Don’t focus too much on The Donald. He’s just one
aspect of our doom. And it’s a bad doom, is what it is.
Why, it’s enough to make one nostalgic for the days
when all we had to worry about was slowly losing our constitutional rights, our
freedoms, and most of our prosperity to the machinations of a cabal consisting
of the national security state, big industrialists and billionaires, compliant
politicians from both parties, miscellaneous financial mischief makers, and our
newly militarized police forces. That was a slow descent into mediocrity that
we got used to over the last thirty years, the way that a frog in slowly
boiling water gets used to the temperature change.
At least that outfit left us some table scraps. At
least they believed that we had the power to generate wealth for them, bless
their hearts, even if they wanted almost all of that wealth for themselves.
Now we should be begging that good old cabal to save us
from an Orwellian nightmare that is already well underway. The new bunch
consists of the worst among the above mentioned actors, along with militant
Christian reconstructionists and undiluted fascists. The middle has been
scooped out and discarded, and the left is down to platoon strength against an
army of many divisions. All that’s left is the right, so to speak. All of the
poisons that dwell in the earth have hatched out, as Claudius said in another,
similar context. They are all thriving in our current milieu of profound
ignorance and rampant greed.
See what I mean? Herr-President-Would-Be-Fuerer-Drumpf
is just a side-show. In four years, or, God forbid, eight years, we can forget
about him. The entire universe of grief in all of this exists quite equally well
with or without The Donald. He’s not the dangerous psychopath, he’s just the
enabler. If it were not him, someone else would fill the role.
So, that’s choice one (the old cabal), and choice two
(the new bunch). Will it be Scylla or Charybdis? The rocks or the whirlpool?
The devil or the deep blue sea? In between the eyes or in the teeth? Name your
poison! Our only hope is the best of this bad, bad choice. Choice number one
offers only slightly more hope and a bit more prosperity, based on a somewhat
greater understanding that our prosperity contributes to that of the bosses.
Choice number two, to be honest, they seem content to sacrifice some measure of
their own mega-prosperity for the supreme pleasure of reducing the rest of us
to penury and debt-slavery.
They seem
downright cruel, don’t they? Whether they grind us down for religious reasons
or out of shear viciousness will make little difference to us when we are
begging our more fortunate brothers and sisters for food and shelter.
The only other possible fates waiting in the wings are
even worse. Nuclear war is back on the threat horizon after a welcome absence
of a couple of decades. Total environmental collapse is an up and coming
possibility. Name your poison! Gosh, these are exciting times. And there are no
White Knights out there on the horizon that I can see.
Death Watch
We live in the age of the death of dreams:
The Greeks’ dream of democracy;
The Romans’ dream of a republic;
The Renaissance dream of dignity and prosperity;
The Enlightenment dream of the rule of reason;
The American dream of freedom;
The dream of every family in the world to be treated
with respect and allowed to live in peace.
We have been watching the assault on these dreams for
decades now, and the forces of this evil are so close to their goals that I may
live to see the day of their victory myself.
The entire world is in a plenty big mess, just look
around, and America is now like a man who is bleeding out from a severed femoral
artery and unable to breathe due to an obstruction in the windpipe but who
seems most concerned with getting rid of his goddamned annoying headache.
Trump is the headache.
Question
The big question is: are we already there?
As with environmental collapse, the triumph of
totalitarianism has a tipping point beyond which a return to the status quo
ante becomes impossible. Nor will there be any “Fortress of Democracy” to save
the day this time. I don’t see anyone out there. Who would that be? Canada? Denmark?
What about France? They’ll be lucky if they can avoid the worst of it
themselves. I’m not expecting any cavalry to ride over this horizon to save us.
Flip us over, boss, we’re done on this side.
It’s almost too terrible to consider, but the entire
world could be reduced to the level of the old-fashioned Soviet Man. Dependent
on handouts and subsidies; desperate to seize onto any small advantage; and
only pretending to work, because they only pretend to pay us.
Trump’s Legacy
President DJT is too mediocre and lazy minded to
actually exploit the chink in democracy’s armor that he has discovered. His
lasting legacy will only be that he pointed it out to other, more talented
would-be dictators.
All such unspeakable snakes in the future will follow
Trump’s model:
Shout loudly and crudely how much you hate the things
that most low-information voters hate;
Make the lowest and most numerous groups in society
think that you are one of them;
Condemn and demonize anyone and any group of
individuals who know or understand pretty much anything at all;
Use a very simple vocabulary of mostly repeat slogans
over and over again; and
Promise everyone exactly what they want, quickly,
easily, and simultaneously.
You can’t lose! Go for it! And if you do your homework,
not like this sleepwalking Bozo, your picture will hang in all of the temples
forever. Your name will be the last name that we are required to learn.
Good luck, boss, and please be gentle with us.
No comments:
Post a Comment