The Ascendency of the Trump -- Thoughts from November 8 - 10, 2016

Well, we have all been processing in our own way the absolutely devastating news that Trump has indeed risen from the depths of hell to ascend the throne of the US Presidency. 

Some have been in the streets, others have stayed on social media, some have sobbed deeply in fear and anguish, others probably just have been drinking -- a lot. I've just been dropping my thoughts on Facebook. So I decided to compile them here in one post.

November 8 at 6:28pm

We could indeed be a nation of morons led by very dangerous people.

November 8 at 6:31pm

A Democratic operative here in CA said about a year and a half ago that should Trump be the candidate, all these crazy fucks will come out of the backwoods to vote for him as they did for Schwarzenegger here in CA and for Jesse Ventura in MN -- the problem is @ the national level this is a fucking fiasco.

November 8 at 7:52pm · 

Just think a Trump presidency -- he pardons himself from all crimes and impending lawsuits. He repeals Obamacare. he declares BLM and the water protectors as terrorists, He squashes the free press, the right wing militias and cops will start killing people of color with impunity, Roe v. Wade will be repealed. Don't be mexican, muslim, female, black or gay. This is Trump's Amerika.

And wait for the metadata reviews of our Facebook posts.

This is bad. This is really really bad.

November 8 at 8:57pm · 

I felt like shit after Bush stole the election in 2000. This is much, much worse.

November 8 at 9:53pm · 

Anyone who still believes in a god is a fool -- as why would a god foist a Trump on the world @ a time where the world hangs in a precarious balance? Nope the universe is chaos and Trump is a free radical meteor smashing into the planet.

November 9 at 6:53am

53% of white women voted for Trump -- so much for progress -- say goodbye to Planned Parenthood, Roe v. Wade, equal pay, Obamacare, improving quality child care, etc.

Just think that Pence is going to be controlling your uterus while Trump will be making Amerika great again.

November 9  at 8:45am 

Welcome to throw away Wednesday -- might as well throw it all away Amerika.

November 9  at 9:10am 

So after 36 years of Reaganism -- we've gone from "It's morning in America, again," to Trump and the mourning of America.

November 9  at 4:22pm 

I've had that same feeling that I've had when I broke up with a girlfriend -- my stomach has been in knots since last night.

November 9  at 4:27pm

Three things -- 1) the FBI and Wikileaks did the job for turning off lots of voters to Clinton; 2) the 2010 and 2014 elections coupled with the accompanying gerrymandering and the voter suppression effort worked; and 3) The future is bleak given that the right wing controls 31 state legislatures and governors, the House, the Senate, the Executive and now the Supreme Court.

Trump will be an eight year president and will destroy the country even worse than did Bush Jr.

November 9  at 4:43pm

Worse -- we have hindsight now -- 2000 felt awful, 2004 made us angry that people would re-elect that horrible asshole and end up almost destroying the country.

Then "Hope and Change" came as a marketed brand got us excited and then disbanded the people's movement and turned out to be a neoliberal corporate centrist appeaser who saved the banks, but screwed the little guys by not forcing a bigger stimulus and then passed an absolutely horrible health plan.

Couple that with a stilted media that foisted Trump on us while pillorying a weak candidate Hillary on emails. Add in the FBI and Wikileaks collusion, right wing control of the majority of the state governments, the Executive Branch, the Supreme Court, the House and the Senate and what we have is the completion of a slow rolling right wing coup that began in 2008, the day Obama was elected.

NO, this is much, much worse.

November 9  at 8:06pm 

Something I wrote to a family friend about my observations about the people protesting tonight:

I don't see any riots -- I see people walking down the streets all over the country very upset that a completely unqualified to be president guy was just elected who plans to deport 11 million people, destroy the health care for 20 million people, repeal Roe V Wade and a women's right to choose, defund Planned Parenthood which serves the health needs for poor women and children, ban a whole religion from a country that many in your family served in the military to constitutionally protect, plans to spend gazillions of dollars on a wasted wall, renege on our foreign policy commitments to our western and asian allies, spread nuclear arsenals to other countries, sue 12 women who had the courage to come forward to say they had been assaulted by Trump, plans to interfere with the First Amendment and freedom of the press, repeal a Federal minimum wage and turnover the reins of power to the likes of Giuliani, Gingrich and Mike Pence so he can "make America Great Again."

Not sure if you've been listening to what this guy has been saying the last 15 months, but it's been some of the most vile, racist, misogynistic, homophobic outrageous stuff ever to come out of a national figure.

Here's a guy who is facing two trials -- one for cheating people of millions through Trump University and another charging him with rape of child. He's a guy who has admitted not paying taxes for the last 20 years, who has financial interests throughout the world but hasn't revealed any of them, who plans to just have his kids run his business, who is a bad businessman who if he just had taken his money given to him by his father and put in index funds in the 1970's would be @ least 50% richer than he is now. He's a man who assailed the dignity of a Gold Star family and called a former POW a loser. He's a guy who evaded the draft not by protesting because he was against the Vietnam War but because he had a bone spur. And it just came out how hypocritical he is about undocumented immigrants that his immigrant wife worked illegally in the US for four months before she got her work visa.

He also plans to institute the largest tax cut since Reagan that 90 % will help just the rich.

You should google who he plans to have in his cabinet and as advisors - you think this guy is good for you or your family? Then I have a bridge to sell you.

People said in 2000 to give George Bush a break when he spoke about "compassionate conservatism" and what did he do? Destroyed the economy, was the CIC during the largest terrorist attacked the US ever experienced, plunged the nation into a unnecessary and never ending illegal war, never got bin Laden, completely gutted tax policy that smashed the federal budget and ballooned the deficit to unimaginable levels, and nearly destroyed the country with the housing bubble and the financial meltdown -- not to mention let New Orleans drown.

So going back to the protestors tonight -- I think they have a pretty good reason to be upset as given what Trump has said he's going to do as he's going to be George Bush on steroids.

Also forgot -- was endorsed wholeheartedly by the KKK and the American Nazi party -- and there's a reason for this -- you should also read up on Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Alex Jones -- these guys are some of his biggest advisors.

November 9 at 8:40pm

Something else I wrote to someone:

Look @ the numbers I posted -- have you not listened to him for the last 15 months as to what he's planning to do? All his biographers who I have read and listened to says you need to take this guy @ his word.

He said clearly (and supported by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan) he plans to undo health care for 20 million people and repeal Roe v Wade -- you're too young to remember what life was like for women before that decision -- I actually know someone who had an illegal kitchen abortion in the late 1940's and nearly died from it (not going to tell you who). That's what women will face again in many parts of the country when he packs the Supreme Court (first by regaining the majority when he replaces Scalia and then when Ginsberg and Breyer either croak or retire) -- the repeal of Roe v Wade is one of the top priorities of his and the GOP.

You should also read up on Mike Pence his VP -- he's a very dangerous guy for both women and LGBTQ folks.

Realize we barely survived Bush -- and if it wasn't for a complete change to the Executive and Congressional Branches the country would've fallen into a full fledged depression - sadly Obama tried to appease the GOP and watered down both the stimulus and the health care plan - and that is why things suck now.

I've lived through the crook and impeached years of Nixon, the Iran Contra and S&L Loan scandals of Reagan, and the aforementioned fiasco of the George Bush years.

Nixon and Reagan were kept in somewhat check by Democratic Congresses and fairly liberal Supreme Courts -- they actually worked across the aisle with the Dems to get shit done. Obama had to face 6 out of 8 years of obstructionism, otherwise his legacy would be a lot stronger than it is.

But as I pointed out previously Trump is no ordinary candidate -- all the other GOP Presidents were seasoned politicians who understood how to administer in government -- even if I consider badly -- Trump has none of these qualities and as I pointed out has surrounded himself with very dangerous men.

Sure, you'll (hopefully) survive a Trump presidency, but in what shape?

I'm old and I am assuming he won't mess with my Social Security and Medicare that I spent almost 50 years contributing to via my payroll deductions. But realize it's the GOP plan to completely destroy these institutions through defunding and privatizing, especially for folks under 50 as yourself.

Trump is not only going to be President but will have a completely GOP Congress and as I mentioned soon a majority on the Supreme Court (you should also look @ the 20 names of justices he has put forth for nomination - these are really scary folks).

In closing, when folks who supported his candidacy finally wake up and see what this guy is doing to them (much like when they realized how badly Bush had messed up the economy) it'll be too late.

November 10 at 8 am

So as most people who know me know that I have great disdain for Sandra Day O'Connor who gave us Bush who gave us Roberts and Alito, who gave us a fucked up Supreme Court who have gutted the Voting Rights Act, and gave us Citizens United and Hobby Lobby -- sure Obamacare sort of survived but @ what cost given how weak it is, and how it's about to be destroyed, and of course Gay Marriage, paving the way for Peter Thiel to pledge his undying allegiance to Donald Trump.

Now with Scalia dead, and an obstructionist Senate we still have the vacancy, and a recalcitrant old prune Ginsberg who could've retired when the Dems still held the Senate, we stand the very great possibility of seeing Trump appoint 2 least two justices.

So what does this mean? Adios Roe v. Wade? Probably. Progressive rulings on fossil fuel extraction and Climate Change? Fat chance. Progress on prison reform and police brutality. Sure -- want to buy a bridge? Progressive reform on corporate mergers and financial malfeasance? Still - want to buy a bridge?

No my friends, couple this stark reality with a Trump junta and a far right wing congress and we have indeed seen the rise of the Galactic Empire.

Say goodbye to efforts to promote renewable energy sources, and see King Coal and Oil and gas fracking increase dramatically. Say aloha to the Keystone Pipeline, DAPL completion, more restrictive legislation on solar and wind and watch the carbon PPM output from this country go nuts.

Watch as Trump and his dark minions destroy our climate change and trade agreements with other countries. Watch as they install draconian tax cuts for the rich while bleeding dry the rest of us. Watch as the economy goes south with very little chance of return.

And then watch because this successful right wing coup that began in ernest with the rise of Bush and then went full bore with Obama's temporary hold on the steamrolling oligopoly, turn into a full blown authoritarian junta.

How? Don't we have elections? Sure -- but who controls most of the states? who controls the Congressional districts? The same people that control the macro levels of government.

Look @ Kansas as the model of what's to come -- Brownback's experiment on steroids.

No, there is no going back. We have crossed the Rubicon with the rise of Trump. And short of a radical change in the paradigm by any means necessary as to how we humans conduct ourselves, it's over.

We've let 60 million white, largely ignorant and uneducated, paranoid and delusional men and women (yes, 53% white women voted for the orange Sauron) decide the fate for the 7 plus billion on the planet.

So I have a choice -- --so far, my full wine cellar (and now legal dope) and sun deck sure look quite inviting, BUT....

November 10 at 10 am

Oh I forgot in my last diatribe -- many of the right wing wants to sell off government assets and lands -- a la the Cliven Bundy movement -- look for a push to open leasing rights all over the place, gutting the national parks, the national forests, and BLM managed lands.

I grieve for Mother Earth.

November 10 at 11 am

So it begins -- SO for all of us out there something to remember and take to heart:

"Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.' "

Let's all stand up united against this coming tsunami of hate and vileness.'

July 14 2016

I guess the corporate mass infotainment media oligarchy has completely inured me to mayhem and violence. We are a species awash in the orgy of blood and death and cruelty to the fellow members of our species and to the planet.

But it's basically white people of European descent that gets the most coverage when gory horrible shit happens.

Now it's a fucking semi truck and trailer -- didn't need a gun or a bomb or a plane -- it's right out of a Hollywood script on how to kill people -- only it's not CGI -- it's death and destruction in real time.

But you know what? This shit happens everyday in places like Yemen and Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.

Either get over it or change the paradigm. Because tomorrow will be the next horror story of useless death.

And just think -- more fuel for the wildfire called Law and Order President Trump...

Me? Fuck it -- I don't care anymore.

What it means that Britain votes to leave the EU

WOW - Brexit fucking wins -- the results of decades of neoliberal economics, income inequality, negative effects of Climate Change  and the blow back from this fucking endless  stupid War on Terrorism and the resulting anti--immigrant/refugee calamity.

This beginning of provincialism/balkanizing of maybe first Great Britain and then maybe mainland Europe is not good @ all for trying to solve global issues -- and it might spell bad things for the US election in the fall -- xenophobia, isolationism is never good.

So to my American friends -- if you don't know about this UK election -- get your head out of your ass and read up on it.

And what's amazing, though, is regardless of the result, the voting process there was how democracy is supposed to look like -- high voter turnout, no major pre-election and exit polling to skew the results.

Also what is amazing is that the polls didn't close until 10 PM, and the votes were all hand counted through the night, with the news media and policy wonks up all night to report on the results.

It makes the US voting process look like a big pile of stinking Koch monied and influenced piece of shit.

THE MASSACRE @ THE PULSE NIGHT CLUB

Our history is violence -- we are a nation founded on the principles of oppression and genocide. We should not be surprised that mass killing continues to happen in this country. It's just the latest manifestation of gun violence in the country -- someone always hates someone - African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, women, LGBTQ people, people who believe religiously other than themselves, doctors who perform abortions, themselves, etc.

But with laissez faire gun laws, automatic weapons and this country's pop culture obsession with mayhem and murder, unless we can change the paradigm of our collective soul, this story will just be repeated ad nauseam until we are inured into oblivion.

And remember we are the empire -- how we think and behave trickles down to the rest of the world.

(UPDATE: I was corrected -- only 30 or so people died @ Rosewood "where most of these deaths weren't by shooting"  but "most from mutilation, torture and hanging (typical lynchings of the time)." (To quote my correcting friend

But the above list also doesn't include the 150 dead @ Wounded Knee or the 120 dead by the Mormons @ the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Mass murder is always an act of terrorism regardless of who is the perpetrator -- be a lone gunman, a vigilante mob or the US government.


Nowadays who needs lynching, torture and mutilation when owning AR-15's and extended magazines are legal?)

Thoughts on social change and why I will vote for Hillary

One of my mentors I most revere (Edgar Klugman) lectured once that if you are looking to change an organization, you must first look @ who were the founders as well as what were their founding principles.  With that in mind, when you look @ who founded this nation and what were the guiding tenets motivating them, you'll begin to understand how difficult it is to change progressively much what drives this country.

Remember for all those lofty words ensconced in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, the US was founded by rich white guys protecting racism and slavery and property-driven income inequality; and within a couple of decades after the founding solidifying the notion that our nation was driven by a "Manifest Destiny" -- i.e. a divine right to exploit, conquer and commit genocide. 

And that it took almost 100 years before African Americans were considered people and not chattel, and 150 years before women were even recognized as part of the voting citizenry.

And apart for the short epoch where the ruling class was frightened enough that a populist uprising might take place that they allowed FDR to institute the New Deal, and which carried through up until Johnson's, The Great Society, this county is still be driven by the same founding principles of racism, income inequality and trying to control the world.

So all this bullshit about Hillary being some kind of transformational change agent is just that, bullshit -- she's as much part of the continuing ruling oligarchy as any other corporately funded neo-liberal rich white person -- she just happens to be female.

But be that as it may, I still believe Hillary is far more flexible to change than Trump would be, IF Bernie and the movement associated with his candidacy can maintain the momentum to actively affect social policy.  For that reason only, I plan to vote for her.

Fuck You -- Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

This is revisionist shit -- she's the one who gave us George Bush and Samuel Alito in the first place -- so fuck her.

"She retired in 2006 to take care of her ailing husband. Sandra Day O’Connor earned the begrudging respect of young liberals because she showed an integrity in her conservatism that wasn’t that of an ideologue. Unfortunately, her replacement—Samuel Alito—clearly lacks that same integrity, thus far. "

From: "Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says Republicans are wrong,'let'sget on with it!'"

My take on this:

I look @ history from a holistic perspective -- we got to this point because of eight years of George Bush, which also gave us Alito and Roberts, voter suppression, Citizens United, ad nauseam. History would be quite different if Gore had been able to appoint those two judges.

Bush's absolutely horrendous economic policies destroyed the economy, which saddled Obama so much in his attempts to remedy the mess, that it (along with his somewhat attempt to reform the health care system) led to the rise of the Tea Party, which led to the 2010 debacle with the state elections being taken over by the right wing leading to the severe gerrymandering and voter suppression @ the state level leading to the Republican majority in both branches of Congress, which leads us now to this intransigent position by the right wing GOP to prevent Obama from appointing a new Justice.

So whatever O'Connor has to say now is water under the bridge. As they say it's the butterfly effect -- that one vote affected history in a great way.

I will not forget it and hopefully historians don't as well.

Time to die already.

People suck -- let's hope a mega virus kills us all so the rest of the species out there can recover from our inflicted horrors.

And why? When I read shit like this: 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dolphin-dies-argentina-mass-selfie

But let's add:

We use copious amounts of non-renewable carbon based fuels while destroying the planet to acquire it. And we release the carbon into the atmosphere where it is causing massive climate change as well as acidifying the ocean.

We are producing and discarding prodigious amounts of single use plastics, which we release haphazardly into our environment with no strategy on how to recycle safely the refuse that results.

We consume and discard vast amounts of planned obsolete technical and consumer crap that require massive amounts of toxic materials that are next to impossible to recycle.

We invented nuclear bombs and energy and have no way to safely dispose of the radioactive waste.

We are a cruel and insensitive species with little empathy for the species we devour and on which we inflict untold amounts of pain, including even on our own species.

We destroy rain forests, overgraze lands, and deplete ancient aquifers which will take thousands of years to recharge so people can stuff themselves with Big Macs.

We are a largely ignorant and superstitious species too stupid to realize we are reproducing ourselves exponentially and eating the planet whole much like a cancerous virus.

And we are too dangerous because we believe our minds and ability to cogitate somehow makes us an exceptional species that can control nature; but have no idea that for every change we make, we create even greater consequences.

Yes, I am one of us too -- as I sit here on my laptop spouting these platitudes, pretending I am doing something meaningful through token recycling, and donating to, and supporting "humanitarian" causes. But these acts are merely trying to put a band-aid on a severed artery.

But I am too much a coward to opt out, and too curious in a morbid in a way (like when we slow down to gawk when we drive past a car accident) to not want to watch the disaster unfold.

The only folks on the planet that live ecologically sustainable lives are the few indigenous tribes left in places like the Amazon and New Guinea who have learned to live within their environments. Hopefully the coming catastrophe can spare them.

So much for my diatribe.