Please Stand By.....

Apologies to anyone who cares – for the long delay in communication from this quarter. I have no excuse: prolonged illness, yes, now on the mend; general ennui, not to say flattening malaise. As remedy I've been delving into genealogy, a pastime that manages to constructively take me out of the present without the use of narcotics of any kind. How do you spell relief? For who isn't suffering these days given that, to anyone with eyes to see, horrified ears to hear, a bunch of proto-fascists have taken over what was once our government, and this cadre of mad folk operating by their own set of anti-humanitarian, unconstitutional rules is hell- for -leather bent on fashioning the neo-fascist Riven States of America.

The Man Who Would Be King, and His Conscience

The news daily and consistently affirms this so that one is continually gobsmacked at their daring. I've stopped reading media for the most part, relying almost exclusively on Trevor Noah and Vice News (excellent!) on HBO each night to keep me informed re the important stuff (and provide much needed moments of levity). The sense of outrage and trespass never leaves me, is incessantly reconfirmed; the insult to propriety in the world so extreme, I can't possibly recover unless I just STOP watching/reading. Catch a breath. Still, I came across the following piece saved from the last time I waded deeply into the waters of Internet news (this one from the NY Times).  It's by an American ex-pat responding to a Times piece (by some Federalist wanker) about how we should all be grateful to the lofty Federalist thinkers from which our present condition arose. I don't know this guy in Germany, but I wish I did.  Here's what he had to say:           

dougjam

13m ago

3

4

"As an expat American living in Germany, I feel it is my duty to reply to this, not only because I witness daily a German society that is not just peaceful, but remarkably diverse; so it is possible. One does not see people begging in the streets, and not a single place where one can go in and buy a handgun or an automatic weapon out of some twisted homage to an 18th century device for creating a “well-ordered militia.” Obviously, this is the result of enlightened government, one attuned to the needs of the people and keen to make rules that serve everyone’s interests, not just the wealthy, and generally untainted by the contamination of lobbyists and special interest money.

Mr. Davidson’s publication, “The Federalist,” should itself raise red flags, evoking images of Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas: good “Federalists” all. One has only to take a long look at their SCOTUS voting record – far from being in the interests of the everyday, dispossessed (let’s face it, he means white people; just look at the picture - there are only 3 black faces) whose plight Davidson is bemoaning, the Federalist doctrine is by definition anti-government, pro-business, and pro-religion in the most misogynistic sense. Just look at their views on abortion, birth control, and workers’ rights. Furthermore, as sociologist Wilhelm Reich pointed out in 1934, suppression of the female is one of the cornerstones of fascist ideology and was a central feature in Nazi propaganda. The rejuvenation of the women's movement is therefore no accident.

"While Mr. Davidson would like to misrepresent the conflict as an epic struggle between the wise, simple folk just living the straight and narrow in fly-over country and the deaf politicians who just won’t listen, the tragic fact is that those very same people are indeed victims in a much subtler and insidious way than their loss of jobs to globalism (a legitimate grievance). First of all, they are the collateral damage of Reaganism and supply-side economics whose proponents have stubbornly clung to the deluded notion that if you just make a rich person a little richer, they’ll create a job with the extra money rather than hiding it in the Caymans or buying that yacht. Second of all – and this is a great tribute to Roger Ailes – their minds have been turned into mush by decades of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh who even as they were cleverly saying that low wages and horrid work conditions were good for them, blamed it on Obama and the Democrats whose every effort to craft effective social policy was stymied at every turn....down is up, war is peace, etc.

"Davidson and his ilk are desperate for us to forget that President Obama took office at a time, like Franklin Roosevelt, when the economy was on the verge of collapse, hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of jobs each month not because, as they would like you to believe, of a maleficent, self-interested, and bloated Democratic government, but by a maleficent and sociopathic Wall Street that wanted only to turn America back to the wild-west permissiveness of the Gilded Age. It’s easy to lump the Democrats into the wad of obstructionism the average folk perceive in Washington, but let us not forget Mitch McConnell and the tiny cabal of Republican lawmakers who, even as Obama was raising his hand for the oath of office, committed themselves secretly to block everything the Democrats did by any means possible. Even in the face of this – much as the right would have us forget – Obama DID turn the economy around, he DID save the auto industry from destruction, and yes, he shepherded the Affordable Care Act into law which, as much as Republicans are loathe to admit, actually provided insurance to people who never had it before, people who are not now anxious to lose it. (Good luck with undoing that, guys. Not going so well I see.)

"Populism is, historically, more a symptom than an organized, free standing political entity. It is not grounded in dogma or political theory, but on reactionary fear. For this reason, it is easy to manipulate by people like Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryant, Huey Long, George Wallace, and yes, Donald Trump who want to short-circuit the painfully established legal routes to social change and lead them to the promised land by sheer force of personality. Sorry Donald and sorry Mr. Davidson, but this IS one of the central features of fascism. Here, in the U.S., we are creeping toward it at an alarming rate and you, Mr. Davidson, and your fellow Federalists are abetting the process."

Douglas Jamiel

Hauptstuhl, Germany 

And below....

the "patriotic" happy volk who opted for fascism
(Trump Rally)