Silver Linings to the Ongoing Crises (yes, there are a few) — first up, Donald Trump

It’s hard to believe, but there are a few good things coming out of the Coronavirus, economic, and systemic racism crises. The personal and societal tragedies far outweigh these bright spots, but they’re worth mentioning nonetheless. It’s always good to remind oneself that things aren’t quite as bad as they seem.

Here are some of the silver linings. Let’s take the darkest, foulest of “silver linings” — a “silver lining” akin to that you’d get by dropping a scratched-up, stamped-metal spoon into a septic tank, hauling it out two years later, holding it up to the sun, and regarding its glowing, rusty edge alight with filigreed fecal matter: that glowing, tangerine-colored fecal matter being Donald Trump. Here are the relatively good things about him:

• Donald Trump is a moron, too stupid to understand his own best interests. Yes, Trump’s incompetence, his complete failure to lead during a deadly pandemic, has already cost well over 100,000 lives, and will likely lead to at least twice that. But when he came into office, Trump had a chance to completely destroy what passes for American democracy — that chance supplied by both the outright racist, authoritarian Republican Party and the screw-the-poor, authoritarian, corporate-servant Democrats, such as the Clintons, Obama, Holder, Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi, who all pursued Republican economic and social policies that resulted in an ever-expanding wealth gap, grossly inadequate and unequal healthcare and education, mass incarceration, and the police as uniformed, above-the-law terrorists.

If the Republicans had placed in power a capable fascist, who handled the Coronavirus pandemic competently, it’d likely be game over: he’d be immensely popular — and he’d have ushered in outright totalitarianism, which Trump obviously yearns for. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the Republicans installed Donald Trump, an outright idiot, too stupid to understand even the most basic of his own best interests. (We’re talking about a man so stupid he managed to bankrupt several casinos — otherwise known as licenses to print money — who began receiving a $200,000-a-year allowance at age three, who received over $400 million from his dad, and who was so incompetent he’d be much better off today if he’d just put his money into an index fund.) Trump’s self-sabotaging stupidity has given us vitally necessary breathing room.

• Trump is a bullying sadist who brags about sexually assaulting women and his anti-LGBT Bigotry. Trump’s boasting about his sexual assaults, with over 20 credible accusers, including three who’ve accused him of rape; his utterly creepy comments about how “hot” his daughter is and how he’d like to date her; his condescending and dismissive attitude toward women; and his assaults on women’s reproductive rights have left him massively unpopular with women, and hence headed for defeat. (I’m a guy, and reading about Trump’s assaults on women leaves me wanting to take a shower; I’m sure the reaction is even more visceral for most women.)

Trump has also been pandering to his theo-fascist evangelical base by attacking gay human rights. This is already backfiring, furthering isolating the Republicans from the American mainstream.

• Trump is an outright racist. Race-baiting has always been Trump’s stock in trade. Starting with the Obama birth certificate bullshit, and followed up by separating families seeking asylum (literally tearing babies out of their mothers’ arms), locking immigrant kids up in cages, and attempting to deport kids who were brought here without documentation and have spent their entire lives here, Trump has made it very plain that one of the most important Republican playing cards, perhaps the most important, is outright racism. Since the supposedly decent Republicans have seen fit to in no wise oppose Trump’s vicious actions, they’ve made it plain that racism is the Republican calling card — as it’s been since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the consequent Republican Southern Strategy, replete with race baiting and voter suppression. Now, that Republican racism is out in the open (no more need for dog whistles), the Republicans have to own it, and they’re on a demographic suicide course. Trump has accelerated this day of reckoning.
• Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. For this, we should thank Trump. Clinton was the ultimate, entitled, neo-liberal Washington insider. During the 2016 primary campaign, she rained down fire on Bernie Sanders’ mild, common-sense reforms within capitalism (reforms which he inexplicably labeled a “revolution” — bad branding if there ever was bad branding). Clinton was the ultimate status quo candidate. Had she won, the underlying, festering problems — a grossly unequal distribution of wealth and income, an ever-expanding surveillance state, grossly inadequate healthcare, stagnating wages, staggering student debt, an accelerating climate-change crisis — would have gone unaddressed (especially wealth and income distribution), or barely addressed, the Republicans could have run against her without having any real solutions to anything (as has become obvious), they could well have kept control of both the Senate and the House, and in 2020 they could have run an intelligent fascist who could have completely destroyed our sad farce of a democracy en route to an environmental apocalypse. Clinton, her husband, Biden, Obama, et al., paved the way for a Republican fascist. Thank god the Republicans chose one who’s uniquely loathsome and utterly incompetent.

Trump, with his bargain-basement Mussolini act, has alerted a great many people to the looming threat of fascism, and has provoked a huge progressive backlash. Where it will lead, no one knows, but the backlash against Trump, racism, economic disparity, and Trump’s callous, deliberately cruel policies provides at least some hope. One of those hopes is that the Republican Party will become a rump party influential in only the most religiously, socially, and culturally vicious and benighted parts of the country.

There’s one more related, relatively bright spot:

• Joe Biden is an unprincipled opportunist who’s been in thrall to corporate interests his entire career. He’s made a career of catering to corporate interests (e.g., the bankruptcy bill that made it almost impossible to discharge student debt), advocating mass incarceration (his 1994 crime bill), and supporting Obama’s persecution of patriotic whistle blowers such as Ed Snowden. The good news here is that Biden is an unprincipled opportunist — but a smart one, at least smarter than Trump. He knows which way the wind is blowing, and he’ll probably bend accordingly. He might try to institute at least a few of the desperately needed reforms because he’ll think it’s to his political advantage to do so. I certainly hope so.

We’ll shortly deal with the silver linings of the Coronavirus pandemic and the economic collapse. (And, yes, there are some silver linings there, too.)

 

 

The 2020 Election and the Pandemic

With the Coronavirus death toll already passing 70,000, and with Trump having royally screwed up the response thus far — where is the testing? where are the contact tracers? where is the PPE? why did Trump sit on his hands for months (January, February, the first half of March) after being warned repeatedly of the grave dangers of the coming pandemic? — one could make a good case that Trump is already guilty of mass negligent homicide. While the virus spread unchecked, Trump did next to nothing; instead, he wasted time downplaying the pandemic, insisting that the virus would “magically” go away. As a result, tens of thousands died. Trump’s inept response to the pandemic is almost certainly the greatest presidential leadership failure in the U.S. over the last half century, perhaps ever. (G.W. Bush’s plot to invade Iraq is a close second.)

In recent weeks, Trump has been undercutting the recommendations of his own Coronavirus task force by touting dangerous quack cures and proven-ineffective treatments. Now, with the virus still raging and another 1,000 to 2,000 Americans dying every day because of it, Trump and his science-denying minions are doing everything they can to ensure that there will be a second, deadly wave of the virus. Trump encourages the thugs, racists, outright Nazis, and deluded corporate tools participating in the astroturf reopening demonstrations, while Republican governors lift stay-at-home restrictions and reopen public gathering places.

These utterly irresponsible words and actions — prematurely opening the economy contrary to the advice of virtually all public health professionals — while the number of cases and deaths continues to rise, and while testing is still severely inadequate, guarantees that there will be a second deadly wave.

Why on earth would Trump want to do this? There are two reasons. The first is that, as is obvious, Trump is a malignant narcissist who cares about no one other than himself and his family. The second reason for this idiotic premature reopening of the economy is that Trump is, in fact, an idiot. It’s entirely possible that he might simply be incapable of understanding the consequences of what he’s are doing.

That’s probably not the case, though. Even though Trump and his minions are refusing to do what’s necessary — massive testing and contact tracing, income support for those who lost their jobs, institution of guaranteed sick leave across the economy, and institution of universal healthcare, while paying for it by taxing the hell out of the rich — there’s almost certainly a darker reason for the Republicans’ irresponsible actions and callous inaction. Trump has quite evidently made the calculation that if the economy recovers quickly and the second wave of infection, suffering, and death sweeps the country after this fall’s election, it’ll improve his prospects of winning a second term. He’s very probably wrong on both counts, but he appears to be dead set on this cold strategy.

Donald Trump and the Republicans have refused to provide anything approaching adequate aid to the tens of millions who have lost their jobs in this time of pandemic. They’ve coerced America’s unemployed workers (at least those who’ll have jobs to go back to) into making a horrible choice: expose yourselves (and your loved ones) to a deadly disease, or lose your homes and starve. As a result, at least tens of thousands more will die unnecessary, cruel deaths.

This isn’t politicking as usual. It’s premeditated mass murder.

 

 

A Covid-19 Testing Tale

I had an unsettling experience a few days ago: a friend of mine who lives way down on the southeast side, who’s been getting chemo and radiation for prostate cancer, appears to have the virus. He’s without transport, his truck having thrown its timing chain, so I took him to the testing station which is way out on the northwest side near Oracle and Ina, about 22 or 23 miles one way from his place. He had to lie down in the bed of my pickup on a foam mat for the trip, and once we got to the site it was like a scene from a disaster movie. It’s really odd talking with folks in head-to-toe protective gear where you can only see their eyes through a shield.

I used one of my standard deadpan laugh-lines when one of the moon-suited nurses told me I was a “good man” for helping my sick friend: I said, “Yes, I am.” It didn’t even get a chuckle. I was quite disappointed.

The weird part is that they have this rigid protocol where they want those tested to be inside of their cars. And, yes, they asked me if it was okay if Julio got out of the truck bed and into the cab with me while they administered the test. (Yes, they actually suggested this.) Of course I said “No!” and they eventually relented and did the test away from their prescribed area.

While they did it, it was unnerving to hear Julio scream while they pushed a swab up into his sinus cavities.I looked up at the rearview mirror, saw him writhing, and immediately averted my eyes.

Jesus. I had a couple of stiff drinks once I dropped him off and got home.

At least I’m getting a lot of practicing and writing in. The latest song, finished off last night, being “You’re always right, especially when you’re wrong,” inspired by an ex-GF and an ex-neighbor.

(The ex-GF is dead, sad, but not a surprise — the world’s worst driver — got T-boned while pulling out at a red light in front of an 18-wheeler a few years ago; and the ex-neighbor is still wearing his MAGA hat up in his compound around I-10 and Ruthrauff. Thank god he’s an ex-felon and is prohibited from owning firearms.)

A thoughtful, sensitive message from Motley Crue’s Drummer

An Open Letter to the president
from Tommy Lee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Fucking Lunatic,
At your recent press conference – more a word salad that had a stroke and fell down stairs, you were CLEARLY so out of your depth you needed scuba gear. Within minutes of going off air your minions were backpedaling faster than Cirque De Soleil acrobats… In India a week ago, i couldn’t get past the bit about your being the most popular visitor in the history of fucking India — a country of a BILLION human souls that’s only 3000 years old, give or take.!!! Trust me – Gandhi pulled CROWDS.. You pulled a cricket stadium and half WALKED out…

Do you know how fucking insane you sound, you off-brand butt plug? That’s like the geopolitical equivalent of “that stripper really likes me” — only 10,000 times crazier and less self aware.

You are fucking exhausting. Every day is a natural experiment in determining how long 300 million people can resist coring out their own assholes with an ice auger. Every time I hear a snippet of your Queens-tinged banshee larynx farts, I want to scream!
We are fucking tired. As bad as we all thought your presidency would be when Putin got you elected, it’s been inestimably worse.

You called a hostile, nuclear-armed head of state “short and fat.” How the fuck does that help?

You accused a woman — a former friend, no less — of showing up at your resort bleeding from the face and begging to get in. You, you, YOU — the guy who looks like a Christmas haggis inexplicably brought to life by Frosty’s magic hat — yes, you of all people said that.

You attempted — with evident fucking glee — to get 24 million people thrown off their health insurance.

You gave billions away to corporations and the already wealthy while simultaneously telling struggling poor people that you were doing exactly the opposite.

You endorsed a pedophile, praised brutal dictators, and defended LITERAL FUCKING NAZIS!

Ninety-nine percent of everything you say is either false, crazy, incoherent, just plain cruel, or a rancid paella of all four.

Oh, by the way, Puerto Rico is still FUBAR. You got yourself and your family billions in tax breaks for Christmas. What do they get? More paper towels?

Enough, enough, enough, enough! For the love of God and all that is holy, good, and pure, would you please, finally and forever, shut your feculent KFC-hole until you have something valuable — or even marginally civil — to say?

You are a fried dick sandwich with a side of schlongs. If chlamydia and gonorrhea had a son, you’d appoint him HHS secretary. You are a disgraceful, pustulant hot stew full of casuistry, godawful ideas, unintelligible non sequiturs, and malignant rage.

You are the perfect circus orangutan diaper from Plato’s World of Forms.

So fuck you Mr. President. And fuck you forever.

Oh, and Pence, you oleaginous house ferret. Fuck you, too. You’ll be as useful as a chocolate teapot against a medical crisis you Bible thumping cock socket.

I might have already had Covid-19

At the tail end of January and beginning of February, I was sick as hell and somewhat out of it for a full week: sore throat, fatigue, pressure on inner ears, dry cough, and after a few days in hacking up phlegm. But no sniffling, no sneezing. And it took two or three weeks before I began to feel okay. At the time I thought it was just some weird, run-of-the-mill cold virus. Now I’m not so sure. (I stayed away from my friends during this time, but unfortunately I was still going out to buy food.)

A few days ago the GF told me that I told her six or seven weeks ago, when I was sickest, that I had a fever. I don’t remember saying that at all, but she assures me that’s what I told her.

What difference will this make in how I feel? Considerable. I’d previously considered that I might have had the virus, bur rejected the idea because I believed I didn’t have a fever. Now, going down the check list, it’s all “Xs.” Still, there’s no test for antibodies to show who’s been previously infected, so I suspect, but I don’t know.

How does this affect my behavior? Not at all. Because I don’t know. I’m still self-distancing on the rare occasions I go out, (Damn but I miss human touch) I’m washing and disinfecting compulsively, ordering food on line, and spending a couple of hours a day on the phone talking with friends. I urge you to do the same. And this is with the phone and Internet — think about the routine psychological torture inflicted on inmates in solitary in America’s gulags.

At best, the pandemic will subside by late May or early June. Until then, hang on, be responsible, and don’t risk infecting others — if you’re infected, you could, and probably would, kill someone.

Things to Come (with the blog, See Sharp Press, and yours truly)

The good news is that we’re not out of biz. And if we (See Sharp Press) can survive this, we can survive anything (barely).

We have a couple of really good new books coming up within the next few months (release date depending on the pandemic), Chris Mato Nunpa’s Great Evil, about Christianity the holocaust of Indigenous peoples and the ecosphere, and the Bible; and the conclusion of T.C. Weber’s Sleep State Interrupt anarcho-thriller trilogy, Zero Day Rising.

Beyond that, since I have little else to do in self-quarantine other than tend to my pets/owners — at times an inverted relationship — play music, write music, and work in the garden, I’m pretty safe. According to the CDC, Arizona is one of the states that has widespread community transmission of the coronavirus, so I rarely go out. When I do, I bump doors with my shoulder, and punch screens with a plastic bag between my hand and the screen. I still want my IPA, but hey, I’ll live (or not) if I don’t get it.

As for books and blog posts, Dakota elder Chris Mato Nunpa’s The Great Evil will be out in June; and I’m making huge strides with 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity — about 30,000 words in at present.

Also, I’m well on my way to recording two music CDs. Between mine, my good bro’s Michael Turner’s, and the ones I wrote with my friends/ex-bandmates Brian Hullfish and Michael Zubay, we have two full CDs+ of original material. We’ll probably use the name Blues Evangelists (spreadin’ the good news of the blues.)

Other than that, I’ll be finishing off the graphic arts work for Al Perry’s new all-instrumental CD., for which Winston Smith did the cover graphic, after a water color by Al. I’m doing everything beyond that, and Al did me the honor of asking me if I’d play second guitar when the CD release finally happens sometime this fall down at Club Congress. Of course I agreed. (Here’s a link to one of Al’s funniest recent tunes, Jukebox Jihad.)

Enough for now. I’ll put up another post within a day or two with a lot of actually useful shit.

It’s going on dawn, and Red is rising. “Red” is the formerly skeletal, now plump, Rhode Island Rhode Red rooster who showed up here last June, and rooted around in my garden for a week or two, until I started feeling sorry for him and started feeding him. The neighbors did, too. He became the neighborhood pet. Dumb as a box of rocks, but still pretty and lively. They’re talking about buying some hens and putting up a hen house in their backyard.

I hope they do it soon.