Saturday, December 31, 2016
One-Trick Operation on a Downslope
The Donald-Centric Universe
Friday, December 30, 2016
What a View
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Seven Year Itch
I can't reconcile myself to the idea that Americans actually wanted Trump so I think it must be a desire for change and an unconscious attempt to balance things out--to follow a fat pope with a skinny one, as the Italians say. Well, we have certainly accomplished that. Also, the Republican establishment, through aggression and marketing acumen, fully exploits the uncertainty of the unknowable, what might have resulted if things had been otherwise.
My expectation is that the country would have been much safer and better off without Bush and worse without Obama but I can't prove it, and that's not allowing for the right-wing attempt to nullify Obama's presidency and deny his citizenship, his religious observance and even his humanity. Republican politicians not only disallow that Democrats are their worthy partners in running the country but deny them their rights as citizens whenever possible.
Anyway, assuming Trump's election is at least partly the result of an electoral glitch and an itch popping up near the end of a two-term president's tenure--somewhere in the seventh year, perhaps--I want to know if Donald gets his thrills from having the breeze from the New York City subway grates blow up his trousers in the summertime, aerating his endowment, or in what other ways, since the babe in this family isn't Melania or Ivanka, it's Donald.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
No Joy
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Trump Mass
Sunday, December 25, 2016
My Search for Prescience
Certain book titles pop up in my head--I wonder why the ones which do--and Smiling Through the Apocalypse recurs these days, a collection of articles from Esquire from the 1960's. It must resonate with my enforced participation in the spectacle of Trumpism and all-irresponsible impending government, but I know that Trump may somehow end up looking good through the luck of Reagan and the laundering of Fox News. Anything is possible but accountability is unlikely.
After all, even following the multiple calamities of the Bush years, Iraq and Katrina and economic collapse, each showcasing Republican malfeasance and incompetence, we soldier on as though there is any doubt whatsoever about who caused what, so I am looking now for prescience in past journalistic writings. The current stuff is too prejudiced by the onslaught of Republican unreason, a typhoon and tidal wave of ill-will and bias preventing any normal digesting of events.
Yet again--and this goes back to Jimmy Carter and Paul Volcker's hard medicine--a Republican may benefit from the Democrats playing grownup and trying to run the country well in spite of right-wing sabotage, foot-dragging and intransigence. If I were to characterize it I would say that I'm looking for what it was that we were taking for granted--intelligence and inclusion and decency, maybe. I'll let you know what I discover, the essential question being what the fuck has happened to us.
Now to try to find that book...
Some time later: Not only did I find Smiling Through the Apocalypse but I read the editor Harold Hayes's introduction and I already have an opinion which I will share with you and refuse to delete or alter in order to hold my own feet to the fire and require accountability from myself. The difference I see is respect, on many levels. I recall reading somewhere of someone who worked on relationships and he said he could tell instantly in a restaurant which couples were doomed.
If he could see contempt the relationship was already over and everything else was a formality. Americans now not only have contempt for one another it is personal. The kind of contempt I remember--and still support--was for behaviors, which are circumstantial and changeable, however deeply rooted. The new contempt has nothing to do with behaviors--rather with identity, conformity, adherence to certain opinions and other arbitrary and accidental things--and it is therefore racist.
So we are locked in a relationship with crazy people, effectively addicts and compulsives--everything else is a formality. There is no Union, to begin with. The disrespect extends to everything else except money and power, as I see it. There is no respect for the institutions and traditions of our country, the latter especially since it is more between-the-lines and easily reinterpreted and subverted, not that the denial of scientific consensus has been a particular problem.
Respect is learned at the foot of the hill of one's selfhood, of having a sense of individuality, of place, of authenticity, personal integrity, responsibility and security. The hang-up, I suspect, is with authenticity, the baby-boomers having been raised in the homes of greatest-generation parents and feeling that they will never measure up, so they reject the entire frame of reference and assert themselves simply by existing in the brave, ugly new world they inadvertently create.
There's nothing positive about it, being a byproduct of Oedipal outrage, narcissism and a sense of smallness, giving it a paranoid aspect. Once you start blowing things up where do you stop? As with George W. Bush the destruction is an end in itself, the only way he can find a place within a context rid of his father's shadow, by standing in the ruins of daddy's civilization, not an "end" in that it's irrational and unsustainable and futile. It's nihilism, the antimatter of intelligibility.
Harold Hayes represents a rational, intelligible, integrated system of higher standards but--and this is the matter for my reading of the articles--did anyone see it? Did anyone diagnose and comprehend it, that the sixties cliche of rebellion and non-conformity was operating within the system as a corrective but that the right-wing crazies, who identified with authority and came up short, would overreact and destroy the order they wrongly saw as threatened by sixties culture?
To be continued...
Or, maybe not. This post is getting too long, probably under the influence of those articles from Esquire, so I will end it here and take it up later, I hope, in another entry. To the enemies of Trumpism: Hang in there. Despair gets us nowhere, but attack when you can. Yes, they are the enemy and we are the good guys and victory is possible. If there is accountability, out there somewhere, it is on our side and if not we were always screwed anyway.
Over the River and Through the 'Hood
Merry Christmas, Donald
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Degeneration
We are about to have an openly degenerate president--certainly a crook, probably a rapist but not yet a murderer. Oh, but those drones--the weapon of choice of cowards. He will love them and the feeling of power and impunity of the whole role of POTUS. We know that he has nothing resembling a conscience. But how far down will the country go with him?
Yo' Mamacare
Friday, December 23, 2016
You're a Piss-Ant, Donald Trump
Anti-Trump Elixir
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
A Foggy Day in Washington
My weather report for Washington is fog for the next four years, a fog of unreason and of a war on the true American values of fair-play, intelligence and decency.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
He's a Winner
Risky Business
Thursday, December 15, 2016
The Scam
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Say "Yes, Master" or You Will be Punished
The Trump nut is a hard one to crack but even his supporters would have to agree, on a good day, that he thinks he is above or outside of the law. I think those who voted for him did so believing that he is on their side in his lawlessness, that he is our ass-kicker and that he will defend our interests the way he has his own, aggressively and without conscience.
In other words, we deliberately elected an asshole. "He's our asshole" you might argue and I wouldn't disagree, but asshole tactics only work for the stronger entity. We are the strongest entity around but it could change and we have implicitly declared open season on ourselves. If any country of people has ever been lucky as hell it is us and we are acting like animals.
Whatever, but Donald Trump has been hired and is representative of us and I think it goes back to fear and pessimism and regression to an earlier evolutionary state of warring lords and clans such as our own Angles and Saxons and maybe a few Jutes. Weren't we supposed to have outgrown this? So much for moral progress and the ethical evolution of mankind.
It sickens me that we are such pigs but we are all along for the ride now, barnacles on a pirated ship of state or, for his supporters, warts or whatever on Donald's ass. There's dignity for you. Donald and the Kochs and their ilk are above the law and the working class is screwed and black people can be abused and shot and killed anytime and without recourse.
Welcome to the new America of Trump and a bunch of rich dicks who care only about themselves, and many thanks to the un-rich idiots who voted for this, in their inconceivable ignorance, and have sent us all to hell.
quia quod stultum est Dei sapientius est hominibus
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Going Downton
They're Getting Hosed in Spanish Harlem
Say What You Mean
No, the Message is the Message
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Comrade President
Friday, December 9, 2016
What Makes a Sick Prick Tick?
They Fought the Rock and the Rock Won
Thursday, December 8, 2016
How Still We See Thee Lie
Incensed
Quest for "Fired"
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Dr. Stranglelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hair
Monday, December 5, 2016
Sunday, December 4, 2016
He Can't Take a Joke
No Better, Maybe Worse
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Unregrettable
Friday, December 2, 2016
Bull in a Chinese Shop
We Are Off the Hook
All About Donald
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Ding-Dong, Donald, Ding-Dong
American Babylon
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
I Have My Trump to Keep Me Warm
I will date the end if our republic from 1994 or 1995, with the election and investiture of the 104th Congress--the Newt Gingrich crowd--and the intensifying of the disenfranchisement of masses of decent, deserving American citizens. The Gingrichers were new and different: strident, self-righteous, determined and certain of their mandate as bomb-throwers and blackmailers.
Fast-forward to now and the fulfillment of their dream of making the U. S. Government, which has done a relatively enormous amount of good, utterly contemptible. That, in the election of Donald Trump, a loathsome, unattractive and inappropriate person, right up there with the Newtster. Even Trump's critics from within the party are now salivating their way to his Babylon.
Follow the drool if you have any trouble finding the site of the spectacle. They are elementally intent on ensuring the continuing rise of their class and caste in power, wealth and privilege, everyone else be fucked and damned to an ever more precarious existence in the land of plenty. They are deemed to be undeserving and unworthy, many of them having voted their nemesis into power.
A long Winter may be ahead but we all have something to keep us warm--anxiety for Trump's detractors and the quivering anticipation of those who want to see our State finally demolished or on its knees or maybe just dead and buried, the poor thing. Gingrich himself, that huge, disgusting gremlin, is vibrating with excitement. Finally, the wrecking crew will see their target destroyed.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Futility Work
Republican Politicians
Swamp Donald
Well, That's Rich
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Fork in the Road
A Sin of Commission and the Horrible Roving Appetite
Friday, November 25, 2016
A Sober Assessment
Duh.
Original Sin
It's Our Funeral
I Have the Answer
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Our Degraded State
Light My Bier
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Trumpanoia
There will probably be a spike in anxiety problems relating to Trump and varying between and within individuals from annoyance to existential fear and requiring exactly the kind of care Trump intends to make unavailable to vulnerable and susceptible persons but it will also probably be a small part of the overall inhumanity of his administration. In other words, be grateful if the prick doesn't deport, prosecute, torture or even kill you. He seems to think it's his prerogative and that power is its own justification.
Primadonna President
Saturday, November 19, 2016
I'm a Believer
No Omar for Trump
Friday, November 18, 2016
Sub-Ordinary People
A Loyal Public Servant
Well, now, Jeff Sessions is an interesting choice for Attorney General. No one can question that he is a loyal public servant--of the Confederate States of America.
Self-Negation
The Poison
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Well-Sized
Now that he's elected I'm reassured to think that Donald Trump has a reasonably well-sized dick. But he's a notorious exaggerator and put the issue into play himself.
Shouldn't it be independently verified? I mean, how could he defend our honor, internationally, otherwise. And those other leaders had better measure up, dick-wise.
Our boy Donald will take them out with his swagger.
Confidence Trickster
Personal Defects
Donald Trump ran a very defective campaign but his timing was perfect. Those who most accurately predicted the outcome didn't even consider the candidate, only other factors.
So he won in spite of himself. But try to convince him of that.
Appointments in Gehenna
Revenge of the White People
Speaking of Appointments...
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
The Appointed One
The messianic aspect of Trump's campaign--the "Save America" talk--is continuing after his win and it's worrying. If Donald insists on the savior shtick it could mean a culmination of the trends and fantasies of Reagan and Bush: the ability to see the world as it isn't and the need to play hero.
Arcade on Fire
Americans are so absorbed in and consumed by the video games their lives have become they don't notice that the arcade is on fire.
Trump and the Feudal Spirit
Monday, November 14, 2016
Holy Mackerel
Sunday, November 13, 2016
This Is Us
The more I get used to the Trump debacle I realize that he is perfect for us. We are the biggest pigs in the history of the world.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
We Deserve This
Whatever Trump is we deserve him--the Republicans for nominating him and the Democrats for failing to beat him.
The Brother of All Battles
Friday, November 11, 2016
Trump Against Cancer
Trump isn't an ideologue he's an idiot. He needs adulation and will want to be admired as a president and be well-remembered.
He may do okay. And if he destroys us it will probably be fast, like a heart attack, and not the horrible cancer of Cruz or Rubio.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Sarah in Botswana
I suggest we appoint Sarah Palin ambassadress to Botswana. I think there's big game there she can hunt. I love the idea of getting her out of the country. The Trump boys could visit and hunt with her. Maybe one of them would have an affair with her. She's probably past the age of reproduction but, my God, what a genetic makeup that kid would have had.
The lesson in the Trump family would have to be that any kind of sexual impropriety is just fine and likely to be rewarded. And Bill Kristol could be posted to Swaziland. There's an opportunity here to get some of these rich right-wingers out where they can do some good or whatever and off of their asses. And, again, out of the country and out of our hair.
American Hysteria
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Dream On
For less fortunate Americans who want to do better Republicans have always had an answer: dream on. If Trump is an outsider to this attitude--well, good. I'll believe it when I see it.
Big Flirt
Orientation
Trump Isn't the Problem
It's the Confederacy, Stupid!
I Won't Miss Hillary
Black Mass
Reflexive Election
Soul Sacrifice
The World Watches in Horror
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Auto Fuck-Us
Who's Deplorable Now
Sunday, November 6, 2016
The Atwater Index
Alternative Narrative
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Bite the Little Dog
Flanking the Basket
Friday, November 4, 2016
My Dear Democrats:
Already Gone
Thursday, November 3, 2016
The Freudian Melodrama of the Republican Party
Forever Wrecked
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
I need a break.
Fuck Me
A Deliberate Drive
Donald, the Trailblazer of Doom
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Non-Representative Democracy
Monday, October 31, 2016
Objectification
The North Carolina State Legislature, famous for its toilet fixation, has taken the next step in ensuring continuing embarassment and decline, regressively taxing labor under the subheading of "sales and use" as though it isn't already taxed in other ways.
This is the corollary to declaring corporations to be persons, declaring people to be objects and things to be sold and exploited, completing the detestable dehumanization of our workforce and returning workers to retrograde and antebellum status.
Concise and Clever
Trump the Brute
Trump Pollution
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Dork Democracy
A Neocon by Any Other Name
Friday, October 28, 2016
Talisman Trump
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
From the Editor(s) of this Blog
The Vulgarian
Monday, October 24, 2016
Duck, Donald!
It would be hard to argue that Donald Trump likes to keep a low profile but he does know how to duck.
Whenever, that is, he's accused of anything other than being great, such as being a serial masher and a lout.
Incoming!--Duck, Donald, Duck! The accusations are streaming in because he is a serial masher and a lout.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Crown of Creation
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Question Authoritarianism
Well and Truly Screwed
Chartered Sociopathy
Half-Ass Demagogue
Friday, October 21, 2016
Rubberneckers
Disconnected
Trump Crosses the Rubicon
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Downwind
Suckabit Ethernet
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Will Donald Go Postal?
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Four-Burner Breakfast
Charms for the Uneasy Life
Why Can't We Behave?
Make Them Pay
Voting Bloc-heads
Friday, October 14, 2016
Sullen Admirers
Trump Homer, Frank Trump
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Clean Install
Walk Away
The Stolid South
Antidemocratic Voting
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Evil Blowhard Buffoon
Everyone I have talked with from New York City, having had more to do with him, says that Trump is a blowhard and a buffoon. But he seems to have gone over to the dark side, at least in the last debate. I ask you, can a buffoon be evil and malevolent?