cards is $9,333, and the current average interest rate on credit card debt is 16.14%. Last year the total home mortgage debt was $9.4 trillion. The total auto debt was 1.3 trillion. Student-loan debt was $1.48 trillion.

We are all in debt up to our eyebrows. And the guidance we receive from politicians and from the advertising industry is: Don’t stop spending spending, support the economy! They tell us this because if Americans became frugal, stopped buying things they don’t truly need and started paying the entire price in cash at time of purchase, the Economy would collapse because it is built on hype and sand.

15 IV 2020: Trump can’t wait, nor can Hollingsworth

Well now I see that our King, Donald I Mendax, no longer content with throwing his signature tantrums at briefings, is insisting that his name appear on the welfare checks we are all to receive. It is said that he is not a slave to presidential traditions, and here is another instance of this behavior. Other presidents have been content to wait until they are dead to have their names and images appear on U.S. currency. Trump can’t wait until he is actually dead, but wants his name on the checks, as if to say: “A gift to you from King Trump.”

I read that a trump-cult congressman from (wouldn’t you know it?) Indiana, Trey Hollingsworth, asserts that we must sacrifice Americans’ lives in order to preserve “our way of life as Americans,” by which I suppose he means the economy and all that it enables and represents. I always shiver when reactionaries invoke “the American way of life,” for the expression is as meaningless as giving the flag a good wave. If they were to say what they really mean by the American Way of Life, their hypocrisy and ruthlessness would at once be revealed. Mr. Hollingsworth fits right in here, for to preserve “our” way of life, Americans have been killing other Americans for 300 years. 

10 IV 2020: Barrbie Doll; Burlesque of Royals in D.C,

I encountered today a headline that “Barr defends Trump’s firing of intel community watchdog as the ‘right thing’ to do.” Who bothered to ask Mr. Barr’s opinion about this? If ever he had a mind of his own, it has long ago withered away. He has become like one of those dolls with a string at the back of its neck. Pull the string and, instead of “Mama,” it says “Trumpi ha sempre ragione. // Trump is always right.”

The Trump family is working together on their

corona virus

con. Trump is staging a burlesque of the royal family, with roles for himself, the King, for Queen Melania the Model, for Princess Ivanka the Mannequin, and for the Duke of 666 Fifth Avenue. No public role has been assigned to the Crown Prince who works best backstage anyway, and it’s a matter of wait-and-see where Prince Eric might be most effective.