September 5, 2019: Slow Walk, Blackmailing Kiev, Uncertain Partner

A Rachel Maddow report on MSNBC highlighted four areas in which our Caesar Disgustus is dismantling the response by the United States to the Russian seizure of the Crimea.

First, with sanctions, Disgustus has worked to reduce, or eliminate altogether the sanctions imposed on Russian nationals.  Disgustus has tried to unilaterally some sanctions and 'slow walk' the imposition of others.  Discussions about lifting sanctions occurred during the campaign as well as the transition and were foremost on the foreign policy agenda until the Michael Flynn scandal tanked the effort.

Secondly, at the G-7 meeting, Disgustus campaigned to re-admit Russia to the group after the expulsion of the country as a penalty for its actions.

Third, Disgustus has withheld military aid, begun under Obama, to Ukraine undermining the U.S. commitment to the country as it struggles with its threatening neighbor.  Indeed, by some reports, Disgustus is blackmailing the government at Kiev withholding assistance unless the Ukrainian government helps in the tRUMP investigation of Joe Biden's business dealings in the country.  Politico reported that a billion dollars in military aid is being held due to further review.  If the money isn't spent by month's end the money will expire, and the money cannot be spent while under review.
Finally, the European Reassurance or Deterrence Initiative, funds designed to aid our European allies deter Russian actions, has been raided in order to build his 'wall'.  Money for air base upgrades, munitions storage areas, port operations facilities and other assets were instituted by the Obama administration as a means of assuring our European allies that we indeed have their back.

Once again, behaviorally, the tRUMP administration is signaling our European Allies that we are an uncertain partner and to our Russian adversaries that this administration is a Russian asset.

The question is why?  As reported by Lawrence O'Donnell, a source familiar with tRUMP's tax returns indicate that his loans through Deutche Bank were co-signed by Russian oligarchs close to Putin.  O'Donnell has since recanted the story, saying that citing only one source violates the journalistic standards of MSNBC, but it is clear from other reporting, David Kay Johnston among them,  that tRUMP has deep Russian financial ties going back decades.

Caesar Disgustus is indeed a Russian Asset.   Every action of this White House regarding Russia demonstrates it, as does his groveling at the feet of the Russian potentate whenever they are in the same room.  A Russian asset and a useful idiot.

"An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh"

Impeach and Imprison.

September 4, 2019: Pissing in Fireplaces, G7 Minus One, Simple Penis Envy

Our Caesar Disgustus did not disappoint, living down to his usual standards of behavior, as he went to Europe and, doing Putin's bidding, once again pissed in their fireplaces. As noted earlier, he had not left the country before insulting our Danish ally. Denmark, it will be noted, has suffered more casualties per capita than any country fighting in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, here is Disgustus creating yet another crisis by 'offering' to buy Greenland and then, when the overture is dismissed out of hand, insulting our ally by canceling a state visit to the country as well as a state dinner in honor of the Danish ambassador.  Not finished with the preparations for the summit, Disgustus then—on his way to Paris—informs the French that he will impose higher tariffs on French wine in retaliation for some affront real or imagined; and, one imagines more imagined than real. Meanwhile, back in Moscow, as the United States can no longer be depended upon to provide a state dinner,  Putin laughs and laughs.

One would have thought such beginnings would have been more than enough to set the tone but NO! Disgustus, upon setting down in Paris, informed the press that it would be better to have the Rooskies re-admitted into the G-7 group. One will recall that they were expelled after the downing of a commercial airliner and the invasion of the Ukraine. The actions taken by the European community were dismissed by Disgustus as a failure of Obama to stop the seizure of Crimea, telling the press and the diplomats surrounding him that Putin had 'outsmarted' Obama, and that the actions taken by the entire European community were somehow an expression of Obama's pique. 

You see, blacks by the reckoning of our intrepid Caesar--you know, the one who possesses superior genes--are all of limited intelligence.  Obama, being one of them, simply cannot perform at the intellectual level of, say, a wily fox like Putin, not to mention the stable genius of our current president*.  

The truth is that Disgustus suffers from simple penis envy. One is reminded of the scene in “Blazing Saddles” where Madeline Kahn, playing a character inspired by Marlene Dietrich, takes sheriff Bart upstairs and with the lights off murmurs “is what they say about you people true? Oh it's twue! It's twue”. “Easy, Shotsie,” replies the sheriff, “that's my arm you're sucking on”. Disgustus, clearly, suffers from similar stereotypical understandings, and this may go far in explaining his deep hatred for persons of color—along with his penchant for spray-painting his face, like some grotesque drag queen, in an effort to assume the mask of senuality. Disgustus, deep in his subconscious, deeply suspects that every European diplomat and leader, as every woman he's known,  would much prefer Obama; Disgustus simply cannot measure up. Simple penis envy drives the madman insane as he sets about enraged, vandalizing everything Obama accomplished.

Nowhere was this more evident than on climate change. As the G-7 minus one met to discuss the issue the chair occupied by the United States was, appropriately, empty. This, one imagines, mirrors the vacancy between the ears of our erstwhile Caesar who, while claiming to be an authority on the environment, nevertheless brought literally nothing to the table.  

In fact, as he left the conference, Disgustus held a news conference in which he pledged that the wealth that lies beneath the earth in the form of fossil fuels will not go untapped, boldly declaring that we will not make the sacrifice.

As noted before in these columns, the energy industry has mineral rights to five times the carbon which, if burned, will extinguish life on this planet as we know it. Trump, mad with penis envy, has just trumpeted our death warrant.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

August 21, 2019: Greenland, A Laughingstock, Vandalism By Any Means

Now come reports that our intrepid Caesar wants to buy Greenland from Denmark, perhaps trade Puerto Rico for it.  He has made this country into a laughingstock. 

Poor Disgustus, lost in the imperial past, hopelessly our of place and time. 

The Danes demurred saying that they thought the overture a joke.  Greenland has won home rule decades ago and is now related to Denmark in much the same way as Canada or Australia are to Great Britain, a commonwealth of sorts, but not a territory in the way that Disgustus views Guam, Puerto Rico or American Samoa. 

Disgustus, outraged, cancelled a White House dinner in honor of the Danish ambassador to the United States, further straining our relations with a reliable ally.  All this leading up to a major European meeting of heads of state. 

Vandalism by any means.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison.

August 17, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, The Worst Generation

In handing out an overall grade of B, David Brooks had, by way of summary, this to say about the Generation of Swine.

“As a generation, boomers have excelled at the material things that make life pleasant, convenient, long and fun.  They have struggled in the realms that other civilizations considered more profound: governance, philosophy, art and public morality”.  (1)

This is simply another way of saying that the Generation of Swine have excelled at nothing other than self-indulgence, and they have done it at the expense of everyone and everything else. 

There are many things that one could have included in this essay, but the pig’s breakfast made of governance by this Generation of Swine is far too serious and threatens to be much more permanent that to blithely kiss them off with an underwhelming blessing and a comfortable B. 

As noted in a previous post (2), historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee pointed out that when a civilization is overwhelmed by the challenges before it, the likelihood of its demise is certain.  And, as the looming environmental catastrophe approaches, the Generation of Swine have responded with gridlock, denial and not-so-beguine neglect. 

As a final consideration Brooks asks the reader to identify who among the listed is the quintessential boomer.  Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Steven Spielberg, Donald Trump.  The answer is at once obvious and revealing: our very own Caesar Disgustus.  In tRUMP one finds all the characteristics of Boomerism on full display: self-indulgent, lacking interpersonal skills, self-invention, promising to change everything and changing nothing.  One could also add: psychotic, incompetent, corrupt, greedy and a willingness to vandalize our institutions, to tear down without any idea of what is lost in the bargain or how to rebuild.  Narcissism in the extreme.  A generation ripe for manipulation.  The worst generation in American history.

Overall Grade: F

“An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh an laugh”

 ___________

1.     Brooks, David. Op Cit.

2.     See July 28, 2019: Have You Read Toynbee?

August 16, 2019: Generation Of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Manners and Morals.

David Brooks celebrates the manners of The Swine, homing in on, in his words the replacement of “(E)verything that was refined, stuffy, formal and stiff” with the casual.  “The triumph of the casual”, he insists with a straight face, “is good” (1) 

Brooks is here decrying the ‘formalism’ of all previous age.  The idea that one would assume a ‘public’ face is derided in this celebration of the casual.  It used to be that to go into public spaces one would don one’s “Sunday go-to-meeting” attire and assume a public posture.  Now we go to church, indeed, funerals wearing T-shirts emblazoned with messages—some obscene.  This, in the view of the libertine is a step forward.  Brooks, blinded by the lights of his generation, cannot see the direct correlation between the wholesale celebration of the casual and the declining comity of our social interactions.  The common denominator is unbridled individualism, celebrating, enshrining and glorifying it at the expense of the greater society.

Watch any film of, for instance, a baseball game or downtown shopping in the 50’s or even the 60’s and you will see men in suit and tie, women in their Sunday finest.  Now one goes to these games to be greeted by beer belching bores dressed in T-shirts, shouting drunken obscenities.  Indeed, at Fenway the crowd once amused itself floating a blown-up sex doll through the crowd.  The replacement of formality with Disco Demolition writ large is hardly something to celebrate.   

Then there are the morals.  Here Brooks, while awarding the Swine his ‘gentleman’s C’,  gets more honest writing:

“In the realm of morals, things are more complicated.  If the ethos of the silent generation was ‘we are all in this together’ and the code was self-effacement (‘I’m nobody better than anybody else, but nobody’s better than me’), then the ethos of the boomer is ‘Do you see how special I am?” 

“Personal freedom has been the master trend for this generation.  That was a legitimate reaction against conformity.  On the other hand, there is more isolation, bitterness and division.  The ethos of the meritocracy filled the values void left by the retreat of any shared moral vocabulary”. (2)

True enough. But the Greeks were wont to point out that the opposite of citizenship is the idiot, those that put personal interest and gratification ahead of the public good.  The pipe dreams of Ayn Rand and the wet dreams of Paul Ryan leave to many behind and are the groundwork for the revolt of the masses.  It is this celebration of the lizard that is the rot upon the republic.

An Br’er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh

Grade: F.

Impeach and Imprison.

___________

1.     Brooks, David.  Ibid.

2.     Ibid

August 15, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Lifestyle.

For some reason David Brooks, evaluating his generation in The New York Times, separates the lifestyle of the Swine from manners and morals.  In his report card on a generation Brooks opines:

“This isn’t even close.  Restaurants are much better now.  Products and buildings are designed in more interesting ways, Coffee, ice cream and all else is far more varied and delicious.” (1) And what grade  gives he his generation? Why an A, of course. 

Rubbish.  Being born in the early sixties and not coming of age until well into the decade, Brooks has no benchmarks from which he can orient himself.   

The food, for instance, is universally appalling.  Ask any visitor to this country.  Everything is full of MSG, polyunsaturated fat, and heart-attack inducing red meat.  The service, in case he hasn’t noticed is awful.  While coffee and ice cream may have improved, the penchant of the Swine for gluttony and self-indulgence is legendary leading to horrific increase in diabetes, heart disease and related illness.

 

And, let’s not overlook the recent trend of lounging on the couch and ordering you’re “Big Mac” from McDonald’s to have it delivered, as well as your other groceries over the internet from your local vendor. 

Grade: F.

August 14, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Technology and Innovation

“In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you”-----Zager and Evan “In The Year 2525

Unless you are infatuated with the internet, it is difficult to award, as does Brooks, a grade of A- to this generation in the fields of technology and innovation.  With the exception of Robert Jarvik’s implantable heart, the contributions of the Swine have been problematic. 

With all due respect to the Luddites, the contributions of the Swine in the areas of technology and innovation have been a mixed bag.  As previously noted in these columns nearly every technological innovation has produced unintended negative consequences.  The auto brought ever expansive movement, but it also brought urban sprawl, the death of the inner cities, pollution, the increase in illegitimate birth rates (e.g. drive-in theatres) and over 30,000 deaths each year attributable to accident.  So, it is with the landmark inventions of this generation. 

Brooks would have us believe that the dawn of the internet is an unmitigated blessing, as is breaking the genetic code.  He didn’t mention artificial intelligence. 

But are they?  The internet has given voice to millions who would otherwise not find a platform.  This blog is one of them.  But it has also given the platform to hate groups, crypto-fascists, racists and others who would otherwise have remained under a rock well shy of the public forum.  Further, the internet has not only enabled corporate America to spy on all of us, follow our every move, open our very bank accounts to piracy, and revealed to anyone willing to pay a few dollars whatever ‘secrets’ one would otherwise harbor, but—in the spirit of the wild west—refuses to reign in on its abuses. 

Further, the poisoning of the public well by anti-social media is joined by the use of the platform by Amazon and others to drive retailers out of business and further concentrate wealth. 

Then, of course, there is the hacking into emails and the meddling in elections—not to mention the hacking into the power and transportation grids by hostile foreign interests. 

The Ayn Rand inspired idiotlogical imperative preventing swift public response to these threats to freedom betrays the lie that the Boomers excel at technology and innovation.  That they have innovated and introduced new technologies is without question; that they know not how to apply it is another matter altogether. 

Indeed, as observers warn that for the first-time technologies—driven by developments in artificial intelligence—threaten to destroy more jobs than they create, and the social costs of technological innovation will only mount.  Indeed, as the social contract is shredded by innovation our life span is beginning to decline despite our creations.  

The facts are that life was much more peaceful and secure before the arrival of these technologies.  Our news was more trustworthy, our politics less fractious, our discourse more civilized, our bank account and personal lives more secure.  We have created the means of our own destruction. They are not to be celebrated.  They are a scourge upon society and a blight upon the landscape. Life was better without them.

Grade F. 

“An Br’er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

________________

*See, Brooks, David.  Baby Boomer Report Card. Ibid.

August 13, 2019: Generation of Swine, Report Card, High Culture.

It is difficult to embrace the union of the Generation of Swine with high culture; it is clearly a contradiction; it is nearly an oxymoron.  But our intrepid essayist, nevertheless, gives it the old Boomer try.  Opining in The New York Times,(1) Brooks’, nevertheless, finds himself here constrained, writing:

“The boomers entered college just as universities were expanding and becoming more specialized and professionalized.  This produced the most educated generation up to that time, but the specialization and ghettoization of intellectual and artistic life took its toll on the nation’s culture.

“It’s not that people aren’t producing good work, but its influence tends to be confined to the academy or specialized subcultures.  Art, classical music and novels have lost cultural influence.  Boomer writers do not play the same roles as Saul Bellow, Phillip Roth, Maya Angelou, Thomas Pynchon, Phillip Larkin, John Updike and Toni Morrison.  Many of the most influential living philosophers are pre-boomer like Amartya Sen, Charles Taylor and Alasdaire MacIntyre. (1)

Brooks is quite right about the specialization of knowledge and the generalization of ignorance, but he forgets that is was the Swine in the first place who, upon being granted entrance to the hallowed halls of academe, demanded that the curricula be transformed from classical into mere vocational education.  Where once was taught history and political economy, we now learn hotel and motel management.  No Latin to be learned here, better yet underwater basket weaving.

Brooks is hard pressed to give the Swine a “Gentleman’s C”—the lowest grade currently granted at our best universities, granting the “Boomers” a mere C-

What he overlooks was the collateral damage done by these swine.  Not only did they proceed to privatize much of our nations education and strip the public schools of much needed funding but they closed the doors behind them when, after having taken advantage of nearly free university education, they cut federal aid forcing their children and grandchildren to gamble that the mountain of debt accrued will somehow pay off in an increasingly hostile economy; making that degree in hotel and motel management as hollow and worthless as their subsequent understanding of how the world is organized.  No, they have traded the family cow for a handful of beans and we are poorer for the bargain, for we now have an orang giant atop the beanstalk threatening to crash down upon the landscape.

An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh and laugh.

Grade F.

Impeach and Imprison.

 ___________

1.     Ibid.  See previous posts.  

August 12, Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Popular Culture.

Moving on to popular culture, Brooks once again grants The Generation of Swine a grade of A, citing the likes of Bob Dylan, Steven Spielburg, Meryl Streep, Steven King, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah, Ron Howard, Madonna, and Stevie Wonder. 

First, Bob Dylan was born in 1941 making him ineligible by at least a half a decade from inclusion among the Swine.  Ditto Jimi Hendrix who was born a year later.  Ditto the Beatles and Stones and the British Invasion, most of whom were born well before 1946.  But set against the likes of the great vaudeville actors who populated our television screens during television’s “golden age” and who performed live before a national audience, the offerings of the Boomers pale by comparison.  Yes, there were meaningful popular songs written and performed by the likes of Dylan and Paul Simon, but songs like the Sound of Silence, or Dangling Conversation were soon enough replaced on the airways with the likes of  “The Ohio Express’” Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I got love in my Tummy”, or the “Archies” outselling the Beatles and Stones in 1969 with “Sugar, Sugar.” Mindless tripe that reflected a generation.

But then Brooks, born in 1961, was a late Boomer arriving late in the generation.  He missed the mindlessness of Howdy Doody, the crooning of Pat Boone, the milquetoast rhythm and blues of Elvis.  Oh yes, Elvis—old swivel hips whose best work was done before the camera in thoroughly forgettable film.    It took a foreign cultural invasion to shake us loose from this pap, the Boomers had little to do with it and, by the time most of them were reaching the age of majority they were hopelessly lost in the deserts of disco.  From Elvis to Disco, the bookends of a generation.

An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh and laugh.

Grade F.

August 11, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Social Movements.

In his essay appearing in The New York Times (1), David Brooks next considers the record of the Baby Boomers as it pertains to social movements, writing that although “Boomers are bad at politics because they distrust institutions”, they nevertheless have been “good at leading decentralized social movements: environmental, feminist, civil rights, LGBTQ rights.”

I’ll give the Boomers credit for the last of these movements, but Brooks otherwise stood history on its head.  Let’s begin with the environmental movement.  This began with the publishing of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” a full half a decade before the Generation of Swine began to exert any political influence and a full decade before the Boomers could vote in any large numbers. In any case, it was Nixon and his generation that gave us the Environmental Protection agency as the Swine contented itself with celebrating a newly established “Earth Day” and then proceeded to consume mass quantities.  And let’s not even mention the current resistance by the Swine to addressing in any meaningful way the environmental catastrophe looming on the near horizon.

 This is also true of the feminist movement and especially true of the Civil Rights movement, both of which were led by men and women of an older generation.  And both of which began to wane at precisely the time the Swine had come to exert its stranglehold upon the body politic.  It is no mere coincidence that the Equal Rights Amendment died an ignominious death precisely when the majority of Boomers could exercise the franchise.  And, it is worth noting, they have done nothing to resurrect the cause.  Likewise, the Civil Rights movement. 

Brooks, for some unfathomable reason, award the Swine a grade of A.  This is laughable.  The Swine fail miserably.  Grade: F.

This is what distrust of institutions produces: Occupy Wall Street, the 99 Per Cent, the Women’s March.  Brooks cites the Tea Party Movement, Gun Rights and the pro-life movement as notable examples of effective decentralized political action.  He is wrong.  All of them are the products of well-heeled political organization funded by major contributors to achieve narrow and self-serving interests, and all of them have severely damaged the social fabric of this country.  Brooks is peering through a narrow ideological lens, clouding his judgment, not understanding that the populism on the political wrong is a faux populism designed to erode governance; a cancer upon the political body. 

Indeed, the Swine, in their headlong effort to repeal the New Deal--if not the entire twentieth century--have done more damage to the institutions of this country than any other.

"An Br'er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh"

Impeach and Imprison

Again, Grade F.

_______________

1.     Ibid.  See previous post