Destruction and Mayhem and Irreparable Harm?

We're witnessing the destruction of a world order. Bound to happen sooner or later ,but I'd rather not have lived to see the US leading it.  Russia leading it? Sure. No brainer there. But the US? Heartbreaking,  wrenching, vomit-inducing. 

Not at the behest of the people of the world, that's for sure. At most, the US is less than 5% of the global population. And less than 30% of the total US electorate voted for the idiot that's leading the charge. I've called him all kinds of names - my faves being Felon47, Tangerine Twit and lately Donzilla, DimDon and Don the Destroyer. That 49% of the voters could vote for this will always enrage me. 

Just read a bit on Axios that describes DimDon the Destroyer of Worlds as a "realist" who sees "hard power" exercised by strong men. Turns my stomach. Headline on BBC was Idiot-in-Chief threatening Zelensky. Way to go, FoolFelon. Don't just kick an ally when it's being invaded and tortured, make it give you everything so you don't join in and steal what they have. That's what physical and moral cowards do, right? Side with the bully and... I can't go on. It's so damned ugly and cruel and vicious. And far too many other cowards and bullies are rooting him on. 

I hate it. I hate that what used to strive to be the House on the Hill, a beacon of liberty and justice (never attained but at least sometimes striven for), a voice for reason and peace... has become this. Stingy, bullying, vicious, malicious, conniving, petty, destructive, intentionally cruel, greedy - January 19, 2025 was our last day as even trying to be humane and caring. With F47, we seem to be embracing barbarism's worst instincts and gleefully oblivious to the misery we're causing around the world. He and his minders are literally taking food away from the hungry, inflicting horrific agony on millions needing food, medicine, care, and depriving thousands of their lawful and productive employment in order to further enrich the hyper-wealthy. 

And the venial Justices do nothing. They slow walk anything that might interfere with the wishes of their masters - Looking right at you Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and Roberts. You're enabling this destruction, accepting bribes and blithely ignoring the Constitution. Paying back some of those favors for a more luxurious life, even as the rest of us are gasping for air and justice. Even rule of law would be nice. But no, you owe your buddies over at the Heritage Foundation too much. They are worth more than the rule of law, your honor or your souls. They likely own you, so you bow to their wishes and slimy dreams of power. May your god meet you and be sickened. And of course, may you rot in hell.

Over the past 40 years, I've watched and worked and voted for my country to evolve into a just society, where work and merit and justice were hallmarks of a good, caring and generous society. I've cheered when good people helped others devastated by natural or man-made disasters. I've winced when so-called leaders sent thoughts and prayers to victims of violence, injustice, hatred, longing for real leaders to be recognized and offer service to the rest of us. People like Kamala and Joe and Barack and Michelle. I've cringed as our society embraced "reality" entertainment that was openly and cravenly unrealistic.  I've called out the Bread and Circuses, tried to illuminate the workings and mechanics of the oligarchs to render us ignorant. I've cheered when real heroes tried, failed, got up and tried again and again. When real leaders took the hard road because it was the correct and humane one. 

And now I weep as American society stands by and cheers evil, as their sordid heroes cheat and bully and pardon the evils that tear at the social fabric that creates society itself. We've done this to ourselves - we've chosen to cheapen our own lives in the name of ease and entertainment.

May the good out there in our country and elsewhere keep working to fight this evil. May we who value justice, charity, compassion and kindness find the strength to prevail. Slava Ukraine! Free Tibet! Free the United States, and may we deliver ourselves from the greedy grasping fools!

Ducking the Horrors of Trump 2.0

Oddly, while his recent actions horrify me, I'm not totally freaking out. Rather, I have a desire to shout to the heavens "I told you so!!"

I won't of course. But he's actually going slower than I expected. I really did expect him to formally and officially terminate the Constitution by Day 2. And he hasn't. Granted, he's given extraordinary power to Elon, and is doing everything by fiat, but he hasn't formally trashed the Constitution. Given Citizens United, the degradation of the electoral process since Nixon, the end of the Fairness Doctrine in the 1990s, none of this is a big surprise. At least to those who haven't been imbibing in the Republican kool-aid since the 60s. Maybe doing acid and heroin was actually better than the Republican kool-aid in the long term. 

I've been a big fan of Heather Cox Richardson since I found her (only in 2023, far too late). Her analyses are spot on, and so helpful right now. And since I agree with her and she's more articulate and has a far better foundation in US history than I do, I happily defer to her. There's a reason I didn't want to even look at American history past 1947: I simply didn't have the needed objectivity. She does. I knew it infuriated me to discover the malfeasance and misdeeds of this country that I loved, and that I wouldn't be able to be calm and scholarly about it. So I am very grateful to find a scholar of such distinction right now. 

I was a full blown adult in the 1980s, and doing both undergrad and MA work, and thus developing and honing my professional skills. And I was utterly thunderstruck that people actually listened to Reagan and bought his kool-aid. His elections were hard lessons in the gullibility of the American electorate. His campaigns were, to me, so patently & obviously manipulative that I simply gaped that so many chose him.  His second term, with his ever-so-obvious cognitive decline, was another painful lesson and I started to wonder how people could so eagerly overlook the evidence of his... craziness. 

Ultimately, I recognized that the responses to cognitive dissonance are far more powerful than we'd like to think (if that isn't a tautology...).  Lord knows how many studies have looked at this - including my own dissertation and much of my professional research since. Americans are taught from the cradle to embrace magical thinking, to regard evidence as unnecessary and likely false. We're not alone in that, but what continues to bemuse me is our insistence that any evidence we don't like on nearly everything is false and being presented maliciously. We might say we did x, y or z based on solid evidence, but we certainly don't act that way. Woe to those who might question anything that challenges our magical thinking fantasies. 

So I'm oddly calm as my country is destroyed around me. I'm not reading everything I can get my hands on about the travesties of Trump 2.0. Rather, I'm idly wondering who's going to archive the evidence away from the bastards who will 'clean' up our history and disappear the evidence of atrocities we've committed in our history (and present). That they intend to rewrite history is a given - they've said it again and again, and it's been going on forever. So whoever is around 200 years from now will look back at this period, this geographical spot and hopefully find an archive of scholarly work that doesn't argue the ends justify the means. Maybe they'll recognize the kool-aid histories as travesties and wonder how we let that happen. 

Maybe they'll have air to breathe. Trees to sit under. Oceans full of life. I hope so. But if the current path humanity is on continues, I'm sure the USA won't be around. Not as a democracy - more likely another historical example of hubris, arrogance and what happens to a culture raised on bread & circuses.

Raging Against OWM

 OWM: Old White Men. Also Only White Men

What is it that makes white people think - believe - that the color of their skin makes them somehow special? Immediately more able than any other person in the mix? That any NON-OWM in a position of X is there because of anything other than ability? Frankly, I don't know many OWM who I would trust with my used cat litter, much less as a leader of anything other than stepping into a pile of shit.

A few. I know a few who ARE competent, intelligent and able to use their brain vs their ego (and dick) when they have to make a decision. I know far more of the other types - who will rationalize their decisions after the fact. My father would only own red Fords - didn't matter what a POS it was, it was a red Ford so he liked it. He'd tell people it was because they were great vehicles, but every one he owned turned into a mess because he didn't take care of it and wouldn't get it out of second gear and standard gear cars were the only ones real men drove. He told my mom that women couldn't drive stick shifts - she'd been driving them for her entire life. Women, he said, weren't smart enough. Such BS. 

What brought this on? Trump 2.0. It's all of Day 3 and that fool is already implementing OWM policies. He's ordered an immediate suspension of all federally employed DEI personnel. And fired a few in various military branches. And his toadies are jumping with joy and accusing these career service members - without any knowledge of those members or their performance - as "unqualified." Trump himself is unqualified, FGS.  So is Vance. And I can say with high confidence that any supporter of Trump as a leader or successful businessman is unqualified to judge anyone else. If they can't open your damned eyes and see what a con man Don is, they are certainly not qualified to judge anyone else.

They might be qualified to take a bag of used cat litter to the garbage can. I will have to check your work, because my confidence in that is pretty low.

Well, That was Interesting...

 Yes, indeedy. McCarthy losing a vote of confidence. Led by the All-Time-Loser, Matt Gaetz. Wow. Just goes to show what Lenin said was right: a small number can have an outsized effect. McCarthy gave them power, and he caved to them all along. Until he did the right thing, passed a continuing resolution with the support of Democrats - and against the mini-mob. The rest of the GOP has also shown their colors - they might have supported him as Speaker, but they too are so afraid of their extreme wing that they do nothing else. American politics are so f-d up.

The gag order on Trump is lovely, but of course he doubles down. And runs away from his lawyers in NY to go pout and spout from Mar-a-Lago. The question now is: when (not if) he spouts his vile lies from there, will a NY judge slap him down? And how? Personally, were I that judge, I'd give him a meaningful fine (say $5 million) the first time. Double it the second, and nail him to the wall for contempt on the third.  If Trump really has the cash to pay $15 million in fines for the first two, and continues?  Make it very clear that the next one will be heavily fined and incur even more limits on his bile. Like $50 million plus jail time. I hesitate with the jail thing, because Don would relish that as campaign fodder. 

Don's request for further delay in the rest of the cases should be denied out of hand, by all judges. Or conditional: only if he retires from campaigning (for anyone) and agrees to leave politics altogether. He's just too nuts to continue to be a player of any type. The DOJ did it with Agnew; do it with the far more toxic Trump!

Would that stop the extremists? O no, I doubt it. They are loving their tastes of power; only being turned out of office by their constituents would defang them; they'll then go on the speaking tours and rile up others. How do we get the slime of the troll cohort to crawl back under their slime and stay there?

I'm very worried that US support for Ukraine will be cut off; Putin's treasury may be big, but his military and political classes are not ignorant of what is going on in the war. Can he expand that further? He'll try, no doubt, and he loves waving his nuclear toys about. In a way, I see that as fair: Truman did that when we had the atomic weapons, to get Stalin to participate in the war against the Japanese. I can only hope that somewhere in the Putin sphere there are military commanders with the foresight and courage to stop him. Given Vlad's record dealing with opposition, they are going to have to be quite brave and put their lives on the line. 

I'm really hoping that Zelensky will have the will and courage to call elections, and that he can win. And that Putin and Trump can stay the hell out of Ukrainian politics!