Monday, December 17, 2018 12:34 PM
Republicans Are Waiting For Christmas (2018Dec17)
What did Trump call his alleged felonies? ‘popcorn stuff’? ‘chicken feed’? ‘smock and mirrors’? Well—I guess that ‘lock her up’ guff is only one-way. (Or is it only one-gender?)
The Border Patrol Gestapo failed to save a 7-year-old refugee girl in distress—then excused their neglect by saying “she shouldn’t have been taken on a long trip without adequate food and water”. Turns out, the poor child had sepsis—something outside the assumptions of the prejudiced and, therefore, missed at the time.
Are we done yet? Can we admit that, annoying as they may be, those intelligent, educated people gave us a feeling of security and stability that no circus clown or reality-TV star can offer? When can the media go back to dismissing fools without giving them air-time? When can we all agree that this presidency is our lowest, most embarrassing moment for democracy—the day we found out it had its weaknesses?
The trouble being: democratic voters are not supposed to be selfish and uninterested—and candidates for democratically-elected office are not supposed to be poll-driven. They are supposed to lead us through the unpleasant but necessary solutions to injustice—not beg corporate lobbyists for money, and then conspire in corruption.
And let me point out, to all those who still support the concepts of ‘alternate news’ and ‘alternate facts’: if the country were blind to the truth, all this time, it could hardly have maintained its economy and military, such as they are.
That is to say, I have beef with our economic model and our current economic laws and policies—but no matter how I feel about it, America has the most stable, yet most robust economy (per capita) of any nation in the world. I think its paradigm is obsolete and its zeitgeist is cold-blooded, but it’s still doing it better than any other country.
Now, I hear you contradicting—but let me say this. Russia has a warlord economy. Or it could be updated—call it a mobster economy. It doesn’t respond to market pressure—or, rather, when it does, it is not an organic response, but imposed. And China—well, China has billions of people and half the world’s real estate. Even pre-industrial China had enough land and labor to compete in world markets—not that they ever wanted to, until recently.
If (to put it another way) all of China was run like New York State, the size and power of their economy would outshine all others, like the daylight the stars. But it has more to do with intent than with the specific laws and rules.
When America first rebelled, its new government had a very ‘we inmates are in charge of the asylum now’ feel to it. And the American culture matched that, with brash openness and a willingness to try new things that seemed very incautious to Old-World-ers.
Frontier living showed Americans the importance of mutual support and community—crooks were dealt with harshly, but honest businesses were points of pride for growing towns and counties. This attitude of a rising tide lifting all boats was not homogeneous or unanimous—but it was prevalent.
Europe’s, and the rest of the world’s, cultures evolved from the starting point of survival of families and tribes—and even at their most sophisticated, family ties and insular clubs remained the foci. American settlers struck out in large groups—and their survival was based on the good of the group, from the beginning of the first voyage.
But it is not so much the size of the larger coherency—it is the fact that even the least member had a job, an importance, on which everyone relied—and the reciprocal respect that came with that was the seed of individual liberty, as a cultural concept, rather than a broadsheet debate.
It is only now, centuries later, that elitism begins to creep back into America. Our goal-oriented ancestors would be mortified: People saying ‘I don’t care if Trump lies—I still support him’; Senators saying ‘I don’t care if Trump broke the law—I still support him’; Lawyers saying ‘Yes, I was dirty—but I had no concept of dirty until I worked for Trump’.
Unearned respect—this is something America never gave, until now. America has always been quick to knock down its idols—at the first sign of weakness. Now, they’ve raised an idol whose super-power is weakness: dishonesty, criminality—even treason. And greed. And lechery.
But the ones who are really getting away with murder are the Senate—the Republican-held Senate that denied Merrick Garland his due and then, for spite, gave it instead to a drunken frat-boy rapist. The GOP-majority Senate that has ‘pretended’ to investigate Trump for two years, found nothing, and made no comment on the eight indicted members of Trump’s circle who have already pled guilty, or been convicted.
These Senators believe in elitism—otherwise, they would feel shame.
