Emigrating to LaLa Land

A friend (a fellow Bernier) sent me the link to a short film, as one of the reasons she could never vote for Hillary. Hearing veiled remarks about ‘corruption’ and ‘can’t trust her’ and just ‘follow the money,’ I realized: this is what Hillary first called ‘a right-wing conspiracy” back in the ’90’s. All the rumors of the terrible things done by the Clintons, or by Hillary specifically, have a funny way of never being confirmed or proven. And the conspiracy-mongers always have an explanation, how ‘she’ or ‘they’ wriggled out of it.

And it does come out of the right-wing. It’s the kinds of things right-wing radio ranters and the Enquirer have been shouting for years.

A current example, Clinton Cash was produced by Breitbart Films. The organization also publishes Daily Caller and is a well-known right-wing propaganda mill.

So, viewing Clinton Cash must be done with a healthy dose of skepticism. The film itself is rich in images of cash, of supposedly corrupt people being greeted by or hosted by or hosting Bill and Hillary and of a drawn, unattractive Hillary announcing decisions as Secretary of State---none of her announcements are actually shown, but the commentator helpfully tells you what nefarious deals they facilitated. So, there are a lot of inferences drawn, a lot of circumstantial "evidence" is mustered, but the inferences in all these cases are only insinuations.

Since Brightbart doctored videos that destroyed ACORN and then attempted to do the same thing to Planned Parenthood--posing as innocent reporters, they twisted the videos through deceptive editing, to show that PP was selling fetal tissue for profit, when it has never been proven that PP ever did: they sell tissue at cost, to cover handling expenses, since they want to make it available for scientific research. Why believe anything declared by Brietbart?

You have to realize, this is the same propaganda that animates Fox News, and the screamers in Cleveland calling for Clinton to be jailed or executed. It has about as much credibility as the failed effort to destroy Planned Parenthood.

And, almost all the stories about Hillary and Bill, extensively investigated over and over and found baseless, have been circulating on the Tea Party network for years. Now these same propaganda “news” groups are seeking new converts: among Bernie or Busters: to persuade as many Berniers as possible that they should NEVER vote for the demon, Hillary Clinton. Trump’s been pretty up front about that, himself.

Just to know where all this comes from should tell you how insidious and spurious it is. I think Hillary has made some mistakes, because she listened to longtime experts in State, for example, to support the Honduran coup, and to overthrow Libya's Qaddafi, without a realistic scenario for what should come after--both incidents NOT covered in this film. But to portray her and Bill as on the take, solely motivated by accumulating money on the backs of poor Haitians or Congolese is just completely BS. Yes, they sought funds to carry out their programs abroad, programs they believed would do good. They thought the people in charge knew what they were doing, or that the only way to get things done was to work with questionable people. That’s an especially old story in foreign development circles, where corruption is endemic and expected. Any politician trying to get things done will probably have to make questionable connections.

Bernie's wife, Jane, is also supposedly tarred by questionable decisions vis a vis an education fund. No one is pure.

As for Trump: his whole career has been built on legally (that's why so many lawsuits) bilking contractors, workers, students, and ordinary people in virtually all his "business" dealings. That's how he's made his money.

If you don't vote for the Democrats (including Hillary) you are making it easier for Trump to be elected, and he could win. He’d probably have the mob with him—and his own mob. He's admired Putin and Saddam because that's the kind of dictatorial regime he wants to lead himself: he's also on board to discriminate against: immigrants, Latinos, blacks and the LGBTQ community (despite his careful repeating of the initials in his speech). He would abolish the health care act, privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, while cutting taxes on the wealthiest, thereby creating huge deficits that would require slashing government services to any except the very wealthy. And, he'd build up our military (now accounting for 40% of all defense spending in the entire world), so he'd probably need new taxes: maybe an "America Tax", a sales tax or a value-added tax that would hit the poor especially hard (they are his favorite victims in business, after all).

I'll vote Democrat to protect my children, all of whom are identified as in the LGBTQ spectrum. I’ll vote to protect a Supreme Court that could become either even more conservative than it was with Scalia, or could be progressive if Hillary gets to appoint his replacement and the other Justices getting too old to serve. That court will serve long after I’m dead. I’m 77.

I’ll also vote to insure that we have someone leading our country who is sane, not unstable and unpredictable.

That Hillary has also signed on for a good part of Bernie's agenda is a bonus we could work for. It would be impossible for us to even think about the Bernie agenda (except maybe through violent revolution) if Trump were elected.

The idea that, even if Trump got elected he couldn’t do anything, is unwarranted. He offered Kasich the Vice Presidency, in which he, the VP, would be in charge of Domestic and Foreign Affairs, i.e. the one getting things done for Donald. It’s very likely Pence signed on for the same deal. And there are all sorts of radical ‘conservative’ Republicans who would do the kinds of things outlined in their platform. Pence would dismantle as much of the Federal Government as he could, except for Defense, Homeland Security and DOJ. If he and Trump were elected, they’d probably take Congress, too. And, of course, the Supreme Court, since he, or Trump, would have the pleasure of appointing the most conservative, pro-monopoly-corporate, “Christian,” anti-LGBTQ lackeys they could find.

Tell me: what would voting for Jill Stein do, if Trump were elected?

Would her 3%—5% make a difference in the election? You can already see it in the polls: Jill takes votes from Democrats. Trump and Hillary were neck and neck, when Stein and Johnson were included in the latest polls, while a pairing of Hillary only against Trump shows Hillary slightly ahead.

Voting for Jill Stein, if Trump were elected, would signal to him that the left is divided and weak, so he can destroy us as predatory “leaders” are apt to do: by turning us against each other.

Maybe, he/they have already done that, with the help of Brietbart, Fox News, Limbaugh, and all the other right-wing propagandists.

I hope not, but if so: Welcome to their LaLa land!

I Alone Can Fix It

Yes, Trump said that!

I don’t know if it was an ad-lib, or part of his written text, but he said it, and it’s memorialized in the video record, in his convention speech. Apparently it was after he said: the powerful “beat up on people that cannot defend themselves;” and the system was “rigged against our citizens.”

Hubris? What is he running for? Emperor, perhaps? King Arthur? Maybe, King Arthur.

He’s not running for what most Americans have recognized as President.

Truman, in an interview in the Oval Office, before Ike was inaugurated, remarked: “Poor Ike!” He explained that being President was not like being a General. “He’ll order this, he’ll order that—and nothing will happen!” (quotation approximate).

Presidents cannot control Congress, unless they have an overwhelming majority, and even then, not for long, as LBJ demonstrated. Presidents can’t even control the sprawling bureaucracy of the Executive branch, although they try; they can’t control the Supreme Court, even one they appoint, and they certainly can’t control the States. So, how is the Donald going to do what he says he’s going to do? Establish law and order within days of his inauguration?

The states control police powers.

Detain and expel 11.5 million “illegal aliens?” The legal problems facing such a program are nearly insurmountable, unless he’s determined to completely circumvent all Constitutional protections for non-citizens.

And then, would certain citizens, someone outspoken, like me, be denied Constitutional rights as well, because we are, well, you know…?

If he has a friendly Congress, he might be able to start building a wall, but it would be a massive undertaking; would cost more than any other government building program ever has, and probably would founder in disputes about where to get the money, even if a lot of it ended up in the hands of Trump & Co. The first $100 billion President.

But he’s also going to completely revamp the military and cut taxes. How? Maybe by doing what Hitler did in part: seize all property and wealth belonging to aliens for the State, i.e. the Federal Government. That would be quite a haul.

If he cuts taxes, according to his statements and the Republican platform, he’ll cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations. Tax cuts for ordinary people would have to be minimal, and probably would have to be replaced by higher sales taxes, excise taxes and value added taxes, all of which would increase ordinary people’s tax burden, but not that of the wealthy, or corporations. Taxes would be less visible, however.

If, that is, he could get any taxes through Congress beyond the tax cuts popular with business, so an enormous deficit could be the result. And then a recession, at least.

He says he’s for peace, but he excoriated Obama for not acting on his Syrian “red line,” which could very well have ended up involving the US in the horrific Syrian civil war even more directly, and possibly in direct confrontation with Russia.

Can we predict a peaceful Trump Presidency, given his thin-skinned vulnerability to criticism? Can you really imagine him negotiating a deal with Assad, or Putin? And what about his inflammatory statements on the Iran nuclear treaty? We could well end up in a greater war in the Middle East: against IS, Iran, Assad, you name it. Maybe all of them combined!

His claims or promises do remind me of Hitler, and of Roman Emperors, although his symbolism is more like King Arthur, the original British nationalist, if you consider the lighting that made him golden, instead of orange, that figure approaching through the mist, suddenly revealed, and certainly his children’s stories of Trump generosity, concern for all his workers, his secret charitable aid to them. It’s all a mythology, being spun by story-tellers—with an agenda.

Consider the heroic story of his rescue of the city skating rink outside his office window. His children’s story is that it was interminably under construction, over budget and never finished. So, he took it over, finished the construction in record time and under budget. Dad’s free enterprise triumphs, demonstrates the superiority of capitalism over the state.

A participant in that story told me that the public rink was doing fine, had full enrollment in all sorts of programs and was heavily used. But it was old, so Trump somehow took it over (she didn’t tell me how that happened) and closed it. After two weeks trying to work with him, my informant told him he was an asshole, to his face, and then quit. The refurbished rink may be swankier, she said, but now it costs too much for ordinary people to afford, so, it’s not heavily used.

This shows what class politics can do, and what side Trump is on, as well. King Arthur may have been a popular hero, but consider: slaves, serfs and despotic aristocracy were normal, the peasantry, or yeomanry, had a hard life, the former with high rents—just better than the other guys, those slaves and serfs.

Is that what Trump means, when he says he’ll fight for us? King Arthur and his knights fought for the privileged damsels, and lords, not the peasantry, or the serfs and slaves.

Where would you fit in Trump’s Royal Court? Or outside it?

African Americans, Hispanics, Asians: none of them would likely find a place, except as loyal servants—or serfs and slaves.

War of All Against All?

It’s hard to believe Micah Johnson alone made so much mayhem, and up-ended a growing awareness that black lives haven’t mattered, but that they should. Now, some white people blame Black Lives Matter for Johnson’s rampage! It’s almost as if some white racist group, maybe one of the ones endorsing Trump, paid and trained Micah in the fine art of killing white people, in order to start their much anticipated Race War. It feels as if humanity’s response to trouble is violence. When violence becomes endemic in a society, dictatorship often follows: to quell it.

Thus, if we have well-armed crazies, or groups, attacking the police, and the police attacking civilians, it is likely that many will feel that the only answer is a ‘strongman’ aka a dictator.

Trump has not offered himself as Dictator, as Julius Caesar explicitly did, but he has presented himself as “strong,” “tough,” and independent, his own man, unconcerned with “political correctness,” appealing to white men angry about their loss of dominance, as well as their loss of economic security, and priority.

I suspect that Trump’s appeal to, let’s call them the white, psychologically disenfranchised, less educated men, is not so much in the substance of what he says—mostly zippy one-liners—but in the way he says it. His pronouncements are meant to enrage and mobilize, not to lay down a political platform. What he’s for may be fairly obvious, and is sometimes even revealed (like his comment that wages are too high), but as far as his followers are concerned, that’s not the point at all.

The violence on both sides of the divide legitimizes violence by the State. So, Trump’s projection of “strength,” much of it simply bravado, makes it that much more plausible to many, that what the US—and the world—needs is a Strongman: Trump as popularly elected dictator.

Many will see the shootings by and of police as justification for “a strong hand,” to bring society back to order—with white men on top, of course.

To create peace and positive relations between races, or between law enforcement and minorities is much more difficult. As Obama remarked, the tensions may not even be resolved in his children’s lifetimes, certainly not in mine (I’m 77).

But, through the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the LGBTQ movement, American society has evolved beyond the patriarchal white supremacy of the Jim Crow era. Obviously, it has a long way to go. BlackLivesMatter posits a simple idea: black lives matter as much as white lives, not less. So, how to respond to Trumpophiles?

Show that Trump, by both his pronouncements and his business actions, can’t be trusted: he’s changed positions, sometimes even mid-speech. Even more revealing, he’s ripped off the little guy, time and time again; that’s how he built his fortune, like the stereotypical crooked used car salesman multiplied many times over.

Then, look at what he favors (lower wages, punishing woman for abortions, tax cuts for the wealthy, dismantling government services, like Veterans care, Obamacare, small business loans. Want protection from loan-sharks like pay-day lenders? That’ll go away under Trump. Want protection from banks? Trump wants them as his friends; he wants to dismantle any regulations that “hamper” their operations, maybe even sub-prime mortgages redux, or pay-day loans. With his five bankruptcies in Atlantic City casinos, Trump made money; his creditors, including many small business-people, lost big-time: they were paid back pennies on the dollar.

That’s legal larceny; he transferred their work, and money into his pockets and kept it, because he hired sharp lawyers.

The real reason Trumpophiles support him is: because he implicitly and explicitly gives them the freedom to express their rage against the myriad “others” who seem to have challenged their supremacy and had significant successes. That rage has a lot to do with our soaring rates of inequality, which create vast social gaps between people in, supposedly, middle class America.

Rage is also fear, which, may be the reason for the police shootings and the Dallas sniper. Police are taught to shoot at body mass, the biggest target, which is why so many black people are killed. So many are shot, however, because white policeman have been taught from childhood to fear black men, so when they encounter one, the meeting is tense and the cop shoots because he expects the worst and acts on it: as he did with Philando Castile; shooting him because Castile was reaching for something, telling the cop he had a permitted gun, but was reaching for his wallet—the cop had asked for his license and registration. Because Philando was black, the cop shot him (four times), not knowing which he was doing: reaching for his wallet, or his gun. If he had been white, the cop would have waited a fatal instant longer and would not have shot him.

Micah Johnson wanted to kill white men, because he was afraid and angry that white cops were killing his people, so black people never felt safe. I know I’d be enraged; I wouldn’t go out to shoot cops, but desperate people do desperate things. How would you feel if you had to fear for your life every time you drove to work? How would you feel if everyone with your color skin, also drove in fear?

In the long run, the solution for the violence, desperation and anger is a radically more equitable distribution of wealth, to lessen the gaps, or tears in our social fabric.

In the short run, just recognizing that people are hurting and fearful on both sides, and sharing that fear and the hurt would get us started on the right track: closing, or narrowing social gaps and tears.

It will be a long road, but the alternative is a new kind of Fascism and/or race war.