The Fight is On

NEW YEAR'S EVE 2017

The day after election day – I declared myself too old and beaten-down to participate in the shit-show that served-up Donald Trump – the bullying racist ignoramus –– in hope that he might emerge as a pragmatic chief executive willing to staff-out the heavy lifting to competent experts.

The nemesis of such hopes lies not only in Trump's mind-numbing hubris – his megalomaniacal notion that he is the smartest person on earth, with zero evidence – but in his selection of Mike Pence as his vice president. 

You see Pence is a specially virulent combination of stupid and dangerous: stupid, in that he is a Biblical literalist who subscribes to the talking snake version of creation, along with other Iron Age injunctions by which he reasons that God hates the same people he does; dangerous, in that theocracy is his political stock-and-trade. Remember: this is the governor who paralyzed Indiana with punishing economic backlash over arguably the most homophobic law on state books, on his conviction that Bible-banging Indianians were by-god entitled, under public law, to treat their gay neighbors like shit-under-foot.

For that, Trump rewarded the preening unrepentant Pence with the veep-stakes. Why, you ask?  – of course, to reel-in the bottom-feeding evangelical theocrats whom he needed to flesh-out his Republican bona fides. Accordingly, the religious right – in an act of suffocating hypocrisy – fell for it – "grab 'em by the pussy" and all. 

Consequently – 53-days' after the election, it is incontrovertibly apparent that Trump – abetted by Pence – fully intends to dismantle (a) 85-years’ of legislative and judicial activism which has sought to level the economic, political, and social playing field for all Americans, and (b) 50-years’ of iconic cabinet-level institutions painstakingly constructed – brick-by-brick – administration-by-administration – allowing our government to confront and oversee the big obstacles before us – firmly rooted in the principles of wisdom, cutting-edge science, fair trade, social justice, and national security – entrusted to top-flight career public servants.

Think: defense, state, law, environment, education, food and drug, energy, labor, agriculture, health and human services, transportation, commerce. Then, contemplate the rogues' gallery he has nominated to head these departments – not just ignorant cyphers (think Texas governor Rick Perry – Energy) – but proactive ideological vandals (think Jefferson Beauregard Sessions – Attorney General) –– all licking their political chops to delegitimize the institutions to which they have been granted custody.

Shockingly, radical Republican luddites now have a chief executive stooge who will apparently sign any bill into public law – however grotesque – shoved across his desk. Worse than that – the self-important little institutional nihilist, Paul Ryan (who went to college on his daddy's Social Security survivor benefits), is trotted-out as the moderate spectrum of their party – placing bedrock institutions as Medicare, Social Security, and public health on the ideological chopping-block – without a scintilla of economic or social justification.

But the ultimate assault on the wisdom, justice, and moderation of the United States of America – will be a full-frontal assault on our architectonic cornerstone: The Supreme Court. Make no mistake about it – the greatness of a nation lies in the independence of its judiciary. Autocrats and dictators invariably foment a weak judiciary – a band of partisan toadies that will rubber-stamp any majoritarian or party dogma – however anti-democratic or anti-egalitarian. Trumpism slathers its lips for a weak cronied-out judiciary.

The sudden death of right-wing lightening rod Justice Antonin Scalia spearheaded a heretofore unprecedented partisan backlash and Constitutional crisis – the virtual larceny of a Supreme Court appointee – the meme propagated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: "Wait until after the 2016 election and let the people decide." That the American people 'decided' Barack Obama ought to make this appointment by a majority of 5 million popular votes and an even more lopsided electoral college victory of 332-206 – meant nothing to this obstructionist demagogue – who will regain his gavel come January.

Accordingly – Donald J. Trump – by only reciting the oath of office – will be the beneficiary of a free SCOTUS pick – with the ability to tip the balance to the nose-bleed right on day-one. He'll certainly get another pick his first term: 83-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and probably a second: 80-year-old Anthony Kennedy. The resulting 6-3 hard right plurality could endure for another 20-years – enshrining another Golden Age of corporate oligarchy – and instituting fascism as the governing social policy. Think: Roe v Wade, Obergerfell v Hodges, and Citizens United v FEC.

Resisting this 'regnum horribilis' – will require (a) every moderate Republican on deck; and (b) EVERY Democrat engaged – like NEVER BEFORE. We have capable leaders in Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Unfortunately many – if not most – of us live in a gerrymandered and majoritarian Republican-represented world.

For that – we must nevertheless 'lay-into' each-and-every party shill – at every turn – sending them an unambiguous message that we-the-opposition are also primary voters. Additionally – it is crucial that we stand-behind Democratic leadership – in thought, word, and deed. With 48 Senate votes – and solidarity – we can stand our ground on virtually every critical issue. 

I will do my utmost to keep us current. Never before has our civic activism been more crucial. We cannot let our children and grandchildren look back and say – we let Trumpism go down in America

Calhoun GA, 12/31/16

Post Script: To my friends who voted for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Look – I don't know if you are a racist and a homophobe.

Nonetheless, you voted for an unrepentant racist – a man who trolled for his political base, peddling retail 'birtherism' – in an effort to delegitimize the first African American President. And you voted for an unambiguous anti-gay bigot – a  governor who signed the most anti-gay state law in history. 

For that – you are asking me to give you the benefit of the doubt – that you ARE NETHER a racist, NOR a homophobe. That, my friends, entails a very tedious conversation. Please forgive me if I don't have the fortitude to engage each of you on these separate – yet inextricably – complementary issues.   

Homework

Racist Birther-in-Chief Donald J. Trump

Anti-gay bigot Governor Mike Pence

Homina. Homina. Paul Ryan's famous 2012 budget interview meltdown on Fox

The Donald Trump Constituency – a Unique American Tapestry

DISCLAIMER: Shitepoke.com blog attempts to authenticate its content. Disclosure of substantive errors is solicited and will be acknowledged. Accordingly, readers are encouraged to explore and enjoy this content, in its own right, but to always obtain additional sources for historical or academic research.

The modern Republican Party – over the past forty-some-odd years – has created the phenomenon of the Donald Trump constituency – out of whole cloth.

Serial adulterer Donald J. Trump – unabashedly mugs under the banner of the cross to the adoring 'family values' crowd who view the thrice-married casino owner as vastly more preferable than the reviled Hillary Clinton. 

First dismissed by pundits and intellectuals alike – today the prospect of a Trump presidency has reared its ugly head – as an existential threat to our democracy. For that, it is essential to examine the components of his constituency for their singular and collective import:

1. White Southern Racists: old school secular self-identified racists, bigots, and segregationists who are partisan Republican descendants of former so-called Dixiecrats in the Southeast.

A right-of-passage for a lower class of rural white Southerns, the unfurling of the Confederate Battle Flag is widely regarded as a proud display of heritage. While most – if not all – fully realize it is act of politically-incorrect defiance – their vaunted Constitutional RIGHT TO OFFEND black Americans - and even more reviled 'lib'-rul' white Southerners – who see it as an brazen symbol of white supremacy. This cultural subset is anthropological evidence that – while it is not THEORETICALLY impossible to overcome one's upbringing – it is indeed PRACTICALLY impossible – for all intents and purposes.   

2. Christian Dominionists: fundamentalist nut jobs who have convinced themselves that God hates the same people that they do – and believe it is the role of government to enforce their denominational dogma through public law.

Perennial presidential hopeful – and self-proclaimed dominionist – Mike Huckabee and legions of acolytes – consider it their divine injunction to impose their pinched version of the gospel of Jesus Christ on all Americans. Here Huckabee aggrandizes the jailing and release – in a public media spectacle – of anti-gay bigot Kentucky county clerk-of-court Kim Davis – for defying the Supreme Court of the United States by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Republican Kentucky legislature subsequently attempted to nullify the selfsame SCOTUS ruling by legislating changes to Davis' job description – thereby relieving her of her public duty to serve gay Kentuckians. 

3. Sociopaths: selfish sociopathic assholes who self-identify with Trump because he is a fellow selfish sociopathic asshole.

Trump primary rallies were rife with bullying and naked pugilism – suborned by Trump himself – who – on more than one occasion – incited conveners to assault protesters – offering to bond them out of jail and pay their legal defense. Under the rubric of 'politically incorrect' – shorthand for totally lacking in empathy for other Americans – Trump has emboldened a subculture of sociopaths, passionate to get even with the effete 'politically correct' pussies who have long inhibited their limbic-brained impulses to level the political playing field by brute force.  

4. Paranoid schizophrenics: craven paranoids who will fall for any demagogue – who tells them whom to fear and whom to blame (AKA the ‘Chicken Little’ syndrome).

Oblivious to the fact that Republican George W. Bush – in invading and destabilizing Iraq – including disbanding Sadam Hussein's Sunni Army – created ISIS out of whole cloth – deeply aggrieved and paranoid partisans are convinced that the putative Muslim Obama has emboldened ISIS to strike the United States. To them – this existential threat can ONLY be countered by Trump's empty bloviation to 'declare war on ISIS' – an asymmetric military impossibility. 

5. Fascists: text book fascists who long for a dictatorial strongman to dispense with democracy and the constitution – and purge the country of the "other" people who don't look, think, act, and worship as they do.

While the institution of the Western Liberal Democracy has long been the bedrock of the American political commonweal, the seeds of text book fascism easily germinate in the incendiary climate of inflamed political rhetoric – demonizing the "other" for all ills. Donald Trump laid the groundwork for this as far back as 2008 – when he assumed the mantle of 'birther-in-chief' in a disgraceful media circus vowing to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama by unearthing his foreign-born and Muslim provenance. While his quixotic gambit yielded nothing but mockery among the main stream media, the diehard 'birther' community anointed him as a true patriot.        

6. Oligarchs: corporate royalists and oligarchs who view the acquisition of government as the ultimate two-fold license: (a) to neuter organized labor and (b) to plunder the public treasury through the tax code.

In 2010 when the five-member Republican Supreme Court plurality pulled the Citizens United ruling out of thin air – it laid the foundation of a Neo-Gilded Age – rendering obsolete the retail market of the corporate lobbyist – subsuming it with the wholesale market of purchasing public officials directly from multinational corporate treasuries. Multi-billionaires Charles and David Koch (above) are the self-identified poster children of American oligarchs – dispensing untold millions of dollars into the wholesale electoral process – instantly creating bought-and-paid-for toadies subservient to their every legislative  hand-out. This political larceny also includes governorships – such as Wisconsin's Scott Walker – and even local city councils.      

7. NRA Crowd: a particularly virulent paranoid American subculture – and its political enablers – which views the unfettered, unaccountable, and unregulated ownership and acquisition of firearms – in civilian hands – as the civic antidote to the existential threat of evil, particularly as manifested in government.

From its bosky sportsman roots in the 1960s – the National Rifle Association (NRA) has metastasized into a take-no-prisoners affinity group – hired and paid-for by the munitions industry – a particularly virulent civilian subset of the military industrial complex. This civilian outreach has succeeded in creating retail  political constituency – dedicated to the unbridled militarization of the civilian populace. Fueled by the neo-religious baseless fiction that the Second Amendment mandates fealty to armaments in civilian hands – as a backstop to an ever-present tyrannical government – this subculture has proved itself implacable to the very idea of any regulation whatsoever – even in the face of perfectly legal military assault weapons in the hands the sociopath who mutilated twenty first graders in Newtown, CT. Indeed, the Republican party has time-and-again chosen the NRA and its adherents over the mandate of the American people – in regard to common sense gun laws.        

8. Low Information White Voters: low information, poorly educated, anti-intellectual, and often defiantly ignorant working class white people who are readily propagandized to believe the Republican party has actually advocated for their interests – despite practically zero objective evidence over the past forty years.

Legions of white American voters – variously categorized as Reagan Democrats – have been propagandized to believe the Democratic Party wants to take away their freedom, confiscate their paycheck, give it to shiftless minorities, and institute the tyranny of an all-powerful  collectivist government. The objective evidence reveals quite the opposite – that Republican administrations have consistently expanded government, started unwinable wars, drowned us in public debt, and gridlocked our economy. Inexplicably – despite virtually zero record to run on – bought-and-paid-for Republican apparatchiks manage to resurrect the belief that THEY ALONE can save us from our selves. Donald Trump has proved himself uniquely qualified to shill to this constituency.

And there you have it. Indeed, America is in the crosshairs of political crisis. To deny the existential threat of a Trump presidency is an exercise in sheer sophistry. Whether or not our collective community can weather this test remains to be seen. 

Calhoun Georgia
07/31/2016

An Open Letter to (some of) my White Friends – Dallas Redux

DISCLAIMER: Shitepoke.com blog attempts to authenticate its content. Disclosure of substantive errors is solicited and will be acknowledged. Accordingly, readers are encouraged to explore and enjoy this content, in its own right, but to always obtain additional sources for historical or academic research.

I note that many of my Facebook 'friends' are righteously offended by the "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) movement – countering with their own self-satisfied "All Lives Matter" come-backs – suggesting that BLM is some scary prelude to a black-on-white race war.

Well, let me tell you why BLM is spot-on: Local police are the uniquely American institution that has a legal license to KILL you – on the spot – based on a single officer's assessment of the circumstances. Reflect on that for a moment. OK?

We all knew – but with the advent of Youtube and Facebook it has become apparent – that SOME – NOT ALL – cops have long treated blacks shockingly differently. This systemic racism has resulted in the flat-out police-sanctioned murder of far too many young black men.

Watch this video of the execution of Philandro Castile by a Minnesota cop this week – narrated real-time by his fiancé on Facebook – as he bled-out and died in her arms – with her 4-year-old daughter in the back seat. Yeah. Why? For being stopped for a busted tail light. Now watch it again. THAT – multiplied by literally hundreds of similar incidents – is what BLM is about.

Technology tells-all – fiance live-streams everything on Facebook

And the really rich part: Mr. Castile had informed the officer that he was carrying a perfectly-legal handgun. But when he went to reach for his identification, the cop shot him anyway. Apparently the 2nd Amendment doesn’t apply to black Americans. Where are my 2nd Amendment friends and the NRA – caterwauling to high heavens about “jackboot thug cops” violating his right to bear arms. Yep – you guessed it: Chirrrp. Chirrrp.

So stop – your smarmy "All Lives Matter" come-backs. White people are not being murdered by local police – graphic evidence that WHITE LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED. Ain't it fascinating' that when black people point this out – and beg to be ‘MATTERED’ too ––– you call them terrorists and race-baiters.

Now – let’s talk about this week's Dallas police assassinations – which took place in the midst of a BLM peaceful protest. "See there" ––– was plastered on my newsfeed – "BLM is just a cover-story for killing cops.” –– "Black Lives Matter = Domestic Terrorism" – allowed one person. And when President Obama weighed in on the poignancy of the BLM movement –– oh my God – you all compared him to Hitler and the Ku Klux Clan. Really?

You might want to actually bone-up on the real story: Turns out the 25-year-old mass-murderer, Micah Johnson, was a walking time-bomb. He had served in Afghanistan, but was dishonorably discharged after being charged with sexual harassment.

Fitting the all-to-familiar pattern of authentically home-grown, All-American, lone-wolf terrorists – he had amassed an arsenal in his home – including bomb-making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition, and a personal journal of combat tactics – all lying await for some yet unidentified atrocity – known only in his deranged head. Bottom line – he was spectacularly unhinged.

Like Dylan Roof (Charleston) and Omar Mateen (Orlando) – Micah Johnson's seething blood lust was riveted on a specifically reviled (in his own mind) population. This time – not black Americans – and not gay Americans – but white Americans. Seems our mass murderers represent – at least – equal-opportunity killers. And for what it's worth – he had posted several tirades against the BLM movement on social media – flatly belying any overt motive of his mayhem to BLM.

Among Johnson's arsenal – was his perfectly legal – State of Texas approved – weapon-of choice: a Saiga Kalashnikov AK47 semi-automatic rifle – capable of emptying a 30-round clip – a-bullet-a-second. (The Saiga model is a consumer knock-off the military assault AK47 rifle – widely manufactured after the 2004 sunset of the assault weapons ban.)

What we know about the killer and the killing

The murder weapon – a street-legal Saiga AK47 – outlawed in 1994 – along with most other so-called assault weapons. When the ban expired in 2004, Senate Republicans overrode a Democratic filibuster, and re-authorized the manufacture and sale.

But it gets better – Johnson did his homework and brought a supply of (once again) perfectly legal green-tipped so-called “cop-killer” bullets – which proved their worth – as the ballistic vests worn by the Dallas cops – were no match for his military firepower.

Lethal combo – widely decried by police departments nationwide – so-called green-tipped armor-piercing rounds – known in the trade as 'cop-killers'. When the ATF and the Obama Administration proposed banning them in 2015, the NRA and gun enthusiasts caterwauled to high-heaven. At the behest of Republican legislators, the ATF backed down.

And spare me the schoolyard rejoinders – ‘’not so; not so – Johnson could have killed those police with brickbats. Guns don’t kill people.” No. But critically mentally ill civilians armed with readily-available weapons of war –  can – and do – kill people. Lots of them – at one time. Time and again.

So there you have the formula for yet one more full-fledged American mass shooting: ONE deranged killer with a sociopathic axe to grind – and ONE readily available military assault weapon. That the Dallas police force was the target – this go around – seems no more than their tragic luck-of-the-draw. It certainly had very little to do with – other than co-incidence – the BLM movement.

When it was over five policemen lay dead – and seven officers and two civilians lay wounded. The personal despair of those affected Dallas families is unimaginable. But – let’s be clear about it – their grief is no greater than the family of Philandro Castile – and other black lives wantonly wasted by our dysfunctional local policing culture.

So get a grip my White friends. OK? When America is really ready to do something about our 'mass-shooting-a-week' world-class disgrace – we will. 

Until then – move right along. Nothing new to see here.

shitepoke.com

07/10/2016

Calhoun Georgia