Home » politics (Page 9)

Category Archives: politics

A Movie for 2020

Posted on by | 1 Comment

Vincent Price as Prince Prospero and Patrick Magee as Alfredo

As we approach Halloween, I propose a 1964 film by Roger Corman as the perfect paradigm for our year of coronavirus and Trump—namely, The Masque of the Red Death.

The story concerns a gathering of wealthy friends (let’s call them billionaires) of Prince Prospero at his castle while the Red Death plague rages through the land. It is my favorite Roger Corman film, with elegant color photography by Nicholas Roeg.

Unfortunately, the character of Vincent Price’s Prospero, nasty as he may be, is played by too interesting an actor to be a stand-in for Donald J. Trump—though he wealthy guests are perfect. One can imagine the My Pillow Guy and the founder of Goya Foods at this party.

You might also want to read the Edgar Allan Poe story from which the film is drawn. You can find it here.

Death Is Stalking the Land in Masque of the Red Death

In the end, Prince Prospero and all his guests come down with the Red Death, which they had so studiously tried to avoid. And curiously, the character is plays the personification of the deathly plague is, once again, Vincent Price.

Notes from a Libtard

Posted on by

These People Have Every Reason to Hate Me

Even though I am no longer a Democrat and by no means a Republican, I am still very much a liberal. Strangely, I come from the same background that many of Trump’s supporters come from: white non-college-educated blue collar workers. (I myself am college educated and have held white collar jobs during my working life.)

What holds “The Base” together is fear and hatred: Fear of immigrants and people of color and hatred of coastal elites.

I propose a new political party. We can call ourselves the Libtards … it doesn’t really matter! My main complaint about these people is that they wrap themselves in the American flag despite having little or no knowledge of the rest of the world.

How Ignorant People See the Outside World

I think the Libtard Party should go in for political re-education. I don’t mean sending people to political re-education camps the way the Viet Cong did when they took over South Viet Nam.

  • Every American citizen should have a passport
  • Every American citizen ought to travel to so-called Third World countries for extended periods—and not via luxury cruises or staying at fancy hotels
  • Every American should be made to read other books than the Bible or religious tracts and submit book reports written in correct and grammatical English.

I don’t particular object to being called a Libtard. Just so long as we’re the ones in control. The Village Idiot Party (VIP) has held the reins of government since 2017 and made a sad mess of things—while thinking they have performed admirably. Hah!

Karma Is a B*tch

Posted on by
Both Trump and Melania Have Come Down with Coronavirus

The new has gotten around that both the President and his First Lady have contracted the Covid-19 virus. Although my contempt for Trump remains at high levels, I do not wish this type of evil upon him or his family—well, maybe for Don Junior.

I see our President as a man wracked by fear and uncertainty, but afraid of acknowledging that, as a human being, he can take sick and die. In his book, that would be considered “losing.” Hey, we are all losers one way or the other. The real measure of a person is how he or she rebounds from it.

Just today I was reading a fifty-year-old Japanese sci-fi novel by Kobo Abe entitled Inter Ice Age 4. In it, I found this wise quote: “I do not know how many props support the world, but three of them at least are obtuseness, ignorance, and stupidity.” How true!

I realize that the President’s illness throws all kinds of monkey wrenches into the upcoming election, particularly if his illness becomes threatening. If, as a result of this, Americans begin taking the coronavirus threat more seriously, it will save lives.

One thing for sure, the dialogue about the virus can be expected the change suddenly and markedly.

Dummheit

Posted on by | 2 Comments

’Rona Isn’t the Only Outbreak We Are Experiencing

The following quote is from Sarah Bakewell’s excellent book At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails. It describes a conversation between a French reporter and the Nazi-leaning philosopher Martin Heidegger:

When, also in 1945, the French writer Frédéric de Towarnicki weakened Heidegger’s defences with a bottle of good wine before asking him ‘why?’, Heidegger responded by leaning forward and saying, in the tone of someone solemnly confiding a secret, ‘Dummheit.’ He repeated the word again, with emphasis, ‘Dummheit.’ Stupidity.

As I with great reluctance view the day’s news, I am appalled by what appears to be the rank stupidity of around half the American population. It has gotten so bad that, when I meet someone new, I become less forthcoming in my responses because there is a 50% chance that the person is an idiot.

It Certainly Seems So

In fact, I am beginning to dislike Americans, barring any specific reason not to. I was born in this country, but it was a very different country at that time. It was not full of tattooed monkeys with scraggly beards who think that living in the streets and taking Oxycontin, Heroin, or Crystal Meth is better than a job. There weren’t quite so many of the “I Got Mine!” types who think that anyone not a member of their country club should be deported.

There is an epidemic of stupidity which looks to be growing. In November, we can vote Trump out of office—and he might even leave the White House. But we can’t do anything to the people who form his “Base.” Those red MAGA hats must have a side-effect of shriveling their brains. (They are, after all, manufactured in China.)

I ask you: Am I being too harsh?

 

 

Worse Than Al-Qaida

Posted on by | 1 Comment

Morgue Overflow Into Hospital Corridor

Today we commemorate the nineteenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, in which some 3,000 Americans lost their lives in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC.

We are fighting another enemy now that has killed 200,000 Americans this year to date, and infected 6.5 million of our countrymen with a virulent disease which we are just beginning to understand. Many thousands of those dead from coronavirus died needlessly, and millions of those afflicted with the virus need not have suffered from it.

Solidly to blame is our leadership in the White House. President Trump persistently downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak (though now he claims he knew back then the danger). Millions of Americans did not know what to think. Many Trump voters now claim there was no pandemic, and that all this is false news. They refuse to wear face masks—largely because their President has sent mixed messages, frequently at variance with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Even people think less of Trump than I do (there must be some, somewhere) are confused as to what to do in the face of the outbreak.

I hold Trump responsible for thousands of deaths and millions of sickened Americans. One of the responsibilities of those in power is to make sure the right information gets to the people. It didn’t, with horrendous results.

Very few other countries had an experience as bad as ours, with so many needless casualties due to misinformation. To cover his ass, Trump lied that we had done better than any other country.

Why do people still believe his lies? I guess it’s a case of misplaced faith, as Mr. Spock explains below:

I’ll Go Along With That

 

It Goes Way Back…

Posted on by | 1 Comment

The Roman Senate in Session

Lest you think that what is befalling the United States at present is of recent vintage, I urge you to consider the two great parties of the Roman Republic around 130 BC. There were two main political parties, the optimates (“the best ones”) and the populares (“favoring the people”). The former—consisting of members of the senatorial class and large landowners—were united in opposition to the tribunes Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and his younger brother Caius Sempronius Gracchus. According to Wikipedia:

For about 80 years, Roman politics was marked by the confrontation of these two factions. The Optimates favoured the ancestral Roman laws and customs, as well as the supremacy of the Senate over the popular assemblies and the tribunes of the plebs. They also rejected the massive extension of Roman citizenship to Rome’s Italian allies advocated by the Populares.

How familiar it all seems today! The Republicans, whose entire political platform could be expressed in the phrase “I got mine,” are fearful and apprehensive that the unwashed Democrats and their immigrant allies want a share of their wealth. Like the Optimates, the Republicans are “the best ones,” so whatever they do to hold on to power is quite all right with them.

Yesterday, I ran into an elderly woman at the Farmers Market on Fairfax who was a virulent Trump supporter. She thought that the black and other unwashed Barbarian hordes were after her money. I didn’t bother to try reasoning with her, because she was beyond reason. So I merely insulted her, as did the Afro-American gentleman who was in line with me.

I always thought that the nice thing about having money is being able to spend it in interesting ways. Not necessarily so! At some point, this woman inherited some money, problem from her late husband and decided to build an impregnable fortress around the proceeds against me and my kind.

 

 

Takeaways from the Conventions

Posted on by | 1 Comment

Wonderland of U.S. Flags

As your reporter for this month’s party conventions, I have been very remiss. To be exact, I have not even watched a minute of either convention. Why would I want to? What does it matter what they say, especially when there is such a disconnect between what they say and what they do. I did collect a number of impressions, however, mostly from the Internet.

First of all, politicians sure love the Stars and Stripes. Many of them sport flag lapel pins to boot. I don’t even own an American flag, which I guess proves that I am not a very patriotic individual. But then, as Dr. Samuel Johnson said in 1775, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” And I’m no scoundrel, at least not THAT type of scoundrel.

I am surprised that Trump found so many people to say nice things about him. He must have something on them.

Does the Republican party even exist any more? Right now it’s an agglomeration of people who:

  • Hate the fact that there is a government over and above a transfer of moneys to the wealthy
  • Are drawn to absolute power
  • Follow a political platform that can be expressed simply as, “I Got Mine!”
  • Are frightened of having the President say to the, “You’re fired!”
  • Hate libtards and hoity-toity coastal elites

As a matter of fact, even the Democratic party doesn’t seem to exist except as an Anti-Trump party. They used to solve problems; now they just say that they can and will solve problems. I don’t know. It seems that no one cares for poor people any more.

The ultimate winner is the coronavirus, which seems to have perplexed everybody except the Republicans, who just ignore it. Didn’t it go away in April?

 

 

Strange Days

Posted on by | 1 Comment

There Is a Late Roman Empire Feeling in the Air

VIGGO: What happened, John? We were professionals.
JOHN WICK: Do I look civilized to you?

—John Wick Chapter 1

I get a very bad feeling about what is happening to our country right now. We have a president who is actively dismantling our country, even to the extent of deliberately destroying the mail system that was set up by our first Postmaster-General, Benjamin Franklin, just because he thinks it would stop mail-in balloting. (It would also destroy billions, possibly trillions of dollars worth of commerce.)

It is as if we are living in the days of the late Roman Empire as depicted by such historians as Ammianus Marcellinus and Gregory of Tours. Our “Emperor” is little better than Elagabalus AD 204-222). According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia:

It did not take long for his family, as well as others throughout the empire, to realize that Elagabalus was completely unsuited for the imperial title, spending more time dancing around the altar of the temple and purchasing gold chamber pots and exotic foods than attending to the matters of the empire. Uprisings within the army occurred throughout the provinces, and there was even a failed attempt to replace him on the throne.

The whole world is weakened by the coronavirus outbreak, else our weak leadership would invite attempts by other countries or stateless terrorist groups to wreak havoc. The only reason a coup d’état has not been attempted is that the Democrats are afraid of the gun-toting rednecks. No worries there, those cowardly mofos are actually more likely to shoot their dicks off than organize any real resistance. In any case, if Trump loses the election—if there is an election—we just have to be prepared to escort him and his family someplace where they can’t do any harm. Perhaps Somalia.

 

Mount Trumpmore

Posted on by | 3 Comments

Oh Great, That’s All We Needed!

If our current president were to get his face of Mount Rushmore, as he has urged, it would be tantamount to painting over the Sistine Chapel with a convocation of demons.

It is the opinion of most right-thinking Americans that Trump deserves no more than a footnote in the history books, similar to the contribution of Aaron Burr (who actually made it to the vice presidency in Thomas Jefferson’s first term) and Benedict Arnold and perhaps the fictional Man Without a Country. Will there be a Trump presidential library? (If there were, it would consist mostly of Tweets and executive statements of dubious legality.) When George W. Bush was in office, I mused that his Prezidenchul Lie-Berry wouldn’t amount to much. Trump’s would be even more laughable.

Think about it: What would be the legacy of Trump? Once you get past the corruption, the braggadocio, the conspiracy theories, and the outright lies, there wouldn’t be much else left. So sad.

When the Emperor Nero was forced to commit suicide by his enemies, he is said by Suetonius to have exclaimed “Oh what an artist dies in me!” I cannot help but think that sounds like our man in Washington, or is it Mar-a-Lago?

 

On Taking Surveys

Posted on by

’Tis the Season

Now that we are coming up on another presidential election, my telephone is ringing with invitations to join “Town Halls,” whatever those are; and my inbox is full of invitations to participate in political surveys. In my old age, I have become skeptical to the nth degree. When people in front of supermarkets approach me with clipboards in hand, I wave them away.

To me, participating in a democracy means voting—but not necessarily submitting to a whole slew of ancillary events whose main thrust is to change my mind. Today, I received an e-mail that let me know right up front that I might be too quick to support Joe Biden. Thank you, Mr. Putin!

I know for a fact that the Orange King (no names, please!) is going to be in big trouble when he no longer has access to the power of the presidency. Strange things are happening: The U.S. Postal Service is being gutted to discourage mail-in ballots. That, despite the fact that the Donald himself has voted by mail in the past. Now it is too subject to fraud. Well, yes, everything is subject to fraud that that man touches.

Why do I feel that we have all taken democracy for granted? All one has to do is to elect a corrupt megalomaniac to office before the ground appears to disappear from under one’s feet.