Abuse and Degredation in the Workplace

Sexual harassment in the workplace was a major impetus for the growth of organized labor in the United States and Western Europe. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the first large scale employment of wage labor during the industrialization of the US involved women and farm girls in New England. Wage labor was considered too demeaning by men, and females were judged to be more easily managed. But an idea we tend to primly repress today was in the forefront of the consciousness of those involved in early Union Movements in the US and elsewhere:

Employment is always demeaning when it is part of an organized process of extracting wealth from the many for the irresponsible benefit of a very tiny few.

But surely we continue to struggle to establish institutions and habits of mind that reduce the likelyhood some will have opportunities and motivations to abuse those who have been socially engineered into positions of fear or dependence? Isn’t that the thrust of recent (the previous two centuries) history?

Whatever the record of past victories, defeats, or the everpresent temptations of hopelessness, there is no escape from the need for enhancing liberal democracy (individual rights, rule of law, and countervailing institutions), but mystifications regarding private property and individual freedom must be decoupled from justifications for allowing a tiny few to dominate the investment and development priorities of entire nations.

Struggling to institutionalize accountability for harassment, demeaning behaviors, and psycho/social repression is part of the struggle to make power accountable and responsible to the common good.

Progress is certainly always being made, but civil (and brutish) resistance is so constantly fierce that setbacks are quite frequent. The tax scam juggernaut currently befouling Congress is extremely likely to institutionalize the irresponsible power of a predatory plutocratic oligarchy for at least a generation. It will certainly siphon resources away from the already haphazard efforts of our society to develop humane education systems for fostering the skills and knowledge required by complex working democracies where productive abilities are neither despised nor rewarded by diminishing (or humiliating) others.

Humble Devotees of trimp May Yet Show Us The Way

It is both possible and necessary to address the justifiable grievances of trimp supporters without fueling or condoning the racism that many of them even fail to recognize. Don’t forget that significant numbers of them once voted for Obama.

Bill Clinton provides a partial model to the extent he sought small but tangible victories that sometimes brought worthwhile benefits to the many. Obama, despite intractable opposition, was able to win a momentously significant battle by institutionalizing a nationwide system of healthcare that will provide a floor for future models.

Of course neither of them felt they were in a position to address the central malady of our economy and culture: the over concentration of too much wealth in the hands of a tiny (0.1%), unaccountable and irresponsible elite.

Franklin D. Roosevelt proved it was possible to presidentially excoriate “malefactors of great wealth” and to “welcome their hatred” so as to mobilize popular support for essential reforms (Social Security, National Labor Relations Act, Unemployment Insurance, Minimum Wage and Overtime Compensation, financial regulations, etc.)

Lyndon B. Johnson blackened his own legacy with his role in the atrocity of the IndoChinese War. But he also had the courage to declare war on poverty and back his rhetoric with substantial advances in Civil Rights and Social Welfare (Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, etc,)

The road to economic democracy is a long and bumpy one that we must pave as we go. In the long run we must take measures to tame the modern corporation so as to safeguard their ability to provide public benefits while limiting their natural tendencies to abuse workers, consumers, and the environment.

But we have immediate need for a tax system to redistribute wealth and power while financing radical overhauls of our education, healthcare, transportation, and energy infrastructures so as to minimize onrushing environmental, economic, and social calamities while raising wages and workforce participation rates..

The Politics of Abandonment

"Weakness is now a sin, punishable by social exclusion." - Henry Giroux

Armies of people are being excluded.  

Armies are being locked out of effective politics. And armies are becoming irrelevant to basic systems of production and consumption. Armies of people are surplus, their services no longer needed. These are armies of the rejected whose lifestyles are written off as as "backward". There are armies of souls whose basic needs are unmet. Already abandoned, they wait precariously for the next deluge, for the next catastrophe to sweep them away. This is the language of Naomi Klein.

The "politics of exclusion" can also be called neoliberalism. Neoliberal policies are the pernicious consequences of a growing casino capitalism, ravenously extracting resources from the productive sphere and sucking them down into puerile arenas of gaming and speculation.

This is much more than money being transferred from the many to the few. This is about infrastructure, basic services, and ways of life. 

Factories, stores, industries, cities, entire regions and whole cultures are all being sucked into a frothy nothingness as resources are forcefully clawed into the schemes of callous speculators. These edifices remain only as ruins, refuse, ghost towns, and wastelands traversed by the semblances of dazed zombies, the walking dead. This is not about "creative destruction" because production is being shriveled. This is dereliction and destruction for no reason but the vain benefit of a tiny few.

The unemployed and the uneducated have few recourses under neoliberalism. The need for unskilled labor has been steadily shrinking for half a century and it is still shrinking. Attribute this to a developing economy, but then look at the infrastructure of education.  It is being dismantled for the majority, increasingly replaced by the sham schooling of profit motivated scams. Armies of people are being abandoned. This is the language of Henry Giroux.

Under the neoliberalism of casino capitalism armies of people are no longer needed. Armies of people are considered expendable. This can be seen in growing wealth inequality. This can be seen in shrinking labor market participation. This can be seen in the epidemic of opioid abuse. And much more can be foreseen in proposals to hack at the safety net of Medicaid which funds far more than addiction treatment. Under unproductive casino capitalism, there is no need for the sick or the elderly.

The driving principle of neoliberalism goes far beyond exploitation: a concept which sufficed for most of the 19th and 20th centuries. The vampiric dynamics of casino capitalism demand exclusion. It requires denying value to large swaths of the earth's population. Armies of people are being abandoned, locked out, and cursed into a zombie like condition where they are regarded as - and where they may feel themselves to be - the walking dead. This is the language of Henry Giroux.


Armies of people are being excluded

Armies of people are being abandoned.

We are armies of people unneeded and unwanted by a tiny (0.1%) idiot elite.


We are people.

We are armies.





https://www.streamlygredible.com/

Illusions of (In)Dependence

Back to “Democracy"

The first recorded sack of Rome occurred circa 390 BCE. A large band of warlike Gauls eventually coerced the occupied city to pay heavy tribute. "Woe to the vanquished!" was their contemptuous retort to the Romans' most dignified protests.

Gauls, to ancient Greeks and Romans, were a frightening, though inferior, type of barbarian. But shortly after this humiliation, “civilized” Rome won immortal fame by embarking on an imperial career of inflicting centuries of woe onto multitudes of vanquished cities, kingdoms, and rival empires.

Only a generation earlier, democratic Athens decided it was in its strategic interest to occupy the Island of Melos. The Melians resisted but, after a long siege, were finally reduced to surrender. All surviving men of Melos were massacred. All women and children were enslaved. Rejecting any compromise short of unconditional surrender, the Athenians had, prior to hostilities, explained, “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."

To a large extent "Might makes right" remains the operative principle governing war and international relations. To a lesser extent, the same tectonic reality underlies shifting politics, laws, and class relations within every "civilized" polity. But however much "jungle law" is based on overpowering primordial drives, so too are urges for mercy, justice, and equality.

The types of "dependence" exemplified by slavery are better described as violent oppression. Other forms of coerced dependence may often (or simply seem to) lack an imminent basis in brute terror. But the race-based form of slavery, practiced for more centuries in the United States than it has been abolished, was probably the largest and most murderous forced labor regime in all human history. And even within that brutal system, it was not impossible for some of its victims (but for far more of its beneficiaries) to sometimes pretend the underlying savagery was somehow distant and reserved for only the most extreme cases. For some of the most defenseless victims, this *may* have been a vital stratagem for survival.

The accommodations human culture and individual psychologies can make to horrifically sadistic regimes can superficially appear almost as shocking as the abysmal conduct of the perpetrators. Such has been observed in apartheid states (including the US), concentration camps, kidnapping and hostage ordeals, and within the intimate crucibles of family terror. Cringing helplessness does not fully explain how this happens any more than did (does?) theories of inferiority, spiritlessness, or "slave nature". And neither expedience, weakness nor "superiority" fully explain why, regardless of the milieu, forbearance (and even tenderness) is also at times extended to the victim from the oppressor.

Abused children may still desperately cling to soul-crushing, bone-breaking parents. When this happens, is it unreasonable to see some semblance to, or perhaps some pure manifestation of, love - even if such is merely(?) an appeal to (or invocation of) its tender innateness? An oppressed minority may exist within a system of domination, acutely conscious of all injustices and indignities. If it mostly eschews explosive paroxysms of bloody vengeance, is this only a tribute to their impotence in the face of totalitarian systems of surveillance and terror? Are efforts to appeal to the "better angels" in the nature of snarling supremacists merely expressions of helplessness, naïveté, or historical amnesia? Or could such be expressions of deep-seated patience, faith, and hope based in sensations regarding realities that may somehow transcend the grimy intimacies of everyday abuse and the secular nightmares of history?

Returning to family life, as both a reality and a metaphor, there is a disorder known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. For opaque, but self-serving, reasons caregivers of elders or small children sometimes manipulate situations so that relatively healthy dependents appear to the community (and to the victims themselves) as having debilitating conditions of illness or injury. Sometimes real injuries are inflicted by the loving caretaker. Truly this is just another form of enforced dependency but, with or without physical violence, it is perhaps more insidious because of the way it infects the consciousness of the victim. Apparently, the motives of the perpetrators include soliciting support from the community along with admiration for their devotion as caregivers. These motives may also include preserving a sense of superiority or indispensability that could be lost if the victim were to achieve a dignified degree of independence.

In all known civilizations a tiny elite has made itself seem indispensable to those it does not actively terrorize in a myriad of ways. Modernity, as we know it since the 1500s or so in Western Europe, has made it untenable to overtly assert the inferiority of all commoners. Convulsions like the French Revolution may (or may not) have pounded the final nail into the coffin of that idea. But august trappings of formal authority and the mystifying mirages of meritocracy still retain potency. Religious, ethnic, racial and other distinctions based on relative status are easily used to divide and distract a majority even in the most established “democracies”. Deadly conflict over control of resources, especially those driven by competing elites with distinct international (or even international) power bases has been a very effective way of mobilizing commoners behind elite interests since the dawn of modernity.

Perhaps the most persuasive reason for keeping commoners dependent and unaware of their power is the necessity to concentrate resources in order to drive economic development and growth. Though elites may be no less short-sighted than ordinary slobs, their greed and competition have been a major impetus for long term progress no matter the short term sufferings (often lasting for centuries) imposed on their “inferiors”.

Traditional Marxism (in both practice and much theory) seems to agree with this dismal idea. The utopia of “Communism” is always put off until after capitalism has generated enough productive capacity to make coerced labor obsolete. When Lenin and Stalin ruthlessly purged and persecuted left-libertarians (anarcho-syndicalists), they could reasonably claim they were merely applying hard learned from the Paris Commune of 1871 where the worker's revolution was crushed in part because of the naïveté and indiscipline of the Communards.

Finally, there are multitudes of reasons why ruling elites always find it desirable to keep most people ignorant with educated people specialized and siloed - and therefore generally ignorant of policy-making processes with all the concepts and realities guiding them. Of course, all the complexities of modern economic and social policies elude even the most capacious individual minds, but it is only an article of faith (for some) that dispersing workable claims for participation in high-level decisions would lead to better outcomes than the (elite-controlled) fear and greed-driven processes heretofore known.

Even for the most sophisticated and privileged segments of the 99%, aspirations and ideas of “freedom” tend to be colored (if not exclusively dominated) by idiotic concepts of leisure and irresponsibility. Thus we are the partial enforcers of our own dependance and remain obstacles to the development of genuine democracy. Our (only partially induced) illusions of independence actually work to help keep us in a state of infantile dependence. What epiphany or catastrophe might force us to shoulder the actual responsibilities of true independence so entangled and identified with the reality of the interdependence of all humanity?



Joe Panzica

Profiteering on HealthCare Needs

Republican "Senator" Ron Johnson of Wisconsin claims his experience as an accountant bolsters his false claim that the private sector is the most efficient provider of healthcare and insurance. "Keep it Simple Stupid!", he exhorts we ignorant rubes.

Keep it Simple Stupid!!!

Providing the cheapest worst possible product at the highest possible price is the iron law of profit. And every single "private sector" firm or industry is in business for only one reason: to make a profit. Without profit they are out of business. That is the ultimate economic application of KISS.

The quality and price of any product service is always impacted by what "the market" will bear. But successful firms and industries have the clout to influence how markets operate and how they are regulated. There is no such thing as a "free market". There never has been. There never will be. There is no such thing as pure capitalism. There is only state capitalism where private wealth and continued profit are supplied, supported, and protected by government power.

Private for profit companies are fine for selling toothpaste, aftershave, and flywheel spinners. Let them combine cameras with phones and online forums for puppy pictures. Just remember that the basic technologies they profit from were developed with taxpayer funding at major (NON PROFIT) research institutions.

The profit motive is corrosive to public health, public safety, and the public welfare when it comes to providing necessities. It has no business providing education (including textbooks or pencils), health care, police, fire, water, or electricity etc. etc. etc.

This is the simple truth. Anybody who claims otherwise is a liar, a fool, or both.

Oh, and dear employers . . . Take your jobs and ( . . . you know what!)!

Warren/Kennedy and the Future of Democracy

By now it should be fairly clear that trimp is already attacking the institutions of democracy. He is obscenely blatant in his assaults on democracy's legitimacy and its popular support (which have been under siege since at least since the 1970s). If trimp does not actually try to launch some kind of coup, he is busily laying groundwork for a future, more capable, tyrant to build upon.

Strengthening the institutions of democracy is now essential. Doing that will require an energetic, but serious, program of education about democracy and the historical struggles to advance it. This must include a critical focus on its institutions in the context of other social structures - especially those related to inequality and capitalism. It also requires an emphasis on critical thinking regarding media and the popular press (especially tacit and subliminal messaging) as well as the overt rhetoric of politicians. (This, of course, is why public education is being defunded and undermined in so many nefarious ways.)

Strengthening democracy also requires leadership capable of offering positive options for the future. The Democratic Party, has been understandably focused on defending past gains.  This partly because of corporate donations, and partly because of concerted attacks on democracy and social justice by kleptocrats and the GOP.  Unfortunately protecting the status quo offers little inspiration or satisfaction to the frustrated populace.

The most important requirements for democracy are hope, faith, and serious participation from everybody. Without these there is no way responsible politicians can lead or even survive.

BUT, perhaps regrettably, there may be no escaping the human hunger for myth and enchantment although these need not be delusionary.  Charismatic leadership is simply just as important (or even more important) than a serious well informed approach to policy. Of course both are essential, but one without the either is likely to be dangerous (in the case of the former) - or unconvincing (in the case of the latter).

Right now my fantasy is that the next Democratic presidential ticket will be Elizabeth Warren for president and Joe Kennedy for Veep. Warren may not be charismatic in any familiar sense, but she is bright, firm, and capable of inspiring all sorts of people, but especially women - and quite more likable than Hillary. Kennedy, of course, is a Kennedy. But aside from his name and physical appearance, his rhetoric evokes the social justice aspect of Roman Catholicism which may still have a galvanizing appeal to certain segments of the older electorate that actually vote. 

We cannot underestimate Kennedy's connections to deep mythological aspirations which would offer a potentially devastating contrast to the brutal ignorance of a trimp or the cynical manipulativeness of a Bannon. And Warren has demonstrated she is more than capable of dispatching morons like "Downtown Scotty Brown". I think she'd spank the trimp in an election just like Kennedy would outclass any veep creep the GOP might nominate whether it was some preposterous blustering bully or an unctuous grifter like Pense.

Of course, this is all contingent on whether there actually will be another meaningful election.

It Can't Happen Here?

It probably already is . . .

Too many people think fascism is some strange, inhuman thing that could never happen in the United States of America.  This is a very naive, very frightening, and very dangerous belief.  There are also those who see tyranny in every zoning regulation, every protection against wage abuse, every attempt to prevent consumer fraud and unsafe commodities (including food and medicine), and in and every measure to limit environmental spoilage. They see symbols of slavery in every post office and social security card.  This type of world view is also worrisome and potentially just as dangerous.

Whatever is at fault, our ideas about democracy are only vague and troubled.  We do know some have more power and more wealth than most of us.  We don’t always know if those powerful elites also have more wisdom and more character than we do. It doesn’t always seem that way.

When things go wrong, and don’t get better, it’s temping to think words like "freedom" and "democracy" are being used in tricky ways.  When things stay wrong long enough for children to grow into adults and start having children of their own, it’s easy to wonder if words like democracy and freedom may always have been lies and shams.  People who are "elites" are very good with words and at twisting their meanings - or they can hire lawyers and politicians to do that for them (to us).

We know democracy is something we have and that it's supposed to be good.  But if things are not good, then maybe bad people have hijacked the word, or the system.  Or maybe democracy was never such a good thing after all.

What is democracy anyway?   Isn’t it the people voting and majority rule?   But are our votes even counted, and would they matter if they did?  What is democracy anyway?

We know fascism is something bad.  It’s Hitler and gas chambers and war.  Nobody wants that.  There’s no way we would let it happen here.  Our Constitution protects us, but if bad people can’t read, we have guns.  If they don’t want to do the right thing, we have guns.

Our grandparents were taught that people who complain about the rich and promise to redistribute wealth are Communists; shifty people who are just like Fascists in that they will take our freedom and democracy away.  Our grandparents had that well drummed into them.

Our grandparents remember that once Hitler and Fascism were defeated, Communism became our scariest and most diabolical enemy.  They spied on us and got the A bomb.  Now they could threaten everything if we didn’t surrender our freedom, our rights, and our democracy.

Now terrorism is our most frightful enemy.  Before that it was Communism.  Before that was Fascism.  And before that was . . . Communism.

What?

But it’s there in our own history.  Before World War II when the Russian "Communists" helped us defeat Hitler, many Americans had tolerant, or even kindly, ideas about Fascism.  FDR expressed some admiration for Mussolini ("that admirable Italian gentlemen") whose followers coined the word “Fascism”.  Other members of the US elite felt the same way, or at least shrugged.  Leaders like Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco might be distastefully extreme, but they sure knew how to deal with Communists.

*****

The word “Fascist” comes from “fasces”, an ax wrapped in a bundle of rods.  These bundles were carried by “enforcers” who accompanied Ancient Roman magistrates when they were conducting state business. The fasces were a symbol of power.  A magistrate could order someone to be beaten with the rods - or dismembered by the axe.

Benito Mussolini was an Italian authoritarian populist leader.  He used the fasces and other symbols of Ancient Roman power and glory to stir nationalism and a sense of unity in his Italian followers.   Italians know how kindly and lovable they are, but people should not forget how dangerous it is to double-cross an Italian.  Hadn’t the Italian people given the world the Roman Empire with its laws, its roads and its aqueducts.  Didn't the Roman Empire given the world it’s global “peace” which allowed the birth and spread of Christianity?  Since then hadn’t the Italians given the world the best music, the best paintings, and the best food?

Mussolini’s followers were people of all stripes who felt threatened by change and by suspicious sounding calls for justice.  Some of Mussolini’s followers were very wealthy and powerful.  Some of them were large landowners. Some were institutional leaders who served those with wealth and power.  These institutions included major corporations, some of which still prosper today.  These institutions also included the military, the police and the Catholic Church.  But Mussolini’s followers also included shopkeepers, teachers, and laborers.   Many of them were good people who would feed the hungry and help the poor whenever they could.  They were just people who were frightened by changes that seemed to threaten their children’s futures. They were just people who were somewhat unnerved by threats to to their idea of the nation or the church.  

Mussolini exhorted his followers to call him “Il Duce” (the leader).

Adolph Hitler was a German authoritarian populist leader.  He used ancient symbols associated with the Germanic People (The “Volk” ) to stir up nationalism and a sense of unity in his German followers.

Hitler’s followers were people of all stripes.  Most of them were good people in their own way.  But they felt threatened by strange changes and the strange types of people calling for justice and freedom.  The Germans thought of themselves as a people who could be stern, but deep down they were kindly and civilized.  The Germans, had been forced by history to become stern.  After all, they weren’t French.  And who were the French anyway?  Weren’t they Franks, a German people, who had been seduced by Roman favor, Roman Power, and Roman ways?  Didn’t the Franks betray their Germanic heritage that way by learning Latin and mongrelizing themselves with Gaelic peasants and slaves?  And hadn’t the French brutalized and terrorized the pure, good, and peaceful Germans ever since Charlemagne - with Napoleon being only one of the most recent invaders?  And hadn’t France led the Allies in unjustly putting all the blame for The Great War of 1914-1918 on the Germans?  The French were also responsible for the humiliating conditions of the Armistice which required harsh payments and an emasculating surrender of military armaments. 

Some of Hitler’s followers were very wealthy and powerful.  Some of them were institutional leaders who served this rich, powerful, but tiny elite.  These institutions included major corporations, some of which still prosper today.  They also included the military, the police, land owners, and the universities.  But Hitler’s followers also included postmen, teachers, shop girls, and laborers.  These were people who would give the shirt of their back to help someone in need.  These were heroic people who would champion victims and stand up to victimizers. They were just good people who felt threatened by changes that seemed to be poisoning the future for their children and grandchildren. 

Hitler required his followers to cal him “Der Führer” (The Leader!)

Generalissimo Francisco Franco was a Spanish authoritarian leader.  He used the symbols of Spanish Monarchy and Roman Catholic Christianity to stir up nationalism and a sense of unity in his Spanish followers.  The Spanish were a great people who had also known much suffering.  Hadn’t they been subjugated by Muslim invaders for dreary centuries before finally, as Conquistadors, they drove the infidels into the sea?  Hadn’t the Spanish led the way in opening the Americas and bringing soul saving Christianity to the savage inhabitants of those lands?  And hadn’t their beautiful country been scourged with division and slaughter for too much of the last hundred years?  Didn’t the pious, honest, hardworking people of Spain deserve some measure of peace and order?

Franco’s followers were people of all walks of life.  They had good reason to be threatened by change and suspicious calls for justice.  Hadn’t Spain been torn by civil and guerrilla wars since the invasion of Napoleon?  Kings and Queens and come and gone, some of whom probably had no right to rule.  Weren’t liberals and republicans (those inspired by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution) threatening the Holy Mother Church so important for salvation and the souls of children, grandchildren, and the as yet unborn? 

Hadn’t Franco stopped the Civil Wars?  Franco called himself a totalitarian, but sometimes a strong man is needed when so much is at stake.  Harsh measures are terrible but sometimes necessary, and none of the factions had no blood on their hands.  Civil war is vicious.  Guerrilla war means never knowing when an enemy might strike.  Franco brought peace through strength.

Franco’s followers called him, “El Caudillo” (the Leader).

*****

Since the dawn of history, there have been strongmen. There have been kings who inspire armies to conquer and defend.  There  have been priestly castes who claim authority based on their special skills and wisdoms, their ability to explain and channel the forces of nature, and their power to represent the will of ancestors and gods.  There have also been tyrants who claimed their power from the people, or dictators who served to save the state and preserve order. 

Fascism is how modern corporate and other institutional elites mesmerize enough of the populace into fantasies of dominance and humiliation regarding "others" These "others" often include groups who live in the same nation state. (Don't forget that one of the most common motifs for sadomasochism includes fetishized versions of an SS uniform.)  

The extremely wealthy is always a tiny fraction of one percent in any population.  They and the multitudinous institutional elite who manage the affairs of commerce, law, and the state always have some tendency toward fascism because they recognize the power of organized factions of the people. (They also tend, with some justification, to view "the people" as ignorant, ungrateful, insatiably needy, and easily gulled)  

The tiny core elite can use subservient members of the institutional elite to keep the people unorganized, divided, and distracted. They don't want mobs of slobs wondering who's behind the curtain so they lull us with fancies, entertainments, and shallow gratifications.   If the times call for it, they whip us up into frenzies of fear and hate which repeatedly subside into numb craters of resentment and distrust. 

Fascists need paranoia (Fake news, conspiracy theories etc.) because they want the appearance of a great many "curtains" people can rip down to mock and vilify whoever gets caught behind them. This is all good for the fascist elements of the elite who want to hide behind the reassuring strongmen who would protect and glorify us all if only our enemies would let up on them (and us).

Since The Enlightenment, ordinary people are also always susceptible to fascism because it's impossible to really have a sure sense of what is going on in extremely complex modern societies. This is especially true when people are insecure, but have a sense that institutions are not working for the greater good.

It's always hard to have patience with the elaborate institutional mechanisms of democracy which, by design, fractionalize power and authority. We just wish things could be more straightforward - and we believe they could be if only the right kinds of "good people" were in charge. And if our leaders are good, it's even more important that they be strong - and maybe even harsh - because true leaders only want what's right for us, and if the leaders' enemies are trying to thwart them, this (intentionally or not) will only expose us to grave harm and terrifying evil.

The institutional elite and their minions know how to revive, create and manipulate symbols of home, nurturance, power, fear, and purity to wind us up and keep us exhausted.   

They don't need to fool all of the people all of the time.  They know they only need fool enough of the people enough of the time.  They know we're overworked and insecure.  They like it that way.  They know we're ignorant. That's a good thing for them too.  They're ignorant too, most of them.  They don't need to know everything; they can hire smart people to work in their institutions and keep things stirred up.

The tiny core elite (0.1%) and the larger institutional elite know what they need to know.  Most of them are good people.  Most of them are not idiots. But "idiot" is a term derived from the first formal democracy to give substantial power to ordinary people (if you don't count slaves and women) in a complex civilized society.  The word "idiot" comes from Classical Athens in Ancient Greece.

By the way "civilized" really doesn't mean "kind and polite" although it does have some association with "the rule of law".  Civilizations are really just cultures able to support cities - or large number of people who don't need to spend all their time finding, hunting, or growing food.  In civilizations some people can devote significant amounts of time to commerce, trade, and all types of special skills related to controlling nature across large spans of land and time - or to controlling people across many generations and wide expanses of territory.  A civilization is the type of human culture that can hold territories and people together for long time even if some of of those lands were conquered, their peoples exterminated or enslaved.

And "idiot" really doesn't mean "stupid".  An idiot is not an idiot because he is stupid, even though he may well be fairly slow witted and ignorant in certain ways.  In democratic Athens an idiot was someone who tried to shirk his duty to participate in the Democratic Assemblies.  Maybe they were just lazy. Maybe they were too sensitive or timid to endure the jostling of loud onion munching crowds of workmen and sailors. Maybe some were stupid.  Some of them probably didn't see the sense of standing around scratching on potshards and listening to morons pretending to understand long winded, flowery speeches. Maybe they just wanted to be left alone. Maybe they just wanted to conduct their own affairs for the benefit of themselves and their families.  To ancient Greeks, the word "idiot" meant a childish, ignorant, and irresponsible sense of selfishness. 

Not all of the 0.1% elite are idiots working only to benefit themselves and careless of the impact they have on society and the rest of us.  It only takes a few very rich crackpots to actually organize enough institutional minions to disrupt the institutions of democracy and the trust that might hold the 99% together in some sense of shared responsibility.

The destruction of democracy doesn't require a majority of a tiny elite to be idiots if such people command enough resources so that just a few can wreak havoc.  The destruction of democracy and the rise of fascism only requires that most of the 0.1% mind their own business.

The most idiotic of the tiny elite probably don't recognize themselves as "fascists".  They are just doing what seems right and good for them.  And few in the institutional elite think about fascism.  They do what they do for the rewards of power, prestige, and money.  They follow the money and, in America right now, too much money is the hands of a tiny elite that contains too many idiots.

Few ordinary people march around in sheets or sport swastikas. But lots of us distrust our institutions, often with good reason.  Few institutions are, after all, insulated from the power of big money.  To survive all institutions have to cater somewhat to the idiot elite (0.1%).  This is, most of all, true for certain types of democratic institutions - especially those involved in electoral politics (like the major parties).  When a society is ultimately ruled by democratic institutions but there is too much wealth inequality, this is what will naturally happen.  Wealth finds its way to where it benefits its owners most of all.

Fascism is always sponsored by a tiny idiot elite supported by hard working institutional elites and their minions.  Their wealth gives them an unfair advantage.  It's also much easier to undermine institutions than build them up and maintain them.  And the open, complex, and bewildering rules of democracy make it hard for democratic institutions to defend themselves. Most of all it is easier to sow distrust than it is to protect meaningful relationships built on hard work, responsibility, and tolerance.

And democracy is not just "the people vote and the majority rules".  That would never work as anyone would realize if they thought soberly about it even briefly. There has to be protections for minorities and individuals.  There has to be mechanisms for dividing and checking power. There has to be avenues for uncovering and removing the corruptions of self dealing and influence buying which will always creep into institutions like weeds will creep across lawns and ants will creep through walls.

Democracy is not just a series of triumphs for freedom and "rule of law" based on popular sovereignty. Democracy has won stirring victories, but even those were often at least partially the result of some very squalid circumstances and the actions of some very sketchy and conniving people. 

Democracy is not a given. And the common people are rarely noble, self sacrificing, or tolerant - although we can be. Wouldn't most of us want to be, under the right circumstances?  (Aye, there's the rub.)

Democracy is not simple or straightforward.  A casual study of democracy can make it obvious that democracy is a fragile layer of complexity built into and over the complexities of some civilizations. Unfortunately our schools rarely teach it that way.  They make it boring except sometimes when it comes to wars and slaughter. But, give schools and teachers some credit too.  It's very hard whip up interest in complex, intentionally ponderous institutions. 

Democracy is not simple and straightforward.  Nor are its prime defenders the armed forces though it may (partially) depend on men and woman who could rightly be called heroes. Armed forces have always been as dangerous for democracy as they have been necessary.  War is always dangerous to democracy even when fought to defend it.

Democracy is the grueling, frustrating, and never ending attempt to convince and influence people.  It's also all the disappointments and disillusionments that arise from this type of struggle.  It's having to endure and listen to idiots (a Greek Word), shysters (a Yiddish word), carpetbaggers (an American word), ignoramuses, and bullies.  It's about tedious tasks of organization and oversight.  It's about building the discipline to understand not only people with all their foibles, but institutions with their roots in history and necessity.

Democracy is the complex set of institutions that protect the people's rights to influence distant centers of power.  It is the complex set of rules, regulations and oversights to ensure that people have influence over all institutions so that they are safe, honest, and helpful.

This means democracy is the never ending struggle against institutions that are not safe, honest, and helpful.  It is the never ending struggle against concentrated wealth that will create institutions to protect itself and accumulate more wealth.  It is the never ending struggle against the efforts of concentrated wealth to influence and corrupt every institution to neutralize the power of ordinary people.  Serious students of history including Aristotle and James Madison (the prime architect of our Constitutional system) have always recognized that democracy is deadly to concentrated wealth, and concentrated wealth is lethal to democracy.  But they compromised and moved on, pushing many conflicts into the future lives of their descendants.  Sometimes that's the best anyone can do.

Thomas Jefferson, sitting perhaps near a warm fireplace stoked by ragged barefoot slaves who also sharpened his quills and brought him tea, wrote that freedom requires "eternal vigilance".  No wonder paranoia seems built into democracy as much as is complexity.

Whatever they think they're doing, it's easy for determined and clever people to whip up more paranoia than democracy can stand.  It's easy for them to do that even if it means they are ultimately undercutting the institutions protecting their own rights.  Idiots may not be stupid, but they mostly end up doing stupid things.

In mid May of the year 2017, the clumsy, awkward, vulgar institutions of democracy may be starting the process of removing a chief executive who is clearly toxic to much more than democracy.  But if those institutions are successful, will it mean people can relax after their celebrations?

The idiot elite (0.1%) will not go away.  They will not admit defeat or acknowledge mistakes.  They will assiduously bore into our institutions and our culture (which means our minds).  They will take advantage of our paranoia and insecurities and always find new ways to trigger them. But they'll only do that when they can't keep us distractedly amused or hopelessly despondent.

They may not go away (in our life time), but recent history in our own nation state tells us they can be tamed.  It took a Great Depression and a gifted leader (who was also a member of the 0.1% with all their cunning and less of their idiocy), but the idiot elite (0.1%) never forgave FDR and never ceased trying to roll back his protections.  They've never stopped targeting either Social Security or the Progressive Income Tax won a generation earlier.

They don't have to fool all of us all of the time.  They only need fool enough of us enough of the time.  They only need a few of us to make us all feel selfish, frightened, and hopeless.  And they only need a credible leader who isn't an obvious buffoon.  But it's now indisputably proven that even an obvious buffoon can win enough votes to be "electorated" president - and once he's gone, how will his followers be left?

Trimp's followers are not bad people. If they are ignorant of history and naive about democracy, so are the rest of us.  Most of us don't live the type of lives that allow careful study or reasoned debate.  We have so few good role models. And the next authoritarian populist that stirs us up will have a big advantage in that he will not be Trimp.

Fascism, just like Democracy, comes from very deep longings that were central to our humanity long before we lived in vast complex civilizations. Fascism is not inhuman, but to recognize its humanity is not to glorify it or to excuse it. There are plenty of human traits that are less then glorified and difficult to excuse.  To recognize the humanity in fascism is to prepare ourselves seriously against its challenging power. All of us are subject to the follies and exhaustions that breed cynicism and defeatism. To be very clear, the real dangerous of fascism do not come from swaggering bullies or manipulative leaders.  The real dangers of fascism are not in our own fantasies of power and revenge.  The real danger of fascism arises from apathy, ignorance, indifference, and especially despair. And resisting the soft seduction of despair may be the true primary life struggle (kampf, jihad,) for all of us. 

Holding our own in this struggle is the only way we can build democracy while recognizing the humanity and the dignity of all of us - including the idiot elite and including preposterous toddling bullies.  It may never be our fate to achieve total victory in either struggle, but that may be why we find honor and hope in never giving up on either of them.

It's been rightly said that "freedom is self control". Democracy is our only way of controlling ourselves and protecting us against "us".   In our struggles against ourselves how can we not feel defeated again and again and again?

*****

It is idiotic to exult over the defeated.  It is fascist. The defeated are us.  And, we can never forget the exhausted, the disillusioned, the tortured, and the betrayed are especially prone to the allure self-destruction - especially the kind that "takes out" the despised people who represent (for them) their tormentors and betrayers.  They are not our enemies.  They are our struggle.

The "Racism Card" is the Sleazy Way Out

Calling somebody a "racist" doesn't solve anything.  

It doesn't contribute to any solutions, and it doesn't win any arguments.   In fact, it's an easy, lazy, stupid, counterproductive thing to do. 

Racism is built into the cultural DNA of the US. And trying to scapegoat all of our racism and folly onto marginalized and vulnerable segments of the population is naive, cruel, and self-defeating. It's another (prissy) form of bullying that actually makes it ever more impossible for us all to build upon any common value in our contentiously shared humanity.

(It would, however, be just as stupid, lazy, insultingly mendacious to deny that racism isn't a key motivation for trimp support. Racism is built into the cultural DNA of the USA, and it's a primary way the few can divide and manipulate the many.)

But, then again, it's probably better to blame, shame, alienate, and galvanize people for being influenced by racism if the alternative is to dupe them by (once again) appealing to the "better angels" of their nature only to (once again leave them twisting slowly, slowly in the wind on the thin (post-election) rope of their evergreening hope, trust, ( . . .  and gullibility?).

It's Not Funny

Well, maybe it is funny - if "funny" is whatever makes me laugh.

I mean if someday we might all be able to look back and laugh on trimp, W, and Reagan, why not get a head start right now?

I suppose some of those unable to laugh right now NEVER thought Regan was a "great president", W was a "strong leader", and trimp is a legitimate expression of the popular will.  Maybe such people worked so hard to prevent these catastrophes?  Maybe they are still struggling so desperately to resist the incoming onslaught of depredations and depravities?  Maybe their courageous exertions have depleted any capacity to find humor?

Maybe laughter is a luxury their morality will not permit them to indulge in?

Maybe they are, in addition to their exhaustion, overcome with terror and compassion at what's likely to happen if the only lasting legacy of trimpulism is Associate Justice Gorsuck on the Supreme Court for a generation to come.

They would be right.

It's not really funny.


But maybe, someday?

Where Have All the Grown-Ups Gone?

Not long ago there was an "establishment" able enough to stabilize a rogue administration.  This happened much more recently than Watergate, though impeachment is once again a thinkable outcome for our current scandalous presidency.

When national security elements (not just Oliver North and Fawn Hall) were selling arms to Iran for the finance of terror, torture, rape, and murder in Nicaragua, they had the collusion of a senescent, disengaged President Reagan.

With solid support from Democrats, a Republican "establishment" moved in.  Among other (informal) measures, they installed Howard Baker (his credentials well burnished by the Watergate hearings) as White House Chief of Staff.  The "grown-ups" were back in control, and torture, rape, murder, and terror in Central America could continue as they had at least since Truman and on through the Carter administration.  But, at least, the "grown-ups" were back in control.

The current shambles is just as likely to provoke an invocation of Article 4 of the 25th Amendment as it is to "climax" with an impeachment trial.  But this time the "grown-ups" will have re-exerted their "control" over a society that's crackling apart like an attenuated glacier perched on a seething lava flow.  

The system is not working.

Is there a way to decapitate this administration and then provide strong moorings to "noose canons" like Pense and Ryan?   It's pretty hard to see.  And it's mostly dependent on the next Congressional elections which have had a pathetic record in terms of democratic participation and citizen engagement. 

It's easier to "reign in" an illegitimate administration than an idiot elite (0.1%).

On the Condescensions of Streep

According to Roger Cohen of the New York Times:

"The issues that afflict the economy — rising inequality, stagnant middle-class incomes, marginalization — are not enough to explain Americans’ decision to leap off a cliff and entrust their fate to a collection of billionaires and ex-generals under the diktat of a thin-skinned showman of conspicuous 'cruelty and ignorance,' in the words of Garrison Keillor."

So if all that is not enough, what else does it take to explain the paroxysm of spite and vandalism that is vaulting a rabid frothing ferret toward the highest office of our sick and suffering nation?

Well, according to Cohen, and so many boobs who claim to speak for middle America, we can blame the trimpification of America on the bicoastal libtard cultural elite.

The claim seems to be that if these glittering white wine sippers weren't so out of touch with the struggles of ordinary Americans who don't live in cities, then the good people of the prairies might have held their noses and given Hillary one last chance to fix a broken system. Never mind that this is a system to which she has accommodated herself (so thoroughly and so professionally) throughout her entire long career.

Really Roger?

What does being "in touch" with such people really mean? How does Meryl Streep offend them, by pointing out that trimp (as an obvious and indelible matter of public record) did indeed publicly mock a handicapped person just trying to do his job? How do liberals insult the salt of the earth by claiming that aging Red States receive more federal expenditures from Washington than they send in via their taxes? How does anyone injure them by fighting to protect their Social Security, MediCare, and MedicAid?

Is it because it hurts their pride to be reminded that we all depend on one another? Is it because it injures their "honor" that they may need the same types of support and services people with different skin colors also might need?  Is it because they want to be seen as brave and independent even though they are impaired by (somewhat) rational fears of crime, terrorists and unemployment?  Does it have anything to do with how somebody somewhere might seem to be walking into the wrong bathroom or holding hands with a person who might have the same nasty bits inside their pants?

Only an idiot would deny too many Americans are suffering. The victims include those among the younger, more urban populations who can suffer because of poverty, insecurity, racial hatred, fear, the cultures of crime and drugs, and a crippling lack of access to good education or meaningful work. Also included are people among older, more rural, populations who endure poverty, insecurity, fear, perceived racial bias, vulnerability to crime and drug culture, and a crippling lack of access to good education or meaningful work.

Obviously there is suffering. And, nearly as obviously, this is shared suffering. But the key word here does not seem to be "shared". The key word remains "suffering".

Except in depictions in art - and very rare real life occurrences (miracles) - suffering only rarely ennobles the human spirit - even when that suffering is survived. Suffering is too easily and too often glibly conflated with challenge and adversity. But suffering is, by definition, pain one tries to endure when there is no meaningful hope and no genuine comfort.

As the parent of any child - or any survivor of deep depression - may know, some suffering is transient. Maybe most suffering, and perhaps all of it, is only temporary especially if one takes into account the mercy of death. But when one feels helpless to offer meaningful hope or comfort, suffering with all its hopelessness is contagious. This is probably true of any contact with any victim who suffers - or even seems to suffer- no matter how brief the contact.

But if the defining characteristic of suffering is hopelessness (very akin to "helplessness") then the imperative to be of use militates that we, in certain ways, must inure ourselves to the suffering of others - even the suffering of those most dear. This is the carapace of the nurse, the nun, the surgeon, the teacher, the genuine helper who may, for a brief time, sit and share the despair of the sufferer, but who then must soldier on - or otherwise be of no use in this or any other case of suffering.

This is never easy - not even in institutional settings (such as hospitals and families) where certain distinctions are made and maintained between the sufferers and their "helpers". Out in the wild world, though, things are ever much more dicey.

"Killary" lost only because so few people made it to the polls. Some, sulking like armchair Achilles, stayed away voluntarily. Far too many though were kept away by the malicious means of hacks and manipulators seeking the short term benefits of voter suppression. Only a minority of those who actually voted did so for trimp. And of that minority only a tiny (but viciously vocal) splinter still actively participates in the obtuse choir of cacophony that feigns to find any words against their swindler a personal affront.

But those who sullenly pulled questionable levers for the Moronic Marsupial of Mal-I-Guano have some reason to resent preaching or scolding from those who, in public, appear more careless and free. This is not anything deserving of mockery anymore than it merits the insults of pity or sympathy. From us they want silence and, perhaps, some time to regain their bearings undistracted by supercilious jibes and accusations. And they are justified in the sense that no one has the right or the standing to pose as superior or "all knowing" compared to anyone else. 

 Our problem though is that this is not the whole story.

Out in the wild world, no one ever has the whole story - if there ever was (or will be) one story to be had. trimpulists love to remind us of this as a more genteel way to tell us to shut the fuck up. Out in the wild world we all must take turns leading and following, helping and being helped, learning and teaching, taking and giving. It's a swinging square dance with more than one "dance addled" caller.

So let us like Streep not call attention to the private anguish of those, who (by their vote, their influence, or their inaction) helped "electorate" our hateful toddler. Instead let's just try to remember how someone, through no merit or fault of their own, can become the emblem of future abuse and atrocity that we must try to prevent.

Oh, and by the way, Fuck You, trimp!

A Plutocrat's Guide to the Loserverse?

This is a great list, and I'm ashamed to admit I've only read a small fraction of these. But who WOULD (beside academic types) embark upon such a course of learning?

Plutocrats, aspiring billionaires, and embryo Machiavellians would all certainly benefit from reading any one of these tomes knowing, as they do, that "information plus insight" equals "opportunity and, perhaps, wealth and power" - or just more of the same when you already have at least some of each.

The "electorization" of Dumvald J trimp has a substantial likelihood to be soon decapitated by impeachment, Section 4 of the 25th amendment, or some other measure deemed necessary and (more or less) proper by those in the know. If any of this should (somehow) happen, it would likely unleash another "populist" paroxysm parallel to that which launched the orange tufted twat close enough to the White House to rape the benefit from a push from Putin and a goad from the G men.

Whether trimp is or (is not) neutralized, there may well be another upsurge not so easily managed. The financiers of Babbittry, trifling, and racial hate who support voter suppression are the same social entrepreneurs who encourage the camouflaged, beer soaked, "home grown Country Joe's" to run regularly into the woods chanting "Knee Shaggy Nadz!" and "Moron Labia!" 

These moneyspenders and media manipulators have been immensely successful in convincing a vast majority of Americans that politics, government, and democracy are nothing but frauds - and the victims of such cruel mockeries are the "good people" - the washed up, pale, pallid, bleached out, patient sufferers who are rumored to be patient no more.

Neither the particles nor the wavers of that swelling tide are likely to find the time or have the inclination to dip into this reading list. But anyone willing or able to read so far here - or even to skim through these titles and descriptions - might. 

Such people, I like to think, are a special part of a larger current that excludes none of the smaller eddies - or any titanic whirlpool. It's a current much broader and much deeper then the flailing storm that's frightening our minds and may soon spill into the streets. It's a current of hope and despair, not resignation. 

This current is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It's a strange mixture of idealism and realism that can't easily be encapsulated into a slogan or a meme. It has no plan, no leader, no true ideology - and no religion or faith though it may share some guiding spirit that cannot be named despite our human natures that compel us to try all sorts of labels.

No matter what happens with trimp, readers and their kindred are also likely to be in the streets. Not immune from dog whistles from side streets and high windows, they are still more likely to organize themselves according to principles less confined by the blinkering of tired paradigms. 

But imagination embodied with an awareness that history does not stay sequestered in the past is the burden and the strength of readers whose purposes transcend both the self and its escape.

Vietnam and the Lessons We Don't Learn

There are so many reasons to deplore the Vietnam War, its escalations, it's "causes", and its simmering aftermath. But even more deplorable are the efforts and resources expended to ensure we continue to learn the wrong lessons from it all. These efforts and their monumental success are emblematic of cultural conditions explaining how our electoral process was recently trimped in such a shameful way.

Nearly all of has were raised believing that fighting in the military equates to "serving one's country".  There are even well-intentioned efforts to amend this belief in light of the uncomfortable consequences the Vietnam experience has had on our culture.  One of these is the idea that "the armed services [should] be just one of many ways young people can serve their country".  This is indisputably true in principal, but effectively false with regard to the actual uses of "our" US military.

"Our" military, in principle, still defends the independence and security of our troubled nation.  But in actuality, the US military is almost wholly used in the service of empire. And the greatest enemies of this empire are not invaders, terrorism or communism - unless such labels are used to describe the efforts of foreign nations to control their own resources and choose their own paths for development.

The lesson of Vietnam, which could be learned by anyone who seriously studies the Pentagon Papers, is that the US consistently works against democracy and self-determination wherever they might conflict with "our" national interests. But, as trimp voters know in their guts, these interests are preponderantly defined by the private, profit-seeking motives of the directors of "our" economy.

Our presidents and our governments lied about Vietnam because telling the truth might have preempted such atrocities. Does anyone really believe there's been any war since Vietnam that was particularly different?  Vietnam was but one of many US interventions into other small countries before, during, and after the 1960s. It was not even the longest lasting.  For one example: the US still conducts regular military operations in the Philippines as it has, more or less consistently, since our invasion in 1898.  Honduras is another "abject" example of "our good intentions", and so (in another way) is Cuba.

Most of us have still not learned this lesson. It is a lesson that goes well beyond Vietnam - and even beyond empire. It is a lesson that could let us clearly see the long way to go before we can actually claim to be participating in any democracy.  

But first, we would have to want to.

Why is this Happening to US?

or

Tom Engelhardt's Top Five trimpvelations

The 0.1% Economy

First of all it’s NOT really the "One Percent” who are calling the shots and letting prospects for any actual US democracy get washed away.  It’s the 0.1% economy based on what Tom accurately calls "Casino Capitalism".   

It's interesting to note that the architects of the Bretton Woods (NH) post WWII world economic order did what they could to corral “finance capital” as opposed to “productive” capital.  But many such prudent safeguards including much of the New Deal have been steadily eroded, repealed, replaced or ignored by the Monied Masters of Mankind who, to their credit, share our disdain for the Dummkopf of Mal-A-Guano.  

The chipping away at the foundations for decent living standards for the masses started well before the mushrooms over Nagasaki could begin to dissipate. Now the malign fallout of greed and unaccountable concentrated wealth is raining grief on all of us.

The National Security State and the Permanent War Economy

Publicly available national security planning documents make it clear that “world empire” was an expected outcome of the Second World War during which US planners were actively preparing for the actualities of (imperial) diplomacy, propaganda, and intervention under the “Pax” Americana. 

World War II conclusively demonstrated that Keynesian economics worked wonderfully well in the real world.  The anemic economic stimuli provided by the New Deal did mitigate the ravages of the Great Depression, but the massive war deficits actually eradicated unemployment faster and more effectively that what the Salk vaccine did to polio.  

World War II also proved that, even during the most dire of national emergencies, there could be no peace between predatory capitalism and organized workers.  Workers, lulled by postwar prosperity and the passing of generations, forgot this.  Institutionalized greed did not. 

The war economy was rationalized and sold to the US public by ginning up fears of the soul crushing world communist serfdom represented by the “Red Menace” of Soviet Russia and the “Yellow Peril” of Maoist China.  US planning documents, including the Pentagon Papers, establish that US official clearly knew their real foe was the economic nationalism of peoples who dared dream of controlling “our” resources that just happened to be located within the borders of their quaint homelands.  But that’s “communism” too, and as Strummer and Jones later noted, “Castro is a color that is redder than red.  Castro is a color that will earn you a spray of lead.”  But the Indian fighters of the US Calvary and the US commander in Vietnam put it even more cogently with their Almarican dictum which, as every American schoolboy knows, translates as “Kill ‘em all.  Let God sort ‘em out”.

Interestingly, the war economy did much more than simply provide what passed for full employment.  Much of the Pentagon funded research of the 50s and 60s  was only tangentially related to national security needs.  But they did supply the necessary research, development, and market building for the high tech economy.

The National Security Act of 1947 laid the legal basis for the National Security Surveillance State.  The Church and Pike Committees and other investigations such as the one that looked into the Ronald Reagan/Oliver North Iran Contra travesty were little more than speed bumps in the accelerating development of the Secret Government.   September 11. 2001 may still turn out to be the death knell for democracy as we dreamed existed in the US, but time will tell.

The One Party State

Principled leftist commentators have long said that US politics is dominated by one Business Party (with two flapping wings).  Recent Supreme Court decisions and the increasing monopolization of our society’s collective resources by a predatory idiot (0.1%) elite mean that big money is likely to continue to dominate both parties and constrain public discourse (and campaign rhetoric) so as to protect the interests of these “Masters of Mankind”.  

Although pundits and chatterers have long loves detecting signs that one or the other party is coming into certain dominance, elections in the US are amazingly close with ever fewer citizens able to give a clear description of the difference between Democrats and Republicans.   If any party is likely to fracture, history and logic indicate that it will probably be the GOP.  But in that event a new right wing party that aggressively pursues the agenda of the business will emerge from it’s wreckage just as the National Republicans replaced the Federalists, the Whigs replaced the National Republicans, and the GOP replaced the Whigs.

The New Media Landscape

Newspapers and network news appear to have lost some (or much) of their dominance.  Social media enables the spread of all kinds of actual news that’s generally surpassed or ignored by the mainstream media.  But social media (dubiously) is also blamed for siloing opinions and world views as well as for encouraging the dissemination of all kinds of fake news

Some “social media vectored “fake news” is designed and funded  to have an ideological effect.  Other times it is merely a way to generate clicks for ad revenue.  Either way there is worry that such fake news is part our nation’s political polarization and governmental gridlock while also helping to maximize “information entropy”, a form of generalized anomie where no information or information source is credible or actionable except to occasional heavily armed nutjobs who open fire in oddly named pizzerias or take over remote woodland federal installations so they can take turns patrolling the perimeter while the rest stay inside watching the internet and roasting marshmallows.

Social media also offers new modes of political organization (and monitoring of such) while certainly allowing leaders to bypass typical media conduits.  

All of this was partially instrumental in our upcoming trimpification.

Anomie, Exhaustion, Dereliction, Division, and Desperation

Though the US leads in destructive firepower and diabolical military technology, it is becoming ever more clear that our healthcare, educational, transportation, and energy infrastructure are falling apart while falling behind what is available in other advanced economies.  It is now a commonplace that American children can no longer expect to do better materially than their parents.  Incomes for 80% of the population have been stagnant since the 1970s.

We’re told that people are reflexively (because of so much media prompting) blaming “gubmint” for these ills.  Seniors are portrayed as protesting, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” and the New York Times recently quoted a mom who condemned ObamaCare for forcing her son off her insurance when he turned 26.   

It does seem to be the case that many of us are blaming immigrants or, at least, the “illegals”.  In the meantime we being told that “white” people (a concept invented in colonial Virginia) are no longer the majority of those now under 5 years of age - although these reports usually don’t break down how many of these “brown” toddlers are the children and grandchildren of those of us who have been taught to identify as “white”.

As Tom Englehardt points out, this is the America that will, before the end of this month, fall into the short, stubby fingers of a delusional buffoon.