Slip, sliding away

I sit here feeling like I committed a mortal sin.  Even though I am a lifelong Democrat, I chose not to listen to the speakers last night.  Why?  Because quite frankly, I am tired of drinking Kool-aid.  I am tired of listening to the exaltation of those who have an agenda and are trying to get me to believe in something I no longer believe in.  The party is broken, the country is broken.  

I pondered my fall from grace (so to speak).  Why was I so dismissive of the First Lady, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and even my choice Bernie?  Because this quadrennial farce is getting old.  I thought about the power of the spoken word.  I didn’t think of pulling the lever (a relative easy and non thing to do).  I thought of a suicide bomber going into a crowd and detonating a bomb.  Isn't that person motivated by what someone said?  The point is I am easily confused and oftentimes spirited to action by other’s words and encouragement.  When I act following that disposition, I may well act not from reason but emotions.  Good writers know this.  This is the hook.  This is what makes a speech effective.

Last night speakers to the one are motivational.  They can wrap a message in rhetoric, pull on your heartstrings, stimulate your thinking, and move you.  Riding in on the tide of prose, there lies a virus that once ingested begins the downward spiral into non thinking.  It is when we are in a fever and chanting and acting like some “Holy Roller” that we lose our individuality and huddle with the masses.

We are victims of our biases.  As inane and factually incorrect Trump’s speech was, his ardent supporters felt they were being transported by the rhetoric of their candidate.  They like the Democrats were moved.  We humans are like that, aren’t we?  It is our nature to coalesce behind one thing or another and to follow the lead of those who are enshrined on some pedestal.  In the end, we are like the lemmings who in the heat of the moment get behind the one who is out in front and rush head on.  Unfortunately, all that remains at the end of our efforts and troubles is a cliff.

Dem Convention

The only concern the establishment has in its constituents is what it can get.  The old guiding principles that those in power live by is “what have you done for me lately.”  There is a great divide between the rank and file and the powerful elite.  That divide can be traversed only when you give all that you have to the cause.  Like a voracious raptor, the establishment will suck every drop of blood and if it is to their advantage they will discard your remains without a scintilla of concern.  Wasserman, deserving of scorn, is a case in point.

To see Bill sitting up there all smug knowing the cartel had taken its weak and limping candidate over the finish line is to witness an actual “Game of Thrones.”  Like the Lannisters the Clinton move through the objective unconcern upon the effects they are having.

The Democratic Party is an entrenched establishment designed to further the ends of those who are still capable of doing things for them.  Their lackeys and sycophants are in numbers too large to calculate.  That they lack even a semblance of hope and change is evident in the hue and cry of those who have given their heart and soul to change yet are expected to sit quietly while the made for tv event unfolds.

Obama was to be the grand champion.  Once in office he followed a trajectory that could only be described as lackluster.  He did a capable job, but that Hope and Change was jettison while his super majority was eroded away and he was left to face the jeers of a Republican Congress hell bent on ensuring nothing but nothing would get done.

Now, there are pleas for Bernie supporters to get behind the candidate who was the rigged choice of the party.  The general argument forming now she is the lesser of two evils.  Funny Thing, if we choose the lesser of two evils, we are still left with evil.  

To encourage people to care is a dangerous thing.  Caring is just not some commodity that can be transferred on a whim.  Certainly, if the caring feel as if they were betrayed, and evidence that later comes to light that they were, well, that is a stinging indictment of a system and is a cut too deep to heal in a day of supposed unity.  Fuck Kumbaya!

“The Russians did it” is probably the best bullshit argument ever to bubble out of the cesspool of insider politics.  Even if the Russians did leak the documents, they weren’t the ones writing the emails.  Again, if the light is shown on evil doings by the Russians, the scandalous actions of a body to favor a candidate while the election is going is evil.  

I can remember when the candidate was chosen at the convention.  This made for TV world of hype and showmanship is pure horseshit.  The days of the smoke filled room and the deals is something I wish would come back.  Because this year long money driven cluster fuck is nothing short of some grand scheme by power elites to window dress a system that has literally degraded into a circus.  And what about all the money that is changing hands?  I contributed because I believe that change is needed desperately.  I am tired of the Clintons, the Trumps and all the other power elites that have been running this country for a long time and have presided over the largest decline in roads and bridges, income inequality, decaying cities, etc. etc. Crooks on Wall Street are praised.  Obama singled out Jamie Dimon as a great man,  More horshit.  So here we go again.   A great surge of optimism is being tamped down.  We are being told we need unity.  Why?  The Republicans don’t have it, do they?  Hell that is a rolling disaster with a clown leading the parade of fools.  Two parties are outdated.  The Republicans had a coup.  Unfortunately, the crazies had taken control thanks in large measure by the bullshit spewing out of the mouths of their elected officials and the news junkies who peddled their crap.

The Dems are now circling the wagons, but it is only the power elite, the mouth spewing spinsters who never answer a direct question but always babble on and on.  I guess the theory goes if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it.  Funny thing is that power brokers just don’t get it.  They all say the same thing.  It is as hollow as the wind going through the mouth of an empty bottle.

Modern day politics is pure bullshit.  Conventions are empty displays of carefully crafted words written by gnomes who try to convince us this horseshit is meaningful while actors (sad and sorry elected officials) mouthed the words displaying passion as vapid as their histories.  They coin phrases because they know our attention spans equals that of an insect.  We who believe in change are left with our hands out while the glib candidate press flesh in an attempt to fool us into choosing.  I said it once and I will say it again.  Choosing lesser of two evil still leaves us with evil.

On Violence

This essay is not designed to diminish in anyway the tragedies of the recent past.  The horrors of watching a young man too scared to be carrying a gun shooting a man whose family is there to watch his murder is beyond reason.  It is truly absurd because we have a ringside seat to a snuff film.  The news media cranks up its reporting, which I think is partly to blame, given the twisted thinking of some who think their miserable lives can be justified by sometime in spotlight.   The gunning down of five police officers becomes a reason to roll out the pundits who wring their hands and talk their usual nonsense about everything.  Yet, is it the story that is important or the need to feed the 24 hour news cycle?  

The Orlando shooting was a case in point.  The bloviators began trumpeting their claims of the greatest mass murder of all time.  I guess the Indian massacres are now beyond the grasp of these so called experts.  The history of this country cannot be separated from violence.  While the talking heads talks their talk, one must remember every page of our history is written in blood red.  That minorities are the primary victims in the savagery of this nation, and yes we are all an insane thought away from being a statistic.

I don’t know about you but the haunting images of hanged young black men while whites stand their looking with their scorn countenances are as haunting of any of the recent photos or movies.  As Billie Holiday sang,

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees

Violence is what we Americans are about.  I know it is sweeping generalization but let’s not talk about violence as if it is anomaly.   It is who we are.  Our diplomacy seems always tied to some military action.  Now we fight wars remotely.  The police department in Dallas struck a blow to policing by blowing up the suspect.  That is not to say that this violent person needed to be stopped.  But were there any options before that?  Just like those fellows in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, what happened to the stun guns?  What is it with this shoot’em up, blow’em up mentality?

The sad reality is that we are a violent nation.  It is our way.  It has been that way from beginning and continues to be.  Isn’t it ironic that Dr. King, a non-violent activist, was gunned down?  The statistics on shooting and deaths are staggering.  On an average day 36 people will be killed.  So let’s not fool ourselves into thinking this business of deadly violence is new or novel.  The fact that people are aware of the violence hopefully will bring some change.  As for me, I am cynical when it comes to change in the culture.  Violence is who we are.  What is striking is that there are so many of us who really aren’t violent.

But rather than just point a finger at Americans, it seems there is a persistent and pernicious tendency for humans to wreak havoc on ourselves and the world at large.  We are cruel by nature.  Some will argue that it is not our nature, but history shows us otherwise.  The more serious immediate concern is that there are too many humans on this planet.  Perhaps if we were truly rational sentient beings, there would be hope.  That isn’t the case.  We tend to separate ourselves with religious beliefs and political disagreements, to name the two primary ones.  We stand in horror as we look upon our violent experiences as foreign to us.  In reality, this is who we are.  The change needed to make a correction in this chain of never ending violence is nothing short of a complete transformation.  While some may see a path to this end, I see a road strewn with bodies of those who engage in violence and those who are victims of it.  Fact is as wise men have said in many ways and in many forums, you can rid the world of violence with violence.  All I see are guns and hate and firm convictions that do little but separate us from each other leaving all in the grips of that which we abhor.       

The election of 2016

It has come down to this:  Clinton and Trump, two of the most unliked public figures of these times we live.  One a brass and stupid buffoon; the other a cagey opportunist too smart for her own good.  We are to chose the one least likely to lead us further down this road of decay.  Both are like characters in a Greek Tragedy playing out their doomed destinies never for a moment attempting to face the personal consequences of their flawed egos-- hubris unchecked will always signal the destruction of that which is coveted the most.

Hearing Obama invoke the cadence of MLK, exhorting the crowd to elect Hillary, one wonders if his efforts are designed more to affirm his popularity.  Will this be his legacy?  To elect an unlikeable person because he will, and in his words, “ she will carry the torch,” “she will finish the race.”  What race?  The race to mediocrity, the race to allow corporate greed to go unchecked.  Obama is a good man, and he would have been remarkable if he had a strong senator and a congress to take his mediocre proposals and fashion them into truly innovative policies and programs.  Was it too much to ask that the country take the bold steps like those of FDR and repair a nation and its people? Why does it always come down to a choice between the lesser of two evils.

Alas, now we have a Democratic candidate who has been singled out as a person with poor judgment.  While a server is no big deal, what happens when the consequences of actions become serious?  And what of her husband, the first “whatever?”  This mischievous miscreant who has a history of doing things that are truly embarrassing has the tendency to put personal above country.   Why else would he use the oval office for his assignations?   And if that wasn’t enough we have the two of them acquiring wealth?  Does one think that with her ascension to the Oval Office Hillary will now be able to do the things she never was able to do.  Sure, she could handle the Department of State, the Office of Blah Blah Blah.  Her work in the Senate was as much about helping Wall Street as anything else.

How uninspiring she is or will ever be, she pales in comparison to Donald Trump.  Here is an example of a Mencken observation, “no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American Public.”  A character right out the pages of a comic book he saunters forth babbling like a fool and spouting nonsense.  He is a textbook narcissist. He is a product of a culture and a party that have given itself over to ignorance.  That he rose above the circus of the candidate field in the Republican Party shows how low an organization can fall when it opts for lies and chicanery to promote the selfish aims of its cabal.  

Democrats are not much better.  They rig a selection process designed to reward the one who will reward their loyalty with the spoils of high office.  Of course, the chorus, to return to the allusion of a Greek Tragedy, is comprised of the moneyed people who stand ready to grab even more.  

The play is entering the 3rd act; soon the forces of our fate will drive the action.  As we learned, hubris will rule the day and the fatal flaws will in one last and disturbing thrust reduce all to the outcome we all knew was coming but was hoping it wouldn’t.

Step right up and vote, but . . .

Empty Hope

So all Bernie supporters need to forget about their hopes and beliefs and get behind Clinton.  Obama and those bigwig Democrats (many if not all are superdelegates) who never gave a shit about us now welcomes us.  You had your fun, but like ol’ Billy Boy said, “Your Toast.”  Look over there at the Republican presumptive nominee.  See what can happen!  The shrill chorus of gloom and doom echo in every quarter; hell even the media is picking up on it.

An historical moment is unfolding.  See there is a woman, the first woman to become the presumptive nominee of one of the two bankrupt parties that dominate this country.  There is nothing more any true American liberal could ever want.  Right?   Bullshit!

You see we been through all this before.  Are we so myopic that we already lost sight of 2008.  Remember that black dude in Colorado who gave his nominating speech in a stadium -- the only place in Denver to accommodate the crowd.  Everyone wanted to be a witness to history.  I must confess that I choked up hearing that young black man talk about hope and change.  I choked back tears when his family came out to join him.  Hell, I was sentimental seeing Oprah in the midst of the masses shedding a tear or two.  Wasn’t that historic?  Wasn’t that a barrier shattered? How absolutely empty that moment was in hindsight.

You see, we didn’t get anything to quell the fever of hope.  Though Obama marched into office with a super majority (a house and senate in his party), though he had one of the grandest inaugural of all time (hell Beyonce sang), we got nothing but the same, save for some tweaks like the Affordable Care Act.  This colossal product of bureaucracy and politics and the private sector was a little short of a national healthcare (I am being facetious here).  It was a nightmare from stem to stern, incomprehensible when first issued, riddled at implementation, and more importantly it had an escape hatch for neanderthals who don’t quite comprehend a social compact.  That insurance companies can raise their rates and the average joe can see his taxes go up speaks to the absolute failure of a program that is essential to living a life of liberty and a pursuit of happiness.  And all the Democrats crowing for unity had a hand in this.  That something was done is good, but let’s assess it for what it really is or should I say isn’t.  It’s not Medicare.

The aforementioned is a way of showing the hollowness of party unity.  Even when the electorate overwhelmingly turns out and follows a dream what it ends up with is little more than a morsel of the slice of the pie.  The big boys get the pie.  

Enter Clinton, or should I say Clintons, either way we are going to get both.  They are a team that is to be sure.  That they can run and steal an election, no doubt about that.  But what is behind this dynamic duo, well fasten your hip boots because it does get murky.

First, they were the architects of the first national health bill that was an unmitigated failure.  It was a testament to their inability to move things.  Say what you will about Obamacare at least it is law and does offer some relief to the disastrous totally private administration of health care.  How about the conservative shift in criminal justice and so called religious freedom.  In the former, you just jailed the poor especially the blacks, and in the later you gave the bigoted religious zealots an avenue to vent their hate.  Oh, as for the economy, let’s give the power brokers free reign to run their scams with other people’s assets.  Should anything go wrong, let’s remember “they are too big to fail.”  Of course, the fact that millions will go bankrupt and lose their homes, well, big is good, but small who cares?  This list of “achievements” can only be elevated by rhetoric.  Also, a budget was balanced but on whose backs?

Yet here we go again.  The choice of course is always framed as the lesser of two evils.  Does anyone ever ask why can’t there be a choice between what is good and what is bad.  Claiming an historical moment when a lifetime politician ascend to high political stature is kind of self serving.  That a black made it to the top was unfathomable though the significance is more in the optics than the substance given the ignorant truculent bigots in Congress and the reluctance of that body elected with him to truly vote against the interests of the special interests.

So I should not be concerned with helping the impoverished to get a decent minimum wage, nor should I worry about students being saddled with debt for improving themselves, and I shouldn’t give a hoot if a bunch of thieves manipulating the market for private gains get away with their criminal acts.  Most of all I should ignore the history of a candidate in matters of personal profit and glaring stupid mistakes.  I should worry about the buffoon bogeyman.  That both of the candidates this term  inspire nearly no one is of no importance.  After all it is about choices in a democracy.  Choose between the lesser of two evils, which sort of mean evil abounds.

Reflection on the Primary (Democratic)

When The Scoundrels Won

Pacino in the movie The Devil’s Advocate tells his prodigy that the devil won when he convinced the people he didn’t exist.  Enter the moneyed class and scoundrels.  They won this election cycle by ensuring that their position is secured.  Clinton is the best example of how to don sheep clothing and get into the flock.  This family dynasty can be counted on to enrich themselves and play any game to get where they are going or want to go and it usually is to stand in front of mirror and fill their empty egos with pride.

John McCain must be drooling at the prospect of becoming Secretary of Defense.  What scoundrel from Wall Street has been promised the keys to the Treasury?  A good guess can be found in the thieves who paid Clinton to speak.  How many pardons will the new president grant that have to do with the shenanigans of Billy-Boy’s friends?  How is the tax department going to study the filings of the Clinton Foundation?  And how much of this dirt is going to roll out in the election?  One thing rich and powerful people like to do is gossip.  Not the gossip the masses get but the real inside stories.  Of course, Trump, the buffoon, will have no trouble spilling the beans.

What is sad, really sad is that again the nation is adrift in mediocrity tinged with a heavy dose of “pay for play.”  The world is going to shit and neither candidate cares.  The first and highest priority is to preserve and expand the legacy of their egos.  Fracking, is any candidate against it?  Wall Street reform?  Outrageous college debt?  Will global warming lose out to Exxon?  Will the minimum wage bill be run by the Waltons?  Can we extract ourselves from the actions of a bellicose Israeli Prime Minister?  How about GMO’s?

We stand on the brink of a world spinning out of control because too few have too much.  I look at the Clintons and compare them with Carters.  There is a world of difference in their approach to public service, a world of difference in their approach to humanity.  Carter serves the poor but not through a foundation where millions, if not billions, is funneled though some pseudo corporate entity.  By the way, didn’t they have to return items that were taken from the White House?

Platitudes coming from Clinton and her minions are attempts to draw on the energy of a campaign of ideas.   Bernie ran a good fight.  He energize the party.  He brought out the disenfranchised.  He is good for the party and the country.  What these statement fail to appreciate is that Sanders campaign was never about Bernie.  If they think they can now draw on his support with this insincere rhetoric, they don’t have a clue what the Sanders campaign was about or why it drew the attention it did.  

Bill Clinton moved this country to the right farther than anyone because he had the support of the Democrats.  His crime bill and welfare reform were creations drawn from the primer on a conservative agenda.  That is why he was able to work with a Republican majority.  Oh, and all those bullshit religious laws that single out gays and transgender folks, well look that up sometime.  And he had such a forward policy on gays in the military, “don’t ask, don’t tell.”  That worked, huh?

The Sanders campaign was all about ideas and beliefs that in this world things can get done.  That to accomplish great things, bold actions need to be undertaken.  It was never about the candidate.   It was about a candidate who dared to go beyond the constraints that has kept this country in a strangle hold.  When was the last time the great Bill Clinton was seen at a public golf course?  Every picture of this man shows him surrounded by influence peddlers and moguls, or laughing and joking with the Bushes.   That people who believe in Democratic principles think that this conservative family is going to deliver something different this go around are engaging in wishful thinking and they definitely have their collective heads in a place where the sun doesn’t shine.  By the way, this cycle is the perfect sting:  You think you have won while the scoundrels walk off with your money.

Analyzing Republican Reaction To Trump's racism

The Hypocrisy of Outrage

To see the Republicans stammer when asked if Trump’s comments were racist shows that even confronted with the reality of their bigoted presumptive nominee they are reluctant to call it what it is.  Irony abounds.  They won’t say it is because they relied on racism to win the house and the senate and every presidential election after 1968.  The only difference is that they prefer to use code words and allusions rather than outright racial slurs.  The only mistake Trump is making by their standards is that he is using actual words rather than the euphemisms they employ.  How dare he pull down the screen and show people what these bigots really think?

There is an historical context to all this.  Way back when the southern bloc left the Democratic party over the Voting Rights Act.  For all those who forget or missed that lesson, the bill was the cornerstone of the Great Society.  This program of President Johnson was a legislative attempt to do what should have been done during the Reconstruction (i.e. period after the Civil War).  The Dixiecrats (they were never really democrats -- they were racists who held on to the antebellum views that men were not created equal) prided themselves on making sure Jim Crow Laws would negate the North win over the South.  How ironic it was the Republicans during that period spoke to the rights of all citizens.  The party of Lincoln held to the principles of equal rights.

Nixon was one who recognize the importance of a southern strategy.  The South was rudderless having been ignored by the Democrats.  So the modern Republican Party, a party of neoconservatives, shifted to the right or should say I dug a deeper hole that allowed the bigoted whites to drain into their hatred.  

Next came Reagan and the California right composed mainly of deviate money men whose only concern was to acquire as much wealth as possible before they croaked.  That Reagan was a man of minimal intelligence and strong emotions made him the ideal candidate to be manipulated.  His skill at memorizing lines and affecting an “Aw Shucks” demeanor made him the ideal empty suit to be transformed into a statesman.  That he didn’t know basic geography or remember a single important thing was easily channeled by keeping him away from any extemporaneous moments that might be recorded.  His image could be sculpted and the B actor was good at playing a role.  You see, the ideal face of the party could not be a strong person with a mind of his own but a “yes” man who could sell soap (literally).

Reagan built the military and the money grubbing industrialists couldn’t have been happier.  There was so much arms being built, the country became the arms dealer for the world even making it a means to prop up dictators and suppress populations in South America, indeed the world.  This is the Reagan legacy, a vast sell out to the military industrial complex, and a presidency guided by operatives, while the aging cowboy, who was losing his mind, nodded off into peaceful naps, while the world fell apart.

Then we have Bush I, with Lee Atwater, using Willie Horton, followed by Rove and the Idiot Son who brought racism and hate politics to an even greater depth of depravity.  With the rich getting richer and allowing their blood money to go untaxed, the Republican party was in clutches of those who used the ignorant to maintain their power and plunder the society.

 

Over time the nation defaulted to democracy and love of neighbor and elected Democratic Presidents , but the Republicans unleashed the bigoted cadre of Elmer Gantries who used their pulpits to preach made up moral issues and corral their flocks into supporting the charlatans who mouthed, though often not believed, their muddled view of Christianity.  Of course, all levels of government ruled by this monolith of hate and ignorance gerrymandered districts insuring only the most reprehensible individuals would be sent to Washington and create a pit where they could wrapped themselves in flags which was good because then they could stuff their pockets without being detected.  

Trump is the natural progression of a party that is based on ignorance and hate and beholding to men who are to the one scoundrels.  It is hard to find one of the so called leaders of industry who isn’t tainted with corruption and fraud.  That they persist promoting policies that are dangerous to all living creatures and the world itself is an indication that it is only their greed that matters for they will be long gone before they experience the devastation of their actions.   

The Republican party made a concerted effort to be a racist bastion of ignorance and hate.  Their leaders are caught in a trap of their own making.  The money men realize that this fool who rose up out of the trash heap they created is about to do something as bold as Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned.  The events of this cycle need a caliber of a writer on par with Shakespeare to bring out the ironies of a party that created what they despise.  Also, there might be some poignant scenes by a Moliere caliber humorist -- one who could show the absolute absurdity of all the Republican players trying to avoid and court the buffoon.  Twain would capture it for sure.  But in the final analysis all we need to do is look at this spectacle and know that “karma” is a bitch.

It's getting a little messy?

The politics of the Outsider

Another primary cycle is about to end.  The Republicans have opted to take their party off the cliff.  It is an indication of how disaffected their electorate is regarding the establishment.  Trump, a man of little substance, integrity, and intelligence, has captured the hearts and minds of those who generally deny science and subscribe to principles that reflect racism and elitism.   Thus, a perfect choice for this party that has made it a practice to stand for those principles that have no value to humanity or the country.  Disagree?  Fine find you nearest grouping of troglodytes and bemoan the statement.  I ain’t changing it, nor do I wish to argue the point.  I, like you, am not susceptible to change.

My focus is a comment made by Gregory of CNN who with the air of condescension suggested that the Sanders Campaign needs to own up to and denounce the actions occurring at the Nevada Caucus.  This is the irony of the times we live in.  A somewhat overbearing and rather superficial bloviator moving from reporting the news to orating on it and assuming the role of a moral arbitrator.  Given the fact that the heavy machinery of the established press had short shifted the Sanders campaign to a footnote of the 2016 cycle, one must look beyond the noise and assess the state of affairs.

First and foremost, the Sanders campaign is composed of the young who have been thrown into a system that is clearly inequitable.  They have watched the real income of their parents decline.  They have been told how important it is to be educated and undertake this challenge with a debt that in previous times would mean a house, a car, and a place in the world.  Now, they look into a sea of anxiety as they prepare to navigate an economy that is so weighted to the top that the best they can hope for is a studio apartment near where they work.

Second and equally important are the older crowd of Bernie supporters.  Take note of how many sport grey hair.  These are the baby boomers who have lived through one of the greatest wealth producing era in human history.  Some have done well.  Many are now receiving a pension, and many of those worked in public service.  Union folks are in those clamoring multitudes shouting,  “Bernie.”  Many of them have been carrying a sign or wanting to carry a sign that reads, “I can’t believe I’m still protesting this shit!”  This is a coalition of the disenfranchised.  This is coalition of those who have been wearing their hearts on their sleeve and who came out of the sixties cloud of smoke still believing in change.  That some of these folks would get pissed off and express their frustration at a system that was created to keep power where it is, in the hands of those who hold it is understandable.  

Let’s face it the apologists for this rigged system only regurgitate talking points that are as arrogant as they are hollow.  Gregory again, “This is the system and the Sanders folk need to play by the rules.”  Not said, but equally conveyed, “Shut up and get out of here; this is our game not yours.”  Democracy, freedom, principles, one person one vote.  Please play the game the way it is designed.  When translated from ethereal to reality, it comes across best in some line from the Who, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  The truth is this coalition of folks are not going to buy into it.  They refuse to be fooled again.

Let’s face facts, no meaningful change has occurred without things getting a little messy. It’s easy for those sitting on the dung heap that this society has become to decry the actions of the youth.  Sure the young are angry, they have been forced fed on anger all their lives.  They have watched as children were mowed down and slick lawyers talk about importance of the 2nd Amendment before the blood has dried.  They elected a black man to the White House, holding signs that said “Hope and Change” only to see racists do little to help bring change.  They watched their monthly statements of student loans marginally reduced as the interest added years to indebtedness.  They watch swindlers bankrupt the banking system made whole in the name of the economy, while their loans received no considerations and were set at rates that surely made the holding companies profitable.  They were forced to buy health insurance from companies that did nothing for health care yet reaped rewards for being a middle man.  Let’s not even talk about the ignorant and arrogant governors who preferred to adhere to some bullshit principle then to see their citizens get decent coverage.

What is amazing is these bloviators puff themselves up and decry expressions of anger.  Really?  Wow, what a pleasant world it must be to stand so far away from reality and live in a cloistered place where civility reigns, a place where opposing folks both get a paycheck and sleep in luxurious homes.   How utterly out of touch must you be to not understand why a Mexican Flag is being waved outside a Trump rally.  How extremely dull must you be to not comprehend why a rock would be thrown or a young lady shoot the bird and yell “Fuck Trump!.”  The exasperation of the entrenched at the disenfranchised is a reflection of how far the two are apart from each other.  Sanders arrival on the 2016 cycle is the culmination of decades of watching a nation careen out of control while the drivers of the madness claimed all is well.  That Trump emerged on the Right showed the disaffection with the status quo.  That there is a Sanders speaks to the resilience of a movement born out the honest desire to bring positive change to a country that was founded on principles far superior than the people who formulated them.  From Thomas Paine to Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt to FDR, the spark of freedom has finally caught hold again.  Outsiders are winning because insiders have ruined everything they controlled.  That things get a little messy, well, hell the American Revolution wasn’t a tea party.  The civil war was not so peaceful.  The only hold out in this scenario of change is Clinton who has no credibility no skin in the game.  The rest of us realize that nothing changes if nothing changes.  We don’t need another four years of a Democratic Presidency.  We need a new system, one not beholding to anything or anyone save to the people, all of the people.  

Post Debate Rant

The Republican Party

If there was ever any doubt that the Republican Party has dissolved in anything but a farce, last night’s debate should have remove that doubt.  That the field of candidates has whittled down to five left no doubt there is absolutely no substance whatsoever left in this once grand party.  Let us not forget that Lincoln rose from its ranks.  It is interesting that not one of the candidates would even allude to this icon of American politics.  Why, because it is now populated with charlatans and pretenders, scoundrels and fools?  It is a party that has subscribed to the basest of human emotions leaving no doubt that the path to their lofty mantle rest on the assumption that the electorate only wants more and more totalitarian practices and policies.

That it has come to this begs the question, why would a party dissolve into this anti American, anti Christian state?  Of course, to even postulate that question one assumes that this country is the land of the free and the home of the brave whose borders have always been open to the oppressed.  That a vast majority of Americans avow an unshakable belief in Christian principles merely underlines the importance of the aforementioned.  But alas, beliefs and actions often conflict with reality and history tells us this country is far from its ideals.  In fact, if one scans the public square, one often sees expressions of beliefs contrary to human decency let alone the American Principles.  Any doubt, googled recent KKK and neo Nazi photos.

That an entire party is about to be consumed by this malady of authoritarianism is a direct result of a concerted effort by a party to promote the basest of human motivations for the right to secure elections and the spoils that go along with a corrupt system of governance.  These Machiavellian saboteurs past and present have literally reduce the election process into a race to the cesspool of human endeavor.

It all began way back when a senile dimwitted actor got off his white steed, took off his black hat spray painted red white and blue and “aw shucked” his way into center stage.  Fact is Reagan’s brain was already beginning to unravel.   Both Nancy and Michael Deaver saw to it that he never answered a single question because his lack of knowledge on pretty much anything would be abundantly clear.  That he could perform well in debates and speeches, well, he was an actor, not a very good one but still an actor and besides a B actor was good enough for the American electorate.  You see, it is all about cadence and humor and of course a good smile.

To hear a Rubio cite the greatness of Reagan is to hear a boy talk about his father.  While it is admirable for a young boy to talk about his father, we must appreciate that admiration is not one based on anything but fealty.  Let us pluck a few ripe cherries from that Reagan legacy.  He made a deal with murdering fascists in South American and jihadists in Iran.  Under his watch one of this country’s embassies was destroyed.   His trickle down economics and deregulation began the great undoing of the middle class.  As if that wasn’t enough, he emptied the treasury to the military industrial complex.  And even more, his actions in the political realm let the worst of the south into the decision making.  Unbelievable, that any American would look at this president and conclude his term was anything but an unmitigated disaster.  Ironically, the things this group of candidates rail against are the things that Reagan did.   So much for knowing history and its value in not repeating mistakes.

In a world where success is measured by winning and only winning.  The Republicans began a systematic campaign to attack fact and science with beliefs and distorted religious teachings.   The Southern Strategy emerged showing that a solid block of racist states and few northern ones were enough to secure the brass ring.  The pandering reached epic proportions. Code word and outright attacks on civil liberties became the guiding principles.  Fear promoted misadventures and the military was all too ready to squander money and lives on death and destruction.  Democrats went along with this as well, seeing that it was only way to get their greedy hand into the spoils.  Republicans turned to the bigots who were ascending to pulpits and preaching hate to bolster their position with the electorate.  A grand confluence of opportunists produced the Moral Majority and then the Tea Party.   

But back to politics, there was a time, when the South was all in with the Democrats.   Why?  Well perhaps, it was Lincoln and the 13th Amendment.  Of course, there is only one thing to know about the South,   It loves history.  That that history is steeped in the abject debasement of life is really not a problem is it?  Well, look at the biggest obstructionists if not advocates for insane positions on science in our government and where they are from.  One thing for certain to be a modern day Republican you can’t be too smart nor too Christ like.  Let’s just drop Christian for that has come to mean something other than the Sermon on the Mount teaching.

The latest debate in this travesty of a primary demonstrated one thing about the Republican Party.  There isn’t even a scintilla of truth in anything any of the candidates have to say.  Carson comes out of his coma and utters phrases that seem to have been formed in his dream like state .  Suffice it to say it can be summarized fairly easily, I am a Christian and believe in beliefs.  Kasich is but another double talking new Republican who attempts to come across as a moderate and the rational one  who is anything but, preferring to swing the right wing ax of superficial efficiency while denying human rights while the Governor of Ohio.  Cruz, well, now there is a slimy duplicitous egomaniac whose only goal is to promote himself with the rhetoric of the Tea Party.  Rubio is whiz kid, that being Cheese Whiz, and a politician without substance, one wonders whose hands are making this puppet move about the political stage.  Then there is Trump, if you can’t figure him out, I suggest you watch re-runs of All in the Family and the Simpsons.

Trump the Savior

Trump the savior

Many will look at the title and turn their heads and wonder what the hell is this fool writing about.  Certainly, if there is one thing we have all learned is that Trump is about as deep as a rain puddle.  He is without a doubt a man without anything but an ego and a loud mouth.  He is all bluster, a clown who will say anything as long as the lights and the camera are on him.

He talks of being a businessman with the acumen of a savant.  He is little more than a silver spoon product of a magnate who happened to be a successful land owner in Manhattan.  In fact, there was one report if he had done nothing with all he had inherited, he would have more assets than he currently possesses.  He is nothing short of a product of a system that rewards wealth.  His TV show was perhaps the best example of how absolutely absurd this economic system has become.  The mixture of celebrities and silly enterprises was an excursion into banality.

That he could take that platform and bring it to the political circus shows that our country has fallen into the hands of idiots.  The irony is that his tribe of pampered rich assholes can be paraded in front of us after a primary election brings out just how gullible people are.  Can’t people see that not a single person in the Trump clan has any connection with the average American.  From his trophy wife to his children, they are all of a different class.  Look at their designer clothes, and the smiles upon their faces, while average schmucks, in their beer stained t-shirts and worn out jeans cheer and shout USA.  Trumps gave a few chorus, but stopped as soon as he began; his wife’s face was a picture of incomprehensibility and his daughter has an all too bored look.

But how can I postulate that this guy is a savior of this country.  First and foremost, he is so far out of the mainstream and possesses so much power, he can with bear like efficiency swipe at and destroy a dynasty of political icons.  Swipe! Bush is back in Florida looking for another brain dead victim to infuse his moral sense of absurdity.  He shouts down a Texan charlatan, in the vein of Elmer Gantry, and exposes his duplicitous if not nefarious tactics.  He takes on Fox News and throws Ailes and his operatives to the side.  Hell, he even takes on the Pope’s moral authority.  All the while the Republicans look at this Frankenstein and wonder if this is the devil demanding his due.  After all, they, the establishment Republicans, had sold their collective soul to get the masses to revere Ronald Reagan and allow one election to be stolen.  Of course, Cheney was the devil’s emissary promising to scorch the earth and promote hatred.  A job the devil himself looks on with some astonishment.

So hopefully Trump will so fracture this sad excuse of a party into two segment with someone like Bloomberg entering the fray in an attempt to bring some sense of morality back to a party that once choose Lincoln to carry its banner.  That was when the south and its bigots and slave owner flocked to the Democrats.  Of course, the Democrats soon brought change to the fetid states of bigotry and Nixon and then the rest of the greedy politicians began to pander to all those racists looking to keep people in their place and fly the flag of stars and bars.

So Trump can certainly fracture the party which is a good thing.  But the Democrats need to splinter as well.  A two party system is easily manipulated by moguls.  All the tycoons need to do is split their money.  Sort of like betting on two sides of a football game.  Meaning one doesn’t really care who wins because all that concession money goes to the operators.

It is time we have a far left, a center left, a center right, and a far right.  Then jerks like McConnell will need the support of rational people to hold on to his lofted seat.  Compromise between at least two or three parties will result in a system of government that was how ours was designed.  This current travesty of democracy lets a minority game the system.  Fools armed only with silly beliefs who promote hatred and ignorance prance about exercising their authority like bullies in the playground.  Trump can take the country to new arenas of compromise.  Surely something he could never fathom or even understand.  

Trumps KO's Bush

I am a liberal, no, a socialist.   Government exists to insure that its citizens have inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Regardless of what you have been told Capitalism doesn’t adhere to this fundamental principle.  Capitalism is about greed and exploitation.  If it were such a sterling example of good government, there would have been no need for Child Labor Laws, Social Security, Medicare or any other program that protects individuals from greedy bastards who will lock a door regardless if it would kill women workers inside their factory.  Any argument for less government offered by scoundrels on the dole of corporations is pure unadulterated bullshit.

That said, I cannot help but smile with some sick satisfaction that Trump is stomping his way through the Republican Primary.  For a long time, the scoundrels who drape themselves in flags and Bibles engaged in code words to signal their bigotry and outright disdain for the common man.  As for their ignorance, they were more than happy to shout it out to the masses who, like them, preferred to keep their head in the sand as to demonstrate a holy allegiance to some arcane thought that had long ago proven to be nonsense.  

That another Bush would come forward to run for the office, and to have the audacity to roll out his mother and brother demonstrates an arrogance that is truly unfathomable.  So Trump calls out his asinine and feeble attempt to garner favor.  The only Bush with a modicum of credibility is the old man but his connection with Lee Atwater puts him in a moral and ethical pit worthy of disdain.  That Trump would assail the Iraq War of W and Cheney is laudatory.  For too long Republicans have covered this most base ineptitude with a smoke screen that attempts to put the trouble of the Middle East on Obama while the real culprits either hide or blatantly offer revisionist history.  Oh, by the way, the same band of clowns and fool hardy neocons who were ankle deep in W’s incompetence are on Jeb’s team.

Rubio and Cruz are classic punks.  They speak as if they know when every utterance is steep in the bull that the new right has gleaned from the empty heads in the far right media.  To hear Rubio state Obama is basically not a true American is to listen to a fool, a first generation fool who can't even appreciate that benefit that accrued to him by immigration.  As for Cruz, well in this instance, Trump hit the nail on the head, no one likes this pompous duplicitous ass.  Not only he is a liar and a cheat, he is also a reprehensible pseudo intellectual who uses guile to demonstrate how viable he is as a candidate.  

So there you have it, Trump, the main event, is goose stepping his way to the nomination calling out the cabal of moneyed interest and double talking fools.  The effort to sell the collective Republican soul to the ignorant, the racist, the evangelical, is now coming full circle.  It is indeed a circular firing squad, and all I can say is “fire!”

Clinton as a Boxer

She stands oblivious to the toll time has taken on her credibility.  Never a popular politician, she somehow believes it is her time to ascend to the presidency.  She cites experience and “know-how” though all her credits can be read in a number of interpretations.  She says she can get things done, but here persona inflames the Republican party to a such a degree that if elected impeachment proceedings will probably begin the day of her inaugural.  On what grounds?  Does the disloyal opposition need a reason?  Not really, since the opposition proceeds forward on the flimsiest of evidence.  Needless to say gridlock follows.

But the Clintons soldier on citing all their concerns and the accomplishments of Bill, excluding, of course, a discussion of anything that may pin prick the bubble of dubious if not questionable ties to Wall Street.  The two of them Bill and Hillary stand center ring and swing wildly at any suggestion of Bernie Sanders.  Funny, this flaying is doing little but the tiring out and already tired effort to regain the White House.  Why?  Might I suggest that they are punch drunk on power.  They want what it because; they think they are entitled to it.  

Let me suggest, just like the aged boxer, the two have lost their ability to really think things through.  They can’t see that the Sanders campaign is a chance for the Democratic Party to infuse its ranks with those who have been loyal but have been sold a bill of goods in the form of cheap talk for bold ideas.  Obama rode into office on a wave of a super majority.  What we got was a watered down Health care with the insurance companies right in the thick of all transactions with their greedy hands on every dollar spent.  We got Bush’s war and the outright obscene expenditures on arms, we got Wall Street Wolves guarding the Hen House, and an Attorney General who was always anticipating his next job.  Where?  On Wall Street.  Discouraged?  You bet.  

That everything is better than when Bush left is testament to the fact that Republicans have nothing to offer the country other than bullshit, anger, fear,  and tax breaks for the wealthy.  The powers to be on the right sold their party out to bigots and ignoramuses.  That a buffoon can take the reins and run the chariot off the cliff is nothing less than poetic justice.  

Hillary would like us to believe she is one of the common folk.  That she and her husband have accumulated for than 100 million dollar is testament to how common folk can overcome their humble origins, provided of course, you can grease the skids for some slimy bankers and heads of states.  That this humble couple can visit their daughter in a ten million dollar apartment shows that public service is not such a bad deal.   What is behind all this accumulated wealth?  Hard work? It would take a village of hard working stiffs a lifetime and still they wouldn’t get there.

Hillary and Bill talk of Sanders’ campaign promises as too far fetch.  See Bill understands how important it is to deregulate Wall Street and promote Welfare Reform.  Hillary knows what it is like to talk to heads of state especially when they are connected with Bill’s foundation.  More importantly all she is offering us is more of the same.  If she thinks that she has a better chance of working with the disloyal opposition than Sanders, she is suffering from serious head trauma.

The key to reform this country’s body politic is to get more people involved in the election.  For too long the two party system has been whoring itself out to special interests.  Both sides curry the favor of the well heeled because money is the lifeblood of politics.  The country needs bold new leadership.  This business of big money guys sitting down with elected officials has resulted in nothing less than a corrupt system.  Only Sanders is talking about reform, revolution.  The rest don’t really want to change a system that they know how to play and win it.  

Time for the Clintons to throw in the towel and go away.  They certainly have enough money to do that in a style that common folk will never know.

Trump: The Monster Who Came Home to Roost

Trump: The Monster Who Came Home To Roost

It is ironic to see Fox News resort to outright name calling on someone of their making.  For years, they have peddled bullshit using glib bloviators.  The alternate reality they created permitted anyone from saying anything about nearly everything.  They have taken populism to a new low, though when it comes to American Politics that was no mean accomplishment.  Fact is, years of creating a false reality wherein every decent and effective attempt to bring reason to any political action or discussion was reduced to panels where to a one the participants were  bigoted shills advancing positions that were quite frankly Un American.  Of course, given the 1st Amendment the powers to be were shielded from any action.  Thus stupid anti scientific positions were pronounced as “reasonable alternatives”  to prevailing findings.  Sitting behind the screen of this charade was the wizard himself, Roger Ailes, who climb the ladder of success by working for Richard Nixon, a man who was steeped in the politics of bullshit.

Ailes is the man behind the scene --  often touted as a genius but perhaps more accurately describe as a manipulator, a prevaricator and a pawn in the Murdoch Evil Empire.  That Trump would challenge the authenticity of this sham of a news station is so karmic as to reaffirm one’s belief in “just deserts.”  Fox has enjoyed for the longest time its minions of “Know Nothing” politicians kowtowing to its every whim.  They parade before the camera spouting spin designed to reinforce in the mind of the great masses the outright misrepresentations and lies advanced by the station.  Day in a day out the noise is unending, from those with English accents telling us what is good for the economy to pompous bullies interrupting guests with their asinine bravado.  Blonde babes hired to better entice the testosterone deficient old men, not unlike the nudes in the British tabloids (Murdoch marketing ploy), who read the news and the ticker tape on Wall Street.  There are even black commentators who carry the water.  It was all so neatly designed to produce neo conservative policies -- cause the rich need their safeguards.

Enter “The Donald.”  The reference itself speaks to a blazing egocentric maniac.  A supposed billionaire, which is undocumented, stomps on the scene to “make America great again.”  At first, the wizard and his band of merry men aren’t worry.  Somehow one can hear the discussion that “he is not our candidate.”  Of course, having reigned over all those years controlling and fashioning news, one could almost understand their unwarranted delusion that Fox was in control.  But alas, the atmosphere created by this manipulator of news, that one could say damn near anything and have a large contingent believe, was ripe for someone to step in and take the reigns of this out of control team of wild horses.  The Donald was good at that, wasn’t he?  His popular reality show was an example of how gullible the masses were and hungry they were for entertainment.  That this bombastic, pretty much ignorant, buffoon could appeal to a Republican base is not surprising since that base were primed and treated to a daily barrage of bullshit.  Fox wasn’t worried in the beginning for they actually thought they had the power to determine who would be king of their mountain of crap.  They could for example hold a debate where the questions are designed to one promote the foolishness that they hold to be undeniable truths and two begin to cull the field to get “their” candidate ready to cajole the country into believing in red white and blue bullshit.  The blonde was dispatched to dismiss the interloper.  Then boom, the bombastic never filtered narcissist fired volley after volley of insults.  Rather than die an ignominious public death, the monster grew.  And like Frankenstein, he moved beyond the laboratory and flayed at all in site.  And his numbers rose to the chagrin of all those who supposedly “knew” what was best.  

Hopefully, this incident will be the beginning of the end for this erstwhile purveyor of hate and bullshit though it is unlikely given the American appetite for this type of nonsense.  Fox exists where ignorance prevails.  It grows where there is bigotry and hate.  It thrives on an audience who looks for affirmation of their biases.  Hopefully, it is a monster of their own making that will begin to crack their foundation of lies and misrepresentations.  It was reported that the Fox core audience is old white guys in advanced age.  Therein lies, perhaps, the ending for this farce.