Homeland Security treats us like cattle and the airlines treat us like freight. An article in yesterday’s paper, “Airline passengers feeling the squeeze on long-haul flights,” reports that many airlines, after reducing the thickness of seat backs and space between rows of seats, are adding an extra seat to each row. The article concludes “The silver lining? After airlines finish rolling out already announced changes affecting passengers’ personal space, there’s not much room for more squeezing.” No. Of course they will find some new way to squeeze us. It is the American way: unregulated capital is the predator and, in this case, the passengers are its prey. The airlines are only following their instincts and we are their victims. Why do we tolerate this outrageous treatment? Why don’t we move to prevent the airlines’ abusive behavior? It is because most of our current legislators are owned by predatory capital, so no help can be sought from them. We need a new Congress.
24 II 2017: Father of Lies
So Trump wants to exclude from press briefings those news organizations that tend to tell the truth about him, and, I suppose will admit only reporters who have been vetted by the Party. Anytime news embarrassing to Trump is reported or any opinion critical of him is expressed, Trump and his flying squadron of liars accuse the media of lying. This is Trumpism’s BIG LIE. Trump is the most mendacious President by far to hold high office in recent years. Compared to him, Nixon was a model of candor and Cheney an honest man. I do not know whether Trump simply cannot see the difference between truth and fantasy (he is a big fan of professional wrestling) or is a compulsive liar. Whatever impels him, he has surrounded himself with a staff who will lie strenuously for anyone who pays them to do it. So I think there should be a working assumption in all spheres of American life that anything emanating from the Trump Administration is false unless proven true.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s spiritual director, has taken another approach, and has denounced the media as “corporatist” and “globalist.” His choice of words is unfortunate, for some of the attendees at CPAC may not know what corporatism and globalism mean. That does not matter. The hardcore Trumpites must have something to hate, and they are all the more enthusiastic when hating something they do not understand.
23 II 2017: Picky, picky CPAC
Mr. Richard Spencer, President of the “National Policy Institute” and darling of the white-nationalist wing of the alt-right was today thrown out of the Conservative Political Action Conference. Spencer has been one of Donald Trump’s more energetic supporters, and his expulsion suggests that the CPAC is a lot more fastidious than Donald Trump. The CPAC should have been more tolerant, for without Spencer, there will be no one of prominence to lead the chant of “Hail Trump” when the so-called President addresses the Conference on Friday. Similarly puzzling was CPAC’s disinviting Milo Yiannopoulos because of some of his personal beliefs. But they can still hold their noses when they must, for they did not disinvite Steve Bannon, Milo’s former colleague at Breitbart and now Trump’s ectobrain. But all tension will be released when Trump speaks at the Conference. That will be a big event, bigger than Mayday on Red Square, bigger than the crowd in the Piazza Venezia, bigger than the biggest Nuremberg rally. Kellyanne Conway predicts that by Friday the CPAC will be the TPAC.
22 II 2017: Trump and Tyranny Too
I read that Trump is going to enlist 10,000 new officers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to implement his vast (2-3 million?) program of abduction and deportation. It is reported that he has boasted that this will be the largest deportation in history, but Hitler, Stalin, Talaat Pasha, and many other despots might dispute his claim, for mass deportation is a common practice of tyrants. I don’t know how Trump plans to transport all these people. The American railroad system hasn’t enough cattle cars to accommodate numbers like these. Perhaps they will simply round up immigrants and march them out of the country.
How will the people of America react to this brutality? Will we watch in silence, some even with approval, as the peoples of Europe watched and even abetted the disappearance of Jews from their societies? Will we be silent while Trump & Co. make the United States a rogue nation? Or will we be authentic Americans and resist this criminal regime?
Thy mandates make heroes assemble,
when Liberty’s form stands in view;
thy banners make tyranny tremble,
when borne by the red, white, and blue.