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Quisquilian Diversivolence

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The New Face of American Politics?

The New Face of American Politics?

The term come from a Futility Closet posting entitled “In a Word.” “Quisquilian” means worthless or trivial. “Diversivolence” is the noun form of an adjective meaning desiring strife. Those two words together pretty much summarize the 2016 election—most especially if you add Hillary’s phrase, “Basket of Deplorables.”

Obviously new terms are welcome, if the standard old ones put us in the mess we are in. Since the news media have signally failed to make any sense out of the this grim period, we need new ways to describe the, uh, situation.

I will attempt to search out new terms and bring them to your attention. Perhaps it will entertain you as well as add new shades of meaning.

American Moralist

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Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges

You are not likely to see him on television unless you get RT, the Russian-owned English-language news channel. There he has a weekly show called On Contact, during which he conducts interviews with economists and social and political figures.

He has a way of looking as if he were fiercely uncomfortable. During his interviews, which are excellent, he rarely laughs or even smiles.

Before he cut loose from the corporate-owned world of news media, he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times, the Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and National Public Radio. He traveled around the world such global hot spots such as El Salvador, Lebanon, and Bosnia.

The son of a Presbyterian minister, Chris Hedges aimed to follow in his father’s footsteps, but found that the reality of Christian charity in the slums of Boston’s Roxbury ghetto was affecting his own survival. But he never forgot what he learned at Colgate and Harvard Divinity School about morality, personal and political. One effect was to make him a confirmed pacifist. When he gave an anti-war graduation address at Rockford College during the gung-ho days after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he was heckled and booed by the “patriots” in the audience.

Hedges is the author of some of the most painfully truthful books about life in our time. The titles below which I have read are marked with an asterisk (*):

  • War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002)
  • Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America* (2005)
  • American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2007)
  • I Don’t Believe in Atheists* (2008)
  • Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle* (2009)
  • Death of the Liberal Class (2010)
  • Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012) with Joe Sacco
  • Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt (2015)

You can find a weekly column by Chris Hedges at Truthdig.Com, whose politics are very close to my own.

 

 

 

 

 

Stymie the Pollsters!

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It Would Be Nice If This Election Unified Us, But....

It Would Be Nice If This Election Unified Us, But….

We’ve all had it up to here with the damnable Presidential Election of 2016. I think it’s time to throw some monkey wrenches, particularly at the work of political pollsters. When they call you in the evening (it’s always in the evening), politely but firmly decline to state your preferences or, in fact, to answer any questions at all. Just tell them it’s in violation of your religion.

Let’s face it, more than half the polls are abominations, but even the ones that aren’t deserve to be stymied at every turn. Until the candidates themselves lose all faith in the polls, the horrendous campaign meat grinder will continue to burn money and patience until we are so disgusted as to consider renouncing our citizenship.

Whether its Cheeto-Brain or the Great Stone Spouse who wins, no one will be particularly happy. We are in a period that resembles the Roman Empire after the Antonine “good” emperors, when Rome had one ruler after another mercifully assassinated by the Praetorian Guard, until the reign of the truly dreadful Elagabalus from AD 218 to 222 .

The Man Who Destroyed Yugoslavia

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Slobodan Milošević

Slobodan Milošević

He was the 3rd President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1997-2000), 1st President of Serbia (1991-1997), and the 14th President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Serbia (1989-1991). I am referring to Slobodan Milošević, the leader who took his country down a rat hole, was responsible for thousands of deaths by genocide (which he called “ethnic cleansing”), and died while awaiting trial at the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague.

Although he initially ruled a nation of Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Albanians, Macedonians, Muslim Bosnians, and Hungarians, in the end he was only interested in changing diverse Yugoslavia into a Greater Serbia. Most of his crimes involved his preferential treatment of his fellow Serbs, mostly in the Yugoslavian Republics of Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where forces under him or allied to him committed devastating massacres of men, women, and children, including large scale rape and torture.

I am currently reading Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation by Laura Silber and Allan Little (New York: Penguin, 1997). Although twenty years have passed since the first edition came out in 1996, the book still reads like today’s headlines.

It shows what can happen when the elected leader of a democracy decides to take sides on behalf of a particular population and, at the same time, act prejudicially against others. (That’s one of the reasons I am so against a political party being responsive only to, say, angry white males.)

The United States is a diverse country very like the old Yugoslavia. It wouldn’t take much effort to break the country into warring fragments. That’s what happened in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot decided to persecute or kill city dwellers. Also Hitler’s Germany with its antisemitism and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s persecution of Christians and Baha’i. And, needless to say, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh’s attacks on Christians, Yezidis, and non-Sunni Muslims of the approved flavor.

 

Things I Don’t Really Want to Write About

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Subject A

Subject A

It is difficult for me not to write about certain subjects, especially when I am so upset about them. But then, I have to think about you, my readers. However strong I feel about certain things, what if I really don’t have anything to add about what has already been said?

Anyhow, on to the list, in no particular ordure [SIC]:

  1. Presidential Elections. Let’s face it: Even the pundits whose job it is to opine on the political scene either have nothing new to say, or else they are in the business of influencing opinions.
  2. Donald Trump. You know what I think about the Cheeto-haired beast. ’Nuff said!
  3. Awards. Whether it’s the Oscars or the Nobel Prize for Literature, it’s all about politics, usually who hates whom.
  4. American Conservatism. It seems to be segueing into National Socialism (Nazism).
  5. Police Violence. Black lives do matter! All Americans matter!
  6. Terrorism. Everything we do emboldens the terrorists, so let’s just get on with our lives.
  7. Guns. Since when does a “well-regulated Militia” mean that crazy people get to play with Bushmasters?
  8. Ecology. Even if the Earth is on the point of being irretrievably poisoned, we gotta dig coal and chop down trees, no?

There are probably a handful of other subjects which aren’t worth ranting about, mostly because of the seemingly irresolvable split between the Union and the Confederacy. Occasionally, I will still blab out a post when I know I should keep my mouth shut. Please forgive me in advance!

Divisive Politics and Friendship

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Even Greater Than Before

Even Greater Than Before

Alexandre Dumas Père wrote several novels starring the D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers. The original novel was The Three Musketeers (1844)—in which all the musketeers were in their youth—followed by Twenty Years After (1845) and the multiple volumes of The Vicomte de Bragelonne (1847-1850).

I am currently re-reading Twenty Years After and find that D’Artagnan and the Musketeers have not only grown older by twenty years: They have also matured in other ways. The novel takes place during the Wars of the Fronde (1648-1653) in which the nobility resists the penny-pinching Cardinal Mazarin, who with Anne of Austria (widow of Louis XIII) is acting as regent for the young Louis XIV.

As lieutenant of the King’s Musketeers, D’Artagnan is pledged to support the royal party. Mazarin discovers how the Musketeers has performed so valiantly two decades earlier and requests that D’Artagnan bring together his former companions. But time has passed. He succeeds in recruiting Porthos to his cause, especially as all he really wants is to become a Baron.

But Aramis and Athos are loyal to the Fronde. Even D’Artagnan’s old servant Planchet is of that party. What I find so interesting in this sequel is that the political disunity does not dissolve the old friendship: It is still “all for one and one for all.” I am constantly reminded of parallels to our own political situation in this grisly Presidential Election of 2016. The vagaries of national politics seem to have no effect on the friendship of these four valiant fighters.

Even though Twenty Years After is more crowded with incident than The Three Musketeers, I find it to be a better novel, if for no other reason than its insight into the nature of friendship—especially of friendships that last.

Nothing If Not Messy

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That Guy Stepping Off the Seesaw Has Just As Much Power As the Politician

That Guy Stepping Off the Seesaw Has Just As Much Power As the Politician

On this election day (for me, the California Primary), I am reminded of one of the things that Donald Rumsfeld said in which I actually believed: Democracy is messy, sometimes incredibly so. This horrible election year of 2016 brings us a contest between two politicians that many Americans would readily damn to the infernal regions.

But we seem to have bought this whole two-party system thing. But what happens when people start to lose faith in both parties? Just because I donated to Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, my mailbox is full of solicitations from Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her minions. Although I tend to vote Democratic, I still consign those solicitations to the circular file with as much alacrity as an ad from Herr Trumpf.

Why would I donate money to a political party? I vote for candidates, not parties. And if the party cannot produce a good candidate, why then, bugger the party!

Yet I still vote. There I was at the Stoner Recreation Center at 7:15 this morning to vote for Bernie Sanders, despite knowing that Hillary Clinton would clean his clock. That doesn’t matter: If she gets in, then she has to listen to the forces behind Sanders or go down to defeat to the candidate that Jon Stewart would refer to as Fuckface von Clownstick. That would be … very … bad.

Interdict

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Why I Probably Should Not Go Into Politics

Why I Probably Should Not Go Into Politics

In Catholic Canon Law, the Pope may ban an individual person or even an entire area from participation in the rites of the church. During the Middle Ages, there were many such interdicts, especially when heresy was involved.

If I were elected President of the U.S., I would place under interdict certain Congressional Districts or even States whose voters have habitually elected Tea Party types to lead them. Instead of depriving the residents of participation in the church, however, I would cancel government contracts, prohibit certain senators and representatives from being paid, and remove accreditation from local colleges and universities. That would be tough on Maine, Wisconsin, and Kansas—but if the kids helped oust Governors LePage, Walker, and Brownback respectively, and perhaps even tar and feather them, and ride them out on a rail, it would be worth the effort.

That, of course, would be after I arranged for the messy execution of conservative pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and a few dozen others. Oh, and also most of the people associated with the Trump for President campaign.

I’m afraid I would not be a very constitutional president, but it would certainly make me feel that justice has been served.

The above image, called “Interdict,” appropriately enough, is the work of FotoN-Ike.

Stubby Fingers Speaks

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Vote for Me or I’ll Sue You

Vote for Me or I’ll Sue You

I want to be President of the United States because I know I can make it as great as I am. And how great am I? I’m not only extremely smart and good-looking, but richer than you can imagine. How many planes and helicopters do you own that have your name all over them? And look at my fingers: They’re not short and stubby; and as for the other thing, once I wrap a couple of hundred dollar bills around it, it’s big enough for any purpose! Even my beautiful daughter would go out on a date with me.

This persecution of my followers has to stop at once! As the Bible says in my favorite book, the Gospel of St. John the Baptist: “If you live by the sword, you’ll die in bad company, where there is the weeping and gnashing of teeth!” That’s Holy Scripture, you know, almost as holy as The Art of the Deal.

One of My Courteous, Alert Followers

One of My Courteous, Alert Followers

So this is what I’m here to tell you today: If you don’t want to make America great again, if you don’t vote for me, I’m going to take you to court. How will I know who you voted for? I’ll know! I know everything because of how smart I am. So watch yourself, or you’ll wind up even more miserable than you already are.

You know that Mexicans and Muslims and dark people are no good for America. I’m beginning to think that Canadians are a bit iffy too, so we’ll have to build a wall across our borders with Canada as well as Mexico. And I’ll make the Canucks pay for it.

In the meantime, come and have some of my special Trump burgers and Trump beer! Don’t crowd, just make sure none of those protesters get their hands on any of it. Huh? … What’s it made of? … You can bet it’s the best meat that the highways of America have to offer.

 

Not Immune from Prosecution

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In Iceland 26 Bankers Are Serving Time Behind Bars

In Iceland 26 Bankers Are Serving Time Behind Bars

In the United States, bankers seem to have received “Get Out of Jail Free” cards for their transgressions. In tiny Iceland, on the other hand, a group of bankers are serving a combined seventy-four years of hard time. And today, five more bankers from Glitnir Bank are being charged.

Here are four more stories from The Iceland Review of that spunky little country’s unwillingness to put up with banking fraud:

Now those felonious clowns who packaged all those weird mortgage securities in 2008 and earlier should be doing hard time in stir in one of our fine prisons, where protecting one’s ass is a full-time occupation. Why Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have not hauled them in is a travesty of justice.