11 X 2017: A day without Donald

I have to admit that I, along with the media, mainstream and fringe, devote too much time to Trump’s uncivilized behavior. Clearly, we are being played. His behavior and rudeness are so shocking, no, not shocking, so repulsive, that it is hard to let them go by without some sort of comment. But I believe that is what he intends. We spend so much time complaining about what a perverse little shit he is that we fail to measure what a sneaky bastard he is also.

What I want to propose is this. Let’s have a day without Trump and see how it feels. Let all the news and non-news media boycott what Trump says for one day. No news of his speeches, no word of his tweets, and let’s see how it feels. We might enjoy it so much, and benefit from it so much, that we could go for a week or more without listening to Trump.

Let’s ignore what he says, but pay close attention to what he does, and fails to do. Popular superstition imagines a “Black Mass,” one in which all that is done and said in the real Mass is done backwards in adoration of the demons. Trump and his minions are celebrating their own black mass. They are doing just the reverse of what sound government and the good of our Country require. Let’s take note of what they are doing, in every detail, let’s work hard to thwart them, and then hold them to strict account when the reckoning finally comes.

10 X 2017: Imagine Trump in the honky-tonk of life

Trump’s recent tweets prompt me to wonder how things would go for Trump if he were not rich, to imagine how a belligerently vocal coward and bully like him would fare in the favored milieu of many of his base, the roadside beer joint. Yes, Mr. Trump is said to be a teetotaler, but his behavior is that of an chronic dry drunk.  I think that in any of the drinking establishments that have common sense, he would long ago have been forbidden entry as a chronic trouble maker, a danger to himself and to others. In less well-run bars, he would have been punched out so often that he’d have learned to hold his tongue.

3 X 2017: The Las Vegas slaughter, wholly predictable. Get over it.

The surprising thing about the shooting in Las Vegas is not that it occurred, but that such outrages do not occur far more frequently. Could anyone lead an active, half-way observant life in the U.S. without realizing how many crazies there are out there? Get out on the road, go to a football game, go to a Trump rally, go to a white supremacist or survivalist gathering, visit a  local gunshow, and you will see crazies “as thick as hasty pudding.” I’m not talking about your foam-at-the-mouth, hatchet-swinging crazies. I’m talking about your road-ragers and your internet trolls, about the crowd that wants to make the USA all white and all Christian again, about the willfully ignorant and subrational, about the multitudes that blame their own errors and deficiencies on the imagined malice of others. And firearms circulate freely in this this mental institution of a nation in incalculable numbers. We are addicted to firearms, and crave more guns and bigger guns, really ugly ones! Go to a gun show, go to a gun shop. You will not find graceful fowling pieces, single-shot target rifles, or weapons suited to the defense of house and home. You will find military grade firearms whose only real purpose is slaughter, although, thank goodness, they are more often used only to enhance b-movie inspired masturbatory fantasies. No, Vegas should be no surprise.

And yet, events like that in Vegas, thanks to our astounding capacity for denial, afford us days of 24-hour coverage of shock and surprise, hand-wringing, thrilling emotional catharsis, and political posturing, none of which ever does anything about the national maladies that create this atmosphere so conducive to mass shootings.

America has grown pathetically soft. At the time of 9-11, when we were treated to a nation-wide orgy of grief, terror, and mindless rage, I was studying at an institute that hosted a number of Israeli scholars. These Israelis offered America their condolences, up to a point. But they stopped when they saw us refuse to get over it and get on with responsible living. They observed that if Israelis went into such a paroxysm after every terrorist attack, the community and state would collapse altogether.

Whether the shooting in Las Vegas was “an act of pure evil,” or an act of mixed evil, or an exercise in self-indulgent and cowardly lunacy, we had better get past the emotional posturing and honestly confront our national sickness, hoping to prepare for future generations a more honest and rational community.

1 X 2017: Sparked no more

The Post Dispatch describes recent conflicts in downtown Saint Louis: “The protests are the latest sparked by a not-guilty verdict in the murder trial of former St. Louis patrolman Jason Stockley ….” Now Stockley shot Mr. Smith in 2011. Were demonstrations sparked in 2011? I don’t know. None are mentioned in current reporting. Anyway, a righteous indignation seems to have been ignited by the announcement of the acquittal of Jason Stockley three weeks ago. Protests were sparked then, but now some seem to be blowing on the coals to keep the fire alight. Why?

30 IX 2017: From the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel:

King Nebuchadnesar made an image of gold … He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. … And the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nabuchadnezar has set up, and whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be ase into a burning fiery furnace.

Can we not see this in our times?

Our own Nebuchadnesar has set up the flag which he has usurped as an idol to be adored, and the national anthem as the music at which everyone must must now stand up and worship. Those who fail to do so will be branded “unpatriotic,” “ungrateful” and “Sons of bitches.”

29 IX 2017: Sixties Re-enactors in Saint Louis

Read in the Saint Louis Post Disaptch about a so-called “town hall meeting” called by such broadly based groups as the Saint Louis Action Council, ArchCity Defenders. and Organization for Black Struggle. The were very upset that Mayor Krewson did not attend. Good for her! They only invited her to abuse her and shout her down. No, they can call this a “town hall meeting” if they like, but this was not a community event.

They flashed on a screen, the report says, a list of twelve demands. This reminds me of the sixties when students played at being political and used to issue lists of “non-negotiable demands.” But I’m sure this is only the beginning. Mayor Krewson could fire the Chief, resign herself and it would make no difference at all. The current “unrest” in Saint Louis is being stage managed by a group of young black political aspirants. So they will compete by upping the demands.

I have to wonder whether civil disobedience figures in the thinking of the agitators and the agitated. They go into ecstasies of rage when there are arrests at their “disruptions.” But do they think they can engage in civil disobedience without breaking the law? And do they think they, and not others, should be allowed to break the law with impunity? I think they do. But the rule of law is the rule of law, and it should apply both to the police and to the disrupters.

29 IX 2017: Complicity in idiocy.

I saw a headline yesterday evening: “House Republicans propose $10 billion for Trump’s border wall.” Now estimates that I have seen predict that a wall would cost 15-25 billion dollars to build the wall, and that the wall, once built, would cost 750 miliion per year to maintain. $10 billion would be a mere down-payment.

But the House republicans’ proposal makes me wonder: If they think have $10 billion to piss away on the wall of Trump’s dreams, could they not redirect that $10 billion to healthcare or to education? They could, but, of course, they never would.

But I believe the Wall will never be built. Trumpy and the swindlers in the House do not really intend to build a wall. Most of them (not all by any means) are not that stupid and would never waste so much money (when they could give it to their rich friends). No, the whole Wall business is a drama they’ve been running to appeal to sub-rational and bigoted voters. There are a lot of them, and the Wall has real appeal. What will they do when Trumpy & Co. tell them that they were only kidding? How much time, energy, false hope, and rancor will have been wasted on this fantasy by then?

28 IX 2017: So liars get a pass…

Today I read a report of the involvement (I suppose we can’t call it collaboration) of Facebook and Twitter in Russian attempts to destabilize the U.S.A. Of course Twitter, like so many of its clients, is trying to evade responsibility for the content of twitters. The article quoted an expert’s opinion that “Twitter functions more like a broadcast network. People say things and everyone can hear it. When false informaltion is stated, people can jump on false statements and challenge it.” Note that she said “false statements,” not mistaken statements, and “false statements” are very often the malicious and are the same as LIES. And I must ask: does no one bear responsibility for creating and spreading lies? Broadcast networks can be held to some extent accountable for creating and/or spreading lies, though Fox and the limbaughs get away with a great deal. But twitters, with their option for anonymity can spread lies with no adverse consequence to the liars. This anonymity is the mask behind which internet trolls lurk, along with Russian agents and anyone else up to mischief. I do not know how we can go on if liars cannot be detected and face no adverse consequences. The blessings of democracy are too often used to subvert it. We have pushed “freedom of speech” beyond any reasonable limit and opened a way for the sick and the malicious.

24 IX 2017: Podex maximus?

I saw in a news report that footballer Sean McCoy has given voice to the feelings and pereption of most of the nation when he tweeted: “It’s really sad man … our president is an assh-e.” He might have made his observation more palatable to Trumpy by saying that “our president is the biggest asshole.” But of course such a term is not fitting to the dignity of Trump’s office. So let’s fall back on Latin and call him “Podex maximus.”

Doesn’t Trump remind you of Nero?

23 IX 2017: The dotard on the campaign trail: God, Flag and Football

Trumpy is down in “the great state of Alabama,” as George Wallace used to call it. He is campaigning for one of the tweedle-dum/tweedle-dee misfits running there for the U.S. Senate. Of course, he cannot limit himself to this silliness, but has to air his opinions like so much dirty laundry while he makes his pitch.

He wants the football barons to fire any player who fails to ‘respect the flag.’

I hate this flag cult – it is as morbidly sentimental and mindless as Cohan’s “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” Of course, pseudo-patriots like Trump can’t stop mentioning the flag, and are keen to burn any flag-burners, but they say nothing when the flag is degraded and insulted by its use in commerce, sports, and other unsuitable venues. Some years ago I was out walking near the Univ. of Notre Dame a couple of blocks away from where during the week earlier there had been a big used car sale on the campus. I saw something colorful being blown across the dust of the road, and found that it was one of the small U.S. flags used to decorate the tent at the used-car sale. A silly slice of life, but it made a profound impression on me.

Trumpy also wants to bring good old extreme violence back to football. Well of course! His favorite sport is professional wrestling. Everybody knows that though the wrestlers bash and gash and slam each other, no one is really hurt. Right? And Trumpy assumes that football is just the same. Come on, they’re not really hurt that bad!! I suppose Fox Schmooz does not report the very alarming discoveries of brain damage to football players.

The proven causal connection of football to brain damage is already seen as a potential threat to the multi-billion dollars industry of the NFL. Just wait until it becomes an issue in the colleges and universities that also exploit players and derive so much of their revenue from football. And when it filters down to the high school level, the fat will really be in the fire. We will see outrage, anger, and denial, denial, denial. Parents, grandparents, and whole communities and states find much of their identity in games played by teen-age boys with a football. A criticism of sacred football is, in fact, far worse than any “disrespect for the flag.”