Back Again

So it's been a very long time, since I've written anything.  I fell off the wagon again, and for a different reason.

I'm working on a unified theory of political grief, but it's not going well.  The stages are clear, but are they universal?  My ability to cope fluctuates - traumatic withdrawal for the first six months; then a tentative return to the world and a guarded attempt to understand and express it, which is this journal.  Then it shifted, for me, at least, again; in January:  it had become a demented kabuki and it just didn't seem worth the effort to write anything rational about it.  If no thought is going into American policy, domestic or foreign, any more, why make the effort to make sense of it?  There really isn't anything useful to say about our President babbling about thousand dollar pens.

Even the war with Iran we suddenly find ourselves in, which is killing real people on all sides, defies rational explanation.  If there is no plan, no policy, no goal, what is there to write about?

Today's No Kings rally was kind of a wake-up call, at least for me.  As noted below, people seemed serious.  It was not a lark.  It was not fun.  We were freezing cold and grimly determined.  We'll see if this translates nationwide:  if there's a sea change, in numbers, in determination, in action.  There are signs, on both sides, of a tectonic shift.  When CPAC cheers impeachment, something is happening.  

So I will continue to pay attention to, and write about what seems worthy of note about, this slowest of trainwrecks.

No Kings Oneonta

The temperatures are in the mid-20s, wind-chill approaching single digits, and after a while it started snowing.  But here we were, bundled up, on a patch of land behind downtown which is owned by the guy who sells Subarus down on Chestnut St.  There were a lot of us; I can't say how many, but it looked to be about the same number as the last time I was here, back in April.  Maybe more.

The sound system was really good; you could hear clearly from anywhere.  Focused, concise speeches, good live music, candidates passing petitions in the back, signs everywhere.  No one really up front, by the stage, because there were a lot of puddles there.  Overcast, and the wind made sign management tricky.

The signs were different this time, I think - a subtle shift.  They were more serious, more pointed, issue-based, assertive.  There were a lot of those in the past, but most of them were like that this time; there were fewer comical signs, fewer signs making fun of Trump & Co.; fewer that you'd laugh at.  We are fed up by now.  Shit is getting serious.  One old guy had a smallish piece of cardboard, a hand-lettered sign that asked, "Is he dead yet?"

We listened to (excellent) speeches, sang, chanted, and then marched up to Main St., where we lined both sides for a long block or so, three or four deep.  Most drivers on Main St. honked their solidarity.  We waved our signs and did democracy.  Then, after a while, in small groups or individually, we headed for home.

Why do we do this, when it won't make a difference?  Abbey's cousin asked that yesterday.  We do it because it's our patriotic duty, our service to country, our job as a citizen of democracy.  The only reason that there were seven million people at the last No Kings protests is because I was there - says everyone who was there.  If I don't show up, no one shows up, and the criminals in power will assume all is well.

All is not well.

No Wonder Fascists Hate Art

This is art that knows what it is about, and has fulfilled its potential.

Full screen, sound on.

"Art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth." 

                                                                                                            — John F. Kennedy

True Things 18: You Can't Make This Stuff Up

I just read, and then confirmed, that the current Secretary of Homeland Security is Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem.

Her initials are KLAN.

Some Hope to Sustain Us

Too overwhelmed with evil and idiocy to write anything sensible.

Have this instead.

True Thing 17: Quiet Part Out Loud

 Yesterday, at a cabinet meeting:

Again, existing housing, people that own their homes, we're going to keep them wealthy, we're going to keep those prices up. We're not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn't work very hard can buy a home.

We're gonna get, we're going to make it easier to buy. We're going to get interest rates down, but I want to protect the people that for the first time in their lives feel good about themselves. They feel like they've, you know, that they're wealthy people, and I want them to understand it.

You know, there's so much talk about, "Oh we're going to drive housing prices down." I don't want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes. And they can be assured that's what's going to happen.

 He wants home ownership to be less available to Americans ("somebody who didn't work very hard") so wealthy people can get wealthier.  He just came out and said it.

So Far So Good

As predicted.  But to be fair, there's been a lot to be distracted by.

Without Comment

“Get it all on record now — get the films — get the witnesses — because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”

          Dwight D. Eisenhower, after visiting liberated concentration camps in April 1945

Governed by Fantasy

How you holding up?

I've been writing pretty regularly, but recently it's all been happening too quickly.  But more than that – none of it seems real or on-purpose.  It reminds me of the kid with a behavioral disorder who just couldn't cope with school that day, for some collection of reasons, and lashed out verbally and physically at a constantly-changing and seemingly-random set of targets.  Greenland?  You need a more restrictive environment and therapy, dude.

There was a point in the last few weeks when that reality shifted, and it really did seem like a demented kabuki, some surrealist novel with no meaning or resolution.  More importantly, maybe, was the fact that this shift revealed that there really isn't anything substantial driving all this, other than psychopathology.  Suddenly – and this was weird – I was angry at any journalist or analyst who took anyone or any activity in the Executive Branch seriously.  Taking them seriously assumes there are real, thoughtful answers to serious policy questions, which gives them way more credit than they deserve, because it's all just a hollow flailing-about by children who need some professional supervision.  Treating anything coming out of Washington as serious just fuels their fantasies.  And that's what's happening – we're being governed by fantasy.

So how do you write about all this?  I haven't figured it out yet.  There is nothing important or interesting to say about the Greenland affair because there's nothing rational behind it.  There's nothing to write about ICE in Minnesota because there are no decisions being made that relate even a little bit to the real world or the lives of real human beings.  And the Epstein files are like an alien war fleet which orbits the Earth endlessly without ever actually doing anything.

This respite from constant analysis and 12 dimensional chess has allowed me to take a broader view of Where We Are, including seeing it as history.  If we return to 'normal' (minus all the permanent damage that has been done and will be done in the next three years) then this last decade will, I hope, be seen as a bizarre, low-probability-but-there-it-is unfortunate incident – like Preston Brooks on steroids – and an object lesson in trust.

This horrible decade has given us an interesting perspective into the intellectual and moral context of the Founding Fathers.  When inventing America and the new American form of government, there was a lot to figure out.  Democracy was not a slam dunk.  They considered establishing a monarchy.  They considered giving the Executive a lot more power.  Eventually, separation of powers and checks and balances prevailed.  

But after putting aside the idea of monarchy and a strong Executive, they did just about nothing to prevent it in the future.  What we are seeing in the Executive now is a direct result of the Founding Fathers' trust.  They apparently looked around at each other, assuming all future Presidents would come from this socioeconomic subset (and, indeed, the first five Presidents were Founding Fathers, and the sixth was the son of a Founding Father*), and decided that nothing needed to be done.  After all, they were all gentlemen.  Anyone who got to be President would, naturally, know how to comport himself.  No limits or restrictions on the Executive were necessary, not even consequences for violating the Constitution itself.  And, of course, Trump vs. the US put the last nail in that particular coffin.

So I also hope that history will record that when we all recovered from the degradation of the past ten years (and the coming three), we got to work to make sure it never happened again.  I hope we learn the lesson and use it to forge a more robust Constitution which reflects our need for a certain type of President rather than anyone who can whip up a crowd with lies and felonies.

* - And, ironically perhaps, the seventh President, Andrew Jackson, was by far the most Trump-like of all of them (racism, genocide, corruption, political divisiveness).  To understand the dark side of the American experience, just consider that this man is on the $20 bill.  Harriet Tubman, where are you?  Let's go!

Integrity and Sovereignty

Remember the Treaty of Westphalia?  Of course you do.

In a joint statement yesterday, by President of the European Council António Costa and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, regarding the threatened annexation of Greenland by Donald Trump, we find this phrase:

...[t]erritorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law. They are essential for Europe and for the international community as a whole.

Ah, the echoes of Westphalia lo, these 378 years later.  Recognize it?  Territorial integrity and sovereignty.  

In the very first Chapter of the Charter of the United Nations, Article 2, Clause 4, ratified in 1945, reads:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Still no power, strength or force.

Oh, right - there is some.  Power, strength and force, that is.  From America.  Let's hope the power of history, the strength of strong alliances, and the force of morality can result in better heads prevailing.